Date: 2020-08-17 04:00:00+00:00
Description: Not all things lost in the Bermuda Triangle are lost forever. A science expedition sends out a frantic distress call. It suddenly ends with a chilling apology. What have we done? International bestselling author, Bobby Akart, one of America's favorite storytellers, has delivered up-all-night thrillers to readers in 245 countries and territories worldwide. "... if you like Sigma Force, Mitch Rapp or Scot Horvath, you will love Gunner Fox!" Buried in the darkest depths of the Bermuda Triangle lies one of the greatest drowned secrets of World War Two - a sunken German U-boat carrying a deadly pay
Publisher: Crown Publishers Inc.

Odessa Reborn

A Gunner Fox trilogy, book one

Bobby Akart

Copyright Information

© 2020 Crown Publishers Inc. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Crown Publishers Inc.

Thank You

Thank you for downloading ODESSA, REBORN book one in this Gunner Fox trilogy by Author Bobby Akart.

For a copy of my critically acclaimed monthly newsletter, The Epigraph, updates on new releases, special offers, and bonus content visit me online at

BobbyAkart.com
or visit my dedicated feature page on Amazon at

Amazon.com/BobbyAkart

Praise for Author Bobby Akart and Gunner Fox

“Only Akart can weave a story that begins so calm, so normal and before you know it, you are at the end of the book with your pulse pounding in your chest and your mind screaming for more! Amazon Hall of Fame, Top 2 Reviewer

“Another phenomenal story from THE master story teller of our time!”

Amazon review of Asteroid Destruction

“Akart is a master of suspense, keeping us on the edge of our seats. But, he does it with fact-based fiction that would scare even the most hardened readers.”

“Mixing science and suspense is something Bobby Akart is a master of—writing character driven stories that will have you on the edge of your seat.”

“I have highly enjoyed Mr. Akart’s literary works because his research is comprehensive and he has an eerie prescience of writing fiction and it becoming reality.”

“Mr. Akart has become one of my favorite authors joining the ranks of fellas named King, Grisham & Clancy.”

“Bobby Akart is one of those very rare authors who makes things so visceral, so real, that you experience what he writes … His research, depth of knowledge, and genuine understanding of people make his works more real than any movie.”

“No one, and I mean NO ONE, does it better!”

There is nothing more important on this planet than my darling wife, Dani, and our two princesses, Bullie and Boom. With the love and support of Dani and the never-ending supply of smiles our two girls give us, I’m able to tell you these stories.

For many years, I have lived by the following premise:

Because you never know when the day before is the day before, prepare for tomorrow.

My friends, I study and write about the threats we face, not only to both entertain and inform you, but because I am constantly learning how to prepare for the benefit of my family as well. The Odessa trilogy is dedicated to Dani and the girls. I will always protect you from anything that threatens us.

Acknowledgments

Creating a novel that is both informative and entertaining requires a tremendous team effort. Writing is the easy part.

For their efforts in making the Virus Hunters a reality, I would like to thank Hristo Argirov Kovatliev for his incredible artistic talents in creating my cover art. He and Dani collaborate (and conspire) to create the most incredible cover art in the publishing business. A huge hug of appreciation goes out to Pauline Nolet, the Professor, for her editorial prowess and patience in correcting this writer’s same tics after fifty-plus novels. Thanks again to the newest member of the team, Drew Avera, a United States Navy veteran, who has brought his talented formatting skills from a writer’s perspective to create multiple formats for reading my novels. The accomplished Chris Abernathy has returned as the voice of Gunner Fox. His performance of the Asteroid trilogy earned him a nomination for best thriller/suspense narration by the Independent Audiobook Awards.

Now, for the serious stuff. The Odessa trilogy required countless hours of never-ending research. Without the background material and direction from those individuals who provided me a portal into the history of Nazi Germany, the German settlements establishments in Argentina following World War II, and the terrifying world of bioterrorism, this story couldn’t have been written.

Once again, as I immersed myself in the science and history, source material and research flooded my inbox from around the globe. Without the assistance of many individuals and organizations, this story could not be told. Please allow me a moment to acknowledge a few of those individuals whom, without their tireless efforts, the Odessa trilogy could not have been written.

Many thanks to Dr. Catherine Epstein, Winkley Professor of History and Dean of the Faculty at Amherst College. Her research and lecture material on the history of Nazi Germany, especially the emergence of Adolf Hitler and Nazi ideology, provided me an invaluable glimpse into how dictatorships function and why brutal regimes engage in mass murder.

In that same vein, Constance Nicholls, who holds a master’s degree in public history, and sat on the advisory board for the National World War II Museum, shared her outstanding research work on the Architect of Terror: Heinrich Himmler. Her in depth analysis of Himmler’s implementation of the Final Solution, gave me insight into the devil that Himmler was. However, it was a passing comment during a conversation regarding Himmler’s affinity for Norway and Norwegian women that took this story into a very interesting direction. Thanks Connie!

Odessa, like many of my other novels, could not have been written without the support of the former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Steven Walker; Janet Waldorf, Deputy Chief of Communications within the DARPA Public Affairs office, and her staff; and the DARPA program managers and contractors who took the time to speak with me by phone or via email. Left of boom. Now, I get it. Thanks to you all!

For my research in Argentina, I called upon a fellow author, Abel Basti who wrote the World War II history book titled Hitler in Exile. The language barrier was a challenge but Google translator came through. Not only did he have me utterly convinced that Hitler escaped his Berlin bunker and fled to Argentina via Spain, but that the Soviet Union assisted in the coverup in exchange for future cooperation against the United States. I’ve always loved a good conspiracy theory, and Hitler’s escape is certainly a grand one. However, one thing is certain. It was the Soviet Red Army who discovered Hitler’s dead body and then promptly whisked it away before British Intelligence could view it. Confirmation of death was always in question.

Finally, as always, a special thank you to my team of loyal friends who’ve always supported my work and provided me valuable insight from a reader’s perspective. Denise Keef, Joe Carey, Jim Bennett, Shirley Nicholson, Bennita Barnett, and Karl Hughey.

This is why I wrote Odessa.

Because you never know when the day before is the day before, prepare for tomorrow.

Thank you all!

Choose Freedom and Godspeed, Patriots!

About the Author, Bobby Akart

Author Bobby Akart has been ranked by Amazon as #25 on the Amazon Charts list of most popular, bestselling authors. He has achieved recognition as the #1 bestselling Horror Author, #1 bestselling Science Fiction Author, #5 bestselling Action & Adventure Author, #7 bestselling Historical Fiction Author and #10 on Amazon’s bestselling Thriller Author list.

Mr. Akart has delivered up-all-night thrillers to readers in 245 countries and territories worldwide. He has sold over one million books in all formats, which includes over forty international bestsellers, in nearly fifty fiction and nonfiction genres.

His novel Yellowstone: Hellfire reached the Top 25 on the Amazon bestsellers list and earned him multiple Kindle All-Star awards for most pages read in a month and most pages read as an author. The Yellowstone series vaulted him to the #25 bestselling author on Amazon Charts, and the #1 bestselling science fiction author.

Bobby has provided his readers a diverse range of topics that are both informative and entertaining. His attention to detail and impeccable research has allowed him to capture the imagination of his readers through his fictional works and bring them valuable knowledge through his nonfiction books.

SIGN UP for Bobby Akart’s mailing list to receive a copy of his monthly newsletter, The Epigraph, learn of special offers, view bonus content, and be the first to receive news about new releases featuring Gunner Fox and the Gray Fox team.

Visit www.BobbyAkart.com for details.

Contents

Author’s Introduction to the Odessa trilogy

Author’s Note about Gunner Fox and the Gray Fox Team

Real-World News Excerpts

Für meine Mutter. Ich liebe dich!

Das folgende beruht auf wahren begebenheiten

The Oath

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Thank You for Reading Odessa Reborn!

Author’s Introduction to the Odessa trilogy

August 15, 2020

As of this writing, the United States was going through a period of upheaval. For my loyal readers, you’ve known for years that my worldview, and therefore my novels, have been shaped by personal experiences as well as certain other works of literature and art.

Years ago, reading the massive treatise by Edward Gibbons titled the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire led me to the following premise:

All empires collapse eventually. Either they are conquered by a more powerful enemy or they collapse under the weight of their debt. But make no mistake. Every great empire and nation-state eventually fails. There have been no exceptions in the history of mankind.

Which leads me to the artistic work of Thomas Cole. Beginning in 1833, Thomas Cole created a series of five paintings depicting the growth and fall of an imaginary empire. It’s a place that begins peaceful and full of freedom. Then, it achieves a level of glory indicated by joyous occasions and vast amounts of wealth, as shown in The Consummation of Empire.

But, as Gibbon’s Decline and Fall led me to realize, Cole had reached the same conclusion as evidenced by his paintings. Like the Roman Empire, Cole showed decadence, wealth, vice, and corruption ultimately led to war and eventually destruction of the state. The result, was Destruction as depicted in this painting.

It’s possible America is going through a similar period at this time. Like all new empires, the Founding Fathers thought they’d laid the groundwork for their principals and ideals to last forever through the adoption of the Constitution. Only time will tell whether the U.S. Constitution and this great republic can withstand the enormous political pressures from both outside our borders, and from within.

During World War I, an obscure German soldier named Adolf Hitler had been injured and was hospitalized as The War to End All Wars came to an end. He took up political work in Munich and then joined the small German Workers’ Party.

His ability to convince and manipulate others led him to be put in charge of the Party’s propaganda. Resentment at the loss of the war and the severity of the peace terms imposed upon the German people brought widespread anger to the country, especially Bavaria which had a disdain for Berlin’s government.

Under Hitler’s leadership, the party was renamed to the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, which became commonly referred to as the Nazi Party. Hitler and his ardent supporters envisioned a Third Reich of a thousand years in which all German peoples, including Austria, would be led by the Nazi Party.

Hitler rode this wave of enthusiasm for the Nazi cause to lead Germany into a period of expansion across Europe and into Northern Africa. He was a brutal leader who murdered millions of innocent people, Germans included, in the quest for ethnic purity.

Even during the Second World War, Hitler’s name became synonymous with pure evil. To this day, his name, the term Nazi, and the symbol of the swastika adopted by the Nazi Party evokes feelings of anger and hostility.

World War II ended in 1945 and Germany eventually became a respected member of the European Community and a world leader. Many former Nazis were captured, killed, or went into hiding. The European continent moved on vowing to never allow the rise of a charismatic leader like Hitler to gain power again.

History has shown that many high-ranking officials in the Nazi Party escaped Germany in the waning days of the war as well as afterwards. Their means of transportation were as varied as their destinations. Organizations and governments around the world have devoted eight decades tracking down every last Nazi soldier, party leader, and conspirator in the Holocaust until even those in their late nineties were brought to justice.

This story, however, is about a different group. It’s a story of legends and a tale of conspiracy. But as is always the case with my novels, it is based in historical fact.

The ODESSA, or Organisation der Ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, translated as Organization for Former SS Members, was created to assist in the escape of the Nazi Party officials and German business leaders who feared they’d be captured and imprisoned by the Allied forces. They sought destinations around the world, escaping through European portals including Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Norway. They arrived in strange, faraway lands including the Middle East, Africa, and South America.

And they never gave up their dreams for a Fourth Reich. With their vast amounts of ill-gotten gains in the form of money, gold, and historic artifacts, the Nazis abroad were well-funded, hidden from Allied intelligence and above all, committed to continuing their quest for a future Nazi Germany.

Many of the gatherings in the formation of Odessa were discovered by the intelligence community after the war. The destination and the ratlines used by the escaping Nazis were based upon countless hours of research and interviews with history experts from Hamburg to Buenos Aries.

Some of the most feared Nazis on the planet during the rise and fall of the Third Reich—Adolph Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Walter Rauff, and Franz Stangl, among many others, managed to escape to these destinations.

Then, there were the wives, mistresses, children, and future grandchildren of the Nazis who carried the torch of the Nazi Party ideology. They still believed in the viability of the Reich. As a result, every single historian I contacted agreed on one thing:

The Third Reich may have ended but the possibility of a Fourth Reich is held in the hearts of many ancestors of the Nazis.

Hatred doesn’t die with its leader.

Thank you for reading the Odessa trilogy.

Bobby

Author’s Note about Gunner Fox and the Gray Fox Team

June 13, 2019

Major Gunner Fox, United States Air Force special operator and experimental aircraft test pilot had paid his dues. He’d performed beyond the call of duty when his country needed him. He’d suffered emotionally when his wife, Heather, a NASA astronaut, died during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. He found himself in a dark place after her death, without a reason to live.

Until America needed a hero. A previously undiscovered asteroid was on a collision course with Earth. It was deemed to be a planet-killer, a near-Earth object equal in size and destructive capability as the one that brought the dinosaurs to extinction.

In a time of desperation, America turned to Gunner and his fellow operatives, Major Cameron “Cam” Mills and Lieutenant Barrett “Bear” King. Major Mills, a childhood friend and the person who introduced Gunner to Heather, has always been by his side. She attended special forces training with Bear and the duo offered the perfect complement to Gunner’s advanced training, special skills, and vast knowledge obtained during his college years when he received his degree in the earth sciences.

During the asteroid mission, Gunner, Cam and Bear become reacquainted with Colonel Gregory Smith, Gunner’s mentor while he went through SERE – Air Force Special Warfare training at the AFSOC facility in the Florida panhandle. Col. Smith left the Air Force to join DARPA, the secretive government agency falling under the Department of Defense budget. He was always referred to by his DOD codename: Ghost.

After the success of the asteroid mission, Ghost was instructed to build a team around Gunner Fox. He brought on FBI Special Agent Theodora “Teddy” Cuccinelli because of her expert computer skills. Her abilities to access virtually any server or computer system earned her the moniker—Jackal. She acts as the eyes and ears for Gunner, Cam, and Bear when they are on a mission.

Ghost was tasked with naming this new team and he chose Gray Fox. In the early eighties, a new special operations force was created under the purview of the Joint Special Operations Command of the U.S. Army. Known as Intelligence Support Activity, or simply, The Activity, their role was to gather intelligence prior to special operations and to deploy assets to handle covert, off-the-books missions.

Over many decades, The Activity deployed specialized units into a variety of ops under codenames including Gray Fox. During the War in Afghanistan, Gray Fox fought alongside Delta Force in the mountains against the Taliban. Their unit spearheaded the search for Saddam Hussein and his family during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The Gray Fox unit was mothballed for nearly twenty years until it was revived by Ghost to be led by Gunner Fox.

Gunner, Cam, and Bear would stand in front of a speeding train for one another. When called to duty, the repeat the secretive motto of The Activity, they’d reply—send me. They have each other’s six and are committed to their team’s motto:

Day by day.

Minute by minute.

Ride or die.

We stick together.

Real-World News Excerpts

REVEALED JFK DOCUMENTS SHOW CIA HEARD RUMOR THAT ADOLF HITLER ESCAPED TO SOUTH AMERICA

~ CBS News, November 1, 2017

The CIA was aware of and interested in rumors that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler escaped Germany at the end of the World War II and fled to South America, documents released this week by the U.S. foreign intelligence agency show.

It’s considered fact that Hitler took his own life in a bunker in April 1945 as Allied forces closed in, but a CIA operative identified only by the moniker CIMELODY-3 reported back to Washington in 1955 that a trusted contact had informed him Hitler was alive and well, living among other Nazi expatriates.

On 29 September 1955, a grainy, black and white photo was shown to CIMELODY-3 for purposes of getting his reaction to the possible veracity of this photo. The photo undoubtedly shows a man who resembles the leader of Germany's Third Reich.

THE NAZI ORIGINS OF DEADLY NERVE GASES

~ Chemical & Engineering News, October 17, 2016

Among chemical weapons, nerve gases are arguably the most nefarious. Trace amounts can wreak long-term havoc on a victim’s nervous system, and high doses can cause painful deaths, typically by asphyxiation.

Nerve agents have been used by armies and terrorists alike. They were dispatched on the battlefield of the Iran-Iraq War, during the Tokyo subway attack of 1995, and more recently on demonstrators in Syria. Despite their infamy, these chemical weapons have a curious history unknown to many people.

Eighty years ago, just before World War II began, nerve agents were invented in Nazi Germany. During the Third Reich, German scientists developed bombs capable of deploying the chemical weapons on the Allies, and the Nazi armed forces secretly stockpiled nerve gas munitions.

From the start of WWII, some in the military were raring to dispatch their nerve weapons “on a very large scale against the enemy hinterland by air strikes.”

But Hitler demurred. Why did Hitler veto their use?

Some historians point to the fact that Hitler had been a victim of chemical weapons—probably mustard gas—during WWI. As a result of this experience, Hitler believed using poison gas on the battlefield was unethical, an incredibly inconsistent position given his directive to use Zyklon B and other poisonous gases to kill millions of concentration camp prisoners.

U-BOAT RUMORED TO HAVE HELPED NAZIS ESCAPE TO ARGENTINA IS DISCOVERED

~ UK Independent, April 19, 2018

A German submarine linked to rumors that Adolf Hitler survived and escaped to Argentina in a U-boat has been discovered – lying wrecked at the bottom of the North Sea between Denmark and Norway.

Submarine U-3523 had been one of a new generation of type XXI U-boats that were able to run more silently and stay submerged for longer than any of their predecessors, with a range that would have allowed them to sail non-stop from Europe to South America.

As such it would have been perfect escape vessel for Nazi gold, high-ranking officials or even Hitler himself as the Reich collapsed at the end of the Second World War.

But researchers pointed out that nobody knows if this was the U-boat’s destination, and nobody knows if the U-boat had valuables or passengers, especially Hitler, aboard in addition to the 58 crew, all of whom perished at 123 meters depth.

The final telegram sent by the submarine, on 5 May 1945, made no mention of Nazi treasure or officials, so it is unconfirmed whether skipper Willi Müller and his crew were carrying Nazi passengers instead of just trying to escape themselves. Further, researchers say this particular vessel may have been a decoy as the day before, German forces in Denmark, Northwest Germany and the Netherlands had surrendered. Therefore, the U-boat was not on a war patrol.

And as for Adolf Hitler, the U-boat appears to have left port five days after 1 May 1945, when German radio announced the Fuhrer’s death.

NEW GLOBAL ANALYSIS FINDS WATER-RELATED TERRORISM IS ON THE RISE

~ New Security Beat, May 8, 2018

Attacking water is not a new terror tactic. Three decades ago, in the midst of Peru’s economic crisis and failed agrarian reforms, the leftist group Shining Path destroyed precious water infrastructure, along with bridges and electrical systems. More recently, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took control of the Tabqa (2013) and Mosul (2014) dams, spurring fears the dams would fail and disrupt water flows and hydropower generation.

While water-related terrorism is not new, it is on the rise, increasing 263 percent from 1970 to 2016, according to our analysis. The highest concentration of incidents—68 percent—occurred in the post-9/11 era.

THE POTENTIAL RISE OF SARIN MANUFACTURING AMONG NON-STATE ACTORS

~ American Security Project, June 5, 2013

There are growing signs that non-state actors might be beginning to manufacture sarin weapons as opposed to trying to acquire them from pre-existing stocks. In the last week there have been two separate reports of al-Qaeda linked groups being captured with sarin. In Syria, the terrorist group al-Nusrah Front was captured with five pounds of sarin.

Most troubling is that the manufacture of sarin involves simply mixing two chemicals with relatively little skill required. Deployment methods are wide and varied.

Epigraph

“The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But we don't ask for their love. Only for their fear.”

~ Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS, Germany, early 1940s

* * *

Evil triumphs only when good men do nothing.

~ Edmund Burke, Eighteenth century Irish philosopher

* * *

“Never make a chemist mad at you.”

~ James Dalton Bell, bioterrorist

* * *

All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

~ Voltaire, Eighteenth century French philosopher

* * *

Hatred doesn’t die with its leader.

~ Author Bobby Akart

Für meine Mutter. Ich liebe dich!

￼

Das folgende beruht auf wahren begebenheiten

The following is based on a true story.

The Oath

The following oath was repeated by millions leading up to World War II. Most of them meant it. Many did not.

Ich schwöre bei Gott diesen heiligen Eid,
daß ich dem Führer des Deutschen Reiches und Volkes

Adolf Hitler, dem Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht,
unbedingten Gehorsam leisten und als tapferer Soldat bereit sein will,
jederzeit für diesen Eid mein Leben einzusetzen.

I swear to God this holy oath
that I shall render unconditional obedience
to the Leader of the German Reich and people,

Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces,
and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared
to give my life for this oath.

Prologue

Late June 1944

La Roche-Guyon, France

Field Headquarters of Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel

Excerpt from a letter to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler

General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s cold stare mirrored the bleak view of the battlefield that lay before him. He’d been handpicked a year prior by der Führer, Adolf Hitler, to lead the German Army’s defenses of the French coastline. Known as the Atlantic Wall, these defenses began at the border with Spain in Southern France and stretched the entirety of Western Europe to the top of Norway.

Rommel was nicknamed the Desert Fox for his early successes in leading his 7th Panzer Division during the 1940 invasion of France. His leadership of combined German and Italian forces in the Third Reich’s North Africa campaign earned him the reputation as one of the most capable tank commanders in history.

He was also an ardent student of war and a master strategist who enjoyed the gamesmanship that played out on the battlefield. His book, Infantry Attacks, had been a staple of every military tactician’s library, including General George S. Patton, the American equivalent of the Desert Fox.

General Patton, who first came head-to-head with Rommel in North Africa, used the famed field marshal’s tactics against him, eventually driving the Germans out of the desert. As the last of the German tanks departed for Italy, Patton famously shouted, “Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!”

Rommel’s retreat in 1943 did not deter Hitler from appointing him to the important task of defending the Atlantic Wall from an Allied invasion. For reasons outside of Rommel’s control, D-Day was a disaster for the Germans.

As early as 1942, Hitler knew a large-scale Allied invasion of France could turn the tide of the war in Europe, hence the implementation of the Atlantic Wall. But thanks to the brilliant deception campaign by the Allied intelligence apparatus as well as Hitler’s own misguided micromanagement of the war, June 6, 1944, became the turning point Nazi strategists had feared.

Abandoned German Tiger tanks were strewn about the battlefield in various stages of destruction. Smoke and fire billowed out of their turrets. Tank commanders and infantrymen lay dead around what were considered the vastly superior King Tigers. Weighing seventy tons, the monstrous German machines dwarfed their predecessors, the undersized Sherman tanks. Had the strained German manufacturing facilities had more time to produce the King Tigers, the result at Normandy might have been different.

Yet there Rommel stood alone, stinging rain pelting his face and drenching his uniform. The wind whipped the ragged flag of the 21st Panzer Division. Two battle-weary soldiers stood guard nearby at the entrance to his field headquarters, remaining stoic in the drenching rain and emotionless in the face of defeat. They imperceptibly shuffled from one foot to another in an effort to keep their feet somewhat dry. Their fingers wiggled in their rain-soaked gloves as they gripped their carbines. Neither of them wanted to be there. They just wanted to go home.

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was no different. He entered his quarters and removed his wet outer clothing. He lit the kerosene lanterns placed throughout the space. A dim orangish light filled the room, revealing his spartan furnishings. He did not require wood-paneled walls, exquisite stolen works of art, and Persian carpets to exude his stature as a commander.

Rommel was a soldier’s soldier. He was not an elitist general of the Reich who demanded respect coupled with an appropriate level of pomp and circumstance befitting their positions. He’d earned his respect on the field of battle, and appearances were unimportant to him.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His face had become ashen, and he felt his weary legs begin to buckle. He brushed past the Nazi flag next to his desk. The red flag with the black swastika on a white disc was a mandatory fixture in any commander’s field office. That, plus the obligatory portrait of der Führer standing proud in a light brown jacket, left hand on hip and wearing a red swastika-emblazoned armband. Hitler’s toothbrush mustache had been adopted by him during his World War I service in the Bavarian Infantry Division. New gas masks had been produced, and his previously full Bavarian mustache had prevented a tight fit.

Rommel rolled his eyes at the portrait as he eased himself into his chair and unlocked his desk drawer. First, he reached for his diary. Later known as The Rommel Papers, his writings and diaries of war, discovered by British intelligence officers, were later published in 1953.

He poured himself a brandy, a rare occurrence, and took a long sip. After a long sigh, he began to write in his journal.

Most battles are quickly forgotten, but not by me. I have studied the history of the Americans at war. Many of their epic accomplishments have changed the course of their nation, and the world.

George Washington’s defeat of the British army at Yorktown in 1781 allowed the Americans’ experiment in democracy to survive. Moreover, it served to inspire oppressed people everywhere.

Even in ancient days, hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, our Lord, the small armies and navies of Greece defeated the huge invading forces of the Persian Empire at Salamis and Marathon. Through their bravado, the Greeks not only saved themselves, but their own fledgling democracy together with their cultural history of art, literature, and architecture.

These are the reasons to do battle with our fellow man. These are the reasons a mighty nation like Germany must fight to win. However, I now know the course of the war has turned. We are no longer the aggressor, but rather, the hunted.

We are outmanned. We are outgunned. And most importantly, we have lost our will to fight. I firmly believe historians will view the Allied invasion on the beaches of Normandy as the first of many decisive blows leading to the end of the Reich.

Unless …

Rommel slowly closed his leather diary, showing obvious signs of wear from his many entries, and wrapped the leather string around it until it was tied with a neat bowknot. With a sigh, he placed it back into his drawer and locked it.

He allowed himself another brandy to steel his nerves. He closed his eyes and asked himself if his next action would lead to his death by firing squad. For a minute, he fumbled with his pen and ran his fingers across his stationery.

You must face reality, he thought to himself. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when his intuition had become truth, but he knew the war was lost. Perhaps it was the Normandy invasion. Or it was Hitler’s overreach as he attempted to fight the war on too many fronts. Maybe it was the brilliant deception employed by General Patton in drawing valuable tank resources away from the Atlantic Wall.

Regardless, he could taste defeat in the air. He could smell it on his officers and soldiers alike. He could see it in their eyes and deep in their souls. The evidence was there for him to reach his own conclusions despite der Führer’s grandiose plans for victory.

Rommel smirked as he thought of Hitler’s chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. He was no soldier. He was a liar. An expert liar, but a liar nonetheless. Goebbels could trumpet the Wehrmacht successes from the mountaintop, but any soldier who could read a map saw that each of these so-called victories brought the Allied forces closer to heart of the Reich—Berlin.

He shook his head and stared at the block ceiling of the subterranean structure. A chill came over his body as the overwhelming damp earth scent of quick-drying cement pervaded his nostrils.

He muttered aloud, “Such a waste. Years of struggle and effort. Those arrogant fools who have der Führer’s ear thought the Reich would survive a thousand years or more. It is not possible. All great empires collapse eventually. There have been no exceptions in the history of mankind. I know this. We are witnessing the collapse of the Third Reich.”

Rommel set his jaw. He was ready. He gripped his pen until his dusty knuckles turned white, and began writing.

The letter was addressed to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. He began with a status of the battles being fought in France. He was quick to lay the blame for their losses on the superior Allied air power. Himmler, in a conversation with Rommel many months ago, had acknowledged this weakness in the Atlantic Wall.

Then Rommel got to the crux of the matter. The point of the letter. The pushing open of the door, ever so slightly, to gauge whether Himmler was of a similar mindset as to what the future held for the Reich.

When we travelled together in the jeep at Nürnberg many months ago, we discussed the conflicting ideologies that brought about this war. You and I are soldiers and we recognize our approach to Germany’s greatness differs from the politicians’.

We agreed that our endeavor was a necessary continuation of that war to end all wars both of our fathers endured. Now, like then, the war involves a reconfiguration of national boundaries, power and influence on the European continent. Further, the battles we fight now are a means to recover what had been taken from us two and a half decades ago.

Reichsführer-SS Himmler, our fortunes have turned. We are at a crossroads in our promotion of the Reich. It is time for another approach. For if we do not change our tactics soon, Berlin, and the Reich, will be in peril.

Make no mistake, we will keep fighting until the final victory. However, I fear the war will be lost unless we find another way. It is my duty to relay my thoughts to you regardless of the risks I take. I am a dutiful soldier and will carry out my orders with vigor. My opinions are my own and are based upon my observations on the battlefield as well as many years of experience in dealing with the politicians.

I believe our options are few.

Kapitulation?

Tabun, vielleicht?

Sieg Heil!

s/ Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel

Surrender? Perhaps, Taboo? There was one other suggestion that Rommel intentionally left out—Valkyrie. That topic was certainly taboo around Himmler, but a viable option nonetheless.

Chapter One

Present Day

Aboard USAF WC-130J

Two airmen aboard the Air Force WC-130J aircraft moved to the aft loading ramp and door. The ramp-style door was designed to accommodate a wide variety of oversized cargo, including everything from utility helicopters and armored vehicles to standard palletized freight. In an aerial delivery role, it could airdrop loads up to forty-two thousand pounds. Today, it would drop people.

“Are you kiddin’ me?” shouted Cameron Mills. The former Air Force major held her helmet under her shoulder as the airmen made the preparations to open the ramp. “You wanna tell me what’s wrong with using the paratroop door over here like any sane person would?” She swung her arm to the right.

Gunner Fox laughed at his best friend and fellow member of Gray Fox. “If you’re scared, say you’re scared.”

Cam flipped him off.

The platform door began to slowly open, allowing the turbulent air to enter as well as the noise from the aircraft’s four turboprop engines. The two simultaneously stepped forward to catch their first glimpse of their surroundings. Gunner bent over at the waist and pointed upward toward the sky.

“See, clear as clear can get. Twinkling stars. Smiling moon. Not an asteroid in sight.”

Cam rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Aren’t you the funny one tonight? Are you sure about this?”

“Come on, Cam. It’s a perfect night. Picture perfect. See?”

He nodded again toward the aft door as it continued to lower to a fixed position. Two more members of the six-man crew approached them to conduct a final gear check.

One of the airmen shouted his instructions. “Sir, ma’am, we need you to put your helmets on to confirm operation of your video and audio comms. Also, I need to remind you to flip on your NVG once you deploy your chutes.”

“Roger that!” shouted Cam over the noise.

They were laden with stuff. In addition to their state-of-the-art headgear, they wore protective suits designed to make their bodies more aerodynamic for this deep dive, as they called it. They would be deploying their chutes at the last possible moment to ensure they landed in their projected target area after they’d rapidly sailed like human projectiles toward Earth.

Gunner adjusted the specialized pack attached to his back, containing the tools necessary to fulfill their mission. Cam fidgeted with hers as well.

Gunner complained about the extraordinary gear strapped to his back. “This is like one of those turtle-shell-shaped boxes the tourists attach to the roof of their crossover on their way to see Mickey freakin’ Mouse.”

“I kinda look at it as being pregnant in reverse,” quipped Cam. “You know, instead of carrying a kid on the front side, it’s on my back.”

Gunner regained his focus and went through the final safety checks with the airmen. After they confirmed their comms were fully operable, the lights dimmed in the rear of the WC-130J, indicating they were a go.

The two of them slowly made their way to the aft ramp with the assistance of the airmen. The suggestion to skydive on this mission had been Gunner’s. The decision to assist in the operation had been Cam’s. There was simply no better way to achieve their goal, and the timing couldn’t be better. It was either undertake this dangerous, psychotic insertion now or face much tougher odds of success later.

Gunner had worked with a lot of operators throughout his career. All of them would’ve simply shaken their heads and laughed at the suggestion. Suicide, they’d say. Never been done would be the assumption. Even if you pull it off, the mission couldn’t be completed with just two people. You’d need at least a team of six or eight.

Gunner knew better. He had confidence in Cam and the entire Gray Fox team supporting them on land. A mission of this sort could only be accomplished by taking advantage of the element of surprise. He laughed to himself. This would certainly be a surprise, all right. Hell, I’ll be surprised, too.

He turned to his partner and gave her a thumbs-up. “Ready, Cam?”

“You’re an asshole,” she responded through the comms and raised her middle finger to her childhood friend for the second time in the space of ten minutes.

One of the airmen stood between them and counted them down using his gloved hand.

Five … four … three … two … one.

He waved both of his arms from the front of his body to the rear. Another airman slapped both of the operatives on the back and pointed toward the open space. Neither of them hesitated as they walked deliberately into the dark sky and jumped.

“Ride or die!” shouted Gunner as they were airborne.

“Ride or die!” Cam joined in.

The air around them was calm, devoid of clouds or precipitation. Above, the sky was dark, but one could see for trillions of miles. Neither spoke as they raced back to Earth, focusing instead on the task at hand.

Their specialized Devtac ballistic helmets provided them onboard telemetry that delivered data on speed and direction in the event course corrections were required. A small radar provided them a marker for the target landing zone as well as a red blinking blip indicating the location of their partner. It was important the two not run into each other so their chutes didn’t get entangled during the final drop to Earth.

Gunner could see the lights of their target getting closer and rapidly expanding in his field of vision. A timer on this helmet screen provided the precise moment when they were to begin the final steps of their descent. In unison, as they were prompted by the computer, both Gunner and Cam plunged the toggles of their chutes toward their feet, locking their muscular arms in place to avoid losing control.

Gunner’s weight had carried him slightly farther ahead of Cam. As a result, he was prompted to open his parachute first. As the canopy began to flare, Cam sped past him slightly, and then she engaged her chute as well.

Gunner’s muscles burned as he controlled his chute to remain on course. He had drifted off the target ever so slightly. He struggled to adjust the tension on the cords, a herculean effort under the circumstances.

“Come on,” he muttered into the comms before shouting to himself, “Turn. Damn it!”

Then, like bony fingers reaching out of a haunted grave, wind from the eye wall of Hurricane Archie reached out and grabbed Gunner’s chute, pulling him into the violent tropical cyclone that enveloped them.

Chapter Two

72 Hours Earlier …

Los Zetas Cartel Marina

Carvajal, Tamaulipas, Mexico

Abduwali Ali was a long way from home. The Somalian sat in the back seat of the Mercedes E-class, staring at the barren landscape along the Mexican Gulf Coast. His driver, a young soldier in the Los Zetas cartel, was also his bodyguard. Not because Abduwali was the only African in the state of Tamaulipas and looked at with disdain by the Mexicans, nor because he was presumed to be a wealthy financier. Abduwali was nothing more than an asset. A valuable commodity used by the notorious Mexican drug cartel in their criminal enterprises.

He was once a man on the run, even in his hometown of Mogadishu—the lawless coastal capital of Somalia. Warlords ran the city, but the price put on his head by the British government made his life expendable. After several attempts to bring him in, dead or alive, as they say, he gathered his laptop computer and escaped the country.

He’d found a specialty that led to riches. Many young Somalian men die before they’re thirty. Others keep their heads under the radar and avoid the criminal activities rampant in Mogadishu. They become fisherman or farmers. They avoid the military and the police. They try not to make eye contact with the local clan warlords.

First, Abduwali was a fisherman. Then he became a pirate.

His career as a burcad badeed, an ocean robber, became legendary. Abduwali was a savior for the poor of Mogadishu, a city wrought with poverty and disease. As he gained respect for his exploits as a pirate, a legend grew, and soon he was nicknamed badaadinta badah—savior of the sea.

Abduwali treated piracy like a business. He started with the essentials—stolen fast boats. Advanced weaponry was procured from Yemen, where he’d made contacts with international arms dealers. He parlayed his cut of his earnings into deposits with a known hawala dealer to procure the weapons. Then he’d make the trip to Puntland, Yemen, to complete the transactions.

Over time, his arsenal ranged from AK-47s to RPG-7s. Cases of hand grenades and tear gas were added over time. What set him apart from other pirating operations, however, was his self-taught internet expertise. He once quipped to his team—Google is my friend. He’d discovered virtually everything he needed to know about a piracy mission could be found on Google and elsewhere across the internet.

Abduwali was a planner. After achieving a modicum of success on smaller ships, he developed a team that undertook coordinated attacks on larger vessels. Despite the countermeasures and armed security employed by shipping companies in recent years, Abduwali was able to circumvent them and take control of the vessels. His payouts were in the multimillions.

In piracy circles, he was considered an oddity—a pirate with a conscience. He abhorred unnecessary killing and instilled the same beliefs in his men. To be sure, firefights ensued during the hostile taking of a ship, and lives were lost on both sides. But the security personnel engaged in the battle were viewed as enemy combatants and therefore fair game. He didn’t kill for the sake of killing. He forbade his men from taking women and raping them. As a result, over time, those who were asked to pay the hefty ransoms he commanded did so without escalating tensions on board their ships.

Then, during one attack, things went horribly out of control. One event tarnished his reputation so badly that the international community elevated him to one of the most wanted men on the planet.

The true facts were never made known because everyone who bore witness to the events leading to the massacre was dead except Abduwali. Nobody was interested in his version of events.

It was to be a one-boat, six-man operation. He’d been tracking a one-hundred-twenty-foot pleasure yacht sailing north along the east coast of Somalia. The occupants, a wealthy couple and their three teenage boys, had been posting photos and videos of their trip on social media.

The boarding of the vessel was relatively easy, with only one of his men suffering a superficial wound, and one of the vessel’s first mates accidentally shot himself in the leg. After the pirates gained control of the yacht, the family of five was gathered together on the bow and the crew of four was locked in a stateroom. In the space of just a few minutes, with Abduwali’s advance planning, the vessel was wholly under his control.

Several phone calls were made to the couple’s chief financial officer in an attempt to extort payment. The hostages, and the CFO, repeatedly denied their ability to pay the amount Abduwali sought. The pirate responded with facts to the contrary. He threw in their face all of the information found on their annual financial reports filed with the British government. He argued their philanthropic endeavors alone would cover the cost of the ransom he demanded. Yet the two men continued to argue their inability to pay.

Abduwali became increasingly frustrated, and his men sensed the same. On two occasions, the sons of the couple got mouthy with their Somalian captors. Words were exchanged, and then the boys received punishment in the form of pistol whippings.

Abduwali began to question if the CFO was stalling to give the Brit time to mount a rescue. Another call was placed. This time, he held a gun to the man’s head, but he never pulled the trigger despite the bloodbath that ensued.

The crew had suddenly appeared from below deck. They’d managed to escape the stateroom and kill the man assigned to guard them. All of them, including the injured crew member, emerged from two different ladders that led to the bow. Bullets began flying in all directions.

Abduwali never returned fire. The shooting startled him, and one of his men was shot right next to where he was standing. Abduwali lost his footing and fell behind the Zodiac parked on the bow. When the shooting stopped, everyone had been killed or were in the process of bleeding out on the once spotless white deck.

It took less than a minute to slaughter everyone on board in a fusillade of bullets. Abduwali fell to his knees, wiped his hands in the blood, and raised them high into the air, begging Allah for forgiveness. In a daze, he managed to find his way back to his boat and left for Mogadishu. By the time he arrived, the British special forces had arrived at the yacht and reported their findings to Whitehall, the British Secret Intelligence Service.

Abduwali was a wanted man, and the reward was ten million dollars.

He was able to escape into Yemen and, with a hefty payment, was provided false identification and a passport. His plan? Travel into Mexico and make his way into the United States, where he planned to blend in with the large Somalian population in the state of Minnesota.

Then his fate changed. During his travels, he’d perused many mercenary and soldier-for-hire websites out of curiosity. He never expected to find the functional equivalent of a help wanted ad for pirates, yet he did. Certainly, the language was veiled and coded. But as an experienced pirate, he got the gist of the ad.

He entered Mexico through Mexico City and then purchased a barely drivable car with cash. He drove to Monterey, the capital of Nuevo Leon in northeastern Mexico, for the job interview. During the trip, he conducted internet research on the employer by taking all known information available from the ad, followed by running down leads from the Google results.

Within a day, he’d determined the location of the interview to be a Los Zetas drug cartel stronghold. This meant only one thing. He would possibly be worth more to the cartel than the ransom offered by the British government.

He decided to expose his entire résumé to the men who interviewed him. They were impressed. Then he told them about the reward on his head. They were upset. None of their leadership had such a reward offered for their capture, they complained.

