Chapter 77

77

Aboard the Oregon

Op Center

“Do it!”

Callie’s voice boomed in the overhead speakers.

Linda turned in her chair and faced Max, her face ashen. Huxley had released her into temporary service as weapons officer while Murphy was on mission.

“Max, what do we do?”

Hanley’s meaty jaw was parked in his fist like a Rodin statue. His bright eyes were running the same moral calculus that she was. One life in exchange for thousands. It seemed simple. But was it?

Every life mattered, or none of them mattered. Especially Callie’s. She was young and brilliant with a bright future ahead of her. Everybody loved her. And Cabrillo was obviously smitten. There had to be another option. But could they find it in time?

The dreadful choice was obvious. He saw it in Linda’s face. But it wasn’t her call. She wasn’t in command. He wished she was.

“Do it, Wepps.”

Linda bit her lip and nodded as she turned to the weapons station. She punched a button.

“Torpedo…away.”

The hull rang with the sound of the massive burst of compressed air above decks, launching the torpedo out of its tube.

“Torpedo in the water,” Eric reported glumly. “Running hot, straight and normal. Impact in five minutes, forty-five seconds.”

“Did you hear that, Callie?” Linda asked.

“I did. Thank you,” Callie said.

“I’m so sorry,” Linda said.

“Not your fault. It was my call. Take care.”

Callie’s comms clicked off.

---

★Cabrillo and the Vendor careened down the stone steps, rolling faster and faster. Juan pulled the larger man close, using his muscular frame as a cushion against the stone blows.

The Vendor had the same idea. The sharp, rough-hewn rocks slashed Juan’s spine and spiked against the back of his skull, sending shooting stars across his eyes with each strike.

Coiled like fighting snakes, neither man released his grip, but the faster they spun the farther their bodies separated until at the very end both men were entirely airborne and crash-landed at the bottom of the stairs.

The two men lay on the rock floor, moaning and dazed.

The Vendor recovered first and dragged his broken body toward Cabrillo, his left arm shattered in the fall. A trail of smeared blood oozed from his ruined foot as he crawled up onto Juan’s semiconscious body. He reached up with his good hand to apply another death grip to Juan’s throat.

But Cabrillo shook himself awake just in time to clutch the thick wrist, while wrapping his leg around the Vendor’s waist on his weak side. He rolled him over onto his back, pinning the Vendor’s outstretched arm between his thighs in a classic arm bar. Juan squeezed with every last ounce of strength he had. It felt like he was trying to bend a steel girder instead of a man’s arm.

The Vendor thrashed and flailed with the rest of his body, but Juan increased the pressure on his arm, extending the man’s elbow to the breaking point. This was the moment in any Brazilian jujitsu match when an opponent would tap out—but not the Vendor.

“Give it up, Hashimoto!” Cabrillo shouted through gritted teeth. “Tell me how to stop that boat!”

The Japanese squirmed and jerked, trying to escape, his neck pinned to the ground by Cabrillo’s calf.

“Never.”

“Have it your way,” Juan growled in a whispered breath.

Crack.The elbow snapped.

The Vendor’s body slackened in Cabrillo’s grip. He released him, and climbed to his wobbly legs. Everything in Cabrillo wanted to break the Vendor’s neck and finish him off. But seeing his broken body blunted Juan’s rage. He wouldn’t murder a helpless man, not even one as vile as this one. Besides, he still had a mission to accomplish.

“Tell me how to stop your boat and maybe I won’t let you bleed out on this floor.”

“You haven’t beaten me, Mendoza,” the Vendor said, grimacing in anguish. “The Ghost Sword is on her way. I’ve won.” He began to laugh hysterically.

“You won’t be laughing inside of a CIA black-site prison.”

The Vendor closed his eyes, smiling.

“No prison for me, baka. I’m going to my reward.”

The Vendor opened his mouth wide, then snapped it shut hard, cracking his teeth together. The poison capsule released into his mouth. The Vendor’s body began convulsing violently and frothing bubbles oozed over his lips.

Ten seconds later, he was dead, his body knotted like a pretzel and his fingers curled like bird’s claws.

Linc burst through the door, his P90 at the ready. He saw the Vendor’s body on the floor.

“What happened to him?”

Cabrillo cradled his busted rib cage with one arm as he refitted his dangling earpiece with the other.

“He punched his own ticket.”

“Looks like he had some help.”

“What about that sub?”

“No clue.”

“Oregon?”

“No comms with her down here.”

“Casualties?”

“Three wounded. Two noncritical. And you.”

Cabrillo limped through the doorway, his hand jammed against his earpiece.

“Callie? Callie? Do you copy?”

---

★Aboard the Oregon, the grim op center crew tracked the progress of the Mark 46 torpedo on the big wall monitor as it streaked toward the Spook Fish.

“Ten seconds to impact,” Linda said to no one.

Callie’s voice crackled on the speakers.

“Linda? You copy?”

“We copy.”

“Tell Juan…Tell Juan I—”

A muffled explosion cut her short.

Callie screamed until her comms went out.