“I want to know what the fuck happened.”
The three officers looked at one another. It was the admiral who spoke. “It was a training accident.”
Did they think he was an idiot? “Try again, Ron.”
The admiral scowled, whether at being caught out or at the lack of protocol in calling him by his first name, Colt didn’t know—or care. He didn’t report to them. “Our hands are tied. We’ve been sworn to secrecy. The president doesn’t want any of this getting out. And you better than anyone know that even admitting to the existence of Team Nine puts the entire program in jeopardy. We don’t need any more scrutiny. There are two platoons at stake.”
Most SEAL teams were made up of six platoons, but given the nature of Team Nine, it was much smaller—only Retiarius and Neptune platoons. All SEAL teams were close-knit. Team Nine was family. The only family they had.
“Don’t you mean were two platoons? From what I can tell, no one from Retiarius has been seen or heard from in months and plenty of people in Honolulu are wondering why their stuff has been cleaned out. So where the fuck are they?”
“KIA,” Ryan said, finally admitting what Colt had suspected. When the admiral seemed ready to admonish him, he explained, “He’ll find out anyway. And this way he isn’t stirring up more trouble.”
“He’s right, Ron,” Moore said distastefully. “Wesson is nothing but trouble.”
Good sense, all right.
The admiral thought a moment. He didn’t look happy, but he must have agreed. “We don’t know exactly what happened, but they were on a recon op in the Komi Republic.”
Colt swore. “Russia? What the hell were they doing there?”
Moore answered, “We had actionable intelligence that Ivanov was developing a doomsday device.”
Colt was immediately skeptical. Those kinds of rumors were always circulating, but to him they were the arena of science fiction, conspiracy theories, and aliens at Area 51. Hell, the Russian president was probably circulating them himself. “What kind of intelligence?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the admiral answered. “We lost our drone when they were eight klicks from the target, and not long afterward all our communications went black. Satellites picked up a huge explosion about ninety minutes later in the precise area of the old gulag where they were headed.”
Colt thought back. “The explosion that the Russians claimed was a missile test a couple months back?”
The admiral nodded. “It was a missile but not a test. The platoon was discovered and targeted. The devastation was clear. Anyone in the vicinity would have been killed. The sub returned a few days later. Empty.”
Colt had heard the navy had developed a new dual-mode sub, enabling it to operate remotely. But he’d bet they never thought they would be using it for something like this.
Hearing confirmation was worse than Colt had expected. He put his head down and dragged his fingers through his hair, trying to get a rein on his emotions. Probably to the surprise of the men at the table, he had them.
When he finally lifted his head and spoke, his voice was raw. “Where are they buried?”
All three officers fidgeted uncomfortably. It took Colt a moment to realize what that meant. It was so improbable—so incomprehensible—he didn’t want to believe it. “You didn’t bring them back?”
All three of these men were SEALs. They knew just as well as he that SEALs always brought back their own. Always. No SEAL had ever been left behind in combat—dead or alive.
Until now.
“There wouldn’t be anything to bring back,” Moore said. “We couldn’t risk sending in another team. You didn’t see those pictures. And the Russians wouldn’t leave evidence. Besides, we didn’t have a choice. You have to understand, Colt. It is a very precarious situation. There is a lot at stake here. One wrong move and we could be at war.”
“And that would be a bad thing?” Colt added. Having spent the past year embedded in Crimea, he knew just how dangerous Ivanov was. Americans underestimated him. They shouldn’t. Russia might not be the powerhouse the USSR once was, but its president was a despot with a hunger for power and respect who wanted to see America humbled.
There were other ways of dealing with him, of course. That was why governments had men like Colt. But presidents tended to balk at taking out world leaders—even ones who deserved it. Go figure.
The admiral smiled for the first time. “Maybe not. But it’s not for us to decide, and the president isn’t as much of a hawk as others in her administration.”
Colt knew the admiral was referring to the man who’d been his commander not that long ago. General Murray, now the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the father of the pilot shot down by the Russians last spring, had been the head of the entire US Special Warfare Command before he was tapped for Washington.
The general was someone else who didn’t like Colt—though his reasons were more personal. Given how close the general was with President Cartwright, Colt was surprised that he hadn’t sabotaged Colt’s selection in Task Force Tier One—the secret unit within a secret unit of JSOC known to the operators informally as CAD (as in Control Alt Delete). He was probably hoping that Colt would be killed.
It was a good bet.
“So fourteen SEALs are killed on a covert operation, and the president thinks she can sweep it under the rug?” Colt shook his head. “She’s nuts.”
A story that big couldn’t be contained; it would eventually come out.
“What’s she supposed to do?” Ryan asked. “Admit an act of war—that we had men in Russia illegally on a military mission for WMDs? That will go over really well after Iraq, especially with no proof and fourteen dead men to show for it.”
