Seawolf Mask of Command (48 page)

“Because this chip is part of a spare parts pack,” she explained nervously. “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to run another check on the drones. When I did, I discovered that a similar chip is missing from one of them.”

“Missing?” Brodie asked. “How can it be missing? Was it something you overlooked?”

Kristen shook her head. “No chance. The chip was there eight hours ago when I ran the last diagnostic.”

Brodie was already dealing with enough at the moment, and she hated bringing this to his attention, but she could think of no one else she could dare tell such a thing to. His eyes narrowed as he considered what she’d revealed. “Is there any chance the original chip just fell out accidentally?” It was the obvious question.

“Absolutely none,” she said pointedly. “Someone with intimate knowledge of an LMRS drone and access to the torpedo room, intentionally opened the drone casing, removed the chip, and closed the drone back up.”

“Aspect change on target,” Kristen heard Graves call to Brodie from the periscope pedestal. “The
Tral
is turning toward us, Skipper!”

Brodie glanced back into the control room. “Hold your course, helm,” he ordered curtly. He then glanced back at her and lowered his voice, leaning closer. “You’re talking sabotage, Kris.”

“I know,” she replied quite aware of what it meant.

He hesitated for a moment. She could see his eyes narrow slightly as he considered the dilemma. “Who would have the knowledge to do this?” Brodie asked.

“Myself, Senior Chief Miller, Lieutenant Martin, and …” she hesitated, having her suspicions.

“Fitzgerald,” Brodie finished for her.

“But he’s been in his quarters for the last few hours, and Miller has been in sonar,” she pointed out. She would have loved nothing more than to pin this on Fitzgerald, but he appeared to be the least likely suspect.

“Martin?” Brodie asked skeptically. “He’s a lot of things, but a saboteur?”

“I agree,” she replied. “But someone on board did this.” She then added, “What about the SEALs?”

“Why would the SEALs want to see the drones damaged?” he asked. “Their lives are depending on the drones working perfectly.”

Kristen understood this. “I know, but when I went down to check on the drones, Lieutenant Cheng just happened to be awake.”

“Do you think he has the expertise?”

She could only shrug. “Somebody does, and at this moment all I know for a fact is that it wasn’t me.”

“Sir!” Graves called out to Brodie with a hint of urgency. “The
Tral
is increasing speed to twenty knots! She’s heading right for us!”

“Hold your course,” Brodie repeated as he glanced back into the control room.

Kristen waited, knowing he was already dealing with enough. The tension in the control room was palatable. Everyone was looking to him to make the right decision to keep them all safe. “All right,” he finally said. “Get back down to the torpedo room and go over those drones top to bottom.”

“And the SEALs?” Kristen asked. “What if one of them is the saboteur?” She had a brief vision of Cheng and his combat knife, and she had no desire to be alone with him at the moment.

“I’ll send a couple of men down there to back you up,” he replied. “Get down there. Straighten those two drones out. Report any findings. Then I want you to sit on those drones until we launch them. Got it?”

“Got it,” she answered.

“And be careful,” he added. “We’ve had enough drama on this damn patrol already.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” she said in agreement and turned to head back to the torpedo room.

Upon descending into the torpedo room, Kristen half expected to find Cheng waiting for her with his pistol in hand. Instead, she found him seated near the damaged drone, waiting calmly for her return and speaking quietly with two of his men. Like all the SEALs, both of these men were armed.

“What’s up?” Cheng asked as she returned.

“Nothing,” she lied. “I just needed to check something out.”

“Is something wrong with one of the drones?” Cheng asked, clearly interested.

“Nothing I can’t fix,” she assured him. The other two SEALs watched her curiously as she grabbed several tools and prepared to climb back under the second drone and insert a new computer chip.

“If there’s something wrong,” Cheng offered as he knelt down beside her and motioned to one of his men, “Vance was a sonar tech before he joined the Teams, he could help.”

Kristen looked at the tough looking SEAL Cheng had pointed out. He was slender with shaggy hair, a thick beard and mustache.

“No thanks,” she answered not wanting anyone else to lay a finger on the drones. “I think I got it. Besides, we’re running in ultra-quiet mode,” she reminded them. “You guys are supposed to be sleeping.”

“What do the fucking Koreans have that could find this baby?” the third SEAL asked, as if they were sitting comfortably dockside back in Bremerton instead of thirty miles off the North Korean coastline.

“Oh,” she said off handedly as she began to slide under the drone. “Nothing much,” she answered. “Except a
Tral
class corvette about a mile from here, searching for us with their active sonar.”

The three SEALs looked at one another, and then Cheng asked, “Are you serious?”

“Quite serious,” she answered. “So, if I were you three, I’d crawl back into your hammocks and try to keep it down.”

Cheng sent his two men back to their hammocks and then lowered his voice a little. “Were you serious about that corvette, or was that just to get rid of my men?”

“Oh, I’m serious all right,” she answered as she began repairing the damage.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she lied trying not to think about how many ways this man could probably kill her with just his bare hands.

Cheng leaned closer. “Bullshit,” he swore, his voice now deadly serious.

Kristen glanced up at him, seeing his dark eyes staring at her mercilessly. She swallowed hard, wondering where the men Brodie was sending to back her up were.

“Now, if something is wrong with one of those drones, I need to know about it,” he said bluntly.

Kristen disengaged her hands from where they’d been working inside the drone. She then slowly slipped out from under it. As she did, she saw two
Seawolf
crewmen, each wearing bulletproof vests climbing down the ladder. They were armed with pistols. She looked back at Cheng, wondering if she could trust him. “All right, Lieutenant,” she answered switching to Mandarin Chinese which she knew he would understand, but no one else would. “Someone intentionally sabotaged this drone.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. She studied his face, searching for any hint of deception.

