by David DeLee
“If I refuse?”
Goodwell paused before answering. “I did mention cutters and destroyers and highly-skilled combat operatives, didn’t I? If you do not comply, we’ll have no choice but assume Kingsley has been killed. After which, we will proceed accordingly.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I’ve seen your service record, Mr. Lang. I know you’re familiar with how this country deals with rogue nations, terrorist encampments, and enemy combatants that seek to do us harm.”
“You’re talking airstrikes?”
“Sea strikes might be a more appropriate term, but yes. Vice-President Wright assures me nothing is off the table.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“If you don’t wish to find out, comply with our demands, then we’ll talk about yours.”
The line went dead.
Lang stared at the speaker as if waiting for Goodwell’s voice to return. It did not.
Lang turned from the console. “Wow. The cojones on that guy.”
He sounded almost respectful as he pulled out his pistol. He swung it around the room and selected a random target, a woman. Holloway didn’t know her name. She screamed and spun around in her chair, covering her face with her hands like she was playing hide-and-seek with a small child.
He fired.
The bullet went through her hand and struck her cheek. Her body slammed against the console behind her, even as she half rose, kicking the rolling chair out from under her. The workers beside her jumped from their chairs. Screaming, they ran. The woman slid off the console and fell to the floor, leaving a wet, streaky trail of blood behind.
Holloway gasped.
Grayson took a step forward. “You lunatic.”
Lang turned on her. “Shut up!” He waved the gun around. “Shut up all of you!”
To the person at the communications console, he said, “Is that frequency still open? Did everyone hear that?”
“Yes. Yes.” Tears streamed down her face.
Lang cleared his voice. “Listen up. This is for Commander Brice Bannon and Doctor Robin Larson, but I want everyone to hear this. I’ve lost my patience with the two of you. It’s time for you to come in. I’ve just killed…” He waved his gun at the man standing next to the dead woman’s body. “What was her name?”
The man stammered, “Ka…Ka…Karen.”
“I’ve just killed,” he mimicked the frightened man, “Ka…Ka…Karen here. I put a bullet in her face. That’s on you, Bannon. Now. If you don’t surrender to me in the next half hour, I will kill someone else. If after that you still don’t give yourself up, if you don’t think the random hostages I’m holding are worth it, then the next one I kill will be Secretary Grayson. You have thirty minutes. Starting now.”
Lang indicted the transmission be cut by slashing his hand across his throat.
When the line was severed, Grayson said, “You’re insane.”
Lang shrugged. “Probably.” He grabbed her by the arm. “Come on.”
Grayson struggled against his hold. “Where are we going?”
“To give Ethan Wright what he wants. Proof of life.”
He pulled her toward the spiral staircase that led down to Neptune’s Glen. There he paused and looked around the room. Lang pointed at dead Karen. “And someone, clean up that mess.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Two red Coast Guard Dolphin helicopters approached the Putnam in the dark, bright running lights blinking, coming in from the west. Slung in nets under each were two personal submersible hydrofoil watercrafts. One was Flipper, the submersible Bannon piloted in the Hampton Beach charity event just two days earlier. The other was similar in design but unremarkable as it wasn’t painted like a sea animal. It was simply gunmetal gray.
Against explicit instructions to the contrary given to them at the start of the siege, the Putnam had been ordered to return to a position just five miles from Tiamat Bluff.
The SEAL’s Sikorsky Sea Dragon helicopter was no longer on the flight deck. After the tragic loss of its team, the pilot was ordered to return to Boston and await further instructions. According to Haddad, Vice-President Wright was mulling over whether to send out another assault team.
Tolliver arrived on the flight deck with Haddad as the Putnam’s deck lights snapped on and his crew scrambled in the cold to receive first one submersible, and then the second. As they touched down on the flight deck in the wash of giant rotor blades, the cables were released from the belly of the large choppers and the netting fell to the deck.
Each submersible was removed and stored on the launch platform.
