But as his initial reaction faded, and he gave serous thought about his career path at the FBI, he knew he only ever wanted to be a field agent; that he would never follow the same route to a desk that Baker Collins had taken on his way to upper management. Jack had at best ten, maybe fifteen, more years before retirement and then what would there be for him then?
His time with Lucy Chee, as tragically brief as it had been, had taught him that he did not want to go through his entire life as a lone wolf. He very much wanted there to be someone to share his life with and he knew at that moment exactly who that someone was.
The whole process of thinking it through had taken him just a few seconds. Sara had watched him work it out with silent intensity, both hoping and fearing what his decision would be.
“I’ll tell you what,” Jack finally said, taking both her hands in his. “I’ll go out and listen to what they have to say. If the job doesn’t sound good, then I’ll fly back here and call in every marker I have in the Bureau to get transferred out west.”
The pronouncement, after a moment of silent disbelief, earned him another lengthy kiss.
“Jack, are you sure? What if they won’t transfer you?”
“Baker knows what I’ve done for the Bureau. He’ll hate to see me leave D.C., but he won’t stand in my way. And if for some reason they don’t transfer me, you’d better be a huge success out there because I’ll have quit the FBI. I promise you I’d be a very expensive boy toy.”
They both laughed at the last few words he’d spoken. Money was never going to be an issue for Jack, or for his brother, as their late parents’ estate had ensured their financial futures. Finding a professional replacement for the void his departure from the Bureau would create would be a challenge for him, that he knew, but he was willing to face that challenge for her.
As they walked the last few blocks arm-in-arm Jack came to realize that right now his life was as close to perfection as he could ask for and the future looked even brighter and happier than he ever could have hoped for.
***
The Los Angeles had closed in on the crash site quickly. Four seamen in a Zodiac, a powered rubber raft, was dispatched to search the area where the debris from the second explosion had fallen to the sea and was still visibly burning, while the rescue crews from the sub searched the water for survivors with spotlights. The fuselage of a jet bobbed in the waves. It was mostly intact and amazingly hadn’t caught on fire. When the lights fell on the lone visible wing bobbing in the waves they could clearly see the bullet holes that had riddled the area around the engine.
“What the hell is going on here, Captain,” the XO asked as he watched the rescue efforts below from the conning tower. “Someone shot that plane down out of the sky.”
“I don’t know,” the Captain answered grimly. “Let’s hope someone in there survived and can give us some answers.”
Unable to open the jet’s cabin door, which would have rapidly flooded the cabin and sank the jet along with whoever might still be alive in there, two crewmen began cutting through the fuselage well above the waterline. Of growing concern to the rescuers was the lack of any sign of life seen in either the cockpit or the passenger cabin. Both the Captain and his exec men turned toward the sound of the Zodiac’s engine screaming back toward the Los Angeles at top speed.
“That didn’t take long,” Captain Del Rio remarked.
“Sure didn’t, and he sure as hell is in a big hurry to get back here, too,” the XO replied. “I wonder if they have a survivor aboard?”
The powered rubber raft was a workhorse for the U.S. Navy, and it easily plowed through the waves and barely slowed down as it returned to its mother ship. Ensign Melton, who had been in command of the Zodiac, hopped onto the deck before the rest of his crew had tied off. Del Rio could not make out what the object Melton carried was, but it took both hands to hold it and it was most certainly not a survivor.
When Melton reached the tower’s base he held up the object to give his captain a clear look at what his crew had brought back. It was a small section of metal from a military jet’s fuselage and it had six letters printed on it in large black, block letters: U.S. Navy.
The Captain turned to his XO and was certain the look on his own face was a match to the look of stunned disbelief he saw looking back at him.
***
Dinner, once they’d returned to the apartment, had been more of a light snack than an actual meal as their appetite had turned toward some other type of fare.
When Sara had first moved in it had taken some time for her to become convinced that even though they could clearly see the outside world, the one-way glass panes that comprised nearly every square foot of all the four outer walls of his tenth-floor apartment kept anyone on the outside from seeing inside.
It had taken her three full days before she stopped getting fully dressed behind a partition separating the bedroom and the bathroom before moving around the flat. Jack had wondered what she would have done those first few days if the glass installed around the shower area hadn’t been slightly frosted.
Even if the outside world could have seen inside his home, he’d arranged the area around the bed to be as separated from the rest of the open floor plan as was possible. A layout decision that was probably for the best considering what they’d done once they’d gotten into the bed. They had drifted off to sleep afterward; Jack listening to the sound of her breathing even as he relinquished to exhaustion. This act had become an amazingly simple pleasure, in a tangle of arms and legs and in perfect contentment.
Sara was the heavier sleeper of the two, but Jack clearly heard the soft knocking sound at the door. What had brought him quickly out of the bed and fully awake in an instant was the realization of which door it was that the knocking was coming from.
