They glassed the two boathouses. There were large shadows within each boathouses. There were craft there. It looked like they were suspended up on some kind of scaffolding that held them suspended above the water. Both silhouettes were rounded with no spars or masts. Manny thought he could make out a center structure on one of them; possibly the entry stubby tower described by the crew of the Farragut. Flame agreed. The outlines of the craft in those shelters were all wrong.

  The water of the basin was shimmering like brass as the angled sunlight struck the surface. As much as Manny would have loved to get closer he knew it was time to leave. Just getting this close was informative enough. They wouldn't be going in entirely cold.

  They rose up into a crouch to move back to the trees when Flame gripped Manny's wrist.

  Manny looked to Flame who canted his head toward the boathouses over the water. They crouched silent and listened.

  Over the water an atonal sound reached them. A droning human voice raised in a repetitive song.

  Flame flashed Manny his predator grin. Manny's eyes gleamed as he listened.

  The call to prayer.

  Clouds of mosquitoes rose from everywhere to greet them on their way back through the trees. They barely noticed except when they gathered around their eyes and nostrils. Sometimes they had to lie stock-still for hours, even days, letting every bug in creation creep over every inch of their bodies. The only real threat from bites was disease and Manny and Flame were current on every inoculation known to medical science.

  They didn't slap or smack at the bugs. What was the use? Swat one and hundred take their place. And the sound of a palm on open skin could carry. They moved silent, Manny in the lead.

  Together they reached the cusp of sand where they'd made landfall.

  Sitting out on the gleaming water was the Lolita and pulled up alongside the Mexican patrol boat from the coastie station. Bill stood on the prow of the fishing yacht and turned to them when the Mexican skipper pointed.

  Bill smiled and waved. Manny let the binocular pouch slide from his hand into the water and both he and Flame swam easily back to the boat.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  THE BEACH HOUSE

  "You told them what?" Chili said. He heard it the first time; he just wanted to hear it again.

  "I told them Manny and Flame were on their honeymoon," Bill grinned over an open Coors back at the beach house. "They went into the jungle for a little alone time."

  "And the Mexican skipper bought it?" Pig said.

  "I think he did," Bill shrugged. "They were still laughing when we weighed anchor."

  "So, you're keeping kosher now, Flame?" Chili smiled and slapped Flame's back.

  "Fuck you," Flame grinned.

  "Gonna have to pass, dude," Chili waved his hands before him. "I make it a rule never to go for the married types."

  "The point is," Manny said, returning to business. "Security is light. Getting in and blowing the works is a matter of swimming in with the tide."

  "All we need is a green-for-go," Ernie Davies said. He turned to look at Blair Freeman pacing the sand before the house with a SAT phone jammed to his ear. They all turned to look. They couldn't hear what Blair was saying over the wind and surf. He was gesturing freely and bobbing his head as he spoke. Not a good sign.

  They sipped beers and ate fresh steamed shrimp and scallops Bill picked up at the marina when they returned the Lolita. They sat and watched the silent show Blair was putting on. The man's face was turning red and he was punching the air with the phone. Probably on hold, they assumed. A final brief exchange with Blair's shoulders hunched while he spoke all the magic words he knew. It ended and he made as though to pitch the SAT phone toward the water but changed his mind.

  He didn't have the team's total trust but no one was questioning his passion. This was a shit assignment but Blair wasn't backing off. He could have easily done a CYA and they could all go home. But something changed. He was a different spook when he got back from the debrief with Heath.

  Blair stormed onto the veranda of the beach house where the SEALs already knew the news was bad.

  "What's the word, Blair?" Manny said.

  "Typical beltway fuckery," Blair seethed. "Renegade is handing it off to State. State will form a circle jerk from here till election time and hope everyone forgets about it."

  'Renegade' was the codename for the president. He picked it for himself.

  "That's bullshit," Manny said. "They're building a sub on that site. We don't know how close to completion it is. We need to get in there."

  "I know that," Blair said and popped a Coors he yanked from a cooler. "I sold it. I sold it hard. I can't go higher than I did. The air is thin up there, you know. There's only so much talking you can do."

  "But you said NSA had someone solid in there," Manny insisted. The hunt was on. The hunt was now. The scent was in the air and the team was ready to be unleashed.

  "They have to give us the go-ahead," Pig said. "We don't even know where those fuckers plan on docking that bastard. What's it gonna look like when a Carnival cruise gets blown to pieces?"

  "They won't listen to me or NSA or anyone at the agency," Blair said after draining half the longneck in a single swallow. "There's some kind of internecine, high school bullshit going on and they will not move on it."

  "The Admiral too?" Chili said.

  "It's in Dorrance's hands," Blair said after a moment. "If he calls the shot we'll make it. If we fuck up it's all on him."

  "Like Abbottabad then," Pig said with disgust. "They have to have a goat in case it all goes for shit.'

  "And if it goes through the uprights in the final seconds guess who does The Bump in the endzone?" Chili said and threw an empty far out onto the sand.

  "He'll make the right call," Manny said.

  "These are the guys who jacked up Heath, bro," Flame said.

