Don Pendleton - Seismic Surge

The terrorists hadn’t said what they wanted in concrete terms, just the hell that would be unleashed if a rescue attempt was initiated for the hostages. The tidal-wave plan had been discovered by Stony Man Farm only after hours of intensive search to identify the island’s tactical or strategic value. Nothing else could have motivated such a hostile takeover.

All of this data had come in the form of a white paper that postulated the deadly tsunami. Written by the Jeopardy Corporation, the paper was discovered by Hal Brognola, the Farm’s director and White House liaison. Brognola had the job of giving the President the vital news about the actual purpose behind the takeover. Now, the leader of the free world faced two problems, balancing the lives of thousands of tourists, many of them American, against the lives of millions of Europeans

and billions of dollars of infrastructure that would be damaged. Either way the blow delivered would be catastrophic.

The Man couldn’t choose to let either the hostages or the nation come to harm, so he had turned to the Sensitive Operations Group based at the Stony Man Farm. Led by Brognola, the counterterrorism teams could strike around the globe, neutralizing threats to the entire Free World.

* * *

PHOENIX FORCE RODE their SDV beneath the waves, heading into the jaws of death. Their counterparts, Able Team, were back in the United States checking the damage wrought upon the Jeopardy Corporation by an unknown force, most likely the same one that was at work at La Palma.

As the SDV powered toward the hostage island, James kept it low, close to the ocean floor to avoid being seen on sonar. They were at a depth so that even the noon sun was dimmed to the point where it was like dusk. They needed headlights, but were able to use them unseen from the surface due to the massive water above them. The Phoenix Force warriors were watching for signs of other undersea craft or magnetic antiship mines when they saw the grisly collection of figures on the seabed.

James and Encizo knew that the corpses hadn’t been down here very long as there was still tissue on their bodies. Meat, especially carrion, on the ocean floor often ended up in the bellies of crustaceans or fish. Indeed, the lifeless bodies were identifiable as men or women.

The estimation of the time that the bodies had been down here was undermined by the stilled forms of crabs and small fish scattered around the bodies. The corpses had nibbles, small bites in them, but once it was learned that others who ate from the carrion died instantly, the rest of the undersea scavengers avoided the deadly meals.

This was an ominous indication of how the poor souls had died. Somewhere, likely while they had been moored on tranquil waters just above their current position, the collection of dead had been afflicted by nerve gas, most likely a type that was absorbed through skin. The deadly toxins would make the corpses a lethal last meal for the carrion eaters who normally seized upon fresh flesh drifting to the bottom.

McCarter tapped James on the shoulder, then pushed himself from his seat. James grimaced, teeth clenched around his mouth gauge. The rules of extravehicular activity on the SDV had been decided beforehand, and first among them was that no more than one diver would be apart from the sled at a time. This was a just-in-case policy, something that would reduce the risks to the Phoenix Force swimmers. McCarter’s lone probe into the strewed corpses and poisoned sea life could only be supported by the swivel lamp mounted next to Encizo.

The only consolation that James had was that the SDV could linger, thanks to the oxygen recycling in the bubble-less systems.

McCarter was able to make out more detail as he swam closer to the dead. He could tell that they were all relatively young, in their twenties and thirties, and to a body, none of them wore a stitch of clothing above their waists. In life, they must have been fit, beautiful, though the cold waters had lent a bloated complexion to each of them as he took images with his underwater digital camera. He was also able to peg their nationalities as predominantly American, mostly thanks to the fact that the men wore “board shorts,” surfing wear that was loose, airy and comfortable, as opposed to the European preference for tighter, more revealing swimwear.

The dead had also come from a private cruise, since the women were all topless, yet with American males. It had been a party among friends, where the girls had felt confident enough and comfortable in baring their breasts to one and all. That hadn’t kept them from showing some modesty as several had gossamer-thin wraps tied around their waists.

McCarter grunted, feeling a dark consolation that these poor kids had passed quickly, thanks to the nerve gas. They undoubtedly died in agony, but they hadn’t been molested before or after their demise. The bodies of the women were free of bruising indicative of rape or post-mortem activity, further evidence of the dangerous toxins absorbed through their bare skin.

He swam to the bodies of the men and began searching through pockets after he took digital photos of their slack, cold faces. One of them might have had the presence of mind to pack a wallet or some other form of identification, but instead he found seawater-corroded cell phones and unopened foil packets of condoms. It had taken five tries to get a good, old-fashioned wallet, and he also found a more modern design, a stainless-steel model that sealed money and cards inside, safe from sweat or immersion while surfing or swimming.

Having found some ID, McCarter returned to the sled, not quite happy, but nor was he despondent. The Navy would be directed to these GPS coordinates to recover the lost and perhaps bring them home for proper burial. Right now, however, he had the means of giving closure to the families of the dead.

With grim resolve, McCarter buckled into his seat. He no longer saw the victims of La Palma as an abstract. There were faces, and those faces could be turned to names. The victims of the hostage takers, no matter what their incentive for violence, had been slain in the prime of their lives. He’d seen them, touched them and knew that they were gone forever, even if their remains were pulled from the cold, dark depths at the bottom of the Atlantic.

They had come here in life, looking for joy and camaraderie and romance. Instead, they had been murdered.

It wouldn’t be up to him to piece together names and faces caught on his digital camera, but he could only imagine what horrors had befallen them in the last moments of their lives.

McCarter grit his teeth tighter around the mouthpiece of his rebreather. The murderous bastards were going to pay. He may not have been the raging berserker Carl Lyons of Able Team, but he sure as hell had come close in his days before assuming the responsibility of leading Phoenix Force. Even though he was calmer now, he still held a spot in his heart for anger, loathing, soul-crushing rage against those who slaughtered helpless innocents. And he’d squeeze all of that out in bloody retribution against these killers.

CHAPTER THREE

The three men of Phoenix Force surfaced along the western coast of the island of La Palma in darkness. They paused to give the shore a good scan with binoculars and laser range finders that were carried on the SDV. Over their satellite link to Stony Man Farm, they double-checked their position and sought a real-time infrared photograph of the rocky shore ahead of them. The shore was in a province of the island called Tazacorte, which was fairly sparsely populated. There was only one post office and one school for the whole area, as well as a port, which they had surfaced near. Most of the province was unreachable thanks to a sixty-meter elevation where the cliff fell off rapidly into the ocean, but that wouldn’t be a hindrance to Phoenix Force.