“Danny.” Keena’s voice was panicked. “They’ve got missile lock on us.”
“Make sure that power goes off now. Shut it down completely and get out!”
Axel shut it all down as Keena yelled again. “Four missiles just launched. We’ve got about ten seconds.”
“Let’s go.” I grabbed Blake and yanked him up. He quickly slipped into his chute straps as we launched ourselves out into the pelting rain. With no helmets or facemasks, the water tore at our face and skin. It felt like getting sprayed by rocks from the side of a lawn mower. I couldn’t open my eyes and look back, relegated to merely hoping Keena and Axel were falling behind us.
There was a huge explosion above us, and shrapnel flew past in every direction. Our safe haven had disintegrated into a billion tiny pieces of fire. The heat from the blast and burning gas was almost unbearable for several seconds before we finally were far enough away. I was praying my chute wouldn’t catch fire as I felt something tear into my arm, and something else hit me hard in the back, knocking the wind out of me. I did my best to avoid the debris falling around us and in doing so missed the pull zone for my chute by a couple hundred feet. As a result, I hit the water much harder than I should have. The force of that impact stunned me, and I found myself unable to move as the waves washed over me and the ocean clutched me tightly, pulling me down.
Blake landed near me though and easily found my chute—still spread out on the surface. He reeled in the chute fabric and rope as quickly as he could, and Keena swam over to help him. I shook off the impact as I approached the surface and broke through, gasping for air. The storm had riled up the water, waves towering above us, and the sky was nearly pitch-black. They couldn’t have seen us fall. Stay calm. Calm down. Pull it together, NOW.
Once Blake was convinced I was going to be okay, he asked Keena, “Where’s Axel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he make it out?”
“I don’t know… he wasn’t with me.”
“Guys.” I grabbed onto Blake. “The boats…” I pointed at them beyond us. The Coast Guard cutter was weaving through the path of debris we’d launched out of the back of the plane. The Navy ship, which turned out to be a destroyer, was also heading our way. Logically, there were fifty to a hundred people on the cutter and another three to five hundred on the destroyer, and they’d all be looking for survivors. We had to make ourselves even more invisible. “We stay together.” I made sure they both heard me. “Get rid of anything light colored or reflective. We need to get away from the debris—away from the areas they’re searching. Follow me as fast as you can.”
“Danny, I don’t have—I lost my MK20,” Blake said, after I’d given the instructions. “I’ve still got the raft, but no gun.”
I’d lost my rifle too—a huge loss for a sniper. “Don’t worry about it,” I told him.
Keena was holding her MK20 and handed it to Blake. “You’re a better swimmer than me, Blake. And I’ve still got my nine. You’ve still got the book right Danny?”
My backpack was intact and strapped to me under my flight suit. I nodded. “Safe, sealed, and dry.”
We swam away from the debris and watched the boats conduct their search from a distance. There still was no sign of Axel. We were all fearing the worst.
You never know with him though. He once told Emily and Abbey that he was “undrownable”—that he was born with gills that had been temporarily covered up with skin. “They’re there if I need them,” he’d said. The girls—of course—laughed it off, but he swore his mother gave birth to him while surfing and hid him in the Great Barrier Reef until the swell had subsided. He always said he’d prove it someday. There’s no time like the present, Axel.
TWENTY-SEVEN – Left Axel (Danny)
Neither boat found us. We saw the cutter park by the destroyer for twenty minutes or so before it split off east. We expected the destroyer to turn back south but it continued north. Apparently, if the exploding plane hadn’t already done so, they were now absolutely convinced we were dead. And maybe Axel is.
Most of the flames from the burning cargo and fuel had been put out by the waves and rain. There was little left on the surface, and the one SEAL raft we did find was shredded—though not quite useless. We removed the small motors from the SEAL raft to propel the inflatable Zodiac Blake had strapped to him. It wasn’t going to get us far fast, but we knew we were only a hundred miles or so off the coast, and the raft—at any speed—was certainly better than swimming.
We never found Axel. No gunshots were fired from the ships anywhere near us, so we didn’t think they had either. I plugged my dog tag tracker into my tablet, but there was no activity near us. Blake didn’t have his so he didn’t show up on the screen. I’d instructed Kate to take it from him back at the Hexagon after our “fight.” I told Keena to let hers sink to the bottom of the ocean. Past a hundred feet deep they didn’t work, so she wasn’t visible either. I kept mine, so the mole would know I was still here—still going. The captors wanted me to make it to Colorado. They wouldn’t have been involved with these ships, so I wasn’t worried about them—or the mole, more likely—calling in our position. If they thought everyone else with me was dead, that was probably for the best.
The hope for Axel—of course—was that he’d had similar luck to ours, that he’d found something to keep himself afloat and would somehow be able to make his way to shore. Hopefully he’d be waiting for us at the base of Pikes Peak—at the Pringtime Reservoir. It was unlikely, but Axel was resilient. Who knows?
“Danny.” Keena tapped my arm. “Why would they shoot us down if they know it’s us? Don’t they want you to get to Colorado?”
I nodded. “Yes and no. I don’t think everyone is on the same page in this plan. I think whoever is orchestrating this is trying to keep it from the other leaders. The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing, if that makes any sense.”
That selfish secrecy was our primary advantage. Baker and his planes might have caught the attention of the patrol ships, and they’d have spread the alert to the other regions to watch for those planes. But with us, they knew they’d shot us down. No one would be looking for us. And whoever was waiting for us in Colorado didn’t want anyone else to know we were coming either. They just wanted to know where we were. My dog tag would be monitored by the mole—I was counting on that. That was keeping Reagan and the girls alive.
The heavy rain and insanely high waves made progress toward shore difficult—and it was still so dark I needed a flashlight to read the compass on my pack. On the one hand, we were grateful for the stormy seas. The other ships probably didn’t like being out here in this crap either—most likely the reason they didn’t conduct a more thorough search. On the other hand, we were alone out here—screwed if this raft didn’t hold out—potentially dead in the water. Even after taking the gas and small motor from the other raft, we didn’t know if we had enough to get to shore. We were riding the waves as much as possible—cutting our engine like NASCAR drivers on caution laps—milking every last drop of fuel.
Fortunately, we had just enough. According to my watch—which read 7:40 p.m.—it took us exactly twelve hours to get to shore. We sank the Zodiac about a quarter-mile offshore and bodysurfed the rest of the way in. The rain never stopped—never even paused—until we reached shore. Then all of a sudden the storm dissipated, and the huge waves we’d barely escaped now looked like relative ripples. Go figure.