Tequila was shared and hands were shaken. He was in. He’d found a new home, and an employer, in the least likely of places.

Chapter Three

Los Zetas Cartel Marina

Carvajal, Tamaulipas, Mexico

Abduwali’s driver slowed the bullet-hole-ridden Mercedes and slammed the steering wheel with the palms of his hands as a farmer tried to coax a burro across the road. The delay encouraged several chickens to wander into the path of their vehicle as well. His impetuous driver chose to use his pistol as a horn to force the issue. He dropped his arm out of the driver’s side window and fired two shots into the air while cursing the man and his animals.

Abduwali hated Mexico. His employers and their lieutenants were arrogant murderers who forced people into drug slavery. He’d made the decision to move forward with the Los Zetas because they’d made him into a partner of sorts. They demanded production and profits. They made it clear they were willing to provide him with a home, a woman, and protection. However, it was made abundantly clear they expected results.

His frustration had grown over the last six months as the level of results, the proverbial goal posts, using an American football analogy, had been moved considerably. He’d heard rumors that the DEA had infiltrated their drug trade in the States and caused a significant cash-flow problem. In addition, the border wall designed to keep their human trafficking and drug movement out of the U.S. had forced them to modify their modus operandi.

The Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico had become an alternate route into the U.S. The usual destinations for their narcotics and human smuggling operations—San Diego, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas—were replaced by Florida and other Gulf Coast states. They were even successful in chartering aircraft into Canada and conducting smuggling operations from there.

The driver, still cursing the farmer and his burro, sped up to the entrance of Abduwali’s office, a simple masonry building with only a few holes in the courses of block for windows. It was more fortress than harbormaster office, as the sign above the door read.

It was merely a façade to fool wayward boaters seeking fuel from the marina. The second floor of the building was Abduwali’s domain and completely out of place for the impoverished region.

Atop the structure were several satellite dishes pointed at the skies, protected from view by eight-foot-tall parapet walls. Abduwali could access internet and communication satellites from different countries at all times, day or night. This was his base of operations, where he conducted his research on secure servers using proxies. He was able to tap into U.S. data, including up-to-the-minute Coast Guard activity and boat movements in the Gulf of Mexico. Another section of the large open space provided him room to plan and instruct his team on each vessel attack.

For months, he’d been waiting for the right opportunity to make his move on his next target. He monitored travel itineraries of the ship. He studied the résumés of its crew to determine whether they would resist. He created large images of the deck configuration to teach his team about the layout, points of entry, and potential security vulnerabilities. His meticulous research was about to pay off in a big way.

As he made the final preparations and studied the weather in the Gulf, members of his team began to funnel into the Los Zetas operations center. Initially, he’d been assigned twenty men, many of whom were part-time members of Mexico’s special forces. These men were underpaid and looked to supplement their income in a way that didn’t kill their fellow Mexicans. Piracy was the perfect solution. Plus, their cut was more than double what they earned from the government annually.

There were some on Abduwali’s crew he wished he could eliminate. They were the drug cartel insiders, inserted among his team to keep an eye on the operation. The Los Zetas were known for their brutality, including torturing and decapitating informants. Ironically, they relied on their own group of snitches to keep tabs on Abduwali.

He’d come to realize his life was never safe as long as he worked for these barbarians. He opened several accounts at Santander Bank in Monterey. For a fee, he was able to launder the drug money he was paid with and exchange it for a paycheck arrangement with a car dealer in the city. He was their highest paid salesman in history and made more than the owner.

Abduwali knew the safest routes into the U.S. When the time was right, he’d evade his piracy team and make his way by boat to desolate Matagorda, Texas. He’d proceed directly to the closest Santander Bank branch in Houston. He’d retire in Minneapolis, just as he’d dreamed about for years while in Somalia.

He’d been stalking the Victory Casino Cruise ship on his laptop since it had set sail from Galveston, Texas, the afternoon before. A tropical storm had developed in the Gulf and was tracking northward toward New Orleans. The large feeder bands of the storm were forcing the cruise ship on a more westerly track, drawing it closer to the Mexican coastline before it headed back across the Gulf toward the Yucatan Peninsula.

He’d monitored social media and learned there’d been numerous cancellations due to the impending storm. In this case, that didn’t bother him as much. It wasn’t necessarily the passengers’ money that he was after. It was the contents of the casino’s vault.

Most casino cruise ships ventured into international waters just far enough to open their tables to passengers. The Victory Casino Cruise was different. Taking advantage of the depressed economy in Mexico and the unusually inexpensive hotel accommodations in Cozumel, the ship’s ultimate destination, Victory created a new vacation opportunity. The quick, three-day cruise departed from Galveston on Friday evening and returned to the port three days later on Monday morning. It was especially popular among Houstonians looking for a quick getaway.

Abduwali accessed the Coast Guard website and obtained the final cruise itinerary and sailing plan for the Victory. It would draw them within a hundred miles of the Mexican coastline where his facility was located.

His fleet for this operation included two thirty-six-foot high-performance Outlaw models manufactured by Baja boats. The appropriately named Outlaws, seized by the Mexican government during a drug sting operation just south of Brownsville, Texas, had disappeared from their confiscated goods inventory a month later. The Los Zetas leadership had delivered them directly to their new pirate. Like the fugitive Abduwali, nobody bothered to look for the boats in the tiny town of Carvajal.

Boarding the cruise ship had many potentially complicating factors, but Abduwali had game-planned them all. Execution was the key, so he picked his best men to join him. As directed, he also chose some of the cartel’s guys. It annoyed him that he was still not fully trusted by his employers, but maybe they were correct in their opinion of him.

If his research on this operation held true, this might be their biggest payout to date. One that might enable him to flee the Los Zetas’ clutches and head to America.

Chapter Four

Aboard the Victory Casino Cruise Ship

One Hundred Miles Northeast of Brownsville, Texas

Gulf of Mexico

The captain of the Victory was a citizen of the British Commonwealth, or South African, to be exact. Johnson Garland had been a highly qualified and respected cruise ship captain for MSC sailing out of Cape Town for years. Then, one fateful trip in which his itinerary led him to Port Louis in Mauritius, he became acquainted with the dangerous paradise of this Indian Ocean country. The white sandy beaches, sunny blue skies, and swaying palm trees were alluring to honeymooners and tourists alike. But they were not the only outsiders pouring into the country.

Extensive air and sea connections to southeast Asia combined with free ports and a vibrant offshore banking industry made Mauritius a drug trafficker’s paradise. The drugs made their way into the sex trade, and the recently divorced Garland found his way into the drug-fueled sex dens of Port Louis. That was where he was introduced to China White.

The powerful opioid, created by a group of Russian chemistry students in the early nineties, became one of the most abused forms of heroin in the world. At a time when Garland was at his lowest, China White gave him the high he needed to live on. It also saddled him with an opioid addiction.

Like so many other addicts, Garland thought he could manage his body and mind’s need for the opioid. His job performance began to suffer, and when he was caught stealing OxyContin and Vicodin, pharmaceutical opioids, out of the ship’s infirmary, he was fired.

Wallowing in self-pity, he returned to Port Louis and allowed his life to spiral out of control. He quickly burned through his retirement account on prostitutes and smack until he hit rock bottom. He managed to avoid jail and fortunately was taken into a Christian-sponsored rehabilitation center in Mauritius.

When he exited the facility a year later, he’d found God, regained his health, and turned his focus to restarting his career as a captain. The last task was the toughest of them all. It took another year of nonstop résumé submittals and interviews. He was tainted by his prior termination of employment for cause. Then he tried Victory Cruise Lines, an upstart operation of casino-themed cruises operating off Florida and America’s gulf coast. They took a chance on Garland and hired him at the lowest level of employment, which allowed him time on the bridge.

From the date he was hired, Garland had an exemplary record. He didn’t drink. He kept to himself. He was always available to fill in for any position on the ship where a temporary void was created. He’d redeemed himself in many ways.

When Victory decided to expand their operation to the Port of Galveston, Captain Garland jumped at the opportunity when asked. At first, he would captain the ship for evening cruises only. He’d sail from Galveston at five in the afternoon, arrive at a set point several miles offshore while the passengers gambled, and then returned by midnight. It wasn’t much, but he was in charge.

During these short trips, he got to know his passengers. He greeted them when they boarded, and he thanked them when they left. His uncanny ability to recognize names and faces had fueled his rise to the top of the cruise ship business while he was in South Africa, and it benefitted him now. He knew, and used, the names of every member of the ship’s crew as well as the port workers.

He was also on a first-name basis with many of his regular passengers on the evening casino cruises. The previous evening, as the sun set over the Texas Gulf Coast, he’d made the rounds through the casino, stopping to speak with his guests, as he referred to them, calling them by name and asking about their families.

He was in his mid-forties but looked a decade older. Drugs and fast living will do that to a body. Otherwise, he was handsome, toned, and tanned. His looks certainly got him offers from the single women aboard his cruises, but he never violated the company’s policy against inappropriate conduct with passengers.

That morning, he’d wandered through the dining hall as guests enjoyed their breakfast. He was waved over to a table by a woman he recognized from prior cruises. He frowned because he couldn’t remember her name. As he arrived, she reminded him. She was Donna Larkin Ruiz from Austin. Her brother was American congressman Michael Larkin.

The two struck up a conversation, and she introduced Garland to her college-age daughter, Sofia, and her niece, the congressman’s daughter, Jenna. After several minutes of conversation about the ship and the coming storm, Garland invited the trio to join him on the bridge to watch the sunset that evening before they visited the casino. All three enthusiastically agreed.

After they arrived on the bridge, he introduced them to the members of the crew who navigated the Victory through the Gulf. Then he allowed them to approach the large windows overlooking the bow and sides of the cruise ship. They spoke excitedly as the sun began to set over Mexico to their west.

His chief officer interrupted the tour. “Captain?”

“Yes, Mr. Charles,” Garland replied. Don Charles was a polite young man from Pensacola who’d been assigned to Garland’s crew from the beginning. The two men had a good working relationship, so much so that Garland insisted on grooming Charles for advancement.

“We have reports that the tropical storm has strengthened and turned. It had been stalled by a dome of high pressure, allowing it to gain in size and intensity. More importantly, sir, the high has forced the storm on a westerly track.”

“In our path?” asked Garland, suddenly concerned about being in open waters during a hurricane.

“Sir, perhaps not if we could pick up speed. However, we’re smack in the middle of the westernmost traffic lane. We’re only five miles behind a tanker, matching his speed at thirteen knots. There are six other ships on the radar along this route.”

“Seven, plus ours,” muttered Garland. “Everyone else had the same idea, it appears.”

“Yes, sir. FYI, there are fifteen fishing and pleasure craft in the vicinity as well.”

Garland looked out the port windows at the darkening clouds on the horizon. “Where and when do you expect to pass the tanker? We can’t crawl along at thirteen and remain on schedule.”

Charles referred to the charts and studied the radar. He performed some calculations on his computer and provided the findings to his captain. “Bumping her up to sixteen knots will allow us a quick pass by midnight. It might also help outrun the storm.”

“So ordered, Mr. Charles. Carry on.” Garland returned to his guests on the bridge and pointed out some interesting aspects of the Gulf.

“This is fascinating, Captain Garland,” said Donna. She reached out and wrapped her arm through his, a gesture that didn’t go unnoticed by the two girls, who smiled at one another.

“Here’s a little-known fact about the area where we’re sailing,” began Garland, who made no effort to avoid contact with the attractive woman. “As we navigate in the direction of the Yucatan Peninsula, we’ll travel across a triangular area of the Gulf known as the Western Gap or, as we sailors call it, the donut hole.”

The congressman’s daughter laughed. “Is it anything like the Bermuda Triangle? If so, maybe we should take our chances with that nasty-looking storm over there.” She pointed toward the east. The setting sun cast a reddish-orange glow on the approaching clouds, giving the appearance that part of the storm was on fire.

Garland laughed. “No, miss. Nothing like that. It’s more of a political donut hole. When the two countries negotiated the border between the U.S. and Mexico back in the seventies, an invisible line was drawn that was considered a provisional border. Those lines were drawn using a complex series of arcs and tangents drawn from the coastline. Where they intersected, a portion of the Gulf was omitted, resulting in what the politicians call the Western Gap.”

Jenna laughed. “I bet my father would tell you that they probably argued for years about what to call it, which is why it’s still there.” She leaned in to Garland and whispered, “Please don’t repeat this, but he hates Washington. He said the oil business is cleaner than that cesspool.”

Garland and the women laughed so hard it distracted the entire crew on the bridge. While they focused on the reason for the uproar, Charles failed to notice two of the fishing boats abruptly changing course. They were now running parallel to one another and coming directly for the Victory at a high rate of speed.

Chapter Five

Aboard the Victory Casino Cruise Ship

Ninety Miles East of Carvajal, Tamaulipas, Mexico

Gulf of Mexico

When Abduwali and his men first entered Mexico’s territorial waters that day, the Gulf chop was moderate with a gentle three-foot swell and an easy distance between the waves’ crests. As the day progressed, the winds increased, occasionally ripping spindrift from the tops of the rolling waves.

The Baja Outlaws rode well across the water. The oceangoing fast boats were made for far worse conditions. Abduwali had just given the order to his companion boat to make their way directly toward the target at high speed. An empty tanker had just passed between them, and he intended to use its hulking footprint on radar to gain an advantage as he moved to intercept the Victory.

It was getting dark, and his timing would be just right. He expected most of the passengers to be eating at the last designated dinner service between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m., and the others would likely be in the casino, filled with free drinks and euphoric over the gambling.

He’d also studied the habits of the captain. He, like so many others, was a social creature. He frequently posted images of himself to Instagram and Facebook. If he didn’t post them himself, he was tagged by the honored passengers whom he befriended. Through his research, he’d identified 9:00 p.m. as the ideal time to strike.

The wind changed from a salty breeze to fresh gusts, an indicator that the tropical storm was fast approaching. The handheld radio in his pocket crackled to life. It was his most trustworthy assistant, who remained at the operations center during their attacks. His assistant monitored radar, news reports, and military communications throughout their time on the seas.

Abduwali held the radio to his ear to receive the report. “She has changed her speed. Up to sixteen knots. She has also turned to a more southerly course. Here are the coordinates.” Abduwali punched the numbers into the GPS device embedded in the Outlaw’s control panel. He hailed the companion boat to confirm they’d heard the coordinates correctly, and made the necessary adjustments in their course. They’d be intercepting the Victory sooner than expected, around 8:40 p.m. No matter, he thought to himself. As long as it wasn’t later. Passengers in cabins were harder to locate and subdue because he didn’t have enough men to conduct cabin-by-cabin searches.

They continued at a rapid pace across the now pitch-dark waters. He pulled his marine binoculars out of a side pocket of the boat. He looked directly ahead of his course and caught his first glimpse of the Victory. The lights flickered in the distance, but her signature illuminated bridge was unmistakable.

“There you are,” he whispered. Then he cued the microphone on his radio. “Make your sweeping maneuver now. We are ten minutes away. You know how to proceed. Avoid radio chatter.”

Abduwali had been on fifteen piracy missions in the last twelve months and had been successful in thirteen of them. On the two failures, he’d learned from new countermeasure techniques and adjusted his tactics accordingly. The casino cruise ship they were targeting was somewhat different.

There were two advantages to taking a passenger ship like this one. It was slower than most of the vessels they attacked. Boarding was far more difficult when the vessel was motoring along at greater than twenty-five knots and conducting evasive maneuvers. Also, the Victory was shorter. It was originally designed as an eco-tourist vessel, ferrying passengers through majestic mountains along the South American coastlines or through icy environs in Alaska.

The men chosen for this attack respected his abilities, although a few looked at him as a hired hand just as they were. The true authority of the Los Zetas was located high atop a mountain north of Monterey. Nonetheless, their cut of the spoils was more than they earned on the streets as drug trade enforcers, so they vied with one another to please Abduwali. They were recommended and vouched for by Los Zetas captains throughout Mexico. Tonight, they’d be tested.

He took a deep breath and cued the mic once again. “Two minutes!”

* * *

Charles had the helm while Garland made the rounds through the dining room. He didn’t expect the captain to return to the bridge until around ten that evening to get his final briefing before turning in to his quarters for the night. Garland wanted to be present as the Victory arrived at Cozumel to dock for the day before it set sail again the next night.

Charles glanced at the surface radar and was surprised to find two blips running parallel to one another roughly half a mile apart. Their speeds seemed to match, and their trajectory certainly did—straight toward the Victory. He performed some calculations. Maybe ten minutes out.

“Get me Captain Garland! Now!”

The announcement was made over the ship’s speaker system for Garland to report to the bridge immediately. While Charles waited for Garland to arrive, he tried to hail the approaching vessels on all open frequencies. There was no response.

Sweat broke out on his forehead, and he wiped his palms on his uniform. Everyone on the bridge was standing, scanning the waters around the ship, and glancing at the surface radar. With the Victory sailing at eighteen miles per hour and the estimated speed of the two approaching boats near seventy miles an hour, Garland was forced to revise his estimate.

“What’s the situation, Mr. Charles?” Garland asked as he arrived on the bridge.

“Sir, unknown boats rapidly approaching from our due south.”

“Did you hail them?”

“No response, sir. They are closing fast. Two minutes at best.”

“Pirates,” muttered Garland. While based in South Africa, his cruise line had made the decision to stop any travel along the Eastern African continent in the vicinity of Madagascar and Somalia. He’d considered himself fortunate to have never encountered the Somalian pirates or the pneumonic plague endemic to Madagascar, for that matter.

“Ninety seconds,” announced Charles.

Garland grabbed the microphone for the ship’s internal communications system.

“All hands. All hands. Countermeasures in effect. This is not a drill!”

He dropped the mic and looked to one of two seamen on the bridge with Charles. “Order all passengers to return to their cabins.” He turned to the other. “Issue a Mayday immediately!”

“Sixty seconds.”

“Right ninety degrees toward the coast. Easy, Mr. Charles. Don’t knock everybody down.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

Garland grabbed the binoculars and raced out the door of the bridge leading to the bow. He stumbled slightly as Charles initiated the change in course. He scanned the darkness beyond the ship. He couldn’t see the approaching boats, but he could hear their loud rumble. It was the unmistakable roar of power boats built for speed and agility. He could never outrun or successfully outmaneuver them.

He returned to the bridge and locked the door behind him. Charles announced that the boats had sped past and were now in a circling pattern.

“It’s a form of intimidation,” commented Garland. “Ask your General Custer. I would expect to be strafed with—”

As if on cue, automatic gunfire sent bullets flying into the steel hull of the ship, stitching the sides and ricocheting harmlessly into the Gulf. The intention was not to sink the Victory but, rather, to rattle its passengers. The technique worked.

Garland could hear screaming throughout his ship.

Charles opened the comms up, seeking assistance. “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. The Victory Casino Cruise ship is under pirate attack. Approximate position is one hundred eighty miles south-southwest of Brownsville, Texas. Repeat! Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!”

“All engines ahead full,” instructed Garland calmly. “Let’s not make it easy for them.”

* * *

Abduwali and his pirates had the Victory in their sight. His Outlaw was on her beam, easily keeping pace with the cruise ship’s twenty-two knots. The men in the boat grabbed their weapons and continued to shoot the side of the ship, piercing the porthole glass along the lower cabins. He could feel the excitement among his men. They knew the risks but loved the thrill of the hunt.

His companion ship ran a parallel course and was in position. They had the Victory in a classic trap. No matter which way she turned, the fast boats could easily intercept regardless of what the captain of the cruise ship attempted.

The Victory’s evasive measure of turning toward the coast was expected. Abduwali had seen it before. The first inclination of every sea captain was to race toward solid ground.

“Sorry, Captain. You’ll never get there,” the Somalian said to himself before addressing his team. “Fire on the bridge.” He gave the same instructions to the other boat.

Automatic gunfire erupted again as the glass windows on the bridge shattered. The men fired their AKs until their magazines were spent, and then expertly replaced them with another. They were wearing tactical vests with half a dozen or more full magazines secured in MOLLE pouches if needed.

The lights inside the bridge went dark, resulting in a spontaneous eruption of cheering by his men. The Victory suddenly veered left, causing Abduwali’s companion boat to pull back on the throttle. The Victory kept turning left as if intentionally creating a circular pattern. Had the captain and others on the helm been killed? Was the ship out of control? Abduwali furrowed his brow. He’d never thought of this eventuality.

* * *

The bridge was completely dark except for the illumination coming from the control panel. The two seamen assisting Garland and Charles were unknowingly given a death sentence by their captain. He’d instructed them to watch over the port and starboard sides of the ship to give him a position on the pirates. They were killed instantly by the rounds tearing through the glass.

Charles was grazed by a bullet, but it was the flying glass that killed him. A large shard of the shattered window crashed inward and stuck in his neck, severing his carotid artery. Blood gurgled out of his neck as Garland knelt on the floor of the bridge to help him. He was dead within seconds.

The Victory’s sudden lurch to the left returned its course seaward. The ship kept turning, and at over twenty knots, the momentum was forcing it to list onto its starboard side. The engines were howling at the redline under the strain of the sharp turn.

Garland gathered himself and took control of his ship. He had an idea. Sometimes, a safe harbor was not necessarily the answer. He course-corrected and pointed the Victory back out to sea, directly toward the approaching storm. Then he made an announcement to his passengers. They were told to lock themselves in their cabins and prepare to be boarded. Crew members were to immediately arm themselves and take up defensive positions. Any attempt to board the cruise ship should be met with appropriate force.

Another burst of gunfire sent bullets flying throughout the bridge. He ducked for cover to avoid getting killed. Then the landline phone rang at the helmsman’s station. Garland crawled along the floor and fumbled in the dark until he could reach it.

“Hallo,” he said into the mouthpiece, using his Oxford English.

“Who is this?” the woman asked.

“Captain Garland. We are under attack and in imminent danger of being boarded. I have had three members of my crew killed by automatic gunfire.”

The woman on the line was calm. “Captain, we are tracking your position due east at twenty knots.”

“Okay? Well, yes. That is correct.”

“Sir, I am Angela Bardwell with Lloyd’s of London Loss Mitigation. I will be your point of contact from this point forward.”

“Did you not hear what I said?” He shouted his question, as more gunfire could be heard outside the ship.

“We are aware of your situation, Captain. I am instructing you to tell your crew to stand down, and you are to surrender the Victory to the hostiles.”

“What? Are you crazy? You want me to let them on board?”

“That’s right, Captain. At this point, we are trying to save lives. You and your crew are not capable of handling this situation alone. Order them to stand down, and then bring the ship to a halt. Please confirm.”

Garland shook his head in disbelief. Why couldn’t she have called before three good lads lost their lives?

“Confirmed.”

Chapter Six

Mid-July 1944

Wewelsburg Castle

Büren, Germany

Heinrich Himmler was born in 1900 in Munich, Germany, the son of a schoolteacher. He served in the German Army toward the end of World War I, and afterwards, he bounced around various jobs, including a brief period as a chicken farmer.

During his involvement with the Nazi party in the early 1920s, he became known to the rising star and the party’s propaganda leader—Adolf Hitler. Himmler’s loyalty to the Nazi party and his keen awareness of security matters resulted in his appointment as the head of the Schutzstaffel, or SS, and Hitler’s personal bodyguard.

After the Nazis rise to power in 1933, Himmler became the head of the political police in Bavaria. An astute observer of human sociology, he manipulated his position to create a state within a state by expanding the SS and establishing its autonomy within the Nazi party as an enforcer in the form of a paramilitary organization.

By June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Himmler was considered the right-hand man of Hitler. He not only controlled the police but the political administration of the occupied territories. During this time, he forced more than a million residents out of Poland, to be replaced with German settlers.

Himmler demanded a residence that was befitting his stature, and over a period of several years leading up to World War II, he leased and renovated the historic, early-seventeenth-century Wewelsburg Castle. Situated atop a hill in Northeast Germany overlooking the Alme Valley, the triangular structure had fallen into disrepair.

Himmler saw the property as perfect for his residence and a facility to teach the Nazi ideology to young SS soldiers. The castle, filled with spiritual artifacts from around the world, was believed by Himmler to have magical powers. He thought certain items gave him the power to see into the future and provide Germany protection during a time of war.

A week after receipt of Rommel’s letter, Himmler summoned Dr. Kurt Blome, a high-ranking Nazi scientist and the head of Germany’s virology program. In addition, several pillars of the German military-industrial complex, ranging from manufacturing to science, were in attendance. For this meeting, he intentionally excluded military officers and Nazi party officials. Because he had the complete trust of Hitler, such clandestine meetings were never questioned.

Himmler waited in the grand foyer of the triangular castle. The soaring forty-foot walls were adorned with a mix of seized artwork and Nazi symbolism. An enormous flag bearing the Nazi Hakenkreuz, or swastika, hung from the ceiling, an imposing nod to the party.

One by one, he greeted his guests. Once they were all there, he led them deeper into the castle without comment. He believed his guests should be reverent in the moment as they soaked in their surroundings. He was not a tour guide. He was a leader of men.

After several minutes of moving through long hallways and obscure stairwells, the group arrived at a circular chamber known as the crypt. The room had a dancing eternal frame at the center and was surrounded by twelve seats. This was a very spiritual room for Himmler, and it was where he took meetings in which significant decisions would be made. Today was no different.

“I welcome you all to Wewelsburg. To my knowledge, only two of you have been here before—Herr Doktor Blome and General Guderian. Both of these men have served the Reich with honor and distinction.”

The two men nodded to their fellow guests and turned their attention back to Himmler.

“Our discussion today is private and intended for your ears only. Each of you will play a role in what I wish to propose, while some of you will confirm to the others the facts I will be relaying. After completion of our conversation today, I expect each of you to perform the necessary tasks to save Deutschland and maintain her greatness.”

“Sieg Heil!” shouted several of the attendees in unison.

Himmler nodded and took a seat. “General Guderian is here to confirm what I am about to impart upon you. Tomorrow, it will be announced that he is to replace General of the Infantry Kurt Zeitzler, a weak man who has suffered a nervous breakdown.”

The general received several nods of approval and smiles. The industrialists and wealthy financiers in attendance would reap huge rewards from any increase in weapons manufacturing ordered by Guderian.

Himmler continued. “I am told that the invasion at Normandy has resulted in the collapse of our Atlantic Wall. The Allied tank forces led by General Patton have advanced rapidly across France in an effort to cut off our retreat. The conventional war we’ve waged throughout Europe, Africa, the Soviet Union and in the Atlantic has reached its limits. Fighting on so many fronts is simply not sustainable.

“Der Führer will never accept defeat. He will ask our soldiers to dig in and fight. And they will. However, it is possible to be defeated, as the Normandy invasion has proven. Therefore, we must find another way to do battle.”

Himmler paused and looked upward toward the ceiling of the windowless room. The flames reached higher and higher as he spoke. It was the sign he was looking for to continue. To Himmler, a strong fire was a sign of virility and power. A weak flame was indicative of weakness and certain death.

“We must consider a method of attack that is loathed by der Führer. During the First World War, chlorine gas was used effectively on French troops in 1915. In retaliation, France and the British deployed mustard gas against our armies.

“In mid-October of 1918, der Führer and several comrades were in a fierce battle at Ypres. They were ordered to pull back from their trench and, as a result, were partially blinded by the mustard gas. Through incredible bravery, der Führer led his comrades to safety by guiding them through the gas. Soon thereafter, while der Führer was hospitalized, Deutschland was forced to surrender.”

Himmler took a deep breath and rose from his chair. He clasped his hands behind his back and walked around the crypt, studying the flames and the interesting shadows they made on the stone walls.

“Mein Führer refuses to use poisonous gases on our adversaries. He is an honorable warrior, seeking to fight a war using the weapons that God has given us to use. I admire this, but I believe he has lost sight of the ultimate goal, which is winning or, he presumes, victory.”

He glanced in the direction of General Guderian and nodded, indicating he should speak.

“There is another tactical reason, one that both Field Marshal Rommel and I agree upon,” began the general. “We have successfully employed the blitzkrieg military strategy throughout the war. With a combination of these sudden attacks led by our superior panzer tank forces and the Luftwaffe, followed swiftly by our infantry, we’ve crushed the Allied forces repeatedly.”

Himmler rose and continued the analysis. “Unfortunately, there is a drawback to this strategy. If we deployed bombers to use chemical weapons, they would contaminate the same area our soldiers would then have to march into. Therefore, these extraordinarily effective weapons could potentially kill our own.”

He walked until he stood behind Dr. Blome and set both hands on the man’s shoulders. Dr. Blome nodded to acknowledge the presence of the powerful Himmler behind him. He sensed the weight of the survival of the Reich was about to be thrust upon his shoulders.

“Herr Doktor Blome, bitte.”

“Jawohl, Reichsführer Himmler,” he began. “In 1938, our scientists, led by Gerhard Schrader, were tasked with inventing a less costly pesticide to kill the weevils damaging our crops and orchards. The four-man team experimented with a mixture of phosphorus and cyanide that was too toxic to use for agricultural purposes.

“Schrader’s employer, IG Farben, who is represented here today, informed the army of their discovery. Upon orders from Berlin, Schrader conducted further experiments until he produced a nerve agent so deadly that many of the army scientists dubbed the liquid tabun. Taboo. The nerve agent was named sarin, an acronym for the names of the four scientists who developed it.”

The industrialist from IG Farben spoke up. “Our company stopped manufacturing the sarin when the military chose not to purchase it from us. We had no other use for such a deadly substance.”

The room fell silent as the men looked from the Farben representative to Dr. Blome. Himmler was the first to speak.

“Production has not ceased. It is now under the auspices of Herr Doktor Blome at Riems Island.”

The room burst into whispered conversation. The production of sarin was considered taboo, not only because it was contrary to Hitler’s wishes, but because its use was deemed unhumanitarian, even for the Nazis, who hadn’t hesitated to use Zyklon B to exterminate the Jewish race. From the Nazi perspective, Zyklon B, the poisonous gas commonly known as hydrogen cyanide, resulted in suffocation. Sarin was considered a more brutal death.

“I did not know this!” protested the representative from IG Farben. “We will have no part of this.” He began to rise from his chair to leave.

With the man standing in front of the fire staring at Dr. Blome, Himmler spoke. “Is there anyone who objects to the manufacture of sarin gas and its use as a weapon of war?”

One other man, a banker, stood and shook his head before lowering it. He was ashamed to disagree with Himmler, but he was given the option to distance himself from the nerve agent.

Without saying another word, Himmler led the two men to the only doorway leading into the crypt. Outside, two SS guards awaited them. Himmler’s words were whispered and ominous.

“These two gentlemen do not wish to participate further in our conversation. Please see to them.”

As the SS guards escorted the men through the labyrinth of hallways, Himmler shook his head in disappointment. He had no problem sentencing men to their death. He’d preferred loyalty and cooperation. However, they were now privy to information that could not see the light of day. Within ten minutes, the two men would be executed and their bodies fed to the incinerator in the bowels of the castle.

Himmler returned to the attendees. “To each his own,” he said with a slight shrug and a barely noticeable smile. He suspected those two men would be more than contrarians. Those who would be chosen to take their positions would remain in lockstep with his Himmler’s plan. “We’re at war, and sometimes you must act rashly.”

“Reichsführer Himmler, may I speak freely now?” asked Dr. Blome.

“Yes, of course.”

“Based on our present manufacturing capacity at Riems Island, we are capable of producing twelve thousand kilograms of sarin within twelve months. Currently, we have two thousand kilos stockpiled.”

“You will be provided the resources to step up production,” said Himmler.

“Yes, thank you, Reichsführer Himmler. There is the matter of the delivery system. Am I to understand that the use of aerial armaments is off the table?”

“Yes, but only in our battle zones,” Himmler replied. “We are in the process of identifying experten, our highest scoring flying aces, to lead a special fighter force organized under General der Jagdflieger. Herr Herbst from Messerschmitt AG is here to speak to their aircraft.”

“Thank you, Reichsführer Himmler. We have increased production of the Messerschmitt 262, the Sturmvogel.” Sturmvogel, or Storm Bird, was the fighter-bomber version of the Messerschmitt aircraft. It was faster and more heavily armed than any Allied fighter jet.

Himmler interrupted. “These advanced aircraft will be dispatched on strategic bombing runs behind our enemies’ lines. They will be capable of carrying a total of five hundred kilograms of sarin.”

“Am I to focus on other potential delivery systems?” Dr. Blome asked.

Himmler paused and studied each of the men in the room. He had a response to the scientist’s question, but it was not necessary to inform the others. He’d divulged enough to get Project Tabun underway.

Chapter Seven

August 14, 1944

German Army Kommandantur

Palais du Rhin

Strasbourg, France

After the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, Strasbourg and the rest of Alsace-Lorraine in France was annexed by the kaiser of the German Empire. As the new capital of the province, the kaiser needed a residence symbolic of his imperial power. During the many decades of war in Europe, the massive structure passed hands until it was occupied once again by the Germans in 1944.

Reichsführer Himmler called a meeting of trusted members of the Nazi party and the military. It had been three weeks since the failed attempt on the life of Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair, his headquarters, in Poland. Known as Operation Valkyrie, or the 20 July Plot, a group of military conspirators and their civilian allies became convinced the only way to save Germany from destruction was to remove Hitler through assassination.

Led by a young staff officer, Lieutenant Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the conspirators stayed one step ahead of the Gestapo, who’d received word that a coup attempt was imminent. Himmler was aware of the coup, and many of the conspirators saw him as a potential ally.

By mid-July of 1944, Himmler was convinced the war was unwinnable, hence his decision to initiate Project Tabun. However, he wanted no part of the assassination plot. Nor did he want to expose it. Most likely, it was he who would become Hitler’s successor, which would allow him to negotiate a peace with the Allied forces.

The bomb planted in the Wolf’s Lair conference room was not powerful enough to kill the Nazi leader. The failed assassination attempt served to strengthen the ties between Himmler and Hitler. As a result, Himmler was able to pursue his endeavors counter to the Führer’s wishes with impunity.

After Operation Valkyrie failed, the upper echelon within the Nazi party began to see the handwriting on the wall. They viewed Hitler as a weak, increasingly unhinged leader, who’d lost the respect of most of his immediate underlings. There were calls for surrender. Also, many contemplated leaving their beloved homeland before they were killed in battle or murdered by the Soviets.

Himmler was attuned to all of this. Throughout the chaotic events of that summer of 1944, he was able to observe and catalog the activities of the highest-ranking members of the Nazi party as well as business leaders. With his network of political spies, Himmler could identify whom he could trust, and who was still foolishly loyal to Hitler.

Against that backdrop, the forward-thinking Himmler developed a plan B. While he still had confidence that Project Tabun could turn the tide of the war, on the outside chance it did not, he was looking for an alternative. A means by which he and trusted associates could live to fight another day.

The idea for his proposal came from Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini, a Palestinian and Muslim cleric named the chief religious and spiritual leader of Jerusalem by the British government. Al-Husseini was decidedly against Zionism, and as a result of Himmler’s hatred of the Jewish people, the two men had struck up a friendship a year prior to the war.

When the war broke out, he quickly aligned himself with the fascist governments in Berlin and Rome. As the war turned sour for the Reich, he offered letters of encouragement to Himmler, and in one of those letters, al-Husseini introduced the concept of an escape plan.

The Mufti warned Himmler that whether the Germans surrendered or were defeated, their country would be a difficult place to live because of their association to the Reich. He suggested they begin to plan for the inevitable—the departure from Germany for a place where they could live out their years in hiding.

Switzerland remained an option because of its neutrality, but there were no guarantees they’d protect war criminals. The Vatican was also seen as a place of safe refuge. Certain Northern Africa nations were considered as well as South America.

In any event, to proceed with such a plan required advance planning, and the purpose of this initial meeting in Strasbourg was to lay the groundwork. Himmler reached out to the highest-ranking Nazi party officials whom he knew he could trust. They were important for another reason. These men would form the backbone of a resurgence of the Nazi party after the war, not unlike what Hitler had accomplished after Germany’s defeat in World War I.

Himmler brought with him Dr. Johann Scheid, director of HESCHO AG, a major military equipment supplier of the Third Reich. Dr. Scheid was also an SS Obergruppenführer, one rank below that of Himmler’s.

Himmler’s two most trusted associates, Field Marshal Rommel and Adolph Eichmann, arrived a day early to discuss the plan. Eichmann was known as the architect of Hitler’s Final Solution—the elimination of the Jewish people from Europe. He masterminded the Nazi network of death camps, including Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Dachau. The Desert Fox would lead the military.

The next to arrive was Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death, who conducted macabre, sickening experiments on the prisoners held at Auschwitz. His reputation for utter ruthlessness was admired by both Hitler and Himmler.

Two SS commanders, Josef Schwammberger and Erich Priebke, arrived together. The two friends would be considered the leaders of a revitalized Gestapo when the time came. One of their counterparts, Gerhard Bohne, arrived at the meeting alone. He was both an SS commander and a lawyer. He was known for his understanding of government affairs, a role that would help shape a future administration led by Himmler.

The last to arrive was a surprise to all the other attendees, but once the discussions ensued, it became apparent his reasons for joining this who’s who of the Nazi party were obvious. Martin Bormann was the head of the Nazi Party Chancellery. As Hitler’s private secretary, he controlled the flow of information and access to der Führer. If their plans were to evade the scrutiny of Hitler, it would be because of Bormann’s ability to protect all involved.

In addition, over the years, he had been instrumental in creating an extensive bureaucracy within the Nazi party. He had a hand in every aspect of its operations and could therefore manipulate any information as necessary.

“Gentlemen, once again, thank you for joining us here today,” began Himmler after dinner and drinks were shared. “I intentionally avoided the topic of conversation during our dinner together so we could all reconnect. The trials and tribulations of war have prevented most social opportunities. I wanted us all to remember we’ve been friends for a very long time.

“I want to explain what I propose and, more importantly, how this is not a betrayal of Mein Führer. If anything, it should be viewed as an opportunity to continue our work in the event of defeat or forced surrender.

“We all have suffered loss during this epic struggle on behalf of our beloved Deutschland. We have also profited. Our efforts should not be wasted because of miscalculations or bad luck, at times. I still believe in the oath to Mein Führer and my promise to Deutschland. In the event our time is not now, then we should prepare for another.”

“Heinrich, we are but a few,” began Bormann, one of only a handful in attendance who could refer to Himmler by his first name. “I envision an exodus of party leaders and industrialists that would gut the Reich. We can’t all jump ship like a bunch of rats at once. Der Führer will be helpless without us.”

Himmler nodded. “Understood. This is why I have brought all of you together. Over the next two days, we will talk about the logistics associated with this plan. It will involve smuggling gold, art, and other valuables out of Germany. We will approach our top scientists and industrialists. Our legal experts will secure patents around the globe to protect our work. Our industrialists, bankers, and financiers will make arrangements to expand their existing businesses to other nations.

“Every aspect of the successes we’ve enjoyed over the last decade will be replicated elsewhere, including the Far East, the Middle East, and even directly under the noses of the Allied forces.”

“I always wanted to live in New York!” said Eichmann with a chuckle.

“No, actually, my friend, you’d hate it there,” replied Himmler bluntly.

“Hollywood?” Eichmann asked.

“Oh, yes!” replied Mengele. “Lots of communists and whores and little boys.”

The group began to laugh, and Himmler allowed them a moment of brevity. He was not interested in their depravity. Unlike a few in the room with the exception of Rommel, Himmler believed in the Nazis’ quest for a pure Aryan race. He had no need for immorality or the degeneracy of American show business.

He continued with a stern voice. “By doing this, we will have the ability to re-establish the Nazi Party through an underground movement, just as we did in the twenties and thirties. The difference will be our vast resources and experience this time.”

Dr. Scheid spoke up. “I can carefully approach the executives from Volkswagen, Krupp Steel, Brown-Boveri, Zeiss and Leica. May I assume our friends at Messerschmidt are on board?”

