Left for Dead

by Sean Parnell

  “Yes, very good,” Panther said.

  “We’ll hit them tonight,” Steele said, “which means we’ve got time for a dry run.”

  “Yes.” Panther snapped out more orders, and his other two element leaders hurried from the TOC.

  “Lansky says you’re not going anywhere,” Goodhill called over, “till he gets a green light from 1600.”

  “Seven?” Ralphy said as he tapped like a madman on his Alienware. “I’ve got the Roosevelt strike group at a hundred and thirty-two nautical miles south southeast of Uotsuri and closing. Looks like they’re heading for the gap between the Jimas.”

  Steele and his father exchanged looks. They were both thinking about Kristin, but said nothing.

  “Goddammit,” Goodhill spat. “Lansky just ordered me to stay here on station.”

  “Well,” Steele said, “somebody’s got to write the obituaries and the AAR.”

  Goodhill shot him the finger.

  “Houston, we have a problem,” Jackson said.

  “You really did go to BU,” Steele said, but then he saw Jackson’s grim expression.

  Jackson said something to Panther in Chinese, and Panther nodded, reached up behind his ear, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it.

  “I am afraid I missed something in the interrogation,” he said, “perhaps during my enthusiasm.”

  “What is it, Panther?” Steele asked.

  “They have surface-to-air missiles. Chinese QW-18s. They will shoot us out of the sky before the first man ropes to the ground.”

  “Jesus,” Ralphy moaned from his workstation.

  “Well, Panther,” Steele said, “guess you’d better call the minister of defense back.”

  “You want to stand down?”

  “No. I want a submarine. That’s how we’re going in.”

  Panther blinked at Steele, then grinned broadly through a stream of smoke.

  “A submarine. Yes!” He stomped over to a comm station and snatched up a handset.

  Hank smirked and muttered, “Zodiacs from a sub. Haven’t done that in a long, long time.”

  “And you won’t be doing it now,” Steele snapped. “This isn’t The Rock and you’re not Sean Connery.”

  Hank cocked his head at his progeny.

  “What’s your Alpha designator again?”

  “Seven,” Steele said.

  “That’s right. And as you might remember, we code from the top down. Technically, I never left the Program. No retirement papers, no pension, no black DD214. And my designator is Forty-four, which means I outrank you times six.” Hank fired a finger at his son’s green eyes. “So, shut up and let’s draw some gear.”

  Chapter 44

  Winchester, Virginia

  It was a long way to drive for a midnight rendezvous, and the president’s Secret Service detail didn’t like it.

  But you didn’t argue with Hammer. You could advise, implore, point out the exigencies of security measures, and then you just had to go with the flow. In most cases, Rockford would at least acquiesce to the drama of what he called “the circus,” the long train of armored vehicles with whipping pennants and flashing lights, packed with agents armed to the teeth. Yet tonight he was driving them all crazy.

  He’d insisted on not taking the Beast, so they had him in one of those armored limousines reserved for picking up visiting guests, like his in-laws. He’d also limited the follow car to just one nondescript Suburban, and no air cover of any kind. He’d told Jack to not even log it. It was these kinds of things that were making Jack carry a roll of Tums in his pocket and consider early retirement. He really liked Rockford, but sometimes the guy still acted like a pulp fiction spook.

  It was pouring rain when they pulled off a slim roadway and drove through the woods into a wide muddy clearing. The clearing was bordered on three sides by pointy black pines, with a firing range berm on the far perimeter and some shooting benches with primitive roofs closer by. The president had spent the ride using two secure phones in the back, having curt conversations with Pentagon generals, the CIA, and the secretary of state. Now he was off comms, pulling a dark raincoat on over his suit, and unsheathing a large umbrella.

  Sitting in the front right shotgun position, Jack saw something flash under one of the shooting bench shelters. It looked like an old Zippo lighter.

  “All right, Jack,” Rockford said.

  Jack got out, ignoring the mud that instantly creamed over his shoes, scanned the surroundings, and opened the president’s door. Then, in a flash of lightning, he saw the distant figure—a man in a heavy raincoat, with a hat and some sort of walking stick.

