Primary Threat

He knew his history. He had studied skilled, prolific killers from past wars. Audie Murphy in World War II. Bloody Bill Anderson during the American Civil War. Much of what drove those guys was rage.

In his mind’s eye, he could see Audie Murphy at Colmar, standing alone atop a burning tank killer, mowing down dozens of Germans with a .50 caliber machine gun, while taking enemy fire the entire time.

Murphy, Newsam, and Stone had all taken Dexies earlier. Murphy had been tired and taken two. They were kicking in hard right now. He could feel his heart beginning to pound and his breathing pick up. Items inside this dome began to jump out at him in exquisite detail. He stifled an urge to stand up and do a bunch of jumping jacks.

He could kill someone right now, a lot of someones. And Cayman Island was far away, out of reach for the moment. Stone and Newsam had just sent themselves off with the underwater version of the Donner Party, a frozen suicide mission that could only end in disaster. And there were a bunch of terrorists out there who had already killed innocent people. The men holding that oil rig were bad guys, and no one was going to be bothered all that much if they died.

Murphy’s mind began to race along. Swann and Trudy had been banished to their own office, and that was not necessarily a bad thing. They were both wizards with technology. If their communications weren’t quarantined… a big if, but…

“Murph? What do you want to do?”

Murphy’s eyes were shooting laser beams. His hands could throw flaming fireballs. He was unstoppable right now, the way he’d always been. All these years in combat, and he’d hardly ever seen a scratch. It was amazing how things came together.

“I want a boat,” he said, without realizing he would say that. “I want weapons, I want drone support, and I want guidance across the storm to that oil rig.”

He paused, his mind moving so fast now, pure images, that he could barely articulate the thoughts in words.

“I want to get in the game.”

* * *

Luke jumped into the dark hole.

He dropped through a thin sheen of ice into a surreal underwater world. In an instant, the utilitarian, almost locker-room like environment of the dome was gone, replaced by this…

The sea was dark blue, disappearing into the black void below him. Above his head, the ice was a stark bluish white, with glowing rectangles of bright white light marking where the domes were, where the holes had been cut through the ice.

It was an alien place.

He could be an astronaut sailing weightless through deep space.

The most pressing thing he noticed was the cold. It wasn’t the frigid cold of jumping into the ocean during late autumn. It didn’t penetrate him. The dry suit was perfectly effective at keeping out the ice water that would kill him in moments.

In that sense, he wasn’t cold. But he could feel the cold all around him, against the outside of the thick neoprene. His skin felt cold. It was if the cold was alive, and trying to burrow its way in to reach him. If it found a way, he would die down here. It was just that simple.

The only sound he could hear was his own breathing, loud in his ears. He noticed it was fast and shallow, and he concentrated on slowing it down and deepening it. Shallow breathing was the beginning of panic. Panic made you lose your head. In a place like this, it would make you lose your life.

Relax.

Luke put his cylindrical, torpedo-like delivery vehicle into gear, and surged gently forward.

Ahead, the group of divers moved, their headlamps lighting up the dark, casting eerie shadows. Luke half expected a giant shark, a prehistoric megalodon, to suddenly appear out of the darkness in front of them.

As they left the camp behind, he noticed the sea was moving, roiling, and the thick ice ceiling above their heads rippled and surged like land under the effect of a powerful earthquake. He and Ed moved side by side, traveling through the heavy currents, the diver delivery vehicles in their hands doing most of the work.

Luke felt himself being pushed around, he felt the water’s attempts to turn him upside down, or send him reeling into Ed, but he rolled with it and pushed on.

He glanced at Ed. Ed had good trim, his body nearly horizontal, pitched forward just a touch, his head up. Luke could not see Ed’s face beneath his helmet. The effect was alienating. Ed could be an imposter, or a machine.

Murmured voices started to come through the helmet radio. Luke could barely hear them, and couldn’t make out what they said. The sound of his breathing apparatus was much louder than the radio. It was going to be hard to communicate.

He glanced back. The lights penetrating into the darkness from above were fading into the distance. They had already left the base camp behind.

Time entered a strange sort of fugue state. He glanced at his watch. He had set the mission timer just before he had dropped into the water. It had clocked a little over ten minutes since that moment.

