“What else can I do?” Barnes was pacing. “Governor is just an empty title now. What am I really against a SEAL captain? Who’s going to follow me?”
“I will. And there are others.”
“I appreciate that, Danny. It’s just a tough spot to be. I think I’m in charge. Baker thinks he is. Neither of us should be.”
“You’re doing fine, sir.”
“Am I? I’m scared to death. Danny, I’ll be lucky if Baker doesn’t just shoot me. The son of a bitch is going to take all our good men out there and get them killed.”
I listened to the governor vent and thought about it for a minute. “Not necessarily.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Baker and I both have the same rank. As governor you could split the troops in half, assigning half of them to each of us. We could have a draft, so to speak. There’s no way in hell I’m going with them, so make me in charge of homeland security. Give Baker control of the military. That’s what he wants anyway.” Barnes was nodding now. “If he goes out and gets everyone killed … there’s still half of us left. No matter what he says, he can’t challenge your authority on that. He doesn’t want to have a public showdown with you that he could lose—he doesn’t want this to go to a popular vote.”
“You’re probably right.” Barnes smiled and stopped pacing. “No, you’re absolutely right. It could work.”
“One more thing.” I set the ice pack down. I had his ear now. I had to push my luck.
“Shoot.”
“I want my own team on Redemption Island.” I stood up. “And a seaplane to keep out there and take us back and forth.”
“Danny, I don’t—”
“It’s nonnegotiable, and I know you can do it if you want to. It’s one plane. You want me involved in leading this place and keeping things in line, I need to know you have my back. I believe I’ve proved I have yours.” The governor was still listening. “I want six men and the designation of Blake as my lieutenant. I’ll train him myself, and he’ll be my responsibility.”
“Anything else?”
I was still waiting for the objection that hadn’t come. “Matter of fact…this team of mine is exclusively under my control. I answer to you, but they don’t. I need my guys to be protected and to have carte blanche to do what they need to do whenever they need to do it.”
“Like ‘Hawaii Five-O,’ is that what you’re saying?”
“Sure,” I nodded, hoping I wasn’t going too far with this. “Works for me.”
The governor walked over to the window and looked up at the sky. “Danny, you need to know I have your back. Baker is going to hate this idea.” He looked back at me. “Let me think about it, okay?” As I opened my mouth to object, Barnes waved me off. “Okay, hang on. If you promise you will continue to back me as I’m backing you, I’ll green-light all of it—everything you asked for. You don’t question me. I won’t question you…okay? It has to work both ways. Absolute trust.” I was nodding, so the governor continued. “I need you to understand one more thing though.”
Here it comes. But it didn’t.
“I don’t have a fancy car for you to drive around.”
Not at all what I was expecting. I smiled. “Darn.”
“And if you’re Danno, then is Blake—”
“No, sir.” I laughed, grimacing at the resulting pain in my rib cage. “Don’t confuse my given name with our roles in this. I’m in charge.”
“Okay. So, who do you want?”
I requested the two Navy SEALs from the lost platoon, Trigger and Twix; the two Army Rangers who had stood up to Baker, Deacon and Royce; a former Air Force pilot and paratrooper—who was also vocal in the meetings—Dane “Axel” Axelrod; and a local Air Force technology instructor—a genius—and friend of Blake and Kaci’s, Keena Malikalani.
“But you know she’s a—”
“A she?” I smiled. I hadn’t taken the governor as a sexist. “Yes, I know. But she’s the most tech-savvy person I’ve ever met, and Blake trusts her.”
“Okay then. No problem. Consider it done.” The governor shook my hand.
There was a knock on the door, and I opened it. Deacon and Royce stood there with all their gear. “What do you need from us, sir?” Deacon asked.
“You’re coming with me, guys. Thank you, Governor. I’d appreciate a transcript of every meeting Baker has from here on out. However you have to do it, make sure someone you trust is with him at all times. This mission is critical to all of our futures, whether they succeed or not.”
“Don’t make me regret this.” Barnes placed his hand firmly on my shoulder which suddenly felt very connected to my ribs.
