He raised his hand to give Inapo an order when two shots were fired. One clipped the water near the outboard motor to find the range; the second shot struck the starboard gunwale, puncturing a hole in the air chamber, blowing rubber pieces in a blast of shrapnel that strafed his body and the back of his head as he turned away.
The plastic and metal grains blew across Merk with a hissing sound of air that spurted out of the ruptured chamber. He ducked, feeling the sting of the pieces spray his wetsuit; the smell of burnt rubber and cordite from the high-powered shells froze him momentarily. The next two shots missed, spraying water off the other gunwale. The sniper had the range, but not the sight.
Not wanting to be shot, Merk hit the deck. He reached back for the motor, cranked the throttle, and took off. Lying on his belly, he blindly steered the lopsided rubber boat using the tops of the lower Manhattan skyline as reference points, trying to race out of the range of the rifles.
Out in the open, vulnerable to a sniper’s line of fire, Merk figured the shots came from nearby Governors Island or farther back from one of the Red Hook buildings. Either way, it gave him one of two options other than being shot. He could jump into the river, which would buy him time to survive and enable him to hitch a ride with a dolphin, or race up the East River far away.
More shots struck the water. Sporadic at first, then the gunfire blew in a staccato stream.
* * *
ON THE ROOF of the grain terminal, the two teams of SEAL snipers heard the shots. The engineers scouted the rooftops of buildings below and along the point of Red Hook. Then one SEAL saw muzzle-fire light up behind a mechanical bulkhead on the roof of a low-rise building.
“Open fire,” the lieutenant commander ordered, standing between the engineers.
The eight SEAL snipers shot at the mechanical roof, dumping the load, with the bullets chewing up and breaking off brick and metal in a hail of bullets. Several shots pierced the water tower on top of the building, with water beginning to leak out and flood the roof.
The lieutenant commander called his counterpart on Governors Island, sitting directly across from the apartment building on the opposite side.
* * *
ON THE DECK of the chemical ship, Jenny heard the gunfire. She saw the rubber boat race a zigzag path across the river toward the FDR, but she didn’t see anyone steering the boat. She took out a pair of night-vision goggles and tracked the rubber boat when a new round of gunfire erupted north from what she figured was the South Street Seaport building. She called the Intel Fusion Center, requesting SWAT and paramilitary teams to descend on the East River pier.
Her smartphone vibrated a message: “Drone en route.” She looked up at the night sky to spot the UAV. She opened a mobile app that uploaded a 3-D map of New York City with an icon of the drone flying down the East River. She opened a second app and now saw what the UAV operators out of Fort Meade watched with infrared, as they maneuvered the drone, armed with Hellfire missiles, toward the new nest of snipers.
* * *
ON THE ROOF of the low-rise apartment building, bullets sprayed the brick bulkhead from both directions. The three Russians, who had offloaded the Iranian dolphins in the East River, were now cowering behind the parapet as shrapnel of brick, mortar, steel, and glass rained down on their wounded bodies; water poured across the deck from the shot-up water tower.
A Black Hawk helicopter took off from Governors Island. It circled around the harbor. Hovering, it swung into position and opened fire, suppressing the snipers further, blowing apart the precast parapet. Bullets struck and hit two of the snipers, wounding one in the arm and shoulder, blowing apart the head of the other. The third Russian crawled toward the corner of the roof, but, in doing so, was now exposed to the snipers on the roof of the grain terminal.
A pair of SEALs shot and wounded the third Russian in the legs, immobilizing him.
* * *
IN THE RUBBER boat, the gunfire from the rear was replaced by sniper shots from the front. Bullets tore apart the rubber boat; they were heavy caliber. Merk picked up the metal flarebox and laptop trying to shield himself, as he attempted to kneel up and roll into the water. But as he rose a shell blew apart the laptop. He felt the next bullet would find its mark and kill him—when Tasi leapt out of the water … arched over the rubber boat … and speared Merk in the chest, knocking him into the river as the next shot ricocheted off the falling flarebox.
Underwater, Tasi drove Merk down.
More shots struck the rubber boat above in muted punches; other bullets broke apart upon hitting the water surface, which acted like concrete and shredded the shells to pieces.
