“…the TV network, The Science Channel mounted a privately funded expedition to locate the spacecraft on the ocean floor. Interestingly enough, for a while it looked like they would be unsuccessful, although they did find a wreck of another sort— one that historians agree is most likely a sixteenth-century Spanish treasure ship.”
“And that find has a lot of unwanted attention converging on the area,” the General chimed in.
“Yes,” the Admiral said, “but since then the TV expedition succeeded in locating the capsule and have made a series of preliminary unmanned dives to it with a remotely operated vehicle. CIA intelligence shows that they are now on site preparing to make a serious attempt at raising Liberty Bell 7. They, of course, have no idea that a nuclear bomb rests inside that capsule.”
The analyst clicked off the overhead monitor, casting the room a shade darker. The admiral spoke next, leveling a steely gaze at Dane and Bones.
“And we have direct orders from the President of the United States to make certain it stays that way. We need you two to ensure that the network’s effort to raise the capsule is not successful. We need you to do this as quietly as possible. The optimal outcome would be for you to extract the nuclear payload from the capsule before anyone knows about it and bring it to us. Failing that, either destroy the bomb on the seafloor — without getting yourselves killed. Or, as a last resort…”
The admiral trailed off, eyeing the CIA agent, who finished his sentence for him.
“…make sure that the television expedition meets with an accident.”
Chapter 3
The fishing trawler F/V Atlantic Pride wasn’t much to look at. Steaming east at a leisurely cruising speed, the streaks of rust on her hull and the plume of black exhaust from her chugging diesel told a casual observer that this was a tired, aging workhorse of a boat, perhaps a couple of seasons away from the end of her useful life. This image was carefully chosen, however, in order to provide a rustic veneer over what was in fact a state-of-the-art special warfare platform for the U.S. Navy.
Dane stood at the helm of the nondescript vessel while beside him in the wheelhouse Bones monitored the radar, sonar and chartplotters. Upon landing in Cape Canaveral, they’d been driven to Port Canaveral where they boarded the Atlantic Pride in the wee hours of the morning. They were then given a full tour of its layout, functionality and covert features by Captain Epson, who wished them “Godspeed” and left Dane and Bones on the vessel. The SEAL duo had the boat underway shortly after that, still under cover of darkness.
Now early afternoon, they’d motored all day to reach this remote area of the Atlantic. After initially inspecting the boat’s engine compartment, Dane had expressed concern to Epson that it would take far too long to get three hundred miles offshore, but Epson had smiled and bent down to a concealed hatch cover overlain with a carefully placed application of grime. Lifting the cover, Epson had beamed while he pointed out a gleaming set of twin Volvo diesels. “Less than fifty hours on these things,” he’d said, explaining, “To get you out there fast, there’s a concealed switch on the instrument panel, underneath the weather fax. Flip that and you shut off the original engine and switch to the new twins. Just remember to switch back to the old when you approach the site, because you want to look like an old, slow fishing trawler, not something that can do forty knots all day long.”
Both had appreciated the features of the old scow, including the redundancy of the three engines, as well as the other special features Epson had pointed out.
Now, approaching the capsule salvage area, Bones lifted a pair of marine binoculars and scanned the waters ahead. He had reached the end of his arc when the glint of sunlight off metal arrested his gaze. “Got something.” He steadied himself with one arm on the instrument console.
“There she is! R/V Ocean Explorer,” Bones said, giving the name they were told in the latter portion of their briefing was that of the Science Channel’s research vessel. “Pretty big boat. A ship, I’d call it.”
“Let me have a look.” Bones handed Dane the binoculars and he scoped out the television expedition’s vessel. “Yeah, geez. Got to be almost a hundred and fifty feet. Converted mega-yacht, looks like. They don’t look like they’re under power right now.”
Dane handed the glasses back to Bones and flipped the switch that would activate the old engine. The deceptive trawler slowed, but kept heading toward the salvage site.
“Hey Maddock,” Bones said from underneath the binoculars. “I see some activity on the stern deck. Looks like a camera crew.”
Dane gave a quick laugh. “Out of all the targets a SEAL could be asked to engage with, I’ll take a camera crew aboard a modified luxury yacht any day.”
“I hear you,” Bones said, setting aside the binoculars and turning to his associate. “It seems a hell of a lot easier than extracting some diplomat from a Liberian oil tanker off the coast of Somalia, you remember that?”
“Don’t remind me.”
“I know. But at the same time…” Bones trailed off.
“At the same time what?” Dane wanted Bones to clear whatever it was that seemed to be weighing on him off his chest before they got any closer to the site.
“I don’t know if I…” Bones stalled again.
“You don’t know if you could kill civilians to protect the secrets of our mission?”
“Yeah. I mean, those are our orders, right? ‘Make sure they have an accident.’ That sucks.”
“That’s a last resort,” Dane reminded him. “We’ll do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t come to that.”
“But if it does come to that…”
A flash of light on the water caught their attention. “Hold on, did you see that?” Dane asked.
“White flash?”
“Yeah. Gotta be a good nautical mile from the TV ship, too.”
Bones saw a second blip light up on their radar circle and grabbed for the binoculars. “It’s another boat, just flipping on their deck lights for the evening, looks like.”
“Part of the TV expedition?”
Bones examined the ship again. After a while he said, “It looks like they’re towing something. Let’s move in for a closer look.”
Dane glanced over at the Ocean Explorer, then back to the mystery ship before throttling up and heading toward the latter. He looked down on the work deck once and then back to Bones, as if thinking about something.
“Before we get too close we should get out on deck and do some fishing. It’s part of our cover,” he said. He opened a storage locker and grabbed a couple of rod-and-reel combos. “We can just fish and watch them from the deck, try to see what they’re up to.”
Bones indicated his agreement and Dane set the boat to a trolling speed, engaging the auto-pilot so that it would hold its course and then the two of them went out to the work deck.
“I’ve done a lot of trout fishing in North Carolina, but not much ocean fishing,” Bones said. “You know what you’re doing?”
Dane looked up from the lure he was tying onto his line. “I lived most of my life in Florida. I know my way around a deep sea fishing rig. Way out here we’ll probably catch something pretty quick.”
“Won’t it look funny for a commercial boat to be using rod and reels, though?”
“No, just heading from one spot to the next the commercial guys sometimes fish for fun. I think it’s best to have some kind of activity on deck when we first approach. I can almost feel the binoculars on us now.” Dane and Bones gazed at the two ships in the distance.