We hurried over to catch the dock lines.
“You made it back in one piece, I see,” Deuce said with a grin.
The dog jumped up and braced his front legs on the gunwale and greeted me with his tail wagging side to side. I scratched his ears.
Jesse killed the engines and directed the dockhand where to fill his tanks, then joined us on the dock. “How’s the investigation going?”
“We’ve got another lead,” Dalton said. “I was just heading over to recruit Whit. He’s here on the island.”
“Rod Whitaker?” Deuce asked. “He’s here?”
“Yeah,” Dalton said. “On his honeymoon.”
Deuce glanced at Jesse and some shared bit of knowledge passed between them.
“Whatcha need?” Jesse asked.
“Need to board a vessel. No footprint.”
Jesse gazed out over the boats anchored in the bay. “We’re just killing time for a day or two. Need any help?”
“Could be like the old days,” Deuce added.
Dalton nodded. “Yeah. That’d be great. But I still need Whit.”
“Didn’t you say he’s on his honeymoon?”
“Yeah, but the boat, we think they’re Russian.”
Deuce nodded in understanding. “Roger that. C’mon aboard. Let me show you some gear we’ve got that might be what we need.”
We followed him aboard and stepped up into a salon that belied the boat’s charter fishing exterior. It was done in a subdued white, with light colored wood accents and tan leather. Very luxurious.
“Have a seat,” Jesse offered, sweeping a hand toward an L-shaped couch on the port side. “Care for a beer?”
He and Deuce shared another glance, and again, there seemed to be an exchange of ideas, with only the slightest of a raised eyebrow or head nod.
Dalton trusted these men, without question. But something was going on that they weren’t sharing.
To Jesse, I said, “Hey, uh, Dalton said you were in the Mog. That’s Mogadishu, right? Africa.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“How long were you there?”
“Too long,” he replied. “As soon as the wheels of the plane touch down, you’ve been in that hell-hole too long.”
“You ever spend any time around South Sudan?” That’s where my dad died. Killed by poachers. Maybe he would have some insight.
He looked to Dalton, then back to me. “Not officially.”
Dalton cleared his throat. “Not now, Poppy.”
What? Had I stumbled on some code among brothers? Don’t ask kinda thing?
Jesse leaned against the Corian countertop that separated the lounge from the galley. He fixed Dalton with his piercing blue eyes. “Deuce says you’re good-to-go, Dalton. That’s good enough for me. Under the bench Poppy’s sitting on, I have three Draeger PSS 7000s, all charged, inspected, and ready to go.”
Dalton let out a slow whistle. “Wish we had your funding.”
“Personal gear,” he said, one corner of his mouth coming up in a half grin. “I can also add noise-makers, if you’re not carrying.”
“We’re good there,” Dalton said. “And I have access to some gear at the dive shop, too. But, um, just out of curiosity, what kind of noise-makers.”
Jesse gave Dalton another half grin. “Ma Deuce is below your seat.”
“No way! How?”
“Custom built titanium tripod that fits into the fighting chair’s deck receiver. Got some full auto long guns, and plenty of pistols and ammo. In case of an apocalypse, there’s an electric mini-gun, as well.”
Dalton didn’t show much reaction, but I could tell he was impressed with the hardware. He spread a paper chart out on the settee. The Russian boat was anchored half a mile northeast of the northern tip of the island. They discussed an entry point four miles up the coast from where we were. It was a desolate beach way past Bailey Town, just before the islands northern point.
Carrying tactical type dive gear, on foot, after midnight, was out of the question. Dalton said he could get a golf cart and a couple of seabags to carry the gear.
“I appreciate the equipment and backup,” Dalton said. “But this—”
“Your op,” Deuce said. “You call the shots. Jesse and I can provide the equipment and help you get there. But we’re just backup. We’ll stay in the water.”
Dalton grinned. “Thanks, Deuce.”
In minutes, the three men had put together a plan—one that obviously didn’t include me.
“Hey, what about me?” I said.
Deuce shook his head.
Jesse crossed his arms. “Nope,” was all he said.
“What do you mean, nope? This is my op. Dalton and I are partners.”
“Yeah, no,” Jesse said, looking to Dalton.
The heat rose up my neck. I could feel it setting my skin on fire.
Dalton held up his hand. “Poppy, listen. It’s nothing personal.”
“Right. It’s just a guy thing?” My eyeballs were starting to bulge.
“No, no.” He shook his head. “No. It’s a military thing. They’re not comfortable with you because they don’t know you like I do, that’s all. These men have trained together, fought together.”
I held my ground. “We’ve fought together.”
Dalton took me by the arm and whispered in my ear, “I’ll ditch them and take you if you can tell me what ‘Ma Deuce’ is.”
I stared back at him. He knew I had no idea.
He said aloud, “Ma Deuce is an affectionate term for the M-2 fifty-caliber machine gun, developed by Browning in the 1930s to destroy tanks. It’s still employed today.”
“Men and their gadgets,” I said, trying to sound unimpressed.
Jesse and Deuce stared at me, smug.
“Yeah, well, what am I supposed to do? Hang out here and babysit Finn?”