They passed the edge of the ice sheet and the ceiling above them became dark, even black, punctuated with moving blocks of ice. Everything went dark now, lit only by their headlamps, and the headlamps ahead of them.

They were already close, and it had happened much faster than he expected.

Steady… steady.

He passed a small device, glowing green in the darkness. It was a metal box, perhaps ten meters to his right. At a guess, it was a meter tall and half a meter wide. There were controls of various kinds along one side. It was small enough and far away enough that he almost didn’t see it at all.

It was a robot, what Luke knew as a remotely operated underwater vehicle, or ROV. It was attached to a thick yellow tether that disappeared into the black distance to the north. The tether was probably its primary electricity source. It probably also contained the wires that controlled it, and through which it sent data back to… where?

It had a large round eye, likely the lens of a camera.

Hadn’t anyone else noticed this thing?

He tried to make a turn in that direction, but his momentum carried him past before he could get anywhere near it. Ed turned to look at him. Luke tried to point to the ROV, but it was well behind him now, and the suit and the equipment were too bulky.

They should go back, grab that thing, and at least inspect it. No one said anything about remote controlled cameras being deployed on this mission. It was sending images to someone.

They needed to cut that tether.

The murmuring inside his helmet grew louder now, but somehow he still couldn’t make out the words. One by one, the headlamps ahead of him winked out, ushering in total darkness.

The first commandos were reaching the shoreline.

Luke glanced back one last time. The lights of the camp were far away, like stars in the night sky. If you got lost, you were supposed to make for those.

The green robot drifted, already far behind, watching him. At this distance, it could be a nothing more than a piece of green bioluminescence.

He reached up to turn off his headlamp. To his left, Ed’s light winked out.

And that’s when the screaming started.

* * *

Murphy hated everyone.

He realized the truth of it, he was raging, and he let that rage take him. It was a cold, sick world, and it deserved nothing less than his complete disdain. Disdain and hate. Hate guided him. Hate nourished and sustained him. Hate protected him from harm.

You couldn’t kill officious military dinks that kicked you out of meetings and mocked you with their eyes. That was against the rules. That would land you in jail. But you could kill the enemy.

He steered the small Navy riverine boat through the storm. The boat was not built for Arctic waters, but it would do for one mad kamikaze run.

It was powered by two big 440 brake horsepower twin diesel engines. The hull was aluminum with plate armor. The collars were high-strength solid cell foam. The icy swells here were huge, crashing over the bow. He rammed the boat through chunks of ice, making vicious ripping sounds every time he did. The wind screamed in his ears.

He was in the cockpit, behind an armored wall. A smoke grenade launcher and a big .50 caliber chain gun were mounted up in the bow, ten feet in front of him. The chain gun would rip an armored vehicle to shreds, but he had no idea if it was going to work—it was freezing out here, and salty, frozen water was spraying all over the place. Moreover, this was not a one-man boat—he’d have to ditch the cockpit to get to the gun.

The boat’s running lights were off, and he raced through absolute darkness. He wore night-vision goggles, but the green world they showed gave him nothing. Monster waves, icy black water, and white foam against black sky. He was running blind into the fury of the storm.

He slid down the face of a swell, the boat crashing into the water at the bottom as if he was on a log flume ride. Boats sometimes came down steep swells and dove straight underwater, never seen again. He knew that. He didn’t want to think about it.

“Swann!” he screamed into the darkness. “Where am I?”

This thing was outfitted with radar, depth sounder, GPS, VHF tactical radio, and a host of other sensors and processing systems, but Murphy could barely steer the boat, never mind make sense of all the data coming in. Swann was supposedly tracking him and his relationship to the oil rig.

A voice crackled in his headset.

“Swann!”

“Go north!” he heard the voice shout. “North by northeast. You’re being pushed to the south.”

Murphy checked the compass. He could barely see it. He turned the boat’s wheel to the left a bit, aligning himself more to the north. He had no idea where he was going. Something could loom up right in front of him, he could crash into it, and never see it.

He had no plan. No one knew he was coming, not even his own guys. Swann and Trudy were the only ones who knew he had taken this boat. They were the only ones who knew he had quickly shrugged into body armor, and loaded the boat with weapons and ammo. They were the only ones who knew where he was at all. He didn’t even know where he was.

And he almost didn’t care.

