Bracing for the Storm

by Matt Lincoln

  “So Linda’s bait,” I fumed, crossing my arms over my chest and giving Doc a disapproving look.

  “Nah, she’s… a distraction. She won’t need us to save her. She’ll be alright.” Doc’s casual demeanor rubbed me the wrong way, but I had to admit he was right.

  “I still don’t like it,” I muttered under my breath.

  “You don’t have to like it!” Doc popped up suddenly and ripped off his shades. His eyes pierced right through me. “I knew this was a mistake. When things get personal, mistakes are made. You are not running point on this one!”

  I visibly recoiled. It was rare to see Doc this emotional. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” I conceded. “I’ll shut up.”

  Whoa, that seldom happens, Rosa signed in jest. I rolled my eyes at her before continuing.

  “So, if we do all that, we need to take advantage of the timing and be ready to go down here.” I propped my hands up on my knees and stared blankly down at the deck while I rolled it all around in my head. “We’ll need more weapons and supplies down here, and we will definitely need more people.”

  I’ll text Hawthorne and Angie, Rosa signed in agreement.

  Hawthorne and Angie were also SEALs with Rosa and me, and we had worked together on several missions. Hawthorne had saved my life on more than one occasion, and I trusted him with it still. Angie and Hawthorne had always had a thing for each other, and after they both got out, they started dating. I had always suspected that their relationship had started during our time in the SEALs, but being that coworker relationships had been against one of the biggest rules, I never pushed the issue or wanted to know. Nowadays, they made a great team, and I was proud to have them in my corner.

  “Good idea,” I nodded. “Have them go into the armory and stock up. I’ll text you a list of what to have them grab after Xavier’s mystery reveal later tonight.”

  I looked over at Xavier, and he rolled his eyes but never budged from his screen. We teased him a lot, and yeah, he was a bit weird, but he was also a damn genius. We wouldn’t be able to do half the things we did without his hard work.

  “What about Wraith?” Doc asked.

  “She’s docked safely nearby,” I informed him. “I don’t know that we’ll need her, but if we do, I want to keep her close.”

  “Good call. If we need her, we will probably need her at the last minute.” Doc laid back down on the cushion lazily as he spoke.

  That’s true, Rosa added.

  I looked out at the horizon, where the deep blue water met the bright sunlit sky. Tonight, along with whatever news Xavier promised to have, he would also be producing more coordinates for us to pass to Linda for interceptions. I was actively putting her in danger by pushing this forward. I bet Carl Reyes would kill me if he were still alive.

  Still, while doing things this way was far from my first choice, I knew that Doc was right. Making it personal would get people hurt. Putting a stop to it wasn’t an option at this point either. Besides, Linda wouldn’t have it if I tried.

  The only way out was through, as they say, and I closed my eyes against the sun and enjoyed the peace while I had it.

  25

  Linda

  I stood on the bridge looking out at the water as it reflected the sun’s rays back up toward us. The sea was calm today, and the atmosphere on the bridge was peaceful. Slade was on watch, so it was just the two of us up there enjoying the quiet.

  “So, what’s up with you and Chris, by the way?” Slade asked slyly.

  I turned around to see her slouched in the OOD chair, her feet propped up in front of her, and a Dixie cup full of Skittles in her hand.

  “What’s up with us? What do you mean?” I slid into CO’s chair. That was generally frowned upon, but I hoped he’d be asleep for a while yet.

  “So, usually when someone repeats the question instead of answering it, it’s because they’re avoiding the answer,” Slade teased as she dropped her feet and pitched forward in her seat.

  I rolled my eyes. “Nothing’s going on.”

  “Did you guys… you know?” Slade winked at me and waggled her eyebrows a bit.

  “Ugh,” I threw my head back and rolled my eyes again, crossing my arms over my chest. “No, nothing like that. You were there!” I flung my arms out palms up toward her before crossing them again.