* * *
ON THE DECK of the chemical tanker, Jenny knelt behind the wall. She took out a folding-stock assault rifle, and patiently waited to acquire where the gunfire came from. About a half mile away, up and across the East River, she saw muzzle-flashes of the snipers’ rifles. She took aim and fired an automatic stream of bullets, raking the rooftop in the vicinity of the snipers.
She switched on an open mic on her vest and called in the location of the snipers on the South Street Seaport roof as she continued to suppress the snipers with return fire.
* * *
ON THE ROOF of the Seaport, the Somali gunmen came under fire. Bullets struck and danced around them, smashing glass windows on the floor beneath them, and an office to the rear. When the gunfire stopped for reloading, they sprang and ran to the stairwell, when up above them the CIA drone angled down, circling like a hawk, with the Hellfire missiles armed, chasing them in the opposite direction. They raced across the roof with a fresh round of bullets spraying around them. One bullet clipped the lead Somali in the ankle, dropping him to the deck. The other guard ran toward the edge of the building at the elevated FDR Drive.
A few more strides … a swarm of NYPD and CIA agency vehicles pulled up to the building. SWAT snipers yelled “Freeze!” from down below as they trained assault rifles on the lone Somali sniper stopping at the edge of the roof. He held up his hands and looked back at his wounded mate squirming in pain.
FBI agents stormed out of the rooftop stairwell, aiming machine guns at the Somali. He trembled. A tear of defeat upwelled in his eye as he dropped the rifle and kneeled down.
The rampage was over, but not the threat. There was still a bomb ready to go off somewhere in New York City.
Across the river … Tasi swam Merk toward the chemical ship that Jenny had boarded.
Chapter Ninety-Three
GRIPPING THE DORSAL fin, Merk rode Tasi to the chemical tanker.
On deck, Jenny pointed to the rear of the ship and ran to the stern, shouting, “Merk, get out of the water. This tanker is loaded with chlorine.”
Merk waved her off and slipped on the dive goggles. He tapped Tasi and she dove them under the hull in a powerful thrust.
Out in the river, EOD divers raced over to the chemical tanker. They dropped anchor next to a micro-buoy—a navy dolphin had flagged it as an area searched earlier in the day.
Underwater, Merk panned the bottom of the algae-clad hull, but saw nothing as they swam under and rose on the other side by the pier. As they breached, taking a full breath, Merk watched Inapo glide over to them. He lifted the dive goggles and signaled the EOD divers that he would come over. He grabbed on to Inapo’s dorsal fin and rode over to the RHIB.
When they reached the boat, the EOD divers pulled Merk on board. He tossed the goggles off, put on a weight-belt, slapped swim fins on his feet, and pulled a dive mask with a maskcam over his head; the divers fitted a tank of trimix gas onto his buoyancy control vest and rolled him overboard.
“Stay alert. There’s another rogue dolphin out here. They always swim in pairs,” Merk warned, and inserted the regulator in his mouth. He cupped his hand over Tasi’s snout and let the pregnant dolphin propel him back to the chemical tanker.
In navy SEAL fashion, the high-tech rebreather left no trail of air bubbles to track Merk’s movement underwater. The EOD d
ivers had access to Merk’s maskcam video only, but could message him on the dive-watch he was wearing.
* * *
ON THE SHIP, Jenny got word of a “hot pursuit” in Brooklyn off Hamilton Avenue under the BQE Expressway near the Sanitation Department facility. She looked over the side for Merk, but didn’t see any sign of him. He was gone. She motioned the EOD divers that she had to leave. They waved back signaling they would get word to him.
As Jenny deboarded the ship, the EOD divers uploaded the tanker’s spec sheet and confirmed it was unloading liquid chlorine. They saw the two ships docked at the Brooklyn Container Terminal had been searched hours earlier separately by FDNY and NYPD, and then four hours before by tandem MK-8 spinner dolphins. Each search cleared the vessel as clean. But after hearing Merk’s story about the dolphins surveying the hijacked supertanker run aground in Somalia and hearing about the terrorist safe house turned into a drone-struck school in Yemen from Alan Cuthbert, she began to think like Bahdoon and that he would plant and arm the bombs at the last possible hour. Merk was right. The terrorists were already in the city with the bombs, just that they were mobile and not planted yet, like the Brussels airport bombing in 2016.