  "The admiral will make the right call," Manny said again.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  BILL'S REDUX

  She was starting to see what the admiral saw in scotch.

  Dana drained her second double and put the glass down with a smack on the table. Admiral Dorrance regarded her. One of his bushy white brows climbed his forehead.

  "Easy there, Missy," he said.

  It was early evening at Bill's and the place was busier than before. Mostly working stiffs of the blue collar and no collar variety talking in groups. Tom Petty was on the jukebox singing about how even losers get lucky sometimes. Dana could have picked that one herself.

  "Texas," she said. "Texas, sir."

  "It won't be that bad."

  "The cryptology center in San Antonio, sir. A bunch of math nerds and language geeks."

  "You'll be back, Dana," he said kindly.

  "Not at the Agency. Not any Agency," she said and waved to a waitress leaning at the far end of the bar. The admiral clamped a hand atop her glass and shook his head.

  "Nixon was finished once too."

  "Really? You're gonna use Nixon as an example?"

  "Churchill, then."

  "Sure."

  "You go down to Texas, Dana," Admiral Dorrance said. "Stay in the weeds a while. I'll make sure the right people know about the work you've done here. Let's see what happens after November."

  "If you're still here, sir. They're dropping all this on you. What are you going to do?"

  "It's my move," he said and swirled the amber film left in the bottom of his own glass before draining it. "And it's damn the torpedoes."

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  AT SEA

  Operation Maximum Vigilance was mounted within twelve hours and retro-entered into the Navy's mission roster to make it appear as though it had been on the books for a year. The all too-apt name wasn't designed to fool anyone but most of the personnel assigned were in the dark as to the mission's goals.

  The cover story was an anti-submarine exercise in the Pacific to be conducted in international waters off of Cabo San Lucas at the ass-end of Baja California and a tiny Mexican island named Isla Socorro. Two of the Navy's new, all-aluminum, 300 foot Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) were deployed to participate. They made way to the Area of Operations at their max speeds of almost 50 knots.

  The LCS was a new class of ship designed for coastal operations in shallow waters. The USS Freedom and USS Independence were each the product of different manufacturers but of similar design. Each had their full complement of seventy-five personnel for full submarine detection and combat readiness. There are no secrets on a ship and the sailors and marines aboard needed no factual confirmation to know in their bones that something was in the wind. This was no candyass sailing trip. No shakedown cruise. This was action. The swabbies and jarheads could read volumes in the set of their CPOs' and gunnies' jaws.

  The Independence was on post to the south in international waters as close to the shore as possible without violating sovereign Mexican waters.

  The Freedom was playing back-up; running a oval course on the coast off Ensenada. If the mini-sub slipped through Independence's net, her sister ship would pick up its passage. That was the theory anyway.

  The skipper of the Freedom sat in his quarters reviewing the latest predictions from the Naval Weather Service on his tablet computer. His number one made a throat clearing sound and stepped through the open hatch.

  "I see you have the report there," Number One said.

  "We have a system building west of us," the skipper said and laid the tablet down on his work table. "Early in the season but it looks like it'll make landfall in the next few days if it doesn't blow itself out."

  "Just in time to hit us when while we're on station."

  "Miserable duty for the crew. And us. This canoe will be operating in depths beyond its normal range and depth."

  "It could miss us. Or blow out like you said."

  The skipper's tablet slid across the table to strike the raised fiddle around the table's edge. Both men watched it without comment. They shifted their weight to accommodate for the shift in the deck's angle. The skipper lifted a coffee mug from the table as the deck moved to port again and the tablet slid back to the center.

  "We'll prepare for the worst in any case," the skipper said and took a sip from the mug. "And that's just what we can expect. The worst."

  "I'll tell sick bay to get ready to take in the marines," Number One grinned and departed.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  LOAD OUT

  The weather was building offshore. The beach house was whistling and humming as the wind found every crack and gap in the slapdash construction. The grass all around hissed as it was flattened and brushed together. Out on the water the chop was growing higher, the surface dappled with white caps. The rain was coming in drenching mists that moved over the house varying in strength as though in cadence with the surf. The low sky hid the noon sun turning the day to twilight.

  Chief Warrant Officer Doug Bannion arrived at the beach house in a battered old Bronco pulling a flat bed trailer. It was piled with cargo covered over with a tarp and dogged down tight with cords. He splashed through the growing pool of water that was already covering the road.

  Daneker and Davies met him and together they shifted the contents of the trailer to the hold of the Lolita resting in the lee of the house on its own trailer. This gear was the load-out; the hardware essential for the mission that the team had planned with the help of the two old salts from Special Boats.

  "Where is everyone?" Bannion asked.

  "They went for a run," Ernest Davies said and dogged the watertight hatch over the hold.

  "The waiting is the hard part," Bill Daneker said. "We reconned the site yesterday. They've been ready to jump since then."

  "Was that advisable?" Bannion said. "Letting a bunch of gringos go on a jog in the middle of a covert operation?"

  "The beach is empty for miles with this storm warning," Davies said. "No one will see them. So they're running it off."

