by Becky McGraw
Keegan wondered why the group had brought more men onto the ship if they just planned on detonating a bomb in Baltimore Harbor. Why they would need those men to navigate to Inner Harbor where the ship’s bridge crew were already headed, via the Chesapeake channel?
Maybe they planned on running this ship into the cruise terminal. Although, impressive, that wasn’t a 9/11 scale statement.
Think bigger, Keegan. A big gesture that would impress everyone on the east coast and would need more men to make sure it happened. Holy shit!
The White House was only twenty miles overland from Chesapeake Bay, near Edgewater. The bridge crew would not stop the ship until they reached Inner Harbor—but if the jihadists stopped it there and detonated a sizable bomb, it could do some serious damage to Capitol Hill.
If they ran the ship up the Potomac Channel to the Naval Shipyard, which was a little dicier, they could even get closer to the White House and probably take out most of The Hill with the bomb.
Keegan would just about bet that was their plan. Al Qaeda’s one failure during the 9/11 attacks was the plane that went down in Pennsylvania, instead of reaching its target, which everyone suspected was the White House.
Keegan’s blood ran cold and his stomach lurched.
Please, Lord don’t let it be a dirty bomb. Just regular C-4 and we can deal with this.
Or he thought they could. If they could find it and disarm it in time.
The door to the suite slammed back on its hinges and Wilson walked in looking dire. “Shit just got real, MacDaddy. They executed the Captain right in front of the others on the bridge and the ship is moving again. We’ll be in the Chesapeake channel in two hours.
“Lawrence is searching the port kitchen. I need you to go starboard and see if you can find anything. Is Gars still on point at the bridge?”
“Yeah, he’s doing recon from the sun deck, but can’t bring his weapon out or it will freak out the passengers. It’s in his go bag with mine.”
“I’ll assemble mine and find Gars. You find that bomb, now.”
“Aye, Boss,” Wilson said with a wink as he spun on his heel to leave the suite.
“What can I do to help, Son?” Bob asked, walking up to him. “I’m old but, as you know now, I’m not out.”
“You and Louise know the faces of the two men who were already on board best. Try to find them, if you can. Since we’ve scoured the upper decks, I’d try the lower decks.”
“Aye, Boss,” Bob mimicked Wilson, then held out his arm to his wife. “Let’s go, Louise—we have some terrorists to find.”
“You won’t hear me say this often, old man, but I’m scared out of my tree right now,” Louise said as she took his arm.
“I’ll protect you, babe,” he said, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “You just stand back and watch me in action.”
They left the suite, then Jules stepped up to him. “I’m scared, too. What can I do to help? Do you really think they plan on detonating the bomb in the harbor?” she asked.
Keegan looked into her eyes, swam in their beautiful blue depths for a minute, then decided he couldn’t let the last thing he might say to her be a lie. Fear or not, she deserved to know what he really thought.
“No, I don’t think that’s the plan.”
“What is it, then?” she asked, her eyes widening.
“You said they were going for a grand gesture. Blowing up the White House and Capitol Hill is about as grand as they can get. It’s only twenty miles overland from the Chesapeake, or if they want to go for maximum damage, five miles taking the Potomac to the Navy Shipyard.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, her face blanching as she put a trembling hand over her mouth.
“Yeah, we’ve got to stop them.” Keegan pulled out his phone and called Greg Lambert to update him on what he thought was going down.
The Secret Service needed to secure the President and personnel at the White House immediately in case they couldn’t stop them in time. He also added a second request to hold back the cavalry until they could get the situation under control, but he doubted that was an option now without an order from on high.
If Greg got his message in time. If he didn’t, they would be coming into the channel at night and nobody would see them until the fireworks went off.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Keegan’s fingers gripped the armrests of his chair so hard, it felt like they might crumble in his hands. Well, his left hand, anyway. All he was accomplishing with his right was enflaming the nerve in his arm up to his shoulder. He released his grip and flexed his fingers in his lap to try to get the feeling back.
