"Jack!" Carl said, giving Collins's shoulders a small shake until his eyes refocused on the captain's.

"The sea," Jack mumbled as his eyes locked with Carl's, and then the gaze changed and his head looked around him. "They said I was dead." He suddenly looked back at Everett.

"How in the hell is he here?" Will asked, swallowing.

"Goddamn, those people must have been there." Everett turned and looked at Mendenhall. "They must have saved him, pulled him from the water," Everett answered, laughing for the first time in weeks. "Oh no, you're not dead, Jack, you're going home." He tried to turn the colonel toward the open door when Jack pulled his arm free and stared at Everett.

"The sea," he said again, closing his eyes and swaying as Carl reached out and steadied him. Jack opened his eyes when his dizziness passed and focused on the three men once more. His eyes darted back to Everett and narrowed. "Mr.... Everett."

"That's right, Jack. Will and Jason are here, too."

Jack's eyes went to the two men standing beside the captain.

"Will, Ryan ... I tried to hold on ... and I did ..."

"Hold on to what, Colonel?" Mendenhall asked, feeling creepy about this whole thing. It was like conversing with a ghost at the very least.

Jack took a step back until he fell into the limo's rear seat and hung his head. It looked as though he was trying hard to remember something. He slowly looked up at the expectant faces.

"Sarah." That single name coming from his mouth explained all. The three officers exchanged a look. "She's dead, someone shot her?" he asked, looking like his world was gone, as if he had failed her.

Everett knelt by the open door and placed a hand on Collins's leg. He tried to smile but failed.

"Let's go home, buddy. We need to explain a few things to you."

THE ATLANTIC OCEAN, 100 MILES

OFF THE NEW JERSEY COAST

The control room was dark, and the men and women were silent in deference to the somber mood of the great vessel. On the surface, the radar mast and antennas broke the clean lines of the calm sea, slicing through the water as a sharpened scythe through wheat, their stealthy design broken by sharp angles.

"No airborne or surface contacts at this time, Captain. Sonar reports the signatures of three Los Angeles and one Virginia class submarine close-aboard, but are not deemed threats. They cannot pick us up. Stealth has been achieved."

On the darkened, raised platform at the center of the control room, the captain nodded and gestured toward the weapons station.

The first officer approached the raised pedestal and leaned in close to his captain. He looked around him, then lowered his voice.

"Captain, you know I have never once questioned your orders."

The captain smiled and looked down on a man she had known since her childhood. "I suspect that precedent is about to be broken."

"Ma'am, you had planned on delivering ultimatums to all countries before any attacks began." He looked around him once more, making sure all hands were attending their stations. "Now we've sunk four vessels and attacked two nations. Why have we stepped up offensive operations before these countries find out why we're doing it? This isn't like you at all, and--"

She looked down, and her bright blue eyes, dilated as they were, stayed the first officer's words.

"Apologies, Captain, I--"

"You have other concerns, James?"

"Why are you insisting on bringing strangers aboard? The attack on the complex achieved your goal."

"We have to know exactly what knowledge these people have on us."

"Captain, our asset inside their Group confirms they know nothing. Sergeant Tyler and his security department have been screaming about the unnecessary risk of what you are--"

The captain's piercing eyes settled on the first officer, and he could only nod his head.

"James, the ploy to lure their top security men from their posts worked." She looked around the control center and saw that her seamen were doing their jobs. Only Yeoman Alvera had turned from her station to watch the captain. "Now we can better coerce the people I need to come onboard with minimum bloodshed; isn't that what you wanted?"

"Yes, ma'am, I just--"

"Vertical tubes six through twelve are flooded, birds are warm," the weapons officer called out.

"Captain, the boat reports all stations ready for launch," the first officer said after being cut off by the announcement. He turned away from the raised platform and examined the holographic board in front of him.

The captain nodded her approval, then closed her eyes.

"All hands stand by for vertical launch. Tubes six through twelve, Operation Cover Four has been ordered to commence. Navigation, once tubes have been emptied, take the boat to four thousand feet at flank speed, then steer a course south at seventy-five knots. We will take up station in the gulf before dawn."

"Aye, sir," both navigation and weapons called out from their stations.

"Permission for weapons release, Captain?" the first officer asked, watching the still figure in her chair. Her not talking was a bad sign--he knew migraine headaches had begun to plague her the last few weeks.

Once more, there was just a simple nod of her head from the raised platform.

"Weapons officer, launch vertical tubes six through twelve in numerical order," the first officer ordered, looking at the captain with worry.

A hundred feet aft of the great streamlined conning tower, six of the forty-six vertical launch tubes opened to the sea. Suddenly large, explosive water slugs ejected six sixteen-foot-long, black, streamlined missiles with no telltale maneuvering fins. Now airborne and clear of the water, their solid booster rocket fired and sent the six missiles skyward. Once they reached an altitude of twenty thousand feet, they started a slow turn to the west and then picked up speed, still climbing. They would soon reach three times the speed of sound as they headed for the interior of the United States.

Far below the sea, the giant vessel dove at an amazing rate of speed, slowly ramping up to more than seventy knots. Then she dipped her nose and dove even deeper, where no American warship could ever hope to follow.

The great vessel set her course due south for the Gulf of Mexico, and part two of Operation Cover Four.

Twenty-two radar stations, warships, National Space Command, and U.S. early-warning satellites warned of a massive missile strike over the United States, and all started tracking the assault. Soon more than a hundred warplanes on the eastern seaboard and the Midwest lifted free of the earth, in pursuit of what were deemed cruise missiles, as they plowed their way through the stratosphere, heading west.

PART TWO

THE SEA CHASE

I have strived to meet my kind with open arms of shared brotherhood, but alas, the distance to cover is too great, the wounds too deep, and the memory of brutality too sharp and clear. So all I will ask my former brethren is to leave me to my sea.

-- Roderick Deveroux,