“Jed, the loose nuke’s somewhere on Coronado Island. Bob Pope is emailing you a list of suspected addresses as we speak. You need to put together a crew and check them out ASAP. Today’s September eleventh.”
“What are you talking about?” Brighton set down his fork. “They’ve been evacuating DC for the past twelve hours.”
“I know, but DC’s not the target. It’s NASNI.” The Naval Air Station North Island.
“There’s been no intel to that effect that I’m aware of.” Brighton sat back from the table. “You’re not even with the teams anymore. What the hell’s going on?”
“What’s he talking about?” Lea whispered.
Brighton held up his hand to quiet her.
“I’m with ST6/Black now,” Gil went on.
“Fuck, why doesn’t that surprise me? I thought they were disbanded.”
“Dad just said fuck!”
Lea pointed a slender finger across the table. “You’re cruisin’, buster!”
“Jed, look… they want to fry the base and take out the carriers. You and I don’t have to like each other, but I called you because you’re the go-to SEAL on the West Coast. And you know me. You know I wouldn’t break it down like this if I thought there was another way. In a couple hours, a two-kiloton Russian nuke is gonna level that island.”
“What about FBI? DHS? Why aren’t they moving on this supposed intel?”
“I don’t have the details, but I suspect they’re tangled up in a pissing contest with Pope. It’s typical G2 bullshit, Jed, and Pacific Command is gonna pay the price.” He let out an exhausted sigh. “Jed, listen… I’m at my ranch in Montana, where I just debriefed one of the AQAP insurgents who burned down my fucking house and beat the hell out of my wife.”
“You’re shitting me! What the fuck happened?”
“There’s no time to explain anything. What matters is that I gave this asshole the VIP treatment, and he gave me San Diego as the target. So are you gonna trust me on this, or are you gonna let the idiots in G2 fuck the West Coast teams right out of existence? I know you’re all a bunch of candy asses out there, but I like to think even a West Coast frog is smarter than that.”
Brighton would have preferred to think that Gil had lost his mind, but he knew in his gut that he hadn’t. “This coming from the SEAL who was awarded the Medal of Honor as a device for political propaganda.”
Gil chuckled. “Now, there’s a point we do agree on.”
“Fuck,” Brighton muttered, running a hand over his closely cropped head, agreeing it was probably time to bury the hatchet between them. “Is Marie gonna be okay?”
“Yeah. She got the shit kicked out of her, but she’s gonna be all right. So did I call the right frog or what?”
Brighton got to his feet. “I’m moving now. Call me back with any additional intel.”
“Roger that. Good luck, Commander.” Gil broke the connection.
Brighton put down the phone and took his wallet from his back pocket, pulling out five hundred dollars in cash and giving it to his wife.
“What the hell is this for?”
He picked up his son from the chair and kissed his face. “I want you two to get in the car and drive east. Don’t stop until dark or until you hear from me. Keep the radio on. If you hear anything bad, you turn south for Texas and head for my parents’ place.”
“Bad like what? Bad like what, Jed?”
“The nuke is here — here in town — and I gotta go find it. There’s no time to go through channels.”
“God damn Gil Shannon!” Lea pushed away from the table as her eyes began to fill with tears. “Why’d he have to call you? Of all the SEALs in San Diego, why’d that prick have to call you?”
Brighton held his son tight against him, his words catching in his throat… “Because I’m the best, baby.”
78
Senior Chiefs Eddy Cox and Billy Caraway were both passed out on a pair of beach loungers in front of the Hotel del Coronado when Cox’s iPhone began to chime. With standing orders not to leave the island now that the military stood at DEFCON 1, a number of SEALs from Team III had taken rooms at the hotel, and with the announcement the night before that DC was being evacuated, Cox and Caraway had spent the night drinking hard.
Cox didn’t even look at his phone; he just pitched it out into the sand. But then Caraway’s phone began to ring, and the two of them sat up looking at each other, bleary eyed.
“What the fuck?” Cox mumbled. “Better check who it is.”
Caraway dug the phone from the pocket of his surfer shorts. “Fuck, it’s Brighton.”
“Senior Chief Caraway,” he answered, sounding surprisingly spry considering the volume of tequila he’d imbibed the night before. “What can I do for you, Commander?”
“Are you and Cox still at the Del?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Listen very carefully, Senior Chief — and this is not for publication… the loose nuke is somewhere on Coronado, and we have to find it before 08:45. So gather your squad and meet me in the parking lot in front of the hotel. I’m crossing the bridge now.”
“Aye, sir!”
“Do not draw attention to yourselves. We are black. Understood?”
“Aye, sir!”
Caraway sprang up from the lounger, glancing at the time before tucking away his phone. “Fuck me! It’s already 07:00! Get up, dude! We gotta roll!”
Cox swung a leg over the lounger, putting a foot in the sand. “Fuck was that about?”
“The fuckin’ bomb’s here on the island! We’re mobilized black!”
Cox looked up at him, suspicious as hell. “You takin’ a shit?”
“No! Get the fuck up! He’ll be here in five, and we gotta gather the squad.”
A minute later, they were moving briskly through the hotel, which was crowded with international tourists flowing to and from the elaborate breakfast buffet. Constructed almost entirely of wood, the 680-room beachfront luxury inn had been the largest resort hotel in the world when it first opened to the public in 1888. The Del had since been the centerpiece for a number of feature films, including Some Like It Hot, starring Marilyn Monroe.
Topping the stairs to the second floor, Caraway turned left down the hall, and Cox turned right.
Caraway burst through the door of a room where two team members were bedded down with a pair of French girls they’d picked up the night before. “Stand to!”
The women quickly covered up as one of the SEALs came out of the john gripping a .45. “What the fuck, Senior Chief? I almost blew your shit away!”
“We’ve been activated, Santiago! You two be out front in three minutes!” Caraway disappeared down the hall.
Five minutes later, seven disheveled SEALs stood in a huddle in front of the Hotel Del dressed in flip-flops, shorts, and T-shirts.
“Okay, here’s the skinny,” Caraway said, keeping his voice low. “There’s a nuke loose on the island, and we got almost no time to find it. Brighton’s on his way to dope us in on the details. But be advised we are black, so don’t call anybody and don’t say anything to give away our mission to the locals.”
“I thought the bomb was in DC,” one of them said.
“I don’t know the backstory,” Caraway admitted. “Maybe the CIA got it wrong. Maybe we’re looking for a second weapon. All I know is that Brighton said we gotta find it by 08:45.”
“Today’s 9/11,” remarked another SEAL, checking his watch. “First plane hit the tower at 08:46 eastern time, and it’s already after ten o’clock back in DC. Hell, boys, I’ll bet they got it wrong.”