The Sparks Broker, page 9
part #2 of S.A.S.S. Series
Iran would certainly warrant the no-activation order on her Big Brother positioning system, and explain Nathan’s lacking authorization to disclose their location to her.
Iraq could also warrant the security measure. The political climate there had changed substantially in the past several years, but relations were dicey at best. The newly elected leaders required a lot of “quiet” help in getting the new democracy off and running on stable ground, especially considering the level of opposition to democracy in surrounding countries, yet Darcy hadn’t advised S.A.S.S. of any reports that supported making the entire country a deactivation zone.
A different thought ushered in a different perspective.
Maybe the reason had nothing to do with her and everything to do with Nathan and his mission. It could be that his unit was functioning on a stealth footing for security reasons. But that would mean his mission wasn’t to check out caves.
Maybe Iran’s nuclear program?
Maybe the weapons of mass destruction everyone in the know felt certain Saddam had buried somewhere in the sand?
Nathan tapped her on the shoulder. When she looked over, he motioned for her to veer west thirty degrees.
She turned the wheel, and then made a forward rolling motion with her finger, asking how much further. The rugged hills in the distance, the knuckles of land extending into the water, were familiar to her already. She was very close to the cave where she had found the GRID compound.
Uncomfortably close.
Douglas must have either found the compound, or come close to finding it on his own. That increased the odds GRID had him by at least fifty percent. And that had her flesh crawling.
She slowed the boat to a stop, throttled the engine to idle. “Nathan, this isn’t good.”
“You know something you want to share?” In his seat beside her, he flicked a thumb on the edge of the GPS. The screen went blank.
“Want to? No.” It’d put him at greater risk. “But I need to,” she said. “If this is where Douglas disappeared, he was within spitting distance of a suspected GRID compound.”
“Oh, no.” Nathan’s left eye flickered like crazy. “You found an active compound? Here? Right under our noses?”
The salt spray settled a fine mist on her face. Kate licked her dry lips. “I haven’t been in the compound, Nathan. But I’m just about positive it’s here. I was in the cave leading to it, when two men intercepted me. I know for a fact they were GRID operatives, and I know for a fact the cave was audio-communications wired to the rafters.”
“Oh, great.” He dragged a worried hand through his hair. The wind had it spiked.
“Not so great.” She frowned. “Kunz, or one of his clones, was talking to the guy holding a gun on me.”
Nathan’s face paled. “Then they almost certainly have Douglas. Why didn’t you tell me this last night?”
“I didn’t know then Douglas had been diving here, and you couldn’t have done anything last night anyway. We were in the middle of a sandstorm.” She threw a level look his way. “Besides, I reported it to S.A.S.S. headquarters. At that point, I didn’t have the appropriate authorization to report anything to you.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened and he slid her a sidelong look laced with steely resolve. “I know Colonel Drake told you to trust no one, Kate. I relayed the message. But from here on out, you better trust me. They’ve got one of my men—now, I’m convinced of it—and I will do anything to anyone to get him back. Don’t hold out on me again. For all of us, the stakes are too high.”
“Okay, Nathan,” she agreed, but not unconditionally. “We work together. From here on out, what I know, you know.” She raised a finger into the air. “But that also means that anything you know, you better tell me.” She shifted on her seat and chose her words carefully, tasting the slight salty tang in the gentle breeze. “There’s more going on here than you realize, things that don’t pertain in any way to Douglas that I can’t tell you. So anything you know or learn might be exactly what I need to take care of this other business.” She lifted a hand and hiked up her shoulder. “Understood?”
He gave her a brisk nod. “Last night, you told me you could tell me, but then you’d have to kill me, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Well, what I can share without killing you, I will.” He held her gaze. “That’s the best I can do.”
“That’s good enough. We consider ourselves agreed.” Kate put her hand on the throttle. “Okay, where to?”
“Two minutes straight ahead, to that third knuckle.” He pointed to the exact spot where she had lost the C-273 communications device.
