Admiral Rankov, a seasoned and wily operator, found himself in a tight spot. He had already guessed the Barracuda had done its job on the far side of the Pacific, but he had much to protect. The culprit for these unprovoked atrocities on the American economy was a Russian-built, Russian-owned submarine, now based in the Pacific Fleet at Petropavlovsk.
But Vitaly had his story in disciplined order. He would reveal the submarine had been sold to the Chinese, and was believed to be making its way down to their Southern Fleet Headquarters in Zhenjiang, on the northeast corner of the great tropical island of Hainan. So far as he knew, there were no Russian personnel on board.
His policy was to duck and dive, avoiding a salvo of phone calls from the redoubtable Arnold Morgan, though he realized this would not work for long.
He actually kept it up for thirty-six hours, until noon on Thursday, March 6, by which time Vice Admiral Morgan had yelled down the phone to Moscow at six different aides. Finally, he had the President of the United States call the President of Russia and demand that Rankov speak to the White House immediately.
The instruction from the Great White Chief of all the Russians to his Naval Supreme Commander was succinct: Admiral Rankov: I have been asked by the U.S. President to ensure you speak to his National Security Adviser on an important matter this day. Please do so.
It was thus with a heavy heart that the Admiral of the Russian Fleet, at three o'clock that afternoon, had his assistant call the White House and connect him to his oldest and most dangerous nemesis, the most persistent, ill tempered, gratingly powerful opponent in the world.
"Arnold! What a nice surprise to hear you again. It's been too long."
"Thirty-six hours too long, insincere Soviet sailor." Arnold was always delighted with alliteration of that music-hall quality. "You are a devious son of a bitch. And you have deliberately not answered my calls, or my messages. I was just beginning to think you might be avoiding me."
Admiral Rankov was unable to supress a deep chuckle. Despite his uneasiness with Admiral Morgan, he was always amused by him, and actually liked him very much. They had met on several occasions over the years, even dined together in Washington, London, and once in Moscow. "I know, I know," he said. "I was avoiding you. Mainly because I sensed you were going to give me a very hard time, about matters over which I have no control."
"I presume you are still head of that junkyard Navy of yours?"
At which point the two old Intelligence sparring partners both laughed at the American's incorrigible rudeness and the fact that the conversation had returned to its usual standard of wit.
"Arnold, look, seriously. I know what you are going to say. You know we made a Fleet Exchange, sending that old Barracuda to Petropavlovsk. You also know it left, and headed south. You also know, like we do, there is a large financial claim from a Japanese fishing boat that was snagged by a submarine just a few miles to the north. Same time. Same day. Am I correct?"
"You are."
"And now you are going to ask me why our submarine dived after making course south, and then did an about-face underwater and went north? Right?"
"Right. There was no other submarine operational within a thousand miles. The goddamned sushi ship was hooked by the Barracuda."
"Arnold, what you do not know — and why should you? — is that we sold the Barracuda to the Chinese. It was just too damned expensive for us to run."
"Well, that's very interesting, Vitaly. Are there any Russians aboard?"
"None."
"Well, where the hell's it going?"
"I was told Zhenjiang. But we have no way of knowing. The ship is no longer our property."
"Vitaly, my main question is even more serious. And I am asking you to give me a straight answer."
"If I can."
"Did you guys ever complete the building of the second Barracuda, Hull K-240?"
"Arnold, I was up in the northern yard at Araguba just six months ago, and I saw that ship in its covered dock, with a number of plates missing from the casing. I believe we used it for spare parts for the Tula, the one we just sold. So far as I know, Hull K-240 never went to sea. Why?"
"Is it still there… in Araguba?"
"I can't swear to it. But no one has told me it has been scrapped, or sold. If I can find out anything, do you want me to get back to you?"
"That would be good of you. And remember, I just want to know if you sold one Barracuda, or two, to the even more devious Chinese."
"I understand, Arnold. Leave it with me."
