Anvil

by Dirk Patton

  Jessica’s eyes flashed as she spoke, fear and anger fueling her frustration. She wasn’t sure what she expected when she decided to confess all to Lieutenant Hunt, but it wasn’t this. Who she was or wasn’t having sex with didn’t seem to be nearly as important as a traitor in their midst.

  “Oh, it is an issue, Petty Officer,” Tillman said with a condescending tone. “But I’m trying to understand why it happened in the first place. Who initiated the relationship? What else has he asked you to tell him? What else have you told him?”

  It was starting to make sense. They didn’t believe her. Didn’t trust that she was telling the full truth and wasn’t just trying to deflect suspicion so she could continue passing secrets.

  “I want a lawyer, sir,” Jessica said, realizing the warnings from Major Chase were nearly prophetic.

  “A lawyer? But you haven’t been charged with anything and I’m not a criminal investigator,” Tillman smiled.

  Jessica didn’t know what to say. She had been around long enough to understand that until NCIS got involved this wasn’t a criminal matter. Mind racing, she looked up when the door opened and shot to her feet. Commander Tillman turned, annoyance clear on his face until he saw Admiral Packard standing in the doorway. He too leapt to his feet and came to attention.

  “Petty Officer, please excuse us,” the Admiral said, stepping aside so she could leave the room.

  “At ease, Commander,” he said, closing the door behind Jessica. “Can she be trusted?”

  “Sir, I’ve only begun speaking with her. I can’t answer that at this point.”

  “Commander, we’re at war. The Russians are about to start dropping nukes on our heads and according to her CO, that young lady is the only person that has the ability to give us an edge. So, I’ll ask you again. Your gut feel. Can she be trusted?”

  Tillman met the Admiral’s eyes for a few moments as the gravity of the statement hit him.

  “Sir, my gut feel after speaking with her CO and ten minutes of conversation with her is that she is genuine. She made a mistake and when she realized it, she came forward. But there could be many more layers to this. She may well be a Russian agent. There are many aspects of this that bother me.”

  “Thank you, Commander. If we survive the next twenty-four hours there will be time for a thorough investigation. Leave one of the Marines to keep watch on her activities and pursue other avenues at this time. I have a job for her.”

  “But, sir…”

  “Dismissed, Commander,” Packard barked.

  “Yes, sir!” Tillman snapped to attention, held the position for a few heartbeats then left the room.

  Packard stepped to the open door and called for Jessica and Lieutenant Hunt to join him. Moments later they stepped in, one of the Marines looking inside the room before closing the door behind them.

  “Sir, I…” Jessica began, falling silent when the Admiral raised a hand.

  “Petty Officer, we don’t have time for that now. You made a mistake, and you are going to have to live with the consequences of your actions. However, we have an emergency and a higher priority at the moment.”

  Packard waved them into chairs, remaining on his feet.

  “You found something called the Thor System and the Lieutenant contacted NIS,” the Admiral began. “I was just briefed on what it is, and candidly it is our last and only hope. Lieutenant Hunt assures me that you are the best person to break into the system and take operational control. Perhaps the only person.”

  Jessica’s head was spinning. Two minutes ago she was being interrogated by an officer from Naval Intelligence. Being accused of spying for the Russians and committing treason. Being threatened with criminal charges for everything from sexual misconduct to operating as a foreign agent. Now she was being put back to work?

  “Sir, I’ll do whatever is asked of me,” she finally said. “I’m not a spy!”

  Packard stood motionless, staring down into her eyes. He wanted to believe her, in fact did believe her. But he had dealt with traitors before and knew from experience that their most valuable skill was the ability to lie to your face and convince you they were telling the truth.

  “I sincerely hope not,” he said after a long pause. “And if I had any other option, you wouldn’t go near a terminal or any classified data until NIS is satisfied that you’re who and what you say you are. But I don’t have a choice. You need to break into that system and you have twenty-three hours. After that, it won’t matter. We’re on a deadline, and if you can’t get us in with enough time remaining to deploy it, I don’t have a choice but to surrender to the Russians.”

  “I understand, sir,” Jessica said. “What is the Thor System?”

  “That’s classified, Petty Officer. Get us in. That’s your job. Knowing what it is isn’t necessary for you to do your job,” the Admiral said, his voice stern.

  “Understood, sir,” Jessica said. “I’ll get you in.”

  25

  The Havoc suddenly gained altitude, banked and flew away. What the fuck? Thinking I was about to die, I was so surprised that I just lay there for a few moments watching it disappear over the horizon. Then I realized the incoming mortar and machine gun fire had stopped. I exchanged glances with the Ranger and Apache pilot, then carefully poked my head out to check on the Russian advance.

  They were withdrawing! Again, what the fuck? They had us. The ground forces had us pinned and an attack helicopter was close enough to chew us up into hamburger. What the hell was going on?

  I involuntarily jumped when my earpiece came to life. Orders were being shouted. And questioned, which is very unusual. But the overall command was to cease fire and fall back to designated rally points.

  “What the fuck?” The Ranger called from where he was watching the Russians pull back.

  “That’s what I want to know,” I answered, slowly climbing to my feet.

