Chapter 6 - The Trap on San Clemente Island
Just as the command center began cataloging the evidence, an alarm began to wail across the naval base’s tactical operations center. A red strobe flashed over the coastal radar array.
Lieutenant Sarah Chen sprinted into the room, her tablet flashing with telemetry alerts.
“Captain! We have a critical situation,” Chen announced, her breath coming in short bursts. “Sullivan’s second-in-command, Lieutenant Commander Marcus Vance—no relation to the Admiral, sir—known as Marcus Rowe, has hijacked the amphibious training transport *USS Peleliu* off the coast of San Clemente Island!”
“What are his assets?” I demanded.
“He has eight rogue operators from Sullivan’s elite cadre,” Chen said, displaying satellite imagery. “And worse, Captain… they have twelve first-phase BUD/S trainees aboard. They were out there for a scheduled deep-water navigation exercise. Rowe knows the base has been compromised. He’s holding the trainees as human shields and demanding safe passage to international waters aboard an unmarked vessel!”
Admiral Vance slammed his fist against the map table. “San Clemente is forty miles out. The sea conditions are deteriorating rapidly with an incoming gale. If we deploy standard strike craft, they’ll spot us coming five miles away and execute those recruits.”
I walked over to the digital terrain map of San Clemente Island. I knew every ridge, every tide pool, every jagged volcanic reef on that rock. I had trained there when Brock Sullivan was still a child playing with toy soldiers.
“They won’t see us coming,” I said, tapping a finger on the treacherous northern cliffs of the island—a sheer two-hundred-foot wall of jagged rock known as the Devil’s Throat, considered unnavigable by standard naval operations.
“That’s suicide, Avery,” Admiral Vance warned. “The rip tides will tear an assault boat to pieces.”
“Assault boats, yes,” I answered. “Which is why we aren’t using boats.”
I turned toward Sergeant Major Reed. “Prep the HALO gear. We jump from thirty-five thousand feet. High Altitude, Low Opening. We drop through the storm, enter the water behind the northern reef, and infiltrate the installation from the blind side.”
Reed grinned, the fire of combat igniting in his eyes. “How many men, sir?”
May you like
“Just you, me, and a four-man recon element,” I said. “Small footprint. Zero margin for error. Sullivan thought he broke my spirit with a slap on the parade field. Now, his men are going to learn what happens when the spirit of the Trident comes to collect its debt.”
***
