“If we win this battle.”
Carl smiled. “We don’t have to win, Shirley. We just have to survive.”
“And then what?”
“Then you give me and Aaron all the intel you have on Atlas, and I’ll be the American Terrorist. I’ll avenge Nancy Palmer, my son, and all the others who have died.”
Mallory gasped, “Agent Palmer…Nancy? She’s gone?” He nodded. “Carl, these people are too powerful. They’ve always been a step ahead of us.”
“They’ve been operating in the shadows, but now we know they exist. Aaron will find them, and I will kill them.”
“They’ll see you coming.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll see something coming, but they’ve never seen me and Aaron both coming at the same time.”
She scrunched her eyes like she didn’t believe him. “You two…you’re really working together now?”
He nodded. “It took the loss of someone we both cared deeply about.”
She shuddered and looked away. “My God, what have I done, Carl?”
“This isn’t your doing, Shirley.” He put a gentle hand on Mallory’s armor-plated shoulder.
“I want Atlas destroyed.”
“That’s a goal we share. First we have to survive the day, okay?”
President Mallory nodded, and they continued to the galley. Carl stepped aside and let her enter ahead of him. As always, he made sure his holstered Glock was accessible and his PDW was prepped for action. The safety selector was turned to the triple-shot position.
The four marines turned toward them as they entered. They were an impressive and fearsome sight. All were decked out head-to-toe in black hard-shell battle armor, and each had an assortment of weapons clipped to their utility belts or slung over their shoulders. They also wore helmets, but their facemasks were raised. They snapped to attention at the sight of the president.
Lieutenant Nathanial Hawkins stood in front of the others. He was a short, slender mid-twenties man with light brown skin, but Carl couldn’t discern his ethnicity.
Hawkins eyeballed Carl with mistrust, then looked at Mallory. “Madam President,” he said. He stood ramrod straight, as did his marines.
“Gentlemen,” Mallory said.
One of the two larger soldiers spoke, and that was the only indication that particular marine was female. “It is an honor to meet you, ma’am.”
Carl got the feeling the marine spoke to tactfully inform Mallory that she was, in fact, not a gentleman. Mallory nodded at the female warrior but, appropriately Carl thought, did not offer an apology.
The new world, Carl thought. First, there were only mixed marriages to try to keep straight forty years ago. Then mixed ethnicities—kids like me—then mixed genders, and now even androgyny. In the military, no less. Never noticed that in my day. Probably drives the pure-blood folks crazy. Hard to label folks nowadays. Hard to put ’em in categories anymore.
President Mallory said, “Lieutenant Hawkins, you and your people are to follow Captain Johnson’s orders to the letter. Are you clear on that?”
“Very clear, ma’am.”
Carl said, “You people have only one job now, and that’s to keep the president alive. If the ship is disabled, you’ll have to repel boarders. It’ll be hard because they’ll be people you’ve trained and served with. They’ve been lied to.” He looked at Hawkins. “But nothing and no one is more important than this woman.” He head-nodded sideways at Mallory. “She cannot die.”
Lieutenant Hawkins nodded. “Copy that, Captain. The president must live. We should get her to the CIC.”
Carl nodded. “I’ll be there shortly if you’ll tell me the way.”
Hawkins gave him what seemed like a convoluted path to the CIC, then he and his armored marines marched the president out of the room. Carl looked around the empty room. It was the community eating room for everyone who was not an officer. There were four long tables that would normally have dozens of chairs aligned with military precision. The tables and chairs had been haphazardly shoved to one side to make room for the weapons duffel bags the mercs had used to bring the combat suits and weapons aboard from the minisub.
It was McGrath’s suggestion to bring armor and weapons for the marines. He was willing to gamble the life of his lover and president on the loyalty of the marines to place their duty to protect the president above all else. He had been right, but Carl had also been prepared for McGrath’s assessment to be wrong. He’d been prepared to kill the marines. He flicked the selector on his PDW back to the safe position.
He sighed, grabbed a chair, and sat against the bulkhead near the door. Then he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees—not an easy task with his armor—and closed his eyes. It was always so easy now to kill or plan to kill.
Agent Palmer’s face appeared on the inner view screen of his mind. Gone forever.
Like Mark…gone forever.
Like the battle-hardened Merc Four, wife of Merc Three. Like the young Mr. Garcia, who took his own life after his wife and newborn child succumbed to the Contagion. Like dozens of other cops, agents, and civilians whose orbits intersected mine.
Now he’d sent Merc Three and the helicopter pilot off to die. They had to know their assignment was a one-way trip from which neither would return, but they also knew their sacrifice was crucial to the survival of the president.
So many people had died. So many more would die. He was asking these marines to kill other Americans, their military comrades, and they were going to do it to save the president.
Is one woman worth such a sacrifice in lives?
Nations went to war to protect their heads of state. The US government had an entire organization—the Secret Service—with an annual budget of hundreds of millions of dollars to protect the president, and every one of those thousands of agents would willingly lay down his or her life for the person that occupied the Oval Office.