  “Can I at least frisk him, Mr. President?” he asked as Rockford got out and opened his own umbrella.

  “You can try, Jack. But he’ll probably break your legs.”

  He walked off into the rain while the agents in the follow car started to get out, and Jack waved them back and thought, Helluva spot to end my career.

  “Evening, Thorn,” Rockford said as they shook hands beneath the shelter and he folded the dripping umbrella.

  “A pleasure, as always, Mr. President.” Thorn McHugh, per the norm, was impeccably dressed, in a Burberry coat, tweed jacket, and pearl pinned tie.

  The bench under the shelter was dry, so they both leaned back against it, facing the vehicles and Rockford’s edgy agents, who were standing there getting pummeled with rain, swiveling their heads, and ignoring the discomfort.

  “Apologies for the short notice,” Rockford said. “I needed a nonpolitical assessment.”

  “And you shall have it, of course,” McHugh said. “And my apologies for the venue, but your neighborhood is fraught with surveillance.”

  “Tell me about it.” Rockford looked around for another vehicle. “How’d you get here?”

  “Horseback.” McHugh smiled and Rockford wasn’t sure if he was joking.

  “I assume you’ve heard about Colonel Liang,” Rockford said.

  “Terrible shame, particularly after all that effort to extract her.” McHugh looked wistfully at the cloud-swollen sky. “Just think what we might have gleaned from that brain.”

  Rockford looked at him and thought, Heart like an ice cube, and he knew right then that he’d chosen the right consigliere.

  “I’ve got a decision to make, Thorn,” the president said, “and it has to be fast.”

  “Yes, it’s your Bay of Pigs moment.”

  “You could have used a softer analogy,” Rockford snorted.

  “Well, I am nothing if not blunt,” McHugh said. “In sum, Mr. President, if I may. You’ve got your primary Alpha in place, with appropriate supporting foreign allied operators, prepared to eliminate the Swords of Qing, if that is in fact who they are. However, the precipitous threat against our Pacific forces may be a CCP ruse designed to ignite open warfare, and provide them an excuse to invade Taiwan. It’s a conundrum.”

  “It’s a fucking shit show is what it is, Thorn.”

  “Indeed. And what are your advisors saying?”

  “Pentagon wants me to strike first, on multiple fronts.”

  “Naturally. That’s what they do for a living. And the IC?” McHugh asked, meaning the intelligence community.

  “Tina just called me in the car. She says we should let the SOQ attack, whether it’s Beijing’s trickery or not, then hit the Chinese with a massive counterstrike. Like Golda Meir did with the Egyptians in ’73.”

  “Quite a gamble, I’d say. Mrs. Meir nearly lost her entire country with that misadventure. Frankly, I think you should have fired Ms. Harcourt on your first day in office. She’s as deep as the deep state goes.”

  Rockford laughed without mirth. “If I fired every deep state holdover, I’d have nothing left but a driver and a servant.”

  “Spot on.” McHugh raised a finger. “Well, you can clean house next term.”

  “If I have one.”

  Neither man spoke for a long moment. They stood there listening to the rain hammer the wooden roof till
McHugh’s expression grew pensive and dark.

  “Would you like my assessment, Mr. President?”

  “No, Thorn. I came here ’cause I missed your historical humor.”

  McHugh didn’t smile.

  “Regardless of whether or not these Chinese imperial revolutionary miscreants are genuine, or in fact a CCP false flag . . . and regardless of whether the Communists are wholly ignorant of what’s about to transpire, or have in fact planned the entire venture, or are simply drooling at the prospects, one thing is clear. You cannot permit an attack on the fleet. You must ignore the geopolitical ramifications and think of nothing more than your sailors.” He turned his head and fixed Rockford with an iron squint. “You have a very fine scalpel out there in your Stalker Seven, John. Let the surgeon cut.”

  Rockford looked at McHugh. He was a renowned warrior, a fearless spy and a patriot, but he was also the most officious and formal creature that Rockford had ever met. McHugh had just called him by his Christian name, which was the ultimate coda on his pronouncement. It was like hearing a judge’s gavel ringing the bench. Rockford reached out and shook his hand.

