The blast…that was it. Because of the booby-trapped entrance to the bunker, the assault team was seen on the mercs’ tablet preparing to simply blow up the underground bunker. The remaining men gathered a massive satchel of explosives at the entrance, so Rebecca led everyone out of the bunker through the earthen tunnel and into the gully. Lenore had been framed in the exit when the explosives went off and been blasted clean across the narrow gully. She woke up in the creek, and everyone else had scattered.
Now she was starting to hear scattered gunfire and more explosions. Had to be assault team remnants stumbling through the claymores the mercs had hidden in the gully to protect the emergency exit tunnel.
Suddenly, Lenore’s hearing cleared, and the scattered distant gunfire erupted into full-fledged gunfights at both ends of the gully. For a moment, she was frozen with indecision. Which way should she go? Where was Lisette?
She crept toward the fiercest gunfire, north of the secret escape tunnel, and soon saw human-shaped shadows moving through the smoke. She aimed her assault rifle but held her fire. Friend or foe?
“Nineteen!” she hollered.
“Seventeen!” said one of the shadows.
“Sixteen!” said another.
“Fifteen!” said a fourth shadow, but that designation was assigned to a merc presently with Carl’s team in the Pacific. That man died in a hail of bullets from Lenore, Sixteen, and Seventeen.
“Status!” Lenore demanded as she moved closer to the others.
Sixteen started to answer, then Lenore spun when she heard a scream behind her that ripped her heart open.
Chapter 36
Carl tucked-and-rolled off the top of the container split seconds before the belly of the helicopter caved in the top part of the president’s container with the metallic crunch of ripping frame girders. As he rolled across the deck, he heard the chopper engine cough, then scream. The pilot must have found a final ounce of fuel in the auxiliary tanks and drove the chopper over the side of the ship.
It plunged into the ocean, the main rotor briefly throwing up mountains of water before the blades were ripped from the shaft by thousands of horsepower trying to drive the blades through unforgiving water. The chain was still connected to the shipping container. The whole box flipped on its side and was dragged, ripping through the safety stanchions and rope at the deck edge, and then it plunged thirty feet into the water.
In heroic fashion, President Mallory literally dove out of the container just before it went over the edge. She grabbed onto a ripped safety post just long enough for Carl to run five steps to get to her. He grabbed her wrists as she let go, but she was too heavy to hold and he went over the side too.
Someone grabbed Carl’s ankles. Whoever it was held over three hundred pounds of dead weight in his grip.
To her credit, Shirley Mallory didn’t scream. She looked up into Carl’s eyes as he clung desperately to her wrists. If she had any doubts that he would sacrifice his own life to keep her alive, those doubts vanished forever in a few seconds of intense eye contact.
Then they were hauled upward and a few seconds later, they sat facing each other on the deck and gasping for air.
“Well,” Carl said as he helped the president to her feet. “That wasn’t exactly how I planned our arrival.”
“I’ll say.”
He looked up at the vast blue sky. “They know where we are now, so let’s get on with Plan B.”
President Mallory was suddenly all business. “I want to talk to the captain of this vessel.”
Mercs Three and Twelve stood as well, recovered from hauling them both over the side.
Three said, “The senior staff have been taken to the bridge and are under guard, ma’am. If you’ll follow me.” They all headed to the nearest bulkhead door. “But first, let’s get you into an armored combat suit just in case we come under attack.”
“There is no just in case,” Carl said. “They’re going to cripple the ship, then they’ll send in a SEAL team with orders to kill everyone.”
They detoured to the galley where all their supply duffels were stored. While the mercs got Mallory suited up, Merc Three said, “A lot has happened since you left D.C., ma’am, and not all of it was good.”
Carl fitted Mallory’s chest and back shell plates into position and tightened Velcro straps. “As you know, the plan was to land the container and have you get into a metallic space suit kinda thing while you were still inside the box. Then we’d have gotten you deep inside the ship undetected. Unfortunately, there’s no doubt in my mind they know you’re here, so they’ll throw everything plus the kitchen sink at us. It’s probably already on the way.”