The first chopper peeled off and began its return flight to Boston.
The other gently touched down on the now cleared flight deck. As the roar of the engines died down and the whirl of the rotors slowed, the cabin door slid open. Tara Sardana and Lieutenant Kayla Clarke jumped down to the deck and jogged across the open space to where Tolliver and Haddad greeted them.
With a salute, Kayla shouted over the wind from the rotors. “Permission to come on board, sir.”
Captain Tolliver returned the salute. “Permission granted, Lieutenant.”
He shook her hand and then Tara’s. “You both know Chief of Staff Haddad.”
They exchanged handshakes. Tara knew her, of course, but they had never actually met. She left that side of their work to Bannon. He was good at dealing with the politicians, and more importantly, keeping them from interfering with the work they had to do, often with Grayson’s immense assistance.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Tolliver said. “Both of you. Skyjack was one of the best.”
Tara brushed away the condolences. “Give us an update. What’s our next move?”
Kayla exchanged an apologetic look with Tolliver.
He nodded, understanding.
He waved them toward the superstructure. “Come this way. We’ll bring you up to speed and get some hot food and coffee in you.”
Tara didn’t tell Tolliver what she thought he could do with his food and coffee. She’d met him before, and liked and respected him. He didn’t deserve an unleashing of her anger, so she remained silent and followed them inside.
In the Officer’s Mess, a steward served two bowls of steaming hot New England clam chowder, Caesar salads, a plate of cloverleaf rolls, oyster crackers, and slices of apple pie. The coffee came in white Coast Guard embossed mugs and a matching coffee pot, with creamer, sugar, and spoons.
As Kayla and Tara sat down, Tolliver excused the steward, holding the hatch open for them, but not closing it until they were joined by another. This was a tall man so thin as to appear sickly. He had dark hair and dark-rimmed glasses.
Tolliver introduced him. “This is FBI agent Andy Goodwell.”
“The hostage negotiator assigned to the situation,” Haddad added.
She and Goodwell sat down while Tolliver turned over mugs and filled them with coffee, passing them out black, allowing each to doctor them up as they wished.
Tara ignored the food and coffee. “Tell us what happened to Skyjack. How could you let him get killed like that?”
Haddad began. “The SEAL team leader came up with a plan. The Vice-President approved it. Your friend, Skyjack, willingly joined them.”
Tara, with what little patience she had waning, said, “What happened?”
“We’ve had a surveillance drone in the water since this thing started,” Tolliver said. “We’ve video of it if you want to see it…”
Kayla said, “Just tell us. Please.”
“They went down in two SEAL delivery vessels. Fourteen men, including Skyjack. From the drone’s video feed, we watched them approach Tiamat Bluff. The plan was to get close enough to dismount from the vessels and swim to the two moon pools located on the lower levels. Everything was going according to plan until they were in range of the facility. One of the vessels exploded. We couldn’t tell why initially. It was until we re-watched we saw…”
&nbs
p; Tara waited for him to continued. He didn’t. She prompted. “Saw what?”
“Mines,” the Putnam’s captain said.
“They piloted into a minefield?” Kayla asked, incredulous. “How incompetent—”
“Not just any minefield,” Haddad said.
Tolliver explained. “Roaming explosive-laden drone mines, randomly weaving, crisscrossing, creating an impenetrable barrier around the facility. Too small to be detected by the delivery vessels’ sonar and radar equipment. One vessel went down to the ocean bottom. The other crashed into the dome atop the facility, imploding it.”
“And you’ve confirmed there are no survivors?”
“How could there be? Haddad said.
“The dome explosion was catastrophic,” Tolliver added. “The other vessel, even if anyone survived, which is almost impossible, they’re trapped a thousand feet below the surface. Their only option would be to surface. Tanks hold at best two hours’ worth of air. With compression stops, to reach the surface would take them fourteen hours.”
“Without stops?” Tara asked, fearing she knew the answer.