  “Thank you. That’s what I needed to hear.”

  “A pleasure.”

  Rockford opened his umbrella and stepped out in the rain.

  “Come down to Camp David for dinner,” he said, “after all this is over.”

  “I shan’t, ever. Yet the invitation is treasured.”

  “When you finally retire, then,” Rockford said.

  McHugh smiled and tipped his hat brim.

  “They shall have to carry me from the field.”

  Rockford waved over his shoulder as he walked off through the mud and the pelting rain and returned to the limousine. Jack opened the door and the president turned and looked back as he got in the car.

  But McHugh was already gone.

  Chapter 45

  No Acknowledged Location

  EYES ONLY

  SAP (Alphas/Support/OCO EAST) - FLASH

  From: SAWTOOTH MAIN

  To: All OCONUS EAST ASIA PAX

  Subj: Ops Order

  Source: Command/Primary

  Confidence: Highest

  IMMEDIATE, all OCONUS EAST PAX, inc ALPHA, CYBER, KEEPER, FORN SUPPORT: Initiate Op BLUE HERON per Hammer green, all TTPs cleared.

  Emphasis: Exceptions; None

  STATUS: DEFCON Purple.

  Operational window: Execute, Execute, Execute.

  Chapter 46

  The Sea Dragon, East China Sea

  Eric Steele leaped into the night from a UH-60 Black Hawk, straight into the roaring wind, and as the helo jerked sideways in the turbulence he almost fell to his death.

  But his gloves found the three-inch-thick dangling fast rope, his ankles locked to its slippery hemp, and he looked down into a cauldron of swirling mist and roiling waves and went twisting downward, fast. He was burdened with a Taiwanese assault rifle, his father’s 1911, his Gerber combat blade, MICH helmet, and forty more pounds of ammunition and grenades, and when he slammed onto the sea-slickened deck of the submarine, it sounded like a sack full of kettlebells.

  He cranked himself to his feet, spread his legs on the pitching deck, grabbed the whipping rope, and stomped on its tail with a boot. He was just aft of the black conning tower, which he could barely see, but in a flash of white wave foam its stenciled letters, 793, showed bright and clear.

  At least he was at the correct address.

  The Taiwanese had only four submarines, all ancient diesels, because due to pressure from the red Chinese, no nation would sell them anything better. This one was an old Dutch-made Chien Lung class attack boat, the Hai Lung, or Sea Dragon. It was a modest 66.9 meters long and 8 meters abeam, and had twenty-eight torpedoes aboard, but no other armaments of any kind, except for the small crew’s rifles and pistols. It didn’t even have a deck gun, but it could do twenty knots per hour, submerged.

  Steele heard a deck hatch thwang open behind him, looked up at the Black Hawk’s thrumming belly, waved his arm in a wide circle, and the next man came down. Bang, he tumbled onto the deck. Steele grabbed his combat harness, hauled him up, shoved him astern toward the hatch, and saw the operator disappear into the hold. Another man corkscrewed down, then five more, then the large canvas case of a packed-up fifteen-foot FC 470 Zodiac rubber assault boat, which the last two men dragged to the hatch, and the Black Hawk pulled pitch and roared away.

  Steele stayed where he was, with the boat making five knots on the surface and the wave foam soaking his boots, and he anchored the ropes and shepherded the operators into the sub until two more birds had disgorged their men. In the onyx darkness and a typhoon of sea mist, and with the commandos all wearing helmets and balaclavas, he couldn’t tell who was who—not Panther, Jackson, his father, or anyone else—but he’d counted twenty-four including himself, plus the flamethrower, LAW rockets, and three Zodiac boats. With the Black Hawks gone it was suddenly quiet, except for the waves slapping the hull, and the sky above was packed with stars. He walked to the hatch and slid down the steel ladder into something that looked like an old World War II “pig.”

