Field of Valor

by Matthew Betley

  Evan tilted the minisub at an angle, and the vehicle shot upward toward the surface, the environment gaining clarity as they climbed. The RHIB was completely visible as the underwater vehicle closed in on its prey.

  This must be what Jaws felt like . . . if a shark had feelings, John thought, as the front of the right and left ballast tanks slammed into the underside of the RHIB with crumpling results.

  The viewing bubble was filled with swirling water as the RHIB was lifted up and against the side of the luxury yacht. John manipulated the joysticks as he glanced from the water to the holographic image. A figure suddenly appeared in the water in front of them, weighted down with military gear. The right mechanical arm lashed out, and John closed the clamps down on the figure’s right ankle. Gotcha.

  A second struggling figure appeared in the chaos, upside down. Must have fallen backward off the boat.

  John pushed up on the second joystick, the vise grip opening as it drew closer to the flailing figure. With nothing more than lethal luck, the steel claw closed on the figure’s neck.

  “Dive backward now,” John said. “We’ll drown ’em.”

  A moment later, the minisub disengaged from the RHIB, and John watched as they dragged their two captives deeper into the bay. The men realized what was happening, and they struggled wildly, kicking the mechanical arms that held them. A black combat boot bounced off the glass windshield with a dull squeak, and the Kevlar helmet fell off the man held at the neck, plummeting into the dark below.

  “This is not how I would want to go,” John said, empathy washing over him like the dark waters of the bay as the two men’s struggles began to subside.

  “I know, but they brought this on themselves,” Evan said. “It’ll be over soon.”

  “Shooting a man is one thing—and I’ve shot plenty—but this is something else entirely,” John said, and exhaled, as if trying to clear his conscience.

  Moments later, it was over, and John released both bodies, which slowly began to sink into the depths below.

  “Okay. Now for the final blow,” Evan said, and aimed the minisub back toward the surface.

  * * *

  “Are you sure about this?” PFC Williams shouted into his headset over the din of the rotors and the weather outside. He sat in the passenger compartment of the Bell 407 police helicopter, looking down through the open door, which he’d slid aside as soon as they’d arrived on station. Secured to the ceiling of the bird with a harness, he surveyed the surreal scene below him.

  An enormous luxury yacht was dead in the water, a small RHIB rocked in the water next to its stern, and to top it off, something from out of an old black-and-white monster movie from beneath the surface was attacking the smaller boat, pushing it repeatedly against the hull of the yacht. And I thought Iraq was a nightmare. Four armed gunmen in black tactical gear stood on the lowest level of the yacht, firing into the churning water. Completing the picture of utter chaos were the two figures on the interconnected system of walkways, weapons aimed at the back of the yacht.

  “Do it, Williams. That’s an order,” Corporal Taggert stated.

  “From who?” PFC Williams asked. “We have no idea who’s who in the zoo down there.”

  “Goddamnit, Williams. From the FBI director himself, the one who just called me directly and said, ‘All armed subjects on the yacht are hostile. Eliminate them at all costs.’ Is that good enough for you?” the helicopter’s pilot asked sarcastically as he brought the bird around to provide his copilot—and only shooter—the clearest line of sight.

  PFC Williams, a combat veteran and former Marine, understood orders. He’d taken his fair share of them in Iraq, often questioning them—as junior Marines were trained to do—until the commander’s intent was made clear. Occasionally, there wasn’t time for discussion, and the burden of command rested with his superior officers. He realized this was one of those times, and without hesitation, he opened fire on the four gunmen, praying he was doing the right thing, but doing it nonetheless.

  Apparently the two men onshore had the same orders, for as PFC Williams fired at the unknown enemy, so did the two men on the walkways. Is that a freaking grenade launcher? he thought in surprise, but kept firing at his targets.

  * * *

  As soon as Logan had hung up the phone with Jake, having explained the situation in twenty seconds as he and Jack had worked their way down a staircase on the other side of the master suite opposite the elevator, he’d raided the security office, reloaded the grenade launcher, and hustled outside, praying he was in time to help John and his new friends, leaving Jack to catch up.