“Finn can take care of himself,” Jesse said. Then he winked at me. “You’re welcome to hang out on the boat, looking pretty. That’s something you seem to excel at.”
The needle shot off the scale. “Would you like to spend the rest of your life speaking in a falsetto voice?”
He turned to Dalton. “Wow, she is quite the little spark plug. You got your hands full, don’t you buddy?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Dalton muttered.
“What? You don’t like your normal speaking voice either?”
He clamped his mouth shut.
Chapter Twelve
“I was hoping we’d be able to see from here,” I said to Alison, pulling behind some tropical foliage near the beach. To our left a topless golf cart was parked on the dune, a hundred yards from where the beach turned around the northern tip of the island. I assumed it was the one Dalton had borrowed.
He wouldn’t like it very much if he knew I was here. Well, too bad. Sitting on the sidelines wasn’t exactly my style. Turns out, it wasn’t Alison’s either. She’d demanded that I bring her along.
We sat in our hidden golf cart, facing the ocean. The sun had set hours ago, but I had night vision binoculars trained on the boat anchored offshore. There were no stars. No moon. Clouds had been moving in all day.
“You won’t see them. They’re SEALs,” she said, clasping her handbag tightly to her belly. “That’s the point.”
“Yeah, but we know they’re there.”
She shrugged, as if that didn’t matter.
“I should be out there with him.” Not here. Watching. Waiting. Worthless.
Where were they now? They’re plan was to swim from shore, board the vessel in the dark, get whatever intel they could, and head back. All without being detected. Child’s play for a team of Navy SEALs.
“I have to be honest,” Alison said. “This wasn’t exactly how I thought I was going to be spending the evening.”
“I’m sorry. I told Dalton not to—”
“Don’t be. I know who I married.” She let out a little laugh. “Both times. Hooyah.”
“Dalton
told me you didn’t like being a Navy wife.”
“That part’s true.”
There was a long awkward silence. I held up the binoculars, but saw nothing. Not a ripple on the surface.
It really wasn’t my business. Whatever had happened between them, Dalton would tell me. Or he wouldn’t. If I was honest, I didn’t have a right to know. It wasn’t like we were…whatever. Was he my boyfriend? I don’t know.
“I’m glad we have this time together to talk,” she said.
Talk?
“Because I know one thing for sure,” she said with a soft voice. “Dalton’s madly in love with you.”
My tongue glued to the roof of my mouth. “Oh, I don’t think—”
“Pah,” she said, sweeping my words away with her hand. “I’ve known that man since first grade. Believe me. As sure as the sun sets every night, he’s head-over-heels. I can feel it.”
I clamped my mouth shut. I had no idea what the appropriate response was when a man’s ex-wife said such a thing.
“I’m so happy for him. For you. I’ve been worried that maybe he wouldn’t ever let himself fall in love again.”
In love? “Well, I don’t…”
“You’re a very lucky lady. You know that right? Very lucky indeed.”
“Yeah, but…”
“He’s a good man. They don’t make ‘em like Dalton every day, that’s for sure.”
A flash of light flickered across the sky. “Was that lightning?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked at my watch. 1:30 a.m. “They should be back by now.”
“I’m sure they’re fine,” she said, but her voice revealed her concern.
“They didn’t give us an exact time.”
“Right. They never do,” she said. “I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it makes me sad, you know.”
“What makes you sad? Worrying about them?”
“Huh? No. That Dalton’s in love.” She fiddled with her handbag. “I’ve loved him for as long as I can remember. And I know he loved me, too. But, we grew up. Grew apart. Sometimes love ain’t enough, you know.” She looked up, forced her hands to stop. “Dalton, he wanted to be part of something bigger than himself. Make a difference. I just wanted to go home.” She paused. “I guess you could say, we just weren’t in sync. I never could understand why he wanted to be a SEAL, why he’d put himself in such dangerous situations. He couldn’t just be with me. His mind was always someplace else.” She looked back down at her hands. “I’m sure he told you what happened.”
He didn’t tell me you existed.
“I hope you don’t judge me too harshly. He was gone so much. And sometimes, I had no idea where, for how long. Whether he’d even make it back. It was hard. Then trying to get him to talk to me, to share anything he was feeling…”
“I understand,” I said. Was she saying—?
“It’s not me. It’s not who I am. It just happened. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just…” She shook her head. “I was so lonely.”
I sat still, not wanting any more words to spill out of her. I had wanted to learn what I could about Dalton, about their relationship, this marriage I didn’t know existed. Now, I felt like I’d invaded his privacy. Her privacy.
I picked up the binoculars again, looked out at the dark ocean. Away from her. “They’ll be back any minute.”
“I’m sure he still hates me.”
The way she said it made it sound like a question. “I don’t know anything about that,” I said. This woman had broken my Dalton’s heart. Did he hate her? He didn’t seem to.
Light flashed across the sky again. Where were they?
“We agreed, things happen for a reason. We wanted different things but neither one of us wanted to admit it. It’s not like we fought all the time or anything like that. We just, well, once we were adults, we weren’t compatible.” She heaved a sigh and sat back. “Now, I’ve found Rod. And Dalton’s found you. I’m so happy. I really am.” She tugged my arm. “Poppy, promise me you won’t break his heart.”
