Vixen 03 Part 72

Shaba could not believe that such brute force existed; he could not know of the secret that drove Fawkes far above and beyond his normal energies. Another inch of light appeared between the hatch and the turret armor. Then, three inches ... six ... and abruptly the mangled steel twisted from its broken hinges and dropped to the deck with a great metallic echo.

Almost immediately, the stench and smoke were driven outside and replaced with cool, damp air from below. Fawkes stood aside and tossed the bar through the hatch, his clothes soaked through with sweat, his torso shuddering as he caught his breath and his pounding heart slowed to normal.

"Clear the breeches and secure the guns," he ordered.

Shaba looked blank. "We've lost hydraulic pressure to the power I rammer. It can't be reversed to remove the sh.e.l.ls."

"d.a.m.n the rammer," Fawkes snorted. "Do it by hand."

Shaba said nothing in reply. He had no time. A gun barrel poked through the open hatch and a hail of bullets ricocheted throughout the armored chamber. The burst whistled past Fawkes's side.

Shaba was not as lucky. Four bullets entered his neck almost simultaneously. He sank to his knees, his eyes staring uncomprehendingly at Fawkes, his mouth moving but expelling no words, only a gush of red that rivered down his chest.

Fawkes stood by helplessly and watched Shaba die. Then a rage swelled inside him and he whirled and grabbed the gun muzzle. The heat from the barrel seared the flesh from his hands but he was far beyond any sensation of pain. Fawkes gave a great pull, and the SEAL outside, stubbornly refusing to let go of his weapon, catapulted past the narrow aperture and landed inside, his index finger still locked on the trigger.

There is no fear in a man who knows with certainty he is about to die. Fawkes did not possess that certainty. His face was white with fear, fear that he would be killed before the Quick Death sh.e.l.l inside one of the three guns could be deactivated.

"You b.l.o.o.d.y fool!" he grunted as the SEAL kicked him in the stomach. "The guns ... inside the guns ... a plague ..."

The SEAL twisted violently and slashed out with his free hand to Fawkes's jaw. Fighting to keep the muzzle away from his body, Fawkes could do nothing but absorb the blow. His strength was draining away when he lurched backward and fell partially through the hatch opening, trying with one last mighty effort to yank the gun from the SEAL's grasp. Instead, the flesh came away from his palms and fingers and he lost his grip. The SEAL jumped sideways and lowered the gun, aiming it with agonizing deliberation at Fawkes's stomach.

Daniel Obasi, the young boy sitting in the turret officer's firing booth, watched in numbed horror as the SEAL'S finger tightened on the trigger. He tried to yell, to distract the killer in the black wet suit, but his throat was dry as sand and a mere whisper rasped through his lips. Out of sheer desperation, in what he prayed was his one hope of saving his captain's life, Obasi pushed the red "fire" b.u.t.ton.

There was no way to reverse the process, no way to halt the firing sequence. The powder charges detonated and two projectiles spit out of

the center and starboard muzzles, but inside the port barrel the warhead jammed tight at the fracture caused by the Satan missiles, trapped the exploding gases at its base, and blocked them from escaping.

A new gun might have withstood the tremendous blowback and the staggering pressures but the tired, rusty old breech had seen its day, and it shattered and burst. In a microsecond a volcanic eruption of flame compressed within the turret, flashed down the magazine elevator tubes, and set off the powder sacks stored far below.

The Iowa blew her guts out.

Patrick Fawkes, in the fleeting instant he was blasted through the outside hatch, saw the utter waste, the terrible stupidity, of his actions. He reached out to his beloved Myrna to beg her forgiveness as he , smashed against the unyielding deck and was crushed to pulp.

! The armor-piercing sh.e.l.l from the starboard barrel reached its zenith and hurtled downward through the limestone dome of the National Archives building. By freakish chance it fell past the twenty-one tiers of books and records, crashed through the granite floor of the exhibition hall less than ten feet from the gla.s.s case containing the Declaration of Independence, and came to rest with half its length embedded in the concrete floor of the subbas.e.m.e.nt.

Sh.e.l.l number two was a dud.

Not so number three.

