Akil gritted his teeth. “What the fuck…”
Crocker said, “Appears to be a gash. Not serious. You’re one lucky motherfucker.”
“I don’t feel lucky.”
He turned to Davis. “Give him something to cry into while I wrap this baby up.”
Opening the emergency medical kit he wore on his back, Crocker first wiped away the blood, then sprayed the wound with disinfectant. Next he wrapped the whole hand in a bandage that he secured with tape.
All the time he was aware that the launch was getting away.
With the wounded man providing cover with his automatic pistol held in his left hand, Crocker and Davis took the grenades Akil was carrying and got into position to toss them at the target, which was approximately forty feet off the Contessa’s port side and slightly in front.
“Aim for the stern,” Crocker said. “We don’t want to damage the barrels up front. Might be yellowcake.”
“Okay, boss.”
On the count of three they stood together and threw. Once, twice, three times in succession.
Seeing the Americans, the guy manning the .50-cal on the launch’s deck opened up. Whack-a, whack-a, whack-a… Fortunately his aim sucked, and Crocker and Davis had time to crouch behind the foremast. Hot, angry rounds glanced off the metal around them. Then a series of six explosions ripped into the air and lit up the night sky.
The .50-cal paused for a few seconds, then started firing again.
A seventh blast stopped it altogether.
“What was that?” Davis asked.
Crocker hazarded a look. It appeared that one of the grenades had hit a barrel of extra fuel, because flames were rising from the attack boat’s stern. Seeing dark figures scurrying around the deck, he leveled his MP5 and started firing. Then another blast lit up the deck, throwing a burning man into the ocean.
The concussion was strong enough to kick Crocker and Davis back, too. By the time Crocker righted himself enough to steal another look, the launch’s stern was almost completely engulfed in flames. If they reached the dozen barrels of what could be yellowcake along the bow, it could set off an explosion that would be the equivalent of a dirty bomb, releasing dangerous radiation that, depending on the wind’s direction, could kill many thousands of people.
Crocker turned to Davis and shouted, “Cover me. I’m going down.”
“Where?”
“Into the water. After the launch.”
“But—”
Before Davis could get the rest of his words out, Crocker handed him his weapon, flung off his pack, and was diving off the Contessa’s port rail.
He sliced into the water, came up to take a quick breath and establish direction, then started swimming underwater using the combat swimmer stroke he’d been taught in Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) and had practiced with his team once a week when not deployed. He’d progressed thirty-five feet when his lungs felt like they were going to explode. Crocker knew that the carbon dioxide receptors in his brain were telling him it was time to exhale because he had too much CO2 in his system. So he breathed out a little, releasing some of the air in his lungs.
This enabled him to swim the last ten feet or so without too much discomfort. Coming up near the launch’s stern, he breathed in the smoke-filled air but held back a cough. Immediately he was confronted with another challenge—the fire made it too hot to board at the stern. So he dove under the boat’s hull and, following the stem, where the two planes of the hull had been welded together, surfaced near the bow.
The boat was moving slowly, at 1.5 knots, so boarding was relatively easy. He simply grabbed the anchor port and pulled himself up to the windlass and deck, where he crouched with the rain pelting his back and head.
On closer inspection the launch reminded him of an old navy PT boat or a British motor torpedo boat—light and simple, with a displacement-type hull and a small superstructure pitched toward the stern.
No one had spotted him so far. In fact he didn’t see anyone, except for a badly burned man he stepped over as he headed for the wheelhouse. Much of it had been destroyed—the windshield completely shattered and many of the gauges in the console cracked.
Crocker pulled back the throttle to idle, then looked for the switch to cut the engine.
The rain picked up, propelled by strong gusts of wind. He wasn’t sure if these conditions would extinguish the flames or fan them. It all depended on whether the fire was oil based, which was something he had no time to determine.
His immediate concern was the barrels along the bow. He had descended three steps into the cabin in search of a fire extinguisher when he ran into two men starting up, then saw a third, shorter man behind them. All three had soot-covered faces. One was holding his right arm, which appeared to be injured near the shoulder. A piece of bone protruded.