Himmler nodded and winked. “From now on, German industry must realize the war cannot be won and that it must take steps in preparation for a post-war campaign. Our bankers must recognize the future may lie temporarily outside Europe, but the void they leave behind can be filled by our financial allies at Union Bank of Switzerland.”

“Yes,” exclaimed Mengele. “UBS, the pillar of the banking world in supposedly neutral Switzerland. Those high and mighty fools financed the war for us. They were just too stupid to know it.”

Once again, the Nazis shared a hearty laugh. Even the usually stoic Himmler smiled. UBS laundered more money for the Nazi Party than any other financial institution in the world. Their numbered accounts were tailor-made for the Nazis’ ill-gotten gains.

“These are all details that will be worked out over the coming days. From this point forward, this plan will be discussed outside the official quarters of any military or political office of the Reich. Tomorrow, as more join us for discussions, we will be meeting at the Hotel Rotes Haus. The day after that, we’ll convene at the Maison Rouge hotel. Despite our agreement, and for the protection of Martin, we must remain clandestine in our activities. That means no pillow talk with your wives and women. Understood?”

The group all agreed. The two SS commanders, Schwammberger and Priebke, had remained mostly silent during the conversation. Finally, Priebke asked, “Does this operation have a name?”

“Yes, it is quite simple,” replied Himmler. “Odessa.”

Chapter Eight

Aboard the Victory Casino Cruise Ship

One Hundred Five Miles East of Brownsville, Texas

Gulf of Mexico

Garland was familiar with the insurance company’s approach to piracy on the high seas. When he was with MSC in South Africa, he’d conversed with other captains who’d proposed a contingency plan in the event of an attack of this kind. A senior captain presented it to management, who had insisted upon changes to protect the company from lawsuits. It was later approved with the consent of the insurance companies.

In South Africa, cruise ships did not carry weapons of any kind, not even a pistol to take down a raving-mad, homicidal heavy loser at the gaming tables. America was different. Over the past decade, it became customary to arm employees of all types. Society had begun to show signs of collapse as Marxist protestors demanded change in the wake of heavy losses to the nation following an asteroid’s remnants striking part of the planet. The ever-impatient Americans were unwilling to allow the nation time to repair, and demanded that more be done. The result was chaos in many cities across the nation.

The plan adopted relied upon speed and mild maneuvering to keep the boatloads of armed pirates at bay. However, the cruise line was not willing to have the marauding pirates slaughter a great many of its employees and passengers, so they adopted a surrender tactic. Lloyd’s of London, one of the world’s largest ship insurers, apparently agreed. Hence the stand-down order.

* * *

Abduwali strode confidently through the carpeted hall leading to the bridge. He knew exactly which passageway to use and where every door was located as he walked past. He’d carefully studied the deck plan of the Victory after downloading it online several weeks prior.

Two men accompanied him, armed with AK-47s, holding them at their hips, prepared to fire. He had a sidearm tucked into his black cargo pants, covered by a black tee shirt. To finish off his ensemble, he wore his preferred battle cap bearing the New York Yankees logo.

The door to the bridge was ajar, and the space was dark except for the ambient light coming from the control panels of the ship. He walked through the entry into a scene from an American slasher movie. He’d seen bullet-riddled bridges before, but this was the worst. All of the windows were shot out, and three dead bodies lay on the once spotless floor covered in glass mixed with blood.

A man’s silhouette caught his eye. Abduwali pulled a tactical flashlight off the waistband of his pants. He clicked the button and shined the light on the man standing erect near the helm. The captain was spiffily dressed in white with four stripes on his tabs. His once clean uniform was now sprayed with a bloody mist that had turned his shirt a variety of colors from crimson red to light pink.

The world-renowned pirate pointed the flashlight around the bridge to check for other members of the crew. He paused to survey the carnage. He turned his attention back to the captain, who appeared to be unharmed.

“Check for weapons!” he ordered his men, who moved toward the captain. They patted him down and then checked the bodies and any compartments on the bridge. The captain remained silent throughout the process.

Abduwali slowly walked through the bridge to avoid stepping on bodies and blood. He looked through the shattered port windows and craned his neck to check for activity at the rear of the ship. His men were hoisting cans of ammunition and additional weapons with the use of grappling hooks. His orders were to secure all parts of the ship and then prepare for any rescue effort. His fellow pirates, with their special forces training, were fast and efficient in completing their tasks.

Without a glance, he walked to the other side of the bridge, ignoring the dead and the captain, who continued to stand completely still. His boat had been emptied and tied off to the rear of the ship.

“You are Captain Garland, correct?” he asked politely, addressing the sole survivor on the bridge for the first time.

“Yes.”

“You are going to talk to your crew and passengers on the ship’s communications system. You will say what is written on this paper and nothing else. Understood?”

“Yes,” said Garland as he took the folded sheet of copy paper from Abduwali. He read the typewritten instructions and nodded.

* * *

Below deck, the passengers scrambled for their staterooms and locked the doors. Donna Ruiz, her daughter, Sofia, and her niece, Jenna, hid in their room and barricaded the door with furniture. It was Jenna who had the presence of mind to access the ship’s internet with her iPad.

They could hear shouting and the cries for help of passengers in the hallway. Occasionally, gunshots rang out as passengers were forced to submit to the orders of the pirates. Because their porthole window had been shot out, they could hear a loud splash just outside their stateroom. The women chose to believe someone had jumped overboard in a desperate attempt to escape.

She accessed her Gmail account and sent all the details she’d observed to her father’s personal and official congressional email addresses. Then she copied and pasted the email and forwarded it to her uncle, her mother, her boyfriend, and her best friend. She relayed to them she’d email as often as possible, and if the ship’s bandwidth allowed, she’d broadcast live on Facebook.

She paused as the sound of footsteps outside their room could be heard. The door handle twisted slightly, but the lock prevented it from opening. Seconds later, another gunshot rang out, and the person outside their door rushed off.

Jenna sent the last email, and the three women huddled in the corner of the room as far away from the door as possible. Then the captain made an announcement.

* * *

On the bridge, Garland’s hand shook as he held the note. Abduwali used his flashlight to illuminate the words the captain was to announce to the ship. He was growing impatient with Garland’s hesitation, so he shouted in his ear, “Now!”

“This is Captain Garland. The Victory has been captured by pirates. You will obey every order given to you by them or they will kill you. This you must understand …” His voice trailed off for a moment. He subconsciously contemplated correcting the poor English syntax but chose to continue when one of the pirates stuck the barrel of an AK-47 in his ribs.

“Obey orders and everyone will live. Disobey them and all of us will die.”

He paused again, drawing his captors’ ire. The rifle barrel twisted into his rib cage.

“Continue!” shouted Abduwali.

“All crew members will remain at their workstations and continue their duties. Engineers shall remain in their spaces but are cautioned not to tamper with the ship’s controls. Off-duty crew members will be confined to quarters. All passengers are ordered to remain in their staterooms until further notice. No exceptions or the pirates will kill you. That is all.”

“Good, Captain Garland,” said Abduwali with a snarl. “Now you will sit in the corner. The bridge, and your ship, belongs to me.”

Chapter Nine

Tangier Island, Virginia

“Come on, Bear! Get the lead out!” Cameron Mills didn’t cut her fellow operative any slack. The sun was setting over Chesapeake Bay, and the haze of a hot summer day obscured the Virginia shoreline a dozen miles away. The Steven Thomas dinner cruise boat was sailing slowly toward the south, and the festive sounds of Caribbean steel drums carried across the serene waters. Cam added sarcastically, “I’d like to open a beer in this lifetime, if you don’t mind.”

The burly Barrett King dropped a heavy box of books and turned around on the dock to face Cam. “If you’re so dang thirsty, why don’t you swim out to the party boat and have a beer?”

“Don’t start with me!” she shouted back.

“You started with me, Cam!”

Inside his new home, Gunner Fox shook his head at the grown-up children’s sniping and smiled. He stood in his bedroom and set a box on the mattress of his bed. He gently unwrapped a picture frame containing a picture of his deceased wife, Heather, taken during their honeymoon.

“Well, we had to move,” he whispered as he set the frame on his nightstand. He turned the switch on the lamp and sat on the bed to study the photo. “I really didn’t want to leave Dog Island, but the logistics simply didn’t work out. They needed me closer to Fort Belvoir. Anyway, I got us the next best thing. I mean, hey, it’s an island.” Gunner kissed two fingers on his right hand and planted it on Heather’s photo.

For several years after the Gray Fox team had been reconstituted under the umbrella of the Activity at Fort Belvoir, Gunner, Cam and Bear had lived at Dog Island off the Gulf Coast of Florida. However, the frequent meetings and operations required their presence in Virginia more often than initially contemplated. The helicopter travel became untenable, and eventually it was decided the trio should make the move closer to the base.

Cam and Bear, who were more socially active than Gunner, opted for homes on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. Gunner, whose psyche was meant for secluded island living, found a place on Tangier Island located just southeast of the mouth of the Potomac within the heart of Chesapeake Bay.

The island was first discovered by Captain John Smith in the early 1600s, but the first permanent settlers didn’t arrive until the latter part of the seventeenth century. It was once occupied by the British during the War of 1812, who built Fort Albion on the beach to house its twelve hundred troops. The redcoats used the island as a forward operating base to attack Washington, DC, during the war. Today, the site of the fort was under water.

The population of the island, which has steadily lost its land mass due to erosion and other factors, was now less than seven hundred. With the shoreline receding, it was estimated the entire island might have to be evacuated within fifty years. When this information was disclosed to Gunner by the real estate agent, he simply shrugged. In his line of work, he might not be alive in fifty minutes, much less fifty years.

Gunner had fallen in love with the island the moment he stepped off the boat at the County Dock. Tangier Harbor was dotted with idyllic crab shanties of all colors, with weathered wood being the norm. They were essentially detached sheds sitting on pilings in the water. Some appeared decrepit, but all had functioning utilities and were often lived in during the spring through fall months.

The watermen were active that day, bringing in another large catch of soft-shell crabs. They woke up every morning at three, gathered with their friends for a smoke and coffee, and then checked the pens holding the live crabs. Those who’d grown too large for their hard shells shed them. Once they did, the now soft-shell crabs were scooped out of the pens and shipped around the world.

The entire town of Tangier revolved around the watermen’s schedules and the ferries connecting the island with the mainland. The local shops opened when the visitors arrived by ferry and closed immediately thereafter. The only restaurant and bar closed at eight.

Gunner had enjoyed eating oysters when he lived near Apalachicola, and after having lunch with the Realtor, he gained an affinity for Chesapeake Bay blue crabs. After he closed on the property and began packing for the move, he learned a second bar was announced. It was to be called the Broken Hart Raw Bar.

Gunner found the name amusing, but the Realtor explained it might be a play on words. From the sky, during high tide, the bay waters encroach deeper onto the island, lending the appearance Tangier Island was shaped like a broken heart. As Gunner sat on his empty bed and stared at the photo of Heather smiling back at him, he realized he’d come to the right place.

Bear entered the bedroom, with Cam close behind. “Okay, big guy. The boat’s emptied, and the pilot headed back to Norfolk.”

Gunner stood and wiped his face with his right hand. He hadn’t been sweating, but it was more of a habit to erase his melancholy mood when he missed his wife.

He exchanged fist bumps with Bear and Cam. “You know what that means, right?”

“It’s beer thirty, mon!” shouted Cam in her best Caribbean accent. She immediately looked down to her watch. “Dammit. It’s past eight.”

“No worries, sistah,” said Bear in his baritone islander voice. “I picked up a case of a local craft beer at the bait shop on the way in. It’s on ice, ice, baby.” He sang the last line as if he were a black version of the rapper-turned-house-flipper, Vanilla Ice.

“Really? Ice, ice, baby? How old are you?”

“Old enough for you to call me daddy,” said the flirtatious Bear.

Cam stood with her hands on her hips and stared at her teasing nemesis. “I’d break you, pal. Get me a beer before I show you how bad it will hurt.” She turned her body into a martial arts attack stance, something Bear had seen before. He quickly scampered out of the bedroom toward the kitchen.

Gunner laughed. “You should really give him a break, you know.”

Cam shook her head defiantly. “No way. Not after bustin’ his balls all these years. He might get the wrong idea.”

“He’s got a girlfriend, right?”

“Hell, Gunner. You know that doesn’t mean jack. He burns through them in weeks. Or they grow tired of him.”

“What about you?” he asked.

“What about me?”

“You know. Have you scoped out any of the locals near your place?”

Can shook her head and gestured for him to follow her to the kitchen. “I’ll find a toy at some point, but nothing serious. It’s a distraction, you know.”

Gunner nodded. It probably was.

“Hey, guys!” bellowed Bear. “Check out the news.”

Cam and Gunner picked up the pace. CNN was reporting a cruise ship had been hijacked and possibly boarded by pirates. Cam found the remote and was about to turn up the volume when all three of their cell phones rang simultaneously.

It was Ghost. They’d been called to the Den.

Chapter Ten

The Den

Fort Belvoir, Virginia

The US Coast Guard amphibious helicopter made a gentle landing on the glass-like waters of Chesapeake Bay. The pilot expertly floated up to the end of Gunner’s dock, leaving plenty of clearance between the aircraft’s hull and Gunner’s Donzi 41GT sport boat. The transportation of the boat to Tangier Island had proved far more difficult than the logistical difficulties of moving a household of furniture from one island to another. The boat transport company came through and didn’t allow a scratch on her.

It only took a couple of minutes for them to load into the plane and race up the Potomac River to Fort Belvoir. The U.S. Army installation housed more than thirty government agencies, both on and off the books. Gray Fox was the newest of its tenants. Although it was included within the Department of Defense’s black-ops budget, and therefore fell under the overall purview of the Activity, Gray Fox was given its own operation center that the team dubbed the Den.

Gunner led Cam and Bear into the Den, where Ghost immediately acknowledged their arrival. He lifted his index finger to his lips before pointing to the eight-foot-wide monitors mounted on the wall in front of the Gray Fox support team. Several news networks were covering the story, but the volume to Fox News was turned up for all to hear.

“As we’ve been reporting—and keep in mind, this is breaking news and the situation is fluid—the Mexican navy has released a statement that an American-based cruise ship, the Victory Casino Cruise operating out of Galveston, Texas, has come under siege.

“In an apparent pirate attack carried out by several armed men from as many as two boats, the cruise ship is no longer in control of its crew. Initially, no demand for ransom had been made, but we’re told in the last two hours that situation has changed, with details to follow.

“The southern Gulf of Mexico has seen an increasing number of pirate attacks on oil platforms and boats in recent years. Last spring, the Italian-flagged Romulus was boarded by heavily armed assailants reputed to be part of Mexican drug cartels. Two Italian crew members were killed before the ransom was paid to the hostage takers.

“The demands for ransom represent an escalation in the piracy activity in the Gulf. For years, oil and diesel stealing has been an accepted risk for doing business in the Gulf. Of late, as many as two million barrels of oil are stolen per day, bringing millions of dollars into the coffers of Mexican criminal organizations.

“Also, from time to time, pleasure craft have been robbed. The Mexican navy has pledged in the past to monitor these waters through increased patrols, but analysts claim the problem has only worsened as the pirates become emboldened by their successes.

“Now, for an update on a complication that is floating around on social media, let’s go to our Los Angeles newsroom and—”

Ghost furrowed his brow and ordered the volume to be turned off. He turned to the new arrivals and gruffly ordered, “My office.”

They dutifully followed Ghost. Gunner and Cam exchanged looks of concern. They’d handled many operations since the Gray Fox team had come together following the asteroid mission. But Gunner had never seen this level of concern on their boss’s face.

Ghost stepped aside to allow the three operatives to enter his office first. “Jackal!” he barked. “Join us.”

The bespectacled young woman scampered out of her station and hustled into the office just as Ghost was closing the door. Theodora “Teddy” Cuccinelli was the lead analyst of the Gray Fox team. During an operation while the team was on the ground, Jackal, a nickname bestowed upon her because of her information technology expertise, acted as the eyes and ears for the team. She would monitor satellite feeds, radio chatter, and provide data to Gunner, Cam and Bear in real time to assist them on their missions.

Ghost, whose real name was Gregory Smith, was formerly a colonel in the U.S. Air Force. He’d trained Gunner at the Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field, Florida, years ago. After a distinguished career, he was pulled into the world of black ops by the Department of Defense. His skillful handling of Gunner and his team during the asteroid crisis had earned him the opportunity to reconstitute the Gray Fox unit under the umbrella of the Activity.

Formed half a century ago during the Iranian hostage crisis, the Activity was a highly secretive intelligence unit rumored to handle self-contained, off-the-books missions. Its secretive nature was designed to do the types of things the law wouldn’t allow and to shield politicians from the ramifications if an operation went bad.

The first Gray Fox unit had operated in Afghanistan and was well-known for its abilities to aggravate the Taliban. Its operatives were absorbed into other units within the Activity after the U.S. began to pull its troops from Afghanistan, leaving the unit empty until Gunner and company were offered the opportunity to resurrect it.

“Sir, I gather there’s more to this than a hostages-for-money swap,” began Cam.

Ghost was pacing the floor with his hands shoved in his pocket. His face revealed his concern.

“That’s right. We know more than the news networks do at this point. I wanted to discuss it with you before we go out in the ops center to formulate a rescue plan.”

“Sir, may I interrupt with an update in that regard?” asked Jackal.

“Please do.”

“Everyone, one of the passengers on the ship is the daughter of Congressman Michael Larkin from Houston. He sits on the House Appropriations Committee.”

Gunner interrupted. “I know the chairman of that committee. Good guy. Has the congressman been notified of his daughter’s abduction?”

“Yes,” replied Jackal. “His daughter, college age, was locked in her cabin along with her aunt, the congressman’s sister, and her cousin. She had the presence of mind to fire off a series of emails to her contact list. Then she took it a step forward and began to post live video from her stateroom to Facebook and Instagram.”

“Brave girl,” said Bear.

Jackal nodded. “Well, and this is speculation, but she was discovered somehow either through a review of the ship’s passenger list or the monitoring of social media. Either way, we believe the pirates’ goals changed from robbing a casino cruise and the passengers of any valuables to a very large ransom demand.”

“How much?” asked Gunner.

“Fifty million,” Jackal replied as she rubbed her temples.

“Jesus,” muttered Cam. “So what’s the plan? Are we going in?”

Ghost took the floor. “We need to assess our options, but there are several factors in play. For one, Lloyd’s of London has asked the Mexican government to stand down while they determine whether they’re going to pay the ransom.”

“Yeah, sure,” groaned Bean. “Y’all take your time, okay? I mean, those pirates got nothing better to do except wait for your dumb asses.”

“I tend to agree, Bear, and so does the congressman,” interjected Ghost.

“Sir, you said Mexican government. Where does Washington stand in all of this?”

Ghost grimaced. “Currently, the Victory is adrift in the Gulf about a hundred miles east-southeast of Brownsville. Technically, it’s in Mexico’s territorial waters.”

“Who gives a shit?” asked Cam. “That’s never stopped us before.”

“Which is why we’re all here,” answered Ghost. “We’re gonna take care of our own, but we can’t send in our acknowledged special forces. It’s gonna be up to us.”

Gunner stood from his chair. “That’s all I need to hear. Let’s figure this thing out.”

Ghost agreed and the group exited into the operations center. Cam was the first to lay out the potential problems with a hostage rescue.

“I’m gonna make some assumptions,” she began. “We don’t know how many pirates have commandeered the ship, correct?”

“In part,” replied Jackal as she motioned for the group to follow her to her workstation. She was positioned in the center of the room at a U-shaped desk. There were two computers attached to six monitors wrapping their way from one end of the desk to the other. At the moment, all screens revealed one aspect or another of her monitoring efforts. “We’ve gone back to monitor radar and satellite footage of the time leading up to the ship issuing its Mayday calls. We can confirm that two powerboats approached the Victory from the south simultaneously. However, we cannot confirm how many pirates are involved in the attack.”

Gunner turned to Bear. “Whadya think, a dozen?”

“If even,” he replied. “If those fast boats are anything like your Donzi, seating six might be a stretch. They’re a hundred miles from the coast. That’s a long haul sitting on the aft sundeck, you know what I mean?”

“I agree,” replied Gunner. He turned to Cam. “They’re gonna see us comin’.”

“No doubt about it. The bridge will have radar to spot any approaching surface craft. We could try to come from below, but the moment we pop our heads out of the water, they’ll put a bullet in them.”

Gunner rolled his head around his neck. He wandered away from Jackal’s desk among the support team.

“Sir?” said one of the analysts as he spun in his chair to address Ghost. “The internet connection to the ship was cut off in the middle of the latest live feed from the Larkin girl. There was the sound of gunfire and shouting in Spanish. Then the feed abruptly ended.”

“Shit!” exclaimed Ghost.

Gunner continued to think. As he walked behind the chairs of the support team, he stopped behind one of the analysts and pointed at one of her monitors. “What’s that?”

The attractive young woman turned and smiled at Gunner. “Oh, hello, sir,” she said in a soft voice.

Cam lowered her eyes and elbowed Bear, who was standing next to her. She nodded toward Gunner and the analyst.

Gunner blushed and he stood a little taller. “Um, hi. Is that the weather radar for the tropical storm?”

“Former tropical storm, sir. Now it’s been upgraded to a category one and is expected to be a two when it makes landfall in Brownsville.”

Gunner leaned over the woman’s chair to get a closer look at her monitor. His tee shirt brushed against her shoulder. “Can you provide me the storm’s projected track?”

She tapped on her keyboard and revealed the new coordinates. The sustained winds were one hundred ten miles per hour, indicating a strong category two hurricane. Gusts were reaching one-forty.

“Sir, a high-pressure system caused the storm to stall in the gulf. And it steered it away from the Louisiana coastline on a due west path towards Brownsville.” She pointed to her monitor as she spoke.

Gunner stood and smiled. “What’s your name?”

“Kimmie.”

Gunner gently patted her on the shoulder. “Great job, Kimmie.”

He turned back toward Jackal’s desk, where Cam and Bear stood side by side, big grins smeared on their faces, their heads shaking in unison like a couple of choreographed bobblehead dolls.

As Gunner reached them, Cam leaned into him. “Great job, Kimmie,” she mockingly whispered, repeating his words to the attractive analyst. Then her tone of voice changed. “You wish, pal.”

“Wait? What? No,” Gunner began to protest. “I was simply complimenting her, um, tracking of the storm.”

“Yo, no judgment from me,” said Bear with a laugh as he held both hands in the air.

“Thanks, Bear,” said Gunner.

“I mean, that’s how these things start,” Bear continued, taking away all the goodwill he’d just established. “First, it’s a casual encounter. A compliment here and an accidental touch there. The next thing you know, boom-boom.” He raised his eyebrows and quietly pounded his fist into the palm of his left hand.

“Come on, man. Not you too,” groaned Gunner. He turned toward Cam, who was now grinning like the Cheshire cat. “As for you, I have something that’ll wipe that smile right off your face.”

“What’s that, sir?” she replied sarcastically but with her grin bigger than ever.

His reply was simple, yet confusing.

“Eye diving.”

Chapter Eleven

August 1944

Institute of Virology

Riems Island, Germany

Throughout Hitler’s reign as Führer of the Third Reich, German scientists were experimenting with chemical weapons on a tiny Baltic Sea island. Access to Riems Island was highly restricted. Its scientists, who wore personal protective equipment considered state of the art for the time, were required to have disinfectant showers upon entry and exit. Visitors underwent highly scrutinized security measures. In reality, the work of the scientists was so secretive and frightening, that no one, including high-ranking Nazi party officials, dared to request entry.

After the war, the Riems facility became a global center for the study of pathogens, ranging from African swine fever to Ebola. The biosafety level four laboratories there today were the highest level in Germany. Even the stables containing the infected animals, including alpacas, boars, cows, and sheep, the subject of the virologists’ study, were managed within a BSL-4 laboratory setting.

Very few people outside of those who continued to work on Riems Island were aware of the history of the facility. Few knew the detailed work undertaken by Dr. Kurt Blome and Erich Traub, two high-ranking Nazi scientists. And what remained an unspoken subject to this day was the fact that the stables containing animals once contained human subjects.

The virology institute supervised by Dr. Blome consisted of a single building together with the stables. It was expanded to accommodate Dr. Blome’s work on Project Tabun. As part of the biological warfare program assigned to him by Himmler, Blome’s institute was expanded.

The construction was assigned to Karl Gross, an SS officer and specialist in tropical diseases who had conducted experiments on seventeen hundred prisoners at the Mauthausen concentration camp. Gross ordered the construction of a ten-foot-high wall, built block by block by prisoners who’d later become the subject of Dr. Blome’s testing. By August of 1944, under the careful supervision of a special SS unit, the facility was expanded to include sections devoted to physiology, biology, bacteriology, and pharmacology. But the bulk of the operation was devoted to the development of sarin.

Other parts of the institute were busy as well. Himmler, looking for alternative chemical weapons, ordered Erich Traub, a veterinarian and virologist, to experiment on prisoners using the mass transmission of the malaria parasite to humans as well as the intentional exposure of bubonic plague.

Both of those studies were ongoing, but Dr. Blome’s research was given the highest priority. Himmler wanted to win the war, not simply cause the enemy combatants physical discomfort from which they might recover later. He demanded a death blow, and sarin was the solution. Yes, it was taboo by all definition. In Himmler’s mind, killing was killing regardless of the method.

With Himmler’s full support and promise of unlimited resources, Dr. Blome proceeded the day after the meeting at Wewelsburg Castle. The attempt on Hitler’s life on July 20 only served to hasten his efforts.

Dr. Blome had met with his colleagues, especially Traub. They’d gone over the arguments for and against Himmler’s Project Tabun. They discussed the human ramifications, but they also expressed their concerns about the catastrophic consequences of an error during their research. They began to question whether the ten-foot wall being constructed on Riems Island was to keep prying eyes from seeing in or to keep the sarin contained in the event of an accident.

At first, Dr. Blome had underestimated Himmler’s dedication to the project. He was left alone and not contacted by the Reichsführer for weeks. He later learned that Himmler’s mind was preoccupied with keeping the Reich together and ferreting out who was responsible for the assassination attempt on Hitler. Dr. Blome was not included in the plans to escape via Odessa.

He forged ahead under the minimal supervision of the SS-Wirtschafts und Verwaltungshauptamt, the Nazi organization responsible for managing the financing and business projects of the Reich. Dr. Blome couldn’t complain. After years of fighting for funding and improvements to his facility, now any request was met with swift fulfillment. More staff and more funding meant he could fulfill Himmler’s wishes without fear of repercussion. He’d seen what happened to those who failed to meet the Reichsführer’s expectations.

In late August of 1944, when the bombs began to fall on Berlin, the Institute on Riems Island became the recipient of additional scientists and materials. The manufacturing process of the sarin was increased tenfold. In addition, at Himmler’s request, design experimentation was undertaken to soak sponge material with the sarin.

On this day, a barge with a drop ramp docked at the island’s small boat ramp. Prisoners were taken off the building construction and ordered to unload the shipment. Thousands of titanium pressure vessels were delivered to Dr. Blome. Strong as steel but half the weight, titanium had the highest strength-to-weight ratio of all known metals.

And it didn’t oxidize in seawater. Salts, acids and other chemicals were seriously corrosive and damaging to lesser materials than titanium. This could lead to leakage of the contained substance.

This fact didn’t cross Dr. Blome’s mind as he supervised the delivery. He was unaware of Himmler’s plans for the delivery method of the sarin. His job was simple. Produce enough sarin to fill up the titanium vessels. And comply with Himmler’s latest directive—finish the first shipment by September 15, 1944.

Chapter Twelve

Aboard the Victory Casino Cruise Ship

One Hundred Miles East of Carvajal, Tamaulipas, Mexico

Gulf of Mexico

Abduwali Ali was losing control of some of his pirates. Reports were coming from the ship’s personnel that his men were molesting the women passengers, and there was one reported rape in a stateroom. In the meantime, he’d learned through monitoring social media on his computer tablet that one of the passengers was broadcasting details of the attack on Facebook and Instagram.

He’d become enraged at first. Partly at himself for not considering this possibility but also because the passengers were not sufficiently frightened. Did they think this was some kind of game?

To drive the point home, although he abhorred rape, he didn’t stop his men from terrorizing some of the females at first. Despite the passengers being confined to quarters, he knew they could communicate through the walls and connecting doors. He’d use that to his advantage by solving two problems at once.

He’d drag the Larkin girl and her family out of the cabin, leaving the impression to everyone on the stateroom floor that they were going to be raped. In actuality, he wanted them moved to the captain’s stateroom, where he could have better access to them and protect them from his own men. He’d placed a very large bounty on their heads, and he was certain the Larkin girl’s father, a U.S. congressman, would demand proof of life throughout the process. Abduwali had no intention of killing the girl unless they either refused to comply or tried to pull some type of ill-advised rescue.

In that regard, Abduwali was pleased with the good fortune bestowed upon him by Allah. The tropical storm had been upgraded to a hurricane, and it was now headed directly for the ship. He was not the least bit concerned that the Victory could withstand the beating of the high winds and waves. He was pleased to have a respite from watching the seas and the radar for approaching naval vessels attempting a rescue. Only a fool would attempt such under these weather conditions.

He calculated the time it would take for the two-hundred-mile-wide storm to pass. He identified that as the deadline for the U.S. congressman to make payment, or Lloyd’s of London, or whoever was prepared to transfer the ransom to the numbered account at Banco G&T Continental in Panama.

“Show me the money,” he muttered as he powered down his tablet, reciting his favorite line from an American movie. These were the four words that encouraged him to take these risks.

He motioned for his two lead gunmen, who’d been guarding the bridge, to bring him Captain Garland. They dragged him through the blood on the floor and stood him up to face Abduwali.

“I want you to disconnect the internet, but do not disable it completely. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” he replied. Garland had kept his interaction and responses to a minimum with his captor. “I’ll need to go to the control room in engineering.”

Abduwali studied Garland carefully. The man didn’t appear to be a hero. If anything, he seemed to be content to let things move forward as long as his life wasn’t at risk.

“Okay, go. No delays or detours.”

His men nodded and left him alone on the bridge as they escorted the captain to engineering. For the first time, Abduwali was able to relax. He reached into his Kevlar vest and found a tin of Macanudo cigars. The small ascots were just the right size to get a taste of tobacco without devoting more than ten to fifteen minutes to the smoke.

He hoisted himself up into the captain’s chair and swiveled mindlessly back and forth. As he enjoyed the cigar, he wondered if the bonus he’d earn from this, the largest piracy heist since he’d joined the Los Zetas, would be sufficient to leave their employment.

Then there was the matter of the cash situated in the ship’s vaults. Once he addressed the issue of the Larkin girl’s ransom, he planned on directing his men, with the captain’s assistance, to empty the vaults. His research indicated as much as two hundred thousand dollars might be on hand to bankroll their gaming operations.

Finally, if time allowed, he would allow his pirates to steal the passengers’ personal effects of value, namely jewelry. This was booty for the men to be used as they pleased. They could keep it. Give it to their girlfriends. Or trade it for cash. He didn’t care. It was part of his arrangement he’d made with his employers to give the crew some spoils of the piracy operation besides raping women.

The sound of shuffling feet and sobbing filled the passageway outside the bridge. He rose to greet his new guests when suddenly the Victory shook and rocked to the side before righting itself. The wind was howling and the rain was blowing sideways, pelting his face as it passed through the bridge.

The feeder bands of the hurricane had arrived.

Chapter Thirteen

NAS Corpus Christi

Texas Gulf Coast

With an incredible sense of urgency, the Gray Fox team showed why they were called upon for missions that required rapid deployment. Gunner, Cam, and Bear were family for all intents and purposes. They knew one another intimately and understood what their roles were. When it was time to get down to business, nobody could deploy to undertake an operation faster than they could.

The support team assembled by Ghost was second to none. He pulled personnel from all branches of the military and government. His people could handle the most complex logistical challenges. Within thirty minutes of Gunner laying out his rescue plan, the trio was wheels up for Naval Air Station Corpus Christi on the Texas Gulf Coast.

During the flight, they studied the ship’s deck plan, including video of the interior provided by Victory. Jackal kept them up to date of all developments as well as any changes in weather conditions.

By the time they arrived in Corpus Christi, all the military assets they needed were waiting for them. While they waited for the Air Force Hurricane Hunters to arrive with their WC-130 aircraft, in an oversized hangar, Gunner went over the plan with his fellow operatives while continuing to provide Cam some semblance of reassurance.

“Bear, you may be sitting this one out initially, but we’re gonna need you to come in hot and heavy when the storm passes,” said Gunner.

“Roger that,” he said, pointing at a trailer containing his ride. “They’ve really hooked me up. Check it out. It’s the new prototype of the Mako MK V. These things are made for medium-range insertions and extractions. Runs a cool fifteen million.”

“Jeez,” groaned Cam. “Do they know you’re driving it?”

“Yes. I bring things back in one piece.”

“You mean like the chopper in Ukraine last year?”

“That wasn’t my fault! There were powerlines.”

Cam didn’t let up. “Oh, right. That’s true. And who warned you they were there?”

Bear didn’t respond because Cam already knew the answer to that question.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Now, back in one piece, and quit asking Ghost for shit. One of these days he’s gonna say yes, and you’re gonna have to figure out how to pay insurance on that thing.”

Gunner changed the subject. “How does it perform in pissed-off waters? You know, hurricane-churned waves.”

“Like a champ,” replied Bear. “It’s got shock mitigation built in to allow for high seas and heavy maneuvering. It’s got quite a set of guns on her, kinda like yours truly.” He showed off his massive biceps and winked at Cam. The two each got in their fair share of blows during their never-ending scrap.

Gunner leaned over a folding table and swung the laptop around to face him. He studied the radar of Hurricane Archie, which was superimposed over the location of the Victory.

“Great. Okay, let’s talk about the eye dive.”

“Yeah, let’s,” added Cam.

“Seriously, Cam, think about it. What does perfect weather for skydiving look like?”

She quickly replied, “No wind. No clouds. No snow. No thunderstorms. No tornadoes and especially no damn hurricanes.”

“Okay. Okay. Just consider this. Everyone knows the eye of the hurricane is one of the most surreal places to be. Here’s this huge, sometimes three-hundred-mile-wide tropical cyclone. Its winds are whipping at over a hundred miles per hour. It’s pulling warm waters out of the ocean, which gives it even more fuel.

“Yet in the center of this vortex is the eye. The eye can be anywhere from twenty to forty miles across. It’s perfectly clear. Almost windless with no rainfall. That’s because the eye wall, which is composed of the dense clouds creating the hurricane, is swirling counterclockwise so fast it can’t break away from itself.”

“And you know this how?” she asked.

Gunner furrowed his brow and a bewildered look came over his face. “Whadya mean?”

“How do you know all of this?” Cam pressed him. “Have you ever been in the eye of a hurricane?”

“Well, no. But everybody knows—”

“Knows what? What they read on the internet or what that guy Chapman Boone spews on the Weather Channel?”

Gunner chose to remain silent, a technique Bear should learn when dealing with Cam.

She continued. “Okay, flyboy, let me ask you this. Do you know of anyone who has actually tried this?”

Gunner grimaced. “Well, not personally, of course. But I’ve read about skydivers who’ve looked at dropping through a tornado or a hurricane, you know, like those extreme sports things. But trying to drop through a tornado would be crazy.”

Cam burst out laughing and wandered around the table. The airmen preparing their gear stopped what they were doing to see what was so funny. Well, it wasn’t actually funny.

“And this isn’t? Look, Gunner. I’m all in. You know that. I’m just sayin’ I’d feel a little bit better knowing that someone has done this before.”

“I’m sure somebody has, and after we do it, we might actually be the first. Think of the YouTube video we’re gonna create. We’ll be famous.”

Cam rolled her eyes and shook her head. Men, strike that, boys were confounding.

“Well, let’s just say I’ll feel better when my feet hit the water.”

Gunner slapped Bear on the back and extended his fist to bump Cam’s. At first, she hesitated and then finally relented.

“That’s my partner. Seriously, no worries. What could go wrong?”

Chapter Fourteen

Hurricane Archie

03 GMT 07/29/2030

Saffir-Simpson Scale: Wind 110 mph, Pressure 968 millibars, Category 2 Hurricane

Latitude 25.1 N, Longitude 95.8 W

One Hundred Miles East of Brownsville, Texas

Gulf of Mexico

“Well, hell,” Gunner calmly said into the comms. He didn’t think he was going to die. He’d faced worse. He’d cheated death on more occasions than he could count. Ejecting from a disintegrating test aircraft in the stratosphere hadn’t really frightened him. He had been in a weird headspace at the time, so the fall back to Earth was almost calming. Being chased by the remnants of a destroyed asteroid had been another matter. It was the lack of control that caused him to fear death was imminent. As his Starhopper came soaring through Earth’s atmosphere, he’d felt completely at the mercy of a higher power, one that would determine his fate.

Now, that same feeling had overtaken him. It was if the hand of God had reached through the eye wall of the hurricane and plucked him out of the sky. However, if he didn’t do something quick, he’d not only be carried away by the massive cyclone churning up the warm waters of the Gulf, but he was gonna land somewhere between the Victory and Brownsville a hundred miles away. Regardless of where he landed, it was gonna hurt like actual hell.

“Gunner! Gunner! Come in!”

Gunner’s eyes darted around inside his helmet as he saw the landing zone and Cam’s radar blip begin to move off his screen. The centrifugal force generated by the incredible power of the storm dragged him away. The accompanying low pressure within the eye wall threatened to crush his skull and his internal organs.

The air was thinning, making his breathing difficult. It was if he’d been hoisted many thousands of feet into the air, only his helmet telemetry read otherwise. He had to break the storm’s grip on his chute, and the only option was to cut the ties that bind, as they say.

At the speed he was being pulled by the hurricane, he was unable to engage the main parachute’s quick-release clip. Gunner reached for his right thigh, unzipped the leg pocket, and retrieved his Morakniv fixed blade from its sheath. Using the serrated edge, he worked to cut through the military-specification Type III paracord attached to his chute.

With the adrenaline coursing through his veins, he made it through the cords just as he was being pelted with the rain from the intense thunderstorms within the eye wall. Now he was free of its grip and was free-falling back to Earth.

Lightning raced down the eye wall just to his left, temporarily blinding Gunner as it sent the bright white flash of light through the night-vision lenses of his helmet. The combination of the bright light and his tumbling downward made him nauseous.

“Don’t puke, asshole,” he said aloud.

“Gunner? Where are you?”

Cam’s voice helped him get it together. “Slight problem. Off course.”

“No shit. You took off in the wrong direction.”

“Not by choice,” he said as he cranked the arch, a skydiving term referring to achieving the most stable body position during the descent. The shape of a banana resembles the ideal position whereby the skydiver pushes his pelvis forward while keeping his chin high. This allows for a stable free fall toward the target and prevents a head-over-heels, vomit-inducing ugly descent.

Having found a stable belly-to-earth position, Gunner easily reached terminal velocity of one hundred twenty miles per hour. He used the air-cooled feature of the Devtac helmet to steady his breathing. His pulse rate slowed as his body calmed itself. The atmospheric pressure in his head equalized, causing his ears to pop. The relief helped him focus on his telemetry.

Gunner used his right hand to search his chest rig for the main parachute’s risers. After he jettisoned his main parachute, he’d have to rely upon his reserve. He always looked at the reserve chute as a top-safety-rated minivan. It wasn’t as stylish as that Porsche, but it would save your life when hit by a Mack truck.

He found it, studied his telemetry and the radar. “There you are!” he shouted into the comms as both the Victory and Cam’s blips appeared in his helmet screen. He pulled the reserve static line, and his fall was immediately arrested. The next step was to take control of his steering lines to bring himself closer to the ship.

As he gained control and began his final drop to earth, he engaged Cam. “Our friend Archie tried to take me for a ride. I’m back on track.”

