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CHAPTER 1
The Terrorist
Austin, Texas

Mustafa Wahib Abdulla knew he would die today.
The suicide bomber sat in the driver’s seat of the Toyota 4Runner, his finger resting on the detonator switch.
His lips moved silently as he rocked back and forth in rhythm with his holy pleadings, staring straight ahead at the closed garage door of the old four-bay auto repair shop and caressing the switch as he prayed.
Abdulla smiled as he finished. He was ready to make the ultimate sacrifice, to be received into Paradise, where Allah would reward him for his zeal.
“It is almost time,” Professor said, checking his watch.
The Pakistani looked up at the American he knew only as “Professor” and tried to hide his disdain for the man with a nod. While the American had been instrumental in helping them to infiltrate the United States, had sheltered them in the city, and had provided materiel and support for their cause, he was not a believer in the one true religion. Abdulla had to remind himself that the help they’d received from Professor was just a means to an end—the end of the Great Satan.
Allah, forgive me for taking the aid of this nonbeliever. I will die in jihad and bring many more nonbelievers with me, Abdulla prayed, certain of his cause.
Abdulla climbed from the SUV. As he closed the door, he could feel the extra weight it contained. It shut with a satisfying thunk. They’d molded one hundred pounds of Semtex into the hood, doors, and quarter panels of the Toyota before pouring quarter-inch steel ball bearings—a deadly, flying hail—on top of the plastic explosives. The switch Abdulla had caressed would arm the device when he was ready to ram his target. He’d connected it to the front bumper airbag sensor. An impact strong enough to deploy the airbag would also trigger the bomb.
Abdulla signaled to his men to gather around. They were swarthy men from the Afghan and Pakistani mountains and smooth-skinned Saudis, all clothed in black combat fatigues and wearing a chest rig packed with extra ammunition and grenades. Except for Abdulla, the driver of the deadly vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, each holy warrior would carry an AK-47 when the time for battle came. They were all skilled men who had trained relentlessly on a mocked-up target in a Syrian training camp to perfect their timing and coordination of the mission they were about to undertake.
“We will pray one final time,” Abdulla said to his men, ignoring the pacing Professor.
Abdulla knew he and his men were only pawns in a larger game orchestrated by his leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the leader of the Mexican movement who had brought them to the U.S. He didn’t know the name of the Mexican leader, nor had he dealt with anyone but Professor. Abdulla studied his contact again. He was of medium height and slim build, with white hair styled into a long ponytail. Square glasses framed brown eyes above a wide nose and neatly trimmed mustache. What Abdulla found most curious was the silver coin Professor wore around his neck on a matching silver chain. Professor had told Abdulla it was his symbol of his defiance of the Great Satan.
Professor glanced at his watch again, then said, “Hurry up.”
The arrogance of the man angered Abdulla. He wanted to break his neck. Closing his eyes, Abdulla willed himself to remain calm, then he turned and walked across the stained and scarred cement floor of the two-story concrete block building. The structure stank of used oil and burned rubber. Outside, garbage cluttered the gutters, rusty car parts leaned against the chain-link fences, and graffiti covered the walls. Abdulla abhorred the filthy garage and the rotten stench that filled his nostrils with every breath. This was America, the land of milk and honey, and yet the neighborhood was no better than the slum he’d been raised in outside Islamabad. He was ready to leave this awful place, with its uncomfortable cots and the electric hotplates that warmed their food. He was ready for Paradise.
Abdulla knelt beside his men on his own prayer rug. In unison, they bowed and prayed, consecrating themselves to the Prophet Muhammad and to Allah so their actions might bring glory and honor to their cause. When they finished, they rose and walked over to where Professor waited.
“We are ready,” Abdulla said.
Professor nodded and motioned for them to proceed with a circular gesture of his hand. The fighters loaded into a Ford Explorer and a Honda CR-V while Abdulla sat in the driver’s seat of the Toyota, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened. He’d prepared for this moment, yet he was still nervous.
Abdulla swallowed the lump in his throat and muttered another prayer as he turned the ignition key. Ahead, the garage door slid open to reveal brilliant sunlight beyond.
