Strike Force (6 page)

Scott caught the satellite phone, decided right then the Operations Commander was going to be his new best friend even if he had to part the Mediterranean to make it happen. As he stepped into the hall, he dialed into the Switchboard system--NSA's automated global operations board--and then said, "Authentication: Kilo Whiskey Bravo Tango Five Nine Seven Sierra."

   KWBT-597S was a cover code, a sort of dual-purpose self-identification and rapid auto-dial from the field to his handlers at home base. Home base being whatever station he was operating out of. He'd be connected to his handlers as soon as Switchboard authenticated him using the code and voiceprint biometrics.

   He waited, holding the heavy satellite phone to his ear, thinking either the system was running slow or no one was home on the other end. But after a long delay, he heard a male voice on the other end saying, "Authentication: Juliet Romeo Eight Five. Encrypted. Unsecure."

   JR-85 was his primary handler at the NSA, but Scott didn't need the code to recognize the voice on the other end. He pulled the phone away from his ear just long enough to note there wasn't a row of lit indicator lights on the phone. Three green lights would have indicated a fully secure, encrypted and untraceable connection. The one green light he saw meant that at best the connection was encrypted. He replied with, "Bravo Whiskey Seven Nine. Encrypted. Unsecure."

   "Scott?" the voice on the other end asked.

   "Keneke," Scott said, as he breathed a sigh of relief. If Keneke was on shift, he'd get real answers instead of "official" answers. "I hope you're settled in to your new position now because I'm calling in every favor. Every last one."

   "I've been settled in for over a year," Keneke said. "You're still in the Med, aren't you?"

   Scott frowned. "So you've heard?"

   "And then some," Keneke replied. "I'm at the Hawaii field station. You know, the aging underground facility you loathe."

   "Ah, Christmas in hell," Scott shot back. "Take down these coordinates." He read off the latitude and longitude displayed on the e-wall for the
Bardot
, the
Shepherd
and the strike group. "Reach out to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Get the satellite photography within a 100-mile radius of those coordinates for the past 24 hours and keep looking forward for unusual activity."

   "Whoa. Slow down," Keneke said. "Scott, I don't know what's happened."

   "I thought--wait. What do you mean you don't know what's happened? The
Bardot
, the
Shepherd
. They're gone."

   "Scott, whatever you're trying to tell me. I'm not sure I should be hearing. There's no chatter to corroborate anything you're saying."

   "What?"

   "Look, I turned up the Med channels as soon as I took your call. I'm telling you it's dead quiet. Maybe too quiet, if you ask me."

   "Since when do you follow official channels?"

   "Official, unofficial, all over the place. One big hunk of nothing."

   "Nothing?"

   "Scott," Keneke said. "I have to ask. Is your cover legend blown? It was a hell-of-a lot of work to get you--"

   "Cover legend, to hell. The
Shepherd's
gone--as in blown up," Scott said, his voice full of pain. "They sank the
Bardot
too."

   Scott heard Keneke typing furiously. "OK. I have one report here stating US Marines were injured during night training exercises but that was from yesterday. That would've been--"

   "Sometime early in the morning here. Yes, that's exactly when it started."

   "When what started?"

   Scott scratched at the stubble on face. "From what you're telling me it sounds like a cover up. This doesn't make any sense. Unknown assailants sank the
Bardot III
and shot down a Seahawk, then they sank the
Sea Shepherd
and took out two SEAL squads. Dozens of civilians, lost. Dozens of sailors and marines, lost."

   On the other end of the line, Scott heard Keneke suck at the air, followed by a quiet, "Shit, shit, shit." Then Keneke said clearly, "Does this have anything to do with--"

   "No," Scott cut in. "I mean, I don't see how. My cover legend was solid and I did not deviate. Not even Edie knew."

   "Edie?" Keneke asked.

   Scott didn't want to think about Edie right now. He quickly re-focused on the issue at hand. "The cover was solid. I was in deep for months. There were no issues."

