The team tested the DPV motors and did some minor maintenance to tune them up. The batteries were charged to the max and levels checked. They made sure the LARVs were charged with oxygen and all of the connections, hoses and valves were solid and the breathing bags were intact with no worn seams or holes. They pre-adjusted the straps and D-rings for themselves after which they each wrote their names on their own oxygen cylinders in grease pencil to avoid confusion.

  They followed this up by stripping and oiling their weapons and encasing them in plastic seals for the ride. Their ammo magazines were loaded by their own hands and sealed in plastic as well. All was secured and stowed below in the Lolita once more for mission start in a few hours.

  It all ate up time as the real dark closed in. The sky was growing dim as the clouds lowered and bunched up ahead of the storm making for an early dusk.

  The team left the boat on its trailer and went into the beach house for a calorie intense meal; mostly liquid and packed with fat and carb calories and heavy with grams of protein. They'd burn about six thousand calories each and needed the fuel for the long haul. There'd be no snack time or time-outs on mission.

  The wind was coming in blasts now and each gust made the shutters hammer against the walls. Flute-like sounds came from under the roof tiles. The glass quaked in the window frames.

  "What are they calling this one?" Chili said as he looked out a spattered window at ranks of swells racing for the sand.

  "We're a couple of months away from the season," Bill Daneker said. "This is an unnamed tropical storm."

  "Like us," Chili said and turned to the others with a grin. "We're an unnamed storm."

  The team, along with Blair Freeman, was aboard the Lolita as the trailer was backed down the cracked asphalt slip in the mini-marina five miles down the shore road from the beach house. It was full dark now and not a soul in sight. The Bronco ditched a few times. The road was covered over with water in places and the team would climb out to give a shove to get the wheels free.

  The docks at the marina were empty. The boats' owners, or the marina workers, had moved them all to the center of the inlet and anchored them there in a row to ride out the storm. They sat bobbing on the swells, slung with old tires down their gunwales and moored fifty feet apart or more.

  Ernie Davies maneuvered the Bronco back with Daneker providing guidance. Once the keel was full in the water, the two Boats undid the lines and manually shoved the boat adrift from the trailer bed. They waded in either side of the bow until they were at chest height and sure the boat was clear of the sand.

  Manny let down a ladder and the two Boats climbed aboard with help from the team. The Lolita was shifting port to starboard and back again in the violent storm surge current. Daneker and Davies were aboard and took the helm from Priest. They steered the yacht seaward, aiming the prow into wind to climb up and over the endless rows of rising waves coming inland with greater and greater frequency. The bow came out of the water as it crested the larger swells. The big propellers whined in open air as the stern rose clear of the crest before beginning the slide down the windward face. The whole time the wind drove a pelting rain over the boat in a steady downpour.

  "The team was forced to hang on tight on the open deck. Flame and Pig braced themselves on a bench on the port side aft.

  "I want you to know, that if something happens—" Flame started.

  "Don't want to hear that shit, bro," Pig called back over the wind and engine roar. "Bad karma. We don't talk about Fight Club."

  "Just want you to know that something happens my half of the money is yours."

  "I told you I don't need to hear that."

  "It's only fair, man," Flame was insistent and gripped Pig's arm as they leaned forward in anticipation of the Lolita climbing another wave front. "What's mine is yours. Worst case scenario."

  "And where is the check?" Pig said.

  "I put it in a safe deposit box at the credit union back at Coronado."

  "In your name?"

  "Yeah," Flame said and paused to contemplate.

  "So, if anything happens to you I'm fucked," Pig said and punched Flame in the arm hard enough to slide the other man down the rain slick bench.

  "Well, I guess you'd better watch out for my ass then," Flame said with a grin and renewed his grip on a pitted chromed rail when the boat took a hop.

