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  “Looks as if they intend to open the harbor in a few hours,” said the Commodore, pursing his lips at the transmission. He sighed and looked at the next paper before handing it to Tucker. “Message from Southern Command,” he explained. “They have resumed the search for survivors of Recce Mission 62.” West shook his head. “Very doubtful after all this time they’ll find anyone alive, but you’ve got to look. You’ve got to go through the routine, cross your fingers, and hope that some God out there has reached out and touched the survivors. The Admiral also attached the crew manifest to the message since next-of-kins have all been notified.”

  Marc St. Cyr, the Frenchman, appeared at the top of the stairs along with Wing Commander Tibbles-Seagraves. St. Cyr had a couple of pastries soaking through some napkins wrapped around them. Tibbles-Seagraves held a hot cup of tea — a string with a small piece of paper fluttered from the lip of the cup — with his thumb and finger.

  “Your American weather is great,” St. Cyr said. “Reminds me of Chad without the desert and rain.”

  Tibbles-Seagraves’s thick eyebrows bunched. “And, along with my fine French ally, it reminds me of England without the temperature.”

  “Ally?” St. Cyr said with a smile, placing his hand with spread fingers lightly on his chest. “Moi—the French? We are now your allies?”

  “Well, for today you’re an ally of Britain. Doesn’t happen often, about three times last century, I seem to recall. I think two of those times were when we were in France, but I think you French forget sometimes. But, far be it for me to raise that issue. Every now and again, we British believe that allowing the French to associate with us may bring some semblance of civilization and common sense to you.” He took a sip of the tea. “But, then again, it hasn’t worked so far.”

  “C’est vrai,” St. Cyr said, using the French for “this is true.” “But I doubt very much that anyone can bring common sense to any of our countries. Our three militaries are always burdened with the same yoke — politicians.”

  “C’est vrai, c’est vrai, c’est vrai,” Commodore West mumbled in a low but agitated voice to himself.

  “Touché,” Tibbles-Seagraves replied, slurping from the slightly cooler top layer of tea.

  “Glad you’ve joined us,” Commodore West finally said.

  Tucker noticed that the friendly voice that had shared conversation with him during the night now seemed more stiff, more formal.

  “I just returned from Commander, Special Warfare Group Two, after the morning intelligence brief. Seems with this storm turning northeast and away from us, the search for the rogue freighter continues to be haphazard at best. Admiral Holman has recommended to his French and British counterparts that they reorient their efforts and turn more attention to protecting the most likely target ports such as Rotterdam. Admiral Holman should be back in our area in the next couple of days. The Admiral believes a more layered defense in depth that combines the advantages of a proactive search backed up with a strong second-string defense is the best way to go. Your countries,” West said, nodding at St. Cyr and Tibbles-Seagraves, “agree. Britain and France will take the European side of the Atlantic. Admiral Holman will regroup off VACAPES,” West continued, using the acronym for the Navy’s Virginia Capes, “and start a complete search of the Atlantic behind the departing storm. If the rogue freighter had been heading to Europe or the Mediterranean, they feel it would have been sighted by now. The Spanish and Portuguese military placed an east-west barrier over a thousand miles long running from the coast of Morocco to past the Azores, stopping hundreds of merchant vessels. No joy.”

  “Have our Navy and our British ally redeployed their ships to protect Rotterdam and the other major ports?” St. Cyr asked, rolling the “r” in Rotterdam.

  The radio crackled again. This time multiple calls filled the tower as ships that had been waiting days demanded entry times. The Chief Petty Officer Tucker had seen on the pier with MacOlson a few moments before entered the tower and turned the volume down on the harbor common radio to where it was barely audible.

  Commodore West, his eyes narrowed, looked over his bifocals at the Chief, who nodded and turned the volume up slightly. The chatter was still there, but relegated to background noise.

  “How about the crew of the missing airplane?” Tibbles-Seagraves asked, setting his cup on the table for a moment. He brushed his hands together.

