Seismic Surge Read online

  STONY MAN

  When the President hits the panic button, it’s Stony Man that answers the call. An elite, covert group, Stony Man strikes before terror can gain a foothold. The warriors of freedom understand the ultimate price and—in their mandate to protect the rights of the free nations—willingly meet the enemy.

  SEISMIC SURGE

  A plot orchestrated to destabilize the Western world has its roots in a mysterious business conglomerate with ties to Chinese conspirators. And the established battleground is a volcanic island off the coast of Spain. There, an army of multinational terrorists bound by hate and violence is about to trigger a tsunami that will wash hell across two continents. While Stony Man’s cyber-crew runs real-time command and control, Phoenix Force and Able Team launch a multipronged ground assault on the corporation behind the planned tidal wave and its ruthless backers.

  “So, not only will a tsunami wreck the U.S. East Coast...”

  Hal Brognola nodded.

  “But there’s also a renegade force in Norfolk, Virginia,” the President continued, “being funded and supplied by the People’s Republic of China and Saudi princes.”

  “All we know right now is that an Idaho white supremacist group has targeted European tourism,” Brognola replied.

  “I’ve got people keeping a lid on the La Palma volcano threat,” the President said. “But according to my staff, posts are popping up about that damn Jeopardy white paper.”

  “Jeopardy is an American company, so if anything does happen, it will lead back to us. No amount of money is going to cover it up.”

  “The livelihoods of millions of Americans will be destroyed by a superwave, and we’re going to take the blame for the damage.” The President narrowed his eyes. “Stony Man can fix this, right?”

  Other titles in this series:

  #55 EXTREME MEASURES

  #56 STATE OF AGGRESSION

  #57 SKY KILLERS

  #58 CONDITION HOSTILE

  #59 PRELUDE TO WAR

  #60 DEFENSIVE ACTION

  #61 ROGUE STATE

  #62 DEEP RAMPAGE

  #63 FREEDOM WATCH

  #64 ROOTS OF TERROR

  #65 THE THIRD PROTOCOL

  #66 AXIS OF CONFLICT

  #67 ECHOES OF WAR

  #68 OUTBREAK

  #69 DAY OF DECISION

  #70 RAMROD INTERCEPT

  #71 TERMS OF CONTROL

  #72 ROLLING THUNDER

  #73 COLD OBJECTIVE

  #74 THE CHAMELEON FACTOR

  #75 SILENT ARSENAL

  #76 GATHERING STORM

  #77 FULL BLAST

  #78 MAELSTROM

  #79 PROMISE TO DEFEND

  #80 DOOMSDAY CONQUEST

  #81 SKY HAMMER

  #82 VANISHING POINT

  #83 DOOM PROPHECY

  #84 SENSOR SWEEP

  #85 HELL DAWN

  #86 OCEANS OF FIRE

  #87 EXTREME ARSENAL

  #88 STARFIRE

  #89 NEUTRON FORCE

  #90 RED FROST

  #91 CHINA CRISIS

  #92 CAPITAL OFFENSIVE

  #93 DEADLY PAYLOAD

  #94 ACT OF WAR

  #95 CRITICAL EFFECT

  #96 DARK STAR

  #97 SPLINTERED SKY

  #98 PRIMARY DIRECTIVE

  #99 SHADOW WAR

  #100 HOSTILE DAWN

  #101 DRAWPOINT

  #102 TERROR DESCENDING

  #103 SKY SENTINELS

  #104 EXTINCTION CRISIS

  #105 SEASON OF HARM

  #106 HIGH ASSAULT

  #107 WAR TIDES

  #108 EXTREME INSTINCT

  #109 TARGET ACQUISITION

  #110 UNIFIED ACTION

  #111 CRITICAL INTELLIGENCE

  #112 ORBITAL VELOCITY

  #113 POWER GRAB

  #114 UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE

  #115 EXTERMINATION

  #116 TERMINAL GUIDANCE

  #117 ARMED RESISTANCE

  #118 TERROR TRAIL

  #119 CLOSE QUARTERS

  #120 INCENDIARY DISPATCH

  Don Pendleton

  Seismic Surge

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to

  Doug Wojtowicz for his contribution to this work.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  PROLOGUE

  Bernie Jackson stowed the spare blank forms inside his folding metal clipboard, then adjusted the top inspection sheet until it sat squarely on the cold, bare metal. There had been a few too many incidents for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s liking at the Heyerdal Hull Company, and the Norfolk, Virginia, plant was shut down for the day, pending the results of his OSHA team’s observations.

  Seven men had died already, and twenty more were injured due to mishaps at the plant. Heyerdal’s owners, the Jeopardy Corporation, had requested that they be allowed to clean their own house, utilizing one of their security contractors. These promises had held off the federal government’s agents. The fact that Heyerdal was behind some large defense contracts, developing new hulls for a low-profile patrol craft that could be used by the Navy and the Marine Corps, had been enough until the most recent “accident” left two dead and seven wounded. Local constituents were demanding in Congress that the government take a closer look.

