by Zoe Dawson
“Copy that.”
Wicked disappeared upstairs and Scarecrow walked down the hall. Maybe he was meditating and was lost to himself. He grabbed the knob and eased the door open just to see if Blue was inside. When he saw the ruin, the anger that he had banked flared up. “What the hell…”
“He’s not upstairs,” Wicked said, his growing concern showing in his amber eyes. Scarecrow could only stare at the carnage of the room. Had he been taken and put up a hard fight? Or had he done this himself?
Wicked came around the doorjamb and swore softly.
Yeah, Blue was in trouble one way or the other.
His cell rang as he took in the damage to all that Blue held dear, and when his eyes lighted on the small sword lying discarded on the floor before the ruined altar, his blood ran cold. Had Blue…had he picked it up? Had he intended to use it?
He grabbed his chirping phone. “Hello.”
“Arlo, it’s your mom.”
She always said that each time she called him, as if he wouldn’t recognize her voice.
“She’s here for me,” his dad shouted in the background. “I’m telling you, Rosemary. She’s a hunter. I feel it.”
“What’s going on?” Scarecrow asked. “Mom, are you and Dad okay?”
“No, he’s been ranting ever since he saw that blonde. I don’t know why. She seems like a lovely person.”
“What blonde?”
“The one leasing the land, Arlo. Please, keep up.”
“Land. Our land?”
“I’ve got to get out of here, Rosemary. I’ve got to go.”
“What’s wrong with Dad?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He’s been on edge since she moved in.” Her voice went distant as if she was covering the receiver. “Don’t you dare leave this house, Mason. I will kick your butt, old man.”
He heard the outside door slam, and then his mom said, “I’ll have to call you back. We’ve got a runner.”
“Mom, wait!” he said, but it was too late. She hung up.
He looked at his phone. “What the hell is going on?” Wicked asked.
“I haven’t got a goddamned clue,” Scarecrow said.
Several minutes passed as the ruination of all that Blue held dear lay twisted and smashed around him. He took a breath and let it out. Worried about Blue and his parents all at the same time, he pulled out his cell phone. He called Ruckus and was floored when he told him that Blue was off the teams. He was teaching in Florida.
Ruckus was closemouthed about why, but Scarecrow wondered suddenly if it had been about their fight in the gym. Had he been responsible for Blue’s banishment?
Then there was that bizarre phone call. What blonde? His parents were running him ragged, and Blue was gone.
He felt sick.
* * *
Somewhere in the Horn of Africa
Charlotte “Charlie” Coventry couldn’t see anything before her, not outlines, not shapes, not anything. The inside of the ship was like a black hole, and the bright yellow helmet she wore barely shone in the murky depths.
They were here to assess the damage to the ill-fated destroyer’s bridge where all hands had been lost, including their captain, Hugh Marks. Since being here for two days, she’d gathered plenty of debris on the surrounding ocean floor and found the tailfin of the warhead that had sunk the USS Noah Jackson. With a smile behind the hard plastic of her faceplate, she rejoiced again at having discovered, shockingly, the serial number of the weapon was embossed on the metal. It must have been blown free of the blast.
After that find, two days ago, and once she was back on board the USS Recovery, the navy salvage ship, she looked up the warhead and found out it was military issued and had been stolen from Naval Base Coronado last year.
She’d written and filed her report and stowed the debris into one of the evidence lockers. Whoever had stolen that warhead was responsible for many sailor deaths. She had no doubt the navy was going to be tracking the bastard or bastards down.
Currently, she was thirty-three feet down, still assessing the damage to the Jackson, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer sunk by Somali pirates on a rampage near the lawless northern coast. It was reported the ship was attacked with a surface warhead. After the initial attack, with the ship’s bridge destroyed, they had been torpedoed by the pirates, who had gotten their hands on a foreign warship. They were now terrorizing the area, hijacking as many commercial ships as crossed their path and demanding ransoms that climbed into the millions. The navy, with one of their warships down and American lives lost, was massing to track down the hostile vessel and neutralize it. A rebuild of the previous drawdown was underway.
She gritted her teeth at the carnage around her. The bodies of the US sailors aboard were found floating all around the interior of the ship. Soon, after the structure was assessed and it was safe, they would be recovered and on their way back to the States and their families.
She was here to salvage the wreck, with the priority being the structural integrity of the ship.
The “Darth Vader” sound of the air forced into her helmet along with the watery sound of air bubbles escaping from the rig was loud in her ears.
The ocean, much like space, was an inhospitable place for a human. Oxygen was being fed through a coupled lifeline and air hose, the noise of the compressor distorting sound. She had a healthy respect for this environment. She knew it well, had lost so much in this liquid world, but had never let it defeat her.
Joining the navy and becoming a diver had been her middle finger to the force that had taken everything from her.
“I can’t see shit,” her diving partner, Steve, said through the comm.
She chuckled, moving cautiously with her ungloved hands toward the starboard bulkhead in the compartment. “Wasn’t that in the job description? If you’re okay with not seeing a freaking thing…this is for you.”
It was Steve’s turn to chuckle. “You got it, girl. It’s not a job. It’s an adventure.”
