The Tide (Tide Series Book 1) (5 page)

They’d found her.

***

T
homas Hampton entered Dom’s quarters without knocking. “We just got word from Meredith.” He chewed on the end of an unlit cigar.

Chao stepped in from behind Thomas. “She sent a video, Dom. A fucking strange video.”

Dom stood immediately and followed the duo as they jogged from his room to the electronics workshop. “What the hell is it?”

“It’s...hard to explain,” Chao said. “I thought this was a prank, a sick joke. Maybe a rogue hacker group got through to us or something.”

Dom raised an eyebrow, skeptical that a hacker group, either professional or not, could thwart the best and brightest of both the CIA and his organization. “You believe that?”

“No way, not anymore.” Chao sliced the air with his hands.

“This is legit,” Thomas said, running a hand through his black-and-gray-speckled hair. He pocketed his cigar. “Definitely Webb.”

“Does she want us to go all in? No more waiting?”

Chao’s brow wrinkled. “I think so.”

They passed the crew quarters. Miguel peeked his head from his cabin. “Whoa, in a hurry, guys? We going to see some action?”

“Looks like it,” Dom said. Miguel filed in behind the trio.

“Yes, Webb specifically asked for Hunters.” Chao brought them to his workstation. “But I’m afraid you all won’t be the only ones doing the hunting.” His fingers worked across the keyboard, and a video popped up, playing on all four screens. “This is taken from another secret service contracting team on an oil platform.”

“Play it,” Dom said.

Chao clicked the mouse.

“Might want to cover your ears,” Thomas said. “It’s a bit...loud.”

A lone person stood in the shadows of what appeared to be a biosafety level four lab. Maybe it was the darkness, maybe it was the low quality of the image, but something appeared wrong with his anatomy. Dom thought the man seemed hunched, yet strange shapes protruded from his silhouette.

The man moved slowly at first. Then he heard a couple of voices trying to communicate with the shadowy man—probably Meredith’s other covert agents. When the thing turned—Dom could no longer call it human—it let out a blood-chilling scream. Miguel’s ruddy complexion went pale, the humor gone from his expression. Chao tried to adjust the volume as a discordant volley of screams echoed around the workshop, carried by the top-of-the-line speakers equipped by the computer station.

A cold shiver crept through Dom’s spine.

The video shook. Whoever was filming seemed at first to run then get into a scuffle. A flurry of dark shapes and shadows muddled the screen. Then the camera dropped, settling on the floor.

Chao reached toward the keyboard and fast-forwarded. “Nothing much happens”—he stopped it—“until now.”

A skeletal face marred by bony protrusions appeared across the four monitors. Dom’s mouth fell open. Miguel staggered backwards. Then the feed went dark.

“What the fuck was that?” Miguel asked.

Thomas shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

Incredulity overcame Dom’s initial shock at the strange scenes. “This can’t be real.”

Chao shook his head, brushing a hand through his long dark hair. He gestured toward Samantha Hamlin. She stood from her computer and folded her tattooed arms across her chest. “I’m afraid everything I’ve tried to prove it was a fake didn’t work.”

“Which means, unless we’re missing something, we can’t show it’s fabricated,” Chao said.

“So you guys think it’s legit?” Dom asked.

“It’s definitely from Meredith, and it seems authentic enough.” Samantha sauntered over. She leaned across Chao’s desk, her fingers typing in a mad rush. “And Webb even provided a satellite imagery of the encrypted coordinates she sent.”

An image of an oil platform appeared on one of the monitors, a small dark square in the middle of the ocean. Chao opened the message from Meredith on another monitor.

CLASSIFIED: HUNTER TEAM: EYES ONLY

Unidentified contacts at these coordinates. May be affected/infected by unidentified bio/chem agent. Two men boarded, no word from either. Can’t guarantee financial compensation yet, but promise to pay you back. Owe you big time. Potential matter of national security. Threat to life. Prepare for hot-zone bioweapons.

Dom reread the cryptic message. “Try Webb again. I need to talk to her.”

“Can’t reach her,” Samantha said.

“Try again.”

Chao fiddled with his satellite radio setup, and Samantha ran through her myriad of applications and software. After several long minutes, they stopped.

“Nothing’s working,” Chao said.

