Cold Shot (27 page)

No!
Loyo thought. The explosion on
Vicksburg
’s superstructure seemed impossibly large given the distance and he knew without question that American sailors had just died. He prayed to God that it wasn’t so but the shot had hit the ship a solid blow. He’d seen it rocked in the water and was sure he would be able to see the hole in the armor when the smoke cleared . . . assuming he lived that long.

“Who fired?!” he yelled. He knew the answer before he’d asked the question. The OTOBreda gun was controlled by a single console, operated by one crewman who controlled the entire firing sequence. “I didn’t order you to fire!”

The crewman, barely more than a teenager, looked out, terrified.
He panicked,
Loyo realized.
The Americans fired and in his terror he fired back.
But now that the
Vicksburg
was wounded, fired on by his ship in international waters, the Americans had cause to return fire in kind, and the
Ticonderoga
-class guided missile cruiser carried ordnance that would crack a
Lupo
-class ship in half.

Loyo grabbed for the radio mic. “
Vicksburg,
this is
Brión!
Do not fire! Repeat, hold your fire! Our shot was an accident! An accident!” He doubted the American captain would believe him.

In his panic, Loyo failed to realize that he was yelling in Spanish.

USS
Vicksburg

“XO, return fire, all guns!” Riley ordered. “Then ready the Harpoons to fire on my order.” Riley’s executive officer was in the Combat Information Center.

“Return fire, all guns then ready Harpoon launch, aye sir,” the XO replied over the radio.
Vicksburg
had two five-inch guns and they both roared almost before the executive officer had finished confirming the order.

The ship shuddered as both guns went off at once and Riley watched the forward gun spew its spent metal shell out of the turret. The reload would be automatic and take a little more than a second. He heard the speaker come alive again, the captain of the
Brión
yelling something, but Riley didn’t speak Spanish and didn’t care now what the man had to say anyway. His rules of engagement allowed him to respond “in kind” and the Venezuelans weren’t going to get another shot.

Venezuelan Missile Frigate
Almirante Brión

Both of
Vicksburg
’s five-inch shells connected with the Venezuelan ship. The
Almirante Brión
heaved under the captain’s feet and Loyo heard men scream in terror as the vessel bucked in the water. Fire erupted from the foredeck and the captain heard the screech of tearing metal as shrapnel scattered across the deck. Loyo wasn’t sure where the second round had hit, surely aft of the island, and he prayed the explosion wasn’t near the waterline. Men and bodies took flight, some pitching out over the rails into the water, others sliding across the deck, coming to rest against bulkheads and whatever else blocked their paths.

The men of his bridge crew were lost in their own yells and panic, their drills and training hardly remembered. The fire control officer was paralyzed by his own fear and terror at what he had started. Any order Loyo gave would take long seconds for the men to carry out now, assuming that enough of them could control themselves long enough to hear him and obey.

He lifted his binoculars and looked out across the water at the enemy vessel.
Vicksburg
’s five-inch guns flashed again and Loyo knew that more of his sailors were about to die.

He also knew that the five-inch guns weren’t
Vicksburg
’s heaviest weapons. A single Harpoon missile would end this fight in seconds, maybe cracking the
Brión
in half, maybe not, but surely sending her to the bottom with every sailor aboard who couldn’t stagger to the deck and throw himself into the sea. He couldn’t let that happen. There were too many young boys aboard, too many men who deserved to go home today. Could he sink the
Vicksburg
before she fired? If the captain gave the order to launch his torpedoes, were there enough men belowdecks who would hear and obey to carry out the order? Maybe he couldn’t stop this at all. If his ship was to die, he might be able to sink the American ship too—

Loyo felt a heavenly calm settle over him.
No,
he thought. Even if he gave the order, a Harpoon would cover the distance in a fraction of the time it would take his torpedoes to reach the
Vicksburg
and his men would die. If they managed to fire the torpedoes before the Harpoon struck, the
Vicksburg
would be crippled, possibly sunk, either way unable to perform rescue operations even if the captain were so inclined, and men would die all the same.

