“I can’t see them!”

“Where did the missile come from?”

“Over the top of Falster Island. Impact in ten seconds.”

Golov spun on the XO. “Kravchuk, fire the railgun back along the missile’s trajectory.”

“Captain, we can’t know where it was launched from or—”

“I said do it!” Golov screamed.

Kravchuk nodded grimly. “Aye, Captain.” He gave the order to aim the weapon along the missile’s flight path.

The railgun spun on its turret, compensating for the Achilles’s movements.

“Target locked.”

“Fire!”

A hypersonic round shot from the railgun, but Golov had his eye fixed on the flaming tail of the missile coming toward them.

The radar operator yelled, “Brace for impact!”

For a moment, Golov was certain the Exocet would blow apart the yacht’s bridge, but the missile hit the Achilles dead amidships in a fiery blast. The entire bridge crew was thrown to the deck, but the polycarbonate windows deflected the shrapnel from the explosion.

As Golov scrambled back to his feet, he shouted for a damage report.

Kravchuk peered at a monitor that was flashing red. “Fire suppression systems have activated. The fire is out, but the railgun turret was damaged. We have elevation control of the weapon, but the turntable is off-line. We can’t rotate it to aim it anymore.”

“Can it still fire?”

Kravchuk frantically typed into the computer. “Yes, but we’ve got a fault in the capacitor system. We might blow the whole ship apart if we continue firing.”

“We’ll have to risk it.”

“But shooting at them is futile!”

“That’s for me to decide!”

Golov’s phone, which he finally realized was still in his hand, rang with a jingle that was completely discordant with the chaos on the bridge.

The Oregon was calling back.

“Is there another missile coming?” Golov asked the radar operator.

“No, sir.”

“Get the helicopter in the air now.” He had ordered the Ka-226 fully fueled and armed with Russian Switchblade anti-ship missiles just in case he ran into a coast guard vessel that got too curious.

The phone rang insistently. He gritted his teeth and answered the call, if only to buy some time.

“What?” he growled.

“Why’d you hang up on me, Golov?” Cabrillo asked in a mocking tone. “You guys busy over there or something? By the way, you missed us. It wasn’t even close.”

“Calling to gloat over your victory?”

“I’m calling to see if you want to surrender. Personally, I’m hoping the answer is no, but I have someone from Interpol here who wants to take you into custody and deliver you to any number of countries that would love to interrogate you and your crew about your activities over the last few weeks.”

Tags: Clive Cussler Oregon Files Thriller
Source: readsnovelonline.net