Kara leaned against the bulkhead. “But the bad guys don’t care how long I’ve had to learn.”
“No, no they don’t,” Meredith said. “And if you’re talking about FGL soldiers or Hybrids, the shitty reality of it all is that you’re going to be outmatched in strength and training. The best thing you can do is take advantage of their overconfidence.”
Kara nodded. “If the FGL tried to board the ship, you think I could stand a chance?”
“You want an honest answer or one that makes you feel good?”
“I get it,” Kara said. “But I’m talking about as a last resort. From what you and my dad tell me, it doesn’t matter that Sadie and I are girls—the FGL isn’t going to be nice. I’d rather die trying to escape than let them take me and Sadie prisoner and turn us into something like O’Neil.”
“Look, Kara, I’m not going to treat you like a kid, all right? I know you’ve been through a lot. You’ve looked death in the face before, and you’ll do it again. Truth is, you’re right. Don’t tell your father I agreed with you, but after seeing what the FGL does to their prisoners, I can tell you I’d rather die fighting than let them experiment on me.”
They stood in silence for a moment, letting the weight of those words hang in the air between them.
Meredith continued, “But seriously, don’t tell your father I said that.”
“Our secret,” Kara said. Another pause, then, “I keep thinking about my mom. I can’t help it. She could’ve turned us into Skulls. She sacrificed herself preventing me from getting attacked by one, even though she didn’t know it at the time.”
Meredith raised an auburn brow. “Oh?”
Kara reached deep to summon the courage for what she wanted to say. “It sounds awful, but I wish I’d let our neighbor kill her. He tried to shoot her when she turned, you know? I locked her in the basement instead.”
A sudden coldness swept through Kara, and she shivered. Meredith put an arm around her, and a bit of that cold went away.
“I still wonder if she starved to death down there while slowly turning full Skull. Horns and everything. At least that would be the end of it. But then I think that just maybe she escaped. She might be out there killing people. When I had the chance to stop her, I hesitated.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Meredith said. “Back then, we hardly knew what the Oni Agent was. We didn’t know if we could bring people back who had turned.”
Kara shook her head. “I saw it in her eyes. She was no longer my mom. She wasn’t going to be my mom ever again. But even if I did know what I know now, I still wonder if I would’ve done things differently.”
Meredith screwed the cap back onto her water bottle. “It would be a cop-out for me to tell you time will make you feel better about your decision. Or that the mental scar will fade. It won’t. There are decisions I made back in the early days of my career that I still regret.”
“Like what?”
“There was this hostage situation during the Lebanese Civil War. Your father and I were in Beirut tracking down a terrorist cell suspected of developing a new strain of cholera. They’d kidnapped a few of the local police officials’ families as hostages, too. Once the CIA got wind of their work, they sent us.
“Things were getting tense. A few bombings, some intense shellings. We thought we couldn’t wait any longer. So we raided the facility a day earlier than planned. They panicked and killed one of the hostages. We saved the other three, and we destroyed their research. But as we were scouring their labs, we found out that they had been planning on meeting a supplier the next day. Their safe house would’ve been virtually empty then.”
Meredith’s gaze focused on some point only she could see. “If we had waited like planned, we would’ve still completed the mission and wouldn’t have lost a hostage.” Her eyes met Kara’s again. “What I’m trying to say is this: We make the best decisions we can at the time. We have no way of knowing until later how differently things might’ve turned out had we made another choice. That’s going to happen a lot in this war and in your life. You’re allowed to regret those decisions. What you aren’t allowed to do is let your mind rot from the inside out because you can’t let it go. You learn, you remember, and you do better next time.”
“Thanks,” Kara said. It was all she could think to say.
Meredith put her water bottle down and walked to the center of the sparring mat. “You ready? I’m going to teach you how to disarm someone now.”
Kara joined her. A swarm of emotions circled in her mind. They clamored for her attention, but she wouldn’t give in to them. Maybe that was an unspoken part of Meredith’s lesson. The future was unknown; the past was already gone. The most important moment of her life was always the present.
Kara flexed her arms, letting the pent-up energy course through her muscles and into her fingertips. “Let’s do this.”
***
Meredith’s muscles were sore after her session with Kara. The young woman was getting better. She still had a ways to go, but even after Meredith had left the gym, Kara stayed behind to practice her moves on her own.
Dom might not have been around much while Kara was growing up, but Meredith saw a lot of him in her. There was that fiery thirst for justice and the self-sacrificing desire to save others before herself. It was admirable, but it was also dangerous. Meredith hoped that she was helping to harness those instincts even as she taught the young woman how to throw a punch and escape a hold.
She made her way through the ship to the electronics workshop. Chao had his elbow on his desk and was massaging his temples.
“You doing all right?” Meredith asked him.
“Got a headache from staring at these screens all day.”
“I can take over,” Meredith said.
“No, I can’t take any time off. I’m not trying to sound arrogant, but I don’t think we can afford for me to take a break.” Chao took a drink from a bright-green aluminum can much like one of those littering Samantha’s desk.
“That bad, huh?” Meredith asked.
“Samantha promises it’ll knock out my headache.”
