The Shift: Book II of the Wildfire Saga Page 16

  "Coop, man, we got a problem…" whispered Jax.

  Damn. “What is it?" asked Cooper. He sat up and gripped the steering ropes tighter.

  "Jax and Swede approaching the bridge with lights. I got movement on the bridge, 800 yards,” reported Sparky.

  Cooper admired the coolness in the sniper’s voice. It seemed nothing could faze the man.

  "Looks like the Germans spotted the first boat…" whispered Jax. "I'm watching them through the porthole now—they're all pointing down into the river.”

  Cooper heard the echo of automatic gunfire. "Jax!" He hissed.

  "We’re okay," Jax whispered. “They’re shooting at the lead boat. They put a couple rounds into the second one, too. I think they're giving up. I swear I heard someone laughing," he said.

  "Confirm that," said Sparky. "Looks like they're moving back and forth across the bridge, watching the boats. Somebody walked out of a vehicle parked at the north end of the bridge when those guys started shooting. Got to be the CO.” Sparky clucked his tongue. "Officers always gotta spoil all the fun…"

  "I'm sitting right here," muttered Cooper.

  "Here we go…" said Jax.

  "They’re under the bridge," said Sparky.

  A moment later: "We’re on the other side," said Jax. "They're not bothering to watch anymore, looks like they're paying attention upriver now…"

  "Approaching the bridge," whispered Charlie.

  "Annnnd, they’re on the other side…" muttered Sparky a few moments later.

  A string of three empty boats passed under the bridge before Cooper approached. Sparky slowly removed his rifle from the porthole and lifted one of the seat cushions into place and held it there. "Now we’re blind," he said.

  Cooper closed his eyes and counted to ten, feeling the slight tug of the strings in his hands as the river massaged the boat’s rudder. He let the rudder play in the current to make sure that the boat looked like it was drifting haphazardly, but he was leery of letting the strings go completely slack. It would do no good if their boat slammed into the side of one of the bridge pylons. He just hoped they were far enough out in the Mystic to stay away from any structures.

  As they passed under the bridge, Cooper heard a soldier hoot with laughter. Another voice replied in German. The words were indistinct, but the meaning was clear: they were bored, tired, and stuck out on a bridge in the middle of the night, thousands of miles from home. Their only entertainment had been to watch a few empty boats bob past on the river.

  "I got eyes on the harbor," whispered Jax. "We’re in the home stretch, boys.”

  A moment later, Charlie's voice chimed in: "Boat two just passed the last bend—I got eyes on the harbor. Jax, you got a German patrol on the south bank, parallel to your boat."

  "Everybody stay frosty," whispered Cooper. They were well out of earshot of the Germans on the bridge, but he still felt nervous talking in a normal voice. Sparky slowly pulled the cushion away from the porthole and replaced his rifle.

  "Oh," he said.

  “‘Oh’?" Cooper said.

  “Oh—” began Sparky.

  "There's no time for ‘oh’, here… What do you mean, ‘oh’?"

  "We're approaching the bend in the river—I can just about see around it. Someone just got out of a vehicle in that German patrol Charlie spotted. They’re shining lights on Jax’s boat."

  "Jax, whatever you do, don't pull on the strings —"

  "I got to, man! We can hear the hull scraping bottom. I gotta get us out of the shallows or we’re going to get stuck."

  "Shit," said Sparky a moment later. "I think Jerry spotted the string moving."

  A rifle barked and echoed across the water an instant before Jax’s voice broke squelch. "Taking fire! Boat one, is taking fire!"

  "You got a shot?" asked Cooper.

  "Yep." The sniper rifle bucked in Sparky’s hands—even though it was suppressed, in the confined space of the little boat cabin, it sounded like a cannon. The rifle fire downriver stopped instantly. "I think they know we're here…" he said as he shifted aim.

  Gunfire erupted from the bridge behind them. Cooper could hear bullets smacking the water just aft of their boat. Through the ventilation slits in the hatch, he saw spotlights sweep over the water around them.

  "Charlie, get your ass out of here!"

  "Roger that," was Charlie's calm response.