It’s a metaphor, Abdulla thought. They were about to step out of darkness and into the light. He would venture from this dreary world into a glorious Paradise.
The Explorer exited the garage, and Abdulla fell in line between it and the CR-V. He slipped on a pair of sunglasses as they turned onto the main road. He accelerated to keep up with the lead vehicle, thankful for the bomb’s kill switch.
All around him, Americans were going about their daily lives, blissfully unaware of the carnage Abdulla and his men were about to unleash. Knowing he was about to destroy a sacred landmark and kill and maim leaders of the cult of consumerism made him smile.
The infidels would die a scorching death and burn forever in the fires of Hell.


CHAPTER 2
Outside the Texas Governor’s Mansion
Austin, Texas

Rueben Morales, the man known as Professor, stepped out of his SUV in the parking lot on Lavaca Street, across the street from the rear of the Texas Governor’s Mansion, ready to watch the carnage Abdulla and his men were about to bring.
Morales closed the door of the Dodge Journey, a vehicle made in Toluca, Mexico, which was partly why he’d purchased it. Mexican hands had built the Journey for an Italian company that had then sold it to Americans, who believed they were helping the Detroit economy by buying from the American Big Three. He chuckled at the irony as he walked to the rear passenger door and opened it. Morales leaned across the seat and turned on a video camera. Aiming it through the already open window, he positioned it to provide maximum coverage of the events that were about to unfold.
A breeze ruffled his clothes as Morales moved to the front of the Journey and leaned against the hood. They had chosen this day with care. The Republican governor was hosting a luncheon for election campaign donors. He and his family would be mingling with state senators and representatives, as well as select visitors who had contributed significant sums to the re-election war chest. Morales had also heard a rumor that a sitting U.S. senator would attend, and he hoped it was true.
He watched the tall sycamore, pecan, and cottonwood trees surrounding the white Greek Revival mansion sway with the breeze. The wind would help to fan the flames. His gaze fell on the two vehicle entrance gates set into a white concrete block fence topped with black wrought-iron spikes and the Texas State Troopers who patrolled the sidewalk.
“Let la Revolución begin!” Morales muttered. The peace these white mercenaries believed they held over their ill-gotten gains was about to be shattered. They’d stolen the Southwest from Mexico with their concepts of manifest destiny and by waging unjust wars on the Mexican people. It was time to take back Aztlán.
Morales’ attention snapped back to the present as a Ford Explorer careened onto Lavaca Street and came to a screeching halt alongside the gates. Three men jumped from the vehicle. Two immediately shot the uniformed troopers and placed explosives to blow the gates open. The third terrorist ran to the guard booth, where he shoved a grenade through the window before racing toward the patrol car sitting at the corner of Lavaca and West Tenth Street, where he rolled a second grenade under the Dodge Charger.
The first two men took refuge behind the Explorer as they detonated their explosives, knocking the gate to the ground. The first grenade demolished the interior of the guard house and threw chunks of concrete twenty feet into the air. The second grenade blast lifted the trooper’s Ford Crown Victoria off its wheels. Fire curled out from underneath, and when the gas tank exploded, it sent the trunk lid somersaulting through the air. Morales howled with delight.
Abdulla’s modified Toyota 4Runner swept into view as it rounded the corner from Tenth Street. He curved wide into the oncoming traffic lane, then shot through the now open gates of the vehicle entrance. Morales knew a carload of Abdulla’s men would commence an assault at the front of the mansion, blowing up the patrol car on Colorado Street, breaking through the wrought-iron gates, and killing everyone they could find.
The 4Runner disappeared behind the wall. Morales blew out his breath and covered his ears. He could see the steps leading to the rear entrance under the porte-cochère. The Toyota reappeared and charged up the steps at full throttle. The massive tires of the modified vehicle bounced as they hit the first step, hung in the air for a moment, and fell back in slow motion. Then, the four-wheel drive powered the vehicle up the steps.
White light burst from the car as it exploded.
Morales felt the heat and the shockwave roll over him. His mind couldn’t take in all the details of what had happened in those seconds after detonation.
