The Tide (Tide Series Book 1) (3 page)

“There she is,” Frank’s voice crackled over the comm systems of the helicopter.

The chopper banked hard toward a sleek ship prowling the ocean. Its gray hull was that of a Visby-class corvette, a ship equipped for stealth. A half dozen of the ships had been ordered by the Swedish Navy, but they had cancelled the sixth ship. In reality, the project had never been scrapped. Rather, Meredith Webb had pulled a few strings and procured the ship for Dom’s organization. He had aptly named it the
Huntress.
Its composite-material hull and angular design minimized its prominence via radar. The shape also reduced the chances of being visually spotted. Below decks, there was a medical bay complete with a science laboratory for the detection and characterization of biological and chemical weapons along with a workshop for electronics and computer gadgetry. It was equipped with a helipad suitable for the eight-person AW109 Frank now piloted toward the deck. If stealth failed, the
Huntress
was fitted with surface-to-air and anti-surface ship missiles.

Dom proudly referred to the
Huntress
as his seaborne, forty-person Batmobile.

The landing wheels of the chopper hit the helipad with a jolt.

“Thanks for traveling with Flying Dutchman Pirate Catchers today,” Frank said in his mock airline pilot voice. “We appreciate your business.” He saluted Dom and his Hunters. They piled out as the twin engines whined and the rotors slowed.

Thomas Hampton, the ship’s next-in-command and second mate in charge of the day-to-day operations, beckoned at Dom from the hatch nearest the helipad. He had a cigar drooping out of one side of his mouth, giving him the grizzled look of an old sailor who couldn’t tear himself away from the sea. The cigar was not a good sign. Dom knew the man only smoked when he was stressed; it was never a celebratory gesture.

Beside him stood Chao, who looked unsteady on the open deck.

With the Hunters in tow, Dom rushed to his side. “What exactly did Webb say?”

“Not much to me,” Chao said, leading them into the
Huntress
. “She said she’d only speak directly with you. Sounded urgent.”

Their feet clanged against the metal stairwell as they descended. Hector and Jenna split off while Miguel followed behind Thomas.

“Didn’t even want to talk to me,” Thomas said with mock disappointment. “Whatever she’s got cooking, you know it’s got to be good.”

Chao led them through the narrow corridor in the ship’s lower deck. They passed the armory and medical bay. He opened the door to the electronics workshop, where the crackle of radios and humming computers greeted Dom. The chorus of electronic chirps often sounded like a noisy mess more grating to the ear than drunks singing off-key pub songs to him. But Chao had often described it as a melodic chorus, each sound speaking to him and the rest of the techies hunching over their stations.

Dom followed Chao to one of the workstations, where four computer monitors glowed before them. The techie made an encrypted video call to the private access line Dom had with Meredith. The line rang only once before she accepted the call.

“Dom,” she said. Her long red hair and stern face came into focus. She wasted no time with perfunctory greetings. “How soon can you be in Bermuda?”

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CIA Headquarters

Langley, Virginia

––––––––

M
eredith watched Dom’s face on her computer monitor. The chisel-jawed covert operator gave no indication of the curiosity or questions that must be roiling in his mind. She had always respected that stoicism in their long combined partnership—and friendship—working in the field of intelligence.

“We’re still in the Gulf of Guinea,” Dom answered. “It’s not going to be soon. What’s up?”

“I’ve got...a strange request,” Meredith said. “But it’s urgent. Like, I wish I had a team on this yesterday, urgent.”

Dom nodded. “Understood. Wish I could change the laws of physics to be there today. Can you give me a couple days at least?”

Meredith wanted Dom on this case. He ran the best covert group she knew, but she feared time was already running out. “It can’t wait.” She ran a hand through her hair. “But I still want you to head that way. I’m going to send another team for now, but I’d appreciate it if you were on standby.”

“Standby? Damn, Meredith. I hate being your next-in-line.” Dom smiled. “I thought what we had was better than that.”

“Sometimes a woman can’t wait around, Dom,” Meredith said, “and now is definitely one of those times.”

