Trident's First Gleaming

by Stephen Templin

  “The White House.”

  Chris continued to scan the area for immediate threats. “Mordet said he was going to kill someone special. He must’ve meant the president. We’ve got to stop him.”

  “When Mordet hacked into the Aegis, he left a back door open. I’m into the C&D, but he’s blocking me from the Weapon Control System. I need access to that in order to terminate the launch.”

  “I’m heading to the CIC to shut him down.”

  “What’s the CIC?” Young asked.

  “Combat Information Center. It’s the tactical center of the ship.”

  “I’ll keep trying to shut him down, too,” Young said. “Be careful.”

  “Out.” Chris turned off his phone, zipped it in the bag, and put it back into his thigh pocket.

  He opened a grey hatch, not knowing what would come next but hoping he’d rise to the occasion. He walked forward, aiming his pistol at each danger area, and as he reached the ladder leading up to the CIC, a beastly thug with a submachine gun came down the ladder. The beast lifted his weapon, but Chris squeezed the trigger of his pistol, giving him open-heart surgery. Someone else’s bullets sprayed down the ladder in his direction, and he jumped back to avoid the projectiles.

  “I was expecting you, Chris,” Professor Mordet called from the top of the ladder. “You had me worried for a little while. I thought you might be late for the show, but you are just in time.”

  Submachine guns poked down the ladder as if searching for Chris. His heart rate flicked to full auto, and his palms became slick. He squeezed his pistol tighter. When the first tango appeared, Chris fired, but he missed. He fired again, but the tangos’ weapons withdrew. “Glad to know I’m not late,” Chris said.

  “You cannot stop the rain from falling,” Mordet said. “You can put up an umbrella to keep yourself dry, but others are going to get wet.”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “But you cannot help it. I have already taken over the ship’s Weapon Control System and set it on an automatic program timed to launch two Tomahawk missiles at kickoff of the Redskins-Cowboys game. But you already knew that, didn’t you?” There was a cruel happiness in his tone. “Whether the president attends the game or watches from the White House, the outcome will be the same. The Weapon Control System can no longer be manipulated from the CIC. No one can stop the rain now. Not even you.”

  Chris maneuvered around to a ladder on the port side, hoping to find another way to the CIC, but three men had already descended the steps and declared open season on him. He hastily shot back at them to slow their advance before he ducked out of their line of fire. He had to get there before Mordet’s men trapped him in the passageway athwart ship. He aimed his weapon chest-high as he turned the corner and ran into a tango. The abrupt encounter startled Chris, and he jerked the trigger, but at point-blank range, he didn’t miss. He continued to pull the trigger rapidly: surprise, speed, and violence of action. Point-blank’s body collapsed on the man behind him, and they both fell to the floor. More shuffling noises came from the top of the ladder.

  Meanwhile, the port side gang reached Chris’s passageway and lit up the air around him. He stepped aft, out of their firing lane, but it occurred to him that the portside gang might circle around and trap him, so he went farther aft, returning outside to the quarterdeck, where the OOD and POOW imposters lay dead. Now he had more room to maneuver, but so did the enemy.

  Chris opened a starboard hatch facing aft and went through. When he reached the first ladder, he descended two decks. Blood splatter stained the deck, bulkhead, and overhead. As he changed directions and headed to the bow, toward the CIC, a voice shouted behind him in broken English. “Stop! You, stop!”

  Chris turned into another passageway athwart ship and ran to the port side, desperately clinging to the increasingly impossible hope of sneaking into the CIC and stopping the missiles. He took a ladder up but only ascended one deck before he heard someone coming down the ladder from above. Chris stepped off—to the approaching sound of more tangos.

  41

  _______

  He glanced at his watch: T-minus twenty minutes. He hurried out of the passageway and into the crew’s berthing. His feet stuck to dried blood that covered the deck. Crimson stained the yellow privacy curtains on racks where napping sailors now slept permanently. He followed the blood smears on the deck that led to the lounge. He opened the door and aimed inside—more blood. Three sailors lay dead on the couch, and others were heaped on the floor like refuse. The TV was still on. Those who didn’t have weekend duty and had families were at home, while those with duty and those with no family were on the ship, dead. Anger burned through Chris’s arteries.