She had been working with Steve for a long time. He was her mentor and her buddy, but he treated her like a beloved daughter most of the time. She tried to keep that in perspective. She’d lost her dad a long time ago, but the navy had filled the gap. Or so she’d thought.
There were several flashes of light, glowing dimly, flickering and disappearing. She’d seen it before—phosphorescence. In the pitch black of the hull of the ship, it was creepy, like the ghosts of the men who had died trying to communicate with them. Something floated into her and she reached up dislodge it from her path. Feeling the give of clothing and flesh, she recoiled, her heart pounding as she pushed the corpse away. Gathering her composure, she continued moving.
They had traveled from the entrance to the submerged deck down into the bowels of the vessel, looking for the damage.
“Topside,” Charlie said, communicating to the salvage ship floating above them with their protective destroyer escort, the USS Thomas Welton, hovering nearby. “I found the fire hydrant.”
“Move to your left about ten feet and reach your hand up to the overhead, and you should feel a large blower motor. Continue six feet beyond, and you will feel a watertight door in the after bulkhead of the workshop.”
She followed his orders and felt her way through the darkness toward the door to the machine shop along with Steve.
At the shop doorway, she hesitated and drew her lifeline toward her. “I’m inside the shop doorway.” There was that feeling again when she looked into the inky black. The sense of presence and the flashing of the lights. “Turn and face the bulkhead and move to your right about twenty feet. There should be a fire hydrant on the bulkhead waist high.”
“Got it.”
“Good. Now turn around, and with your back to the bulkhead, slowly walk forward through the shop.
There was that eerie feeling again that they weren’t alone. Something was near. She felt the body floating above her. She tensed, and the flashback from the plane popped into her head with
out warning. Bodies floating. She could envision exactly what that looked like—she’d seen it in all its horror-filled glory. Soon the overhead was filled with floating forms.
Obviously, their movement through the water had created a suction effect that drew the floating masses to them. Hands brushed across her helmet, the sound of their metal watches like wind chimes.
Holding the sadness and shock of what had happened to these men in that battle inside, she stayed calm. Without stopping, she pressed forward and stumbled over something. She turned her head toward the object, and everything in her tightened. Damn. This wasn’t good. “Topside. There’s an unexploded torpedo in the shop.”
“Where?”
“Across from the hole inside the ship.”
“Where are you?”
“At the nose cone.”
“Roger.”
“Be careful, Coventry,” Steve said. That’s where the boom-boom comes from.”
She smiled and turned her head, but in the darkness, she couldn’t see him. “Smart ass.”
“Retreat for now, both of you. We’ll send EOD down.”
Charlie was right behind him when suddenly something shifted, and the creak of the vessel signaled it was close to her. Before she could react, something heavy and metal fell over her, locking around her, and she couldn’t move. The vessel stabilized.
Then her air cut off.
“I’m pinned,” she said. “No oxygen.”
No one answered her. Either her lifeline and hose had been severed or it was pinched from the falling debris. She immediately closed her exhaust valve, pushing back the alarm.
“Take in my slack,” she said and immediately felt the tug at the top of her helmet. She had at best two minutes of air. Fear tingled down her spine. Pushing away the panic, she told herself to stay calm. Not panicking was the key.
Her hands went over the obstruction in front of her, and she found metal hemming her in. Reaching into her pack, she pulled out her torch. Without thinking about her suit and how the discharge from the torch could do more damage, she started working at the metal piece. When it fell away, she walked out of the prison as quickly as she could.
Still no oxygen.
She grabbed the lifeline, following briskly hand over hand, stumbling wildly, bumping into milling machines and drill presses, her breath quick and shallow from fear and exertion.
The heavy weight of the diving equipment hampered her. Without buoyancy in her suit, it was like dragging concrete.
She found the loop and untangled it.
“Coventry,” came the frantic call from Topside.
“Here,” she said, breathless. “My line was tangled. I freed it.”
“Hang tough, we’re pulling you up.”
Without air pressure in her suit, water poured into the interior through the cuffs and the exhaust valve in her helmet. The coolness of it encircled her neck. The pull on the line was now frantic as the crew hauled her in. She stumbled and fell as they dragged her over and around obstacles. Water continued to pour in. Somehow, she got to her feet, only to be slammed against a lathe and then pulled over the top of it in a mad, tumbling journey to the surface and fresh air.
But time had run out for her. She fell again, water filling the helmet. She stood coughing and gagging. Her breathing labored, and the panic was like a live thing in her chest.
Bursts of stars and brilliant white shards of light exploded before her eyes. A loud ringing filled her ears. Even in her dire state, she recognized the symptoms of carbon dioxide toxicity and oxygen deficiency. It seemed right that she would die like her family had died. Deep down as she’d always expected she would.
She would join the men who had perished, nothing but a phosphorescent light.
The strain on the lifeline from above jerked her upright. A red haze passed before her eyes, grew fainter and fainter and disappeared into blackness. She was dying.
Even with that knowledge, she struggled with all that she had in her.
The part of her that had battled the ocean, all alone, the part of her that had kept her alive.
