The phalanx code, p.30
The Phalanx Code, page 30
And then I thought of nothing.
33
JAKE MAHEGAN
ALL OF US ON Dagger team believed the boss was immortal, that he would live forever, but I got there too late.
Better to die a warrior than grow old.
In the smoke and haze of the massive chemical fire near Sainte-Mère-Église, I had dragged about fifteen people out of the building and into the hangar. The general had done the same until we couldn’t see each other. The smoke was toxic, and the heat was unbearable.
We had saved as many as we could. I didn’t think we got them all, but there was no way to tell.
I went back in looking for the boss but got lost in the soup and exited through the wrong door. I had to wind my way around the back side of the hangar to get to where the bodies were. By that time, I saw the general across the runway diving into the back of a pickup truck and knew he had to be after Blanc. It was just like him to go headfirst into everything that mattered.
There were two motorcycles parked side by side in the employee parking lot. It took me a minute to find the keys on one of the survivors. He had removed his leather riding jacket to show tattoo sleeves running up both arms. He was wearing steel-toed riding boots that might have saved his life inside the factory, or at least his feet. Clearly in shock, he stared at me with confused eyes when I asked for his keys, which he handed to me.
I cranked the Yamaha MT-07 to full throttle and spun out of the parking lot, chasing the distant lights of the pickup truck, which quickly vanished.
The rain picked up and made it impossible to see anything except the flashing red and blue lights coming at me from the south. Police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks. I leaned over the handlebars and spun the throttle so that I was going over two hundred kilometers per hour, a hundred and twenty-five miles per hour, though a blockade almost made me ditch the bike.
I slowed, slid hard to the left, and kept turning left until I saw the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Having grown up on the water, I knew a northeast storm when I saw one, but had no idea what they were called over here in France. Storms were storms and the ocean was unpredictable.
I followed the coast road, the only way I could go without breaching police barricades. Slowing to pass through Grandcamp-Maisy, I saw taillights brake about a half mile up the coast. The headlights cut left toward the bluff. I raced the engine again. The streets were empty here as the weather and the hour, midnight, were not agreeable to anyone just ambling pointlessly about.
Having visited Pointe du Hoc on a terrain walk exercise with Dagger team in the past, I immediately recognized the pillboxes, artillery bunkers, and machine-gun nests that the Germans had emplaced. General Sinclair had taken us through the entire D-Day experience from the infantryman’s viewpoint on the beach to the Rangers climbing the sheer cliffs of Pointe du Hoc to the paratroopers raining down on the Cotentin Peninsula of the Normandy region.
“Insurmountable odds,” he had said as we stood on the beach some ten years before. We had taken an unusual detour from a mission we had conducted in Croatia to kill or capture an Al Qaeda member who had taken up residence in Dubrovnik. After a quicker-than-expected successful outcome, the boss had rerouted us to Normandy. Joe Hobart, Randy Van Dreeves, Sally McCool, Patch Owens, Sean O’Malley, and I had stood there on the beach as we climbed the rocky point using a rope ladder like the ones the Rangers had used until we had reached the casemate that the Germans built to defend against Allied invasion. We did all this at night and at high tide where the water was up to our waists. The boss never made anything easy, and we were glad for it. The practice was usually harder than the real mission. Climbing the ladder, I remembered steel pitons jutting from the face of the cliff, a guide for the rope ladder and something I’m sure the insurance company for the park required.
Of course, no one was supposed to be on this historic piece of property. Park officials back then, and I presumed today, were worried about beach erosion and damage to the famed decisive point of the battle to establish a lodgment on Omaha Beach. Millions of people reenacting the climb would chip away at the rock and shale until it didn’t resemble the World War II obstacle that had to be surmounted.
But I did recognize everything tonight, including Evelyn Champollion crawling on her elbows, saying, “Help. Help. He’s got Garrett.”
I dumped the bike and, in stride, retrieved my knife, hurdling over an old chunk of concrete that was poking through the ground like modern art. Sliding on the wet dirt, I clasped Ms. Champollion’s wrists and sliced through her ropes.
“Where’s the general?” I shouted.
She came to one knee and pointed at the bluff.
“It’s Blanc,” she said.
