by Tom Clancy
“I figure it’s about even money.”
“Could be worse. Why the hell do you think they canceled SNAPCOUNT?” the XO asked, staring at the sonar scope.
“X, I guess the danger of war is over.... I haven’t handled this well, have I?”
“Shit, skipper, who would have known?”
Ricks turned. “Thanks, X.”
“The torpedo is now active, ping-and-listen mode, bearing one-six-zero.”
“Torpedo, American Mark 48, bearing three-four-five, just went active!”
“Ahead full, maintain course,” Dubinin ordered.
“Countermeasures?” the Starpom asked.
The Captain shook his head. “No, no—we’re at the edge of its acquisition range ... and that would just give it a reason to turn this way. The surface conditions will help. We’re not supposed to have battles in heavy weather,” Dubinin pointed out. “It’s hard on the instruments.”
“Captain, I have the satellite signal—it’s an all-forces message, ‘Disengage and withdraw from any hostile forces, take action only for self-defense.’ ”
“I’m going to be court-martialed,” Valentin Borissovich Dubinin observed quietly.
“You did nothing wrong, you reacted correctly at every—”
“Thank you. I hope you will testify to that effect.”
“Change in signal—change in aspect, torpedo just turned west away from us,” Lieutenant Rykov said. “The first programmed turn must have been to the right.”
“Thank God it wasn’t to the left. I think we’ve survived. Now, if only our weapon can miss....”
“Sir, it’s continuing to close. The torpedo is probably in acquisition—continuous pinging now.”
“Less than two thousand yards,” Ricks said.
“Yeah,” Claggett agreed.
“Try some more countermeasures—hell, go continuous on them.” The tactical situation was getting worse. Maine was not moving quickly enough to make an evasive course worthwhile. The countermeasures filled the sea with bubbles, and while they might draw the Russian torpedo into a turn—their only real hope—the sad fact of the matter was that as the fish penetrated the bubbles it would find Maine with its sonar again. Perhaps a continuous set of such false targets would saturate the seeker. That was their best shot right now.
“Let’s keep her near the surface,” Ricks added. Claggett looked at him and nodded in understanding.
“Not working, sir ... sir, I’ve lost the fish aft, in the baffles now.”
“Surface the ship,” Ricks called. “Emergency blow!”
“Surface capture?”
“And now I’m out of ideas, X.”
“Come left, parallel to the seas?”
“Okay, you do it.”
Claggett went into control. “Up ’scope!” He took a quick look and checked the submarine’s course. “Come right to new course zero-five-five!”
USS Maine surfaced for the last time into thirty-five-foot seas and nearly total darkness. Her circular hull wallowed in the rolling waves, and she was slow to turn.
The countermeasures were a mistake. Though the Russian torpedo was pinging, it was mainly a wake-follower. Its seeker head tracked bubbles, and the string of countermeasures made for a perfect trail, which suddenly stopped. When Maine surfaced, the submarine left the bubble stream. Again the factors involved were technical. The surface turbulence confused the wake-following software and the torpedo began its programmed circular search pattern, just under the surface. On its third circuit it found an unusually hard echo amid the confusing shapes over its head. The torpedo turned to close, now activating its magnetic-influence fusing system. The Russian weapon was less sophisticated than the American Mark 50. It could not go higher than twenty meters of depth and so was not drawn up to the surface. The active magnetic field it generated was cast out like an invisible spiderweb, and when that net was disturbed by the presence of a metallic mass—
The thousand-kilo warhead exploded fifty feet from Maine’s already crippled stern. The twenty-thousand-ton warship shook as though rammed.
An alarm sounded instantly: “Flooding flooding flooding in the engine room!”
Ricks lifted the phone. “How bad?”
“Get everybody off, sir!”
“Abandon ship! Break out the survival gear! Send out message: damaged and sinking, give our position!”
“Captain Rosselli! Flash traffic coming in.”
Ryan looked up. He’d had his drink, followed by something colder and carbonated. Whatever the message was, the naval officer could handle it.
