Authors: Graham Brown
That was odd. They’d been preparing one an hour ago.
“What are you talking about?”
“We’re not raiding the place.”
“Why?” she asked.
“That rock is in Iranian waters,” Moore reminded her. “It’s been in dispute between Iran and Iraq for decades. The damage you see was done all the way back in ’86. No one’s touched it since.”
“So?” she said. “What does that have to do with us? Surely we’re not letting Iranians deal with it.”
“Yes,” he said sarcastically, “everyone here is eager to tell Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the weapon of mass destruction he’s always wanted is just waiting for him a few miles off his coast.”
“Then what are we doing?” she asked. “If there’s no assault team, and we’re not going to involve the Iranians …”
“The navy’s going to hit the island with a spread of Tomahawks,” Moore said. “It’s a presidential order.”
“When?”
“Twenty minutes from now.”
She took a breath. “What about the hostages?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Obviously they’ll be lost if they’re on-site.”
Silence rang on the line and Danielle glanced over at Hawker. He could hear every word. He hadn’t reacted, almost as if he suspected it would go this way.
She felt for him. She understood why the president would make the decision Moore had attributed to him, and sentiment was not going to override that. But there were logical reasons not to blindly obliterate the island.
“What if the cult isn’t there?” she said. “What if these are just some squatters? We’re going to end up thinking we’ve saved the world only to get sucker-punched one day.”
“We can establish that after the fact.”
“After you blow the island to hell?” she said. “Do you think there will be enough left to establish anything? Do you think the Iranians are going to say,
‘Hey, go ahead put some inspectors on our island, why not? Nice of you to blow it up for us in the first place’?
”
Moore responded with evidence. “The freighter wasn’t there six months ago,” he said. “We’ve tracked it to an undisclosed buyer in Singapore. It was dumped for scrap. It should be in pieces somewhere getting melted down, not jammed up on the beach of an Iranian island in the Gulf. This is the site, we’re sure of it. And after what we’ve learned no one’s taking any chances.”
Danielle knew he was right, but she could only think of the heartbreak, and not just Hawker’s.
“The virus Ranga created can be used for good,” she said. “You know that. It could lead to all kinds of treatments, things that are just theoretical right now. You destroy that ship, you destroy the research.”
“Better than a worldwide catastrophe,” he said.
“And if they have another base?”
He hesitated.
“Come on, Arnold. There’s a reason the CDC keeps anthrax and smallpox and other nasty germs on hand, because we need to research them and understand them in case something happens. This ship is our only chance to get ahold of 951 and the Eden virus. Our only chance to understand them. You blow it to ashes and the next time we see a virus like this, it’ll be too late for everyone.”
“Danielle, I know all this,” Moore said, sounding exhausted. “I’ve spent the last hour making the same arguments to the president and his staff, but one concern overrides all the others. According to your prisoner they have missiles. Unless they’re extremely short-range that puts Kuwait, southern Iraq, and most of the Gulf in the red zone. One missile, one dispersal, and it’s all over.”
The weight of the truth pressed her down like a heavy stone on grass. She felt spent, exhausted, defeated. She couldn’t even think of another argument.
After days of fighting with Hawker, Moore, and Yousef, after traveling from Washington to Croatia to Paris to Beirut and then Iraq, she had nothing left, especially since she knew Moore was right.
Moore sensed it. “I appreciate everything you and Hawker have done,” he said. “But direct from the president, you’re both to stand down.”
The buffeting sound returned. It took all she had to speak another word. “Anything else?”
“Please tell Hawker I’m sorry,” Moore said.
“I will,” she said, and then she clicked off and Moore was gone.
On the speeding boat in the Persian Gulf, she placed the phone down and turned to Hawker.
“You don’t even have to say it,” he said.
“I’m so sorry,” she told him.
“They do what they have to,” he said, sounding oddly at peace with the order.
She could guess why. “You’re still going in,” she said.
He nodded.
“Then I’m going with you.”
“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “It’s not your fight.”