They were just about to leave the galley when Carl stopped. “What the hell?” The others stopped and followed his gaze to a universally recognized emblem on the galley wall.
Carl said, “The navy serves Starbucks coffee?”
“Damn!” Three pounded an armored fist on the bulkhead emblem. “I need to reenlist.”
“To the bridge,” Carl said. “Three, tell the team the plan has changed.”
“Copy that.” Three touched his earpiece and made the announcement to the other mercs on the ship as he led the charge through the empty corridors of the destroyer. The president followed Three, then Carl and Twelve brought up the rear.
Carl said, “Three, what’s your team complement?”
“Besides me and Twelve here, Eight is on computer control duty in the Ops Center below deck. Five, Seven, Ten, Eleven, and Fourteen are positioned throughout the ship ready to repel boarders. Nine and Fifteen are manning the engine room. And, man, you should see the engine room on this boat. It’s like a spaceship down there. Everything’s computer controlled. Eighteen is on the bridge guarding the officers.”
The USS Kestrel Andrus was the first navy vessel Carl had ever been on, and it looked nothing like he expected. In the movies, all the navy ships had battle-gray interiors. The inside of this one was white, but not stark white. Everything was clean. There were no smudges on the walls, no dings in the metal doorways or bulkheads from accidental impacts.
Mallory said, “Are you telling me Navy SEALs will kill other Navy men and women?”
Carl replied, “Military personnel will blindly follow orders not knowing their leaders are traitors, and they’ll do it without question because that’s the way the military works. They’ll be told this crew has been compromised or that terrorists have taken over the ship…which actually is a fact. Or they’ll be told you’re an imposter. Once they kill you, they’ll sink the ship. So whoever attacks this ship or tries to board us, they will simply become my enemy. No question, I will kill them.”
Carl glanced in an open doorway and saw a row of curtained bunks stacked two-high, maybe eight or ten to a room. “Three, any problems grabbing the ship?”
“Negative.” He climbed steep deck stairs slow enough so Mallory could match his pace. “Your plan was flawless, Boss. Merc Fourteen is a demolitions expert, and his team set charges on the northern-most fuel substation of the San Diego port for maximum visual effect and minimal damage. The explosion just before midnight was spectacular. Everyone not on duty was awoken from a deep slumber, no doubt. Every ship at dock put personnel on emergency damage control duty. Setting a tug on fire and nudging it toward a carrier was a nice touch too. Kind of enhanced the sense of urgency, if you know what I mean, though the carrier was never in any real danger.
“I’m not sure where McGrath found a minisub on such short notice, but it got Twelve’s team to the pump station and then delivered us onto the USS Kestrel Andrus undetected. It was Friday night, and according to McGrath, the ship had returned for resupply from extended sea trials, so most of the crew was on shore leave for the weekend. Of its one-hundred-forty-six crewmembers, only forty-five were on the ship, and most of those joined damage control and rescue parties immediately after the explosion. My force of seven faced only sixteen crewmembers, none remotely prepared to handle us.
&nbs
p; “We got Wizard on and off in fifteen minutes flat, and he reprogrammed the crew’s cypher keys to the computer system. We’re locked in and they’re locked out. We got the ship underway undetected, thanks to the explosions and confusions. Without running lights, the ship’s nearly invisible at night.”
Merc Three led the way up another steep stairs to the bridge deck. Then he stopped and faced Carl. “As you know, Director McGrath informed us that every navy vessel has a contingent of marines for security. We were prepared to engage them, but we still used nonlethals as ordered—rubber bullets and Tasers. The four marines caused no problems, but we did have one casualty.” He looked at Carl and the president. “When we hit the bridge, a young ensign on duty took a rubber bullet in the eye. Killed her instantly.”