The primary entryway door was over in the southwestern corner of the apartment, aligned with the building’s lone elevator shaft with an enclosed foyer separating the elevator from the rest of the floor. But the knocking that had awakened him was coming from the “back” door in the southeastern corner, the one that led to the interior stairwell. The stairwell and that door were separated by a locked gate and whoever was knocking on the door had gotten past that gate.
There were only three keys to that particular lock. He had one, Sara the other, and the third he’d given to his brother Steve. Not even the building’s custodian had a key to get past that gate. As far as he knew, Steve and the Los Angeles were well along their way into their patrol in the Atlantic right now.
The knocking was repeated, slightly louder this time and somehow managing to sound even more urgent. Jack quickly slipped out of the bed without waking Sara. He made his way to the door, stopping only long enough to pick up his gun, making a mental note to himself to have an eyehole installed in the door for the next time he was going to receive an unannounced visitor at this door.
With no way to see who was out there, he decided to forego calling out through the door and went for the element of surprise. Throwing open the door with his weapon levelled and ready for just about anything, Jack found himself face to face with about the only thing he wasn’t ready for, the executive officer of the Los Angeles. To the man’s credit, the XO never said a word, although his eyes had widened enough that Jack was surprised that they had stayed within their sockets.
After several moments of stunned silence had passed, Jack slowly lowered and safetied his weapon, much to the XO’s visible relief.
“What the hell are you doing here, at this hour, and using this door?” Jack finally managed to get out without shouting.
The XO ignored Jack’s question and simply held out a slip of paper, folded in half. Jack took it and read it, then read it once again just to make sure before looking back up at the high-ranking messenger.
“Is this my brother’s idea of a joke?”
“Believe me,” the man replied solemnly, “I wished it were.”
Something in the man’s tone caused a s
hiver to crawl down Jack’s spine, as if a sudden blast of cold air had struck him with full force.
“Alright, give me a minute to get dressed.”
Jack made quick and quiet work of it, managing not to wake Sara up. He scratched out a quick note, telling her he’d been called away and would return as soon as possible. He’d had to slip away in the middle of the night twice before, so he was certain she wouldn’t be too concerned if she woke up and found him gone. He stepped back out, closing and locking the door behind him.
“We’re going to have to hurry if we’re going to get to the coast before the sun rises,” Jack remarked.
“We don’t have to go that far, sir.”
“What?” Jack said, stopping up short in surprise. “Where exactly is the Los Angeles right now?”
“She’s holding just below the surface near Annapolis.”
“You brought the Los Angeles into the Chesapeake Bay?” Jack said, shocked. He might not be an experienced Navy sailor, but even he knew getting a submarine the size of the Los Angeles into the bay was tricky.
“It was a tight fit,” the XO allowed, “but the skipper felt it was necessary under the circumstances.”
Jack shook his head in disbelief and led the man back down the stairwell and outside. They crossed the empty street to the parking garage where Jack kept his Mustang parked. At one in the morning there was not much in the way of traffic anywhere in the area and they quickly made their way east toward the Naval Academy.
Pulling into a parking lot north of Annapolis with easy access to the beach, Jack got out of the car and followed the XO down to where two sailors sat in a Zodiac, alertly looking around to assure their presence remained unnoticed.
When they saw the two men walking toward them, the sailors pushed the Zodiac back toward the water, holding it close to the shore as the XO easily got in first. Jack paused on the shore however, looking back and forth between the small boat and the dark waters of the bay.
“Skipper wouldn’t have asked you to come out if it wasn’t important,” the XO, knowing of Jack’s dislike of being out on the water, day or night, said with some understanding.
“I know. I just wish he could have come ashore and explained what is going on to me in person and safely on land.”
With a resigned sigh, Jack stepped into the raft and settled in as the sailors pushed off and jumped in. The XO fired up the motor and headed out into the bay. Jack knew enough about submarine operations to know that his brother was likely sitting right on top of the sonar station, and as soon as they picked up the sound of the Zodiac on the water he would bring the Los Angeles to the surface.
In less than a minute, Jack saw the Los Angeles’ conning tower break the surface, but only the first four feet of it was visible. His brother was certainly doing whatever he could to make sure no one knew his boat was out here. The Zodiac swiftly pulled up to the tower and several pairs of hands helped pull Jack and the XO onto the tower. The two sailors below remained in the raft and quickly pulled a few yards away as Jack, the XO and the rest of the crewmen descended below. No sooner had the hatch been slammed shut and sealed when Jack felt the boat begin to descend back into the bay.
“Only about twenty feet,” the XO said when Jack shot a very concerned glance his way. Jack decided that as much as he disliked being on board a boat that was out on the surface of the water, being on board a boat that was under the surface was an even more dislikable experience.
“Mr. Del Rio,” an ensign called out as Jack stepped out onto the bridge, “the Captain is waiting for you in the wardroom. I can take you there, sir.”
“No need,” Jack replied kindly. He’d been on the Los Angeles twice before, and while he did not know the boat as well as the people who served on board her, he knew how to get to a few of the more important areas.
Still slightly unsettled by being below the water, and a little unnerved by the clandestine meeting in the dark of night with his own brother mysteriously pulling the strings, Jack ignored the naval custom of knocking on the door and waiting for permission to enter to be granted when he reached the wardroom.
