Read Online By Dawn's Early Light by David Hagberg - Free Book Online Page B

either by extremely low frequency (ELF) transmission, or via the SSIX high speed satellite submarine communications system.
    At that point Pakistan would have been informed that a nuclear armed U.S. submarine was ready to strike. Seawolf would be right in the middle of it, with every eye in the world watching.
    Dillon watched as the missile disappeared into his boat. It would be slid along torpedo alley through three decks where it would come to rest in its loading rack. The deck openings would be secured and Seawolf would be ready to carry out her very clear-cut mission.
    Make the rendezvous point. Find the Kilo boat and stop her before she fired at the Discovery shuttle repair effort. If possible find out whose navy the submarine belonged to. Report ASAP.
    All of that without getting his own boat shot up, and without starting a regional nuclear war that could easily spread to most of the hemisphere.
    â€œSkipper, I don’t think that I’d be so enthused about this mission if we were just supposed to go out there and protect one of our spy satellites,” Bateman said.
    â€œI know what you mean,” Dillon said looking at his XO. The boat and dock were bathed in a harsh violet light that made him uneasy. It was otherworldly. “But our astronauts will be up there. If one of them happened to look down at the wrong time the laser pulse could blind him, maybe even mess up his space suit’s life-support system.”
    â€œYeah. And did you take a look at the Eagle Flyer ’s crew roster? Most of them were scientists, four of them kids, and five of them women.”
    â€œI know,” Dillon said. Bateman and his wife Kathy had tried for the past four years to have a child without success. Adoption was out of the question because he was gone too much. At least for the moment. In the meantime Kathy’s biological clock was counting down. As a result Bateman was a pushover for all women and for any kid under the age of twenty. The younger crew members who knew the score made jokes, but they looked up to him as an older brother, or an uncle.
    â€œThey didn’t give a damn,” Bateman mused.
    Dillon watched as the loading gear was lowered back into the boat and the work lights shut off. “As soon as number two is secured and we’re put back together, make the boat ready for sea.”
    â€œAye, aye, skipper.”
    â€œWhat about the new crewman we picked up?” Dillon asked.
    â€œEngineer’s Mate Bob Crawford. I put his folder on your desk.” Bateman took a last look around, then started down the hatch.
    â€œCharlie?”
    Bateman looked up. “Sir?”
    â€œThey can’t do that sort of thing to our people. It’s payback time.”
    A big grin spread across Bateman’s face. “All right,” he said.

6
    1720 LOCAL
THE MOUNTAINS SOUTH OF KHARAN DEPOT
    Scott Hanson raised his binoculars and studied the barren desert terrain they had crossed in the past thirty-six hours. Looking back, the Kharan drop zone still swirled and seethed in a fantastic dust cloud that would probably last for days. There was little or no wind down there.
    The depot seemed so impossibly far away now, and yet so close for all the effort they’d put into getting out of there after the blast.
    Now they were being hunted like animals. It was the risk that they’d signed on for when they’d put on the uniforms of the SEALs and the army special forces. But those risks were nothing like the ones they’d taken since becoming civilians. Working for the U.S. military meant that if you were captured you stood a good chance of being treated as a POW. But working for the CIA meant that you were a spy and would be treated as such if captured.
    That usually meant torture followed by more torture and then even more torture until your heart finally gave out. Not a pleasant way to die, their instructors at the CIA training facility, the Farm, had warned them.
    â€œSo