Cold Shot: A Novel Page 3

  Elham turned his head and looked out the forward windows. He’d known that question was coming and wished he could lie about the answer, but doing that would stop nothing in the long run. Perhaps it would have bought him time to get away from this mission but he’d never been one to avoid his duty. “One container breached in the forward hold,” Elham said.

  Ahmadi hissed through his teeth. “This one went through it.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes. One squad discovered the damage while searching the hold for pirates.”

  “How did he breach the casings?” Ahmadi asked, furious.

  “It seems that he used some of the other equipment we had stored below.” Elham shifted his rifle in his hands and stared down at the captives kneeling on the deck. “Your orders?”

  Ahmadi stood and looked around at his men. “Clear the bridge of this garbage and seal the hold. Change course, heading one-eight-five until further notice.”

  “We’re not going home?” Elham asked. His surprise was an act. “We should return for a proper crew—”

  “You know what this vessel carries?”

  “Not precisely,” Elham admitted. “But I know who you are, so I can guess.”

  “Then you know that there is too much invested here,” Ahmadi answered. “Sargord, take charge of the ship and proceed on course to the destination port, best possible speed.”

  You mean you have too much invested, Elham thought. You were stupid to send this ship and crew out so lightly armed. This entire operation was a gamble not worth taking in his view, but he kept the thought to himself. Ahmadi was a connected man—connected at Tehran’s highest levels—and crossing him would be unwise.

  Ahmadi turned to the windows and stared out over the massive vessel. “Can you repair that?” he asked, pointing at the smoking hole in the deck.

  “No,” Elham told him. “Even if we had the engineers, we don’t have the equipment or materials needed to fix something of that size.”

  “Hide it, then,” Ahmadi ordered. “Cover it with something.”

  “Someone might see it before we can finish the job. Their satellites might have already spotted it,” Elham protested. “We should—”

  “Don’t presume to tell me what we should do,” Ahmadi said, cutting the major off.

  Elham paused and thought carefully about his answer. “Very well. And them?” He nodded toward the Somalis.

  Ahmadi stared at the captives for a few seconds, then shrugged. “We are fortunate that the security of the operation and justice demand the same thing, so let justice be done.” Then he nodded at the pirate curled up on the floor. “Except that one. A commanding officer is responsible for the actions of his men, is he not?”

  “Always,” Elham agreed.

  “Then we will leave that one to Allah.”

  Foolishness, Elham thought. Rumors were that Ahmadi was not a religious man. Elham had no problem believing that. He had seen Ahmadi’s kind before. No matter. Elham wasn’t an overly religious man himself, but in this case he was perfectly ready to accept God’s judgment. These pirates had killed his countrymen. Mercy was for the merciful. Christians had that much right at least.

  USS Vicksburg (CG-69)

  Combined Task Force 150

  The Gulf of Aden

  Red sky at morning . . .

  Captain “Dutch” Riley had always paid attention to that old adage. It wasn’t true for every sea in the world, but old wisdom survived for a reason and technology didn’t change a sailor’s job as much as junior officers liked to think. A few hundred generations of sailors had lacked any better way to forecast storms than staring at the sky and Riley wondered which captain had finally cracked the weather code. Whoever that man was, he’d stood on the deck of his wooden vessel morning after morning, maybe for years, staring at the horizon until something clicked in his head. That was the key. Man had spent enough time connecting with the sea and sky around him to finally understand how his world worked. The sea was always trying to talk, but too many sailors weren’t listening anymore.

  It was just too easy to get disconnected from the sea these days, especially on the bigger ships. He’d gone whole days without seeing the sky as a junior officer on the Bunker Hill and the Leyte Gulf. Those days could turn into weeks, easy, on a carrier where stepping onto the flight deck was a life-threatening exercise. Riley didn’t even like thinking about what life on a submarine would be like. So he walked the deck at dawn, enjoyed the slight rolling of the ship under his feet, and thanked heaven that he could suck in the fresh air whenever he felt like it and listen to the water.

