incident in Iraq.
“Is this about Ramadi?” Locke asked.
Grant nodded slowly. It was one of the few times Locke had seen him deadly serious. It made him nervous.
“This guy was the best,” Grant said. “My superior NCO. Since I wasn’t company top hat any more, I was back to being a master sergeant then. Cutter was first sergeant, but he went by his nickname, Chainsaw, because of the way he cut the enemy to pieces. I refused to call him that, mostly to piss him off. He could sniff out insurgent hiding places no one else could find. He was a legend in the Rangers. Everyone knew him. Cutter had a better score than anyone else in the team.” Score, Locke knew, meant number of enemy kills.
“I could see that Cutter was on the edge of going too far,” Grant continued. “He enjoyed the kills too much. Started notching his weapon. He had so many notches the damned thing looked like my mother’s sofa after our cat got his claws on it. Then it all came to a head in Ramadi.”
Grant paused for a moment. Locke didn’t interrupt. This obviously wasn’t something Grant found pleasant to talk about.
“We were on an incursion looking for a suspected insurgent cell in a neighborhood in the north side of the city. We went in on foot for stealth, but we had chopper evac ready. Cutter had the cell zeroed in one of the few undamaged houses. We were approaching when a guy popped up out of nowhere with an RPG. Cutter got the rocket man in one shot, but not before the blast took out our lieutenant. That set Cutter off.
“We infiltrated the house, but we were only supposed to nab the suspects. Cutter wasn’t having it. He ordered us to terminate them. So we did as ordered.” Grant said it flatly, but Locke could make out the underlying pain in his voice. “But it didn’t stop there. Cutter went outside and herded all the families hiding in the nearby houses out into the street.”
Locke could sense what was coming.
“Said he wanted to question them,” Grant said. “Then Cutter opened fire. Men, women, children. Maybe all of them innocent. Didn’t matter to Cutter. As soon as I realized what was happening, I tackled him. The families scattered, or what was left of them. Cutter and I got into a fight right there in the street, and that’s when a sniper opened up. He hit Cutter twice, in the shoulder and the groin.
“With Cutter down, I was the ranking sergeant. I called in our helo evac and got us out, including our dead. Cutter went to Ramstein. Word was that his shoulder was fine, but they had to lop off his private parts. I got out two months later. Never saw him again. But I know he remembers me.”
“You think he saw you today?”
“If he did, it must have been killing him not to take me out right there. I’m sorry, Tyler. With so many people in the hangar, I didn’t notice him. If I’d seen him, maybe those deputies would still be alive.”
Locke thought back to Grant jumping onto the truck to save him.
“It could have been a lot worse,” he said.
“It’s already pretty bad if Cutter’s involved. Whoever hired him wanted the best nut he could find. And if they got Cutter, they probably got a bunch of other top-notch vets along with him. He’d know who to recruit, who’d be loyal to him, and who was willing to do the wet work. Maybe we should get the General involved.”
Locke rolled his eyes at the mention of his father. “Did Miles put you up to this?”
Grant put his hand on Locke’s shoulder. “Look, I know how you feel about your dad, but he’s a pretty powerful guy, and he’s got a lot of resources.”
Locke sighed. “Believe me, Grant, if I thought he could do something that we couldn’t do on our own, I would go to him.”
Grant looked doubtful. “Really?”
“I would be swallowing a bucketful of pride, but I’d do it.”
“I’m sure he’d be willing to help.”
“I’m sure he would, too. That’s the problem. Then I’d owe him big.” Locke stood. “Now, I’d better call Agent Perez and let the FBI know what we’re up against. Maybe they have more on the two who came at us in Seattle.”
“Any more on the connection between Coleman and Whirlwind?” Grant asked.
“Not yet,” Locke said. “Things have been so busy I haven’t had a chance to get back with Aiden. He’s supposed to call me when he gets anything.”
“I’m going back to the hangar to see if we have any other clues. Maybe Cutter left something behind, although I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Grant left the viewing room with Locke, and they parted ways when Locke turned to head towards the room he’d set up for Dilara in the main office building. He dialed Perez while he walked. The FBI agent answered on the second ring.
“Dr. Locke, you’re just the person I wanted to talk to.”
“You have the identities of the men in Seattle?”
“I do.”
“Ex-Army special forces?”
“How did you know that?”
Locke told him about Chainsaw Dan Cutter and the stolen suitcase.
“I’ll get him on our most wanted list right away. But he may have gone to ground.”
“Have you had any threats to the Genesis Dawn?” Locke asked.
“No, but I’ve beefed up security as much as I could. Without a direct terrorist threat, there’s not much more I can do.”
“Agent Perez, something is going down on the Genesis Dawn. It might be at the gala or it might be at sea. Either way, you’re talking about 8000 lives at risk. Don’t you take Dr. Kenner’s story seriously?”
“Of course we do. But we’re also focused on the Hayden crash right now. Washington doesn’t want to cause a nationwide panic that bioweapons might be loose on American soil. They are, however, giving me a lot of leeway and manpower just in case this leads to something.”
“What about the suitcase that was taken from our TEC?” Locke asked. “It was probably how the bioweapon was smuggled on board Hayden’s airplane.”
“We’ll be examining every suitcase that goes on board the Genesis Dawn, but I don’t even know what I’m supposed to find inside.”
“You’re going to be there yourself?”
“I told you. I’m taking you seriously. But all you’ve told me is that the Genesis Dawn is a possible target. How am I supposed to protect the world’s largest cruise ship from an attack if I don’t know what to look for?”
Locke thought about that, lamenting that he’d let a possible link to hard evidence get away. If he had stopped Cutter, he’d have a much better rationale for stopping the cruise.
Locke hadn’t yet told Perez about Whirlwind and the link to Project Oasis that he’d found at Coleman’s. It was another unsubstantiated rumor, just a hunch that Coleman’s death wasn’t an accident. He didn’t have any proof. But he needed to impress upon Perez the need for vigilance.
“Agent Perez, I have reason to believe this all may be connected with something called Project Oasis.”
“What’s that?”
“A bunker, constructed underground to house hundreds of people for months at a time. I believe that whoever killed Hayden has a functional bunker ready to go.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I worked on the project for two months. It had a different name, but it was the same project.”
“And that’s why Coleman was killed,” Perez said, catching on quickly. “They were covering their tracks.”
“Exactly.”
“Do you have evidence about Oasis?”
“No. Someone purged all of Coleman’s files about the project. I was lucky to find the little I did.”
Perez sighed and spoke mechanically. “I’ll let my superiors know what you’ve found, but without evidence, it’s going to be hard to convince them to do anything else. How big was the suitcase?”
“The size of a carry-on. The one on the Genesis Dawn may be bigger, but it would still be something
