Jihad db-5

by Stephen Coonts

  “Bill, sometimes it would be helpful to remember the old adage, ‘one hand washes the other’,” said Collins before she hung up.

  CHAPTER 129

  The big helicopter shook the shoreline as it approached, but the night had turned overcast, and Dean couldn’t even make out its running lights.

  “They want you to fire a flare, Charlie,” Chafetz told him. “To make sure they’re in the right place.”

  Dean didn’t have any flares. This was just like the navy: always asking a marine to do the impossible.

  And being a marine, though a retired one, he came up with a way to do it.

  “Turn on your lights,” Dean yelled to the Mexican police chief a few yards away. “The helicopter needs something to guide it.”

  The chief reached into his Volkswagen and red and blue beacons split the darkness.

  “All right. They got you,” said Chafetz.

  A spotlight searched the beach as the helo, a large CH-53E Super Stallion from the USS Wasp, settled over the beach in a hover, descending to about eight feet above the ground, whipping grit and a fine spray of water in every direction.

  “Charlie, they’re waiting,” said Chafetz.

  “For what?”

  “Aren’t you getting in?”

  “Aren’t they landing?”

  “Beach is too narrow and sloped,” said the runner.

  Dean saw a crewman in the surf, trotting toward him.

  “Sergeant Dean?”

  “Nobody’s called me that in about a million years,” Dean said.

  “I was told you were a marine, sir. Once a marine sergeant, always a marine sergeant. I should know,” added the man, who was wearing marine combat fatigues. Though it had taken off from a navy ship, the helicopter was actually a marine aircraft.

  “Gunny, you’re just trying to butter me up so I won’t complain about having to climb up the rope, right?”

  “I hope it worked,” cracked the marine. “Otherwise I’m going to have to throw you to the crew chief.”

  CHAPTER 130

  Lia pulled the covers around her neck, pushing onto her side and trying to find a comfortable position in the hotel bed. She’d jacked the AC to full, chilling the room so she could bundle up. Covers always made her feel drowsy, and helped her to sleep.

  So did cuddling next to Charlie. She’d slept like a baby during the two weeks she’d spent with him in Pennsylvania.

  She missed him badly. She felt — not that she’d betrayed him, exactly, with Pinchon, because she hadn’t, not at all. But she hadn’t given him the attention he deserved.

  Or the explanation. Something of an explanation.

  He was just a guy I fell in lust with, that’s all. Doesn’t mean anything, Charlie.

  He wasn’t as big a jerk then, either.

  Lia could almost see Dean squinting at her. Then he’d say, “Okay.” In a while, if she didn’t add any more, he’d drop it completely.

  That was the way he was.

  She, on the other hand, would brood and think and scheme, try and figure it out. Attack it.

  Dean thought they were good together because they were alike in a lot of ways, but she knew they were different, different on this.

  She curled the covers tighter, missing Dean more than she ever had before.

  CHAPTER 131

  Dr. Saed Ramil took a train from Baltimore to New York City’s Penn Station, then made his way to Grand Central, where he caught a commuter train north to a burp of a city named Beacon. There a limo met him and took him across the river to Newburgh, where he’d been booked into a small hotel not far from the airport. The driver gave him a brief history lesson on the area along the way, telling him how Newburgh had once been voted the best city to raise kids in the U.S. and was now among the worst.

  “Because nobody believes in nothin’ no more,” railed the driver. “They got their rap, their MTV, video games. Don’t go to church. No morals. No beliefs.”

  Ramil didn’t know what to say, but the man didn’t really want answers; he wanted to rant. Ramil gave him a tip, even though the Art Room had said he’d already been tipped, then ensconced himself in his room at the Holiday Inn.

  This was an easy gig, merely standing by in case something happened. Inevitably, nothing did. Ramil could stay in his hotel room the entire time if he wanted. Or he could go and explore the local area, as long as he kept the Art Room aware of where he was.