The trail was maybe ten meters long before it disappeared. I saw two men locked in hand-to-hand combat against the black backdrop of a roiling ocean that reminded me of the graveyard of the Atlantic just off Hatteras Island. A pistol fired, and I drew my sidearm as I ran, but I couldn’t shoot without knowing for certain which one was Blanc. The waves sprayed salt water into the air and the rain came down in buckets. My lungs burned from inhaling toxic chemicals, and I flexed every muscle in my body, shouting, “Valhalla!”
I was blind with rage. As I approached, the general fell over the cliff, pulling with him Blanc, whose eyes were wide with fear as he tumbled headfirst onto the rocky shoal beneath. I found the mock rope ladder, which was swaying with the crazy winds and slippery from the pelting rain. Climbing down, down, down as fast as I could, I reached the bottom where I was chest deep in freezing ocean water.
A riptide tried to pull me out to sea, like a sneering demon, but I stared at the beast, and having swam the treacherous currents of the Graveyard of the Atlantic off Cape Hatteras, I thought: I’ve seen better than you. I thrashed around in the ocean shouting, “General Sinclair! General Sinclair!”
I feared he was wounded. Rocks poked up through the high tide as a reminder that jagged teeth lay just beneath the surface.
Then I found a body floating facedown in the water, bobbing between two rocks, arms splayed outward as if in surrender. My chest tightened as I held emotions in check. I looked up at the impossible climb the Rangers had made in 1944 and had a brief moment of reconciliation. There was symmetry in Garrett Sinclair I climbing to a new life here and perhaps Garrett Sinclair III falling to his death in the exact same spot.
I was a man of few words and even fewer emotions. Ever since my mother had been brutally murdered in North Carolina, I have been nothing short of a wrecking ball. General Sinclair shaped me and molded me into something worthwhile, aiming my anger and aggression at the appropriate targets, always telling me, “Front toward enemy, Jake.”
As the water sloshed around me, I pulled at the inert body. As I dragged it free of its rockbound moorings, a riptide swirled and sucked it out to sea without giving me the chance to positively identify the remains. The body darted past the tanks and landing craft that made the bay here so treacherous.
And it was gone.
I shouted, losing all control. “Nooo!”
Then a voice called me, perhaps from the beyond, “Jake.” With the wind and rain, it was difficult to tell if it was real: Ms. Champollion calling from above, or the wind talking to me.
I looked at the spinning sky, wondering how this could happen. But I knew how it happened. Good people died doing the right thing, often for the wrong people and reasons. All we have in this world are the people we care about and who care about us. We do everything we can to protect them and then we leave. That’s the warrior code, the Dagger code.
The ocean tugged at me, and for a moment I thought about letting it have me. To take me from this world of pain and anguish, of losing the people we care about. But then I thought of Randy and Joe and Patch and Sean and Misha and even Reagan and Brad. Each one of them was a reason not to release myself to the tugging demons whose icy claws were pulling me outward.
“Jake.”
By now a high-powered flashlight was shining from the bluff onto my location. I turned and saw a body hanging from a steel piton maybe twenty feet above the high tide. His outer tactical vest had snagged on the beveled edge of the piton. His feet dangled above beckoning razor-sharp boulders that bared their edges with every ebb of the ocean.
“Jake.”
I moved toward the body just as a rogue wave barreled in, slammed me against the headwall, and pulled the body free from the piton, sucking it past me before I could get there. In the seafoam and colliding swells, the body was an indecipherable black mass.
I released myself into the riptide and rode the surge outward into the bay. My leg hit something, and I felt a burn, perhaps a gash, on my calf. The underwater debris field was massive here, and it would make sense if a gun turret had nearly ripped my leg off.
Spinning in the vortex of swirling ocean was a body. The rip current had spat it out to the north side of the bay. Unfortunately, the rip spun me to the south. The separation was about fifty meters. The body was floating and spinning. My core temperature was lowering quickly in the freezing water.
I dove under the water, like duck-diving a surfboard, and struggled against the rip. I found a tank gun tube and pulled with my hands and then pushed with my feet, propelling me back into the rip. I tumbled with it and fought, which is rule number one not to do. I pulled and tugged and found another turret or tank tube. I pulled with my hands and then pushed with my feet fighting through the water sucking out to sea until I was mercifully on the other side.
I came out of the water, gasping for air, grabbed the body, and found a swell surging inland. I stumbled through the rocks and dragged the water-soaked, leaden body onto a sliver of beach not affected by high tide.