  How do they do it? Tucker asked himself, looking at the blue SAS suit of Tibbles-Seagraves. He glanced down at his and then at St. Cyr’s. Theirs were wrinkled and showed the wear of three days, while the Brit’s blue outfit still had those knife-sharp creases along the legs and running through the blouse.

  West nodded at Tucker. “As I was telling Commander Raleigh, Southern Command has recommenced the search. Expectations are high that if the crew successfully ditched or bailed out, they’ll find them.”

  Several sharp pops interrupted the chatter from the speaker.

  “And the other good news—”

  St. Cyr held his hand up. “Wait!” He cocked his ear toward the speaker where three ships were arguing about who had arrived first and should be granted first-entry rights.

  “What is it?” Tucker asked.

  “Turn the volume up, please,” St. Cyr asked the Chief Petty Officer while pointing toward the radio.

  “Did you hear that?” St. Cyr said to the other officers.

  “Hear what?” West asked.

  “That! I heard ‘m’aider’ ” St. Cyr insisted, pushing past the Commodore to the harbor radio at the front. He bent down, looking at the controls. “There’s nothing here,” he said.

  “It’s an old radio, sir,” the Chief Petty Officer offered. “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to turn it up. I want to hear what I heard a few seconds ago.”

  “M’aider?” Commodore West said softly to Raleigh, his right lip curling upward. “What the shit does that mean?”

  The Chief reached down and twisted the volume knob. The sound of the chatter rose within the tower.

  “Not too loud, Chief,” West said. “You get it too loud, you won’t be able to hear what they’re saying because it’ll distort the transmissions.”

  “Mayday, mayday, mayday. Anyone on this station,” shouted a female voice over the speaker.

  “See!” St. Cyr said, pointing at the speaker. “M’aider!”

  “We need—” The popping sound came again.

  “There! You hear that?” St. Cyr looked at Tucker and Tibbles-Seagraves. “Tell me oui!”

  “Yeah, we heard that.” West replied as he moved toward the radio.

  “That’s gunfire!” Tucker and Tibbles-Seagraves responded in unison.

  Tucker hurried over to where St. Cyr stood. Tibbles-Seagraves lifted his cup and walked to where the two men and the Commodore now stood.

  “You sure that’s gunfire?” the Commodore asked.

  “Heard it before. Heard it in Afghanistan. Yemen. And Somalia. Doesn’t sound the same when it’s—”

  “We’re on a ship somewhere out here in VACAPES!” the female voice screamed. “We’re United States Navy. There are terrorists on board here. We have the bridge—” More pops drowned out the voice. “Mayday, mayday, mayday! For Christ’s sake! Someone’s gotta be out there! We need help!”

  “You don’t think?” Tibbles-Seagraves asked Tucker and St. Cyr, his voice low.

  “I don’t get paid to think,” West interrupted. He rushed over to the red telephone mounted on the far bulkhead and picked it up.

  From the top of the stairs, Sam Bradley walked into the main tower. “Well, seems everyone is up and active this morning,” she said.

  Tucker looked at her. She must have seen something in his look, for the smile left her lips and her eyes widened.

  He turned his attention to the radio as they watched the Commodore on the secure telephone. Sam hurried over to Tucker and hugged his arm for a moment. She was dressed in khaki, her hair tugged into a bun. No o
ne spoke.

  Sam asked softly, “What’s the matter?”

  A wave of rain hit the front windows.

  Commodore put the telephone down. “I just called NetWars Command. They’re turning the local Security Group direction-finding units onto harbor-common to see if they can triangulate the source.”

  “Could be a hoax,” Tucker offered.

  “What could be a hoax?” Sam asked, cocking her head to the side. “Something’s going on, and I should know about it.”

  The voice emerged again from the speaker. “We have the bridge, but I don’t know how long we can hold it. We have one wounded. The rest of my crew are dead—”

  The scrabble of three ships arguing about entry times overrode the faint transmission of the woman. Several minutes passed. The red telephone rang and the Commodore picked it up. He listened for a couple of minutes before hanging it up. Tucker used that time to bring Sam up to date on what they had heard. Unspoken was the thought that the rogue freighter everyone thought was heading toward Europe may be instead off the coast of Virginia. If so, then who was the American woman calling for help on harbor common and to what “crew” was she referring?