“Your fight is my fight,” she said. “Besides, this is my job. They bomb that place to hell without any idea what’s there and we’ll never know if we’ve dodged a bullet or if it just hasn’t been fired yet.”
Hawker nodded, then looked past her. “Keegan, you want us to drop you over the side with a life jacket or two?”
Keegan looked back from the helm as if Hawker had lost his mind. “You know I can’t bloody well swim,” he said.
“You grew up on an island,” Hawker replied. “You were a Royal Marine. Last I heard
marine
means something to do with the water.”
“What can I tell you,” Keegan said. “Standards were lower back then. Besides, the chance to violate Iranian sovereignty for a second time in two days absolutely intrigues me. I don’t think it’s ever been done. We could be legends. I could retire, put on fifty kilos and still get free pints at every pub in London if I had that feather in my cap.”
Hawker chuckled and squinted into the distance. “So it’s the three of us against whatever they have waiting.” He turned back to her. “How many guys do you think they have?”
Danielle exhaled. “Knowing our luck, at least a hundred or so.”
The absurdity of it brought a smile to Hawker’s face. He began to laugh. Keegan did, too. And Danielle joined in, giggling at her own joke.
“Poor bastards,” Keegan said. “They don’t stand a chance.”
H
aving given the order, Arnold Moore waited. With his eyes closed, and his tie long gone, he tried to relax. News would come eventually. Whether good or bad, it would come. He didn’t have to go looking for it now.
He opened his eyes and glanced at the clock. Fourteen minutes remained until the air strike. In the silence and the dark, each second seemed like an eternity.
The phone rang, startling him. He focused on the small glowing numerals above the keypad and recognized Danielle’s coding.
He hit the speaker button.
“We’re a mile from the island,” she said, before he could utter a word. “We see no activity.”
Moore leaned forward. “What the hell are you doing, Danielle?”
“I’m sorry, Arnold,” she said. “But we’re going in.”
He could hardly believe what he was hearing. Then again he almost expected it.
“We’ll be on the island in less than a minute,” she said. “I just wanted you to know.”
“Goddamn it!” he shouted. “Don’t do this, Danielle! It’s suicide. It’s a violation of—”
She cut him off. “Once upon a time, you violated every rule, order, and directive you’d been given to come get
me. You turned to Hawker when no one else would help. I’m not letting him down now that it’s our turn.”
She spoke calmly, with certainty, and Moore felt his throat tighten. He had no response that could stand the light of scrutiny. He’d done exactly what she’d said. He also knew there was no way for this to end well.
“We have some weapons,” she said. “We’ll do what we can to take them by surprise. But …”
“But what?”
“We’ve been one step behind this whole time and if this goes sideways and we disappear … then by all means, please obliterate that island as planned.”
Moore’s heart churned inside him. He was proud of her resolve and filled with fear for the outcome. The simple fact was he couldn’t stop her. The truth was, he didn’t know if he wanted to.
“You have fourteen minutes,” he said finally. “Don’t waste time talking to me.”
The call dropped and Moore sat alone listening only to the static over the speaker. Reluctantly he reached forward and pressed the button, cutting the line.
He took a breath. He had no choice but to contact the president and update him on the situation, but before he could do so a knock sounded at his door.
Too tired to stand or even call out, Moore flipped the switch that controlled the wall’s opacity. For the first time in months they turned instantly clear. Walter Yang stood on the other side of the door.
“Now’s not a good time, Walter.”
“I have information,” Yang said. “It’s about the virus.”
In the Persian Gulf, the small powerboat moved through the darkness half a mile from the northern tip of the island. A bit of luck in their favor had the wind out of the south, which would help mask the low rumbling of their
engine. In addition, the night was black as ink, though the moon would be up in ten minutes.
Until then the darkly colored boat with its low profile would be difficult to spot unless someone was looking directly for them. A fate that was a distinct possibility.