  The Jeopardy Corporation tried to muddy the waters with claims of outside interference, suggesting saboteurs or espionage agents were responsible for the mayhem and death. Jeopardy owned private military contractor companies that had provided security for the U.S. government overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as for allied Middle Eastern governments. As such, they claimed that they could deal with all of this on their own.

  That suggestion bubbled up in Jackson’s memory and he had to strangle down a snort of derision.

  “Like that’s going to come up kosher,” he muttered.

  “I told you, these damn corporate bigwigs act like their shit don’t stink,” Gerber said. Whereas Jackson was an older African-American man, thick around the middle with the weight of advancing years and too many desserts, Gerber was in his thirties. Jackson’s partner was, in his old Virginia way of saying things, all knees and elbows with a ginger head balanced atop a skinny neck. There was a noticeable disparity between the size of his skull and his slender frame, which was further enhanced in its awkwardness by ears that stuck out like jug handles.

  Jackson looked his young partner over, shaking his head. “The old military industrial complex—MIC—conspiracy again?”

  Gerber nodded avidly, his serious glare looking out of place above freckled cheeks. Jackson and a few of the older men noted that the kid, by their perspective, was what could have been the love child between two timeless comic-book teenagers. Any mention of Arch or Jugs, however, had gone over Gerber’s head, the references eliciting a blank response.

  Of course, knowing the history of those comics, Gerber had probably developed a selective memory loss after having been needled over the similar
ity from other guys in the Navy, especially his instructors.

  “Collusion and corruption in those areas do still exist,” Gerber replied. “You wouldn’t believe the stuff I saw back in the Navy.”

  “But if you told me, you’d just have to kill me,” Jackson concluded, rolling his eyes. The others, eight total, laughed at the end of this particular segment of the “Bernie and Gerb” show. Jackson didn’t mind Gerber’s constant conspiracy theories, and their seeming Moebius Strip of argument and counterargument added some spice and variety to a job that could end up a drudgery as it devolved into rote observation and paperwork.

  “Get the camera, Gerb. Document anything you can find,” Jackson ordered. Neither Gerb nor the other cameramen on the inspection teams really needed to be told this, but it was the best way that Jackson knew to turn off his partner’s manic running commentary.

  While Gerber was normally a motormouth, when he was recording footage of safety violations, he had the steady focus of a laser beam.

  That professionalism, as well as Gerber’s entertainment value, went a long way to helping Jackson forgive the younger man’s many quirks.

  Now it was time to go to work.

  * * *

  “BERNIE! BERNIE!” Gerber shouted, his big green eyes wild and wide as he rushed back to Jackson’s side. He wondered what could light such a fire under his coworker’s

  ass like that when a sudden bout of stammering answered his unspoken question. Jackson could recognize the symptoms of too many ideas competing to get out of Gerber’s mouth. Something that the jug-headed man caught on camera had led him to believe that he had conclusive, documented proof.

  “Look! Just look!” Gerber squawked, pushing the LCD screen of the digital camera far too close to Jackson’s face. “I knew that the MIC was behind these accidents! Heyerdal is making weapons to provoke a world war!”

  Jackson reached out, trying to still the camera so that he could get a better look. “Then let me look at it, dummy!”

  Distant laughter from the closest pair of inspectors reached Jackson’s ears through the excited chatter and dancing of Gerber. Finally, he was forced to snap the camera out of his partner’s hands. “What the hell are you on about, son?”

  “They killed workers who had stumbled on that dilapidated old hulk,” Gerber exclaimed. “Once those men saw the submarine pens, they had to die, so they wanted to lay proof about sabotage before we got here.”

  The glow of the liquid crystal display showed the interior of a gutted freighter and small docks low in the water and designed for slender craft less than a quarter of the width of the hulk. They would have gone unnoticed had it not been for all of the recent accidents and the diligence of a young inspector with a head full of ideas. The dead freighter didn’t look out of place in a boatyard, as many shipbuilders found that good, extant hulls were a basis for updated craft. However, the footage showed a hull without a keel and small hydraulic doors at the front.

  “That is damn strange,” Jackson muttered. “Especially since Heyerdal doesn’t have anything in its records about designing submersibles, just light seacrafts.”

  “Told you!” Gerber snapped, all excited. “Secret submarines!”

  Jackson pinched the skin at the bridge of his nose. Whenever Gerber got a hair up his ass, he was nearly incomprehensible. What a secret berth had to do with a conspiracy involving the government and Heyerdal’s deck designs would take forever to straighten out in an intelligible manner. But first he had to calm Gerber down, and right now, unfortunately, the kid had a gallon of adrenaline to burn off before he could make any sense.

  “Gerb! Focus!”

  “This could be used to sink international ships and draw the U.S. into another stupid, bloated war,” Gerber continued. “It’s the Lusitania all over again!”

  “Gerb, they must have had weeks to clear anything out. Why would they even leave that area unlocked for you to stumble upon?” Jackson asked.

  Something gave the older man pause.

  Their two friends, though they had only been about a hundred feet away, close enough to laugh out loud at Gerber’s renewed antics, were now nowhere to be seen. That didn’t feel right, and Jackson’s scalp tingled as if his close-cropped gray-white hairs were all trying to stand up at once.