Later, he would play back the video frame-by-frame to see the 4Runner strike the mansion, the initial explosion that shot ball bearings from the car to punch, tear, rip, and gouge anything in their path. The porte-cochère disappeared in the initial ball of flame, and the back of the mansion disintegrated. Fire spread from the Toyota’s gasoline tank to the mansion’s wooden siding and framing. A secondary explosion rocked the grounds as natural gas, spilling from a ruptured line, ignited in a scorching fireball.
Debris pelted the roadway more than a block away. Morales ducked behind a nearby building as wood splinters and ball bearings rained down all around him.
Pride swelled inside him as he turned to run for cover behind a brick building, and he discovered he was laughing.
Professor’s forces had delivered the first blow in a massive terror campaign, and it wouldn’t be the last.

CHAPTER 3
Dark Water Research Headquarters
Texas City, Texas

Greg Olsen and his grandfather, Clifford, sat in the office that had once belonged to Greg’s father. The two men had adjourned to the office to get a little breathing room from the well-wishers and the funeral wake. Their feelings were still raw after burying the remains of Allen and Denise Olsen, who had died in what the FBI had deemed a terror attack on the Texas Governor’s mansion just six days ago.
The sense of loss weighed heavily on each man, Greg for losing his parents and Cliff for losing his only son.
Greg had never known his grandfather to show much emotion. Yet, the old man’s cheeks shone with tears as he stared out the window of the second-floor office, which overlooked the turning basin and docks adjoining Industrial Canal, where a collection of Dark Water Research’s barges, tugs, and service vessels waited for their orders.
Established by Homer Olsen during World War II, DWR, as its employees and clients called it, was a commercial dive and salvage company that had grown from a two-person shop to a worldwide conglomerate, providing a wide range of inspection, design, and maintenance services, from in-water ship repairs to underwater construction. But its bread and butter was the oilfield service and equipment industry. The company had moved to its current location just north of Galveston five years ago and had erected an old airplane hangar salvaged from the Navy air base at Corpus Christi.
Cliff held his white cowboy hat by the brim and slowly turned it in circles. He had a full head of black hair and wore his usual uniform of black slacks, a tan Western shirt with pearl snaps, and alligator-hide cowboy boots.
While Greg hoped his brown hair looked as good when he was seventy-five, he had the same piercing gray eyes as his father and Cliff, and he’d gotten his height from them as well. He liked to joke that, these days, he was only six feet tall if he was lying down, but his size was still evident while sitting in his wheelchair.
After a moment of quiet reflection, Cliff set his hat on a chair, pulled a flask from his pocket, and unscrewed the top. He took a healthy slug and then handed it to Greg. “Cures what ails ya, boy.”
Greg took a tentative sip from the flask. As he suspected, it was tequila—Cliff’s favorite, as well as his own. He took a heartier swig. The liquor burned in his mouth and throat, but, damn, it was good.
Nothing can cure what ails me, he thought.
Less than two years ago, Greg had lost the use of his legs when shrapnel from an IED had severed his spinal cord, and he was still struggling to cope with his new situation, but now he’d lost his most trusted support system, his parents. It felt like his world had collapsed around him.
As he took a third deep pull of tequila, Greg wanted to crawl inside the flask and find the bottom. But with the death of his father, Greg had been forced to step, or rather roll, into the role of DWR’s CEO, a position he didn’t think he was ready for, but time wouldn’t stop for him. It marched on. Greg had bills to pay, contracts to negotiate and fulfill, and the phone calls never ceased. He resolved that he would do what sailors always did—hitch up their dungarees, square their white caps, and order another beer.
Cliff pulled a pack of cigarettes from the left breast pocket of his shirt and slid a lighter from his pants pocket. Greg pressed a button to turn on an exhaust fan built into the wall. Cliff tossed the pack and lighter onto the desk, and Greg helped himself, despite having given up smoking after being injured. The nicotine made his leg muscles spasm and dried out his mouth, yet he sparked the lighter and took a deep drag. Self-destruction didn’t ease the pain, but it helped, or so he thought.
“Grandpa …” Greg’s voice cracked as he spoke.
Cliff waved him off and leaned forward in his seat. “I know how you feel, son.”