“Don’t worry, sir.” I winced. “I won’t.”
We picked up Axel, Trigger, and Twix on our way to the marina to find our plane. Then Axel flew us all out to Redemption Island.
---------- (Wednesday. July 20, 2022.) ----------
----- (Ryan) -----
That had been nearly two months ago. Baker, as expected, fought the even split of troops. In the end, the decision was listed as “voluntary.” Right. Whoever wanted to go with Baker could. Whoever wanted to stay with Danny—as homeland security—could. Fifty-nine people joined Baker; thirty-five stayed in Hawaii with Homeland Security—with Danny.
Baker and his fifty-nine men had spent the past eight weeks training the 288 volunteers who would be operating the aircraft carrier. Those 348 people would have their hands full, considering a typical carrier crew exceeded 5,500—and those crews usually trained for years. This was the very definition of a skeleton crew.
The target date for shipping out was August 1, twelve days from now. The head count in Cheyenne Mountain was down to thirty-six—three more lost to the flu—and now that the general had connected with us he was growing more and more impatient. Captain Baker didn’t need any more prodding, but the general was verbally poking him anyway.
To all of us on Redemption, the general’s apparent need for self-preservation was disturbing. As a five-star general it didn’t make sense for him to be asking Baker and his men to do this, to risk so many lives for so few. The twenty-one months in the bunker had surely compromised his sense of reason—and perhaps even his sanity. The Pack—the six people Danny had handpicked to bring out to the island—was in complete agreement on that. There was almost no way to execute this plan well enough, no way to come out ahead. But even more disturbing was Baker’s desire to make a name for himself with this mission—to be the hero—and his naïve assertion that he and his men were enough on their own to pull this off. SEALs were gladiators, no doubt, but most of the ones Danny knew were rational as well. Rational was definitely not an accurate descriptor of this madman.
Whatever the case, we were glad Danny wasn’t going to be a part of this rescue attempt, although we were curious to see how the mission unfolded over the next month. If all went as planned, the rescue team would be back in Hawaii before September. But if everything went as we expected, they’d never come back. Then what?
FIVE – The Prisoner
---------- (Wednesday. July 20, 2022.) ----------
Fort Morro Prison. San Juan, Puerto Rico
A guard banging his nightstick on the bars, announcing breakfast, woke Eddie up, but he didn’t move. He remained seated in the corner, hidden in the shadows, far from the room’s only window and light. A metal tray was tossed into his cell through a slot in the door. He watched it clatter across the cold concrete toward his feet, spilling the hockey-puck biscuit and brown soggy rice. Rats scrambled from the darkness for his food, and he let them take it. He never ate breakfast here.
This dark musty hole in San Juan—a former Puerto Rican tourist trap—had been his home for the past fifty-one weeks and three days. His captors had never once let him leave—he hadn’t even been outside. Best as he could tell there were only twenty guards here, and he’d overheard one of them say there were a hundred or so prisoners. Who else would they be keeping here? Supposedly, ther
e were three other similar prisons on the island, and an officer headquarters an hour west of here. But that was it for Puerto Rico.
He stood slowly and stretched his massive six-foot-seven frame, his limbs spreading like thick branches across the narrow room. He kicked a rat that got a little too close and took a few slow steps to the latrine under the cell’s only window. As he relieved himself, his eyes scanned the horizon. Nothing but blue sky and clear Caribbean waters. He sighed and shook his head. Same old, same old. A woman’s scream echoed down the hallway. Then another. The guards were back at it. He wondered if any of them had ever had consensual sex. Doubtful.
As long as it wasn’t Mali. He and his wife had been flown here together from Lake Powell, and that was the last he’d seen of her. He knew she was here somewhere—supposedly his girls were too—and the Mexican general had assured him they wouldn’t be touched, but Eddie didn’t know if he should believe anything that man said. Eddie should have killed him when he had the chance. Eddie had no doubt the general, likewise, wanted him dead. It seemed unimaginable that any better fate awaited him, no matter what he had been promised. But something wasn’t right. What were they waiting for? No one visited him here. No one talked to him. Why did they even need him alive?
