The Midnight Caller (Jack Widow Book 6) Read online

  The missile fired out of the silo as it was designed to and rocketed out of the water. It ripped into the air and roared high, high into the sky.

  CHAPTER 59

  WIDOW WAS NOT UNDER ANYONE’S COMMAND. Not anymore. And one of the perks of not being under command was freedom of movement. He had enjoyed this perk, immensely.

  But when he saw the RS-28 Sarmat fire from just under the water’s surface about two miles away, it seemed that several of the sailors on the bridge also had freedom of movement because they followed him as he ran out of the portal and onto the deck.

  Ebert followed him out as well. Kiley and Towdez remained. True professionals.

  Widow hit the deck running, followed by a small horde of sailors. They all stopped behind him like he was their leader. He stood on the deck and stared up as the missile rocketed into the sky. White exhaust smoked behind it. He saw the small fiery propellant at the tail, pushing it up and onward to a target unknown.

  Widow was suddenly reminded of the shuttle Challenger. He had seen it explode on television when he was a kid, like the rest of the world. But before it tragically exploded it looked similar to the RS-28 Sarmat, only bigger.

  Widow watched on with horror on his face and in his bones.

  They actually did it, he thought.

  Just then he looked downward at the deck. Two flight crews of fighter pilots were scrambling for their jets.

  Widow could do nothing. He watched on until the missile was up, up and then lost to sight.

  CHAPTER 60

  WIDOW AND THE REST OF THE SAILORS cleared the way, moving back. Most of the crew started heading back to the posts. But not Widow. He had no post. He stood on the deck and watched.

  The first pilot and his wingman strapped into their cockpit, fast, and within a minute they rocketed off the deck into the sky. Followed a minute later by a second jet.

  That was enough for Widow. He turned and headed back to the bridge.

  More fighter pilots and jets lined up and took off.

  On the bridge, Captain Towdez was ordering the crew to do this and to do that. The whole ship was chaotic but in a good, old-fashioned sort of a way. Like ordered chaos. And it dawned on Widow that this was the first time since WWII that an American ship had seen this kind of act of war. Sure they had Desert Storm and Vietnam and so on, but never with these stakes.

  Widow looked around in awe at the proficiency of his fellow sailors. And in a strange way, he missed it.

  Captain Towdez turned out to be a lot better under pressure than Widow would’ve guessed.

  Ebert was with him, giving orders and checking over his shoulders.

  Kiley stood still, watching, smiling.

  CHAPTER 61

  THE PEOPLE WORKING onsite of the target, went about their lives. Late afternoon. A fall day. The trees around were filled with red and yellow and orange leaves that looked more like painted watercolors than real life. Song birds chirped and flew. Grass was freshly cut and kept as it always was, as was called for by SOP.

  The people in the area lived a uniform life. They went to work. They were friendly to each other. They did their jobs well.

  The Americans on the East Coast, in the target area, were well-trained and well-prepared. But nothing can ever prepare a community for a thermonuclear ballistic missile.

  Although the people in the target area were always prepared, always vigilant, no one is ever truly prepared for what happened next.

  Suddenly, the entire community was on high alert because they all heard the raid sirens at the same time. They were under attack.

  Dozens of them started to run out of buildings. Many of them were armed with assault rifles and handguns. Others, office workers, came to the nearest windows and started to look out.

  All of them wondered if this was a drill.

  They could not hear anything over the sirens.

  They could not hear the ballistic missile fly down through the clouds and wind. But some of them saw it.

  The men and women nearest to the runway saw it best. They saw it best because it was coming crashing, screaming down on top of them.

  Some of the others who could see it started to run for shelter. Some piled in vehicles. Others fell to the ground and rolled underneath, thinking that would protect them from the blast. Others scrambled to whatever building was nearby and hugged the wall. Some of them fell to their knees and ducked their heads down.

  The ones closest to the missile’s likely contact spot did nothing. They just stood there, staring, watching, trembling. They did not want to die.

  None of them wanted to die.

  The missile tore through the sky with raw unstoppable force and a moment later it crashed, nose first onto one of the plane hangars on Norfolk Naval Base, crushing through the roof, collapsing it, and impacting with a malfunctioning C130 parked inside the hangar.

  The nosecone smashed down into the unused plane first and exploded.

  CHAPTER 62

  KILEY CONTINUED TO SMILE and Widow saw it.

  Just then Ebert asked one of the sailors a question.

  He asked, “Update?”

  “The missile hit Norfolk Navy Base. That was their target.”

  Kiley said, “An act of war.”

  Towdez said, “Sir?”

  Kiley said nothing.

  “It’s not an act of war. We know it was Farmer, not the Russians.”

  “Of course. I’m simply caught up in the moment.”

  Widow turned to ignore them both and waited for news. He looked at Ebert and nodded like he was psychically telling him what to say.

  Ebert asked, “Confirmation?”

  “I’m waiting.”

  Confirmation would have to come from somewhere else. If Norfolk was destroyed in a nuclear blast, they would have to get confirmation from as far away as the Pentagon.