  Cooper kicked the hatch open and saw muzzle flashes in the distance light up the bridge. There were a lot more soldiers than he’d thought. He dropped the steering lines, turned the engine over, and shoved the throttle forward as the engine came to life with throaty roar. He heard the rumble of engines as Jax and Charlie powered up their own boats.

  Cooper grabbed his night vision monocular from the floor. The world went from coal black to light green. About 200 yards out, he saw the final bend as the river approached downtown Boston and the harbor beyond. Charlie's boat vanished around the bend and left a glowing wake.

  Cooper’s own boat found its plane and lifted up out of the water, roaring downriver. The powerful engine propelled it forward, adding its own speed to that of the river current. The wind became a roar in his ears that easily muted the increasingly distant popping of the German rifles.

  As they swerved around the final bend in the river, Cooper saw German forces along the riverbank begin to approach the river. Only a few were firing, most looked like they were trying to figure out what all the excitement was about.

  Up ahead, Jax’s boat made a beeline for the open harbor as its two powerful engines began to pull the streamlined craft away from Cooper. Both Jax and Charlie swerved in and around the bobbing decoy boats and left wide glowing wakes for Cooper to follow.

  Cooper felt the hull of his boat throb down below as they began to hit chop. He spun the wheel hard and called out, "Hang on!"

  The boat lurched in the water to starboard and Cooper spun the wheel back to port. The boat answered like the finely tuned vehicle it was, swerved and made a graceful ‘S’ pattern sending spray high into the air behind them as bullets peppered the water all around. Cooper maneuvered their boat to be on the far side of one of the decoy boats. The Germans opened fire as Cooper roared past.

  He continued to swerve back and forth across the width of the river, paying careful attention to the two German trucks racing alongside the frontage road on the south bank. The lead truck fired its guns harmlessly. A moving target on the water proved too much for the gunner to hit from a moving vehicle with a roof-mounted gun.

  Cooper swerved around the final decoy boat and slammed the throttle wide open, laying a course for the middle of the river. Up ahead, he saw Jax’s boat slip past the last of the wharfs and into the open waters of Boston Harbor. Spotlights flicked on from one of the warehouses along the last wharf as Charlie's boat approached.

  "Yeah, they definitely know we're here!" called out Charlie. He had to yell over the background noise of his engines.

  "Just keep going!" said Cooper. He clenched his jaw as he saw muzzle flashes light up along the south side of the wharfs. One was especially bright. Somebody had a large caliber machine gun down there. Its slower rate of fire created big enough splashes from the rounds impacting the water to be seen with the naked eye in the darkness.

  "Sparky, can you do anything?"

  “Not from down here.” The sniper emerged from the cabin and braced himself against one of the safety lines on the cockpit’s starboard side. He brought his riflescope to his eye and extended the spring-loaded bipod legs. Cooper tried to keep the boat as steady as possible while he kept an eye on his sniper.

  The noise of the wind rushing past his face, the roar of the engine, the crack of Sparky's rifle, and the incoming rounds from the riverbank made such a cacophony of noise that Cooper didn't bother trying to talk. He focused on driving the boat and getting to safety.

  Sparks at the bow of their boat flew into Cooper's vision and momentarily blinded him. "Boat three, taking fire! We’re ta
king damage!" he called out. The sound of the German rounds impacting the fiberglass side of the boat crackled like thunder in his ears. Somebody had a big damn gun on the riverbank. More importantly, they had good aim.

  "Take that son of a bitch out!" Cooper yelled.

  Sparky shifted his aim and fired off a volley of three shots in quick succession, slamming the bolt on his rifle at a speed Cooper could never match. The rifle fire from the riverbank died down momentarily. Every time the Germans tried to return fire, the sniper picked off another man. But no matter how fast Sparky was dispatching Germans, more and more were pouring down to the riverbank, drawn by the rolling gunfire.

  Cooper looked toward the bay, achingly close, and saw they still had a few hundred yards of wharf to clear before they entered the safe embrace of the open water. At last he saw what was sending out the big rounds. The Germans had parked a TPz Fuchs right on the edge of the last wharf. After practicing on the previous two boats, the gunner was honing his aim. A blast of water splashed into Cooper's face.