I turned to face her. “What?”
“Promise me. He deserves someone who loves him, truly loves him, for who he is. With all your heart, promise me.”
“Well, I—we aren’t even—I mean—”
She looked forlorn. “He loves you. Don’t tell me you aren’t in love with him, too?”
“It’s not that, I—”
“Well, what?” Her voice cracked. “Either you love him or you don’t.”
“I do.” Omigod, what is wrong with me? Did I just say that? To her?
“I knew it,” she said, as if I’d just admitted to having red hair. She grinned. “You two are so right for each other.”
Like fire and gasoline.
One hour later than I expected, the men emerged from the water and came ashore carrying their fins in their hands.
We weren’t supposed to be here but Allison immediately blew our cover. She raced toward Rod and if he was surprised he didn’t show it, just swooped her up in his big arms.
Freaking civilians.
Dalton wasn’t surprised to see me either, in fact, he looked downright amused. If he thought I was going to throw myself in his arms like a pining sea-wife he had another thing coming. I crossed my arms.
“How’d it go? What was the delay? Are you all right? Of course, you’re all right, you look very pleased with yourself.”
“You were worried about me?” he said with a grin. “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, no. Of course there was no need to worry. I just—yeah you’re late.”
His grin got a little wider. He wiped water from his forehead and ran his fingers through his hair, brushing it back from his face. “We got the right boat. They’re definitely our guys. Buckets of fish and shrimp on board. Two men. Russians. And interestingly, military.”
“Military?” That was a surprise.
I looked to the others. Jesse and Deuce walked toward the topless cart, shedding gear as they went.
Rod nodded his head, dropping his rebreather onto the back of the other golf cart. “I’m sure of it. They had military communication equipment and the documents I saw, their directive, most definitely in military format.”
“What was the directive?”
“Well, they sent an update. ‘Four responding to calls. Number five refusing to engage. Abort? Leave number five?’ The response was to leave no evidence. They have three days to get the fifth dolphin to respond, or they are to destroy it and leave the area.”
“And when was that?”
Dalton and Rod answered simultaneously. “Yesterday.”
“What in the world is the Russian military doing in The Bahamas training dolphins?”
Rod and Dalton glanced at each other, then shook their heads. If they had a guess, they didn’t say anything.
Chapter Thirteen
I fired up the computer in the research office with Dalton looking over my shoulder.
The old monitor blinked, then slowly came to life.
“You know what this means, right?” I said.
“What?”
“I’m not paranoid. I was being followed. And the fact that the Russians can hack at that level—”
“We still don’t know that that’s what happened.”
“Yeah, but, maybe we should call in,” I said while the ancient computer made humming noises.
“And say what?”
“Tell Hyland about the Russian military.”
“Yeah, but, tell her what? She’ll want to know what they’re doing, and why? We don’t have that yet.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Just see what we can find out here first.” He pointed at the monitor, now blue and displaying the menu bar.
I opened the internet browser and typed in “Russian military dolphins.” Right away, an article came up titled, Crimean Military Dolphins to Serve in Russian Navy.
The article was dated 2014. Apparentl
y, the Russians had a military dolphin training program in Ukraine. The Ukrainian navy planned to disband it, but the facility and the dolphins themselves reverted to Russia with the reunification of Crimea.
“Reunification? That’s a stretch.”
He pointed at the URL. “It’s Sputnik News.”
“Okay, so why are they here?” I said, covering my yawn with my hand. It was 2:30 a.m.
“Keep reading.”
The article said, “The dolphins were being trained to patrol open water and attack or attach buoys to items of military interest, such as mines on the seafloor or combat scuba divers trained to slip past enemy security perimeters, known as frogmen.”
I turned to Dalton. “They’re training dolphins to fight Navy SEALs?”
“That’s what it says.”
“Did you know about that?”
He shook his head. “I had no first-hand knowledge, no. But it’s nothing new. During the Cold War, Russia used dolphins for military purposes. They trained them to detect submarines, flag mines, and protect ships and harbors. But so do we.”
I sat back and stared at him in disbelief. “I didn’t know that.”
“Well, it hasn’t been a secret. The U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Training Program started in the 1960s. It was in San Diego and—”
“Wait, you said was.”
“I heard they were ending the program in 2017.”
“Did they?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
He raised an eyebrow, but continued. “That, at one point, they had something like 150 trained dolphins and around 50 sea lions. They’ve worked with seals, too. And other animals.”
“But that’s not ethical,” I said. “To enlist dolphins against their will to—”
“It’s the Navy,” he said, as if that explained it all. “Dolphins’ echolocation abilities are infinitely more sophisticated than our best sonar. They can find mines, alert us to enemy swimmers in the water. Nothing matches their abilities. At least not yet.”
“Yeah, but using dolphins for war, that’s—”
“I know.” He pointed at the monitor. “Keep searching.”
“Okay, Mr. Bossy.”
Operation Dolphin Spirit Page 12