End Game by Robert Stanek

Author:Robert Stanek [Stanek, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RP Media

Chapter 11

Mediterranean Sea

Afternoon, Wednesday, 20 June

On board the USS Kearsarge, Chief Roberts paced back and forth outside Sit 1, chewing on the end of a hand-rolled Cuban cigar he was trying to talk himself out of going topside to light up. “Talk to me,” he said to the voice in his ear.

“Chief, we’ve located Evers,” Captain Parker said.

“About time,” the chief replied, eyeing his watch. If the director was right about the timeline, they were only minutes away from everything going sideways. “Progress? Tell me, you’ve made progress. The brass is ready to lockdown everything. It’s going to get ugly.”

“What I’m looking at is hard to explain,” Edie said. She paused, then told him about Scott’s pursuit of the target, the church, the secret tunnel she was staring at.

The chief bit clean through the end of the cigar in his mouth and almost choked on it. “Evers has a beat on Gosling? Tell me yes?”

“He’s in pursuit,” Edie said quickly. “We’re close, but we’ve still no idea of the target location. These tunnels could go anywhere.”

“We’ll work on it,” the chief said, ending the call.

The chief rushed into the situation room, making his way directly to analyst position six. “Petty Officer Hansen,” he said, “get me everything you can find on Saint John’s Cathedral in Valetta, the crypt, particularly. I need civil engineering plans for city substructures too. Sewers, tunnels, everything.”

The chief turned to the young petty officer manning analyst position five. “Simms, get me Dave Gilbert at the National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center.”

“On it, chief,” the petty officer said.

The chief eyed Executive Commander Howard across the room. Progress was definitely something he wanted to share. The preliminary reports on the pathogen they’d found in the vial had only told part of the story. Updates were being released every few minutes. The new reports were grim, but the real-time simulations were worse.

Ugly things would happen within minutes of the pathogen being released. Projections showed the virus would sweep through Valetta within an hour of release, dooming everyone in the city. From there, the virus would spread city by city hour by hour until there was no place left on the island to escape it. Within hours, the fate of a half million people would be sealed.

“Gilbert on one, chief,” Simms said.

The chief pushed the button for line 1 as he snatched up the phone. “Gilbert,” the chief said, “I’ve got another job for you and that big black box of yours.”

“Here to help,” a female voice said.

The chief growled into the phone. “You’re not Gilbert. Get me Gilbert, Dave Gilbert.”

“Chief Roberts, I’m Nancy, Nancy Leitner. I work with Dave,” the woman said. “They’ve got Dave—”

“Nothing I tell you is for anyone’s ears but Gilbert’s. Got that?” the chief said, cutting Nancy off. “I know this sounds like a strange request, but I need to him to locate whatever he can on secret tunnels under Saint John’s Cathedral in Valletta, Malta. Everything, got that. No matter how small. I need to know where it goes, what it’s for, who built it.

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