  He poked his head out the starboard side of the berthing and looked forward—nothing. Then he checked aft—Professor Mordet’s head was poking out from a passageway, looking the other way. With only a fraction of a second to decide and fury boiling inside, Chris took the shot—and missed.

  Mordet pulled back, then his head—and a submachine gun—reappeared low to the ground. He fired.

  Chris backed into the sailors’ berthing.

  “Ron Hickok taught you Flash-Kill, did he not?” Mordet called.

  “He did. But he refused to teach you. That’s why you killed him. You thought if you ate him, you’d learn.”

  “Très bien, mon ami.”

  “I can’t imagine you killed him in a fair gunfight, and I can’t imagine he’d be taken alive, so how’d he die?”

  “Explosives in his pillow with a pressure detonator,” Mordet said. “It did not take a large amount of explosives; even so, his head blew clean off.”

  Chris’s gut knotted up. “So tell me, after you ate him, what did you learn?”

  “Everything,” Mordet said. “The strength of my belief to launch those missiles is stronger than your strength of belief to stop me.”

  “You didn’t learn Flash-Kill,” Chris replied knowingly.

  “What did you learn?”

  “I learned that people like you are too impressed with their own bullshit.” Chris leaned out of the berthing and fired twice. The first shot caught Mordet in the shoulder, and the second just missed his skull. He made no sound.

  Chris’s pistol was empty, so he ejected the empty magazine and smoothly loaded his last. Then he hurried quietly on the balls of his feet through the berthing. He came out on the port side and rushed through the passageway to an intersection where he faced an athwart passageway and hoped to shoot Mordet in the back, but the professor was gone. Chris could follow the blood trail, but that had probably occurred to Mordet, too, and Mordet could be waiting to greet him.

  As much as he wanted to kill Professor Mordet, it wasn’t his primary objective; preventing the missile launch was. He checked his watch: T-minus five minutes.

  If I can’t reach the CIC to stop the launch, what else can I do?

  On the starboard side, three tangos spotted him, and he blasted at them. They returned fire. Chris was quicker, more accurate, and more mobile. Although he won the gunfight, he’d spent valuable ammo doing it and only had half a magazine left.

  He crept up a nearby ladder. Before he reached the deck above, Mordet appeared on the deck below and fired a burst up at him, missing. The clanging sound and the sparks from each round hitting metal were terrifying. Breathe.

  He pushed onward, clearing the top of the ladder, then turned, aimed below, and squeezed off a two-round burst. In the narrow confines of a passageway armed only with a pistol that was low on ammo, he was trapped. He tried to conserve ammo, but Professor Mordet busted caps at him like the flames of perdition.

  Looking for more space to maneuver or some other tactical advantage, he opened a hatch and stepped outside onto the main deck. One of Mordet’s shots struck Chris’s pistol and knocked it out of his hand. As he bent over to pick it up, Mordet burst through the door.

  Chris picked up his weapon, but Mordet was already pulling the trigger. Chris’s heart sank.


  Click.

  Mordet was out of ammo. Chris aimed and squeezed the trigger. Nothing. Something was wrong with his pistol. He backed away from Mordet to buy enough time to clear his weapon malfunction.

  Professor Mordet seized the moment and charged Chris, who quickly tapped the bottom of the magazine and racked the slide. He reacquired Mordet in his sights and fired. Nothing. Mordet hit Chris like a middle linebacker, and they both landed hard on a cell of the Tomahawk missile’s Vertical Launch System (VLS) imbedded in the deck. The oxygen rushed out of Chris’s lungs.

  Mordet pinned Chris under him and spoke in a trancelike euphoria: “Souls must eat souls, that’s how souls grow.” He opened his mouth.

  “Eat this.” Chris pistol-slapped Mordet on the side of the head, and then Chris rose to his feet.

  Although dazed, Mordet struggled to his feet, too.

  Chris holstered his pistol.