  The last time he heard the voice, it had told him he would have another chance. Was this what it had meant?

  No. The voice was simply a result of stress and fear — a perfectly logical explanation.

  Unless it had predicted the future.

  Lying awake well past midnight, he thought of the limo driver’s rant. The problem with the world wasn’t that no one believed in anything anymore, but that they believed in the wrong things. And the line between wrong and right was more difficult to discern than one could ever imagine.

  CHAPTER 132

  The U.S. NAVY’s LHD-1 Wasp was an amphibious assault ship, designed to deliver roughly two thousand marines to a beach-head or an inland battle zone. To Dean, it looked like an aircraft carrier, albeit one with a straight landing deck. The ship sat high above the water, which made it easy for it to deploy its air-cushioned landing craft sitting at a sea-level “garage” below the flight deck.

  This type of ship had not existed in Dean’s day, and under other circumstances he might have enjoyed an early-morning tour after his “rack time”—which was actually a decent snooze in an honest-to-God bed. But both Dean and the ship’s company had better things to do. The Wasp had been tasked to join a sea armada checking vessels approaching Galveston from the south. Her helicopters were assisting ships to the north and west. Dean, meanwhile, had been told by the Art Room to get up to Houston to check over the chemical plant that the terrorists might be targeting. First thing after breakfast, a UH-1N Huey — a Vietnam-era helicopter retained as a utility craft — was gassed up and readied for him.

  “We are just going to make it fuel-wise,” the pilot warned Dean as he strapped himself into the copilot’s seat. “Ready?”

  “Sure.” Dean adjusted the headset. “Sorry to put you out.”

  “Hey, no way. I get to spend two days in Houston thanks to you. Got a whole bunch of friends there. We’ll be golfin’ and shootin’. I should be thanking you.”

  The helicopter leaned forward and rose, skipping away from the deck of its mothership like a young bird anxious to leave the nest. The sun had just broken through the low-lying clouds at the horizon, coloring the distance a reddish pink.

  “You want some joe?” asked the pilot, handing him a thermos.

  “I’ll take some coffee, sure.”

  “All I got is that one cup. Don’t worry. I don’t have AIDS.”

  Dean poured about half a cup’s worth of coffee into the cup. It had far too much sugar in it for him, but he drank it anyway.

  “Heard you were a marine,” said the pilot.

  “Ancient history.”

  “Once a marine always a marine.”

  “True enough.”

  “What were you?”

  “I did a lot of things. I was sniper in Vietnam.”

  “No kidding? You’re that old?”

  “Older,” said Dean. He laughed. “I bet this chopper’s as old as I am.”

  “Probably flew you around in Vietnam.” The pilot reached over and took the coffee from him. “You liked being a sniper?”

  “It was a job.”

  The pilot had to answer a radio call. Dean tightened his arms around his chest. He had liked being a sniper. He liked the simplicity of it. Not like now.

  “I have a sharpshooter’s badge myself,” said the pilot. “I’m pretty good. Every marine, a rifleman.”

  “That’s right.” said Dean. But inside he was thinking that there was a world of difference between doing some shooting and being a sniper. Shooting was the least of it.

 
“We practice insertions, do a lot of work with some recon guys,” continued the pilot. “It’s good work.”

  “Yeah?” said Dean, feigning interest, thinking about Kenan and how he hoped he was wrong that he’d met a ship.

  CHAPTER 133

  Unable to see the O’s for the O’s, Gallo had printed a dump of the storage files on the drive belonging to Kenan Conkel’s college roommate. He hoped that looking at the data on paper might put it into a new light, but all it did was cover the lab with paper. He had piles and piles of printouts, showing files in every conceivable format.

  Most had to do with chemistry and hockey. The roommate seemed to have a perverse need to follow the Red Wings; the remains of web pages pertaining to the hockey team were strewn across the drive.

