Cut Out (36 page)

At first Tucker thought the man was checking his pulse, but the fingers curled around and gripped his jaw.

“What are you—” Tucker started to say when the man jerked his arm back, pulling Tucker’s head around with it and snapping his neck.

“I need some help here!” the tow truck driver yelled, stepping back from the two cars into the gathering crowd. “Somebody call an ambulance!” As he moved away, he began to whistle, his hands laced behind his back. He waited until the crowd had grown large enough, then he slipped away from the stolen truck and the scene of the fatal accident.

THE END

Next in the Series is Eternity Base

PURCHASE
 

Bob Mayer has always had a fascination for mythology and history. In his Atlantis Series, he mixes them both to create a thrilling ride into a lost world.

FLIGHT 19 AD 1945

FORT LAUDERDALE AIR STATION

“Sir, I request stand-down from this afternoon's training flight.”

Captain Henderson looked up from the papers on his desk. The young man standing in front of him wore starched khakis, the insignia of a corporal in the Marine Corps sewn onto the short sleeves. On his chest were campaign ribbons dating back to Guadalcanal.

“You have a reason, Corporal Foreman?” Henderson asked. He didn't add that Lieutenant Presson, the leader of Training Flight 19 had just been in his office making the same request. Henderson had denied the officer's immediately, but Foreman was a different matter.

“Sir, I've got enough service points to be mustered out in the next week or so.” Foreman was a large man, broad shouldered. His dark hair was swept back in thick waves, flirting with regulations, but with the war just a few months over, some rules had waned in the euphoria of victory.

“What does that have to do with the flight?” Henderson asked.

Foreman paused and his stance broke slightly from the parade rest he had assumed after saluting. “Sir, I--”

“Yes?”

“Sir, I just don't feel good. I think I might be sick.”

Henderson frowned. Foreman didn't look sick. In fact his tan skin radiated health. Henderson had heard this sort of thing before, but only before combat missions, not a training flight. He looked at the ribbons on Foreman's chest, noted the Navy Cross and bit back the hasty reply that had formed on his lips.

“I need more than that,” Henderson said, softening his tone.

“Sir, I have a bad feeling about this flight.”

“A bad feeling?”

“Yes, sir.”

Henderson let the silence stretch out.

Foreman finally went on. “I had a feeling like this before. In combat.” He stopped, as if no further words were required.

Henderson leaned back in his seat, his fingers rolling his pencil end over end.

“What happened then, corporal?”

“I was on the
Enterprise
, sir. Back in February. We were scheduled to do an attack run off the coast of Japan. Destroy everything that was floating. I went on that mission.”

“And?”

“My entire squadron was lost.”

“Lost?”

“Yes, sir. They all disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No survivors?”

“Just my plane's crew, sir.”

“How did you get back?”

“My plane had engine trouble. The pilot and I had to bail out early. We were picked up by a destroyer. The rest of the squadron never came back. Not a plane. Not a man.”

Henderson felt a chill tickle the bare skin below his own regulation haircut. Foreman’s flat voice, and the lack of detail, bothered the captain.

“My brother was in my squadron,” Foreman continued. “He never came back. I felt bad before that flight, Captain. As bad as I feel right now.”

Henderson looked at the pencil in his hand. First, Lieutenant Presson with his feelings of unease and now this. Henderson's instinct was to give Foreman the same order he'd given the young aviator. But he looked at the ribbons one more time. Foreman had done his duty many times. Presson had never been under fire. Foreman was a gunner, so his presence would make no difference one way or the other. “All right, corporal, you can sit the flight out. But I want you to be in the tower and work the monitoring shift. Are you healthy enough to do that?”

Foreman snapped to attention. There was no look of relief on his face, just the same stoic Marine Corps stare. “Yes, sir.”

“You're dismissed.”

Atlantis by Bob Mayer on
Amazon

The Shadow Warriors

Omega Missile

Prelude: JANUARY-JUNE 1998

T
HERE WASN'T A
cloud in the sky and the air temperature in the eastern end of the Mediterranean was eighty degrees. The temperature of the water was a comfortable seventy-two. The surface of the sea was so smooth and flat that any disturbance of the water could be spotted easily. The moon was almost full and it reflected off the mirror surface, giving sixty-five percent illumination, aiding any prying eyes.

