Until Bass, on the radio again, shouted something directly into Coles ear off headset that put a grim look on the mans face.
Cole ordered over the radio, Everyone don a life vest and lets go ahead and put Nissa into an exposure kit.
An exposure kit turned out to be a body-sized pouch of some slick neoprene-like material that encompassed her entire body and attached to the donut-shaped life vest the guys inflated around her neck.
Whats this for? she asked as Cole checked the connections around her neck.
He paused at his task to gaze at her from a range of about one foot. Lord, he was gorgeous with those lean cheeks and firm jaw. His voice rumbled comfortingly. If you end up in the water, the kit provides a layer of insulation to extend how long you can survive hypothermia by hours or days. It also protects you from sharks. They cant smell you through the material. In pockets attached to the interior of the bag are water, rations, a small desalinization kit, a GPS locator beacon, a mirror and an emergency radio. My team and I know how to climb into one in the water and bail out any seawater. But since you havent had the training, were popping you into yours now, to be safe. Try to think of it as a sleeping bag, and it wont freak you out so bad.
Thanks.
How did he know that being wrapped up in this giant condom was scaring her half to death? Shed always struggled with claustrophobia, and this situation wasnt helping matters one little bit. She fought like crazy not to hyperventilate and hung on by a bare thread to the ability to breathe.
She muttered under her breath, Please, God, dont let me need this stupid contraption.
Cole cracked the first smile shed seen from him. Even in the dark, it was dazzling. Its purely a precaution.
But when he had all four of them lash their safety harnesses together with rope and bungee cord, she had to wonder just how unnecessary a precaution it really was.
They finished the Boy Scout knot project before she asked on radio, Does someone want to tell me why were suddenly preparing for disaster, here?
Bass answered, Jessamine has gone from a Category 1 to a Category 3 hurricane in the past few hours. Weather service is now forecasting that shell spin up into a high Cat 4 or Cat 5.
Isnt that just special? she responded sarcastically.
Everyone laughed.
Seriously? They could laugh while sailing around in the middle of a hurricane in a rowboat with motors?
The SEALs took turns at the tiller, wrestling the ocean until they became exhausted and had to switch out. The interminable journey settled into a steady-state nightmare, and the team chatted on headset to pass the time. The good news was the hurricane wind at their backs was blowing them landward at an impressive clip, shaving hours off their journey.
Ashe took the radio from Bass and had an earnest conversation with someone at the other end that culminated in him saying, Let me know when youve run the numbers.
Ashe piped up after a few minutes, The Coast Guard has pulled the Anna Belles manifest and compared it against what we saw on the ship. She definitely left New Orleans with a belly full of wheat. But sometime in the past twenty-four hours, the ships crew must have dumped all of it overboard.
That made everyone frown. The weight of the wheat low in the ships belly would have been critical to making the ship safe and stable.
And, Ashe continued, the Coast Guard checked with the harbormaster. She left the port of New Orleans loaded three deep in containers across her entire deck, not six deep, all fore of the beam, like we found her. The crew of the ship moved the containers after they sailed. They intentionally built a high-profile stack that would catch the most wind.
Were they trying to sink the ship? Nissa blurted.
Cole answered grimly. Seems so.
And then theres the missing crew and sabotaged engines, Bass piped up.
And no distress calls, Cole added. The crew definitely intended to scuttle the ship.
Oh, theyll succeed, Ashe responded. Once Jessamine cranks up another ten feet of seas and another twenty knots of wind, that huge wall of containers is going to catch a gust and take the Anna Belle right over.
Assuming she doesnt drift crossways of a couple big waves and break her beam first, Bass commented. Either way, that ships going down in the next few hours if shes not already sunk.
But why? Cole asked.
Nissa had an idea why. The others speculated, but discarded every idea they came up with. When they all fell silent, she spoke up reluctantly, What if this was all an elaborate scheme to fake Markus Petrovs death?
The team turned as one to stare at her. Its a hell of an expensive ruse, Cole replied. Twenty million dollars plus or minus for the ship, several million dollars worth of wheat, and who knows what other cargo in the containers. Then theres the cost of paying off the crew, and of making them all disappear. Something like a fifty-million-dollar escape route? That seems pretty improbable.
