The Signal (The Bugging Out Series Book 8)

by Noah Mann

  It took her another two minutes to quickly, and painfully, straighten and set my fractured finger, wrapping it with thick tape from her small medical kit.

  “Nice patch job,” I told her through a wave of almost nauseating pain.

  “I’m not sure Trey will agree,” she said.

  “Angela, Fletch...”

  We moved to where Martin had found cover, just a few yards away. He was pointing to the cables we’d followed down from above. They snaked across the hangar deck to a point almost precisely halfway across the space. There the twin conduits disappeared through a square hole roughly cut through the thick floor.

  “It’s going to the reactors,” Martin said. “Or generators. Whatever makes power for this beast, that’s where these are going.”

  “Which means that we can just sever these with a charge when the others get here and be done with it,” I said, fully aware of the folly of my statement even before I’d given it voice. “Except...”

  “Except we don’t know what’s supposed to come next,” Schiavo said. “Whoever did this didn’t park a nuclear-powered carrier off our coast just to degrade our radio reception.”

  “The Vinson,” Martin said.

  Schiavo and I looked to him. He was holding something in one hand. Something small. A thin metal placard of some sort that was partly bent, with rivet holes marking where it had been attached before being pulled from its anchors. “CVN Seventy, the USS Carl Vinson. That’s where we are.”

  The ship we’d found, or which had found us, now had a name. My knowledge of naval vessels was limited, but I knew from memory that the Vinson was not one of the newest aircraft carriers in the fleet.

  “This has been around a while,” I said.

  “Early eighties,” Martin said, then tossed the placard to the floor and half smiled at Schiavo and me. “Micah had every ship catalogued when...when everything started.”

  Martin’s late son had saved Bandon, or Eagle One as it had become known to those seeking refuge, by using his radio and computer skills to redirect a ship carrying supplies from its original destination. That craft, the Groton Star, now rested at the bottom of the Pacific after its usefulness had turned into a liability. The boy had done more than secure enough supplies for his town to survive, though. Much more.

  “So what do we do?” I asked, my gaze fixed on Schiavo. “Wait for the others or...”

  My question trailed off as the sound reached us. Some rhythmic tapping from the far end of the hangar, toward the bow of the ship.

  “We’re all hearing that, right?” Martin asked, quietly now.

  Schiavo and I both nodded, each of us bringing our rifles up slightly, the action seeming a somewhat odd response to exactly what we were hearing.

  “That’s a horse, right?” Martin pressed.

  “That’s what I’m hearing,” I said.

  A horse. Trotting or galloping, or whatever it was that horses did, though they did not do so on an aircraft carrier, to the best of my knowledge.

  “Orville’s going to be here any minute,” Martin said.

  The Blue Streak was scheduled to arrive soon, as my friend had said. And with it Sergeants Westin and Hart, along with Corporal Laws. Our priority had to be getting them aboard safely.

  Almost equal with that as an imperative was ensuring we weren’t all heading into some ambush, though the almost impossible sound of a horse did not point toward that. It did, however, indicate life aboard. A presence. And that, we knew, could spell danger in many ways.

  “Martin, you stay here,” Schiavo instructed her husband. “Fletch and I will scout toward the stern. If the Blue Streak shows up, call out.”

  Martin could have resisted her, but didn’t. This was her role. Leader. Making decisions was part and parcel of that. Heeding her wishes, despite their relationship, was his responsibility.

  “Don’t go exploring,” Martin said.

  “Just there and back,” Schiavo assured him.

  We moved aft, slowly, cautiously, the carrier shifting beneath us. Despite being anchored, the unchecked motion of the Pacific moved the massive ship like ripples in a bathtub played with a rubber duck. The ocean ruled out here. All things manmade were at its mercy.

  The darkness deepened and ebbed as we moved further aft. The day’s waning light drizzled in through the aft elevator openings on both port and starboard sides, enough to reveal something ahead.