  "When don't I?" Pig shook his head.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  OPERATION OPENHAND

  The patrol boat was anchored fore and aft at the center of the inlet. The Mexican coasties left it out there in deeper water to ride out the storm. It was moored with its bow facing the surge two hundred meters off their dock. The hatches were dogged and the bridge covered over with plywood and tarps to protect the glass canopy. The fifty caliber deck gun had been removed from its pintel mount. The forty foot craft was now at the mercy of the nameless tropical depression.

  Manny and Flame flippered up to the stern where they were partly sheltered from the current rushing into the bay. The surge was cresting and the anchor chains were taut. The boat bobbed on the surface over their heads. The boat was rising and falling in the tidal rush and fighting the weight of the anchors to free itself and join the inland bound current. The two SEALs timed their approach to avoid being struck by the tons of mass swinging above them.

  They placed limpet charges just below the water line on the aft panel. Two either side. They wound the timers and swam away to rejoin the three team members waiting for them in the center of the channel.

  One hundred and eighty seconds later the limpets went off with a pair of muffled coughs that would never be heard over the gale force winds pounding the shore. In the unlikely event that there were coasties aboard the anchored craft, the shaped explosions would be mistaken for debris striking the hull.

  The limpets each created a pair of holes the size of closed fists. Enough to allow water to rush in and flood the engine room. Within an hour or more the boat would be stern down and inoperable. Anyone on shore who saw it sink would blame the storm. Any outside intervention with the team's evac was now negated. The coasties were beached and would probably never know by whom. Any other coastal patrol units were either similarly berthed or moved to calmer waters.

  The team motored into Puerto Secreto in single file. Each man wore a glow stick on a lanyard around his right ankle. It provided a guide through the gloom of the water but would be invisible from the surface. Chili took point and led them down the pipeline where the land closed in before the turn. The powerful DPVs pulled them into the dark.

  The surge was changing the inlet into an enormous funnel. The water was driven from the sea by hundred mile per hour plus gusts and swamping the beaches to either side. The dogleg chokepoint was the barrel of the funnel and the ocean's fury was drawn in and concentrated there with brutal force. The SEALs hardly needed the power of their DPVs to carry them forward as the current built and rushed them toward their destination within the sound. They cut power to the motors to save battery life. They'd need the power to fight this same current on the way out. All they needed to do was keep the snub-nosed vehicles pointed forward and keep the angle of their bodies arrow-straight to reduce resistance. The sea and the DPVs' negative buoyancy would do the rest, carrying them inland along with billions of tons of water, sand and debris. The danger was being turned around in the swift current and driven into an obstacle or losing orientation. They also needed to dodge any detritus brought along by the storm's force. Pig glanced up as a shadow passed over them. It was the wooden keel of a fishing smack partly submerged and careening bow to stern, helpless in the jaws of the gale. It spun just a few feet above them and was carried away by the faster water streaming on the surface.

  They were buffeted side to side as the speed of the rush increased and the water before them eddied where the channel turned on its way into the sound. Each SEAL powered up his DPV to help them stay in the middle of the stream and away from the rocks and pilings along either shore. It was threading a needle without touching either side.

  Bit by bit the speed of the water slowed as they made it through the chute and entered the calmer water of the sheltered sound. The floor of the sound rose up to meet them as the depth decreased. Vegetation waved back and forth beneath them. The storm was churning the water trapped here between the land and the sea.

  Chili veered left and the team followed him to the north shore of the sound where the compound lay. On the way they passed anchor chains swaying in the troughs and swells. Above were the aluminum hulls of two boats. These were light, shallow draft boats that Manny and Flame saw on their recon. They were moored here to prevent them smashing to wreckage against the docks. The team was close to target. The concrete pier would be ahead.

  Chili was the first to find the pier and he felt his way along the long barnacle encrusted wall to where it met the retaining wall that ran before the narrow wharf. Above, the barracks lined the wharf across a lane. A metal ladder thick with rust was mounted to the dock wall. Chili shucked out of his rebreather and motioned to the others to hold back. He climbed the ladder toward the surface shimmering above.