  “Hey, Jake! Ned! Where’d you two go?”

  Gerber’s agitation seemed to drain away, as if someone had cut a hole in the bottom of a tub. The call to their coworkers hadn’t seemed to calm the young man, but it had silenced him for the moment.

  Gerber snatched back his camera and pulled his phone from his pocket. With a device in each hand, Gerber’s left thumb flew across the touch screen, his lips moving silently as if quietly narrating his own actions. “This is bad.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Gerber spoke up. “They don’t want witnesses.” This time his manic energy had disappeared, and his voice was flat and serious. The thrill of discovery had been shocked into submission by the dread of some realization. “Got to get the footage out.”

  “Because Ned and Jake are probably smoking on government time?” Jackson asked. Even as he spoke the words, he lost faith in his rationalization. Something could have been wrong; he could feel that in the air, even though logic dictated that the deaths or disappearance of ten OSHA inspectors would actually invite even more intense scrutiny to whatever secrets lurked in the boatyard. Such a loss would probably involve the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security, so any top-secret construction projects would simply be uncovered in the wake of foul play. They were simply too high profile to warrant any harm, even by the most desperate businessman intent on concealing his shady dealings.

  Submarines? he thought to himself.

  Why the hell would that be so important to kill witnesses? Sure, there were cases where companies, if they had failed at bribery, sometimes resorted to violence, but there had been no interaction between the OSHA team and the Heyerdal company. There should at least have been a man at the gate with an envelope full of cash.

  As much as he tried to dismiss his fears, Jackson couldn’t quiet his nerves. He could sense a predator stalking in the shadows. No one had been allowed through the gate for the past week except for the OSHA team, not even the usual security guards hired to babysit the shipyard. He just couldn’t shake the feel of being stalked, the weight of malevolence hanging in the air.

  “It’s out.” Gerber sighed with relief. “They can’t keep this shit quiet.”

  “What? Where?” Jackson asked.

  “App on my phone and built into the camera. It can read off the memory and then upload it to a backup site,” Gerber explained. “Better than the little piece of garbage in the usual cell. This transmits good, crisp images.”

  “Why?” Jackson continued.

  “Safety for us. Keeping my documentation of their secrets kills any incentive for them to do the same to us.”

  Jackson looked around.

  “Kill us? Try to silence us? No go,” Gerber said. He let loose a nervous titter. “Their dirt is now in the Cloud. The whole conspiracy sphere knows and is breathing this all in now.”

  “Gerb, they wouldn’t kill federal inspectors,” Jackson countered. His strength ebbed, and he added in a softer, more nervous tone, “Would they?”

  The red-haired ex-Navy man pocketed his phone after frowning at its screen. “I wish I had brought my knife.”

  That was all Gerber had to say for Jackson’s sake. The older man brought out his walkie-talkie and keyed it. All he received was static, unfortunately. He tried again, but the radio was working; it just wasn’t receiving or transmitting any usable signal.

  “Hey! Anyone’s walkies still working?” Jackson yelled as he transferred to his own cell. “Ned?”

  “All the phones are out, Bernie,” Gerber said, deadly serious. br />
  In the distance he could hear spasmodic coughing erupt. A silhouetted form, Jackson couldn’t tell who, staggered into view, then clutched his throat and chest, toppling over. Sudden bright flares, vomitous blossoms of flame, erupted throughout the area. Smoke billowed from multiple sources, obscuring the scene as at least two men screamed their last.

  “Gerb, you think you can swim?” Jackson asked, his mind racing.

  “Hello! Navy submariner!” Gerber replied. He waved to the hulk, where no flames had erupted yet. “Come on!”

  Jackson followed blindly, sweeping the boatyard around him for signs of impending death or onrushing danger. He hoped that Gerber, in all of his paranoia, knew what he was doing. The coughing brought to mind choking smoke, but the men appeared to be suffocating even before the flames erupted and thick, strangling clouds spread out to suck the breath from them.

  Now all he could see behind him were yellow splashes of glow that burned through black roiling darkness that flowed into the air. Getting to the water was the means to get to safety, a place to duck from the fury of blaze and asphyxiation.

  Jackson tabbed his phone again, dialing 9-1-1, but there was still no signal.

  It didn’t make sense. Only moments before, Gerber had transmitted a call, sending data to the internet. Maybe he’d done that, or now Jackson was hot on the heels of a delusional freak, not a former military man who showed the foresight to upload conspiracy documentation.

  Gerber led him to the hull of the dead freighter, and as they passed through a door, Jackson stopped cold. What he saw was something out of a James Bond movie, a wide, empty interior dock with spaces for four submarines, two on each side of the hull, with loading cranes above to supply the subs with their gear. The covered docks were empty now, but there was no other explanation for the catwalks and support equipment inside the empty ship’s corpse.

  It was crazy.

  Or was he just influenced, mentally contaminated by the ravings of his jug-headed friend?

  Gerber pointed to the water. “We can dive out through there!”

  Jackson followed Gerber, but only visually. His feet had been rooted to the spot thanks to fear and indecision.