Greg nodded. Hot tears surged in his eyes. Cliff’s tears had triggered his own. Why do I feel like such a woman? Something had changed inside Greg after his injury. He used to be able to shoot a terrorist in the face and not give it a second thought. Now, he got weepy whenever he contemplated death.
He squeezed his eyes shut so hard they ached, and when he opened them, Greg had to blink rapidly to get them to focus on the calendar that served as a desk blotter. Penciled on the small lines were job deadlines, phone numbers, and other notes in his father’s neat handwriting. Everything reminded him of his dad. A tear fell from his cheek and dotted the paper.
“I want to come back to work and help you out,” Cliff said.
Greg nodded again. His grandfather’s offer would serve a purpose. Greg wanted to focus on the mansion bombing, not take over the multimillion-dollar corporation. Terrorists had killed his parents, and he wanted—no, needed—revenge.
He planted his elbows on the blotter, wiped his tears away, and put the cigarette between his lips. Greg inhaled and exhaled before turning to Cliff. While he could use all the help he could get, he knew Cliff’s presence wasn’t a long-term solution to their everyday problems.
“What about Shelly?” Greg asked. “We can bring her in as chief operating officer.”
“You sure you want to mix business and pleasure, son?”
“She’ll do great,” Greg said. “She knows the company, and she has a master’s in business management.”
Greg had met Shelly Hughes when they were both undergraduates at Texas A&M, majoring in marine engineering. The two had dated off and on ever since. Allen Olsen had hired her to run a crew while Greg was serving in the Navy as a commanding officer of a U.S. Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit. Following Greg’s injury, he and Shelly had rekindled their relationship.
Cliff tapped the ash from his cigarette into a crystal ashtray on the desk. “If you think that’s what’s best.”
“‘Always scout the talent.’ Isn’t that what Dad used to say?”
Cliff nodded absentmindedly, focusing on something out the window. The distance between the two men widened into a chasm. They didn’t speak while they chain-smoked cigarettes to the nub.
On one of the three flat-screen televisions across from Greg’s desk, the twenty-four-hour news played images of the smoldering rubble that had once been the Texas Governor’s Mansion. His parents had died instantly in the first explosion. As he stared at the TV, Greg secretly vowed for the thousandth time in the past week that he’d find a way to make the terrorists responsible for Allen and Denise’s deaths pay for their misdeeds. He hoped to make the slimy bastards suffer before putting them out of their misery.
If it weren’t for the damned wheelchair, Greg would be out hunting them now.
His internal declaration to kill them all led Greg to the next order of business.
Over the years, as DWR expanded, the company had worked alongside the U.S. government on maritime security issues both in and around the territorial waters of the United States. At some point along the way, the government had tasked the company with running clandestine operations on their behalf.
Cliff, a Vietnam-era Navy SEAL, had run them first, and Allen had picked up the mantle following his own stint as one of the Navy’s elite warriors. Greg had taken a different path, becoming an EOD tech before pursuing an officer’s rank. He had planned to return to DWR so he could take Allen’s place.
Now, the position was vacant, and their liaison at the Department of Homeland Security had tasked DWR with a new mission.
Greg leaned back in his chair. “Floyd Landis called me yesterday. He has a job for us.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Cliff asked incredulously. “He knows we’re short a man for this kind of work.”
Greg cleared his throat. He had a plan and knew just the man he wanted to hire. “I want you to go to Wilmington, North Carolina, and find an old EOD teammate of mine. His name is Ryan Weller. Don’t tell him you’re coming—just go find him and bring his ass back here.”



CHAPTER 4
Wilmington, North Carolina

Clifford Olsen pulled the rental car to a stop on a quiet side street in Kings Grant, a suburb of Wilmington, North Carolina.
He climbed out, leaned against the side of the car, and pulled a cigarette from his pack. After he lit it, Cliff looked at the construction zone in front of him. Windowless openings in the second story yawned out at the street. The house wrap covering the plywood walls had peeled away at one corner. Three pickup trucks with bed boxes and ladder racks sat haphazardly in the yard next to a large open dumpster with stacks of discarded plywood, cut lumber, and deteriorating drywall inside.
Cliff listened to the screech of a power saw as it fought through wood and the solid blows of a hammer striking a nail as he walked up the sidewalk.