He sat on the cot and closed his eyes, his mind drifting off to his brother, as it did daily. Had Lazzo ever made it to Hawaii? Eddie had never heard. He’d pleaded for any information, good or bad, but had always been ignored. Was it possible at all that he was still alive? And what about that envelope he’d handed to Lazzo before he flew the Americans away? What was in it? No one had told him anything. But someone was coming to see him today. Today, he’d been told, was a big day.
---------- (Same Morning in Hawaii.) ----------
----- (Lazzo) -----
Today was a big day. Lazzo stepped out of his cool dark room and into the light breezy hallway of the Big House. He looked around. Nothing on the horizon but clear blue sky and the glistening waters of the Pacific. He smiled. Same old, same old. If only Eddie were here. His older brother would love this place. Lazzo crossed the bridge to the bathhouse, took a quick shower, and headed downstairs to see what everyone else was doing.
He met Hayley on the stairs. “Hey, Hayley.”
“It sounds like you’re stuttering when you say that, Laz.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
Hayley laughed. “You going to Oahu with us later?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to. But not really feeling well.”
“That sucks.” She gently patted Lazzo’s shoulder and continued up the stairs. “Have some of Cotter’s coffee. That will perk you up.”
“The British don’t know how to make coffee, man.” Lazzo laughed. “That stuff tastes like—”
“Yo,” Royce hollered up the stairs. “There’s a kid down here. Or I’d have already shut you up.”
“Don’t worry, Lazzo,” Hayley called back. “Royce is just messing with you.”
“The hell I am.”
“Cotter!” Deacon scolded. “The kid…”
Abbey was giggling at this point. “I’ve heard you guys say much worse.”
“Sorry.” Royce shook his head. He glared at Lazzo but offered him a cup of coffee anyway. Lazzo accepted it.
Hayley stuck her head over the railing. “Where is everyone else?”
Deacon pointed out at the water. “Danny’s out there with Emily and Six. Trigger and Twix, too. Axel and Sam went over to Kauai for wood and rope with Blake and your grandfather. Kate, Reagan, and Jenna are over at Kaci’s with Keena.”
“And Dad?”
“Ryan was just here. Not sure where he went. I leave anyone out?”
“You forgot Dice,” Abbey chimed in.
“Ah, yes.” Deacon smiled. “The dog. The other dog. Dice went with the girls. It’s a lot of people to keep track of.”
“And dogs.”
“Yes, Abbey, and dogs.” Deacon flashed her a goofy grin.
“Tell me about it,” Hayley answered. “When are we going to Oahu? I’m ready to shop.”
“Soon as Axel brings the plane back,” Royce replied.
--------------------
Axel landed the plane in Redemption’s cove about an hour later. Those going to Oahu had gathered there—thirteen people, including Axel. Only Reagan, Lazzo, Tara, and Ollie were staying at the island. The plane could safely hold eight people, so Axel took two trips. The Pack—Danny, Blake and the selected six—had a meeting at the Hexagon. Everyone else was heading to Pearl Harbor to shop the supply freighter that had arrived from Australia this morning. This was the one opportunity—every month or two—to stock up on books, groceries, and other supplies. It was rare anyone chose to skip it.
Navigating the freighters to Hawaii was tricky. It took roughly three weeks for each ship to get here through enemy-watched—and pirate-infested—waters. The first thousand miles, ships were safe—inside the friendly Australian security net—and the last thousand miles, they were in our coverage area. But the ten or eleven days—and 2,500 plus open miles—in between were unprotected and indefensible. They had to get lucky. They had to catch the pirates off guard.
From the Hexagon, intelligence officers did their best to monitor the open space, intercepting messages between enemy ships, launching “hot pockets”—rockets with beacons—to lure the enemy ships away, then maneuvering the freighters through enemy radar zones. Even still, the odds of a successful crossing were still barely fifty-fifty. Our own communication was easy to intercept, and the freighters weren’t exactly speedy. We’d lost a dozen or so ships heading each direction since we’d connected with Australia, including one leaving Hawaii filled with American survivors and one coming the other way with allied soldiers. As a result, for the time being, we’d stopped moving people and focused more on importing the essentials—food, fuel, medical supplies, and water.