Thomas added, “She’s gone dark.”

“Well, Captain, what do you want us to do?” Chao asked.

Dom scratched at the stubble on his chin, using the moment to think. For the first time in his career, he wasn’t sure he wanted to take the job. He recalled his motivation for joining the CIA, for taking an oath to serve and protect his country by whatever means necessary. Now there was more than just his country to consider. He had his daughters, an ex-wife who still haunted his thoughts, and a crew with their families on shore. Protecting their country from a potential bioweapon threat would be protecting those husbands, wives, sons, and daughters on the mainland.

“I have a feeling a lot more is at stake here than Webb let on, but this shit might be out of our league,” he said. Dom glanced at the map on the monitor again. “But if Webb thinks it’s serious, it’s serious. We’re going in there whether we hear from her or not.”

“I’ll be damned if I face whatever the fuck those things were without getting paid top dolla, brother,” Miguel said.

Dom bit back a retort and thought about Meredith’s ominous warnings.
Matter of national security. Threat to life.
He didn’t need the money; the
Huntress
didn’t need the money. They had plenty of cash to keep them figuratively and literally afloat.

“Good thing you don’t get a choice,” Dom said. “We’re doing this because it’s the goddamn right thing to do.”

Miguel let out an exaggerated huff, but Dom could tell his stubbornness was nothing more than a show. “Whatever suits you, Chief.” He toyed with his prosthetic arm and turned to Chao. “I guess if we’re going, you may as well show me some of those new gadgets you got for my arm.”

“Check this out.” Chao held a nickel-sized chip in between his thumb and index finger.

“No more IEDs going to surprise me,” Miguel said.

Dom leaned in. “What is it?”

“It’s a field effect transistor made of silicon nanowires used for the detection of explosive traces.”

Miguel ticked off his flesh-and-bone fingers, one-by-one. “In other words, it’ll help me find the roadside bomb, C4, or even the charge on a dirty bomb before it finds me.”

“Fair enough,” said Dom. “You guys hurry up, because we’re setting sail for that platform.”

“Sure thing.” Chao set to work on Miguel’s prosthetic with a set of tools, and Dom left the workshop.

Thomas fell into step beside him. Dom turned to his second-in-command. “Stop by the armory. Make sure everything’s back in place from the last mission and prepped for this one.”

“You got it,” Thomas said.

The two men parted, and Dom jogged back to the medical bay and wet labs. He stepped through the first hatch and entered a space set up like a miniature hospital. An array of imaging equipment was pressed against one wall. A couple of patient examination chairs and beds lay in a row. Beyond this room was another, almost identical, protected by a clear acrylic partition.

Given their foray into CIA operations and bioweapons missions, the
Huntress
had been equipped with an isolation ward. Fortunately, they’d never had to use it, and Dom hoped they never would. None of the medical staff were present in the medical bay, so he stepped through a second hatch into the laboratory setup.

As she bent over a microscope, Lauren Winter’s oak-brown hair swept over her white coat.

“Lauren,” Dom said.

She jumped but swiveled around on her stool. Her elfin nose twitched, and she blinked. “What’s up, Dom?”

“I need the medical staff to prep the bio-safety suits.”

Lauren’s eyebrows met in a worried expression. “Uh, okay.” She sounded hesitant. “How many do you need?”

Dom thought back to the video of the monstrous creature aboard the oil platform and the choir from hell that joined in the beast’s cries on the audio feed. Meredith’s brief message filtered across his mind, the threat of a potential bioweapon, and he repeated the words she’d sent. “All of them.”

––––––––

J
ay fought to catch his breath. He crouched behind the heavy metal frame of a bed he and Corey Luna had hoisted against the door in the oil platform’s crew quarters. Corey tallied the remaining rounds in his rifle’s magazine and clicked it back in place.

A single beam of white light pierced the darkness as Jay rotated a flashlight in his hand. He’d lost his NVGs. The first beast they’d encountered in the lab had swiped them from his face. He’d counted himself lucky, as he’d barely dodged in time. A second later and he would’ve lost more than his NVGs.

The relentless scratching on the other side of the metal door sent a shiver up his back.

“Shit, man, we need to find another way out of here,” Jay whispered. He probed the dark corners with his flashlight beam and centered it on the grating leading to a ventilation shaft. “Think we can fit through that?”

