“Let us hope it fools whoever chases after us.”
Lee Tong grunted. “Why not? Any American search force will be told we were picked up and are under lock and key by the finest English accent money can buy. Before the research ship docks in New Orleans, you, I and our crew will be long gone.”
Pujon pointed. “The Port Eads light coming up. We’ll be in open water soon.”
Lee Tong nodded in grim satisfaction. “If they couldn’t stop us by now, they’re too late, far too late.”
General Metcalf, laying his long and distinguished career on the line, ignored Moran’s threats and ordered a military alert throughout the Gulf Coast states. At Eglin Air Force Base and Hurlburt Field in Florida, tactical fighter wings and special operations gunships scrambled and thundered west while attack squadrons rose from Corpus Christi Naval Air Station in Texas and swept toward the east.
He and Sandecker raced by car to the Pentagon to direct the rescue operation from the war room. Once the vast machine was set into motion, they could do little but listen to reports and stare at an enormous satellite photomap thrown on the screen by a rear projector.
Metcalf failed to conceal his apprehension. He stood uneasily rubbing his palms together, peering at the lights on the map indicating the progress of the air strike as the planes converged on a circle lit in red.
“How soon before the first planes arrive?” asked Sandecker.
“Ten, no more than twelve minutes.”
“Surface craft?”
“Not less than an hour,” replied Metcalf bitterly. “We were caught short. No naval craft are in the immediate area except a nuclear sub sixty miles out in the gulf.”
“Coast Guard?”
“There’s an armed rescue-response cutter off Grand Island. It might make it in time.”
Sandecker studied the photomap. “Doubtful. It’s thirty miles away.”
Metcalf wiped his hands with a handkerchief. “The situation looks grim,” he said. “Except for scare tactics the air mission is useless. We can’t send in planes to strike the towboat without endangering the barge. One is practically on top of the other.”
“Bougainville would quickly scuttle the barge in any case.”
“If only we had a surface craft in the area. At least we might attempt a boarding.”
“And rescue Smith and Margolin alive.”
Metcalf sank into a chair. “We might pull it off yet. A Navy special warfare SEAL attachment is due to arrive by helicopter in a few minutes.”
“After what happened to those FBI agents, they could be going to a slaughter.”
“Our last hope,” Metcalf said helplessly. “If they can’t save them, nobody can.”
The first aircraft to arrive on the scene was not a screaming jet fighter but a Navy four-engined reconnaissance plane that had been diverted from weather patrol. The pilot, a boyish-faced man in his middle twenties, tapped his co-pilot on the arm and pointed down to his left.
“A towboat pushing one barge. She must be what all the fuss is about.”
“What do we do now?” asked the co-pilot, a narrow-jawed slightly older man with bushy red hair.
“Notify base with the cheery news. Unless, of course, you want to keep it a secret.”
Less than a minute after the sighting report was given, a gruff voice came over the radio. “Who is the aircraft commander?”
“I am.”
“I am, who?”
“You go first.”
“This is General Clayton Metcalf of the Joint Chiefs.”
The pilot smiled and made a circular motion around the side of his head with an index finger. “Are you crazy or is this a gag?”
“My sanity is not an issue here, and no, this is not a gag. Your name and rank, please.”
“You won’t believe it?”
“I’ll be the judge.”
“Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant.”
“Why should I doubt you?” Metcalf laughed. “There was a great third baseman by that name.”
“My father,” Grant said in awe. “You remember him?”
“They don’t hand out four stars for bad memories,” said Metcalf. “Do you have television equipment on board, Lieutenant?”
“Yes… yes, sir,” Grant stammered as he realized who he was really talking to. “We tape storms close-on for the meteorologists.”
“I’ll have my communications officer give your video operator the frequency for satellite transmission to the Pentagon. Keep your camera trained on the tow-boat.”
Grant turned to his co-pilot. “My God, what do you make of that?”
71
The towboat surged past the lookout at the South Pass pilot station, the last outpost of the muddy Mississippi, and swept into the open sea.
Captain Pujon said, “Thirty miles to deep water.”
Lee Tong nodded as his eyes studied the circling weather plane. Then he picked up his binoculars and scanned the sea. The only ship in sight was his counterfeit research vessel approaching from the east about eight miles off the port bow.
“We’ve beaten them,” he said confidently.
“They can still blow us out of the water from the air.”
“And risk sinking the barge? I don’t think so. They want the Vice President alive.”
“How can they know he’s on board?”
“They don’t, at least not for certain. One more reason they won’t attack what might be an innocent tow-boat unloading a trash barge at sea.”
A crewman scrambled up the steps to the pilothouse and stepped through the door. “Sir,” he said, pointing, “an aircraft coming up astern.”
Lee Tong swung the binoculars in the direction of the crewman’s outstretched arm. A U.S. Navy helicopter was beating its way toward the towboat only fifteen feet above the waves.
He frowned and said, “Alert the men.”
The crewman threw a salute and hurried off.
“A gunship?” Pujon asked uneasily. “It could hover and blast us to bits without scratching the barge.”
“Fortunately no. She’s an assault transport. Probably carrying a team of Navy SEALS. They mean to assault the towboat.”
Lieutenant Homer Dodds stuck his head out the side jump door of the chopper and peered down. The two vessels looked peaceful enough, he thought as a crewman stepped from the pilothouse and waved a greeting. Nothing unusual or suspicious. The armament he had been warned about was not visible.
He spoke into a microphone. “Have you established radio contact?”
“We’ve hailed on every marine frequency in the book and they don’t answer,” replied the pilot from the cockpit.
“Okay, drop us over the barge.”
“Roger.”
Dodds picked up a bullhorn and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Ahoy, the towboat. This is the U.S. Navy. Reduce speed and slow to a stop. We are coming aboard.”
Below, the crewman cupped hands to his ears and shook his head, signaling he couldn’t hear above the exhaust whine of the helicopter’s turbines. Dodds repeated the message and the crewman made an inviting wave of his arm. By now Dodds was close enough to see he was an Oriental.
The speed of the towboat and barge dropped off, and they began to roll in the swells. The pilot of the helicopter played the wind and hovered over the flat deck of the barge in preparation for Dodds’s assault team to jump the final three or four feet.
Dodds turned and took a final look at his men. They were lean and hard, and probably the toughest, raunchiest, meanest bunch of multipurpose killers in the Navy. They were the only group of men Dodds ever commanded who genuinely liked combat. They were eager, their weapons at the ready and prepared for anything. Except, perhaps, for total surprise.