“You Mr. Ryan?” a man in a suit asked. Two more were behind him.
“Dr. Ryan, yeah.”
“Secret Service, sir, the President ordered us to come here and arrest you.”
Jack laughed at that. “What for?”
The agent looked instantly uncomfortable. “He didn’t say, sir.”
“I’m not a cop, but my dad was. I don’t think you can arrest me without a charge. The law, you know? The Constitution. ‘Preserve, protect, and defend.’ ”
The agent was in an instant quandary. He had orders from someone he had to obey, but he was too professional to violate the law. “Sir, the President said ...”
“Well, tell you what. I’ll just sit right here, and you can talk to the President on that phone and find out. I’m not going anywhere.” Jack lit another cigarette and lifted another phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey, babe.”
“Jack! What’s going on?”
“It’s okay. It got a little tense, but we have it under control now, Cath, I’m afraid I’m going to be stuck here for a while, but it’s okay, Cathy, honest.”
“Sure?”
“You worry about that new baby, not about anything else. That’s an order.”
“I’m late, Jack. Just a day, but—”
“Good.” Ryan leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and smiled blissfully. “You want it to be a girl, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Then I guess I do, too. Honey, I’m still busy here, but, honest, you can relax. Have to run. ’Bye.” He replaced the phone. “Glad I remembered to do that.”
“Sir, the President wants to talk to you.” The senior agent handed the phone toward Ryan.
What makes you think I want to talk to him? Jack nearly asked. But that would have been unprofessional. He took the phone. “Ryan here, sir.”
“Tell me what you know,” Fowler said curtly.
“Mr. President, if you give me about fifteen minutes, I can do a better job. Dan Murray at FBI knows everything I do, and I have to make contact with two officers. Is that okay, sir?”
“Very well.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.” Ryan handed the phone back and placed a call to the CIA Operations Center. “This is Ryan. Did Clark make the pickup?”
“Sir, this is an unsecure line.”
“I don’t care—answer the question.”
“Yes, sir, they’re flying back now. We don’t have a comm link to the aircraft. It’s Air Force, sir.”
“Who’s the best guy to evaluate the explosion?”
“Wait.” The Senior Duty Officer passed that along to the Science and Technology man. “He says Dr. Lowell at Lawrence-Livermore.”
“Get him moving. The nearest air base is probably Travis. Get him something fast.” Ryan hung that line up and turned to the senior Hot Line officer.
“There’s a VC-20 just took off from Mexico City inbound for Andrews. I have two officers and two—two other people aboard. I need to establish a comm link to the aircraft. Get someone to set that up, please.”
“Can’t do it here, sir, but you can in the conference room on the other side.”
Ryan stood. “Come with me?” he said to the Secret Service agents.
It could hardly have been more bitter, Qati thought, but a moment later he realized that this wasn’t true. He had faced death for a year now, and death by any cause was st
ill death. Had he escaped—but he had not escaped.
“Okay, let’s talk.”
“I do not understand,” Qati said in Arabic.
“I have a little trouble with that accent,” Clark replied, feeling very clever. “I learned the language from a Saudi. Please speak slowly.”
Qati allowed himself to be shaken momentarily by the use of his native tongue. He decided to reply in English to show his own cleverness. “I will never tell you a thing.”
“Sure you will.”
Qati knew that he had to resist as long as he could. It would be worth the price.
43
THE REVENGE OF MOEDRED
Dubinin had little choice in the matter. As soon as he was certain that the American torpedo was dead, he ran up his satellite antenna and broadcast his report. The American Orion dropped active sonobuoys all around him but did not attack, confirming his impression that he had committed a crime little different from murder. As soon as the signal was receipted, he turned about and headed for the direction of the explosion. A seaman could do nothing else.