  His raised his head above the chop just enough to clear his ears and mouth. The water lapped and surged along the retaining wall. The surge was at ten feet and the bowl of the sound was filled to near capacity. There was only one more ladder rung up to the lip of the retaining wall. He clung to that rung and listened hard. The only sounds were the wind beating the trees together and the water slapping along the pier as it heaved and sometimes rose over the cracked concrete. A stiff wind whipped water sideways to batter him. The whole surface was alive with the heavy downpour. He couldn't make out any light sources over the edge of the wall. Maybe the generators were dead. That would save the team a step if it were true. He sniffed the air but all he could smell was salt off the churning water and the stink of oil and rust that was anywhere that boats were docked.

  He raised his eyes over the edge of the wall. Through the rain he saw the dark shapes of the row of low block buildings. There was a muddy glow of light from the windows of one of them. Shed Three. The generator was still operable and someone was awake. Maybe they were all awake. It would be hard to sleep through a storm like this. Chili remembered staying up nights as a kid in Pensacola waiting out hurricanes. It was fun then. Playing board games by candlelight and listening to his mom and dad tell stories.

  They'd need to take the generator out. Priority.

  He lowered himself back down into the murky water and found the team was finished stowing the DPVs and freeing their equipment. They'd filled the detachable ballast tanks on the DPVs and they'd sunk to the floor of the sound marked by an inflatable orange buoy on a line. They left the glow sticks with the machines as well. Manny handed over his rebreather and Chili undid the air hose to sip air without reattaching the mask. He gave the team a double-thumbs up. The way ahead was clear. No surprises.

  For now.

  Each SEAL took a lungful of air and exchanged their rebreathers and flippers for armor, ammo and boat shoes. Manny took the lead up the ladder; one hand clutched the pistol grip of his M4 through the plastic seal that kept it watertight. He was up and out of the water and the other four men followed close behind breaking into two groups to cross the gravel lane atop the wharf and find the shadows between the one-level block structures.

  Manny and Flame would take point and lead the team east and south around the shore of the sound toward their prime target: the big boathouses and whatever and whoever they found inside. Their first task was the generator. They wanted their targets blind.

  Chili, Pig and Priest would follow behind and take care of any personnel they came across. The count was twenty three and they'd tick them all off down to zero.

  Once in the dark, they tore away the plastic covering their rifles and adjusted night vision gear to their heads. The rain-mottled dark leapt into sudden high contrast daylight. They each wiped rain water from the lens and the wet still crazed the enhanced light image. But they'd see better through the gloom and downpour than the men they were after. An edge was an edge and you took it and were grateful.

  Each man also wore a waterproofed bone conductive headset that would allow them constant communication with one another over short range. Once out of the water they would be linked in to one another throughout the mission. They would stay with Spanish in case anyone was monitoring radio traffic. It was likely they'd be up against some Iranian navy personnel. These guys would be a little frostier than the kind of jihad dickhead they were used to gunfighting with.

  Manny and Flame, guns up, made their way through the dark at the back of the barracks houses toward the diesel stink and thump-thump-thump of the generator shack. They found a big Kubota model chugging away and cut the power before slicing through the fuel lines with their combat knives.

  Voices in Spanish from the once-lit room of the structure designated Shed Three. Chili and Pig were through the screen door at the front of the building with suppressed Sig Sauers held before them. Priest covered from outside with his rifle. Six men in the room. Unarmed and dressed only in skivvies. A few stumbled forward from a card table to find the light switch. The rest remained where they were and offered encouragement and insults.

  It was a turkey shoot. The men were bat-blind and became only mildly uneasy at the repeated coughs of pistol discharges and sudden flashes of muted light. The last of them grew alarmed when his nostrils filled with the chemical odor of gunsmoke. Too late, asshat. He only half rose from his chair when Pig sat him back down with a triple tap to the chest, neck and head.

  Six down. Seventeen left to check off the list.

