Prologue – Dagger
“Hey, buddy.” Tim caught me by the strap of my tank. “I don’t have a good feeling about this,” he said, his light blue eyes uncertain. I was taken aback. Tim, although not the brains of our small group, had never lacked for courage. I’d have him at my back any time.
“It’s just nerves, Tim. You know how this goes.”
“Nah, this is different. Can’t explain it.”
“You gotta go—you know the rules. You back out and the mission is off.”
We were in a midnight black Cyclone-class patrol ship, under covert mission status and untracked by marine authorities, having launched on a moonless night off the coast of Columbia.
We were Navy SEALs under the direction of the DEA, and our destination was roughly a hundred million dollars’ worth of cocaine and heroin. Operatives had communicated intel that a Columbian cartel had unearthed a World War II U-boat. It was rumored to have been the escape transportation for some of the Nazi elite who’d fled to South America at the end of that war. The cartel had managed to bring it out of mothballs and loaded it with white powder, bound for the U.S. Their crew was an assortment of ragtag seamen, captained by an ancient German U-boat captain who’d found it convenient to relocate to Columbia.
Almost immediately after being put to sea, the poorly maintained vessel had malfunctioned and become unnavigable. It had been all hands to the surface as they abandoned ship in shallow waters near shore. Word was that the cartel was assembling a salvage mission to extract the still-viable drugs from their watertight containers. Our job was to get there first and plant explosives we could later trigger to destroy their secondary crew, the white powder and the vessel in one blow. It would only be plugging one small hole in the dike, but every blow we struck against the drug trade saved a few more kids’ lives.
Malchevsky, an anti-social ass who had somehow found his way into the SEALs, sat opposite me, a smirk on his face as he listened in on Tim’s concerns. “Coward,” he sneered aloud.
“Shut it, Malchevsky!” I growled as Tim drew back into the shadows, embarrassed. Malchevsky was a salty newcomer who had not made much effort to fit himself into our existing camaraderie. He was quiet, except for when he injected snide comments that seemed to give him sadistic pleasure. That said, SEALs were chosen and trained for their quiet, efficient and often deadly skills in effecting a mission, not their ability to sing Kumbaya.
A signal from the helm prompted us to don last-minute gear and to make for the boat’s side in readiness. I slapped Tim on the shoulder before I masked up. “Buck up, I’ve got your back.” His head nodded and we were over and into the water.
The U-boat was listing into a sand bar, only a few meters below the silver-capped waves crowding the shore. At low tide, its tower was visible above them. It had been easy to pick out from the satellite imagery. This was an in-and-out deal. Enter the flooded control compartment, plant the explosives that could be remotely detonated when our intel reported the salvagers aboard, and then get out.
Possible dangers included being spotted by the cartel shore watch and the fact that tide and waves could suddenly shift the U-boat’s list. We could be trapped inside—another reason there would only be the three of us entering, while two others would hang back on standby. Quarters would be tight, and we needed maneuver space if a sudden escape became necessary.
Diver propulsion vehicles advanced us to the scene. Malchevsky took the lead, his squat but powerful body leaning into his DPV before the rest of us were in place. I let him go, choosing to keep my focus on Tim. I’d given him my word, and I respected his little warning voice. We all had that little voice on occasion, and on occasion it saved our asses.
I got the all-clear signal in my earpiece and we followed Malchevsky. We used a low-level sonar to locate the vessel, and as two of the team hung back, Tim and I abandoned our DPVs and swam across the intervening water. Malchevsky was already through the hatch, but I signaled him to get out. It was Tim’s role to recon the compartment and show Malchevsky and me where to place the explosives. I gave Tim an ‘okay’ gesture, and he hesitated a moment but headed in.
I turned to see that Malchevsky had finally fallen into his assigned position behind me. I swallowed my anger at his deviation from orders, knowing it would only cloud my focus.
I felt a concussion in the water, and then all hell broke loose as the U-boat compartment blew apart, debris fighting against the water pressure outside its hull. In horror, I could see the vessel was moving, shifting its angle on the sand bar—and the only point of entry, the opened hatch, was rolling toward the bottom. Tim was inside!
I stroked hard against the pressure to get to the hatch. When I looked in, Tim’s face was in front of mine, his blue eyes closed behind his mask. Summoning every bit of strength, I reached for him and managed to catch his forearm, yanking him toward me just as the boat rolled again, forcing the hatch closed.
My training abandoned me as I did the only thing that instinct allowed. I headed for the surface, Tim in tow. We broke through into a plane of flame floating on the waves. I could feel the heat through my suit and gear, but I held Tim as though he was welded to me. As I tried to swim out of it, the fire burned away my suit and began eating my skin. Instinct took over again as I pushed through the flames in the direction of the two reserve team members.
Then the heat was gone and there was no more need to fight the waves. Everything was cool and white, and I surrendered without a fight.