Chapter 25 - THE CYPHER OF THE TRAITOR
"Down!" Avery roared.
Admiral Vance, blood dripping from a gash across his temple, instinctively threw himself onto the deck plating.
The mercenary turned toward Avery, his weapon tracking her chest.
Avery didn't shoot to kill. She fired a single shot that shattered the operative’s right elbow, followed by an immediate lunging strike that drove her weapon’s steel slide into the side of his jaw. The man went limp, his rifle clattering across the raised command platform.
Silence descended upon the bridge, broken only by the wail of navigational alarms and the steady beep of the auto-pilot system.
The bridge crew was huddled against the starboard bulkheads, zip-tied and disarmed, but alive. The helmsman was slumped over his station, unconscious, while a portable electronic bypass unit was plugged directly into the ship’s primary steering helm.
"Avery..." Vance groaned, hauling himself up using the leather armrest of his command chair. "They took... they took the authentication binders. They’re transmitting a launch order to our guided-missile cruisers."
Avery lunged to the helm, ripping the electronic bypass unit from the steering console. The digital readout flashed: *TARGET COORDINATES: SUB-SURFACE SILO ARRAY, PARACEL ISLANDS. LAUNCH TIMEOUT: FOUR MINUTES.*
"Miller!" Avery shouted through the bridge intercom. "Take manual steering from CDC! Right full rudder, bring us back onto heading zero-two-zero! Get the *Lincoln* out of the shallow water!"
*"Copy, Captain! Taking manual control now!"* Miller’s voice crackled back, filled with renewed determination. The deck groaned beneath them as the carrier began to right itself, fighting the momentum of the turn.
Avery knelt beside the unconscious mercenary team leader she had just neutralized. She ripped off his balaclava, revealing a weathered, sun-darkened face she recognized instantly.
Major Jonathan Vance.
Admiral Vance’s estranged nephew. A former black-ops commander who had supposedly died in an aircraft accident off the coast of Okinawa four years ago.
The Admiral stood frozen, staring down at his nephew’s face in horror. "Jonathan...? Dear God... how?"
"He didn't die in Okinawa, Admiral," Avery said, her voice laden with grim certainty. "Sterling faked his death to build a strike team that existed outside the chain of command. Men whose deaths were already recorded, whose pensions were paid, whose names were carved on the memorial wall at Langley."
Jonathan Vance stirred, his eyes fluttering open. He looked up at Avery, his bloodied mouth twisting into a smirk. "Hayes. You always were... the best dog in the pack."
"Who gave the order to spoof Seventh Fleet?" Avery demanded, her hand resting on the fractured bone of his right elbow, applying just enough pressure to keep his attention entirely focused on the agony.
Jonathan winced, his face draining of color. "You think... you think this stops with Sterling? You think a single four-star runs Deep Spear?"
"Talk," Avery whispered, her tone chillingly devoid of emotion.
"The code isn't coming from the Pentagon, Hayes," Jonathan gasped, sweat pouring down his face. "The authentication didn't come from Washington. It came from an airborne command post. The *Nightwatch* E-4B is currently flying over the international date line. Sterling isn't in DC. He’s in the sky right above us."
Avery straightened up, her tactical mind instantly re-evaluating the entire operational picture.
"He didn't come to silence the carrier from afar," Avery said, looking at Admiral Vance. "He came to supervise the incident personally. If this strike group fires a Tomahawk cruise missile at Chinese assets while under ‘foreign electronic control,’ Sterling uses the E-4B to broadcast a live declaration of war to the UN Security Council."
"And what happens to us?" the Admiral asked.
"We become the tragic casualties of an unprovoked preemptive strike," Avery replied. "The *Lincoln* doesn't survive this night. If Jonathan's team failed to steer us into the rocks, the next phase is already in the air."
"What phase?" Vance asked.
As if on cue, the bridge radar operator—now freed from his bonds by Master Chief Cross—cried out in absolute terror:
May you like
"Radar contact! Multiple high-altitude tracks descending at Mach six! Not ships! Inbound hypersonic glide vehicles! Range one hundred and fifty miles and closing!"
***
