He took a deep breath, expecting a horrible stench, but instead it was as if he had opened a door to a springtime day. The smell was a pleasant one, like that of a bakery not far from the house where he’d grown up. The air that filled the vent had come from the ship’s bakery. On the morning the Arizona died, the cooks and bakers just at that moment had been serving breakfast. He was grateful as he filled his lungs with the aroma of long-dead biscuits and cinnamon rolls.
When he had his fill, he replaced his mask and backed out of the shaft. He then aimed for the deck and retrieved five of the items he had come for.
The SEALs were out of darts. They turned back to face the others and could see their faces through the glass of their masks. It was over. The park ranger, knowing that the map could not be allowed to fall into an aggressor’s hands, raised the bronze plate and started to bring it down onto the corner of a steel table, hoping to damage it enough to be useless.
As he was starting to bring down the plate map, three loud taps sounded in the overhead. The ranger remembered what Everett had written and went straight back to the large ovens. He opened the first wide door and squeezed inside; the others soon followed. Several darts bounced harmlessly off the cast iron as the second of the large oven doors closed.
The attackers soon felt comfortable enough to show themselves as dive lights came on, and several even smiled behind their rebreather masks at the inane attempt of the navy men to hide at the last possible moment.
Above them, in the hole made by that fateful Japanese bomb, Carl Everett was about to deliver another kind of projectile. He had found three five-inch antiaircraft rounds in the silt. He had taken these and tied them off with the det cord that he was assigned to bring along with the quarter-pound charge of C-4 to open the safe if need be. Then he attached the small charge to the large rounds and made fast the blasting cap. He hoped he wouldn’t kill everyone along with his targets. Everett started to run out of air just as he started his makeshift plan.
The Coalition assault team were starting to swim forward with the arrogance of the victor when they saw something slide down from the steel overhead. The thirty men of the inside team stopped and looked on and then finally one of them turned his light onto the strange object. Eyes widened in horror as they realized what they were looking at: three large bulletlike rounds tied together by yellow detonation cord attached to an explosive charge. Their eyes followed the cord up into the gaping hole, and then they froze as they saw Everett in the void beyond.
Everett saw the attackers look up and knew that they had seen him. He quickly waved his hand in a good-bye gesture, then turned his hand over and flipped the stunned attackers the bird. Then he twisted the small electrical switch for the detonator. He pulled away from the hole as the charge raced through the det cord to ignite the blasting cap stuck into the small charge.
The C-4 went off, striking the cordite inside the shell casings, and that set off the warhead of the five-inch antiaircraft shells. They exploded downward into the stunned Coalition divers and struck the deck below them, creating a manmade fusillade of shrapnel that struck everyone in the attacking team. Half of them were killed immediately, while others were just maimed, while still others only had their eardrums punctured. The force of the underwater blast was so great that glass face masks imploded into their flesh of their wearers. Silt was cascading around the mess area and galley, looking as if a deep London fog had rolled in.
Above, the detonation lifted Everett from the crawl space and smashed him into the deck above. The last of his air was forced out of his lungs. He gathered what senses he had left and shot through the hole and into the clouded mess area. He did not clear enough vision to see around him, but he knew that there were dead men floating all around him as he made for the galley. Once there, he found his discarded tanks and placed the mouthpiece into his mouth and inhaled deeply.
When that immediate need was satisfied, he went to the large ovens and gave a silent prayer as he opened the first door. A finned foot immediately smashed his face mask. He yelled, spitting out his mouthpiece, just as the chief saw who it was. Everett was waving desperately for them to get out before more company could show up.
Below the monument, Jack was still holding one of the support struts when his body lifted in the water. Large bubbles started to rise around him as air and cordite escaped through the open and empty bridge area of the Arizona. He heard running feet and shouts above as men looked into the water.
It seemed like ten minutes later when Jack heard men shouting out to people unseen to raise their hands. Then he heard curses, and he knew that the dive team had surfaced right into the waiting hands of their attackers. He closed his eyes and cursed, knowing that he had no choice now. He could not wait on the failsafe he had set up earlier. He slowly made for the outer wall of the memorial and brought himself out into the open night.
Once out in the clear, he held on to the memorial with one hand and pulled himself around to the window he had broken earlier. He raised his head and looked over the edge into the interior. It was indeed worst-case. He saw Carl, his hands on his head, with the rest of what was left of the dive team. Bloodied and weary, they were being pushed and beaten with assault rifles.
Jack shook his head. He was tired of hiding. He brought the pistol up, but then hesitated as he saw the woman. Dressed in black pants and a black leather jacket, she stood in front of one of the rangers, removing something from him. She held it up to the light and then brought it down reverently.
“Thank you for recovering our lost artifact. You have been most helpful.”