  The secure telephone rang from its position on the small desk beneath the red telephone. Commodore West picked it up. He listed for a few minutes, said “sir” into it several times. The “sir” told Tucker and the others that whomever the Commodore was talking with was senior to the older Navy Captain.

  The officer hung up, looked down at the handset for a moment before raising his head. “Chief, go get Lieutenant MacOlson and have him and his team report to the briefing room immediately.”

  “Team?”

  “Yes, team,” West said, emphasizing the latter word. When the term team was used, it meant special operations. If he had said crew, then he would have been referring to a nautical-maritime function.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the Chief said. The man turned and ran across the room, taking the stairs two at a time as he bolted toward the piers.

  “What’s going on?” Tucker asked.

  “We aren’t sure, but Naval Security Group is able to hear the woman on harbor common better than we are, and their DF sites working with the Coast Guard coastal units have located the transmission as emanating from a location about eleven miles off the tip of Fort Story near the entrance to the harbor channel.”

  “One thing they heard that we didn’t was her identify herself as Navy Lieutenant Maureen Early.” He reached over to the table, shuffled the papers around, found the one he was looking for, and handed it to Tucker.

  It was the manifest for the crew of Recce Flight 62. St. Cyr and Tibbles-Seagraves looked at the list with him. The top name on the list of twenty-four trapped his attention, sending a rush of chill bumps up his back and chest. LIEUTENANT MAUREEN EARLY, FLIGHT COMMANDER.

  “If what SecGru is saying is correct, Commodore, then how did—”

  “—they end up here? I can only guess until you get out there. My gut speculation is that they crashed near the terrorist freighter and they’re prisoners. Or were prisoners. They seem to be free for the moment. Regardless of whether it’s true or not — whether this is a hoax or not — we can’t take a chance. I have sent the Chief to round up the Lieutenant and his teams. Those sailors out there with the patrol boats are not your everyday sailors as you are aware. They’re also a mix of SEALs and explosive ordnance experts — EODs. The Chief is going to be your team leader. He has in-country experience in Iraq, Somalia, and Liberia.”

  “Okay, I’m going to get my medical kit together.”

  “You’re not going,” Tucker said, his brow wrinkling.

  “Look, buddy,” Sam Bradley said, poking him lightly in the chest. “I may have deep feelings for you, but not enough for you to start telling me how to do my job.”

  Tucker jerked his head back at the unexpected response. Sam winked. “Someone is wounded, and if this isn’t a hoax and is the real thing, then the difference between life and death may be this little ol’ nurse from DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic, Pentagon.” She winked again. “Besides, you need me and you just don’t want to say it.”

  “She’s right. We don’t have time to get a medical team here,” Commodore West said, jerking his head at her to get going. “We don’t have time to get anything together except what we have right here. This storm has trees and electric lines down across Tidewater. I don’t think we could get a full team together for hours. Nope.” He shook his head. “Commander Raleigh, you’ll go with what we have available, and I am ordering you to succeed.”

  MacOlson ran up the stairs; rain running off his slick, forming a huge puddle around his feet. He shook his head, water splashing Bradley as she leaned away. Smiling, MacOlson gave a mock salute as he removed his ball cap. “Reporting as ordered, sir.”

  “Your men downstairs, Lieutenant?”

  “Some are, sir. The others are coming. Just had to finish those last couple of lines,” he replied, wringing his cap without mangling the brim. Water fell from it to join the puddle around his feet. “And, they’re enjoying the dry break from the weather, but we can’t stay long, Commodore. High tide is fast going out, and we’ll need to readjust the lines again.”

  “You’re going to be casting off lines in a few minutes, Lieutenant. Your job is to transport Commander Raleigh, Captain St. Cyr, Wing Commander Tibbles-Seagraves, and five of your team to…” and he spent the next few minutes bringing the Surface Warfare officer up to speed on events and stopping MacOlson’s objection to taking a Special Operations Craft out in this sea state.