  Something.

  “Fletch...”

  “I see it,” I said.

  Nine

  Resolving out of the darkness, maybe fifty feet in front of us, was a wall of fabric suspended from the ceiling of the hangar deck, its bottom edge secured to tie-downs on the floor. It shifted easily in the breeze that whooshed through the hangar deck, billowing the black cloth against its anchors, moving enough that, as we neared it, we could see that it was not a single bolt of material, but several positioned next to each other. We moved toward one of those separations, the obvious clomping of hooves growing louder as we did. Louder, but also...stranger.

  “Does that sound off to you?” I asked Schiavo quietly.

  She nodded and paused near one of the natural slits in the barrier.

  “It’s not real,” she said.

  I reached to the fabric and peeled one edge aside, aiming my AR through and activating the weapon light fixed to the side of the handguard, the beam cutting through the darkness to reveal a metal stool maybe thirty feet away. Atop it rested a small digital music player, cable connecting it to a portable speaker at the base of the stool, the sound that had drawn us amplified through it.

  Schiavo took the other edge of the fabric in hand and ripped it aside, stepping through with her own weapon light switched on. I followed her into the space, a rough circle created by the lengths of dark cloth, our rifles sweeping the area.

  “No one,” I said.

  “Not now,” she said, moving toward the stool and stopping the sound from the player. “But someone was here to turn that on.”

  If that was true, then we were being watched.

  “Kill your light, Fletch.”

  We both did at the same time, then headed for the tear in the fabric Schiavo had made. Just yards from it we both stopped dead in our tracks.

  Footsteps...

  Schiavo and I looked to each other in the near darkness. Someone was coming. More than one. More than two, I thought, though beyond that it was impossible to tell. But there was a definite presence approaching. Individuals moving toward us. Carefully. Stalking.

  We were being hunted.

  Schiavo nudged my shoulder and motioned to her left. We moved that way until we were almost at the edge of the fabric barrier closest to the port side of the ship. She took a prone position, and I followed her lead, placing myself five yards from her, both of us aiming at where we’d passed through the cloth wall.

  Where’s Martin?

  That obvious question rose suddenly in my thoughts, and I was certain that Schiavo had wondered the same thing. Whoever was coming our way would have had to move within sight of him, maybe even right past him depending on where they’d entered the hangar deck. Or they could have just been waiting in the shadows while we rappelled down.

  There was an even more pressing question, though—were they friend or foe? Despite the signal that had blinded our communications, this was a Navy vessel. That there would be sailors or Marines aboard was not beyond the realm of what was possible, no matter how odd the circumstances. We could have announced ourselves, and who we were, but until we knew for certain we were facing friendlies, that would have to wait.

  Our wait was exactly two seconds.

  Those advancing on us opened fire simultaneously, rounds shredding the fabric and tearing into the stool beyond, music player and speaker blasted into bits of tiny electronic shrapnel. We’d shifted our position and were clear of being hit. But that wouldn’t last.

  “Take them,” Schiavo said.

  She fired first, and I followed
a second later. I’d removed the suppressor from my AR before we’d departed, a decision based upon weight and perceived necessity. It lengthened the weapon, and, if we’d needed to move through narrow passageways I thought it would become a hindrance. As it was, with both Schiavo and I firing, and the unseen attackers some twenty yards from us, the noise was utterly deafening.

  Screams...

  I heard them. One, two, then three as our return fire found its mark. The incoming rounds shifted toward our positions now, muzzle flashes muted beyond the wall of cloth. Each, to us, became targets, Schiavo and I squeezing off bursts toward every pulse of brightness, hearing more cries mixed among the automatic fire, and the clank of weapons falling to the floor, and then it was over.

  The gunfire ended, but there was no silence. Moaning, from two distinct voices, crossed the distance between us and our attackers. We had no idea if we’d hit them all, or if some had fled. But the agonized sounds that remained told us that some possibility of a threat still existed.