  Not that there was much to hear at the moment. The sky was clear today and the only breeze came from Vicksburg’s own forward motion. It’s September, Riley reminded himself. Another few weeks before the monsoons. Vicksburg would be on her way home by then—

  “Good morning, Captain.” Riley turned his head without lifting his arms off the rail. Command Master Chief Amos LeJeune was a tall man, half a head taller than Riley, and thin with a frame built from a life of eating bayou food. He carried the usual second mug, which he delivered to his commanding officer, reserving his salute until the captain took the offering.

  “Yet to be determined, Master Chief,” Riley said, returning the salute. He took a swig of LeJeune’s brew into his mouth—good stuff. “But the coffee’s decent, so we’re off to a good start.” Decent was an understatement. He was sure he tasted chicory.

  “Nice to see that I don’t have to start digging out of a hole so early in the day,” LeJeune agreed. The Cajun took a small swig from his own cup.

  “Six months aboard today,” Riley observed. “You miss the Blue Ridge yet?” The Blue Ridge was the command ship for the Navy’s Seventh Fleet in the Pacific.

  “The Hotel Blue Ridge?” LeJeune asked. “No, sir. She’s a fine ship, that one. Good chilimac. But it’s nice to be on a ship armed with something bigger than a .50 cal. Command ships run at the first sign of trouble and they do it proud. Thought it would be fun to ride toward the trouble for once.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” Riley said. “This isn’t exactly a hotbed, is it?”

  “Hot, anyway,” LeJeune told him. “Not your fault, sir. Just luck of the draw on the orders. Not that I mind chasing pirates. Oldest naval duty that ever was. But I wouldn’t mind pushing the button to launch a Harpoon at somebody who deserves it.”

  “Me too, Master Chief—”

  “Sir!”

  Riley didn’t remember the name of the female seaman apprentice running toward him along the starboard rail. He’d met every member of the crew but it was tough to keep four hundred names in his head. These kids all came and went too fast.

  The seaman slowed to a halt and saluted. “Captain. Master Chief.” Salutes returned, the seaman caught her breath for a second. “Sorry to disturb you, sirs. We’ve got a life raft, maybe three hundred yards off, passing port side aft. Can’t see if there’s anyone in it, but I don’t have glasses.” By which she meant binoculars. “Sorry ’bout that, sir.”

  Life raft? Riley thought. There hadn’t been any reports of ships in distress in these waters. “Very well.” He turned to LeJeune. “Master Chief, orders to the bridge, all engines stop. And get Winter up here. We might need the doc.”

  “Aye, sir.” LeJeune took Riley’s coffee mug and his own into one hand and threw the contents of both over the side before jogging off toward the ship’s towering superstructure.

  Riley faced the seaman again. “Show me.”

  “Aye, sir.” The seaman turned and ran aft with her commanding officer behind.

  • • •

  That young lady has some good eyes, Riley thought. The seaman had underestimated the distance, easy to do on the ocean, where there were no landmarks to help the eye judge size or range, but seeing the raft at all had been a feat. It was a good five hundred yards
away and he struggled to make the rescue craft out with his middle-aged eyes until someone fetched him binoculars.

  A pair of petty officers guiding their own dinghy dragged the raft by a towline back to Vicksburg. Riley could tell from their body language that there was a smell coming off it that could wither a sailor’s nose. They pulled alongside, Riley could see a single body in the raft and the bloating told him everything he needed to know about the castaway’s current state.

  LeJeune leaned over Riley’s shoulder. “I think we’re coming a bit late for this one, Captain,” he offered.

  “I think you’re right,” Riley agreed, following with a private curse. He looked behind him. Most of the crew on deck had heard the scuttlebutt and the few whose duties left them close enough wandered over to see the recovery, morbid though it was going to be. “Master Chief, clear these kids out of here. I don’t want them to see this. Then call the officer of the deck. All engines ahead two thirds as soon as we’ve got this thing aboard. Get some breeze going to carry this smell off the ship.”