  “Paper, Mr. Gallo?” Johnny Bib was standing in the doorway.

  “You told me to go back to the roommate’s drive to look for clues.”

  “Paper?” said Johnny Bib again, as if it were a foreign substance.

  “I thought it would, like, let me see things more clearly. I was here all night, and I figured, you know, get a different look at things.”

  “Did it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Mmmmmmm,” said Johnny Bib. He walked into the room, surveying the different piles. “Chemistry?”

  “Organics.”

  “Mmmmmmmm.” Johnny Bib leaned down and picked a solitary piece of paper from the floor. “Why the boat?”

  “Um, like, got me. It’s the only one on the drive.” Gallo turned to his computer and pulled up the file, displaying the contents in HTML, a common web page language, as well as in the machine language. “Looked odd, you know, the only one there, so I checked it for encryptions, odd fractals, the works.”

  “Coast guard,” said Johnny Bib.

  “Well, yeah, it’s a cutter or something.”

  “Coast guard.”

  Gallo stared at Bib, trying to puzzle out exactly what he was saying.

  “Coast guard,” repeated Bib.

  “You think it’s important?”

  “It’s different! Different!” Johnny Bib practically screamed. “We like different! We love different!”

  “I’ll see what I can figure out.”

  * * *

  Rubens had just arrived at Crypto City after two hours of fitful sleep when Johnny Bib flew at him in the main hallway.

  Literally flew at him, his hands spread wide.

  “Sturgeon,” said the head of the Desk Three research team. “Sturgeon!”

  “Are you planning on catching some?” asked Rubens.

  Johnny slid to a halt, arms still extended. “It’s a ship. A U.S. Coast Guard cutter.”

  “Actually, they call it a coastal patrol boat, officially,” said Robert Gallo, coming up behind Johnny Bib.

  “I trust this is significant?”

  “I think Kenan Conkel was interested in this ship,” said Gallo. “There was this picture on his friend’s hard drive, and I’ve recovered bits of queries about its capability and where it berths, coast guard routines I think. The queries were all right before he went to Mexico in September — and according to the time stamp, his roommate would have been in organic chemistry class.”

  “It guards the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port,” said Johnny Bib. “The biggest port of entry for oil in the United States.”

  “Come down to the Art Room with me,” said Rubens.

  * * *

  It made much more sense. He should have realized it from the start.

  Rubens stared at the screen at the front of the Art Room. A picture of the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, better known as LOOP, was displayed as one of the analysts quickly summarized the port’s assets and importance. All of Asad’s major targets had been aimed at the energy infrastructure — the Saudi oil fields, the major refinery in Germany. LOOP was their equivalent, much more important than a single chemical plant.

  The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port had been built because many supertankers couldn’t get close enough to U.S. ports to unload. The process was fairly simple — a tanker would moor at an oversized floating gas pump called a single-point mooring base, referred to as an SPM. Raw petroleum was pumped through LOOP into a massive pipeline that brought it to Port Fourchon onshore. There it was stored in underground salt caverns before being shipped to refineries. Besides the mooring base and the onshore facilities, there were several vulnerable points — most notably the pumping and control platform, eighteen miles from shore.

  LOOP had survived Hurricane Katrina when the worst part of the hurricane veered eastward; it was back in operation within a week. But drive a ship with several hundred or more tons of explosives into it, and the pumps, pipes, and mechanisms that had withstood the wind and waves would be shattered. Given the already fragile state of the Gulf Coast oil infrastructure, the result would be catastrophic — worse than the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The U.S. would lose between a third and half of its oil for years, not months.

  That had to be their target.

  It was a guess — but one with evidence.

  “Tell the coast guard to shut LOOP down,” Rubens said. “Order all ships out of the area. Evacuate the control platform. Keep working on that list of ships coming up from Mexico, validating them — expand it to include the area near LOOP.”

  Telach frowned. “All we have is Johnny Bib’s hunch on this cutter.”