Her stomach soured, but she headed the boat in that direction. GRID knew she had located the cave that tunneled into the compound. There was no telling what new obstacles Thomas Kunz had put in place to keep them from breaching the actual compound.
The sadistic freak had no conscience, no morality, no humanity and no restrictions. With Kunz, every possibility was fair game, and that made him the most dangerous kind of enemy. He would initiate barriers, and they could be of any nature or type. Biological, chemical, nuclear. One of them or all of them. He couldn’t care less about fallout or collateral damage.
Though it was hard to believe such a man could exist, he had proven himself to S.A.S.S. repeatedly. His defense would be deadly and could be in the form of anything. Which meant Kate had better be ready for everything.
Two hours later Kate and Nathan had searched the area for Douglas, but had nearly tripped over Search and Rescue divers already searching.
Nathan received a quick report from a water-wrinkled member of Douglas’s tactical team who he’d assigned to Search and Rescue. “No sign of him, sir.”
They returned to the boat and moved even closer to the cave Kate had pegged as GRID’s, then dived again. But another hour later, they again came up empty-handed.
Swimming back to the boat, Kate climbed the ladder and got inside, then pulled off her headgear and shook her hair loose.
When Nathan had gotten in and set his headgear aside, she looked over at him. “We’ve got to check the original place I went down.”
“With a team, Kate.”
Stubborn cuss. “No, Nathan. Now.” She sent him her most genuine look. “I need to show you what I saw. I can’t be the only one to physically see it. You said it yourself. GRID knows I’m here. They fear what I know. They will try to kill me, Nathan. Someone else has to have seen this firsthand.”
“This being the cave?”
“This being the gouges in the rocks that led me to find the cave,” she corrected him and then goosed the engine. “Catch that anchor, will you?”
He tugged the anchor up out of the water and set it on deck. “Why are you moving the boat?”
“It’s a flashing beacon that we’re here. I’d rather not advertise it.”
He nodded and took his seat.
Kate shoved the stick forward. The engine whined and the boat nearly stood on end, then shot off across the water. On an angle with the large boulder, she backed off and again went to idle. “Here’s good.”
Nathan dropped the anchor.
They readied and then slipped over the side into the water.
By late afternoon they had been in the water for hours. Kate had pointed out the weathering on the rocks, the deep gouges just above the waterline—all the oddities that had led to her dive. They had explored, deliberately skirting the mouth of the GRID cave. Behind a large rock on the bottom, Kate pulled her binoculars out of her fanny pack, adjusted the setting, then looked through the lenses. The cave’s mouth was clear. She passed them to Nathan and hand signaled.
He took the binoculars and looked, then scanned a bit back and forth. Looking at her, he shrugged.
Not surprised he didn’t recognize it, she stood closer, backing against his chest, then set her sights on the cave’s mouth again. Then she dipped her chin to her chest, holding the binoculars steady.
Nathan came closer, clasped his arms around her to hold himself in place, and again looked.
Kate’s face felt like fire. How could a man snuggling up to her in a wet suit set her heart to racing? Every nerve in her body was hyper-alert.
He moved away and gave her a thumbs-up.
She frowned at him. He seemed so unaffected? How could just being close to him rattle her to the bone and he be totally unaffected?
He motioned for them to move on.
A bit off and out of sorts, she swam on.
While Nathan hoped to find some sign of Douglas, Kate hoped to find some sign of him and the C-273 communications device. So far, they had failed to meet either objective. An hour later their luck hadn’t improved.
But since the day wasn’t over, she held on to hope.
Something odd snagged her attention and Kate paused outside the mouth of yet another cave opening for a better look. She closely examined the face rocks around the mouth, letting her fingertips drift over the rugged surface.
The tide and current shoved water against them, and here too, there were gouges that cut into the rock far too deep to be attributed to water action alone.
These gouges were also manmade. Her stomach curled.
