Retribution Road by Jon Coon (e reader comics .TXT) 📕

cowboys do out here on the range.” Gabe laughed, and Carol put her arms around him and kissed his cheek.

They were loading the four wheelers when Tom roared up in the truck.

“Gabe, I need you. Right now.”

Gabe left Carol and the kids and got into the truck with Tom.

“Maria sent us a message. The cartel’s target is the Baytown refinery. There are thousands of workers there.”

“What’s the plan?”

“The Navy has been tracking an old container hauler, and they think a sub has been hiding in its shadow. Maybe two subs. The ship just made the port of Galveston, but no subs. They think the subs may have slipped past and are on the way to Baytown. Or they might already be there. We need to get down there and you need to bring your dive gear. Just in case.”

“Dive gear?”

“There’s a channel for supertankers to tie up when they off-load crude and take on refined gas. It’s over a hundred feet deep, and there’s a turning basin. The fastest way to check it would be to put you on a scooter and let you have a look.”

“I don’t have a scooter.”

“It’s on the way, and so are we.”

“Have our prisoners given up anything helpful?”

“Nothing, not even names. And I can be pretty persuasive.”

“I remember. All right, how are we getting down there?”

“My Cessna was totaled in the fire. Senator Benson’s Learjet is on the way. Should be here in ten. You need help?”

“No, just a truck.”

“Take this one and drop me at the command center. I’ll meet you at the plane. One other thing. You might want to wait to tell Carol until we’re in the air. She was a pain this morning about my leaving. She’s going to have a fit if she knows you are.”

The sleek little plane landed, and it didn’t take long to turn around and get back in the air. The Learjet’s cabin had eight elegant seats and plenty of room for Tom, Gabe, and his gear. After they were in the air, Tom went to the cockpit where Senator Benson was flying left seat.

“What’s the latest?” Tom asked.

“No track of the subs yet. We’ve got the bay pretty well covered with choppers, and the USS Gabrielle Giffords is coming in with that advanced sonar. But so far nothing. We don’t really know if they even exist. All the surveillance planes have been able to confirm are shadows. This could be just a wild goose chase, but . . .”

“Yeah, Maria has never given us bad intel, and the Navy guys know what they’re doing. If they think the subs are real, my gut says the subs are real.”

“Mine too. We have to find these guys. We can’t have another Galveston disaster. Not on my watch. I’ve got a chopper waiting to pick us up at George Bush International. Houston to Baytown won’t take long.”

Marine traffic in Galveston Bay was light, and the subs were lying on the bottom waiting for a tanker to shadow into Baytown. From shipping schedules, the sub crews knew at least two supertankers were due to dock at the refinery that day, and, as advertised, the black-and-brown-hulled Maroon Trader, a 76,000-ton supertanker owned by a conglomerate of oil companies, was making a rare appearance at the Baytown refinery that day.

In the shallow water of the bay, the subs could hear the deep hammering of the engines and screws as the nearly 900-foot vessel plodded her way across the bay. Full of crude oil and drawing ninety feet, she moved slowly. It would take twenty minutes to stop under normal speed because of her huge momentum.

She cut her engines fifteen miles out from the dock. That was perfect for the little subs. They could stay close like remoras on a great whale. And when the Semtex was detonated beneath her hull, two million barrels—or 84 million gallons of oil—would be ignited. The fire would burn for days and the damage would be catastrophic. At least, that was Caldera’s plan.

As the tanker passed nearby, Sebastian opened the air valve to purge the ballast tank water and gently raised his sub up from the clay bay bottom. He throttled forward and was soon fully in the shadow of the Maroon Trader. Cristóbal, in the second sub, followed closely behind. In another two hours, they would be in place.

Chapter 32

TUGS EASED MAROON TRADER AGAINST the fuel pier, and a team of deckhands and dock workers secured the six-inch-diameter hawsers to hold her safely in place. The Canadian captain, who had supervised the procedure from the port bridge wing, turned command over to the chief mate and left the bridge. A good voyage deserved a good meal, and Houston was famous for its ten thousand restaurants. The captain had reservations at Killen’s Steakhouse with other seafarers, and it was an event to which he greatly looked forward. Had he any inkling of what was lurking twenty feet beneath his hull, he would have undoubtedly lost his appetite.

Sebastian shut down the diesel engine for what was presumably to be the last time and began laying out number 8 blasting caps, called “common” caps, that would be used to detonate the Semtex 10. It didn’t take long. It was a simple timer in a waterproof housing. That done, they assembled the scuba gear they would use to escape the flooded sub. Again, that didn’t take long. They had dry bags for a change of clothing, sidearms if plans changed, and little else.

Now came the hard part: waiting for the right moment in the middle of the night to flood the sub, swim to the surface, board Cristóbal’s vessel, and escape into the safety of the dark sea.

Above them, helicopters with spotlights searched the shoreline, and the USS Gabrielle Giffords waited outside the ship channel, watching and listening for anything resembling a submarine.

In the sky, the P-8A Poseidon was making 270-degree turns, flying a tight grid, and the Falcon