by Vicki Hinze
Looking up, she again checked the face of the rock above the waterline. Worn smooth and scarred by deep gouges. Definite signs of traffic.
That oddity had caught her eye initially and led her to dive here for a closer look. Otherwise even with Douglas’s coordinates, she never would have found this particular cave—and she seriously doubted anyone short of an oceanographer charting the gulf floor would have, either.
“Bluefish?” Worry filled Maggie’s voice. “The guys at the lab swear this device will work, but if it doesn’t and we lose contact, I want you out of there pronto. I mean it.”
“Here we go again. Trust a little. Remember, no guts, no glory.” Kate adjusted her diving headgear, checked to make sure her knife was secure in the sheath strapped to her thigh, pulled her flashlight from her tool belt, turned it on, then dove.
“Glory?” Maggie’s sigh crackled static through Kate’s earpiece. “What glory? You’re a phantom. Less than three hundred people know you exist.”
S. A.S.S. were a highly skilled, special-detail unit of covert operatives assigned to the Office of Special Investigations and buried in the Office of Personnel Management for the United States Air Force. The unit didn’t exist on paper, its missions didn’t exist on paper—the unit’s name even changed every six months for security purposes, which is why those who knew of S.A.S.S. operatives referred to them by what they did and not by their official organizational name.
“Personal power, Home Base.” Kate had learned from the cradle to expect no other kind. “Doesn’t matter who else knows it as long as I do.”
At the mouth of the cave, she paused to scan the rock. More of the same worn smoothness and deep gouges. Even considering tidal fluxes, too many deep gouges rimmed the actual opening. Water action alone couldn’t explain it. She swam forward, entering the cave.
“Are you inside?”
“Yes,” Kate whispered, keeping her voice as quiet as possible. Snake-curved, the inner cave was about three feet wide. She swam close to the ceiling. Suddenly the width expanded to nearly ten feet. “The cave’s opened up.” She lifted her head above water, cranked her neck back and shone the light above her. “This is bizarre.”
“What?”
“I dove a solid twenty feet to get to the mouth, then swam a couple football fields to get to this point. The water rode the cave ceiling the whole way. Now I’m seeing a stretch of wall that’s exposed a good nine feet above the waterline.” She stopped treading water and tested for bottom. Her fin swiped the sand and she stood. “Water level’s dropped. It’s chest deep.”
“I’m plotting your GPS,” Maggie said. “Attempting a video link.”
“Good, because even considering an umbrella effect, this shouldn’t be possible.” Kate kept her diving mask on in case she was standing on a shelf or sand bar. False bottoms had proven common in her explorations. She then looked down the throat of the cave. Diffused light emanated from somewhere far ahead, creating a haze. The rocks jutting out from the cave walls cast deep shadows. Reflections shining through the water or cracks in the rock? Neither seemed possible, but the alternative... “Oh, man.”
“What is it?” Anxiety etched Maggie’s voice.
“This is more than we bargained for.” Kate’s heart beat hard and fast. “A whole lot more.”
Rushing water poured in with the tide, nearly knocking her off her feet. Kate braced against it, hunkering down until the water swirled around her chin, her wet suit and oxygen tank. Once it was calm, she removed her mask. “The salt in here smells strong—too strong. Saline content has to be off the charts.”
“If so, it should be strong enough to burn your nose,” Maggie responded.
“It does.” Kate’s nostrils stung like fire. “But it’s still too strong. Note that and my position on the plotter. And up that video link to High Priority.” After putting her mask back on to block the smell, Kate depressed a sensor embedded under the skin at the base of her neck to pulse a signal the operatives had dubbed “Big Brother.” Only Home Base could activate it, but Kate could transmit her location at a given time with a pulse signal.
“Roger. Home Base is now plotting. Video link request acknowledged. Positioning Delay.” A pause, then, “Do you see any reason for the olfactory oddity?”
Looking through the water droplets spotting her wide-angle vision screen, Kate scanned the cave but saw nothing to account for the intense smell. One hundred percent saline content couldn’t take it to this level, and there was no way the cave water could be a hundred percent. It would show in the rocks.