The American submarine lay eight kilometers off shore, due west of southern Lebanon. It was dead in the water a hundred feet down. On the back deck, just behind the conning tower, a hatch opened in the hull, leading to a pressurized compartment, the dry deck shelter—DDS—which was bolted onto the deck.

The two men climbing through the hatch into the DDS wore wet suits and carried their gear in waterproof rucksacks. As soon as they were inside, the hatch was closed behind them and sealed.

The two men ran through the pre-operations checks on the vehicle tied down inside the DDS: the Mark IX SDV (Swimmer Delivery Vehicle). The Mark IX was a long, flattened rectangle with propellers and dive fins at the rear and a Plexiglas bubble at the front for the crew to see through. A little over nineteen feet long, it was only slightly more than six feet wide and drew less than three feet from top to bottom.

After five minutes both men were satisfied with the craft. The batteries were at full charge and all equipment was functioning properly.

The divers slid inside the SDV, closing the hatches behind them. They hooked the hose from their mouthpieces directly to the interior air valves to breathe from the vehicle's tanks.

The man on the right spoke into the radiophone which was connected by umbilical to the sub. "Amber, this is Topaz. We are ready to proceed. Over."

"Roger, Topaz. We read all green here. Over."

"Request flood and release. Over."

"Flood and release will be initiated in twenty seconds. We'll leave the porch light on. Umbilicals cut in five. Good luck. Five. Four. Three. Two. One."

The radiophone went dead. With a heavy gurgle, water began pouring into the dry dock shelter. The pilot worked at keeping the SDV at neutral buoyancy as the chamber filled. Water also flooded into the crew chamber inside the SDV where the two divers lay on their stomachs peering out the front canopy. The Mark IX was a "wet" submersible meaning that the only waterproofed sections were the engine, battery, and navigational computer compartments. The two crewmen could feel the warm water seep into their wet suits and they forced out small pockets of air, trying to get as comfortable as possible in their confined space.

Once the chamber was full, the large hatch on the end of the DDS slowly swung open. The pilot activated the twin, three-bladed propellers and the SDV cleared the DDS. The long length of the submarine lay beneath them for another two hundred feet. Once in open ocean, the pilot directed the Mark IX up and down and from side to side using stabilizers, both horizontal and vertical, that were aligned to the rear of the propellers. A throttle controlled the speed of the blades, and thus the speed of the sub.

The second diver was the navigator and he was currently punching in numbers on the waterproofed panel in front of him.

"Fixing Doppler," he announced over the internal communication link between him and his partner. The computerized Doppler radar navigation system was now updated with their current location, received from the submarine prior to departure, and would guide them on their underwater journey, greatly simplifying a task that previously was a nightmare in pitch-black seas. The SDV also boasted an obstacle-avoidance sonar subsystem, which provided automatic warning to the pilot of any obstacles in the sub's path—an essential given that at their current depth they could see little more than a foot in front of them and would be "flying" blind, trusting the Doppler and their charts for navigation. The SDV had a pair of high-power halogen lights facing forward, but they were not an option on this mission.

"Course set. All clear," the navigator announced.

The pilot increased power to the propellers and they moved away from the sub, heading due east.

"What do you think, Chief?" the pilot finally asked, now that they were alone and out of the presence of higher-ranking officers. They both wore dive masks and mouthpieces, with transmitters wrapped around their necks. When they spoke, their voices sounded strangely garbled because the mouthpiece was held with the teeth while the speaker articulated with his throat.

The navigator, satisfied that everything was running smoothly, finally looked up from his panel at his cohort. "The politicians and bureaucrats ought to get their heads out of their asses and go public with this crap. That's what I think, Captain," Chief Petty Officer McKenzie replied.

"Always the big view," Captain Thorpe said with a low laugh that sounded like gargling to McKenzie. "I meant what do you think about our chances of spotting the transfer, if there is one?"

"They'd be a lot better if we went in with a big hammer right from the start and knocked these shit-birds on the head," McKenzie said. "I hate this sneaking andpeeking crap. What I really want to know is why I'm the navy guy and you're the army guy, but you're the one driving this sled?"

"Brains," Thorpe said. "Brains over muscle. You SEALs can do push-ups until the sun goes down but I'm a Green Beret. We got the brains and the looks."