Fallen Angel (10 page)

"Hey, it's hard to study in the dark."

"Hang on." He moved to the window and leaned close to the glass. "I could've sworn I saw someone in the yard."

"I don't see anything."

"Maybe it was a dog."

"Yeah, that must be it: a two-legged dog."

He lowered her blinds and then turned to the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To make sure the doors are locked."

CHAPTER 10

THE
KOMAGATA MARU
ROSE
and fell with the swells, its bow plowing through six-foot seas. "I suppose we should be grateful."

Eric Moyer turned his eyes from the churning sea to the smooth Asian face of Sam Sasaki. "How's that?"

"Seas are cooperating. A little choppy, but not the twelve-footers I thought we might be riding."

"Only a Navy man would call this calm seas."

"You only have to ride out one North Pacific storm to appreciate how tiny these waves are."

"Spoken like a man who's staying on the boat."

Sasaki chuckled. "Yeah, well there is that. In some ways, I wish I were going along."

"Really? 'Cuz I can make that happen."

"No, not really. Do I look crazy? If I wanted to ride a rubber boat over cold waters in the middle of the night, I would have become a SEAL."

A crewman stepped forward and whispered in Sasaki's ear. "Very well. Make ready the CRRC." The crewman gave no acknowledgment. He slipped from the forward deck to an area behind the wheelhouse where a door waited for him.

Moyer walked through that door several times over the last few hours. It led below decks to the crew's quarters, galley, heads, and another companionway leading into the belly of the ship. Where once tons of crab were kept alive for market in the hole, it now held sophisticated tracking equipment meant to spy on communications from the nearby mainland and to keep an ear out for submarines prowling deep below the surface.

Moyer and his men were given a short and vague tour of the operations. Sasaki spoke of receivers and passive sonar without giving details. Moyer knew better than to ask. He was, however, impressed by the amount of equipment the decrepit, beleaguered-looking fishing boat held.

Moyer risked one question. "Do I want to know what happens if the ship is boarded by hostiles?"

"Then the hostiles go to the bottom with the rest of us."

Moyer's opinion of the man and his crew rose several levels. Salty spray came over the bow as the steel hull dug into a swell, bringing Moyer's attention back to the moment.

"Time to kick this pig, Sergeant Major. You may want to get your men."

Moyer nodded and followed the same path walked earlier by the crewman. He moved slowly, partly to make sure of his footing on a wet, moving deck; partly to avoid stumbling over anything he couldn't see in the dark. Commander Sasaki ordered lights out an hour before. They were making fifteen knots in pitch black. Not even a cigarette, whose glowing end could be seen at a distance, was allowed on deck.

Once through the door beneath the wheelhouse, Moyer descended a stairway in the dark. Another doorway opened to the crew's mess. In the soft glow of a single low-watt light, Moyer found his team. Four played cards. Crispin sat to the side, earbuds in his auditory canals. Every face turned his way when he crossed the threshold.

"We go in ten."

There was no hoopla, no exclamation of bravado. Experience taught his men the work they did was no game, no clip from a war movie. Each man was here as a volunteer; each willing to lay down his life for a team member and for the mission.

Crispin rose but the others remained seated. Last year they nearly lost two of the team; the year before they lost Martin "Billy" Caraway. Over time, a new tradition rose. Rich led them off. He reached in the breast pocket of his battle dress uniform and removed a photo of his wife, Robyn. Jose followed with a photo of his wife, Lucy; seven-year-old Maria; eight-year-old Matteo; ten-year-old Jose, Jr.; and the newest Medina, two-year-old Tito. He kissed the photo and set it on the table. Pete Rasor drew a photo of his pretty wife from his uniform and, like the two men before him, dropped it on the table. J. J.'s hand trembled slightly as he studied the image of Tess. He set her photo on the pile. Moyer stepped to the table, retrieved a picture he studied for a long moment, letting his eyes linger on the smiling faces of Stacy; his daughter, Gina; and his son, Rob. His eyes burned. He set the picture down, as if a quick motion would shatter it.

Shaq put a hand on the pile of photos. J. J., Jose, Pete, and Moyer stacked hands on top of his. There was a pause and Shaq looked at Crispin. "Get over here, Hawkeye."

"I didn't bring a picture."

"Doesn't matter," Shaq said. "Get a hand in here."

Crispin complied. Rich looked at Moyer. Moyer straightened his back and said, "For them, and for those like them, we do this."

The team repeated the words. "For them, and for those like them, we do this."

A second passed in silence.

Moyer withdrew his hand. "Showtime."

"I TAKE IT YOU'VE
done something like this before?" Sasaki motioned at the Combat Rubber Raiding Craft setting on the deck near the stern. Lines attached to a crane formerly used to hoist crab pots were secured at key points.

"Not off a fishing vessel." Moyer and his team moved to the fifteen-foot-long, inflatable rubber boat.

"I'm sure it's exactly the same as you've done before, except different in every way."

"You are a comfort, Commander."

"I like to be encouraging. Just make sure you don't scratch anything."

"Mount up, men." Moyer stepped into the rear of the boat.

"Is this what you guys call a rubber duck?" Rich joined Moyer in the back.

"Sometimes. Rubber duck. Zodiac. Floating coffin. It's all the same." Sasaki placed a hand on one of the lines while the rest of the team took their places. "We don't want to leave any evidence of your arrival, so my man will be bringing the CRRC back. Which means you'll be on your own."

The comment was not news. Moyer and the commander went over the details several times. "Understood." Moyer checked his men. "On your order, Commander."

