Twenty-four Days (Rowe-Delamagente series Book 2)

by Jacqui Murray

  Paloma took deep gulping breaths to steady herself as four of the SEALs checked the corpse, put fisticuffs on the one living terrorist, and checked the rest of the Bridge crew. One SEAL approached Paloma.

  “You OK, ma’am?”

  She checked for a name tag, but he had none. “I thought I was dead.”

  He grinned, his smile a bolt of sunshine running through her body. “I can shoot a fly out o’ the air at a hundred yards. This was nothin’.”

  Tears sprang to Paloma’s eyes and she blinked them back. "Did Eitan send you?"

  The SEAL grinned. "You mean Eitan Sun? The Geek God we-all pray to when our computers go down? No, ma’am. He’s a myth. We just happened to be in the area."

  A voice called from across the Bridge. “This man’s alive!” Paloma slipped around the clutter of debris and bodies to see who the SEAL found.

  “Captain Pearson.”

  “I got this, LT,” from the SEAL leader, and loaded the Captain into a helo. Paloma was about to send the Helmsman to release the crew when they shuffled in, shaking hands with their rescuers.

  The SEAL leader appeared at Paloma’s side. "You did great, Ma'am, gettin' us intel—how many hijackers, how they were armed. Quick thinking for an IFNAG.”

  Paloma grinned at the acronym. Ignorant Fucking Naval Academy Grad. She knew nothing two years ago when she graduated except rules, procedures, and the Navy way. This, what she just went through, was the real education.

  “You put up a hell of a fight. Impressive, the way you beat the Romeo, ma'am, and without ASROCs or CIC. That’s a story for the boys back at base."

  After a moment, he said, "We have another helo coming for casualties. It can bring a crew to sail Bunker Hill home." He held his radio out. “Admiral Xibon on the line for you.”

  "Sir, what would you like me to do? I'm the senior officer. I'll get us home or I'll turn over command to whoever you designate."

  She waited, exhausted, but unwilling to let anyone finish what she started. The radio squawked. “Can you get her to San Diego, Captain?"

  She observed the remnants of her crew as they straggled in from the helo hanger. “Give me a minute, sir. Electro!” the woman trotted over. Her uniform was stained, the pants ripped. Her left arm had a four-inch line of dried blood that probably hurt like hell an hour ago. She looked exhausted but relieved. “You want to stay or go back?”

  “No way am I leaving. The hard part’s done!”

  Paloma laughed. “Then you’re my assistant. Burlowe! Collins!” They hurried over. “How about you two? You earned a break.”

  They both shook their heads. “I’m betting there won’t be any training exercises going home.”

  “Then I award you both battlefield promotions. Burlowe, you are XO. Collins, how’s Chief Engineer sound?”

  "Yes, ma’am!"

  Paloma pushed her comm. “We’ll be fine, sir.”

  The SEAL leader grinned at her. "You recognized our periscope deco in the Luhu’s baffles? We wanted you to know we had your back.”

  She laughed. "The Texas flag. Nice touch."

  He scratched his head. “Give us a couple of hours to check for surprises and we'll be out of your hair."

  Exactly two hours later, Bunker Hill prepared to go home.

  "Right standard rudder. Course zero-seven-nine. Clear outbound to the Pacific and head home."

  Epilogue

  When Virginia’s screw seal blew, the sub flooded and started to sink. In the confusion, the crew wrestled control from the hijackers before they blew the reactor, fortuitous because the sub settled to the bottom in eighteen feet of water. In the absence of the Captain, the XO exited his men and Dinar Hussabi—the only terrorist to survive. Hussabi faked his death, bundled himself into the nuclear protective uniform kept on Virginia in case of a nuclear meltdown and hidden from his fellow jihadists. He spilled everything he knew in return for clemency and a chance at American citizenship. Thanks to his intel, James found the other members of Al-Alah’s genius NYU cell and arrested them before they fulfilled their jihads. Many were relieved.

  According to Hussabi, Salah al-Zahrawi was the mastermind behind the operation. The terrorist stumbled across Dr. John Penbury’s work and saw its military importance. His attempt to meet the great scientist was rudely rebuffed. In response, al-Zahrawi eliminated Penbury’s wife and bribed the scientist’s largest donors into withdrawing their support, forcing Penbury to seek alternative funding. Once Penbury created the sonar shield, al-Zahrawi arranged to have Najafian discredited in his homeland, then convinced him Penbury had gone to the dark side. The formula was intended to provide a massive revenue stream for jihads for years to come.

