Collateral (Tier One #6)

Ember Executive Boeing 787

Westbound Over the Atlantic Ocean

October 2

2130 Local Time

Dempsey rolled his neck and arched his back, getting a series of satisfying pops, and then slipped into the chair beside Grimes. She didn’t look up, just kept staring at her hands, which were resting on the polished dark mahogany conference table. He searched for something to say but came up empty. Zhukov was in the wind, and that was a bitter pill to swallow. He felt it, too, the anger and resentment and unslaked thirst for vengeance.

But maybe not the guilt . . .

He put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. She looked up at him, emotional pain visible in her bloodshot eyes, and then back down at her hands.

“I’m sorry, JD . . .”

“For what?” he said, forcing a chuckle. “Dude, we stopped World War Three, we took another deadly Zeta off the planet, we saved the lives of hundreds of American Marines, and maybe four times as many civilians in Mariupol, and we did it without losing anyone. That’s a pretty good day, Lizzie.”

She gave a soft snort and closed her eyes. When she finally looked up at him, the pain was still there, but so was something else. She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, then simply sighed.

“What is it?” he said.

She shook her head.

“Listen, Elizabeth, you gotta let it go. If you didn’t have the shot, then you didn’t have the shot. Signals is tracking Zhukov right now. The entire IC is on this, but more importantly, Ian is on it. We’re gonna get tasking any minute, and then we’ll reroute this plane, kill box that son of a bitch, and end this.” When she didn’t respond, he said, “Lizzie, look at me . . . This is not over, okay? I promise you.”

“I know,” she said, her voice a tense whisper. Then, glancing around to see if anyone might be listening, she leaned in. “John, the thing is—”

The forward door to the TOC slammed open, interrupting them. Munn stomped into the room, tapped a button on the primary workstation, and the center monitor on the opposite wall flickered to life.

“Dude, what the hell?” Dempsey said, looking at Munn.

“The Vice President of the United States wants to say a few words, if it’s all right with you,” Munn fired back and dropped into the chair beside Grimes.

“Ordinarily I would begin with congratulations,” came the booming voice of the greatest SEAL who’d ever lived, and the one man who would always, no matter what, give it to them straight. Hell, Jarvis had created Ember, after all. Dempsey gave Grimes’s hand a squeeze and shifted his attention to the screen where Jarvis beamed down at them from an unfamiliar SCIF. “But before we discuss Ember business, there’s someone I think you guys should meet and thank personally.”

The screen split in two, and a Hollywood-handsome naval officer wearing a blue ball cap with USS Donald Cook DDG-75 on the front and scrambled eggs on the brim appeared in the right panel.

“Commander Townsend, while I’m afraid I can’t introduce this team due to OPSEC, I did want to let them thank you personally for your ship’s bold and flawless operation. Team, Commander Townsend’s Arleigh Burke shot down the first Iskander missile that got away. He and his crew risked their lives, operating in contested waters and facing down the entire Russian Black Sea fleet, to get into position for that kill shot. The Cook is now safely steaming south of the forty-fifth parallel towards Constanta, but I think we and the world owe them a debt of gratitude.”

“Sir,” Munn began, taking the lead. “Thank you, and your entire crew, for your courage, competency, and professionalism. Without you, none of us would be heading home right now. We know the risks you and your crew took to execute this mission. Bravo Zulu, Captain. And you’re gonna wanna keep an eye out for a crate of something special heading your way in the next few days—enough New York strips so the Cook can throw the best damn steel beach picnic in the history of Sixth Fleet.”

Thank God for Dan Munn, Dempsey thought, looking at his friend with wonder, having no doubt in his mind that five grand worth of USDA Prime was already en route to the warship. The man wore his heart on his sleeve, and Dempsey wouldn’t want it any other way. Without Munn, he wasn’t sure he’d even be here. Without Munn, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could do this job.

At least until Arkady Zhukov lies dead in a box, but after that . . . I’m not so sure.

“Well,” the young CO said with a humble smile, “whoever the hell you guys are, we’re glad you’re out there. If we were able to help in some small way, that was our honor. But I would be remiss not to return the gratitude, because we were on standby to shoot down two possible SRBMs, and as it was, we only had to take out one. Now, I’m just a lowly warship captain—not read into the code-word-level stuff it is that you folks do—but I can handle basic arithmetic. So, thank you for getting the other one. And thank you for the steaks. Be safe.”

“Fair winds and following seas, Commander,” Munn said.

And then Townsend was gone, leaving only the newly minted Vice President of the United States still on the screen. Dempsey felt himself once again consumed by the thrill of the hunt. Baldwin was back as Signals Chief doing what he did best. Dick Wang had his mojo back. Ember’s new Director, Mike Casey, had proven himself a capable leader of the Ember team, despite his bubblehead pedigree. And now Jarvis held the second most powerful office in the United States. Ember was better positioned now than it had been in months to execute its charter, and he couldn’t wait to hear the update on Zhukov’s whereabouts so they could finish what they’d started in Odessa. In some ways, Grimes not having had angles for the shot might prove a blessing . . . the catharsis he would feel squeezing that final trigger and ending the Russian bastard would be unimaginable.

