Checkmate Read Online Free Page B

blaring.
    And then suddenly it was over. Through the slowly clearing smoke he could see the smoldering remnants of the fire hose wrapped around the mangled shaft. He became aware of the faint voice in his subdermal. It was Lambert. “. . . Fisher . . . Fisher, are you—”
    “I’m here.”
    “Whatever you did, it worked. The Trego ’s slowing, coming to a stop.”
    “I sure as hell hope so. Now tell the pilots to break off before I get a missile down my throat.”
     
     
     
    NOW, four hours later, sitting under dimmed track lighting at the polished teak conference table in Third Echelon’s Situation Room, Fisher shifted in his chair, trying to avoid the dozen or so bruises he’d gathered aboard the Trego . It was nothing a liberal dose of ibuprofen wouldn’t cure. Besides, he told himself, given the alternatives, he’d take bruises over shrapnel or flaming chunks of fire hose any day. Getting old was hell, but getting dead was worse.
    Per Lambert’s orders, his first stop after leaving the Trego had been at the Army’s Chemical Casualty Care Division, located at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. A division of the Army’s Medical Research Institute, the CCCD specializes in the decontamination and treatment of biological, chemical, and radiological exposure. Fisher was sent through a series of decon showers and then poked and prodded by space-suited doctors before being declared “contaminant free.”
    “Where are they taking the Trego ?” he asked Lambert.
    “She’s being towed to Norfolk’s secure shipyard.”
    Lambert aimed a remote control at one of the half-dozen plasma screens that lined the Situation Room’s walls. A satellite image of Norfolk harbor faded into view. The Trego was easy to spot. Flanked by three Navy frigates and an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the freighter was under tow by a harbor tug.
    “They’re prepping a dry dock for the NEST team as we speak.” Lambert said, referring to a Nuclear Emergency Search Team from the Department of Energy.
    Before FBI investigators could board the Trego , the NEST would have to determine the source and level of the ship’s radioactivity. Luckily, so far it appeared nothing hot had leaked from the hull—something that certainly would have happened had she run aground.
    “And our prisoner and his laptop?” Before boarding the Blackhawk helicopter Lambert had dispatched for him, Fisher had grabbed the laptop and then hoisted the Trego ’s lone crewman onto his shoulder. In some cases, prisoners were better than corpses.
    “Grim is working the laptop. Whatever key he pressed did more than set the engines to flank. It scrambled the hard drive, too.”
    “Yeah, he seemed a tad determined. He’s in medical?”
    Lambert nodded. “He’ll make it.”
    “Good,” Fisher said, taking a sip of coffee. He screwed up his face and frowned at the mug. “Who made this?”
    “I did, thank you very much,” a voice said. William Redding, Fisher’s advance man and field handler, walked through the door. With his horn-rimmed glasses, sweater vest, and pocket protector, Redding was a bookworm of the highest caliber with an almost fanatical focus on planning and details. As annoying as his intensity could be, Fisher couldn’t imagine going into the field without Redding guarding his flanks.
    “And by the way,” Redding said, “the nerds from DARPA called. They want to know what you did with their Goshawk.”
    Fisher said, “Let me get this straight: You’re calling the DARPA people nerds?”
    Lambert chuckled under his breath. Redding wasn’t known for his sense of humor.
    “I’m a geek, Sam. They’re nerds. There’s a profound difference.”
    “My apologies.”
    “The Goshawk?”
    “Safe in the equipment room.”
    “And its condition?”
    “Hard to say, given how little there was left of it.”
    Redding’s eyes narrowed. “Pardon me?”
    “There was fire—”
    “Pardon me?”
    “A joke. Relax, it’s as good as new.”
    Redding