Now that night had fallen, the crowd on the deck was elbow-to-elbow, dancing and partying. The blaring reggae music would help them cover the sound of gunfire, but the size of the crowd could mean more casualties. To minimize that possibility, they had to be surgically precise when they stormed that bridge and attract as little attention as possible.
“When are we going to call the guys back so we can handle this situation?” Wilson asked tersely. “Are we just going to wait for them to kill someone else?”
“We can’t go in yet, because we don’t want to lose the element of surprise, but we have to act soon,” Garrison replied. “We need to get Lawrence up here, and flesh this out.”
“I sent Jules to go find him a few minutes ago. They should be back soon,” Keegan replied, itching to reach inside his go bag to pull out his rifle and kill every one of those radical bastards.
This—this is why he joined the teams—to take out these threats to his country. Right now, though, he felt powerless to do anything but watch the jihadists systematically slaughter the people on the bridge.
So far, they’d murdered three of the crew, including the Captain. It had been two hours since he left those messages for Greg Lambert and their time was running out. They were at the mouth of the Chesapeake now, and once they entered the channel, launching lifeboats to offload passengers would be more difficult.
Bob suddenly appeared beside him looking extremely angry. “I found one of the rat bastards near the hold and he’s tied up in the suite,” he informed gruffly. “I also located the interpreter and she’s grilling him, but I’m going back to give him a little more incentive to talk.” He handed Keegan a pair of ship radios. “Louise and I requisitioned these from the crew storage locker. Thought they might help you keep an eye on the bridge. Channel 21 is clear, 16 is for crew com. Louise and I have one too, so hit me up, if you need me.”
“Sir, you can serve on my team any time,” Gars said, grinning from ear-to-ear as he reached out to snatch one of the radios and shove an ear plug into his ear. “You are the MacDaddy, and Keegan is a trainee.”
With a snort and an eye roll, Bob handed the second radio to Keegan and hurried back toward the elevators.
That’s exactly how Keegan felt at the moment. Like a tadpole back in BUDs training, trying to pass the drown-proofing test. Definitely in over his head. But he would fake it until he made it, keep pushing up from the bottom, because failure in this test had the same consequences.
“I didn’t find anything so far. Wilson said he didn’t either. Are we going in now?” Lawrence asked, walking up to them with Jules tagging behind. He dropped his go bag on the floor beside a chair and it clanked. Wilson took a seat beside Garrison, and hefted his bag up onto his lap.
“Yeah, we can’t wait anymore,” Keegan replied, standing. “We need to try to take at least one of them alive so we can find out where that bomb is located.”
“Since the tangos are wearing black and the crew white, we shouldn’t have a problem getting a fix on them once we enter. We need to go in low so they don’t get a fix on us and so we don’t shoot each other,” Lawrence said, standing again.
Garrison stood too, and picked up his bag. “There are two entry points, one on either side of the bridge,” he said.
“Lawrence and I will take the starboard side, you and Wilson take port. Let’s turn the ra
dios on 21. I’ll give you a go signal when we’re ready,” Keegan said, bending to grab his bag. When his shoulder gave out, he dropped it and rubbed until the ache subsided.
“Dude, I think you should sit this one out. Go back to the suite with Bob and get what you can from the tango,” Wilson said, his eyes focused on Keegan’s hand. “There are only four of them—we’ve got this.”
Because if he went in there and his arm malfunctioned, he could endanger them all. He was a liability to them now, which is why he was no longer needed on the teams. Those black clouds gathered in his head again and his ego sank to fill the toes of his boots. Having Jules here to witness it made his humiliation complete.
Not now, MacDonald—do what’s best for your team. You can fall apart later. This isn’t about you, or your ego, it’s about a successful operation with no casualties and you can’t guarantee that if you go with them. His teeth hurt as he ground them before he nodded and held out his fist.
