USS BATAAN
After one hundred and eighty-two days at sea, the sailors and Marines aboard the USS Bataan were ready to go home. But while the rest of the Amphibious Ready Group galloped west across the Atlantic Ocean, ready to make up for the anniversaries and birthdays they’d missed during their six-month tour, the Bataan was still on station, the crew forced to loiter seventy-five miles off the coast of Angola until their unexpected guest cut them loose.
Levi Shaw stood on the signals bridge, the burn of the salt air across his freshly sutured cheek cold as a knife. He looked down at the pair of V-22 Ospreys sitting on the flight line, knowing how bad they wanted to go home and hating himself for being the one standing in their way.
But it couldn’t be helped.
After the wreck Shaw knew he had to move fast, make something happen before Carpenter and Senator Miles learned that he was still alive, knowing that the moment they found out they would cut him off at the knees. Shut him out of both the CIA and Treadstone.
Out of options and running short on time, Shaw played the only card he had left—he went to the DoD.
Getting a meeting with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs had cost him every favor that he’d collected during his thirty years with government, and even then all the man would give him was five minutes.
“Better talk fast, Levi. I’m flying out to Camp David in twenty.”
“Sir, what do you know about Operation Treadstone?” he began.
That got his attention.
“Go on,” the general said.
Shaw knew the next words out of his mouth could very easily end him up in a black site, but he didn’t care. The Department of Defense was the only organization left that could protect him—keep men like Miles and Carpenter from using Treadstone as their personal kill team.
In the next few minutes, Shaw told him everything, stripping back the curtains on thirty-plus years of secrecy.
“Jesus,” the general said when he was finished.
“I realize it’s a lot to take in.”
“Like trying to drink from a firehose,” the man said. “But I’m still not exactly sure what it is you want.”
“It’s simple, sir. I turn Treadstone over to the DoD, give you the labs, the training, the assets, everything you need get the program back on track.”
“And what do you want in exchange?”
“One of my men is in trouble and I need your help to get him out before the CIA kills him.”
Shaw was still thinking about the general’s face when the door swung open and the Bataan’s commanding officer stepped out—steam billowing from the coffee mugs clutched in his pawlike hands.
“Thought you could use one of these,” he said, offering one of the mugs.
“Appreciate it, skipper,” Shaw replied, following the captain back to the railing.
He took a sip, the strong black coffee warming him from the inside out.
“You get any sleep, or did you spend all night in the signals room?”
“I managed a few hours,” Shaw said.
“Liar,” the captain smiled.
“How far would you go to save one of your men?” Shaw asked.
The captain sipped his coffee in silence, his brown eyes darting over the deck, taking in the pilots checking over the Ospreys and the team of Marine Raiders collected around the ramp.
“To the ends of the earth, if I had to,” he said.
Shaw was about to tell him he’d do the same when the door slammed open behind him and one of the sailors from the signals room stepped out.
“Sir, we just intercepted a call. I . . . I think we found him.”