Targets Entangled (6 page)

“Not at all. But most men in the military are cut from the same cloth. You’re different.” Stick’s shadow blocked the sun from reaching the deck as he settled in for a discussion he obviously wanted to have. Daegan pushed the container to the side with his data book. He turned toward Stick and folded his legs into his typical Indian-style sitting position on the deck, although far enough away so that he could see Stick without being uncomfortable. Daegan readjusted his cap up and all but dared the man to continue with this line of conversation. “I guess I’m curious as to why.”

“You have balls, I’ll give you that.” Daegan refocused his gaze out over the weather deck, seeing a few crewmembers smoking at the rail halfway up the deck from the fantail where they had been shooting. Every man and woman on this ship had baggage and he wasn’t being literal. His past was in a long string of many, so telling it shouldn’t be an issue. He found it almost amusing when he continued to do just that. “Long story short…I’ve been where Gunny is now. Taking Mykelti out won’t make him sleep any better at night and it sure as hell won’t bring his sister back to him. If Mykelti happens to get in the crossfire of saving those children, I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger myself if that’s what you’re worried about. I assume we would all slit their throats with no more thought than if they were nothing more than trash that needed to be taken out. Our government knows that, Starr knows that, and I sure as hell know exactly what we’re dealing with. All I wanted to convey to Gunny is that no matter what goes down once we are in country and we reach those children, it doesn’t bring his sister back from the grave.”

“Who was she?” Stick asked, his voice almost drowning out in the wind as it picked up from the forward starboard beam. Daegan felt his chest tighten and he leaned his head forward, hiding his eyes and almost wishing he would have kept his comments to himself. “Shit, man. I’m sorry. That’s none of my business.”

“Her name was Kayla.” The words had escaped Daegan before he even realized it. He flexed his fingers, knowing there wasn’t a way to take back the name. He hadn’t said it aloud for years and doing so now only brought back the helplessness that had swallowed him whole so many years ago. “She was eighteen and had just graduated high school when she walked into an ongoing robbery of a local convenience store. One shot to the chest and her life was snuffed out as if it meant nothing to anyone.”

Daegan felt like he was suffocating. Kayla’s image had faded throughout the years and damn if he didn’t feel guilty about that. The young always thought they were so invincible. It didn’t take much to prove them wrong, but she hadn’t deserved to die in a pool of her own blood due to the desperation of some useless junkie.

Memories of the past came over him like a tidal wave, pulling him farther back in time. Images of the trial were like grains of sand falling through the hourglass one by one. The reaction of Kayla’s parents when the verdict had come in not guilty due to a technicality eliminating much of the incriminating evidence was among them. Daegan’s brother putting a hand on his shoulder as he used his strength to keep him from moving flashed in his mind’s eye. Callum had done his best to protect Daegan, but nothing could shield a person from their destiny. The resonance of the gavel hitting the sounding block and sealing everyone’s fate still echoed in his mind.

“Is the person responsible in prison?” The hesitancy in which Stick asked that question meant that he already knew the answer.

“No, he isn’t.” Daegan placed his hands on the warm deck before he pushed against it and stood. He’d thought of Kayla more in the last week than he had in the last decade. He’d left his past behind him when he’d entered the Marines, doing everything he could to save the lives of his comrades and make up for the one life he hadn’t been able to save. “As I said to Gunny, since you’re so curious, taking Mykelti out will be a Pyrrhic victory. Whether or not that happens when we rescue those girls is another matter altogether. He’s scum whose bloodline needs to be washed from this earth, but it will not bring peace to Gunny or his parents. Nothing will do that…ever.”

Daegan stretched his neck muscles, needing to shoot. He wanted to exorcise the demons from his past that Stick had so graciously brought up out of idle curiosity. Stick hadn’t meant harm and the more Daegan thought about it, the more he understood that the man might be trying to come to terms with the tragedy that happened to his sister. Shit, maybe the drunk driver had served his sentence and was about to get out of prison. If that was the case Stick had better work within the law. He wouldn’t be any good to his sister or the team behind bars. It was one thing to take Mykelti out during a mission in which he posed to threaten children’s lives. It was another to take the life of a man who’d served his time for those crimes committed, regardless if that was Stick’s belief or not.

“Spot me.”

Daegan proceeded to spend the next hour target shooting, drowning out his thoughts. Every once in a while a beautiful brunette would make her way in and cause his concentration to waver momentarily. It wasn’t until he’d said Kayla’s name that he recognized the similarities between her and Ferrin. The way they planned things out to the letter and every fucking thing had to be thought out before they made a decision was so damn similar it made him nauseous. That hadn’t worked so well for Kayla; what made Ferrin think that she could control her life any better? Shit. Maybe it was for the best that she hadn’t accepted his offer this morning. As it was, he doubted he’d be the best of company right now and he sure as hell didn’t need to be reminded of his past.

He eased his focus a little by adjusting his eye relief, too much obviously, and his next shot went wide right and long. Son of a bitch. It was a good thing Stick remained quiet as Daegan cycled the bolt, chambering another round. His concentration had gone to shit and he didn’t know if it was because of his past or his present. He took another shot and obliterated the target, wishing he could do the same to his damn memories.

‡

F
errin was back
on her shift one day later and it was as if she hadn’t had any time off at all. At least she got her laundry done. Daegan had occupied her thoughts since their last encounter and she couldn’t clear her mind no matter what she did. The only saving grace was that the night passed by relatively quickly due to a downed radio net and the relatively constant traffic from the crewmembers that had wanted to make radio calls back home.