  "The spook?"

  "Freeman went on the run with them," Davies grinned. "He's the squirreliest of all. The guy tries to hide it but he looks like he's about to climb out of his own skin."

  Bannion fell silent and turned to walk to the house. Daneker and Davies shared a look. Bannion had earned the name "Priest." Maybe it should have been "Monk." The guy never said more than was necessary. And even the two old school SEALs felt like they'd done something Bannion didn't approve of when he was around.

  "I'm going with you," Bannion said to the assembled team. They were back from a twenty mile run and gathered in the open first floor room. Fresh sweat stood on their skin and all they wanted was a shower. There was a quiet edge to Bannion's voice that made them come in out of the wind to listen up. They sipped water and waited for more.

  "Was this your idea, Chief?" Manny said.

  "It comes from the admiral," Bannion said. "But I concur. You're one man down. You'll need the gun."

  "Any other changes, sir?" Flame said.

  "This isn't a pissing match," Bannion said and locked eyes with Flame.

  "Never said it was, sir," Flame said and returned the steady gaze.

  "The mission goes as you and Boats planned it," Bannion said. "I'm not here as a ramrod. I'm just an extra hand. You men are in control and it's your mission. There're too many unknowns here to throw in last minute variations. Don't look to me for orders. And we can drop the 'sir' shit immediately."

  "What do we call you?" Chili said.

  "Priest will do."

  The screen door banged open and the group turned to see Blair Freeman step into the house. His face was red and his t-shirt and shorts were wringing with sweat. He blew out air and sucked it in as he bent to place his hands on his knees.

  "What," he said between breaths, "did I miss?"

  The team reviewed the most recent satellite images of Puerto Secreto in the shelter of the house. The shots were twelve years old and showed that nothing had really changed. The cameras aboard the agency satellite had the ability to cut through the dense cloud cover spreading over the region. This degraded the images but they were clear enough; high contrast pictures as well as infrared thermals.

  "The census places twenty-three personnel on site as of four this morning," Blair said. "A mudslide slammed shut the service road—the only way in and out of the place is about two miles from the site. And with this weather closing in we can expect that number to hold."

  "There's a heat bloom here," Manny said and laid a finger on the screen showing an amorphous red-orange cloud showing in one of the boathouses.

  "That would be a motor," Blair said. "That means they have one of the diesel engines mounted in one of their toy submarines and it's functioning."

  "Some toy," Flame said.

  "Is it a test or are they making to depart?" Pig said.

  "Our estimates based on materials and construction time don't allow for a new, operational craft put together by this time," Bill Daneker put in. "It's less than two weeks since their last sub bomb went pop."

  "The languages spoken on site give us a picture of who might be who," Blair said. "We picked up Farsi, Persian, Arabic and Spanish."

  "You have audio?" Manny said. "Our sats pick up sound now?"

  "It's a highly classified capability that I'm not at liberty to share right now," Blair said defensively. "It's like a magic trick. If you knew the secret you'd be underwhelmed."

  "Whatever," Manny shrugged. "There's Spanish being spoken. That means they're using locals for laborers or muscle, right?"

  "Our rough, very rough, estimate is fifty/fifty locals to terror tourists," Blair said. "But they're all down with the program."

  "Free fire zone, then" Chili said evenly. "A straight-up gunfight."

  "And intel," Blair added. "The agency would really like to know what these assholes chose as their intended target."

  The rain was a steady drizzle as the team laid out the mission gear.

  They'd be bringing their own M4s, side arms and body armor along. They had det packs, frags, comm gear, night vision and flash-bangs enough. Same for ammo.

  What Bannion brought them on the trailer were five Diver Propulsion Vehicles; bullet-shaped electric motorized devices that would pull them through the water at a steady 5 mph. The DPVs were custom jobs built for the SEALs. They were larger than commercial models with greater towing capacity and extended range. These would allow them to come in from the sea at a greater distance from their insertion point than swimming would allow. They'd get in faster and out faster and reserve their strength for the fight. It also let them move over a long distance beneath the water surface carrying a full mission load.

  In addition were five LARV Draeger rebreathers. These were closed-system breathing devices that would provide the SEALs with a steady oxygen supply for the transit. The LARVs were designed for shallow dives and good for the long haul. This was especially true of the enhanced models assigned only to the units. They had the capability to cruise along at a depth of ten feet, invisible to anyone looking out over the water. Not a bubble, not a ripple to betray their passage.

  The team wore body armor over black sleeveless shirts and BDUs made of quick dry fabrics. They would change from flippers to boat shoes once on target. It was travelling way light for them but they were anticipating minimum exposure time. Armor, weapons and ammo would be carried as cargo on the DPVs until they were in the target area. They couldn't wear them in transit as the combat gear made them heavy as stones. Let go of the handle and their weapons and armor would drag them to the bottom. They'd practiced strapping on and shucking off gear in exercises during BUDs and SEAL training and could be in or out of their armor and ammo in seconds in total darkness. But wet insertions were always treacherous and no matter how much anyone practiced for calamity something could always go wrong in the black water.