“Who?” he asked, now speaking exclusively in Mandarin.

“You tell me,” she told him bluntly. “You and your men have been down here with the drones the whole time.”

“My men?” he asked. “That’s insane. Without these drones we haven’t a chance!”

“Well, all I know is that eight hours ago both of these drones were working perfectly and now one of their guidance chips has mysteriously disappeared.”

“It sure the hell wasn’t one of my men!” he hissed angrily. He looked around. “Hell, how do I know you just didn’t screw up and are trying to cover your own ass?”

Kristen had heard enough. She was tired after less than four hours of sleep in the last thirty. The
Seawolf
was evading multiple North Korean patrols, and was, currently, going where no American submarine had any business being on a mission she prayed to God they would never have to actually do. She had no interest in arguing with anyone at the moment. “Think what you want,” she told him simply. “While you try to figure out who did this, I’m going to fix it.”

It took her less than five minutes to replace the missing guidance chip. Once she’d sealed the drone back up, she reattached the test pack and ran a diagnostic while Cheng waited with her. He looked as angry as she felt.

“I’m telling you,” he said after several minutes of silence. “All of my men are solid,” he assured her, still speaking in Mandarin.

Kristen looked at him, keeping her voice down. “If you say so, but unless you or one of your men saw someone sneak down here and start disassembling one of these puppies, then I don’t think we can afford to be too careful,” she pointed out as the test pack chirped.

“What does it say?” Cheng asked with what sounded like sincere concern in his tone.

“It’s all right,” Kristen replied. “I just have to reprogram it, and it’ll be good to go.”

Cheng stayed with her during the reprogramming and as she ran a final check on each drone. Once satisfied they were working perfectly, Kristen put her tools away and took a seat on the deck, her back leaning against the bulkhead directly in front of the drones.

“Now what?” Cheng asked, still conversing in Mandarin.

“I’m not a spy,” she replied. “But whoever did this was probably planning on damaging both drones and either they didn’t have time, or I interrupted them when I came down here earlier. Regardless, I’m sitting right here until those drones are launched.”

Cheng had been quiet since the revelation that it could have been one of his men. He took a seat next to her, and she could see he was struggling with the possibility. “I just can’t believe one of my guys would do it,” he argued. “We’ve been through hell together.”

Kristen rolled her head on her shoulders, trying to loosen up her tense shoulders. She had a splitting headache. “Are all of these men yours?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No, my team is from DEVGRU,” he explained. The Naval Special Warfare Group, or DEVGRU, was more commonly known as SEAL Team Six. He motioned toward where some others were sleeping peacefully. “The SEALs handling the mini sub are with SDVT-1 out of Hawaii.”

“SDVT-1?” she asked, not familiar with the acronym.

“SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team,” he replied.

“And your guys?” she asked, wanting to keep talking so she wouldn’t fall asleep.

“We’re what you might call the business end of the spear.” He then returned to the matter at hand. “Every SEAL is vetted. We all have Top Secret security clearances.”

“As did every successful spy or saboteur in history,” she reminded him.

She felt herself beginning to drift off and her headed bobbed slightly.

“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Cheng offered, “I’ll keep an eye out.”

She shook her head, forcing her eyes open again, cursing herself for almost dozing off. “No,” she replied. “I’m not letting these drones out of my sight until they are on the other side of the tubes.” She glanced at Cheng who was staring across the torpedo room in deep concentration.

“It doesn’t add up,” he whispered.

“Not everything has to make sense,” she replied and thought of Brodie. Nothing about what she was feeling for him made sense. None of it was logical, and, as she leaned her head back, she told herself she was just reacting to stress. Once they were out of danger, the unfamiliar feelings she was experiencing would disappear and everything would return to normal.

Her eyes grew heavier, and she readjusted her position slightly.

“Normal,” she whispered as sleep took her.

Torpedo Handling Room, USS Seawolf

K
risten’s eyes snapped opened.

Realizing she’d fallen asleep, she sat bolt upright. She immediately looked at the drones and saw that they looked undisturbed. A quick glance at her watch told her she’d been out for only a few minutes. She stood up and saw the two
Seawolf
crewmen leaning against a rack of torpedoes and talking in low whispers. They looked bored and not too alert themselves. Kristen then heard hoarse whispers coming from her left near the starboard bulkhead. Kristen shook her head, forcing herself awake and alert. She then moved to see who else was awake.

She came around a rack of cruise missiles and saw Lieutenant Cheng talking to the SEAL named Vance. Kristen at first thought nothing of it, but then noticed their posture. Vance stood with his right leg back, his left hand up defensively. Cheng had both of his hands up as if trying to calm Vance down.

Oh, shit!

“That’s crazy, Ell-Tee,” Vance whispered harshly.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” Cheng replied easily. But Kristen could see the Lieutenant was nervous. She then saw Vance’s face. His eyes were wild looking, and his pupils were dilated. His left hand was trembling slightly.

“I just had to be sure, you know what I mean?” Cheng said calmly. “It’s just that no one else really has the background with sonar,” Cheng pointed out in a soft whisper.

Kristen felt her heart pounding in her chest when she saw something in Vance’s right hand, partially concealed by his body. All the SEALs were armed, plus there were weapons and ammunition cases lying about everywhere.

“Why don’t you talk to her?” Vance asked, pointing a finger at Kristen accusingly. “Hell, Boss! We’ve known each other for two years.” He then added, “Fuck, man! We’ve eaten the same shit and sweated gallons together. Damn, Brian! You know me!” Vance insisted, but Kristen saw a glint of metal in his right hand, and she realized he’d drawn his pistol.