Gates grunted, gratified, then realized he had lost track of the second Russian boat. He scanned the water off the starboard side of the ship and found nothing. He cursed himself for fixating on the lead boat. Where was that damned second boat?
"Boarders on the fantail!"
Leland's voice crackled through Gates' earpiece.
"Boarders on the fantail!"
"Damn it," Gates cursed again, spun and threw himself down the port side ladders to the main deck. When he reached it, he saw Senior Chief Hopper running through the air castle toward the stern. Two rifle flashes and Hopper fell backwards.
"Man down, port air castle!" Gates yelled into his mic.
Ahead of him, a shadow emerged, a dark form against the faint light. Gates raised his M-4, slung from his harness on a three-point sling. The other man fired twice. Gates saw the flashes but no report.
A round passed his ear with an angry bee-like buzz. The second round slammed into the stock of Gates' rifle, shattering it, and ripping it from his hands. Gates tumbled to the left through an open door just as two more rounds screamed pass.
Gates' right hand was numb. With his left hand, he pulled a thin, cylindrical grenade from a pouch on his armored vest, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the air castle. The stun grenade erupted with thunder and lightning.
Gates jumped to his feet, shook his numb hand once, and pulled his expandable baton from its vest holster. He flicked his wrist, and the metal baton expanded to its full length. He stepped out onto the air castle.
The Russian was on one knee, holding both hands to his ears. Gates dashed toward him, but the Russian recovered. He stood, ripped the NVGs from his eyes, and reached for his weapon. It was too late. Gates swung the baton underhanded and struck the man between the legs. It wasn't a conventional baton strike, but it was the only place Gates knew wasn't protected by body armor.
The Russian folded with a cry of pain. Gates side stepped him and brought the baton down on the nerve-rich area between the man's shoulder and neck. It was a paralyzing blow, and the Russian dropped to one knee again. Gates, catching a glance of the prone senior chief, wasn't finished with the man. He aimed the baton to the man's outer thigh, hitting the nerve bundle that ran close to the surface of the skin. The Russian's leg gave out, and he collapsed to the deck.
More gunfire and yells came from the fantail. Gates turned to follow them but thought better of it. He grabbed the Russian's ballistic vest and, with more strength than he thought he had, lifted him up and over the railing. The son-of-a-bitch could drown or freeze to death as far as he was concerned. Another glance at the senior chief's body assuaged any guilt.
Gates banged the tip of his baton on the deck, retracting it, and returned it to its holder. He pulled his Glock and hurried onto the fantail. The starboard CIVMAR team was brandishing their fire hose over the side at the second assault boat, Frank Chee and Chief Stalk covering them with their M-4s. From his right came an angry grunt. Gates swung around with his pistol extended. In the shadow of the giant A-frame crane he saw Leland Strange restrained from behind by a Russian.
"Hey!" Gates combat-walked forward, his pistol leveled at the Russian, but he couldn't get a clear shot. "Hey!"
Leland jerked forward, lifting the Russian onto his back, then threw himself backward. They fell, landing with a loud crack as the boarder's helmet slammed onto the metal deck. Gates heard the air knocked out of the Russian. Leland leapt to his feet, turning toward his assailant, taking up a fighting stance. The Russian regained his feet, too, and attempted a roundhouse kick that Strange easily deflected. Leland went on the offensive, pummeling the Russian with several short, jabbing punches to the face, followed by a solid kick to the man's ballistic vest. The Russian staggered back but was undaunted. He uttered a curse and drew his fighting knife. Rather than drawing his sidearm, Leland resumed his fighting stance.
A loud crack. A red flare arced through the semi-dark sky. A recall signal.
The intruder cursed again in Russian, and Leland replied in kind. The Russian spit on the deck and dashed across the fantail. In one leap, he flew over the life lines into the sea.
A moment later, the Russians were speeding away in their assault boats, the engines unmuffled, not concerned with making noise or leaving a phosphorescent wake. Gates watched them go, remembered the senior chief, and turned to find the team medic.
"Frank, senior chief's hit. Port air castle!"
