"Ropes! Go, go, go!"
Miller kicked the heavy green fast-rope bundle out the door. The thick braided hemp uncoiled in a split second, slapping down onto the wet, diamond-plate steel deck between two rows of containers.
I grabbed the rope with both gloved hands, wrapped my combat boots around the core, and slid down through thirty feet of icy rotor wash.
My boots hit the wet deck hard. I absorbed the impact through my knees, rolled to my left, unclipped from the descent line, and brought my weapon up to cover the starboard gangway. Miller came down right behind me, followed by Henderson and two operators from the tactical team.
The noise on the deck was deafening. The roar of the barge’s diesel generator, the pounding of the river swell against the flat bow, and the violent chattering of the crane’s hydraulic winch created a wall of sound that swallowed our footfalls.
"Miller! Take Henderson and secure the crane engine on the tug’s stern!" I shouted over the din. "Sever the hydraulic lines if you have to! That container cannot touch the water!"
"On it!" Miller yelled, signaling Henderson as they sprinted toward the narrow steel catwalk connecting the barge to the tugboat.
A muzzle flash illuminated the narrow corridor between two container walls fifteen yards ahead.
A volley of 00-buckshot hammered against the corrugated steel inches above my head, spraying sharp flakes of marine paint into my face. I dropped flat behind the heavy steel locking bar of container number four, the rounds whistling past into the river.
I leaned around the corner, tracking the muzzle blast. A shooter in a yellow slicker was racking the slide of a Benelli M4, stepping out from behind a steel equipment crate.
I drove two rounds through the corner of the crate. The heavy 5.56 barrier-blind rounds chewed through the light aluminum wall, striking the man in the pelvis and thigh. He collapsed with a shriek of agony, dropping the shotgun onto the wet deck plates.
I stepped past him, kicking the weapon into the harbor, moving at a hard, aggressive crouch toward the bridge of the *Chesapeake Runner*.
Across the catwalk, Miller and Henderson were already engaging two armed sentries on the tug’s aft deck. Henderson dropped one with a controlled pair to the chest; the other threw his hands in the air, diving face-first onto the deck as Miller charged the crane’s hydraulic junction box.
Miller didn't waste time looking for the emergency stop button. He pulled a heavy steel pry-bar from his assault vest, jammed it into the main high-pressure valve assembly, and dumped his sidearm’s magazine directly into the cast-iron manifold.
Hydraulic fluid sprayed across the deck in a hot, reddish-brown mist. The winch groaned, the steel cable shuddered violently, and the lowering mechanism locked with a massive, shuddering clang of sheared gears.
The container stopped moving, dangling five feet above the froth of the Buttermilk Channel.
"Winch is dead!" Miller’s voice crackled through my earpiece. "The box is secure!"
"Hold the deck!" I responded. "I’m taking the wheelhouse."