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The Line bo-2

Page 25

by Bob Mayer


  She looked around, then settled into the colonel’s chair.

  “What do you have?” Skibicki said without preamble, ignoring her breach of etiquette.

  “This one is gonna cost you big time, sergeant major,” Vasquez said.

  “I want off the duty roster for the next two months.”

  Skibicki waved that aside.

  “What have you got?”

  Vasquez looked at Boomer. “First off, sir, you was right.

  That Ethan Alien Class sub — the Sam Houston. It isn’t a current missile carrier. It works for Navy Special Ops.”

  “The question is,” Boomer said, “is what is it doing now?”

  “It’s heading for the unidentified sub and the Glomar Explorer” Vasquez said, laying out her Xeroxed maps.

  “The other sub moved in and has been lying still for the past twelve hours, here, about 150 miles southwest of Oahu. The Glomar is steaming toward it and should rendezvous in about six hours. The Sam Houston is closing in on both of them very slowly and at its current rate of speed” should be in the immediate vicinity the afternoon of December sixth.”

  “What about the other sub?” Skibicki asked.

  “Anything on what it is?”

  Vasquez took a deep breath.

  “Sergeant major, what I’m about to tell you is classified Top Secret, Q Clearance.

  Don’t ask me how I got the information. Just trust me that I got it and it’s true. If anyone finds out that I know, never mind that I told you, we’re both going away for a long time.”

  Skibicki nodded and looked at Boomer who also nodded.

  “The bogey sub is called the SHARCC. That’s SH-AR-CC,” she added, spelling out the acronym.

  “It stand for Submerged Headquarters and Reserve Command and Control.

  It’s the Navy’s version of Looking Glass, the post attack airborne command and control system for use in case all our fixed facilities get nuked.”

  Boomer looked at Skibicki who returned the eye contact.

  “We got Looking Glass coming in also for a command and control exercise.” Boomer said.

  “Why both?”

  Skibicki rubbed his chin.

  “I never heard that we had an underwater system like that, but if you think about it, it makes sense. The airborne platforms were designed in case of nuclear war. That way the national command could take to the air and become less of a target. The only problem is that Looking Glass can only stay airborne for so long. Even with inflight refueling, they eventually have to land somewhere.

  But this sub could probably stay out at sea for six months or more.”

  Vasquez nodded.

  “It’s a nuclear-powered boat, using the same keel as the Ohio Class missile subs, but set up totally different on the inside for command and control. My source tells me there are two of them, one in the Atlantic and this one in the Pacific. My source also tells me that since they were launched two years ago, they have never gone back into port.”

  “What?” Skibicki said.

  “How can they do that?”

  Vasquez tapped the imagery she’d brought the previous day.

  “The Glomar. It shuttles between the Pacific and the Atlantic. The SHARCC can dock with the underwater barge, then be brought up into the hold of the Glomar for repairs and maintenance. The crews are rotated then too.

  Since the SHARCC never surfaces, it can never get spotted.”

  “So maybe this C&C exercise on the sixth will be on board the SHARCC involving both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President,” Boomer said.

  There was a long pause before Skibicki spoke.

  “Now it all makes sense,” he said.

  “It’s not going to be Pearl on the morning of the seventh. They’re going to take down the SHARCC from the Sam Houston on the sixth while our friends from Okinawa take out the Vice President up at Turtle Bay.

  “If that SHARCC is set up just like Looking Glass then once they have it, they can cut in and take over all command and control for the military and even use the emergency overrides to cut into all civilian satellite traffic. Since practically all television feeds through satellites nowadays, they can effectively control the media.”

  “It’s perfect,” Boomer said.

  “No one will even know.”

  “We need to report this,” Vasquez said.

  “To who?” Skibicki asked.

  “Someone,” Vasquez said.

  “We can’t just let this happen.”

  “We don’t know for sure that it is going to happen,” Skibicki said.

  “But we know something is going to happen,” Vasquez exclaimed.

  “The problem is that we have no proof,” Boomer said.

  “What about the men who attacked you at Kaena Point?” Vasquez asked.

  “It was in the paper. The police have the bodies.”

  “If we brought that up to anyone,” Boomer said, “it would only cause Skibicki and me to be thrown in jail.”

  He looked at the phone on the colonel’s desk.

  “No, what we need is solid proof that The Line exists, and Major Trace should be calling anytime.”

  “How about if I go to the police?” Vasquez offered.

  “I wasn’t involved in the shooting the other night and I can tell them all that has happened and what you all are afraid is going to happen.”

  “We still have no proof,” Boomer replied.

  “But at least the President could be warned,” she argued.

  “He doesn’t have to go out to the SHARCC for the exercise and maybe the Vice President could leave Turtle Bay early or something. We wait for proof, we might be waiting a long time,” she added.

  “Trace will come up with something,” Boomer said.

  “We still have two days,” Skibicki reminded them.

  Boomer thought about it. “Even if the information about the Sam Houston and the SHARCC is correct, and there is a plan to take down the SHARCC if these guys have planned this correctly, and there’s no reason to believe they haven’t, then I’m sure they have one, if not several, backup plans.”

  Skibicki agreed.