“The bends would kill ’em before they reached the surface.”
A morbid silence filled the room. Tara stared at her clam chowder, growing cold, and almost laughed. If Skyjack were there, no matter how grim the situation, he’d be nosily slurping up the creamy broth and asking if there was more.
“What do we know now?” she asked instead.
“Our drone was destroyed in one of the explosions. We’re blind.”
Goodwell cleared his throat.
“There’s been a development.” He relayed the conversation he had with Lang. “First off, it seems General Sucre is dead and the show’s being run by someone named Chase Lang.”
Tara and Kayla exchanged glances. It couldn’t be a coincidence. They told the others what they’d recently learned about Chase Edwards. It had to be the same man.
“I can’t speak to that one way or the other,” Goodwell said. “But that crazy psychopath killed someone while I was on the call with him.”
He’d looked pale coming in the wardroom and now Tara understood why.
“Any word on the President?” Haddad asked.
“I’ve demanded proof of life. Lang expressed his reluctant willingness to comply. I’m waiting to hear back from him.”
Kayla looked at her watch. “What can we do in the meantime?”
No one had an answer.
Tara worried about the hostages. The clock was ticking and time wasn’t on their side.
Tara stood up. “We need to get down there.”
“Good thought,” Tolliver said. “Any ideas on how?”
Haddad added, “You just heard what happened the last time we tried that.”
“I did,” Tara said. “And now I know why Skyjack wanted a hydrofoil brought here. He might’ve agreed to go with the SEALs, but clearly, he didn’t have confidence in its potential for success.”
With Skyjack dead, Kayla and Tara had decided to bring two hydrofoils, agreeing they would both make the trip down to Tiamat Bluff. The minefield was a new wrinkle.
“I’m sorry to say, but I’m familiar with those things,” Tolliver said, meaning the hydrofoils. “They’re fun toys and all but they’ve got a submersible range of what five-ten feet underwater? What good will that do us?”
“Commercial models, you’re right,” Kayla said. “But these were retrofitted by DARPA. Specially redesigned with Brice’s and Skyjack’s input, for situations such as this. They’ve got a depth range of over one thousand feet. They’ll be virtually undetectable by regular sonar and radar.”
“And visually they’ll look like dolphins or big moray eels, to visual surveillance,” Tara added.
“Aren’t you forgetting about the drone mines? They’re too small to be detected by sonar and radar.”
“But not visually,” Kayla said. “The hydrofoils have nearly three-hundred-sixty-degree visibility and they’re versatile enough to avoid them.”
“You hope,” Tolliver said, doing nothing to hide his pessimism. Men had died on his watch, one a good friend. His tone was bitter and angry.
Tara conceded. “I hope.”
In the silence that followed, Tara looked at each person around the table. She finally reached for the pot of coffee, overturned a fresh, empty cup, and filled it.
“Anyone have any better ideas?” she asked.
Her answer was a shrill alarm that jarred the occupants at the table. Tolliver jumped to his feet as an intercom blared. “Captain to the deck. Captain Tolliver, report to the flight deck.”
He bolted from the room and the others quickly followed. They raced to the flight deck, some of them without benefit of the heavy parkas the cold New England weather demanded.
There they found several Guardsmen lining the portside railing; rifles aimed at the dark ocean surface below. Tolliver rushed over to his XO, a woman named Bridget Albright.
“What the devil’s going on?”
“Radar picked up something coming up under our bow. We adjusted course—”
“I felt the adjustment down below, wondered about it. What do we think it is?”
“No clue, sir,” Albright said. “We thought torpedo, but that didn’t make sense. Radar and sonar didn’t pick up any indication of subs anywhere. Tiamat Bluff’s not equipped with torpedoes.” She spoke in a matter of fact way then furrowed her forehead, adding, “Are they?”
Tara and Kayla crowded in close to Tolliver. They looked over the rail, anticipating and waiting.
Kayla said, “Slowest moving torpedoes I’ve ever seen.”
