Sky Hammer

“Shit, my rebreather is gone,” Encizo cursed, releasing the chest harness. The device dropped off his frame and hit the deck to move away with a scraping noise.

“We can share,” James offered, hefting his bulky rebreather.

“Got your six, brother,” Hawkins confirmed, his MP-5 firing along the railing to take out soldiers coming their way. The men fell like bowling pins, several of them going overboard.

“Dump everything!” McCarter ordered. “Move it, people!”

As the deck continued to rise, the men removed their excess equipment. By now, every loose item on board was starting to sliding to port, and the shouting of the North Koreans was taking on a hysterical note. Another anchor chain broke, the whipping metal crashing down upon the rocket battery with thundering results. The Sargasso Queen shuddered.

Scrambling over the angled gunwale, the Stony Man commandos dropped into the water and started swimming across the surface. Speed was important now, not stealth. Everybody on board the sinking vessel was too busy to bother shooting at them now.

Minutes later, the five reached a pebble beach. Rising from the waves, McCarter turned just in time to see the burning ship do a death roll, water and flames blowing out of the gaping hole in its belly like a whale surfacing for air. Something in the engine room exploded, probably the boilers from all the steam mixing with the smoke, and the ship loudly groaned as it cracked in two to begin a short voyage to the bottom of the cold Yellow Sea.