160 From Being Kicked Overboard into the Pacific by a Corrupt Colonel to Exposing a Black-Budget Bioweapon Conspiracy: How a Supposedly Drowned NCIS Agent Broke Open the Deepest Secret of the USNS Resolute

"Well, well, look what the bilge rats dragged up," Vance sneered, stepping carefully through the ankle-deep water with his rifle leveled directly at my chest. "Kane gave direct orders that no unauthorized personnel leave this sector alive."

"Vance, you're accessories to mass murder!" Sarah yelled back from behind a concrete drainage pillar, returning fire with two rapid shots that forced the security detail to duck behind a bulkhead. "The entire operation is compromised! NCIS has all the core transfer logs!"

"The core logs won't matter once this ship hits two thousand fathoms," Vance laughed coldly, signaling his men to flank our position on both sides. "Open fire! Clear the corridor!"

Bullets chewed through the metal walls, screaming into the darkness and sending blinding showers of sparks across the narrow passage. We were hopelessly outgunned and trapped in a crossfire with zero cover.

"Fall back to the sonar bay!" I shouted to Sarah, firing three controlled shots down the corridor that forced Vance’s lead enforcer to dive behind a ventilation unit.

We scrambled backward through the rushing water, herding the last of the civilian survivors into the circular chamber of the forward sonar bay. The heavy watertight hatch of the sonar room stood open, leading directly to the emergency torpedo countermeasures tube—our only remaining exit path into the open ocean.

"Get the detainees into the tube!" I ordered Miller, who was already wrestling with the manual release lever of the outer torpedo hatch.

"Mercer, we can't fit everyone through at once!" Sarah yelled over the din of gunfire, returning suppressive fire down the access tunnel. "The tube only holds three people at a time, and the internal pressure lock takes two minutes to cycle!"

"Then cycle it twice!" I fired another magazine down the corridor, catching the door frame just as Vance's men rushed the threshold. "Get them out of here, Sarah. I'll hold the door."

"I'm not leaving you here!" Sarah protested fiercely.