“Here’s a quick summary of where we are,” Jarvis was saying. “The Marines remain in Mariupol, but they’re working now in a multinational peacekeeping role—with UN blue helmets scheduled to arrive later today—in cooperation with the Russian forces. Petrov has pulled most of their ground forces and all of their armor back across the eastern border. They are now respecting the no-fly zone established earlier, though they do maintain combat air patrols over the Black Sea. The Kremlin is still clamoring about our F-22s and F-35s in Russian sovereign airspace, but that’s just noise now.”

“Right,” Martin said with a loud chuckle. “If they keep it up, you can ask them to explain what their heavily armed Su-27 was doing in Mariupol when it crashed.”

“Well,” Jarvis replied, a good-natured grin on his face, “I say we let the bureaucrats figure that shit out.” As he spoke the words, Dempsey noticed something flash across the man’s face—a sadness, perhaps—as he remembered that the “bureaucrats” now included him. “In any case,” the Vice President continued, “we have pulled our air assets back as well, and in fact, the STP and air element from the 26th MEU are redeploying back to the Essex. Russia is still patrolling the Black Sea like they own it, but they have grudgingly agreed to allow the Essex and the Oak Hill to retrieve their Marines in the coming weeks.”

“Bravo Zulu us,” Munn said, a big goofy grin on his face. “Looks like we saved the world again, boys . . . and, uh, girl,” he added with a wink at Grimes, who gave him a halfhearted middle finger, not yet quite over the missed shot in Odessa, Dempsey surmised.

“This is all great, but let’s get down to business,” Dempsey said, unable to wait a second longer. “Where did Arkady end up and where are we headed to tie up that last loose string?”

He could feel the energy in the room at the question. All of them were waiting for just that order, he knew. Jarvis’s face changed, and he seemed to choose his words carefully, making acid churn in Dempsey’s stomach.

Dear God, please don’t let us lose him again.

“Oh, I thought you all knew,” Jarvis said, and the sickening feeling worsened. “Zhukov returned to Moscow.”

Dempsey stared at the screen, unable to speak.

“Sir,” Munn said, breaking the silence. “We were under the impression he’d flown to Germany under his NOC.”

Jarvis shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. He’s in Moscow.”

“Fine,” Dempsey snapped. “Then we take him in Moscow.”

Grimes laughed at this.

He turned on her. “What’s so funny?”

“You,” she said. “We wouldn’t last forty-eight hours in Moscow. That’s mission impossible, John.”

“Maybe for you. But I don’t care where the bastard is,” he snapped. Setting his jaw, he returned his gaze to Jarvis on the monitor. “Send me to Russia, sir, and I’ll personally end Zhukov. Hell, I’ll take out Petrov while I’m there—consider it a freebie.”

“JD, dude,” Munn said, using his let’s all calm down voice, “I want to nail this sonuvabitch, too, but you’re not thinking straight.”

Dempsey glared at his friend. “If we don’t act now, God only knows what that evil psychopath will come up with next. I, for one, am sick of playing Russian roulette. How many more spins of the cylinder can Ember survive? Hell, can the world survive? Damn it, Dan, if not us, who?”

“I understand how you feel, John,” Jarvis said, and for the first time since he had known the man, Dempsey thought he heard real conflict, maybe even doubt, in his idol’s voice. “But I need you to give me the benefit of the doubt—benefit of the doubt earned by years of service and mutual respect—that I have a plan in the works for Zhukov. He might have slipped away this time, but this is not the end of the story. I need you to trust me on this. Can you do that?”

Dempsey looked at Grimes, who shook her head, and he watched a tear spill onto her cheek. He got it—hell, he more than got it. If she hadn’t failed, then they wouldn’t be having this horrible conversation. But she hadn’t failed, had she? The line hadn’t been there . . .

“Yes, sir,” Dempsey said, answering for the team. Then he looked away.

He did trust Jarvis—probably more than anyone on the planet—but this time, something felt different.

“You’re headed to Tampa, but just long enough to get some well-deserved rest and gear up for the next mission,” Jarvis said. “You have my gratitude. You have the President’s gratitude. Hell, you have the whole damn country’s gratitude. But most importantly, you have my word that when the time is right, Ember, and only Ember, will get the tasking to end Arkady Zhukov.”

Dempsey looked back up at the screen. Now, that was the voice of the man he would follow to hell and back. Finally, Captain Jarvis the SEAL was talking to them, instead of the Vice President of the United States.

“We appreciate that, sir. We’ll be standing by.”

Jarvis broke the connection and the screen went black.

The air in the room felt suddenly heavy, almost suffocating. For several long seconds, nobody spoke . . . nobody moved. Then Wang stormed out, mumbling something about “bullshit” under his breath. Dempsey didn’t stop him.

Feeling the eyes of his remaining teammates on him, he said, “All right, you heard the Vice President. Let’s get some rest on the flight home, and then we can start prepping for whatever Director Casey has for us next. And I want you guys to start thinking about how to best get this team up to full strength and full complement. Recruitment is obviously going to be a priority when we get home. The Ember mission is far from over.”

Everyone nodded and pushed their chairs back from the table. Grimes flashed him a tight smile and gave his shoulder a squeeze as she followed him out of the TOC, toward the bunkroom. As Dempsey unlaced his boots and stripped off his clothes, he couldn’t help but wonder if his own mission with Ember was perhaps coming to its end.

Yes, there was much work to do . . .

But he just felt so fucking tired.