“No, not a thing,” Kate admitted, expelling an impatient breath through pursed lips. “Maybe it’s just me.” Diving alone wasn’t unusual for S.A.S.S. operatives, but the increased risks and dangers definitely heightened awareness. Maybe she was hyper-alert and extra hyper-sensitive.
She rounded a bend. The dim haze shone brighter. A chill crept up Kate’s back and tingled the roof of her mouth. “There’s light in here, Base. I’d hoped it was a crack in the rock or some weird reflection caused by my flashlight, but it’s not.”
“You’re under water. It should be dark—all the other caves were dark. Briefing reports have been consistent on that.”
“Yeah, well, this cave didn’t read them. There’s always that ten percent that doesn’t get the word, you know?”
“But why would this one be different?”
“Don’t know. Do know it’s not dark.” Kate moved slowly down the tunnel, hugging the rough cave wall, the swift water pushing her along faster than she wanted to go. She turned off her flashlight. Double-checked. “Definitely not a reflection. It’s light, Base.”
“Wait,” Maggie said. “I’m running the topography on your coordinates.” A few moments later she added, “Your cave is located under a finger of land that juts out into the gulf. It’s hilly in your immediate area, and the hills are full of man-made caves. Maybe one of them leads to your location and the fight is filtering through from above ground.”
“Maybe.” The eerie light was actually a series of dim rays; glowing beams that hindered her sight despite her gear being night-vision equipped. Kate’s mouth went desert-dry. “On second thought, that’s unlikely.” To be certain, Kate lifted off her headgear and checked again.
She could see no better. That was the worst news yet. Rattled, her nerves tingled, prickling her skin, and her voice shook. “Visual observation is distorted with the night-vision goggles and the naked eye.”
“What are you telling me?” Maggie asked.
“Getting this perfect balance to blind you with both the naked eye and your NVG isn’t a natural occurrence. I’m telling you that the spectrum’s too narrow for this light to be natural. It’s not achieved by accident, Base.” U.S. scientists had spent years and millions of dollars identifying the perimeters of that spectrum.
“So your determination is that it’s man-made and deliberate, correct?”
“Affirmative. At this point, that’s my take on it.” Only a few groups outside the U.S. government had access to spectrum technology—but only one had a reason to corrupt it. S.A.S.S.’s nemesis. GRID.
So far, Kate had been involved in taking down three GRID compounds. But with Thomas Kunz, the sadistic German and anti-American at GRID’S helm, there would always be another compound.
Kunz blamed America for Germany’s troubled economy and, in a twisted quest for revenge, acquired members for GRID from all nationalities and devoted himself and his massive resources to using the organization to drag down America’s economy by selling classified intelligence on U.S. assets, technology and personnel on the black market. Unfortunately, Kunz had proved to be expert, cunning and creative. He was more devious and deadly than anyone Kate had ever known. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to achieve his goals.
Edgy, she tensed and immediately rolled her shoulders to release it. “You’d better notify the program honchos that they’ve got a security breach,” she told Maggie. The light-spectrum technology
had been developed under a top-secret classification. That the security had been violated meant bad news for the program.
“Um, just a second.” Maggie hesitated and, when she returned, her voice sounded like tin. She was obviously very uneasy. “You do know where you are, right?”
“On the border between Iraq and Iran?” Purely speculation. But wasn’t she? “You’re looking at the GPS coordinates, you tell me.”
“You don’t want to know,” Maggie assured her. “I’m calling the boss.”
Blast it. Kate had crossed a freaking national boundary line. She should tell Maggie not to bother Colonel Drake; she knew the drill. Get in and out. Avoid detection by any means necessary. But she was just edgy enough and eager enough to stay quiet. She hadn’t seen any evidence of detection and the idea of maybe exposing another Kunz operative carried many positives in her book, and no negatives. Obviously the operative, who had infiltrated a top-secret program and successfully occupied a classified position by impersonating a legitimate U.S. government employee, would be the nature of a security breach required to get such technology out of the lab and into GRID’S greedy, grimy hands.