Before he could reach the porch, a man leaned out the mouth of a second-floor window and yelled, “This is a construction site, buddy. No trespassing.”
Looking up, Cliff said, “I’m looking for Ryan Weller.”
“Who’s asking?” the balding man in the window responded.
“Clifford Olsen. Tell him Greg Olsen’s grandfather is here.”
The man pulled back from the window and yelled, “Hey, Ryan, ya got a visitor. Some old guy named Olsen.”
Cliff watched the window, and a younger man with a stubbly beard appeared. Cliff recognized Ryan Weller from the picture Greg had shown him.
Ryan slid safety glasses off his nose to rest on his shaggy brown hair before asking, “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to speak with you.” Cliff dropped his cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it with the toe of his boot.
Ryan disappeared from the window, reappeared at the front door, and walked onto the porch, where he brushed sawdust from his cargo shorts and stomped his desert tan combat boots on the floor, knocking more dust loose. He grinned at Cliff as he explained, “Just shaking off the man glitter.”
His six-foot-tall frame filled his clothes with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, and years of constant physical exercise and outdoor activities had hardened and strengthened his muscles. His hazel-green eyes searched his visitor up and down.
Cliff snorted at Ryan’s joke and stepped up onto the porch. He introduced himself as he extended his hand. “Can we speak somewhere in private?”
Ryan shook his visitor’s hand. He bent to open a cooler and pulled out a bottle of water. “Here’s good.”
Cliff spotted the dark necks of beer bottles encased in icy water. “I’ll have one of those beers.”
Ryan tossed his water back in and extracted two longnecks. He popped off the caps with an opener tied to the cooler handle and handed Cliff a bottle before he sat on the cooler. From a pocket in his shorts, he produced a cigarette and a lighter. Above him, work carried on, the sounds drifting down through the house.
The old man eased his body into a lawn chair beside the cooler. He watched Ryan stretch his legs out and saw the purple scar on his thigh just above his left knee. Cliff knew the pain of a bullet wound. He’d earned a Purple Heart himself.
“What brings you east?” Ryan asked.
“We want you to come to work for us at Dark Water Research.”
Ryan took a swig of beer. “Long way to come just to pitch me on a job. I’ve got work here.”
“I won’t lie to you, son,” Cliff said. “We want you to be part of our operation. Greg sent me to bring you back to Texas. He needs your help.”
“What’s wrong with Greg?”
“Greg’s having …” Cliff scratched the back of his neck, searching for words that wouldn’t bring tears to his eyes. It seemed tears filled his eyes every time he thought about the physical and mental anguish his grandson was having to endure. “You hear about the attack on the Texas Governor’s Mansion?”
Ryan put down his empty bottle, and it fell over, sounding hollow on the planks of the porch. “I heard.”
Cliff paused for a few moments to steel himself for his next words. Just thinking about it made his blood run cold, and his body gave an involuntary shudder.
“Is Greg all right, Mister Olsen?”
Cliff shook his head and tilted back his beer until it was empty. He tossed it onto the floor beside the other empty, where it made the same hollow sound as Ryan’s before clinking glass to glass as it rolled into Ryan’s discard. He cleared his throat. “When those ragheads blew up the governor’s mansion, they killed Greg’s father and mother.” Cliff leaned forward in the chair and coughed. His voice trembled as he whispered, “My boy.”
Ryan’s shoulders drooped.
An overweight man leaned against the jamb of the house’s front door. “Hey, we’ve got the windows installed. We’re gonna take off now.”
“Have a good night, guys,” Ryan said as five men trooped past them.
The two men on the porch were silent until the pickup trucks had driven away. Nearby, someone was running a push mower and farther off a dog barked.
Cliff broke their silence. “We could use your help.”
“I’ll think about it.” Ryan stood and stretched.
“Travel; steady work; benefits. A new challenge every day,” Cliff promised him.
“Sounds like the Navy’s old slogan: ‘Let the journey begin,’” Ryan retorted.
