Strapped into thinly cushioned, fold-down seats that lined the sides of the fuselage, the L.A.S.E.R. team relaxed as the eighty-ton aircraft lifted itself off the tarmac. It was a slow climb, the cabin rattling as the four turbos raised her. The great wings of the plane were placed high on the fuselage; that way, the mountings would not require internal supports that would cut into the cargo capacity. In situations like this, where there was little cargo, just the large cabin, the echo of the engines was even greater. All of the team members had donned headphones that were hooked above the seats—and, in fact, had more padding than the seats. This minimized the noise and also allowed them to hear communications from the flight deck. Once the aircraft reached its cruising altitude of thirty thousand feet, and the sound settled a bit, they could remove the headphones. All except the team’s radio operator, U.S. Army Corporal Jefferson Emens. He would be the liaison for any communication with Corpus Christi.
Thomas Bryan was not in the mood for communication of any kind. Despite not wanting to think about what the general had said, he couldn’t help himself. This was not a problem that would go away with superior concentration. He tried to tell himself not to think about it. The submarine might be unsalvageable and the crew might already be dead.
But they might not be. And then he would have to kill them.
The major was not naive. He had been in combat. He understood the concept of shooting those who would shoot you. He had taken part in preemptive strikes based on reliable intelligence, even accepting the possibility that the intelligence could be wrong and that innocents might die. He even understood friendly fire and how it happened. But this—
It’s a matter of national security, he told himself. That takes precedence over everything. That’s why men shield presidents with their own bodies. It’s why the submarine crew was down there in the first place, helping to create the next generation of ships to safeguard the nation.
It was the reason he might have to blow them up.
Major Bryan understood why. He understood how. He didn’t like them but they weren’t the problem. What he didn’t understand was when. He remembered himself on the destroyer a week before. There, the “when” was the point at which his own team was in danger. And that point was clear: The ship started going down faster than anticipated. What point would that be in the south pole? General Scott had made it clear that Bryan had to make the call. And Bryan knew that call would be made if it became clear the submarine could not be salvaged.
If. That was the big word. If we don’t hear anything from inside, no radios, no tapping, nothing that could be interpreted as motion, then we can destroy the target without hesitation or conscience. But what if L.A.S.E.R. was hearing sounds inside the sub right before the Chinese recovery unit arrived? Or as it arrived? Or right after it arrived? What was the drop-dead moment? At what point did the major pull the trigger? The submarine crew didn’t get a voice and DOD didn’t want a voice. Thomas Bryan was the one who had to decide.
The major glanced back at the large crate the quartermaster’s men had loaded. It was secured to the back of the fuselage with a pair of heavy canvas straps. Bryan wondered how his own people would react to the mission overview when he finally presented it. He wondered how they would take the command when he gave it. Some would handle it a little better than he had, some a little worse. Some would be more emotional, some more pragmatic.
But we’ll all do our duty, won’t we? he told himself.
For weeks the team had been talking about coming up with some kind of motto and designing a uniform patch that incorporated the elements of air, land, and sea, something representative of them all. They couldn’t think of a phrase that identified what they did, or even an image. Woodstock had suggested the Statue of Liberty, since she was on a small piece of land in the sea and reaching up to the sky. Though other units used Lady Liberty, it seemed to fit. Yet as the aircraft rumbled through the last portion of its ascent, only one statue image was in Bryan’s mind. A statue with which, unhappily, he could identify.
Blind justice.