Sasaki stepped back and twirled a finger in the air. The small crane lifted the boat easily. Several crewmen held hand lines attached to the small craft to keep it from swinging out of control. The moving ship, which Sasaki slowed to just a couple knots, made the inflatable boat swing like a pendulum. Two minutes later, the crane operator moved the boat over the rail. Where once the hard deck was below, now there was a black ocean. Waves slapped the side of the fishing vessel.

"Yea though I am lowered into the ocean of death, I shall fear no evil—"

"Colt," Shaq said.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

"Roger that, Shaq."

"Okay, gentlemen, prepare to cast off lines on my say-so. We need to be quick. If we take too long we'll smash into the hull a few too many times for my liking. Clear?"

"Clear," Moyer said.

The boat hit the water at the top of a swell and then immediately dropped several feet into the trough. The crane operator wasted no time slacking the line.

"Now," the petty officer snapped. J. J. and Pete who were at the boat's bow freed the lift lines. Moyer and Rich did the same at the stern. Crispin and Jose sat in the middle, each holding the man in front of them.

"Bowlines free," J. J. said.

"Aft lines free," Rich shouted.

Before the night could swallow the last syllable, the petty officer powered the outboard motor and steered away from the
Komogata Maru
. From the ocean surface, the fishing boat seemed ten times larger than it did from the deck.

Moyer lowered his NVGs. The night vision goggles turned the dark into green daylight. He first scanned the sea for other ships, although he knew there were none. The electronic equipment aboard the
Komagata Maru
assured them of that, but Moyer wanted to see for himself. Any ship with nighttime running lights would be visible to the unaided eye but would light up like a tiny sun through the electronically enhanced goggles.

Satisfied no other ship was in the area, Moyer turned his attention forward to the dim shore of Russia and remembered the stack of photos they left behind.

CHAPTER 11

MAJOR BRUCE SCALON STOOD
in the STRATCOM video conference room, what his team started calling the "bull pen." It was the same room where he and Eric Moyer's team discussed mission parameters. This time, however, it was not the gruff, stern-looking Colonel MacGregor filling the screen. Instead, Scalon and his aide Captain Tim Bryan had their gazes fixed on a dark, nearly featureless image. To the right side of the screen was a dark shape with well-defined lines; to the far left the mass of dark lightened some and a few bright splotches of light appeared.

"Coastal towns." Scalon pointed at the lights, as if commenting on a painting in a museum.

Tim nodded. "They made a wise choice. I don't see much standing between them and the shore."

"It's the things we don't see that worry me." The major put his hands behind his back and tried to look nonchalant. Inside, however, a Category 5 hurricane raged. He admired Tim, who looked as comfortable as a man in his living room watching a documentary.

"We all worry about that, sir."

"Do you think they'll succeed?" Scalon kept his eyes glued to the monitor.

"No one knows, sir. We always went in full of confidence—at least on the outside. If we had doubts, we kept them to ourselves. It's the way of our breed. Moyer and his men might belong to a different branch of the military, but at times like this, we are all brothers. I don't have a full background on the team, but they struck me as being tops in the game."

"If only it were a game."

"There were other teams they could have called, yet the brass chose these guys. I gotta believe they had good reason."

"You are worried, aren't you?" Scalon cut a glance Tim's way.

"Worried?" He paused. "I suppose so."

"Wish you were with them?"

Tim gave an almost imperceptible nod. "It's been decided that, for me, those days are over, sir. That being said, I wish I could be there when they rescue our own."

"If they rescue our men."

"That's a big 'if.' There's always something that can go wrong."

Scalon watched the image. The KH-14 satellite was in its second low orbit pass of the day, just 175 miles overhead. During daylight, the thirty-thousand-pound satellite could resolve items less than a foot across. At night, using infrared and low-light intensification technology, the bus-sized eye-in-the-sky could still see objects less than two feet across.

Between the fishing vessel
Komagata Maru
and the empty stretch of beach on the eastern Russian coast was a small object leaving a white streak in its wake. The moment the small craft stopped its forward motion, Scalon picked up the phone.

"Get SECDEF on the horn." Thirty seconds later, Scalon heard the secretary of defense's voice.

"Mr. Secretary. Major Scalon here. Team is feet dry." Scalon listened for a moment. "Yes, sir. We wish them Godspeed as well. Good night, Mr. Secretary."

Scalon hung up.

PRESIDENT HUFFINGTON NORMALLY SLEPT
soundly. Seldom did the pressing problems of leading a country with 350 million residents keep him from falling fast asleep. His declining position in the opinion polls, something that happened to every president, hadn't deprived him of a single wink. Tonight, however, was different. His mind, which ran like a race car eighteen hours a day, had a stuck throttle. He stared at the ceiling, flopped around on the bed as gently as possible to keep from waking his wife, and tried to bore himself to sleep citing cases learned in law school.

Sleep refused to come.

Several times he tried to ignore the cause of his anxiety, but each time his internal argument lost ground. As president, he sent men into harm's way many times. The history books wouldn't record most of those. He also knew Spec Ops teams went into action without his knowledge. That came by plan. He simply couldn't oversee every detail and had to trust his military leaders to act with wisdom and discretion.

Moyer's team was different. Those men saved his and his wife's lives and that of other G-20 leaders. The men were not nameless warriors. He knew each one and even made it possible for one to have his wedding in the Rose Garden. To lose a soldier he didn't know tore at his gut; to lose any of these men meant the loss of a friend. It was the reason he tried to avoid friendships with those he might have to send to their deaths.

The BlackBerry phone by his bed vibrated and the screen glowed. He retrieved it and read a brief message from his secretary of defense.

FEET DRY.

There would be no sleeping tonight.