Operation Caribe (33 page)

And after one more pass at the yacht leasing companies’ records, Twitch came up with a fourth name of someone whose leased boat had been in that same small Bimini port that day: John Beaux. The CO of the 616 SEAL team.

It was great detective work by the Twitchman. But what did it all mean?

Twitch said: “I think that while all these fanatics were touring the Atlantis Stairway thing, these three characters were meeting with Beaux. What better way to cover up something underhanded than to hide yourself among a gang of crazy UFO people?

“I think Beaux met with these people on the yachts, conspired with them on some huge hijacking scheme, maybe even of a Navy ship, and how best to get a ransom for it. But when Beaux got what he needed from them, he and his men made them disappear, along with whoever was traveling with them, knowing the Muy Capaz would be blamed. It was a good plan—until the marine deputies got involved. So the SEALs had to kill them, too. Then, when they found out we’d been hired to go after the Muy Capaz, they couldn’t take the chance that the Muy would talk to us before we iced them—so they took them out just minutes before we arrived. That’s why that guy Charles Black didn’t have any idea as to who killed him and his men or why.”

Batman almost started laughing at the end of the explanation. “It sounds like the worst spy movie ever,” he said.

Nolan agreed, then added: “But it
must
be true. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. It also means those nuts killed those Russian sailors, and that they just couldn’t resist lopping off their ears for trophies—that old Viet Cong thing. These guys are not only celebrity hounds, they’re freaking serial killers.”

Gunner exclaimed: “Serial killers. Steroids. Hollywood. Money. Pirates. All you need is five chicks living in a house punching each other and you’ve got a hit show.”

“Yeah,” Batman said. “The only problem is, our buddy Crash is caught in the middle of it.”

Nolan felt his sat phone buzzing again.

He took it out and flipped it open.

It was a text message from Crash.

All it said was “blu on blu.”

*   *   *

AGENT HARRY WAS on the bridge of the
Mothership
, waiting for yet another long intelligence report, when he heard the strange noise again.

This time, he looked to the west and saw the Whiskey helicopter coming toward him. In seconds, it reached the ship and slammed down on its bow again.

Harry was out of the bridge and down the stairs quickly. He met Nolan and Batman walking toward him.

“You guys have
got
to stop doing that,” he scolded them.

But they ignored his complaint.

“Were you able to find out what those SEALs have been up to since they left here?” Nolan asked him gravely.

“I’ve been trying to do nothing
but
since we spoke,” Harry replied. “But I’m finding it just about impossible to do because of the strict security protocol involved here. I know they’ve been sending in coded position reports like they’re supposed to, but what missions they’re actually doing, there’s no easy way for me to find out. And I’ve been reluctant to talk to The Three Kings about it, because with the state things are in, with this pirate thing deadline approaching and zero workable intelligence on the what and where, for me to go talk trash about the SEALs now would screw the pooch with extreme prejudice.”

“Well, you better start greasing him up,” Batman told him. “Because we got some late-breaking news.”

They showed him Crash’s enigmatic message. Blue on Blue was code for Americans fighting Americans. It usually meant some friendly-fire incident, but this time Nolan and Batman were certain it had to do with the SEALs and their unauthorized activities.

“I’ve been trying to call my guy since this arrived,” Nolan said. “Or at least get a text to him—but they keep coming back as undeliverable.”

Then they briefed Harry what the Blackwater guys had told them about the SEALs, and what they’d discovered about the people on the three yachts found empty and adrift off Bimini on Easter.

“Combine all that with what we told you earlier, and what do you have?” Nolan asked the ONI agent.

Harry listened to it all with his mouth agape. Capable pirates. Rogue SEALs. Atlantis. Reality shows.

“But what you’re saying is these 616 guys are practically mass murderers,” he told them. “It sounds too crazy.”

“That’s because these SEALs
are
crazy,” Nolan replied. “They’re broke. They’re perpetually just one step away from getting drummed out or court-martialed. They’re hopped up on steroids and God knows what else. Plus, they want to be media stars. That’s a perfect storm for crazy behavior.”