PRESIDENT FOWLER:
I REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT A SOVIET SUBMARINE, AFTER BEING ATTACKED, COUNTERAT-TACKED AN AMERICAN SUBMARINE, POSSIBLY DAMAGING IT. IT WOULD APPEAR THAT THIS HAPPENED SHORTLY BEFORE I BROADCAST MY DISENGAGEMENT ORDER. I OFFER NO EXCUSE FOR THIS MISTAKE. THE INCIDENT WILL BE INVESTIGATED, AND IF THE FACTS WARRANT, THE CAPTAIN OF OUR SUBMARINE WILL BE PUNISHED SEVERELY.
“Well?”
“Mr. President, I think we acknowledge, thank the man, and let this one slide, sir,” Jack replied.
“I agree. Thank you.” The line went dead again.
“That was my boat!” Rosselli snarled.
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Sorry to hear it. I’ve spent time aboard subs, with Bart Mancuso, as a matter of fact. Know him?”
“He’s the squadron commander out at Bangor.”
Ryan turned. “Oh? I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Captain, but what else can we do?”
“I know,” Rosselli said quietly. “With luck maybe they can get the crew off....”
Jackson was nearly out of fuel and ready to turn back. Theodore Roosevelt had an Alpha Strike spotted and ready to take off when the new orders came in. The battle group immediately increased speed to open the distance between the American and Russian formations. It didn’t seem to Jackson like running away. The Hawkeye called a warning that the Russian ships had turned west—perhaps into the wind to launch aircraft. But though four fighters were aloft, they orbited the battle group, which continued west. Their search radars were up, but their missile radars went down. That, he knew, was a hopeful sign.
And so, Robby told himself, so ends my second war, if that’s what it was.... He brought his Tomcat around, with Sanchez on his wing. Four more F-14s would orbit here, just to keep an eye on things for the next few hours.
Jackson trapped just in time to see a rescue helicopter landing forward. By the time he dismounted the aircraft, three people were in the ship’s hospital. He headed down to see who they were and what had been going on. A few minutes later he knew that he wouldn’t be painting any more victory flags on his aircraft. Not for something like this.
Berlin settled down much more quickly than anyone imagined. The relief column of the 11 th Armored Cavalry Regiment had gone only thirty kilometers when the halt order arrived, and it pulled off the autobahn to wait. Inside Berlin itself, the American brigade got the word first, and pulled back into the western portion of the kazerne. Russians probed forward with dismounted infantry to see what was happening, but without orders to renew the attack, they remained tensely in place. Soon the area was flooded with police cars, much to the bemusement of the soldiers. Twenty minutes after the Americans began moving, communications were reestablished with Moscow, and the Russians pulled farther back into their defensive positions. A number of unexplained bodies were found, including the regimental commander and his executive officer, plus three tank crews, all of whom had been killed with small-arms fire. But the most important discovery was made by a Berlin policeman, who was first to examine the truck and staff car ripped apart by 25mm cannon slugs from a Bradley. The “Russians” were all dead, but none had identity disks. The policeman immediately called for assistance, which was dispatched at once. Two of the faces looked familiar to the cop, though he couldn’t remember why.
“Jack.”
“Hi, Arnie, grab a seat.”
“What happened, Jack?”
Ryan shook his head. His mental state was one of giddiness. His reason told him that sixty thousand people had died, but despite that, the relief at having stopped something a hundred times worse had left him in a slightly drunken condition. “Not really sure yet, Arnie. You know the important part.”
“The President sounds like hell.”
A grunt. “You ought to have heard him a couple hours ago. He lost it, Arnie.”
“That bad?”
Jack nodded. “That bad.” A pause. “Maybe anybody would have, maybe you just can’t expect a guy to deal with this, but—but that’s his job, man.”
“You know, he once told me that he was most grateful for Reagan and the others because of the changes, the fact that something like this wasn’t really possible anymore.”
“Listen, man, as long as those goddamned things exist, it’s possible.”
“You advocating disarmament?” van Damm asked.
Ryan looked up again. The giddiness was gone now. “I got the stars out of my eyes a long time ago. What I’m saying is, if it’s possible, you damned well think about it. He didn’t. He didn’t even look at the war games we ran. He was just so sure it would never happen. Well, it did, didn’t it?”