  Widow closed his eyes. He thought about the White House. He thought about Secret Service snatching up the President, violently shoving him down to the underground bunker for safekeeping. He pictured all of the terrified people in the military and the government and the world, probably.

  Then he pictured the missile. He pictured the nuclear blast. He had never seen one, not in real life. Not many people had.

  He thought about the one he saw on television from the old reel of nuclear testing in the Pacific. The blast from miles away. The shockwave. The terror of it all. Then he thought about the mushroom cloud. That huge ominous cloud of death.

  The mushroom cloud, he thought.

  He opened his eyes and ran, full speed, right past a sailor coming in the door almost knocking him down. He shoved past two others on his way back out to the deck.

  Several of the fighter jets had already been scrambled out over the ocean.

  He looked west, scanned the sky, waited.

  Ebert and Ali both came running after him. Ali was short of breath. He tried to speak, but Ebert interrupted him.

  “Widow? What is it?”

  “The mushroom cloud,” he said.

  “What?”

  Widow pointed at the southwest horizon.

  “That’s America!”

  “Yeah. It’s in that direction.”

  “There’s no mushroom cloud! A nuclear blast would have a cloud! We would see it even from here! Small, but it’d be there!”

  Ebert looked at the direction he pointed. They waited. But there was no cloud.

  One of the sailors from the bridge came out after them, a young woman. She breathed in hard, chest panting from scrambling out so fast.

  She said, “Commander.”

  He turned and waited.

  “It was a dud!”

  “A dud?” Ebert asked.

  She shrugged and said, “It did not explode.”

  “What?” he asked.

  Gusts of cold wind beat across Widow’s face.

  “It exploded but there was no nuclear blast. It wasn’t much of nothing.”

  Ebert asked, “You’re sure?”


  “Yes. We got Norfolk on the comms now. They’re talking to Towdex. Nothing happened.”

  Widow asked, “Nothing?”

  “The missile hit a plane hangar. Exploded like a normal missile, but it was a weak explosion. Might not even have been from the missile. Might have been from the fuel tank in the jet. They said it was being worked on. I don’t know. But there was no nuclear blast.”

  Ebert said, “Get back up there. Order them to get HAZMAT out there! And clear that base!”

  Ebert ordered it, but Widow was sure the base commander, whoever he or she was, had already started evac procedures. And he was sure that Ebert knew it as well. Still, saying it all out loud probably felt pretty good.

  Widow smiled.

  Ebert asked, “Wait! Any causalities?”

  “Not so far. There’s a fire.”

  Ebert nodded and the woman walked off, back to the bridge. Ebert stayed behind.

  Widow asked, “What about the sub? We gotta take it out now!”

  Ebert nodded and pointed and said, “Over there!”

  All three men turned and watched as two fighter jets flew off in the distance and fired missiles into the ocean. Then from two hundred yards away a swell went rushing through the water. It was a torpedo from the American sub.

  Widow watched as the missile and the torpedo all collided on the same location and a fraction of a second later there was an underwater explosion. Widow watched as water sprayed up and out like a volcano erupted under the surface and only shot out water and not lava.

  Ebert said, “Looks like a hit. And the explosion means it’s sinking. Out of commission.”

  Then he turned and headed back to the bridge.

  CHAPTER 63

  BEFORE THE MISSILE ROCKETED AWAY, Farmer and the redheaded leader and the rest of his crew had docked the mini submarine up to an empty torpedo tube and pressurized the tube to allow them to get into the sub. A fifth man in their crew had piloted the mini sub to them from Moreau.

  All four of them squeezed into it just after the missile was fired and noticed by the Navy convoy and after they had shot Karpov’s crew on the bridge, right in front of his eyes.

  The redheaded leader was just about to shoot and kill Karpov when Farmer put his hand up and stopped him.

  “Bring him. He may be useful,” Farmer said.

  Karpov felt nothing but shame for what he had allowed to happen.

  He did not fight them. Weakly he followed them back through the corridors of the sub, down the ladders, and through several hatches. He watched them shoot and kill every man who tried to interfere and he did nothing. He had no strength left.

  They entered the mini sub and shot it out into the ocean.

  CHAPTER 64

  WIDOW GRABBED ALI by the arm and said, “Wait.”

  Ali stared on at him.

  Widow said, “You know what happened just like I do.”

  Ali nodded.

  He said, “The passcode. Karpov gave them the wrong passcode.”

  Widow nodded and said, “We have to do right by him. We owe him that much.”

  “What do you propose, Mr. Widow.”

  “His daughter is still out there.”

  “You know where she is?”

  “I heard something about Moreau? That mean anything to you?” Widow asked.

  Apparently, it did mean something to him because Ali’s eyes lit up.

  “What?”

  “It’s an old abandoned training facility for us.”

  Widow asked, “What kind of training facility?”

  “It’s a small town on an island. Used to be a fishing port a century ago or something. The government took it over after everyone left. The agency used it for different exercises. We’re not the only ones either. The FBI used it for a time as well. The little town makes for a lot of cover for firefight exercises or whatever the FBI does for training.”

  “That’s where they took her then.”

  Ali nodded, said, “What do we do?”

