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

ain’t half bad,” Jim Bob remarked.
    Hannah hungrily bit chunks out of a drum stick and chewed the meat quickly before swallowing. She cleaned off the remaining meat from the bone before moving on to a wing. She’d become so immersed in her eating that she seemed oblivious to her surroundings.
    “Victor, would you give our non-disclosure agreement to Chris so he can take a look at it?” Jim Bob asked.
    “Yes, sir.” Victor produced a form from his file and politely passed it to Chris.
    Chris wiped his hands before taking it. He’d signed such agreements before, but he still took the time to read through it. Centered at the top were the words Secrecy Agreement . In the middle of the paper was a watermark of the CIA seal. After several pages of text, near the bottom, Chris signed and dated the contract. He gave the papers to Jim Bob, who signed and dated the last lines as a witness before returning the form to Victor, who placed it in his file.
    “Wonderful,” Jim Bob said. “Victor, would you cut the lights and start the presentation?” He spoke it casually as if they were in an everyday business meeting instead of a secret government operation briefing. Jim Bob seemed so comfortable with it all that Chris guessed he’d probably been at it for close to a couple of decades.
    “Yes, sir,” Victor replied. He flicked a switch on the wall, and a projection screen descended from above. Then he pressed a button on a remote control, and a projector mounted in the ceiling came alive. After dimming the lights, he began the brief. On the screen materialized a photo of a small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). “This is the Navy’s newest UAV, codenamed Switchblade Whisper ,” Victor explained. “With its wings collapsed, the UAV is stored in a canister small enough to fit in a backpack. Or the trash tube of a submarine underwater at periscope depth.” Victor showed a computer graphics simulation of a submarine. “The Switchblade Whisper in the canister is ejected from a submarine’s trash tube, floats to the surface, and launches into the air, where each wing flicks out like the blade of a switchblade. In the submarine’s combat control room, the operator controls the Switchblade Whisper’s flight, conducting reconnaissance and surveillance. Visual data is encrypted and streamed live back to the submarine. The drone also backs up the gathered intelligence, so even if the live stream is compromised, intelligence can still be retrieved from the Switchblade Whisper itself. Then it flies back to the submarine, retracts its wings, and splashes down in the water where it floats until the submarine’s diver retrieves it.”
    The technology was impressive, but in Chris’s experience, technology without brave boots on the ground was always a goat-screw. He patiently listened for what his role might be.
    Next, Victor displayed an actual photo of a submarine. “Three days ago, off the coast of Syria, the USS Mississippi took part in a covert mission during which they launched the Switchblade Whisper. The Mississippi was in the process of collecting critical intelligence when the Switchblade Whisper’s live streaming went out, and the Mississippi lost control of the UAV over land near the port city of Latakia, Syria. We need to retrieve that drone.”
    Chris looked over at Hannah, but she was currently more engaged in her coleslaw than the brief. Maybe she already knew more about the mission than him. “I still don’t understand the urgency of this mission,” he said.
    Hannah stopped eating her coleslaw and wiped her mouth. “I recruited an asset who was a technical analyst for Syria’s cyber warfare unit. He reported that the unit’s commander is Professor Yushua Mordet. During the Switchblade Whisper’s surveillance mission, it experienced a malfunction, and Mordet exploited the malfunction by jamming satellite and submarine signals to the Switchblade Whisper. He fed the Switchblade Whisper’s internal navigation