He didn’t care whose side he was on.

He was empty, hollowed out.

He was the Dexedrine speaking, and the adrenaline.

There were terrorists out there, bad guys, and he was the good guy. He was the cowboy and they were the Indians. He was the cop, and they were the robbers. They were the FBI, and he was John Dillinger. They were Batman and he was the Joker. He was Superman and they were… whoever.

It didn’t matter who was who and what was what.

They were the other team, and he was going to ram this boat right down their throats. If he lived, he lived. If he died, he died. This is how he had always gone into combat, and he had always come out the other side. Total confidence.

He didn’t care about life very much, his or anyone else’s.

He was dead inside.

This. These moments. This was when he was alive.

“East!” Swann shouted. “Straight east!”

Murphy gently steered to the right.

“How far?” he shouted.

“One minute!”

A strange shiver ran through Murphy. He was freezing. Hell, he was practically frozen solid. Even in coveralls, a big parka, thick gloves, a hat, and his face covered, he was frozen. His clothes were drenched. He was shivering, maybe from the cold, maybe from the newest surge of adrenaline.

This was the game. This was it.

Right here. It was coming.

He gave the boat even more throttle. He peered into the gloom. The storm surged around him. He steadied his legs and gripped the wheel as the boat got knocked from side to side.

Now, he could just see some lights out there. And he could hear something.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

It was shooting.

“Slow down!” Swann screamed. “You’re about to hit land!”

In front of Murphy, bright lights suddenly appeared.

He was moving fast. Too fast. Swann was right. The shoreline was RIGHT THERE.

But the boat was designed for beach landings.

There was no way to stop anyway. Murphy gave the throttle everything and braced for impact.

* * *

A dead man floated in the water above Luke’s head.

Luke stared at the man. He was a Navy SEAL in full gear, shot as he tried to climb out of the water. He drifted this way and that, turning over like seaweed in the surging currents. His arms and legs waved randomly, like overcooked spaghetti.

He sank toward Luke.

Blood drifted out from multiple holes in the man’s body and stained the water near him red. Luke knew the bleeding wouldn’t last long—now that the man’s dry suit was cut open and he was exposed to the cold, he was going to freeze very quickly.

Blinding white light shone down from above. A moment ago, land-based klieg lights had come on, illuminating the water. The SEALs were exposed, and it didn’t look like anyone had made it up out of the water yet.

Forget about getting the dry suits off. Forget about getting the weapons out of their weather-proof bags. Forget about getting oriented and taking the initiative. Forget about a surprise attack.

The enemy wasn’t surprised at all. They were positioned up there, firing down into the water.

They knew the SEALs were coming. They had anticipated an underwater assault. The image flashed through Luke’s mind again—that robot, with an embedded camera, glowing green in the dark water.

It was an ambush. It was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Luke, twenty meters below the surface, saw bullets penetrate the icy water above his head, then lose momentum as they approached.

Inside Luke’s headset, someone shrieked.

Ed was still beside him. He pushed Ed hard. Ed turned to look, and Luke pointed backwards and down. Deeper. They needed to retreat and go deeper. In a moment, those guys up top were going to notice the bullets weren’t reaching their targets, and they were going to start firing heavier, more powerful guns.

“Abort!” someone else shouted in Luke’s helmet. It was the first time a message came through clearly. “Abort!”

* * *

The boat slid up onto the island and across the icy ground.

The deceleration was instant. The sound of metal scraping rock was awful. Murphy was thrown like a rag doll. He flew over the control console and out of the cockpit. His legs caught on the console and flipped him upside down.

He went head over heels and landed on his back in the bow of the boat. His head banged off the aluminum flooring. BONG. His ears started ringing instantly. Tubular bells. His night-vision goggles were gone.

He gasped for air. The impact had knocked the wind out of him.

No time for that.

He groaned, pushed himself up and lurched like Frankenstein for the chain gun.

He stood, taking in a view of the battlefield.

At least twenty men were across from him, dressed in dark clothes and wearing black headgear and masks against the cold. Giant spotlights were shining down from ten-foot-high mounts. The men in black stood and kneeled in the freezing rain, firing guns into the water—the water where the Navy SEALs probably were.

That’s what the big spotlights were for—to give them targets in the water. The lights probably also served to blind the swimmers and deny them targets, if any of them could even get their guns out.