“Hooyah,” he said, his eyes burning fiercely. The other men looked relieved as they all bumped fists with him.
“As soon as we have control, we’ll sound the abandon ship alert,” Garrison said after bumping knuckles with him. “You be a hero and help Bob find out where that bomb is so we can disarm it.” Because he might not be fifty-eight years old, but he was just as useless to them.
He couldn’t stay to watch the action, so with his chest tighter than it had ever been, he turned and strode to the elevators. After he pushed the button, his phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out.
Maverick and Wingman are secure. Cavalry is on go at your command—setting up eight miles out. Covert team with Fido on the way to board for assist. Don’t fuck this up or God will rain fire down on my head.
If Keegan fucked this up, fire would be raining down on everyone’s head.
He was just relieved that the President and Vice President were safe. News that they would soon have more help—and a bomb sniffing dog—was welcome.
Roger that and thanks. Hooyah.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Jules felt as useless as a Band-Aid on a bullet hole as she watched Keegan and Bob, through the interpreter, grill the man they had duct taped to a chair. Even with threats of killing him, though, they had gotten nothing out of him yet.
She had a few ideas to speed the process along, because she’d studied these assholes after they killed her parents, to find out exactly how they ticked. But she wasn’t willing to be told she was a distraction again. So here she sat on the sofa, twiddling her thumbs.
Twenty minutes later, when she couldn’t take it anymore, she stood and walked to Keegan’s duffle bag and rifled through it. Badass Navy SEALs always had a knife, right? She found his at the bottom of the bag and carefully released the long, pointy and razor sharp blade then walked over to them.
“Don’t you get that he wants to die?” she asked brusquely. “If he dies, he’s a martyr and gets seventy-two virgins when he meets the devil he worships. He knows the bomb will kill him anyway and is okay with that, or he wouldn’t be on this ship.” She nudged Keegan aside and looked at the interpreter. “After I stick this knife into the chair between his balls, tell him I’m going to pin them to the chair with it next, if he doesn’t tell us where that bomb is located. Tell him he won’t have anything left to fuck his seventy-two virgins with by the time I’m done with him.”
His eyes widened, focused on the knife and he whimpered when she arced the knife and planted it in the chair so close to his balls she probably sliced the seam of his pants. Jules stood and glared at him as the interpreter spoke.
Beads of sweat formed at his hairline and he swallowed hard as he met her eyes. “Yes, I’m serious, asshole. I’m going to cut your fucking head off after you bleed to death and throw it overboard too, so there will be no paradise for you.”
“Damn, you’re brutal, and I have to say that’s sexy as hell, Natasha,” Keegan mumbled behind her.
“Don’t try and suck up now, Boris. You and I need to have a talk when this is over,” she fired back. “I do have a brain. I don’t need you to protect me. And sometimes a female perspective is a valuable asset when you’re not a sexist pig.”
He’d excluded her from every aspect of this operation so far, and Jules was tired of it. He called her a partner, but he’d mostly kept her locked up in this room. If he didn’t trust her enough to be his partner because he thought he was so badass he didn’t need her, then she didn’t need him. Maybe he wasn’t as perfect as she thought he was. Maybe he was just another mistake in a long line of mistakes she thought she’d put behind her.
When the interpreter stopped talking, the terrorist looked at Jules again, then turned to the interpreter and started talking.
“Yesss!” Keegan hissed, grabbing her shoulders but she pulled away.
The interpreter turned to face them with stark terror in her dark eyes. “He says the bombs are in the engine room, the hold, and the kitchen area.”
“Bombs?!?” Keegan, Bob and Jules shouted in unison.
“Are they C-4 or nuclear?” Keegan asked, walking over to pull the knife out of the chair. “Ask him!” he shouted, when she froze.
He met the man’s eyes, raised the knife and the interpreter mouthed the words in a trembling voice. When he didn’t answer immediately, Keegan brought the knife down. At the very last second, he squealed out, “Chemical! C-4 and sarin gas.”