Her voice was calm. “I see you. I’m in the water a quarter mile away from the ship. The swales are twenty feet, but the wave pattern is fairly spread apart. That’s gonna change.”

Gunner instinctively glanced to the east in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the eye wall from the approaching side of the storm. All he could make out were the lightning strikes in the wall.

“Thousand feet,” Gunner began the countdown to the water’s surface. “Five hundred. Two-fifty. A hundred.”

His radio went silent. He plunged into the Gulf and dropped thirty feet below the surface. The reserve chute traveled with him. Now that the tension was relieved, he could easily disconnect the chute, and with the aid of the watertight pack attached to his back, he quickly shot to the surface.

He was immediately greeted by a swell that lifted him higher into the sky and then rolled past his body, dropping him back into the valley created by the next one.

“I’m good,” he announced.

Bear’s voice came over the comms for the first time. “You looked like you were flying drunk.”

“I almost puked,” Gunner said with a laugh.

Ghost joined the conversation. “Gunner, you’re approximately three miles off course. You’re gonna have to drop twenty feet below the surface to catch up to Cam. Ditch your pack and shoulder your weapon. The watertight, PVC-lined fabric of its case will protect it.”

“Roger that,” said Gunner. At first, he struggled with removing the pack, as the swales seemed to be coming more frequently the longer he treaded water. Once it was free, he was able to unpack its contents.

He put on the tactical chest rig designed for use by Navy SEALS. The waterproof pockets kept his magazines and ammunition dry. His sidearm was enclosed in a hard-plastic case attached to the front of his chest, which also was waterproof.

Gunner readied his Draeger LAR V underwater breathing apparatus. It was compact and streamlined. Most importantly, it provided him forty minutes of travel time at a depth of less than one atmosphere, or thirty feet.

He positioned his diver propulsion vehicle toward the blip on the radar representing Cam who was now a hundred yards off the starboard side of the Victory, Following his telemetry, he dropped to twenty feet below the inky surface waters. He squeezed the trigger on his DPV and slowly gained speed.

He was completely surrounded by darkness. The only illumination was directly in front of his eyes as the telemetry and radar tracked his progress. He was moving in the direction of the Victory at a steady eight-mile-per-hour pace. He constantly monitored his depth, direction, and time. They were now twenty minutes behind schedule, and by the time he rendezvoused with Cam, they’d be up against their boarding window before the worst of Hurricane Archie’s powerful winds on the right side of the eye wall hit.

Gunner broke the surface only a few feet from where Cam floated with the use of her backpack. “Miss me?”

“I got bored, so I popped open a beer,” she replied. Gunner couldn’t see her face, which was covered by her helmet, but he knew she was smiling.

“No drinking on the job, people,” said Ghost into the comms.

“Come on, dad,” groaned Cam playfully.

Jackal joined the conversation. “Guys, the storm has accelerated slightly. The eastern wall will be on you withing twenty minutes.”

Gunner took in a deep breath of salt air. “No rest for the weary. Cam, we’ll ride the DPVs as close as possible.”

“They’ve left the ship adrift,” said Cam. “The least these assholes could do was turn the bow into the swells. Between the broadsides of the waves and the wind twisting the vessel, I bet there are a lot of people hugging the toilets on board.”

“Let’s roll,” said Gunner.

He and Cam started their DPVs and accelerated next to one another toward the Victory’s aft transom. Six minutes later, they were in sight of the ship when suddenly the exterior deck lights went dark.

“Thanks for that,” said Cam.

Gunner nodded. “Yeah, no shit. Switching to NVG.”

They floated in the water, scanning the ship for activity. Cam was the first to report what she saw.

“I see movement on the main level near the lifeboats.”

“Got it. A struggle. Three people.”

“Confirmed.”

“Let’s go.”

They allowed their DPVs to float away. The ship’s transom had two ladders clamped to the transom. With the ship rocking, they risked getting knocked unconscious as they attempted to board. Using their hands, they pushed against the starboard side of the hull and maneuvered themselves toward the rear.

Just as they reached the side of the transom, they heard a man shouting in Spanish and a woman screaming. Seconds later, her nude body flew over the edge of the ship and splashed into the water between Gunner and Cam. They frantically swam to save her. She was floating facedown in the angry waters of the Gulf. When Gunner turned her over, Cam was the first to see the dead woman’s slit throat.

Chapter Fifteen

Late August 1944

The Wolf’s Lair

Near Rastenburg, East Prussia (Present-day Poland)

Steel-reinforced concrete seemed to follow Hitler like a catchy tune swirling in a person’s mind. The Third Reich had mastered the art of bunker building. The Allied forces’ superior air forces were a constant threat to the Nazi leadership. Therefore, the ability to withstand surprise attacks from the skies was of tantamount importance. Almost all of der Führer’s various residences and headquarters, from Wolfsschlucht II in eastern France to Wehrwolf in Ukraine, were constructed to withstand intense bombing while still being able to function as the residence of Germany’s head of state.

The most famous of Hitler’s field headquarters was the complex of briefing rooms and blockhouses at his bunker near Rastenburg, the German word for Ketrzyn in present-day Poland. Wolfsschanze, or Wolf’s Lair, would become Hitler’s primary base of operations when away from Berlin, which became increasingly the case from the spring into the summer of 1944. Along with the Berghof, Hitler’s home in the Bavarian Alps, historians associated Hitler’s residences most often with the Wolf’s Lair.

It was built in a strategically well-chosen site in the fall of 1940. At the time, it was in the center of the Nazis’ planned occupation. The region in which it was located reminded Hitler of his beloved Bavaria—sparsely populated with a landscape of gently rolling hills and dense wooded environs. The Wolf’s Lair was remote, yet it was easily connected to roads and a railway linking to a mainline into Berlin. In addition, the complex was located on the west side of a vast network of lakes and rivers, which would certainly thwart any attack from the Soviet Red Army advancing from the east.

By July of 1944, the Wolf’s Lair was a village in and of itself. Tucked away from the locals, the infrastructure of the buildings, both above ground and below, was completely self-sufficient with its own electricity and water, sewer and heating plants, a communications center, medical facilities, cinema and soldiers’ quarters.

In the center of the complex was a heavily guarded series of bunkers that made up Hitler’s private quarters. The briefing rooms were state of the art for the period. The dining rooms and parlors were well decorated with artifacts secured by the Nazis during their conquests.

Despite the protections afforded him, Hitler had become increasingly paranoid of assassination attempts. Prior to the war, a dozen plots had either been thwarted or attempted. As the war commenced, both politicians and generals plotted to kill him on half a dozen occasions.

On July 20, 1944, mere days after Himmler and his group met at the Castle of Wewelsburg to discuss Project Tabun, a group of conspirators, who stood in opposition to Nazi policies and their territorial expansions, initiated a plan to assassinate Hitler within the Wolf’s Lair.

The attempt was carried out by Lieutenant Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a young staff officer who’d been wounded in Rommel’s North African campaign. Known as Operation Valkyrie, Stauffenberg attended a military briefing in the Wolf’s Lair with a bomb in his briefcase.

As the briefing began, Stauffenberg excused himself to the bathroom where he opened his briefcase containing a detonator attached to the plastic explosives. Once the bomb was primed, he returned to the gathering and set the briefcase at his feet under the conference table barely a yard away from Hitler.

As planned, Stauffenberg received an important phone call and was called out of the room. After he left, another colonel standing between the briefcase and Hitler unwittingly pushed Stauffenberg’s briefcase out of the way behind the leg of the table. When the bomb was detonated, the furniture leg, and that of the colonel-turned-hero, deflected the bomb away from Hitler. The Führer sustained only minor injuries.

The attempted assassination only heightened Hitler’s paranoia, but it also served to elevate the importance of Himmler’s power. By August, after the repairs were made, Hitler’s security detail, now fully within Himmler’s purview, was greatly enhanced, including a whole new level of protection—food tasters.

Hitler had called his top generals to the Wolf’s Lair to discuss the course of the war and the defense of Berlin from General Patton’s advance known as the dash across France. It was a working dinner, but as had been the case in recent weeks, certain precautions were taken in advance.

Himmler stood against the wall next to the door leading to Hitler’s private quarters. The dining table was set, but the attendees were held in an outside waiting room. However, the seats would not remain unoccupied for long.

One by one, twelve women were escorted out of the kitchen doorway and into the room. They were brusquely ordered to sit at each of the place settings. Some of them had steeled their nerves, sitting up in their chairs with confidence and poise. Others were shaking, glancing around the room as if they were facing their execution. Perhaps they were. Only time would tell.

They were hungry. They’d not been fed in over twenty-four hours. This was by design. Himmler had ordered them to be ravenous. They could not nibble around the edges of their plates of pick at their food like birds on the street. They were expected to eat every bite and do so quickly.

Suddenly, the aroma of the cooked meal filled the room. Roasted red peppers and green beans drenched with butter adorned a plate that included peas, carrots, and steak. The plates were carried by twelve kitchen staffers, each of whom had a designated guest to serve. In unison, as if straight out of a scene in an English castle serving royalty, the staff set the plates in front of the women.

Nervously, they looked around the room, waiting for approval. Their mouths were agape and their nostrils flared. The women’s mouths watered as the best meal they’d had in many years was within reach of their hands.

Himmler could see the longing in their eyes. “Essen!”

Only a few of the women hesitated, anxiously waiting to observe the others take their first bites. This annoyed Himmler, who shouted at them once again, causing the entire contingent of testers and their kitchen-staff hosts to jump.

“Essen! Verdammt!”

A few of the women ate ravenously. If this was to be their last meal, they intended to finish it all before they died. It was, in fact, delicious. As they continued to eat, they became chatty with whoever sat next to them. As they all finished, their plates were removed, and they were served a bowl of apple cobbler. There was no hesitancy now. They had no shame. They devoured the dessert until several of them leaned back in their chairs, clasped their hands together on their now distended bellies, and emitted a muted burp here and there.

Himmler studied them for the telltale signs of poison. The most common means, cyanide, took effect nearly immediately. It had been nearly ten minutes since the first bite, and now the women were enjoying the test a little too much. Once again annoyed but, more importantly, anxious to move on to the dinner meeting, he bellowed.

“Verlasse uns!” Leave us!

After the room was cleared and the place settings reset, the military leaders were escorted in. Each was assigned a seat based upon their rank and branch. As always, Himmler was seated to Hitler’s left, and Martin Bormann was to his right.

Throughout dinner, small talk was had, but as the dessert was served, Hitler was ready to discuss the war effort. The military leaders provided their guarded opinions, using carefully chosen words to avoid the ire of der Führer. During the after-dinner conversation, Himmler and Bormann whispered with their leader as their input was requested.

Prior to the gathering, Himmler had spoken with the Luftwaffe general who’d recently met with Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita in Calais, France. As part of a casual conversation regarding the imperial sword Yamashita presented to the Nazis, the general broached the subject of chemical weapons. He relayed to Hitler and the attendees the Japanese proposal to incorporate chemical weapons into their arsenal.

This didn’t go well. Hitler exploded in anger. He admonished the general for bringing the taboo subject to his dinner table in his home, the Wolf’s Lair.

Himmler quickly covered for his accomplice by relating the topic back to the sword and the loyalty of their Axis partner—Japan. Despite the changed mood, the conversation turned back to the ongoing war in Europe and the upcoming election in the United States. As Hitler opined that three-term incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt was weak and sickly and would likely lose to Thomas Dewey, Himmler resigned himself to the fact that the Führer would never agree to Project Tabun.

His eyes studied the other men in the room. He wondered if they were thinking about their own leader in the same terms that the Führer was assessing President Roosevelt. He allowed himself an imperceptible chuckle, and he couldn’t help but stifle a slight smile as he thought to himself:

I’m engaged in high treason against Mein Führer. Would anyone like to join me?

Chapter Sixteen

August 1944

11th U-boat Flotilla

Bunker Bruno

Bergen, Norway

Himmler loved everything about Norway—the landscape, the climate, and his perceived racial purity of its people. He was enamored with Norwegian women and even encouraged Nazis to take them as mistresses so they could create more good German soldiers.

Early in January of 1941, Himmler began to make the rounds across the newly constituted Nazi empire. His stop in Norway quickly turned from business to pleasure. Just like he encouraged his officers to cohabitate with their Norwegian mistresses, he kept several for himself in Oslo, Narvik, and Bergen. The result was an explosion in the birth rate of Nazi-fathered children in Norway that came to be known as Lebensborn, which literally meant fount of life.

The practice became widespread to the point the SS initiated a state-supported program to classify these children as racially pure and healthy based upon Nazi ideology. The mothers and their children were monitored and paid by the Nazis. They were provided far better living conditions than other Norwegians. Those who were the mistresses of the highest-ranking Nazis, like Himmler, were treated like royalty.

Himmler had a dual purpose for visiting Norway during this time. First, he wanted to spend time with each of his two mistresses with whom he’d fathered children. Both women, two sisters named Jorgensen, lived in Oslo and Narvik. They were introduced to Himmler during his first visit to Oslo in 1941, and he immediately took them as mistresses, providing them living accommodations in both major cities so he could visit them at will.

As a result of these visits, both women became pregnant near simultaneously and bore sons who were now three years old. And, as had happened before, Himmler impregnated them both within days of each other during a December visit in 1943. Both women were having healthy pregnancies and expected to give birth sometime in August or September.

After touching base with his mistresses and children, Himmler traveled to the 11th U-boat Flotilla base in Bergen for an important meeting with the commander of the Nazi submarine base. After Norway had been captured by the Germans in April 1940, military leaders saw the great potential for using Norwegian harbors as bases for U-boats operating in the North Sea, the Arctic, and later in the North Atlantic.

The small town was handpicked by Himmler in 1941 to establish a U-boat flotilla there. The city was nestled in between mountains and fjords, tucked away from Allied spy ships patrolling the North Sea. Its deep waters were ideal to submerge the U-boats deep beneath the surface before they entered the sea and the scrutiny of the enemy.

Himmler directed a U-boat bunker to be constructed in Bergen that initially included seven pens, three dry docks, and three wet docks. The seventh pen was used for fuel and weapon storage barges.

However, Himmler later expanded the base to include ship and U-boat building. Defenses were enhanced with anti-aircraft guns and housing units for soldiers. As a result of its strategic importance, it was often referred to during Hitler’s briefings as Bunker Bruno.

The German U-boat program was constantly advancing with technology. From the first prototype submarine vessels, known as Type I, through the most technologically advanced sub, the Elektroboot, Type XXI, Bergen housed all of them at some point in time.

For this meeting, Himmler was most interested in the advancements made in the Type IX U-boats as an oceangoing submarine for sustained operations far from their base. U.S. intelligence confirmed that Type IX boats were used along America’s coastlines in an attempt to disrupt the stream of troops and supplies headed for Europe. The Type IXB was the most successful version built and operated by the Reich. It’s estimated that during the war, the Type IXBs sank over one hundred thousand tons of Allied naval vessels and commercial cargo ships.

The newly constructed Type IXC was the subject of Himmler’s visit. Its increased range and superior surface speed made it the perfect candidate for what he had in mind. He proudly led an entourage toward the submarine pen where the newest Type IXC awaited his inspection.

Himmler marveled at the massive base. The huge concrete structures housed the Reich’s most impressive submarines, which stretched hundreds of feet long. In addition to the behemoths that awaited their deployment, offices, medical facilities, mess halls and storage buildings were interspersed throughout the pen. It was a giant drab gray concrete facility that, like Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair, was designed to protect its inhabitants, human and sub alike, from Allied aircraft raids.

Several young U-boat commanders awaited Himmler’s arrival. At just the precise moment, they snapped a salute to the Reichsführer and shouted in unison, “Heil Hitler!” Himmler returned the salute and ordered them to be at ease. Himmler spoke with each of them and then asked questions about the progress of the two Type IXs under construction.

“As you know, the last of the 9th U-boat Flotilla will be leaving Brest in early September. Bunker Bruno will assume maintenance and retrofitting of its remaining fleet. Are you prepared to place these existing submarines into service?”

“Yes, Reichsführer!” replied one particularly energetic young man. “In point of fact, we have one of their vessels in pen number five now. It is being modified to fit your exact specifications.”

Himmler sized up the young man. He was the epitome of the Hitler youth raised during the thirties. Blond hair. Blue eyes. Fit and tall in stature. With his chiseled jaw and serious demeanor, he was exactly the type of young man Himmler wanted in the SS.

“Which one?” asked Himmler as he stared around the base at the massive concrete pens. Three U-boats were backed into their spaces, surrounded by the sparks of welding equipment and workers.

“Reichsführer, if I may?” asked the young commander, handing Himmler his field glasses to get a better look. “In pen five, you will clearly see der lachende Schwertfisch. Her designation is U-1226.” The laughing swordfish was the unit symbol of the 9th Flotilla and remained on this particular U-boat.

Himmler smiled. In that moment, he knew he’d found the right U-boat and the right commander.

Chapter Seventeen

Aboard the Victory Casino Cruise Ship

One Hundred Miles East of Brownsville, Texas

Gulf of Mexico

Cam propelled herself out of the water first and onto the transom. She scampered to all fours like a cat, swiftly removing her suppressed Heckler & Koch MP7 from her shoulder, and immediately trained it on the deck above her. The cross between a machine gun and a carbine delivered plenty of stopping power with its .45-caliber rounds. Confident she hadn’t been seen, she unlatched the steel ladder bolted to the transom and swung it up and over the edge of the ship so Gunner could join her.

Gunner quickly crawled up the ladder and readied his weapon. Through his night-vision lens, he studied Cam’s body language. She was tensed, ready to spring on any target that revealed itself.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I will be,” she replied dryly. “Move.”

“Moving.”

Gunner made his way up the steep stairwell leading to the aft deck. Cam followed. Once Cam was on the deck, she dropped to a knee and panned the area for hostiles. Gunner saw the glowing cherry of a cigarette on the starboard side amidst overturned deck chairs and tables. He gestured to Cam, who nodded.

She moved toward the pirate, who was sitting back on a chair, sniffing the clothing of the woman he’d just killed. Through the night vision, his knife and an automatic weapon could be seen on the table behind him. His lack of awareness was the opening Cam needed.

Like a tiger approaching its prey, she eased in behind him. She’d shouldered her MP7 and gripped her fixed-blade knife.

“Alive, Cam.” Gunner felt compelled to remind his partner. They had this pirate isolated, and they could extract intel from him before killing him. He knew Cam had smoke coming out of her ears, so he needed to restrain her somewhat.

She slipped in behind him, taking advantage of his distracted state, and delivered a crushing blow to the man’s neck with the steel grip of her knife. Lightning fast, her hand whipped back and forth, striking the man’s temples until he collapsed in a heap on the deck.

Gunner’s eyes grew wide. His partner was very good at neutralizing hostiles. He imagined her pulse rate was racing, so he gave her some room. He opted to watch her six while she went to work on the first of many pirates to eliminate.

She pinned the man to the deck and stuck her face just inches from his. Then, with her right hand shaking slightly from the death grip she had on her knife, she pointed the sharp end of the blade at his eyeball. She threatened him with the knife and demanded answers.

“Cuantos piratas?” How many pirates?

Gunner glanced back at the pirate’s expression. His eyes were wide with fear, but he wasn’t talking. Cam inched the blade closer.

“Respóndeme, cabrón!” she hissed. Answer me, bastard!

The man still hesitated, so Cam urged him along. She shifted the sharp tip of her knife ever so slightly away from his right eyeball and pierced the skin of his eyebrow just above the eye socket. The man groaned in pain as blood started to pour into his eye.

He attempted to free his arms, which Cam had pinned down with her legs. This simply made her angrier, so she repeated the puncture above the left eye, except with a little more force.

She repeated her demand. “Cuantos piratas?”

“Doce! Doce plus Abduwali!” he finally responded.

Gunner’s head snapped around. Twelve, just as Bear suspected, but one was undoubtedly the leader. He spoke into the comms.

“Abduwali. Did you copy that, Ghost?”

“Copy,” he responded.

“Let’s move it along, Cam,” suggested Gunner, a polite way of saying kill the guy.

“Roger that,” she growled as she slit the pirate’s throat with a deep, slow cut that caused his windpipe to gurgle with each inch the blade opened up.

Gunner shouldered his rifle and assisted Cam in throwing the pirate overboard. “That’s one,” he said through the comms.

Cam was feeling no fear, and she was more fluent in conversational Spanish than Gunner was, so he allowed her to lead the way. They’d studied the layout of the Victory while en route to Corpus Christi. The first level was crew cabins, engineering, and kitchen facilities. It was accessed by freight elevators at both ends of the ship. The second level, known as the first deck, contained the atrium where guests boarded. To the aft was the SportsBook lounge, and the restaurant was located at the bow. The third and fourth levels were devoted to gaming tables and slot machines.

Their plan was to avoid the first level and the second level, where the staterooms were located. Undoubtedly, the pirates had assigned several men to each, but Gunner wanted to avoid engaging in a firefight around civilians. Plus, unless they were able to eliminate their targets completely without detection, their being discovered would likely expose them to the guy running this piracy operation.

Cam led the way, using the external stairwells to make her way up each level of the ship. Gunner covered their back as the two worked in tandem to the second deck, when they heard voices coming from the bow. The men were talking loudly to one another in Spanish. Heel to toe, Cam approached the open-air seating area designed to accommodate smokers.

The wind was beginning to howl, and the boat rocked from the increased waved activity. The ship creaked and cracked as it was battered by the hurricane.

As Cam reached the corner, she suddenly moved backwards toward Gunner and bent her knees to lower her body. Gunner first swung his rifle to check their rear, and then he swung back around and dropped to a knee as well. The men stopped talking.

Gunner held his breath and aimed high. Cam aimed low. The barrel of the pirate’s AK-47 protruded around the corner before his body. As the pirate followed his gun’s lead, both Cam and Gunner’s weapons spit out two rounds each, killing the man instantly.

She sprang out of her crouch and charged the smoking area. Another pirate suddenly appeared and fired wildly in her direction. She sprayed his chest with bullets, sending him backpedaling until he crashed into the railing and fell over the side of the ship.

The quick burst he managed to get off might have ruined their element of surprise had Hurricane Archie not provided them some sound protection. Gunner and Cam took up positions on both access points to the designated smoking deck, but help for the dead pirates never materialized.

Now it was time to move inside the ship.

“That’s three KIA,” Gunner announced into the comms.

“Roger,” replied Ghost. “We believe we’ve identified the leader of this soiree as Abduwali Ali, a Somalian national wanted by Interpol and the Brits for his part in a mass murder during a piracy gone bad.”

“These hostiles are Mexican,” said Gunner. “Did this guy take a wrong turn somewhere?”

Jackal. “I’m checking with my old FBI contacts. He could be a hired gun by the drug cartels. Either Los Zetas or Sinaloa. When I was with the bureau, rumor had it some big money out of Argentina had funded the Los Zetas in their efforts to take back territory lost years ago to their rival cartels. Rumor was the money was legit on the surface but parlayed into ill-gotten gains.”

“Money laundering in reverse,” added Cam, who was still hyped up.

Gunner asked a logical question. “If this guy is a hired gun, can he be reasoned with?”

“Maybe once upon a time,” replied Ghost. “But not today. He appeared unhinged on his last transmission. He plans on killing one male and female passenger at the top of the hour.”

Gunner searched his helmet screen. He shook his head in disbelief.

“That’s nine minutes.”

Chapter Eighteen

September 7, 1944

Institute of Virology

Riems Island, Germany

Dr. Blome knew something out of the ordinary was about to happen when he’d been ordered the day before to cease all work and experimentation on the prisoners. He was told to expect visitors and that his facility needed to be safe and clean without exception.

The next morning, an unseasonably light snow had fallen. The accompanying gray skies and cold wind off the Baltic Sea cast the institute in a macabre, ghostly light. The sound of a ship’s air horn blasted off in the distance as the lighthouse situated on nearby Rügen Island rotated to warn of shallow waters.

Two SS officers entered Dr. Blome’s office and suggested he greet his guests at the boat launch. Generally, he was treated with respect by the brutal SS soldiers, but today they appeared to be on their worst, or best, depending on perspective, behavior.

Dr. Blome dutifully followed them to the boat launch and waited for his unknown guests. The first passengers were escorted off the Schnellboot, or S-boat. The fast attack craft was used often to transport Nazi officials into Norway in order to avoid air travel. They were perilously close to the United Kingdom, who’d stepped up their air patrols in the region.

Himmler was the first to emerge. Dr. Blome greeted two more passengers, whom he immediately recognized—Adolph Eichmann and Josef Mengele. He’d never met the two most dangerous Nazis in the Reich, but he was certainly familiar with their activities at Auschwitz and other torture camps.

The three greeted one another with the signature salute, where each of the men extended their right arm from their neck into the air with a straightened hand.

“Heil Hitler!” shouted Dr. Blome.

“Heil Hitler!” the visitors responded.

The four men made their way through an increasingly damp day in which rain mixed with snow. Riems Island was on the cusp of winter, and by mid-November, a blanket of snow would likely cover the ground until spring. Dr. Blome thought of spring, wondering if he’d live to see it. He led them inside and down a long tiled corridor filled with light. Every square inch of the institute was painted white to provide the illusion of cleanliness. It was anything but clean.

After some small talk, Himmler got right to the point.

“How many canisters have you ready for transport?”

“Eleven hundred, Reichsführer Himmler,” Dr. Blome quickly replied. “We are beyond the testing phase now. We have paused our other projects to manufacture more of the nerve agent for insertion into the—”

“Tell me about this poison,” interrupted Eichmann. If Mengele, a physician, was the Angel of Death, Eichmann was the person responsible for delivering the condemned individuals to Mengele. Like Himmler, Eichmann really didn’t care how the Jews were killed. He believed in swift extermination by whatever means. “How will they die?”

Dr. Blome was no saint, but Eichmann’s question turned his stomach. He had to be careful with his reaction and response. These were three of the deadliest, most sadistic killers in the Reich.

“Sarin is colorless, odorless, and has a high vapor pressure that allows us to use a wide variety of delivery methods. At room temperature, it is liquid. It can be converted into an aerosol spray. It can be frozen under extreme temperatures at approximately negative fifty-six degrees Celsius. And it can be absorbed into other solid substances, including sponge material, as requested by Reichsführer Himmler.”

“Have you been successful?” asked Himmler.

“Yes, Reichsführer. With the materials provided, we have successfully soaked the sponges and sealed them into the titanium canisters. When an individual sponge is placed into water, it will expand to ten times its initial size. Large volumes of sarin can be released into the water.”

“Will it then dissolve?” asked Eichmann.

“Nein, Obersturmbannführer. It is miscible.”

“Miscible?” asked Himmler.

“Similar to mixing,” replied Mengele, who was fascinated by the conversation. “Like ethanol and water.”

“You applied this sarin to the sponges?” asked Eichmann.

“Yes, ObersturmbannFührer. Some chemical weapons kill not just if they are inhaled but if they’re absorbed through the skin as well. For many chemicals, simply washing off exposed skin with soap and water will suffice to decontaminate the area. Not so with sarin.”

“There are many other methods of delivery,” interjected Mengele. “In addition to water, aerosol sprays can create a vapor or gas, or a liquid spray can be released into the outside for a larger target. It can also contaminate food.”

Eichmann furrowed his brow as he considered this information. He turned back to Dr. Blome. “How fast does it work?”

“It is the most toxic and deadliest of nerve agents. Even slight exposure to the skin, such as a single milliliter, can cause death in minutes.”

“How? How do they die?” Eichmann was insistent on knowing the pain that would be caused.

“Sarin interferes with the body’s central nervous system. It specifically targets the neuromuscular junctions where nerves meet muscles. The result is the body immediately begins to convulse. The muscles that control breathing become paralyzed, and the person dies of asphyxiation.”

“Good,” muttered Eichmann, an odd but sadistic response.

Himmler, like the others, stared at Dr. Blome throughout the questioning. “As I understand it, you have already reached the required amount of production for the September 15 deadline. Next, please focus on the raw nerve agent for use in aerosol containers. Contact SS-WVHA for your needs. They will not delay you.”

“Yes, Reichsführer Himmler. Anything else?”

Mengele stood and rubbed his hands together. “We want to see it work.”

Chapter Nineteen

September 1944

Oslo, Norway

By September 1944, the German Army was in dire straits. German panzers were mired in a month-long struggle with General Patton’s Third Army. The Soviet Red Army had begun its invasion of East Prussia, driving German forces back toward the center of the country. The British Eighth Army was bringing the Axis power to its knees in Italy. And Himmler’s most trusted field general, Erwin Rommel, had been charged as a co-conspirator in the failed Operation Valkyrie assassination plot.

Himmler still held out hope for victory, and Project Tabun was the best possible means to drastically change the course of the war. However, the first stage of the attack on the Allies was not going to be undertaken until mid-November, based upon the schedule he’d established. He was beginning to fear for the safety of the children he’d fathered. In short, his legacy was at risk.

Himmler was married, having met his wife, Margarete Boden, in 1927. After their marriage, they had a daughter, Gudrun, and fostered a young boy, Gerhard, whose father, an SS officer, had died before the war. Himmler and Margarete were estranged but never divorced. The stress of his duties within the Reich took its toll on their marriage, as well as an illicit affair with his secretary Hedwig Potthast, with whom he also had two children.

They were all provided for by the Reich, but they were not loved like the two Jorgenson sisters and his Norwegian children by them. As Himmler began to feel the walls closing in, he implemented his own plan of protection under Odessa.

In August, both sisters had given birth to healthy baby boys within a few days of each other. They were barely six weeks old when Himmler hastily had them gathered up from their homes and brought to the airport in Oslo, Norway.

The facility, seized by the German Army years prior, still operated some commercial flights via KLM airlines to destinations like Iceland and Italy. Any point in between was too precarious, as all aircraft were at risk of being shot down by anti-aircraft fire or Allied jet fighters.

Himmler had spent the night with each of them and explained his plans for them. They were both distraught about leaving their beloved Norway, but they also understood they would be in grave danger if invading Allied forces learned of their relationship to Himmler. They were convinced their children by him would be taken away forever.

One sister, Inge, would fly on a Douglas DC-3 aircraft to Reykjavik, Iceland. Then she would fly into Canada and eventually land in New York to emigrate into the U.S. as a Norwegian citizen through Ellis Island.

The other sister, Brit, would leave for Rome, where she would catch a Pan American flight to Mallard Field in Dakar, Senegal, before being sent across the South Atlantic to Buenos Aries, Argentina. Both women would be accompanied by female SS offices who were old enough to be their mothers. These matronly women, flying under false credentials, would assist the women in getting settled into their new homes.

Inge understood this might be the last time she’d see Himmler unless he was able to successfully send for her later. Brit was assured he would follow her to South America when the time was right. Both women understood one thing. They were to raise their children in the ideology adopted by the Reich, and the four young men would be taught the greatness of their father. As would their children and their children’s children.

Awaiting them was access to vast amounts of wealth stolen by the Nazis as they ravaged Europe and Northern Africa. Using numbered accounts at Swiss banks, UBS, and to a lesser extent Credit Suisse, the Nazis successfully transferred Jewish capital out of Germany and the nations it had occupied. In essence, Switzerland had laundered hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen assets, including gold taken from the central banks of occupied Europe.

Even after the end of the war, Switzerland successfully resisted Allied calls to return the funds, allowing the Nazis, and their families, continuous access. The Jorgensen sisters, the daughters of a Norwegian banker and accountants by trade, were fully versed in the financial holdings of Himmler. They were also fiercely loyal to the father of their children and the Nazi ideology he’d instilled in them.

That drab, gray afternoon in Oslo was a sad one for Himmler. He loved both women equally and longed to be with them from the moment their flights took off in separate directions. He vowed to join them through the Odessa network he’d established, but first, there was important work to be done.

Chapter Twenty

Aboard the Victory Casino Cruise Ship

One Hundred Miles East of Carvajal, Tamaulipas, Mexico

Gulf of Mexico

“It’s go-time,” whispered Gunner into the comms as he moved quickly down the hallway and into the main casino. The slot machines and elaborate video gaming machines stood waiting for gamblers, but nobody was there to play. The gaming tables appeared to be in the exact same condition as when the passengers left. Two blackjack dealers lay dead on the emerald green carpet.

“I wanna see this Abduwali asshole for myself,” added Cam.

Gunner led the way up a wide spiral staircase leading to the fourth deck. He arrived in the center of the VIP lounge and dedicated casino. He searched for a target, and one of the pirates gladly obliged. The man was startled by Gunner’s sudden presence and hesitated for just a second. It was a second too long. Gunner fired two rounds into the man’s chest and one through the underside of his jaw as he was falling backwards.

“Four,” he calmly reported.

“Clear,” said Cam, who’d peeled off toward the bow. She exhaled out of frustration. “Where is everybody?”

“Clear, aft.” Gunner had checked every hiding spot toward the rear of the casino and then responded. “My guess is down below guarding the passengers and crew. I can’t imagine this Abduwali has any hostages with him unless—”

“What?” asked Cam.

Gunner ignored her question. “Ghost, has Abduwali provided proof of life?”

Jackal responded, “Yes. Jenna Larkin, the daughter, as well as her aunt Donna and cousin Sofia.”

“When?”

“Ten minutes ago, when he threatened to start killing hostages,” she replied.

He turned to Cam. “He’s got his high-value hostages nearby. Probably in the captain’s quarters, which are down the hall from the bridge.”

“I’m thinking two guards on the women plus two on the bridge, plus our Somalian.”

“Probably leaving two per deck on the first and second levels,” surmised Gunner. “Let’s take out the head of the snake and then mop up the rest.”

“Lead the way,” said Cam, nodding toward another spiral staircase leading to the top of the ship.

The top deck was far more complicated to clear than the other levels. Unlike the casino levels, which were wide open and easy to view from one end to the other, the top deck was broken up into an outdoor lounging area, several tiki-style bars, and the ship’s administration center, consisting of the captain’s quarters, offices, communications, and the bridge. The foredeck also provided places to hide between the satellite dishes, utility storage boxes, and bench seating surrounding fixed tables attached to the deck.

Gunner checked his watch. “We’ve gotta split up. I’ll take the bow.”

“Roger that,” said Cam, who was off in a flash. She was the first to fire. One of the pirates was patrolling the rear sundeck while trying to cover his face from the wind-driven rain pelting him. She killed him with two shots to the back of his head.

“Five.”

Gunner took a deep breath and moved toward the bow in a low crouch as he crossed past the bridge. He wanted desperately to take a look inside. Based upon the shattered glass covering the promenade deck and the bullet holes stitching the bridge, he expected to find several dead bodies. But first, he needed to clear the foredeck.

He rose from his crouch and moved quickly toward a solitary target standing under the canopy of the bridge. The pirate was inches away from the lone glass panel that hadn’t been obliterated by bullets. Gunner took a chance and rose to look inside the bridge.

It was empty.

Without hesitation, he drilled three rounds into the pirate’s chest and head. The sound of his body hitting the deck was obscured by the clap of thunder in the distance.

“Six, KIA.”

“Moving into the superstructure,” Cam whispered into the comms.

“I’m headed into the bridge. It appears deserted.”

“Two minutes, guys,” interrupted Jackal.

Gunner checked the digital clock in his helmet. He made his way to a door that led from the promenade into the bridge.

“Roger,” the two operatives replied in unison.

Gunner entered the bridge. As expected, several bodies littered the floor. He focused on his footing, as the sticky blood was now mixed with rain coming through the blown-out windows.

“I’ve got movement,” said Cam. “Two hostiles, each forcing a passenger down the center hallway.”

“Heading your way.”

Gunner moved quickly down the hall leading from the bridge to the center of the ship. As he moved, he glanced at the mounted plaques identifying the rooms on both sides of him. As they’d learned from studying the deck plan, the captain’s quarters and office were all self-contained in this area.

The pirates came into view. One of them was holding a rifle in his left hand as he ran his fingers through the young girl’s hair.

“Removing my helmet,” whispered Cam. “I’ll be without comms for a minute.”

“Negative!” shouted Ghost into the comms.

“Sir, if I don’t, I’ll scare the shit out of these hostages and they’ll give us away.”

“She’s right. Cam, I’ve got the hostiles. You get to the hostages so they don’t freak.”

“In position. Out.”

Gunner flipped off his NVG lenses as he moved closer to the pirates, using the dim ambient light from the emergency exit signs for illumination. He’d noticed a light switch up ahead. He hoped his hunch was right.

As he moved past the switch, he raised his rifle and steadied it on his first target. With his left hand, he flipped the lights on. The four single light bulbs, protected by galvanized guards, immediately illuminated the hallway. The pirates froze, and then they died. The bullets ripped into the thickest part of their backs and embedded in their chest cavities. Gunner’s shots were perfectly placed to keep from going through-and-through and inadvertently striking a hostage.

Cam suddenly appeared and immediately raised her fingers to her lips. “Shhh! Quiet, okay? We’re here to save you.”

The man and woman immediately hugged one another before they fell into the wall from mental and physical exhaustion.

Gunner turned around and monitored the doors on both sides of the hallway. He walked backwards, his rifle swinging from right to left, until he joined Cam and the two hostages.

“Where are the others?” Cam asked.

The husband responded, “Captain Garland, the African man, and three women are in his office. These two were going to kill us.” He pointed at the dead pirates.

Cam motioned for them to follow her into the top-level atrium where the spiral staircase and elevator were found. “What about the other passengers?”

“We’ve all been locked in our rooms. I think the crew has been kept in their quarters, too.”

Gunner continued to watch the hallway for activity. “Cam, by my count, we’re eight down, five to go.”

She nodded. “Three are probably right down the hall, and the other two are trying to watch a hundred passengers and crew on the lower levels.”

“One per floor,” said Gunner. He turned to the couple, who recoiled at the sight of his Devtac helmet. His muffled voice sounded electronic and robotic. “Do you know if anyone was in the captain’s bedroom?”

“Not now,” replied the husband. He pointed to the dead bodies in the hallway. “Those two men brought us from our quarters and held us at gunpoint until the African came in through a connecting door. He spoke to them in broken English, and they immediately dragged us out of the room. Then you showed up.”

“Were they really going to kill us?” his wife asked.

Gunner ignored her question. “I want you two to find a place to hide. Don’t come out until we give you the all clear, okay?”

“Yes, sir,” the husband responded. He grabbed his wife by the hand and led her through the atrium to the back of a bar.

Cam put her helmet back on and checked her comms.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“Let’s hit ’em through the connecting door. I remember seeing it on the ship’s blueprints downloaded by Jackal.”

“Yeah, I like it.”

“Yep, burst in and call it a day, almost, anyway.”

“We’ll have the last two to mop up,” added Cam.

Ghost intervened to put a damper on their cavalier attitudes. “Close quarters, people. You’ve got three innocents, including a congressman’s daughter, to consider.”

“We’ve got this, boss,” replied Cam. She slapped Gunner on the shoulder and led the way up the hallway. Gunner flipped off the lights again, and both operatives switched to night vision. While he covered Cam, she carefully turned the door handle and quietly slipped into the captain’s quarters.

A stroke of luck benefitted their plan. One of the pirates was standing over the urinal in the head, relieving himself. Cam and Gunner circled around the bedroom to flank the door. A gust of wind struck the side of the ship, causing the man to lose his balance momentarily. It also allowed Gunner to whisper his instructions to Cam without being detected.

“You kill; I’ll catch.”

“Roger,” she whispered back.

Gunner got into position. Just as the man started to zip up his zipper, Cam plugged him in the temple, blasting brain matter all over the glass shower door.

As the man began to fall to the floor, Gunner reached under both armpits and arrested his fall.

“Easy does it, asshole. I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

Cam stifled a giggle. “You can’t be funny.”

“I’m funnier than Bear.”

“I heard that.” The baritone voice could barely be heard over the wailing of wind in the background. He was on his way to extract the two operatives.

“Let’s go, you two,” said Ghost. “Abduwali is expecting a phone call from Lloyd’s any minute.”

Gunner led the way to the connecting door. He reached for the stainless-steel knob and confirmed it locked from his side. It opened inward toward the captain’s office, allowing them to burst in.