Until some ass-hat comes along with a biotech weapon that made Secret Service agents try to assassinate the person they were sworn to protect.
Carl stood and sucked in a deep breath. Yes, I am doing the right thing.
His mission eight months ago was to save Melissa Mallory, the kidnapped daughter of the president, and also to save the president, but that mission was also self-serving at the time. It was his attempt to clear the red ink off his ledger, red ink that represented the lives he’d taken in his private war against the government. Back then he’d believed power-hungry people were trying to kill the president simply because she was the first woman president. Now he realized there was a larger strategy in play, and she had been involved hip-deep in it until something made her diverge from the interests of Atlas. She had to have known they’d retaliate. Or perhaps she thought she was immune to their wrath simply by being the president with the Secret Service to protect her.
Atlas, this international cabal, had the power, funding, and influence to direct a full carrier strike group to kill the president. Shirley Mallory couldn’t stop them. Aaron McGrath couldn’t stop them. Only the American Terrorist could stop them, but he couldn’t do it alone.
He found himself moving through the silent ship with a purpose. He slid down the arm rails of two ladders without using the steps, just like they did in the movies, made two right turns and a left, and found himself staring point blank into the business end of an assault rifle. He refocused past that black orifice and looked into the female marine’s eyes.
She lowered her weapon and banged her armored fist twice on the bulkhead door of the CIC, then shoved it open with one hand.
“Thank you, Soldier.”
“I’m not a soldier, sir. I’m a Marine,” she said without malice in her voice.
He nodded. “Apologies, Marine.”
“Corporal Inajosa, sir. My mates call me Ina for short.”
Just inside the door, Carl was confronted by the smallest of the three enlisted marines, but that guy was still bigger than he was. The lieutenant and the o
ther armored marine, a huge black guy, flanked the president as she and the commander stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling view screen, similar to the transparent heads-up display on the bridge. Two other enlisted naval operators occupied seats at tactical computer stations in the room. The ensign confirmed that the entire crew was at action stations.
The CIC was about thirty feet by sixty, and two walkways traversed the room lengthwise. Flanking each walkway, metal desks and chairs were bolted to the floor and walls, each desk holding a military version of a computer workstation. There was room for maybe forty crewmembers in the room, but currently there were only six operators, including the commander, her two officers, the enlisted folks, and Merc Eight. The CIC was certainly not built for comfort. Carl got the feeling modern warfare was fast-paced and heavily based on technology, unlike the drawn-out cat-and-mouse pace of old war movies and books.
Merc Eight kept his seat at the far aft end of the CIC, while Carl made his way toward the president and the commander at the opposite end near a horizontal see-through tactical display.
The three officers had changed into what Carl imagined was the CIC combat uniform—solid dark blue shirt and pants with no headgear. They stood at a center command station near the “front” of the room, so Carl made that station his destination. Subdued white lighting lit the room.
Carl examined the tactical display. The USS Kestrel Andrus was a solid blue boat indicator in the center of the screen. Carl thought the symbol looked like the old style of destroyer, not the new stealth version. White circles denoting distance radiated outward from the ship on the see-through panel. The visual representation on the tactical screen was the same as that on the larger vertical screen.
The top of the desktop display was aligned with the bow of the ship and had an S compass indicator. A cluster of red triangles had descended from the top of the display, indicating the thirteen missiles of the carrier group’s first wave. Text moved with the red indicators, showing an ETA of one minute, forty-five seconds.
Eckels grabbed the intercom handset and broadcast throughout the ship. “Attention all hands. Attack is imminent. Gear up, people.” She pulled out a gray balaclava from under a nearby desk and fitted it over her head and neck, as did her crewmembers. Then she fitted on an orange life jacket that could be inflated with the pull of a cord. Carl was certain every other navy person aboard was doing the same, preparing for possible contact with cold water should the ship go down.
Into the intercom handset, Eckels said, “Status, all departments.” She hit a switch so the audio came out of a speaker everyone in the room could hear.
“CIC, Damage Control. All three teams are ready to deploy.”
Carl knew a mere three damage control teams were woefully inadequate for a ship this size under normal operations, not to mention during actual combat.
“CIC, Engine Room. I’ve got all generators available, full capacity, condition Zebra set, time seventeen twenty-one.”
One of the enlisted operators in the CIC called out. “Fire control radar detected. They have us bracketed.”
“Very well,” Eckels said. “Lieutenant, light ’em up. Break EMCON. Set SPY to high power, calculate intercept solutions, and stand by.”
“Combat, ready rail gun and lasers. Missiles to stand by.”
“Combat, aye!”
“Damage Control, make ready for multiple strikes.”
Orders were given and repeated as the ship came alive. Carl was amazed at the efficiency of the crew even under the threat of imminent death. Their routine was well practiced, and panic was kept in check.
An operator hollered out, “First targets, two thousand yards!”
Eckels said, “Ready all weapons. Defensive posture Alpha. Prepare to engage yellow targets with birds and red targets with lasers. Stand by, close-in deck guns.”
“Brace for impact.”
“Brace! Brace! Brace!”
