The copter was only ten feet above the barge when trapdoors were sprung on the towboat, hatch covers thrown back and twenty crewmen opened up with Steyr-Mannlicher AUG assault carbines.
The.223-caliber shells flew into the SEALS from all directions; smoke and the grunts of men being hit erupted simultaneously. Dodds and his men reacted savagely, cutting down any towboat crewman who exposed himself, but bullets sprayed into their cramped compartment as if concentrated out of a firehose and turned it into a slaughter den. There was no escape. They were as helpless as if their backs were against the wall of a dead-end alley.
The noise of the concentrated firepower drowned out the sound of the helicopter’s exhaust. The pilot was hit in the first burst, which exploded the canopy, hurling bits of metal and Plexiglas throughout the cockpit. The chopper shuddered and veered sharply around on its axis. The co-pilot wrestled with the controls but they had lost all response.
The Air Force fighters arrived and instantly appraised the situation. Their squadron leader gave hurried instructions and dived, skimming low over the stern of the towboat in an attempt to draw fire away from the battered and smoking helicopter. But the ploy didn’t work. They were ignored by Lee Tong’s gunners. With growing frustration at the orders not to attack, their passes became ever lower until one pilot clipped off the towboat’s radar antenna.
Too badly mauled to remain in the air any longer, the crippled chopper and its pitiful cargo of dead and wounded finally gave up the struggle to remain airborne and fell into the sea beside the barge.
Sandecker and Metcalf sat in shock as the video camera on board the weather plane recorded the drama. The war room became deadly quiet and nobody spoke as they watched and waited for the camera to reveal signs of survivors. Six heads were all they could count in the blue of the sea.
“The end of the game,” Metcalf said with chilly finality.
Sandecker didn’t answer. He turned away from the screen and sat heavily in a chair beside the long conference table, the pepper-and-vinegar spirit gone out of him.
Metcalf listened without reaction to the voices of the pilots over the speakers. Their anger at not being able to pound the towboat turned vehement. Not told of the people held captive inside the barge, they voiced their anger at the high command, unaware their heated words were heard and recorded at the Pentagon a thousand miles away.
A shadow of a smile touched Sandecker’s face. He could not help but sympathize with them.
Then a friendly voice cut in. “Lieutenant Grant calling. Is it okay to call you direct, General?”
“It’s all right, son,” said Metcalf quietly. “Go ahead.”
“I have two ships approaching the area, sir. Stand by for a picture of the first one.”
With a new shred of hope, their eyes locked on the screen. At first the image was small and indistinct. Then the weather plane’s cameraman zoomed in on a red-hulled vessel.
“From up here I’d judge her to be a survey ship,” reported Grant.
A gust of wind caught the flag on the ensign staff and stretched out its blue colors.
“British,” announced Metcalf dejectedly. “We don’t dare ask foreign nationals to die for our sake.”
“You’re right, of course. I’ve never known an oceanographic scientist to carry an automatic rifle.”
Metcalf turned and said, “Grant?”
“Sir?”
“Contact the British research vessel and request they pick up survivors from the helicopter.”
Before Grant could acknowledge, the video image distorted and the screen went black.
“We’ve lost your picture, Grant.”
“One moment, General. My crewman manning the camera informs me the battery pack on the recorder went dead. He’ll have it replaced in a minute.”
“What’s the situation with the towboat?”
“She and the barge are under way again, only more slowly than before.”
Metcalf turned to Sandecker. “Luck just isn’t on our side, is it, Jim?”
“No, Clayton. We’ve had none at all.” He hesitated. “Unless, of course, the second ship is an armed Coast Guard cutter.”
“Grant?” Metcalf boomed.
“Won’t be long, sir.”
“Never mind that. What type vessel is the second ship you reported? Coast Guard or Navy?”
“Neither. Strictly civilian.”
Metcalf dissolved in defeat, but a spark stirred within Sandecker. He leaned over the microphone.
“Grant, this is Admiral James Sandecker. Can you describe her?”
“She’s nothing like you’d expect to see on the ocean.”
“What’s her nationality?”
“Nationality?”
“Her flag, man. What flag is she flying?”
“You won’t believe me.”
“Spit it out.”
“Well, Admiral, I was born and raised in Montana, but I’ve read enough history books to recognize a Confederate States flag when I see one.”
72
Out of a world all but vanished, her brass steam whistle splitting the air, the seawater frothing white beneath her churning paddle wheels, and spewing black smoke from her towering twin stacks, the Stonewall Jackson pitched toward the towboat with the awkward grace of a pregnant Southern belle hoisting her hooped skirts while crossing a mud puddle.
Shrieking gulls rode the wind above a giant stern flag displaying the crossed bars and stars of the Confederacy, while on the roof of the texas deck, a man furiously pounded out the old South’s national hymn, “Dixie,” on the keyboard of an old-fashioned steam calliope. The sight of the old riverboat charging across the sea stirred the souls of the men flying above. They knew they were witnessing an adventure none would see again.
In the ornate pilothouse, Pitt and Giordino stared at the barge and towboat that loomed closer with every revolution of the thirty-foot paddle wheels.
“The man was right,” Giordino shouted above the steam whistle and calliope.
“What man?” Pitt asked loudly.
“The one who said, ‘Save your Confederate money; the South will rise again.’ “
“Lucky for us it has,” Pitt said, smiling.
“We’re gaining.” This from a wiry little man who twisted the six-foot helm with both hands.
“They’ve lost speed,” Pitt concurred.
“If the boilers don’t blow, and the sweet old darlin’ holds together in these damned waves…” The man at the wheel paused in midsentence, made an imperceptible turn of his big white-bearded head and let fly a spurt of tobacco juice with deadly accuracy into a brass cuspidor before continuing. “We ought to overtake ‘em in the next two miles.”
Captain Melvin Belcheron had skippered the Stonewall Jackson for thirty of his sixty-two years. He knew every buoy, bend, sandbar and riverbank light from St. Louis to New Orleans by heart. But this was the first time he’d ever taken his boat into the open sea.
The “sweet old darlin’“ was built in 1915 at Columbus, Kentucky, on the Ohio River. Her like was the last to stoke the fires of imagination during the golden years of steamboating, and her like would never be seen again. The smell of burning coal, the swish of the steam engine, and the rhythmic splash of the paddle wheels would soon belong only in the history books.
Her shallow wooden hull was long and beamy, measuring 270 feet by 44. Her horizontal noncondensing engines ran at about forty revolutions per minute. She was rated at slightly over one thousand tons, yet despite her bulk, she walked the water with a draft of just thirty-two inches.
Down below on the main deck, four men, sweat-streaked and blackened with soot, furiously shoveled coal into the furnaces under four high-pressure boilers. When the pressure began to creep into the red, the chief engineer, a crusty old Scot by the name of McGeen, hung his hat over the steam gauge.