“Find out when and how they will detonate,” Keegan instructed, standing again.
The interpreter asked the jihadi and he glanced at Keegan’s hand before answering.
“What did he say?” he asked.
“He says his partner will detonate the bombs when the ship stops,” the interpreter replied, her voice choked. “Can we get off the ship? Use the life boats? I have a daughter.”
“Not if we can’t stop. Ask him what his target was,” Keegan demanded, and Jules held her breath.
He glanced at Keegan, then said, “The White House.” Keegan turned and looked green as his hand opened and the knife fell to the carpet.
The ship’s radio that Keegan left on the coffee table keyed. “Bridge is secure. Four tangos down—one unaccounted. No casualties. We are halfway down the channel and need to offload these passengers so we can turn around pronto. Brothers just boarded.”
He walked over to grab the radio.
“We can’t stop, Gars, or the unaccounted will detonate. Chemical, C-4, and Sarin. Three devices. One in the hold, one in the kitchen, and one in the engine bay. Get whoever knows how to use those Azipod-thrusters to turn us back to sea. Alert the crew to man the muster stations and be prepared to start evac as soon as we stop, but whatever you do, don’t tell the passengers until then or we’ll have chaos.”
“Fuck! Roger that.”
Keegan pulled his phone out of his pocket and Jules watched his fingers fly over the keypad. When he finished he looked at her and his eyes told her how hopeless this situation had become. Her stomach knotted, sweat streaked through her scalp and her insides felt like razor blades were ripping her apart.
“We’re taking the boat back to sea to disarm the bombs…or far enough out that the chemical doesn’t do as much damage.”
Flashes of watching the fire, the smoke, and seeing the second plane rip through the south tower where her mother worked made her gag. She bent over, tried to swallow the bile that choked her, but dry heaved and tasted its bitterness.
Another person she loved was about to be taken from her by terrorists and she didn’t know if she’d survive this time. If she didn’t go out exactly the same way her parents had too, which was preferable at the moment.
This is what she got for letting herself love someone again. Those men she dated before weren’t mistakes, they were chosen intentionally because she knew she’d never be able to love them and have to lose them. Keegan MacDonald had given her no choice but to love him. She hadn’t chosen him—fate had chosen him for her. And now he was going to die.
With a wail, she dropped to her knees and hugged herself.
“You can’t fall apart on me now, baby. Stay with Bob and Louise, listen for the abandon ship order and get in a life boat. Get as far away as you can and a Navy ship will pick you up. I’ll meet you at the harbor after this is over.”
No you won’t. And if you’re going to die, I’m going to die with you. I’ll meet you in another life, Keegan MacDonald, but I won’t let myself love you again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Keegan went to the bridge and found Wilson and Garrison working with the crew at the control panel. He forced himself not to look at the bodies against the far wall, or the blood on the white tile beneath his boots.
“SITREP?” he asked, stopping beside Garrison.
“The dog and handler are searching for the devices. Lawrence went with the rest of the team to find the missing tango. We’re trying to figure out how to turn this bitch around, because the Captain, Staff Captain and 1st Officer are dead. The Safety Officer and Chief Security Officer are getting the life boats and crew ready for the bells.”
The woman beside Gars glanced back over her shoulder at him. “I’m the 2nd Officer, but I’m new. This is my first time doing this outside of a simulator and that was on a different vessel, and not at speed. I need to make sure I get this right or we’ll stall or ground the ship.”
“What’s the make of this ship? Type of engine?” Keegan asked, pulling out his phone.
She spouted off the specifications and he texted Greg to find someone who could call on the ship to shore radio to give her instructions. This needed to happen fast, because it wouldn’t be long until they reached Edgewater.
The control room door opened and Keegan groaned when Jules strode in, her face ravaged, but determined. His stomach fell when his phone dinged. He looked, and instead of a reply from the Commander, it was a no service alert.