The second pair of five-inch shells hit the
Brión,
tearing into the steel plates, one round hitting the superstructure, and Loyo lost his footing as the entire island shuddered, as though some giant’s fist had struck his ship. The deck was hidden by dark smoke now, and Loyo could smell it in the air. Electronics were burning, the insulation on the wires melting.

Vicksburg
’s guns flashed again. There was only one choice to make and he had to make it now. The next five-inch shells might kill his radio and all hope of ending the fight while some of his men lived.

Loyo picked up the mic, cleared his mind, and made sure this time that he was speaking in English.

“
Vicksburg,
this is
Almirante Brión,
” he said calmly. “We surrender.”

Two more shells from
Vicksburg
’s deck guns slammed into the
Brión
’s hull, ripping holes in the hard metal, one of them near the waterline.

USS
Vicksburg

“Cease fire!” Riley ordered.

“Cease fire, aye,” the XO confirmed. Down in the CIC, the fire control officer slammed his hand down on the controls and the guns obeyed their captain.

The bridge crew turned to their captain, waiting for his next command. Riley looked out at the Venezuelan ship.

The
Brión
was almost hidden by a cloud of black smoke. Oil and fluids were burning somewhere belowdecks and he could see the flames through the gaping holes in the hull. She’d taken six hits from his five-inchers and would’ve taken at least that many more before a Harpoon would’ve closed the distance and torn her in two. Riley wondered for a moment how close the fire control team had been to launching the antiship missile he’d ordered.

He lifted the mic to his mouth. “
Brión,
this is
Vicksburg
. We accept your surrender. Heave to and prepare to receive boarding parties.”

“Understood,
Vicksburg.
We will receive your boarding parties. Please understand that we fired on your vessel by accident. Repeat, we fired by accident. Can we render any assistance to your crew?”

Riley’s eyebrows went up at the question.
They want to help us? It took some humility for the man to make that offer,
he realized.
Their captain is telling the truth. Maybe we’ve got a chance to back everyone down here.

He turned on the radio. “
Brión,
thank you for your offer. Your concern is much appreciated. We will discuss mutual assistance after our boarding party has come aboard your vessel.”

“Understood,
Vicksburg.
Standing by to receive your launch.”

Riley flipped the switch on the 1MC. “This is the captain,” he said. His voice echoed throughout the passageways and across the smoking deck outside. “I have accepted the surrender of the Venezuelan warship
Almirante
Brión.
Their captain reports that they fired by accident and has offered their assistance. We will maintain general quarters until we confirm nonbelligerence.” The captain could imagine how well that bit of news was being received belowdecks by the crew. “Your performance during the fight was exemplary. Well done. Let’s show them how Americans can be gracious in victory. Boarding parties to the deck in one minute. All departments, send damage and casualty reports to the bridge immediately. Master Chief LeJeune to the bridge.”

It took LeJeune less than thirty seconds to obey the order.

“How does it look?” Riley asked.

“We’re okay, I think. One clean hit to the island. We’ve got wounded; looks like four casualties and we took some damage to the multifunction radar.”

“Status of the casualties?” Riley asked.

“I’m not sure, sir. I saw them as I passed by them running. At least one critical that I saw, judging by the burns. Two others look serious. We’ll have to evac them out.”

“Very well,” Riley acknowledged. “Make it so.”

“Not going to seize the ship, sir?” LeJeune asked, nodding his head at the
Almirante Brión.
“You’re passing up your chance to be a commodore for a few hours,” he said, a bit of dry mirth in his voice.

Riley pondered that for a minute. “No,” he said finally, too quiet for the rest of the bridge crew to hear. “He never fired a shot after that first salvo and he says that was an accident.”

“You believe that?”

