It had taken a call from Admiral Puckett himself to make the CO of Group Three see things in the proper light. That was last night, and still it had taken until now to find the proper boat in Norfolk, get it fueled and prepped, and bring it across the mouth of the bay and up into the York River.
Jackson had telephoned a couple hours ago that they would be under way within minutes; their estimated time of arrival at the Farm’s dock was 1800. It was that time now.
The sharp crack of a small explosion somewhere in the distance behind them was followed by the rattle of small-arms fire. It sounded like M8s to McGarvey’s ear. Liz and Todd had kept the batch of new recruits going through the course super-busy and out of the way, and even Gloria Ibenez, who’d come down for a second debriefing, had left for Langley this morning without knowing that McGarvey was here.
He and Dillon were dressed in SEAL night camos, their faces blackened, their weapons and other equipment in satchels at their feet. Their plan was to stay on the river near the only area deep enough to hide a submarine and wait for the Foxtrot to show up.
The approaches to the Panama Canal were being covered in case he was wrong about Graham. And if a missile launch was made from offshore up here, there was little or nothing that could be done about it, other than mount an all-out search along our entire coast. The risk, of course, was that the first whiff Graham got that they were on to him, he’d launch anyway. He had put them in a catch-22.
Adkins had somehow managed to convince the president and his staff to go up to Camp David for a few days. Rencke had called this morning with the news. Most of the key Cabinet members, along with a good portion of Congress, had quietly filtered out of town, not knowing exactly why, except that Don Hamel had quietly spread the word that now might be a good time to visit their constituencies. The media had started to sit up and take notice, but so far they’d come up with little more than speculation.
“It’s getting like a ghost town around here, and it’s driving them nuts, ya know,” Rencke said. “What about Mrs. M?”
“She’s far enough from downtown that she’ll be able to get out of the way if something happens,” McGarvey said. It was the best-case scenario because she had dug in her heels, and nothing he could say would convince her to go to their house in Florida.
He had considered trying to convince the president to order the evacuation of the city, but that would have done no good either. The panic would kill people, and if the attack did not occur, the government’s already dismal ratings would fall even lower.
“Good luck,” Rencke had said.
“They’re here,” Dillon said at his side.
McGarvey looked up from his thoughts as a low-slung, dark-hulled boat appeared in the dusk around the bend in the river. It was a Mark V Special Operations Craft used to insert and extract SEAL teams from operational areas where stealth was more important than heavy-duty armament. At eighty-two feet on deck, she displaced fifty-seven tons, and could do fifty knots through the water while making very little noise.
She ran without lights and even as she closed on the dock, it was hard to hear her engines, or make out many details. The delay, Jackson had explained to them, had been needed to fit the boat out with the passive side scan sonar McGarvey had requested, along with a lot of ammunition for the two deck-mounted 7.62mm machine guns, six Dräger closed-circuit rebreathers, enough underwater demolitions material to crack the submarine’s hull like an eggshell, and some basic salvage gear.
Terri Jackson was at the helm as the sleek boat eased alongside the dock, the softly grumbling engines at idle. Bill Jackson was on the bridge with her, while MacKeever and Ercoli were on the open stern deck. They did not bother with dock lines.
McGarvey and Dillon tossed their equipment bags across and then scrambled aboard.
The instant they were on deck, Terri gunned the engines and they headed away, making a long looping turn to take them back downriver toward the bay.
“Welcome aboard, gentlemen,” Ercoli said. “Soon as you stow your gear below, FX wants to have a word.” FX was Jackson’s handle, which he’d earned early on in his SEAL career because of the special effects he was fond of using in the field.
“What’s up?” Dillon asked.
“We might have pulled some luck,” Ercoli said. “An Orion patrol about a hundred klicks off the mouth of the bay thought they picked up a MAD target, but when they went back it was gone.” MAD was a Magnetic Anomaly Detector, a device that was able to detect masses of ferrous metal submerged as deep as one thousand feet. “Lots of traffic in the area, so your boy might have detected the overflight, and ducked under one of the surface ships that was in the vicinity.”
