China Sea by David Poyer Page B

lost himself in reverie as Tughril slowed further, pivoted. The mole stretched out like a black barring arm of volcanic stone, then opened, welcoming them in. Old men in ragged shirts and straw hats swung nets into the water. A windmill stood on the mountain, arms clicking rapidly around in the steady wind. The water was even paler now, the tint of female turquoise.
    He looked down at an excited man in a tossing small boat. He was yelling up, whipping his cap back and forth. He pointed at the bridge, at him, and after a perplexed moment Dan raised his hand to return the greeting. The gesture seemed to drive the fellow into a rage; he threw his hat down into the boat.
    It was bobbing in the wake when Dan suddenly realized who it must have been. He did a double take, focusing the glasses. Yep, a black-painted P on the boat’s side.
    â€œSir.” A crisp salute never hurt with this captain. “We’ve missed the pilot. Small boat just passed down the port side.”
    Khashar turned a lazy gaze on him from out of a cloud of smoke. “This doesn’t look like a very challenging harbor.”
    â€œHe’s required by Portuguese regulations, sir.”
    â€œIf necessary I will apologize to the harbormaster.” The Pakistani stared ahead, making it obvious that the exchange was over.
    Dan wavered, then shrugged inwardly. It looked straightforward enough. The mole lay ahead to port. Their berth was closest to the entrance, just aft of the moored cruise ship. Ahead were a small military pier and a patrol boat, to starboard a shoal of pleasure craft cupped by another, smaller seawall and beyond that the town. Khashar had brought the ship’s speed down, though they were still surging ahead faster than Dan liked. The stern of the cruise liner walked steadily closer, a red-and-yellow Spanish ensign flapping briskly. Dan liked the wind. All Khashar had to do was park himself fifty or sixty meters off the pier and the sail effect would sideslip him into the berth. The captain spoke to the helmsman sharply. The bow came left, then left a little more. Dan tensed, but it stopped there.
    â€œSir, I’d take this a little slower if I were you. She doesn’t back very efficiently.”
    Khashar didn’t answer. He stared rigidly forward at the rapidly approaching mole. Dan hesitated, looking at the others on the bridge. Not one of them met his eyes. He looked at the liner again.
    There is a moment, dreaded by every ship handler, when the momentum of thousands of tons of steel means collision can no longer be avoided, but it has not yet actually happened. These are the longest minutes ever made, and Dan stood gripping the rail and staring as the high rounded stern of the liner drew closer. He saw the line handlers staring up at it from the forecastle. “Get back!” he yelled, accompanying the order with a violent pushing-away motion. They glanced up, seemed to grasp their danger all at once, and ran. The strip of milky green water narrowed steadily. Gray-haired passengers stared down from the stern gallery of the liner. He waved them back, too, and they retreated hastily. The lee helm pinged then, but far too late. He couldn’t help baring his teeth and tensing his forearms as if to push off as the bow coasted into the liner’s quarter.
    The sound was tearing and gritty, like a dozen Dumpsters being dragged over concrete by a bulldozer. The spray coaming along the gunwale bent inward, then the lifeline, stanchions wrenching inward one after the other as they popped and twisted off their bases. Bolts cracked and bonged across the deck. Each stanchion left its own separate black gouge across the white-painted hull of the liner. The jolt came back along the hull, rocking him gently as the greater mass of the bigger ship shouldered Tughril off. As the bow rebounded to port, the frigate continued to move forward. The result was that the point of impact moved steadily aft along the starboard