   Keneke sighed loudly in relief. "This is ugly either way. Where are you and what happened exactly?"

   "I'm aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, part of a carrier strike group led by the USS Harry Truman. In the early morning hours,
Sea Shepherd
came under attack from unknown assailants," Scott said as he started to recap the events of the day. He finished by saying, "Right now, I'm outside Situation Room One."

   A long silence followed and Scott impatiently counted off the seconds in his head. Finally, Keneke said, "I'm guessing you need temporary shipboard clearance?"

   Scott took a few steps away from the door. "Get me a VIP top security clearance and the next time I see you I will treat you to the biggest Kobe steak you've ever seen in your life."

   "I've seen some pretty big steaks… I take it you're having a little command difficulty?"

   "You don't know the half of it. They're having a tough time deciding whether to throw me in the brig or sedate me up in the infirmary."

   There was a long pause, Scott heard more furious typing, and then Keneke said, "I take it Secure Station Number 5 and Printer Sit 1 are in that room?"

   Scott walked back so he could look into the operations room. He looked for a computer with a printer. Positioned near the door was a work area with several computers and a printer. One of the computers was labeled "SS-5."

   Almost as soon as he replied affirmatively, the printer came to life and started printing.

   "Your hall pass," Keneke said.

   Scott stepped away from the door. "I want your friends at Tailored Access on this. The attacks were coordinated, well-planned. There's a trail of messages out there across the Internet, probably all over the dark net."

   "I'm running Techniques Discovery over here now, Scott. Give me an hour or two."

   "Calls, emails, everything. Hell, get Treasure Map on all of this. Every device tracked to owner. Every recorded call analyzed. Every recorded email analyzed."

   "Scott, you'll know everything even if I have to dig into Dishfire and ferret out text messages myself."

   "And no issues with F.I.S.C. or Senate Intelligence Oversight?"

   "Everything must be triple authorized now, especially if any military-grade encryption breaks are required. Nothing I can't handle," Keneke replied.

   "Wait, a minute," Scott said aloud, even though he meant only to think it. He tried to think, to work through everything that had happened and was happening. He thought about the briefings and what he'd heard the Operations Commander say. What had he said exactly? Did he say they were going to kick these jihadist bastards back to their caves? "Keneke, you still there?"

   "Scott, I'm here."

   Scott looked into the briefing room. "I think I need you to do something else for me too."

   Keneke said clearly, "Anything, just ask."

Chapter 16

Mediterranean Sea
Late Afternoon, Tuesday, 19 June

She walked down the hall, surprised no one said anything to her about being in the wrong place or on the wrong deck. She didn't know exactly where she was headed, but she knew the general location of the operations rooms from the ship's diagram she'd seen.

   Her head throbbed, her body ached. She'd been in the water so long she never thought she'd be warm again. But she was warm now, though she felt disoriented, like she wasn't herself anymore.

   As she trudged onward down the narrow corridor, she began looking for a workspace. Surely, there were workspaces onboard the ship or just some place to access a computer.

   She needed information. She needed to know what others knew about what was happening.

   At the end of the hall, she paused, unsure which way to turn. The hallways in the Kearsarge were like labyrinths and she hadn't spent enough time memorizing the path to where she thought she needed to go next.

   She stood a moment and closed her eyes, exhaling as she tried to collect herself. Then she turned right without thinking anymore about it.

   She passed a porthole, saw that the sun had yet to set. Both were good signs. "I'm going to find Scott," she told herself.

   In her years working in security and as an operative, she'd performed all kinds of strange assignments. None though that she'd loved or dreaded as much as this one. Working in a moral gray area was commonplace for someone in her line of work, but she never thought the work would lead to this.

   The prospect of what was ahead, what would happen tomorrow, she dreaded in a way. She didn't want to know any more than she already knew and yet she wanted to know everything, even as she tried to remember everything that had happened so should could understand how things had gone so terribly wrong.

   In the new clothes, she felt transformed, never expecting them to be so formfitting or to complement her lithe figure so well.