“When was this?” Dillon asked.
“Two hours ago,” Ercoli said. “A friend of FX’s gave us a call from Second’s ops center just before we shoved off. They’re classifying it as a stray hit, but the word was out that we wanted anything that came up no matter how thin it was.”
“That’s him,” McGarvey said.
“That’s what we figured,” MacKeever said. He was grinning ear to ear. “Tonight’s the night, and it’s going to be a good one.”
SS SHEHAB
The Foxtrot eased her way to the west toward the center channel into Chesapeake Bay, her keel occasionally scraping the bottom. It was after ten in the evening and there was no shipping traffic for the moment.
The water was very shallow here, even in the middle of the inbound fairway, so that the submarine was only partially submerged. It would be somewhat deeper once they passed the Bay Bridge-Tunnel, but there would not be enough water to completely submerge until they reached the York River.
Graham and Ziyax stood topside on the bridge, the lapping water less than two meters below them, the boat’s hull invisible underwater.
Both missiles were ready to fire now that the gasket on tube two had been replaced. Al-Hari was already beginning to feel the effects of the heavy dose of radiation he’d taken, but he’d been fatalistic about it this morning after he’d vomited for the first time.
“Your story about the shrimper coming to pick us up is a lie,” he’d told Graham in the companionway outside the officer’s head. No one else had been within earshot at the moment.
“The others don’t suspect?”
“No one else cares,” al-Hari said. “Like me they’re willing to die for the jihad.” He coughed up some blood into a rag. “Except for you and Captain Ziyax. You’re the only two aboard who think they have anything to live for other than Paradise.”
“You’ll get your wish,” Graham had replied indifferently.
Al-Hari had nodded. “Once the missiles are away, I will set the explosives on the anthrax canisters, so you had best be gone by then.” Al-Hari grabbed Graham by the arm. “I ask only two favors. Take Ziyax with you, he’s a good man. And leave me a pistol, I’ll need time to disable the escape trunk, and then sabotage the engines in case anyone has a change of heart.”
Religious mumbo jumbo had always been a puzzlement to Graham. And working closely with the al-Quaida, many of their mujahideen willing to martyr themselves for the cause, had brought him no closer to an understanding. “Why are you so willing to die?” he asked.
Al-Hari had smiled. “You wouldn’t understand, English.”
“Try me.”
“It’s simple, my friend. You only have to know God and love Him. The rest is easy.”
Graham raised his binoculars and studied the bridge two miles ahead. There didn’t seem to be any traffic up there either, though it was difficult to tell with much certainty because of the jumble of multicolored lights ashore and on the channel markers in the water.
One of the Libyan technicians had managed to rig red, green, and white lights on the exposed sail and one of the masts so that from a distance the submarine would appear to be a small fishing boat returning from sea. The fiction would hold for anything but a close inspection, and so far in that regard their luck was holding.
&nb
sp; “Al-Hari is sick with radiation poisoning now,” Ziyax said. “When it is time to leave what are we going to do with him and my two crewmen who handled the missiles? We cannot take them with us.”
“No, we can’t,” Graham said, continuing to study the bridge. It had been conceived in the brain of a man, not a god. And it had been built by the hand of man, not god. There was proof of man’s design everywhere, but so far as Graham had ever been able to detect, there’d never been any concrete sign of the existence of any god, neither the god of the Muslims, nor the gods of the Jews or Christians.
Yet they were willing to die for something they could not see, feel, hear, touch, or smell. All on faith. It was utterly amazing to him.
“What do you suggest?” Ziyax asked.
Graham lowered his binoculars. “Nothing, actually. They’ll get their wishes before the others.”
“What’s that?”
“To die martyrs for the glorious cause, of course,” Graham said. He picked up the phone. “Come right five degrees.”