Arnold Morgan quietly said good-bye, and put down the phone. But he sensed a kind of edgy formality in the voice of the Russian Navy boss. Arnold had an actor's gift for recalling the rhythms and reactions of people and their speech. In his mind, he believed he should have heard something quite different from Admiral Rankov.
Something much more like, Okay, Arnie. I'll check it right now. Hull K-240… where is it? That's what you want to know. No problem. I'll be back to you in ten minutes.
Instead, it was, IF I can find out anything… do you want me to get back to you?
"The actual HEAD of the entire Russian Navy," growled Arnold. " 'IF I can find out whether we still own a $500 million nuclear submarine!' Vitaly, you bastard, I think you are lying. I think you know full well whether your fucking rattletrap Navy still owns the second Barracuda. But, for whatever reason, you are not telling me."
The Admiral was, however, still very nearly handcuffed by the situation. He could think of no other method by which any enemy could have done this much damage to the United States, except by using a nuclear submarine. A diesel electric must have been detected already because of its need to snorkel and recharge batteries and, ultimately, to refuel. In the electronic minefield of the North Pacific, and the Gulf of Alaska, they could not have avoided being discovered.
But a nuclear boat — this was different. It did not need to surface or refuel. It could stay deep, unseen and unheard. If it was out there now, as Arnold was quite certain it was, that ship could be anywhere, lost in thousands of square miles of ocean. It could be on its way to China, or Russia. It could have turned back west, or south. Or it could have just meandered down the West Coast of the United States looking for new targets.
Worse yet, it could hear any searching U.S. surface ship, and then just slow right down, maybe one thousand feet under the surface, and NEVER be detected.
In his worst nightmares, Arnold Morgan had imagined the hopelessness of looking for a nuclear marauder off the U.S. coast, and he had always felt the same terror and frustration everyone feels in dreams of running hard without moving. Those nightmares had always given him the creeps. And right now he was in one.
To activate the Navy on a massive search-and-destroy mission would have been useless and likely to alert and terrify the populace. But in his heart, Arnold Morgan believed the United States was under similar threat as 9/11—though he did not know how, or why, or what to do. And he paced his office, fists clenched, head down, not for the first time, alone, at the front line of American defense.
He was afraid of what the marauder might do next. But he was powerless to stop him. He knew his best chance was to let his opponent move first, betray his position, or at least betray something, like he was on this side of the Pacific rather than the other. But he knew he must wait, and for a man of Admiral Morgan's temperament, this was very close to torture.
Meanwhile, in Valdez, the flames were dying. Firefighters had contained the blaze to the operational storage areas only. The terminus was a write-off, as was the giant tanker that had blown up at the bow on the night the missiles came in.
The fires in the storage area above the town had died a day earlier because the destruction of the main control center had cut off any incoming crude to the fuel farm. What was already there burned, in an incinerating heat, but when it was spent, the fires died.
Nonetheless, the area around the town looked like Berlin in the aftermath of the Allied bombing in 1945.
A pall of black smoke hung low over the landscape, helicopters clattered through the skies, searching for clues, searching for an enemy redoubt, searching for anything. FBI Agents swarmed all over town, assisting the police, talking to anyone who might have seen anything. Under strict instructions from the National Security Agency in distant Maryland, not one word was released to the public about the observations of the late-night stargazers Harry Roberts and Cal Foster.
Although the snow made everything in a sense more difficult, it also provided incontrovertible evidence that no enemy or terrorist force could possibly have gathered to the north of the town. The helicopters searched miles of perfect, unmolested snow, across hills and mountains, valleys and fields. They saw the tracks of bears and moose, but not the tracks of any vehicle, way off the beaten track, which could have launched a missile sufficiently powerful to wreak the damage that had been inflicted last Friday night.
Neither did they find any signs of a troop of at least eight people, who must have been scuffing the virgin snow, in an extremely remote area, in order to launch such an attack. And by Thursday night, March 6, there was no doubt in the minds of any of the investigators: Whatever had slammed into the Valdez terminus had come in from the sea. Except that no surveillance system in either the U.S. Coast Guard or Navy heard one single squeak on that darkest of nights. The official record of shipping activity in the significant area read a great fat zilch.
