Checkmate Read Free

five.”
    Fisher’s communications system was a far cry from the traditional headset he’d worn in his pre-Third Echelon days. The two-part system was comprised of a nickel-sized subdermal receiver implanted beneath the skin behind Fisher’s ear. The subdermal bypassed the route normally traveled by sound waves—through the outer ear to the tympanic membrane—and sent vibrations directly into the set of tiny bones within the ear (known as the ossicles), or the hammer, anvil, and stirrup, which then transmitted the signal to the brain for decoding.
    For speaking, Fisher wore a butterfly-shaped adhesive patch known as a SVT, or Sub-Vocal Transceiver, across his throat just above his Adam’s apple. Learning to use the SVT had required a skill Fisher likened to a cross between whispering and ventriloquism.
    Together, they allowed him a virtually silent communications system.
    Fisher tapped his subdermal to switch channels, then said, “Up on button five.”
    “Standby for Xerxes,” a tinny voice said in Fisher’s ear, followed by a few seconds of clicks and buzzes as the encryption scrubbers engaged. Xerxes was Fisher’s boss and longtime friend, Colonel Irving Lambert, Third Echelon’s Director of Operations. Lambert’s voice came on: “Change of plans, Sam.”
    “Let me guess,” Fisher said. “We’re going to fly around until the wings come off.”
    “As of now, you’re on-mission.”
    As if on cue, Fisher felt the Talon bank sharply to starboard. The drone of the engines increased in pitch, going to full throttle.
    “Your OPSAT’s being updated now.”
    Fisher pulled back the cuff of his jumpsuit and pressed his thumb to the OPSAT, or Operational Satellite Uplink, screen, which glowed to life:
     
    // . . . BIOMETRIC SCAN ENGAGED . . .
. . . SCANNING FINGERPRINT . . .
. . . IDENTITY CONFIRMED . . . //
    There was a flash of static, and then the screen resolved into a gray-green satellite image. The biometric scan feature was an upgrade to the OPSAT, designed not only to prevent prying eyes from using it, but to keep an inadvertent bump of the touch screen from changing modes. During his last mission, Fisher, on the run, had found himself suddenly staring at a map of downtown Kyoto, rather than the schematic of the Nampo shipyard he was trying to escape.
    “What am I looking at?” he asked.
    Anna Grimsdottir, Lambert’s chief technical guru, replied, “Real-time feed from an advanced KH-12 Crystal. You’re looking at the Atlantic Ocean, about six miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. See the highlighted blip?” A tiny football shape in the top right corner pulsed once.
    “I see it. Cargo freighter. So what?”
    “Here’s the infrared side.”
    The OPSAT screen shimmered, then resolved. The freighter had turned into a bloom of red and orange. “That’s hot,” Fisher said. “Somebody forget to change the antifreeze in the engines?”
    Lambert said, “We wish. The radiometric signature makes the source nuclear. We’re trying to nail it down right now, but something on that ship is radioactive. And it’s headed toward our coast.”
    “Radio contact?”
    “She’s ignored all hails. At current speed and course, she’ll run aground in twenty-two minutes.”
     
     
     
    WITH a minimal load-out for the training jump that didn’t include weapons, Fisher had to improvise. He made his way to the cockpit, where he found the crew had already gotten Lambert’s order. The pilot handed Fisher his personal sidearm, a Beretta model 92F 9mm, along with an extra magazine.
    “How far?” Fisher asked him. Two minutes had passed since Lambert’s message.
    “We’re thirty miles out; I’ll drop you at five.”
    “Cutting it close.”
    Lambert was listening in. “Close calls are what you’re good at, Sam.”
    “You always say the nicest things.”
    “We’ve got two Coast Guard cutters and a Navy destroyer en route, but you’ll still get there first. A pair of F-16s are lifting off from