“These events seem to be on the rise,” he said after a moment. “Over the past decade, we’ve seen at least a twenty percent increase each year.”
“It’s been more like thirty most years, sir,” Eric Durance said wearily. “On average, at least. In reality, the increase is speeding up. This year was an almost fifty percent over last year, so we might be looking at the start of a geometric escalation.”
That was a bomb he’d been saving for another time, but the president’s words had given him the opening he needed to be taken seriously, and Durance wasn’t the sort to waste opportunities.
“If that’s true, we won’t be able to keep this quiet for more than another five years, and we’d better have some answers for the public,” he said, finishing off what his previous bomb had left standing.
The table descended into chaos as the generals and admirals began to argue over what could be done. It was all a joke in Durance’s opinion, since a military response wasn’t terribly useful when you didn’t know what the hell you were shooting at, where it was, what it wanted, or basically anything else about the enemy.
The president let them go on for a few minutes, then slapped his hand down on the table.
“Enough!”
They quieted down, sitting back as they returned their attention to the commander-in-chief.
“Does anyone here have a plan of action that might stand a chance in hell of doing something other than losing us more men and women?”
The assembled men looked at each other furtively, and no one answered, not until Karson quietly cleared his throat.
As one the table looked at the most junior man there, their expressions ranging from incredulous surprise to near malicious disapproval. The president, however, just nodded. “I’m listening, Admiral.”
“The first confirmed case was ten years ago,” Karson said, taking a deep breath as he mustered his courage. “The USS Fitzgerald was lost in the South China Sea, leaving only a handful of survivors. The initial investigation took over a year, and wasn’t really bumped up to this department for three years. Most of the survivors went with the official story, which was that there was a training accident and a fire on board the ship.”
“We’re aware of this.”
“Yes, sir.” Karson looked down at the table, avoiding the censorious gaze of the vice admiral on the other side of it. “The Fitzgerald was in that area on a retrieval mission, picking up a SEAL team that was coming back from a penetration of Chinese territory. Only two of the men survived, although they did achieve their mission of extracting the agent we’d flipped.”
Karson took out a folder and tossed it open onto the table.
“Meet one Harold Masters, team name ‘Hawk.’ He was an up-and-coming lieutenant in the Teams before that mission, on a fast track to command his own squad. He refused to go with the official story, except in public. In his reports he stated categorically, time and again, that his team had been attacked by something resembling a giant squid.”
Karson looked up at the assembled men, his eyes landing on Durance. “The CIA handler who was overseeing the extraction recommended that he be silenced before his ravings could spill over into other operations. Masters’s security clearance was revoked, and he chose to retire rather than being drummed out on a dishonorable.”
“What does this have to do with anything, Karson?” Durance asked.
“Look at what he’s been doing since that mission,” Karson said quietly, pushing a folder toward the other man. “We keep tabs on people like him, in case they need to be reminded of their confidentiality agreements. He hasn’t. However, he has been doing a lot of research since then.”
“Old copies of the Bible, Talmud, and Koran?” Durance asked, looking over the report. “Prophecy texts from 100 BC? Books on mysticism, new-age bullshit, and so-called cryptozoology? He’s a nut.”
“Fact. Masters’s SEAL team was destroyed by some kind of giant squid. His account agrees with his teammate’s, and even the Chinese national swore the same thing when we recovered him. And what they’ve said has been backed up by later encounters with similar creatures. Yes, his research isn’t exactly conventional, but these are the sorts of things we’re here to discuss, gentlemen,” Karson said firmly. “Masters has also read works on exobiology, genetic mutations, and paleobiology. This is a man who’s looking for answers, and he’s been looking for them for at least five years longer than we have.”
“We have resources he can’t even imagine. Anything he’s learned, we can find in seconds.” Cullen snorted derisively.
“True, but we would still need five years to build up that kind of knowledge,” Karson said in return. “Sirs, please, I’m not suggesting that we throw out everything we’ve done. What I’m saying is that it’s time to start thinking outside the box, at least until we can determine how big the damn box is. Masters was no fool — he’s cast a wide net, and I say we go ask him if he’s caught anything in it.”
The gathered men grumbled quietly, but went silent when the president leaned forward.
“You think this will get us anywhere, Admiral?”
“I don’t think we can afford to ignore the possibility that it might, Mr. President.”
The president nodded. “Very well. Go see your Mr. Masters.”
“Sir?”
“It’s your idea, Karson. Run with it.”
“Problems?”
The question had probably been an attempt at levity, but Samuel Karson growled unintelligibly at the speaker as he slumped in the chair behind his desk, staring at the far wall.
“I take it that it went well, then.”
His eyes rolled over to where his secretary was standing, stabbing at her with all the lethal energy he could muster. Immune as always, she just smiled pleasantly and handed him his correspondence and phone messages.
“You’d better clear my schedule for the next week at least, Jane,” he said with a weary sigh. “And book me a flight to Montana.”
Jane gave him a strange look, but didn’t comment beyond giving him a simple nod as she made a note on her pad. “Anything else?”
“Bring me everything we have on former Lieutenant Harold Masters from the Teams,” he said. “And I mean everything. Not the edited file I already have.”
“I’ll get on it.”
“Thank you. That’ll be all.”
The woman slid silently from his office, vanishing into the outer rooms to do what she did so well, and Karson found himself wondering what he’d gotten himself into. He’d wanted Masters to be consulted, of course, but he hadn’t expected to be assigned to do it himself. He was both too junior for the scope he suspected this project might take, and too senior for the immediate job that needed to be done.
Not that it mattered, not now that the president himself had asked him to do it.
There were things in the files that he hadn’t mentioned at the meeting, things about Hawk Masters that worried him. The man had been one of the bright stars of the navy before the Fitzgerald incident, a rising star by all accounts, the sort of man who had the physical stamina to survive BUD/S, the US Navy’s SEAL training course, and the mental chops to do just about anything in the world that he wanted.
After the incident, though, he seemed to have suffered a breakdown as far as Karson could tell. The man had dived into occultism and mystic nonsense like he was looking for religion. If that was what he’d been seeking, though, he didn’t seem to have found it. Karson was wondering what it would be like to meet the man face to face for the first time.
A navy sailor who’d seen too much? A broken soul, like many of the other “survivors” of similar incidents, including several from the Fitzgerald itself? Or something else entirely?