“Aye, turning right five degrees to new course three-three-zero,” the new COB replied in a subdued voice.
SIXTY-SIX
SOC-4
The SEAL Special Operations Craft was drifting well out of the channel outside the mouth of the York River, about five miles east of Yorktown and the Highway 17 Bridge.
McGarvey was on the afterdeck with Ercoli and MacKeever, while Dillon had joined Jackson and Terri on the bridge to operate the side-scan sonar.
The water here was still too shallow for a submarine to completely submerge, but they’d hoped that the passive sonar set would pick up the signature sounds of the Foxtrot’s diesel engines.
It was three in the morning. The rain that had threatened had never materialized, but a damp fog had settled in on top of them, making everything wet and reducing visibility to less than fifty yards. Lights ashore were nothing more than very dim halos in the distance, and even the channel markers off the SOC’s starboard side were only vague green and red pastels, some of them blinking.
The door to the bridge was open. Dillon was hunched over the sonar display. “I have engine noises,” he called softly.
Since they’d arrived on station southeast of Gloucester Point just after dark, they’d tracked nine targets coming upriver, all but one of them noncommercial pleasure boats.
“Where?” McGarvey asked, keeping his voice low.
“Bearing zero-eight-zero about nine miles out,” Dillon replied. “Heading upbound, making maybe ten knots.” He looked up from the screen and in the dim red light illuminating his face it was obvious he was impressed. “It’s our boy.”
“You sure?” McGarvey asked.
“Three screws, big diesels. Not one of ours.”
MacKeever and Ercoli were looking toward the east through light-intensifying binoculars.
“Anything?” McGarvey asked.
“Still too far,” Ercoli said. “But maybe they sent a chase boat ahead to make sure the channel is clear.”
“Is there any deep water farther up into the bay?” McGarvey asked.
“Nothing,” Dillon called back. “This is the only place.” He turned back to the sonar.
“Do you want us to light up the radar?” Jackson asked.
“Negative,” Dillon said. “His ESM’s gear would recognize it as military.” He made an adjustment to the controls. “Hang on.”
The night was utterly still for several long moments.
“His aspect ratio is changing,” Dillon said. “Stand by.”
It seemed for the moment as if the entire world were asleep, yet McGarvey could almost feel an evil presence somewhere in the darkness to the east. Bad people were coming with a dark intent, like monsters stalking in the night, getting set to pounce.
Dillon looked up. “It’s turned directly toward us,” he said. “It’s the Foxtrot heading to where it can submerge.”
Jackson came to the open door. “Okay, McGarvey, we’ve bagged him. Now what? Do you want to call for backup?”
“Will his radar be on?” McGarvey asked.
“I don’t think he’ll risk it,” Dillon answered.
“We’ll let him pass and then come in behind him out of visual range,” McGarvey said. “As soon as he submerges we’ll dive down and knock on the escape trunk hatch.”
Jackson’s wife laughed. “That’ll get their attention,” she said. “Won’t they fire whatever weapons they have?”
“I’m hoping they’ll try,” McGarvey said. “If they have missiles what tubes would they load them in?” he asked Dillon.
“They’d probably start with tube one, and go from there depending on how many weapons they have. Wouldn’t make any sense to fire them from the stern tubes.”
McGarvey’s plan suddenly dawned on Ercoli. “Holy shit, the salvage equipment you wanted,” he said. “I thought you were going to use it to cut through the hull into the escape trunk. But that’s not it.” He turned to look up at Jackson on the bridge. “FX, this crazy bastard wants us to weld the torpedo tube outer doors shut.”
“Can it be done?” Jackson asked Dillon.
“I don’t see why not.”
Terri raised an eyebrow. “I thought you and your English captain were either very brave or very crazy,” she said. “But I was wrong.”
“Which is it?” McGarvey asked.