But thats the point, Nissa replied. Markus Petrov is obsessive about secrecy. And goodness knows, he has fifty million bucks lying around to burn. The man has been a mobster for thirty years. My CIA colleague who got inside his outfit said the man was clearing a million dollars a week.
Bass swore, then drawled, Im in the wrong business.
I thought all you cops are on the take, Ashe teased the Cajun. Apparently, Bass had been called off military reserve status and reactivated as a SEAL recently. When he wasnt on active duty, he was a civilian police officer.
New Orleans Police Department has cleaned up its act in the past couple of decades, thank you very much, Bass retorted.
Indeed. They kicked you out, didnt they? Cole quipped.
The guys laughed, apparently oblivious of the monster storm spinning up around them. She envied them their ability to find humor in this nightmare.
Cole looked over at her in her exposure pouch. The only problem with your theory that Petrov engineered the sinking of the Anna Belle is that no one knew he was aboard her. We were lucky to get a tip from one of Petrovs guys we captured in the gun battle last week.
Or maybe that tidbit was intentionally leaked to us so we would believe he died when the Anna Belle turns up missing or is found sunk.
The ship will be tough to find, Ashe offered. Were in close to eight thousand feet of water right now.
Aww, jeez. She did not need to know that.
Whats the next move Petrov will make, Nissa? Cole asked.
All of a sudden, everyone was staring expectantly at her.
I have no idea. I was only sent out here with you to make the ID on Petrov.
She was one of the few people on earth whod seen even a photograph of Markus Petrov, and it had been taken twenty years ago. The tech gang at Langley had run an aging simulator on the image, though, so she had a rough idea of what he would look like now. More important, she knew every detail of his life that the CIA had uncovered and could ask the right questionsand furthermore know if she was getting the right answersto make the identification. And, of course, she was a trained psychological operations officer. She could probably manipulate the guy into talking when most other people could not.
Cole gave up his position at the tiller to Ashe and flopped down beside her, breathing hard. It took a minute or so for his respiration to return to normal, but then he said to her, My orders are to capture Markus Petrov with extreme prejudice. Meaning he had authorization to do whatever it took to catch the guy, no holds barred. He continued, Im going to need you to stay with my team until we catch up with him.
But this was supposed to be a quick out-and-back mission for her. Fly to New Orleans. Make the ID. Fly back to Langley, Virginia, and resume her regularly scheduled life. She didnt do field operations. At least, not this kind. As it was, the trip into the Gulf of Mexico to catch Petrov had been well beyond the scope of her orders. She definitely didnt run around with Navy SEALs trying to get herself killed.
Im an analyst, not a field operative! she protested. She didnt even like being outdoors, let alone playing soldier.
Youre a field operator now. Welcome to the big leagues, kid.
Chapter 2
Even Cole had to admit he was glad to see land as the coast of Louisiana came into sight, a low black line on the horizon. The hurricane was stalled offshore at the moment, and the last hour of motoring north had taken them out of the heart of the storm. For now. As long as Jessamine parked over the warm, shallow waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico, she would only grow in strength.
The breathtakingly huge swells had diminished to merely god-awful seas, and the first faint light of dawn was barely visible in the east.
What a hell of a night. Cole had never seen a ship so close to capsizing before. Climbing aboard the Anna Belle had wigged him out worse than he would ever admit. Every time shed rolled onto her side, hed been sure that was the one where she would keep on going and drag them all down to a watery death.
So. Anyone got reward points at a decent resort along the coast we can cash in? Bass asked drolly as they approached a line of cypress trees and grassy wetlands.
The guy was the teams clown and great for morale. Cole had missed working with the Cajun. But then Cole had missed working in the field, period. This was his first op back as a team commander in four long years.
It figured that the mission had not gone to plan. At all. The target wasnt where he was supposed to be. Cole had had to put his team in extreme peril to search the Anna Belle, the civilian with them had completely panicked and their egress plan had been shot to hell by the sabotage to the ship.