“With all that sugar and crap, I’m sure it’ll knock out a lot more than that.”
“Hey,” Samantha said, “I’m living proof they aren’t that bad.”
“I say you’re the exception, not the rule,” Meredith said. “Where are we on tracking the booby-trapped fleet?”
“Turns out they’re not all quite as explosive as we thought,” Chao said. He clicked a button on his keyboard, and the monitors across the bulkhead showed a map highlighting North and South America, Europe, and Africa. “I’ve tracked every ship we had intel on and everything we’ve heard from our allies.” He tapped the keyboard again. Dots across the coastlines lit up, highlighting various cities and military bases. “Some of these ships were laden with explosives just like the ones we saw in Dublin.” Over half the dots shone red. “Others contained explosives, but they were either sabotaged before they could detonate or they were duds.” Those were highlighted in yellow. “And others had no explosives.” Those shone in blue.
“No explosives? That’s even more strange,” Meredith said. “What about Skulls?”
“As far as I can tell, it seems like most of these ships had Skulls trapped in the ships’ decks or superstructures. But the containers, if there were containers at all on the ships, weren’t filled.”
“Have we heard about any of those Skulls making landfall?” Meredith asked.
“Not too many,” Samantha replied. “It seems like they exploded with the ships. We had reports of Skulls attacking people when bomb squads went aboard ships to deactivate the explosives, but that was pretty much it.”
“So the Skulls on the ships were basically junkyard dogs,” Meredith said.
“Definitely,” Chao said. “We haven’t seen anything about the Skull armies. Not a single location has reported a container ship filled with as many Skulls as the ones we saw in Morocco or interc
epted prior to the Dublin mission.”
“Makes you wonder if they ever had a Skull army to send to begin with,” Samantha said.
“No, I’m sure they had an army,” Meredith said. “So where is it, and what do they plan to do with it?”
Dom entered the electronics workshop, combing down his mussed hair. “Lauren and Navid are off. Frank’s taking them to Dublin, and Buckley’s got a plane that will take them to Frankfurt.”
“Is the airspace confirmed clear?” Meredith asked.
“Buckley reported no interference in a surveillance flight,” Dom said. “But they’re still sending a fighter escort.” Then he noticed the map on the monitors. “What did I miss?”
Meredith summarized their brief discussion then continued. “It doesn’t take an expert intelligence officer to figure out they caught wind of our tactics. I mean, there’s no hiding who invaded Morocco and found those Skull-filled ships.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Dom said. “Only a fool would keep wasting ships and containers of Skulls trying the same tactic over and over.”
“And the only reason they lost those first ships is because they broadcasted their positions. They were easy enough to confirm with a flyover. To set up a trap like they did, they probably suspected that we tapped into their encrypted comms.”
“Which means we can consider most intercepted communications through the usual channels to be compromised.”
Dom jerked his thumb at the radio equipment Meredith and Andris had salvaged from an FGL chopper. That equipment had been used to unravel how the FGL was communicating, but now it seemed that it was being used against them.
Meredith frowned. “I still want to keep listening. If for no other reason than to know what they want us to think. They might have resorted to some kind of coded language now, so unless anyone here has cryptology skills I don’t know about, we’re going to have to keep working with Kinsey’s people to figure out what’s going on.”
“I hate having to rely on Kinsey’s people,” Dom said. “But you’re right. We don’t have a choice in this one.”
Meredith brushed a hand through her hair as she studied the map on the displays. She still wasn’t used to feeling the buzz cut over her ruined ear. “That was a strange strategy, blowing up those ships. I don’t know if they were trying to unnerve us, but they succeeded. I honestly have no idea what they’re going to do next.”
-13-
Admiral Mokri strolled through the passages of the Karlstad guided by Daftary. For once, everything was going to plan, and he enjoyed a rare moment of calm satisfaction.
“All weapons and communications system encryption programs have been updated,” the lieutenant reported.
“Very good,” Mokri said.
“We are, for all intents and purposes, a ghost ship. Captain Holland and whoever else is trying to listen in will hear us only if we want them to.”
Daftary opened the hatch to the communications and cyberwarfare suite. The cave-like room was abuzz with computer activity. The machines let off a dry heat like an oven. All manner of cables draped across the room in thick bundles, giving the space an almost organic, junglelike look. “And now that the Ghost Fleet has been deployed, how is the real fleet?”
“Organization and loading continues,” Daftary responded.
“Specifics, Lieutenant.”
“We’re days away from loading the last containers. The ships we selected are the best available to us, considerably better armored and faster than the sacrificial container ships. We have heard nothing from the Americans or Europeans to indicate they know of our secondary fleet. Most importantly, the FGL naval ships we requested are also waiting for us in the Balkans.”
Daftary handed Mokri a tablet computer to examine.
“What’s this?” Mokri asked, scanning through the list of ships along with the crews attached to each.
“Sir?”
“Each of these ships has more crew members than originally assigned. I didn’t give permission to reassign anyone.”
The lieutenant paled. “Yes, sir, of course.” He took back the tablet and studied the lists. “It looks like these are Spitkovsky’s additions.”
