The Tide (Tide Series Book 1) (10 page)

“That or hide.” Terrence gestured to the unconscious man.

“You think there are other survivors?” Andris asked.

“No idea,” Renee said as she cleared diesel residue from a lone gauge and tried to make out its purpose. “But let’s focus on getting the power turned back on so Alpha team can finish their lab recon and recovery.”

“And then we can get the hell off this shithole,” Terrence added.

Renee nodded before activating her comm link. “
Huntress
, this is Bravo One. Do you read?”

“Copy, Bravo,” Chao’s voice came over the comm link. “Go ahead.”

“
Huntress
, are you getting video?”

“Roger that. But your suit’s blocking part of the feed.”

Renee adjusted her headpiece and visor. “Better?”

“Looks good. We’re going to run through some diagnostics. Check the main generators first. See if we can start them.”

“Copy. What am I looking for?”

“There should be a panel with a bunch of gauges and buttons.”

Renee walked around the bulky parallel generators until she found a metal plate with six gauges and a series of large black buttons. “Found it.”

Chao guided her through priming and started the generator. Renee’s heart leapt as it shuddered briefly, but the machinery ground to a halt. She tried again with the same result. “Not working.”

“What’s the fuel level look like?” Chao walked her through checking the gauges and the fuel tank.

“Plenty of diesel,” she reported. “What next?”

“Stand by.” Chao’s line went silent for a moment, and then he said, “Check the engine for leaks or damage.”

Renee nodded to the rest of her squad to do as Chao said. She probed the cold metal tubes around the engine.

“Found something.” Andris held up a gunk-covered finger. “Oil leak.”

“Shit,” Chao’s voice cracked through the comm link. “Wet stacking, probably.”

“Wet what?” Renee asked.

“If life aboard the rig went downhill fast, I’m guessing the load on the generators was well below the normal output range. Probably accumulated a mess of unburned fuel, oil, water, and carbon particles—wet stacking—and that’ll keep the thing from starting.”

Renee drummed her fingers along the generator’s surface. “So what now?”

“The engine needs to be loaded for a few hours to burn off the excess fuel.”

She glanced down at the twisted corpse of the skull. “We don’t have hours. Alpha team needs power now.”

Renee moved several fuel drums surrounding the smaller backup generator. Some were tipped on their sides.

“Then fill the backup generator and pray it works.”

Renee signaled to her Hunters to hoist a barrel over the input nozzle of the backup. Andris, Ivan, and Terrence lifted a heavy barrel, their grunts echoing against the metal bulkheads. The diesel came out of the barrel in slurping waves, splashing against the side of the generator and over the floor. But enough made it in for Renee to see the needle on the gauge tick to the left.

“
Huntress
, this is Bravo One,” Renee said over the comm link. “The backup generator is full and ready to go.”

She pulled the on-switch, and the generator rumbled to life. Its deep cough reverberated through the room. She’d successfully revived the oil rig.

“Christ, that’s loud enough to wake the dead,” Andris said, yelling over the generator.

“Might not be so far from the truth.” Ivan nodded toward the dead Skull.

“We’re not sticking around to find out,” Renee said. She shouldered her rifle and walked toward the exit. “Let’s move,” she said with authority.

Terrence hoisted the unconscious mechanic over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

She led her Hunters back into the passage lit with emergency lights. The malicious red churned over the hallway. Renee worked her way carefully with her rifle sweeping the shadows. A whoosh sounded overhead as air flowed through ventilation ducts. There was something else, too. Faint but unmistakable. A howl. She shivered and increased her pace.

––––––––

“A
lpha One, this is Bravo One, you got lights on up there?” Renee asked over the comm link. “We’re en route.”

“Roger that, Bravo One,” Dom said over the comm link. “We have light. We’re in the central lab facility.”

The computers buzzed back to life. Sterile air circulated through the biosafety cabinets, and the temperature control panels outside the walk-in cooler blinked, flashing digital numbers. Dom welcomed the chirp of electronics and snapped off his NVGs as the lights dispelled the shadows in the lab.

“Plugging in the sat-link now,” Miguel said. He inserted a small device Chao had designed into a computer.

“
Huntress
, this is Alpha One,” Dom said. “You linked in?”