“Besides,” Batman said, “if one guy—an Army major no less—can walk into an administration building and kill thirteen people, then who’s to say five unbalanced individuals can’t kill fifty people? There’s no limit on craziness. And either the Navy has been too dumb or too distracted to notice, but just like Fort Hood, there were red flags all over the place—until it was too late.”

“We’ve got to tell all this to the Kings,” Nolan insisted to Harry. “Who knows what the fuck these 616 guys are doing out there?”

Harry thought about it for several long moments, and then, to his credit, he agreed.

They immediately headed down to the CIC.

*   *   *

THE THREE KINGS were there, with their small army of sailors working the large bank of computers.

But there was an air of celebration in the room; Harry and the Whiskey guys noticed it as soon as they walked in. The Kings almost seemed relaxed; their sailors did, too. They were even laughing.

As soon as they spotted Nolan and Batman, one King said, “You guys might want to work up an invoice so we can start processing your fee.”

Nolan and Batman were taken aback; so was Harry.

“What do you mean?” Nolan asked the Kings.

“SEAL Team 616 has just come through,” the King who usually did the talking said. “They’ve just stopped an insurrection on the ballistic sub USS
Wyoming
. From all reports, these phantom pirates we’ve been looking for were actually crewmembers of this sub. They’d cooked up a scheme to take it over and sell it to terrorists. The SEALs just radioed in their position. They’re about 150 miles south of us and they have the entire situation under control. Rescue vessels are on their way.”

But now, even Harry was skeptical.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked the three officers.

They nodded in unison. “Sure as shit,” one said.

“But how did the 616 know there was even trouble on the sub?” Harry asked them.

The King spokesman said: “They got word of a problem on board through something called Plan 6S-S. They went aboard via their mini-sub and retook control. Apparently the pirates brought some kind of bacterial agent aboard the sub that made a lot of the crew sick, and made it easier for them to gain control—until the SEALs arrived, that is.”

Nolan and Batman rolled their eyes. “This will be hard to believe,” Nolan told the Kings, “but there’s a good chance the SEALs are the perpetrators of all this, that they’re bullshitting you and they’ve hijacked that sub.”

The Three Kings laughed out loud. So did the sailors manning the computers.

“Now, why would you ever say that?” one of the officers asked.

Fighting hard to control his emotions, Batman explained everything they’d just told Harry. Lots of evidence pointed to the 616 as being less than trustworthy. And as the Blackwater guys had told them, they thought the SEALs were capable of anything—even mass murder.

“We just found that missing Russian sub,” Batman told them. “Everyone aboard is dead, killed in the same way as these Muy Capaz pirates we’d dealt with before any of this happened. Whoever did it got aboard that Russian sub somehow, knowing there weren’t any firearms on a training vessel. It was like someone was practicing before they went out and did the real thing. It didn’t make sense to us before, but now it does. These freaking SEALs are off the reservation. They’re now
doing
the real thing.”

But the Kings were just not hearing it.

“Sorry—but that story is just a bit too incredible,” one said dryly.

That’s when Nolan showed them both of Crash’s messages, the one about the SEALs’ activities and the latest one indicating a blue-on-blue engagement.

“This is my guy telling me the SEALs are dirty, that they’re up to something and something is wrong,” Nolan said. “You must know their mission statements. You must know they weren’t supposed to be anywhere near that ship in Havana, or that LNG carrier, or the
Queen of the Seas
.”

But still, the Kings were not impressed.

“You said yourself that these SEALs are your rivals,” one said. “You want to be TV stars? You’re into making piles of money? OK—fine, but don’t throw these heroes under the bus just because they beat you to it.”

Nolan and Batman were growing furious. “You think we’re here talking trash about these guys because we want to beat them out of some TV contract?”

“Well, we have to consider where the ‘trash’ is coming from,” another King said. “You admit you got a lot of this information from the Blackwater representatives, the same people who walked out of the initial briefing for this problem, correct? Don’t you think that it might be in
their
interest to mislead you? They’re your rivals, too. So why would you choose to believe them over—well, us, let’s say?”

