ChapterTwenty-Eight
Guilt threatened to swallow Xavier whole. This had been about him all along. It didn’t make sense. He was nothing. No one. Not a SEAL anymore. Just a trainer.
How could it be about him? This was a trial run for a vital op. If not Xavier, some other trainer would have planned it.
He studied Audrey. She’d been strangled and nearly raped less than an hour ago. And the merc had been after her because of him. Because she was pregnant with his child.
But how was that even possible? And why? SEAL ops were top secret. No one knew which SEAL went on which mission. And usually no one outside NSWC and the highest branches of government ever learned about the mission at all.
No one would have known who shot Osama bin Laden if the SEAL hadn’t broken his vow and publicly claimed the kill. And Xavier sure as hell had never done that. Not even to Lynn in the days when he thought he might marry her.
“What’s going on, Xavier?” Audrey asked.
“I don’t know. None of it makes sense. This is a training. One I was assigned to plan and execute.”
“A training with very specific parameters,” Flyte interjected. “It’s been clear from the start this is a planning session for a specific op.”
“Let’s start there,” Cohen said. “I think at this point, every person in this room has a need to know why we’re here at all.”
Xavier’s gaze landed on Audrey and George. With the exception of the two civilians, he was authorized to reveal the details of the mission. The plan for the training was for the team to brainstorm various plans of attack to liberate the hostages, which this team would then use when they carried out the mission as soon as possible.
He’d be violating his security clearance in sharing the details with Audrey and George, but no way in hell was he asking either of them to leave the room. They’d used their knowledge of the lodge and forest and each other, and in so doing had saved all their asses, bringing everyone to this debriefing with the lodge firmly in SEAL control.
Hell, he didn’t doubt that George could seize it back if he wanted to.
“I think everyone here can agree that Dr. Kendrick and Mr. Shaw have a right to know every classified detail.”
There were nods from everyone present, including the four SEALs who guarded the corners of the room, each armed with a liberated assault rifle. They were listening, but on the alert, making sure the lodge remained safe.
He shook his head. “Where to begin?” This was unlike any debriefing he’d participated in before.
“How about explain why we found two prop dummies in one of the guest rooms,” Mock said. “One was a woman. The other the size of a kid.”
“Good place. Okay. I’ll share what I know, which, of course, is just a fraction of what NSWC has gathered from the intelligence community. Last fall—my guess is early October—intel was spiking with warnings that a chemical weapons attack on the US mainland was in the works. The attack would look like the work of terrorists from the Middle East, but it would really be a Russian operation.
“The threats were credible, and the timeline for the attack indicated it would happen in the first or second week of February. The magnitude of it is huge and requires months to set up. It would be an attack on a major city. Possibly subway, stadium, or large office building. Expected death toll anywhere from five hundred to over thirty thousand people.”
“What kind of chemical can do that kind of damage?” Audrey asked. “Are they planning to attack the Super Bowl?”
He shook his head. “Unlikely, but nothing can be ruled out.” He rose to his feet and began to pace, as he’d done so many times in the last months as his mind played over the variables he’d been handed when he was tasked with shaping this op.
“From what I’ve been told, the chemical compound is unlike anything we’ve dealt with before, hence the expected high death toll. I don’t know the science behind it. I don’t even know if the US has managed to obtain a sample or if it’s all theoretical. Rumor has it the gas is odorless. Invisible. Like propane or natural gas, you wouldn’t smell it without the additives. But it’s a thousand times more toxic, rendering a person unconscious with a few breaths. Brain damage occurs if the person inhales it for just a few minutes. Death follows soon after.”
“Damn,” someone muttered.
He nodded. “It’s believed that the gas explosion at the elementary school in Lithuania was a cover-up for the first field test of the compound.”
Audrey’s face blanched. “Last September? The one that killed nearly a hundred and fifty children?”
He nodded. “No way to prove it, of course, but the accidental explosion was a little too thorough in destroying the building.” He’d stared at photos of the bombed school for hours, remembered every gruesome detail. He cleared his throat and continued. “As you may have figured, the chemical compound is the brainchild of a Russian scientist.”
“So why are we in Washington and not in Russia, taking out their chemical weapons lab?” a SEAL asked.
“Because sometime after the school explosion in Lithuania, a team was sent to extract the chemist. She’d signaled through intelligence lines she would help the US if we got her and her son out of the country safely. She could even stop further attacks by uploading corrupted data. But as long as her son was a hostage, she couldn’t make a move without her child facing retaliation.
“The first mission to extract her was a disaster—a CIA special operator died, while another was severely wounded. After that, she and the boy were moved to a location very much like this one—far east Russia, on the Sea of Japan. Complete with mountains and a temperate rainforest. She and her son are ensconced in a remote mountain mansion. It’s the vacation home of an oligarch. She’s being forced to complete her work to set up the upcoming attack from there.”
“So we’re here to do a practice run for the extraction of the chemist and her son,” Mock said. “And the clock is ticking down to the attack.”