“Not to mention that it would force Ivanov’s hand,” Moore said. “He swore to declare war if there was another ‘unlawful American incursion in Russian sovereign territory.’ You know Russian pride.”
“He’d be a fool,” Colt said.
“Maybe so,” Moore agreed. “But it isn’t a chance the president is going to take.”
“Not with reelection in a couple years.”
No one said anything. They all knew how it worked.
Fucking politics. Colt hated everything about it. Even in the Teams as a senior enlisted petty officer, he hadn’t been able to escape it. It was one of the best things about what he did now. Politics didn’t play much of a factor in his kind of operations. Neither did the law, for that matter.
“It’s bad enough with Blake’s supposedly estranged sister coming out of the woodwork and fanning the flames with her ‘Lost Platoon’ articles, and Ivanov using the stories as an opportunity to poke fun at the US for ‘misplacing its soldiers all the time,’ when we all know what he did. Privately the general is calling for his balls.”
Colt didn’t blame him. “Don’t you care about finding out what happened?”
“Of course we do,” Ryan snapped. “They were our men, too. But as the admiral said, our hands are tied. We’ve been ordered not to interfere.”
But Colt hadn’t been. His gaze went to Moore’s. Clever bastard. Was that why they’d agreed to this meeting?
“How did the Russians know they were there?” Colt asked.
“We don’t know,” the admiral answered. “They must have made a mistake.”
“No way,” Colt said. “Taylor wouldn’t fuck up something like this.”
“You saying that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you trained him when he was a junior officer? Or that you were close friends?” Moore asked.
Were. Until his “friend” had fucked Colt’s wife. Make that ex-wife. “Doesn’t make it not true.”
Colt stood. It was clear he’d gotten as much out of them as he was going to. The rest was up to him. “Gentlemen,” he said, tipping a nonexistent hat and reaching for his glasses.
It was Moore who asked what they were all thinking. “What are you going to do?”
“Get some answers.”
He had to make sure they were all dead. He wasn’t taking the navy’s word for anything. And he knew just where to start, although she wasn’t going to like hearing from him.
Seven
Annie didn’t stay up waiting for Julien to return. When the door opened about an hour after the captain had left her standing on the doorstep, she was already in bed feigning sleep.
She woke the next morning to the incredible aroma of coffee. Good coffee, not the murky brown water they had downstairs.
Julien had decided to surprise her with breakfast in bed, including a latte and her favorite egg and cheddar croissant. Knowing that he viewed any kind of condiment or adornment to a croissant (or what passed for a croissant outside France) as akin to a defilement, she knew he must be trying to make up for the night before.
It wasn’t enough; she needed an explanation.
“I had them put mustard on it,” Julien pointed out. “They didn’t have that yellow kind you like, so it’s English. I hope that’s all right.”
The fact that he managed to say “yellow” without making a face told her how much he was trying. He didn’t think much of her American mustard. Usually it made her laugh, and she teased him about making him eat corn dogs with her at the state fair.
Not today.
She took a few bites and put the sandwich down next to the latte on the bedside table. Julien had claimed the only chair in the small room, so she’d sat up on the bed to eat. “It’s delicious. Thank you.”
Before she could say more, he added, “I thought we could go check out that beach you mentioned, and maybe take a packed lunch—”
“We need to talk about last night first.”
He drew his hand back through his dark hair, where it fell back across his face exactly as it had been in a perfect slump. “I’m trying to apologize. I was upset, but I shouldn’t have stormed out of here like that, and I should have come back with you.” His mouth turned in the rueful smile that she loved. “I only played one song. I couldn’t concentrate because I was worried about you.”
She didn’t ease his conscience by telling him that the captain had seen her home, knowing how sensitive Julien already was on that subject.
“You didn’t seem too worried,” Annie pointed out. “You seemed . . . occupied.”
Though she hadn’t had an ulterior meaning, Julien assumed she was referring to the woman. “Sofie is an old friend, Anne. You have nothing to worry about.”
Strangely she wasn’t. Although after what she’d seen, perhaps she should be. “You seemed to know each other well.”
He gave one of his nonresponsive shrugs. “I met her through Jean Paul years ago.”
There was more he wasn’t saying, but she didn’t feel like pressing him.
“What’s she doing here?” she asked instead.
“The same thing we are.”
“What?” Annie sat up straighter. “She’s going with us?”
He laughed her off. “Non, non. Sofie is here for the protest only. She knows nothing about anything else.”
Annie wasn’t sure she believed him. “Then what were you talking about when I arrived?”
He frowned. “Why are you questioning me like this? I told you there is nothing for you to worry about. You are acting as if you do not trust me.”
She was surprised to realize that she wasn’t sure that she did. “Ever since we arrived, you’ve been acting—I don’t know—different somehow.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “Distracted. Anxious. Testier than usual.”
His brow wrinkled. “Testier?”
She tried to come up with a translation. “A little moody and irritable. You seem on edge about something.”
