Mako and his people only planned to use it for a couple of hours.
The small house sat within sight of an old pier with pilings deep enough to easily accommodate the eight-foot draft of the submersible. Behind the house and some sixty yards toward the woods was an airstrip, overrun with weeds and grass from disuse. Still, it was long enough to allow the landing and takeoff of a twin-engine turboprop. That was all they needed.
Everything moved according to plan. Everyone knew what they had to do.
Mako glanced at his watch and then looked up to see the fishing boat moving away from the dock. Her running lights flickered on the water in front of her. Behind her, she was towing the unmanned and submerged forty-foot DSRV that had brought them to shore from Hartford. The submersible was simply being returned to the vicinity of the oil rig on Long Island Sound, where it had originally been taken from.
The oil rig was still on fire. Mako’s demolitions man had packed the rescue vehicle with explosives. Once the fishing boat’s tow line was cut and some distance was put between the two vessels, the submersible would self-destruct, joining the fate of its mother facility.
Mako turned around as one of the engines of the Beech 1900 aircraft came to life. The lights were on under the wings of the craft. A couple of the crew members closed the cargo bay on the plane. All the equipment was loaded. Mako turned around, looking for Kilo. He was standing in the spotlight of the plane, against an old station wagon by the garage. He had his back to Mako and appeared to be talking on his cell phone.
Mako motioned to his crew to board the plane. His sharp gaze swept over the moonlit property, checking for any mistakes, anything left behind. They’d stayed out of the farmhouse, so that wasn’t a concern.
Kilo ended the call and headed in Mako’s direction.
“We’re ready to go,” Mako said.
“I have to go separately.”
“What’s the matter?”
“The phone call.” Kilo looked at the plane as the second engine started up. “Three survivors have been taken off Hartford.”
“I didn’t hear any of that. That information didn’t come over our satellite channels.” Mako had the de-encryption for all of Pittsburgh’s communications.
“They’re already suspecting an inside job. That’s why they’ve taken everything under. I’ve been directed to eliminate the three who survived. McCann is one of them. We don’t know what they saw or heard.”
“Where have they taken them?”
“Yale-New Haven. It should be easy to get in and out,” Kilo told him. “You go on. I’ll catch up to you at the last stop at 1600 hours tomorrow, before we go north.”
Something didn’t sit right with Mako. He didn’t like the fact that they would hire him to do a job but would call Kilo to finish up the loose ends. He was tempted to tell the other man that he was coming with him to complete the assignment. But that was risky. Kilo operated on the edge. He could always have other directives. He was also too messy. The possibility of exposure wasn’t worth it.
“All right,” Mako said, giving the man a pat on the back before turning toward the plane. “I’ll see you at 1600.”
Chapter 56
She was on dry land. In a hospital. Alive. But they weren’t allowing her to call her children or Barbara or her parents.
Amy was becoming increasingly annoyed.
Still, she couldn’t take it out on Lieutenant Connelly. The woman had been extremely pleasant to her while asking a thousand questions about each minute she’d been stuck on Hartford.
But Amy was starting to lose patience period. She sent the other woman a narrow glare.
“You want to run that last question by me again?”
“Between your arrival on board before the hijacking and the moment Commander McCann summoned you and Brody back to the control room, anyone could have been in charge in the control room and you wouldn’t have known.”
“This isn’t what you asked,” Amy said shortly.
“I’m trying to break the question into smaller pieces.”
“I’m not an infant. I can handle it.”
What the hell, Amy thought. Her head pounded. She’d ended up with God knew how many stitches on her forehead. Her stomach still felt queasy as a result of what the emergency room doctor said was a concussion she suffered at the time of the explosion.
“Whatever your question was, my understanding of it is that you’re accusing Commander McCann of being responsible for the hijacking. You’re trying to get me to say he ordered his people to lock him in the ship’s office. That he had them shoot at him. That he—”
“I’m not accusing him of anything,” the lieutenant said quickly. “At the same time, I think it’s important that we approach this from every possible angle. Neither you nor Brody saw who the leader was. What I’m trying to do is eliminate the possibility that Commander McCann could have been running the show when he wasn’t in your company. I’m trying to head off any future investigation.”
Amy sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her head pounded even worse when she sat up, and the stupid hospital gown probably offered a clear glimpse of her ass to anyone walking behind her, but she didn’t care.
“You’re bringing out the shipyard in me.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It means that I’m just about ready to start getting into your face.” Amy stonily returned the startled look Connelly sent her. “And I mean right now.”
“Amy, the last thing I want to do is upset you,” Lieutenant Connelly said softly.
“The last thing you should be doing is accusing one of your own, a man who bravely stopped at least another dozen weapons from being launched. The same man who took the whole lot of those hijackers on almost single-handedly, and succeeded in being such a pain in the ass to them that they ran with their tails between their legs. Commander McCann saved my life and Brody’s life more than once while we were trapped in that sub.” She threw both hands in the air, frustrated. “And the submarine itself. My God, I don’t know what’s left of it, but he brought it to the surface, didn’t he? You should celebrate him as a hero, not sit here questioning his honor.”
The navy investigator started to speak, but Amy remembered something else and interrupted. Her mind was a total jumble. She wasn’t willing to risk forgetting it.
“Wait a minute. In the ship’s office on the second level, there’s a laptop. It has one of those Electric Boat property stickers on it, so you won’t miss it. I suppose that area got wet. But even if it did, get your computer guys to check the memory. Check the e-mail McCann tried to send your people right after we were locked up in there. You read that and tell me if it’s from someone who’s masterminding a hijacking operation.”
Connelly nodded and wrote something on her pad of paper. “I appreciate your defense of him.”
It may have been the quiet way that she said it, but the words seemed to sprout wings, and Amy found herself looking for the meaning as they took flight in her head.
The lieutenant’s blue eyes shone with something that resembled affection when they looked up. “Ms. Russell. Like you, I believe he’s innocent. I believe he’s a hero.”
Amy bit her tongue to keep from asking the question. She already knew the answer. It was woman’s instinct. That sixth sense that told her there was something between Lieutenant Connelly and Commander McCann.