Three minutes passed, then Maggie returned. “The boss feels breaching security, stealing and using this light-spectrum technology in this manner is right up Big Fish’s alley.
Intel says he’s the only current prospect capable of that deep a penetration into our programs.”
Kate agreed with Intel, aka Captain Darcy Clark. Darcy had total recall, thanks to a head injury that had taken her out of the field as an active operative. She now worked solely on intelligence assimilation for the S.A.S.S. unit. The recall challenge that kept her isolated to avoid sensory overload had repeatedly proved to be a lifesaver for the other S.A.S.S. operatives still in the field.
“The boss is notifying the honchos in the need-to-know loop,” Maggie said. “She wants you to pull out, return to the outpost and wait for backup to go in with you.” Before Kate could think of a way to sidestep the order, something alerted her honed instincts. Some sound or sense of movement. Some...something. Whatever it was had her attention. The hair on her neck prickled. “Stand by, Base.”
An internal alarm flashed Danger! Kate’s heart kicked into overdrive, thumping hard against her ribs. With her thumb, she unsnapped the loop on her knife’s sheath and slowly scanned the rock walls, then the water’s shimmering surface. Shadows. Dull beams. No odd ripples or breaks in the water. “Okay,” she said, calming. “Okay, we’re fine.” Kate sucked in a steadying breath. Strange for her instincts to be wrong; they rarely veered off target. Yet logic insisted that the odds of anyone else finding this uncharted cave were slim to none. The water blasting the rocks could have sanded them smooth, but it hadn’t caused the gouges. Those could only have come from fast-moving water sending something heavy crashing against the rocks.
That anomaly warranted investigation. But this perfect spectrum of light added another complex layer to the reasons she must keep investigating.
“Bluefish?” Maggie asked. “Did you hear what I said?” Great. A classic Catch-22. If she acknowledged, she’d have to disobey a direct order. If she didn’t acknowledge, the lab would be informed that its new C-273 communications device had failed its field test. Kate decided to ignore the question and the order, and turned the topic. “This perfect illumination proves Captain Douglas was on the money.”
“Oh, no. You’re not pulling this on me. Acknowledge the order, Bluefish,” Maggie insisted, her tone short and sharp. “Get out of there, go the outpost and wait for Douglas and Tactical. Then return with them and investigate.” Kate frowned. Great. Any other S.A.S.S. operative—Amanda, Darcy, Julia—any of them would have let that slide.
But then, they all had more experience than Maggie. Just Kate’s dumb luck that Amanda was out on a mission for the next few days and Maggie was manning the watch. “I won’t say I can’t hear you. The C-273 device is working great and I don’t want it reported that it’s not. But I can’t acknowledge that order.”
“No, Kate. That’s unacceptable.”
Now Maggie was transmitting her name! “Hey, don’t let your temper put a target on my back. Just calm down, okay?”
“Sorry.”
Jeez! Kate licked at her lips. Make her think. Make her think. “Listen, you know the enemy,” she reminded Maggie, who had read the dossiers on Thomas Kunz and GRID. “He could shut down this operation in a matter of minutes—he’s done it before with others. If we wait, and that happens, then all we’ll find down here is an empty hole.”
“But we’ve got—”
She might be hearing, but she definitely wasn’t listening. “What we’ve got doesn’t matter. It’s what he’s got that counts.” Kate swallowed a lump in her throat. “He’s holding at least thirty Americans permanent hostage. They’re stashed for life in one of his compounds unless we get them out. It’s notorious for torture. What if they’re stashed here? You want to just leave them?”
S.A.S.S. knew for fact he had at least that many American government employees under wraps at his various compounds.
They also knew those employees’ GRID operative counterparts remained inserted and undetected as body doubles in classified positions within the CIA, FBI, NAS, INS and U.S. military. Those agencies had been identified and were being watched. Yet there were other GRID operatives who remained unknown, and had not yet been identified by S.A.S.S.