Samantha’s voice sounded over the comm link. “Roger that, Alpha One. We’ve got a live link to the rig’s intranet. It’s a jungle in there. They’ve buried whatever’s hiding on their servers pretty damn well.”

As the other Hunters collected small vials and chemicals stored in the lab’s freezers and coolers, Miguel tapped at a keyboard. The monitor requested a retina scan and a password. Miguel turned to Dom and shrugged.

“
Huntress,
we’re stuck on our end,” Dom said. “Can you give me a SITREP on their cyber security?”

“Firewalls and encrypted data...nothing I can’t handle with a little time.”

“How long are we talking?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen?” Dom glanced at Miguel’s prosthetic arm. The small screen still blinked in warning. “I’m giving you five before we get the hell out of here.” He called Renee next.

“Go ahead,” Renee’s voice came back in a hushed tone.

“Any sign of an armory, munitions dump, or explosives?”

“Nothing. Something up, Captain?”

“Miguel’s detecting trace explosives,” Dom said.

“Could it be the C4 we brought aboard?”

Miguel was listening in on the comm link and shook his head. “Chao calibrated the chip to control for whatever we brought aboard.”

“He’s right,” Chao’s voice broke over Dom’s earpiece. “You think that Skull did something to your arm, Miguel?”

“Other than a couple scratches, everything seems to be functional.” Miguel flexed the fingers on both hands and rotated his wrists to underline his point.

“The detector’s brand new. Maybe there’s an error.” Dom wanted to believe it. But Chao was an undeniably talented perfectionist; he didn’t make mistakes. The expression on Miguel’s face told the same story.

Dom’s heart hammered as the pieces of the puzzle started to click in place. He thought back to Meredith Webb’s report that a bioweapons facility had gone dark. There weren’t supposed to be any breadcrumbs leading back to this facility. He guessed it was never supposed to be found. And undoubtedly there’d be some failsafe mechanism put in place.

“Samantha, how long until you have everything you need?” Dom asked.

“I transferred some data. It’s still encrypted, so I don’t know what I’ve found. I’m trying to track communications between the rig and any onshore locations to identify any potential VPNs. But—” She paused. “There’s an application running, something unencrypted.” Her voice hitched up in excitement. “Dom, there’s something going on between the computers aboard the rig—a signal passing between transmitters. Seems like a...a countdown!”

Dom understood at once. “We need to leave! Bravo One, you copy? Cancel the rendezvous and get the fuck off the rig. Back to the Zodiacs!”

The drone of the generator sounded over the comm link. Renee’s voice was barely audible. “Copy, Alpha One, we’re moving!”

“Roll out!” Dom barked. He ushered his Hunters from the lab. “
Huntress
, do you have any word on that app—”

A thunderous roar resonated through the oil rig. More glassware tumbled from the shelves. A pipe burst, and clouds of white gas plumed from its gaping wound. Scott lost his footing, and Jenna caught him. Then a second explosion tore through the platform. This one seemed closer. Maybe only a deck below. The emergency lights flickered on and off.

The platform had been rigged to detonate. It was a final precaution to send the hulking steel behemoth plunging into the ocean along with the Skulls and all evidence of the bioweapons research on it. Dom guessed the power outage had disrupted the programmed explosives. Now there was no way to know when and where the bombs would go off.

“Go, go, go!” Dom yelled.

Another blast shook the platform. Dom sprinted behind his Hunters as they charged past the picked-apart corpse they’d seen earlier in the corridor. He fought for breath as he ran full speed. They made it out onto the platform’s main deck in a matter of minutes. Renee and her squad pounded up the stairs after them as smoke billowed from the platform’s interior. She gave him a silent nod, the fear and urgency in her expression undoubtedly matching the look on his face
.

As they sprinted across the empty helipad over the deck, Dom realized they weren’t the only ones desperate to escape the flames spouting from the rig. The gargled yells and shrieking wails of the Skulls pierced his eardrums as the creatures spilled from the bowels of the platform and out on the main deck.

––––––––

M
eredith Webb caught the sour scent of rotting fruit as she crouched behind the dumpster. She could see the silhouettes of two agents striding toward her location, weapons drawn. She knew they, like her, wore NVGs; the darkness wouldn’t be enough to conceal her position. She drew back behind a pile of trash bags someone had been too lazy to throw in the dumpster. When one agent moved close enough, she pounced. She swept a leg out to knock him from his feet and caught him in one swift motion. She pulled the man’s handgun from his grip and pressed it to his temple.