"I'm all fucking right, skipper."
Senior Chief Hopper limped along the deck, plucking at something on his chest.
"That damn flash-bang you set off hurt me more than these," he said. He handed Gates two smashed bullets, then rubbed his ears. "Damn ears are still ringing."
Gates examined the bullets. "Looks like nine-millimeter."
"Yeah. Probably a machine pistol with a suppressor," Hopper said. "Maybe an MP5 or an Uzi." He looked down and admired the tightly spaced holes in the cloth cover of his ballistic vest. "Nice grouping, though."
"Come on, senior, let's get that vest off and look at your chest." Chee took Hopper's arm and led him away.
Gates approached Strange and put an arm around the young officer.
"You okay, Leland?"
Strange pushed his glasses higher on his nose.
"Sure, sir."
"Where in hell did you learn to fight like that?"
Leland smiled, his white teeth shining in the dim light.
"It's not easy being a boy genius, sir," he said. "Everyone wants to beat you up. My dad figured that out early and enrolled me in karate classes when I was eight. I hold a third-degree black belt."
He removed his helmet, pulled his balaclava from a cargo pocket, and wiped sweat from his hair and face.
"When I was studying in Russia, I took up Systema," he continued. "It means The System. It's a martial art form used by the Russian military, including their commandos. That guy was surprised I knew it."
"What was it he said to you before he jumped over the side?"
"He called me a motherfucker."
"And you replied?"
Leland smiled again.
"I said, 'Only yours.'"
"Lieutenant," Gates said, chuckling, "you now have a new collateral duty—as the team's defensive tactics instructor."
"Happy to do it, sir."
Jess Brown and the Navy SEAL wended their way through the CIVMARs and their hose in the starboard air castle, Brown carrying his SAW over his shoulder and smoking a cigarette. Gates waved McCabe over.
"Lieutenant, a word if you please." He motioned for the SEAL to follow him toward the A-frame, away from the others.
"I appreciate your help tonight, lieutenant," he started, "but now I want answers."
McCabe's face turned to stone. "Sir?"
"Why are you really here?" Gates said. "It's not only to secure that spy gear below decks. I want to know why."
"Sir, that's on a need-to-know—"
"Fine. Let me put it this way," Gates said. "I need to know what your real mission is. I have a lifeboat full of dead Americans sitting on the bottom of Chukchi Sea, and we could have ended up the same way tonight. And it has something to do with that Russian oil platform and the OOPART sitting underneath it."
McCabe's eye twitched at the mention of the acronym, but he shook his head.
"All due respect, commander, but I don't have the authority to tell you."
"Then I suggest you get on your sat phone and call your damn superiors and get the authority to read in me and my people. And you tell them if they don't grant that authority to you, my boss will go public with a story about the Franklin's murdered crew, the attack tonight, and how it's tied into the Russians. That'll raise an international stink, and that will not help your mission, will it?"
"No, sir, it would not."
McCabe's mouth puckered in thought, then he nodded.
"I'll do that, commander," he said, turned, and walked away.
Chapter 21
SA
RAH SANDFORD PROVED AGAIN she was a cuddler. Gates found her with the port side fire hose team, wrapping a first aid dressing around the arm of a CIVMAR who took a grazing wound from a bullet that missed Gates. She looked up at him and gaped.
"My god, Doug! Are you okay?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Your face is bleeding."
He felt his right cheek. It was sticky with congealing blood from several cuts caused by the shards of shattered searchlight glass.
Later, after Frank Chee had removed the shards and cleaned the wounds, Gates took Sarah to her cabin. They lay on the bed clothed, Sarah curling into his left side. He felt her trembling. From fear? Or the aftereffects of adrenalin? Gates wasn't sure. But when he held his free arm up, he saw his own hand tremble, too.
She fell asleep. They lay there with the lights on, with Sarah's gentle breathing in his ear, while Gates stared at the overhead and wondered if there was any power in the threat he had told McCabe.
