Colt shook his head. “Punky found the source of the waveform up at Cal Poly, and—”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Then Colt understood. Somebody in the Navy had fed the enemy the information they needed to make such a feat possible. And just because they had foiled the attempt to sink an American aircraft carrier with a hijacked Joint Strike Fighter didn’t mean they were out of the woods. They still needed to find out who had turned on the Stars and Stripes and sold out their country.
Colt leaned forward and placed a hand on Jug’s knee. “You and I did our part,” he said. “We stopped the attack from happening. I know Punky is looking into who gave up the classified information, and I’m sure after last night there will be plenty of admirals willing to turn up the heat. But we did our job.”
Jug nodded his head slowly, but his reply was cut off by the door opening and permitting a filtered ray of sunlight into the dark space. “You boys done playing grab ass in here?”
Colt recognized the Senior Chief from the night before, even though he had traded his ghillie suit for a pair of short khaki shorts and a dark blue T-shirt with the words “UDT/SEAL Instructor” written in gold on the chest.
“Thanks for the digs, Senior Chief,” Colt said, slowly coming to his feet.
“The name’s Dave, or Whitey if you prefer.”
Colt held out his hand. “Colt, or Mother.”
The SEAL gripped his hand with a smile. “Your name Goose or somethin’?”
He tried not to wince as Dave squeezed his hand with a little more pressure than he probably gave others and stared back at him with a wry smile. “Somethin’ like that.”
Dave nodded, then released his grip and looked down at Jug, who was still sitting on his cot. “Well, I just got off the phone with my boss back in Coronado. Seems there are some crazy rumors flying around about you two.”
Colt and Jug exchanged looks but said nothing. Until they talked with their own bosses, they weren’t sure how much of what had gone on the night before was going to be classified. And they knew there were going to be a lot of people looking into what went down and trying to find suitable scapegoats to shield them from any potential blowback.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Dave,” Colt said.
The SEAL pursed his lips and nodded. “Thought so. Anywho, somebody aboard the Abraham Lincoln wants to have a chat with you. There’s an Osprey on its way here right now to take you back to the ship.”
“Both of us?” Jug asked.
Dave shook his head. “Nope, just Mother here.”
Colt knew CAG was the only one with enough juice to divert a Navy CMV-22B Osprey to San Clemente to pick up a single passenger and bring him out to the carrier. It was either to chew his ass some more or give him an “atta boy” for trying to stop the attack. Even for as good as he felt, Colt knew it could still go either way.
He looked down at Jug. “Let’s get together when I get back to the beach.”
“Drinks are on me,” he said. “Even if you did try shooting me down.”
Jug stood, and the two men embraced before Colt turned and followed the Senior Chief out into the morning light. He followed him down a worn trail to the parking apron a few hundred feet away, lost in his thoughts as he heard the faint beating of the tilt rotor’s massive blades churning through the air on approach to the island.
When the Osprey came into view, its proprotors turned skyward like a helicopter, Dave turned to Colt and spoke with something akin to admiration. “If any of those rumors I heard were true, I have a feeling you’re going to get a medal out of this.”
Colt couldn’t help himself, and he laughed. “And here I am thinking I’m being flown out to the ship to get my ass chewed!”
The SEAL slapped him on the back. “Either way, I think I may know of an opportunity you’d be perfect for.”
The Osprey hover-taxied closer, and Colt turned to see it set down on the parking apron and roll toward them. He turned to look at Dave and saw a mischievous look in his eye. “Why do I get the feeling I’m being conned into something?”
The SEAL grinned broadly and nodded at the Osprey. “We’ll be in touch, flyboy.”
A man named Chief Cooper led Colt from the back of the Osprey and across the flight deck. He wore a similar cranial, goggles, and life preserver unit to the ones he had been wearing when he departed the ship the morning before. He had barely been gone twenty-four hours, but already the flight deck seemed like a foreign place to him.
The VRM-30 chief walked across the flight deck with his head held high and guided him to a short set of stairs outboard of the carrier’s superstructure. Colt knew exactly where he was. It was the same ladder he had taken down into the ship following his doomed flight, and the same one he had taken to the roof after CAG kicked him off the boat.
He stepped through the hatch having found some of the answers he had gone searching for and removed his cranial and goggles and handed them to Chief Cooper. “Thanks for the ride, Chief.”
“No problem, sir. But you can hold onto those. We’ll be taking off for North Island within the hour, and you’re coming with us,” he replied.
Yep, Colt thought. Definitely getting my ass chewed.
“Know where I’m supposed to go?”
Before the chief could answer, he heard Footloose’s booming voice coming from the passageway behind him. “Lieutenant Bancroft!”
Colt spun and came to attention, feeling silly as he looked down at the ruddy-faced Navy captain in an olive drab flight suit striding toward him. The man’s face gave nothing away, but Colt clearly remembered the dressing down he had received and braced himself for a continuation of that. Somehow, Colt suspected he had found out that he had stolen the JSF’s maintenance data and probably blamed him for the attack on the ship the night before.
“I owe you an apology, young man,” CAG said, reaching out to take Colt’s stunned hand. “I don’t have all the details yet… hell, I’m not even sure I’m cleared to have all the details… but I should have taken your warning more seriously.”
Colt blinked away his surprise. “Thank you, sir.”
“Everybody on this ship owes you an immense debt of gratitude, and I wanted to personally tell you that I fucked up. You tried warning me that something was wrong, and I blew you off. If there is anything you need from me in the future, don’t hesitate to call on me.”
“Thank you, sir,” he said again, relaxing for the first time since Dave had told him an Osprey was coming to pluck him off San Clemente and take him to the carrier.
CAG released Colt’s hand, slapped him on the shoulder, and with a grin said, “There’s a certain cruiser CO who wants to know who she’s putting a medal in for. Should I tell her it’s the same one whose wings she wanted taken away?”
In spite of everything, Colt laughed.
CAG turned to Chief Cooper, who was standing quietly off to the side, and said, “You get this man back to North Island.”
“Aye aye, sir,” the chief replied.
“Bravo Zulu, Mother,” CAG said. “Bravo fucking Zulu!”
56
The woman known as Mantis sat in a chair on the front porch of her modest mid-century house in Willow Glen. It was a cool morning, and she enjoyed sipping on her tea as she watched the traffic passing in front of their house, young hipsters running the Silicon Valley rat race.
The door behind her opened, and her husband stepped out onto the porch, walking around her to sit in the chair at her side. She didn’t acknowledge him, but he hadn’t expected her to. She focused her attention on a bench in the park across the street in what had been a morning ritual every day for the last thirty years.