She kicked off to go inside, but felt Nathan tap her shoulder. This last time, they had dived with a mask rather than headgear to give them greater visibility. The tradeoff was their limited communication. She raised a questioning hand.
He pointed to her oxygen tank and then to his watch.
It was time to surface. Kate nodded that she understood and kicked upward.
The sun was sinking, casting a glare on the water. Taking off her mask, she squinted against it, smelled the fresh air and waited, but Nathan didn’t surface immediately.
Kate was just about to go back down to check on him when he finally broke the surface near her. “I was getting worried,” she told him. A swell rolled over her and a white-cap splashed in her face. “What took you so long?”
“I found something.” Nathan raised his arm out of the water. In his hand, he held a six-by-six black box.
And wrapped around it was a red ribbon tied in a bow.
“Oh, God.” GRID had found the C-273. “Let’s go. I’ve got a report this to Home Base immediately.”
“What is this thing?” Nathan held it up. “Are the contents lethal?”
Kate went to take the box from him, but he held on, staring at her, waiting for answers to his questions. “No, it’s not lethal in the way you think. There’s nothing in the actual box that will hurt you.”
“Then why do you look is if someone’s jumping on your grave?” He nodded to the C-273 device. “Kate, what is this thing?”
How did she answer that without breaching security? Finally she found a way. “It’s experimental and top secret, and that’s all I can say about it, Nathan. Except that it doesn’t have anything to do with Douglas. I give you my word on that.”
His whole attitude changed, and Nathan let go of the device. “Then you’d better let Home Base know we located it.” He turned to swim to the boat.
Kate tucked the device into her fanny pack, then turned to join him—and slammed smack into his shoulder. Pain shot through her chin and her breath swooshed out. “Oomph!”
Nathan didn’t seem to notice. “Kate, look.”
She rubbed at her chin and followed his line of vision. Their boat was gone.
Chapter Eight
Twilight threatened.
Kate gently kicked her legs, scanning the horizon one more time, but the boat hadn’t drifted or been carried by the tide.
It was nowhere in sight.
Her tired muscles cramped. She and Nathan had been at this for hours, treading water, working against the tide and current, trying to fight being swept out to sea. She glanced over at him. He was solemn, hurting and doing better than she. Off and on, she’d flirted with using emergency egress—the procedures were in place—but this close to GRID without a tactical team in place and ready to take down the compound could jeopardize the entire effort. They had to keep trying to get out of this on their own.
A flicker of movement caught her eye, about seven feet off her right shoulder. She strained to see what it was, but the glare of setting sun conspired with her nearness to the surface of the water; she couldn’t make it out. Whatever the object was, it was dark, large enough to disturb her, and it was floating closer.
“It’ll be dark soon,” Nathan said. “If we aren’t rescued before then, we’re going to have a big problem.”
“The tide’s coming in. I feel the shift in the current. That will help.” It would aid them in drifting toward shore. “With luck, by morning we’ll be there.” If they managed to stay afloat that long. She lifted a weary arm and pointed. “Nathan, what is that?”
He darted his gaze at Kate, then in the direction she pointed. “It looks like a...oh, man, Kate. It’s a mine!”
“Don’t touch it.” Kate moved closer to him, positioning herself between him and the mine.
“What are you doing?” He reached for her arm and tugged her back.
She looked over her shoulder at him. “I’m an explosives expert, remember? Let me see what it is. Maybe I can neutralize it.”
Roughly sixteen by thirty inches. Drab combat-green. A closer inspection had her skin crawling. “It’s a Mark 1. Pressure-sensitive.” Could the news possibly get any worse? “It’ll float for about an hour—buoy suspension. If we can avoid it until then, it’ll sink. We can float above and avoid it.”
Nathan stared at the distant water surface over her shoulder. “It’s got a lot of company. We can’t avoid all of them.” He spared Kate a glance. “Is there anything you can do?” Soon the drift mines would be above and below them. “Not without equipment I don’t have. How many do you see?” Kate paddled away from the mine, giving it lots of space.