The door shuddered as one of the creatures slammed against it, and the door groaned.

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Corey said. “We don’t have any extra mags, our radios are dust, and those things are everywhere.”

Jay nodded. Whatever the creatures were, they’d been roused by the screams of the first monster. Jay and Corey had fired what seemed like a constant spray of bullets. But no matter how much lead they poured into the humanoid beings, the beasts charged forward with all the desperation of a pack of starving wolves. For all the years of professional training between them, they were not prepared for a situation anything like this.

“We have to get back to that boat,” Corey said, his voice cracking.

Jay pictured the black rubber Combat Raiding Rubber Craft, commonly known as a Zodiac, waiting for them at the docking post beneath the oil platform. That was only their first stop on the way back to dry land. “Hopefully Ryan’s staying on course out there,” Jay said. Ryan Zimmer, the third man on their team, was trawling in the yacht they’d commissioned for their travel across the Atlantic. The ship was too large to warrant an inconspicuous approach to the oil platform, so they’d used the low-profile Zodiac. If they reached the craft, they could be back aboard the yacht in an hour or so.

Another beast slammed against the door. The metal groaned again but held. The pounding intensified, sounding like desperate sailors trapped and banging on the bulkhead of a sinking ship.

“Shit,” Jay said.

Corey scrambled toward the ventilation shaft and tore off the grating.

The monsters screeched as though they knew Jay and Corey were trying to escape. Their screams and scratching echoed in the cramped cabin. Jay’s pulse pounded in his ears. He pushed Corey up into the shaft with sweaty palms. Jay took his flashlight in his teeth and jumped. His fingers grabbed the lip of the vent.

Another shuddering bang.

The sickening sound of something scraping across the metal deck and the cries of the creatures filled the room as the door burst open. One of the creatures, covered in skeletal plates, tumbled in. It reached out with a bony claw, swiping at Jay. Another three beasts piled in behind it.

Two hands grabbed Jay’s wrists, pulling him into the shaft and out of the creature’s grasp.

“Come on!” Corey yelled.

The monsters’ howls filled the cramped space. Corey crawled ahead. Jay guided them roughly with the flashlight. His limbs shook. With its strap around his back, the rifle hung under his chest, clanging against the shaft’s walls. He strained his ears, listening for the sound of something scraping across the metal after them. But only the feverish bellows chased them farther, deeper into the maze of the ventilation.

For now, anyway.

Sweat poured across Jay’s brow. “We’re not going to make it,” he muttered.

“Keep moving,” Corey said. He stopped at a four-way intersection and said, “Listen. You hear anything from this direction?” He tilted his head toward one of the passages.

The distant cries of the beasts behind them sent goose pimples prickling across Jay’s skin. He strained his ears. “I don’t think so.”

“Good. Let’s try it.” Corey crawled through. “There, shine your light ahead again.”

Jay did as his partner requested. The beam shone on the slats of another grate. “Let’s check it out.”

They began moving forward again. Another roar hurtled through the ventilation shaft. The ear-splitting sound of something hard scraping on metal resounded through the narrow enclosure.

“They’re in here!” Jay yelled. “Faster!”

Corey shuffled forward and reached out for the grate as the scratching and scuffling behind them grew louder. He tumbled out, Jay close behind. They landed on the hard floor and scrambled to their feet. For a moment, they stood frozen in a corridor filled with metal pipes and diamond-plate flooring. The clamor of the approaching creatures paralyzed Jay’s thoughts.

Then a small rectangle of light flashed in the distance, followed by rolling thunder.

“There!” Corey pointed.

Jay directed the flashlight beam toward where they’d seen the lightning. A porthole—a sign they were almost out of this steel hellhole and the demons haunting it. They sprinted away from the monsters. The clanging of creatures spilling from the ventilation shaft sent a wave of adrenaline through Jay’s veins. At the porthole, they ran into a T-intersection. He spun, squeezing a volley of shots at the misshapen shadows in pursuit.

He expected a cry of pain, a bloodcurdling yell of agony from a bullet tearing through flesh. No such sound rewarded his efforts.

“Move!” Corey sprinted toward the right, striding ahead into the darkness.