  “Dead men don’t pull triggers,” I said quietly to Schiavo.

  She nodded and rose from her prone position, staying low. I followed her lead. We each backed away, until we were at the far end of the fabric barrier. As I continued to provide cover, Schiavo used a knife to cut an opening in the cloth. She stepped through. A second later I did the same.

  The hangar deck was darker, the last light of day that had drifted through the elevator wells faded now to almost nothing. Yet we didn’t dare turn our lights on again as we advanced along the perimeter of the billowing wall, moving forward, Schiavo exposed to my left. Without warning she stopped, her M4 zeroed in on something.

  I slipped left, past her, covering the shadowy space before us. Even in the din I could see why she’d stopped.

  Bodies.

  They were almost piled atop each other, six, their weapons scattered. We’d heard the sounds of two attackers moaning, but only one moved, his helmeted head tipping back and forth, eyes barely open.

  “Cover me,” Schiavo said quietly.

  I did as she stepped close to the fallen attackers, verifying that five were dead, and one not far from paying that ultimate price.

  “Fletch...”

  I shifted closer, alternating my attention between Schiavo and the rolling darkness that surrounded us.

  “Who are you?” Schiavo asked the survivor, leaning close. “Why did you come at us?”

  The man gave no answer. I wasn’t even sure he could hear the question he’d been asked. And neither mattered a few seconds later as a last, long breath slipped past his lips and his head settled to one side.

  Schiavo brought her M4 up again but stayed on one knee.

  “Look at them,” she said, her voice still hushed against any who might still be lurking in the blackness. “That’s all new gear.”

  Special Ops helmets, which bore a passing resemblance to something a cyclist or a hockey player might wear. Short-barreled M4s with double mags clamped together and pristine ACOG sights.

  “It’s Tacti-cool, Fletch,” she said. “They had the gear but not the skillset.”

  “These guys weren’t military,” I said. “They were playing the part.”

  “Why?” Schiavo asked, standing now. “And for who?”

  There was no apparent answer to that. Not even after we performed a cursory search of the bodies, finding not a thing of importance. No personal possessions. No rings or watches. Nothing but what they wore and what they’d carried into their losing battle.

  “All right,” Schiavo said.

  She turned her attention toward the bow. To the place we’d come from.

  “Let’s get back to Martin.”

  Those were her words, but there was more she did not say, but which I knew she was thinking. Fears as to why he hadn’t intervened, or responded once the firefight began. Those things she held to herself as we made our way along the pitchy and pitching hangar deck toward where her husband, and my friend, should be.

  Ten

  He was gone.

  “Martin,” I said, not shouting, but not hushed, either.

  Schiavo moved quickly past me as we reached the spot near the starboard forward elevator where he’d positioned himself. Her weapon was still up, scanning the emptiness where her husband had been. Where he was supposed to be.

  “Martin,” she called to him, making no attempt to quiet herself.

  I looked over the floor nearby, searching for any sign of what might have happened. Dropped equipment signaling a struggle. Blood indicating a wound. But there was nothing.

  Martin Jay was simply gone.

  “Where is he, Fletch?”

  I couldn’t answer that. As it was, there was no time to even discuss the issue as, when I glanced behind toward the elevator, I could very plainly see a boat approaching on the choppy water, its shape silhouetted by the last wisps of daylight trickling eastward from the horizon.

  The Blue Streak had arrived.

  “The boat,” I said.

  Schiavo looked and saw it, too. A dozen things were racing through her thoughts right then, I knew. Martin. Getting her men aboard. Completing our mission. There was a hierarchy to what needed to happen, and in what order. It was no more complicated than ‘first things first’.

  “Deploy the rope and signal the boat,” Schiavo told me. “I’ll cover.”