The men in black began to turn toward Murphy. They almost seemed to be moving in slow motion. In another second, they were going to start shooting him full of holes.

Murphy gripped the heavy gun in front of him with both hands.

His finger found the trigger mechanism.

Please work.

He opened up. DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH came the metallic sound of bullets firing. He easily rode the recoil of the mounted gun. Spent shells fell to the bottom of the boat, tinkling like jingle bells.

Murphy hosed the men down. He hit four or five with his first burst.

They didn’t fall as they were shot. They came apart like rag dolls, the bullets ripping through them. Now the others were running, seeking cover.

“Run, you monkeys,” he said.

A sound came.

WHOOOOOOOOSSSSHH.

A rocket flew past him. His entire body jerked in response.

Just missed. He hadn’t even seen it coming. It hit somewhere in the water behind him. He didn’t hear an explosion, but he saw an orange and yellow flash go up.

How did he see that out of the corner of his eye?

No. He must have eyes in the back of his head.

His ammunition belt was already running down. He didn’t have a backup.

Running out of ammo was a problem. That RPG was also a problem—there were going to be more. Already, the men were regrouping out there and taking up firing positions facing Murphy. He reached with his left hand and fired a smoke grenade.

Then he dropped to the floor of the boat.

A second later, rounds started hitting the armored plating of the boat. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk…

Bullets whistled overhead.

He looked up at the trigger of the chain gun. He still had some rounds left, but if he tried to reach his hand up….

WHOOOOSSSHHH.

Another rocket went by. Whoever had the rocket launcher was a lousy shot.

Thank God.

Murphy had a pistol on him. He pulled it from the holster. He crouched below the lip of the bow. The first man who appeared there was going to take a bullet in the head. After that…

But they weren’t that dumb. A grenade suddenly appeared, bouncing around inside the front of the boat like a rubber ball. It made solid metallic BONKS as it bounced. Murphy picked it up, waited half a beat, and threw it back.

An instant later: BOOOOM.

Someone out there screamed. Dirt and ice and blood and meat rained down.

They were right there, creeping up.

Murphy’s breaths came in harsh rasps. He wasn’t gonna last. He was outmanned. He was outgunned. He couldn’t seem them—if he peeked over the side, they would take his head off. He couldn’t throw back every single grenade that came. The guy with the rocket launcher wasn’t gonna miss all night.

Murphy was gonna die right here in this boat.

His mind raced, looking for options.

“Oh God,” he said.

This might have been a mistake.

* * *

Something had changed.

At one moment, they had seemed like they were all doomed, trapped in the water, the enemy above them and firing down, machine gunning them. Now they were on the offensive again, moving forward.

Luke came bursting out of the water.

He pulled himself up onto a low frozen seawall, an icy wave breaking over him, washing him further onto land. He reached down and wrenched his flippers off, tossing them aside. It was dark. All around him, men were surging out of the water.

A few of the SEALs already had their guns out. There was firing up and down the beach. DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH.

Bodies were strewn all over the ground.

Where was the enemy? Luke couldn’t spot them.

Nearby, two Navy SEALs dragged their fallen comrade up onto land. He was shot full of holes, blood all over him. The man was not moving.

“Medic!” one of the men shouted.

Another wave crashed, spraying Luke with icy foam. A cold rain came down in sheets. It took his breath away.

There was no way around it. They were going to be wet, and cold. Luke unhooked his scuba tanks and let them drop. He pulled out his knife, opened it, and cut off the straps of his buoyancy compensator. He let that drop, too. Now he had to get out of this dry suit. It had taken him fifteen minutes to get into the damn thing.

Whoever thought all this was somehow a good idea must have been out of their minds. Either that or they knew nothing about combat. Luke glanced around. All around him were men fighting to get out from under their scuba gear.

An odd thought occurred to Luke, one he had never had before…

Just wait until I file my report.

He looked at the six-inch serrated blade of his knife. He shook his head. The hell with it. He unlocked the seal on his gloves and pulled them off. His hands would go numb quickly, he knew. He grabbed a hunk of his dry suit and pulled it away from his body. Then he slipped the knife in and started cutting.

* * *

Nothing happened.

No more grenades came. The firing stopped—at least, the firing directed at him.