  “Aye, sir,” LeJeune said, quiet enough for only Riley to hear. “We’ll be seeing this in our sleep for a while.” He turned to the assembled crew and began barking orders that Riley didn’t hear for his focus on the corpse. Smart man that he was, LeJeune started herding the crew toward the far end of the fo’s’cle.

  The raft came aboard and the sight was something that Riley wished he could erase from his brain the moment he took it in. The carcass was that of an African man, he presumed, but Riley couldn’t discern any more than that. The face was unrecognizable, the skin blistered, and the arms and legs were twisted at bizarre angles at the knees and elbows. How long has this guy been out here? he wondered. A couple of weeks at least.

  The chief medical officer, Thane Winter, stepped up next to Riley and offered him an open tub of Vicks VapoRub. “Put some of this under your nostrils, sir, and breathe through your mouth. It’ll help.” Riley took the CMO’s advice, then handed the tub over to the closest crewman and it began to make the rounds. Winter was right, almost. Riley could still smell the corpse but the mint odor lessened his stomach’s urge to dredge up his breakfast. One of the other petty officers on deck wasn’t so fortunate. The tub didn’t get passed around fast enough and he lost his morning meal over the rail.

  Winter pulled on a pair of latex gloves and stepped forward to examine the new passenger, passing through the other sailors who were retreating in the other direction to a safe distance. “I think he’s dead, sir,” one of the officers called out. It was a poor joke and no one laughed.

  There’s another candidate for med school, Riley thought, and silenced the heckler with a look. The few remaining sailors began to disperse of their own accord. Morbid curiosity couldn’t survive long in the face of the smell, it seemed.

  Riley felt the ship surge under his feet, the engines pushing her ahead. He saw LeJeune working his way back to the ship’s bow. Winter stood and pulled the gloves from his hands. “Shot through both knees. And someone crushed his hands before they threw him into the raft. He couldn’t have launched it and he certainly couldn’t have steered it even if he had paddles aboard, which he didn’t. No means of propulsion. No navigation or signaling equipment either. No food, just a couple of water bottles. He didn’t even drink one of them. Probably couldn’t get the caps off.”

  Riley winced. “Somebody wanted this guy to hurt.”

  “Somebody got their wish,” Winter agreed. “He’s also got burns under his clothes that weren’t caused by exposure.”

  “Torture?” Riley asked.

  “Maybe,” Winter replied. “I won’t know until I can do a work-up on him.” Riley grimaced at the thought of keeping the corpse aboard.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time pirates got into an argument over the loot,” LeJeune offered.

  Winter shrugged. “This was a murder, Captain,” he said. “We need to document the evidence, then transfer the body to Bahrain for autopsy.”

  Riley took a deep breath through his mouth, then stared back down at the body. “Okay. You can get everything up here on deck?” Winter nodded. “Good,” the captain said, relieved. “It would take us a month to get the smell out belowdecks. Get your pictures and get ’em fast. Then call Naval Support in Bahrain and get me an answer within the hour. If they don’t want him, we’ll do a burial at sea. And make sure we’re handling the body according to the local traditions.”

  “Aye aye, sir. I’ll round up the chaplain.” Winter marched off.

  LeJeune watched the doctor go, and then turned back to his captain. “I’m afraid to ask, sir, but what’re my orders?”

  Riley gave the senior enlisted man a rueful look. “Somebody’s got to get this guy into a body bag, Master Chief. Maybe it’ll help keep the smell down.”

  “Aye, sir. That’s what I thought.” LeJeune jogged away to catch up with Winter.

  Riley exhaled and looked down at the corpse. He finally saw the blood and vomit dried on the bottom of the raft. The body had covered the gory stain until Winter had shifted the bloated man and exposed it.

  . . . Sailors take warning, Riley thought, finishing the adage that had started his morning walk on deck. Can’t wait to make this one somebody else’s problem.