Exactly how many? Only God and Thomas Kunz knew for sure. But they were active inside the U.S. government in classified positions, which is why the president had designated GRID as S.A.S.S.’s top priority.
The hostages had to be rescued to determine their doubles’ identities, their specific program affiliations and to determine their access level to classified information. And hopefully this would be accomplished before those GRID operative counterparts managed to do irreparable harm to the U.S.
“What if the hostages aren’t there and you’re walking into a trap?”
“Highly unlikely, Base. The coordinates weren’t fixed and there weren’t any guideposts, leading me here. No one meant for me to find this particular cave. I literally stumbled into it.” True, thanks to high tide, swift water currents and a curiosity about defaced rocks.
It seemed vulgar in a way, to have so much technology and sophisticated detection systems available, yet if the hostages were here and rescued, or if the GRID weapons cache were found, it would be as a direct result of simple unsophisticated things and blind luck.
“Which is exactly why you need to wait for Tactical. You could be walking into anything.”
It was walking into the unknown that troubled Maggie. Kate rolled her gaze ceiling-ward, edgy and annoyed now. Maggie’s lack of experience was weighing Kate down. The woman really shouldn’t be cutting her teeth on this mission.
But she had to cut them somewhere, and since the president had changed the unit’s priorities, there’d been no latitude or choice in the matter. In fairness, Maggie probably wasn’t crazy about the situation, either.
Realizing the truth in that, Kate calmed down and dredged the depths of her soul for another helping of patience. In short supply, she grabbed the meager bits she could pull together and then explained. “No, Base. That’s exactly why I can’t wait. I’ve got to check this out now—before the enemy discovers I’m here.”
“He could already know it,” Maggie said. “The whole cave could be wired with surveillance equipment. He could be intercepting our communications. I know the lab says we’re secure, but this is the C-273’s maiden voyage. They can’t know it for fact. Any communications device can be intercepted—you don’t need Intel to verify that. All the experts agree. What if the guys at the lab are wrong, Bluefish? What if he’s waiting for you?”
The idea chilled Kate’s blood. Kunz looked like a sunny kind of guy. Forty, blond and blue-eyed, casual and elegant, he appeared to be totally benevolent and good-natured. But he wasn’t. He was a sick, sadistic demon who enjoyed t
orture and stealing other people’s lives. Amanda’s confrontation with him on a previous mission had made all of that clear, and Kate definitely would prefer to avoid him on this mission—if given a choice.
“Listen,” she told Maggie. “Some risks you’ve got to take. If any of the hostages are here, I have to take the shot at getting them out.”
“And if they’re not?”
“Then we’ve still got the weapons cache to worry about. There’s been a lot of chatter lately about the enemy trying to move bio weapons systems. You’ve heard the reports. Douglas suspects they’re hidden somewhere in the area.” Darcy did, too, and Kate had a healthy respect for her deductions. She was an ace at them. “We can’t risk bio weapons getting loose on the black market. Odds are they’ll be used against us, Base. I’m not willing to risk that.” She sure didn’t need to add responsibility for that to her personal, emotional baggage.
“Okay, okay. But just do reconnaissance. Don’t approach, and don’t reveal yourself. I understand your motives, Bluefish, but you can’t prevent any crisis if you’re dead. If you find anything, get Douglas and Tactical to go in with you. I’ll put his commander on alert.”
“Who is his CO?”
Maggie answered in code.
Kate translated. Major Nathan Forester. She let his name meander through her mind. They’d never met, but his name seemed familiar. She couldn’t recall why. “Have Intel get me a dossier on him.”
“Stand by.” A lengthy few minutes later Maggie returned and relayed the encrypted information.
Kate automatically decoded it in her head.
Nathan G. Forester. Thirty-one, black hair, blue eyes, solid build. No remarkable scars or identifying marks. Graduated from the Academy top of his class. Awarded a Purple Heart in Afghanistan, another in Iraq. Bio field-specialist. Expert marksman. Worked under Secretary Reynolds at the Pentagon on analysis of bio intelligence. Currently commanding the 123rd Tactical Force.