Leviathan: An Event Group Thriller

by David L. Golemon

  “I guess they’re well informed,” Ryan whispered to Mendenhall.

  “Now, Dr. Compton, please, Captain.”

  Everett knew he had to make his play. The sniper in the lighthouse would take the man standing next to the boat, hopefully wounding him, and a two-man team in the water would take the hostage. There was only one man, so taking a prisoner was no longer an option. He felt as if he were betraying a trust, but a presidential order had been given, and no matter the distaste, it was now his duty. He raised his wrist to his mouth.

  “Team one, execute.” He closed his eyes, expecting the lone shot that would signal the rescue attempt.

  The man in front of him laughed. He reached into the boat, pulled the seated man to his feet, and helped him over the gunnels of the boat.

  Everett pulled his weapon and pointed it at the man. Will and Ryan followed suit. The effect of having three guns on him seemed lost on the large man, who looked at the three Event Group security men but continued to assist the second man to shore.

  “Perhaps you better signal the HRT unit again, Captain.”

  Everett knew that although the man stated his faction didn’t play games, he was being toyed with nonetheless. He lowered his weapon.

  A whistle sounded in the fog from behind them. Then, from high above them, something whistled down from the top of the lighthouse. It smacked into the sand at Everett’s feet. He stepped back when he saw it was upper torso body armor. He knew it to be the style he had seen the HRT suiting up with earlier.

  Ryan turned around when a noise sounded behind him. Immediately, several red dots sprinkled his bulletproof vest. As he looked up, he saw black shapes coming through the swirling fog, and each carried a laser-sighted weapon. Some were aimed at Ryan, but the bulk were centered on Mendenhall and Everett’s backs.

  “Captain, we have company.”

  Without turning around, Everett placed his nine-millimeter into his waistband and pulled the coat over it, knowing they themselves had been ambushed instead of the other way around. He heard the sound of the fourteen ground members of the HRT unit as fifty men in black wet-suits pushed them roughly from the fog.

  “Disappointing, but expected, Captain.” The man looked around as the fog started to lift around them. “The FBI unit are all intact. A little embarrassed, maybe, but that will pass eventually.”

  “You didn’t really expect us to treat whoever you are as honorable people, did you? Your actions against helpless vessels and shore installations don’t speak well for you.”

  “We understand you were under orders from your president, Captain. We knew he wouldn’t chance losing Dr. Compton. As for the attacks, those were acts of war, sir; you of all people should know the difference. Now, you have played out a losing hand with your deceptive actions regarding the FBI.”

  “The president was acting in the best interest of the country, and would—”

  “However,” the man said, cutting Everett’s point off. “We will still keep our end of the bargain and release your Group member, to once again show good faith. Do not disappoint my captain again, or the American people will suffer beyond measure. Please, I implore you; have Dr. Compton, and any member of his department he wishes to accompany him, at McCarran airport in Las Vegas in three days. His transport will be at charter gate five at ten A.M. Heed this warning, Captain.”

  Suddenly the man released the hostage and returned to his boat. He and it backed away silently into the fog until once more the mist enveloped them.

  The hooded man collapsed to his knees into the water; the small breakers started lapping at his thighs. Carl turned quickly and saw the wetsuited assault team had also vanished. The HRT unit was still there, still tied, and kneeling in the sand.

  Everett turned and ran to the water to help the unknown person to his feet. Carl could feel the bulk under the black coverall and knew it to be a man. The hostage had a black hood on his head, and seemed weak as he struggled to stay upright. Everett hustled the man to the black limousine, removed the hood, and without looking any further, shoved him quickly into the backseat, telling the driver, Staff Sergeant Rodriguez, to watch him. He then turned and ran to assist the agents.

  As Everett was cutting the plastic wire-tie off one of them, he turned and looked back at the fog-shrouded sea. With the exception of the breakers, all was quiet.

  As he turned back to the task of releasing the agents, Everett heard a loud explosion of water. When he turned toward the sound, his eyes widened. He saw the topmost section of a submarine’s stern fins sinking beneath the waves through the swirling remnants of fog. He straightened as he saw the three-story-high, sharklike rudders vanish, and then watched in awe as the amazing craft displaced several thousand tons of water on its way back out to sea.

  “That son of bitch must have been in place long before we arrived.” Ryan didn’t look up as he freed the last of the agents, and didn’t see the nightmare vision Everett had seen even as another giant surge of water pushed up on shore.

  Everett stood and started for the car when he saw a small man in an FBI windbreaker come toward him. At his side was the sniper from the lighthouse. He recognized the agent in charge.

  “I wasn’t briefed on just who you people are, but your little meeting was compromised, and it had to come from your end. These people knew we would be here. Can you explain that?” The agent made the mistake of grabbing Carl’s arm.

  Ryan and Mendenhall reacted immediately, pulling the agent away before the captain had a chance to react. They had seen Carl confronted before, and knew that sometimes he acted first and then thought about a situation later.

  “Get your hands off of me. I want an answer,” the agent said, looking from Will to Ryan.

  “Look, we don’t know if the meet was compromised; they may have just had the game rigged from the beginning. They set this spot up, not us,” Ryan said as he held the agent back.