  Shockingly, air support had actually arrived in time, and as Logan lined up the scope of the grenade launcher on the back of the yacht, gunfire erupted from the side of the police helicopter. Good job, Jake.

  Logan pulled the trigger, and the first grenade arced through the air, sizzling through the drizzle at the back of the yacht. Too low. The 40mm projectile slid into the open launch compartment at water level and detonated inside, shaking the rear of the boat.

  Jack had joined the gunfight, opening fire from the walkway above Logan with an M4 he’d picked up in the mansion.

  Logan elevated the launcher and pulled the trigger a second time.

  Thwump!

  This time, he instinctively knew his aim was true, and he smoothly pulled the trigger four more times.

  I think that should do it, Logan thought, and stood up to watch as the barrage of grenades struck the back of the yacht in quick succession.

  Boom-ba-ba-ba-boom!

  The remaining four attackers never had a chance. Two of the men were blown in half, splashing the wooden deck and white rails with buckets of blood. The other two amphibious raiders were propelled forward over the back of the railing—two grenades had landed right behind them—and landed in big splashes, disappearing moments later into the rough water.

  The echoes of the explosions reverberated across the bay, disappearing into the sheets of rain and wind, leaving only the sounds of the helicopter in the aftermath of the battle.

  Logan looked up and waved at the pilot, who held up his left hand in acknowledgment. Logan pointed from the helicopter to the house and then to the ground, hoping his charade skills conveyed his meaning—land at the helipad behind the house.

  Moments later the helicopter rotated toward the mansion and the pilot pushed the cyclic lever forward, moving the bird toward the mansion’s property. Message received.

  “Jack, you still alive?” Logan asked as the retired general worked his way down the walkways.

  “So far. Thanks for your concern,” Jack responded drily.

  “Uh-huh,” Logan said, and ran toward the end of the pier to get a closer look at the carnage. The first wail of sirens reached his ears, which he knew would be followed by a cavalcade of police and emergency vehicles.

  Christ. The parkway and museum yesterday; this today. The Founder and his enemies had turned DC and suburban Maryland into a war zone, and Logan had a sinking feeling the war wasn’t close to ending. The press is going to have a field day with this mess.

  * * *

  Logan stood at the end of the pier, rain washing the blood from his right hand and arm. He’d slung the grenade launcher across his back; the M4 Commando lay across his chest. His Kimber Tactical II and Mark II fighting knife were back in their assigned positions, and he hoped there’d be no more bloodshed for the day.

  The minisub had surfaced on the starboard side of the yacht, and Logan watched as the two encapsulated figures moved closer to the pier like a glass-encased water monster. He suddenly had a flashback to the crocodile in the Nile River—larger than the minisub; he shuddered at the recollection—that had killed and eaten the director of Sudan’s internal security. I’ll never, ever forget the sound when it closed its enormous jaws on his head. Thank God I didn’t have to watch. He’d been swimming for his life at the time.

  The minisub pulled alongside the pier, adjacent to a ladde
r that rose from the water to the walkway. Logan nodded at John through the glass, and Evan half crouched behind the pilot’s chair, unlocking the pressurized hatch. Seconds later, the hatch was pushed outward, and the face of the former Delta operator appeared in the opening like a real-life whack-a-mole.

  “Everything good in there?” Logan asked.

  “Yup,” Evan responded nonchalantly. “It was a little intense for a bit, but your friend can tell you all about it. I’m going to offload him, get this bad boy back to the yacht, grab one of the small rubber rafts, and meet you guys ashore. It will be a lot easier than trying to bring this thing to the beach. See you in a few.”

  Evan disappeared out of sight, and John Quick emerged, raising himself from the confines of the minisub.

  “You have a nice dinner cruise?” Logan asked deadpan.