  “So, you guys haven’t hung out without us at all?” Slade asked, sounding surprised. “Why not? He’s perfect. He’s adorable, fun, and he’s not sticking around!” She counted out each point on her fingers, and a grin was planted on her face.

  I laughed out loud. “Love ‘em and leave ‘em, huh? Is that what you’re getting at?”

  “Girl, yes,” she replied as she settled back into her seat, seemingly satisfied that I understood her. “If you have the opportunity to do that, you take it!”

  “Well, alright,” I said with a grin. “I mean, you’re right, he is cute, but we’ve hung out exactly twice.”

  “So what?” Slade asked with one eyebrow raised. “Get it, girl. Call him next time we’re in. If you don’t, I’m making sure they show up the next time we all get together. Which will hopefully be soon, since it looks like our drug busts will be causing us to pull back into San Juan on a regular basis.”

  I chuckled and looked back out the window at the rippling waves.

  “I’m not complaining, by the way,” Slade continued. “I think this is awesome. At the very least, all these busts make the patrols go by faster, but on top of that, it’s fun. Stuff like this is why I joined. I wanted to make a difference. Stop the bad guys. Make the world a better place and all that stuff.” She popped a handful of Skittles into her mouth and turned to look at me.

  “Know what I mean?” she asked with her mouth full of Skittles.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” I replied, looking over at her with a grin. “That’s why I joined. To protect our country and do great things.”

  “Ever feel like it’s not enough?” Slade asked as she swallowed her Skittles.

  “Oh, yeah,” I replied with a sigh. “All the time.”

  Slade tossed a Skittle into the air and caught it in her mouth. “I wish we could do more about it sometimes. Remember when Murph was making jokes about your secret plan? I thought a lot about that last night.” She shrugged and shook the cup absentmindedly, listening to the sounds of the candies bouncing off of each other. She carefully selected a red one and popped it into her mouth.

  “In what sense?” I leaned back and turned my full attention to her.

  “Just that it’d be cool if it were true, you know? Like a secret mission to save the world or something. Something out of a comic book.” Slade was talking to her cup now, her eyes unfocused as she dove into her thoughts.

  For a brief moment, I thought about telling her everything. I wanted to tell her about Jake and me, about the mission, about us doing exactly what she was imagining. I knew I couldn’t, though. It would put the mission at risk, not to mention my career, and Jake’s livelihood. For now, it needed to remain in her thoughts alone.

  I walked back to the computer on the port side and sat down to check my emails. It was a twice-daily ritual now, and I took it very seriously. Sure enough, I had a new email from Jake. I opened it and was stunned.

  “Holy…” I stared at the screen with my jaw dropped.

  “What’s up?” I heard from behind me. I immediately minimized the email and whirled around. Watson was just coming up the ladderwell behind me, and the look on his face was of slight concern. “You okay?”

  Unsure how much of the email he’d seen, I opted to shrug it off. “Yeah, just… stuff back home. Nothing to worry about.” I closed the emails up and spun the chair around to face him, trying to arrange my face to look casual and unconcerned. I hoped I could pull it off.

  “Oh, no,” Slade chimed in from her seat, “I hope everything is okay!”

  “It is.” I shrugged off. “Just drama, you know how it is.”

  “You’re tellin
g me.” She swiveled around and dug around for a perfect Skittle. “My family thrives on drama. You should have been at our last family reunion. I’m bringing popcorn next time, it’s quite a show.” She nodded at me intently.

  I let out a full-on belly laugh. “Oh yeah? You should be at my family’s house for Christmas. It’s a nightmare!”

  Slade and I were both laughing as Watson took his seat, looking at us both with an amused smirk.

  “What’s your family like, CO?” Slade popped a handful of Skittles into her mouth as she swiveled her chair back and forth.

  “My family doesn’t sound near as exciting as yours,” he chuckled. “Last Thanksgiving, my mom and my wife’s sister came over. It was nice. Calm.”

  “I don’t know what that’s like.” Slade grinned.