He had his hand on the knob, ready to turn it, when the phone in the captain’s office rang.

“Speak!” the man yelled into the phone. It was the Somalian.

“Ready?” asked Gunner.

“I’ll take the guard,” Cam whispered. “Move.”

Gunner slammed the door open and moved left into the room. Cam was as fast as lightning as she wheeled in behind him and quickly placed two kill shots into the pirate’s forehead.

The trio of women began to scream.

Abduwali dropped the phone, scooped up his pistol off the desk, and jumped behind a chair where Jenna Larkin was tied up.

“I will kill the congressman’s daughter! I will absolutely kill her. Do not doubt me on this!”

Gunner kept his rifle pointed at Abduwali, hoping to get an opening. His hands were steady, and to her credit, Jenna Larkin froze and remained still.

“I hate the Yankees,” growled Gunner.

The odd statement caught Abduwali off guard. Subconsciously, his eyes avoided Gunner’s stare and looked up to the bill of his New York Yankees baseball cap. That was the last thing he saw as a bullet ripped through the bridge of his nose and exploded out of the back of his head, killing him instantly.

Cam rushed to untie the women and calm them down. As she did, she reported in to the Den.

“Hostages secured. Repeat, hostages secured.”

“Thirty minutes out,” announced Bear.

“We’ve got some mop-up to do on the lower decks. Maybe two hostiles and then we’ll call it.”

“No unfinished business, people,” reminded Ghost.

Chapter Twenty-One

Aboard the Victory Casino Cruise Ship

One Hundred Miles East of Carvajal, Tamaulipas, Mexico

Gulf of Mexico

As the back side of Hurricane Archie roared over the Victory, Gunner and Cam expertly eliminated the last two pirates on the ship. It took them several hours, along with the help of Captain Garland, to search the ship. Once they were satisfied the vessel was clear of the threat, everyone was encouraged to come out of their staterooms and crew quarters to get some fresh air. It was a party atmosphere on board as Gunner and Cam accepted thanks from the ship’s passengers and crew.

Diplomatically, there was still some work to be done. Mexican officials, despite the success of the Gray Fox team, took issue with Gunner and Cam operating in their territorial waters without prior notice. The U.S. State Department in conjunction with the Coast Guard sent medical choppers to the scene to tend to the passengers and crew.

Cruise officials sent their own form of diplomats, all of whom happened to be attorneys, to console the passengers and offer free passage on a cruise of their choice in exchange for them signing a waiver of liability.

The Navy also was on the scene with a cutter to ward off any attempt by the Mexican government to board the Victory and retrieve the bodies. The DEA wanted to process the dead pirates and use the information in their ongoing war against the Los Zetas cartel.

Two Navy seaman were instructed to return the Mako MK to NAS Corpus Christi once the storm passed. The Coast Guard offered to take Gunner and his team so they could arrange transportation back to Fort Belvoir. Bear, however, had a much better idea.

While Gunner and Cam spent time on the ship with Captain Garland and the freed hostages, Bear became acquainted with Abduwali’s Baja Outlaw powerboats. After a careful inspection, he declared one of them to be in like-new condition. Then, with the assistance of a couple of crew members from the Victory, he topped off their fuel tanks and filled the fast boat with beer. Just as he finished his preparations, Gunner and Cam appeared on the transom.

“What are you doing?” Cam demanded to know.

“Um, well, they want their Mako back. And, hey, like you said, Cam, the insurance is probably too high.”

“You’re out of your mind!” she shouted at him as she discerned Bear’s alternative. “You can’t steal that boat. It belongs to …” Her voice trailed off. She wasn’t sure whom it belonged to at this point, but it had to belong to someone besides man-child Barrett King.

Bear playfully pointed at her. “Yeah! See? Exactly. Are you comin’ or not?”

“No.” Cam refused to be a part of his shenanigans.

“I’ve got beer,” he said teasingly.

“Shit,” she muttered, turning away from him towards Gunner. She rolled her eyes.

“C’mon, Cam. Who gives a shit? It’s a Los Zetas boat. And the damn INL will probably just give them right back to the cartel.” The Mexican INL was comparable to the U.S. DEA.

“Gunner, he can’t just claim a toy every time we complete a mission.”

“Sure he can. It’s one of those unwritten rules. Besides, now you guys will have a way to get out to the island so I don’t have to pick you up every time.”

Cam stood back. Now she was really against the idea. “Hold up! That means I have to ride with him out to your place? No freakin’ way!”

Bear, who was standing in the boat barely fifteen feet away, overheard the entire conversation. “Hey, Cam. You can always take the other one. Hold on. I’ll get you fueled up.”

“No!”

“Come on,” Bear persisted. “We can be twinkies.”

Gunner burst out laughing at Bear’s intentional dig at their partner.

“Screw you, asshole,” she growled back. “Come on, Gunner. I’m only going because he promised beer. Otherwise, I’d sit here ’til hell freezes over.”

Gunner laughed and motioned for her to board first. “That could happen, you know.”

“Shut up,” she mumbled.

The three shoved off. Bear set his course on the dash-mounted Garmin global positioning device and sat atop the seat while the Baja cruised along the now-still water. They enjoyed retelling the mission to Bear, especially the part about Gunner’s ride along Hurricane Archie’s eye wall. As they zipped across the Gulf of Mexico, neither Gunner nor Cam asked where they were headed. It was an opportunity to relax that they’d earned. They even turned off their comms to Ghost and the Den, a decision they’d get reamed out over later.

After Gunner relieved himself in the portable head tucked into the bow, he emerged and slapped Bear on the back. “Great idea, buddy.”

“Yeah, big guy. I thought so, too.”

Gunner squinted and looked ahead. “Say, Bear, where exactly are we going? Seems like an awful long ride to Galveston.”

Bear stood, and his six-foot-five-inch frame towered over the powerboat’s short windshield. He pointed toward land. “See for yourself.”

“Wait. That’s SGI. There’s the Cut.” SGI was an abbreviation for Saint George Island. The Cut was the nickname for the narrow pass between Dog Island and Saint George Island leading to Apalachicola.

“Sure enough. I was gonna surprise you and stop by Pop’s, but it turns out he went to an Air Force convention in Utah.”

“Yeah, it would’ve been good to see him. He’s on the go. You know, my mom loved slot machines. She would’ve enjoyed something like the Victory cruise. Well, not this one, anyway.”

“I wish I could’ve met her,” said Bear. “Pop told me she had a huge impact on your life.”

“She did.” Gunner smiled and nodded before changing the subject. He actually was relieved that he didn’t have to return to Dog Island right away. He’d felt guilty the moment the decision was made for him to move out of the house he’d built with Heather. Somehow, he felt she’d given him approval. Nonetheless, he didn’t want to return. Not yet, anyway.

“Sooo, I was thinkin’,” Bear began as he glanced down at his watch. He turned to Cam. “Why don’t we throw down some oysters at the Tap Room. Whadya think?”

“Hell yeah! I’m in!”

Gunner smiled at his best friend. She was drinking on an empty stomach, and that led her to being tipsy on the verge of drunk. She needed oysters and a burger to soak up the alcohol.

“Let’s do it. I miss Sammy. He was kinda down when I broke the news that we were moving. I promised I’d come by to see him, but you know how that goes.”

Bear agreed. “I was thinkin’ the same thing. While we’re in Apalach, I’ll talk to that boat-moving company you used. They can bring this baby to Virginia for me.”

Gunner looked at Bear. “Okay, all kidding aside. Are you gonna clear it with Ghost?”

“Nope. What the man doesn’t know won’t hurt me.”

“That’s not how the saying goes, idiot,” said Cam with a laugh. She’d been eavesdropping on the guys. “But you’re right.”

Twenty minutes later, Bear had pulled the Baja up to the City Dock just two blocks from the Tap Room. They locked their gear and weapons in the hull of the boat and walked toward the restaurant Gunner had frequented so often over the years.

The locals and tourists alike stared at the trio. Gunner and Cam were still dressed in their sleek, skintight black dive suits, and Bear was wearing an all-black combination of cargo pants and a tee shirt that revealed every ripped muscle above his waist. A couple of tourists rounded the corner and immediately turned and walked swiftly in the other direction, drawing laughs from the Gray Fox team.

Buoyant excitement over seeing Sammy Hart in their old stomping grounds was dashed when they walked into the bar and saw that a young woman was serving beer to the handful of patrons. Their spirits were totally destroyed when they learned Sammy had quit without telling anyone his plans. The bartender explained there had been a run-in with his ex-wife’s husband or something to that effect. Sammy had said goodbye and nobody had seen him since.

Morose and tired from the exhausting two days of action, they split a couple of dozen raw on the half shell and switched to sweet tea. As Bear paid the tab, Gunner looked around the Tap Room, wondering if he’d ever return. Without Sammy, it wouldn’t be the same.

Chapter Twenty-Two

September 30, 1944

11th U-boat Flotilla

Bunker Bruno

Bergen, Norway

Himmler’s mood was dour by the time he arrived at Bunker Bruno just after the break of dawn. He’d accepted that the last few nights with the Jorgenson sisters would probably be his last. He’d done everything possible to set them up for a life away from the war and the crumbling Reich. His opportunity to see them again rested solely on the success of Project Tabun, the second phase of which was set to begin.

The 11th U-boat flotilla and much of the city of Bruno had come under attack by Royal Air Force Spitfires overnight. It would be the first of many air raids conducted on coastal military facilities the Reich had built along the Atlantic Wall.

Himmler paused to take in the view as the sun brightened the landscape. Buildings were reduced to rubble. Homes occupied by Norwegians were still ablaze. A windowless, roofless church lay open to the elements as its insides smoldered. The Allied bomb blasts had cruelly upended the tall, mature Norway spruce trees that filled the slopes leading to the fjord where Bunker Bruno was nestled. They’d burned, leaving charred trunks resembling matchsticks.

He shook his head in disappointment. It would’ve been disingenuous for Himmler to chastise the Brits for attacking the civilian neighborhoods surrounding Bunker Bruno. One of the reasons he’d chosen the location in 1940 was to use the small city as protective cover against air attacks.

As the sun rose further, it cast a grayish light across Bunker Bruno. The cloud cover obscured the sun, in part. So did the thick black smoke drifting across the ruins of several destroyed buildings and pen number six, which had just been emptied as another U-boat was sent on patrol.

Himmler led his small group of officers closer to the U-boat pens. He glanced to the top of the concrete structures, where Luftwaffe 88-millimeter anti-aircraft guns, their impressive telephone-pole-sized barrels, were pointed skyward in search of another bomber raid. As he approached, he got a closer look at the soldiers who operated the defensive weapons. They appeared to be teenagers wearing secondhand uniforms far too large for their undernourished bodies.

Himmler rubbed his temples and repositioned his hat. The madness of the war was truly approaching its final days. He’d thought he had a year or more to implement Project Tabun. To change the course of the war. He knew he was wrong.

Marching up a steep incline leading to the water, Oberleutnant zue See August Wilhelm Claussen had a determined look on his face. The relatively young thirty-five-year-old U-boat commander had achieved his commander rank just months before. He’d only undertaken a single patrol of four days the prior week as full commander of his own vessel. This would be his second and his last.

To be sure, Himmler had every possible commander at his disposal. Kretshmer. Topp. Liebe. Schutze. All capable commanders with a stellar record for the Kriegsmarine, the German Navy. However, there was something in the eyes of Lieutenant Claussen that convinced Himmler he was the man to command this important mission. There was a fierce loyalty about him. One that was absolutely required to achieve their goal.

The mission was risky and not just because of the attack that Himmler planned. U-1226 would be required to evade the increasingly dense blockade of Allied naval vessels established off the Atlantic coast of Europe. Several U-boats had been destroyed in recent months. This mission would require Claussen to sail at depth for much of the initial journey until he reached the North Atlantic. Then he could proceed on the surface if necessary once he was out of range of British reconnaissance aircraft.

“Heil Hitler!” greeted Claussen as he arrived in front of Himmler.

“Heil Hitler! Is she ready?”

“Jah wohl, Reichsführer. The cargo is loaded, and the crew of fifty-six, including myself, are standing by for your final inspection.”

“Good. Good. And your personnel?”

“The seaman were chosen and interviewed by me, Reichsführer. The individual officers requested by your assistant have been included except for one, sir.”

“Who and why?” asked Himmler.

“The executive officer, my second-in-command, sir. He failed his medical evaluation. It appears he has tuberculosis, sir.” The disease was highly contagious and easily spread from one person to the next through the air. It would’ve been devastating for the sailor to be on board U-1226 while at sea.

Himmler frowned. He didn’t like surprises. “Who is his replacement?”

“He was a former executive officer transferred here from the 9th Flotilla—Lieutenant Müller.”

Himmler pressed his commander. “What do you know of him?”

“Very little, Reichsführer, other than by reputation through the comments of those under his command. He is most certainly capable. In fact, he was assigned to U-1226 before it was brought over from the 9th Flotilla.”

A seaman came running from the operations building that had survived last night’s bombing raid. “Reichsführer, an urgent call for you.”

Himmler thought for a moment and then he turned to Claussen. “God be with you and your crew, Herr Oberleutnant.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

November 1944

Aboard the U-1226

North Atlantic Ocean

Claussen successfully navigated U-1226 out of the fjord and along the coastal shelf until they reached deep water. They departed on the surface waters, allowing the commander and crew to take one final look at the fjord and submarine pen. The fjord had been carved into its fingerlike shape over hundreds of thousands of years ago by the relentless power of towering glaciers.

Claussen took in the black, wide shape of U-1226 effortlessly cruising along the surface of the water. He wondered if he’d ever see Norway again. Would it be his last mission? Would the cargo and weapons he carried make a difference for Germany? There were so many questions, but the answers really didn’t matter. There was no turning back. He’d written his last letters to his parents in Hamburg. He’d said goodbye to his sweetheart in Bergen. He was doing his duty for the man he admired most in Germany—Reichsführer Himmler.

“Prepare to dive,” he ordered his helmsman.

“Depth under keel, sir?” the young man asked.

“One hundred meters,” replied Claussen, taking one final look at the cloudy sky and receding cliffs of the Norwegian coast. The sky was dull and gray. The waters were black except for the whitecaps caused by the ever-present northerly winds. Going to sea was exciting.

As planned, three additional U-boats accompanied the U-1226 on that day as part of a four-submarine squadron to patrol the North Sea. As the other three U-boats peeled off to approach the Netherlands and Germany’s northern coastline, Claussen led his sub deep toward the North Atlantic.

He’d successfully avoided the Allied countermeasures that had effectively stifled the Nazi submarine activity at that point in the war. Once he was beyond aircraft range for the British fighters, he ordered Müller to surface. It was October 23, 1944, and it would be the last communication between U-1226 and the German Navy.

Via radio communications, Claussen reported trouble with the U-boat’s snorkel, the device that allowed a submarine to operate partially submerged while still taking in air from the surface. Prior to this mission, there had been several documented problems with the snorkels.

Reduced speed was the biggest complaint of the commanders. When patrolling, the U-boat was slowed to a maximum speed of six knots. Safety was another. The snorkel, also used to dispose of garbage when at depth, often became clogged, forcing the crew to store the refuse on board.

The third issue was that the snorkel masts tended to spontaneously close up, resulting in the diesel engines being starved for air from above. The engines compensated by pulling air from the submarine’s interior, causing issues with atmospheric stabilization. The seaman suffered in agony, much like scuba divers who ascended to the surface too quickly. Ear pains could easily turn to damaged eardrums.

There were no actual issues with the snorkel of U-1226. However, it was considered a likely reason for a German submarine to suffer a catastrophic failure while at sea. When Claussen issued his Mayday and relayed the problems with the snorkel, Nazi communications specialists were not surprised. When they lost all contact with U-1226 for days thereafter, she was declared to be lost at sea. It was later officially determined that the sub, along with its fifty-six-member crew, had perished. In actuality, the submarine continued on its long journey toward the United States.

Soon after the planned Mayday, Claussen began to have issues with the morale of the men on board. Because of the secretive nature of the mission, each of the petty officers and the seamen understood they might be away from Bunker Bruno for a few months while patrolling. However, their specific mission was known only to Claussen and his most trusted officers.

When he wasn’t at the helm, his second-in-command, Müller, took pride in operating U-1226 as if he were in fact the commander. Ordinarily, his responsibilities were to shadow the commander and manage the sub’s weapon systems during an attack. The second watch officer, Lieutenant Schultze, a close friend of Claussen’s at the 11th Flotilla, generally manned the helm with Müller.

It was Schultze who first alerted Claussen to the change in demeanor of Müller. As the course of U-1226 set by Claussen strayed farther and farther away from the European continent, questions began to be raised by Müller. Whispers among the crew loyal to the former executive officer from the 9th Flotilla became increasingly hostile toward Himmler’s handpicked commander.

Within weeks, as the U-boat continued its course across the North Atlantic toward the U.S., Müller demanded answers from his superior. He made it known that while Claussen was his superior in rank, he was certainly inferior in experience.

The two men began to butt heads as the long journey continued. Müller worked surreptitiously to spread discord among the crew. A divide became evident between the seaman from the former 9th Flotilla and those loyal to Claussen.

Finally, Claussen called a meeting of his officers, excluding Müller. He disclosed to them the secretive nature of their mission and their destination as the Gulf of Mexico. Early on in the war, German U-boat activity in the Gulf had been responsible for destroying nearly a hundred ships containing oil and supplies for the Allied war effort. Operation Drumbeat, in particular, wreaked havoc in the Gulf and had an unnerving effect on Gulf Coast residents.

Because of the discord caused by his second-in-command, Claussen contemplated placing him under arrest. He decided to table the decision until he had an opportunity to discuss the matter with Müller once they approached the Caribbean. That civil conversation never took place. The sub’s Oberbootsmann, the noncommissioned petty officer responsible for crew discipline, was overheard discussing the potential arrest by Müller loyalists.

What happened next doomed the mission.

Chapter Twenty-Four

November 1944

Aboard the U-1226

North Atlantic Ocean

“One thousand meters below the keel, Herr Oberleutnant,” announced the helmsman. “Increasing speed to two-thirds, right ten degrees.” The two-hundred-fifty-foot submarine weighed just over a thousand tons, smallish in comparison to modern-day vessels.

Claussen patted the young helmsman on the back and unfurled his nautical charts on a square table set in the middle of the conning tower. He studied the route. During his preparations, he’d had conversations with other commanders who’d made their way into the Gulf of Mexico and also received the most up-to-date intelligence data on the Americans’ defense of the coastal waters between the Florida Keys and Cuba.

It was tempting to sail through the Straits of Florida, but the water depth was only six thousand feet, leaving little room for evasive maneuvers. The preferred route was longer, but deemed safer because it avoided detection via depth charges or aircraft reconnaissance. The hulking submarine tended to stand out in the crystal-clear waters of the Caribbean Sea.

“Continue your course west of Bermuda toward Puerto Rico,” Claussen instructed the helmsman. “This should take you on a southerly track between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.”

In the days before sonar navigation, submarine commanders navigated the same way surface ships did. They identified position fixes, such as land masses and celestial bodies, and then used dead reckoning in between, taking into account ocean currents at various depths. Winds were also considered because submarines spent much of their time on the surface.

Claussen was unaware that his executive officer, Müller, who’d been intentionally excluded from most of his conn duties, had appeared behind him.

“You are making a mistake traveling in these waters,” said Müller with a gruff. He’d abandoned all pretense of addressing his commander with respect. He welcomed Claussen’s attempt to arrest him. His men were ready to respond. “You should not traverse the Devil’s Triangle at depth.”

Claussen closed his eyes and shook his head. For days, he’d ignored Müller and simply tolerated his presence. He’d been advised by his bosun that arresting the second-in-command would likely instigate a mutiny. The mission he was given by Reichsführer Himmler was far too important to allow petty comments by a jealous second-in-command to get in the way.

“Nur Aberglaube,” Claussen muttered. Only superstition.

“Nee,” Müller shot back. “It is not. The facts are there. In 1918, the American ship Cyclops disappeared in these waters. Her sister vessel suffered the same fate many years later. You call yourself a seaman. A commander. Yet you do not know the history of these treacherous waters?”

“What do you suggest, Müller? Hmm? Surface travel under the nose of the U.S. Naval aircraft? Perhaps we should sail to Miami for lunch?”

Müller lit a cigarette, another act of defiance against the young commander’s standing order prohibiting smoking on the conn. He took a deep draw on the Eckstein No. 5 and intentionally blew it in Claussen’s direction.

Müller was clearly instigating something with Claussen. It was a test of Claussen’s authority, and his failure to respond would be a sign of weakness to the entire crew, not just those loyal to Müller.

“Lieutenant Müller!” Claussen shouted as he spun to face the taller man. “You are to clear the conn and return to your quarters until further notice.”

Defiant, Müller continued to smoke. “No, I refuse to die in bed. Nor will I watch you destroy mein Unterseeboot!”

Müller turned to his bosun and was about to order Müller arrested when the helmsman shouted. His voice was urgent.

“Herr Oberleutnant! The gyrocompass!”

The gyrocompass, reading the Earth’s revolution and gravitation, showed the direction of true north while at sea. It was designed to ignore any magnetism put off by the operation of the submarine or changes in the Earth’s magnetic field. It was generally steady, changing only with the turn of the vessel.

Now, it was shifting in fits and spins.

“Is there a problem with its power supply?” asked Claussen. The gyrocompass was powered by alternating current electricity. The electric supply was produced by a motor generator, and most submarines were equipped with a backup.

The helmsman contacted the engineering room and ordered them to check the generator. They responded that there were no issues.

Throughout the frantic activities of Claussen and the helmsman, Müller stood to the side, calmly smoking his cigarette.

“You should surface, der Dommkopf.” Imbecile.

“Shut up!” Claussen yelled back.

Suddenly, the nose of the submarine lurched downward, throwing all standing onto the floor or into the control panel where the navigation crew were seated.

“Rise! Rise! Rise!” ordered Claussen as he found his footing and gripped a railing along the upper level of the conn.

Müller was relentless in criticism. “I told you, der Dommkopf.”

Claussen responded with his fist. He uncharacteristically spun around and leveled a right blow to Müller’s mouth, cramming the cigarette hanging between his lips into his chin.

Müller was startled at first and then retaliated. He charged at Claussen, lowering his head and driving the crown into the commander’s sternum. Both men fell to the floor of the conn.

Schultze tried to come to his commander’s aide. He grabbed Müller by the collar of his uniform and rolled him off Claussen, who was winded from the blow to his chest. Müller fought Schultze by kneeing him in the groin and then delivering a punishing blow to his throat.

“Herr Oberleutnant! She is not responding!”

“You have killed us all!” snarled Müller, who dropped to his knees to pummel Claussen. The commander’s face was bloodied and his nose was broken. Other members of the crew joined the fray. Within seconds, an all-out brawl ensued between Claussen’s men and those loyal to Müller. Gunshots rang out within the conn, and soon firefights broke out within the U-boat as the two sides attempted to seize power of the sub.

The young helmsman desperately tried to maintain control of U-1226. He was navigating blind as his control panel flickered and the gyroscope continued to spin wildly out of control.

U-1226 was off course, some one hundred miles northwest of Puerto Rico. It was also dangerously below its collapse depth. If it submerged any more, the immense water pressure would breach the hull.

While the fifty-six crew members of U-1226 fought for the right to control the submarine, the waters of the Bermuda Triangle claimed another victim.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Aboard the Sea Searcher I

One Hundred Seventy Miles North of Puerto Rico

North Atlantic Ocean

The southernmost part of the North Atlantic Ocean between bewitchingly beautiful Bermuda with its pink sand beaches, the U.S. coastline lined with condominiums, and the north shore of Puerto Rico was one of the few places on Earth still wrapped in an aura of superstitious mystery.

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil’s Triangle, the Twilight Zone, the Limbo of the Lost and even the Hoodoo Sea, covered half a million square miles of the North Atlantic. It doesn’t appear on any world maps, and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names refuses to officially recognize the Bermuda Triangle as being a part of the Atlantic Ocean. But make no mistake, pilots and sailors alike will repeat the legends of unexplained occurrences dating back to the 1800s, which included ships swallowed by the sea and planes disappearing from the sky. In some cases, they reappeared again.

As was often the case when epic tales and folklore became popular, the naysayers worked overtime to prove the stories to be false or simply coincidental. There’s always a party pooper. Scientists used theories ranging from frequent tropical storm activity to a strong ocean current that often caused sharp changes in the weather. Others simply stated human error was to blame for the mysterious disappearances and that the shipwrecks or plane crashes weren’t out of the ordinary. Those who actually sailed the waters of the Bermuda Triangle and pilots who’d cheated death when in the area respectfully disagreed.

The early origins of the region’s mystical reputation dated as far back as Columbus. During his travels leading to the discovery and exploration of America, he frequently recorded his observations in his journals. There were the frightening screeches of the múcaro común, a rare owl indigenous to Puerto Rico, and the humanlike squeals of wild pigs that inhabited the islands. To the north end of the enigmatic waters, the cahow birds of Bermuda would circle ships that passed by. They were soon to blame for the terrifying shipwrecks that occurred along Bermuda’s treacherous stretch of reefs.

Over time, as American pop culture got into the business of defining and explaining the unusual events, everything from alien activity to sorcery became possible causes. Regardless, the mysteries had never been completely solved, and the fact remained that the Bermuda Triangle was responsible for more inexplicable maritime and aircraft disasters than any other stretch of ocean in the world.

Captain Tobias ten Brink was once a research geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey before being recruited as an adjunct scientist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a nonprofit facility dedicated to the study of marine science. His study of underwater tectonic processes had led him to the deepest depths of the world’s oceans and made him a highly sought-after candidate to work with Woods Hole not only as a researcher but as a mentor for their next generation of marine geoscientists.

Captain Toby, as he was called by everyone, was an amiable person. He was known for his outgoing personality and willingness to engage in long conversations with anyone showing an interest in his research. On this particular expedition, undertaken in conjunction with the Ocean Exploration Trust, he was following up on the revelation of nearly one hundred newly discovered sea creatures existing in the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest in the Atlantic Ocean.

He’d awaken bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that morning, as he liked to say, raring to meet another beautiful day on the sea. The sun was bright that late-July day as the Sea Searcher I sailed across the whitecapped waters of the Atlantic. The afternoon before, they’d left Port Canaveral on Florida’s Atlantic coast, the intermediary stop from their home port of Woods Hole, Massachusetts near Nantucket.

He walked around with his mug of coffee and heartily greeted the crew. He was informed that their honored guests—journalists from the New York Times, National Geographic, and BBC Future—were awaiting him in the galley where they were having breakfast.

Captain Toby made his way into the Sea Searcher I and snuck a peek through the porthole window of the galley door to determine whether the group had finished their breakfast. He didn’t want to intrude on their meal. Plus, he wanted their undivided attention as he explained what they should expect that day.

Satisfied they were finished and enjoying a second mug of coffee, he took a deep breath and entered. This expedition was being followed closely in the media but more importantly by his benefactors at Woods Hole and those who provided their funding, namely Knight Gruppe AG, an Austrian-based philanthropic firm with a worldwide presence in all manners of industry, banking and real estate. While he’d never met the principals of the firm, he knew they were committed to his research of these waters, and that was all that mattered to him.

“Good morning, all!” he cheerily greeted as he entered through the galley door.

“Captain Toby!” one of the journalists responded. “We were just talking about you.”

He laughed. “As well you should. Today is a momentous day for us all.” He gestured at one of the galley crew to ready a large round table at the far end of the galley next to a whiteboard. Chairs were set into place, and charts were spread out for viewing.

“Tell us more, Captain Toby,” an enamored woman from the New York Times said.

“Please join me over here, if you don’t mind. You are my students for the day. It’s time to learn about isopods, tanaids, and leptostracans.”

“How exciting?” said the BBC Future journalist sarcastically.

Captain Toby laughed, although he didn’t see the humor in such an amazing discovery. Based on his conversations with the Brit the night before, he wondered if the older man was there for the scientific discovery or for an opportunity to take a boat ride on the beautiful waters.

Everyone took a seat, leaving their unfinished coffee mugs behind. Now, each of them had their computer tablets open to take notes. Captain Toby rearranged the chart until the largest was on top. The laminated map revealed the area stretching north of Puerto Rico and included the U.S. coastline for reference.

“This whole area is commonly referred to as the Bermuda Triangle. Of course, that is a myth of epic proportions, but it does provide us a point of reference for our discussion. Several years ago, when I was employed by the U.S. Geological Survey, we were on a mapping expedition of this region to study the complex transition between the Lesser Antilles subduction zone to the south and the major transform fault zone, which extends from this point past Cuba and through the Cayman Trough to Central America.”

He ran his index finger along the northern side of the islands into the Caribbean Sea. He continued. “You see, I have long had a theory that tsunami activity impacting Puerto Rico had actually been triggered by the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. Through my research, I focused on the fault along the Puerto Rico Trench, which leads directly to what is known as the Milwaukee Deep, an elongated depression that constitutes the floor of the trench. It is the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, with a reading of nearly twenty-nine thousand feet.”

“How does it compare to, say, um, the Mariana Trench?” asked the female reporter from the Times.

“Certainly, Mariana is known as the deepest. Within the vast bodies of water that cover over seventy percent of our planet, there are seven points considered deeper than the Milwaukee Deep, but none have been left unexplored like this one.

“Efforts to complete mapping of this trench have been undergoing for quite some time. With advanced technology, especially the addition of deep-diving manned submersibles together with the newly manufactured fleet of remote operating vehicles, ocean explorers can supplement surface mapping with visual observations.”

The reporter from National Geographic asked, “How did you discover these new species?”

Captain Toby stood up from the table and waved over one of his research assistants who stood dutifully by. She knew what he was going to request without a word spoken between them. He and his team had met in the operations room of the Sea Searcher I the night before to discuss their interaction with the media. It was important the reporters be told what to report rather than take it on themselves to create a story. Controlling the message resulted in good press. Good press resulted in larger and larger amounts of funding for their future projects.

“We’ve prepared this detailed analysis for your reference. Inside, you’ll find bullet points that highlight our research together with the details surrounding our findings within the body of the report.” Talking points, based on theory.

“Thank you, Captain Toby,” said the New York Times reporter. “I really wanted to take in this exciting opportunity to observe your work without having to spend most of my day in my cabin on Google.”

Captain Toby glanced at the woman’s left hand in search of a wedding ring. He smiled inwardly. He might have to provide her an exclusive interview.

“During a recent mapping expedition, one of our research teams discovered an ocean zone, a rare light region that extended four hundred feet to a thousand feet in depth, halfway to the bottom of the Milwaukee Depth. The rariphotic zone was sandwiched between two other regions of the ocean known for their unique biological communities. It was worthy of further study, so the Sea Searcher I was dispatched with my team aboard.

“Using Argus ROVs, we explored this rariphotic zone and discovered the interesting creatures I mentioned previously, in addition to unique green moray eels, yellow fish and pink fish that differed greatly from their genetic cousins. The ROV successfully captured enough of the creatures, as well as others, for us to confirm the existence of many new species.”

The British journalist furrowed his brow. “Sir, if this discovery has already been made and your findings documented, why are we here today?”

Captain Toby took a deep breath. There was always one troublesome student in every class. “The exploration team studying this rare light region was focused on the newly discovered species. However, while the ROV was at depth, they undertook a mapping exercise of the Milwaukee Deep for the purposes of educating some students on board. Using a drop cam, they searched the ocean floor for underwater geologic formations and large mineral deposits created by black smokers, vents in sandy bottom that contain precious metals like gold, platinum, nickel and cobalt. Instead, what they found was remarkable.” He paused for dramatic effect before continuing.

He turned to his aide and nodded. She brought him a two-foot-by-three-foot photograph, which he taped to the whiteboard. He stood back from the wall and folded his arms, viewing the image as if it were the Mona Lisa hanging in the Louvre in Paris.

The BBC Future reporter was the first to recognize the shape. “Is that what I think it is?”

Captain Toby smiled as he realized he’d now piqued the curiosity of the biggest skeptic in the room. “We believe so.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

December 1944

Wewelsburg Castle

Büren, Germany

Hitler and his top military advisors had met in Berlin for one final time before what would become the last great siege of the war. Berlin was being bombed almost nightly. The German Army had retreated from the Russian front. The Nazi leadership placed all of their confidence in their infantry and panzer divisions as they prepared to fight the Battle of the Bulge.

The Führer spent more time in his bunker than he did with his military advisors. Soon, he would isolate himself fifty-five feet under the chancellery and only occasionally see Himmler or other top officials of the Nazi Party.

As December dragged on, Hitler restricted his planning sessions to Himmler, General Hermann Goering, one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, and Germany’s foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Of course, Hitler’s girlfriend and constant companion, Eva Braun, was by his side. She was credited by many with helping the Führer maintain sanity, avoiding the delusional paranoia that had crept into his mind as the war turned for the worse.

Himmler spent the latter half of December at Wewelsburg Castle. He’d accumulated even more antiquities and priceless artifacts as his underlings began to flee for South America and the Middle East. He was also bestowed with vast amounts of gold. Through a closely guarded and clandestine vetting process, he’d assembled a loyal group of dedicated couriers—bankers, lawyers, and accountants. All would be rewarded for their efforts in the post-war reconstitution of the Reich.

Many of the individuals he brought within his inner circle were nonmilitary and had limited Nazi Party affiliation. This was by design. Himmler had become increasingly concerned about the Allies’ ability to persuade the Swiss to open up their vaults to reveal the wealth amassed by the Nazis. These professionals traveled continuously to Zurich, Geneva, and Bern, utilizing a variety of banks in many different locations.

The amounts held in Nazi accounts were staggering. Easily hundreds of millions of dollars in currency and gold had been stolen from Europeans of all nationalities and deposited into the numbered accounts. In current-day dollars, the figures would easily stretch into the billions.

Himmler was dejected by the apparent failure of U-1226. The submarine should’ve been in the Gulf of Mexico by late November, and Claussen’s instructions were to strike immediately. By mid-December, America should’ve been brought to its knees by the deadly poison—sarin.

Yet he’d heard nothing. By the time December 15 came, Himmler was beginning to sense the war was truly lost. The incessant bombing was taking a psychological toll on the political and military leaders of the Reich. Defections within the infantry were commonplace. Officers continued their duties out of fear the SS would harm their families if they quit their posts.

There were many Himmler loyalists, however, who mysteriously perished in battle or were reported missing in action. Interestingly, their closest family members, namely spouses and children, suffered the same fate. They didn’t die, nor were they captured. They utilized a series of escape cells known as ratlines.

Himmler had created a vast network of escape routes through Germany and Europe into safe places for the fleeing Nazis—Switzerland, Rome, ports in Spain and Portugal. Even Monaco, the tiny nation on the southeast coast of Spain that had remained neutral during the war, was hungry for Nazi gold demanded in exchange for granting citizenship to the refugees.

Safe houses were located every fifty to a hundred miles along these ratlines, guarded by Nazi officers loyal to Himmler. Each team of three to five soldiers protected those who were in their charge, and they only knew the exact whereabouts of two other shelters: the one the refugees came from and the next shelter along the ratline out of Germany. This ensured that the discovery of one escape cell along the ratline wouldn’t bring down the entire network.

The Catholic Church and Swiss humanitarian efforts played a huge role in enabling the escaping Nazis. Many departed for the Middle East, using Italy or General Franco of Spain’s assistance to make their way off the European continent.

Grand Mufti al-Husaini was one of the masterminds of the Odessa ratlines network. With Himmler’s financing, al-Husaini was able to successfully assist thousands of Nazi Party officials and military officers into the Middle East. From there, using false identification and passports, they were able to travel throughout North Africa and even to points beyond like South America and the United States.

The Nazis did not leave their prized possessions behind. The stolen artwork and antiquities were carefully crated and transported by rail to Madrid. There, Carlos Fuldner, the son of German parents living in Argentina, used his personal contacts in South America as well as Europe to pack numerous cargo aircraft with the Nazis’ belongings. Some of the works of art were sold to fund the ratlines. The remaining stolen artifacts would adorn the homes of the Nazis throughout the world.

Himmler walked through his palatial castle. This was to be the center of the world. He walked around a shallow basin with a fountain splashing water in the center. The entry to an outside courtyard was dominated by the water feature. Yet another massive banner bearing the Nazi swastika hung on the wall above the fountain.

He paused and stared down at the water basin. Himmler had envisioned the Death’s Head honor rings of every SS officer who fell in battle would be reverently cast into the basin. The rings were a personal gift from Himmler to each of his top SS officers.

Himmler sighed and struggled to contain his emotions. He’d sent away his beloved Norwegian mistresses and his children by each. He’d finally made arrangements for his wife, Margarete, and daughter to be protected at his secretive home in Bavaria. His former secretary was also cared for and provided an element of safety from the advancing Allied forces.

He was left alone in Wewelsburg except for his aides and security detail. There were no young SS officers to train. No visiting dignitaries or military leaders. But fortunately, there were no British Spitfires buzzing over his head either.

He made his way into the north tower of the castle. He entered the vast room designed to his specifications years ago. He sighed as he took in the soaring ceiling and ornate interior. It was to be the meeting hall of the twelve generals, the Obergruppenführer. The twelve military leaders, including himself, were akin to the twelve Knights of the Round Table in his mind. Himmler closed his eyes and tried to imagine the table filled with these brave leaders. And beneath their feet, the symbol of the Black Sun.

The Black Sun was symbolic to the Nazis, and Himmler, in particular, found it to have occult-like properties. He had the contractors create a marble mosaic of the Black Sun in the floor and placed the round table on top of it. He saw the mosaic as twelve spokes rotating around the sun. Symbolically, the sun was Germany and the twelve spokes represented the twelve men who ruled the Reich.

Himmler stopped pacing the floor. He rested his hands on the most adorned chair around the table. His chair. The proverbial head of the table. It would not belong to der Führer. It would belong to Heinrich Himmler, the true mastermind behind the Third Reich.

For the first time, he pulled the chair out and sat in it. He closed his eyes and allowed the mystical powers of the table and the Black Sun to engulf his psyche. He tried to visualize the future of the Reich—if not this one, the next one.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Christmas Eve 1944

Berlin, Germany

Waltraud Irmgard Splinter hustled through the deserted streets of Berlin, careful not to lose her footing on the ice and snow in the dark. She had to hurry, as the bombing raids would begin soon, and the Soviet Red Army soldiers would emerge out of the shadows in search of young girls to prey upon.

Traudl-Maus, a nickname bestowed upon her by her father before he left for war, was appropriate for the wily eleven-year-old girl with pigtails. She was sneaky and quiet as a mouse, spending her nights avoiding detection of soldiers and racing through the dense forests surrounding Berlin.

The continuous bombings had resulted in a food shortage in the Reich’s capital. As the war dragged on, the soldiers were given priority for any food products found in the city. For that reason, the children of Berlin were sent out in the dark of night to forage or, for the bravest of them, a perilous journey through the woods of the Soviet-occupied areas surrounding the city.

When she wasn’t searching for food, she lay awake at night, listening for the airplanes approaching from a distance. The powerful anti-aircraft guns of the German infantry defenses would be heard next and then the sirens. The continuous wail of sirens warned all the remaining residents of Berlin to run for the nearest bomb shelter.

Traudl-Maus had grown accustomed to the threat of Allied bombers. She kept a small bag packed with her favorite clothes and most beloved dolls. Each time her mother and four young siblings left their apartment, they were never sure if their home would still be standing when they returned.

Her father was already lost to the war. Her two oldest brothers, barely teenagers, had been sent to the front to fight the approaching Red Army in Poland. Neither of them returned. Her older sister, Ursula, did not have the survival instinct that Traudl-Maus had. Her three younger siblings were too young. Feeding the family was her burden to carry.

