“Rudi, this is Pitt. Do you read me?”

Before a reply came back, he stiffened as a blast from the Aserma Bulldog intermingled with the staccato fire of an automatic rifle. He spun around and saw Giordino crouched on one knee, aiming the shotgun at an unseen target on the aft end of the deck.

“The natives aren't at all friendly,” Giordino said with glacial calm. “One of them must have heard our motors, and came to investigate.”

“Rudi, please answer,” Pitt said, an urgent tone in his voice. “Dammit, Rudi, talk to me.”

“I hear you, Dirk.” Gunn's voice came resonant and precise through the earphones inside Pitt's helmet. “Are you on the ship?”

Gunn's words ended just as Giordino unleashed another two rounds from his shotgun. “It's getting a bit warm,” he said. “I don't think we should hang around.”

“On board, safe and sound for the moment,” Pitt answered Gunn.

“Is that gunfire?” the unmistakable voice of Admiral San-decker came over the radio.

“Al is celebrating the Fourth of July early. Did you find and cut the detonators on the explosives?”

“Bad news on this end,” replied Sandecker soberly. “The army used a small charge to blow the doors to the tunnel at the end of the canal. We gained entrance and found an empty chamber.”

“You've lost me, Admiral.”

“I hate to be the bearer of sad tidings, but there are no explosives. If Qin Shang means to blast a hole in the levee, it's not anywhere around here.”

THERE WAS FAR MORE LIGHT ON THE HIGHWAY LEVEE ABOVE the Mystic Canal. Portable floodlights and flashing red and blue lights lit up the river and surrounding countryside. Eight Army vehicles in their camouflage paint schemes mingled with a dozen sheriff's cars from Iberville Parish. Highway barricades had north and southbound traffic backed up for nearly a mile.

The group of men standing beside an Army command vehicle wore expressions of grave concern. Admiral Sandecker, Rudi Gunn, Sheriff Louis Marchand of Iberville Parish and General Olson looked like men who had wandered into a maze with no exit. General Olson was especially exasperated.

“A fool's errand,” he snarled angrily. After being informed his helicopters were shot down and a dozen of his men feared dead, he no longer put up a cocky front. “We were sent on a fool's errand. All this talk about blowing up the levee is a myth. We're dealing with a gang of international terrorists. That's our real problem.”

“I'm forced to agree with the general,” said Sheriff Marchand. No redneck, this man. He was trim and smartly dressed in a tailored uniform. He was polished, urbane and extremely street-smart. “The plan to blow up the levee to divert the river seems most implausible. The terrorists who stole the United States have a different goal in mind.”

“They are not terrorists in the usual sense,” said Sandecker. “We know for a fact who is behind the operation, and they did not steal the ship. This is an incredibly complex and well-financed operation to divert the flow of the Mississippi past the port of Sungari.”

“Sounds like some kind of fantastic dream,” retorted the sheriff.

“A nightmare,” Sandecker said flatly. He looked at Marchand. “What's been done about evacuating residents from the Atchafalaya Valley?”

“Every sheriff's department and all military personnel are alerting the farms, towns and neighborhoods to the possible flood and ordering them to go to higher ground,” replied the sheriff. “If there is a threat to lives, we hope to keep casualties to a minimum.”

“Most residents will never get the word in time,” Sandecker said seriously. “When that levee splits apart, every morgue between here and the Texas border will be working overtime.”

“If your conclusion is correct,” said Marchand, “and I pray to God you and Commander Gunn are wrong, we're already too late to conduct a search for explosives up and down the river before the ship arrives some time in the next hour—”

“Make that fifteen minutes,” interrupted Sandecker.

“The United States will never reach here,” Olson said emphatically. He paused to glance at his watch. “My battle group of national guardsmen under the able command of Colonel Bob Turner, a decorated veteran of the Gulf War, should be in place and ready to fire from the levee at point-blank range any minute.”

“You might as well send bees after a grizzly bear,” snorted Sandecker. “From the time she passes in front of your fire-power until she passes out of sight around the next bend your men will have no more than eight or ten minutes. As a Navy man, I can tell you that fifty guns won't stop a ship the size of the United States in that length of time.”

“Our high-velocity, armor-piercing rounds will make short work of her,” persisted Olson.

“The liner is no battleship and carries no armor, sir. The superstructure is not steel but aluminum. Your armorpenetrating shells will dart through one side and out the other without detonating, unless a lucky shot strikes a support beam. You'd be far better off firing fragmentation shells.”

“Should the ship survive the Army's blitz,” said Marchand, “matters little. The bridge at Baton Rouge was designed and built low specifically to prevent oceangoing ships from continuing any farther up the Mississippi. The United States will have to stop or destroy herself.”

“You people still don't get it,” Sandecker said in frustration. “That ship is rated at over forty thousand tons. It will go through your bridge like an enraged elephant through a greenhouse.”

“The United States will never reach Baton Rouge,” Gunn maintained. “Where we stand is exactly where Qin Shang intends to blow the levee and scuttle the ship as a diversionary dam.”

“Then where are the explosives?” asked Olson sarcastically.

“If what you say is true, gentlemen,” said Marchand slowly, “why not simply ram the liner through the levee. Wouldn't it produce an opening with the same result as explosives?”

Sandecker shook his head. “It may breach the levee, Sheriff, but it would also plug its own hole.”

The admiral had no sooner finished speaking than the sound of cannonfire began thundering a few short miles to the south. The highway quaked as the tank's guns roared out in unison, their flashes lighting up the horizon. Every man on the highway stopped and stared wordlessly downriver. The younger ones, not having served during a war, had never heard a cannon barrage before and stood enthralled. General Oskar Olson's eyes gleamed like a man looking at a beautiful woman.

“My men have opened up on her,” he exclaimed excitedly. “Now we'll see what concentrated firepower at point-blank range can do.”

A sergeant came rushing out of the command truck, snapped to attention in front of General Olson and saluted. “Sir, the troops and deputies manning the north highway barricade report that a pair of tractor trailers have crashed through at a high rate of speed and are heading this way.”

They all spontaneously turned and stared north, seeing two large trucks speeding side by side down the southbound lanes of the highway, the sheriff patrol cars giving chase with sirens and flashing lights. A patrol car cut in front of one of the trucks and slowed in an attempt to pull it to a stop on the road shoulder, but the truck driver deliberately swerved into the patrol car and struck it in the rear, sending it spinning wildly off the highway.

“The idiot!” Marchand snapped. “He's going to jail for that.”

Only Sandecker instantly recognized the threat. “Clear the road!” he shouted to Marchand and Olson. “For God's sake clear the road.”

Then Gunn knew. “The explosives are in those trucks!” he yelled.

Olson stood shock-still in uncomprehending confusion. His first reaction, his instantaneous conclusion, was that both Sandecker and Gunn had gone mad. Not Marchand. He responded without hesitation and began ordering his deputies to evacuate the area. Finally, Olson came out of his trance and shouted orders to his subordinates to get all men and vehicles a safe distance away.