Wormhole (The Rho Agenda #3)(43)

“Yeah, Chief?”

“Something’s seriously wrong here.”

As good as Morrow was, he knew his master chief was better. In SOCOM, the man was a living legend. Two Silver Stars, the Medal of Honor, and a chest full of so many ribbons he tilted to his left whenever he wore dress whites. But that barely hinted at the man’s story. Hob was a warrior from a different age: off duty a gentleman straight out of King Arthur’s court, in battle a Viking warrior his men would follow into hell itself.

“Yeah, I’ve had that feeling, but what is it?”

Hob snorted. “It’s this goddamned high-tech crap. This shit’s screwing us.”

“Care to be a bit more specific, Chief?”

The master chief pulled out a map, spread it on the ground, and flipped on a red lens flashlight. His finger circled a spot on the map. “The GPS puts us here, right?”

“Right.”

“Bullshit. I may not be one of the Pentagon’s sci-fi whiz kids, but I can read a cocksuckin’ map well enough to know the difference between a ridgeline and a valley. We’re sitting smack at the bottom of a valley, but that GPS says we’re right here on top of this ridge.”

Morrow stared at the paper map, then shifted his view to the GPS version on his digital display. He paused for several seconds, analyzing the disparity.

“NGA hasn’t spent a lot of effort producing high-quality maps of this area.”

“Fine. I’ll grant you a map error of plus or minus a hundred meters. But I swear to God, we’re half a click from where GPS says we are.”

“Which direction?”

“Due south.”

Once again Lieutenant Morrow paused. As much as he wanted to believe what the fancy SOCOM gadgetry was telling him, he trusted his master chief more.

“OK. So how do you figure it?”

“Sir, didn’t Gregory reprogram the GPS birds to deactivate the nanites?”

“He did.”

“So that tells me he knows we’re here. And he knows how addicted to technology special ops has become. He’s screwing us with our own technology.”

“Recommendation?”

“Somehow he’s tracking us through our transmitters. We need to strip off all the high-tech gadgetry, you and me. Put it in two packs, give those packs to a couple of our guys and send our team on, just like before. Then the two of us veer off and deliver a little surprise to Jack the Ripper.”

By the time Master Chief Hob Lucero finished proposing his plan, Morrow had already begun dropping every high-tech gadget on his body in a pile on the ground in front of him.





“Almost time to go,” Mark said, the watch in his head ticking off the seconds. He pointed at the map display. “The SEAL team is too far off course now to get here before we’re long gone.”

Mark saw Heather’s eyes go white, saw her stagger under the weight of her vision and reached out a hand to support her.

As her eyes cleared, she shook her head. “Escaping through the tunnel and blowing the compound isn’t going to work. The Global Hawk’s synthetic aperture radar and infrared sensors are just too good. They’ll see us through the surrounding jungle. After that, there’ll be no escaping the B-52.”

Turning her attention back to her console, Heather redirected her subspace receiver-transmitter at the B-52.

“I’ve got control of the B-52 targeting system.” Heather’s voice sounded tight in her throat.

“I thought we couldn’t do that.”

“It’s possible for the crew to manually override my control, but only if they recognize what’s happening. That’s not going to happen until it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?” asked Jennifer.

“Give me the SEAL team’s center of mass, latitude-longitude.”

The light dawned in Mark’s mind. He calculated the coordinate to tenths of a decimal second, reciting it aloud.

“Team spread?”

“One hundred seventy three meters.”

Heather punched in the targeting data.

Jennifer gasped. “We’re going to kill Americans?”

“They’re here to kill us.”

Her icy tone held an edge Mark had never heard from Heather, but it didn’t surprise him. He could feel their training kicking in, siphoning away all paralyzing emotion. They would have to deal with those emotions at some point, just not now.

“Jen,” Heather continued. “Get ready to give me the Global Hawk feed. I’m going to want live infrared video of the SEAL team.”

“I already have sensor control. Ready any time.”

“Mark, get me a satellite shot, best NIIRS resolution it can do.”

Mark focused on his own console. “Imagery coming down now. It’s a pretty large data stream. Download will take thirty-five seconds.”

The data appeared on the monitor to Heather’s left, members of the team visible, but without the detail she wanted. Heather shook her head.

“Something’s wrong. I’m only seeing fourteen people.”

“I’m still showing sixteen GPS blips within that area,” said Mark. “Maybe a couple are terrain-masked.”

Heather glanced at the map display. “Can’t be. The blips for the two I can’t see are right next to SEALs I can see.”