“If it gives us the chance to avoid a shooting war and killing a lot of Venezuelans kids, I’ll choose to believe it,” Riled responded. “We’ll help patch them up and then send them home under their own flag. Tell Doc Winter to get over there and help take care of their wounded after he’s prepped our own for evac. We’ll airlift anyone he can’t treat here over to the
Truman.
”

“That’s generous,” LeJeune conceded.

“Maybe the sight of two wounded ships helping each other out after a misunderstanding might get everyone to calm down a bit,” Riley said.

“Maybe, assuming it really was a misunderstanding,” the master chief agreed. “But the politicians aren’t always so good at connecting compassion with common sense.”

Puerto Cabello, Venezuela

The stars were out, the lesser ones near the horizon disappearing in the light that the port town was throwing into the sky. Jon stared at the darkness just over the town where only a single point remained.
Mars,
he thought. There was a red tint to it. Or perhaps the color came from the smoke. Several pyres rose from Puerto Cabello: four, and one had started in the last hour. All were too large to be campfires set by tourists on the beach, and if Marisa had been right, there wouldn’t be any tourists on the beach now anyway. He closed his eyes, hoping to pick up some stray sound from the port city that might give him some clue about what was happening, but all was silent.
Humidity muffles noise,
he knew, and this country had more than its share of humidity.

He turned his back to the city lights and searched the now-darkened valley floor for any sign of Kyra. The young woman had left hours before to fetch the truck. He’d wanted to accompany her, but she’d insisted on going alone.
You’re better on the Barrett,
she’d said.
The hill’s defensible and you can cover me.
Neither was true. There was no defensible position against an enemy that could bring in helicopters and lay down fire from the air, and the forest canopy kept him from seeing her once she reached the base of the hill. But he couldn’t argue with her assertion that it made no sense for them both to get arrested if someone was waiting for them at the abandoned shack. So she’d left all her gear but her gun, climbed down, and walked into the woods. He’d stared through the Barrett scope at the cluster of buildings where they’d left the vehicle, looking for some sign of her until growing darkness had made that futile. Now he hoped to see truck headlights through the woods from that direction, but there was nothing. That made sense, too. Kyra would probably be navigating with her night vision alone, fearing that headlights would be visible from the air. There was no sound from her engine either. At this distance, the humidity was probably stifling that too.

He could call her on the PRC-148. She was carrying hers. Without the antenna or transceiver, the radios were only good for line of sight and he could see far enough, but he didn’t want Kyra to think he was looking over her shoulder.

Jon took up the cell phone instead. He dialed the one number in its memory, the call went through on the first try, and he waited for the encryption to start up.

“This is Quiver.”

“Quiver, Sherlock,” he told Mari. “Just checking in.”

“Good to hear your voice,” she said. “What’s your status?”

“Arrowhead has gone back to move the truck closer to our position. She left three hours ago, still isn’t here,” he reported. “She should be back soon. How are things at your place?”

“Some of the locals weren’t thrilled to hear that Avila is trying to take the country nuclear,” Mari said. “Somebody threw a Molotov cocktail over the wall a half hour ago. Not sure what things are like outside the walls. None of the media are showing what’s happening. I think the president here has shut that down. We’re just getting snippets and cell-phone video from bloggers. But from what we can tell, there are some pretty ugly riots going down across the country.”

“I think that’s going on here too,” Jon said. “I see smoke columns going up from the city closest to my position.”

“Roger that.”

“Anything new on the bad guys?” he asked.

“POTUS made an appearance before the UN and called them out. The Security Council approved his request for a blockade. He doesn’t want them moving their package out of the country. The ambassador is working the phones with the Colombians and the Brazilians to make sure their borders stay closed, but it sounds like Guyana isn’t cooperating . . . some greedy autocrats are holding out for some bribes in return for their help. Whoever thought Western security would hinge on Guyana? Anyway, congratulations. You set off the sequel to the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

“It gets better,” Jon said. “I’m pretty sure the base where Arrowhead found the package has a nuclear reprocessing facility hidden away somewhere. Probably under the chemical plant.”