Chapter 11 - The Admiral's Last Order
Price needed the direct recordings to expose Rourke, but Brennan needed the satellite bandwidth to send a cancellation authentication to the approaching destroyer. There was not enough time for both.
Evidence or lives.
Rourke expected her to choose evidence because he would have. That was why he had never understood her.
Brennan stopped the upload at sixty-eight percent and transmitted the cancellation packet. Rourke laughed.
"You just destroyed your case."
"No. I showed the people judging it who I am."
The destroyer acknowledged the packet but demanded voice verification from flag command. Price could not provide it. Rourke refused.
Voss could.
From the ambulance, barely conscious, Captain Voss used his command credentials and confirmed the abort. The missiles were diverted thirty seconds before their terminal turn.
The Resolute still sank.
Cole restored one engine long enough to steer the vessel onto a shallow sandbar. The hull settled instead of rolling. Coast Guard boats reached the remaining crew.
Brennan entered the bridge and found Garrett alone. Rourke had escaped by helicopter, abandoning him.
"He'll come back for me," Garrett insisted.
"He killed Travis. He ordered missiles onto this ship. What makes you special?"
Garrett charged.
Their fight moved through shattered glass and seawater. Brennan's knee failed, and Garrett drove her against the helm. He was stronger and almost uninjured. He smiled as he wrapped both hands around her throat.
"No cameras now."
Brennan raised Travis's key card between them. A green light blinked on its embedded service chip.
"Actually," she rasped, "Travis kept receipts."
Garrett froze. The card had recorded his killing of Travis and every word on the bridge.
Brennan struck his damaged wrist, broke his grip, and used his momentum to pin him against the deck. She did not kick him. She did not take revenge in the way he understood revenge.
She handcuffed him to the helm and waited for federal agents.
"You think this makes you better than me?" he shouted.
"No. My choices do."
On shore, however, Rourke had imposed a base lockdown and taken Price, Daniel, Ortiz, and Voss into custody. He still controlled the official story.
As Brennan stepped onto a rescue boat, a message reached her from Daniel's phone.
May you like
Rourke wants the microfilm. He says if you bring it to headquarters, we live.
Below the words was a photograph of four prisoners kneeling beneath the command center.