She laughed. “Both,” she said, and she immediately raised a hand. “But I love it. One guy is bringing a Russian submarine up a shallow bay past a major enemy navy base, and the other guy wants to do hand-to-hand combat with the boat.” She turned to her husband. “Honey, this sounds like fun. Why didn’t we think of it first?”
SS SHEHAB
The bottom dropped away once they passed under the Highway 17 Bridge into the York River.
Graham keyed the bridge telephone. “Con, bridge. What’s our depth?” “Bridge, we have fifteen meters under our keel, but it doesn’t look like it’ll get much deeper,” al-Hari responded. He was obviously very sick.
The boat was already partially submerged. Only the top couple of meters plus the masts were above water. Another fifteen meters would do nicely. “Very well, prepare to dive the boat.”
“Aye, Cap’n, prepare to dive the boat.”
Graham replaced the phone in its bracket under the coaming, and looked at Ziyax, who was studying something to the stern through light-intensifying binoculars. “What do you see?”
“I thought I heard something,” Ziyax replied softly. “Engines, but very quiet.”
Ziyax might be a Libyan, but he’d been trained by Russians. Graham had developed a grudging respect for the man’s abilities, if not his judgment, on the long trip across the Atlantic. He called the control room again.
“Secure the diesel engines and switch to electric power, All Ahead Slow.”
Al-Hari hesitated for a second. “Aye, sir. Switching to electric motors.”
Within a few seconds the soft rumbling of the three diesels died away, and the night became totally silent except for the delicate sounds of the leading edge of the sail cutting slowly through the water.
Ziyax continued to study the thickening fog behind them.
Graham cocked an ear and held his breath. Their sonar was blind aft, but if a U.S. Navy vessel had spotted them coming into the bay, or turning up into the York River, they would have charged in, radar sets hot, searchlights blazing, the guard frequencies alive with demands to stop and identify, and warning shots fired across their bows. They wouldn’t be sneaking around without lights. It made no sense to him.
There was the man on the bridge of the Apurto Devlán with the gray-green eyes. Bin Laden was certain it had been Kirk McGarvey. He is the one man above all others who you must respect and fear.
But there was absolutely no reason to expect that McGarvey were here in this time and place. No reason whatsoever.
Graham held his breath and strained to pick up a sound, any sound, no matter how faint or unlikely, that
might indicate someone was behind them.
But he heard nothing.
Ziyax lowered his binoculars. “I must have been mistaken,” he said. He shrugged. “Nerves.”
They were about four miles upriver from Yorktown here, and there was a certain delicious irony to their position in Graham’s mind, because they were only five miles downriver from the CIA’s training base.
For a moment he thought about the man on the bridge of the Apurto Devlán, but then he called the control room. “Put the boat on the bottom,” he ordered.
“Aye, Cap’n,” al-Hari responded.
Ziyax was first down the ladder.
Graham cocked an ear to listen one last time, then dropped down into the sail, secured the hatch, and descended the rest of the way into the control room. He took the 1MC mike down from its bracket near the periscope pedestal. “Battle stations, missile,” he ordered calmly, his voice transmitted to every compartment aboard the submarine.
Al-Hari was at the ballast control panel, releasing air from the tanks in a carefully controlled sequence, and they started down, cautiously because they had no real idea what was on the bottom.
Ziyax went to the weapons control station and began the process of spinning up the cruise missile guidance systems, making the engines ready to fire once the missiles were ejected from the torpedo tubes and rose to the surface, and arming the nuclear weapons, which would fire at five thousand feet over the capital city.
“All Ahead Stop,” al-Hari ordered, as the boat settled.
The angle on the bow was very shallow, and they drifted another two hundred meters, their speed slowly bleeding off until their keel scraped the bottom. The boat lurched forward then came to a complete stop, easing a few degrees over on her port side.
“Secure the motors,” Graham said softly. Shehab had reached her final resting place. He casually glanced at the men gathered at their stations around him in the control room. This was to be their mausoleum, he thought indifferently. They wanted martyrdom, they would have it.
Allah's Scorpion Page 42
