The diesel fuel floating on the surface of the sea blazed fiercely, creating a sea of flames that stretched far beyond the surface. Even swimming nearly a meter underwater, Jack still felt as if he were about to turn into a brine shrimp.
This illusion stemmed primarily from the reflection of the flames in the water, which seemed endless and boundless.
Trying to suppress his instinctive panic with reason, Jack grabbed Harry's arm and pointed to the left, signaling him to follow.
Harry puffed out his lips and gurgled a few bubbles, indicating his understanding. The two swam, one in front of the other, toward the nearest darkness Jack could perceive.
Only when he was sure the flames above his head were gone and the surroundings had returned to pitch black did Jack poke his head out of the water, opening his mouth and taking a deep breath. He felt alive again.
Although the "fresh air" smelled terrible, with a pungent burnt stench and the salty smell of evaporated seawater, it was still very tempting.
Harry emerged from behind Jack, also gasping for air. The two exchanged glances, each seeing relief in the other's eyes.
They were not far from where they had fallen into the water, perhaps only forty or fifty meters. The helicopter that had fired the rockets at them was still circling overhead, seemingly trying to identify their bodies.
Fortunately, the explosion of the tanker truck was powerful enough to create a large, blazing area with the spilled diesel fuel. The hot air, swirling with thick smoke, prevented the helicopter from getting too close.
It was still early morning, and the flames burning around the dock and the pitch-black sea created a stark contrast, with the extremes of light and darkness becoming starkly distinct.
The helicopters the terrorists had used were ordinary civilian models, lacking the high-powered searchlights and infrared detectors standard for police or search and rescue helicopters. They simply circled twice before hastily departing.
"We're in big trouble," Jack said, glancing at his prize on his wrist: the junk watch he'd seized earlier. It had stopped working due to waterlogging, the hands frozen at 12:55.
Harry, sitting on the rocks beside him, removing his shoes and emptying them, gave a wry smile. "I'm worried about Helen and Jessie."
The pier was still ablaze; even a hundred meters away, the heat was palpable. This meant the speedboats and small boats moored near the pier were hopeless.
A crucial dilemma confronted the two men: they were trapped on this island, and in five hours, like the infamous Bikini Atoll, it would become a nuclear testing site.
"Aziz is a relatively rational guy. He knows he needs the hostages, so he probably won't do anything to them for now."
Jack wrung out his clothes and tried to put them back on, but found his shirt and T-shirt were ripped to pieces. He decided to join Harry in bare-chestedness.
"So the helicopter just now was not so much looking for our bodies as it was confirming the damage to the dock."
Harry threw away his socks and put his rustling leather shoes back on barefoot. He stood up and looked towards the warehouse. The fire at the door there had been extinguished. "There are still some equipment and tools in the warehouse. Maybe we can still dismantle a usable engine and assemble a ship."
"A nuclear bomb with a TNT equivalent of 15,000 tons has an effective killing radius of less than two kilometers. Even if we row, we should still have time."
Jack said, pointing to the north. "I remember the ship and helicopter were both heading north."
Harry heard the hesitation in his words, and his eyes followed his gradually raised arm to the starry sky, and asked puzzledly, "What's wrong?"
"Are those flashing red and green lights?"
Squinting and staring at the night sky for a long moment, feeling as if he were about to fall into the stars, Harry rubbed his eyes uncertainly. "Really?"
Jack didn't answer, as several more flashing lights suddenly appeared in the sky. However, they were no longer the aircraft lights he'd seen before, but the indicators on the paragliders. Sonny Quinn
,
who was pulling the rubber boat with all his might, pulled up his diving goggles, wiped the water off his face, and waved to Jack, who was waiting on the beach, with his signature Texan greeting.
"Howdy, I'm not the only one here who feels this scene is familiar, right? It seems like everyone has experienced it more than once."
Jason is usually serious when he is on a mission, but he couldn't help but smile when shaking hands with someone. "The CIA said that there is an agent and a federal agent who need to be rescued this time. Sonny directly asked if there is a guy named Jack among them."
Jack thought about it and it seemed to be true. Except for the time when he went to Mexico to deal with the drug lords, every time he met this group of SEALs, they were carrying out rescue missions, and the rescue targets seemed to include himself.
"I need to know where we are right now." Harry interrupted everyone's "greetings" rudely, "There is a nuclear bomb on the island with a timer activated."
"This is Chis Island, located south of the Florida Keys." Jason didn't show much surprise, "So what the fat man said is true? There really is a nuclear bomb on the island?"
"We saw the terrorists start the timer with our own eyes." Jack grabbed Jason's wrist and looked at the time on his watch, "There are about four and a half hours left. The nearby residents need to be evacuated immediately. It is a W-80 nuclear warhead with an equivalent of more than 15,000 tons."
The seals who were originally laughing suddenly became serious. Jason signaled "Full Metal" Scott Carter and team doctor Trent to follow Harry into the warehouse to confirm, and he pulled Jack to the side.
"The helicopter will arrive in ten minutes. Care to explain what's going on?"
Jack briefly recounted their encounter last night, omitting some hilarious moments. He concluded, "'Dark Jihad' definitely has subsequent attacks planned.
This nuke was just a rehearsal. They filmed it and asked Harry and me to verify the authenticity of three nukes. They then transported the remaining two by helicopter and cargo ship, respectively."
"Map." Jason beckoned Sonny for a plastic map. He found the island of Chis, where they were currently standing, and drew a circle around it with a marker. He breathed a sigh of relief.
"Luckily, the nearest inhabited island, Key West, is 10 nautical miles (20 kilometers) away."
"Notify the islanders to evacuate first, and remember to tell all nearby ships to stay away." Although he had no hope for the American officials' execution, Jack still warned.