☼
Power or no power, the threat worked. The next morning, Gates and his people mustered in the Franklin's conference room, along with Captain Gunnar, Gerry Salcedo, and Sarah Sandford. McCabe balked at including the latter three but relented when Gates insisted.
"What does it matter?" McCabe muttered. "No one will believe this, anyway. I barely do."
McCabe stood at the front of the room and held his hand up for silence. As the chatter faded to isolated coughs and chair scrapes, the SEAL cleared his throat.
"First, I need to inform you, you all are sworn to secrecy," he said. "Back home, nondisclosure agreements have been filled out for each of you and, I guarantee you, you have already signed them."
The silence deepened. Wary glances around the table. An uncertain chuckle.
"Good," said McCabe. "Now that we know where we stand, let's get going."
He pulled out a chair, sat, and removed a small, black military notebook from his pocket.
"In the first five months of 1968, four submarines from different countries went missing. In January, the Israelis lost the submarine Dakar, followed by the French sub Minerve. Both disappeared in the Med within two days of each other. The next was the Soviet K-129, lost that March in the Pacific, followed by the loss of our own USS Scorpion in May in the Atlantic. To this day, no one knows what happened to them."
"I thought we found the Scorpion's wreckage," Senior Chief Hopper said. Chief Stalk, sitting next to Hopper, jabbed him with her elbow, and he added, "Sir."
"We did, but the destruction was so complete, no cause for the sinking could be determined. There are theories discussed in public, but they're wrong."
"You make it sound as if you know the cause," said Gates.
"I'm getting ahead of myself, commander," McCabe said. "Let me continue. We do know what happened to the K-129. We were tracking her with our Pacific SOSUS array when we detected her leaving her normal patrol box at high speed as if she were chasing something. Then we heard an underwater collision, followed by the sound of the K-129 breaking up as she exceeded her crush depth.
"One of our submarines investigated and located the K-129's wreckage. They found something else—the object that collided with the Russian—whatever it was."
"'Whatever it was'?" Captain Gunnar said. "And what does that mean, lieutenant?"
"It means, sir, it wasn't another submarine," McCabe said. "Not in the way we think of them. It was lying next to the Russian. It looked lifeless, except it emitted massive amounts of energy. Someone at a higher pay grade than ours decided to retrieve it.
"Wait a minute," Hopper said. "Wait a minute. Now I remember. The K-129 was the sub the CIA tried to raise. Right? They used that big-ass drilling ship owned by Howard Hughes . . . the Glomar Explorer. Isn't that right, lieutenant?"
"Project Azorian," added Gates.
McCabe nodded.
"That's right," he said, "but they weren't after the K-129. They wanted the object it collided with. But as soon as they got the Glomar on scene in 1974, they started having technical issues—electronics crapping out, leaks in hydraulic lines—"
"Like they're having on the Vilanovsky," Strange said. "They blamed them on gremlins."
"Huh." McCabe paused, digesting the information. "Well, that's interesting."
"Go on, lieutenant," Gates said.
"Yes, sir," McCabe said. "When they finally tried to grab the thing with the Glomar's lifting cradle, it came alive. It gave off an energy pulse that hit the Glomar with the force of an explosion. Tore apart the lifting cradle. Flooded one of the forward holds. Fried electronics. Damn near sank the ship, from what I understand.
"It took days, but they got everything back on line, including installing a smaller lifting cradle they used to retrieve part of the Russian sub. But the real prize took off at high speed and disappeared into the North Pacific."
"Toward the Arctic Ocean?" Gates said.
"Toward the Arctic Ocean," McCabe confirmed.
"Lieutenant, are we talking about USOs?" Gates asked. "Unidentified submerged objects?"
"Yes, sir," McCabe said, nodding. "Underwater UFOs. Though the eggheads we deal with call them Unknown Subsurface Phenomena, or USSPs. We call them Fast Movers."
"We?" Gates asked.
"The Navy doesn't talk about it, but we've been investigating Fast Movers—USOs—since the early 1950s. Have you ever heard of Exercise Mainbrace, commander?"