In a low voice, she spoke to the second agent. “Don’t do anything stupid, or he’s dead. Got it?”

The second agent lowered his weapon but said nothing.

“Got it?” She pressed the muzzle of her weapon harder into her hostage’s skin.

The second agent nodded.

“Give me your radio, cell, and pistol.”

The man thrust his hand into his pocket.

“Slowly,” Meredith added.

He was young, smooth-skinned. Meredith figured this might’ve been his first assignment with any real action. She recalled her own days as a brash new agent, serving in the CIA with Dom as a partner. On their first field outing, they'd been tasked with taking down a homegrown bioterrorist cult growing deadly strains of
E. coli.
The group had been ready to deploy their weaponized bacteria in an attack in Oregon, but Dom and Meredith had stormed in even though the agency hadn't yet authorized their infiltration of the bioterrorists' suspected facility. An intense gunfight with a dozen holed-up terrorists led to Dom taking a bullet through his shoulder and Meredith receiving a gunshot wound in her thigh. Yet they had kept fighting through the pain until the final terrorist, the leader of the cult, surrendered.

She saw a flicker of that same brazenness in the novice agent as the man pulled out his cellphone. She knew he wouldn't cooperate easily.

“Throw it over here,” Meredith said.

He hesitated before taking a step forward.

Her muscles tensed. She could sense his eagerness to take her down. “Don’t take another step.”

The agent’s jaw seemed to tighten, and his hand slipped into his jacket.

Meredith readjusted her aim and fired a suppressed shot into the agent’s thigh. The man went down, his hands clenching the leg wound, and the hidden pistol from his chest holster clattered across the asphalt.

“Fuck!” The agent yelped. He grabbed his leg and grunted, appearing to fight against the pain.

“Don’t make another sound. Don’t yell, don’t sneeze, don’t blink your goddamn eyes, or he’s dead.” Meredith tightened her arm around her hostage’s neck. She didn’t intend to kill him. Hell, she hadn’t wanted to hurt the other agent. But she knew he wouldn’t have stood down unless she showed how sincere she was.

Voices barked over the radio she’d taken earlier. “Any visuals on the target?”

“Negative,” another replied.

Meredith feared they were scouring the apartment building and closing the dragnet around the complex. Time was running out. She stuck one hand into her hostage’s jacket pocket. Her fingers hit plastic, and she pulled out a set of zip ties. Her hostage writhed in her grip, but it seemed he’d taken her warnings more seriously than his partner.

“On your knees,” Meredith said. “Hands behind your back.”

The man did as she said, and she cinched the zip tie cuffs around his wrists. She tore off his jacket and gagged him with the sleeve. The second agent huddled against the brick wall of the apartment building. His face seemed strained, as if he was biting back the agony that must be coursing through his leg from the gunshot wound.

When Meredith bent to gag him, he surged up and knocked her into the side of the dumpster. He swung a fist that glanced off her jaw. She staggered backward but ducked under his second jab. The agent lurched forward and dove for her legs. Meredith grabbed his shoulder and arm and used his momentum to slam him headfirst against the dumpster.

The hollow sound of skull against metal rang out. The man crumpled. Her stomach dropped as he twitched and then went limp. Killing an agent was never her intention. She knelt by him and pressed two fingers against his neck.
A pulse.
His chest rose and fell slowly. He’d have a hell of a headache, but he’d live.

She sprinted into the woods at the edge of the parking lot. The tree branches scratched at her as she flitted between the spindly trunks of tall pines. She raced through without looking back. Soon the dense branches blocked her view of the moon and stars. Her pack thumped against her back as she bounded over the underbrush. Soon, she reached a small creek gurgling over rocks. Its muddy trail led her toward a concrete drainage tunnel she recognized.

This was the next stage of her escape route. Her lungs burned as she strained to catch her breath. She spotted a familiar tree stump singed by lightning. Pine needles and fallen tree branches surrounded it. She knelt and dug through them to uncover a larger bag she’d stowed away. It contained MREs, comm equipment, extra clothes, and camping gear for her journey.