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"Western filth!" Ketou cried. "You've murdered my crew." He stood there against the gray sky, blood seeping from a wound in his shoulder, dazed by the sheer physical shock of the disaster around him.
Gunn stared up at him over the barrels of empty guns.
Ketou glared back at him for a moment, and then he focused on Pitt who was pushing himself off the deck and reaching for the wheel.
"Western filth," Ketou repeated.
"Fair is fair!" Pitt shouted back above the crackle of the flames. "You lost the draw." Then he added, "Abandon your ship. We'll come around and pick you up.
Fleetingly, almost like the blink of a camera shutter, Ketou leaped down the ladder and ran toward the stern. The gunboat had heeled sharply to port, her gunwales awash, as he struggled across the steeply angled deck.
"Get him, Rudi," Pitt snapped into his mike. "He's going for the stern gun."
Gunn said nothing but cast aside his useless weapons, ducked into the forward compartment, and snatched a Remington TR870 automatic shotgun. Pitt shoved the throttles to their stops convulsively, spinning the wheel to port and skidding the Calliope around in a violent sheer that ended with the bow aimed upriver. The propellers bit and dug in, the water boiled under her stern, and the Calliope leaped like a race horse out of the gate.
There was only oil and floating debris drifting on the river now. Commander Ketou's gunboat was starting its final slide to the river bottom. The river flowed into the shattered hull and hissed in clouds of steam. Water was swirling around Ketou's knees when he reached the aft 30-millimeter guns, swung the muzzles toward the fleeing sport yacht, and pressed the fire control button.
"Al!" Pitt hailed.
His reply was the hissing blast of a missile that Giordino launched from his turret. A streak of orange flame and white smoke shot through the air toward the gunboat. But Pitt's abrupt turn of the wheel and the thrust of sudden acceleration had thrown off Giordino's aim. The missile swished over the sinking gunboat and exploded in the trees bordering the river.
Gunn appeared at Pitt's side in the cockpit, took careful aim, and began blasting away with the Remington over the stern at Ketou. Time seemed to slow as the shot splattered around the gun mount and into the African boat commander. They were too far away to see the hate and frustration in his shiny black features. Nor could they see that he died over the gun sight, his lifeless hand doggedly forcing down the fire control button.
A burst of fire shrieked after the Calliope. Pitt swiftly cut a sharp bend to starboard, but the irony of battle had yet to take its fair share. Ironic because a dead man had fought back through catastrophic defeat with a precision he could never know. Jets of water skipped white and straddled the speeding boat as shells ripped away the airfoil above and behind the cockpit that held the parabolic satellite dish antenna and communications antenna and navigation transponder, blasting the remains into the river. The windshield in front of the cockpit shattered and was carried away. Gunn threw himself prone on the deck, but Pitt could only hunch over the wheel and ride out the deadly storm. They could not hear the impact of the shells over the thunderous roar of the flat-out turbo diesels. But they could see the bits and pieces of debris bursting all around them.
Then Giordino got in a clear shot and launched his last missile. The settling stern of the gunboat suddenly vanished in a puff of smoke and flame. And then the boat was gone, sliding under and leaving a large flutter of bubbles and a spreading slick of oil. The Commander-in-Chief of Benin's navy and his river fleet were no more.
Pitt forced himself to turn his back on the flotsam-filled river astern and look to his own boat and friends. Gunn was coming shakily to his feet, bleeding from a cut across his balding head. Giordino appeared from the engine room looking like a man who had just stepped off a handball court, sweating and wea
ry, but ready for a new game.
He pointed up the river. "We're in for it now," he shouted the words in Pitt's ear.
"Maybe not," Pitt shouted back. "At this speed we'll cross into Niger in twenty minutes."
"Hopefully, we didn't leave any witnesses."
"Don't count on it. Even if there were no survivors, somebody must have caught the fight from shore."
Gunn gripped Pitt's arm and yelled. "As soon as we're in Niger, back off and we'll take up the survey again."
"Affirmative," Pitt agreed. He shot a quick look at the satellite dish and communications antenna. It was then he noticed they were gone along with the airfoil. "So much for contacting the Admiral and giving him a full report."
"Nor can the labs at NUMA receive my data transmission," said Gunn sadly.
"Too bad we can't tell him the leisurely cruise up the river just turned into a bloody nightmare," Giordino bellowed.
"We're dead meat unless we can figure another way out of here," Pitt said grimly.
"I wish I could see the Admiral's face," Giordino grinned at the thought, "when he hears we broke his boat."
"You will," Gunn shouted through cupped hands as he descended into the electronic compartment. "You will."
What a stupid mess, Pitt thought. Only a day and a half into the project and they had killed at least thirty men, shot down a helicopter, and sunk two gunboats. All in the name of saving humanity, he mused sarcastically. There was no turning back now. They had to find the contaminant before the security forces of either Niger or Mali stopped them for good. Either way, their lives weren't worth the paper on a devalued dollar.
He glanced at the small radar dish behind the cockpit. There was a saving grace after all. The dish was undamaged and still turning. It would have been hell running the river at night or through fog without it. The loss of the satellite navigation unit meant they would have to position the contamination entry into the river by spotting nearby landmarks. But they were unhurt and the boat was still seaworthy and pounding over the river at close to 70 knots. Pitt's only worry now was striking a floating object or a submerged log. At this speed any collision would gouge out the bottom of the hull and send the boat cartwheeling and splintering into a shattered wreck.
