Chapter 17 - The Hunt on Chesapeake Bay
Before the CRT screen could even cool, the warning radar at the edge of the console shrieked.
"Fast movers! Low altitude, coming in under our radar horizon!" Callahan roared, grabbing a tactical headset. "Two MH-60 Black Hawks, blacked out, running without transponders! They're less than four miles out and closing fast!"
"They’re here to sink the platform," Michael said, his military instincts kicking in with icy precision. "They don't want prisoners. Arthur, what’s in the armory beneath the lower crane deck?"
"Standard defensive surplus," Callahan said, pulling open a heavy steel bulkhead. "M4A1 carbines, a few crates of flashbangs, and a pair of Stinger shoulder-fired anti-air missiles we never decommissioned during the restructuring."
"Lucas, grab the ammunition boxes!" Michael commanded.
Within ninety seconds, the three men climbed the exterior steel stairs toward the upper helipad. The night sky was deafeningly silent until the sudden, rhythmic thump of heavy rotor blades tore through the darkness. Sweeping over the crest of the waves, two matte-black Black Hawk helicopters emerged, their searchlights slicing through the mist, illuminating the rusted platform in stark, blinding white.
*Brrrrrrrrrrrt!*
A door-mounted minigun on the lead helicopter opened fire. A stream of six thousand rounds per minute chewed through the metal walkway, throwing sparks into the night sky, ripping steel railings into flying shrapnel.
"Take cover behind the crane winch!" Michael yelled, pulling Lucas down into the shadow of a massive ten-ton industrial motor. Bullets hammered against the solid steel housing with the intensity of an iron hailstorm.
Callahan ducked into the open doorway of the winch room, hauling the heavy olive-drab tube of an FIM-92 Stinger missile system onto his right shoulder. "Michael! I need three seconds of clean lock! Suppress that gunner!"
Michael didn't hesitate. Despite the searing, blinding agony in his torn shoulder, he stepped out from behind the steel winch, raised his M4 carbine with one hand resting on the metal strut, and emptied an entire thirty-round magazine directly into the side cockpit of the lead helicopter.
The rounds chipped the armored glass, forcing the pilot to bank hard to the right. The minigun fire went wild, chewing harmlessly into the ocean waves below.
"Locked!" Callahan bellowed.
The Stinger hissed, a cloud of exhaust erupting from the rear of the tube as the missile leaped forward into the night. It traversed the eight hundred yards in less than two seconds, slamming directly into the turbine exhaust of the lead Black Hawk.
The helicopter exploded into a roaring ball of kerosene fire, the burning wreckage spinning out of control and crashing into the Atlantic swells in a spectacular geyser of flame and steam.
The second Black Hawk immediately banked hard, aborting its strafing run, its pilot recognizing that the target was heavily defended. It turned south, hugging the sea surface as it retreated toward the mainland fog.
"They'll be back with air strikes from the mainland," Michael shouted through the howling sea wind, tossing his empty rifle aside. "We can't stay here. Arthur, where is the missile control nexus for *Nautilus Prime*?"
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Callahan lowered the smoking Stinger launcher, his chest heaving, his eyes burning with resolve. "It's not on the ship, Michael. A ship that size operating in shallow littoral waters needs an onshore terrestrial command uplink to calibrate hypersonic guidance. There’s an automated relay station disguised as a maritime navigation beacon on the barrier islands of Cape Hatteras."
Michael looked at his son, then at Callahan. "Then we don't run. We go hunting."
