Patriot games - Tom Clancy [261]
Ryan looked aft, his hands tight on the Uzi. There was nothing to be seen. The sky and water merged into an amorphous gray mass, and the wind-driven rain stung at his face. The boat surged up and down on the breaking swells, and for a moment Jack wondered why he wasn't seasick. Lightning flashed again, and still he saw nothing, as though they were under a gray dome on a sparkling, uneven floor.
They were gone. After the sniper team reported that all the terrorists had disappeared over the cliff, Werner's men searched the house and found nothing but dead men. The second HRT group was now on the scene, plus over twenty police, and another crowd of firemen and paramedics. Three of the Secret Service agents were still alive, plus a terrorist who'd been left behind. All were being transported to hospitals. That made for seventeen security people dead, and a total of four terrorists, two of them apparently killed by their own side.
"They all crowded into the boat and took off that way," Paulson said. "I could have taken a few out, but there just wasn't any way to figure who was who." He'd done the right thing. The sniper knew it, and so did Werner. You don't shoot without knowing what your target is.
"So now what the hell do we do?" This question came from a captain of the State Police. It was a rhetorical question insofar as there was no immediate answer.
"Do you suppose the good guys got away?" Paulson asked. "I didn't see anything that looked like a friendly, and the way the bad guys were acting something went wrong," he said. "Something went wrong for everybody."
Something went wrong, all right, Werner thought. A goddamned battle was fought here. Twenty-some people dead and nobody in sight.
"Let's assume that the friendlies escaped somehow-no, let's just assume that the bad guys got away in a boat. Okay. Where would they go?" Werner asked.
"Do you know how many boatyards there are around here?" the State Police Captain asked. "Jesus, how many houses with private slip's? Hundreds-we can't check them all out!"
"Well, we have to do something!" Werner snapped back, his anger amplified by his sprained back. A black dog came up to them. He looked as confused as everyone else.
"I think they lost us."
"Could be," Jackson replied. The last lightning flash had revealed nothing. "The bay's right big, and visibility isn't worth a damn-but the way the rain's blowing, they can see better than we can. Twenty yards, maybe, just enough to matter."
"How about we go farther east?" Jack asked.
"Into the main ship channel? It's a Friday night. There'll be a bunch of ships coming out of Baltimore, knocking down ten-twelve knots, and as blind as we are." Robby shook his head. "Uh-uh, we didn't make it this far to get run down by some Greek rustbucket. This is hairy enough."
"Lights ahead," the Prince reported.
"We're home, Jack!" Robby went forward. The lights of the twin Chesapeake Bay Bridges winked at them unmistakably in the distance. Jackson took the wheel, and the Prince took up his spot in the stern. All were long since soaked through by the rain, and they shivered in the wind. Jackson brought the boat around to the west. The wind was on the bow now, coming straight down the Severn River valley, as it usually did here. The waves moderated somewhat as he steered past the Annapolis town harbor. The rain was still falling in sheets, and Robby navigated the boat mostly by memory.
The lights along the Naval Academy 's Sims Drive were a muted, linear glow through the rain and Robby steered for them, barely missing a large can buoy as he fought the boat through the wind. In another minute they could see the line of gray YPs-Yard Patrol boats-still moored to the concrete seawall while their customary slips were being renovated across the river. Robby stood to see better, and brought the boat in between a pair of the wood-hulled training craft. He actually wanted to enter the Academy yacht basin, but it was too full at the moment. Finally he nosed the boat to the seawall, holding her to the concrete with