“Look, son, I’m not going to beat around the bush,” Cliff said. “We run a clandestine unit at DWR. We work with Homeland to do certain jobs when they might want plausible deniability. You understand?” Ryan nodded, and Cliff continued. “If you want to get back in the game without all the rules and other headaches, let me know.”
Cliff stood and stepped off the porch. Halfway to the car, he stopped and turned around. Ryan was leaning against a porch post, cigarette in hand, watching him.
The older man pulled out another smoke and lit it before returning to the porch. “Listen, son—Greg sent me to find you. He spoke very highly of you and wants you to take over the clandestine unit. I did it, Greg’s father did it, God rest his soul, and we wanted Greg to do it. You know he can’t with him being in the condition he’d in. So, we need someone to run those operations.
“Greg asked for you, specifically. I don’t know why he did, but he obviously thinks very highly of you, or I wouldn’t be here. I’m staying at the Holiday Inn on Wrightsville Beach for two days. Call me before I leave, or I’ll find someone else.”


CHAPTER 5
Ryan Weller watched the old man get in the car and drive away.
He found another beer in the cooler and sipped it while he went back inside and looked around. The hollowness of the house, with its bare stud walls and uncompleted projects, reflected the hollowness inside him. While walking through the place, Ryan made notes in a spiral pocket pad about the jobs that the work crew needed to complete.
The master bedroom needed to have the trim installed for it to be complete, and he’d been working on it when Cliff arrived. Ryan glanced around, trying to remember where he’d left off, then pulled a stick of trim onto the chop saw, adjusted the miter, and made the cut. It was a short piece that fit between the section he had already nailed to the wall and the next corner. Satisfied it was the proper length, he trimmed it with a jigsaw so it would fit tightly against the adjoining pieces, but he couldn’t stop thinking about his visitor.
He ran a piece of sandpaper over the two cuts to smooth the edges. While Ryan had never loved construction like his father and older brother, he found joy in working with his hands and fitting together the pieces of the puzzle that made a house a home. This evening, his mind wandered from the mundane carpentry work to his time as an EOD tech in the Navy.
No matter how much he tried to suppress the memories from the day of Greg’s injury, they always bubbled to the surface.
Kicking the nail gun across the floor to where he needed it, Ryan knelt and placed the trim into place. The end that he’d shaved with the saber saw fit against the corner piece like a glove, but when he turned to the other end, he found he’d cut the miter the wrong way.
“Son of a bitch!” He stood swiftly and broke the two-foot piece of trim over his knee, threw the broken wood across the room, and stormed out of the house. After fishing another beer from the cooler, he chugged it straight down.
Back upstairs, Ryan tried his hand at finishing the trim again, but he found he’d lost his patience. A second piece went into the trash can, and Ryan hurled the third through the bedroom door in utter frustration.
He screamed at himself for being a complete idiot and wasting materials, but the truth was that Cliff Olsen had stirred something inside of Ryan that he had desperately tried to keep dormant. He knew that in his current state of agitation he wouldn’t get any more work done, so Ryan called it quits for the night, locked the house, and drove to Wrightsville Beach Marina, where he lived aboard his Sabre 36 sailboat, Sweet T.
Being home didn’t cure the restlessness Cliff had stirred in his soul, but Ryan tried to stave it off by drinking a beer and reading a book. When that didn’t work, Ryan changed to swim trunks, a T-shirt, and running shoes. Pounding out the miles always seemed to purge his soul.
Ryan turned right out of the marina, ran the mile to the beach, and churned through the soft sand beside the frothing Atlantic Ocean. His calves and ankles burned, but he kept going, concentrating on running rather than his inner turmoil. When he reached Johnnie Mercer’s Pier, he paused. The Holiday Inn, where Greg’s grandfather was staying, was just a little farther up the beach. He could run up there and tell Cliff that he would take the job.
Instead, Ryan dropped into the sand and sat staring out at the ocean.
Two years distant from that fateful day in Afghanistan, Ryan could still feel the blast wave from the IED, see the mangled Humvee, and hear Greg’s hoarse, whispered voice telling him that he couldn’t feel his legs. Ryan thought about his visit to see Greg when he was in rehab. The man had looked very different folded into a wheelchair, but inside, Greg was the same capable leader Ryan had always looked up to. It pained him to relive those memories, and he didn’t know if he could face his old friend again, let alone work for him.