“Can you at least tease me with something? Give me some idea of what the hell you want me to wait around for.”

She always gave her contracting groups as much intel as possible. Files, maps, briefings...enough to fill textbooks. Whole libraries of textbooks. But this time what she’d discovered was far from ordinary. “I don’t have much.” She lowered her voice and added, “But I’m worried I found something potentially
polluting
.”

Dom’s eyes widened for a brief second. She saw he recognized their code word. What she’d found might be tied to the United States—potentially even the CIA. It was why she’d blocked his early transmission aboard the
MT Elizabeth.
Maybe she was being paranoid, but she needed to limit communication with him and ensure everything was airtight. Hell, for all she knew, she might already be under surveillance.

“I hear you,” he said. “Can you at least give me a more precise heading so I know where you need me?”

“Will do. Chao should receive it as soon as we’re done here. I’ll keep you up to date on what I find. Stay safe out there.”

“You, too.” Dom grinned and ended the transmission.

She drummed her fingers across her desk before picking up her phone. The strange memo that had started her frantic search lay across the polished wood. She glanced at it once more and dialed the number for another, smaller covert group run by a man named Jay Perry. A silent prayer ran through her head as she hoped Jay would be ready to do her bidding. He answered and agreed to her terms, promising her he was already out the door and en route.

She breathed a momentary sigh of relief after ending the call. She’d played her cards. Now it was time to see if someone around her offices actually knew what the memo meant—or more importantly, if they’d be willing to clue her in.

Meredith made her way through Langley’s corridors. She eyed the Biological and Chemical Warfare Defense sign on Chief Special Agent David Lawson’s slightly ajar office door. She rapped softly on the wood frame when she saw he was on the phone.  

Her boss, phone to his ear, waved his hand. His message was clear
: I don’t have time for you now.
Despite the scowl on his face, Meredith seated herself in front of his desk. In one hand, she clutched the memo with its simple transcription:

International Biologics at Sea Laboratory dark. Risk assessment: Immediate catastrophe. Crew affected by agent. Limited to: Global. Termination permission requested.

A set of coordinates with a location in the Atlantic Ocean followed.

Lawson held up a finger and put his hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “I’m on a conference call with DARPA. Can we do this later?”

Maintaining her poker face, Meredith stared hard into Lawson’s steel-gray eyes. She slid the single sheet of paper across the surface of his desk. “What the hell is this?”

When Lawson’s gaze dropped to the memo, he ended the call without saying a word. His reaction alone set Meredith on edge. With such an ominous memo, the International Biologics at Sea Lab wasn’t the only thing left in the dark. She’d never heard about this project or institution or whatever it was.

Lawson unclipped a pair of reading glasses from his front pocket and twisted the paper so the words faced him. He mouthed them as he read the memo with his brow furrowed.

Acting,
Meredith thought. The surprise now seemed feigned. She watched a drop of perspiration drip from his receding hairline.

“I have no idea what this is,” Lawson said, pushing it back toward her.

“Bullshit,” Meredith said. “What the hell is this International Biologics at Sea Lab?”

“Sounds pretty innocuous.”

“The worst ones always do,” she said.

“I haven’t heard of it.”

“So something as cryptic as this just shows up at the agency, and you, grand master of science and research, haven’t got a clue?”

Lawson’s fingers tapped across his keyboard. He twisted his computer monitor so Meredith could see. “Take a look.”

He’d inputted the name of the lab in their classified and unclassified known research institutions database. The results window displayed a glaring No Matches Found.

“Don’t pull that one on me,” Meredith said, taking the paper back. He’d performed the query on a database that included information accessible to any agent or operative a full security clearance below both of theirs. “Search again, but this time use
your
credentials. Not the open access agency search.”

“Webb, you know I can’t. Whether or not this turns up as a match, it’s against policy for me to even access such a database in the same room as another person without my security clearance.”

“Come on, live a little. I won’t tell.”

Lawson peered over his reading glasses, his bushy white eyebrows raised in annoyance.

