Checkmate

Between missions and looking to keep his skills honed, he’d volunteered to test one of DARPA’s newest gadgets, in this case an extended-range radar-absorbent HAHO (High-Altitude, High-Opening) parafoil code-named Goshawk. Not only was the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency the Pentagon’s ultrasecret think tank for all things military, but it also supplied Third Echelon with much of the gadgetry and weapons that made Fisher’s job easier — and survivable. If nothing else, when the Goshawk finally went into service, he’d be assured of its reliability. Providing it didn’t kill him, of course.

The two-hour wait was courtesy of a malfunctioning radar station on Rhode Island that NORAD had set up to track — or hopefully fail to track — Fisher’s descent on the Goshawk. If the stations failed to detect him, the Goshawk would go operational as the first stealth parachute, capable of dropping soldiers 150 miles outside a target area and allowing them glide in, invisible to radar.

And Third Echelon would probably get the first working model.

As a subdivision of the National Security Agency, Third Echelon was tasked with handling covert missions either too sensitive or too risky for traditional entities, such as the CIA or standard special forces. Like all of Third Echelon’s operatives, Fisher was known as a Splinter Cell — a self-contained and lone operator. How many other Splinter Cells existed Fisher had no idea, nor did he wish to know. Third Echelon was about invisibility. Deniability. Zero footprint. Only a handful of people knew where Splinter Cells went and what they did.

A voice crackled to life in Fisher’s subdermal: “Incoming traffic for you, Major.”

As far as the Talon’s crew knew, Fisher was a major in the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment out of Fort Benning, Georgia. Not that they cared; given the nature of their work, Talon crews knew how to not ask questions.

“Patch it through.”

“Roger. On your button five.”

Fisher’s communications system was a far cry from the traditional headset he’d worn in his pre-Third Echelon days. The two-part system was comprised of a nickel-sized subdermal receiver implanted beneath the skin behind Fisher’s ear. The subdermal bypassed the route normally traveled by sound waves — through the outer ear to the tympanic membrane — and sent vibrations directly into the set of tiny bones within the ear (known as the ossicles), or the hammer, anvil, and stirrup, which then transmitted the signal to the brain for decoding.

For speaking, Fisher wore a butterfly-shaped adhesive patch known as a SVT, or Sub-Vocal Transceiver, across his throat just above his Adam’s apple. Learning to use the SVT had required a skill Fisher likened to a cross between whispering and ventriloquism.

Together, they allowed him a virtually silent communications system.

Fisher tapped his subdermal to switch channels, then said, “Up on button five.”

“Standby for Xerxes,” a tinny voice said in Fisher’s ear, followed by a few seconds of clicks and buzzes as the encryption scrubbers engaged. Xerxes was Fisher’s boss and longtime friend, Colonel Irving Lambert, Third Echelon’s Director of Operations. Lambert’s voice came on: “Change of plans, Sam.”

“Let me guess,” Fisher said. “We’re going to fly around until the wings come off.”

“As of now, you’re on-mission.”

As if on cue, Fisher felt the Talon bank sharply to starboard. The drone of the engines increased in pitch, going to full throttle.

“Your OPSAT’s being updated now.”

Fisher pulled back the cuff of his jumpsuit and pressed his thumb to the OPSAT, or Operational Satellite Uplink, screen, which glowed to life:

//… BIOMETRIC SCAN ENGAGED…

… SCANNING FINGERPRINT…

… IDENTITY CONFIRMED… //

There was a flash of static, and then the screen resolved into a gray-green satellite image. The biometric scan feature was an upgrade to the OPSAT, designed not only to prevent prying eyes from using it, but to keep an inadvertent bump of the touch screen from changing modes. During his last mission, Fisher, on the run, had found himself suddenly staring at a map of downtown Kyoto, rather than the schematic of the Nampo shipyard he was trying to escape.

“What am I looking at?” he asked.

Anna Grimsdottir, Lambert’s chief technical guru, replied, “Real-time feed from an advanced KH-12 Crystal. You’re looking at the Atlantic Ocean, about six miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. See the highlighted blip?” A tiny football shape in the top right corner pulsed once.

“I see it. Cargo freighter. So what?”

“Here’s the infrared side.”

The OPSAT screen shimmered, then resolved. The freighter had turned into a bloom of red and orange. “That’s hot,” Fisher said. “Somebody forget to change the antifreeze in the engines?”

Lambert said, “We wish. The radiometric signature makes the source nuclear. We’re trying to nail it down right now, but something on that ship is radioactive. And it’s headed toward our coast.”

“Radio contact?”

“She’s ignored all hails. At current speed and course, she’ll run aground in twenty-two minutes.”

* * *

With a minimal load-out for the training jump that didn’t include weapons, Fisher had to improvise. He made his way to the cockpit, where he found the crew had already gotten Lambert’s order. The pilot handed Fisher his personal sidearm, a Beretta model 92F 9mm, along with an extra magazine.

“How far?” Fisher asked him. Two minutes had passed since Lambert’s message.

“We’re thirty miles out; I’ll drop you at five.”

“Cutting it close.”

Lambert was listening in. “Close calls are what you’re good at, Sam.”

“You always say the nicest things.”

“We’ve got two Coast Guard cutters and a Navy destroyer en route, but you’ll still get there first. A pair of F- 16s are lifting off from Homestead, should be overhead about the time you hit the deck.”

Providing I hit the deck, Fisher thought. Dropping by parachute onto a pitching deck in the black of night was dicey — and deadly if you missed the target. “Who’s making the calls on this?” he asked.

“SecDef. If you can’t stop the ship, he’s going to order the F-16s to sink her.”

“If she’s full of what we think she is—”

“Then we’ll have an ecological nightmare on our hands. Good luck.”

“Thanks so much. I’ll be in touch.”

The pilot said, “Two minutes to drop, Major.”

And then what? Fisher thought. What would he find once aboard that ship? >

2

Arms braced on either side of the open cargo door, legs spread apart and coiled, Fisher stared at the red bulb above his head and waited for the green go signal. Wind tore through the door, whipping cargo webbing and rattling tie-down buckles. The C-130’s engines — before a dull drone — were now a deafening roar he felt in the pit of his stomach. Cold, metallic-tasting oxygen hissed through his face mask. Beyond the door he saw only blackness, punctuated every few seconds by the flash of the plane’s navigation strobes.

As it always did before a mission, the image of his daughter Sarah’s face flashed through his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut, forced himself back to reality.

Concentrate on what’s in front of you, he commanded himself.

Above his head, the red bulb flashed once, turned yellow, went dark, then flashed green.