NoMoreNextTimes25

A/N: The final chapter.

NSA Medical FT Meade, MD

A quick roster check of the facility indicated that one doctor, one nurse and one Agent were missing or unaccounted for. The General ordered an immediate lockdown of the entire post but knew it was too late.

"Agent Walker? Sarah? We'll find him. We'll get him back. I'll need you on this, Sarah. Are you mission capable?" Beckman was concerned. She hadn't said a word since her report via cell phone. She just sat on the floor, her legs drawn up and her forehead resting on her knees, pistol held loosely in one hand.

"How? How can you find him? He's gone, General. G – O – N – E gone. We have no way to track him and we'd don't even know how they got him out of here. He could be halfway to wherever by now. How are we going to get him back?"

Casey limped down the hall. "Where are his clothes? Has anyone found his clothes?"

Agents began searching for Chuck's clothes. Sarah was past caring and struck out at the General. "You knew he was dying and you never said a thing to me! You knew how I felt. You knew what he meant to me and yet you lied by omission and then sent me off on a wild goose chase to investigate Shaw. Why?"

"I promised him, on my honor, not to divulge his secret until he gave me permission. When he told you to tell me '90 and accelerating' I took that as his 'permission'. As for Shaw", she sighed and looked away, "as for Shaw, that was also your own doing, although indirectly it was his, too. He told me he could never condemn someone he loved to a lifetime of loving a 'dying cabbage' so I sent you away with Shaw."

"There's no sign of his clothes. I need a GPS tracker."

"Colonel, why?" Beckman inquired.

"Because after Walker's boyfriend pulled his disappearing act at Rico's, I promised myself that if I came upon him again I was going to load his ass full of homers. His phone, wallet, watch, shoes and belt all have GPS homing devices in them. I figure they dressed him and hauled him out via truck or van. The gate guard would have suspected something if a naked man was being taken off post."

Sarah leaped up and grabbed Casey and hugged him and then ran off to get a GPS tracker.

Forty-five minutes later the group was standing in the NSA Ops Center watching a video display of units closing in on the GPS locator. Using Doppler tracking homers enabled them to determine the speed, altitude and location of the target. It had been traveling at approximately 130kts at an altitude varying between 200 and 700 feet and it was currently stationary off Sparrow's Point in the Baltimore Outer Harbor area. It was pretty obvious that the aircraft was a helicopter.

A technician interrupted them. "General, something's not right. According to the GPS, the target is stationary at sea level about a half mile off shore. Either they've gone down at sea or they've landed!"

"Alert the Coast Guard to a possible aircraft down at sea. Provide the coordinates. Order our units to converge and make the capture. I want our agent back here as quickly as possible. Have the back up medical team on standby." She pointed to one of the technical analysts and pointed to her office.

"General, wait! The Doppler indicates it's below sea level, and dropping fast. I think the aircraft is sinking, ma'am."

Sarah gave a little whimper and Mako Madison gave her a reassuring nudge. "I trained him well, Sarah. He'll make it out. He'll be back here before you know it."

"Ma'am, the signal was lost at a depth of 50 feet. Either the pressure disabled the devices or its too deep to get a signal out from that depth. I've lost it."

"Request Navy divers to assist in raising the aircraft. I want answers. How could someone infiltrate this base and snatch our agent? The extraction was too tight to be an off-the-cuff operation."

Another tech interrupted the General's tirade. "General, I've got a bogie on radar proceeding towards land about a half mile from the 'crash site'. Its profile matches a helicopter."

"They wouldn't go to all this trouble just to snatch Drake and then dump him out at sea. It makes no sense. They could have killed him when they took out the operating room team." Casey was angry and worried, not a good combination.

"Unless he jumped from the chopper, Colonel, rather than be taken. It would be like him to…not want to be taken. But where were they going in the first place?"

"General, Chuck wouldn't jump. There's no point to this whole exercise unless the helicopter was meeting another craft. And since there's nothing on radar…it's a damned submarine! That's why the signal was lost. Between the hull and the depth, no signal. They lowered him from the chopper and then the sub submerged." Mako Madison was certain it was a submarine. She wasn't ready to lose her 'trainee' any time soon.