* * *
TOPSIDE, CIA AGENTS searched the ship for crewmen and dockworkers, who might be still on board the vessel, to evacuate them. Jenny ran over to the railcars that were being filled with liquid chlorine in the complex chlorine transfer operation. She couldn’t believe what she saw. They weren’t going to continue to unload the contents of the ship the next morning; they were doing it right then and there that night. And no one from the Intel Fusion Center, federal or local, had put a stop to the operation.
She clicked photos of the bulk chlorine liquid tanks, noting they had one liquid transfer line that connected the ship’s tanks to a transfer hose with a remote shutdown valve. With her smartphone, she videotaped the canister of dry air that was being pumped into the tank at high pressure to suppress any vapor flash; the hoses had emergency isolation valves on both ends. She recorded the chlorine vapor flowing into a giant scrubber, filled with a caustic solution, tagged with the symbol for danger on the outside of the scrubber vat, all of which circulated through an educator. A heat exchanger that pumped cold water removed the heat from the air, while the liquid turned into a vapor filled into the railcar.
The two workers involved with the transfer operation wore fire-retardant suits with neck-dams, masks, and aerators. It was at that moment that Jenny grasped the magnitude of the danger of what a bomb could do to the ship.
Jenny grabbed the foreman and ordered him to shut down the operation, showing her CIA badge and assault rifle. The foreman called the terminal manager. After a conference call with the NYPD, the foreman shutdown the chlorine transfer operation. Not trusting anyone, Jenny stood by to make sure they shut the process down in a hurry, but safely, and then cleared the area. She asked the foreman how many railcars had been filled with the transfer of liquid to chlorine gas, to which he held up four fingers. She ordered him to move the railcars out of the terminal.
Jenny King turned back to the ship, signaled an agent on the deck. She called him on the smartphone and asked how many chlorine tanks were still to be emptied in the bowels of the ship. After an on-deck conference, he flashed eight fingers.
Upset, Jenny accessed the Fort Meade CIA agents operating the drone and opened a window on her smartphone, where she viewed a live aerial shot of what looked like the Pratique Occulte propaganda merchant Bahdoon on the run. He was on foot, dressed in black, wearing Body Glove shoes, dripping a trail of water.
She figured he had to have been in the river in the past thirty minutes.
Jenny called the digital engineer to come over and pick her up. They had to head to the Third Avenue roadway under the BQE to intercept the terrorist mastermind.
Chapter Ninety-Four
UNDERWATER, MERK RODE Tasi as she swept the nuclear probe along the tanker’s starboard hull by the pier. In the darkness, he listened for the probe to sound an alert, but like the decoy torpedo, the device didn’t detect any sign of a dirty nuke or hot load.
At the bow, Inapo located a pair of devices attached to the fore of the chemical tanker and swam back, tapping his beak on Merk’s shoulder twice, alerting him there was a bomb attached to the ship. Merk pushed Tasi to swim ahead, then latched on to Inapo when, suddenly, the dolphin reacted to an unseen threat. Unnerved, Inapo twisted and dumped Merk, and darted down the hull of the ship.
At the bow, the second rogue dolphin struck Tasi, hammering her against the steel hull. The wild creature headbutted a dazed Tasi again, knocking the nuclear probe off her beak. The animal tail-whipped Tasi and speared her into a pier piling.
Just as the rogue dolphin was about to finish Tasi off, Inapo torpedoed the creature broadside, smashing it back, driving it off the pregnant dolphin. But instead of fighting or holding its ground, the kamikaze dolphin corkscrewed around Inapo and slipped away, swimming toward the bombs attached to the hull to try to detonate them by ramming.
Peering through the dive mask, Merk stared down the rogue dolphin and slammed his forearm on the dolphin’s melon as its beak smashed into his dive mask, cracking the lens open like an eggshell. Water rushed into his face. It overwhelmed his senses, blurred his vision, constricted his ability to breathe.