  "That was too close," he said to himself. He swerved the boat again and heard a round blast a hole in the river behind him.

  He spun the wheel hard to port. "Hang on, going evasive!"

  He didn't hear the grunted response from Sparky as he swung the boat back and forth across the river trying to make the Fuch’s gunner miss. The more he dodged and weaved, the longer it was taking to reach the harbor. He was just barely ahead of the rounds slapping at the water’s surface, dangerously close all around them. Whoever was firing that thing was well trained, that was for sure. Cooper just needed a few more seconds to clear the last wharf and they’d be on open water.

  Another round impacted the transom and Cooper felt the boat shudder. He even felt the heat through his HAHO suit. Sparks and bits of fiberglass peppered the back of his neck and the side of his head. He was thrown forward onto the steering wheel with the impact and momentarily lost his grip. The boat began to veer toward the riverbank. Cooper stepped back and spun the wheel again, pulling back on the throttle at the same time.

  The gamble worked. The sudden decrease in speed and sharp change in rudder angle let Cooper's boat spin on a dime. Meanwhile, the German gunner over-compensated and ended up shooting the water ahead of them.

  Cooper waited an extra heartbeat, then shoved the throttle forward and brought the rudder amidships. The German gunner missed again. Cooper soon felt the hull lift up over the waves as the boat found its plane and began to race toward the open bay. They had cleared the wharf.

  “Uh, we got a problem," said Sparky.

  Cooper glanced down at the gauges and dials in front of him. The RPMs had redlined. Oil pressure was dropping while engine temperature was rising. He risked a glance aft and involuntarily ducked as a lucky round grazed the safety rail just to the left of his arm. The Germans continued to fire but it was evident that unless somebody got extremely lucky, Cooper and Sparky were safe for the time being.

  The boat, however, was not. Smoke billowed, deep and black from the rear of their wounded boat. The armored Fuchs had taken a chunk out of the rear port panel of the boat and damaged the engine.

  Cooper felt a decrease of the wind and spray in his face. He looked back to the gauges and watched in horror as their speed began to drop. Not good, not good, not good…

  "Coop! I see smoke, you okay?" asked Charlie's voice. Cooper didn’t have to strain as hard to hear his bone phone anymore. Another bad sign.

  "Don't worry about us! Get Boatner out of here. Keep going and get to Nahant!"

  "There's no threats out here, I'm circling around to get you."

  “Belay that, Jax," called out Cooper. "There's no time. Keep going and make sure Charlie and Boatner have cover all the way to Nahant. We’ll meet you at the rendezvous point. It's just gonna take us a little longer…"

  "We’re going to have company…" warned Sparky. Cooper glanced at the sniper and saw him point aft. When he looked, his heart sank. Through the smoke pouring out the rear of their wounded boat, he could see the telltale flashing strobes of a helicopter as it began to claw its way into the air.

  "Hey!" said Charlie's voice.

  "What is it?" asked Cooper. "We’re kinda busy…”

  "I got a satellite signal," said Charlie. "Starting the uplink and transmitting the encrypted data now."

  Thank God for small miracles, thought Cooper. "Hopefully the signal will hold and you can get the whole thing uploaded. Just make sure you get him to the rendezvous point!”

  In the distance, he could barely make out Charlie's boat as it disappeared into the darkness of the open water. The wide dark expanse of the bay seemed to go on forever. Cooper looked down and saw they were doing no more than 20 knots now. Nahant was a long way away at that speed. He glanced over his shoulder. The helicopter was over the warehouses lining the wharf and gaining altitude. A searchlight snapped on, illuminating the water with its menacing beam of light.

  "We’re not gonna make it."

  "Ye of little faith," said Sparky. "Just keep this thing steady, will you?" Cooper looked and saw the sniper lay on his back. He balanced the bipod on his knees and aimed toward the helicopter.

  "You gotta be kidding me…"

  "I can shoot the ass off a gnat at a thousand yards. You think I can't hit a fucking helicopter from half that distance?"