“I can’t count them all,” he said honestly. “If these suckers only float for an hour, you’d better check below to see what they’ve done there. They wouldn’t go to all this trouble and leave us a way out in an hour.” He reached over and pulled her closer. “Stay near me. I’ll keep you clear of them up here.”
“Thanks.” Kate pulled on her face mask, grabbed hold of Nathan’s arm, let her hand slide down the outer length of him, and sank below the surface. Holding firmly to his leg, she spun in a small circle.
Sheer horror flooded her. Mark 3 mines were everywhere! Shimmying up Nathan’s body, Kate broke the surface and tossed back her headgear. “They’re all over down there. Mark 3s—same as Mark 1s but they float suspended about thirty-five feet below the surface.” She pulled in a sharp breath. “I’ve never seen so many mines in such a concentrated area. There are hundreds of them.” She scanned the water in all directions.
Panic flickered through Nathan’s eyes. The same panic Kate felt inside. “What are you looking for? We’ve got to get out of here. Fast.”
“These are launched from surface ships. I was looking to see where the stinking thing is.” And whose it was. The choice had been taken out of her hands now. She had to invoke emergency egress.
“Does it really matter? If we don’t outrun these things, or some fish bumps into one, we’re going to be blown to bits.”
“We might.” Kate slid the zipper of her wet suit down to the middle of her chest. She rubbed at her neck, depressed the implanted chip activating an SOS in her personal tracking device. Yes, she was in a no-activation zone. But this was a warranted emergency.
She looked around them, counted fourteen mines then stopped. At most, she and Nathan had three minutes to get out of here. By the fourth minute they’d be dead.
“Kate! Let’s move it.”
“Don’t panic, Nathan,” she said, responding to his elevated tone. “You can’t afford the luxury.”
“Don’t panic?” Nathan looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “I’d say panic is warranted. Do the math, Kate. We’re going to be dead in—”
“Four minutes,” she said calmly.
“Then don’t tell me not to panic. Let’s move.”
She rolled her eyes, making certain he saw it “Just listen to me. The mines are going to encircle us. They’re above and below the water—there’s nowhere to go, Nathan.” She paused a moment for her words to sink in, then went on. “I want you to try not to move. Float on your back and fold your arms across your chest.” As she gave the instructions to him, she also followed them. “We can see the mines around us. We can’t see the ones below. This position will best limit our blind exposure. Remember, stay perfectly still.”
“I’ll sink.”
“As still as possible,” she amended. “It could be that the mines can bump into us and not detonate. It depends on the amount of pressure they’ve set.”
“The trigger is adjustable?” Some of the worry left Nathan’s face.
Kate regretted having to put it back. “Yes, it is. It makes the weapon system more flexible and that makes it a viable option for a greater number of uses. But don’t hang your hope on that, okay? I have a feeling GRID meant these mines for us, and considering someone stole the boat to make sure we would be in the water, the detonator setting is probably at low level.”
“Do you hear that?”
A dull distant drone thrummed in her ears. Relief washed through her. “Yeah, I do.” She’d summoned, but had no idea how Home Base would respond or with what. “It sounds like...a helicopter.”
Moments later, a Chinook rounded a distant knuckle, no more than a large speck in the sky. But its shape was distinct with the twin props at front and rear atop. Her mouth went dry and she tore her gaze from the aircraft back to the water. The mines were all around them now. If the triggers were set on system minimums, the Chinook was too late. There was no way they’d get out of this alive.
“Do you think it’ll see us?” Nathan asked.
With her face turned away from him, Kate smiled. It seemed crazy to smile in this situation, they were now in the most intense danger of all, but the little-boy hope in Nathan’s voice was so alien to the man she knew him to be, she just couldn’t help herself. “Yeah, you know, I do.”
