She thrust downriver with the current at fourteen, then fifteen… sixteen… eighteen miles an hour. When she burst from the South Pass Channel, she was driving through the water at twenty, smoke and sparks exploding through the flared capitals atop her stacks.

The men of the Sixth Louisiana Regiment — the dentists, plumbers, accountants who marched and refought battles of the Civil War as a hobby — grunted and sweated in the nondescript woolen gray and butternut uniforms that once clothed the Army of the Confederate States of America. Under the command of a major, they heaved huge cotton bales into place as breastworks. The two Napoleon twelve-pounder cannon from Fort Jackson were wheeled into position on the bow, their smoothbore barrels loaded with ball bearings scrounged from McGeen’s engine-room supply locker.

Pitt stared down at the growing fortress of wired bales. Cotton against steel, he mused, single-shot muskets against automatic rifles.

It was going to be an interesting fight.

Lieutenant Grant tore his eyes from the incredible sight under his wings and radioed the ship flying the British flag.

“This is Air Force Weather Recon zero-four-zero calling oceanographic research vessel. Do you read?”

“Righto, Yank. Hear you clearly,” came back a cheery voice fresh off a cricket field. “This is Her Majesty’s Ship Pathfinder. What can we do for you, zero-four-zero?”

“A chopper went into the drink about three miles west of you. Can you effect a rescue of survivors, Pathfinder?”

“We bloody well better. Can’t allow the poor chaps to drown, can we?”

“I’ll circle the crash sector, Pathfinder. Home in on me.”

“Jolly good. We’re on our way. Out.”

Grant took up a position over the struggling men in the water. The gulf current was warm, so there was no fear of their succumbing to exposure, but any bleeding wounds were certain to attract sharks.

“You don’t carry much influence,” said his co-pilot.

“What do you mean?” asked Grant.

“The Limey ship isn’t responding. She’s turned away.”

Grant leaned forward and banked the plane to see out the opposite cockpit window. His co-pilot was right. The Pathfinder’s bow had come around on a course away from the helicopter’s survivors and was aimed toward the Stonewall Jackson.

“Pathfinder, this is zero-four-zero,” Grant called. “What is your problem? Repeat. What is your problem?”

There was no reply.

“Unless I’m suffering one hell of a hallucination,” Metcalf said, staring in wonder at the video transmission, “that old relic from Tom Sawyer intends to attack the towboat.”

“She’s giving every indication,” Sandecker agreed.

“Where do you suppose she came from?”

Sandecker stood with his arms crossed in front of him, his face radiating an elated expression. “Pitt,” he muttered under his breath, “you wily, irrepressible son of a bitch.”

“You say something?”

“Just speculating to myself.”

“What can they possibly hope to accomplish?”

“I think they mean to ram and board.”

“Insanity, sheer insanity,” snorted Metcalf gloomily. “The gunners on the towboat will cut them to pieces.”

Suddenly Sandecker tensed, seeing something in the background on the screen. Metcalf didn’t catch it; no one else watching caught it either.

The admiral grasped Metcalf by the arm. “The British vessel!”

Metcalf looked up, startled. “What about it?”

“Good God, man, see for yourself. She’s going to run down the steamboat.”

Metcalf saw the distance between the two ships rapidly narrowing, saw the wake of the Pathfinder turn to foam as she surged ahead at full speed.

“Grant!” he bellowed.

“Here, sir.”

“The Limey ship, why isn’t she headed toward the men in the water?”

“I can’t say, General. Her skipper acknowledged my request for rescue, but chased after the old paddleboat instead. I haven’t been able to raise him again. He appears to be ignoring my transmissions.”

“Take them out!” Sandecker demanded. “Call in an air strike and take the bastards out!”

Metcalf hesitated, torn by indecision. “But she’s flying the British flag, for Christ’s sake.”

“I’ll stake my rank she’s a Bougainville ship, and the flag is a decoy.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Maybe. But I do know that if she crushes the steamboat into firewood, our last chance to save Vince Margolin is gone.”

73

In the pilothouse of the towboat a burst of fire from the SEALS had shattered the inner workings of the command console, fouling the rudder controls. Captain Pujon had no option but to reduce speed and steer by jockeying the throttle levers.

Lee Tong did not spare him a glance. He was busy issuing orders over the radio to the commander of the Pathfinder, while keeping a wary eye on the wallowing steamboat.

Finally he turned to Pujon. “Can’t you regain our top speed?”

“Eight miles is the best I can do if we want to maintain a straight course.”

“How far?” he asked for the tenth time that hour.

“According to the depth sounder, the bottom’s beginning to drop off. Another two miles should do it.”

“Two miles,” Lee Tong repeated thoughtfully. “Time to set the detonators.”

“I’ll alert you by blowing the airhorn when we come over a hundred fathoms,” said Pujon.

Lee Tong stared across the dark sea, stained by the runoff from the Mississippi River. The masquerading research ship was only a few hundred yards away from slicing through the brittle side of the Stonewall Jackson. He could hear the haunting wail of the calliope drifting with the wind. He shook his head in disbelief, wondering who was responsible for the old riverboat’s sudden appearance.

He was about to leave the pilothouse and cross over to the barge when he noticed one of the milling aircraft overhead abruptly slide out of formation and dive toward the sea.

A ghost-white F/A 21 Navy strike aircraft leveled off two hundred feet above the wave tops and unleashed two anti-ship missiles. Lee Tong watched in numbed horror as the laser-controlled warheads skimmed across the water and slammed into the red-hulled decoy ship, stopping her dead in her tracks with a blast that turned the entire upper works into a grotesque tangle of shattered steel. Then came a second, even stronger explosion that enveloped the ship in a ball of flame. For an instant she seemed to hang suspended as if locked in time.

Lee Tong stood tensed in despair as the broken vessel slowly rolled over and died, falling to the floor of the gulf and sealing all hope of his escape.

Fiery fragments of the Pathfinder rained down around the Stonewall Jackson, igniting several small fires that were quickly extinguished by the crew. The sea surface over the sunken ship turned black with oily bubbles as a hissing cloud of steam and smoke spiraled into the sky.

“Christ in heaven!” Captain Belcheron gasped in astonishment. “Will you look at that. Those Navy boys mean business.”

“Somebody is watching over us,” Pitt commented thankfully. His eyes returned to the barge. His face was expressionless; but for the swaying of his body to compensate for the roll of the boat, he might have been sculpted from solid teak. The gap had closed to three quarters of a mile, and he could make out the tiny figure of a man scrambling across the bow of the towboat onto the barge before disappearing down a deck hatch.

An enormous man with the stout build of an Oliver Hardy barreled up the ladder from the texas deck and came through the door. He wore the gray uniform and gold braid of a Confederate major. The shirt under the unbuttoned coat was damp with perspiration, and he was panting from exertion. He stood there a moment, wiping his forehead with a sleeve, catching his breath.