  “Actually, no,” John said, surprisingly serious. Even in the face of death and destruction, his irreverent sense of humor was usually present. “We used this thing to take two of the shooters at least thirty feet down and drown them. Wasn’t fun watching them squirm, suffering with the knowledge they had taken their last breaths. Shooting a man’s one thing. This . . . well, this was something else.”

  Logan looked around at the aftermath and back to the mansion, knowing what lay inside. All this death is starting to take its toll on all of us. This can’t go on forever.

  “I hear you, brother, but I’m still glad it was them and not us, and I always will be.” Logan grabbed John by the forearm, helping him from the top of the minisub as he stepped onto the dock. “Come on. Let’s get out of this mess and inside, where there might be some cover from the rain.”

  “Might be?” John asked.

  “Yeah,” Logan said. “We had a bit of a grenade problem inside.”

  “Jesus Christ, man. I leave you and the general alone for a few minutes, and it’s like the streets of Ramadi all over again. Fucking Marines. Can’t take ’em anywhere. This is why we don’t have nice things.”

  CHAPTER 26

  By twelve o’clock, the Shady Nook compound was swarming with both federal and local law enforcement. Jake Benson had arrived within ninety minutes of the end of the battle, choosing to establish an incident command center in the larger of the multicar garages. The first of several forensics teams had arrived and begun to methodically process the carnage for evidence. Multiple vehicles from DC’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had arrived to transport the dead once the FBI finished examining the bodies. Shady Nook was in Maryland, but the DC medical examiner’s office was more equipped than Anne Arundel County to handle the number of bodies on scene.

  The Anne Arundel County police helicopter that had provided air support had transported Jack Longstreet to Anne Arundel County Medical Center, accompanied by a paramedic and an FBI agent. The bullet was lodged in his shoulder, and he required surgery.

  The last thing he’d said to Logan, Jake, and John as he was loaded onto the helicopter was “Whatever you do, don’t open that flash drive in front of anyone. And I mean anyone. You’re not going to like what’s on it.”

  “We got it, Jack,” Logan said, acknowledging the threat the list on the flash drive posed.

  “Good, because others will come, but I honestly don’t know from where. You’re holding the keys to the castle, albeit a very, very dark one,” Jack said. “Be careful.”

  And with that final warning, the retired general—once a mentor who’d fought alongside Logan and John and Jake’s nephew—had left, leaving the three of them to chart the next course of action.

  “The media has already gathered outside the front gate. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to contain this. Fortunately, we’re the only ones who actually know what’s going on,” Jake said, as the three of them now sat around a table in a private kitchen in the first part of the right wing of the house, which had remained unscathed from the battle.

  “And what do you plan to do about it?” Logan asked. “You’ve got to brief the president. He has to know it’s all connected.”

  “He’s in a series of meetings this afternoon, and then he heads to Atlantic City tomorrow, but I’ve already had my execs arrange a meeting with him this evening. I’m going to be here all afternoon,” Jake said.

  “And what do we do about this?” John asked, holding up the black flash drive. He turned it in his fingers, as if puzzled that something so small could be so powerful and dangerous.

  “Hold on to it. I don’t trust anyone else with it, not even me, right now. Do not open it until you hear from me,” Jake said. “You heard what Jack said about it. I shudder to think who and what’s on it.”

  “Speaking of the good general, what’s going to happen to him?” Logan asked. The former Marine officer had engaged in dozens—if not hundreds—of illegal operations, capping it off with the execution of the head of one of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world, even if that Marine general had been a traitor himself. The moral ramifications made him nauseous. Logan West was accustomed to a much bolder line between black and white, good and evil. It was that line that was supposed to guide his moral compass, especially when it was tested in the darkest of hours. But the line had become translucent, and he felt as though his actions and the events that had occurred were carrying him back and forth along a new spectrum of morality. And he didn’t like it, not for a moment.