“That’s unfortunate, but you did well,” Carl said. “I thought there would be more casualties.” He’d yielded to McGrath’s demand for no killing but privately told Three to do whatever it took to secure the ship. “Randal and Officer Bonhardt?”
Three nodded. “After you picked up the president’s container, Fourteen delivered Randal Cunningham and Officer Bonhardt to a location in Marina Del Rey given by McGrath. I wasn’t briefed on their destination after that. Then Fourteen met us in San Diego, along with your crew from the Philadelphia op.”
“So you don’t know where Aaron is?” President Mallory said to Carl.
“Yes, I do,” was all Carl said. He gestured for Three to lead them through the last bulkhead door into the bridge. Carl slipped around the president to precede her into the control room. They entered through the aft, or rear, bulkhead door. There were narrow windows across the front and sides of the structure, and high-tech personnel stations lined the bulkheads. The four navy officers stood against the starboard wall under guard of Merc Eighteen. The officers collectively gasped at the sight of President Mallory suited up in battle armor to match Carl and the mercs.
Carl stepped forward between the two command chairs in the center of the bridge, and scanned all the computerized tactical stations of the bridge. The windows to the outside were smaller than Carl had expected, but he didn’t recall seeing windows on the sleek superstructure as the helicopter approached.
Three continued his briefing on the ship’s capabilities. “The USS Kestrel Andrus has more automated systems than the other three stealth vessels of its class. It also features double-hull exterior armor and Kevlar coatings on all interior critical compartments to prevent spalling. Even if a missile or shell doesn’t penetrate the hull, it can blast tiny spalls of shrapnel from the inner surfaces of bulkheads, like when you shoot a bullet at a glass pane. That’s extremely deadly in a confined space like interior compartments, so the Kevlar coating prevents that. That means the ship can take hard hits and the crew will survive and keep fighting.
“As you can see,” Three paused while Carl stepped over to the forward window. “The hull and decks above the water level are fitted with tiles that absorb most incoming radar signals. The ship’s surfaces are also angled to prevent residual radar signal reflection back to the source. Below water, the hull is coated with acoustical paint to resist sonar detection. Her engines can drive her up to the equivalent of fifty-eight miles per hour, and the new bow design, called a tumblehome bow, which is actually how naval ships were designed a hundred years ago, pierces the waves instead of riding them, making for a more stable ride even on rough seas.
“Those slanted structures you see on deck,” Three pointed down at the forward deck, “are armored containers that hold two high-energy lasers, one ’fore and one aft, for missile intercept and an electromagnetic rail-gun amidships that can fire Mach-eight projectiles at targets as far away as the horizon. Other armored containers house multiple missile launchers and close-in guns.”
Carl surveyed the room again and his gaze stopped on the officers. “This ship belongs to me now, and I’m going to need your full cooperation. Any questions?”
The captain of the ship recovered from his surprise. He was a big, barrel-chested guy with serious crow’s feet at the corners of his blue eyes and short gray hair. He wore shoulder epaulets with five gold stripes, but his white uniform was disheveled since he’d been imprisoned for almost twenty hours.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “You have committed an act of—”
Carl pulled his Glock and shot the man, and the three other officers gasped in various degrees of shock.
Distance: point blank…shoulder shot.
A young ensign and a lieutenant tended their fallen captain, but the commander seemed to sense she had a critical decision to make. She looked late-thirties. Her white uniform and her hair looked equally disheveled. She’d been pushed around, but she still tried to keep her command presence. She had four stripes on her shoulder bars.
Carl said to her, “Now I’m going to need your full cooperation.”
She notched her chin up a bit in defiance. “You have the gun, sir. That puts you in charge.”
Carl cocked his head and raised his Glock. “Sista, that only sounds like partial cooperation.” He aimed his weapon at her chest. She had a backbone, he had to give her that.
President Mallory stepped up beside Carl and put her hand on his to lower his arm. To the female officer, she said, “Captain, if you’ll give me a moment to explain.”
