Checkmate by Tom Clancy Read Free Book Online Page A

by a trio of similarly dressed figures who began hosing them down with a foamy liquid.
    Fisher felt a flutter in his stomach. Grimsdottir had assured him the radiation levels aboard the Trego were well below a risky dose, but watching the decontamination procedure made him wary. His harness was fitted with a pen-sized quartz-fiber dosimeter linked to both his subdermal and his OPSAT, so he would get plenty of advance warning if he were taking on a radioactive load. Or so the theory went.
    This is why you’re paid the big money, Sam, he told himself.
    He scanned the dock and the Trego in both infrared and night-vision modes until satisfied he knew the positions and movments of all the NEST people, then chose his best route.
    Sticking to the shadows, he moved down the dock, heading toward the Trego ’s stern. Once he drew even with it, he crept to the edge of the dock, grasped the aft mooring line in both hands, and began shimmying his way over the water. Twice he had to pause as biohazard-suited figures shuffled across the deck and through the decon tent, but at last he reached the railing, swung his legs over, and dropped to the deck in a crouch.
    He took two quick steps, mounted a ladder on the superstructure, and started climbing.

    HE’D gotten only ten rungs when he heard the scrape of a boot.
    He froze, looked down.
    Below him, a NEST person was standing at the rail. The man pulled back his hood and titled his head backward, gulping fresh air. A tinny voice called, “Len, where’re you at?”
    The man pulled a portable radio off his belt and replied, “Main deck. Taking a breather.”
    “When you’re done, come over to starboard midships. I’ve got a team rotating out. They need a wash down.”
    “On my way.”
    The man pulled his hood back in place and walked off.
    Fisher kept climbing.
     
     
     
    ONCE on the superstructure, it took but two minutes for him to find the deck scuttle he was looking for. While a main deck hatch would have provided him a more direct route to the engine room, his penetration of any of the quarantine barriers would not only raise immediate suspicion but also prompt another security sweep.
    The scuttle he’d chosen was similarly sealed, but the duct tape separated from the deck’s nonstick coating easily. He turned the wheel and lifted. Inside, a ladder dropped into darkness. He did a quick IR/NV scan, saw nothing, then slipped his legs through the opening and started down. He paused to close the scuttle behind him, then dropped to the deck.
    “I’m inside,” Fisher radioed.
    Lambert replied, “According the radio transmissions we’ve been monitoring, most of the NEST personnel are in the forward part of the ship. Whatever the radioactive material is, it looks like it’s somewhere in the bow ballast tank. Grim’s updated your OPSAT; the waypoint markers will take you to the engine room.”
    “Been there before.”
    Grimsdottir said, “I’ve analyzed the paths the dock workers have been taking. My route will skirt those areas.”
    Fisher checked his OPSAT. The Trego ’s blueprint, shown in a rotatable 3D view, was overlayed with a dotted amber line, starting with his position—shown as a blue square—and ending at the Trego ’s engine room—shown as a pink square.
    “Got it,” Fisher replied. “Grim, just so we’re clear—”
    “You have my word, Sam. The inspectors have to wear those suits. Government regs. Hell, you know better than anyone how persnickety government is. I’ve done the calculations backward and forward. As long as you’re out of there in an hour, you’re fine.”
    And at sixty-one minutes? he thought.
    Over the years he’d faced every nightmare an operator can imagine, but like most people, radiation held a special, dark place in his mind and heart. Invisible and virtually inescapable, radiation mutated the human body at the core level, destroying and twisting cells in monstrous ways. He’d seen it up close and in person. It was a horrific