  Unraveling a navigational chart of the waters around the Tidewater area of Virginia Beach, Little Creek, and Norfolk, Virginia, the Commodore laid out a basic plan — a plan that called for Raleigh to lead a makeshift SEAL team that had never worked together along with two officers from allied nations to board a freighter they had very little intelligence about and to fight Jihadist terrorists. If their quick estimate was right, some Americans were still alive and fighting on the bridge. Whether they could get there in time to turn the tide of battle and save the Americans seemed doubtful to him, but the Commodore treated it as if there was no doubt in his seasoned veteran mind that those trapped Americans would survive.

  Commodore West paused and looked directly at Tucker. “This is not easy to say. We don’t have orders yet, telling us to do this, but I want to get you all in place so when those orders do come we’re ahead of the game. The weather is still bad, Commander, and it’s playing havoc with communications. So, I am going to give you your orders, and unless you hear differently from me or someone senior to me, you will execute them.” He pointed at St. Cyr, Tibbles-Seagraves, and MacOlson. “Your first priority is to stop that ship from coming closer to the coast. At all costs, and that includes your own lives. Lieutenant MacOlson, you’re to get this team to that freighter regardless of weather, ship survival, or even the safety of your men and you.”

  Commodore West turned back to Tucker. “You’re to take possession of the vessel and hold it in position. If you reach the decision that it’s impossible to do so, then you are to do everything within your power to turn it out to sea.” Commodore West paused. “I have just spoken with Commander, Second Fleet. They have been listening and evaluating those radio transmissions also. Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach is socked in right now, but within the next three hours they expect the weather to clear sufficiently to launch a couple of F-18 Hornets that didn’t bingo west when the others did.”

  “So if we don’t succeed then those Hornets are going to take the vessel out?”

  “How are we going to find this ship?” St. Cyr asked. “I have heard a lot of different ships on the radio. The anchorages must be crowded.

  Commodore West nodded but ignored the question. “What you don’t know is that Defense Intelligence Agency believes the van lashed down on the stern of the freighter houses a nuclear device.”

  “That is our assessment, also,” Tibbles-Seagr
aves volunteered. “In the interest of allies united and information-sharing, if I may?” he asked, nodding toward West. He set his cup on the saucer he was holding in his right hand.

  “Of course, go ahead.”

  “British Intelligence believes the van is a diversion from a more sinister weapon, but we aren’t sure what. We think it may be biological in nature.”

  “We think it could also be chemical,” St. Cyr added.

  “Even more reason for you to take Lieutenant Commander Bradley with you. Take her on board so she can form a quick analysis of what all of our intelligence weenies are saying.”

  St. Cyr cleared his throat. “Of course, we would have already shared everything we know with our British and American friends. I believe that the appearance of the ship here is directly tied to Commander Raleigh,” he said, respectfully nodding once in Tucker’s direction.

  West stared at the French Captain for a couple of seconds before looking at Raleigh. “Yes, we initially thought this Abu Alhaul’s desire to avenge certain actions attributed to Commander Raleigh might draw him here, but the last report by Recce Flight 62 of the merchant vessel heading north, and the storm off our eastern seaboard, combined to convince seniors the ship was bound for Europe.”

  Sam Bradley came back up the steps, wearing a long Navy-issued raincoat. “I’m ready. My stuff is at the front door.”

  “Sir, you know this isn’t going to be easy,” MacOlson said. “Those boats aren’t made for this rough weather. We’ve got no keel—”

  “—and, you’ve got no rudder or propellers, Lieutenant, which means you should be able to skim over the top of those waves with no problems.”

  “No problems!”

  “Lieutenant, you wouldn’t want to let an old Surface Warfare officer down, now would you? Besides, those waves are getting smaller and smaller by the minute. Haven’t you been listening to the weather? The storm is curving to the northeast, heading across the Atlantic. By late this afternoon the rain may even stop.”