That Christmas Eve of 1944, Traudl-Maus was intent on bringing home a hen for her mother to cook Christmas Day. The rumor had swirled throughout the city that the Allied bombers would respect Christmas and not bomb the residents of Berlin. As a child, it was hard for her to understand the purpose of war. It was certainly beyond her comprehension as to why the children of Germany like herself were made to suffer because of the foolish acts of adults. Be that as it may, she did what she had to do for her family’s survival.

She hustled out into the snowy night, bundled in a hand-me-down wool coat and one of her mother’s scarfs. She donned her younger brother’s wool beanie cap to hide her blonde locks from any hungry soldiers as she snuck through the dark streets.

She had one job to do that evening, and that was to make her way to Frau Mohr’s tiny farm in the woods. Frau Mohr supplied the Splinter family with fresh loaves of bread whenever Traudl-Maus could successfully make her way to the farm. Tonight, she’d been promised a hen in exchange for the few Reichspfennigs her mother made as a cleaning lady in a hotel.

She darted through the streets, avoiding any lit areas or passing vehicles. When she rounded a corner, she bumped into a small child, knocking the unsuspecting toddler onto the snow-covered sidewalk. He just lay there, paralyzed with fear, eyes wide and unblinking. His little arms and bare hands stretched by his sides as if he were trying to squeeze himself into a casket.

Traudl-Maus was startled by the collision and fought to gather herself. Any bump in the night meant she could die or be kidnapped. She squinted her eyes to focus. The little boy didn’t speak or utter any evidence of being in pain. She knelt down to reassure him that she was not a threat and to determine where his mother was. Then the dim light emitted from a gas lamppost reflected off his chest. That was when she saw it.

A yellow star was sewn on his left breast, glimmering ever so slightly in the light. Traudl-Maus covered her mouth and gasped. She froze, her head on a swivel and eyes darting around the empty street. The young boy was a German Jew.

During the war, Nazi party officials implemented the Jewish badge. It was a way of identifying Jews for deportation or to persecute them in the eyes of their neighbors. The six-pointed yellow Star of David on a black field was required to be worn on the chest. Within the star itself, the word Jew was inscribed.

The fact that the young boy was Jewish didn’t frighten Traudl-Maus. What concerned her was that the boy was left alone in the snowy streets of Berlin without his family. The eleven-year-old tried to comfort the younger boy.

“Come here. Let’s get you out of the snow.” She helped him to his feet and knelt down in front of him. She gently brushed the snow and slush off his clothing and then grabbed him by both shoulders to inspect his appearance. After one last glance at his yellow star, she asked, “What are you doing out here in the dark and alone?”

“My mother didn’t come home from work. I came to look for her because I am hungry.”

Traudl-Maus shook her head and choked back a tear. German Jews who didn’t unexpectedly return from work were usually sent someplace they’d never return from.

“It is very late for you to be out of doors, young man,” she admonished him with a smile.

“You are outdoors, too. Did your mother not come home from work either?”

Traudl-Maus laughed so hard she had to cover her mouth as she looked around to determine if she’d drawn any attention to them.

“Where does she work?” She looked around at the nearby storefronts, all of which had Nazi flags hanging over their entrances.

“At the old-stuff store,” he replied innocently as he pointed down the street. Traudl-Maus knew there was an antique store frequented by the Nazi Party wives. “It’s next to the rathskeller with the bright red door.” In Berlin, bars and restaurants were often found in the basements of buildings. She knew the building he was referring to.

“Come with me,” she said as she reached for his hand. At first, he hesitated. He was barely five or six years old, but he was certainly aware that come with me oftentimes meant a one-way trip to somewhere.

He hesitantly took her hand and the two walked together toward the antique store. “What is your name?”

“Horst.”

“Do you have any family living near here?”

“Yes, Tante Helga lives above the store. She got my mother the cleaning job.”

The two walked swiftly along the street. A convoy of infantry trucks rumbled past them at one point, splashing slush mixed with road grime on her wool coat. She swiped it off and pulled the boy against the wall to avoid being washed in the trucks’ headlights.

When they reached the store, Traudl-Maus peered through the windows and found the inside to be dark. A closed sign was hanging from a nail on the wood door. She led Horst by the hand to the rathskeller entrance. That door was locked also.

It was Christmas Eve, so that didn’t surprise her. In Germany, families generally celebrated gift giving and a meal with their loved ones on Christmas Eve. The Splinter family, however, had nothing to celebrate, nor did they have any of their Christmas decorations anymore. They had been lost in an October bombing raid, along with most of their furniture. They only had each other, mostly.

She looked above the red door and saw the gentle flickering of a candle in a second-floor window. She pointed to the window, and young Horst’s eyes followed her finger.

“Is that your aunt’s apartment?”

“Yes. She lives there with my cousins.”

Traudl-Maus took the boy by the hand and led him up the stairs. She quietly knocked on the door, being gentle so as not to startle the occupants or attract the attention of their neighbors on the second floor. Seconds later, the doorknob turned and the hinges creaked ever so slightly. A small pale face peered through the crack.

“Horst? Is that you?”

“Jah. Do you know where my mother is?”

The door opened wider, and a girl of about eight revealed herself. She’d been crying.

“My name is Ella.”

Traudl-Maus introduced herself and was invited in. She explained how she’d run into Horst. Ella listened and then motioned for her to join her in the kitchen. It was devoid of food, just like the Splinters’ home was. Once they were alone, Ella broke down crying and explained.

Just as the two mothers were closing up the store for the night, a group of soldiers pulled up to the entrance and grabbed them. They were knocked to the ground, kicked and then forced into a military truck. Ella had observed the events from the bedroom she shared with her sisters. She’d been sitting there since the store closed hours ago, praying that her mother and aunt would return. She’d given up.

Traudl-Maus hugged the young girl and tried to comfort her. Between sobs, she complained of being hungry and cold. They had no heat when the rathskeller was closed. The bar and restaurant operation generated heat, and the building owner had modified the exhaust ductwork to attach it to the building’s air-ventilation system. The oil furnaces hadn’t worked in over a year. The oil was a valuable commodity to the military of the Third Reich.

Traudl-Maus got Ella, Horst, and two more young children settled in the living room around the candle. She had a calming effect on the kids and eventually convinced them to join her in singing some children’s songs.

As she watched them begin to relax and enjoy each other’s company, she remembered the task at hand. She needed to hurry in order to get to Frau Mohr’s farm. She promised the children she’d return, although she wasn’t sure that was a promise she could keep. She never knew if she would return from the forest.

But return she did. Several hours later, with a hen firmly secured in one grain sack and two loaves of freshly baked bread in the other, she slipped into the apartment building where Ella lived. She prayed the entire return trip that the sisters had been returned to their children. However, when Ella answered the door, her eyes sunken from exhaustion, Traudl-Maus knew they would probably never return.

Then she did something that might get her scolded by her mother, but it was worth the risk.

“Everyone? How would you like to join my family for dinner tomorrow? We don’t have much, except a chicken and two loaves of bread.” She held up the grain sacks for them to see.

“We have potatoes and peas,” offered Ella.

“Good. Good. My mother will make us all kartoffelpuffer.” Potato pancakes were a staple of German households during the war.

“At your house?” asked Horst. He hung his head in sadness. Tears streamed down his face. “But wir Juden.” We are Jews.

Traudl-Maus reached out to the young boy and lifted his tear-soaked chin with her hand. “Nein, Horst. You are all Germans. Just like me.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

One Hundred Seventy Miles off the North Coast of Puerto Rico

The Puerto Rico Trench

Depth: 18,700 feet

Fathoms: 3,120

The Deepsea Challenger 7

North Atlantic Ocean

The first human-occupied vehicle, or HOV, to reach the deepest parts of the planet was known as the Deepsea Challenger, built in Sydney, Australia, for Woods Hole. It gained world recognition for its second dive into the Mariana Trench when famed producer James Cameron piloted it to the deepest spot in the planet’s oceans on a solo mission. It was the culmination of years of technological preparation and single-handedly resulted in an explosion of funding in ocean science.

Over the next two decades, the Deepsea Challenger program advanced to larger, more technologically advanced exploration vessels. The original vehicle measured twenty-four feet and was made up of three sections.

The beam was made of a new innovation, syntactic foam, the only flotation material capable of withstanding the crushing pressures of the deep ocean. A personnel sphere was contained below the beam. This part of the submersible was surrounded by three-inch-thick steel and thick observation glass with numerous strain gauges attached, providing the operator a series of warning indicators when the HOV was under extraordinary pressure. Finally, the Deepsea Challenger was equipped with a section dedicated to harvesting sea life and surface materials for study. The two booms could work together to gather the items to study and place them safely within the sub without breaching the personnel compartment.

With the success of the first Deepsea Challenger mission, excitement grew and many millions of dollars were invested in improving the HOV’s capabilities. As a result, the next generation of manned submersibles had been built and placed into service, including the Deepsea Challenger 7, or DSC-7, being operated by a crew from the Sea Searcher 1.

The DSC-7 had several major modifications. For one, it had increased in size to over thirty feet. Its shape and design allowed for additional compartments, including a much larger bank of lithium-ion battery packs. The two hundred eighty batteries, each the size of a loaf of bread, quadrupled the power of the HOV and allowed the crew to remain below the surface for a longer period of time.

The other significant design change was the addition of a pressurized air-lock compartment, allowing divers to undertake the deepest exploration of the planet in history outside of an HOV.

The atmospheric diving system, developed in conjunction with the U.S. Navy, was technologically remarkable. Prior to the turn of the century, the most advanced deep-water dive suit allowed for a mission to two thousand feet. Using space technology and forged alloys created by NASA, an underwater exosuit was designed that revolutionized deep-sea exploration.

The teardrop-shaped helmet enabled the divers to have an extensive field of vision, especially down to their boots when walking on the ocean floor. The exosuit had its own self-contained life-support system that included two separate oxygen tanks providing up to fifty hours of recirculated air filtered by carbon dioxide scrubbers. Thrusters were installed at the feet and sides of the suit, providing the occupant maximum maneuverability.

However, for the exploratory diver, its best feature was the exosuit’s hands. The left hand resembled a V-shaped jaw, enabling the diver to grab bulky items. The right hand, or parallel jaw, was known as the five-pronged pretender that mimicked a human hand.

As much as Captain Toby wanted to be aboard the DSC-7 that day, his job was to feed information to the journalists who’d be selling the importance of his work to the world. Every research scientist knows the importance of raising money to keep their projects ongoing. The success of this discovery would ensure funding for his work at Woods Hole for many years.

Despite the complex technology associated with the DSC-7, its operation was remarkably simple. Descend. Monitor your gauges. Ascend following established protocols. It’s what happens when the HOV reaches the ocean floor and the exosuit is inhabited by a brave, untethered diver in the darkest parts of the planet that stress levels rise for all involved.

The three-person crew of this historic dive was led by Alvin Masterson, a former Navy diver who’d become known for exploring the wreckage of the Titanic. His first mate on the DSC-7, Andrea Koslov, was a Russian-born scientist who’d been on the crew of the ship that monitored the James Cameron dive nearly two decades prior. She’d come out of retirement to assist Captain Toby on this research mission.

Finally, a NASA astronaut was chosen as the third crew member in the event Masterson deemed the conditions safe enough to conduct an exosuit dive. Walt Ballard had been a frequent crew member of the International Space Station and logged many hours walking in space. When Project Artemis was being developed on the lunar surface, he’d helped supervise its construction operations. There were definite similarities between walking on the moon and using the exosuit for deep-sea exploration. Ballard was more than capable of venturing outside the DSC-7 if the situation warranted.

As Masterson piloted the HOV, the crew of the DSC-7 was filled with nervous excitement, as were those aboard the Sea Searcher I.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

One Hundred Seventy Miles off the North Coast of Puerto Rico

The Puerto Rico Trench

Depth: 27,840 feet

Fathoms: 4,640

The Deepsea Challenger 7

North Atlantic Ocean

Masterson wiped the sweat from his palms as he checked the depth indicator on the control panel of the DSC-7. Twenty-six thousand feet. Seven miles of water above their heads. He slowed the descent and studied his sonar. A more detailed view of the ocean’s surface revealed itself. It was remarkably flat, much like the world according to ancient mariners. He checked his atmospheric conditions. Inside the HOV, all indicators were right where they should be. Outside the DSC-7, seventeen thousand pounds per square inch of water pressure threatened to crush them.

Koslov, the cool cucumber who’d performed more deep-water excursions than anyone associated with the Sea Searcher expedition, called out the numbers as Masterson slowed their descent.

“Twenty-seven thousand. Illuminating external lighting.”

Ballard leaned forward between the seats like a little kid trying to see where his parents were taking him. Their submersible cockpit was surrounded by racks of computer monitors and electronics. A jungle of vine-like wires wrapped throughout the compartment like a bad case of overgrown kudzu taking over the side of a hill.

“Easy now,” muttered Masterson as they reached twenty-seven thousand five hundred feet. “We’ll need clearance to maneuver.”

“Well done, Al,” said Ballard with an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

“Thanks, Walt. I kinda know what Buzz Aldrin felt like when he set the lunar module down.”

“Shittin’ bricks?” said Ballard, a Savannah, Tennessee, native.

Masterson laughed. “I took some Imodium before we boarded just to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Koslov adjusted the exterior lighting and then checked their global positioning coordinates. “We’re half a mile north of the wreckage. I’ll text the Sea Searcher and advise.” At this depth, voice communications were not possible, but advanced technology did allow the crew of the DSC-7 to reach out to the surface. Ballard fired off a text and jokingly wrote “the eagle has landed,” a nod to the historic lunar landing Masterson had referenced. He followed up with their location and advised they were half a mile away from the wreckage.

“Course charted,” announced Masterson. He released the controls and allowed the DSC-7 onboard computers to guide them to the coordinates of the wreck. Now, all three of them could wait for the external illumination to reveal the wreck that had led to this consequential dive.

Suddenly, they were engulfed in some type of furry green organisms.

“What the hell?” asked Ballard.

Koslov explained, “Impossible.”

“What?” Ballard’s question showed his concern. He didn’t believe in little green men; therefore space travel didn’t cause him any form of angst. However, the furry pelted worms covering their glass shield did.

“No worries, Mr. Ballard,” she explained. “Those appear to be Pompeii worms. It’s odd to find them in this location. They’re normally found in the hydrothermal vents of the Pacific Ocean. The furry pelt you see is a fleece-like covering over its back that insulates it from extreme heat and cold. There must be a hydrothermal vent nearby.”

“That’s where they live?” he asked.

“No, but the vents supply sulfur for bacteria to live off, which in turn are digested by the worms.”

Masterson glanced at the ocean’s water temperature. “Check it out. Seventy-six degrees.”

“There you have it,” said Koslov. “The vent is probably in the vicinity. In technical terms, they’re called hydrothermal megaplumes. These black smokers, as they’re referred to in seaman’s terms, spew out superheated mineral-infused water that can measure up to seven hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The water will rise to the surface and gradually cool as it encounters the freezing columns of seawater. Then it will achieve neutral buoyancy. That accounts for the unusual sea life found by the prior expedition.”

“Exciting beyond words,” said Ballard. He’d be more impressed with little green men. He pointed forward. The Pompeii worms were dissipating. Their departure was commensurate with the water temperatures dropping drastically toward the thirties. “Holy shit! Back it off, Al!”

Masterson reactively pulled back on the throttle, overriding the computer’s control of the submersible. The main propulsion slowed, but the stabilizers that maintained a steady two hundred feet above the ocean floor continued to allow the DSC-7 to hover safely. Even at this distance from the ocean floor, the forced air caused bits of floating sediment to float all around them.

The three of them were awestruck and sat in complete silence as their view cleared and they were able to observe their surroundings. A layer of greenish-brown silt covered their discovery, softening the outlines of debris forced off the ocean floor when the wreckage had found its final resting place. Several large dark fish swam through the light, uninterested in the presence of the newcomers.

The hulking ruin of the submarine emerged from the sea floor like the carcass of a megalodon in a sci-fi movie. Ballard reached behind his seat and pulled out a photograph. He handed it to Masterson first, who then attempted to give it to Koslov. She waved her hand in the air, indicating that viewing the photo wasn’t necessary.

“It is a German U-boat. Type IX, most likely. And it is incredibly well preserved.”

“Seriously?” asked Ballard. “As in World War Two U-boat?”

“That’s the only kind, space cowboy,” quipped Masterson. “Let’s get a closer look.”

He dropped the DSC-7 toward the floor until he was barely fifty feet above the bottom. The HOV began to rock back and forth as if it had been caught up in some kind of underwater turbulence.

Koslov pointed to the ocean water temperature. “The wild swings are being caused by the hydrothermal vent emissions. See the rapid rise and fall of the numbers? It’s generating its own currents.”

“Control is difficult due to the unpredictability of the current,” observed Masterson. “We won’t be able to get the DSC-7 close enough to gather samples of the surrounding sand or any part of the U-boat for study.”

He approached the wreckage, giving them a better view. Sea growth, even at those incredible depths, had managed to consume the U-boat. Through the pitch-black waters, with the aid of the external lighting, they could see the rusty hull and the conning tower, which remained intact.

“We’ve gotta get a closer look at this sucker,” said Ballard as he removed his seat harness and stood hunched over in the compact crew compartment.

“Where do you think you’re going?” asked Masterson.

“Come on, Al. You know it’s too dangerous to pull the HOV up next to this sub. The current’s too erratic. I’m pretty sure this fancy foam stuff would chip apart if it got bashed against the shredded hull of the wreckage.”

“He’s right,” added Koslov. “From what I can see, there is a clear opening to enter the wreckage just aft of the conn. The automatic recording devices contained within the exosuit will record all of his observations.”

“Right,” said Ballard as he started to walk backwards toward the separate, self-contained area containing the suit and the exit chamber into the water. “C’mon, Al. This is what I do and the only reason those smart guys asked me to come along. Let me do my thing.”

Masterson was responsible for the safety of the crew and the DSC-7. At the same time, this was the purpose of the dive. Otherwise, the people at Woods Hole would’ve dispatched a remote operating vessel to take photographs and video.

“All right, let’s get you on your way. But no risk-taking. Agreed?”

“Anchors aweigh!” Ballard replied with a thumbs-up.

Chapter Thirty

One Hundred Seventy Miles off the North Coast of Puerto Rico

The Puerto Rico Trench

Depth: 27,840 feet

Fathoms: 4,640

The Deepsea Challenger 7

North Atlantic Ocean

It took a certain kind of human being to walk in space. It was nothing short of a carefully calculated high-wire daredevil act without a net. The only thing connecting you to any possible rescue if things went south was a tether and a hook. As Ballard exited the DSC-7 in the exosuit, he compared the surge of adrenaline he was feeling to his first spacewalk. He was overcome with an incredible sense of freedom in which his entire life was solely within his control.

Now, alone, without a tether line or any means of returning to the relative safety of the HOV other than the operation of the thrusters that took a little getting used to, he was one man against the sea. He whispered to himself, “Bring it,” as he dropped to the ocean floor and began to slowly walk toward the wreckage of the U-boat.

He’d never examined a shipwreck before. In fact, he’d never performed an open-water dive using traditional scuba gear. Exploring the depths of the ocean in the exosuit was wholly different than the diving most people were familiar with. It was truly the same as spacewalking other than the totally weightless environment of space.

He could feel the buoyant nature of his suit wanting to pull him to the surface many miles above, yet the gravitational pull of Earth’s core kept his feet on the sandy floor. The scientists who’d designed the exosuit had achieved the perfect balance to keep the diver where he wanted to be rather than fighting the two powerful hands of nature that were undoubtedly battling to take him up or down. As he contemplated his surroundings, he wondered, just as he had on his first spacewalk, what fool thought it was a good idea to undertake either one of these endeavors. Yet, there he was, taking a casual stroll in the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, in the midst of the Devil’s Triangle, to inspect a sunken U-boat. Fool times two.

Ballard smiled as he approached the hull of the sub. Moving along the ocean floor was easier than the skipping motion he’d used on the lunar surface. The thrusters, once he got the hang of them, made him feel like he was walking on a cloud. With the powerful light kit attached to his exosuit, visibility was outstanding.

He checked the screen staring back at him from the facial shield to confirm his cameras were recording. His exosuit vitals were right on target. Ballard, growing increasingly comfortable in his surroundings, picked up the pace as he approached the wreckage. He turned his upper body to record as much of the sub as the illumination would allow.

It appeared the U-boat had struck the ocean floor with the stern first. It was crushed and buckled. The bow then settled into the sand, displacing it as it slid down a slight incline to the deepest part of the Puerto Rico Trench.

He approached the conn. It was still solid. Then he used the downward slope to complete his examination of the sub by reaching the bow. It was completely intact except for a single hole near its normal waterline. The jagged opening was rusting and appeared large enough for him to pass through.

He moved closer and used the hull to brace himself against the occasional surge from the current. He searched for the sub’s identifying numbers. They must’ve been on the stern, he thought to himself. He came across what appeared to be a cartoonish drawing. An animated fish with a long bill that resembled a saw. A swordfish? Ballard didn’t know the history behind U-boats and their identifying badges. He just made sure the image appeared in the frame of his camera, and then he moved inside the hull.

Once inside the belly of the sunken beast, his bright lights lit up the interior. Evidence of the violent passage to the bottom of the ocean and the resulting crash were everywhere. Cables and wires floated in the water like string spaghetti floating in a pot. Broken pipes and hunks of steel jutted out from the walls of the submarine as he carefully moved through the passageways.

He braved the tight surroundings, not thinking of the potentially claustrophobic conditions. He did, however, continuously check his oxygen levels. He’d been cautioned that once he’d approached the end of his fresh air supply, the exosuit would begin an air-recycle process that would be more taxing on his batteries.

He moved toward the bridge located at the center of the submarine within the conning tower. Evidence of death was everywhere. Bones and flesh had been consumed by the sea decades ago. Pieces of fabric remained, as did some of the seamen’s medals and insignia indicating their ranks.

The U-boat shuddered, startling Ballard. The current was strong enough to give the decaying giant a bit of a nudge. It forced him to reconsider his exploration of the wreckage. But his curiosity couldn’t be contained. He wanted to go deeper into the wreckage to inspect the cargo hold.

He didn’t know much about Nazi submarines and the intricate details of World War II battles. However, he’d read about stories of stolen gold and precious metals that were never recovered. Over the years, his online news sources had been filled with stories of treasure hunters finding hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of long-lost gold bullion. He wondered if he could locate a little some-somethin’ that might be of value. He instinctively worked his mechanical claws attached to the exosuit. He nodded and made his way deeper into the ship.

What he found was not stacks of gold bars or bags of silver. Instead, it was row after row of shiny silver canisters. Confused, Ballard made his way through the stacks of canisters. Seeing the entire ship’s hold was filled with the twenty-inch-long tubes, he retrieved one off the rack by unlatching a steel strap holding it in place. After a moment of study, he figured out how to open one with his unusual exosuit hands.

He attempted to twist off the cap of the canister, but it appeared to be stuck. As if he were at home attempting to gain access to a hard-to-open jar of pickles, he tapped the canister against the solid steel rack. He tried to twist again but was unable to do so. He gripped the canister with both arms, raised it over his head, and swung downward with all the speed the water would allow.

The canister ruptured, leaving a gaping crack in the side. Air bubbles began to find their way out before the canister slipped out of Ballard’s grip and started to float toward the gaping hole in the stern.

Frustrated, he checked his air levels again and confirmed he was approaching the window to return to the HOV. He’d have to walk up a slope and against the current to get there, so he decided to call it a day. Before he left, he secured two of the canisters under his arms and began to make his way back to the DSC-7, anxious to share what he’d discovered with his crewmates.

Ballard exited the stern and came face-to-face with several of the dark, large-lipped fish he’d noticed while inside the HOV. Before, they’d barely given the submersible a second look as they went by. Now something was off about them. Their movements were all wrong. The ocean currents were pushing them around in the water, turning them over on their sides until they righted themselves. The mouth of the closest fish to him was working overtime, feeding hungrily on tiny specks of plankton or dust particles.

Seconds later, more of the fish appeared behaving in a similar, odd manner. They surrounded Ballard and his pulse began to race. Reddish brown flakes were all around him, and the fish were devouring it like it was their last meal.

It was.

Ballard overcame his fear and moved quickly toward the submersible that hovered less than a hundred feet away thanks to the thoughtfulness of Masterson. Within seconds, the fish stopped feeding. They stopped fighting the current. They all died. Belly up, eyes bugged out, floating aimlessly with the current.

As the oscars or the groupers, or whatever they were, succumbed to the deadly fish food, Ballard began to panic. What if there was something wrong with the water? What if the hydrothermal vent had ejected a deadly gas that was toxic?

He wasted no time returning to the DSC-7. Once he was in the transition hold and the bulk of the water was removed from the contained space, he frantically climbed out of the exosuit until he was left alone in his Speedo swimsuit, breathing heavily. He’d become uncharacteristically anxious, causing his chest to tighten and his breathing to become fast and shallow.

Koslov was the first to greet him as she opened the secured door leading to the transition hold. “Hey, are you okay?” she asked. “What was going on with those fish that spooked you like that?”

Ballard tried to calm his nerves. He shrugged and muttered, “I dunno.” Then he pointed toward the canisters.

Koslov picked one up. “This is amazing. It must be titanium. It’s the only possible alloy ingredient that could survive the corrosive impact of the sea.”

Masterson arrived at the opening. “Come on, Walt. Let’s get you dried off and settled. I wanna hear all about it.”

Ballard, who’d recovered from the underwater ordeal, picked up the other canister and handed it to Masterson. “If it’s all the same, let’s head back to the ship. It was a little spooky in there. On the way up, we’ll open these up and see what we can find inside.”

“How many were inside the sub?” asked Koslov.

“A metric shit ton,” replied Ballard.

Masterson helped Ballard inside, and the three members of the DSC-7 crew began their fifty-minute ascent to the surface, where they’d reunite with the Sea Searcher I.

Chapter Thirty-One

Aboard the Sea Searcher I

One Hundred Seventy Miles North of Puerto Rico

North Atlantic Ocean

Captain Tobias ten Brink had not become concerned about the three-person team manning the DSC-7 until the deck crew frantically called him to the bridge of the Sea Searcher I. The submersible was returning to the surface at a controlled ascent. It was ahead of schedule, but that was to be expected. This was an extraordinary set of circumstances, and it would be normal for the crew to not want to push the envelope on their time below the surface. What did concern Captain Toby was the lack of communication. During the forty-minute window during which text messaging was available, or as they approached the surface when VHF marine radio was accessible, they hadn’t reached out to the ship.

The crew worked diligently to hoist the DSC-7 out of the ocean. Word spread amongst the crew and the three onboard journalists of the sub’s arrival near the surface. Once secured on deck, Captain Toby personally opened the hatch to welcome his submersible team back to the Sea Searcher I.

He entered the HOV, and a fierce wave of nausea immediately overcame his body. He instinctively recoiled, falling backwards onto the deck, where he vomited repeatedly. Frightened crew members came to his aid and attempted to calm him. Others covered their mouths and entered the submersible. They, too, were repulsed by what they found.

“Get them out!” shouted one of the crew members.

“Maybe they need air!” yelled another.

Two men pushed their way past the crowd that had gathered around the DSC-7, as nobody was willing to take the initiative. They entered the sub and began to drag the three bodies out. Masterson’s body was the first to be retrieved, followed by Koslov.

The crew members were sobbing over the dead. The corpses’ faces were grotesquely contorted, and their eyes bulged. Across the ship’s deck, shouts for the medical team filled the air.

As Ballard was dragged out, one of the open canisters rolled onto the deck. The British reporter picked it up and examined it before handing it over to the woman from the New York Times.

“Look at all of these sponges!” shouted a voice from inside the HOV. He began kicking them out onto the deck of the ship, where onlookers picked them up to get a closer look.

“That’s odd,” commented one. “They don’t smell like seawater, nor are they even wet. Could they have dried off that quickly?”

“What the hell happened to them?” asked another crew member through her wails of agony.

“Did they lose their oxygen?”

“Was the HOV breached somehow?”

“Maybe decompression sickness?”

There were lots of questions, but no answers. When the last member of the crew who’d assisted with removing the bodies emerged with the tops of the two canisters, he held them up for his crewmates to see. His hands were covered with white powder.

Some of his friends rushed to his side as tears streamed down his face. They took the shiny canister tops away and tried to console him. Captain Toby had finally recovered and crawled next to the three dead bodies. He openly prayed for them and grieved.

In a show of solidarity and respect, everyone on board the ship huddled around the dead, kneeling and praying for their souls. Others offered comfort to their mates. It was an emotional display during which everyone on the ship shared in the grieving for the loss of life.

While they mourned the terrible loss, the ruptured, empty canisters rolled around the ship’s deck at their feet as the warm ocean winds blew across them.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Gunner’s House

Tangier Island, Virginia

Gunner and Howard waited at the end of his dock. The aging basset hound was about to turn eleven, but it seemed he hadn’t gotten the memo. He had been Gunner’s bestest pal since Heather’s death years ago. They would frequently have long talks on the couch, staring mindlessly out the window as if they were waiting for her to come. Howard’s long body and large round head didn’t make him much of a cuddler. His slightly heavy sixty-five pounds pushed him out of the lapdog weight class. But Gunner couldn’t have asked for a sweeter, gentler, and more affectionate pup than Howard.

Except for his insubordination. Howard was demanding. Sassy. A bed hog. And his frequent flatulence was capable of driving Gunner out of the house. He’d tried changing his diet. He continued the Nummy Tum that Gunner’s father, Pop, insisted was good for his digestive health. Gunner personally felt his digestive health was functioning just fine, but his gassy nature needed to be dealt with.

While Gunner would miss his old house on Dog Island, his new home had many advantages. For one, it had a direct westerly view from the back deck. Gunner was a sunset kinda guy. Not the “walk the beach and pick up shells” type. Those days had left him when Heather died. For Gunner, there was something about kickin’ back in one of his Adirondack chairs on the deck, a cold beer in hand, with Howard by his side as the sun dropped over the horizon, that cleared his head and relaxed him.

He was looking forward to this weekend. The Gray Fox team had saved a lot of lives the other day. Like all of their missions, nothing was routine. They were risky and physically demanding. What Gunner, Cam and Bear liked the most were the challenges they presented.

Each of them had their own level of expertise in addition to their Air Forces Special Operations training. Gunner frequently used his college degrees as an earth scientist to benefit Gray Fox during an op. It had served him well when he attacked the asteroid, and it certainly hadn’t hurt as he was almost sucked up into the eye wall of a hurricane the other day.

The three of them had earned some time off, and spending their first weekend together on Tangier Island was just what the doctor ordered. Even Gunner’s psychiatrist at Eglin Air Force Base, Dr. Brian Dowling, would approve. Despite the fact that Gunner and the team were technically retired from the Air Force, he was still seeing Dr. Dowling on an informal basis. Logistics was an issue, so frequently they conversed by telephone. Their relationship had become more of a friendship than doctor-patient.

Bear honked the horn of his newly acquired Baja Outlaw powerboat as he caught a glimpse of Gunner and Howard on the dock. Howard jumped to his feet, arched his back, and let out a series of howls. Gunner shook his head and laughed. Those two were meant for one another. Of all the people on this planet, Bear was the only other human being Howard would sleep with. That suited Gunner just fine. It would be nice to have the bed to himself for a couple of nights.

Bear eased up to the south side of the dock opposite Gunner’s own fast boat, the Donzi. If a casual passerby didn’t know better, they’d think the group was reenacting a scene from the eighties television series Miami Vice, with Rico and Tubbs getting together to take down the bad guys. Or the neighbors, if there were any, might think a drug runner had moved in next door.

Cam gave Gunner a cross look as she scrambled to the bow of the Baja to toss the dock line to Gunner. Bear moved to the stern and wrapped the line around the piling securing the floating dock.

“What?” Gunner mouthed the words, thinking that Cam wanted to whisper something to him. Instead, she blurted it out.

“I’ll never ride with this idiot again!”

Gunner scowled. The three of them had just finished cruising for hours together across the Gulf of Mexico and she didn’t complain. “Why?”

She let it out. Her tone of voice was filled with sarcasm. “Hey, Cam. You want me to open her up? No, I’d say. He’d do it anyway. Hold on, Cam, he’d say. Don’t bounce me out of the boat, I’d respond. Can you feel the power? he’d ask. You wanna feel my fist break your jaw? I’d respond. That’s the way it was all the way from my place.”

Cam made her way back to the entrance to the bow and entered the sleeping quarters below. She started tossing duffle bags on the dock.

“You can’t not ride with him,” countered Gunner.

“Yes, I can. I mean, wait. No. How the hell am I supposed to respond to a double negative? I’m not riding with him again. Period. You can take me back on Sunday.”

Bear interrupted her rant. “Come on, Cam. It wasn’t so bad. I’ll go slow next time.”

“There won’t be a next time, hot rod. Gunner’s gonna take me back.”

Bear began to plead with her. “But how ya gonna get back and forth next time?”

“I’ll get my own damn boat!”

Cam climbed out of the Baja and stood defiantly with her hands on her hips. “Come here, Howard, I need a hug.” The basset waddled over to her and immediately covered her in several wet, sloppy kisses. She grabbed her duffle and led Howard up to the house.

Gunner reached out and grabbed Bear’s hand to hoist him up and over the edge of the boat onto the dock. Bear almost pulled too hard, causing Gunner to lose his balance slightly. He had a powerful grip and biceps that could easily curl eighty-pound dumbbells.

Gunner glanced to make sure Cam was out of earshot before he turned back to Bear. “It’s a great ride, isn’t it?”

“Oh, hell yeah! Once you get past Quantico and hit that S-bend in the river, you feel like you’re at Watkins Glen but in a boat. After you clear Piney Point, you can really open her up.”

Gunner started laughing. “Wide damn open!” He and Bear exchanged high fives.

“I guess hittin’ the coastline at oh-dark-thirty is out of the question.”

“Why?” asked Gunner. “Cam always sleeps in when we get together. You and I’ll slip out. I’ve already got a race course to run. South past Newport News, out into the Atlantic at Virginia Beach, and down to Kill Devil Hills in Carolina. Then back again.”

“What’s the winner get?” asked Bear.

Gunner hadn’t thought of that. “You know, we need a trophy of some kind. Bragging rights are good, but we need something to hoist in the air.”

Bear liked it. “Yeah, a gold cup or a bottle of milk like at the Indy 500.”

“Beer, maybe.”

“Works for me,” Bear readily agreed. He grabbed his gear, and the two men, boys for the weekend, strutted up the dock to the house, excited about their time together.

Once inside, Gunner took Cam and Bear on a tour of his house now that everything was unpacked and he’d done a little decorating. The home was simple in design and much smaller than his place on Dog Island. The number of listed properties for sale on Tangier Island were few, but as the Realtor put it, everything has a price. She knew of an older couple who’d lived on the island for nearly forty years, but their health dictated they be closer to a hospital. Or at least have access to one that didn’t require a boat or LifeFlight to get to. They’d agreed to sell, and Gunner had purchased the perfect spot.

His primary requirements were one story, three bedrooms with three baths, one for him and each of his best friends, and a large open space combining living area with the kitchen. Of course, the westerly view and a dock were bonuses. This property fit the bill, and he was already feeling like it was home.

The guys spent the day talking about the drug cartel pirates. During the post-op briefing, they’d learned more about Abduwali Ali and how he’d come to work for the Los Zetas. The DEA was very appreciative of the Gray Fox team’s efforts. This had struck a major blow to the cartel’s cash flow and led to valuable intel about their organization. They’d even agreed to look the other way concerning Bear’s boat acquisition.

Gunner had received an email directly from the congressman and his wife, thanking him for saving their daughter, his sister, and his niece. Over the years, Gunner had earned the respect of pro-military political leaders on Capitol Hill. While their operations were off the books, their funding had to be maintained by Congress. Saving Jenna Larkin was a win in many ways.

“Who’s hungry?” asked Gunner.

Howard howled and Bear barked, “I am!”

Cam laughed and rolled her eyes. She looked at Gunner. “Seriously, this is a question you had to ask? These two would eat you out of house and home if you didn’t keep them on a leash.”

Gunner finished his beer and fist-bumped his friend. “I’ll feed Howard a snack, and you guys get ready.”

“What are you fixin’?” asked Bear.

“I thought we’d walk into town and try the new place,” said Gunner. “We’ve been so busy between moving and the Victory that I still haven’t checked the place out. Hell, I haven’t seen the town since the Realtor showed me around months ago.”

“I’m game,” said Cam, who was the first to hustle off to freshen up.

“I’m down, too,” said Bear, who gathered up the empties and took them to the kitchen trash can.

Fifteen minutes later, the trio was walking down the packed-sand path leading through the marshy west end of Tangier Island toward town. Gunner lived half a mile from everything, so there was no need for a car. Dog Island had been long and narrow. His home in Florida was on the complete opposite end of the marina and the airport. Tangier Island was different. It was short, wide and, as the locals say, heart shaped. He was able to get everywhere by walking.

After ten minutes of cracking jokes and bustin’ Bear’s chops over the Weight Limit 2 Tons street sign found at the entrance to the wooden bridge leading to the main business district, the three of them arrived on the main street of the quaint fishing village.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Tangier Island, Virginia

Bear was sweating profusely as they reached the main drag of the tiny island town. He wiped the sweat off his brow with his tee shirt. “Man, we’ve gotta get one of those golf carts or a moped or somethin’.”

“Because dropping a few L-Bs is not an option?” Cam asked with a grin. She playfully slapped Bear’s stomach. His abs were solid like granite. The man wasn’t overweight. He was just big.

“Yeah, yeah,” replied Bear. “First thing on Monday morning. I’m gonna hit it hard. Cut out the carbs, you know?”

“Right. But today, we eat!” exclaimed Gunner, who picked up the pace as they entered the town. The business and tourist district consisted of simple rectangular buildings with gable roofs in a variety of colors. Once private homes, they had been retrofitted over time to become small shops, restaurants, and now two bars.

One of the eating and drinking establishments was located near the docks across from the wooden bridge. The other, the new place, was on the far end of the shopping strip, a quarter mile away. It was off the beaten path behind the post office.

Gunner checked his watch and saw that it wasn’t quite eleven that morning, so he took the group on a casual walk to check out the shops. The town of Tangier wasn’t that different from Apalachicola, only much smaller. Because it was truly an island and didn’t have access other than by boat and small plane, the town’s tourist trade was sparse. The only thing keeping most of the businesses open was the fact the buildings most likely doubled as the shop owners’ residences.

“Down this way,” said Gunner, pointing to a long wooden walkway winding through the marsh next to the post office. A hundred yards ahead of them sat a simple square building on pilings overlooking Pocomoke Sound all the way to the peninsula where Wallops Island was located.

“Okay, I really love this whole concept,” began Cam. She looked around for signs of life. “And I know this guy’s place is new. But how can he possibly support himself? This is so out of the way. He doesn’t have any signage by the street. You get the feeling you’re lost as you—”

Cam cut her sentence short as music could be heard across the marsh in front of them. Uncle Kenny belted out a tune, telling his adoring fans that the key to life was no shoes, no shirt, and therefore no problems.

The sound of chatter filled the air as they approached, and Cam instantly realized she was wrong. The small bar appeared to be filled with customers, and it had just opened.

They walked up the wooden steps and reached the wraparound porch. Cam noticed a sign over the door and read it aloud. “How do you make the pain of a broken heart go away? Beer, oysters, and country music!”

“Can’t argue with that,” added Gunner.

“Damn straight!” said Cam.

The three of them entered the bar and immediately noticed the wood floor was covered with pristine white sand mixed with a smattering of dry-roasted peanut shells. In a pile on both sides of the door were peoples’ shoes, socks, and flip-flops. Apparently, the bar’s patrons took Uncle Kenny to heart. As did the owner, who’d named his place the Broken Hart Raw Bar, a nod to the shape of Tangier Island and the local folklore that it resembled a broken heart when the tide was high.