“Did you hear that Captain Hensel is making some sort of announcement at ten hundred?” Jerry asked, walking into the radio room with his utility bag. The man wasn’t much taller than Ferrin’s five feet and six inches but he was solid muscle and could take on someone twice his size. He set his bag down on one of the desks before practically collapsing in the chair. “I hear it has something to do with that grease fire in the galley the other day.”

“I heard about that,” Ferrin said, taking off her glasses and laying them down on her desk. Nina had come into their stateroom last night as Ferrin was getting ready to leave for her shift and had filled her in on the day’s events. It was good to have something else to focus on. “At least no one was hurt, although I hear it did quite a bit of damage.”

“You didn’t take a break to eat last night?”

Ferrin looked up to see Chief Jackson walking into the radio room dressed for the day. She double-checked the time even though she knew it was zero five hundred. He’d only ever shown up on her shift once and that was at the beginning of their journey. She was relieved to see him for now she didn’t have to set her alarm later this morning.

“Good morning, Chief.” Ferrin reached for her glasses and then her clipboard. “We had a busy night with TATC-1. The AirOps boys forgot to reload their VHF hop sets before launch last night but I managed a protein bar. I’m glad you came in early though. Do you have a minute?”

“Jerry, you have things handled?” Chief Jackson asked, leveling the young man a look. Jerry gave his affirmation and it wasn’t long before Jackson was leading Ferrin out the hatch. “We might as well grab a quick breakfast. What is it we need to go over?”

Ferrin fell into step beside Chief Earl Jackson as they walked down the passageway. He’d been the one who’d hired her and the one she felt a kinship to. She wasn’t under the assumption that it was solely his decision, for Catori Starr ran a tight show and had made a point to introduce herself to each and every department member. Chief was an African American retired Navy veteran, roughly in his mid-fifties, and an all-around clean-cut gentleman who took pride in his chosen vocation. She knew he would take her concerns seriously.

“When I came on duty this evening the radio that we are currently using for routine ship-to-shore comms for crewmembers was set at a frequency that we don’t normally use for those types of connections. I checked the op order, and the feq set we are using exactly matches those listed for routine MARS operations. It was an HF frequency that we aren’t authorized to use in a military band. I inquired about it to Roger, but he stated that the last one to use it was Joseph Paul from the engineering department, as per the log.”

“Do you have reason to believe someone made an unauthorized, unrecorded ship-to-shore call?”

Ferrin didn’t know the answer to his question and that was the problem. In all her time aboard
The Promised Land
everything had run smoothly. When she’d started her shift and one of the crewmembers had come in to make a call, she’d noticed right away that it was set on a totally wrong frequency. It wasn’t long after that she and Jerry received notice that the TATC-1 net started having issues. She’d quickly gotten the crewmember settled in for his call in between handling radio assignments and rekeying her end of the net, digging into the larger problem with AirOps.

“I’m not sure, sir,” Ferrin answered honestly. They continued down the passageway as she handed over the night’s logs. “With the sensitivity of this mission, I thought it was something you should know. I’ll write down the frequency if it happens again. As it was, it caught me off guard and I started rolling in the MARS frequency before I realized how far off it was set originally.”

Chief Jackson scanned the logs as they entered the mess hall and eventually handed the clipboard back to her. All that they’d been told was that they were going to be off the coast of Nigeria running a racetrack pattern in international waters. They would run just one long extended oval shaped course fifteen nautical miles off the coast. That was standard operating procedure when they weren’t going to make port in a hostile country.

When that occurred one needed to establish a presence offshore and deploy in country via the NSW fast boats or with the helo. The fact that the ship contained sensitive materials and first line weapon systems made docking in a foreign country tenuous at best. Since they couldn’t allow custom officials to come aboard for inspection, many countries refused to allow them to come ashore legally. Even as a U.S. military contractor, several NATO allied countries refused routine refueling stops due to the nature of their weapons payloads alone. Most of the ship’s advanced weapons were defensive in nature, but many of their capabilities outweighed some of their potential host nations’ ability to counter them. Simply said, they weren’t welcome in many ports including those that would have routinely granted U.S. Navy ships access with the same high tech systems.

“I want to be immediately notified if this error occurs again.” Chief Jackson and Ferrin walked into the galley to find it somewhat empty with hardly anyone in line. “What are you having?”

“Just a pastry,” Ferrin replied, pointing to the cinnamon roll with extra icing. She curiously glanced forward toward the galley, but everyone appeared to be going about his or her normal activities without concern. The hatch was standing open and everything appeared to be up and running after the fire the other day. “I won’t sleep if I have any more coffee.”

“You’re going to waste away into nothing,” Chief Jackson muttered, picking up a tray and then ordering three eggs over easy while he piled on quite a large heap of bacon, toast, and hash browns. He chose the pastry that she wanted as they waited patiently for his breakfast. “My team needs to be healthy. I don’t want to hear again that you’re skipping meals. Are we clear?”

Ferrin hid a smile at his attempt to get her to listen to him as she snagged an orange juice. The chief had a wife and two daughters her age, with a grandchild on the way. He was a family man and tended to treat his team as if they were members of his extended household. She appreciated the concern regardless that she was an adult more than capable of taking care of herself. It was nice to know that she wasn’t just another crewmember to Chief Jackson. It wasn’t long before they had their meals and were sitting down at a table on the mess deck. She reviewed what had gone wrong with the net up in AirOps and they were walking back to the radio room in less than twenty minutes.

“Keep me apprised if you notice anything else out of place,” Chief Jackson ordered, stepping back for Ferrin to enter the radio room. She was surprised to see Tami, who rarely woke this early after working second shift. “Jerry, run me through the specifics on the time and regularity the hop set rollover happens on the TATC-1 net. It seems I have to go school the Flyboys on communications procedure again.”