1:00 a.m., Friday, March 7, 2008
42.26' N, 128.12' W,
The Pacific Ocean
The Barracuda cruised slowly, 1,000 feet below the surface, a little less than twenty miles southwest of the Jackson Seamount, a boomerang-shaped shoal that rises up from the two-miles-deep ocean floor. Since its highest point is still more than 5,000 feet below the surface, the Jackson is of little significance save as a landmark and a point of navigation.
Ben Badr had placed his ship in firing position, 175 miles off the coast of Oregon, twenty miles north of the California border. Directly east of them was the estuary of the Rogue River, a wide, often frenzied torrent that comes tumbling out of the Coastal Range, into the Pacific at Gold Beach.
General Rashood had specified no firm time for his next attack, except that he intended to carry it out in the dead of night. And the night could not get much more dead than it was right now, out here in the pitch-black, lonely waters of the world's largest ocean, miles from anywhere, hidden beneath the surface.
"Well, Ravi, do we fire or wait?" Captain Badr was calm but concerned. His crew was tired. The tension of the long journey and the two attacks had placed a strain upon them all. And, given his way, Ben Badr would have recommended a twenty-four-hour rest for everyone. But he guessed, correctly, that Ravi would opt for instant action rather than any waiting around.
And he understood the urgency, because he knew the fourth and final attack depended on split-second timing, and that the General would prefer to burn off time in the hours immediately before that last missile launch, than waste a day here in deep, safe water.
"I intend to attack immediately," said the General. "Please order the crew to prayer, and then alert the Missile Launchers. Shakira reports preprogrammed navigation systems complete. Nothing has changed. Two salvos, three missiles each, initial course fifty-five degrees."
"Aye, sir. Missile Director to the Control Room."
"STAND BY TUBES ONE TO SIX… "
Captain Badr offered a prayer on behalf of the crew, who, he was convinced, were attacking on behalf of Allah. He mentioned the oppressors who had caused so much hardship to his people, and who were especially cruel and brutal to the Palestinians, who had been unjustly robbed of everything. Except for their beliefs, their courage, and their dignity.
He prayed that Allah might speed on his missiles, and guide mem toward the most heartless of enemies, whose arrogance had given strength to the evil hand of Israel. And who, even now, was supplying the Semites with weapons once more to murder the devout Muslims, who now cowered in their country.
Allah be praised, for you are great… and please grant us the power to wound the Great Satan.
"TUBE ONE LAUNCH!" snapped General Rashood.
And the first of the mighty RADUGAs lifted off, out of the launcher, arrowing up through the black waters, and then howling vertically to around 200 feet and leveling off, its guidance systems swinging it around northeast to 55 degrees.
The gas turbines cut in, and the deadly missile accelerated to its cruise speed of 600 knots, racing above the water, neither losing nor gaining height, cleaving through the cold night air, on its twenty-minute journey to the coast of Oregon. Directly astern, the second missile was under way, and the third was already under the control of the launch sequencer.
The RADUGAs would not cover identical courses, but they would be similar, and they would cross the U.S. coastline approximately one mile apart, close to Yacquina Head, a great Pacific promontory that lies 120 miles due south of Grays Harbor.
At this stage, the missiles were headed deep inland, on a 220-mile journey up toward the city of Yakima, still on a fifty-five-degree heading. By the time the opening three-weapon salvo reached the Oregon coast, they were undetected by any ship's radar and now they streaked in over near-deserted land, still maintaining their height of 200 meters.
They were propelled through the dark skies, west of the city of Salem, and came rocketing over the border into Washington State, high above the mighty Columbia River, crossing it just west of the massive John Day Dam.