  Sparky removed the suppressor from the end of his rifle. "I need accuracy and power, not silence," he said to answer Cooper’s unspoken question. He settled in and swayed to the movement of the boat as it cut through the waves.

  The sniper rifle cracked like thunder, the muzzle flash all but blinding. When Cooper’s vision had cleared, he saw the helicopter was still in the air.

  "It’s still coming…"

  "I see it, I see it!" said Sparky. "Just give me a second…"

  Sparky fired the big rifle again and again.

  Through the after-image of the muzzle flash imprinted on his eyes, Cooper found the helicopter and noticed right away that its flight was erratic. White smoke trailed the aircraft like a curling tail.

  "Gotcha…" muttered Sparky.

  "Keep on them! Take that son of a bitch out!"

  Cooper’s radio broke squelch. "Coop—watch where you’re going!”

  He turned his attention back to the bow and barely missed Jax as his boat swerved in the choppy water and came alongside.

  "The hell are you doing?" asked Cooper. "I told you to keep going!"

  Swede threw a line and Cooper pulled the boats together. Sparky tossed his gun to Jax and disappeared into the cabin. He came back up with Mike. Swede helped him transfer the infected SEAL to the other boat while Cooper struggled to keep his damaged craft stable.

  Once Mike was safely aboard Jax’s boat, Cooper went below and grabbed the last of their gear and jumped across the widening gap between the boats. It wasn’t the most graceful jump he’d ever made, but he was on the boat.

  Before Cooper could even gain his feet, Jax slammed the throttle forward and the speedboat took off like a scalded cat, its bow lifted at a nauseating angle. The roar of the engines made Cooper’s chest vibrate as he wiped the salt spray from his face.

  He squinted and could see his own boat, smoke rising straight up into the sky like a beacon as they left it far behind. Sparky continued to fire shots at the helicopter, but the pure speed of Jax's boat was keeping him from scoring hits. The damaged helicopter continued to hobble on toward the abandoned boat. As they raced forward into the night, Cooper saw tracers light up the night before an explosion flashed like a false sunrise. He surveyed the distance and looked at Jax.

  "Don't think they can catch us now…"

  "You're welcome, Lieutenant," said Jax. His helmet reflected the glow of the boat’s gauges and dials in a sickening swirl of light.

  "I think I see Nahant," said Charlie's voice. "’Bout a thousand yards out." His transmission was scratchy and static-filled. He was almost out of range.

  "Roger that, keep
going. Jax picked us up, we’ll be there soon."

  "Data transmission is almost—" the signal cut off in a burst of static.

  "Charlie!” said Cooper. He got no response. "Charlie!" He tried again.

  Still no response.

  The other SEALs tried to communicate in turn, with no more success. Cooper looked at Jax. “Anything?” The helmeted head shook side to side.

  "Well," said Swede. "We'll find out what happened in a second. We’re almost there."

  "I got lights—10 o’clock high!" said Sparky from the bow, over the screaming wind. "Incoming aircraft!"

  CHAPTER 14

  Lumford, South Carolina.

  CHAD GRIPPED THE STOCK of his AK-47 with white knuckles and watched as 13 opened the door and peered down the deserted hallway. He moved up next to her and waited for a signal. Crouching low, she stepped out of the room and looked down the hallway towards a large bank of windows. She motioned for him to follow.

  Sounds of gunfire outside continued to grow louder as they neared the windows. 13 urged him to stay down, but Chad saw movement and wanted a better look. The hallway was momentarily illuminated as an aircraft flew low overhead with a tremendous roar. It was too dark outside to see anything other than muzzle flashes and the occasional burst of light from explosives. Gunfire crackled outside and another blast rocked the building. Chad crept to the window and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness outside, he saw a plane circling impossibly slow in the sky. A machine gun fired from an open ramp at its tail end, the muzzle flash a bright tongue of fire.

  Do the Russians have a plane that can hover like that? Or do we?

  As the strange plane-helicopter passed overhead and out of sight, he got a glimpse of their surroundings. It seemed to be either late at night or very early in the morning and they were definitely in a small airport terminal somewhere. If he strained his eyes, he could just make out a sign that read: Lumford Municipal Airport on the other side of the tarmac.