Chapter 1
Electric Boat Shipyard
Groton, Connecticut
Monday, November 3rd
3:50 a.m.
They emerged from the black water of the river thirty feet from where the rain swept the shore. Like primordial beasts rising from the deep, the divers turned their heads to take in the surroundings.
The wind whipped across the dark waters, the swells rising up to meet the rain and the night. The leader looked at the huge steel doors of the shipyard’s North Yard Ways. Then, silently, they moved as one behind him toward the building.
Close to the doors, the leader’s feet touched the sloping concrete on the river’s bottom. To his right, he could see the submarine tied to the far side of the wide, flat concrete pier. USS Hartford glistened in the floodlights and the icy rain. A single crewman stood on top of the curved hull, huddled against the black sail.
Together, the group waded without making a sound beneath the huge doors overhanging the water. The rain beat against the steel walls, pellets of water ricocheting off hollow tin.
Inside, the shipyard’s cavernous building was dark and empty. The metal skids emerging from the water disappeared up the incline into the darkness, reappearing a hundred yards up, beneath dim amber floodlights.
Before the intruders had a chance to leave the black water, a door opened halfway up the Ways. Two security guards entered, silhouetted by the amber light in the distance.
“Jeez, do you think it could rain any fucking harder?” one of them said as he unsnapped his orange rain gear and shook the water off.
The other guard muttered something and reached inside his coat for a smoke.
The group standing in the shallows halted. When the two men turned their backs, the leader slowly lowered himself back into the water. The rest followed suit. He looked at his watch— 3:53.
“I’m really hoping it’ll be a landslide,” the guard said as he took a cigarette from his friend. “I hate that last minute shit with Florida and Ohio deciding the future for everybody else in the country.”
“I never thought there’d be a day when I’d be agreeing with you about fucking politics.” He lit a match and held it out for his buddy. Their faces glowed in the light of it. “But, for chrissake, this last four years of Hawkins in the White House has meant nothing but shit for this country.”
The intruders were thirty-five yards away.
“I warned you at the last election that Hawkins would screw the pooch before he was done.”
“Look, I wasn’t the only one fooled.”
As the two argued, the leader of the intruders motioned to the men on his right. Silently, the pair stripped off their tanks and moved through the water until they reached the concrete wall. Using the darkness behind them, they emerged from the water and edged along the wall toward the guards, whose arguments were rising in intensity and volume.
“…don’t have to reinvent the fucking wheel just because the past four years was a mistake.”
“Hawkins isn’t the only president who’s wormed his way into office.”
Six feet away, they drew their knives.
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