“How did Liz do?”
“Don’t ask. The Boss needed good advice, and he didn’t get any from her.”
“And you?”
“He didn’t listen to me, and that’s partly my fault, I guess.”
“Hey, it’s over.”
Jack nodded again. “Yeah.”
“Ryan, call for you.”
Jack took the phone. “Ryan here. Yeah, okay. Go slower.” He listened for several minutes, making notes. “Thanks, John.”
“What was that?”
“A confession. Is the helicopter ready?”
“At the pad. On the other side,” one of the Secret Service men said.
The helicopter was a VH-60. Ryan climbed aboard and strapped in, along with van Damm and three agents. The chopper lifted off at once. The sky was clearing. The wind was still lively, but there were stars to be seen in the west.
“Where’s the Vice President?” van Damm asked.
“Kneecap,” an agent replied. “He stays up six more hours till we’re sure this is over.”
Jack didn’t even hear. He had his ear-protectors in, and took the chance to lean back and stare into space. The helicopter even had a bar, he saw. What a nice way to travel.
“They wanted to start a nuclear war?” Chavez asked.
“That’s what they said.” Clark washed his hands. It wasn’t that bad. He’d broken only four of Qati’s fingers. It was the way you worked the broken bones that really mattered. Ghosn—they now knew his name—had taken a little more, but both stories were almost identical.
“I heard it, too, man, but—”
“Yeah. Ambitious fuckers, weren’t they?” Clark put some ice cubes into a bag and walked back to rest it on Qati’s hand. He had his information now, and he was not a sadist. The sensible thing, he thought, was to toss their asses out of the airplane here and now, but that wasn’t his job either. Both terrorists were manacled to their seats. Clark took a chair in the back so that he could keep an eye on both. Their luggage was there also. He decided to rummage through it now that he had the time.
“Hello, Ryan,” the President said from his chair. “Hi, Arnie.”
“Bad day, Bob,” van Damm offered.
“Very.” The man had aged. It seemed a cliché, but it was true. His skin wa
s sallow, the eyes sitting at the bottom of dark-rimmed wells. Though he was normally a carefully groomed man, Fowler’s hair was askew. “Ryan, you have them?”
“Yes, sir, two of our field officers grabbed them in Mexico City. Their names are Ismael Qati and Ibrahim Ghosn. You know who Qati is. We’ve been after that guy for a long time. He had a piece of the Beirut bombing, two aircraft incidents, lots of other things, mainly to do with Israel. Ghosn is one of his people, evidently an engineer by profession. They were somehow able to fabricate the weapon.”
“Whose sponsorship?” the President asked.
“We—our man, that is—had to sweat that out of them. Sir, that’s a technical violation—”
Fowler’s eyes flared into life. “I forgive them! Get on with it.”
“Sir, they say the, uh, operation was bankrolled and supported by the Ayatolla Mahmoud Haji Daryaei.”
“Iran.” Not a question, a statement. Fowler’s eyes became more animated.
“Correct. As you know, Iran isn’t exactly pleased with how our actions in the Gulf worked out, and—sir, according to our people, this is what they said:
“It was a two-part plan. Part one was the bomb in Denver. Part two was an incident in Berlin. They had another guy working with them, Günther Bock, former Red Army Faction guy, his wife was arrested by the Germans last year and she later hanged herself. The objective, Mr. President, was to drive us and the Russians into a nuclear exchange—or at the least to so screw up our relations that the situation in the Gulf would revert to chaos. That would serve Iranian interests—or so Daryaei supposedly thinks.”
“How did they get the weapon?”
“They say it’s Israeli—was Israeli,” Ryan corrected himself. “Evidently it got lost in 1973. We have to check that with the Israelis, but it makes sense. The plutonium came from Savannah River, and it’s probably part of the big MUF they had some years back. We’ve long suspected that the first generation of Israeli nukes was fabricated from material obtained over here.”