“Commander Tracey Eckels, ma’am.” The officer’s gaze danced between Mallory and Carl. “You’re not a captive?”
Carl holstered his weapon. “Madam President, we don’t have time for this. They’re coming, and we need to get ready. Commander Eckels, order your crew to follow my instructions without question. The president’s life is in danger, and I don’t have time to explain.”
Eckels looked at Mallory, who nodded. The commander motioned Carl to the captain’s chair.
“I don’t need a place to sit, Commander. I need to talk to the crew!”
Eckels pivoted to a wall console and took down a coiled handset, then punched a button and handed it to Carl. He debated for a second how to motivate the crew quickly.
“This is Carl Johnson, Captain, US Air Force…retired. I don’t have time to explain everything, but I will say this. My enemy has been trying to kill the president for eight months, but this time they’re coming heavy.” He glanced over at the commander. “The president of the United States is onboard this vessel, so now this destroyer is the only thing standing between her and certain death.”
Thinking there was an Air Force One airplane and a Marine One helicopter, Carl wondered if the USS Kestrel Andrus now became Navy One?
The commander motioned for Mallory to stand closer to Carl, in front of the panel.
Eckels said, “Tell them to look at their wall monitors.” As he did so, Eckels punched two more buttons on the panel.
“The enemy has doped President Mallory with a radioactive isotope that makes her visible by special satellite sensors. They launched missiles at her in DC, bombing two restaurants and killing dozens of civilians and Secret Service agents in the attempt to murder her. More government agents gave their lives to get her on this ship. Now our enemy knows where she is, and they’re going to throw everything they’ve got at us.
“The director of the Terror Event Response agency told me this is the most advanced destroyer in the fleet, and that’s why we took it. I intend to commit all of its offensive and defensive weapons to the protection of the president. The president must live. So either you’re on my team or you’re on the other—”
The president reached for the phone and shoved Carl out of view of the camera, a move that would have been unsuccessful if he hadn’t taken a step in the direction she wanted him to go.
She gazed into the tiny camera, then glanced at the commander. “How do I know they can see me?”
Eckels pointed at a monitor at a nearby tactical station. Since Mallory had turned away from the camera, the monitor showed the back of her head.
“Gawd, my hair’s a mess.” She swiped at it
as she turned back to the camera.
Eckels said softly, “Welcome to the club, ma’am.”
“This is Shirley Mallory. The world believes Carl Johnson is a terrorist, but he is without a doubt the only reason I still breathe. He saved my daughter twice, and that was after I made a decision that got his son killed.” Mallory’s voice cracked. “Even after what I did, he still saved my child.”
Carl started forward. “Shirley, this isn’t the time—”
She waved him back and continued. “This isn’t about me. This isn’t about the office of the president. This is about the corporate power brokers of an organization called Atlas who aim to eliminate our government and control not only this country, but others as well. Our very freedom is under attack. Mr. Johnson has a plan to survive this day and end the people who are responsible for a great many deaths, and…” Mallory looked at Carl. “I trust him…with my life.”
She handed the phone back to Carl, who handed it to the commander. Eckels locked gazes with Carl as if trying to find deceit in his soul.
“This is Commander Eckels. I don’t know anything about this man Carl Johnson, but I believe the president. If he can—”
Three turned from where he stood at a tactical station. “The time for motivational speeches is over, folks. Check your radar screen. Kitchen sink inbound, Boss.”
Chapter 37
Lisette’s scream galvanized Lenore Cummings into action. She raced back along the stream, her combat boots making sucking sounds as she struggled through the mud. Then she started seeing bodies. Rebecca lay in the fetal position, knees to her chest, half in the shallow cold water, and rocking back and forth. In pain or shock, Lenore couldn’t tell. Beyond her, Merc Six’s body laid face-up in the brush beside the stream, eyes wide open and vacant. The front of his armored battle suit was ripped to shreds and scorched. He looked like he’d taken an RPG to the chest.
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