  A few moments later the two other men stood up next to me and together we watched the enemy retreat. Only it wasn’t a real retreat. We hadn’t won the engagement, forcing them back. Someone had negotiated a cease fire. And as far as I was concerned, they had done it just in time.

  “Let’s go,” I said, helping the Ranger lift his fallen brother onto his shoulder.

  There were more bodies than we could carry so other than the dead Ranger I decided to leave them where they were for the moment. Details would be sent out to retrieve the dead, but I couldn’t imagine what would be done with the remains. We didn’t have a morgue. That only left the option of hand dug graves for those killed in battle.

  It was a long hike back, farther than it had seemed when I’d run into the battle. The ground was littered with bodies, both American and Russian. It was dotted with armored vehicles that were burning or burned out. There were more crash sites within visual range than I could count, and perhaps an aviation expert could have recognized the difference between our planes and the enemy’s. I couldn’t. I just hoped that most of them had been built by Ivan.

  After most of half an hour we reached the temporary command post. When I appeared around the base of a low hill, Rachel spotted me and broke into a run. She slammed into me, throwing her arms around my neck and nearly taking me off my feet. Holding me in a tight embrace she whispered in my ear.

  “I thought you were dead.”

  I squeezed her back, then released her when she stepped away.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” She shouted in my face as tears ran down hers.

  I was touched by the show of raw emotion, but wasn’t in the frame of mind to deal with it. Standing there looking at Rachel’s tears I was relieved when Irina walked up and leaned in to kiss me on each cheek. Ignoring the looks I was getting from Soldiers and Marines that were trudging past where we stood, I took Rachel’s hand in mine and headed for where Colonel Blanchard stood with a sat phone pressed to his ear.

  “What the fuck, sir?” I asked when he lowered the handset and pressed the red button to end the call.


  “Temporary cease fire,” he said, blowing out a deep breath. “The Russians launched ICBMs at Hawaii. We shot down most of them before running out of missiles. They destroyed the last one before it re-entered the atmosphere, then called Admiral Packard with terms for our surrender.”

  “What? What terms?” I asked.

  “We stop fighting and hand over all of our assets. And evacuate North America and the Bahamas. We’re restricted to Hawaii. The Admiral agreed and that bought us a twenty-four-hour cease fire until the final condition is met.”

  “What’s the final condition?” I asked.

  “You,” he said, holding my eyes with his. “We have twenty-three hours left to deliver you to any Russian commander. If we don’t, they nuke Hawaii.”

  I stood there staring at him, half expecting him to smile and say he was just fucking with me. But I knew he wasn’t. Knew my time was almost up.

  “You can’t be serious,” Rachel cried. “We don’t hand people over to the enemy. That’s not what we do!”

  “How many people left alive in Hawaii?” I asked Blanchard.

  “One point four million civilians,” he said. “And another thirty thousand military.”

  “No you don’t,” Rachel released my hand and grabbed my upper arm, trying to pull me around to face her. “They haven’t used nukes so far, there’s no reason to think they will now!”

  “There’s every reason to believe they will,” I said, turning to look at her. “And I’m not worth all those lives.”

  “Tell him,” Rachel looked to Irina, pleading for her to help convince me that I didn’t need to turn myself over to the Russians.

  “I am sorry, but he is correct,” she said in a soft voice. “President Barinov is quite capable of using nuclear weapons. He has not done so up until now because he was intent upon maintaining the fallacy with the Russian people that this plague was the doing of the Chinese. Something has changed, giving him an excuse to wipe the few remaining Americans from the face of the planet.”

  “Rachel…” I said gently, stopping her from continuing to protest. At least for the moment.

  “Do you think he’ll actually honor the terms if I surrender?” I asked Irina. “Or is he just doing this to get his hands on me and he’ll launch anyway once they have me?”

  Irina stood quietly for a moment, considering the question. Blanchard, Rachel and I remained silent, watching her.

  “I do not know, but I have a difficult time trusting him. He has shown in the past that commitments and treaties he has entered into are only respected for as long as is convenient.”

  “So you’re saying we shouldn’t trust him?” Blanchard asked.

  “I am saying that his past actions have shown him to be untrustworthy,” Irina said. “I was trained as an intelligence officer, and in the absence of current information about a subject’s intentions, the only way to predict their potential course of action is to analyze how they have behaved in similar situations in the past.”

  “She should speak with the Admiral,” I said to Blanchard.

  He nodded and called over an aide, instructing him to arrange a secure call with Packard. The man immediately set to work.

  “I have twenty-three hours?” I asked Blanchard.

  “Slightly less,” he said, checking his watch.

  I was unprepared for the turn of events, but can’t say that I was terribly surprised. Barinov wanted revenge and had shown that he wasn’t going to rest until I was either dead on the battlefield or rotting in a damp cell at the Lubyanka Prison, waiting for my very public execution.

  Sighing, struggling to accept the inevitable, I turned and looked at the horizon to the southeast. The sun was setting and it was already dark in that direction. Katie was somewhere out there. Infected. If I turned myself over to the Russians…

  “If I do this, I want your word that you will find my wife and take her to the researchers,” I said, turning back to face Colonel Blanchard.