Theyd caught a minor break when the hurricane stalled offshore, but he didnt have any illusions that riding out a major hurricane in whatever improvised shelter they could find was going to be anything but ridiculously hazardous. They were far from clear of life-threatening danger. It was Coles job to adapt to whatever came their way, but he had to wonder if he was too rusty to be out here in the field anymore. Should he have anticipated these contingencies and planned better for them?
Right now, he had to get them as far inland and on as high ground as possible before Jessamine came calling. He put Bass at the prow to guide the Rigid Inflatable Boat ashore. Bastien Bass LeBlanc was native to this area and more familiar with these coastal waters than anyone else on the team.
To his surprise, Bass called back to Ashe to turn the RIB and parallel the coast. What are you looking for? Cole asked.
Inlet. The storm surge is already flooding the edges of the bayou. If we motor ashore now, well hit a submerged cypress stump and rip the bottom out of the boat.
Nissa piped up. What will an inlet look like? Can we help you spot one?
Two roughly parallel rows of trees leading inland, Bass answered absently, staring shoreward through a big pair of binoculars.
Weather report, Ashe? Cole asked over the radios.
Cat 3 and growing. Expected to start moving due north in the next few hours. Winds should hit before noon, and the eye wall should make landfall by evening.
Damn. They could not catch a break on this mission! He checked the fuel gauges, which were perilously low, flirting with the red empty line.
Is that an inlet? Nissa called, pointing from inside her survival bag.
Cole squinted through a rain squall that had just sprung up, obscuring his vision. What do you think, Bass? Were getting way low on fuel and we need to make land before we become a cork out here.
Lets give it a try, sir.
The RIB slowed to a crawl, and they all kept their gazes on the water before them, looking for submerged hazards. The storm surge was already a good ten feet above normal and all sorts of stumps and small trees that would normally be above water were now coveredtreacherous traps waiting to destroy their vessel.
Dawn arrived in a thin strip of color beneath the ominous overhang of clouds forming one of the storm bands of the hurricane. The rain abated just long enough for them to see the line of sky streaked with every hue from palest pink to fiery red. The CIA asset, Nissa, turned to stare at the sunrise as the brilliant ball of liquid red crept over the edge of the gulf and then nearly as quickly disappeared behind the roiling cloud line.
Wow, she breathed.
One corner of Coles mouth turned down cynically at her innocence. It had been a long time since a sunrise had been enough to cause him wonder. Almost twenty years in the SEALs in one capacity or another had made him a hard man who didnt look for beauty in the world anymore.
Weve got an inlet! Bass called. Come right five degrees.
In another minute, two rows of cypress trees rose on either side of them. They looked more like truncated bushes in the early morning light, much of their height below the floodwaters.
They proceeded cautiously up the inlet for perhaps twenty minutes, buffeted by the choppy water almost worse than when theyd bobbed on the open oceans big swells. Cole went back to spell Ashe, who shook out his noodled arms as he moved up front to pull stump watch.
The right engine sputtered then caught again. Its fuel needle lay on the peg to the far left side of the gauge and didnt budge. At least the left needle was still bouncing off the peg with each wave.
Find us a spot to land, Bastien. This is about as far inland as the RIBs going to take us.
Roger that, Frosty. Bass scanned the lines of trees on either side of the canal they were following. In about a minute he hooted in excitement and yelled, Bring her hard right!
Cole complied, following Basss instructions for the next minute or so, aiming for a particularly tall cypress looming over the edge of the flooded canal. They made it past the big tree when the right motor cut out entirely and the left engine started to sputter.
Just a few more yards, Bass called.
That was probably about all they had before they turned into drifters.
Cut the motor! Bass called.
Cole complied with alacrity, just before the bottom of the boat scraped hard on something that sounded like gravel. A rain squall was rolling in on them, and Cole barely saw Bass and Ashe jump out of the boat into what turned out to be knee-deep water. Theyd run aground.
Ashe fought to steady the RIB as a huge wind gust tried to shove it sideways off the spit of land, while Bass ran ahead with a line and tied off the prow to a tree.