  “Fucking amateurs,” the man said as he shook off Ryan’s hands and then turned toward his men.

  “He’s right; someone told them that the FBI would be here.” Everett tried to calm himself. He knew the agent in charge was only mad because his hostage rescue team had been placed in harm’s way and left out to dry, just because someone on the Group’s end couldn’t keep their mouth shut.

  “Whoever it is that’s screwing with us almost cost the lives of a lot of people tonight,” Mendenhall said as he watched the angry FBI unit start to assemble and make their way off the beach.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Everett said as he looked one last time back out into the Atlantic, where the vision of what couldn’t have been cornered his thoughts.

  The three men walked to the limousine and saw that Sergeant Rodriguez was kneeling on the backseat with the door open.

  “How’s our guest, Sergeant?” Mendenhall asked as they approached.

  Rodriguez stepped back out of the car and looked at the three men, shaking his head.

  “You’re not going to fucking believe this,” he said, looking from face to face as he moved out of their way.

  Inside the limo, the dome lights were on. A big man sat reposed in the backseat with his head back and his face turned away from them. As Everett stepped up to the open door, he leaned down and touched the man on the leg.

  “How are you doing?”

  The man slowly turned his head. Everett, who was standing on the balls of his feet, lost his balance as he recognized the face immediately. He had a six-week growth of beard and looked pale in the false light of the car, and his eyes were heavily bloodshot, but Everett would have known this man anywhere, in any condition.

  “I’ll be damned, you tough-to-kill son of a bitch!”

  Ryan and Mendenhall exchanged a look as Everett straightened and then pulled the man from the car and hugged him.

  “Jack!”

  Carl pushed Colonel Jack Collins at arm’s length as Ryan and Mendenhall joined him in a dreamlike sequence that none of them could possibly have
ever imagined.

  Jack blinked his eyes and tried to focus on the faces in front of him. His hair, although combed straight back, was longer than Collins had ever worn it, but the eyes—those were still the same as they bore first into Everett’s and then roamed to Ryan and Will. His lips moved, but no words came.

  “Jack!” Carl said, giving Collins’s shoulders a small shake until his eyes refocused on the captain’s.

  “The sea,” Jack mumbled as his eyes locked with Carl’s, and then the gaze changed and his head looked around him. “They said I was dead.” He suddenly looked back at Everett.

  “How in the hell is he here?” Will asked, swallowing.

  “Goddamn, those people must have been there.” Everett turned and looked at Mendenhall. “They must have saved him, pulled him from the water,” Everett answered, laughing for the first time in weeks. “Oh no, you’re not dead, Jack, you’re going home.” He tried to turn the colonel toward the open door when Jack pulled his arm free and stared at Everett.

  “The sea,” he said again, closing his eyes and swaying as Carl reached out and steadied him. Jack opened his eyes when his dizziness passed and focused on the three men once more. His eyes darted back to Everett and narrowed. “Mr…. Everett.”

  “That’s right, Jack. Will and Jason are here, too.”

  Jack’s eyes went to the two men standing beside the captain.

  “Will, Ryan … I tried to hold on … and I did …”

  “Hold on to what, Colonel?” Mendenhall asked, feeling creepy about this whole thing. It was like conversing with a ghost at the very least.

  Jack took a step back until he fell into the limo’s rear seat and hung his head. It looked as though he was trying hard to remember something. He slowly looked up at the expectant faces.

  “Sarah.” That single name coming from his mouth explained all. The three officers exchanged a look. “She’s dead, someone shot her?” he asked, looking like his world was gone, as if he had failed her.

  Everett knelt by the open door and placed a hand on Collins’s leg. He tried to smile but failed.

  “Let’s go home, buddy. We need to explain a few things to you.”

  THE ATLANTIC OCEAN, 100 MILES

  OFF THE NEW JERSEY COAST

  The control room was dark, and the men and women were silent in deference to the somber mood of the great vessel. On the surface, the radar mast and antennas broke the clean lines of the calm sea, slicing through the water as a sharpened scythe through wheat, their stealthy design broken by sharp angles.

  “No airborne or surface contacts at this time, Captain. Sonar reports the signatures of three Los Angeles and one Virginia class submarine close-aboard, but are not deemed threats. They cannot pick us up. Stealth has been achieved.”

  On the darkened, raised platform at the center of the control room, the captain nodded and gestured toward the weapons station.

  The first officer approached the raised pedestal and leaned in close to his captain. He looked around him, then lowered his voice.

  “Captain, you know I have never once questioned your orders.”

  The captain smiled and looked down on a man she had known since her childhood. “I suspect that precedent is about to be broken.”

  “Ma’am, you had planned on delivering ultimatums to all countries before any attacks began.” He looked around him once more, making sure all hands were attending their stations. “Now we’ve sunk four vessels and attacked two nations. Why have we stepped up offensive operations before these countries find out why we’re doing it? This isn’t like you at all, and—”

  She looked down, and her bright blue eyes, dilated as they were, stayed the first officer’s words.

  “Apologies, Captain, I—”

  “You have other concerns, James?”

