Dex
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Ten hours later
He would have been surprised if his old C.O. had kept him out of the mission, but Dex knew Whitehurst had to throw his weight around to make it happen.
It was obvious Drabek, the SEAL Commander, didn’t want any part of civilians when the brown matter hit the whirling blades. And being ex-Navy didn’t matter to guys like Drabek. Either you were a SEAL, or you were the rest of the world. Period.
That’s why Dex was sitting by himself in a ready room by the dock. It was a small room with about 15 chairs with fold-down desk tops. There was a screen along the front wall and a digital projector on at the back. No windows, not even a photo of the President on the wall. He was tired and he was pissed. Even though he’d flown up to the Naval Yard with Drabek and some of his unit in anticipation of joining the party, the final decision had come from the highest offices. Dex would not be allowed into the Dragonfish entering One Eleven with the assault team. The Pentagon and the White House had authorized a classified rescue and recovery mission, which meant Dex had been relegated to observer-status and would be joining Parker Whitehurst at sea. Although Parker had not ruled out going in on the second wave after things had been secured.
The only civilian going in would be the unfortunate guy they dragooned from MIT’s Nuclear Reactor Lab. Having been the nearest thing to an expert they could grab on short notice, they grabbed. He would be coming in on the same V-22 Osprey that would be taking Dex out to join Admiral Whitehurst and Harry Olmstead, who had flown direct to rendezvous with the USS Cape Cod. It was a LHD, an amphibious assault ship pulled from Atlantic Fleet maneuvers and full-heading it to the coordinates off the Greenland Coast. Based on the sum of Bruckner’s logs and what he’d told Dex, the DoD and the White House had decided they needed a look at whatever was left of the German base, its technology, and whatever they’d unearthed from hell-knew-what civilization.
Just like the bad guys, they wanted a piece of inter-matter. They wanted to brush their hands across the philosopher’s stone. Dex could save them the trouble because he was one of the only people who not only knew Bruckner still had his piece, but also its location.
But Dex wasn’t about to let anybody know it for the time being. If he did, the Navy might be less driven to get into the place Werner Heisenberg had called “Triple One.” Which meant, the chances of rescuing Tommy and Erich Bruckner would plummet.
Better to let things play out, Dex had decided.
Even though no one was talking about it—because the exact locations of the Navy’s submarines were always ultra-classified—it was apparent to Dex there weren’t any hunter-killers close enough to locate and effectively block the entrance to One Eleven. That had forced the Pentagon and Counter Terror Group to rely on surface vessels and limited range helicopters to get into position.
The target coordinates were under heavy satellite surveillance and as far as Dex could figure, since no one was really telling him anything, the area remained clear. But that didn’t mean the enemy couldn’t show up at any moment. There was simply no way to know where they were or when they might appear.
The worst part was the waiting. As the hours dragged past, he’d tried to get some sleep, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Tommy and Bruckner. Where were they? What did the bad guys have planned for them?
Dex kept asking himself that question even though he had a damned good idea what the answer was. They needed the old man for the same reason the SEALs would have wanted him along—the location of the nuke and the safest way to disarm it. Only one problem: was Bruckner healthy enough to survive it. Dex had no idea how tough all the travel must be on a guy his age, but it had to be plenty brutal.
And Tommy…
If Dex knew him even a little bit, his young friend would try something ill-advised as soon as he got the chance. But that wouldn’t be an issue if they’d already killed him. Dex knew it wasn’t much of a stretch to assume something like that, given what they’d done to the Sea Dog. He wished more than anything they’d let him go along under the ice shelf, but he knew there was no chance of it.
A door opened to his right, and an unlisted man leaned in. “Mr. McCauley? Your ride is here.”
Getting out of the chair, Dex nodded, then saluted the sailor. He followed his guide down several corridors through a couple turns and a flight of stairs. Commander Drabek was standing by a set of double doors that exited onto a rooftop helipad. He nodded at Dex, gave him a sly grin. “Thanks for all the help, Chief,” he said, and he sounded like he meant it. “And don’t looked so pissed. You’re getting a front-row seat.”
Dex said nothing.
He pushed through the door, and walked out into the chilly evening where the VTOL aircraft awaited him. Spring came late to the rocky New Hampshire coastline, and the temperature was dropping steadily as Dex pulled his parka tighter around him. Of course, where they were taking him would make this weather feel tropical.
There were two men in the cockpit watching him approach their aircraft, and another sailor waiting at the open belly door. As he climbed inside the cabin, the crewman directed him to one of three passenger seats near the front, then clanged the pressure door shut. The rest of the interior was comprised of jumpseats to hold as many as twelve troops.
Instantly the aircraft’s twin props increased rpms, whining and lifting the Osprey straight up. As its airspeed increased, it started to pitch forward incrementally as the wing and engine assembly rotated into the airfoil position. Within sixty seconds, the craft was ripping northward toward the arctic air.
As he settled in for what would be a long flight, he replayed Drabek’s comments. Maybe the guy was right. Dex shouldn’t be all that steamed they’d cut him out of the last hand. In these kind of operations. There was that situation called “knowing too much,” and he didn’t want to be in that place. If they thought they’d given you a key to the clubhouse and secret decoder ring, then you were part of them, and they owned you.
As Dex sat in the belly of the Osprey, a single thought kept whispering though his mind like the passage of a scythe: maybe they already did. Because Dex already knew a lot more than civilians were ever allowed to know.
That would be very bad news. Despite having very much enjoyed his time in the Navy, he’d called it quits on the military life, and had carved out a nice existence for himself in the civilian world. To think that might all be taken away chilled him.
He could feel the Osprey reaching altitude as its engines smoothed out, climbing above the turbulent cloud cover. Dex tried to get comfortable in the functional but not accommodating seat. Best thing would be to get a few hours sleep. It was going to be a long ride, and he was starting to feel his old alarm instincts kicking in.
Never a good sign.