  “You have my word,” he said without hesitation. “But I’m not sure how we’re going to track her down. You said earlier that you had an idea.”

  “She was CIA,” I said. “Not long before she left the Agency they began putting tracker beacons in selected officers. Just a small chip that was surgically implanted in her upper thigh. It’s dormant until activated by a coded signal, then is supposed to transmit her location for forty-eight hours.”

  “You’re sure it’s still there?” He asked.

  “Positive. I felt it a few days ago,” I said, not bothering to explain what my hand had been doing on my wife’s upper thigh.

  “Any clue how to activate it?”

  “Speak to a Petty Officer Simmons at Pearl Harbor. I’ve already mentioned it to her and she can help.”

  By this time the call to Admiral Packard had gone through and Blanchard and Irina stepped aside to speak with him. Rachel stood next to me, distress clear on her face.

  “I don’t have a choice,” I said softly, leading her away from the command post.

  “Yes, you do. Don’t stop fighting. It’s going to be dark soon. Let’s slip away. We can find Katie and get her to Seattle,” Rachel pleaded.

  “And more than a million people in Hawaii die? And all of these Soldiers and Marines? They’ll be wiped out. No, that’s not something I’m willing to do. Not something I could live with,” I said, shaking my head.

  Rachel stood in front of me, staring into my eyes. Fresh tears began flowing as she accepted I wasn’t going to change my mind. With a sob, she stepped in and wrapped her arms around me, burying her face against my chest. I held her as she cried.

  26

  It had been dark for close to two hours, but I had no idea what time it was. I sat with Rachel near a small camp fire a few dozen yards away from the command post. The Russians had withdrawn a few miles and there was the constant thrum of rotors in the dark sky as both sides patrolled the neutral zone that had formed between us.

  Irina had spoken with the Admiral for close to an hour, joining us by the fire as Colonel Blanchard made several more phone calls. She didn’t have any idea if the conversation she’d had with Packard had changed his mind about agreeing to the terms offered by the Russian president. Now we sat in silence, eating some MREs I had scrounged.

  “Twenty-one hours,” Rachel said, breaking the silence.

  I didn’t have a response to that, and didn’t want to spend my last few hours of freedom thinking about what was in store for me. Well, thinking about it any more than I already had. Though I had never been a guest of the Russians, I’d read de-briefs of people who had and knew I wasn’t in for a good time. Most likely I’d welcome death with open arms once Barinov grew tired of my presence.

  “We need to talk.”

  I looked up, surprised to see Blanchard standing on the other side of the fire. I had been so lost in thought I had failed to notice his approach. Handing the rest of my meal to Rachel, I stood and followed him out into the darkness.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “It’s been a busy couple of hours. I spoke with the Petty Officer’s CO. She’s on a priority project and he had another of his staff get in to a part of the CIA system that’s still operating on the Echelon network. They can’t get into the area where individual codes are stored.”

  “Can’t they just activate them all?” I asked, a feeling of defeat coming over me.

  “The system doesn’t work that way. One at a time, and without the code specific to her beacon, there’s no way to trigger it. The database where they are stored is very heavily encrypted and pretty much impenetrable without the proper CIA credentials.”

  “They can’t break in? Come on, they got into the NSA satellites and a few other things,” I complained.

  “They tried, but the system has safeguards because of concerns over an enemy being able to do just this and locate an agent. Three consecutive failed attempts and it will erase all the data.”

  Fuck me, if it wasn’t o
ne thing it was another. I was a little short tempered at the moment but managed to stop myself from snapping at Blanchard. He was just the messenger, not the problem. Then an idea struck me.

  “Can I borrow your phone?” I asked.

  Blanchard gave me an odd look, but handed it over without asking why I wanted it. I had one phone number memorized and it was the direct line to Jessica’s desk. Punching it in, I raised the phone to my ear as it began ringing.

  “Lieutenant Hunt,” a voice answered, surprising me as I was expecting to hear Jessica’s voice.

  “Lieutenant, Major Chase. I need to speak with Petty Officer Simmons.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. She is unavailable. May I be of assistance?”

  What the hell did they have her working on? Whatever it was must be a pretty big deal.

  “I hope so,” I said, suppressing my frustration. “A few days ago she connected me to a phone in Australia. I need to be put through to that number again. Can you do that?”

  “I should be able to pull it out of the logs,” he said. “But I need to ask who you’re calling and why.”

  I paused for a moment, surprised by the response. Something was up. Had Jessica talked to them about my suspicions of a Russian agent? Or was something else in play? Either way, the man was just doing his job and following protocol, so I told him. Blanchard’s eyebrows went up as he listened to my end of the conversation.

  “Sir, I’m connecting the call now,” Hunt said a few minutes later.

  “John?” Lucas Martin’s voice came over the phone after a series of clicks.

  “Lucas, I need your help again,” I said.

  “Didn’t think you were calling to talk about the weather, mate. What can I do?”

  “The CIA officer you pulled out of the listening post for me a few days ago. He still amongst the living?”

  “Aye, he is. Stuck him in a deep, dark cell while the bloody politicians figure out what to do with him.”