Catalyst (Breakthrough Book 3)(20)

“Still okay?”

“YES!”

“Here comes the best part!”

Alison patted Sally, who then took off again. Her speed was no faster but this time she ducked a few feet below the surface and swam in a tighter circle.

As the warm water enveloped them both, Sophia heard the sound abruptly disappear into the cool air above them, leaving only Dirk and Sally’s mechanized voices in her ear.

Now okay Sofia?

“Yes, I’m fine!” she replied, still beaming inside the mask.

Faster? Dirk asked.

“YES! FASTER!”

The water flow surged faster around them and the pressure increased against their bodies from below, giving Sofia the sensation that she and Sally were flying together.

Sofia felt as happy as she had ever been.





9





Admiral Langford stepped out of the elevator as soon as the metal doors separated. He turned left and walked briskly down Corridor Nine on the third floor, toward the Pentagon’s “A” ring, avoiding eye contact with two generals approaching from the other direction.

The military was as much about status and rank as any organization on the planet, and the Pentagon served as a prestigious symbol of that system. A building filled with colonels, admirals, and generals, all of whom were seen as the best the country’s Armed Forces had to offer. Men who embodied the very image of accomplishment and greatness.

Yet deep down, these same men all shared a common secret. A dark secret. A character flaw that few would admire, let alone celebrate. Each man had long ago sacrificed the priorities of his own life, and those of his family, to attain the unattainable. Men who helped shape the most powerful government in history, who shaped the very world as much as any politician ever would. Men who inevitably chose to sacrifice what most of the world would never relinquish.

These men lived in the glow of the most prized possession of all: ultimate power. The one constant that eventually changed all men before enslaving them. Power was the greatest of all drugs. In monarchies, these men were kings. In Communism, they were dictators. In republics and democracies, they were politicians and generals.

And Langford was no exception. His family had sacrificed just like the rest, living most of their lives without a husband or father. A man who they knew more as an image than a person. Until he was saved.

It was the accident that changed it all –– collision that suddenly put his teenage daughter into the Intensive Care Unit and a single phone call that shook him free from his enslavement. That night was a turning point and became his moment of clarity. For the next month, Langford and his wife rarely left their child’s bedside. His daughter eventually recovered, but Langford had been reformed. He remained a patriot, but he was no longer bound by a personal or political agenda. His agenda now was for his family first and then his country. And it was also why the double doors to his office read in very simple, and very small lettering: Chairman – Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Langford pushed the right side door open, nodding to Clay and Borger as they both stood up. They fell into step behind Langford, who paused only briefly to take a small stack of messages from his secretary’s outstretched hand before entering his office. He closed the door behind them and rounded his desk while his men each took a chair.

Clay could see the consternation on the Admiral’s face. “Everything okay?”

“No.”

Langford had just returned from his morning security briefing at the White House. Things were not okay. In fact, things were unraveling at a frightening pace. He leaned back into the thick leather chair and leveled his eyes at them.

“Our Chinese friends don’t give up easily. They’ve dispatched every single ship in the CRS, the first of which should reach Panama by tomorrow morning.”

“Salvage ships?”

“That’s right.”

Clay and Borger looked at each other. “They’re not going to recover the Bowditch?”

“No,” Langford shook his head. “They’re coming after the Corvette. Their warship never made it back to China.”

Now Clay and Borger were genuinely confused.

Langford sighed. “Two days after the attack on the Bowditch, a large area of debris was spotted off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilians were the first to dispatch a salvage team, who now believes it’s the remains of the Chinese Corvette and the Forel. It appears both boats were destroyed together.”

Borger was incredulous. “Wait. First the Bowditch was sunk by the Russian Forel, then we find out it was really the Chinese?”

“Correct.”

“Then the Russian sub and the Chinese warship are destroyed together?”

Clay raised an eyebrow. “Was it us?”