“I’m supposed to oversee all potential bio warfare threats, and I can’t do that if you’re hiding something from me,” Meredith said. “Now, I don’t know what screwed up in your line of communication that this came across my desk, but judging by its contents, this doesn’t appear to be the first time someone in this building has heard something about this lab.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.” Lawson held up his hands. “Maybe...maybe it’s some kind of sick hoax. Maybe someone misinterpreted an encrypted transmission.”

Too many excuses, too many lies.

Meredith opened her mouth to protest but stopped. She’d caught Lawson as if he were a child with his hand in the cookie jar. The man routinely faced crises involving everything from scientists taken as hostages to the infiltration of foreign research institutions. Yet his immediate reaction to a single memo had taken him off guard.

“What’s going on?” Meredith asked.

“Maybe—”

“Tell me the goddamned truth.”

Lawson folded his arms across his broad chest and leaned back in his chair. “You’ve been with the agency for what? Twenty years?”

Meredith said nothing.

“You’re intelligent, you’re at the top of your field. We’ve worked closely together for years,” he continued. “Yet you keep certain sensitive topics from me.”

“Yes, but—”

“I understand it’s for the safety of our nation, for plausible deniability. All the same, there is information that even I, as your superior, am not privy to.”

She knew exactly what he was referring to. For many of the missions she oversaw, she was the agency’s sole point of contact with private covert contracting agencies like Dom’s and Jay’s. “We need that kind of separation from the groups I work with. You don’t
want
to be tied with them when they’re operating in Iran or off the coast of North Korea.”

“And likewise, you don’t want to be tied to this project.” Lawson leaned across the desk. “I urge you to forget you ever saw this memo. If you were another agent, someone with less significant history at this agency, you’d be terminated immediately.” He folded his reading glasses and slid them back into his pocket.

“I’ve managed operatives in Syria who dismantled chemical weapons undetected. I’ve contracted a team to sabotage a biological weapons research facility in Iran and got another team to subvert the Kremlin’s research on a genetically engineered bubonic plague.” She huffed. “After everything I’ve done for the agency—everything my operatives have done—you can’t trust me with this?”

“I’m afraid not.” His expression turned dour, a rare moment of seemingly genuine emotion. “This is an issue
I
am dealing with. And I know where your intentions and loyalties lie. The project at IBSL would conflict with that. Trust me.”

Without another word, Meredith got up from her seat. She marched to the office’s exit, knowing the obstinate man wouldn’t let her in on his secret.

“Meredith.”

She twisted halfway, an ear turned in his direction but her gaze shifting to the hallway.

“I’m begging you, forget everything about this. If my people find you’ve been digging into it...I won’t be able to protect you. Trust me, Meredith. Leave this one alone.”

Meredith left his office in silence.

The last thing she would do was trust Lawson. Everything he’d said sounded like smooth-talking fabrication to obscure this IBSL project. Meredith wasn’t sure who Lawson might be working with, what covert op teams might be contracted to his “project.” If Meredith had learned anything over her two decades with the agency, it was to trust no one. Especially if it was a close colleague keeping secrets from his most lauded employee.

She had Jay already on his way and Dom on standby. It never hurt to send them in for a little reconnaissance. She hoped they would find something as innocuous as the lab’s mundane name.

But as she’d said to Lawson, the ones that seemed the most harmless almost always turned out to be anything but innocent.

––––––––

Undisclosed Location in the Atlantic Ocean

––––––––

J
ay Perry nudged open the steel hatch with his gloved hand. He played the barrel of his suppressed SCAR across the steel counters, stools, and glassware. “What the hell is this?”

“A science lab?” Corey Luna whispered. Like Jay, he wore black fatigues and night-vision goggles strapped over his head.

Their footsteps resonated on the grating, and Jay winced with each step. Stealth was key, and he had no intention of being discovered prowling about the enigmatic oil drilling platform. They were deep enough in the metal behemoth that they couldn’t see without the aid of their night-vision goggles. Someone had cut the lights, and no natural light could penetrate the inky darkness this far below decks.