Killer Focus

Present day: Lieutenant Commander Steve Fischer stepped into the records room of the Jackson Naval Air Station, Florida, and handed the clerk a list of the files he wanted to view. There were nine in all. Eight didn't require a security clearance; one did. On request, he produced his ID and security clearance and waited for his details to be verified against the computerized register. Several minutes later, the files were deposited on the counter, checked and signed off by a second records officer and Fischer was cleared to carry them through to the cramped work cubicles that ran the length of one wall. Taking a seat, he placed the eight files he had chosen at random, and in which he had no interest, to one side, and selected the file labeled Akidron. In a recent overhaul of the filing system, Akidron had suddenly appeared. The reference number tied it in with a group of files containing material on operations in the Middle East, but the coincidence that Akidron spelled backward was Nordika had been enough to pique his interest. He examined the security classification and a seal that had been put in place in 1984 and had never been broken, indicating that he was the first person to view the file since it had been taken out of circulation. The fact that the file had been off-limits for over twenty years and had a high security rating was notable but not unusual. Jacksonville was the center for the Southeast Command, which included twenty-one naval installations, among them Guantanamo Bay and Puerto Rico. With Cuba on their doorstep, a number of files contained sensitive material that could affect the security of the United States. He broke the seal and opened the file. On the first page Akidron was reversed to spell Nordika. He skimmed the pages that detailed the information supplied by George Hartley, a wealthy manufacturer based in Houston, and which had been passed on to Monteith. Hartley claimed that ex-Nazi SS officers, in league with Marco Chavez, head of a major Colombian drug cartel, were involved in smuggling arms and drugs. The arms were bound for terrorist and military factions in South America and Cuba, the cocaine was moving stateside. Military personnel were reportedly involved, although Hartley hadn't been able to supply a list of names. When the divers had gone missing, an attempt to follow up on the details Hartley had supplied had been stalled by Hartley's unexpected death. According to the coroner's report, the fatality had been caused by a lethal cocktail of prescription medications and an excess of alcohol, and had been deemed an unfortunate accident. Suddenly the lack of information available on the wreck of the Nordika and the disappearance of eight navy personnel made sense. Monteith had not only run from the scandal of the loss of an entire SEAL team and the ridicule that would result from a failed Nazi hunt, he had been afraid for his own life. Hartley had been executed, and Monteith had recognized that he would be next. In a botched attempt to kill the affair, he had concealed all the evidence he'd obtained by renaming the file and closing it. He had banked on the fact that twenty years after the Nordika tragedy, there was likely to be little interest in a follow-up investigation. Monteith had died just eighteen months later, reportedly of natural causes. The back of his neck crawling, Steve flipped through the last set of pages, which contained the mission brief and the orders issued to Todd Fischer and his men. The documents had been signed off by Monteith. As he turned the last page, an envelope attached to the rear file cover with tape that was cracked and perished by age detached. Glossy prints and a set of negatives spilled across the desktop.The first photo, a splash of bright turquoise and the primary yellow of a mask and snorkel, was of himself at age eight, underwater, in the family swimming pool. The second was a shot of his best friend, Marc BayardBrand, Fiona is the author of 'Killer Focus', published 2007 under ISBN 9780778325635 and ISBN 0778325636.