Straight above the vast Indian Reservation they flew, across some of the most beautiful, desolate land in the United States. The missiles awakened no one in the sleeping river town of Wapato as they screamed into their long left-hand turn out by the Rattlesnake Hills, swerving around the City of Yakima, over the long timber-rich valleys.
At that point, the missiles had been running for a little more than forty minutes, and Shakira had selected a wild and lonely landscape for the turn, out west of the city. On every map she had studied, this looked about as likely to contain an alert and watchful surveillance system as inland Siberia.
On a new bearing now, 260 degrees, the missiles headed into the high peaks of the Cascade Mountains, well south of the scarred and sculpted face of the 14,500-foot-high Mount Rainier, but north of the half-as-high Mount St. Helens, and still firmly in the heart of the Evergreen State.
The missiles had no difficulty with the terrain, despite the steep escarpments. They just kept racing forward, automatically climbing higher with each giant rock face, following Shakira's preset course. As the land began to fall away, when the Cascades began their sweep down to the coastal plain, those RADUGAs made the descent again on automatic, locked onto the primitive but serviceable brain in the nose cone.
Their flying height remained constant at 200 meters, then-course just south of due west, again coming in the wrong way, from out of American land territory, rather than the ocean — from somewhere out in Idaho, rather than the Pacific.
Shakira had charted the mission brilliantly. Ravi's space-age broadside swept smoothly through the skies, above the forests, in the name of Allah, on behalf of the Islamic Fundamentalists, down toward the huge oil conversion station at the sheltered end of Grays Harbor, south shore, seventeen minutes and 170 miles from Yakima.
Fifty-seven minutes after launch time, Ravi Rashood's first cruise missile was over the little town of Alder Grove, on its way into one of the refinery's three massive steel fractional distillation towers. Each of these is capable of colossal combustion, receiving a flow of blisteringly hot crude oil, which has traveled through a "furnace" at around 725°F. The tower's steel walls contain a combination of gasses and liquids, heavy fuels condensing, lighter fuels like gasoline and kerosene rising into the middle and upper sections, with liquified gas flashing off into the high vapor unit. All millisecond inflammable.
In the entire world of high-tech incendiary, these towers represent the nearest thing to a leashed tiger. And when Ravi's
first cruise slammed into the first tower, at precisely 2:19 on that Friday morning, March 7, the blast was not only seen and heard six miles along the shore in the slumbering boom city of Aberdeen. It woke up the entire town of Hoquiam, one mile directly opposite on the far side of the harbor.
The thunderous KER — BAAAAM! was much more an explosion than the pure fire of the Valdez destruction. And for the sleeping residents of Hoquiam, the searing white flash, which reached them before the sound, illuminated bedrooms, lit up the streets, and floodlit the entire town. Indeed, that particular flash was seen by the bosun of a supertanker off Point Chehalis, thirteen miles away near the gateway to the long harbor.
The security staff at the quiet refinery, all of whom had been on a coffee break for the past couple of hours, came rushing out of the long, low building in which they made their headquarters, to investigate. They were just in time to see a second tower erupt like a volcano, not 600 yards away, as Ravi's second cruise blitzed its way into the most volatile section of the entire refinery.
They stood in awe of the monstrous explosion, gazing in horror at the wreckage, the flames, the black smoke, and gushing spirals of sparks crackling up into the sky. There was no human death toll, but the scene was nevertheless oddly reminiscent of those pockets of early witnesses, shown on television, staring at the World Trade Center Towers on that shattering September morning six years previously.
But before anyone could mutter an expletive, much less issue a comment, Ravi's missile number three was in, narrowly missing the third fractioning tower, but roaring on into first one, then a second storage tank, both of which were filled to the brim with thousands of gallons of refined power-station oil.
Worse yet, they headed up the pipeline that joins the storage system to the nearby railhead station, where lines of freight tanker cars wait to be loaded. When the third missile blew the two storage tanks, it also blew the other twenty. And the gigantic explosion blasted into the short pipeline, incinerated an entire forty-car train, and knocked down the station.
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