Patriot games - Tom Clancy [266]
"Chief Z, do we have any coffee aboard?"
"I got a pot in the galley, sir, but I don't have anybody to work it."
"I'll take care of that," Jack said. He went below, then to starboard and below again. The galley was a small one, but the coffee machine was predictably of the proper size. Ryan got it started and went back topside. Breckenridge was passing out life jackets to everyone aboard, which seemed a sensible enough precaution. The Marines were deployed on the bridgewalk outside the pilothouse.
"Coffee in ten minutes," he announced.
"Say again, Coast Guard," Robby said into the microphone.
"Navy Echo Foxtrot, this is Coast Guard Baltimore, do you read, over."
"That's better."
"Can you tell us what's going on?"
"We are tracking a small boat, about a twenty-footer-with ten or more armed terrorists aboard." He gave position, course, and speed. "Acknowledge that."
"Roger, you say a boat full of bad guys and machine guns. Is this for real? Over."
"That's affirmative, son. Now let's cut the crap and get down to it."
The response was slightly miffed. "Roger that, we have a forty-one boat about to leave the dock and a thirty-two-footer'll be about ten minutes behind it. These are small harbor-patrol boats. They are not equipped to fight a surface gun action, mister."
"We have ten Marines aboard," Jackson replied. "Do you request assistance?"
"Hell, yes-that's affirmative. Echo Foxtrot. I have the police and the FBI on the phone, and they are heading to this area."
"Okay, have your forty-one boat call us when they clear the dock. Let's have your boat track from in front and we'll track from behind. If we can figure where the target is heading, I want you to call in the cops."
"We can do that easy enough. Let me get some things rolling here, Navy. Stand by."
"A ship," the Prince said.
"It's gotta be," Ryan agreed. "The same way they did it when they rescued that Miller bastard Robby, can you get the Coast Guard to give us a list of the ships in the harbor?"
Werner and both Hostage Rescue groups were already moving. He wondered what had gone wrong-and right-tonight, but that would be determined later. For the moment he had agents and police heading toward the Naval Academy to protect the people he was supposed to have rescued, and his men were split between an FBI Chevy Suburban and two State Police cars, all heading north on Ritchie Highway toward Baltimore. If only they could use helicopters, he thought, but the weather was too bad, and everyone had had enough of that for one night. They were back to being a SWAT team, a purpose for which they were well suited. Despite everything that had gone wrong tonight, they now had a large group of terrorists flushed and in the open
"Here's the list of the ships in port," the Coast Guard Lieutenant said over the radio. "We had a lot of them leave Friday night, so the list isn't too long. I'll start off at the Dundalk Marine Terminal. Nissan Courier, Japanese registry, she's a car carrier out of Yokohama delivering a bunch of cars and trucks. Wilhelm Schorner, West German registry, a container boat out of Bremen with general cargo. Costanza, Cypriot registry, out of Valetta, Malta -"
"Bingo!" Ryan said.
"-scheduled to sail in about five hours, looks like. George McReady, American, arrived with a cargo of lumber from Portland, Oregon. That's the last one there."
"Tell me about the Costanza," Robby said, looking at Jack.
"She arrived in ballast and loaded up a cargo mainly of farm equipment and some other stuff. Sails before dawn, supposed to be headed back for Valetta."
"That's probably our boy," Jack said quietly.
"Stand by, Coast Guard." Robby turned away from the radio. "How do you know. Jack?"
"I don't know, but it's a solid guess. When these bastards pulled that rescue on Christmas Day, they were probably picked up in the Channel by a Cypriot-registered ship. We think their weapons get to them through a Maltese dealer who works with a South African, and a lot of terrorists move back and forth through Malta-the