  “Honestly, I don’t know. His crimes are such that I don’t know if it does more damage to prosecute him or recruit him. It’s one of the things I need to talk to the president about,” Jake said. “But until then, he’s under guard. Hell, he’s probably under the knife by now, as well. He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Agreed,” Logan said. “Which brings me to my next point: I want to get out of here and back to our HQ. I think we need to press our guest on what happened here,” Logan added, referring to the treasonous former national security advisor, Jonathan Sommers, who had been captured and held in a cell in Ares’ home base for the past six months. “I find it hard to believe he didn’t know anything about Constantine Kallas’ global operations or the enemies he’d acquired.”

  Jake nodded in agreement. “Sounds good to me. You might not hear from me until after I brief the president. If that’s the case, get some rest after you talk to him. You’re going to need it. This isn’t over yet.”

  “It feels like it never is,” John responded. “I feel like I could use a vacation.”

  “Well, if you and Amira do decide to take one, you can cross one thing off that list,” Logan added.

  “What’s that?” John asked hesitantly.

  “Underwater adventures,” Logan said, and smiled.

  “You’re a child,” John said, but laughed anyhow, some of the emotional tension he felt easing away.

  “Negative, my friend. I’ve just been hanging around one for far too long. It’s wearing off on me,” Logan said, a full grin on his face. “Now let’s get out of here. I’m sure traffic on the Beltway will be a nightmare, just to add to the day’s fun.”

  “It’s DC, brother,” John said. “It’s never fun.”

  “You have no idea,” Jake said, reflecting on the cesspool of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats he’d spent his career navigating around. “Get out of my sight, boys. I’ve got work to do.”

  Logan and John looked at each other, stood up from the table, and saluted smartly. “Yes, sir.” They turned about-face and marched toward the door, leaving the director of the FBI to stare after them. They’re going to need that sense of humor to get through what’s coming. God help us all.

  CHAPTER 27

  Task Force Ares Headquarters, Quantico, VA

  Wednesday 1600 Local Time

  Logan sat across the table from Jonathan Sommers in the basement cell, which was in reality a spacious studio apartment, complete with DIRECTV, a bathroom with a shower, a kitchen area, and several bookshelves lined with hardcover and paperback books. It’s nicer than my place in college, Logan thought, whi
ch was true, except for the prison bars and door that had been erected across the width of the underground facility. An HD surveillance camera was mounted in each corner of the basement, providing 24-hour coverage of the sole prisoner. The walls had been soundproofed so that even if someone were standing outside in back of the two-story building and Sommers screamed for help, the person wouldn’t hear a thing.

  While it wasn’t ideal, Jonathan Sommers had realized what the alternative was—death and permanent disappearance.

  In fact and unbeknownst to him, there actually had been a discussion with the president about executing him as a result of his traitorous service and dumping his body in the Potomac. The core members of Ares—Logan, John, Amira, and Cole—had voted for the death penalty, especially in the wake of Mike’s death, but the president had ultimately overruled them. As President Scott had stated, “He deserves death for what he’s done. I won’t deny you that, but there’s something pulling at my conscience to keep him alive for now. Maybe we’ll need him down the line; maybe we won’t. I can always change my mind. I am the commander in chief, after all,” he’d added.

  Logan had to give it to the president. From the moment they’d first met, the leader of the free world—although he wasn’t sure that ideal still existed with everything the task force had uncovered—had been a man of his word, a rarity in the political swamp of Washington DC.

  Even though Sommers didn’t understand how precarious his position was after he’d been spared, he’d adapted to the situation, willingly answering any and all questions about the Recruiter and what he knew about the Organization.

  But regardless of the prisoner’s level of cooperation, Logan and the team knew that a tipping point was at hand with Sommers. The setup at Quantico had been created to be temporary, and Jake Benson was in discussion with the president about how to handle their captive on a permanent basis. Multiple options had been proposed, including a supermax facility. At this point, Logan didn’t care what the resolution was, but one needed to be found, and soon. Between Logan, the rest of his small task force, and several cleared HRT operators, someone was always on duty at HQ to ensure nothing happened to Sommers. It’s like being a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps all over again. The only bright side was I didn’t have Sommers duty on my birthday, but if this keeps up, I’m sure that will change.