  DAY ONE

  Memorial Garden

  CIA Headquarters

  Kathryn Cooke didn’t visit the Memorial Garden often. The water in the pond was surprisingly clear today and it rippled a bit as the waterfall rolled gently over gray rocks into the fishpond. The grass inside the low concrete shelf was growing again, and a Canadian goose was picking at the ground looking for breakfast, soon to be chased away by rain from black clouds that were moving in from the west. The Original Headquarters Building stood to the south a few meters away, the auditorium—called the Bubble for its shape—just behind her a few feet away. The Nathan Hale statue, worn and discolored by decades of abuse at the hands of the Virginia climate, was a bit farther to the east.

  She closed her eyes and listened to the quiet sounds of the waterfall until she lost track of the time. It was a good spot to think when the weather was right—

  “He was a terrible spy.”

  She knew the voice but it wasn’t a morning to smile. “Jonathan,” she said.

  “Madam Director.” His tone was overly formal.

  Cooke finally opened her eyes and stared at the man now sitting on the bench beside her. Jonathan Burke, the chief of the Red Cell, didn’t turn his head at all.

  “Nathan Hale,” Jonathan said, nodding at the weathered statue. “Brave man, bad spy. No tradecraft, no cover story, above-average height and facial scars made him unforgettable to the Tory officer in Boston who saw him. Not getting caught on his first mission would have been a small miracle. If it weren’t for his pithy last words, which historians are certain he didn’t say, nobody would’ve remembered him.”

  “So it’s a monument to stupidity?” Cooke asked.

  “No, to bravery,” he conceded. “We need our heroes, even if they aren’t always the smartest people.” He snorted. “Anyway, you wanted to see me.”

  “Yes. But I hadn’t told anyone yet, least of all you.”

  “So I saved you the trouble of a call,” he said.

  “You’re annoying, you know that?” she asked.

  “Being right covers a multitude of sins.”

  Cooke tried to let her anger drain away. Jon was arrogant but he earned his keep, even if he was too bold in calling her out. But she hadn’t reprimanded him, had she? Not many people could get away with that and even fewer of that small group worked for her. “And how did you know where to find me?” she asked.

  “You work in a building full of spies.”

  His isn’t-it-obvious? tone bordered on insubordination, but Cooke let it go. Again. She usually did. It was his version of a sense of humor, but it was beyond her how this
man could alienate so many of his peers and, at the same time, maintain a network of informants inside headquarters that reached all the way to the seventh floor. “And you have assets inside my office?”

  “Surely you’re not asking me to reveal sources and methods,” Burke answered, his voice flat with mild sarcasm. “Besides, I’m told that women like a man of mystery.”

  “That was true before I came to work in a building full of spies. Here I’ve learned to appreciate the virtues of honest men. Not to mention humble ones,” Cooke countered. “Where’s your partner?”

  “Kyra’s at the Farm, renewing her field certifications. She’ll be back tomorrow. Just has to requalify on the Glock and she’s done.”

  “Generous of you to let her go,” Cooke observed.

  “Generosity is irrelevant.” He looked annoyed. “Meetings with other analysts go more smoothly when half of the Red Cell is firearms-certified.”

  “I’m sure. You should’ve kept yours up-to-date. Days like this, you might need it in case I decide to send you to someplace very, very dangerous.” Cooke repressed a smirk. “You know, when I first sent Kyra to the Red Cell, I didn’t intend for you to keep her. The Clandestine Service spent a lot of time and money training that girl. Clarke Barron would like to have her back instead of watching her sit at a desk writing papers.”

  “Her choice,” Jonathan said. “She can go anytime she wants. We’ve never made the rotation formal.”

  “Clarke thinks you’re holding her down.”

  Jon shook his head. “They steal a dozen analysts from the Directorate of Intelligence every year. Barron’s just mad that I might have brought someone back from the dark side.”

  “It’s a good thing to have case officers with analytical training,” Cooke observed. “It makes for better collection.”

  “It’s a good thing to have analysts with field experience,” Jon retorted. “It makes for better analysis.”

  Cooke sighed. Time to change the subject. “Have you read the President’s Daily Brief this morning?”