Albright nodded. “Size and mass kind of rules that assessment out, too, ma’am.”
Tara asked, guessing. “Whale?”
Albright shook her head.
“Not that big. Just big. And it stopped about ten feet below the surface for a minute.”
Tolliver exchanged a glance with Kayla and Tara, but before he could utter another word, a guardsman shouted, “Whatever it is, there’s she blows!”
A spotlight swung over to where the guardsman pointed.
Tara leaned in with the others. Metal buckles hit plastic stocks as guns were brought up to ready.
Tara squinted into the dark water. A calm sea. A clear night. Visibility was good. Moonlight sparkled over the gently lapping waves. Until the area they were staring at started to bubble white. Like a boiling cauldron.
“What in the hell—”
Tolliver drew his sidearm but kept it to his side. The tension on the deck was as thick as the clam chowder they’d been served.
Suddenly a gray metal—what looked like a barrel—popped to the surface like a cork.
It settled, bobbing on the water, a loose canvas strap around the middle of it. A tense minute passed before a second similar container popped up, too. It banged into the first one and made a hollow noise before bobbing on the surface as well.
Tara noticed it was dented.
Again she, Kayla, and Tolliver exchanged glances before the water erupted again.
This time what shot to the surface was a man in a dark neoprene wetsuit. Guns were readied as the guardsmen prepared to answer an attack, but the man floated unmoving, like the containers that had preceded him. His full facemask was fogged, obscuring any visual of his face.
Immediately following the first, a second frogman popped up. This one flailing, flapping his arms. He grabbed at his facemask, similarly fogged, and ripped it off, tearing his neoprene hood off with it even as he grabbed the floating body that had come up with him.
Tara was the first to see the tangled wet mass of red hair. She waved her arms. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
McMurphy stared up at the row of guns pointed at him. He grinned as big a grin as she’d ever seen and waved. “I expected a welcoming committee but damn guys, you’ve outdone yourselves.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Ten minutes later, after a hot shower and a mug of
Tolliver’s specially doctored coffee, McMurphy paced in the tiny space that was the Captain’s wardroom. His ruddy face flushed pink and the skin of his fingers so pruned he feared they’d never returned to their normal, callused, roughness. The spirited coffee burned his throat and he was grateful for it, as the chill he still felt reached down to his bones.
In the room with him were just Tolliver, Tara, and Kayla. The women sat on the bed.
Tolliver had pulled out the office chair from his desk and pushed it into the corner where he could seat and put his feet up on the edge of his bunk. His eyes were smudged from lack of sleep. McMurphy chose to keep pacing, afraid if he sat down, he’d fall into a deep sleep that would put Rip Van Winkle’s twenty-year nap to shame.
After listening to what Tara and Kayla had learned from O’Shea about Lang and whatever the hell this Leviathan thing was, he decided they were right to not trust anyone. But, before he got to that, he asked, “Jones? How is he?”
“My medics stopped the bleeding and stabilized his wounds,” Tolliver said. “The Dolphin airlifted him back to Boston. He’s lost a lot of blood, and he’ll require surgery to address his internal injuries and sew him back up, but my guys say they’re confident he’ll make it. Thanks to you.”
McMurphy nodded. “Good to hear.” Too bad the same couldn’t be said for the rest of the SEAL team. McMurphy closed his eyes and shook away the image of Kowalski’s headless corpse floating around the hatch of the delivery vessel. “And Brice? He’s alive and on the loose, not held by this scum-sucker Lang?”
“As of twelve hours ago,” Tara said. “That was the last contact we had.”
“Lang didn’t mention him in his last communique with Agent Goodwell,” Kayla offered. “Hard to tell if that’s good news or bad.”
“Either way,” Tolliver said. “That psychopath’s put a hell of ticking clock on this whole mess.”
McMurphy tossed back the rest of his coffee. “It does. Are the submersibles prepped and ready to go?”