  “Let’s talk to Ebert.”

  CHAPTER 65

  EBERT SUGGESTED A SEAL TEAM go and get her, take out the bad guys. But they did not have a SEAL team onboard, nor did Widow want to wait for one.

  Instead, he insisted on going alone or with a local team of whoever they had, but they had to go now. And like that, within thirty minutes he was back in the same helicopter, only this time he was with Ali. Hardy came as well, and the same pilot crew. Ebert wanted to accompany them, but he could not. And he could not spare anyone else. Although he tried, either Kiley or Towdez had denied the request. Widow was not sure which.

  He was sure that they made the same old claims that all C.O.s made everywhere, something about they still were on red alert and they still had a mess to clean up. Lots of red tape. The real reason being budget constraints or the fact that this was more of a civilian police matter now. Moreau was an island belonging to the federal government, after all.

  Widow did not care. As long as he got there. He was grateful for the ride and for the guns and body armor that Ebert insisted they take.

  The three men geared up as they rode in the back of the Seahawk helicopter.

  Widow figured that the deck crew must have fueled the Seahawk up before they took off, as he had suspected, because they flew for even longer than the last time.

  They flew north and west. Widow saw a blip of land far to the west and then it was gone. New Jersey, he figured.

  The three men were issued sidearms, which Widow traded his Glock 17 for. Because Navy was always better than some Russian lawyer. Each of them got a Heckler and Koch forty-five automatic. No suppressors. Ten rounds each. This was a fine weapon.

  They each also got carbine M4 assault rifles. Widow kept his switched to single shot. He had no idea what Hardy’s was set to. And Ali actually rejected his. He just took the sidearm. He claimed that he was not much good with an assault rifle. Widow did not argue.

  After about ten more minutes, the pilot turned and called out, “We’re nearing the coordinates you gave, Mr. Ali.”

  “Okay,” he called back.

  Ali turned to Widow and asked, “It’s your show. How do you want to approach?”

  “It’s an island. We’ll be spotted more than ninety percent chance no matter what. How big is it?”

  “Not big. You can jog across it in forty minutes, maybe less. I’d guess like four miles. Not even.”

  Widow said, “Then let’s just get dropped off wherever. Once we hit the ground, we hit it running. And we hunt them down.”

  Hardy asked, “Know how many hostiles we’re up against?”

  “At least four.”

  They both nodded.

  Widow double-checked the Kevlar vest that Ebert had given him and then his ammo. He had a spare magazine for the M4 stuffed in his back pocket. Should be plenty.

  Hardy had the same and Ali had a spare for the HK45.

  “We’re dropping in now, boys. I don’t see any hostiles so far,” the pilot called out.

  The Seahawk swung around the island and scanned it before touchdown. They saw a zodiac on the beach, abandoned and they saw the abandoned town that Ali had told them about.

  No people.

  The Seahawk made its way back around to where the zodiac was abandoned and came down and landed on the sand. The rotor wash picked up sand and blew it everywhere.

  Widow was the first man out. He ducked and rolled and came up ten feet away and crouched on his knees. Sand was flying around everywhere. He looked through it and scanned the trees and dips in the topography. There was no sign of anyone.

  Hardy and Ali followed. They ran off, following Ali, toward the town. The Seahawk took off after and continued to circle. Staying high enough to see them. Staying far enough to not get shot at by the enemy.

  They trekked through a long path that eventually became a dirt road, surrounded by yellow shrubs and aging trees, with thick branches.

  Ali said, “That way. Not far now.”r />
  Widow stayed quiet and followed closely. He took note that Hardy seemed to be a good wingman. The guy kept up the pace. Stayed low. And held the M4 correctly.

  They started to see abandoned, rusted-out four-wheelers and one half torn-up boat on the side of the road. They passed a rusty old boat trailer with no tires left. They passed brick walls broken like a tank had driven through the area.

  They came to the first structure of a house or just a building, Widow couldn’t tell. It was empty.

  They moved on and Widow saw the town. They walked up a hill and saw the whole town. It was basically nothing. There were ten structures. All brick. None of them had roofs left. None of them showed any signs of people. The windows were all blown out. No glass was left anywhere. And there were thick weeds and grass growing all over everything.

  Widow gave Hardy signals to go quiet and they searched each building individually. Which did not take long because there was hardly anything to search.

  After they were done, they came back out to the middle of the town.

  Hardy asked, “Now what? There’s no one here.”

  He dropped his M4 to his side and held it like he had given up.

  Widow said, “Someone’s here. That zodiac is new.”

  Hardy nodded.

  “Where else is there?” Widow asked Ali.

  Ali shrugged, said, “Maybe they’re to the north. There are some rock formations and more trees. I don’t know of anything else. I’ve never been here before.”

  Widow said, “Let’s go.”

  And they hiked north.

  CHAPTER 66

  THEY RAN OUT OF DIRT ROAD about a mile later and then they ran out of island.

  They stood there on the edge of the island wondering if they missed them. Widow stood the closest to the edge of a rock cliff and stared out at the water.

  “Where the hell are they?” he asked out loud to no one in particular.