Thorpe stretched his shoulders. He was a tall man, standing six-foot-two. He carried one hundred and eighty pounds tautly on his frame. The years carrying a gun for a profession had not been kind. His face was weathered deep brown. The skin already carried the deep lines and crevices that signaled middle age. He had deep blue eyes and dark hair, liberally sprinkled with gray. There were dark etchings under his eyes, and the skin over his cheekbones was stretched a little too tight.
"Maybe we ought to retire," Giles said, scanning the horizon with a pair of binoculars.
"We did," Thorpe said.
"No, from all of it," Giles said.
"You already retired once and I thought I had," Thorpe said. "Don't throw salt on the wound. Those dumb shits in the army…" He didn't want to go into that right now.
"Radar?" Giles called out.
One of the members of his team had a laptop computer resting on a plastic case. A wire ran from it to the rig's radar dish.
"Horizon is clear," the man reported.
"Let me give them one more jerk of the chain," Giles said. He flipped open his cellular phone. He dialed, then began speaking as soon as the other end was answered, not giving the negotiator a chance to start his own spiel.
"This is Colonel Lazarus of the Earth Army, First Battalion. I have not received a response to my demands. I am assuring you we will destroy this monstrosity of technology if we do not get the answer we want. There is no compromise. The earth demands no compromise."
The negotiator finally got a word in. "We're working on your demands, but it takes time to—"
"Time!" Giles yelled. "You've had time. You've had generations. You took the time to build this monstrosity. You can take it apart quicker. One hour. That is it. The people will know that this is your fault when they see what this reporter is taping. We want to end this peacefully. It is obvious you don't. Any blood will be on your hands."
Giles snapped the phone shut.
" 'The earth demands no compromise'?" Thorpe repeated.
"Hey, I'm making it up as I go," Giles said, which Thorpe knew to be far from the truth. Everything they had done today had been planned out to the tiniest detail.
"Do you think they'll give in?" Parker asked.
Giles didn't even have to think about it. "No. I'm going to check the west side."
As Giles wandered away, Parker had her first chance alone with Thorpe. "How have you been, Mike?"
Thorpe's eyes remained focused on the horizon. "Living."
"I heard—" Parker began, but she didn't get a chance to finish the statement as the radar man called out.
"Contacts, all directions."
Thorpe caught a glint of something on the horizon. "I've got a chopper low on the water," he called out, bringing Giles running.
Giles looked that way, then did a three-sixty. "Choppers on all horizons. Coming in. Game time." He put the glasses into a case. "Let's roll."
Parker swung her camera in that direction and zoomed in on one of the helicopters.
Giles and Thorpe started climbing down from the work platform to the deck. Parker hurriedly turned off the camcorder and followed. Giles was issuing orders as they descended. By the time they got to the main deck, the Huey's blades were turning, one of their men holding a gun on a less-than-happy pilot. The other men were pushing the crew out of the room they had been locked in, taping a toy gun in alternating hands of each pair. The other hands were handcuffed together. Soon they had twelve pairs of prisoners, with toy guns securely taped into their free hands.
"Forty seconds!" Giles called out, watching the approaching helicopters.
A man ran to each corner of the rig, dropped a timed satchel charge off and then sprinted back. Thorpe opened the cover on a remote detonator. He quickly punched in numbers.
"Set," Thorpe said.
"Another contact!" the radar man yelled. "Something real fast! From the east! Ten seconds out!"
"What the hell is that?" Giles was pointing to something low and fast to the east, heading toward the rig at tremendous velocity.
"Cruise missile?" was all Thorpe managed to guess as the rocket gained altitude and skimmed across the main deck of the platform twenty feet above the steel.
The roar of the supersonic missile washed across the deck and small black objects tumbled out as the nose cone exploded into several small pieces. The bulk of the rocket kept going.
"Cover your eyes!" Giles yelled.
Thorpe closed his eyes and pressed his hands against his ears tightly. Flash-bang grenades exploded all over the rig in a cacophony of thunderous sound and bright light. Even with his eyes closed, Thorpe was half-blinded as he opened them. His head rang with the echoes of the explosion.
He tapped Parker and pointed at the chopper as he screamed at her, "You want to stay or come?"
She stared at him blankly, indicating she didn't hear a word.
Thorpe pointed at the chopper, then simply grabbed her and pulled her with him. The team piled on board. As instructed, one of the pilots had been waiting with his dark visor down, so even though his copilot was blinded, he was able to still fly the aircraft. The mode of the delivery of the grenades had been a surprise, not their use. The chopper lifted.
As the members of SEAL Team Six surfaced next to each leg of the rig, they were greeted with the exploding satchel charges. Timers began ticking on the other charges placed all over the superstructure of the rig.
The Huey Thorpe was on headed straight to the west, where the rig's radar had told them a ship was hiding just over the horizon. They went past a Blackhawk full of Delta Force commandos, the men in each chopper staring at each other as they went by.
"They don't know what to do," Giles cheerfully said. "Their orders are to hit the rig."
"They'll hit the rig," Thorpe said. "They figure radar will keep us in sight."
"And it will," Giles agreed.
"They don't know if we have hostages on board, or even if there are any bad guys on board," Thorpe explained to Parker. It was something he and Giles had discussed when planning this operation. "For all they know, we could be good guys escaping."
Thorpe nodded to the front, where one of their men seated in the copilot seat was frantically radioing exactly that message to the ship they were flying toward. The man was doing a good job, sounding panicked and telling the ship they had some people on board who had been wounded in the escape.
Thorpe was watching the rig receding from them as Parker leaned out and filmed. Thorpe reached out a muscular arm and grabbed hold of her harness. She gave him a grateful glance as she learned farther out, trusting his strength to keep her from falling, and filmed what was happening on the rig.
The first helicopters were landing, disgorging commandos. Thorpe could well imagine the confusion as they faced twelve pairs of men with what looked like guns in their hands. It was going to be a mess. And as the number on the device in his hand flickered to zero, the confusion was greatly magnified as charges exploded. There were flashes on points all over the rig.
"There!" Giles said, pointing forward. A Coast Guard cutter was cruising through the water.
The Huey headed straight for the cutter, ignoring the radioed inquiries from the ship's bridge. Giles's man was acting hysterical, telling of wounded men and a desperate escape.
"See the back deck?" Thorpe asked Parker as he pulled her back in.
There were two vans tied down there, radio antennas bristling on the tops. They were just off the helipad on the rear part of the cutter.
"Yes," she replied.
"That's their C & C," Thorpe said. "They're airliftable vans that SEAL Team Six and Delta Force use for command and control."
"Goggles on!" Giles ordered.
Thorpe slipped a pair of clear plastic goggles over his eyes and pulled the charging handle back on the AK-74. He handed a set of goggles to Parker.