“Aren’t you? We have important plans tomorrow, and I just want to make sure everything goes smoothly.”
“Maybe we should wait. Push it back a few days.”
The calm, easygoing, conciliatory demeanor showed its first crack. He looked truly upset—almost alarmed. “What are you talking about? We can’t push it back. It has to be timed—” He stopped. “It has to be tomorrow. Everything is ready. You aren’t thinking of backing out now? It’s too late. Jean Paul has it all arranged.”
Annie decided that there was no use in holding back any longer. She had to be honest with him. “That’s part of the problem. I’m sorry, Julien. I tried, but I don’t like your friend. There is something about him.” She bit her lip, trying to find the right words. “He makes me nervous.”
Julien seemed genuinely wounded. “There is no one I admire more than Jean Paul. He is a great man. You don’t know him as I do.” Nor did she want to. “Why are you saying this?” he demanded. “Is it because of what he said about your special soldiers?” SEALs. She didn’t bother correcting him a second time. “I thought you hated the military.”
That wasn’t quite true. Her feelings were difficult to sort through. She didn’t object to everything they did, just that the costs were sometimes too high. And the way the military chewed up and spat out the men who devoted their lives to it without taking care of them afterward? That she did hate.
She’d never told Julien about her father. She didn’t talk about him with anyone.
“It isn’t that.” She hesitated. “Weasely vibes” and “looks as if he could give Tony Soprano a run for his money” weren’t the greatest ways to explain. “I don’t like how he looks at me.”
Julien seemed to understand. He nodded and sat back in the chair, giving her a long look. “He doesn’t believe you are committed.” The explanation took her aback. “Jean Paul is a man of strong convictions and holds those around him to a similar standard. I have told him that you believe just as strongly as we do and are willing to do what it takes, but . . .”
“But?”
Julien looked apologetic. “He doesn’t think we can count on you. He thinks Americans are spoiled and weak. That they are all fluff, no substance, and cannot be counted on. That they are all words and with their nice comfortable lives no longer know how to sacrifice for their beliefs.”
Annie didn’t consider herself much of a patriot, but she felt a little Stars and Stripes stirring in her now. She bristled defensively. What a gross oversimplification. And she knew about sacrifice. “That is ridiculous.”
He shrugged. “Is it?” He looked at her questioningly. “You claim to be committed to stopping North Sea Offshore Drilling from drilling and preventing another disaster like the one in the Gulf. You said you wanted to do something—something big that they couldn’t ignore to stop them. But ever since we arrived you have been having second thoughts.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But it’s true.”
She didn’t deny it. “I just said I didn’t like your friend. The thought of spending a week with him confined to one small area of a ship . . .” She stopped, seeing the “I know something you don’t” smile spread across his features. “What is it?”
“If that is what is bothering you, you have nothing to worry about. Jean Paul isn’t coming with us on the drillship—only on the charter to help coordinate everything. He doesn’t dive. It will be me, you, and Claude.”
She’d just assumed . . . “He’s not?”
Julien shook his head.
Annie felt an enormous sense of relief. The only thing that would have been better was if Julien had said he wasn’t going at all.
“So what is it to be, Anne? We can’t do it without you. Has it all been talk? Are you going to back out and let the drillship company win, or are you willing to do what it takes to destroy them?”
If she thought it a strange choice of words, she didn’t pay too much attention to it. Julien was often a lit
tle off in translation.
Annie knew the time for indecision had passed. She thought of everything she’d done the past eight years to try to make sure nothing like the Gulf BP oil spill ever happened again. All the volunteer work, all the lectures, all the research and writing. She thought of all the times it felt as if she was banging her head against the wall to get anyone to listen to her, let alone care. She thought of the dead birds, turtles, and dolphins cloaked in black sludge. She thought of the beautiful Lewis seashore and knew there was only one decision she could make. “I’m in.”
Julien beamed. “I knew I chose wisely! Let’s get dressed and go find that beach.”
• • •
Keep your head down. Do your job. Don’t get involved.
Dean knew what he had to do, but as he sat on the captain’s chair in the wheelhouse, watching Julien and the other two men loading the black metal-trimmed equipment cases from the truck onto the boat, every bone in his body fought against it. The hairs on the back of his neck were on edge, and his spidey senses were going wild. It was the most alive he’d felt in months.
These guys were up to no good.
Once again, he wondered what Annie Henderson had gotten herself mixed up in. Although as she hadn’t arrived this morning with the other passengers, he hoped she was having second thoughts since he’d left her at the guest house a couple of nights ago.
He watched Julien and the other young guy—Claude—struggle with another large case as they carried it across the deck.
Fuck it. Dean pushed back from the chair, exited the wheelhouse, and descended the bridge stairs onto the deck. He’d never stood aside in his life, and he wasn’t about to start now.
When the two men emerged from below deck, Dean said, “I didn’t realize there would be so much cargo. What do you have in there? I thought you were planning to dive.”