"I'm in place," the female caller replied.
The director sensed the tension in her voice, felt she knew that breaking protocol might be at the cost of her life. Operatives always worked through intermediaries; they didn't work with the director. Ever.
Nonetheless, she was the agent in the field and the only one who could help remedy a crisis that was spiraling out of control.
"I have an update," she said.
The director said nothing. His only response was to push the earpiece more tightly into his ear as he waited for her to continue.
When she spoke, her voice was void of emotion. "I'm taking care of it. The girl, done. The insider, done. Evers, next."
The director went to his computer. He right-clicked the contingency file that had been prepared, selected Send To and then selected the caller's number. "Sending," he said finally.
Chapter 9
Safely aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, Alexis paused at the bulkhead door. She looked at her phone, saw the text containing the attachment from the director. "Received," she said as she opened the file.
The called ended.
She read through the file as her thoughts raced. I have my final orders, she told herself, intending to comply fully with everything expected of her.
She looked at her watch. Less than 36 hours now to do what must be done to change the world and decide everything.
She knew she was in uncharted territory, that things had gone terribly awry. She was in trouble, but pushed dread from her thoughts.
Her basic survival instincts had kicked in and she was operating on a new adrenaline rush that coursed through every part of her. It was the kind of high she had after a good kill. The only thing she needed to do now was to make things right with the director and try to get out alive.
As expected, the HH-60H Rescue Hawk had taken her to the Kearsarge after discovering her in the water and the shipboard triage team had taken her directly for treatment. She was after all unconscious and only partly responsive at the time from the drugs she injected once she sighted SAR and waved them to her.
The drugs slowed her heart rate and lowered her body temperature dramatically-enough to make it look like she was suffering the effects of hypothermia after being in the waters of the Mediterranean all day.
Being moved from incoming triage to the infirmary was an unexpected windfall. She easily killed the girl and the insider in the infirmary. She should have been able to get to Evers in the infirmary, but he wasn't where he was supposed to be. He never seemed to be where he was supposed to be.
After a quick backward glance, Alexis opened the bulkhead door and walked hurriedly down the hall in search of another fortuitous windfall. A windfall whose neck she was going to snap like a twig.
She was accustomed to following carefully constructed plans, but this situation had completely fallen apart and the director himself had taken over.
She was unnerved by this, but resolved herself to her task. She had endured no shortage of challenges in her life and had learned to rely on her intellect and training to overcome whatever obstacles were in her way. Her goal now was to do what she must and survive the inevitable backlash no matter what it took.
Chapter 10
The Navy SEAL standing next to Captain Howard snickered, but the captain brushed him aside. "Evers? I've heard about you," the captain said. "Brass balls indeed."
Scott grimaced. Captain Howard had more than heard of Scott. The two had met before, but it seemed only Scott remembered the encounter.
Captain Howard returned the look. "Evers, is there a SEAL detail under my command that you haven't harassed or harangued?"
Scott was too torn up inside to grin, but he almost could have. "Probably not, sir. Nothing personal. My job to protect Shepherd's crew and mission. Yours, your mission. The job."
The last two words set Scott's thoughts spinning again. The j-o-b had always been his excuse with Edie. "Damn you, Edie, for dying on me," he told himself.
"Evers, what am I going to do with you?" The captain asked. "You deserve the brig. You've earned-"
Midshipman Tinsdale cut in, "If I may, sir. Evers was my responsibility. Orders were to the mess and then back to the infirmary for further observation, sir."
Tindale's voice cracked on the final sir and the captain winced. For a moment, the captain seemed unsure what to do. The master chief intervened. He reached out to Scott, shook Scott's hand.
As the chief ushered Scott forward, he said quietly, "Cooper was my man. You did a good thing out there. Saved him. If Midshipman Tinsdale can recognize that, hell, I can too." Then louder, the master chief said, "Where did you serve, Evers? Too good, too smug not to have."
"A few too many duties. A few too many wars," Scott said as the midshipman took the opportunity to step away and into the hallway. "Then field operations for the Agency, a few more unnamed wars, and now, well…"
"Which agency?" the chief asked.
"The NSA-" Scott caught himself as he was about to say "sir," but he knew better. No master chief was a sir. A master chief was what he was and so he finished by saying, "-master chief."
As the master chief turned to face the unhappy SEAL standing beside Captain Howard, Scott noted the chief's name tag for the first time. It read: ROBERTS.
Scott did a double take. Was this the Master Chief Roberts he'd heard so much about? If so, the man was a living legend or as much of one as there could be in the close-knit special operations circles Scott traveled in.
Against the weight of the chief's stare, the Navy SEAL in covert field dress said, "Evers is a risk to security, to our operations. What in the world could he offer up that's possibly worth our time?"
Just as he had taken a moment to size up the chief, Scott now took a moment to size up the speaker. It was something he normally would have done without a second thought, but he wasn't thinking straight and this wasn't a normal situation. It was an extraordinary circumstance. One that had started with the sinking of the Bardot III and culminated in a well-planned, precision attack on both the Sea Shepherd and two heavily armed NSW RIBs.
The one thing he was sure of: The attack was timed and meant to hit the Shepherd and the RIBs. But were the Bardot and the Shepherd targets of opportunity to guarantee of a full-scale naval response in the Mediterranean? Or were the Bardot and the Shepherd part of a bigger plan-one that also required a full response from the US Navy?
The SEAL carried himself in a way that spoke of authority and the tall, broad-shouldered man certainly had no qualms about approaching or speaking openly to Captain Howard and Master Chief Roberts. If as Scott suspected, Captain Howard was the Kearsarge's executive officer, the SEAL was likely the commander of covert operations. If so, that meant the SEAL was the overall commander of all SEALs aboard the Kearsarge and that would explain a lot.
Scott had given the SEALs who tried to board the Sea Shepherd no shortage of guff. But he didn't want them aboard the Shepherd. It was one thing if the Navy suspected the Shepherd's crew were cutting nets and sabotaging Tunisian fishing boats, another if evidence was found that they actually were.