“Uncle Rick, you said it. If there’s a target on his back, I have to warn him before…” She almost said,
“He’s on an aircraft carrier,” Rick reminded her. There were hardly more secure places than an American aircraft carrier at sea, but she knew that wasn’t good enough. She knew she wouldn’t be able to rest until she found the pilot and learned what he knew.
“And?”
“And how are you going to get there?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
She heard a commotion on the other end of the line before Rick’s voice came back in a rushed whisper. “I’ve got to go. Don’t do anything without me.”
“I’ve done everything without you.” The words came out harsher than she intended, but thankfully he had already hung up.
Punky took her AirPods out of her ears before reaching across the center console to remove her holstered .40 S&W SIG Sauer P229 from the glove box. While balancing the steering wheel between her knees, she clipped the handgun to her belt above her right hip, slipped a magazine pouch with two spares onto her left side, and pulled her hoodie low to conceal them. Then she pressed hard on the gas pedal once more and launched the Corvette back above ninety miles per hour.
Chen docked the RHIB in the same slip she had departed from hours earlier, then jumped the narrow gap to the dock and secured her lines to the weathered cleats. She was hardly a skilled seaman but had plenty of experience working with ropes, and she was confident the boat would still be there when she returned. She had paid for the slip through the end of the month, but only needed it for one more day.
The dinghy looked miniature compared to the fishing boats and motor yachts occupying the neighboring slips, but with names like
“Ahoy there,” a slurred voice called from the deck of
Chen gave the Black captain in a Hawaiian shirt a furtive glance but gritted her teeth and kept walking. As much as she would have loved to embarrass him by exposing his inadequacies, Mantis had made it clear time was of the essence. And she still hadn’t figured out what to do about the Marine and his ineptitude.
When she reached her Jeep, Chen opened the door and climbed inside. She opened the calculator app on her phone and again entered the passkey that gave her access to the partitioned communications portal she used to send and receive messages with her asset. She had a long drive ahead of her and wanted to send him something simple, like
She clicked on “Receive” and waited for the progress bar to fill, hoping he hadn’t made the fatal mistake of sending a second message in the same night. She knew the American National Security Agency monitored all manner of electronic communications, but those coming from a strategic asset like an aircraft carrier likely received additional scrutiny.
She tapped on the icon and waited for the message to download while growing increasingly frustrated with the man. She had recruited him for one very simple reason, and it wasn’t to break from protocol and inundate her with meaningless information at a critical phase of the operation. No matter how useful he might have been in getting them to that point, she couldn’t abide carelessness that risked exposing them and jeopardized her opportunity for advancement.
The message downloaded, and she read it with some surprise.
She exited the application without replying. She still had several hours before a reply was even necessary, and it might teach the impatient Marine a lesson in sticking with protocol. Send one message a night, at most, and check for incoming messages in the morning. How hard could that be?