  “Why are you insisting on bringing strangers aboard? The attack on the complex achieved your goal.”

  “We have to know exactly what knowledge these people have on us.”

  “Captain, our asset inside their Group confirms they know nothing. Sergeant Tyler and his security department have been screaming about the unnecessary risk of what you are—”

  The captain’s piercing eyes settled on the first officer, and he could only nod his head.

  “James, the ploy to lure their top security men from their posts worked.” She looked around the control center and saw that her seamen were doing their jobs. Only Yeoman Alvera had turned from her station to watch the captain. “Now we can better coerce the people I need to come onboard with minimum bloodshed; isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I just—”

  “Vertical tubes six through twelve are flooded, birds are warm,” the weapons officer called out.

  “Captain, the boat reports all stations ready for launch,” the first officer said after being cut off by the announcement. He turned away from the raised platform and examined the holographic board in front of him.

  The captain nodded her approval, then closed her eyes.

  “All hands stand by for vertical launch. Tubes six through twelve, Operation Cover Four has been ordered to commence. Navigation, once tubes have been emptied, take the boat to four thousand feet at flank speed, then steer a course south at seventy-five knots. We will take up station in the gulf before dawn.”

  “Aye, sir,” both navigation and weapons called out from their stations.

  “Permission for weapons release, Captain?” the first officer asked, watching the still figure in her chair. Her not talking was a bad sign—he knew migraine headaches had begun to plague her the last few weeks.

  Once more, there was just a simple nod of her head from the raised platform.

  “Weapons officer, launch vertical tubes six through twelve in numerical order,” the first officer ordered, looking at the captain with worry.

  A hundred feet aft of the great streamlined conning tower, six of the forty-six vertical launch tubes opened to the sea. Suddenly large, explosive water slugs ejected six sixteen-foot-long, black, streamlined missiles with no telltale maneuvering fins. Now airborne and clear of the water, their solid booster rocket fired and sent the six missiles skyward. Once they reached an altitude of twenty thousand feet, they started a slow turn to the west and then picked up speed, still climbing. They would soon reach three times the speed of sound as they headed for the interior of the United States.

  Far below the sea, the giant vessel dove at an amazing rate of speed, slowly ramping up to more than seventy knots. Then she dipped her nose and dove even deeper, where no American warship could ever hope to follow.

  The great vessel set her course due south for the Gulf of Mexico, and part two of Operation Cover Four.

  Twenty-two radar stations, warships, National Space Command, and U.S. early-warning satellites warned of a massive missile strike over the United States, and all started tracking the assault. Soon more than a hundred warplanes on the eastern seaboard and the Midwest lifted free of the earth, in pursuit of what were deemed cruise missiles, as they plowed their way through the stratosphere, heading west.

  PART TWO

  THE SEA CHASE

  I have strived to meet my kind with open arms of shared brotherhood, but alas, the distance to cover is too great, the wounds too deep, and the memory of brutality too sharp and clear. So all I will ask my former brethren is to leave me to my sea.

  —Roderick Deveroux,

  former condemned prisoner,

  Château d’If, France

  6

  NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE,

  NEVADA

  The four VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft suddenly went low to the ground. Their unique design was far stealthier than anything the Americans or Russians had on their drafting boards. Instead of being propeller driven, like the Marine Corps V-22 Osprey, these craft utilized a twin-engine turbojet.

  When the four tilt-jet aircraft came within ten feet of the ground, their ground radar computers took over the flying, avoid
ing the many bumps and telephone wires crisscrossing the desert around the air force base. From the underbellies of each of the assaulting planes a small dish popped free and sent out a stream of microwaves that went invisibly toward the control center of one of the most advanced air force bases in the world.

  The control tower sitting high above the airstrip suddenly went dark. All radar screens died within a microsecond of one another. Down below in the command and control area, the phone lines went out and their screens ceased to function. Traffic control was dead, as well as any response the base could muster. It seemed an eternity until the emergency generators kicked in, but in the three seconds it took for the circuit to be made, the attacking aircraft were already past them and down on ground level, beyond their radar search.

  The four strange-looking craft overshot the darkened runways at Nellis and turned north toward the old firing range that hadn’t been used since 1945—their target: the hidden underground complex of the Event Group.

  EVENT GROUP COMPLEX,

  NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA

  Pete Golding had been working eighteen straight hours. He had been back and forth with Europa since the security lockdown was initiated. Several technicians were still inside the darkened computer center, but three of the six were dozing; the soft drone of Pete’s voice trying to be as patient as possible with the supercomputer had lulled them to sleep. Once more, he went at Europa.

  “Okay, let’s try this again. Let us assume that a security breach from outside the complex occurred at the same moment the breach message was initiated. Is it possible you missed a back door in your programming, perhaps designed by your original program team at Cray?”

  “Not possible, Dr. Golding. The internal algorithm ciphering my security program would have been disturbed, thus setting off my shutdown protocols.”

  Pete rubbed a hand over his balding head. “So, what you’re saying is that it would have been impossible to have received the message without a door being left open from inside the complex, with the validation of a departmental manager?”