Leviathan egt-4

by David L. Golemon

  Everett turned and ran to the water to help the unknown person to his feet. Carl could feel the bulk under the black coverall and knew it to be a man. The hostage had a black hood on his head, and seemed weak as he struggled to stay upright. Everett hustled the man to the black limousine, removed the hood, and without looking any further, shoved him quickly into the backseat, telling the driver, Staff Sergeant Rodriguez, to watch him. He then turned and ran to assist the agents.

  As Everett was cutting the plastic wire-tie off one of them, he turned and looked back at the fog-shrouded sea. With the exception of the breakers, all was quiet.

  As he turned back to the task of releasing the agents, Everett heard a loud explosion of water. When he turned toward the sound, his eyes widened. He saw the topmost section of a submarine's stern fins sinking beneath the waves through the swirling remnants of fog. He straightened as he saw the three-story-high, sharklike rudders vanish, and then watched in awe as the amazing craft displaced several thousand tons of water on its way back out to sea.

  "That son of bitch must have been in place long before we arrived." Ryan didn't look up as he freed the last of the agents, and didn't see the nightmare vision Everett had seen even as another giant surge of water pushed up on shore.

  Everett stood and started for the car when he saw a small man in an FBI windbreaker come toward him. At his side was the sniper from the lighthouse. He recognized the agent in charge.

  "I wasn't briefed on just who you people are, but your little meeting was compromised, and it had to come from your end. These people knew we would be here. Can you explain that?" The agent made the mistake of grabbing Carl's arm.

  Ryan and Mendenhall reacted immediately, pulling the agent away before the captain had a chance to react. They had seen Carl confronted before, and knew that sometimes he acted first and then thought about a situation later.

  "Get your hands off of me. I want an answer," the agent said, looking from Will to Ryan.

  "Look, we don't know if the meet was compromised; they may have just had the game rigged from the beginning. They set this spot up, not us," Ryan said as he held the agent back.

  "Fucking amateurs," the man said as he shook off Ryan's hands and then turned toward his men.

  "He's right; someone told them that the FBI would be here." Everett tried to calm himself. He knew the agent in charge was only mad because his hostage rescue team had been placed in harm's way and left out to dry, just because someone on the Group's end couldn't keep their mouth shut.

  "Whoever it is that's screwing with us almost cost the lives of a lot of people tonight," Mendenhall said as he watched the angry FBI unit start to assemble and make their way off the beach.

  "Let's get the hell out of here," Everett said as he looked one last time back out into the Atlantic, where the vision of what couldn't have been cornered his thoughts.

  The three men walked to the limousine and saw that Sergeant Rodriguez was kneeling on the backseat with the door open.

  "How's our guest, Sergeant?" Mendenhall asked as they approached.

  Rodriguez stepped back out of the car and looked at the three men, shaking his head.

  "You're not going to fucking believe this," he said, looking from face to face as he moved out of their way.

  Inside the limo, the dome lights were on. A big man sat reposed in the backseat with his head back and his face turned away from them. As Everett stepped up to the open door, he leaned down and touched the man on the leg.

  "How are you doing?"

  The man slowly turned his head. Everett, who was standing on the balls of his feet, lost his balance as he recognized the face immediately. He had a six-week growth of beard and looked pale in the false light of the car, and his eyes were heavily bloodshot, but Everett would have known this man anywhere, in any condition.

  "I'll be damned, you tough-to-kill son of a bitch!"

  Ryan and Mendenhall exchanged a look as Everett straightened and then pulled the man from the car and hugged him.

  "Jack!"

  Carl pushed Colonel Jack Collins at arm's length as Ryan and Mendenhall joined him in a dreamlike sequence that none of them could possibly have ever imagined.

  Jack blinked his eyes and tried to focus on the faces in front of him. His hair, although combed straight back, was longer than Collins had ever worn it, but the eyes — those were still the same as they bore first into Everett's and then roamed to Ryan and Will. His lips moved, but no words came.

  "Jack!" Carl said, giving Collins's shoulders a small shake until his eyes refocused on the captain's.

  "The sea," Jack mumbled as his eyes locked with Carl's, and then the gaze changed and his head looked around him. "They said I was dead." He suddenly looked back at Everett.

  "How in the hell is he here?" Will asked, swallowing.

  "Goddamn, those people must have been there." Everett turned and looked at Mendenhall. "They must have saved him, pulled him from the water," Everett answered, laughing for the first time in weeks. "Oh no, you're not dead, Jack, you're going home." He tried to turn the colonel toward the open door when Jack pulled his arm free and stared at Everett.

  "The sea," he said again, closing his eyes and swaying as Carl reached out and steadied him. Jack opened his eyes when his dizziness passed and focused on the three men once more. His eyes darted back to Everett and narrowed. "Mr…. Everett."

  "That's right, Jack. Will and Jason are here, too."

  Jack's eyes went to the two men standing beside the captain.

  "Will, Ryan… I tried to hold on… and I did…"

  "Hold on to what, Colonel?" Mendenhall asked, feeling creepy about this whole thing. It was like conversing with a ghost at the very least.