The tables were filled, and three barstools were available but spread out. Bear politely approached some of the customers, who immediately moved around to accommodate the newcomers. The trio thanked their new friends because in a bar like this one, everyone knew one another, or at least acted like they did.

The young woman tending bar was busy pouring draft beer and chatting up her guests. Bear caught her eye, and she came to greet them with a toothy grin.

“What’ll y’all have?” she asked with a wink at Bear. The big man sat a little taller in his chair and puffed out his chest.

Gunner began to answer. “We’ll have—” Then he was cut off by a voice from behind him.

“Whatever they want. Their money’s no good here!”

Gunner swung around. “Holy shit! Sammy? Really?”

Sammy Hart’s face exploded with a huge smile. “In the flesh, my friend.”

“No freakin’ way!” shouted Cam as she bounced off her barstool to hug their old acquaintance.

Gunner shook hands and gave his friend from Apalachicola a bear hug. Bear, naturally, did the same.

“Charlie, set them up with a round of Sammy’s Suds for starters. I’ll have one, too. What the hell, right?”

Gunner was beside himself. He looked around the bar and noticed virtually everyone was enjoying their joyous reunion. “Sammy, is this real? I mean, am I getting punked or something? Where are the cameras?” They bro-hugged again.

“Yeah, buddy. It’s real. A long story if you wanna hear it.”

“Hell yeah, we wanna hear it.” Gunner was genuinely thrilled to see his bartender friend from Apalach. The man meant more to him than just a familiar face when he needed to drown his sorrows. Over the years, he’d dragged Gunner out of the gutter and kept him from jumping off a bridge more than once.

Sammy looked around the bar and then craned his neck to see if a table was available on the back deck. It was full as well.

“Okay, well, it’s up we go, then.”

“Up?” asked Bear.

“Yeah. Y’all might not have noticed the widow’s walk on the top of the building. It’s got some deck chairs for my personal use. I live in a second-floor apartment above the kitchen.”

“Livin’ the dream,” said Bear with a laugh as he and Sammy exchanged fist bumps.

“You have no idea. The only problem with the Crow’s Nest, as I like to call it, has to do with logistics. Getting beer and ice to the coolers can be a challenge.”

“What do we need to do?” asked Cam. “Bear and I’ll make it happen while you two get caught up.”

Sammy waved his bartender over and gave her some instructions. She huddled up with Bear and Cam to work out filling the Jockey Box portable keg cooler upstairs with Sammy’s Suds and ice. While they got to work, Gunner followed Sammy through the kitchen, got the quick tour of his new place, and they wound their way up a wrought-iron spiral staircase until they reached the rooftop hangout—Sammy’s Crow’s Nest.

When they arrived, Sammy explained, “I like the name Crow’s Nest better than widow’s walk. That was too morbid and depressing. This is a happy place, damn it!”

Gunner laughed. “Hey, when I saw the name of the place was the Broken Hart Raw Bar, it never dawned on me that heart was intentionally misspelled to be someone’s last name. Especially your last name!”

Sammy slapped Gunner on the back and led him to the railing overlooking the water. Seagulls raced by, and a couple of fishing boats made their way toward the oyster beds just north of Tangier Island. The two men silently took in the scene before Gunner addressed his friend.

“What are you doing here, Sammy?” He continued to watch the boats meander by.

“Ah, I got into a scrap with my ex’s husband. She came into the Tap Room one night, pissin’ and moanin’ about how he was treating her. A few drinks later, we were back at—”

Gunner cut him off. “No, Sammy. I heard about that. I’m talking about what landed you right here in B-F-E?” He turned to look at Sammy to gauge his body language. Sammy tensed and began to run his hands nervously on the rail.

“Listen, Gunner. I want you to hear me out, okay. I didn’t just lie to you. I really did hook up with my ex, and we did get busted by her old man. But I don’t run from anybody. The timing was right for me to use it as an excuse.”

“To come here?” Gunner asked forcefully.

Sammy hung his head. “I didn’t want to do it. Well, I mean, yeah, when it was proposed to me, I jumped all over it. But after things were set in motion, I started to feel like shit about it. You know?”

Gunner leaned against the rail and crossed his arms. He stared at Sammy. “No, I don’t know. Spit it out.”

“After you told your people about your plans to move to Tangier Island, I got a visit from Dr. Dowling. He drove down from Eglin just to see me. He made me a pretty sweet offer, ya know.”

“To spy on me?” Gunner was perturbed.

“No, man. Nothing like that. Well, come on, Gunner. You make me sound like some kind of Judas or something. I value our friendship more than anything.”

Gunner tilted his head to the side and stared into Sammy’s eyes. He took a more direct approach. “Dowling wanted you to move here, right?”

“Yes.”

“And he funded all of this.” Gunner gestured with his arms, waving them around the building and toward the water.

“Well, sort of. I mean, it was paid for by the DOD, I guess.”

“So they bought you a bar to keep an eye on me. Am I right?”

“And funded the microbrewery, too. But, Gunner, it wasn’t to spy on you or keep tabs or whatever. I would’ve told them to go screw themselves. They wanted me to be here as your friend. Someone to lean on, you know, if necessary. I’m the same person as I was in Apalach, only I live and work down the street.”

Gunner took a deep breath and stared out across the water. “When did you plan on telling me?”

“I was going to wait until you got settled in and unpacked. I came to your house, but the lady watching over Howard said you had to go to work. Man, I know what that means. So I waited for you to come back. You showed up before I could get over to your place.”

Gunner leaned over the rail and watched the wake of the boats lap up against the pier. He shook his head.

Sammy continued. “If this is a problem between us, I’ll walk away from all of this. I’ll go right back to my job at the Tap Room or become a damn oysterman. I don’t want this to screw up years of being friends.”

Gunner turned and smiled. “Sammy, I get it. No worries. I guess I have to wonder when Dowling and the past will be left behind. After I learned what really happened to Heather during that spacewalk, I was gradually getting over it. Hell, I even killed the bastard responsible. I still miss her, but I’ve got some closure, you know.”

“You do?” asked Sammy.

Gunner sighed. “Well, there is one loose end, but revenge is a dish best served cold.”

“So they say,” added Sammy with a chuckle.

Gunner began to laugh and slapped his friend on the back. “Hey, I’m sorry I came at you. I just—” He was cut off by Cam and Bear’s arrival.

“Who’s thirsty?” Bear’s baritone voice boomed as he arrived.

Sammy leaned in to Gunner and whispered, “Are we good?”

“Yeah. Better than good. Say, how long does my free beer offer last?”

“Forever, my friend. As long as you and I are both on this planet, Sammy’s Suds are yours for the takin’.”

The group worked together to ice down the beer and then made some small talk about the tiny island in the midst of so many military installations. After an hour, Sammy went down and ordered them a couple of dozen Chesapeake Bay Oysters together with a basket of soft-shelled crabs. When he returned, he was carrying his iPad.

“Hey, check this out,” he said to the group as he handed the device to Gunner. “It’s like a ghost ship situation.”

Gunner studied the live stream on CNN’s website. A helicopter was circling a ship sitting adrift in the ocean north of Puerto Rico. The chyron read Mystery Surrounds Research Vessel Discovered with Entire Crew Dead. He passed it over to Cam and Bear to read more.

He stood to stretch his legs and arch his sore back. Hurricane Archie had been a little rougher on his body than he’d let on to the medical team who examined him. He drained his beer and turned to retrieve another when the functional equivalent of a fire alarm filled the air. It was their cell phones ringing simultaneously. It always meant one thing.

Time to go.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Moa, Cuba

Cuba had experienced a resurgence after President Miguel Diaz-Canel surprisingly moved the island nation toward a democratic-elected government with free, monitored elections. The first president of Cuba who wasn’t named Castro, he took the extraordinary measures after succeeding Raul Castro in 2021. When Raul, the brother of famed communist Fidel Castro, mysteriously died in his sleep six months after stepping down from office, President Diaz-Canel surreptitiously moved Cuba away from a dictatorship toward a free, democratic state.

Across the island, there were still pockets of the old guard who were Castro loyalists and continued to believe communism was the best way to govern Cubans. After Raul Castro’s death, they saw the winds of change blowing as the new president cozied up to the administration in Washington. With promises of economic aid and trade agreements for Cuban tobacco and sugar, the former communist holdout went mainstream. However, many refused to accept the advancements.

They aligned themselves with underworld, secretive cabals around the globe for funding and logistical support. They used their personnel to frustrate the new Cuban government. They aided their benefactors in covert terrorist operations in the region, including Florida. They also provided safe haven for criminal fugitives who found themselves on Interpol’s or the FBI’s most wanted list.

The urgent call to action to the cell based in Moa came through the ordinary channels, including the chat platform used for online players of Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Apex Legends. Anonymous players often spoke in coded terms using virtual private networks to communicate.

They used many methods to pass along information, most designed to avoid the prying eyes and ears of America’s National Security Agency. However, the exchange of USB sticks, packages delivered by courier, or dead drops were time-consuming. Even sending encrypted email and SMS text messages using disposable SIM cards to mobile phones had their security pitfalls.

Within hours, private jets began to arrive at the Orestes Acosta Airport, struggling to land on the six-thousand-foot runway. Experts from around the world, each with their own set of special skills, brought their own gear and personnel to undertake the monumental task asked of them.

Although they trained for this operation frequently, most never thought this day would come. They also never imagined pulling off their last mission on behalf of their employers. They’d descended upon the Baltic Sea with little notice and left with a prize that earned them a hefty bonus.

Just days before, using the same submersibles that were now in transit to the westernmost tip of Puerto Rico, the operatives dropped thousands of feet below the surface of the Baltic Sea. Within hours, not only had they severed all transmission cables and anchors holding a sixteen-ton underwater observatory, but they towed it for seven miles underwater until it could be raised to a salvage ship without detection.

Through careful planning and reconnaissance, the operatives learned the observatory would be uninhabited for a period of two hours while the crew went through a shift change. The underwater thieves moved quickly and efficiently, working together to shred the massive transmission cables and cut through the iron anchors holding the observatory on the ocean floor.

The unmarked salvage vessel left no digital footprint. It operated under cover of darkness and cloud-covered skies. The NSA satellites were of little use, and surrounding vessels in the region had no recollection of the phantom salvage ship. It didn’t vanish, said investigators. It was if it was never there.

Now it was preparing to anchor off the coast of Puerto Rico. To any other ships in the area, it appeared to be one of hundreds of environmental research vessels mapping or studying the unique marine ecosystems in the Puerto Rico Trench. The Ecuadorian flag flying from its stern was not out of the ordinary, and anyone searching its name would see it was part of a much larger ocean survey fleet.

Ordinarily, more precautions would be taken by those who dispatched the vessel to this part of the North Atlantic. They believed in planning. They were patient people, committed to considering all angles and obstacles before making a move. They’d learned from the past. A period in time when hasty, emotion-filled decisions resulted in the demise of their once great nation.

When they were given the opportunity to rise, and then to strike, they’d not do it on hastily designed plans. They would succeed this time.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Off the Northern Coast of Puerto Rico

Atlantic Ocean

The feeder bands of a tropical depression that had formed up in the Caribbean Sea off the southern coast of the Dominican Republic had caused the winds to whip up the surface waters of the Atlantic above the Puerto Rico Trench. The Ecuadorian salvage ship, containing two identical human-operated submersibles, moved deliberately through the water to their designated dive location. Churning through the choppy sea, the ship rode low, its bow crashing through the occasional rogue wave that sent sprays of seawater surging over its bow.

“Distance?” the captain of the vessel asked. The Hamburg, Germany, native came from a long line of ship captains. The man himself was the epitome of the cartoonish depiction of the ship’s captain on the package of the Gorton’s Fish Sticks box. He had sun-kissed, crackly skin, with a salty demeanor to boot. His sweat-stained clothes and gamey smell showed he had priorities other than hygiene. The scent of alcohol on his breath revealed he had an affinity for Jägermeister in his coffee.

The captain had not been hired to entertain tourists or kiss asses in the dining halls of a cruise ship. He was tasked with getting to a mark. Dispatching his assets. And disappearing into the night. He’d proved his capabilities to his employers on more than one occasion, including the Baltic Sea operation. Not that it mattered. His résumé began with the blood coursing through his veins. His grandfather had not been a national hero during his day as a naval commander, but he’d sacrificed much for his country.

“Six kilometers. Traveling at eight knots.”

“Have the first two teams been alerted?”

“Yes, sir. Teams are in place for the second drop. All crew members are in place to off-load the salvage and secure it during the second round of dives.”

Suddenly, a bridge wing door flew open, and an armed man dressed in khaki cargo pants and a skintight black tee shirt stepped through. He was drenched in rain and made no effort to keep the moisture from following him onto the bridge.

“What is it?” the captain barked. He was used to the armed security personnel insisted upon by his employers. He did not approve, however, of their total lack of respect for the captain, his crew, and the operations of his ship.

“The sea is rough and water is lapping over the decks. It will make unloading of the cargo treacherous.”

The captain couldn’t resist. “Are you sure it is not your own vomit? Those aboard my ship who are not sailors should leave this to me.”

The Polish man patted his holstered sidearm with his right hand. He was green around the gills, as they say, but it didn’t prevent him from doing his job. “I am responsible for the cargo and its safe delivery back to Moa. I cannot protect something that isn’t within my possession. None of this must be lost to an angry sea!”

“Get off my bridge. These seas that cause you to lose your stomach are nothing to my ship. In minutes, we will be underway to retrieve your precious cargo, and by dawn, we will off-load it into your precious plane.”

“I will accept nothing less.”

“Who cares what you’ll accept? We are not here for you. Now, leave us to our jobs.”

The captain spun around and studied the maps and photographs spread out on a table behind the helmsman. He nudged the man’s elbow and pointed to the map.

“Yes, sir. Two minutes away.”

The security man left the bridge, lingering for a moment in an effort to spite the captain, who couldn’t have cared less. Guys like him came and went. They held a gun, which made them think they had some kind of power over others. The captain had his own gun, too. However, he had a power the hired guns did not. Bloodlines.

For the next four hours, the two submersibles made their way to the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench. Two two-man dive teams, using state-of-the-art Chinese-manufactured exosuits, retrieved their salvage with the aid of propulsion-driven sleds. The underwater vessels not only allowed them to carry more of the sought-after salvage, but their power pulled the sleds and the divers quickly through the water, cutting their movement time along the sea floor by eighty percent.

After the second set of dive teams returned to the surface, the captain and the head of the security team descended upon the deck to interview the submersible crew.

“Is that all of it?” asked the security man.

“No, sir. One more dive is required, but with only one submersible.”

He shook his head in disbelief and stomped around the deck of the ship, gesturing as he screamed at the diver, “Why didn’t you get it all? This will take an hour that we don’t have!”

“Sir, our instructions were to secure the cargo to prevent any breakage or accidents. There simply wasn’t room for—”

“Go back!” the man shouted, cutting off the diver’s explanation. “First team! Go. Now!”

The captain stepped in. “There is no more time. The Americans are on scene. We cannot run the risk of being discovered.”

The armed man swung around and stomped directly to the captain. His face was looking down on the much older man, close enough to feel his hot breath.

“We leave nothing behind! Do you understand me? We are wasting time!”

The captain reached into his pocket for his pistol. Two other members of the ship’s security detail raised their automatic weapons and pulled the charging handles. It was a signal to the captain that he was no longer running things.

The captain immediately pulled his hands out of his pockets and raised them to his waist, indicating he wasn’t going to argue the point. He pointed at his three best men, the same ones who’d accompanied him to the Baltic recently.

He waited on the deck to ensure there was no interference by the security guards as the final preparations were made for the last launch of the mission. As he waited, the old sea captain studied the rapidly clearing skies. The new moon allowed the heavens to brighten in all their glory.

It only took him a moment to identify the constellation Cygnus. Known to some as the Swan. For the captain, and others like him, it was der Nordkreuz. The Northern Cross.

Within minutes, the men were tucked into their submersible and headed into the Milwaukee Deep toward the wreckage of U-1226, the submarine on which the captain’s great-grandfather had perished.

Chapter Thirty-Six

The Den

Fort Belvoir, Virginia

“It took you long enough,” Ghost barked as the three operatives entered the Den. “I was told all three of you were at Tangier.”

Gunner scowled. “We were. We had the weekend off, remember?”

“Yes, I’m aware. I also know how long it takes to drive that damn speedboat of yours up the Potomac.”

Gunner shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. “Well, um, Ghost, it was our day off. We had a pretty good buzz going.”

Several of the analysts in the Den snickered at Gunner’s statement, or at his being dressed down by Ghost.

“Almost toast, actually,” added Cam, who was on the verge of being drunk when they got the call. She still had a little buzz despite Sammy loading them up with alcohol-soaking, greasy cheeseburgers and coffee for the ride up the river.

Ghost shook his head in disbelief. He couldn’t fault them for blowing off steam. They’d earned it. He walked to the center of the room and motioned toward the wall of monitors.

The Gray Fox team gathered around him. “This is a stock photo of the Sea Searcher I, a research vessel operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. This outfit is highly respected and well funded by philanthropists around the world.” He paused as he pointed to a second monitor.

“This is the actual vessel adrift in the Atlantic roughly two hundred miles, or maybe a little less, off Puerto Rico’s northern shoreline.”

“Is it under power?” asked Cam.

“No. This is live satellite footage from a stationary bird that covers this part of the Atlantic and the islands separating it from the Caribbean Sea. Zoom in, please.”

The analyst zoomed in to reveal the carnage on the deck of the ship near the submersible.

“Not pirates again,” Bear lamented.

“No, not this time,” began Ghost. “Here’s what we know. A Mayday went out just after midnight Atlantic time. The crew member reported the captain was extremely ill and that three members of a submersible dive had already died. She also reported several others were deathly ill. In the middle of the Mayday, she began to have a seizure of some kind, and then the radio went silent. Before she died, her last words were what have we done.”

Ghost stopped to take a deep breath. He rolled his head around his shoulders to relieve some tension before continuing. “For hours, the Coast Guard base in San Juan tried to reach them. At sunrise, they sent a chopper and discovered dead bodies strewn about the deck. Here are the photos they took from above.”

Ghost looked at the analyst and nodded. The gruesome photos appeared on one of the monitors in the form of a slideshow. Cam closed her eyes, pulled her hand to her mouth, and turned away. Gunner lowered his eyes and grimaced. The bodies were covered in a combination of vomit, blood, and some type of white foam around their mouths and orifices.

“Gotta be poison,” opined Bear. “There’s no evidence of gunshot wounds or even blunt force trauma. All of the bodily fluids are around the face and head.”

“What was their mission?” asked Gunner.

Jackal got involved in the briefing. She made a few keystrokes on her computer, and the picture of the captain appeared.

“This is Captain Tobias ten Brink. Well respected in the marine research field. Former USGS scientist. From all I can find, an aboveboard guy. He was leading an expedition to confirm a theory based upon a prior Woods Hole research mission.”

“What was it?” asked Gunner.

“Just by accident, the prior expedition discovered a shipwreck at the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest part of the North Atlantic. It’s within the boundaries of the infamous Bermuda Triangle.”

“Are we getting set up for some kind of conspiracy theory here?” asked Cam as she continued to study the monitors.

“No, but we may have stumbled upon something else,” replied Jackal. She once again returned to her keyboard and brought up an image of the wreckage.

“Holy shit!” exclaimed Cam.

“A U-boat,” muttered Bear. “That conn is in amazing condition. Looks like a type IX, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Very good, Bear,” said Ghost. “The Germans had an exceptional underwater naval program throughout the war, causing the Allies fits. They came into the Gulf of Mexico on several occasions and had a very chilling effect on commercial travel in and out of those ports. The primary goal was to disrupt our supply lines to the European theater.”

“Where did you get this image?” asked Gunner, turning to Jackal.

“Woods Hole accessed the Sea Searcher’s onboard computers to retrieve footage from the three-man submersible sent to the bottom of the ocean to inspect the ship. One of the members of that crew, Walt Ballard, a NASA astronaut, walked the wreckage in an exosuit that was equipped with video and still cameras.”

Cam, who continued to stare at the images displayed on the large monitors, suddenly walked toward them and pointed. “Pause it! That one, right there. Can you zoom in on the deck around the submersible?”

“Yes, ma’am,” one of the analysts replied.

“Do you see it?” she asked, swinging around toward Ghost and Gunner.

“The silver canister?” asked Gunner.

“Yeah. You’re a diver. Have you ever seen an air tank like that?”

Gunner walked forward until he was only a few feet away. “I don’t think it’s an air tank. It’s too small. Look at it in relationship to the body lying next to it. A scuba tank is the diameter of a man’s thigh, only longer. This canister is comparable to the body’s forearm, again slightly longer. Besides, a tank like this would never be used on a dive that deep.”

“Everyone, I just received more raw footage of the submersible’s dive and the exosuit’s recordings,” said Jackal.

“Bring up the exosuit first,” said Gunner. Ghost nodded his agreement.

The video began to play.

“He’s within the conning tower,” Bear began to narrate as Ballard moved slowly through the sub’s interior. “Now the bridge. I can’t believe the detail we can see and the condition considering this wreck is almost a century old.”

“He’s going deeper into the sub,” interrupted Cam. “Toward the crew quarters?”

“No, that would be in the bow, if I remember correctly,” said Bear. “He’s headed toward the stern, which appeared to be pretty torn up from the first image we—whoa! What the hell are those?”

“We’ve found our canisters,” said Ghost.

“Hundreds of ’em,” added Bear.

Gunner walked forward and focused on the rows and the number of racks visible through Ballard’s recordings. “Maybe a thousand or more.”

“Why aren’t they rusted or even destroyed after all these years?” asked Cam.

“Titanium, most likely,” replied Gunner. “Whatever is inside those canisters, the Nazis wanted to make sure it was protected from the corrosive effects of salt water and sea spray.”

His eyes darted from one screen to the next, studying the deck of the ship and the submarine’s interior. He turned to the team.

“We’re going back in the water.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Aboard Gulfstream C-37A

Two Hundred Miles Southwest of Bermuda

North Atlantic Ocean

“We’re ridin’ in style today,” said Bear as he relaxed in the spacious interior of the Gulfstream aircraft. The C-37A, the military equivalent of the Gulfstream V, known as the G-five, was ordinarily reserved for high-ranking Coast Guard and Homeland Security officials. The team reviewed what they’d learned in their briefing in the Den.

After breaking down the videos from the Sea Searcher’s computers and examining the dead from afar, it was clear to Ghost and his superiors that some type of deadly toxin had been released aboard the research vessel. If the team’s theory was correct, the source of the toxin was the shiny metallic canisters seen in the wreckage.

“Here’s a message from Ghost,” said Gunner. “The Woods Hole people have another ship en route to assist. It’s the Sea Searcher II, a larger boat with rescue and recovery capabilities. It also has a submersible identical to the one used in the dive to the U-boat.”

Cam leaned back in her chair, deep in thought. “I have to ask. Is there any chance this is radiation poisoning? I mean, we were working with nuclear materials at that time. Maybe the Nazis were running their own parallel version of the Manhattan Project.” The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons, led by the U.S.

“That’s very possible,” replied Gunner. “It would also explain why this sub was full of titanium canisters. According to Jackal, that would’ve been very rare back then. This took some intense planning and forethought.”

“How did the U-boat get taken out?” asked Bear. “Our naval commanders were pretty good about recording their kills.”

Cam scrolled through the complete briefing materials sent to her by the Den. “There’s no recorded sub kills in this particular area during the war. Most of the activity was farther north off the coast of New England or, as Ghost mentioned, in the Gulf of Mexico.”

“It could’ve simply failed. Maybe a malfunction of some kind?” asked Gunner.

“Possible. Or it was the damn Devil’s Triangle,” replied Bear.

Cam threw a pillow at Bear. “Come on. That’s a bunch of superstition and stories made up by drunk sailors.”

“No, it’s real. I saw this episode of Ancient Aliens once. They showed evidence of ancient structures a mile below sea level that might be Atlantis.”

Cam shook her head in disbelief and looked to Gunner. “Why do we even listen to this crap?”

Gunner laughed. “Anything is possible, Cam. At the end of the last ice age, sea levels rose nearly four hundred feet until present day. During that period, the inhabitants of these cities would never have known what hit them.”

“Yeah, Plato said it too,” added Bear.

Cam rolled her eyes. “Who? Plato? Gimme a break.”

“Seriously, Cam. Plato wrote about violent earthquakes and floods,” explained Bear. Then he adopted his best television narrator’s voice. “In just the matter of a day and night, the great city of Atlantis sank into the sea.”

Cam leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. “Jesus, take the wheel.”

Gunner asked, “Did the scientists at Woods Hole give our people any ideas of what they think happened?”

Cam navigated on her iPad to that portion of the report obtained from Woods Hole, titled “Marine Geography.” She handed it to Gunner.

“You understand this stuff better than I do.”

He took the iPad and began to scroll through the material. After a few minutes, he nodded and returned it to Cam.

“This makes sense. Based on this, getting taken out by one of our ships, probably through depth charges, would be my bet. Natural causes, so to speak, is also a possibility.”

“Or it was the Devil’s Triangle,” interjected Bear.

“Shut up about the damn devil!” admonished Cam.

Gunner laughed. “Maybe you’re both right. Think about it, back before science and advanced technology, man tried to explain unusual occurrences based upon the knowledge base that existed at the time. According to the Woods Hole scientists, this region of the Puerto Rico Trench is known for its large deposits of methane gas below the ocean floor. When this gas wants to escape, it blows open a vent of seven-hundred-degree gas and water mixed. This can cause some hellacious turbulence in the ocean.”

Bear felt vindicated. “See? Hellacious equals the devil.”

Cam was about to browbeat him again when Gunner raised his hand. “At least as far as mariners and scholars knew at the time. Now we know these huge methane bubbles may push water away from a ship, causing it to sink. And think about it. If the highly flammable methane then rises into the sky, it could ignite in an airplane’s engine, causing it to explode and disappear.”

Cam furrowed her brow and added, “I heard about something like this happening in Alaska. The tectonic plates rubbed together, and the sea floor burped. It took a ship down in the process.”

Gunner’s cell phone notified him of a message. “It’s from Jackal. The Sea Searcher II will be there about the time we connect with the chopper at the Coast Guard facility in San Juan. They have this on board.”

He showed Bear a photograph of DSC-6, the similar submersible to the one piloted by Masterson to the U-boat wreckage.

“I can handle this. No prob. I won’t know jack about the onboard computers, though.”

“Good,” said Cam. “Then you won’t touch any of it. Let’s get down there. Learn more about the U-boat’s cargo and out again.”

“Roger,” said Gunner. He leaned back and recalled his mission into space. The weightlessness of zero gravity and the odd feeling of walking on the lunar surface. He closed his eyes and thought of Heather. He recalled her words and wondered if it applied to the bottom of the ocean.

Every day is a good day when you’re floating.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Aboard the Sea Searcher II

One Hundred Seventy Miles North of Puerto Rico

North Atlantic Ocean

It took eight hours for the Gray Fox team to rendezvous with the Sea Searcher II. An unexpected thunderstorm developed over Puerto Rico, which grounded the Sikorsky helicopter for an hour. The rescue ship was also delayed as it awaited the arrival of a hazardous material crew to arrive as well as a team of medical specialists to examine the bodies. This was a massive effort that originally was to be a rescue effort but was now the maritime equivalent of a CSI investigation.

For Gunner and his team, they were investigating the possible cause of the mass killing. The answers were twenty-eight thousand feet under the Atlantic. By the time they’d arrived, the ship was stopped, and members of the hazmat crew were suiting up for their journey to the Sea Searcher I full of decaying bodies.

The three of them were immediately taken to the bridge, where they marveled at the advanced sonar and navigation equipment. The captain explained the different purposes of his ship and the Sea Searcher I, which was located a thousand feet off their bow.

After leaving the bridge, they were taken below deck to meet the chief survey technician. He explained the geographical features of the Puerto Rico Trench and especially the Milwaukee Deep located near the wreckage. The gas blowouts measured one hundred fifty feet deep and up to half a mile wide. The underwater methane was released and formed gas bubbles capable of creating massive blobs rising to the surface. If they encountered one of these bubbles while navigating to the ocean floor, it could either carry them back up or send the HOV into an uncontrollable tumble.

While Bear assured the gentleman he could navigate the DSC-6 to steer clear of the vent holes and the steep drop-offs associated with the Milwaukee Deep, the chief survey technician provided him a cheat sheet with global position coordinates to follow.

Next, they met with the scientists in the acoustics lab. They’d already begun to map the floor where the wreckage was located to provide Gunner’s team a more complete overall picture of what they were about to tackle rather than photographs taped together and affixed to a bulletin board. The sonar surveys reminded Gunner how large the U-boat was. Based upon Ballard’s videography and the sonar survey provided to him, Gunner was able to plot a direct route into the cargo hold to save time on the ocean floor.

At last, it was time. Gunner spent half an hour with the technical engineers, getting checked out on the exosuit. His experience in space gave him a huge leg up on anyone who’d never worked in a weightless environment. It took Gunner a little time to learn how to use the V-clamp hand and the accompanying five-digit grabber on the other side.

Again, based on their mission, he was told to focus on carefully retrieving two of the canisters without breaching their seals or accidentally opening the tops. Although none of the crew of the Sea Searcher II had ventured on to their sister ship yet, based upon blown-up images taken by a drone flown directly over the deck, it appeared the canisters were designed to contain something. They just didn’t know what. They did know the contents might’ve been responsible for killing everyone on board.

After all the warnings, admonitions, and wishes of good luck, the team was ready to go. Gunner took one final look across the rolling sea at the Sea Searcher I. The deck was crawling with scientists wearing bright yellow suits and protective personal gear as they cataloged every aspect of the dead. He imagined as the day progressed, body bags would be sent over and the bodies would be flown to laboratories for further study.

The response to this accident reflected the level of concern Ghost and his superiors had. It was also a reminder to Gunner that whatever was contained in that cargo hold, it was dangerous. They would have to exercise caution every step of the way.

“Guys, last chance,” Gunner began. “This could be all kinds of FUBAR if things go south.”

Bear leaned on the aft railing and studied the activity on the other ship. He shrugged and turned to Cam.

“Day by day.”

She nodded. “Minute by minute.”

“Ride or die,” added Gunner.

“We stick together,” they said in unison as they exchanged fist bumps. They marched toward the HOV with confidence.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

One Hundred Seventy Miles off the North Coast of Puerto Rico

The Puerto Rico Trench

Depth: 15,000 feet

Fathoms: 2,500

The Deepsea Challenger 6

North Atlantic Ocean

“It’s kinda like droppin’ a hot-air balloon to the ground,” said Bear calmly as he skippered the Deepsea Challenger 6 to the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench. “Really, the computer does most of the work on the descent and, likewise, when we return topside. The tricky part will be around the wreckage. When I was getting checked out on this thing, they warned me about the odd currents caused by the methane gas spewing out of the vents. I don’t wanna beat us against the sub.”

While they’d waited for the green light to dive, Gunner spent a few moments in the ship’s communications center to talk with an astronaut he’d met at the Houston Space Center. The astronaut, a former Navy SEAL, had undertaken both deep sea dives using the newest generation of exosuits and logged many hours outside the International Space Station. The two talked at length at the similarities and differences, so Gunner had a pretty good idea of what to expect once he exited the DSC-6.

Like spacewalking, being underwater at that depth can be overwhelming at first. You are utterly alone. Certainly, there are crewmates located within the ISS or, in this instance, the DSC-6. But they aren’t by your side, floating, in a world devoid of noise, light, or human interaction. It was peaceful and disconcerting at the same time.

Gunner had spent many hours aboard submarines throughout his career in the military as well as during insertions on special ops. He’d been on board underwater submersibles as well, but nothing like the DSC-6. Once the weather had cleared and they were able to catch the Coast Guard chopper to the Sea Searcher II, Gunner spent more than an hour inspecting the underwater vessel and learning about its operation. He was one hundred percent confident in Bear and Cam’s ability to navigate the HOV around the U-boat wreckage.

He’d inspected the hull when he first approached the submersible and frowned. In a way, he had a submariner’s innate respect for the thick steel hull that protected the occupants from being crushed by the ocean when at depth. One of the Sea Searcher’s crew members noticed Gunner’s look and approached him. He patted the hull of the DSC-6 as he spoke.

“Don’t worry, sir. It’s a special composite. The latest technology has been drawn upon to make this lightweight stuff as strong as many inches of steel.”

Gunner simply nodded his head. “I’ve heard something to that effect before. I kept reminding myself of what the suits told me before my aircraft disintegrated around me.”

“Pilot. Makes sense,” the man began. “I didn’t take you for a sub jockey.”

“Passenger only,” said Gunner, who appreciated the conversation. He pointed toward the Sea Searcher I although it was dark. The few emergency lights on the deck of the emptied ship flickered in the night. “How experienced was the other team?”

“More than you, but honestly, from what I’ve heard, that wasn’t a factor in what happened to them.”

“You don’t think it was user error, in other words.”

“Right. They were poisoned or something. I think it was just a freak accident.”

“Great,” mumbled Gunner.

The young man fell silent, and then his portable radio squawked to life.

“Tango Foxtrot Echo. Cleared to launch. Ready the crew.”

“Roger, Bridge.”

The young man got the Gray Fox team settled in, and forty minutes later, Gunner was deep in thought as he psyched himself up for the mission. His mind wandered to the task at hand. He often wondered why his team was chosen for a particular mission. None of them had ever piloted a submersible of this complexity, much less navigated it to the bottom of the world.

Soon after the Gray Fox team had been assembled and wrapped under the auspices of the Activity, Gunner went to see Dr. Brian Dowling, his psychiatrist at Eglin Air Force Base. He asked the question, “Why me?” The two simple words were not used in the way most people might think. He wasn’t morose or feeling sorry for himself. He simply wanted Dr. Dowling’s opinion as to why he was always chosen for these unusual missions.

Without trying to oversimplify his answer, Dr. Dowling summed it up succinctly. Reliability and results. Dr. Dowling had reminded Gunner at one point that he was a valuable asset, not only to the Department of Defense, but to his country. They were firmly convinced of Gunner’s love for country and commitment to responding to the call of duty. It was more than that. It was his ability to fulfill the most complex of missions put in front of him. There was no one else like him—a combination of education, skills, and experience that could be adapted to these science-based missions.

Gunner recalled spontaneously laughing at Dr. Dowling’s logical explanation. He’d quipped, “At what point do they concoct the impossible mission? The one they think I can do, but can’t.”

“Have they done it so far?” asked the crafty psychiatrist as he answered a question with a question.

Gunner had thought for a moment and then shrugged. “Come to think about it, not really.” And that included his destruction of the planet-killing asteroid IM86. He was successful in the mission assigned to him by his government. He blew the asteroid into many pieces, saving millions of lives in the process. He was also successful in the mission most important to him—come home alive.

“We’re gonna hover at fifty feet, Gunner,” announced Bear. Hearing his name brought Gunner back into the present. “I plan on taking you to the stern, where supposedly there is a gaping hole that allows you easy access to the cargo hold. We’ll hang there, monitoring the currents and water temperatures, while you go grab one of these damned silver bullets.”

Cam released her harness and turned in her seat. “Gunner, this HOV has two exosuits. Do you want me along as your wingman?”

Gunner nodded and smiled. “Nah, I’ve got this. I’m gonna slap a thirty-minute timer on this thing. If I don’t walk out of there by then, come find me.”

“Makes sense,” said Cam. “That’s about the halfway point of your initial air supply. You’ve got more time, you know. It’s just that you can’t overexert.”

“Got it. Let’s get started.”

Chapter Forty

The Wreckage of German U-boat 1226

The Puerto Rico Trench

Depth: 27,840 feet

Fathoms: 4,640

North Atlantic Ocean

Gunner exited the DSC-6 into a world of peaceful darkness. He slowly dropped to the sandy bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, using the four one-point-six horsepower thrusters to control his descent. Once his feet were firmly planted in the sand, sort of, he experimented with the fingertip controls that gave him the ability to propel himself in all directions.

His operation of the exosuit was awkward at first. He couldn’t decide if he looked like the Michelin man, the Stay Puft Marshmallow giant from Ghostbusters, or the robot from the original Lost in Space, a program he’d enjoyed watching on TV Land as a kid. Regardless, it was a different experience but one that he caught onto quickly.

After taking a few breaths, he realized the air tasted different. It was pure oxygen unlike the compressed air in a scuba tank used in conventional saturation dives. In the exosuit, Gunner was surrounded by air in an eighty-to-twenty percent ratio of nitrogen to oxygen. The atmospheric pressure was maintained at 1 atm, one atmosphere, the equivalent of a shallow-water dive of less than thirty feet. The computer-controlled pressure allowed his body to acclimate to the intense forces pressed against it by the ocean.

The fresh air filled his lungs, and Gunner felt his body respond. It wasn’t an adrenaline surge. His pulse was already racing from the excitement of exploring one of the deepest places on the planet. It was almost a euphoric feeling. Not an artificial high, but one of clarity. His mind seemed to wipe out everything but his surroundings. He could hear his heart beating. Every breath seemed like a momentous occasion. It was odd and wonderful all at the same time.

As he moved toward the stern of the U-boat, he practiced flexing his limbs and was pleased at the results. In essence, the exosuit was a human-shaped submarine with all the bells and whistles found on the DSC-6, only streamlined. Like his eye-diving experience of a week prior, he had onboard telemetry in his face shield. The oxygen was self-contained and somewhat replenishing, to a point. His power plant of lithium-ion batteries should give him more than enough time to accomplish this seemingly simple task—gather up a couple of shiny canisters and bring them up to the surface.

In an emergency situation, the life-support systems of the exosuit could keep him alive up to eighty-five hours. The beacon contained within the suit constantly transmitted a ping to the nearby submersible in case he was pulled away by the current or got lost.

The rigidity of his suit did limit his mobility, but he had no plans of doing cartwheels or handstands. The exosuit was covered in a titanium alloy skin that prevented him from being crushed, and was also rupture resistant. Resistant being the operative word, as the team on the Sea Searcher II reminded him. In other words, Gunner, try not to bounce off the rusty walls of the U-boat.

He’d gotten the hang of using his thrusters and his own joints to move forward. By swinging his arms and legs as if he were walking on the lunar surface, used in conjunction with the propulsion jets, Gunner lent the appearance of a young girl skipping along the sidewalk in a park on a sunny day. He arrived at the gaping hole in the stern of the sub within ten minutes and paused to take it all in.

He was amazed at how well preserved the U-boat was after many decades of corrosive wear on the ocean floor. He walked across the remains of the wreckage, being careful with his footing. He approached the opening and used the artificial hands, called the prosthetic prehensors in this particular exosuit, to grip the ripped-open hull in order to steady himself against the current that flowed over the sub.

Like other exosuits, this model had plier-like jaws for the left hand, which Gunner operated by squeezing handles within the suit. The right hand was different. This model, which included three operable external digits, closely resembled the thumb position, and the other four fingers taped in sets of two. It provided a more stable grip as well as the ability to curl his fingers to wrap them around an object. The coordination and dexterity allowed him to perform tasks as intricate as starting a nut on a bolt and tightening it.

All the bells and whistles aside, Gunner wished it had the ability to scratch his nose. This issue actually caused him to laugh out loud, drawing the first communications with Bear and Cam aboard the DSC-6.

“Hey, you doin’ all right down there, buddy?” asked Bear.

Gunner chuckled. “Yeah. My nose itches. I feel like some kind of halfwit trying to press my nose against the inside of the helmet to scratch it. The more I push my head forward, the farther away the shield goes.”

There was silence from the DSC-6 for a moment until Cam spoke into the comms. “Hey, can you give me a readout on your nitrogen-oxygen mix?”

This caused Gunner to laugh even harder. He was relaxed and feeling good. “Cam, it’s not the air mix. Everything’s fine. I’m just in a good mood, that’s all.”

“Good to hear,” she said with a hint of concern in her voice. “You know, it’s not too late for me to join you. I can suit up in—”

“Not necessary. Besides, I’m about to go in.”