He just stormed into the room ready to ask his brother for an explanation and immediately stopped in his tracks, the demand dying unspoken on his lips.
“Good morning, kid,” Steve Del Rio said with a devil may care grin on his face, extending a cup of coffee to his sibling.
The cup was ignored as Jack tried to get his mouth to work properly. After one or two tries failed, he finally took the cup and drank from it. He had immediately recognized the other two men in the room with his brother even though he couldn’t even begin to understand why the Vice President-elect and a member of his Secret Service protection detail were sitting here on his brother’s sub. Both men looked haggard, dressed in standard sailors’ working uniforms and wrapped in blankets. They both were sporting an assortment of cuts and bruises.
“Agent Del Rio,” Cashman greeted with as much warmth as his injuries allowed. “It’s been a while since we first met out in New Mexico.”
“Yes, sir, it certainly has,” Jack replied, having rediscovered how to get his mouth to produce words again. “It appears that quite a lot has happened since then. We’ve met recently but I don’t recall your name.”
“Kliene, Agent Del Rio,” the Secret Service man answered Jack’s query. “It was about two weeks ago, when you presented your first brief to the security details.”
“Alright,” Jack said with a nod, dispatching the social graces to get down to business. “So, who is going to start telling me what is going on out here?”
“Perhaps,” Cashman replied, turning the laptop on the table toward Jack so he could see the screen. The thumb drive Karpov had given Cashman was still plugged into the laptop, “it would be better if we showed you this before we tell you how we came to be on your brother’s submarine tonight.”
***
As it would have for most anyone else, a knock on the front door in the wee hours of the morning was an unwelcome disruption in the routine of Bradley Cavanaugh. By the time he’d shrugged into a robe and grumpily navigated his way past his living room furniture to reach his entryway, he was ill-tempered. The identity of his visitor did little to improve his mood.
“What the devil!?” he exclaimed.
“There’s been a development,” the man standing on the other side of the door replied, extending a large manila envelope for Cavanaugh to take. “We had access to one last satellite pass over the crash sites. We were checking for debris and confirmation of no survivors when we found this.”
Cavanaugh opened the envelope and pulled out a set of photographs. The first showed him what he had expected to see, the remains of a private jet bobbing in the water although it was much more intact than he’d have expected after a missile strike. The rest of the pictures also showed something he hadn’t expected to see at all, a U.S. Navy submarine plucking a pair of survivors from the water. One survivor had white hair, and there was only one person on board that jet that had been anywhere near old enough to have a full head of white hair: Norman Cashman.
“What the hell happened out there?” Cavanaugh growled.
“Our best guess is our hotshot pilot got cute and didn’t use a missile to bring down the jet. Somehow the pilots aboard the jet controlled the crash just enough to let two people survive it.”
“That area was supposed to be completely clear of any traffic, surface or air,” Cavanaugh snapped. “Where did this sub come from?”
“No one knows. It’s the Los Angeles. She had left port in Norfolk hours before. She should have been miles away and well under the water at the time Cashman was shot down.”
Then a sudden thought brought Cavanaugh fully awake. A late night visitor at his door shouldn’t be breaking this kind of news to him. The next Vice President of the United States of America being fished out of the Atlantic Ocean by a Navy sub after being shot out of the sky should have had every one of his phones ringing like mad hou
rs ago.
“Not a sound,” the visitor, seeing the thoughts behind the changing expression on Cavanaugh’s face, replied to the unasked question. “The submarine apparently took on the two survivors and slipped back beneath the surface without so much as making a report of any kind.”
“But it makes no sense at all,” Cavanaugh muttered. “Why wouldn’t her captain immediately report in once he realized who it was that he’d rescued? Who is the commanding officer of that sub?”
“Steven Del Rio.”
“Del Rio!” Cavanaugh all but roared. As if that damned family hadn’t been enough of a nuisance to the cause through the years, he raged silently to himself, for them to reappear now when they were so close to the end seemed unfair.
Cavanaugh took a deep breath to get himself back under control. Sleep, for this night at least, was over and done with.
“Very well,” he said. “Get back to work and find out what you can. I’ll reach out through my channels and see if we can locate the Los Angeles and sort out what her captain has in mind. Let’s just hope he doesn’t pop up in some port and parade Cashman in front of a bunch of damned TV cameras or some idiot with a cell phone before we get our hands on him.”
***
Jack closed out the last file on the drive, then reached over for the mug of coffee, which had been refilled twice while he had scanned the documents, without looking up at the other men in the room, and took a long swig before setting it back down. If it hadn’t been for the bedraggled presence in the room of Cashman and his bodyguard he probably wouldn’t have believed a single word of what he’d just read. When his brother started to break the silence, Jack held up his hand for quiet and spent the next full minute thinking over what he’d read and what it might mean for everyone in the room.
Jack Del Rio: Complete Trilogy: Reservations, Betrayals, Endgames Page 26