  She continued on with Watson while I opened my email back up to look at Jake’s message. In the email were three sets of coordinates, each with its own date and time. I surreptitiously jotted the first set down and looked back at the email. There was one set of coordinates for each of the next three days. I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to pull this off. Well, all I could do was as much as possible, but I would keep my promise to Jake to not do so much that I ended up jeopardizing my career.

  Watson’s voice cut through my thoughts as I signed out and closed my email tabs. “XO, do you have another magical set of coordinates for me?” He was looking at me more intensely than usual. Maybe he had seen more of the email than he’d let on.

  “Umm, yes, actually I do,” I said, producing the sheet of paper I had jotted the coordinates down on.

  “Let’s see them,” he replied casually. I walked around to his seat and handed the sheet over. He punched in the coordinates and zoomed out to see the area.

  “You like this area, huh?” He smirked.

  “It works.” I shrugged nonchalantly.

  “I won’t argue. Let’s see what this gets us.” Watson set the course toward my coordinates as I looked at my watch. The timing was pretty good, so it was promising.

  It took us a few hours to reach the destination, and when we did arrive, it was raining steadily. The air was muggy and heavy, and our visibility wasn’t great. We were also earlier than Jake’s intel had indicated, so I knew it would be a while before anything happened. The entire time we were traveling, and now that we were waiting, I felt as if Watson were studying me. I was afraid to ask why, so I continued doing my job as if I hadn’t noticed.

  As we got closer to seven, the time Jake had indicated, I started to get antsy. I had an uneasy feeling about tonight, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of Watson’s behavior or something else. By now, Perez had relieved Slade and was monitoring the radar quietly over a cup of coffee. A few people came and went, and each time, they brought some of the mugginess inside with them. It was a dreary evening, and I was filled with a sense of foreboding.

  Suddenly, Perez broke the silence. “Uh, sir?” he asked, tilting his chin in the direction of the CO. Watson closed the distance between them and peered over Perez’s shoulder to take a look at the radar screen.

  “It’s small,” Watson said.

  “Yes, but it’s definitely something,” Perez replied, “and it’s heading in our direction.”

  Watson looked at me with suspicion for a brief moment before his expression cleared, and he straightened up. “It’s your pipe, Reyes,” he declared as he stood back to give me space.

  I stepped up to make the pipe. “Now, set the go-fast bill,” I announced. I looked over at Perez as he continued to mess with the radar screen to try to get us more information.

  Watson gave me a curt nod, and I hustled down the ladderwell to get my gear on. Perez was close behind me, and we met up with Slade and Murphy down below. Slade was in her usual routine of slinging out our gear, and we hastily threw it all on.

  “Who is covering for Jackson?” I asked hurriedly as I geared up.

  “BM3 Taylor,” Murphy mumbled from behind his body armor.

  “Well, where the hell is he?” I snapped. I was beginning to realize why I was uneasy. Taking Jackson out of the equation and throwing Taylor in changed the dynamics of the entire operation. It was an unknown variable that could either help or hinder us, and the only way to find out which way it would go was to actually do it.

  “I’m coming!” I turned around to find Taylor jogging up to us. He stopped short when he reached us and straightened his uniform up before diving in and grabbing some gear for himself.

  Taylor was short and skinny, with gelled back brown hair and deep brown eyes. His uniform looked a bit too big on him, and his plastic-rimmed glasses swallowed his face. I had heard good things about him, though. He sounded like a hard worker from the stories I had been told. Hopefully, it was true.

  When Slade was done handing out the firearms and gear, the five of us hustled back up to the bridge, where we found Rodriguez, Rogers, and Watson waiting for us. Behind them through the glass, the waves were choppy, and the rain had picked up a bit, but Watson had a huge grin on his face as we gathered around for our briefing.

