Chapter 4 - THE DRY DOCK
The Anacostia salvage yard smelled of stagnant brackish water, rotting timbers, and oxidization. Rusted cranes towered like skeletal giants against the orange, light-polluted D.C. skyline.
Our convoy killed its headlights a block away, coasting through the rusted iron gates into the gravel yard.
Foster didn't hesitate. He pulled an SIG Sauer P320 from his shoulder holster, chambered a round, and signaled the two SEAL operators who emerged from the chase vehicle, carbines already raised to their shoulders.
“Maya, stay in the vehicle,” Alvarez pleaded, her fingers trembling against her briefcase.
“No,” I said. I reached beneath the Suburban's rear floorboard, where Foster had stashed a standard-issue collapsible tactical cane and an M9 service pistol. “If Chen sees federal badges or suits, he bolts. He trusts me.”
Using the cane to stabilize my dragging left leg, I limped through the damp night air, flanked by Chief Petty Officer Vance and Petty Officer Miller—brother of the young specialist who had burned to death under my command in Afghanistan. Miller’s jaw was set like an iron vice; he wasn't here under orders. He was here for blood.
Fifty yards ahead, inside an abandoned drydock housing the rusted carcass of a Cold War-era tugboat, a muzzle flash cut the dark.
*Pfft-pfft-pfft.*
Suppressed fire. Subsonic rounds pinging off iron bulkheads.
“Contact!” Chief Vance barked, breaking into a low sprint.
Two figures in dark, sterile tactical gear—no patches, no insignia—were peeling back from the tugboat's engine compartment, returning controlled bursts of five-point-five-six fire toward a raised steel catwalk.
A ricochet sparked inches from my head. Foster grabbed my tactical vest and pulled me behind an industrial diesel generator.
“Miller, flank right! Cut off their vehicle!” Foster ordered into his throat mic.
Petty Officer Miller moved like smoke through the shadow of a shipping container. Two crisp, unsuppressed shots from his Daniel Defense rifle roared through the yard. One of the sterile contractors dropped instantly, his body hitting the gravel with a heavy, wet thud.
The second contractor pivoted, tossing an incendiary grenade into the tugboat's open hold before sprinting toward a blacked-out Boston Whaler tied to the river slip.
“The files!” I screamed, recognizing the blinding white flare of thermite igniting inside the boat. “He’s burning the data!”
I ignored the agonizing spasms tearing through my sciatic nerve. Throwing my cane aside, I lunged forward, catching myself against the tugboat’s rusted gunwale and pulling my deadened lower half upward through sheer, unadulterated adrenaline.
Inside the engine hold, David Chen was slumped against a steel locker, holding a shattered forearm, coughing violently through thick, toxic chemical smoke. Two feet away, an aluminum flight case was smoking, white heat melting through its clasps.
I grabbed a heavy carbon-dioxide fire extinguisher from the bulkhead mount and pulled the pin, bathing the burning case in freezing chemical frost before the thermite could melt the primary hard drive inside.
“Maya...” Chen gasped, his glasses hanging by one ear, blood running from a laceration across his forehead. “You shouldn't have come. They have the kill order... signed by the Assistant Secretary of Defense.”
“Chen, get up,” I panted, grabbing his good shoulder and hoisting him up. “You’re testifying before the full Senate tomorrow morning.”
“There won't be a hearing,” Chen coughed, clutching a black, ruggedized micro-drive to his chest. “They aren't trying to cover up an accident anymore. The Block IV didn't fail, Maya.”
I froze, the smoke swirling around our faces. “What are you talking about?”
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“The telemetry didn't malfunction,” Chen whispered, his voice trembling with sheer horror. “Orion programmed that guidance unit to designate your coordinates on purpose. Your squad was a live-fire field test. They sold the guidance system to foreign buyers as an automated, deniable assassination tool... and your squad was the demonstration target.”
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