Ryan took a deep breath, fighting back the wave of emotion that swept over him.
When he finally rose, Ryan ran back to his boat, sprinting to force his mind to think about the pain of his body and not the past. However, the memories flooded back as he took a shower in the marina’s restroom, letting the hot water rinse away his sweat and pound his aching muscles.
Despite the run, the restlessness hadn’t left him, and he paced from one end of his sailboat to the other. In search of further distraction, Ryan set about cleaning and dusting, which took him an hour, and when he finished, he sat at the navigation table and drummed his fingers on the polished wood.
When Ryan had purchased the storm-damaged Sabre as a sophomore in high school, its interior had been a rotten, moldy mess. Ryan and his father had spent nights and weekends tearing it apart, rebuilding the thirteen-horsepower Westerbeke diesel, and remodeling the interior. They’d done away with the starboard settee by building a custom navigation table and extended the kitchen countertop and cabinets to give him more storage. Over the years, Ryan had spent many hours sitting at the nav table, staring at navigation charts, plotting positions, and reading paperbacks.
Lifting the top allowed access to the charts, sextant, and handheld electronics. A Walther PPQ M2 pistol, loaded with sixteen nine-millimeter hollow-point bullets, lay on top of the charts, and a laptop rested beside it. He left the gun and pulled out the computer.
A minute later, he was online, looking at the website for Dark Water Research. It wasn’t the first time Ryan had perused the site. Shortly after Greg had been shipped Stateside from Afghanistan, he’d been moved to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, to be closer to his family. Ryan had gone to visit him once, and Greg had pitched the idea of them working together then. He remembered their conversation from that day.
“What about you?” Greg had asked him.
“I’m going back to Wilmington to work for my dad’s construction business. The housing market is picking up, and he wants me to run a remodeling crew. Maybe flip a few houses.”
“You could join DWR and work with me.”
“I’m not sure I want to go back to diving for a living.”
“It’s in your blood,” Greg had said.
Ryan had shrugged.
“Come work with me,” Greg had pleaded. “We can have our own little operation inside the company.”
“Maybe later,” he had said.
Now Ryan wondered if doing work for the government was what Greg had meant all along.
Ryan scrolled through the website and looked at the pictures. At the bottom of the page was a footnote that said Dark Water Research was a veteran-owned company. Greg had told him they employed a wide range of former military members, from Navy SEALs to Air Force satellite geeks, to supplement the usual crowd of roughnecks, pipefitters, scientists, and able seamen. Ryan wondered why Greg had asked for him instead of choosing someone who already worked for the company.
Cliff’s words came back to him. Call me if you want to get back in the game.
Ryan had a job already, although he had to admit he would enjoy going back to diving and blowing stuff up for a living. Life hadn’t been a bang since he’d left the Navy after ten years of service, but that last tour in Afghanistan had changed him.
For the first six months he’d been home after receiving his discharge, Ryan had thought every trash can, bag, vehicle, and box could hold an Improvised Explosive Device. He’d plotted how to strap his gun to the truck console for easy access and had figured out how to duct-tape magazines to the dash for quick reloads. Loud noises still startled him more than he wanted them to, and Ryan constantly assessed his surroundings for threats.
Even his parents’ home needed a plan of extrication. Ryan desperately wanted to feel normal or to at least apply the skills he had learned. Construction was tedious compared to handling explosives. Carpentry wasn’t the silent world beneath the sea, requiring perfect buoyancy, steady hands, and complete focus to disarm a mine in pitch-black water. None of it was the life-and-death roulette wheel of combat.
Again, he wondered if a job as a commercial diver would fill any of those holes in his soul.
Some days, Ryan wondered why he’d quit the Navy, then he turned on the television and watched the news. He missed the job, the people, the camaraderie, and the sense of belonging to a higher purpose, but not the politics or the ever-changing rules of engagement that killed good men because the politicians bowed to political correctness and were too chicken to win the fight.
His two gunshot wounds had entitled Ryan to leave the service, and he’d taken the option. There were new EOD techs in the pipeline every day. It was a safe conclusion that the military would be there long after he left.
