Ghost Ship

“No. There was an explosion on board. The aircraft lost a lot of altitude, straightened out, rose for a short while, and then plummeted into the Baltic Sea.”

Tom’s choked down the horror. He was crestfallen. “Sam’s dead?” he whispered.

Elise bit her lower lip. “We don’t know yet. It just happened a couple minutes ago. Before the aircraft hit the water, local radar stations picked up multiple objects, potentially the size of people falling. Later, some of those objects had recorded canopy openings consistent with the size and shape of parachutes.”

Tom’s voice was hopeful. “Do we know if Sam Reilly was among them?”

Elise suppressed a smile. “You’ve been watching too many movies. The satellites were tracking the aircraft, not zooming into the faces of free-falling bodies from it. As for the radar, the quality’s exceptional given the distance, but nowhere near good enough to pick up the individual features of human faces.”

Tom said, “But it’s possible, he survived?”

“Yes. More than that. My guess is that Sam was responsible for the explosion. One thing’s for certain, there were a number of people who successfully deployed their parachutes. Four in total. We don’t know how many people were on board, but I’d be surprised if an operation like this had more than ten members. It looks like almost half of those survived. I’m pretty confident in those odds that Sam was one of the lucky ones.”

The helicopter descended and the black Eurocopter disappeared into Tahila’s storage hold, removing any appearance of its existence.

Tom and Elise returned to the command center.

Matthew, the ship’s skipper met his eye. “You okay, Tom?”

Tom blinked, replying automatically, “Yeah.”

“And Genevieve?”

“We’re fine.” He stood next to Matthew, his jaw locked in defiance. “All right, Matthew, set a course.”

“Where exactly?” Matthew asked, before adding, “Elise told us she didn’t have an exact location where the C17 hit the water.”

Tom shook his head. “We’re not heading to the crash site.”

“We’re not?”

“No.”

“Then where are we heading?”

Tom grinned. “Saint Petersburg. That’s where Sam will be and it’s time for us to go get him.”

Chapter Forty-Six

Pentagon, Washington, D.C.

Craig Martin, the director of the CIA watched the secretary of defense throw the phone down, and knew he was in trouble.

Her eyes flashed anger at him. “What the hell went wrong?”

Martin braced for the expected onslaught. “We’re not sure, ma’am. Someone hijacked the plane while it was on the tarmac and the SEAL team was away. Presumably, they killed the pilots and took command of our aircraft.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And our pilots?”

“We have to assume they were murdered.”

She closed her eyes, took a breath, and let that thought sink in. The problem with making a deal with the devil was that eventually, the devil always came to collect. When that happened, people got hurt — and in their line of work, they made plenty of deals with the devil. The question wasn’t a matter of whether or not to make the deal, but trying to choose which ones to refuse.

“All right,” she said, opening her eyes, ready to do battle again. “And our team on the ground… what happened to them?”

“The SEALs are still alive, although two have non-life-threatening injuries.”

“Good. That’s something at least.”

Martin set his jaw firm. “What are we going to tell the press?”

The secretary of defense looked startled at the concept of accepting ownership of any of their problems. “What about?”

“The C17 we lost.”

The secretary stepped closer to him. Keeping her voice low and cold, she said, “You told me it was a wet team, with no links back to our government?”

“It was. But we just lost the Boeing C17.”

She shrugged. “Not our problem. It wasn’t ours.”

The director said, “Sure, but the fact remains the American tax payers are now short a 250-million-dollar aircraft… I’m afraid they’re probably going to want that back.”

“Then I suggest you find a way to retrieve it.”

“That won’t be possible, ma’am.”

“What are you talking about? It’s our damned plane. We have its codes and its inbuilt GPS units must make it pretty hard to hide. So, we send another team in, and retrieve it by force.” Her eyes lit with fiery determination. “We’re the goddamned United States Defense Force… when a bully picks a fight, we sure as hell don’t back down.”

“Agreed, ma’am… only in this case, it’s impossible.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because about ten minutes ago, there was an explosion on board the C17 somewhere over Russia. The aircraft lost altitude and crashed into the Baltic Sea.”

She cursed. “You’d better pray it broke up into a million pieces on impact and there’s nothing to tie the aircraft to us, or our ruined careers will be the least of our troubles!”

“Understood, ma’am.”

Craig Martin accepted his dismissal.

He returned to his office, picked up a secure line, and called the devil.

Without preamble, Martin said, “You assured me you had this under control!”