“No!” he shouted and pushed her hand into the air.
The Bertram was thirty yards away, close enough for Mercer to see the look of concentration on Booker Sykes’s face as he drove the boat across the river. Mercer didn’t know the two Special Forces operators with him. They hadn’t been part of Sykes’s Delta Force team when they escorted Mercer into a Tibetan monastery once run by Tisa Nguyen’s father. Calling Sykes to provide security had dredged up fresh memories of the events leading to her death, but Mercer wouldn’t let his pain hamper the ongoing investigation.
“They’re with me,” he said. “They are Delta Force commandos. The commander’s name is Sykes. Cover me.”
Mercer eased over the gunwale and onto the deck of the barge. He could feel that the hydraulic system had failed and the barge was responding to the wind and waves, but so far he couldn’t tell if it was caught in the Niagara River’s relentless current.
The bass boat was so low to the water that he couldn’t see it on the far side of the barge. He found cover behind a chain locker and waited for the gunmen to expose themselves again. Sykes arced the Bertram well behind the barge and was about to engage from the Canadian side of the river when another bass boat appeared around the north tip of Grand Island. Mercer counted four men in it as well, bringing the total number of attackers to eight. When he looked back to the first bass boat, he caught a fleeting glimpse of one of the men lunging onto the barge.
His initial plan if they were attacked was to wait until he and Sykes could take out all the gunmen in a surprise counter ambush, but the sheer numbers made that option untenable. Another gunman raised himself over the low flank of the bass boat. His classic Middle Eastern features told Mercer two things. One was that the gunmen had probably received training in some terrorist camp in Iraq, Syria, or Saudi Arabia. The second thing he knew was that they were here to fight to the death.
The Arab was exposed for only a fraction of a second but it was enough time for Mercer to bring the Schmeisser to bear. The old submachine gun bucked in his hand like a living thing as he fired off a five-round burst. Four of the rounds went wide but the fifth blew the gunman off the barge in a spray of blood.
The counterfire from the other three terrorists was swift and sustained. The sound of bullets striking the chain locker was horrific. It felt like the noise would shake Mercer’s teeth loose from his jaw. But even over this racket he heard Sykes and his team engage the second bass boat, their assault carbines adding to the gun battle raging across the width of the river.
Mercer waited until the firing stopped to blindly fire a few rounds over the chain locker and scamper to better cover near the crane. He nearly tripped over the prone form of Brian Crenna. He was huddled partially under the crane with one of his deckhands.
“What the hell is going on?” Crenna shouted over the roar of automatic weapons.
Mercer ignored the pointless question. “Where are your other two men?”
“Billy jumped over the side.” He pointed out over the water. Mercer could see a man swimming toward Grand Island. “He’s a good swimmer. He’ll make it. I don’t know about Tom.”
The second bass boat raced around to their side of the barge, Sykes’s big Bertram trying to keep up with the faster and more nimble craft. While one of the gunmen fired at the Bertram, two more raked the cabin cruiser. Several shots went wide and slammed into the crane’s turret, forcing the three men to cower further, as if trying to burrow into the steel decking.
“Listen,” Mercer said when the outboard faded. “I’m going to cover you. Get to the cabin cruiser and get out of here.”
He changed out the half-depleted magazine for a fresh one, waited a moment for Crenna and the deckhand to get ready, then ducked under the extended boom and cut loose with the Schmeisser. He raked the far side of the barge in a continuous sweep from stem to stern. The gunmen were out of sight so he nodded to Crenna. The two men took off in a loping run, covering the thirty feet to the side of the barge in seconds. Both vaulted over the rail and onto the cabin cruiser’s deck.
Even as he concentrated on finding a target, Mercer noticed that the far bank of the river was moving ever so slightly. When the last round had cycled through the gun, Mercer ducked back under the crane, and as he changed out the magazine he looked at the near bank. Intellect overcame the adrenaline surging though his veins and he realized the land wasn’t moving at all. The hydraulic anchors had failed completely and the barge was at the mercy of the Niagara River. And in the few seconds it took to reload the Schmeisser he realized the barge was accelerating. The wind had picked up again and he estimated they were going six knots.
Mercer was certain the cabin cruiser didn’t have the power to tow the barge against the current. He needed to get to the tug moored to the far side of the craft if he was going to prevent them all from plummeting down the falls. Failing that, he had to get the crates of plutonium ore into the special bags so they wouldn’t smash open when the barge went over.
“Cali,” he shouted. “We’re adrift. Cast off and get out of here.”
“What about you?” she shouted back without revealing herself.
“Sykes can pick me up.” For the moment, though, Mercer didn’t know where his friend was. The Bertram and the second bass boat had gone upriver. He would just have to trust that Booker Sykes would take out the second group of terrorists and return before it was too late.
Cali and Crenna spoke for a second and she covered him as he inched his way to the controls of the cabin cruiser. Cali wanted Crenna to use the cruiser to push the barge to shore so he opened the throttles and put the rudder hard over. The ropes securing the cruiser to the barge strained as the tired motor roared. To Mercer’s surprise and delight it seemed like her plan was working. The nine-hundred-ton barge slowly rotated and seemed to be heading for the Canadian side of the river. The gunmen on the bass boat hadn’t expected such fierce resistance so it was taking them a few seconds to regroup, but when they heard the cruiser they opened fire again. The windshield and side windows exploded, covering Crenna in a shower of glass, while chunks were ripped from the cruiser’s upperworks. It was a fluke shot that hit the cleat securing the cruiser’s bow to the barge. The boat slewed away from the metal side of the barge before Crenna could bring the wheel over or throttle down the engine. The tension on the rear cleat was too much and it gave way, tearing a large section of the transom in the process.
The gunmen continued to fire as the two craft separated. The rear deck was chewed up by the barrage, forcing Cali to dive into the cabin. Greasy smoke began to boil from the engine cowling and the motor started to sputter. As soon as Crenna drove them out of range, Cali mounted the four steps to the cockpit. “We have to go back.”
“Forget it, lady. You ain’t paying me enough for this. I’m going to pick up Billy and call the Coast Guard.”
“Mercer will be dead by the time they get here.”
“That’s his problem.”
Cali cursed herself for emptying the Beretta. She wouldn’t have shot Crenna but she certainly would have threatened him. “Okay, I’ll drop you off at the dock but I’m going back.”
“Not on my boat you’re not. Bad enough I might lose my tug and the crane if she don’t ground.”
Cali exploded in rage. “Those crates we raised are filled with plutonium,” she shouted. “If they fall into the hands of a bunch of terrorists I’ll make sure you’re charged with treason and shot.”
He looked at her. Cali’s eyes blazed with fury and her breath came in heaving gasps. Just as he was about to agree, a wave of heat washed over them. They turned in unison. The rear of the boat was a wall of flame. A bullet had severed the fuel line and the raw gasoline had ignited. “Jesus,” Crenna yelled. “Everyone off the boat. Now!”