Activated by its tiny generator, the radar altimeter inside the Quick Death package began beaming signals to the ground and recording its downward trajectory. Lower and lower the warhead dropped until at fifteen hundred feet an electrical impulse popped the parachute release and an umbrella of fluorescent-orange silk blossomed against the blue sky. Amazingly, the thirty-plus-year-old material took the sudden strain without splitting at the seams.

Far below the streets of Was.h.i.+ngton, the President and his advisers sat motionlessly in their chairs, their eyes blinking as they followed the relentless descent of the projectile. At first, like pa.s.sengers on the t.i.tanic who refused to believe the huge ocean liner was sinking, they sat entranced, their minds unable to grasp the true scope of the events before them, feebly optimistic that somehow the mechanism inside the warhead would fail, causing it to fall harmlessly onto the gra.s.s of the mall.

Then, with a frightening momentum, they all began to feel the tightening pincers of despair.

A light breeze sprang up from the north and nudged the parachute toward the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution buildings. Soldiers who had blocked off the streets around the Lincoln Memorial and the National Archives building and crowds of government employees caught in the morning traffic gazed sheeplike as a forest of hands pointed skyward.

Around the conference table the air was still with tension, a growing anxiety that reached insufferable proportions. Jarvis could watch no more. He placed his head in his hands. "Finished," he said, his voice hoa.r.s.e. "We're finished."

"Isn't there something that can be done?" asked the President, his eyes locked on the floating object on the viewing screen.

Higgins shrugged in defeat. "Shooting that monster out of the sky would only disperse the bacteria. Beyond that, I'm afraid we can do nothing."

Jarvis saw a flash of realization flood the President's eyes, a sickening realization that they had come to the end of the road. The impossible could not happen, could not be accepted, but there it was. Death for millions was only seconds and a few hundred feet away.

So intently were they watching the scene that they did not notice the speck in the distance growing larger. Admiral Kemper was the first to distinguish it; he seldom missed a thing. He rose out of his chair and peered as though his eyes were laser beams. The others finally saw it too as the speck enlarged into a helicopter coming straight on the warhead.

"What in G.o.d's name ..." Higgins muttered.

"It looks like the same crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d who buzzed the Iowa," announced Kemper.

"This time we'll blast his a.s.s," Higgins said, reaching for his communications phone.

The low sun bounced off the helicopter's canopy, making a bright momentary glint on the viewing screen. The craft grew, and soon, large black letters could be seen on its side.

"NUMA," said Kemper. "That's one of the National Underwater and Marine Agency copters."

Jarvis's hands fell from his face and he looked up as if suddenly awakening from a deep sleep. "You did say 'NUMA.' "

"See for yourself," Kemper said, pointing.

Jarvis looked. Then, like a man demented, he knocked over his chair and stretched across the table, slapping the phone out of Higgins's hand. "No!" he shouted.

Higgins look stunned.

"Leave well enough alone!" Jarvis snapped. "The pilot knows what he's doing."

All that Jarvis was certain of was that Dirk Pitt was behind the drama being played out over the capital city. A NUMA helicopter and Pitt. The two had to be connected. A tiny glimmer of hope flickered within Jarvis as he watched the gap narrow between aircraft and warhead.

The Minerva bored in on the bright-orange parachute like a bull charging a matador's cape. It was going to be a tight race. Steiger and Sandecker had overestimated the trajectory of the Quick Death warhead and were hovering near the National Archives building when they saw the chute open early, a quarter of a mile short of their position. Precious time was lost while Steiger feverishly swung the aircraft on a closing course in a desperate gamble conceived by Pitt a few hours previously.

"Twelve seconds gone," Sandecker announced impa.s.sively from the cabin door.

Eighteen seconds to detonation, Steiger thought to himself.

"Ready on the hook and winch," said Sandecker.

Steiger shook his head. "Too risky. One pa.s.s is all we'll get. Must take it through the shrouds bow-on."

"You'll foul the rotor blades."

"The only shot we've got," Steiger replied.

Sandecker did not argue the point. He hurriedly dropped into the copilot's seat and strapped himself in.