The guy in the yellow windbreaker ran the length of the rooftop six stories up as he chased the helicopter. When he reached the edge of the roof he jumped right off, grabbing onto the rope ladder as the helo bore him up and over the Kuala Lumpur skyline…
Twenty-five sailors sent up a lusty cheer.
Finn was back in the library again. Time to check the traps. As usual there was a line for the next free PC, so he was waiting, sitting at one of the long tables, viewing the big screen along with everyone else.
No talking heads today. Today it was Supercop, the nineties Jackie Chan comedy-action-crime flick. Cheesy, but a classic—and the last half hour was set in Malaysia.
Malaysia! Their next port of call. Still a week away, but the crew was practically counting the hours. Three sweet days of tropical freedom!
Supercop had just reached the climactic sequence over the city, where the helo flew its rope-ladder hitchhiker straight into a stone tower atop one of Malaysia’s tallest buildings. Jackie slammed into the tower with a resounding whack, but refused to let go.
Twenty-five sailors laughed and groaned.
Jackie crashed through a huge billboard advertising Stuyvesant cigarettes but hung on to that rope ladder as the helo flew him higher and higher over the city.
Twenty-five sailors hooted and hollered.
The kid on the PC pushed away from the table, stood up, and walked away. Finn stepped over to the machine and turned it, repositioning the screen so that it faced the bulkhead. Then pulled the chair over and sat, his back to the bulkhead. Restarted the PC, reopened the browser.
Nothing in his regular Gmail accounts.
Opened one of his three new anonymous accounts. Nothing.
Closed that account, opened the next. Nothing.
Closed that account, opened the third.
Something.
A message, from stanl3099@gmail.com. No subject line. In the email’s single brief paragraph, Stan L. had this to say:
Finn read it twice.
Then deleted it, emptied the email account’s trash, deleted the account, quit the browser. And sat still.
Hey man, good to hear from you.
Stan L. had not heard from him. Stan L. was not among the nine teammates he’d emailed. Stan L. wasn’t a teammate.
He didn’t know anyone named Stan.
He didn’t know anyone named Smitty.
And he didn’t drink.
Not Molokai Mikes or anything else.
The message, though. The message was definitely for him.
“Holy shit!” exclaimed the guy behind him. Now Jackie was fighting it out with the bad guys on top of a speeding train—and here came Michelle Yeoh out of nowhere, racing alongside on a motorcycle, pacing with the train! “Yeoh’s doing her own stunts, man!” the seaman said to his neighbor as the actress took her Steve McQueen moment and jumped, her bike roaring into the air and slamming down right on top of the freaking train!
Twenty-five sailors whooped and clapped.
Finn had tuned it all out.
Still staring at the blank screen.
The email was in code.
“Stan” was a Teams guy he knew from way back. Big Spider-Man fan. (Hence the pseudonym.) Got out a few years ago and now worked in the private sector, big defense firm. Stan had his ear to the floor. All kinds of floors. Quite a few walls and ceilings, too. Evidently Stan knew that Finn was in transit somewhere out on the Pacific, bound for Hawaii. What else did he know?
Smitty, i.e. Smith, i.e. someone anonymous. Someone not simply unknown but intentionally unknown. “Stan” was relaying a message from one of Finn’s platoon mates. Who couldn’t communicate directly himself.
Which meant something highly fucked was going on.
This was about the mess in Mukalla. Had to be.
Finn’s platoon had been tracking reports of a cell operating in the area, terrorizing locals, assassinating civic leaders. Stealing what wealth there was to steal. Very bad actors. Also fiendishly elusive. Impossible to find. Then they tortured and killed an American journalist. That was a bridge too far.
Someone came up with the critical intel: the cell was holed up in a small compound, northern outskirts of the city. It was a simple mission, a classic SEAL op. Three squads, in and out, kill or capture. Finn’s squad led the breach, Kennedy’s came in from the rear, and the third squad hung back to cover their flanks and roll up any escapees. Door charge. Flash bangs. Zip ties and hoods, out and ready and—
And nothing.
No one there.
Empty compound.
Bad intel.
And while Finn and his team stood there holding nothing but the wind, five klicks to the east the bad guys were slaughtering a whole settlement of farm families. Three dozen civilians. Toddlers to great-grandparents.
Finn and the others didn’t even hear about it until the next morning. Later that same day they were shipped back to Bahrain. And the day after that Finn was on a chopper out to the Lincoln, bound for home.
Officially, the platoon wasn’t being blamed. But Finn could add 2+2 as well as anyone. Someone had to go explain their epic fail to the top brass. As platoon chief, Finn was elected.
At least that’s what he’d assumed.
But not according to “Smitty.”
According to “Smitty,” 2+2 didn’t equal 4.
Finn looked up. Supercop was over, CNN back on the screen. The place had just about emptied out.
He stood, left the library to go circuit the decks, thinking about Stan’s email. The last six words. Which were the whole point of the message.
Finn didn’t drink. Not a drop. Not caffeine, not alcohol. Everyone who knew him knew that. “Stan L.” knew that. “Smitty” knew that.
Molokai. Known for its pineapples, sea cliffs (the highest in the world), and stunning tropical ecology. Also its lepers. Among the many gifts brought to the island by nineteenth-century European traders were smallpox, cholera, and leprosy. Soon the native Hawaiian lepers were exiled to the northern side of the island and declared legally dead.
Kalaupapa: most famous leper colony in history.
“Smitty” was saying: Finn was now inhabiting a leper colony.
He was saying: Finn was a leper colony. Cut off. Legally dead.
A leper colony of one.
Finn had thought he was going home to defend his platoon.
But they weren’t blaming his platoon.
They were blaming him.