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Cubit entered the torpedo room moments later, quickly sizing things up. “Back off, mister. And sheathe that weapon.”
    Lars turned to a Syrian named Mahdi, the militia’s squad leader. The freedom fighter approached Cubit. “It has been a long mission, friend. We’re all on the same team—let us finish this as professionals.”
    “I don’t know what team you’re on, friend , but the men on my team are pissing blood. There’s a salvage ship due to arrive in thirty-six hours. Grab a few life rafts, rations, and whatever’s in that container—you and your men are vacating this boat now.”
    Mahdi smiled. “Admiral Wilson is in charge; we only take orders from him.”
    Commander Katzen entered the chamber, accompanied by eight armed crewmen—a Mexican standoff.
    Cubit stepped between the warring parties. “Lower your weapons; there’s already been enough loss of life on this mission. Mahdi?”
    The Syrian commando nodded to his men.
    Cubit removed his cap, wiping sweat with his free hand. “You Black Widow boys are tough, I’ll give you that. Wilson must have paid your team a king’s ransom to infiltrate Iran’s heavy water reactor to obtain that uranium.”
    Mahdi grinned. “More than you and your entire crew will see in a lifetime, captain.”
    “Good for you. Payable on delivery, I imagine.”
    “The only way to ensure the mission’s success.”
    Cubit smiled, his hand casually removing a metal object hidden in the brim of his cap. “If I were you, next time I’d ask for an advance.”
    Mahdi’s expression went blank as a bloody third eye suddenly materialized above the bridge of his nose—a charred hole in Cubit’s cap revealing the presence of his hidden pistol.
    The corpse collapsed as Commander Katzen’s men wounded and disarmed the private militia before they could get off a shot.
    Lars was lying on his chest, bleeding badly from a belly wound. As two crewmen rolled him over, he pulled the pin on the grenade he had removed from his belt and tossed it across the deck with his last dying breath.
    Captain Cubit’s eyes followed the grenade as it skipped between his XO’s feet, rolled beneath a steel rack of torpedoes . . . and settled by the starboard hull.
    “Oh dear Lord—”
    Wa-Boom!
    The explosion rained a lethal dose of hot shrapnel upon the shocked crewmen a microsecond before the blast tore a hole in the ship, unleashing the sea.
    The wounded beast swallowed the Atlantic, its steel plates groaning as it sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

7
    I woke up the next morning to find a gray-haired woman in a yellow-flowered dress searching through my dresser drawers.
    “Hey, sunshine . . . can I help you?”
    The gray-haired woman turned briefly to make eye contact then continued emptying my drawers. “I’m Dr. Beverly Chertok, your new mental health counselor.”
    “I didn’t know shrinks were allowed to just come in and search through your stuff.”
    “When a patient tells his home nurse he’s thinking about killing himself, you do what you have to do.”
    “It was a joke.”
    “Is this a joke, too?” She held up the bottle of Oxycodone.
    “My doctor prescribed them after I fell and bruised my ribs. I need them for pain.”
    “Did you need them for pain when you OD’d back in San Diego?”
    “Different time, different place. I’m not suicidal, Dr. Chertok.”
    “How would you feel if I prescribed an antidepressant?”
    “You mean one of those serotonin neurotransmitter inhibitors that can cause suicidal thoughts as a side effect? No, thanks. But if you want to write me a script for medical marijuana, my grandmother has a great brownie recipe.”
    She smiled, defrosting her cold introduction. “How was your first day of school?”
    “I survived. Now do you think you could leave so I can get dressed?”
    “Sure, as soon as the nurse checks you for bed sores. I’m going to confiscate the Oxycodone, just to be on the safe side.” She opened my bedroom door and instructed