  “If the night of the sixth doesn’t work, they still can come into Pearl Harbor on the morning of the seventh off the Sam Houston using the SDVS. Those guys are trained on that kind of infiltration and they’ll be infiltrating their own back yard.” He made a decision.

  “We don’t hear anything from Major Trace by tomorrow morning we’re going to have to take action regardless.”

  “So what do we do in the meantime?” Boomer wondered aloud.

  “We’re—” He paused as the air pressure changed again.

  They all turned and looked. As the first person turned the corner.

  Boomer drew his gun again. It was Decker and he wasn’t alone.

  “Take them!” Decker yelled as he dove behind a desk.

  Boomer fired once then hit the deck as the pair of men who had followed Decker opened fire with submachine guns. The glass that had separated Colonel Coulder’s office from the rest of the tunnel exploded inward.

  Boomer stuck his hand up over the three-feet-high wall and fired blindly. He heard the roar of Skibicki’s gun a few feet to the other side and glanced over. The sergeant major was hunched behind the wall also, firing blindly to keep them from getting closer.

  “You OK, Vasquez?” Skibicki yelled out.

  “Yeah, but I wish I was smaller,” her voice came from under the colonel’s desk.

  Chips splattered off the wall as the intruders fired again.

  “They aren’t asking us to surrender,” Boomer hissed to Skibicki.

  “I noticed,” Skibicki replied.

  “What now?” Boomer asked as he fired another couple of rounds.

  “We know the tunnels. They don’t,” Skibicki said.

  “So?”

  “Remember the locker where I was inventorying the scuba gear?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We go there
.” Skibicki raised his voice.

  “Vasquez, on three we head for the scuba locker.”

  “Roger that, sergeant major.”

  “Uh,” Boomer said, “what about the bad guys?”

  “One,” Skibicki yelled.

  “Two.” He rolled over, put his back to the low wall and fired at the antiquated fuse box in the corner of Coulder’s office. With an explosion of sparks the tunnel went dark.

  “Three.”

  Boomer stood and vaulted the wall, keeping low. He didn’t fire, nor did Skibicki.

  The men with Decker fired blindly, bullets scattering all over the room. Their muzzles made bright flashes and Boomer took the opportunity to fire right at one of the stuttering lights. A startled yell of pain rewarded his effort and the firing stopped on both sides.

  To the best of Boomer’s recollection the side tunnel was only about ten feet to his right. He duck-walked, bumping into a desk, recoiling, pushing right, breathing hard. He hit the wall, then felt it give way to open space. Someone brushed by him, moving quicker. He was in the side tunnel.

  He stood up and moved quicker. He could hear light footsteps in front of him and followed.

  “Damn!” Boomer hissed as he ran into a wall with his forehead leading.

  “This way,” he heard Vasquez whisper. Boomer headed in the direction of the voice and a pair of hands grabbed him and pulled him into the scuba locker. They could hear Decker’s voice echoing through the tunnel they had left.

  “You won’t get out! We have the front door covered.”

  Boomer heard a screech of metal, then Skibicki’s voice explaining what was going on.

  “There’s an air duct back here. It’ll be a tight fit. I know it comes out on the back side of the lava flow. I went up there one day and checked.”

  “You ever been in the duct?” Boomer asked, tucking his High Power back in the holster, then feeling his forehead.

  His hand came away wet with blood.

  “No,” Skibicki grunted and there was the sound of something metal hitting the floor.

  “So how do you know it’s a tight fit?”

  “I’m hoping it’s a tight fit rather than no fit,” Skibicki said.

  “I’m going in. Follow me.”

  Boomer helped Vasquez up after the sergeant major.

  Then he climbed up himself. He was in a four-foot-diameter ridged steel tube that angled up at almost sixty degrees.

  Boomer began climbing, bracing his boots against the ridges. After what he estimated to be about twenty feet he bumped into Vasquez’s sneakers., “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “It’s getting tighter,” Vasquez’s voice was strained.

  Boomer soon found out what she meant. The tube halved in size and jigged to the left before resuming its climb.

  Boomer got stuck halfway into the jig-His hips were stuck.

  He felt cloth and skin tear as he popped free.

  Boomer blinked. Although Vasquez filled almost the entire width of the pipe, he could see a faint light seeping through around her. The light suddenly grew much brighter as Skibicki punched off the cap on the. air duct.

  Boomer made the last few feet. Vasquez’s hands came down, grabbed his collar and pulled him out faster than he could move his feet. Boomer looked around. They were on the far side of the lava ridge from the tunnel just as Skibicki had promised.

  “Let’s get to my jeep,” Skibicki said.

  “This way.”

  CHAPTER 17

  PALISADES PARKWAY, NEW JERSEY-NEW YORK

  3 DECEMBER

  8:12 A.M.LOCAL 1312 ZULU

  The sun had raced around and come up again, bathing the east coast of the United States with light. Trace had spent an uneasy night in the motel. She’d wanted to call Hawaii again, but there was nothing more to say and it was the middle of the night there. She’d relayed the important information in her phone call to Maggie. Maybe she could talk to Boomer later today.