Gates nodded. "A large-scale NATO naval exercise involving a couple hundred ships. The operation was plagued with unidentified aircraft that came out of the sea, then flew back into the sea. High-speed underwater objects, too. There were journalists on the ships who saw the phenomena and published stories about it."
"And the Navy has been studying the phenomena ever since," McCabe said.
"You mean the Navy has a unit like ours?" asked Leland Strange.
McCabe nodded. "I lead one of its teams."
"Probably better funded than we are," muttered Hopper as he spit tobacco juice into his soda can. "Fucking Navy."
Chief Stalk jabbed him again.
"Sir," Hopper added to be polite.
McCabe ignored the senior chief.
"In the decades since," he said, "there have been dozens of reports from around the world, from every navy, of these Fast Movers. The day before the Scorpion went missing, she reported she was tracking one a Fast Mover."
"And you think the Fast Mover the Scorpion was following destroyed her?" asked Strange.
"We think Fast Movers caused the loss of all four boats," McCabe said, "but not the same one that sank the K-129. There must be more than one. After those four boats were lost, every navy in the world issued standing orders for its submarines to avoid these things—not to engage them, or track them, or anything. Turn and run like hell if they have to."
"With all due respect, lieutenant," said Hopper, ever the skeptic, "but you're saying there are fucking underwater flying saucers running around sinking submarines?"
"I'm not telling you anything about what they are, senior," McCabe said with annoyance, "because we don't know what they are. Are they some kind of extraterrestrial craft?" McCabe shrugged. "Are they organic?" He shrugged again. "We just don't know."
"You mean they might be sea monsters?" Sandford asked. She looked at Gates. "Like the Kraken you told me about, Doug."
"That's not as outlandish as you might think," Leland said. "The oceans of the Earth are still a mystery to us. We know more about the surfaces of the moon and Mars than our own oceans. We're discovering new marine life every year. And it's not unknown for certain sea creatures to generate electric pulses."
"You mean like an electric eel?" said Chief Stalk.
"Precisely," Strange said. "Though electric eels aren't eels; they're knife fish. But they are a species of electric fish, which also includes electric catfish and electric rays. And they can change the frequencies of their emissions so they don't interfere with the emissions of other nearby electric fish."
"Which
might explain the different emissions the Russians were recording on the Vilanovsky," Gates said.
"Possibly, sir," Leland said. "Electric fish use their discharges to stun prey similar to police using a stun gun on suspects. It is not inconceivable a large electric fish predator—say a giant electric ray—could generate enough of a discharge to disable the electronics on a submarine, rendering it inoperable."
"Like an electromagnetic pulse in the atmosphere can knock out electronics on the ground," Stalk said.
"Exactly," Strange said.
"And with the submarine's control systems knocked out, it'll sink until it reaches its crush depth," added Sarah. Her inner thoughts showed on her face. The greatest fear of submariners—crush depth. Helplessly, hopelessly waiting while the submarine fell through the ocean's depths until the increasing pressure crushed its hull like an egg shell.
"Let's not go jumping to conclusions," McCabe said. "The Navy's got laboratories full of eggheads who can't figure this out. As I said, it might be mechanical. It might be a form of life. It might be both."
"Let's cut to the chase, lieutenant," Gates said. "Do your people believe whatever the Vilanovsky is sitting over is a Fast Mover?"
"Yes, sir," McCabe said. "We believe these objects seek refuge under the Arctic ice cap, lying dormant for months, years, even decades. Many of our submarines transiting under the ice cap have reported unusual noises they call 'quackers.' They can't be identified as any known mechanical or animal noise, or ice cracking and breaking. They also report encountering high electromagnetic fields, which sometimes interfered with their electronics."
"Geomagnetic anomalies are well known in the Arctic," Strange said. "In 1879, a research ship out of San Francisco became trapped in ice after becoming lost because their compass was malfunctioning. Ice pushed the ship toward New Siberia Island, where it sank. The survivors made it ashore to Siberia near the Lena River Delta and were rescued, but they came back with stories about strange lights they saw below and above the sea."
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