  Jack took a step back until he fell into the limo's rear seat and hung his head. It looked as though he was trying hard to remember something. He slowly looked up at the expectant faces.

  "Sarah." That single name coming from his mouth explained all. The three officers exchanged a look. "She's dead, someone shot her?" he asked, looking like his world was gone, as if he had failed her.

  Everett knelt by the open door and placed a hand on Collins's leg. He tried to smile but failed.

  "Let's go home, buddy. We need to explain a few things to you."

  THE ATLANTIC OCEAN, 100 MILES

  OFF THE NEW JERSEY COAST

  The control room was dark, and the men and women were silent in deference to the somber mood of the great vessel. On the surface, the radar mast and antennas broke the clean lines of the calm sea, slicing through the water as a sharpened scythe through wheat, their stealthy design broken by sharp angles.

  "No airborne or surface contacts at this time, Captain. Sonar reports the signatures of three Los Angeles and one Virginia class submarine close-aboard, but are not deemed threats. They cannot pick us up. Stealth has been achieved."

  On the darkened, raised platform at the center of the control room, the captain nodded and gestured toward the weapons station.

  The first officer approached the raised pedestal and leaned in close to his captain. He looked around him, then lowered his voice.

  "Captain, you know I have never once questioned your orders."

  The captain smiled and looked down on a man she had known since her childhood. "I suspect that precedent is about to be broken."

  "Ma'am, you had planned on delivering ultimatums to all countries before any attacks began." He looked around him once more, making sure all hands were attending their stations. "Now we've sunk four vessels and attacked two nations. Why have we stepped up offensive operations before these countries find out why we're doing it? This isn't like you at all, and—"

  She looked down, and her bright blue eyes, dilated as they were, stayed the first officer's words.

  "Apologies, Captain, I—"

  "You have other concerns, James?"

  "Why are you insisting on bringing strangers aboard? The attack on the complex achieved your goal."

 
"We have to know exactly what knowledge these people have on us."

  "Captain, our asset inside their Group confirms they know nothing. Sergeant Tyler and his security department have been screaming about the unnecessary risk of what you are—"

  The captain's piercing eyes settled on the first officer, and he could only nod his head.

  "James, the ploy to lure their top security men from their posts worked." She looked around the control center and saw that her seamen were doing their jobs. Only Yeoman Alvera had turned from her station to watch the captain. "Now we can better coerce the people I need to come onboard with minimum bloodshed; isn't that what you wanted?"

  "Yes, ma'am, I just—"

  "Vertical tubes six through twelve are flooded, birds are warm," the weapons officer called out.

  "Captain, the boat reports all stations ready for launch," the first officer said after being cut off by the announcement. He turned away from the raised platform and examined the holographic board in front of him.

  The captain nodded her approval, then closed her eyes.

  "All hands stand by for vertical launch. Tubes six through twelve, Operation Cover Four has been ordered to commence. Navigation, once tubes have been emptied, take the boat to four thousand feet at flank speed, then steer a course south at seventy-five knots. We will take up station in the gulf before dawn."

  "Aye, sir," both navigation and weapons called out from their stations.

  "Permission for weapons release, Captain?" the first officer asked, watching the still figure in her chair. Her not talking was a bad sign — he knew migraine headaches had begun to plague her the last few weeks.

  Once more, there was just a simple nod of her head from the raised platform.

  "Weapons officer, launch vertical tubes six through twelve in numerical order," the first officer ordered, looking at the captain with worry.

  * * *

  A hundred feet aft of the great streamlined conning tower, six of the forty-six vertical launch tubes opened to the sea. Suddenly large, explosive water slugs ejected six sixteen-foot-long, black, streamlined missiles with no telltale maneuvering fins. Now airborne and clear of the water, their solid booster rocket fired and sent the six missiles skyward. Once they reached an altitude of twenty thousand feet, they started a slow turn to the west and then picked up speed, still climbing. They would soon reach three times the speed of sound as they headed for the interior of the United States.

  Far below the sea, the giant vessel dove at an amazing rate of speed, slowly ramping up to more than seventy knots. Then she dipped her nose and dove even deeper, where no American warship could ever hope to follow.

  The great vessel set her course due south for the Gulf of Mexico, and part two of Operation Cover Four.

  Twenty-two radar stations, warships, National Space Command, and U.S. early-warning satellites warned of a massive missile strike over the United States, and all started tracking the assault. Soon more than a hundred warplanes on the eastern seaboard and the Midwest lifted free of the earth, in pursuit of what were deemed cruise missiles, as they plowed their way through the stratosphere, heading west.

  PART TWO

  THE SEA CHASE

  I have strived to meet my kind with open arms of shared brotherhood, but alas, the distance to cover is too great, the wounds too deep, and the memory of brutality too sharp and clear. So all I will ask my former brethren is to leave me to my sea.

  — Roderick Deveroux, former condemned prisoner, Chateau d'If, France

  6

  NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE,

  NEVADA

  The four VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft suddenly went low to the ground. Their unique design was far stealthier than anything the Americans or Russians had on their drafting boards. Instead of being propeller driven, like the Marine Corps V-22 Osprey, these craft utilized a twin-engine turbojet.