Beneath Ryan’s feet, his sailboat swayed in the gentle swell of a passing boat. He closed the computer and grabbed a beer from the fridge before going topside, where he stretched out in the hammock strung from the boom. He nursed his beer and gazed out at the forest of aluminum sailboat masts and the sea of sportfishers, trawlers, and cruisers. Gleaming in the setting sun, a handful of garishly painted Cigarette-style racing boats hunched in their slips like sleek greyhounds at the starting gate.
The fact that Greg had asked for him made Ryan feel good. He’d always gotten along with Greg, who’d been a lieutenant, while Ryan had been a petty officer first class. In the teams, the wall of separation between officers and enlisted men often blurred and eroded as the men trained and fought side by side. Ryan and Greg had become best friends during their time serving together.
Ryan swung his legs off the hammock and reached for his cell phone. He was about to call Cliff when a man walked down the dock and stopped at Ryan’s boat.
“Aye, de youth of America is rotten with dem electronics.”
Ryan put the phone down and glanced up at Henry O’Shannassy, owner and manager of Wrightsville Beach Marina. He was a third-generation Irish American who liked to speak with a heavy brogue when he fancied it. The retired Navy Senior Chief had given Ryan his first job outside of working construction with his father when Ryan was fifteen. He’d pumped gas, washed boats, and did odd jobs around the marina, always eyeing the boats and planning to buy one of his own.
O’Shannassy had helped Ryan purchase his Sabre and had convinced his parents he would be just fine sailing around the world instead of going to college. He’d also been a guiding force when Ryan had decided to enlist.
With a grin, Ryan said, “Hey, Henry, you got a minute?”
“For you, always.”
Ryan motioned for the man to step aboard, and Henry did so with ease. He sat down on the bench across from the younger man and dropped his brogue. “What’s the scuttlebutt?”
“I’ve been offered a job at Dark Water Research.”
Henry nodded. “A nice outfit.”
“They want me to work as a covert operative.”
“I’ve heard rumors about them running some sort of shadow operation. You thinking of joining up?”
Ignoring the question, Ryan asked one of his own. “How were you able to walk away from your Navy career and start a new life?”
“I won’t lie. It was hard. The discipline and work ethic we acquire in the service don’t always gel outside in the civilian world. I always wondered if you’d go back in or find another demolition job.”
Ryan studied his mentor. At sixty-two, he still stood ramrod straight at five feet ten inches tall and could work circles around most men. His hair had all turned gray, yet it was as thick as Ryan remembered it from when the man was forty-five. Laugh wrinkles and scowl lines creased the leathery skin of his face. His big, meaty hands were gnarled and veined. He’d lost weight from a battle with pneumonia last year, but he was still a stout presence.
“You’re not happy here, Ryan. You need adventure. You always have. You want to see what’s over the horizon, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I get the itch myself. What I’m telling you is this: go.”
Ryan nodded. He had tested himself at an early age by learning to sail, scuba dive, and free dive. Navy EOD had been part of the adventure. Pounding nails into wood was extremely dull in comparison to life at sea.
Henry stood. “You’ve always been happiest when under a full sail on a blue ocean. Don’t regret not making the leap. If Dark Water says they need you, then they do. What’s the harm in giving it a shot? If it doesn’t work out, you know you always have a place to land.”
“Thanks, Henry,” Ryan replied. He was glad to have someone give voice to the yearning inside of him.
As Henry stood to leave, Ryan asked, “Do you remember me telling you about Greg Olsen?” He had confided in Henry one night over beers, giving him a blow-by-blow description of that fateful day. There were few people in the world to whom Ryan had ever told the story, and Henry had counted himself lucky to be Ryan’s confessor.
The marina owner nodded. “He knew the risks, and so do you.”
Ryan took a sip of beer as he thought about Henry’s advice, which was right as usual, then said, “You’re right. I need to take this job, if for nothing other than for curiosity’s sake.”
Henry extended his hand and placed his left atop Ryan’s as they shook. “Good luck, son.”
As Henry stepped off the boat, Ryan dialed the number for the Holiday Inn.
When Cliff Olsen came on the line, Ryan said, “I’m in.”