Trident's First Gleaming: A Special Operations Group Thriller by Stephen Templin Read Free Book Online

afterthought.
    Mrs. Luther froze for a moment, as if it was her first time sending a man off to combat. “Don’t worry about your things,” she said. “We’ll make sure they’re taken care of until you return.”
    “Thank you.”
    “We’ll miss you,” she added.
    “I’ll miss y’all, too.”
    She wrapped him in a hug. She started to release him but then hugged him again—tighter—as if she couldn’t make up her mind whether to keep hugging or let him go. Finally she released him. “Be safe,” she said.
    Chris walked away with a wave good-bye, not knowing when—or if—he’d see her and her husband again. She waved back, standing in the doorway until Chris’s taxi pulled away.
    He considered himself unworthy to be treated so kindly. As a SEAL, he worked on Sundays, deceived and killed people, but that was all part of the job, and he didn’t feel guilt over it. While in the Teams, he’d never gotten any tattoos and never drank. But he’d swore like a sailor and had sex with a number of women. In the Teams, the guys teased him about his high moral standards, but compared to Reverend and Mrs. Luther, he felt as far from the Lord as angels could fly.
    It was reassuring to know that, in spite of all the darkness on the earth, there were still places where the sun shined. Although he felt sadness at leaving, he also felt a calm peace that what he was doing was right.
    The taxi driver dropped him off at the La Quinta Inn. Inside, people were eating their continental breakfasts, checking out, and hurrying to catch their rides. Hannah was nowhere in sight.
    Chris hadn’t eaten, and he didn’t know when he’d find another chance to eat, so he grabbed some breakfast, sat down in the back of the lobby, and ate—keeping his eye on the entrances and exits.
    Always know your escape routes . Stay away from the windows in case a car bomb goes off.
    His old mindset was coming back to him already.
    He finished eating and looked at his watch: 0658. Only two minutes. Maybe I have the wrong hotel. He checked the sheet of paper. The hotel was right. Maybe I remembered the wrong time.
    Then Hannah arrived at his table. “I’m happy you showed,” she said with that twinkle in her eye. “The taxi is on its way.”
    A fresh burst of oxygen filled his lungs. “I was worried I had the wrong time.”
    The cab took them to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, where they caught their flight to DC. As tempted as he was to engage Hannah while he had her alone, after such a busy night preparing for the trip and being unable to sleep, Chris needed a nap. Besides, he didn’t know when he’d have another opportunity to sleep.
    His eyes grew heavier as he tried to relax, his body more and more lethargic. He had only one more thought, a remembrance of a Proverb, before he drifted off.
    Be not afraid of sudden fear.

5
    _______
    C hris woke up at 1335 as they touched down at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. He followed Hannah to the short-term parking lot, where they located her yellow Mustang convertible, and twenty minutes later, they arrived at the CIA headquarters in Langley. It wasn’t Chris’s first visit, but he couldn’t help spending a moment to get an overview of the layout. The front building was unchanged from the last time he’d been there, the original concrete structure still in place. The glass and steel New Headquarters Building, however, lay to the west. Conversations inside couldn’t vibrate the specialized glass, thwarting outsiders from eavesdropping with laser microphones.
    Hannah parked in a side lot. She didn’t lead him through the front entrance, where the CIA seal was inlaid in the granite floor and a marble Memorial Wall stood with 103 stars carved into it.
    Instead, she led him to a side entrance, where she showed the guard her ID, handed him her car keys, and signed in. Hannah gave Chris a temporary badge. He put it on and followed her through a maze of halls. Hannah worked for Special