  Priest led the way into the next two houses but they found only one occupant. A man sound asleep with a Spanish language titty magazine laying open on his crotch. Pig arrived in time to see Priest slam the sleeper twice in the temple with the hard Rynex buttplate of his rifle. He followed up by drawing the blade of that Fairbain across the sleeper's femoral artery and leaving him to bleed out.

  Barracks clear. Sixteen targets. Mostly locals. Maybe all locals. That meant the professional terrorists were still ahead. That meant they were probably at the boathouses and wide awake. That meant it was going to be a gunfight.

  Outside, Manny and Flame dropped behind the cover of a five hundred gallon fuel tank. They heard voices coming through the rain from the direction of the boathouses fifty yards away along the eastern shore of the sound.

  The big fuel tank rested on a poured concrete pad and Manny crept on all fours to the edge. He laid his head on the ground to take a snap peek. Two men were rushing along a pathway that ran between the water and the trees. One stumbled in a deep puddle and cursed in Farsi. They were coming to see why the lights had gone out. Both were drenched, their shirts and shorts clung to them. They high-stepped with shoulders hunched. Neither was armed.

  The SEALs let the men move past the big tank toward the generator shack. Manny and Flame rushed them from behind. Manny has his man in a chokehold inside of a second and jerked him off his feet. Manny drove the point of his dagger in and up where the back of the skull joined the spine. A twist and a jerk and the man turned to lifeless flesh as all brain function ceased. Manny dropped the once-living sack to the ground to see Flame crouched over his own man wiping the blade of his knife clean on the man's shirt. Flame's teeth flashed white in the grainy light.

  "Dos mas eliminado," Manny said low.

  "La cuenta es nueve." Flame's voice in their headsets.

  Nine down. Fourteen to go.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  THE INNER CIRCLE

  It was like breaking up with a boyfriend back in college only with a lot more residual anger.

  Dana was in slippers and bathrobe and comforting herself with television and cookie dough ice cream. She couldn't take her mind off of getting ambushed by Williams like that. She felt bad for Eric too. She ran and re-ran scenarios in her head where she changed the outcome but none of them were realistic.

  There were some assholes on the TV getting all worked up about bidding on storage bins. She couldn't even follow it. Her mind kept going over how she got snookered and what would happen with Operation Openhand without her advice and supervision. Would the POTUS decide to pass on it? Who would step up?

  She couldn't get comfortable in her apartment either. With her long hours and all of her time spent at Langley and at Fort Meade and the Whitehouse and all the commuting between in her car, she was a stranger here. Dana felt like she'd be more at home in the Ikea showroom where she bought all her furniture.

  The buzzer at her door rang just as she was spooning up the last soupy remains of the Ben and Jerry's. It was after two in the morning.

  A click of the remote brought up an HD image of the area before her door. A square-jawed Navy CPO in crisp suntans and his cover under his arm waited in the hall.

  "Yes?" she said, opening the door only enough not to reveal the tatty robe her mom bought her way back when she went off to Hillsdale.

  "Ms. Dana Morton?" the Chief said.

  "That's me."

  "The admiral sent me for you."

  She pulled the dark suit she saved for funerals from the closet, brushed her hair back, slipped into low heeled pumps and was out the door in five minutes.

  The drive to Arlington was quiet. The CPO sat in the back seat with her and made a pretense of looking at the passing scenery. At the Pentagon he escorted her down Corridor 2 to a bank of elevators on the C Ring. They descended to a level where a block walled corridor lined with steel doors ended at a single elevator which opened to disgorge Admiral Dorrance.

  "She give you any trouble, Chief?"

  "No, sir," the CPO saluted smartly.

  "That will be all." The admiral held a hand before the infrared beam and invited Dana aboard.

  The elevator dropped another level or three and emptied out into what Dana knew to be the NSWMAC: Navy Special Warfare Mission Analysis Center. The boys called it the Chart Room.