  Gil-dong Soon Young’s enrollment at NYU was an unexpected gift from Allah. North Korea wanted a space-based weapon to flaunt their military superiority and Iran’s theocrats wanted to establish their leadership over the world’s six billion Muslims. When his life-long dream crashed last year, al-Zahrawi no doubt blamed Kali.

  The death of Ankour Mohammed was kept secret and James planted an agent who could have been Mohammed’s doppelganger at the NYUAD library every afternoon at 2 pm, with a copy of The Communist Manifesto. He waited two weeks for al-Zahrawi to show up, to no avail.

  A search under Taggert’s PayPal name—Nevik Treggat—came up with a chatroom he and Mohammed frequented. It contained an enormous amount of hidden data, much of it implicating the XO in the hijackings. Unfortunately, the terrorists had paid no attention to metadata which explained how the damaging evidence had been planted.

  After inserting the SEALs to liberate Bunker Hill, the USS Texas launched a TLAM under the guise of rescuing the cruiser from the North Korean warships. They claimed the Tomahawk went awry and landed on a North Korean factory by accident, destroying North Korea’s nuclear weapons manufacturing capabilities. Under a quickly-executed backchannel communication, North Korea agreed to withdraw the ships bearing down on Bunker Hill. In return, the US and Japan would keep secret that North Korea would have started WWIII if not for Otto. Mohammed’s father denounced his son, calling him a traitor to North Korea.

  Virginia’s crew credited Joey Najafian with disabling the missile launched at the Capitol and he was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.

  After returning to San Diego, LT Paloma Chacone received a promotion to LT Commander and a week leave to recuperate. Across the continent, Dr. Eitan Sun took his first vacation in two years to explore the California coastline with Paloma. She drove. They also made a phone call to the family of Haim, the British Parisher who had died at Mohammed’s hand, to pass on Obeid’s words about the honor Haim showed even in the face of death.

  The California Institute of Technology’s Center for Advanced Research offered Sean Delamagente a full scholarship. Sean accepted, fulfilling the promise he made to Sun, and became the youngest student in the new freshman class.

  James attended the funeral of the victims of the Carnival cruise liner. He assured the families if the cruise ship hadn’t drawn Virginia from hiding, thousands more would have lost their lives. It's the little things, no matter how tragic and painful, that stop the enemy.

  Rowe realized he would always be a SEAL if not by profession, by soul. Luckily, Kali concluded the world was a better place with Zeke exactly as he was. She accepted employment with the FBI to find a countermeasure to the sonar shield.

  While Rowe recuperated from injuries caused when he was blown out of the water, Otto asked how he figured it out because no extrapolation of the facts resulted in Rowe’s conclusions. Rowe shrugged something about hunches and instincts and going by the seat of his pants. Otto requested Kali add those characteristics to his programming so he could be more like Zeke.

  As soon as Zeke was mobile, he drove to 176 Kearny wearing a shirt easily confused with the SPCA if you didn’t look close enough, and knocked on Babe’s door. The same harried woman yanked open the door. When he told her about the complaints he received regarding her treatment of a dog,
she said Babe disappeared yesterday and good riddance. It took Zeke ten minutes to pry the details from her. Zeke found Babe in the nature preserve by following circling raptors. The dachshund was huddled at the base of a thirty-foot precipice, two legs broken, eye swollen shut and fur matted with crusted blood. His one good eye found Zeke and his tail thumped, knowing a friend had arrived. Zeke cradled him gently in his arms for a moment and then rushed him to the animal hospital. It took two surgeries, thirty-eight stitches, and casts on both legs, but Babe recovered, his spirit unbowed, and refused to leave Zeke’s side.

  That was fine with Zeke. In a world where he counted true friends on one hand, he added Babe to the list.

  Want More?

  Find out how Zeke Rowe and Kali Delamagente met, in To Hunt a Sub.

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01K7VSPBW

  Find out more about Lucy (from To Hunt a Sub) in the spin-off novel, Born in a Treacherous Time:

  Summer 2018

  Look for Book #3 in the series:

  Summer 2019

  About the Author

  J. Murray lives in California with her spouse and the world’s greatest dog. She was a geek before that became popular and has been teaching technology for 25 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources and an adjunct professor in tech ed. This is the sequel to To Hunt a Sub, also available on Kindle.

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  You can find J. Murray on her blog, WordDreams:

  http://worddreams.wordpress.com

  And on Twitter:

  http://twitter.com/WordDreams