“Hybrids.” Mokri sighed. For a moment he considered telling Spitkovsky they didn’t need the extra men on the ships, but he already knew what the man would say. As long as Spitkovsky had Mokri’s family, there was little the admiral could do to gainsay his orders.
He pictured little Banu, the way she loved it when he bounced her on his knee telling her she was riding a stallion into battle. And Ebrahim. He was growing up to be a young man with a fire in his heart. His mind was sharp, and he was always full of questions. And then, with a pang in his heart, he thought of his wife, Yasmin. She had given him the gift of that family, the gift of her love and devotion.
Spitkovsky could take all of it away.
“I suppose we’ll have to get used to our Hybrid brothers,” Mokri said. “Speak truthfully with me, Daftary: Do they cause you and the others trouble?”
Daftary’s hesitation told him everything he needed to know. The officer didn’t want to complain about his comrades nor look incapable in his superior’s eyes.
Mokri held up his hand to stay the lieutenant. “Never mind. I will not put you in that position. Besides, we have little say in the matter. To the bridge now.”
After they climbed the ladders, Mokri stared out over the ocean. The Karlstad pierced the gray waves of the Atlantic, and a frothy spray of water splashed across its deck.
“This is a thing of beauty,” Mokri said.
“It is, Admiral,” Daftary agreed.
The covert operations ship wasn’t nearly as luxurious as the customized yacht Mokri had commanded before they’d boarded the Karlstad. The captain’s cabin of this ship was only a third the size of the one previous, and instead of gilded stanchions and a luxurious berth, he had only decorations of gray steel in his spartan accommodations.
What the ship lacked in comfort, however, it made up for in functionality. It was faster, capable of speeds nearing forty-five knots. The anti-surface and -air missiles, along with the torpedo launchers and fifty-seven-millimeter cannon, meant that when he inevitably encountered Captain Holland’s Huntress, Mokri would succeed where so many others had failed.
And if all else failed, he had the Hybrids. He’d rather enjoy sending them aboard Holland’s ship. Maybe they could keep it as their own.
The Hybrids made him nervous. They jostled with each other like adolescents vying to be the alpha of their little pack. Ever since the Hybrids dispatched the Karlstad’s original Swedish crew, they’d seemed restless and prone to aggressive outbursts like wolves locked in a cage for far too long. His own crew members had recoiled in fright when the odd Hybrid lunged at them for no other reason than that they enjoyed the fear. The Hybrids would invariably roil in laughter. Violence was a game to them.
Spitkovsky claimed he had created soldiers with the brains of men and the bodies of Skulls. But Mokri wasn’t yet convinced.
The Hybrids wanted blood, and Mokri would give it to them. But for now, they would have to wait.
“Tell Spitkovsky we will be sending the fleet to Washington, DC, and alert the container ships that they will be setting sail in exactly one week.”
Daftary grinned as he picked up his handset. “Consider it done, sir.”
***
“Captain!” Chao bleated over a comm link. “We’ve got an intercept!”
Dom replaced the handset and hurried down the ladders from the bridge to the workshop. Meredith, Thomas, Chao, and Samantha were already seated at a conference table in the center of the room. Computer monitors on one bulkhead showed the same map as before, but this time there was a new marker there that popped out at Dom immediately.
“What’s going on in DC?” he asked. “More ships?”
“You could say that,” Samantha said.
Dom pictured more of the explosives-filled ships hitting the capit
al area like bombs, filling the Potomac with their wreckage.
“How many more?” Thomas asked.
“A fleet’s worth,” Chao said.
The world seemed to fall away under Dom’s feet. Suddenly, the enemy’s strategy made sense. “All these recent attacks were just to test our defenses. Now they’re going for the knockout punch while we’re still trying to figure out what happened.”
Thomas pounded a fist against the table. “We’ve got to hit them before they hit us.”
“Not so fast,” Meredith said. “Chao, what kind of ships are in that fleet?”
“We don’t have too many specifics,” Chao said.
“You’ve got a literal boatload of data there, and we don’t have specifics?” Thomas asked.
“Bastards are always chatting about who got drunk or laid last night, but they won’t broadcast how many ships they have,” Samantha said. “All we know is that this isn’t just a fleet of remote-control cargo ships like last time. I decoded enough to tell us they were shipping out Hybrids and normal human crews. These are orders directly from an Iranian named Mokri. Sounds like they’re going to have naval escorts, too.”
“What kind of escort?” Dom asked.
“They mentioned destroyers, but that’s all I got. No numbers, no specific classes.” Samantha wrinkled her nose. “They were awfully cagey about that part of it.”
“We’ve got to hunt those bastards down,” Thomas said.
“Hunting them down could be suicide,” Meredith said. “I want to see those ships at the bottom of the sea as much as you do, but we can’t do this alone.”
“We can at least scout them out,” Thomas said. “If we can’t handle them, fine. But if we can, we end it right there.”
“If we had a general idea of where they are, I’m sure our friends at Lajes would be more than happy to do a flyover,” Dom said. “Chao?”
Chao sighed. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a location. I can’t triangulate their signal either.”
The Tide: Ghost Fleet (Tide Series Book 7) Page 10