Chapter 77 - Blood on the Radar
The Osprey dropped like a stone through the black soup of the Atlantic squall.
Outside the fuselage, the dark Atlantic swells were churning into monstrous ten-foot walls of white water. We were flying so low that the sea spray hammered against the cockpit windshield like buckshot.
"Radar contact!" the pilot called back over the intercom. "Target vessel dead ahead, four miles out! She’s moving at twenty-two knots, heading straight for international waters! We're coming up on the CIWS defense envelope!"
"Cut the transponders and initiate radar decoy deployment!" I ordered. "Team, unhook! Prepare for water entry!"
Suddenly, the night sky outside the Osprey erupted into a blinding fountain of white-hot tracers.
*BRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTT!*
The distinctive, horrifying sound of a high-speed Gatling gun tore through the gale. The *Leviathan’s Pride* had opened fire.
"Evasive!" the pilot yelled, throwing the V-22 into a violent bank. "The automated targeting radar is dialed into our engine exhaust! Port engine hit! We’re losing hydraulic pressure!"
The interior of the troop bay flashed red as warning sirens blared. The Osprey shuddered violently, the smell of burning aviation fuel flooding the passenger compartment.
"Jump! Jump! Jump!" I shouted, hitting the release on the cargo door safety latch.
My team leaped out into the void, one by one, swallowed instantly by the black Atlantic tempest. I grabbed Miller by the harness and dragged him toward the threshold.
"Elena, the drop zone is too hot!" he screamed through his mask.
"It’s the only drop zone we’ve got!" I roared, and together, we fell into the freezing abyss.
The shock of the Atlantic water hit my body like a concrete wall. The icy brine tore the breath from my chest, but the dry-suit and self-inflating tactical buoyancy compensator held. I kicked hard toward the surface, clearing the chop just in time to see our crippled Osprey spiral into the distance, clipping the crest of a massive wave and skipping across the water before coming to a smoking halt half a mile away, its crew scrambling to deploy emergency rafts.
Directly ahead of us, looming out of the black rain like an iron mountain, was the towering black hull of the *Leviathan’s Pride*.
The ship’s automated spotlights swept across the churned surface of the sea, their beams slicing through the whitecaps. The massive screws of the freighter churned the ocean into a boiling cauldron of foam, creating a deadly undertow that threatened to drag us straight into the ship’s propellers.
"Grapples ready!" I yelled into the low-power waterproof team comms.
Three titanium-tipped climbing hooks fired from compressed-gas launchers, arcing sixty feet up into the air and biting with a sharp, heavy *clink* into the ship's rusty gunwale.
"Ascend! Clear the deck before the patrol sweeps the stern!"
Hand over hand, pulling against the violent pitch and roll of the eight-hundred-foot vessel, we climbed up the sheer steel wall of the freighter. My muscles burned with exhaustion, the memory of twenty-four hours of nonstop tactical warfare hammering against my temples, but the adrenaline overrode the pain.
I crested the railing first, bringing my suppressed rifle up in a seamless arc.
Two private security contractors wearing black wet-weather gear and tactical plate carriers turned toward me from the aft walkway, their assault weapons slung low.
Before they could shoulder their rifles, two double-taps from my weapon punched through their chests. They dropped to the non-skid steel deck without a sound, their blood washing away instantly in the pouring rain.
"Aft deck secured," I whispered into the mic. "Miller, tap the internal security system. Find Jake."
Miller slammed an interface lead into a maintenance junction box by the crane controls. His ruggedized tablet blinked to life, decoding the ship's internal layout.
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"He’s not on the bridge," Miller said, his eyes scanning the blueprints. "He’s in the auxiliary engine control deck... down in the keel, right next to the cargo containers holding the nitrate."
"He’s standing on the trigger," I said, gesturing for the fireteam to stack on the bulkhead door. "He wants an audience. Let’s give him one."
