Chapter 9 - BLOOD OF THE ADMIRAL
The wind seemed to drop, suffocated by the sheer weight of what Elena had just uncovered.
Lieutenant Commander Hayes stared at the document, the tactical light trembling slightly in her hand. Around them, the Coast Guard boarding team stood in stunned silence, their weapons lowered, the reality of the command hierarchy shattering around their feet.
“His own son,” Hayes whispered, horror lacing every syllable. “Seaman Vance is his son.”
“Admiral Sterling doesn't see a son,” Elena said, her voice cold and hollow. “He sees a data point. If his own flesh and blood falls victim to the payload during a routine deployment, who in Congress would ever suspect the father authorized the test? It provides the ultimate plausible deniability. It turns a war crime into an unavoidable biological tragedy.”
Down in the harbor, the stranded USNS Girdwood listed further to port as the outgoing tide pulled the water out from beneath its fractured keel.
Suddenly, a brilliant flare shot upward from the bridge of the ship, arching into the sleet-choked sky and illuminating the deck in a sickly green glare.
Over Hayes’s radio, the voice of the Steadfast operations officer crackled with panic:
“Boarding Team, be advised! We are detecting heavy smoke coming from the forward hold of the Girdwood! They aren't waiting for extraction! They’re setting thermite scuttling charges directly on the cargo!”
Elena grabbed Hayes’s arm. “If those thermite charges burn through the cryogenic cylinders, the neurotoxin won't be neutralized—it will be aerosolized by the heat! The thermal updraft from the fire will carry the cloud straight across the base and into the civilian fishing village four miles down the coast!”
Hayes didn't hesitate. She looked out at her cutter, then back at Elena.
“My orders from Elmendorf were to stand down,” Hayes said, her eyes blazing with defiance. “I took an oath to protect the people of this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic. And right now, the domestic ones are wearing three stars on their collars.”
She turned to her boarding team. “Prepare the Zodiac! We board the Girdwood right now! Neutralize any hostile forces attempting to ignite those charges!”
“Wait,” Chen interjected, stepping out from behind the boulder, his face smeared with grease. “You can't shoot your way into that hold. The access hatch is locked with an automated deadman’s switch. If you breach the door with explosives, the circuit breaks and triggers the internal incendiaries automatically.”
“Then how do we get in?” Hayes demanded.
“The ballast vents,” Elena said immediately. “When the ship hit the reef, the starboard fuel and ballast tanks breached. There’s an emergency inspection trunk that runs from the rudder post through the lower bilge directly into the sub-deck beneath the cargo hold. It’s dirty, it’s flooded, and it’s half-crushed by the rocks, but it bypasses the automated electronic locks.”
“You know the layout of a civilian-crewed auxiliary ship?” Hayes asked.
“I spent four years as a naval logistics inspector before they transferred me to this icebox,” Elena replied, stripping off her torn outer blouse and tightening her boots. “I know every bolt, bulkhead, and inspection crawlway on that class of vessel. Give me a weapon and a drysuit, Commander. I'm going in.”
Hayes unclipped a suppressed Sig Sauer P229 sidearm from her own thigh holster and handed it to Elena, along with three spare magazines and a heavy tactical knife.
“Do you know how to use this, Lieutenant?”
Elena racked the slide, chambering a 9mm round with a crisp, practiced snap.
“I qualified expert every year since Annapolis, Commander. Let’s go put an end to this.”
Five minutes later, the high-speed Zodiac inflatable boat slammed through the churning breakers, cutting across the black harbor water toward the tilted, groaning hull of the stranded transport.
As they approached the stern, Elena could see the black water swirling around the massive twin propellers, wedged tight against the granite reef.
High above on the foredeck, shadows moved through the green flare-smoke, frantically working around the white refrigerated container with welding torches and heavy steel chains.
Collins was there.
Even from the waterline, she could see his distinct profile against the burning flare, holding an automatic rifle, scanning the dark water.
He was waiting for an attack from the gangways.
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He wasn't expecting two women and a petty officer to crawl up from the bottom of the sea.
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