Murphy still had his gun. He was still crouched in the icy rain, waiting for the enemy.

But no one came.

He peeked over the top of the armor plate, his mind recoiling from the task, fully expecting to take a sniper’s round in the head.

Nope. Nearby, there was nothing but a bunch of dead and dying men, two or three crawling across the ground, leaving a trail of blood like snails. The rest were lumps of raw, steaming meat.

Up the shoreline, men in dark scuba suits were appearing on the beach. A few of them had already taken up positions, their scuba gear still on their backs, and were lying down, suppressing fire. Murphy’s attack must have given them just enough time to come ashore. And face-to-face with Navy SEALs, the bad guys had fallen back.

In the distance, the gigantic oil rig itself loomed against the dark sky.

The SEALs were firing in that direction.

As Murphy watched, another dark scuba diver crawled up out of the icy, raging water. The man wriggled up the beach about ten feet, rolled onto his back, and began to rip himself out of his diving suit.

Another one crawled out of the ocean like a sea monster and did the same thing. As he did, a rocket came down from the rig and exploded on the beach.

BOOOOM!

It was the lights. The bad guys had evidently retreated, but those spotlights were still giving them something to shoot at.

Murphy went to the chain gun and pointed it up at the big spotlights. With a couple of brief bursts, he took them out. The SEALs flinched as the lights shattered, sparked, burst into flames, and went out. But now they were safely in darkness again.

Murphy sighed. He clambered to the back of the boat, opened the gear chest, and grabbed a shrink-wrapped MP5 from inside. His hands shook as he picked it up. The gun was heavy. Murphy’s shoulders slumped—he almost couldn’t lift the damn thing.

His whole body started to tremble.

He suppressed a sudden urge to start crying.

“Almost bought it this time,” he said. The words didn’t sound like anything. His teeth were chattering. He was very cold now, and he had almost been dead. The energy seemed to be flowing out of his body. He’d never felt quite like this before.

He looked down at himself, doing a body check. Was he hit?

No. He was just… wiped out.

He climbed over the gunwale, got low, and moved across the ice toward where the men were. He stared up at the giant oil rig, rising dozens of stories into the sky. He could see the muzzle flashes of enemy guns up there. They were shooting at them.

Just in front of Murphy, a SEAL managed to rip open his dry suit across the chest. He pulled a small handgun from inside it. He ripped the gun out of its wrapper, then turned and pointed the gun at Murphy. It was almost laughable. The whole operation had taken the guy at least ten seconds. Murphy could have killed him twenty times by now.

“Who are you?” the man said.

Murphy smiled and raised his hands in mock alarm. He was still trembling, but already beginning to feel a little better. He was cold, he was soaked to the bone, he was shaking uncontrollably, and his body hurt from the impact of crashing into land.

Admit it. You almost got killed out here.

Yeah, he admitted it. And it brought back bad memories. He had almost died before, many times, but this one had seemed especially bad. He might even have been traumatized by it. For a second, he had really thought he was a goner. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt that way before, not even with Stone that time in…

He shook that thought away. It had all been worth it tonight. These guys would have been Swiss cheese if it wasn’t for him.

“I’m an American,” he said.

* * *

“Stone!” a voice shouted.

Luke was still struggling to cut himself out of his dry suit. It was aggravating. The bad guys had pulled back, but if they hadn’t, he would have been a sitting duck in this thing. He would have practically been a baby seal, waiting to be clubbed.

“Stone!”

Luke looked up this time.

Here came… Murphy?

Murphy limped up the beach, cradling an MP5 in two gloved hands. He wore a heavy parka, black coveralls underneath. His hood was down, and he wore a thick hat of some synthetic wool-type material. His face was red and raw and exposed to the elements. But his eyes were sharp.

“What are you doing here?” Stone said.

Murphy smiled. “What do you think I’m doing here? I came here to save your asses.” He gestured at the corpses of terrorists strewn on the ground behind him.

“See all the dead guys? Who do you think deaded them?”

Luke smiled and shook his head. The picture came together with an almost audible click. The reason why the battle turned was Murphy. Luke looked down the shoreline and spotted the silhouette of the Navy patrol boat on the beach.

The guy was truly one of a kind.

“Murph, I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you. Now cut me out of this thing, will you?”