Deception Point Page 103

Unfortunately, Delta-One had run throughn the complexness of the control ornament near the trapdoor-a series of unmarked levers and dials that apparently controlled the trapdoor, the force motor, and numerous other commands. He had no intention of hitting the misuse lever and risking his partners life by mistakenly sinkping the sub into the sea. communicate all risk. Never rush.He would force Tolland to perform the actual release. And to image he did not try anything tricky, Delta-One would take proscribed insurance cognize in his business as biological collateral.Use your adversaries against one another.Delta-One swung the gun barrel directly into Rachels face, s exitping only inches from her forehead. Rachel closed her matter, and Delta-One could see Tollands fists hairgrip in a protective anger.Ms. Sexton, stand up, Delta-One said.She did.With the gun firmly on her back, Delta-One marched her over to an aluminum set of portable stairs that led up to the top of the Tri ton sub from layabout. Climb up and stand on top of the sub.Rachel looked f accountabilityened and confused.Just do it, Delta-One said.Rachel felt kindred she was move through a nightmare as she climbed up the aluminum gangboard behind the Triton. She stopped at the top, having no desire to step out over the chasm onto the suspended Triton.Get on top of the sub, the spend said, return to Tolland and pushing the gun against his head.In front of Rachel the soldier who was in the clamps watched her, switch in pain, obviously eager to get out. Rachel looked at Tolland, who straightway had a gun barrel to his head. Get on top of the sub. She had no choice. disembodied spirit like she was edging out onto a precipice overhanging a canyon, Rachel stepped onto the Tritons engine casing, a small flat section behind the rounded dome window. The perfect sub hung like a massive plumb bob over the brusk trapdoor. Even suspended on its winch cable, the nine-ton sub notwithstanding regis tered her arrival, swinging only a few millimeters as she steadied herself.Okay, lets move, the soldier said to Tolland. Go to the controls and close the trapdoor.At gunpoint, Tolland began moving toward the control panel with the soldier behind him. As Tolland came toward her, he was moving slowly, and Rachel could feel his eye fixing hard on her as if trying to send her a message. He looked directly at her and then down at the open hatch on top of the Triton.Rachel glanced down. The hatch at her feet was open, the heavy philippic covering propped open. She could see down into the one-seater cockpit. He wants me to get in? percept she must be mistaken, Rachel looked at Tolland again. He was almost to the control panel. Tollands eyes locked on her. This time he was less subtle.His lips mouthed, Jump in at a timeDelta-One apothegm Rachels motion out of the corner of his eye and wheeled on instinct, opening fire as Rachel wing through the subs hatch well(p) below the barrage of bullets. The open hatch covering rang out as the bullets ricocheted arrive at the circular portal, sending up a shower of sparks, and slamming the lid closed on top of her.Tolland, the instant hed felt the gun choke his back, made his move. He dove to his left, away from the trapdoor, hitting the deck and drum roll just as the soldier spun back toward him, gun blazing. Bullets exploded behind Tolland as he scrambled for cover behind the transmits stern vertebral column spool-an enormous motorized cylinder around which was wound several gigabyte feet of steel cable connected to the ships grit.Tolland had a plan and would have to act fast. As the soldier dashed toward him, Tolland reached up and grabbed the anchor lock with twain hands, yanking down. Instantly the anchor spool began feeding out lengths of cable, and the Goya lurched in the surd current. The sudden movement sent everything and everyone on the deck staggering sidelong. As the boat quicken in reverse on the cu rrent, the anchor spool doled out cable faster and faster.Come on, baby, Tolland urged.The soldier regained his balance and came for Tolland. waiting until the last possible moment, Tolland braced himself and rammed the lever back up, locking the anchor spool. The chain snapped taut, stopping the ship short and sending a quavering shudder throughout the Goya. Everything on deck went flying. The soldier staggered to his knees near Tolland. Pickering fell back from the runninging onto the deck. The Triton swung wildly on its cable.A scratchy howl of failing metal tore up from beneath the ship like an earthquake as the damaged strut finally gave way. The right stern corner of the Goya began collapsing under its own weight. The ship faltered, tilting on a diagonal like a massive table losing one of its 4 legs. The noise from beneath was deafening-a wail of twisting, grating metal and pounding surf.White-knuckled inside the Triton cockpit, Rachel held on as the nine-ton railway car swayed over the trapdoor in the now steeply inclined deck. Through the base of the glass dome she could see the ocean raging below. As she looked up, her eyes scanning the deck for Tolland, she watched a bizarre drama on the deck unfold in a matter of seconds.Only a yard away, trapped in the Tritons claws, the clamped Delta soldier was howling in pain as he bobbed like a puppet on a stick. William Pickering scrambled across Rachels field of wad and grabbed on to a cleat on the deck. Near the anchor lever, Tolland was likewise hanging on, trying not to slide over the edge into the water. When Rachel saw the soldier with the machine gun stabilizing himself nearby, she called out inside the sub. Mike, look outBut Delta-One ignored Tolland entirely. The soldier was looking back toward the idle helicopter with his mouth open in horror. Rachel turned, following his gaze. The Kiowa gunship, with its huge rotors subdued turning, had started to slowly slide forward down the tipping deck. Its long metal skids were acting like skis on a slope. It was then that Rachel realized the huge machine was skidding directly toward the Triton.Scrambling up the inclined deck toward the sliding aircraft, Delta-One clambered into the cockpit. He had no intention of letting their only means of escape slide off the deck. Delta-One seized the Kiowas controls and heaved back on the stick. Lift off With a deafening roar, the blades accelerated overhead, straining to lift the heavily armed gunship off the deck. Up, goddamn it The helicopter was sliding directly toward the Triton and Delta-Two suspended in its grasp.With its nose canted forward, the Kiowas blades were also tipped, and when the chopper lurched off the deck, it sailed more forward than up, accelerating toward the Triton like a giant buzz saw. Up Delta-One pulled the stick, wishing he could drop the half ton of Hellfire warheads weighing him down. The blades just missed the top of Delta-Twos head and the top of the Trito n sub, but the chopper was moving also fast. It would never clear the Tritons winch cable.As the Kiowas 300-rpm steel blades collided with the subs fifteen-ton capacity plait steel winch cable, the night erupted with the shriek of metal on metal. The sounds conjured images of heroic poem battle. From the choppers armored cockpit, Delta-One watched his rotors tear into the subs cable like a giant lawn lawn mower running over a steel chain. A blinding nebulizer of sparks erupted overhead, and the Kiowas blades exploded. Delta-One felt the chopper bottom out, its struts hitting the deck hard. He assay to control the aircraft, but he had no lift. The chopper bounded doubly down the inclined deck, then slid, crashing into the ships guardrail.For a moment, he thought the rail would hold.Then Delta-One heard the crack. The heavily laden chopper listed over the brink, plummeting into the sea. intimate the Triton, Rachel Sexton sat paralyzed, her body pressed back into the subs seat. The minisub had been tossed violently as the choppers rotor wrapped around the cable, but she had managed to hang on. in some way the blades had missed the main body of the sub, but she knew there had to be study damage to the cable. All Rachel could think of at that point was escaping from the sub as fast as she could. The soldier trapped in the clamps stared in at her, delirious, bleeding, and burned from the shrapnel. Beyond him, Rachel saw William Pickering still holding on to a cleat on the slanting deck.