  “You have become weaker, and I have become stronger,” Mordet said. He punched, but Chris sidestepped, caught his wrist with one hand, and pushed his elbow with the other until Mordet’s bone made a sickening snap. He cried out. Chris stomped at an angle on the outside of Mordet’s knee, and the bone sounded off like a firecracker. Mordet screamed as he sank to the deck. Sobbing, he propped himself up with his good arm as he tried to use his good leg to stand.

  Chris side-stomped his standing arm, fracturing it near the elbow and laying him out again. Then Chris picked up Mordet’s good leg and kneeled on the outside of his kneecap until it popped. Mordet shrieked.

  Mordet twisted his head around until he could see his opponent. Tears streamed down Mordet’s face, but he forced a smile. “Now you are going to break my neck?”

  “Now you’re going to realize where you are.”

  Mordet turned his head. He saw he was lying across the ship’s missile launching cells.

  “You can call off the launch,” Chris said. “Or you can fry. It’s your choice.”

  Mordet chuckled. “Bravo, bravo. You do not disappoint. And I promise not to disappoint you. I will feast on the souls of the dead and rise from the ashes like a phoenix.”

  “Before, you said you were the Teumessian fox that can never be caught. Now you say you’re a phoenix about to rise from the ashes. Which are you?”

  Mordet seemed puzzled.

  “Are you the fox or the bird?” Chris asked.

  Mordet stammered, “I-I-I’m…”

  “You’re a fool. Soon to be a cremated fool.”

  An alarm sounded overhead from a PA system. “What’s that?” Mordet asked.

  “The incinerator is about to fire up,” Chris said.

  Mordet’s voice became unsteady. “You cannot destroy me!” Mordet’s voice trembled. “I am as physically and mentally strong as you!”

  “Your strength is in hell,” Chris said.

  A missile hatch opened next to Professor Mordet.

  Chris ran to the side of the ship. The air scorched his feet as he jumped over the rail. Professor Mordet squealed like a wild boar being roasted alive. Chris dove into Mother Ocean and swam underwater. The roar of the missile melted Mordet’s squeal.

  As Chris swam underwater, Ron Hickok’s words echoed inside his head: Son, Flash-Kill is no technique; it’s a way of life. All your believing can take you far—without believing, you’re finished before you begin—but even mighty beliefs alone can’t take you all the way. The universe has a positive flow to it, and if you go against that flow, it’s a toss-up as to whether you’ll win or lose, but if you find that flow, follow it, and apply your undying belief, you can’t fail.

  Chris had found that flow—it’d helped him find Mordet—and he had applied his undying belief to stopping him, but it hadn’t been enough. Many thousands of people were still going to die. Why?

  Chris broke the surface and inhaled. Helos swept in, and a SEAL Team fast-roped onto the USS Normandy—surprise, speed, and violence of action. As his brothers assaulted the ship, he swam to shore. Within minutes, he climbed up onto the bank and lay there haggard—physically and mentally spent.

  Chris reached into his pocket, retrieved his phone, unzipped it from its waterproof bag, and turned it on. He wanted to call Young, but he didn’t want to hear the bad news: either the president and everyone in the White House had died, or eighty-five thousand people had died. Numb, he watched the ship takedown.

  His phone vibrated: Young. Chris just stared at it. It rang twice more before he mustered the courage to answer.

  “We did it!” Young exclaimed.

  “Did what?” Chris asked.

  “Stopped the launch of the first Tomahawk.”

  Chris was too stunned by the good news to rejoice. “Really?”

  “Yes!”

  “But the second one launched,” Chris said.

  “Yes, but during the missile’s midcourse phase, I was able to break into the command guidance and give the Tomahawk a new GPS coordinate—far out in the Atlantic Ocean.”

  Chris exhaled long and hard, his shoulders unwound, and he looked up at the clouds in the sky. “Thank you.” He closed his eyes. “Mordet is history, and a SEAL Team is securing the ship as we speak.”

  “Thank you, too,” Young said.

  “Have you heard anything about Hannah?” Chris asked.

  “Just a minute.”

  As Chris waited, the stiffness in his shoulders returned and spread to his neck.

  “She’s okay,” Young said. “Just had a mild concussion and already checked out of the hospital.”