  “That’s enough for me. Where’s Charlie Dean?”

  CHAPTER 134

  “Charlie, can you change course and get north to Port Fourchon?”

  Marie Telach’s voice over the Deep Black communications system felt like a spike in Dean’s brain. He pulled his headset off of his right ear and reached into his pocket and pulled out his satphone, pretending to use it.

  “This is Dean,” he said.

  “We need you to go to Port Fourchon,” repeated Telach. “It’s south of New Orleans.”

  “How far from New Orleans are we?” Dean asked the pilot.

  “Twenty minutes. Maybe fifteen. Why?”

  “There’s a deep-water port called LOOP out there, south of Port Fourchon,” Telach told Dean. “Johnny Bib has a theory Kenan may be heading there.”

  “What’s a deep-water port?” Dean asked.

  “You talking to me?” said the pilot.

  “If you know the answer.”

  “Port ships use them because they draw too much water to get into a regular harbor,” said the pilot. “Like LOOP, up near New Orleans, and that gas port they’re talking about building near Houston.”

  “We need to get to LOOP if you know where it is,” Dean told the pilot.

  “I don’t know if we have enough fuel.”

  “Push it,” said Dean.

  CHAPTER 135

  When they were twenty miles away, Razaq Khan told Kenan to go and prepare. Kenan went to the small shower in the captain’s compartment and cleansed himself, scrubbing deliberately and praying that he would be worthy of the task ahead. When he was done, he pulled on a fresh white shirt, leaving its tails untucked. It was as close as his mission allowed to the pilgrim’s shroud one wore to Mecca.

  Kenan took over at the wheel while the helmsman went to change. They were moving steadily now; he could see a supertanker just leaving the LOOP moorings far off to starboard. In fifteen minutes, he would be challenged; he could answer in his sleep. Just in case the monitors aboard LOOP became suspicious, Kenan would push a button that would broadcast the distress call of one of the work ships that operated out of Port Fourchon. The coast guard patrol craft would investigate, leaving the way to LOOP free for the Aztec Exact.

  “I am ready,” said the helmsman, returning.

  Kenan stepped to the radio. Khan took the key from his neck and placed it into the control panel.

  “Do not leave the bridge for anything,” Khan told Kenan. “If I am gone, you are in charge. Complete our mission.”

  Kenan, awed by the trust Khan showed in him, nodde
d.

  “May God grant us our moment,” said Khan, going to check on the others.

  CHAPTER 136

  There were seven large ships within three miles of LOOP, and another dozen or so within an hour’s sailing time. And that didn’t count another dozen or so merchant ships near Port Fourchon, let alone the myriad of small vessels scattered offshore.

  “All right. The coast guard is working from the west,” Dean told the pilot, relaying what Telach had told him. “There are two ships coming up from the southeast we want to check on.”

  The pilot stared at him. Dean realized that he had forgotten to pretend to use his phone.

  “I can’t explain the communications system. It’s classified, all right?”

  “Yeah, not a problem. We have enough fuel to buzz one or two, but then we absolutely have to head inland to land.”

  Dean spotted a helicopter on the LOOP platform.

  “There’s a helipad on the LOOP platform,” said Dean. “You think you can refuel there?”

  “If they let me, sure.”

  “They’ll let you,” said Dean. “Don’t sweat it.”

  CHAPTER 137

  Kenan felt his pulse rise as the radio call came in. He answered smoothly, exactly as he had practiced a million times.

  The response he got was one he hadn’t expected.

  “LOOP is being closed,” replied the voice.

  “Closed? But—”

  “You’ll have to talk to the coast guard,” replied the man on the other side of the radio. “We’ve been ordered to return to shore. You’re to stop where you are and await further instructions. Other arrangements will be made.”

  They were roughly seven minutes from the tie-up point, and another five from the control rig where they were to detonate the explosives. Could they be stopped in twelve minutes?