Chapter 81 - The Phantom of Cascadia
The Osprey screamed across the border into Washington airspace at maximum continuous power, bypassing the regional naval hospital at Bremerton and heading straight for Naval Magazine Indian Island.
Outside the cockpit windows, the pre-dawn sky was a bruised shade of purple and slate. The storm was following us north, rolling across the Strait of Juan de Fuca in a wall of dark fog and torrential downpours.
On the secure communications screen, Admiral Harris looked like a man who had aged ten years in a single night.
"Marcus," the Admiral spoke with absolute gravity. "The destroyer USS *Kidd* just intercepted Arthur Vance’s submersible. He's in custody, singing like a canary to the JAG officers in exchange for medical attention. He confirmed everything Clara's log stated."
"Where is she, Admiral?" I demanded, buckling myself into the observer seat behind the pilots.
"Three miles north of Port Angeles, aboard an unmarked civilian deep-sea research catamaran called the *Hydra-7*," Harris replied. "Coast Guard tried to interdict them twenty minutes ago. The *Hydra-7* returned fire with high-energy microwave weapons that fried the cutter’s electronics. Marcus... she’s not running away. She’s actively deploying a remote deep-submergence recovery vehicle over the Cascadia Trench."
"The fault line," I said, my hands clenching into fists until my knuckles turned white. "She's going to trigger the abyssal seismic charge to mask her exit and wipe out the Third Fleet’s acoustic listening array."
"If that charge goes off at that depth," Harris said, "it won't just blind our sonar. It will trigger a regional tsunami that will wipe out every coastal installation from Seattle to northern California. Millions of lives, Marcus."
"Not on my watch," I said.
The Osprey began a steep, combat-descent spiral through the thick layer of sea fog. The altimeter spun downward: five thousand feet, two thousand feet, eight hundred feet.
The fog tore open for a fraction of a second.
Below us, sitting anchored in the treacherous currents of the strait, was the sleek, dark form of the *Hydra-7*. A heavy yellow crane extended over its stern, with thick fiber-optic cables trailing straight down into the black, bottomless waters of the trench.
Suddenly, the Osprey’s radar warning receiver shrieked a violent, continuous tone.
*WARNING: ACTIVE RADAR LOCK. SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILE LAUNCH DETECTED.*
"Break! Break right!" the pilot screamed, dumping flares and chaff as the twin rotors groaned under maximum pitch.
A streak of white smoke ignited from the foredeck of Clara's catamaran, knifing upward through the rain directly toward our aircraft.
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Through the forward canopy, I saw the sleek silhouette of a shoulder-fired missile closing the distance at three thousand feet per second. Below, standing on the drenched bridge-wing of the *Hydra-7*, clad in an all-black naval storm coat and holding a remote detonation console in her gloved hands, stood my sister Clara.
She looked up through the storm, her face cold, calculating, and utterly devoid of humanity, her thumb resting directly over the flashing red trigger of the abyssal warhead.
