“Do it. And while you’re aboard, take a look around for any papers and documents. Likely they dumped everything over the side, but you never can tell.”
“Sure thing, sir.”
The explosives-laden Marine took two fast steps down the stern ramp and jumped into the bow of the Boghammer, displaying the phlegmatic attitude of a day laborer bearing a lunch bucket.
“Captain,” Steamer Lane’s voice sounded in Amanda’s headset, “the Promise has closed to four thousand yards and she’s still standing on. We’re tracking her in, and Carondelet and Manassas have her designated.”
“Has she taken any hostile action?”
“Well, she’s not shooting… yet.”
“Right. I’m going topside.”
“Topside, ma’am?”
“Yes. I’ll have a little talking to do here presently.”
Amanda climbed the midships access ladder to the Queen’s weather deck. Making her way forward past the open gun tubs, she came up beside the cockpit, standing adjacent to Chief Tehoa in the gun ring.
The burly CPO nodded to her. “She’s just about here, ma’am. Big son of a bitch, isn’t she?”
“Uh-huh.” Amanda nodded. “It’s funny how they grow when their guns are aimed at you.”
The Union flagship was less than a thousand yards away. The sea boiled under her sharp cutwater and a dense plume of diesel smoke trailed from her rakish stack.
The rising sun blasted at Amanda, and she felt the sweat gathering under her battle vest. Impatiently, she tore open the Velcro tabs of the body armor and shrugged it off, allowing it to thump to the deck behind her. She dropped her helmet on top of the pile and took a step forward, shaking out her hair and relishing the brush of the sea wind against her back. A few layers of Kevlar wouldn’t be relevant against autocannon fire.
Behind her, she could hear the whurr click, whurr click of the pedestal mounts indexing as they tracked on target.
“I miss anything yet?” Stone Quillain inquired, coming up to stand on the other side of the cockpit dome. He’d left his shotgun below and now carried the stumpy launcher tube of a Predator antitank missile slung across his back. Apparently, if the shooting started, he did not intend to be just an onlooker.
Amanda concealed her smile. The Marine captain might carry a load of attitudes around with him, but some of them she could appreciate. “No,” she replied, “but I think that the main show is about to begin.”
Three hundred yards off, the Promise put her helm hard over, kicking her stern around. Water seethed under her aft quarters as her engines went to full reverse. Cutting across the bow of the Queen of the West, the corvette came to a stop broadside-on to the hovercraft. Gun tubes trained outboard as the Union ship brought her batteries to bear.
The conversion job that had turned the minesweep into a ship of the line had been crude but effective. The Emerson 30-millimeter guns forward had been part of her designed armament, while the twinned sets of Russian-made 57’s aft had been add-ons. They were mounted in serviceable-looking gun tubs built into her well deck and aft superstructure, giving her a superposed field of fire astern. Union gun crews nestled behind the gun shields, and Amanda and her people were close enough to see the brassy gleam of shell clips inserted into breech mechanisms.
A voice whispered in Amanda’s earphone. “Fire Control 1 to TACBOSS. If we have to cut loose on these guys, ma’am, hug the side of the cockpit and get aft of the pedestals as fast as you can. The muzzle blast of the thirties will be pretty bad where you’re standing.”
“Thanks for the tip, Danno,” she replied into the boom mike. “You just concentrate on taking out those fifty-sevens.”
“The cocksuckers are dead if they touch a trigger… begging your pardon, ma’am.”
“I got the bow thirties, then,” Tehoa commented conversationally. “What piece do you want, Captain Quillain?”
“I’ll take the bridge,” the Marine growled. Sinking onto one knee, he shifted the Predator launcher to his shoulder.
From across the hundred yards of water that separated the two vessels came the activating twang of a loud-hailer. “American gunboat, American gunboat, this is the captain of the warship Promise of the West African Union! You are violating Union Territorial waters and you are illegally holding members of the Union military prisoner. Release them immediately or we will open fire!”
Amanda dropped her hand to the communications link at her belt and accessed the Queen’s own loudspeakers. “This is Captain Amanda Garrett, Commander of the U.S. Navy Task Group currently operating under the sanction of the United Nations African Interdiction Force. We request a clarification of the situation. Does a state of war currently exist between the West African Union and the nation of Guinea?”
There was a protracted silence. Amanda keyed the speaker access once more. “I say again. We request a clarification of the situation. Is the West African Union at war with the nation of Guinea?”
At last the reply sounded from the bridge wing of the corvette. “There is no war between the West African Union and Guinea. You are holding our sailors and naval craft illegally. You will release them at once!”
Amanda replied into her microphone, speaking the words she’d mentally rehearsed half a hundred times. “Negative, Captain. Be advised that the individuals we have taken into custody have been observed conducting hostile actions against the people and government of Guinea. We have absolute proof of this. If they have been acting under the orders of your government, then the West African Union is guilty of initiating acts of war against the nation of Guinea.
“If they have not been acting under the orders of your government, then they are pirates in the eyes of established international maritime law. As such, they are a matter of legitimate concern for all maritime nations. Again, I must ask, does a state of war exist between the West African Union and the Nation of Guinea?”
The grudging reply came back. “The Union is not at war with any nation.”
Amanda took a deep breath and continued walking down her convoluted trail of justification. “Such being the case, these men are pirates under international maritime law. The United States Navy has exercised its right of hot pursuit to enter your territorial waters and place these criminals under arrest. They will be delivered to the civil authorities in Guinea for trial. We will now withdraw.”
There was another pause, and then the voice called back from the Union bridge, a tinge of apprehension sounding within it. “If these criminals have been apprehended inside Union waters, this is a matter for Union law. We request that these criminals be turned over to us for judgment.”
“Request denied. All further discussion on this matter should be brought up with the government of Guinea.”
There was no response.
“Well now,” Quillain commented quietly. “I guess it’s pretty much raise or fold.”
“Um-hmm.” Amanda nodded, resting her hands on her hips. “If they fold, we’ve got our precedent established for operating inside their territorial waters. If they raise, well, then I guess we just play it out.”
“This is Floater 1, cutting in,” Christine’s voice sounded in Amanda’s headset. “Be advised that the Promise has just activated her main transmitter. Signal intelligence indicates that she’s hailing Union Fleet Headquarters.”
“Acknowledged, Floater.” Amanda looked across at Tehoa and Quillain. “He doesn’t like his hand. He’s passing the buck.”
Ben Tehoa shrugged. “Could be, ma’am, but then there’s still many a damn fool who’ll stick with a busted flush.”