"Cole said the Ring used 'submersibles' for resupply and personnel transfers. We all thought they meant those dinky little things like SCUBA divers use or a bathyscaphe for research. They've got a submarine capable of long voyages, General. Probably picked one up from the Russians when they had their naval 'fire sale' years ago."

"Check with Naval Intelligence. Find out if Pallas Adventures purchased a submarine. It's a long shot but hell, this whole thing is just weird enough to fit the bill."

The response from ONI was not encouraging. The Russian Federation had leased a laid-up Kilo to Pallas Exploration LTD in 2007 for use as a 'research platform'. The lease included full training for the peacetime crew complement of 37. The sub had been modified to carry cargo or passengers by removing the torpedo tubes and other offensive weaponry. The diesel-electric submarine was refitted and Pallas Exploration took possession in late 2007.

General Beckman contacted her liaison with the Intelligence Committee and the Committee instructed the Navy to intercept and force the submarine to the surface. If that proved impossible, orders were given to sink it in international waters.

She did not inform the team of the Committee's decision.

Off the coast of Virginia
Depth: 150 meters
Speed: 8kts

The former Soviet Navy submarine B-417 was following the continental shelf cruising to its 'homeport' of Spanish Shoals. Barring any unforeseen events or difficulties, they would arrive at the island in 8 days.

The extraction had gone according to plan and the subject was sedated for the trip. No one wanted a pissed off NSA agent loose on an old submarine. The plan called for a rendezvous off the Florida coast in 4 days where they would hand over their passenger to Ring agents for the final leg of his journey to Spanish Shoals.

The sub dived to a cruise depth of 300 meters and slipped beneath a thermocline layer and easily slipped past the naval cordon. They were on schedule to make the rendezvous as planned.

NAS HQ
FT Meade, MD

The ONI notified General Beckman that a Kilo-class submarine was intercepted and destroyed off the coast of Florida. Debris recovered after a series of ASROC attacks by the Frigate Asbbrey Fitch identified the submarine as the B-417 leased by the Russian Federation Navy to Pallas Exploration LTD.

There were no survivors or bodies recovered.

General Beckman called the team together and made her announcement. She also ordered them to prepare an assault plan on Spanish Shoals to eliminate the Ring operation. She dismissed the team but asked Sarah Walker to remain behind for a 'personal moment'.

"Ag- Sarah, I'm terribly sorry for you loss. We will all miss him, some more than others. After the operation at Spanish Shoals is completed, you'll be released to your original assignment in Jamaica. He was very special, Sarah, and for what it's worth, he loved you very much."

Sarah sat stone-faced throughout the 'personal moment' and then nodded and walked out of the office when the General had dismissed her.

"Sarah, we're both so sorry for your loss. He was…special in so many ways. John and I…"

"Enough. There'll be time to mourn later. We have an op to plan, a mission to run, and Ring traitors to kill. Let's get busy." Sarah Walker, the woman who loved and cherished Chuck was gone, replaced by Agent Sarah Walker, stone cold killer and assassin. 'Never again. No one ever gets close. Never again.'

Spanish Shoals
Ring HQ – Western Hemisphere

"After your rendezvous with the B-417 it was sunk by a Navy frigate. You lucked out. I assume your arrival will be as planned – after dark on the 17th?"

"Yes, Palace. The cargo has been repackaged and we will offload to your submersible or zodiac as planned. We plan on doing so at high tide and then be well away from Spanish Shoals when the next American Keyhole satellite makes its pass."

"Excellent. Pallas out."

Eve Pallas nodded to the communications tech and then walked back to her quarters. Soon they would be able to drop their façade and step out into the light. The world was changing and she and her fellow Executives were helping shape and mold the New World Order. The intersect would enable them to leap ahead of their plans while leaving the surviving intelligence services of the democracies scratching their collective asses trying to figure out what went wrong.

Eleuthera, Bahamas
Rally Point

Seven days. It had taken seven days to organize, collect and equip the force necessary to 'invade' Spanish Shoals and kill or capture any personnel while minimizing damage to structures and computer equipment. Beckman's orders had been very specific.

"Your objective is to kill or capture the entire complement of Ring personnel on the island while minimizing damage to infrastructure – especially any computer or communications equipment."

Two Pave-Low Stealth helicopters carried teams to the northern and southern points of the 7-mile long, 800 yard-wide island east of and just over the horizon from Eleuthera, in the Outer Islands.