  When the four tilt-jet aircraft came within ten feet of the ground, their ground radar computers took over the flying, avoiding the many bumps and telephone wires crisscrossing the desert around the air force base. From the underbellies of each of the assaulting planes a small dish popped free and sent out a stream of microwaves that went invisibly toward the control center of one of the most advanced air force bases in the world.

  The control tower sitting high above the airstrip suddenly went dark. All radar screens died within a microsecond of one another. Down below in the command and control area, the phone lines went out and their screens ceased to function. Traffic control was dead, as well as any response the base could muster. It seemed an eternity until the emergency generators kicked in, but in the three seconds it took for the circuit to be made, the attacking aircraft were already past them and down on ground level, beyond their radar search.

  The four strange-looking craft overshot the darkened runways at Nellis and turned north toward the old firing range that hadn't been used since 1945—their target: the hidden underground complex of the Event Group.

  EVENT GROUP COMPLEX,

  NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA

  Pete Golding had been working eighteen straight hours. He had been back and forth with Europa since the security lockdown was initiated. Several technicians were still inside the darkened computer center, but three of the six were dozing; the soft drone of Pete's voice trying to be as patient as possible with the supercomputer had lulled them to sleep. Once more, he went at Europa.

  "Okay, let's try this again. Let us assume that a security breach from outside the complex occurred at the same moment the breach message was initiated. Is it possible you missed a back door in your programming, perhaps designed by your original program team at Cray?"

  "Not possible, Dr. Golding. The internal algorithm ciphering my security program would have been disturbed, thus setting off my shutdown protocols."

  Pete rubbed a hand over his balding head. "So, what you're saying is that it would have been impossible to have received the message without a door being left open from inside the complex, with the validation of a departmental manager?"

  "Correct"

  With the recent call in from Captain Everett, Niles knew the people who had sent the message had been tipped off that the FBI was lying in wait for them. That meant that someone here had to have communicated with the terrorists at some point after the security shutdown. Europa had indeed shut down all systems of communication. No one used any of the phones, and it would be impossible to get a cell phone call out of the complex. Europa closed all e-mail access, so that was eliminated. The director even cut Everett short when he wanted to explain who they had recovered from the meeting. Security at the moment was just so porous, he didn't chance anything.

  "Shutdown was ordered at oh-nine-fifty-five this A.M. Was there any computer access just before I ordered you to close all internal loops?"

  "One."

  Pete shook his head in exasperation. "Well, do you want to share that with me?"

  "Terminal is located in office forty-five-seventy-six, sublevel seven, and logged at oh-nine-fifty-three from the office of Assistant Director Virginia Pollock."

  The blood in Pete's face drained. "No, Virginia doesn't have it in her." Still, Golding was scared.

  Pete moved to his desk on the main floor, picked up the phone, and started punching numbers. He didn't hear anything. He flicked the disconnect a few times and then listened.

  "Europa, did you shut down communication for the comp center?"

  When he didn't get a response, Pete turned and looked at the large center screen monitor he was using for Europa's typed-out responses. It, too, was blank.

  "Europa, respond."

  Golding slapped the shoulder of one of the dozing men and woke him.

  "Europa's down. See if you can make keyboard contact," he said as he started for the risers that led to the doors two stories above the main floor.

  The other technicians awoke and looked around as the main lights flickered, steadied, and then went out. Pete reached the top
and pulled the door handle. The door had locked, automatically he assumed, when Europa went down.

  "What in the hell is going on here?"

  * * *

  Sarah McIntire had arrived two hours earlier from Arkansas. She was sitting alone in the cafeteria drinking a cup of coffee after she found she had no desire for sleep. Her aching arm held firmly to her chest with a sling, she realized it wasn't just the plane ride back, but the fact that Carl, Jason, and Will were all off base, making her feel her homecoming was put on hold.

  She spied Alice Hamilton off in the far corner of the room, and was shocked to see former director and retired senator Garrison Lee sitting with her. They had files stacked to right, left, and center of their table. She thought about saying hi, but they looked engrossed in what they were doing — reading, arguing, nodding, and then arguing some more.

  Sarah decided to try sleep again. As she stood to leave, she saw Virginia Pollock walking past the double doors of the cafeteria. She called out, but the assistant director kept walking. Strange, because Sarah knew she had heard her call out.

  "This place isn't right somehow," she said as she left for her room, just as the overhead lights started to flicker.

  THE GOLD CITY PAWNSHOP,

  LAS VEGAS, GATE 2

  Lance Corporal Frank Mendez sat behind the counter reading his favorite book, Watership Down, a book he had read three times already, finding the story about rabbits more realistic than a lot of books calling themselves literature these days. He stopped reading as the front door chimed and two men walked inside. Mendez looked down at the computer screen under the counter to get a security clearance for the two men through a thumbprint match taken from the ornate door handle. He was surprised when he saw the screen was dark. He hit the power switch three times: on, off, on — nothing.

  Mendez placed the book on the counter and stood. He checked the two men who were looking at stereo systems on display at the front of the shop. They looked harmless enough, so he turned and stuck his head through the curtain in the back.