Читаем The Command полностью

He discarded that problem with the realization that whatever the charge might be, it’d be better to have it go off a hundred yards away than alongside.

Because an explosion alongside could blow the hull plates in. He had to consider Horn’s own cargo, too — Tomahawk boosters, warheads, a magazine full of five-inch shells. If he had a choice, maybe take the explosion aft… It’d blow in the engine spaces, most likely sink them, but at least the magazines wouldn’t go off.

He hoped. If they did, the navy’d be writing a lot of letters to dependents.

Fear was moving out now toward Faith, which bobbed inboard of the widening knuckle where the first dhow had turned. Where the second now approached, seemed to hesitate, then turned as well. Following in its wake, it, too, headed for the hazy, steadily brightening Gulf.

He couldn’t just sit here, waiting for the one boat filled with desperate men and high explosive to putt-putt closer, judge their distance, and then, at their leisure and at close range, make their move. There just wasn’t enough reaction time. He had to know sooner. He clicked his channel selector to the boat frequency.

* * *

Marchetti was on the radio when the word came over to move on up the line. He saw instantly what the skipper was trying to do. Fear was coming out to take their place as goalie. He was sending Faith up toward the inner harbor. It would put them at risk, but also push the moment of target identification away from the ship. Which hovered now, stack venting a burble of gas, guns still pointed in his direction. He wondered why they didn’t launch the helo, then decided since he was the man on the spot, he’d better stop second-guessing and get his ass in gear. “They want us to head on up this line and check out each dhow as we go by,” he told Cassidy

The boat officer hesitated. “Then what? If we find it?”

“I guess then we try to stop them.”

The ensign looked doubtful, but nodded. Marchetti told the coxswain, “Goose her, Coxie. About ten knots, but slow way down as we pass each one.”

The dual Johnsons were revving when Cassidy said, “And how about, when we get to that gap in the seawall, where they’re coming out, we park ourselves there and cork the rest of them in the harbor? Till the local cops can check them out?”

“Now you’re thinking, sir.” It was good to see an officer using his head. Maybe he wasn’t wasting his time with him. Then he noticed the rounded buttocks of one of the troops, and his eye puzzled for a second before he remembered: she was here, too. Well, fuck her … from what he was hearing in the goat locker, everybody else had … Who’d had the bright idea to put fucking girls on fucking ships anyway. What a boneheaded, melonheaded concept.

“Listen up, Golds. We’re gonna run up this line of dinky dhows and check ’em out close range. Eye contact. Look ’em over good. See anything suspicious, weapons, people hiding, we’ll haul them over and board. The first hostile move, shoot ’em. Capisce? You see a weapon, you shoot first.”

The coxswain twisted the wheel, the engines roared, the boat rocked as the wake from dhow number two hit it. Three was coming on, something vaguely cowlike about it as it plodded on its day’s routine. Shit, he didn’t think ragheads even ate fish. Goat and rice, but not fish. There sure were a lot of boats … He pushed speculation away as the coxswain steered in, in, till it looked like they were going to ram the bitch head-on. The oncoming prow wavered, then steadied, obviously deciding to let the smaller RHIB do the dancing. He grabbed the sailor’s shoulder. “Don’t fucking run us under his bow, Coxie.”

“Spitting distance off his starboard side. That close enough?”

“Okay, but no fucking closer, okay?” He pulled sweat off his eyes with his sleeve. The sunlight was burning, bouncing off the flat harbor water. Christ, he should have brought grenades. No, you didn’t want to drop a grenade into a boat full of explosive. Pistol and shotgun, hope you cut them down before they got to whatever they used for a trigger. The hull, this one the dull red again, grew, became an iron wall stained with what looked like decades of fish guts and scrapes from the dangling gear. What were those poles for? He blinked sweat away again, cradling the Mossberg in the crook of his arm.

Faith roared slowly closer to the oncoming fisherman, then, throttling back as its bow came abreast, passed it so close aboard spray coned up between the passing hulls and soaked everyone in the RHIB. Arabs yelled angrily down at them. They ignored them, swept past. The coxswain glanced over with a question in his eyes. Marchetti shook his head, pointed ahead. Three boats yet till they reached the seawall. This next looked different. Somehow… a dark green hull, white trim, it looked better cared for than the others. He yelled to Cas-sidy, “This guy’s on a better budget.”

“Must catch more fish.”