Jake looked at his watch. Two minutes had passed since general quarters had sounded.
“What are they after?” the admiral asked, more to himself than Jake. “And where are they?”
The door to Flight Deck Control swung open and Qazi followed two of his men into the space. They had their Uzis in front of them. The rest followed him into the compartment.
“Silence. Hands up,” Qazi shouted in English.
A sea of stunned faces stared at Qazi. He waved at the area behind the scale model of the flight and hangar deck. “Over there. Everyone. Over there!”
No one moved. Qazi pointed the Browning Hi-Power, with its silencer sticking out like an evil finger, at the chiefs and talkers near the maintenance status boards. “Move. Headsets off.”
They stood frozen, staring. The silenced pistol swung toward the status board and popped, but the smack of the bullet punching its way through the plexiglas and splatting into the bulkhead was louder. Eyes shifted hypnotically toward the neat, round hole in the transparent plexiglas. In the silence Qazi could hear the tinkle of the spent cartridge case as it caromed off a folding chair and struck the metal bulkhead.
“Do as he says. Get over here, people.” The speaker was an officer in khakis, a lieutenant commander sitting in a raised padded chair.
The men moved with alacrity, shedding the sound-powered telephone headsets.
When everyone was crammed thigh to thigh in the indicated space with their hands on the back of their necks, Colonel Qazi spoke again. “You will stand silently, without moving. My men will kill every man who moves or opens his mouth. They understand no English. And they know how to kill.” He added, almost as an afterthought, “They enjoy it.”
He turned and went through the doorway that led to the ladder up into the island. He would have to hurry. Were the marines ahead of him?
Qazi went past the door to the down ladder, a standard nonwatertight aluminum door, and opened the door to the ladder going up. Although Qazi didn’t know it, this was the only place on the ship where the ladderwells were sealed with doors and aluminum bulkheads. This feature prevented fumes and noise from the flight deck from penetrating deeper into the ship.
He heard a thundering noise immediately beneath him. Men running up the ladder beneath his feet! Marines on the way to the bridge! He gestured frantically to the men following him. Just then the door from below burst open and one of Qazi’s men triggered an Uzi burst full into the chest of the marine coming through. He fell backward onto the man behind him. The door sagged shut on his ankle.
On the ladder below the marine who had been shot, someone fired his M-16 upward, through the thin aluminum bulkhead. Once, twice, then an automatic burst.
“A grenade,” Qazi whispered hoarsely.
The man nearest the colonel pulled the pin and tossed it over the booted ankle trapped in the door as everyone else fell flat on the deck.
The explosion was muffled. “Another,” Qazi ordered.
This time the explosion was loud and shrapnel sprayed through the aluminum ladderwell wall.
The grenades would merely delay the marines below. They would seek an alternate route upward, and they knew the ship. He had purchased himself mere seconds. Maybe that would be enough. “Quickly now, let’s go.”
Two of his men failed to rise. Someone turned them over. One was dead, a rifle bullet through the heart, and the other had a piece of shrapnel in his abdomen. No time to waste. Qazi charged up the ladder two steps at a time with those of his men who were still on their feet right behind. More gunfire. Qazi paused at the top and glanced back. The last man was down holding his leg. The marines had fired through the aluminum sheeting under the ladder. Even as he looked, another burst came through the aluminum and the wounded man lost his balance and fell. But he still had two men on their feet behind him. Qazi circled the open turnaround and leaped onto the next ladder.
O-5 level, O-6 level, O-7 … On the O-8 level he passed the flag bridge. No marines in sight. Maybe, just maybe …
As he came up the ladder to the O-9 level he saw a marine wearing a pistol belt standing in front of the door to the navigation bridge. The marine had his pistol in his hand and looked apprehensively at Qazi as he took the steps two at a time. Qazi glanced over his shoulder as his head reached the landing coaming — no more marines — and leveled his pistol as he topped the ladder. He shot the surprised sentry point-blank. The body was still falling as Qazi jerked open the door to the navigation bridge and hurtled through.
22
When Gunnery Sergeant Tony Garcia reached the bottom of the island ladderwell on the O-3 level, he stood stock still and looked at the carnage, stunned. He had eaten dinner tonight in Naples with two friends and had been sound asleep when general quarters was called away. He had pulled on trousers, shirt, and shoes and raced for the armory, where the corporal on duty had tossed him an M-16 and duty belt. Then he had run for the bridge. Normally he led the squad that guarded the bridge during GQ, but Sergeant Vehmeier had tonight’s duty section. Now he stood looking at the five marines lying amid blood and shrapnel. One of them was conscious.
“Grenades, Gunny,” the wounded man whispered. His back and side were covered in blood and blood oozed out his left sleeve.
Sergeant Vehmeier lay face down in a pool of gore. Garcia turned him over. The man’s hands were gone, only red meat and white bones remained, and his abdomen was ripped open. He had fallen on one of the grenades, probably the first one. Miraculously, he still had a pulse in his neck. Garcia used both hands to scoop Vehmeier’s intestines back into his abdominal cavity. He rolled Vehmeier over, then stripped off his shirt and used that as a bandage to protect the wound.
“Quick,” the sergeant whispered at a knot of gawking sailors. “Get these men to sick bay, right fucking now! This man first.” The sailors leaped to obey.
Garcia wiped his bloody hands on his trousers. “Get tourniquets on these men,” he directed. He stepped over the casualties and climbed the ladder, his M-16 at the ready.
The man at the top, with his foot caught in the door and sprawled on his back down the ladder, had taken a half dozen rounds in the chest. He was beyond help. When Garcia eased the door open to peer out, the body slipped, making noise. Just below the sailors were making a hell of a racket carrying the casualties away, but Garcia froze anyway.
He waited for the bullets to come. He was sweating and his heart was pounding. Nothing. He peered again through the crack in the door, then eased it open enough to slip through.
There were two men down in the passageway, here on the flight deck level. Garcia picked up the Uzis and pistols lying on the deck. One man was still alive, but he wasn’t going anywhere with that hole in his gut. A gym bag lay near him. Garcia opened it carefully. Grenades and some stuff that looked like plastique. Some fuses.
A crumpled body lay at the bottom of the ladderwell up to the next floor. It had almost a dozen wounds in it. Garcia could see the holes in the aluminum sheeting. One of his marines had fired an M-16 clip through the aluminum and nailed this guy.
The wounded man moved and groaned. Garcia swung the M-16 in his direction. It was tempting. The bastard deserved it. But no.
The sergeant looked up the ladderwell. What was waiting up there? Should he go find out? Or should he take another route? Another route would probably be healthier.
He heard a door opening to his left and leaped right, toward a corner. Even as he did, he heard bullets spanging off the steel. In a corner of his mind it registered that there were no loud reports, and he knew the weapon had a silencer.