   Suddenly realizing the absurdity of such thoughts at such a time, she almost laughed at herself.

   More irrational thoughts from an overexerted mind.

   
What I need is rest, to sleep for a day or two
.

   But she didn't have a day or two to sleep and she knew it. She tried to focus on the events of the day, to sort what was relevant from what wasn't.

   Coming to a t-intersection, she stopped.

   "Sit 1?" she asked a passing ensign.

   The ensign pointed.

   "Thanks," she replied, turning to follow the path he indicated.

   She recognized him immediately, but didn't say anything until he hung up the satellite phone. "Scott?" she said softly, her hand going to her pocket.

   His eyes lit up when he saw her. "You?" he said, waving an accusatory finger.

   She took her hand out of her pocket and rushed at him, running as fast as her legs would carry her. As she got closer, she reached out to grab him.

   When she grabbed onto him, she turned and twisted, almost as if they were a couple of bears going at it. He pressed his lips firmly against hers. "My God," he said, "I thought you were gone. I thought I'd never see you again."

   She returned the passion of his kisses, the fervor of his caresses. She put her hands to his cheeks, looked deep into his eyes. "I thought I'd lost you too. No one would tell me anything."

   "No one knows anything. They told me you were dead."

   Her eyes filled with dread. "Dead? You thought I was dead?"

   "It's what they told me. I didn't know. I was just trying to get back to you, to see for myself."

   She hadn't died, but she almost had. When she'd awoken and he wasn't there, she had been sure he was gone. Dead gone.

   Too afraid to even think about it, she'd pushed those thoughts out of her mind. She left the infirmary in search of answers. As the medical staff kept running between the infirmary and Sit 1, Sit 1 was where she tried to go.

   She kissed him again. Her lips, her tongue, her body, wanted him.
Oh God,
she told herself as she sighed. She wanted to feel. She wanted him to do her right now, right here up against the wall. She didn't care who saw, what anyone said or whether it was right or wrong. She wanted to feel everything about him, to know him as she had been so deathly afraid she never would get the chance to.

   She spun around, pulled him to her as she backed up against the wall. "Ohhh… Ohhh… Ohhh," she cried out, but this time it wasn't a pleasure-filled moan. It was pain--the pain of her wound as she backed up against the wall.

   The shooting pain in her shoulder brought her back to reality, almost as if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers and told her to wake up. She pushed him back, her hand on his chest. The feel of his beating heart beneath her fingers sent a shiver down her spine and all the way to her toes. "Oh, Scott, what am I doing? What have I done?"

   "Edie, you didn't do anything I didn't want," he said with a broad grin. "I was scared to death that I'd never be able to do that. Mad as hell at myself for not doing it the hundred times I could have. I love you."

   Three simple words she'd waited so long to hear.
I could die now,
she told herself before realizing how wrong such thoughts were and how even more wrong her actions were with all that was going on.

   Her thoughts swam, but a sudden sadness in his eyes brought her thoughts back to him. He looked absolutely crestfallen. What was wrong? Then she realized she hadn't said those three simple words back.

   "I love you," she said, wrapping her arms around him, even though it hurt like hell to do so.

   Stepping back from him, she nodded to the shoulder wound. "7.62mm through and through. Go me one better?"

Chapter 17

Mediterranean Sea
Late Afternoon, Tuesday, 19 June

Scott's heart was racing. It had taken everything he had to keep from giving Edie everything she wanted right there for all to see. But his devil-may-care attitude was fleeting.

   He knew better, every part of him knew better--even if every part of him wanted her as much as she wanted him. "You mean 5.56mm?"

   "No, 7.62mm. It's what the combat medic who stitched me up wrote in my charts."

   That didn't make sense. He closed his eyes, tried to bring back the images of the attack.

   He assumed she'd been hit when they were under water by a strafing pass of the .50 heavy guns as the SEALs tried to contain the escalating situation. That made sense because they were in the water and had jumped away from an incoming RPG, putting them on the opposite side of the
Sea Shepherd
and away from the attack.