  26

  Linda

  “Okay, guys, XO may have done it again,” Watson began, rubbing his hands together in excitement. “We have a dinghy out there heading our way. If this is the same cartel we keep running into, it should be simple, since they shouldn’t be able to outrun us. Let’s get out there and check it out.”

  He raised a warning finger. “While it could be nothing, but if it is, let’s be prepared. I already called for the .50 cals to be loaded and ready in case another firefight ensues. I do not want what happened to Jackson to happen to anyone else.”

  “Yes, sir,” we all piped up in almost perfect unison.

  I looked out the windows to see a few crew members getting drenched in the rain as they loaded up the pair of .50 caliber machine guns outside. Knowing that the cartel had no qualms about shooting at us, it helped to know that we had some backup ready to go. I took a step forward to address the room.

  “If it’s a dinghy and they can’t outrun us, then chances are they will be more prone to fire at us. We need to have our heads on a swivel, guys. Be ready for anything to happen.”

  “Semper paratus!” Rogers yelled from the QMOW station.

  “Always ready!” Slade shouted back.

  Murphy raised his hand, his brow furrowed. “Do we even know for sure that this is the cartel? The go-fasts are usually pretty obviously cartel-run, but a dinghy? It could be migrants or something else entirely.”

  I looked over at Watson to field the question. He glanced over at me, his eyes piercing through me for one long second that felt more like a minute before he turned back to Murphy.

  “You are correct, Murphy. It could be nothing, but something about all of this tells me this is the cartel. Call it…” Watson’s eyes darted back toward me almost imperceptibly. “Call it a hunch.”

  “Yes, sir,” Murphy replied. He tucked his thumbs into the sides of his body armor and gave Watson a curt nod.

  “Alright.” Watson nodded back in acknowledgment. “Now, let’s go!”

  We all scurried off the bridge and down to the small boat, where a few other crew members met us to help launch it. We hit the water quickly and made our way toward our target. I had one hand resting on my rifle and the other on my hip near my pistol as we slammed through the intense waves. Although I was dry beneath my helmet and my body armor, the rain wreaked havoc on our visibility, and I knew that Perez was grateful for his navigation equipment and for Rogers’ help from back up on the bridge.

  Rogers’ voice cut through on the intercom. “Turn zero four five degrees and head straight.”

  Perez did as he was told, and I felt the boat make the slight right to get us where we needed to go.

  “You are one mile out,” Rogers updated us. “They are heading away from you, so you’ll be coming up behind them.”

  “Roger,” Perez yelled through the wind.

  Slade leaned forward to
project her voice. “Let’s kill the nav lights!”

  “Ooh, my favorite move!” Murphy called out, and we immediately went dark. Through the rain and wind, our target would be hard-pressed to notice us coming up behind them.

  Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, we saw the tail end of a small boat. It was a small metal skiff with one engine in the back. Watson was right, there was no way this thing would outrun us. These guys would be screwed unless they opened fire on us to either kill us or disable our boat. They may do both. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and adrenaline coursed through me as I took a deep, centering breath and readied myself for action.

  It all happened so quickly. I saw three silhouettes on the dinghy, and when we got up close behind them, Perez turned on all of our lights, which reflected off the hazy rain to alert them of our presence. When they all turned around and saw us, panic ensued. I couldn’t hear what they were shouting, but one of them was yelling and pointing furiously at something that was in the boat. The other silhouette frantically started grabbing at something, and then I saw the large rectangular bale get lifted up and tossed overboard.

  “Crap!” Perez shifted the boat to avoid hitting the package while Murphy got on the intercom.

  “We’ve got a square grouper!” Murphy hollered into the handheld device as he leaned over the side of our boat to confirm that it was what we thought it was. “Oh yeah, definitely contraband.”

  “We’re on it,” Watson’s voice assured us as we barrelled past the floating evidence. I knew that the cutter would follow behind us to collect what was dropped, but as far as we were concerned, we had to keep charging forward.

  “So, that settles it then!” Slade shouted through the wind. “This is exactly what Watson said it would be!”