That was enough. As far as he could tell, the woman was without a weapon, so he aimed at the two men on her left, who were busy looking after the devastated dive team. He started to squeeze the trigger. That was when all hell broke loose around the Arizona Memorial. Unseen and at Jack’s orders, a platoon of U.S. Marines had been dispatched from Pearl and left to stand guard just to the dock side of the USS Missouri. The great battleship had shielded the strike force as they approached after Jack had used his radio to alert them when the attack had begun. It had seemed like they took their own sweet time, but Collins knew that they could not have just come barging in like the cavalry of old.
Several Zodiac attack craft circled the memorial as Everett ordered the remains of the dive team down. Automatic fire was striking the white memorial from marines firing from their own moving platforms. Collins used this diversion to open up from close range from his position behind the enemy. He dropped six before they knew that they had an antagonist in the rear.
Soon the Zodiacs started screaming for the gangway that led to the memorial. They exited the boats and started forward, firing as they came on. Seeing that her situation was hopeless, the woman started to turn and run. Jack fired his 9-mm and the round struck just where he had aimed it, in the woman’s calf. She fell and the plate map went sliding away as it struck the deck. She immediately got up and limped until she found an open slat. She dived in toward the land side of Ford Island.
Jack gained the platform and ran for the plate. He took it and then looked for Carl. He was relieved when he saw his friend standing. They locked eyes. Jack threw Everett the plate Frisbee-style, then Jack dived through the opening after the woman
Everett ran to the window, holding the plate and his injured side, and saw Jack’s form as he swam after the woman who had just gained the swampy shore area of Ford Island.
Collins easily followed the woman through the darkness. She was leaving an easy trail to follow in her panic to escape. He heard her clearly through the bushes and cattails ahead. Then he heard a splash as she fell into the wet weeds.
Dahlia was looking around in panic when she saw the figure standing in the moonlight.
“Don’t just stand there, you—” she started, and then she saw that the figure was wearing civilian clothes, and then she knew. “I have very valuable information to trade for my life, Colonel.”
The dark shape did not mo
ve. He just raised his weapon and ejected the spent clip. Then, with deliberate slowness, he inserted his last one. He charged the slide forward and chambered a round.
“You need to know that Tomlinson didn’t die in Chicago. It was his plan all along to leave the States; he has no need to be here any longer,” she said as she was suddenly praying that someone, anyone, would show up and stop what she knew was about to happen.
“You’re not so secret anymore.”
“What … I … please, you need me.” The pleading in her voice was clear. The last of the marines’ gunfire ceased and several loud whistles and sirens from the harbor patrol blared as Pearl woke up to the assault on their revered Arizona.
“I need my people back. Can you give them to me?”
Dahlia saw the raised gun and finally knew what it was like to face imminent death. This man was going to murder her.
Jack raised his weapon and fired.
The three Coalition divers had come close to catching Jack unaware. At the last second, the light from the rising moon caught the glass in one of the face masks of the divers. Jack had just enough time to fire directly over the head of the woman, who had thought for sure the American colonel was going to murder her.
The first of the Coalition divers went down with a hole placed cleanly into his forehead, but the other two ducked into the murk of Ford Island. Jack dived for cover just as twenty silenced rounds whacked the damp soil around him. As he looked up, he saw the woman disappear into the cattails and reeds. He took quick aim and fired five times at the spot where she had vanished, but the area had suddenly become motionless.
As Collins stood, helicopters started shining large searchlights around the area of the memorial. He reached for his radio to inform them to search Ford Island for the woman and at least two Coalition men. As he raised the small radio to his mouth, he realized that it was not going to work. He had been in the water so long that seawater had shorted out its workings. Collins reared back and threw it into the reeds.
At that moment, Everett broke through the reeds and saw Jack.
“Jesus, Jack, I thought you bought it. The woman?” he asked as he walked forward.
“Order a sweep of the area. Maybe they can find her, but I suspect she has nine lives.”
“Yeah, maybe, but with you taking shots at her, I bet she’s only got one or two left.”
Dahlia was getting her leg tended to by one of the few survivors of another botched raid. Because of this colonel, she was on a losing streak. She winced as the diver placed pressure on her wound as he wrapped it.
Three of them had managed to evade the massive search for the attackers by marines and shore patrol. They had crawled through mud and mosquitoes to a waiting boat and slowly made their way to the dry-dock facility across the harbor. From there it had been a terrifying game of cat and mouse as they barely managed to hide from patrols looking for survivors. Dahlia knew that she was now one of the most wanted women in the world, and she owed it all to Jack Collins.
Once in the city, the men who had saved her took her to a safe house that she had prepared just in case something like this happened. She stretched out on the couch with her injured leg up on the arm, in the dingy room with a small automatic in her lap. Having a weapon was distasteful, but if Collins came through that door, she promised herself, she would put a bullet into his brainpan.
When a knock sounded at the door, Dahlia took the gun and aimed. Using the barrel of the weapon, she gestured for one of the men to answer. She doubted very much that Collins or the U.S. Navy would be so polite as to knock. One of the divers opened the door, and she relaxed as three men came through. They all were worn and tired. However, one man was smiling.
“And what is it that makes you stand there grinning like a fool?” she asked.