Crouched in the aft section of the boat, dressed in a black wetsuit, Danielle stared through a thermal scope looking for signs of trouble. She saw no sign of men or machinery operating on this side of the island. Only small dots here, there, and everywhere that she took to be cormorants in their nests. The species was known to claim the island at this time of year.
Beside her Hawker was busy securing their weapons and strapping their body armor to dive harnesses.
“How close you want me to get?” Keegan whispered.
They were cruising slowly now, making almost no wake at all. Danielle wasn’t sure at what point the need to conserve time would be trumped by their desire to maintain the element of surprise.
She glanced at Hawker.
He’d grown tremendously quiet, his demeanor changing and darkening. She sensed a fire of grim determination in his heart. He had to expect the worst when he stepped on that island. In all likelihood, whatever they found there would bring him pain.
If Sonia had held out against the cult’s demands, she was probably in a horrendous state by now, alive because they needed her, almost certainly beaten and tortured. Savi and Nadia would have fared worse.
And if Sonia had given the cult what they needed, she might be dead already.
“See any lookouts?” he asked.
She shook her head. Hawker turned to Keegan.
“Kill the engine,” he said. “Take us in as far as we can coast,” he said.
“You sure you want to get that close?”
“If they’re watching we’re dead anyway,” he said. “I’d much rather have them start taking potshots at us while we’re still in the boat.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then we save five minutes swimming.”
Keegan goosed the throttle a touch, picking up some more speed, and then feathered it back and cut it. The narrow boat knifed through the calm water toward the rugged, tawny-colored rocks.
Danielle swept the coast with the thermal scope as Hawker did the same with a night-vision scope mounted to the barrel of one of the rifles. No one shot at them, no one challenged them.
“Too good to be true,” Hawker whispered.
A minute later she and Hawker slipped off the back of the boat a mere hundred yards from the beach. Keegan turned the boat away and coasted north, drifting with the wind and the current. He would drift for a while and then circle the island and come in near the freighter to pick them up. If they had any hope of surviving, they would need his help to get off the island before those missiles hit.
When Danielle emerged from the water, she was a few yards from the shore. Ten feet ahead, Hawker crouched by a VW-sized boulder on the beach. She moved up beside him.
“See anything?” she asked.
“Not yet,” he said.
They pulled on their flak jackets and began to move, traveling up over a ridge before pausing again. Another round of scanning revealed nothing to trouble them.
In a crevice to the right a pair of bird nests sat empty, prodigious droppings marring the ground all around them.
“Let’s not disturb the flock,” Hawker said.
Danielle agreed. A hundred cormorants suddenly launching into the air would probably give them away.
She covered Hawker as he began to move, navigating across the weatherbeaten island before coming to a sudden stop. He dropped to the ground and then signaled her to stay put. She held her position.
He moved to the right, stepped around a large boulder with his weapon raised and ready, and then he stopped again. For several seconds he stood there, appearing from a distance to be confused. He poked at something on the ground with his rifle and began looking around.
What the hell was he doing?
Wearing black in the darkness he was nearly invisible, but even so, standing in the open was foolish.
Finally he crouched and waved her up.
She dashed forward, pressing against a boulder as she reached him.
“What the hell was that all about?”
“Something’s wrong,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
He motioned to the other side of the boulder and she moved forward to see what he’d been inspecting.
There, lying across a bundle of pipes and hoses that seemed to spread across the island like vines, she saw two men. Armed men. Dead men.
“Look at this,” Hawker said.
With the tip of his rifle, he opened one of their shirts. Danielle could see the branding on the man’s chest. GEN 2:17, just like what they’d found on Ranga and Yousef.
“Members of the cult,” she whispered.
“Shot in the head,” he told her.
She bent closer, examining the wound and realizing it was from a small-caliber weapon, just like on the bodies of Lavril’s men in Paris. She noticed something else.
“They’re still warm,” she said.
“Not dead long,” Hawker replied, looking at her. “What the hell is going on here?”
She wasn’t sure but a thought sprang to her mind. “Endgame,” she said. “Jonestown, Waco, Aum Shinrikyo.”