  The sub’s claustrophobic interior was like a plumber’s wet dream. It was packed with long silver and blue pipes, black faucets and wheels, orange iron brackets and steam gauges, old-style flip switches, and green and red on-and-off lights. Taiwanese sailors in blue dungarees and chambray shirts chattered through their headsets in Mandarin, while officers in khakis with blue submariner patches on their shoulders barked orders into handheld mikes that looked like surplus from NYPD squad cars. All of their faces were shiny, their armpits and uniform backs were soaked with sweat, and the air was rank with diesel fuel, jitang chicken broth, and recycled breaths.

  Panther’s commandos had already squeezed into every available space they could find, standing between fire control stations, steel stanchions and ventilation pipes, doffing their helmets and balaclavas and dripping puddles on the dimpled steel floor.

  Steele saw a young sailor charge up the ladder to close the hatch, so he quickly tapped his Program ear transceiver, which was linked to his vest’s MBITR.

  “Blue Heron Bench, Blue Heron Quarterback here. How copy?”

  “Lima Charlie, Quarterback,” Ralphy’s tinny voice said.

  “All aboard for Hollywood,” Steele advised.

  “Roger, QB,” Ralphy said. “Now don’t forget to come back.”

  “Is that a recall order?” Steele asked, not that he intended to comply if it was.

  “Negative, QB,” Ralphy said. “It’s a life wish. Good luck.”

  The transmission went dead as the hatch was secured, a dive klaxon honked through the sub, the ballast tanks blew like the spouts of breaching whales, and they submerged and the big screws churned ocean.

  For three hours, the Sea Dragon cruised at a depth of six fathoms and twenty knots. It was a respectable speed for the old diesel vessel, but not fast enough. Steele’s strike team had boarded the sub at sixty-seven miles southwest of Uotsuri, but the tides were against them and the night was crawling away.

  Steele, Panther, and Jackson had shucked their gear and weapons, squeezed their way throughout the vessel to check on the men, and had ordered them to do the same with their loads to conserve muscle strength. Yet there was nowhere to sit but the cold hard deck, and those who did were packed boots to ass like calves in a slaughterhouse chute. They chewed biscuits and dried seaweed crisps, drank water and pungent submariner tea, and a few somehow managed to make it to the head, which was about the size of an upright coffin.

  Many of them had found breathing spaces in the forward torpedo room, where Steele finally spotted his father at the very tip of the bow. Hank was standing between two enormous silver torpedo tubes, with his arms draped over the tubes and his empty pipe gripped in his grin like he’d just rediscovered Disneyland. He didn’t look like some broken old ancient Alpha. He looked like a warrior king who belonged there. Even so, Steele shook his head, his mou
th turned down in disapproval.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “You should be smoking that thing on a porch in a rocker.”

  “You shouldn’t be here either,” Hank retorted, “but you had a shitty upbringing.”

  “Can’t argue that.”

  “However,” Hank said as he jabbed his pipe stem at his son, “you’re going to be a father. So somebody’s got to watch your ass.”

  Steele turned away and moved on, as images of Meg and her pregnant belly swirled in his head. But he couldn’t think about any of that now. There was nothing so dangerous to a man on a mission as images of hearth and home, nothing so deadly as caring about anything other than the impending kill zone. And as often on the cusp of a kinetic strike, he summoned a tune in his head. This one was Dave Ralston’s “I Don’t Care,” a pounding R&B ode of indifference to lesser mortals, a favorite of special forces.

  I don’t care about your Ugg boots, or one-night stands . . . And I don’t care about your favorite show, or boyfriend’s band. . . .

  The Sea Dragon’s captain came down from his bridge in the conning tower. He was in his forties with gray hair and a crush cap pushed back on his head. He called Panther and Steele over to a plotting table in the sub’s dive control room. He’d studied at Norfolk on a navy exchange and had good English.

  “We are short,” he said as he tapped a telescopic pointer on the table’s nautical map, “but we must surface.”

  “What’s the range, Captain?” Steele asked.

  “Seven miles, but it will take you time to build your rubber boats.”

  “That is correct.” Panther grunted. “They are beasts to make ready.”

  “We will continue to cruise on the surface, half speed ahead,” the captain said, “but we have coral reefs at three miles, so no farther than that.”