I rolled him over and said to myself, “Oh my God.”
EPILOGUE
JAKE MAHEGAN SAVED MY life.
There on the beaches of Normandy, he entered the fray and pulled me to safety. I had lost so much blood that I was unconscious. The cold salt water, though, served a purpose in both slowing the blood flow and keeping my wounds clean.
I was jacked up in a hospital bed with Evelyn Champollion and Misha on either side of me. Evelyn had been hospitalized for a few days and released. She had her pilots fly the Dagger and Sharpstone teams from Colorado Site X-Ray here to the American Hospital in Paris on Victor Hugo Boulevard.
The doctors were excellent, and they were learning to not enforce visiting hours, which my family and team didn’t care about.
Evelyn was holding my hand, stroking it lightly.
“We almost lost you,” she whispered.
“And you,” I replied.
A monitor on the wall to my front lit up with letters scrolling across the screen.
General is tough but monster is tougher!!!;);)
I imagined that Misha dealt with fear like many young adults her age, with a thin veneer of humor. I slowly turned my head and looked at her huddled in her chair. Tears streamed down her face.
“It’s okay, Misha,” I said.
“But … it was me,” she muttered.
“Drewson fooled all of us,” I said. “Everyone.”
“That’s right, Misha. Both Mitch and Aurelius were nothing but charlatans. I imagine that’s the case with most people,” Evelyn added.
The screen lit up again.
Not with us!! Not with Dagger team and Sharpstone!!
“No, you’re right, Misha. We have to figure out what Sharpstone is and who it belongs to, but you’re right. This team is all we’ve got. Each other. That’s all that matters,” I said.
Let me review, General! Sharpstone is yours. Phalanx is yours. The Phalanx Code is a smart contract done in a digital ledger by your genius grandfather. Blanc wanted Evelyn to change it, giving Drewson your half. Then they were selling microchip access to the Chinese and others to allow enemies to spy on the United States. The kill list was just a fake code. A deception. I have it all stored in a vault. The will leaves you Phalanx and Sharpstone. It’s yours.
“Not sure I want any of that,” I said. Honestly, I didn’t understand any of it, but I trusted Misha and Evelyn knew the facts.
“She’s right, Garrett,” Evelyn said.
Brad came hustling in, pushing Reagan in a wheelchair.
“Oh my God, you’re awake,” Reagan said.
“Dad, you gotta see these songs I’ve written,” Brad blurted. Never once had he asked me to see anything he had created, and he usually cringed at the thought of me watching him play guitar in his band, Napoleon’s Corporal. He handed me a stack of papers.
“I look forward to reading them, but would prefer you play them for me,” I said.
“Seriously?!” he shouted. “I thought you hated what I do.” He looked away.
“I love that you do something you’re passionate about, son,” I said. “And I hear you guys rock.”
“Look at Dad trying to be cool,” Reagan said. “By the way, they do ‘rock,’” she said, dramatizing with air quotes. They both looked at Evelyn’s hand still holding mine. I had worried about how they might feel about my involvement with someone other than their mother.
“OMG. No way. Brad and I were saying. OMG. I totally told you, Brad,” Reagan said, stumbling over her words.
“Based,” Brad said.
“I’m assuming you approve,” I said, not understanding any of their lingo.
“More importantly, Mom would approve,” Reagan said. “Evelyn’s beautiful and famous and stuff.”
“I’m right here, honey,” Evelyn said, waving her hand at Reagan.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I know. Dad’s alive. Everybody’s alive. I’m alive,” Reagan said.
Mahegan, Hobart, and Van Dreeves came into the hospital room despite the best efforts of a diminutive nurse in a white lab coat to keep them at bay. They looked like three bouncers or MMA fighters or, well, Special Operations soldiers with their slightly too long hair, tight-fitting shirts, four-day growth, and humorless affects.
“Boss,” they all mumbled in some fashion or another.
“Team,” I said. Looking at Mahegan, I said, “Thanks, Jake.”
Mahegan nodded.
“No problem,” Jake said.
“The nukes? Zeus Micron?”
“Got the shipment from Boulder, but there’s one batch unaccounted for,” Mahegan said.
“Another time,” Evelyn said.
“Yes,” I replied, looking at my family. “Another time.”