Although a nuclear threat to the homeland qualifies as the highest level of national security alert, known as a "catastrophic threat," Jack doubted that officials would issue an immediate evacuation order via the Emergency Alert System (EAS).
After all, things are different now. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has consolidated numerous agencies, including Customs, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, and even the Secret Service, but its actual effectiveness is difficult to describe.
The incompetence of the various federal agencies under DHS in preventing, responding to, and even recovering from natural disasters and accidents has been starkly demonstrated.
Not to mention that the nuclear bomb was still a safe distance from the inhabited Florida Keys, even if it were to hit downtown Miami, Jack doubted that officials would have the courage to issue an immediate nuclear threat alert.
More likely, they would spend two or three hours debating the authenticity of the intelligence, with various agencies bickering and debunking the issue, and then, half an hour before the detonation, declare that time was running out.
When the disaster finally strikes, the federal and local governments will engage in the usual blame-shifting, escalating into partisanship and other such issues. As for the lives of the people,
they're merely the equivalent of Little Boy. Moreover, today's nuclear bombs are clean and sanitary, and the residual radiation dose is incomparable to that of the old ones. And didn't the people of Hiroshima survive in 1945? Since
it wasn't bombed on Capitol Hill, they could simply provide a $770 emergency loan to the public to purchase iodine-based medications, and issue each family a $200,000 cleanup bill.
Dealing with nuclear radiation, after all, requires considerable expertise, far more complex than the rubble left behind by a wildfire.
As Sonny radioed in, Harry, his hands wet with cement, returned with Full Metal and team doctor Trent, who was clutching a Geiger counter.
Jason knew the answer from the solemn expressions on his two teammates' faces. His brow furrowed in confirmation. "You said the remaining two nuclear bombs have been taken away. Do you know where they went?"
Jack glanced at Harry, seeing that he seemed a little distracted. He knew he was worried about his wife and daughter, so he answered directly, "One was loaded onto a truck and sent to a freighter, and the other was taken away by helicopter.
I don't know their final destination, but I can probably guess where the nuclear bomb on the freighter went."
He took the map from Jason and drew a line on the Florida Keys.
"'Road to Heaven'?" Jason looked puzzled.
Harry, regaining his composure, nodded and explained, "If they're planning on shipping to an East Coast port, they can just load it directly onto a ship, no trucks needed.
They know that if the bomb explodes, coastal ports will be tightly sealed, and the Coast Guard will be fully deployed to search for the ship. So there's only one possibility."
Harry pointed at Key West. "They'll use this cross-ocean highway in the Keys. Calculating the time, they might have already reached shore."
The "Road to Paradise" that Jason mentioned was the Florida Keys Cross-ocean Highway.
At the southernmost tip of the Florida Peninsula, often called America's "Ding Ding," lies a sprawling, fragmented chain of islands known as the Florida Keys.
It's an archipelago, or more precisely, a narrow chain of approximately 1,700 small islands.
At the southernmost point of US Route 1, after leaving the peninsula, lies this section of the highway, comprised of 42 cross-ocean bridges. Connecting nearly 100 major islands in the archipelago, it's known as the world's most scenic "Road to Paradise."
Because the Florida Keys lie less than 80 nautical miles (145 kilometers) from Cuba, in the 1980s, immigration authorities established roadblocks and checkpoints at the northernmost end of the highway to search for contraband and illegal immigrants.
This practice drew complaints from island residents, and the Key West City Council felt that the immigration authorities' actions severely impacted the islands' mainstay, tourism.
After repeated attempts to remove the checkpoints failed, the then-mayor of Key West pulled a bold move, enlisting the city council in declaring independence for the islands, establishing the "Conch Republic."
The mayor proclaimed himself president, declared war on the United States, and led a mob of civilians into storming the local air force base, attacking soldiers with water cannons and bread.
The "rebellion" lasted only a minute before being declared defeated. The self-proclaimed mayor led his citizens in surrender, a humorous act of protest.
Interestingly, although immigration authorities later removed the roadblocks and checkpoints, the federal government never officially responded to the declaration of rebellion, effectively acknowledging the establishment of the "Conch Republic."
Today, the "Conch Republic" has become a tourist attraction in the Florida Keys. Key West has its own "flag," "coat of arms," and even "passport," allowing visitors to purchase a blank passport and fill in their name.
Precisely because of this historical reason, this maritime highway is now unimpeded and uncheckpointed. This also means that once the truck carrying the nuclear bomb completes the 182-kilometer journey and enters the Florida Peninsula's interior, finding it will be a real challenge.
Soon, two MH-60R Seahawk helicopters, which had fought the SEALs at Alcatraz, arrived at Chis Island to pick up the crew. Gibson, wearing a heavy bulletproof vest and holding an M4A1, was the first to jump out of the plane.
Seeing Harry, shirtless and revealing his muscular physique, the middle-aged man was about to say something when his eyes fell on Jack, who was wearing the same outfit, and he blew a sly whistle.
"I bet Jack's muscular figure is more popular with girls than you."
Harry glared at him and walked towards the helicopter without looking back. "Let's go! I need to contact the higher-ups immediately."
-
Putting on headphones to block out the noise of the propellers, Gibson said loudly, "The Air Force has sent an 'E-7A Wedgetail' early warning aircraft to search for the helicopter carrying the nuclear bomb. We hope it hasn't landed yet.
You said the terrorists might be carrying heavy firepower, so we haven't mobilized the island's police force. For now, we have only set up a blockade at the northernmost end of the cross-sea highway.
A DEA helicopter has spotted a suspected terrorist convoy consisting of two trucks and a Lincoln sedan. Helen and Jessie may be in the Lincoln."
(End of this chapter)