CHAPTER 47
Baxter Road
“We need eyes in the sky, Meg. How soon can you connect?”
My team had transformed my living room and kitchen into a working operations center, almost as functional as the one we’d left in Baghdad.
Meg was furiously pounding the laptop keys.
I was counting on intel from CSTC’s secure satellites, knowing that every second mattered.
Oliver was standing at the living room wall, using a Sharpie to draw a map of Nantucket and the surrounding areas.
Wolf and JP were taking inventory of our weapons and gear, checking radios, batteries, and of course ammo.
That left me desperately trying to gin up some semblance of a plan. I had to admit I wasn’t doing too well at the task.
Time was on the side of the unknown enemy. Every minute that elapsed put them half a mile farther away. And no one was chasing them at all. How did that happen?
“Oliver, why isn’t anything flying? Shouldn’t the Coast Guard or the state police or someone be all over this by now?”
Tristan certainly was. My boss had already dispatched two modified OH-6 helicopters.
This attack team was legit, obviously well-funded, and wasn’t playing the fuck around.
But who were they? Who the fuck blows up a passenger ferry, takes down an entire Secret Service detail, shoots multiple campaign staffers in the face at point-blank range, kidnaps a senator and possibly a Secret Service agent, chops off a man’s hand, leaves a shitty IED on the road, and does it all without meeting any resistance?
It was a plan of violent simplicity—and I had to admit it had been well executed.
They had hit fast and hard, ensuring that the good-guy resources would be limited.
It made sense: Snatch the poor guy, jump on a boat, and head out to sea while the Coast Guard is forced in the opposite direction for a search-and-rescue mission and the airfield has been blown up.
They had a big lead on us, but the only play was to follow the trail to the ocean. Every minute we weren’t on the offensive lowered our chances of recovering the senator.
“Okay, Nat, I’ve got Bigfoot and will have visual in a second.
” Two years earlier, CSTC had successfully launched a Jericho V satellite known as Bigfoot.
It was virtually unheard-of for a commercial company to put its own satellite in geosynchronous orbit, but Tristan had made it happen.
The asset was closely guarded; even at CSTC, only a few operators had clearance. Meg, of course, was one of them.
“Good going. Let’s see what’s happening due east of here.”
We all huddled around her screen, trying to will a glimpse of the boat on the big expanse of black.
My phone buzzed with the message that the two helicopters were wheels up, ETA sixty minutes.
Some simple Phillips math told me these guys must’ve been pretty close by when they got the call, confirming rumors of the existence of another secure CSTC facility in the tristate area near the border of New York and New Jersey.
“Meg, the birds just took off. Give me something.”
“Nat, Bigfoot is fucking five hundred miles above sea level, and it’s a big fucking ocean. I’m working on it.”
“Is that a boat?” Wolf asked. He was pointing to a darker spot on the screen. “If I’m right, that’s a pretty big vessel.”
Meg slowly zoomed the lens from 536 miles above the ocean to focus on the dark spot.
The satellite images pulled from her screen weren’t particularly clear, but they defined the craft’s general size and length.
A moment later, the screen changed to bright green as Meg switched the camera to infrared.
“Hold on—it’s working.” The images became much clearer. There wasn’t one big boat. There were two.
In this part of the world, big boats were not uncommon. Wealthy seafarers with small dicks parked their 100-, 150-, or 180-foot-long monster yachts at the Nantucket Boat Basin every day during the season.
But there was no chance that two of these mega-yachts, in this position, at this particular time, had not been involved in the attack.
“Looks like we have our first target, boys and girls,” said Meg. “Natty, what do you want me to do? Haven’t seen any movement, and neither seems to be generating much heat.”
Attempting a no-notice hostage rescue meant countless risks, but I felt strangely calm. If anyone had a shot at success, it was this team.
“Everybody, listen up. The birds are sixty minutes out. We need to be prepared to execute as soon as the helos land. Keep eyes on, get me a grid, and pray these bastards don’t decide to jump too soon.”
All eyes were on me and everyone nodded silently.
“We have two birds, two targets, and no time to rehearse the mission beyond a talk-through. Oliver, I want your first briefing in twenty.”
We would be facing an unknown number of enemy, with no idea how well armed they were. Nor did we have one piece of intelligence that placed Senator Harrison on either of the boats. Still, it was the only plausible scenario.
“Assuming that the senator is on one of those yachts, his safety is priority. This is my call. I want two in overwatch and three on the assault. You are all cleared hot to reduce any threat. Shoot anyone with a weapon directly in the face. Roger?”
Before anyone could answer, Meg called out a warning. “Nat! Both of the boats have started their engines.”