Retribution Road by Jon Coon (e reader comics .TXT) 📕

will stand in place for hours in the hot sun so that her foal can sleep in her shade? That’s what Jack did for Emily. That’s why I love horses.”

“Have you talked to your dad?”

“He’s with you, haven’t you talked with him?”

“Yeah, but not about home. His home. We’re still focused on the other sub, the one that got away.”

“Where are you now?”

“A Navy ship headed to the Coast Guard station at Galveston. That’s where they’re bringing the sub with the explosives. I want another look at it.”

“Be careful.”

“I promise. That’s really good news about Paul. And, no, I didn’t know horses would do that. Pretty cool.”

The USS Gabrielle Giffords continued her search for the sub the remainder of the way to the Coast Guard station at Fort Point on Galveston Island. There was time for a quick lunch in the officer’s mess and conversations with the other ships in the search party as well as the planes doing aerial surveillance. It was as if the little sub had vanished. No trace, no contact.

Dressed in fatigues and rubber boots, Commander Edwards with Gabe and Tom were waiting on the dock as the barge was tied up. They went aboard directly to the sub. It was impressive. More finished than they would have imagined.

Pumps were pulling the last of the water from the hull. Raising the boat from the water had taken time because the salvage crew was rightly concerned the water weight might overcome the structural integrity of the lightweight fiberglass hull. So they had raised it only until the hatch was above the surface and pumped the hull until the boat was floating on its own and nearly dry before trusting the slings to lift it to the barge.

Gabe dropped down the hatchway, which was still dripping the water from the refinery channel, and stepped into an inch of water sloshing across the deck as the barge rocked in the waves coming across the bay.

He waited for Edwards and Tom, then led the way with a bright flashlight, not as bright as his cave light, but bright enough. As they started forward, Gabe said, “Two things. I looked for tripwires or other detonators and didn’t see anything. I don’t imagine they were worried about there being anything left to find, but the fact that they smashed the electronics made me wonder. So watch where you step and what you touch. Second, look for anything that has a name on it.”

Tom understood Gabe would need a name if they encountered crew to be questioned. He nodded agreement.

“Got it. Thanks,” the commander said.

They worked their way to the single-seated helm, and Gabe removed the Garmin from its mounting bracket. The water had a rank smell and was dripping from the overhead and running down the interior bulkheads.

The commander wiped his face and neck. “Look at how simple this all is. One guy can drive this thing and never have to leave this seat. Whoever is building these babies knows what they’re doing. Okay, that’s it. Let’s go topside. Sitting on top of a bomb this big gives me the creeps. I need a towel and a shower and a stiff drink.”

“Me too,” Tom said. “Gabe, I don’t know how you were able to work down here. I get claustrophobic in an elevator. I can’t imagine what this must have been like when it was full of water. God bless you, son. You’re more of a man than most.”

Gabe didn’t share the panic attack he’d experienced when he first entered the sub. That was a different story for a different time. He let them go up first, then made a final sweep, looking for anything that might have a name tag or any sort of ID. Convinced there was nothing, he climbed out of the conning tower and then down the ladder to the barge deck.

Glad to be back in the warm, morning sun, he toweled, then they drove to a hangar with the Garmin. The commander went back to the Giffords to shower and change.

Gabe dried the unit on a workbench and turned it face down. On the back was a removeable panel. The cover was gone and the chip removed.

“Look at this,” he said to Tom. “Someone was thinking. They pulled the chip.”

“Do you think,” Tom began, “if we could get that chip and it showed us their travels, we might be able to find their base, put trackers on the other subs, and follow them to their drop points? We could take out the subs as well as identify their distribution networks. We could do some major damage if we played our cards right. Let’s find that chip.”

Beneath the barge, huddled against the pier, the other sub waited. Everything except the scrubber and the fan were shut down. No one moved. No one talked. They barely breathed.

They needed darkness to make the run around Fort Point and out the channel. And darkness was several hours away.

Maria parked the Mercedes in a hotel parking garage, gathered her few belongings, and walked out of the building. She caught a bus and rode several blocks away to another hotel. She checked in, asking for conjoining rooms using false ID and cash, and after grabbing sandwiches, energy bars, and drinks from the gift shop fridge—where she also paid cash—she took the elevator to her floor.

Before entering the room, she walked the hall and found all the exits. In the room, she double-locked the door and propped a desk chair beneath the handle, closed the curtains after checking out the view of the street, inhaled a roast beef on rye, sipped a power drink, and then collapsed on the bed. She knew Caldera had eyes everywhere and that by now all of them were looking. In her purse was hair color, and in her backpack a change of clothing and makeup. It had been a well-dressed blonde who entered the hotel. It would be a gray-headed, bent, old