Evelyn gripped my hand tightly. Reagan wept. And instead of thinking of the missing semiconductors, I read Brad’s songs about family, faith, and freedom.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’M GRATEFUL TO so many people for so many aspects of my life.
Within my writing universe, I’m thankful for my editor, Marc Resnick, and his superb assistant editor, Lily Cronig. The entire leadership and staff at St. Martin’s Press has been fabulous and a million percent supportive of me and my writing.
I’m also thankful to the team at Kensington Books who brought Jake Mahegan to life over six novels. Steven Zacharius, Gary Goldstein, and Lynn Cully all supported me in the creation of the Mahegan universe, which makes a comeback in The Phalanx Code.
My agent, Scott Miller, and the team at Trident Media agency have been extremely supportive during my career as an author.
Likewise, I appreciate the support of my writing coach Kaitlin Murphy-Knudsen, who has been with me for all sixteen novels. Also, my fellow thriller authors have made it all worthwhile: Jack Carr, Simon Gervais, Mark Greaney, Brad Thor, Jeff Wilson, Brian Andrews, Ward Larsen, Brad Taylor, Jim Born, Joel Rosenberg, Bob Crais, Don Bentley, Marc Cameron, Kim Howe, Daniel Palmer, Jon Land, Ben Coes, Eric Bishop, Jeff Ayers, Tosca Lee, and so many others.
Within my business life, as I’ve rebuilt my life after government service, so many people have surrounded me with support and opportunity: Thanks to Ben Carson, Jr., Nick Neonakis, Jeff Dudan, Pete Tocci, Marc Lopresti, Sara Sooy, Michael Weinberg, Jon Najarian and the Moneta team, Neil Greene and Jaboy Productions, Moner Attwa, Rickard Hedeby and the Intertec team, Mothusi Pahl and the Modern Hydrogen team, John Rogers, David Wertheimer, Phil McConkey and the Academy Securities team, Michelle Rhee, Chuck Schoninger and the USA Investco team, Sheila Driscoll, John and Greg Blevins, Don Cummins, and the B3 Bar team, Rick Geisel, James Bacon, Ezra Cohen, Heino Klinck, Ric Grennell, Paul Ney, Larisa Miller, DW Moffett and the Phoenix Global team, Jorge Suarez Menendez, Gabe Dymond, Chris Miller, Courtney Piemonte, Rick Connors, Wayne Danson, Mike Whitehouse, Keith Kellogg, John McEntee, David Crabtree, Rick French, Charles Yeomans, Ron Moeller, Henry Gayer, Gino Ramadi, Remy Szykier and Joxel Garcia, Michael and Sharon Cole, Greg and Kathy Fell, and so many others. The bookers, producers, and anchors of Fox News and Newsmax have been incredible to work with as we cover the evolving military and political landscape.
I appreciate the constant support of my lifelong friends Gary Austin, Larry Jeffries, Kevin Walck, Kevin Roomsburg, Amy Bowler, David and Sheila Bogart, Tom Speelman, Mike Sage, Mark and Marlene Creekmore, Tiny Barlow and the entire Coach Ray Barlow Believe in Yourself Foundation, Sheriff Donnie Harrison, Herb and Stephanie Wilson, Jim and Maryann Baldwin, Bert Austin, John Beaton, Tom Bosco, John McGrath, Bill Hein, Don Devine, Janet Petro, Mike Canavan, Tom Palmen, Rich Burns, Phil Volpe, and all the Scrauggs, and Linwood Todd, Brock Ayers, Bill Reagan, General (U.S. Army, Retired) Dick Cody, Lieutenant General (U.S. Army, Retired) Frank Helmick, Major General (U.S. Army, Retired) Ed Reeder, and so many others.
I am however most thankful for my family, who have been through the fire with me: Laura, Snowy, Bandit; Brooke, Peter, and Leo Anthony; Zach, Lindsey, and Allie Kate; Kendall Tata, Bob and Anne Ferrell Tata, along with Peyton, Rafe, Tinsley, and Lucy; Riley, Albert, and Charlotte Louise; Carter and Tad; and Lil’ Robert; and Jamie and Carol Jones.
Special thanks to Barbara Ruddy, who donated $5,000 to the Vero Beach Veterans Memorial in exchange for becoming a character in The Phalanx Code.