Bear reminded Gunner of their radio blackout while he was in the sub. “We’ve got you five-by-five right now, but we’ll lose you once you find the cargo hold.”

“Copy that.”

“Ghost has asked us to take a lap around this thing to look for identifying marks. I guess the State Department needs to assess the find before they decide what to do with it.”

“Am I still pingin’?” Gunner asked.

“Affirmative,” replied Bear. “Regardless of your exit point, we can come to you.”

Gunner took a deep breath of the pure oxygen. “Copy that. I’m going in. See you in a few.”

Chapter Forty-One

Outside the Wreckage of German U-boat 1226

The Puerto Rico Trench

Depth: 27,840 feet

Fathoms: 4,640

The Deepsea Challenger 6

North Atlantic Ocean

“Even with these lights, it’s near impossible to see more than a hundred feet in any direction,” lamented Cam. She’d taken control of the manual spotlights attached to the front of the submersible, designed to supplement the fixed lighting used for navigational purposes.

“I can hover and maintain a fifty-to-seventy-five-meter separation between us and the U-boat. Any closer and we run the risk of running into a wayward hunk of steel.”

Cam continued to light up the surface so the multiple external cameras affixed to the DSC-6 could record every aspect of the wreckage.

“Whoa! What the hell was that?” Bear shouted his question.

Cam swung the spotlight toward the front of the submersible in the direction where Bear was pointing. She frantically searched the dark ocean depths back and forth until she found the phenomenon floating ahead of them.

The twenty-foot-long oblong object seemed to move and change in shape as the current pushed it around. She steadied her hand to keep the light on the center of the blob as it drifted aimlessly to their side.

“It’s some kind of gelatin egg sac. Look, the membrane is almost transparent.”

Bear leaned forward in his seat. “Is it full of eggs?”

“I see them,” she replied. “Hundreds of them. Hell, thousands even. It has to be from a giant squid.”

“For real?” asked Bear in disbelief. He never knew when Cam was pulling his chain.

“Yes, I’m serious, Bear. There are large squid throughout the oceans. Most are around sixteen feet, but males can grow as large as thirty-nine.”

Bear started looking all around the DSC-6. “Um, does that mean mama might be nearby?”

Cam slugged him. “You big baby. Let’s keep going. I don’t want Gunner to have to wait on us.”

Bear methodically moved along the length of the sub. Cam focused on illuminating the hull and then had Bear pause for a moment as they passed the conning tower. She turned her attention to the operations console. She adjusted the focus and telephoto lens of the side camera to zoom in on the tower.

“I think I have some type of marking on the tower. We’ll analyze it topside.”

Bear didn’t immediately power them forward. Instead, he was staring at his sonar. An object could be seen sitting stationary on the other side of the wreckage. He tapped on the console to get Cam’s attention.

“Do you see it?” he asked.

“Yeah. It might be the squid. The size makes sense.”

“C’mon, Cam. Seriously?”

Cam leaned over to study the object. It was stationary, something she found odd. “I wonder why it’s not moving?” she muttered.

“Maybe it’s waiting for us to come around the hull?”

She ignored his silly statement. A squid doesn’t stalk its prey. It simply consumes whatever comes into its feeding tentacles. They also rarely remain stationary. Like most fish, as they swim, water rushes under their gills, where the blood in their capillaries picks up oxygen that had dissolved in the water.

“Let’s abandon our surveying of the wreckage for a minute. Head straight for the blip on the sonar.”

“What? Straight toward the squid.”

“Just go, Bear. We need to see what it is.”

“No. Actually, no, we don’t. Let’s stay on mission.”

Cam turned in her seat and gave Bear the look. “Since when do you wanna stay on mission? You’ve got the worst op ADD I’ve ever seen.”

“Since we discovered the giant squid over there.”

Cam shook her head, and Bear reluctantly accelerated across the bow of the sub in the direction of the sonar anomaly. Minutes later, he slowed the DSC-6 to a drift.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “We’ve got company.”

Cam tensed, grabbing the arms of her seat. “Yeah, and if we can see them, they can see us.”

Chapter Forty-Two

Inside the Wreckage of German U-boat 1226

The Puerto Rico Trench

Depth: 27,840 feet

Fathoms: 4,640

North Atlantic Ocean

Gunner’s light kit provided him more than enough illumination to safely move through the interior of the submarine. The decayed wreckage still provided some semblance of its former layout, which Gunner had studied while they awaited the bad weather to clear at the Coast Guard station in Puerto Rico. He found an area where a spiral staircase was once confined. The staircase was gone, but the opening was wide enough for him to drop several levels without having to follow passageways or to discern what remained of them.

The pressure hull plating and the framing material of U-1226 was made of the thickest steel and was relatively intact. The interior was created by cold-formed frames of aluminum-normalized steel, a much thinner, lighter-weight material. Virtually all of that had disintegrated, leaving large open spaces that were once considered very cramped quarters.

Gunner recalled the video he’d watched from the previous dive that had doomed three good people to their death. He could’ve followed the exact path through the sub that Ballard had used, but it would’ve taken much longer, and Gunner wasn’t interested in exploring. The video was helpful to Gunner in that it allowed him to retrace Ballard’s movements from exiting the stern back to the cargo hold, where the images had revealed hundreds of titanium canisters secured in rows, relatively undisturbed.

He reached the cargo hold and stopped to calm his nerves. He checked his vitals revealed on the inside of his mask. Gunner’s pulse rate was high, but his blood pressure was normal. He took a deep breath and got his bearings. He moved toward the center of the sub, ducking through two passageways in between the lower compartments. Once he emerged into the cargo hold he’d studied on Ballard’s video, he froze and scowled.

It was empty.

The racks and steel straps that had contained the titanium canisters were still there. However, all the straps had been broken loose, and the canisters were gone.

All of them.

“Bear, Cam, do you copy?”

He knew it was a fruitless effort, but he had to try.

There was no response.

At the risk of burning up his air supply, Gunner decided to record his observations aloud. If the DSC-6 needed to access the feed at some point, they might be able to.

“Well, I’ve arrived at the cargo hold. Unless I’ve gotten confused and found a second hold on this sub, somebody has beaten us to the canisters. This place is completely empty.”

He slowly moved through the empty compartment, turning his head back and forth slowly to provide the camera a number of different angles of the emptied racks. He furrowed his brow as he tried to process what he was seeing. At one point, he turned around and made his way back to the point where he’d dropped into the sub’s cargo hold.

He continued to record his findings. “I don’t know, guys. Maybe it was a mistake on my part to take this shortcut to the cargo hold, but for Pete’s sake, despite this sub being two hundred and fifty feet long, they didn’t allow a whole helluva lot of space for cargo. I’ll go back up and make my way to the conn. I’ll follow Ballard’s entry into the cargo hold to the letter.”

Gunner used his jets to propel him up through the spiral staircase shaft until he reached the top of the submarine. He followed his instincts along the passageways until he arrived at the bridge. He immediately recognized its layout from the schematics he’d been provided.

Working from memory, he found where Ballard had entered the conn from the direction of the bow and began to walk in his footsteps. He dropped from one level to the next until he reached the cargo hold again. It was still empty.

“Same shit, different day. It’s just as empty as it was when I came in from the other end.”

Gunner turned around slowly to take in his surroundings. He decided to move toward the bow of the U-boat in search of another compartment, silently cursing himself for not studying it more.

“I’m headed into the bow. Maybe there is another cargo hold and I got turned around? I’m not leaving until I—”

“Wait. I see light ahead. There’s somebody else down here.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Outside the Wreckage of German U-boat 1226

The Puerto Rico Trench

Depth: 27,840 feet

Fathoms: 4,640

The Deepsea Challenger 6

North Atlantic Ocean

“Goin’ dark,” mumbled Bear. “They may see us on sonar if they’re monitoring it like we are. But let’s not make it easy for them.”

“Killing interior lighting except for the console,” said Cam. With the lights out, the myriad of screens on the control panel emitted red, blue, and green lights that lit up their faces, creating a kaleidoscope effect.

“Interior fully dark as well,” said Bear.

“Let’s just ease on over there and see what’s what, shall we?” asked Cam.

Bear guided the DSC-6 through a current of silt. The amount of debris in the water would’ve likely blinded them temporarily had their exterior lighting been turned on.

“Temps are suddenly rising,” announced Cam. “There must be a thermal vent nearby.”

“It’s not effecting them. They’re not moving one iota.”

“It must be between us,” she said as she checked the sonar readout. “Three hundred meters and closing.”

Bear held on to the controls as the submersible was tossed about. The current lifted them briefly and then rapidly forced them toward the ocean floor.

“Dude, this sucks,” said Bear as he made frequent corrections to prevent them from being body-slammed back into the hull of the wreckage.

“Ride the current and then break out of it,” suggested Cam. “That’ll give us a run at them without having to worry about getting rolled by the ocean.”

Bear allowed the DSC-6 to drift with the current. The other submersible remained in its stationary position.

“I don’t think they’ve discovered us,” commented Cam.

“I agree,” said Bear. The DSC-6 slowed to a stop. “Okay, we’re through it. Let’s go say hello.”

He powered the submersible forward and rose above the location of the intruder. Taking the high ground in a battle was something instilled in Bear. Plus, his own short experience in the DSC-6 told him that these vessels had major blind spots to the rear and above. Based upon the direction their adversary’s lights were pointing, he had the ability to sneak up on them if they weren’t monitoring their sonar.

“Almost there,” said Cam. “Hundred meters. Eighty. We should have a good visual shortly.”

“Lights?” asked Bear.

“Hold. Sixty meters. Forty. Now!”

Bear turned the external lights on, and the other submersible was illuminated. They were able to get a good view of the much larger vessel, and the cameras were sure to record every detail.

A burst of air bubbles shot out of the back of the other submersible, temporarily obscuring their view.

“It’s gonna be on the move,” said Bear.

Cam’s voice revealed her excitement. “Shit! Look at that thing motor.”

“Should I follow?”

“Duh,” Cam replied. “We need to know what it’s up to. Go!”

Bear accelerated with all the power the DSC-6 could muster, but the other submersible was pulling away. They were now several hundred yards away from the wreckage.

“We’ll never catch ’em,” he admitted.

“That thing was built for more than scientific research. What the hell were they up to?”

Bear didn’t respond as he slowed the DSC-6 until it floated in a stationary position just above the ocean floor. Both of them studied the sonar as the other vessel slowly disappeared off the screen.

“I guess we’ll never know,” commented Cam. “Let’s finish up and then pick up our boy. We’ll have a great story to tell.”

Bear turned the submersible and headed back toward the very end of the U-boat where the bow had embedded into the sand when it sank. They planned on picking up their video survey of the wreckage from that point and then meeting up with Gunner at the stern where he initially entered the submarine.

They turned and were on their way when suddenly the sonar caught Cam’s eye. “Are you kidding me? Bear, they’re coming back.”

“Why? It’s not like we can square off in a gun battle.”

Cam focused on the radar and the speed at which the other submersible was travelling. “We can’t, but what if they can?”

“Shit, you’re right. But what are we supposed to do? We can’t haul ass. We gotta get Gunner.” He pointed toward the digital clock display on the console. Cam had scheduled the rendezvous time on the countdown clock to remind them to be at the extraction point.

Cam watched the vessel approach at a high rate of speed. They were running out of time. Then she had an idea.

“You know what? They don’t know that. They know as little about us as we know about them. Turn this thing around and charge them like you’re ready to fight.”

Bear began the turn as he made eye contact with Cam. “What if they do have some type of weapons like a torpedo or explosives.”

“Then we’re screwed,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Bluffing is all we’ve got.”

“Can’t argue,” said Bear as he set his jaw and navigated the DSC-6 directly for the oncoming submersible. Then Bear smiled. “Hey, I’ve got an idea.” He doused the external lights.

“What did you do that for? They can still track us on sonar.”

“True. Listen, didn’t those guys on the ship tell us the manual spotlight has multiple colored lenses?”

“Yeah,” replied Cam. “White, yellow, and red.”

“Let’s simulate weapons fire. Change the lens to red, flash the light for a two-count. Turn it off and then flip it over to yellow while holding it steady for a three-count. Repeat. Make them think we’ve launched something at them.”

“That’s freakin’ brilliant!” exclaimed Cam.

“When you’re ready,” said Bear as he slowed the DSC-6 to avoid reaching the other submersible. If they got a closer visual, the ruse might not work.

As Bear instructed, she initiated the light pattern. Then she repeated it again. The results were obvious.

“Hell yeah!” shouted Cam as the two of them exchanged high fives.

“Tuckin’ tail and haulin’ ass, baby!” exclaimed Bear proudly.

“They left just as fast as they came back.”

“I think we’re done here. Let’s get Gunner and head up.”

Chapter Forty-Four

Inside the Wreckage of German U-boat 1226

The Puerto Rico Trench

Depth: 27,840 feet

Fathoms: 4,640

North Atlantic Ocean

Gunner took a gamble and turned off his exterior light kit. Thus far, based upon the other diver’s deliberate, workmanlike movements, he hadn’t been noticed. There was no evidence the diver was attempting to evade or escape. Once the lights were off, Gunner carefully felt his way through the center of the U-boat, using his hands to guide him.

“I’ve got another diver down here,” he whispered although that was unnecessary. No one could hear him even if he shouted at the top of his lungs. “I’ve shut off my lights to avoid detection. The problem is the other diver is able to move away from me faster than I can feel my way through the sub.”

Gunner picked up the pace. Then suddenly, the other diver’s lights disappeared.

“Dammit!” he yelled to himself.

He still resisted the urge to flip on his lights. He cussed the exosuit designers for not incorporating night vision. But why would they? Who would envision a situation like this one?

Gunner had to move quickly now. He focused on the point where he last saw the diver. Using his side-mounted propulsion, he maneuvered his body into a prone position and then gave his feet thrusters all the power that the exosuit supplied.

He rocketed blindly through the wreckage, disregarding the unforgiving decayed-steel hulk that could tear his exosuit, resulting in his brutal death.

At least it would be fast, Gunner thought to himself.

Gritting his teeth, he twisted his upper body to avoid several steel rods that reached out from the sides of this passageway like the arms of an octopus. The vision popped into Gunner’s mind of the suction-cup arms plucking him out of the water like he was a plump, tasty fish.

He turned off the propulsion system and coasted to a stop near the point where the other diver had ascended through the sub. Gunner looked up and caught a glimpse of light.

“There you are,” he mumbled.

After positioning his body, he once again gave his feet thrusters full throttle. Gunner blasted thru a gaping hole in the once solid floors of the sub. The light emitted from the other diver’s suit was growing larger in his field of vision. He began to extend his arms so he could grab the diver’s legs before he exited the U-boat.

That was when he crashed into a steel beam that extended into the void. Gunner groaned as he sideswiped the beam, causing him to twist and spin in the open space. Out of control, Gunner struck the exterior hull of the ship. The blow was so hard, his exosuit’s computer system shut down temporarily, leaving him gasping for air from the impact and the diminished oxygen.

He struggled to regain his composure. He tried to slow his breathing and settle his nerves while also searching the pitch-black waters for signs of the other diver.

He caught a glimpse of light above his head and to his left. He had no idea whether the diver was moving toward the bow or the stern. Gunner had to catch up to him.

He was no longer able to be cautious. If he didn’t catch the diver, he’d never know what happened to the canisters. He forgot the pain in his back and the burning in his lungs as he consumed the remaining oxygen stored in the exosuit. All of the safety protocols didn’t mean squat once the computer shut down.

Gunner swam toward the fading light, using his feet to thrust off any surface and his arms to guide him as well as pull him along. He focused on the diver’s position by following the light, which seemed to flicker at times, perhaps due to parts of the wreckage obscuring his view.

Then the exosuit’s computer system came to life. The monitor built into his screen was a hot mess of numbers and words that made no sense. But that didn’t matter to Gunner. He had air again, and that meant he’d regained his propulsion system. He throttled down as if he wanted to break the SR-71 Blackbird’s air speed record of Mach 3 plus.

He was closing on the other diver. Without his lights, Gunner raced through the skeletal remains of U-1226 until he was within twenty feet of his prey. He reached out with his left arm and squeezed the handle of his vise-grip flippers.

Ten feet.

Let there be light.

Gunner activated his headgear’s light kit. The first thing that caught his eye was a solitary shiny canister tucked under the diver’s arm like a football. The diver turned, startled by the sudden light and Gunner appearing behind him. That was when Gunner first saw the man’s surprised look just as the two divers collided.

The force of the impact knocked the canister from the diver’s grip. It slowly floated away from them before dropping into the dark waters inside the bow of the submarine. The diver was pushed into a jagged piece of steel behind him. For several seconds, he didn’t move.

Then using his own propulsion system, he came at Gunner. The two bounced off one another like sumo wrestlers. The battle that ensued between them would appear to be comical if not for the deadly consequences of their exosuits failing. Arms were slowly taking swings. Bodies were contorted in an unsuccessful effort to gain an advantage. Kicks were attempted although the leg movement was restricted as if the diver’s ankle were tied to a tree.

The physical battle between the two men was a wasted exercise, and the unknown diver was the first to realize it. He shoved himself away from Gunner, turned his body toward a hole created in the bow by years of corrosion, and fired his feet thrusters. His ascent was much faster than what Gunner had been able to muster, and seconds later, the man had shot through into the blackness of the ocean depths.

Gunner caught his breath and began to look around for the titanium canister. He surmised it was the last one. These thieves were clearly hell-bent on taking every last container from the submarine. All this did was elevate the canister’s importance in Gunner’s eyes.

His task was complicated by the fact that his exosuit’s onboard computer had malfunctioned. He had no idea how much air he had left before the emergency backup kicked in. He also didn’t know if his suit was still pinging to Bear and Cam so they could locate him.

He pushed all of those things out of his mind and focused on finding the canister. After searching the remains of the upper level of the bow, he searched for openings leading into the lower levels directly below where the struggle took place.

The search for the last canister was underway.

Chapter Forty-Five

Outside the Wreckage of German U-boat 1226

The Puerto Rico Trench

Depth: 27,840 feet

Fathoms: 4,640

The Deepsea Challenger 6

North Atlantic Ocean

Bear turned on the external lights as soon as the other submersible disappeared from their sonar. He navigated directly for the center of the submarine. Cam pointed across the console through Bear’s side of the window. “Look. On your ten o’clock.”

“I see him. He’s moving toward us.”

“Gotta be Gunner,” said Cam.

Bear changed course and approached the diver. That was when he saw the yellow suit illuminated in the external lights.

“Nope. He’s one of theirs,” said Bear. “Should we scoop him up? We might be able to get some intel out of him.”

“Hell no,” said Cam. She pointed to the timer. “It’ll take too long, for one thing, and we can’t compromise our safety or Gunner’s. Leave him.”

“Dude’s screwed,” muttered Bear.

“He’ll have a little while to thank his buddies for that.”

Bear accelerated. The diver turned momentarily and watched the DSC-6 motor past him. Bear set a course for the stern of the ship.

“I’ve got his beacon on the sonar. He’s out. Moving slowly toward the extraction point.”

Bear made a wide swing around Gunner as if he were flying a helicopter into the middle of a tight landing zone. As the submersible hovered fifty feet above the ocean floor, the external lights washed over Gunner and the shiny canister safely secured under his arm. Fifteen minutes later, Gunner was safely on board the DSC-6 and extracting himself from the exosuit.

Gunner cleared the brief decompression period in the submersible’s dive compartment, and when the submersible’s computer determined the time was up, the door opened for him. Bear’s and Cam’s smiling faces were awaiting him.

“Glad to see you guys,” he said as he handed the titanium canister to Bear. Bear held it like a newborn infant, careful not to squeeze the life out of it or drop it to the floor. “See if you can find a safe place for that. It’s the last one.”

Bear had already turned away toward a footlocker containing a padded compartment when he stopped in his tracks. Puzzled, he glanced at Cam, who looked equally perplexed.

“Come on in and sit down,” she offered. She had a bottle of water, which Gunner immediately consumed. “What do you mean by last one?”

“Somebody got there before we did,” he replied.

“We know.” Cam gestured for him to sit, and she immediately provided him another bottled water. The ship’s physicians had warned them that being surrounded in the pure oxygen of the exosuit might result in extreme dehydration. It was important for Gunner to drink lots of water for his body to adjust. “We came across another submersible while we were videotaping the wreckage. We played cat and mouse before they gave up and took off.”

Bear returned to his seat and checked the control panel. “We also came across one of their divers heading out of the hull.”

“Yellow exosuit?” asked Gunner.

“Yes,” replied Cam. “We thought about reeling him in, but you were at the end of your oxygen, and we didn’t want to risk it.”

“I was beyond the initial supply, and the suit was fortunately running on the recycled, limited air at the end.”

Cam tilted her head. “I set the timer. You should’ve had more time.”

“Yeah, in a perfect world,” Gunner agreed. “I came across the same diver leaving the sub. As I tried to chase him down, I hit a part of the wreckage and then got body-slammed against the hull. It completely shut down my computer system and the oxygen system at the same time.”

“Damn!” said Bear.

“Anyway, we’d fought for a minute, but it was ridiculously clumsy. He dropped the last canister into the bottom of the sub and took off. I decided to let him go and locate the canister.”

Cam fist-bumped Gunner. “I see you found it.”

“The damn thing hit the bottom of the sub. I got a little lost trying to make my way to the stern and the extraction point. Otherwise, I would’ve been waiting on you guys.”

Bear turned to the Gray Fox team. “Unless you wanna go chase down the other diver, we can start heading topside.”

“We’d never find him,” said Cam. “I vote we head up.”

“Same here,” said Gunner. “I wanna get our video and still shots to Ghost so we can figure out who ran off with a thousand canisters of whatever this stuff is.”

“I’ll text the surface in a minute and let them know we’re headed up,” said Bear.

“Let’s not mention the other canisters unless we’re specifically asked how many I saw,” began Gunner. “In fact, I might very well lie to anyone who inquires. Here’s the thing. That took a lot of planning and manpower to empty the sub of all the canisters we saw on Ballard’s video footage. There’s no way to carry the things out more than one at a time.”

Cam ran her fingers through her hair. “Are you thinking multiple submersibles?”

“At least two, with two-man teams, operating at the same time. Even then, they must have some kind of pully system or ROV device to haul the canisters out so quickly.”

Bear began their ascent to the surface. He directed their attention to the timer so they could follow along. He turned and patted Gunner on the back. “You did a helluva job getting that thing. I gotta feelin’ we’re just gettin’ started, though.”

“Same here,” said Cam.

“Whatever this shit is,” said Gunner, pointing at the locker containing the titanium canister, “somebody moved heaven and earth to get to it before we did.”

Chapter Forty-Six

Mar del Plata

Buenos Aires Province

South Atlantic Coast of Argentina

January 1945

Weeks before, Hans Schaeffer had strolled through the streets of Dusseldorf. The once lovely, vibrant town on the Rhine River in Western Germany near the Netherlands had become his adopted home after fleeing Berlin. As he walked, he lamented to himself how Dusseldorf was a shadow of its former self, barely recognizable, as it had been ravaged by war.

Much like its people. All around him were shabby, haggard residents and the skeletal remains of their once modest homes. According to his orders, these were to be his final days in Germany, or so he thought. There would be one more trip the following year in the summer of 1945. That would be his last.

The next day, he was to report to the Elbe II submarine pen in Hamburg. His mission was secretive. His destination was known only to him and a select few. This had become the norm in the latter part of the war.

He was told to pack his most basic of belongings, and he could bring one companion if he chose to. Schaeffer had no family. They’d all been killed over the course of the war, including his wife, who never saw the Allies’ bomb coming for their home.

He’d been assigned to U-977, a Type VII submarine widely considered the workhouse of the German U-boat force. It did not have the same range as the larger Type IX U-boats, but it was faster. It was also easier to refuel when it was sailing for the far reaches of the western and southern Atlantic Ocean.

On this journey, he left Hanover and had an interim stopover in Norway, after which he began his submerged passage to the Cape Verde Islands, a fueling stop controlled by the German Navy. His journey continued into the South Atlantic for sixty-seven days, just below the surface, using the U-boat’s snorkel for travel. Word had traveled throughout the German Navy of the demise of the U-1226. The snorkel failure had been blamed for the lost contact, and therefore many U-boat commanders insisted upon traveling at a shallow depth, using the snorkel for air and navigation.

He was unfamiliar with the civilian passengers he ferried, and he looked the other way as their belongings were loaded onto his submarine. He was loyal to the Reich and knew better than to interfere with the business of the SS.

He never in his wildest dreams imagined he’d travel that far away from Europe. Argentina was completely unknown to him, for he’d never had a reason to study geography or history to understand the region.

When he’d completely surfaced, he exited the conning tower to take in his surroundings. It was in the middle of a clear, warm night, but the full moon illuminated the harbor. The U-977 had emerged in the midst of an Argentine warship flotilla. A small vessel approached and eased its hull up to the conn. Shaeffer’s crew assisted in tying off the boat, and a uniformed officer of the Argentine Army introduced himself in Spanish.

Schaeffer looked around for help. None of his crew spoke Spanish. The Argentinian didn’t speak a word of German. Eventually, they found a common tongue—French. The officer welcomed Schaeffer to Argentina and then delivered the bad news. They must disembark all passengers and cargo before daybreak. The crew and their gear could remain. But all civilians must leave immediately. Buses and delivery trucks were on standby to take them to their next destination.

Schaeffer didn’t question the officer about where they were being taken nor why the coming daylight was an issue. He simply gave orders to his crew, and the disembarkation began. He supervised every aspect of removing the passengers first and then the cargo.

His excitement began to build as he realized his fellow countrymen, as well as himself, had escaped the inevitable destruction of the Reich. Now each of them could forge a new path for their lives. One that enabled them to be the master of their own fate and free to pursue any dream they chose without being under the thumb of the Berlin politicians.

Once the boat was emptied, Schaeffer took a moment to address his crew. He was proud of the German sailors he’d worked with in the past. He considered them the most formidable group of warriors in the Reich’s armed forces. He continued to say goodbye to the bearded, weather-worn faces of the men he’d had the pleasure to command for two years.

A spontaneous demonstration arose from his crew. They cheered their commander as he began to board the cargo transportation flatboat to catch one of the buses.

“Halt!” a man’s voice screamed from an approaching boat. “Verlasse dein U-boot nicht!” Do not leave your U-boat.

Schaeffer stood with his hands at his sides, holding nothing more than a duffel containing a few personal belongings. The boat pulled alongside, and a man dressed in a dark suit approached the bow. As he drew closer, Schaeffer was able to see his face clearly. It was Franz Oberg, the second-in-command of the WVHA, the economic and administrative offices of the SS.

“Sieg heil, Obergruppenführer!”

“You have done well, Commander Schaeffer. However, there is still work to be done. You are to return with your crew to Hamburg to assist further with the war effort.”

“Sir, it was my understanding that—” When Oberg snapped at him, he knew he’d pushed his luck to the point of insolence.

Schaeffer pursed his lips and accepted his fate. As Oberg dressed him down for questioning his authority, Schaeffer’s eyes darted from Oberg to the woman who stood slightly behind him. She was young and attractive, but certainly wasn’t a Nazi party official or military officer. He furrowed his brow as he wondered why she’d accompanied the Obergruppenführer to greet U-977.

For an awkward moment, nobody spoke, as it was expected Schaeffer would return inside the submarine to prepare for the return journey. Then, unexpectedly, he was addressed by the woman standing behind Oberg.

“Commander, travel safe. Remember, we will rise from the ashes.”

Schaeffer would never know the mysterious woman who spoke to him was Brit Jorgensen, mistress of Himmler. She’d insisted upon coming to Mar del Plata to meet the submarine commander who was to return to Hamburg to retrieve the father of her children.

Chapter Forty-Seven

ASTARSA Shipyard

Mar del Plata

Buenos Aires Province

South Atlantic Coast of Argentina

Present Day, July

A century ago, the ASTARSA shipyard at Mar del Plata was a leader in naval and metallurgic workers. The first ship ever built in Argentina in excess of one thousand tons was built at ASTARSA. Soon, the company expanded to the construction of diesel and steam locomotives. Then the Great Depression in the United States brought the world economy to a severe slowdown, and ASTARSA was relegated to making repairs on the boats and locomotives it had built in years past.

That changed in 1946 when it was sold to an industrial machinery company funded by an Austrian conglomerate known as Knight Gruppe AG. With Juan Peron’s rise to power in late 1945, the economic conditions in Argentina started to improve. The government divested itself of the shipyard property and sold it to a wholly owned subsidiary of Knight Gruppe.

The turnaround was gradual at first, but as the decade of the seventies arrived, ASTARSA found itself gaining lucrative contracts with General Motors, Union Pacific, and Cabot Industries, a U.S.-based shipbuilder.

By the eighties, the increased activity of the Argentine merchant navy produced an opening for ASTARSA, which expanded its operations and soon became one of the largest employers in Mar del Plata. Large container vessels who brought goods and freight into Argentina frequently used ASTARSA to offload the containers before making their ships available for repairs. One of those ships, the Tigris, was scheduled to arrive that morning.

Ordinarily, the arrival of a container ship didn’t draw any attention from ASTARSA executives above the title of dock foreman. This day was different. The president of ASTARSA, wearing his customary khaki pants, white fur-lined parka, and L.L.Bean boots, strolled along the dock where the Tigris was tied off. He was escorted across the gangway onto the ship by two members of the ASTARSA management team together with his own private security detail.

Once on board, he instructed the ASTARSA executives to stay behind while he entered the cargo hold of the container ship. With the assistance of his security personnel’s flashlights, they located the container that matched the serial numbers and description he’d received by courier.

“Open it,” he instructed, handing over the keys to the heavy-duty padlocks that secured the doors. These had arrived via the same courier who delivered the container’s details. The lock was opened and the doors were pulled slightly ajar.

“Sir, would you like our assistance?” one of the men asked.

“No, that shouldn’t be necessary.”

The president of the company took a flashlight and made his way inside. Attached to a hook on the wall of the container was a large crowbar. He quickly snatched it off the wall and tucked the flashlight between his cheek and shoulder. Using the flat end of the crowbar, he pried open one of more than a hundred wooden crates stacked inside the container. With a little effort, the lid popped up, revealing finely shredded wood that acted as a nest for the contents.

After setting the crowbar aside, he reverently pushed aside the packing material. The flashlight instantly reflected off the shiny cylindrical canisters resting inside. A smile came over the face of Henry Jorgensen Gruber Jr., the grandson of Brit Jorgensen, who arrived in Argentina under cover of darkness in the fall of 1944 to make a home for herself.

He raised the canister into the air and whispered, “We will rise from the ashes.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

Aboard the Sea Searcher II

One Hundred Seventy Miles North of Puerto Rico

North Atlantic Ocean

Once the DSC-6 had reached the surface, it was a beautiful, bright sunny morning. The Sea Searcher II crew worked quickly to pull the submersible onto the deck of the ship and secure it. As they’d been told in advance, Gunner, Cam and Bear were to be examined by the ship’s physicians in the infirmary followed by a debriefing with the head of the research team. That debriefing never happened.

After Gunner was examined and released, he excused himself to the restroom. Instead, he slipped past the escort assigned to him by the ship’s captain and made his way back to his temporary quarters while on the ship. He retrieved his phone and called the Den to speak with Ghost.

“There’s a lot more going on here besides some mysterious substance inside these canisters,” he began his explanation to Ghost, who also had Jackal on the speakerphone in his office. “On the way back to the surface, we did some cursory calculations. It would’ve taken at least two submersibles with a couple of two-man crews working together to empty the wreckage of all those canisters.

“As I now know because of my exhaustion, there’s no way it could be pulled off in that short a time frame without backup personnel supporting them from topside.”

“I can scour the NSA recon satellites for the region,” said Jackal. “Maybe I can identify a vessel or vessels in the area operating submersibles during the period prior to your arrival at the wreckage.”

“To speed this along, you might focus on activity on the surface from the last few hours. Cam and Bear chased off another submersible. They had to surface and get pulled out of the water just like we did an hour ago.”

“I’m on it,” confirmed Jackal.

“Gunner,” began Ghost, “what’s your gut telling you?”

“To be honest, sir, somebody either knew or presumed those canisters were held within that wreckage. I don’t know how they could possibly know what to go after unless there is a leak within the Sea Searcher or their bosses at Woods Hole. Either way, I’m not comfortable disclosing any information to them.”

“Why should you?” asked Ghost.

Gunner sighed. “They’re naturally curious because they wanna know what happened to their colleagues on the other ship. It was all we could do to evade their questions when we exited the submersible. The doctors stepped in and demanded to clear us physically and mentally before we engaged in any debriefing. The three of us agreed to sneak out of the infirmary without getting pinned down.”

Ghost stepped away from his desk and shouted outside his office for his assistant. He instructed her to get his liaison at the Department of Defense into his office. Because of the fast-moving nature of the operations undertaken by all the subparts of the Activity, the DOD maintained an office in the same complex as the operations centers like the Den.

“I’ll have the calls made through the proper channels. I don’t want to formally declare this a national security matter, at least not in public. The DOD can hint around the edges of such a declaration while insisting the researchers leave you guys alone.”

“Good, thanks.”

“A science team is en route to retrieve the canister for study in a secure environment,” added Ghost.

There was a gentle tap at the door. Gunner didn’t respond.

Cam whispered, “Hey, it’s us.”

Gunner rushed over to the door and waved them in. He immediately closed and locked it, checking the handle to make sure. He pointed to the phone and mouthed the word Ghost to his partners, who took up seats on Gunner’s bunk.

“Sir, there’s one another thing you might pass along to Jackal or the other analysts. The technology used by the other dive team was far superior to ours. Their submersible was larger and faster. Also, the diver’s exosuit was nimbler than mine, and it seemed like his thrusters were at least twice as fast. I’d understood that this Woods Hole group had the next-gen technology on all this stuff. Apparently, there’s somebody else out there who’s a step ahead of them.”

“Okay,” said Ghost. “Do you see any reason for you to go back down to the wreckage?”

“No.”

“All right then, I’m gonna make arrangements to pull you out of there after I get the ship’s personnel to stand down. In the meantime, before I have you ferried back to the Den, tell Cam we’ll be uploading satellite imagery and research results on everything we’ve discussed to her laptop. I’m going to make arrangements with the ship’s captain to give you access to a photo printer as well as his nautical charts. I’d like you three to put your heads together on where this mystery submersible might have come from.”

“Roger that, sir. Out.”

Gunner disconnected the phone and turned to his fellow operatives. “Ghost is gonna shield us from questioning. He’s also gonna send us data, images, etcetera. Cam, can you get into the ship’s computer system to access the recorded video from my exosuit and the DSC-6?”

“I’m already in,” she replied. “Jackal and I did it yesterday.”

“Good. I’m anxious to see the detail on our fellow deep-sea divers. Oh, and another idea. While you’re in there, can you nose around the email accounts of the ship’s crew? I’d like to know if any of these people tipped off outsiders. I’m still at a loss as to how they pulled off a salvage operation of that magnitude so quickly. I’m really pissed they got away with it.”

“We’ll figure it out, big guy,” said Bear with a smile and a nod. “Why don’t you get some sleep until we’re pulled out of here.”

Gunner stretched his back and rolled his head on his shoulders to relieve the tension. He glanced toward the wall of his small cabin, hoping to catch a glimpse through a porthole, but there wasn’t one.

“I have a better idea. There were some fixed tables on the aft deck just past the chopper landing pad. I could really use some sunshine. How ’bout you guys?”

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” said Cam. “I feel like we’ve been floating on the ocean in a tin can for days. I’ll grab my laptop and meet you up there.”

“Bear?” asked Gunner.

“Lead the way, Aquaman.”

The two men teased one another as they exited Gunner’s cabin and found their way onto the deck. The sun warmed both of their faces as they made their way to the rear of the ship. Across the water, personnel in hazmat suits were cleaning up the Sea Searcher I after the bodies had been removed. It was a grim reminder of how important it was to get some answers to the many unanswered questions.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Aboard the Sea Searcher II

One Hundred Seventy Miles North of Puerto Rico

North Atlantic Ocean

A shirtless Gunner Fox decided to soak up the sun as he pored over the satellite images and nautical charts provided by the ship’s captain. He remained cooperative to the needs of the Gray Fox team. However, the head of the Woods Hole research operation was pretty fussy. He didn’t take kindly to the DOD personnel instructing him to leave Gunner, Cam and Bear alone.

He complained that the reason he’d allowed them on his ship was to get answers, and now they were refusing to disclose their findings. He threatened phone calls and text messages to congressmen or administration officials or anyone else he could use to put pressure on Gunner and his team. Not that it mattered. They weren’t talking.

Cam was the first to render an opinion. “I think this is our transportation ship,” she said, pointing at a satellite photo. “Check this out. A similar shaped vessel appears in this photo just north of Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. Also, here, southwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands.”

“Out of Cuba?” suggested Bear.

“Makes sense,” said Gunner. “The other islands in the region monitor their ports for illicit drug activity. Cuba may be democratic, but it’s a country full of corruption at the local level. It’s easy to buy closed eyes and ears when your people are broke.”

Cam continued. “I suppose the other option might be the west end of Haiti, but I don’t think there is an airstrip there. I seriously doubt these people would risk this valuable cargo on a small ship. My vote is the logical destination—Cuba.”

Gunner nodded in agreement. Once again, for what felt like the hundredth time since they’d gathered outside, he stood and arched his back. The stiffness was beginning to set in.

“You got smacked pretty hard, didn’t you?” asked Bear.

“I did. It’s a wonder the suit didn’t rupture. When the thing powered off and it went dark, I questioned whether I was still around or not. You know what I mean?”

Bear offered up his hands and brought his index finger to the tip of his thumb. “Do you need me to pinch you so you know it’s real?”

Gunner chuckled. “Very funny. I’ll be glad to get off this tub. I’ve had enough water for a while.”

In the distance, a helicopter’s rotors could be heard. It flew well south of their position and then circled the Sea Searcher I, making Gunner think it was not intended to pick them up. He squinted against the bright ocean that separated the two ships.

Gunner noticed it was heading toward them now. In a way, the small passenger helicopter looked like a huge white stork flying across the Atlantic on its ridiculously delicate legs. However, as the helicopter drew closer and the outline grew more distinct against the horizon, the legs grew sturdier. Now they resembled tubular supports of steel. The main body of the chopper grew in height and width. It was still bright white and had absolutely no identifying markings.

As it approached the landing area of their ship, the turbulence from the rotors threatened to blow all of their research, Cam’s computer, and perhaps even them over the nearby back railing. The trio scrambled to secure everything, with Bear using his wide bent-over body to smother everything on the fixed table. He cursed the turbulence, as did Cam.

After the pilot made a flawless landing, he shut off the rotors of the aircraft and exited. Gunner gave the pilot a glance. He didn’t appear to be a Woods Hole employee, but rather, he wore a naval uniform.

Gunner didn’t turn to the chopper to satisfy his curiosity. He was more annoyed at the intrusion and the interruption of their brainstorming session. And the fact the helicopter hadn’t been dispatched from the Coast Guard facility in Puerto Rico meant it wasn’t for them. Not to mention it was taking up their inbound chopper’s parking space.

He got back to business. “Okay, grand entrance complete. Let’s get back to these still photos of the other submersible.”

“Um, the passengers are headed this way,” said Bear.

Without looking up, Gunner asked, “So?”

“The chick’s pretty hot. You might wanna check her out.”

“Shut up, Bear,” said Cam as she playfully kicked him.

“I’m just sayin’. I believe in giving my buddy here first dibs, of course. But if he’s not interested …” His voice trailed off as he focused on the man and woman approaching them.

Cam shot him a look. “Stow it. She’ll hear you.”

Gunner rose from the table and shook his head at his two friends. With sweat pouring off his neck onto his chest, he turned to see the newcomers for himself. The woman was the first to introduce herself.

“Hi. I’m Dr. Harper Randolph.”

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