As water filled the cavity, Merk ripped the dive mask off and gulped one last breath from the regulator before he discarded it. He crossed his lower legs, unclipped the weight-belt, letting it sink, and braced for the next blow. The rogue dolphin speared him, snapping his head against the hull. Battered, he expelled his last breath, crossed his arms, and blocked the dolphin trying to hit him in the face again. The force of the blow against his arms slammed the back of his head into the hull, rocking him to near blackout.
Programmed to finish him off, the rogue dolphin fought with Merk instead of trying to detonate the bomb. That delay, that hesitation allowed Inapo to soar back and slam the dolphin into the hull, knocking it out cold. Tasi flew over, ramming the concussed dolphin down into the murky depth, where it spun around upside-down, mouth ajar, tongue sticking out, sinking in a lifeless drift below.
Inapo nosed Merk up to the surface. Fighting the easing pressure that drove him to pass out from the rapid ascent, Merk’s face broke the surface. He cleared his mouth, blew a couple of breaths, gasping for air, hyperventilating until his lungs emptied and filled with air again.
Tasi rose up and joined Merk. She cleared her blowhole in a spray, inhaling a breath. She rubbed her beak against his face. Feeling her wet, coarse skin, he grinned and latched on to her as she swam him around the tanker and over to the EOD divers.
Merk let go of Tasi and grabbed on to the RHIB. He was bleeding from his face and forehead; a welt crowned the back of his head, which he rubbed.
“Where’s your dive mask?” the lead diver asked, handing him a towel.
“Smacked off by a dead dolphin,” Merk said, pressing the towel to his forehead. “Call in backup teams; we got two devices at the starboard fore.”
Merk reached for the radio on his scuba vest and called Jenny, informing her that the ship was rigged to blow. Then he told the EOD divers to go over and disarm the twin bombs, neither device being radioactive. But a chlorine-laden ship was all the blast material the terrorists needed to unleash holy hell and maximum destruction.
Chapter Ninety-Five
MERK HELD ON to Tasi and Inapo as the EOD divers raced over to the chemical tanker. He bled from a cut to the cheek and a gash to the forehead. He floated by the EOD RHIB until the backup SEAL teams arrived and hauled him out of the water.
Merk picked up a Satcom, pressed a global emergency number that connected him with SEAL Team Two command in Little Creek, the admirals at the Pentagon, Jenny, and the NYPD, FBI, DHS, NMMP, and CIA at the Intelligence Fusion Center, and shouted: “The chem tanker is hot. Syria hot. And ready to blow.” He took a breath. “It’s fully loaded with chlorine. Clear the a
rea. Clear Brooklyn waterfront. Clear lower Manhattan … Now, now, now.”
Merk knew if there was acetylene in the vicinity the torch gas wouldn’t need any flame to ignite. What he didn’t know was Jenny had started the evacuation process at the terminal.
* * *
ON THE OTHER side of the vessel, Jenny heard the frantic call. She cleared the foreman and workers away from the chlorine transfer operation, waved her agents off the ship, and then ran toward the digital engineer driving over to pick her up.
The car fishtailed around and skidded to a stop. The front door flung open. Jenny hopped in, closed it, and spoke to Merk, saying, “I’m out of there. On Bahdoon’s tail now.”
“Jenny, is there any acetylene gas on the dock?” Merk asked on a different channel.
“Not that I saw. Maybe. Why?”
He didn’t answer. The digital engineer sped toward the gate. Jenny rolled down the window, aiming the assault rifle at the guard to open it. He complied, opening the gate as the car drove out of the terminal, nearly clipping the guard. “What’s hot?” the digital engineer asked.
“A bomb to detonate a bigger bomb,” she said, feeling a rush of adrenaline kick in. “Merk’s dolphins found two devices planted on the chem tanker. If the chlorine goes off a lot of people are going to die gruesome deaths.”
“What the f—you mean? …” he began to say in disbelief.
“A mega bomb,” she said, pointing down the street. “Not radioactive, but a chain reaction of chlorine liquid to gas. … Head to Third Avenue under the BQE. Bahdoon is on foot.”
The digital engineer weaved in and out of cars, swerved through a stop sign, drove down an empty sidewalk, chasing a stray dog into traffic, and dodged hitting a slew of vehicles.
He drove around the ramps and walls of the double-stacked BQE intersection that tied to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, located a half-mile from Third Avenue.
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