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“Now!”
Linc concentrated his fire on the stern door, keeping the gunmen pinned outside.
Juan darted to the container door and mashed the C-4 onto the padlock. He stuck the detonator and pulled the firing pin, which would give him ten seconds to get cover.
“Fire in the hole!” he yelled.
The blast echoed through the hold. The padlock was blown to pieces.
This time, Juan didn’t wait for the cover fire. The guards would be too surprised at the explosion to pop back in right away. He ran over to the container, unhooked the latch, and flung the door open.
Metal boxes were stacked up to his eyes for the length of the container. The boxes closest to the end were marked “M829A2.” It was a sabot round. Juan knew the designations of every round the M1 Abrams used because the Oregon had an identical 120mm smooth-bore cannon hidden behind bow doors.
Sabots were uranium-depleted penetrator rods that were designed to go through tank armor. The shell around it was discarded as soon as it left the gun barrel. It would be no use to them. They would make a neat Coke-can-sized hole in the hull, and through anything else within a mile’s range, but not near big enough for a tank to crash out.
What Juan was looking for was an M908, a high-explosive, obstacle-reduction round. It was designed to blow apart concrete bunkers. It should do nicely on the side of the ship if he could find one.
He pulled himself up on top of the crates and started making his way back, using the flashlight on his phone to check the markings.
He got a quarter of the way into the container before he found one marked “M908.” He flipped the lid open and saw four giant shells nestled into their cradles, each weighing thirty pounds. He’d have to make do with two.
He slung his assault rifle over his back and hoisted two of the shells, one under each arm. He made his way back to the container door.
After carefully putting the shells down on top of a crate, he lowered himself to the floor, making sure to keep the door between him and the stairway. With the shells in hand again, he called out to Linc.
“Cover me!”
Juan dashed back toward Linc, knowing that if a stray round hit either of the warheads, there wouldn’t be enough of him left to scrape off the tank treads.
He knelt beside Linc next to the tank closest to the cargo door.
“Getting in the tank will be tricky,” Juan said.
“Too bad you didn’t find any belts for that fifty-cal,” Linc said, giving the machine gun mounted on the tank’s turret a longing look.
“Sorry. I had my hands full as it was.”
Linc nodded. As soon as Juan fired his shots, Linc leaped onto the front of the Abrams, flipped the driver’s hatch up, and hopped inside, leaving only his upper body exposed. When he had the stern door above them sighted, Juan put the two shells on the turret and climbed up.
He opened the commander’s hatch and lowered the first shell into the commander’s seat. As he turned to retrieve the second shell, he saw the bow door above them slam open. Sailors poured through, their rifles at the ready.
Juan grabbed the shell and clambered through the hatch as gunfire rained down on them. One of the rounds grazed his shoulder, causing him to drop the shell. He cringed as it hit the floor, but the fuse didn’t detonate.
Juan dropped inside and pulled the hatch closed behind him. He snugged it tight and engaged the locking latch, designed to prevent infantry from opening the hatch from the outside and tossing grenades in.
He put pressure on his shoulder to stop the bleeding while he checked his phone and saw that Max had come through. When they’d gotten stuck in the hold, he’d texted Max to cast off with the Oregon and that he and Linc would get out somehow and make it back to the ship. Juan had already had the idea of using one of the tanks to make their getaway, so he’d asked Max to contact their connections in the CIA to send Juan an operations manual on how to run an Abrams and fire its main cannon.
Max’s message said No need to contact CIA. Found this one on the Internet.
When Juan opened the attachment, he saw that it was a PDF of a scanned Abrams operations manual.
He rapidly scrolled to the start-up sequence. His eyes flicked back and forth as they flew through the instructions. It seemed straightforward. He located the proper switches and started the engine.
The turbine behind him spooled to life with a whine that made it sound as if they were about to make a moon launch. Juan looked out of the viewport to see that the guards who had flooded into the cargo bay had stopped in their tracks, watching the tank with caution as its jet engine roar filled the hold.
Juan put on a headset hanging next to the commander’s station.
“You with me?” he said.