  Chris’s neck and shoulders became loose again. As a preacher and an atheist, their relationship didn’t seem to stand a chance beyond being colleagues and friends, and both were too strong-willed to change, but in spite of the odds, part of him hoped that someday, in some way, they could become more.

  42

  _______

  The next day, Chris stepped off a hospital elevator, turned right, and walked down the hall. He opened the second door on the left and entered without knocking.

  Inside lay Sonny.

  “Wake up, Sunshine,” Chris said.

  Sonny slowly opened his eyes. “I must be in Hell already.”

  “How’s your spine?”

  “The paralysis was temporary. I can walk, and soon I’ll be running again.”

  “That’s hallelujah great!”

  Sonny smirked. “You know me. That’s how I roll.”

  A knock came at the door.

  “Who is it?” Chris asked.

  “The Swedish massage therapist,” a female voice said with a Swedish accent.

  Chris drew his pistol and held it down to his side. He turned to Sonny. “Did you order a Swedish massage?”

  “No,” Sonny answered. “But I’ll take one.”

  The door opened and Hannah appeared.

  Relieved, Chris returned his pistol to its holster and gave her a hug. When he relaxed his embrace, she was still hugging him. Without thinking, he kissed her.

  “After I lost you in the mall, what happened?” he asked. “And later, when I saw the police and all the yellow tape and blood stains—”

  “You worried about me?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  She smiled. “One of Little Kale’s shots blew out a piece of wall that hit me in the head and knocked me out.”

  “Are you okay?” Chris asked.

  “Just a mild concussion. I’m fine now.”

  “How’d you know I was here?”

  “Young,” she said. “I told him I wanted to surprise you.”

  “Hey, what about my massage?” Sonny shouted.

  Hannah chuckled. “The massage isn’t for you, silly.”

  “Well, okay.” Chris separated from Hannah and gave Sonny’s shoulder a massage.

  Sonny grimaced. “Not cool.”

  Chris stopped.

  Hannah gave Sonny a hug.

  He looked like he’d just won the lottery. “We should get together more often. Friends of mine are as
king about us. Want a piece of the action. But I told them to suck eggs.”

  “There’s certainly more work to be done,” Hannah said. “New terrorists replace the old ones. Al Qaeda is growing again…”

  “And?” Chris said.

  “And there’s a new storm on the horizon,” she said.

  “Is this a new mission for the three of us?” Sonny asked.

  “If it isn’t tomorrow, it will be soon,” she said.

  Chris thought for a moment. “I have to get back to my congregation.”

  “Will you help us again?” Hannah asked.

  Chris thought some more. “The duties of a SEAL and a pastor tear at me from opposite directions, but this mission validated both. And I can’t think of two finer warriors I’d rather fight alongside. You just say when.”

  She grinned.

  Chris smiled. “Sonny, you ready to bust out of this joint and get some real food?”

  Sonny stirred in his bed. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Chris and Hannah walked over to Sonny’s bed to help him out of it, but he refused, batting their hands away. He was slow, and it caused him pain if he moved the wrong way, but he made his way off the bed. Together they walked out of the hospital.

  GLOSSARY

  AK: Abbreviated form of AK-47 and its variants.

  AK-47: Contraction of Russian, Automat Kalashnikova abraztsa 1947 goda (Kalishnikov’s 1947 automatic rifle). Holds thirty rounds of .308 (7.62 × 39 mm) ammunition.

  Bint: Arabic for girl or daughter.

  BUD/S training: Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. Where all prospective SEALs must begin training, located in Coronado, California.

  C&D: Command and Decision, the brains of a weapon control system, which includes missiles.

  Delta Force: US Army’s Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta. Has used cover name of Combat Applications Group (CAG) and Army Compartmented Elements (ACE), but its men simply refer to it as the Unit. Recruits mostly from top performing Army Rangers and Green Berets. Similar to SEAL Team Six, Delta Force is the Army’s Tier One unit that conducts counter-insurgency and counterterrorism operations. For the most sensitive operations, they also work under the CIA’s umbrella of Special Operations Group (SOG).