Chapter 68 - The Dayton Confession
My first round punched clean through the shoulder plate of the lead operator, spinning him into the bulkhead. Jackson opened up with a three-round burst from his carbine, dropping the second man before he could acquire a sight picture.
The corridor erupted into a hell of ricocheting steel, muzzle flashes, and deafening gunfire. The two remaining black-ops operators returned fire, their suppressed rounds biting into the metal grating beneath our boots and sending jagged shrapnel flying past our ears.
I vaulted off the catwalk railing, using the momentum to slam my combat boots into the chest of the third operator, driving him into the deck. We wrestled for control of his weapon; his gloved hands clawed at my throat with brutal strength, but I drew my combat knife and drove the blade through the weak seal of his shoulder harness. He collapsed with a choked gasp.
Jackson tackled the fourth operator, wrenching his submachine gun away and slamming the buttstock into the operative’s helmet visor, shattering the reinforced polycarbonate glass.
The operative lay pinned, bleeding from the nose and mouth, gasping for air in the pressurized atmosphere of the submarine.
I walked over, my pistol aimed directly between his eyes. I ripped off his tactical helmet.
Beneath the mask was a man I recognized instantly: Commander David Ross, the chief of security from Admiral Vance’s personal staff at the Pentagon.
"Ross," I growled, pressing the hot barrel against his forehead. "Look at me. Look at who you're trying to execute on Vance's orders."
Ross choked on a mouthful of blood, his eyes wide with a mixture of terror and disgust. "You... you were supposed to die in that canyon, Eleanor."
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"Where is Vance?" I demanded. "Where is the strike group going?"
"He’s already on the *Dauntless*," Ross gasped, a hideous, broken grin spreading across his face. "He boarded your ship twenty minutes ago. Your XO was relieved of command under charges of mutiny. Vance is using the *Dauntless* as his personal command vessel. He's broadcasting to the world that you went rogue with a stolen submarine... and he's going to use your own ship's cruise missiles to vaporize this entire trench."