Nolan and Batman were enraged by now, but neither would back down.

“What about my guy’s text messages?” Nolan challenged them. “Why would
he
want to mislead us?”

The officer shrugged. “I understand he used to be a SEAL, and wanted to be one again. Maybe he was just softening the blow, before telling you he was leaving your little club.”

Nolan felt his fists clench. “So—you’re saying
we’re
the liars?”

The officer smiled in the most self-important way. “No—I’m saying you’re civilians. And frankly, I’d expect just about anything from you. Especially with your track record.”

Batman almost went over the console at him. Nolan and Harry held him back.

“Look, it’s over,” the main King said. “We’re right and you’re wrong. The
Wyoming
was the target. The SEALs have restored order. Work up your bill and get it to me.”

Nolan and Batman still weren’t hearing it.

“You don’t even know where this Plan 6S-S order came from,” Nolan told them. “Did you send it? Someone at NS Norfolk? Fleet Command? The White House? Who?”

“I don’t know,” the top King replied mockingly. “But you see, I don’t
have
to know. I just care about results.”

“Let us see these communications then,” Batman said. “The ones between you and the SEALs.”

The King just laughed at him. “You’re not cleared for that,” he said. “And in fact, as of this moment, because your contract is up, you’re not even cleared to be on this ship. So, please leave before I call our security detail.”

Nolan and Batman were boiling. It was such a frustrating situation, both were beyond words. But they didn’t move. So as promised, the Kings called the ship’s security detail. Four armed Marines showed up.

That’s when Harry stepped in.

“There’s no need for this,” he said, waving the security detail away. “I’ll escort them off the ship.”

*   *   *

NOLAN AND BATMAN flew back to the
Dustboat,
feeling sullen and beaten.

They met Gunner and Twitch up on the bridge and briefed them on the bad turn of events. Twitch was especially livid. He immediately took Nolan’s sat phone and tried to get a message to Crash, but with no success.

They were all veterans of the military; they’d all come up against the sometimes imperceptibly stupid, thick-headed behavior of the top brass. Their shared experience at Tora Bora was a perfect example.

They knew that frequently, higher-ups in the military went to any lengths to get the outcome they desired, despite a world of evidence to the contrary. Call it hubris, or stupidity, or both, it was a dangerous inclination when people’s lives were involved.

But this? This bordered on criminal insanity.

They steered the
Dustboat
past the bow of the
Mothership
just in time to see Agent Harry arrive at his safe spot up on the bow. He looked as exasperated as they felt.

They watched each other as the
Dustboat
motored past. Harry could only give them a frustrated shrug—he felt their pain. The bad news for him was, he had no choice but to stay aboard the ship of fools.

At the same time, Gunner was poring over a map of the waters south of Blue Moon Bay. Because Crash’s last text had come across a satellite phone, the rough coordinates of where it was sent were hidden in the message details. From this, Gunner discovered that if the information was correct, the commandeered sub was really only twenty miles away from them, and not the 150 miles the SEALs reported to the
Mothership
. Whiskey viewed this as more evidence of deception on the part of the 616.

“What the fuck are we going to do?” Batman said, holding his head in his hands. “Those
Mothership
assholes are so twisted up in their own little world, it will be a disaster before they realize how wrong they are.”

Then Nolan’s sat phone started buzzing again. It startled them all, especially Twitch, who was holding it at the time. The buzzing indicated a text message was coming in. It was from Crash. His last.

Twitch punched up the message screen as the rest gathered round.

The message contained only three hurriedly typed, misspelled words: “Srry. Im drwnig.”

Twitch was shocked. “Does that mean: ‘Sorry—I’m drowning?’ ” he asked.

But no sooner were those words out of his mouth when there was a brilliant white flash—followed by a tremendous explosion.

The blast was so powerful, everyone on the bridge was thrown to the deck. The
Dustboat
was hurled back twenty feet and came close to capsizing.