A section of Navy divers, led by Master Chief Madison were tasked with disabling any surface craft or submersibles to keep the rats from escaping the trap.

It was all totally unnecessary.

Spanish Shoals
Pallas Adventures LTD

The hotel portion of the facility was abandoned. There were signs of attempts to destroy records and computer workstations but most were just that, attempts. Thermite obviously had been high on their list of self-destruct tools but only one office occupant had successfully used one. The filing cabinets of the office marked 'Human Resources' were melted slag and any contents would have been reduced to ash.

Whatever happened here had happened not long ago since the melted steel was still too hot to touch.

The teams met in an area that would have once been a large restaurant and ballroom facility but now filled with computer terminals, plasma wall monitors and administrative offices. All the monitors were black and the terminals off-line. The main computer system was down.

Walker sent the tech reps on her team to salvage what they could from the main computer and servers while the rest of the team continued searching the level.

They came upon detention/holding cells, four in all, and one showed signs of recent occupancy. They'd found the first body.

IV stands, monitors and a tray table flanked the hospital bed. There was a man's watch, wallet and a cell phone on the small table. The sheets were bloody. A woman, dressed in scrubs, lay on the floor, her throat cut from ear to ear. Sarah gasped. "Casey, they're Chuck's watch and wallet."

She picked up the cell phone and hit the number one speed dial. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She showed the caller ID to Casey who just nodded. She tamped down her emotions. This was not the time or place for it. 'Later. Later I'll fall apart. Not here and not now.'

"We'll find him, Sarah. He's here, somewhere." Casey was sure they'd find his body. Something was off in this entire scene.

Casey pushed in on his ear bud. "C'mon. Maureen's breached the moon pool. All the mini-subs and research craft are accounted for but one. She's moving this way, but she's found five bodies behind a barricade. Someone came from this side toward the moon pool and herded all the agents to one location and then killed them. Empty magazines and shell casings indicate a hell of a fight."

They carefully advanced down the corridor that ended in a 'T'. They split their team and again advanced, weapons ready. The corridor was lined with glass-fronted labs, all with airlock-type doors. Red lights were flashing above each of the sealed labs.

"Casey, these guys were doing bio-weapons work. Look at the signs. The level-four contamination suits and the decon facilities. My God, what have we stumbled on?"

The last laboratory was sealed and the airlock wheel bashed out of shape sealing the occupants inside. Casey looked through the window and shuddered.

"Walker, I've found the researchers and missing staff." He stepped back to let her take a look. Her gasp and choking words told him she'd made the same connection. Someone had herded them into the lab, shot up the sealed refrigeration units and then sealed them inside.

There was a note taped to the door above the mangled airlock wheel with a flash drive taped to it. Someone had sent a message. Casey scanned the note written on a piece of notebook paper, grunted in approval, and then handed the note to Walker and spoke into his comm unit. "This is Casey, get a tech with a laptop to my location ASAP. Do not, I repeat, do not open any doors in the lab area."

"Casey, the note, it's from him. 'Load flash drive. Do not open any labs. Nuke this place. Drake, NSA'. But where is he?"

The teams all assembled in the hotel lobby, compared notes, finalized their demolition charges and then extracted by C-22 Osprey. Spanish Shoals would be 'leased' to the US Navy for weapons testing and a warning issued to stay away. Sometime during the night a specially equipped Air Force cargo plane dropped a FAE device and incinerated the surface of the small island.

Other than a note and his personal affects, there was no sign of Agent Charles Drake, NSA. It was as though he'd never existed.

Forensic experts identified all the bodies found including Daniel Shaw and Eve Pallas Shaw.

Sarah Walker reported for duty as the Deputy Chief of Station in Kingston, Jamaica. She did her job but limited any contact with embassy personnel to those functions required by her position or cover as the Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer.

John Casey, after considerable thought and much soul-searching (he called it that, Maureen called it 'fear') proposed to Master Chief Maureen Madison and the couple took their vows on the beach at Marathon Harbor. They honeymooned on Eleuthera in the Outer Bahamas just over the horizon from Spanish Shoals.

A/N: Epilogue on its way. Maybe today if she quits nagging me to 'take it easy'.

APR 4/17/2010