She cleared the doorway and started to move more rapidly. Then she was out of the ship, moving toward the boat. When she broke the surface, it didn’t do her any good. The helmet was a solid barrier against the oxygen she desperately needed.
Gray pushed in from all sides, and she blinked as she saw the salvage boat. Several crew members jumped into the water and swam to her with strong, sure strokes.
Her vision was fading, when she was grabbed by her shipmates. She took her first pull of fresh, clean air as the helmet was removed and a mask with pure oxygen was fitted over her nose and mouth. Sucking it in, gasping, she floated secure in the arms of her rescuers. The navy had never let her down. It was her life, had her loyalty and her devotion. Nothing would come between them.
They hauled her aboard to safety. An hour later, given the okay by the doctor, recovered, she was determined to finish out her shift.
After the successful removal of the torpedo, she and Steve were able to assess structural damage. Finally, the job of extracting the bodies of the sailors still trapped inside the vessel came. But when she got on deck, her commander said to her, “Coventry, you’re out.”
“Why?”
“Orders came through. You got your advanced training.”
She smiled. Even with what she was dealing with now, she was one step closer to master diver.
“Gather your gear.”
“Yes, sir.”
She was headed to Panama City, Florida and NDSTC, the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center.
* * *
Camp Lemonnier Dijbouti-Ambouli International Airport
As Charlie entered the base, she received a call from her commander, who requested her presence at one of the hangars on base before she took her military transport. She’d been flown off the USS Recovery to nearby Camp Lemonnier, the Combined Joint Task Force—Horn of Africa of the U.S. Africa Command located at Dijbouti’s Dijbouti-Ambouli International Airport. It was the primary base from which to provide demining, humanitarian, and counter-terrorism missions.
She had been picked up by a jeep and transported to a hangar not far from her ride back to San Diego and her flight to Florida. She exited the jeep with her duffel and walked through the cavernous doors, setting the bag down near a table. She heard voices and saw her commander talking with a formidable man in BDUs that she instantly recognized as a SEAL.
Navy SEALs. Navy nobility. Just those two words brought up so much—pride, awe, honor. The fact that they were here meant there was a global issue involved. She approached them. Her hat or cover as it was referred in the navy was already tucked into the back pocket of her own BDU pants. “Sir,” she greeted him and stood at attention until he bade her to at ease.
“Petty Officer Charlotte Coventry, this is Lieutenant Bowie Cooper out of NAB with Team Seven.”
She nodded to him, her eyes going over the seven other men who milled around looking like they were locked and loaded for battle. Yet there was something about their posture and their demeanor that told her there was dissention among them. One of them looked like Errol Flynn and had a corpsman patch, another so hot, he could also be a movie star. An attractive bunch of guys. But their set expressions and flinty eyes told her these warriors had a stake in this warhead. She didn’t like the odds of the people who had pointed it at one of their navy’s ships and blasted it to the bottom of the gulf.
“Coventry,” Cooper said. “What can you tell us about the debris of the warhead you recovered near the wreck of the Jackson?”
She told him about how she had found the tail fin and the serial number. “Pure dumb luck, sir, in its recovery. It was buried in silt.”
“Good job, Petty Officer.”
She flushed at his praise. He easily stood out as a leader of men.
“The pirates knew what they were doing,” she continued. She met his cool blue eyes and got a shiver. She noticed the ring
on his finger. It would take one hell of a woman to tame this man. Good for you, honey. “They hit the bridge, crippling the warship. They then proceeded to torpedo the disabled vessel. Several impacted the starboard side, with one directed at the stern, effectively taking out propulsion. From what I can gather from transcription of the Voyage Data Recorder I also salvaged those facts coincide with the video relayed to Navy Command from the ship. The pirate boat was hailed by the captain, requesting identification, but the pirates opened fire without warning. They never had a chance.”
Lieutenant Cooper frowned, and Charlie never wanted to be on the bad side of this man. Any of them, she thought.
“This ship was alone?”
“Yes. There has been a drawdown in this area for some time, the threat of the pirates neutralized. But I guess as the sea cleared, they got cocky. They’re going to be sorry they messed with the United States Navy.”
“They are,” Lieutenant Cooper growled. “Thank you for your time, Coventry.”
She nodded to her commander, then walked away from the group. She sent them a silent prayer for their successful and casualty-free takedown of the vicious pirates. Her job here was done. She was embarking on the next leg of her goal: Master Diver.
4
San Diego, California San Diego International Airport
Hours and hours later, Charlie wearily settled in her seat, the window place occupied by a guy with a hoodie covering his head. He didn’t look too good. He was hunched down in the seat, sunglasses in place even in the dim interior of the plane. But wow, what a jawline, strong and masculine, with that small cleft in his chin and a set of full, gorgeous lips.
She was curious as to what the rest of his face looked like. Leaning back, she exhaled. She was beat. The flight would be just over five hours, and she was going to catch some winks.
He made a soft noise in his sleep, and she turned to look at him. His face was contorted, and he looked like he was having a nightmare. His breathing was rapid, and he twitched. She was unsure whether to wake him or not. But if she expected to get some sleep, she would have to. She leaned over the vacant seat between them and shook his arm.