  She dropped to a knee behind the same low barrier which Martin had placed himself. I focused on my part, retrieving a seventy-five foot length of knotted rope from my small backpack and moving out onto the lowered elevator. One end of the rope I secured to a tie-down, and the other I heaved over the edge, the coiled end landing with a barely audible splash atop the churning sea. Next I took out my flashlight and signaled with three quick pulses. Without delay the same response came from the boat and it maneuvered close to the carrier, disappearing from view as it slid beneath the elevator. I inched out toward the edge, holding the rope until I felt it go taut. The first climber was on it.

  “They’re coming aboard,” I reported to Schiavo, glancing quickly behind to see the dim shape of her giving me a quick thumbs-up.

  Thirty seconds later a gloved hand reached over the edge of the elevator. I took hold of the rope and reached out, grabbing the arm of the first to make it aboard.

  It was Hart, the medic, his medical pack thick on his back. I helped him over the edge and hauled him clear of the rope, which went taut again, the next member of the team making their way aboard.

  “We could have hauled your pack up on a second line,” I told Hart as he got to his feet.

  He shook his head and nodded to the active ocean.

  “I figured we might not have time to throw a rope to haul gear,” Hart said. “Orville said he’s having trouble staying close, and it’s too deep for him to anchor here.”

  The sheer bulk of the ship, which muted the worst of the pummeling waves, still allowed an uncomfortable roll to be transmitted aboard. What that was like on the much smaller Blue Streak I couldn’t imagine right then.

  “What’s the depth?” I asked.

  “He said there’s a plateau here,” the medic answered. “Maybe four hundred feet. He said it slopes down to seven thousand feet between here and Bandon.”

  I recalled some bit of trivial detail from a documentary I’d seen long ago. It had been about ships and their anchors. One fact the program shared was that aircraft carrier anchor chains could be a thousand feet long. To me that meant that those who’d brought the ship here had to choose this exact point to anchor it. Any closer in the shallows nearer to Bandon would have made the Vinson more accessible to us, and more vulnerable to any action we might take.

  “Any signs of life?” Hart asked.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “Not friendlies.”

  He brought his M4 up to a ready position and moved off to join his commander just inside the hangar deck. Corporal Laws came up next, followed by Sergeant Westin.

  “Orville’s gonna pull back and stan
d off from the carrier,” he told me. “We almost bashed into the hull down there.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  The fishing boat emerged from its place beneath the elevator and rode the waves to a position a hundred yards off the starboard bow. I flashed him three times, and he acknowledged with the same, then Westin, Laws, and I joined Schiavo and Hart in the nearly full darkness of the hangar deck.

  “Martin is missing,” Hart told his comrades, Schiavo having briefed him.

  She explained what we’d found, and who, to the new arrivals.

  “No sign at all?” Westin checked.

  “None,” I said.

  “Ma’am,” Hart said, drawing his leader’s attention. “What are your orders?”

  The mission’s objective had not changed, though some parameters had. We were facing some sort of enemy, one seemingly inept at first blush. But we were also confronted by loss. One of our number was missing. Schiavo had to, at least momentarily, put these shifting situational sands aside and focus on what had to be done.

  I didn’t know if I could do what she had to.

  “Sgt. Westin...”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Schiavo motioned to the cables stretching from the elevator well to the hole cut in the hangar deck floor.

  “Consensus is that those are feeding power to whatever is in the structure on deck,” she said. “You have the charges?”

  “I do,” Westin confirmed. “I think a pound should cut those clean. There’ll be a shockwave in this confined space.”

  “We’ll take cover,” Schiavo said. “Get it done.”

  Westin nodded and headed to the cable nearest to where it disappeared through the hole.

  “I’ll cover him, ma’am,” Corporal Laws said, then followed his comrade.

  “Over there,” I said, gesturing to a protected space behind a short structural rib protruding from the side wall of the hangar deck. “We should be good there.”

  “Good,” Schiavo said, scanning the darkness, for threats, and for some answer to where her husband could possibly be.

  Less than a minute after heading to place the charges, Westin and Laws hurried back.