Chapter 7 - THE TIDEWATER STRIKE
Thursday night arrived with a howling northeaster that whipped the Atlantic Ocean into frothing, slate-gray breakers along the Virginia capes.
The rain beat against the tin roof of Pop’s tractor shed with the deafening roar of machine-gun fire, streaming down the glass of the kitchen windows in thick, distorted sheets.
Inside the farmhouse, the only light came from the dancing red embers of the brick hearth and the pale blue glow of my tactical tablet.
Knox lay beside my chair, his ears twitching at every gust of wind, his body rigid and alert.
At 11:15 p.m., Knox’s head shot up from the floor.
His lips pulled back slightly, exposing his canines, a silent, low vibration beginning deep in his chest.
I closed the laptop instantly, setting it on the table.
I didn't turn on a lamp. I didn't reach for a flashlight. In the dark, your night vision requires fifteen minutes to fully develop; I had spent forty-five minutes sitting in the shadows of the parlor, letting my pupils dilate until every gray contour of the room was sharp as flint.
I reached behind the kitchen door, where Pop’s old 12-gauge Remington 870 pump shotgun rested against the wood frame.
I racked the slide with a single, smooth, mechanical stroke.
Clack-clack.
The sound of chambering double-ought buckshot was the most universally understood sound on earth.
Outside, above the howling gale, came the faint, rhythmic crunch of heavy tires rolling across wet gravel.
No headlights.
Whoever was driving down Pop’s lane was running on blacked-out running lights, navigating by the ambient glow of the tree line.
I moved to the western window of the parlor, keeping behind the heavy linen drapes, peering through the glass.
A dark commercial utility van—the kind used by telecommunications contractors—had pulled off the gravel lane and nestled itself beneath the dripping branches of the live oaks, fifty yards from the porch.
The side door of the van slid open with a muted, metallic click.
Two men stepped out into the freezing rain.
They weren't wearing local utility jackets. They wore dark tactical rain gear, heavy waterproof boots, and carried modular electronic sensor cases with high-gain directional antennas strapped to their packs.
They were not municipal surveyors.
They were a technical reconnaissance team sent to verify the electronic line-of-sight toward the Naval Communications Annex before Friday’s court hearing finalized the commercial lease option.
“Knox,” I whispered, touching the fur at the nape of his neck. “Silent heel.”
The Malinois rose to his feet without making a sound, falling into lockstep behind my left knee as I moved toward the back door of the kitchen.
I bypassed the wooden steps, stepping off the low concrete foundation directly into the mud of the garden bed to mask the sound of my boots. The freezing rain hit my face like needles, soaking through my dark fleece jacket within seconds, but the cold was an old companion; it sharpened my focus, narrowing the world down to distance, wind speed, and target acquisition.
I moved along the perimeter of the tractor shed, using the rust-pitted corrugated steel to break the wind.
Fifty yards ahead, the two men had reached the fence line bordering the eastern pasture.
One of them knelt in the switchgrass, opening a hard-shell Pelican case, pulling out a tripod-mounted digital spectrum analyzer with an illuminated green display. The second man stood behind him, holding an umbrella and scanning the dark farmhouse with handheld thermal optics.
He never saw me coming.
Thermal optics are magnificent tools against open terrain, but they are blinded by the temperature differential of falling freezing rain and the dense foliage of loblolly pine branches.
I closed the distance to fifteen yards using the dead ground behind Pop’s old irrigation ditch.
“Knox,” I murmured. “Take.”
The dog launched from the grass like an arrow released from a high-tensile bow.
He crossed the twenty yards of wet switchgrass without a single bark.
The man holding the thermal optics turned his head half a second too late.
Knox hit him at full sprinting velocity, eighty pounds of focused canine muscle slamming directly into the man’s center of mass, knocking him flat on his back into the mud with a concussive grunt. Knox’s jaws clamped onto the reinforced sleeve of his tactical jacket, pinning his right arm to the frozen earth with terrifying, unrelenting leverage.
“Agh! God! Help!” the man shrieked, thrashing uselessly against the dog’s grip.
The second man at the tripod spun around, his hand clawing at the zipper of his rain jacket, reaching for a concealed shoulder holster.
I cleared the ditch in two strides, ignoring the sharp, tearing spike of pain in my reconstructed knee, and brought the blued-steel barrel of the Remington 870 up until the muzzle was resting two inches from the bridge of his nose.
The man froze.
Rain dripped off the brim of his tactical cap, running down his pale cheek, his eyes crossing as he stared directly into the twelve-gauge bore.
“Take your hand off that sidearm,” I said, my voice completely level, carrying over the howling wind with the cold, absolute certainty of a firing squad. “With two fingers. Drop it in the mud.”
The man didn't hesitate. He unhooked the snap with two trembling fingers, pulled out a suppressed Austrian automatic pistol, and let it tumble into the wet grass.
“Lie face down,” I commanded. “Hands behind your head. Fingers interlaced.”
He dropped to his knees, burying his face in the switchgrass.
I stepped back two paces, keeping the shotgun leveled across both men, and whistled once through my teeth.
Knox released the first man’s sleeve, stepping back three inches, resting his paws on the man’s chest, his lips curled in a silent, lethal snarl that kept the operative completely paralyzed in the dirt.
I pulled my satellite phone from my waterproof breast pocket with my left hand, tapped speed-dial one, and held the receiver to my ear without taking my eyes off the two men in the grass.
“Sterling,” the Admiral’s voice answered on the first ring.
“Admiral,” I said, wiping the freezing rain from my eyebrows with my shoulder. “Operation Timberline Anchor just netted two technicians in Pop’s eastern pasture. They have high-gain spectrum analyzers and encrypted commercial gear.”
A low whistle came over the encrypted line.
“Did they engage?”
“Negative,” I replied. “They’re currently sitting in my mud under canine custody. Send the NCIS tactical team to Carter’s Reach immediately. And tell the federal prosecutor to bring a second set of transport irons to Portsmouth Family Court tomorrow morning.”
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“The cavalry is rolling, Commander,” Sterling said. “Hold the ground.”
“The ground is secure, sir,” I said, looking out through the rain toward the glowing beacons of the Naval Annex on the horizon. “The ground is always secure.”
