Chương 151: Chapter 150: The Blue Void (05/15/2002)

DATE: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 LOCATION: Combat Training Tank, NAB Coronado | Second Phase (Dive Phase) LOCAL TIME: 02: 00 PM PDT By Second Phase, the herd had been thinned. Hell Week had broken the bodies, but Dive Phase was designed to break the mind. I was suspended fifteen feet underwater at the bottom of the Combat Training Tank, breathing compressed air from twin aluminum AL80s. Pool Competency—"Pool Comp"—the ultimate test of underwater composure.

An instructor wearing a black face mask materialized out of the chlorinated blue void. He didn't signal. He just attacked. He grabbed my primary regulator and violently ripped it from my mouth. He spun me around, pulled my mask off my face, and tied my air hoses into a tangled knot behind my manifold. The goal wasn't to kill me; the goal was to see if I would panic and bolt for the surface, risking an air embolism. Water rushed up my nose.

The instinct to thrash, to fight the attacker, is hardwired into human biology. But I had spent years in the Silver Chord, operating as a ghost. I didn't panic. I went completely still. I closed my eyes against the stinging chlorine, ignoring the deep, persistent throb in my sinuses from weeks of violent pressure changes. I reached back, methodically tracing the hoses, feeling the knot. One. Two. Three. I untangled the lines, retrieved my secondary regulator, purged the water, and took a slow, measured breath.

I cleared my mask and gave the instructor a calm, steady "OK" sign. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The instructor stared at me for a second, annoyed by the absolute lack of elevated heart rate, before rocketing to the surface to find his next victim. I floated in the quiet blue, watching Caleb Rourke a few lanes over. He was getting thrashed, his bubbles erratic, but he held his ground. He was learning.

When we finally surfaced and clung to the gutter of the pool, the instructors were standing on the deck, dripping wet, writing on their waterproof clipboards. From the open doors of the Dive Locker office, the mounted television was blaring a CNN segment.

"... the power vacuum left by the surgical assassination of Ayman al-Zawahiri late last year has left the Al-Qaeda network completely decentralized and struggling for operational cohesion," the defense correspondent reported over a graphic of the Middle East.

"A newly released, grainy video of Osama bin Laden shows the terror leader isolated in an undisclosed cave, pleading for funds. But those funds are drying up. Following the catastrophic Mossack Fonseca data leak, the CIA and international banking authorities have heavily pivoted their intelligence assets toward Syria and Lebanon, actively dismantling the dark money hawala networks..." I pulled myself out of the pool, the heavy twin tanks dripping onto the tiles. Zawahiri was dead. Erickson was in a black site.

The money was choked off. The global war on terror wasn't a war at all; it was a forensic accounting audit backed by JSOC executioners.

"Hey, Mustang," Rourke gasped, hauling his tanks out of the water next to me.

"How do you stay so calm down there? When he ripped my mask off, I thought I was going to swallow the whole pool."

"It's just water, Caleb," I said, unbuckling my weight belt.

"You can hold your breath for two minutes. The instructor only attacks for forty seconds. The math is on your side." Rourke laughed, shaking his head.

"You're a freak of nature, Mustang. But thanks for the anchor."