  Through the leafless branches of the trees lining the highway, Trace could see New York City off to her right. She’d entered the Palisades Parkway at its start point, near the George Washington Bridge and that had brought back memories of Boomer. She remembered his telling her that he’d grown up in the shadow of that bridge on the other side of the river.

  As she drove, the route paralleled the river. The Hudson flowed in its glacial bed past her toward the Atlantic and on the Jersey side, high cliffs — named the Palisades by Henry Hudson when he’d first sailed up the river — looked down upon the dark water.

  Trace felt a familiar feeling ignite in the pit of her stomach, overshadowing even the present crisis she was in. She was returning to the Point. Like Pavlov’s dog hearing the bell, her body responded to four years of psychological and emotional strain and terror. Every West Pointer going up the Hudson felt it, no matter what the occasion for their return. Trace often imagined that even an old graduate being assigned to take over the Academy as superintendent felt it. There was no getting over the memories of Beast Barracks and four years inside the gray walls of the Academy.

  It didn’t matter how far along on the Army chain of evolution a graduate was. The Point kept him or her in its grip. Even first-class cadets nearing graduation would aimlessly wander the barracks halls on Sunday nights in their tattered gray bathrobes or sweats, feeling the oppression of another week looming. In the Academy’s perverse way there was even an official ditty for the mood listed in the issued Bugle Notes (the cadet bible) called the Sunday night poop:

  Six bells and all is well.

  Another weekend shot to hell. Another week in my little gray cell.

  Another week in which to excel.

  Oh, hell.

  The last two words were uttered with all the anguish and exasperation only a cadet could muster.

  As she crossed the state line from New Jersey to New York, the Palisades Parkway veered away from the river and moved inland, crossing under the New York State Thruway. The terrain grew more hilly, and Trace passed the turnoffs for New City and Harriman State Park. The closer she got, the greater her anxiety.

  Looping around the bulk of Bear Mountain, the parkway came to an end at a traffic circle. The first right led to Bear Mountain State Park. The second to Bear Mountain Bridge and Anthony’s Nose on the far side of the river. The last exit, before looping back on oneself, was Route 9W. The sign pointed the way to Fort Montgomery, Highland Falls, and, ultimately. West Point.

  Trace took the turn, going by the Revolutionary War sites of Fort Clinton and Fort Montgomery. For a young country like the United States, West Point was about as old and venerable a site as could be found to place a military academy. It was geography that fixed the name, and it was geography that dictated the early military significance of the site.

  She passed through the small town of Fort Montgomery and took the turnoff on 218 into Highland Falls, the town that lay just outside the main gate to the Academy.

  Since Trace’s day, the Academy had expanded south, gobbling up what used to be Ladycliff College on the river side of the town and turning it into an extension of itself, housing the museum and a brand-new visitors’ center.

  Trace had not been back to West Point since graduation and she turned into the visitor center to get acquainted with any further changes that might have occurred since her day.

  Besides, she was still somewhat at a loss about how to proceed. She didn’t exactly envision herself digging up Custer’s grave on a bright, wintery Sunday morning. That might attract a bit of unwanted attention. She had never been in the cemetery during her time as a cadet and she had no idea how many people visited it or how accessible Custer’s grave was.

  Despite the early hours, busloads of tourists were there at the center, eager to see how their tax dollars were being spent. Their official tour guides were the wives of officers assigned to West Point — a keen public relations move. The women could talk about their “husband’s cadets,” in a motherly tone, giving the impression
of the Academy being one big happy family. That there were numerous off-limits signs posted all over the Academy saying “Authorized Personnel Only,” wasn’t noticed by most of the tourists. The signs blocked off all the barracks and academic areas from the public. A less naive person might wonder what it was the Academy didn’t want the public to see. After all, there was no classified training going on at the Academy and it was fully funded by the taxpayer.

  Trace walked past a group waiting to board their bus and entered the center. A large gift shop to the right sold practically every article of clothing ever made with the valuable addition of a West Point emblem stenciled on it, along with assorted coffee mugs, glasses, pennants, bumper stickers, and posters. In the other direction, an area housed several displays telling about “life” at the Academy.

  Trace veered left and stopped in front of a display, staring across the velvet ropes at a “typical cadet’s room.”

  She was reminded of the different rooms she had inhabited in New South Barracks. Memories came back to her in waves, each one leaving a trail of emotion as the thought receded: the cold, winter nights that never seemed to end until they turned into bitter, gray mornings where plebe roommates would talk to each other only to pass essential survival information like who the officer of the day was, while they prepared their room for the daily AM — morning inspection; the sunny spring days with the trees high up on the cliff behind the barracks just beginning to show green and having the feeling in her chest that she just wanted to explode and be somewhere else and be doing anything else, not sitting here in her room studying Napoleon’s campaigns, afraid to walk out the door for fear of being stopped and hazed.

  Trace had heard that there were some plebes who were so afraid of leaving their room to go to the latrine that they urinated in the sinks in their rooms. She was glad she had never been that desperate, although she and her roommate had ended up eating toothpaste, they’d been so starved in the third week of Beast Barracks. Toothpaste was authorized, but they couldn’t buy food at the small cadet store.

 

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