SIX – Area 52 (Danny)
---------- (Wednesday. July 20, 2022.) ----------
There was a rickety staircase clinging to Oahu’s Pu’ukeahiakahoe Mountain known as the Haiku Stairs—or Stairway to Heaven. The stairs were completed in 1942, and a radio transceiver was added at the summit of the 2,500-foot ascent—overlooking Kaneohe Bay—for aerial and nautical communication purposes. When the Hexagon opened at the mountain’s base in 2019—twenty miles from Hickam Air Force Base and Pearl Harbor—the government fenced off the entire mountain and installed guard posts every 250 yards with remote motion-controlled high-powered rifles and radar grids locking the entire area down. To the casual observer the security system appeared unmanned—a technological marvel. In truth, operatives in the Hexagon monitored it 24/7.
The security system had been the source of controversy locally, as many a trespassing person had attempted—unsuccessfully—to survive the climb to the top. Murdering mountain climbers seemed a bit extreme but the government wanted to make it clear that it took national security seriously. Safer to be an international terrorist than a backpacking tourist, I guess.
In all fairness, the government had sufficient reason for wanting to eliminate access to Pu’ukeahiakahoe’s peak. The old war transceiver had not only been rebuilt but also fortified. It was now the heart of the Hawaiian islands’ Shield defense system. If anyone manually disconnected the power at the top, or destroyed the transceiver altogether, the islands would be unable to defend themselves. No one knew that secret kryptonite, of course, except the governor, Reagan, and me—via the Elephant Box—and the four Department of Defense operatives who had been on duty during the chemical attacks. Those operatives were now solely responsible for Pu’ukeahiakahoe’s nonstop observation and maintenance. Though not official military personnel, they were some of the world’s most advanced electronic techies—a digital task force (DTF). They never left the Hexagon—ever—and no one other than the governor, Reagan, and I even knew who they were. In fact—supposedly—no one else alive even knew their wing in the Hexagon existed.
That h
ad changed a month ago when I took the Pack in. I wanted them to understand the entirety of the defense system, and for the operatives to know they had additional security if they ever needed it—even if we were a hundred miles away most of the time. Each member of the Pack and the governor was given a custom built solar-powered tablet and modernized waterproof communication pager—courtesy of the DTF—that looked like a dog tag. We all wore them around our necks. One side of the pager was metal, the other obsidian, and the tag could slide perfectly into a port on the tablet. Once a tag was inserted into a tablet, we could read the daily intel reports from the Hexagon, and send private messages to each other that only the designated recipient could read.
There were ten sets of tablets and dog tags in all—eight for us, one for Barnes and one that stayed in the Hexagon. Each dog tag also had a tracker that could provide GPS coordinates of any Pack member, the governor, or the Hexagon’s carrying team member, as long as they had it on them. If any of us were in trouble, we needed to put a thumb on the obsidian side for ten seconds and it would cause all of the other pagers to vibrate in alarm. For any of the other nine to find the one in trouble, we simply had to plug the dog tag into the slot on the solar tablet and the respective names would pop up on the screen—the troubled one in red, the others in green. Tap on one and we’d see where that individual was at that exact minute. That was the kind of toys these geniuses came up with in this wing.
Their wing was a techno-geek’s heaven—walls and walls of computers and screens with video feeds from all over the island. As it was intended that the DTF never leave, there was also a medical laboratory, a lap pool, gymnasium, library, kitchen, and private deck. They placed weekly orders through the governor for whatever they needed, and the supplies were left in a dual-entry safe down the hall—incidentally, also the only entrance to this wing. The governor referred to their wing as “Area 52.” Their property defense system could, in fact, operate unmanned, but the Digital Task Force—two men and two women—remained there just in case, at least one of them always on watch. The guns could lock on a trespasser independently—and the warning alarms would sound—but one of the four DTF members had to hit the fire button. That was the fail-safe—the last resort.
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