“Fire missile batteries one and two!”
“Fire missile batteries one and two, aye!”
“Reload one and two and stand by.”
Carl watched a wall monitor that showed the topside deck of the destroyer from the perspective of an aft-mounted camera. Armored panels slid open in two places and two boxy canisters, each holding four missile tubes, swiveled toward the bow. Flame and smoke blasted from the back of each battery as intercept missiles quickly disappeared into the distance. The front laser housing swiveled continuously, accompanied by a slight dimming of the CIC lights as the device fired. Carl expected some kind of Star Trek phaser beam blasting out of the aperture, but the beam was completely invisible. In fact, the only way he knew the laser had melted the guidance electronics of its target was when an indicator on the display turned from red to yellow, indicating the missiles were no longer on a threat trajectory. The deck camera showed six of the missiles passing harmlessly over the ship, their melted optics unable to direct the missiles into a terminal attack maneuver.
Then the distant intercept missiles began hitting their targets and the first wave of inbound missiles was decimated in mere seconds. The laser and missile launchers retreated into their shielded housings, but the long barrel of the rail gun rose out of its housing and tracked the distant targets of the second wave.
On the display, the second wave of missiles was a cluster of more than three hundred red triangles, moving with an ETA of just under six minutes, and four minutes behind the second wave was a formation of thirty-odd solid red plane indicators. Their moving data showed them at a higher altitude. At the far top edge of the screen sat a large red indicator shaped like an aircraft carrier labeled CSG9. The carrier strike group was just over three hundred miles due south.
“Mr. Johnson,” the commander said. “The president tells me you have a plan to force the admiral to surrender.”
“I do,” Carl said with a nod.
She pointed at the display. “This would be a good time to deploy it.”
“Do we still have the channel open to the chopper?”
The ensign said, “Confirming secure point-to-point transmission status for EMCON Alpha.”
Carl said, “Negative. When we talk to the chopper, I want our enemy to hear it too so they understand the tactical situation.”
“Copy,” the ensign said.
Carl added, “And open a separate channel to the carrier group, please.”
“Channel is now open, but they are not answering. That’s standard military procedure in an operation. They’re at EMCON Alpha. Complete radio silence.”
“Do you have video capability?”
The ensign glanced to Commander Eckels who said, “Make it happen.”
“I want that admiral to see my eyes, so she’ll believe what I’m telling her.”
“It won’t matter,” the commander said. “Admiral Janis Montmarkle is old school. She rose to the top of a pile of male officers who actively worked together to keep her down. She’s as tough as they come.”
The ensign pointed at Carl and said, “The channel is active, sir…um, ma’am.” Then he stammered a bit and looked at his commander like he didn’t know who was really in control.
A tiny spoke had extended down from the ceiling with a small ball camera attached to the end. Carl saw his face on the bottom right of the wall screen behind the camera. The rest of the screen was gray.
Carl spoke to the camera. “Admiral, this is Air Force Captain Carl Johnson, retired. The president is aboard this ship. My sole mission is to keep Shirley Mallory alive and protect her from harm. Recall your fighters and self-destruct the missiles coming our way. Make no further attempts to attack this vessel.” He looked to his left. “Madam President, if you will step into view of the camera.” She did. “Admiral, your missiles are putting the commander-in-chief’s life in peril.”
President Mallory said, “Admiral, I order you to stand down your attack.”
Commander Eckels said, “Ensign, transmit encrypted ship ID again to prove who we are.”
Carl added, “ETA on the next wave of missiles?”
The ensign reported, “Five minutes, ten seconds. The computer will engage the rail gun in thirteen seconds.”
Eckels said, “I need mobility, Mr. Johnson. Our battle effectiveness is diminished sitting still in the water.”
Carl glanced over at Merc Eight and nodded, then he glared at the empty part of the screen. The admiral was trying to make him sweat. He had to get her attention.
ETA four minutes thirty seconds.
Eckels commanded, “Lieutenant, come to full power on all engines, emergency flank three. CCS, disengage revolution limiters, override engine safeties. Bring the ship to course two-seven-zero and fire rail gun and forward laser. Engage aft laser when clear.”
The lieutenant added, “Launch decoys, Commander?”
“Not yet. We’re going to need them later.”
“Standing by on decoys.”
Carl heard…and felt…the rhythmic pulsing of the rail gun as it blasted a Mach Eight projectile toward a distant target on the horizon every four seconds.
“Admiral, I’m gonna kick your ass if you don’t talk to me. You’ve been briefed. You know what I’m capable of.”
The channel remained silent as the commander and her officers continued exchanging rapid-fire orders and confirmations.
The lieutenant said, “Commander, we have full envelope detection. We’re being bombarded by multiple terminal homing radar signals.”
“Make those targets your top priority. Target the sources with the rail gun and fire.”
“Aye, Commander. Three seconds. Done! More targets actively homing.”
“Keep firing. Fire missile batteries one through eight!”
“Fire missile batteries one through eight, aye!”
ETA four minutes.
American Terrorist Trilogy Page 93