“You may find this of value. A nice second prize,” the man said as he tossed the map case to her. Then he accepted a glass of water from one of his companions. “We almost didn’t make it. The Honolulu policeman who stopped us won’t be hula dancing anymore.”
Dahlia opened the aged plastic case. The smell was atrocious as she looked from the Coalition diver back to the items inside. She slowly pulled out several charts and maps. There were also handwritten notes. She looked at the map and her eyes widened.
“It looks like you just may have tripled the bonuses of every man in this room.” She smiled at the words written on the map of Africa.
“Then it is important?” the man asked, lowering his glass of water.
The men looked at the colored relief and saw the written coordinates placed there by the hand of Franklin Van Valkenberg, captain of the USS Arizona. In the weeks that he had possession of the plate map, he had figured out its secret and soon had calculated the resting place of the Key, exactly where Dahlia knew she and her men would be in the coming days.
She picked up the cell phone and pushed a single, special number. The man answered on the first ring.
“William, we have the location of the Atlantean Key.”
Dahlia hung up, then picked up the gun and smiled as she thought about Colonel Jack Collins. She knew that with the plate map he would come looking for the Atlantean Key. As she tapped the barrel against her muddy cheek, she thought about that bullet she would place into the colonel’s head.
“This is one killing I do myself, free of charge.”
12
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The president sat silently watching the live C-SPAN feed from the United Nations in New York. The ambassador from North Korea was berating the Americans from the podium.
“They just threw out the evidence we sent them,” the president said to no one in particular. “The Chinese were not able to convince them of the truth, or they’re just not hearing it.”
Niles watched the angry animation of the Korean ambassador, but what was more important to Niles was the way the Chinese delegation sat stoically, not moving an inch as their ally decried what they perceived as a South Korean and American conspiracy to weaken the People’s Army to the point of total collapse. The ambassador even threw in the disaster at the Russian port of Vladivostok for good measure. Damn! The president needed the Russians’ support, but Niles as well as the president knew that this was a backlash action over the harvest and grain shortages.
Previously, the American secretary of state had told the world about the true nature of the Coalition that was truly responsible for the seismic attacks. Armed with only circumstantial evidence, and with the ambush in Chicago on record, even allies of the United States had looked on with skepticism.
The president could endure it no longer and snapped off the television.
“We can’t stop them if they come across the border, can we, Ken?”
“The delay in moving in our sea power has seriously damaged our reaction time. Our pilots and the Japanese are running nonstop from Kempo, they’re beat, and it’s even harder on the aircraft.”
“So there’s not a whole hell of a lot we can do about it,” the president finished for him.
“We have options, Mr. President.
“Ken, you know me—until they threaten to push the Second Infantry Division into the sea, that option will not be discussed, not with the world thinking we’re behind these disasters.”
Admiral Fuqua stood and paced to the far wall and looked at a portrait of General George Washington. Compton had briefed the admiral on his SEAL-and salvage-team losses at Pearl and knew his anger.
“Admiral, do you have something on your mind?” the president asked.
“I see no way out of this outside of nuclear weapons’ use.”
The room erupted as most thought that the admiral might be intentionally goading the president.
“Gentlemen, let the admiral voice his opinion,” the president said.
“We can’t take more carrier groups from their current deployments,” he said, turning to face the room. “Hell, it would be over by the time we got t
hem in theater anyway. But we can”—the admiral turned again and faced the president directly—“pull everyone out.”
The gathered military men just stared at the admiral as if he had lost his mind. However, Niles could see the brilliance of the statement as soon as the admiral had said the words. He nodded as he listened.
“As a navy man, I know what we face in Korea is a funnel which will slide thousands upon thousands of young men into uncertain hostilities, and in the end someone, maybe even us, will push that button we’ve feared since we were crawling under school desks as children during air-raid drills.”
The president watched the admiral walk back to his chair and sit. He swallowed and looked from face to face.
“In the end, we would prevail—I truly believe that—but at what cost? I say we place the emphasis on the North Koreans by pulling back the Second ID and the South Korean army. Pull them all the way back south of Seoul and let them set up defensive positions there, and let the world see us do it.”
“Brilliant!” Niles said, to let the admiral know that he, for one, did not think he was nuts or defeatist.
“That just may read like an invitation to Kim Jong Il to come through the door quicker than he otherwise would,” General Caulfield said.
“Maybe,” said the president. “But it would go a long way to demonstrate to the Chinese and Russians that we have no designs on Korea, or themselves.” He looked at Niles, knowing that the emphasis for getting them out of this mess might have just landed in the Group’s lap. “How soon can we get the orders out to the Second ID to pull back from the DMZ?”
“They can be on the move in six hours. I’ll order the overflights stopped, border patrols only. Admiral, you can order the two carrier task forces to hold station at their current location.”
“And I’ll announce to the world that we’re pulling back. Let’s just hope we can take the sword out of the Korean hand without getting ourselves cut to pieces,” the president, said looking from the general to Niles.
Ancients: An Event Group Thriller Page 28