systems man said, his face tinted red in frustration. "Literally every
launch ops computer on the ship runs through that room, as well as most
of the test and tracking monitors. We'll have to rewire the whole
works. It's a complete nightmare," he said, shaking his head.
"What about the actual hardware?" asked Stamp.
"Well, if you want to call that the good news, there was no damage to
any of our hardware resources. I was really concerned with the
potential for water damage, but, thankfully, our own crew put down the
flames before any hoses were let loose on board."
"In order to go operational, then, we're just talking about restringing
the hardware. How long will that take?"
"Oh, man. We've got to rebuild the conduit room, order and obtain a
couple miles of cable, some of it custom application, and re
string the whole system. That would take three or four weeks at best
under normal circumstances."
"Our circumstances are a pending launch with significant delay
penalties. You've got eight days," Stamp replied, staring hard into
the eyes of the computer manager.
The frazzled man nodded his head slowly, then got up to leave the room.
"Guess I've got to get a few people out of bed," he muttered while
slipping out through a side door.
"Do you think he can do it?" Christiano asked once the door had closed
shut.
"If it can be done, then he'll get us close."
"What about the Odyssey} Do we hold her in port until the damage to the
Commander'is repaired?"
"No," Stamp said after mulling over the question. "The Zenit is loaded
and secured aboard the Odyssey, so we'll send her out as planned. We
can still make the equator with the Commanderin half the time the
platform will take to get there. And there's no harm in having the
Odyssey wait on station a few days if we're a little late getting out.
That's just more opportunity for the platform crew to prep for the
launch."
Christiano nodded, then sat silently in thought.
"I'll notify the customer of our revised plans," Stamp continued. "I'm
sure I'll have to do a Kabuki dance to keep them calm. Do we know the
cause of the fire yet?"
"The fire inspector will take a look first thing in the morning.
Everything points to a short, probably some defective cable
couplings."
Stamp nodded silently. What next? he wondered.
The Long Beach fire inspector stepped aboard the Sea Launch Commander
promptly at 8 A.M. After performing a cursory examination of the charred
conduit room, he proceeded to interview the fire response team and
other crewmen on duty when the fire started. He | then returned to the
site of the blaze and methodically examined the burn damage, taking
photographs of the blackened room and making notes. After carefully
scrutinizing the charred cables and melted fittings for nearly an hour,
he satisfied himself that there was no evidence present indicating
arson.
It would have taken an excruciatingly attentive analysis to detect the
proof. But beneath his soot-covered boots, there were the peculiar
minuscule remains of a frozen orange juice container. A chemical
analysis of the container would show that a homemade napalm mixture of
gasoline and Styrofoam chunks had been mixed and stored in the small
container. Planted by one of Kang's men days before and ignited by a
small timer, the tiny fire bomb had splattered its flaming goo about
the conduit room in a rain of fire, quickly incinerating its contents.
With the overhead sprinkler system sabotaged to appear faulty, the
damage was assured, as scripted. Enough damage to delay the Sea Launch
Commander from sailing for several days, but not enough to raise
suspicions that the cause was anything but accidental.
Stepping past the charred and indistinguishable juice container, the
inspector paused outside the conduit room as he completed his fire
assessment. "Electrical short due to faulty wiring or improper
grounding," he wrote in a small notebook, then stuck his pen in his
shirt pocket and made his way off the ship past a gang of oncoming
construction workmen.
A slow gray drizzle was falling at McChord Air Force Base south of
Tacoma when the C-141 lumbered in from its transpacific flight. The
big jet's tires screeched on the damp runway before the aircraft rolled
to a stop in front of a transit terminal, where its engines were shut
down and the large rear cargo door lowered to the tarmac.
Holding true to his word, Dirk had slept nearly the entire flight and
exited the ramp feeling refreshed but hungry. Summer followed behind
in a groggier state, having slept unevenly in the noisy aircraft. An
air transit lieutenant located the pair and escorted them to the base
officers' club for a quick hamburger before returning them to the
flight line. Spotting a phone booth, Dirk eagerly dialed a local
number.
"Dirk, you're all right!" Sarah answered with obvious relief.
"Still kicking," he chimed.
"Captain Burch told me you were aboard the NUMA ship that sank in the
East China Sea. I've been worried sick about you."
Dirk beamed to himself, then proceeded to tell her an abbreviated
version of events since flying to Japan.
"My gosh, the same people that released the cyanide in the Aleutians
intend to launch a larger attack?"
"It appears that way. We hope to find out more when we get back to
D.C."
"Well, keep your friends at the CDC informed. We have a terrorism
emergency response team in place to combat sudden chemical or
biological outbreaks."
"You'll be the first one I call. By the way, how's the leg?" "Fine,
though I'm still getting used to these blasted crutches. When are you
going to autograph my cast?"
Dirk suddenly noticed Summer waving him toward a small jet parked on
the runway.
"When I take you to dinner."
"I'm off to Los Angeles tomorrow for a weeklong conference on
environmental toxins," she said with disappointment. "It will have to
be the following week." "Consider it a date."
Dirk barely had time to sprint to the Gulfstream V jet that was warming
its engines on the tarmac. Climbing aboard, he was chagrined to find
Summer sitting at the center of attention, surrounded by a small group
of Pentagon colonels and generals on the jet bound for Andrews Air
Force Base.
The large executive jet buzzed over the Jefferson Memorial at six the
next morning en route to landing at the Air Force base located just
southeast of the nation's capital. A NUMA van was waiting for the pair
and whisked them through the light early morning traffic to the
headquarters building, where Rudi Gunn greeted them in his office.
"Thank God you're safe," Gunn gushed. "We were turning Japan upside
down looking for you and that cable ship."
"Nice idea but wrong country," Summer said with a gibe. "There's some
folks here who'd like to hear about your ordeal first
hand," Gunn continued, hardly giving Dirk
and Summer a chance to relax.
"Let's go to the admiral's office."
They followed Gunn as he led them around the bay to a large corner
office overlooking the Potomac River. Though Admiral Sandecker was no
longer the director of NUMA, Gunn subconsciously refused to acknowledge
the fact. The door to the office was open and they walked in.
Two men were seated at a side couch discussing coastal port security,
while Homeland Security Special Assistant Webster sat in a chair across
from them, studiously reviewing a file folder.
"Dirk, Summer, you remember Jim Webster from Homeland Security. This
is Special Agent Peterson and Special Agent Burroughs, with the FBI's
Counterterrorism Division," Gunn said, motioning a hand toward the two
men on the couch. "They've met with Bob Morgan already and are very
interested to know what happened to you after the Sea Rover was
sunk."
Dirk and Summer settled into a pair of wingback chairs and proceeded to
describe the entire course of events, from their imprisonment on board
the Baekje to their escape on the Chinese junk. Summer was surprised
to note that three hours rolled by on an antique ship's clock mounted
on the wall by the time they finished their saga. The homeland
security administrator, she noted, appeared to turn whiter shades of
pale as their report progressed.
"I just can't believe it," he finally muttered. "Every shred of
evidence we had pointed to a Japanese conspiracy. Our whole
investigative focus has been centered on Japan," he said, shaking his
head.
"A well-designed deception," Dirk stated. "Kang is a powerful man with
considerable resources at his disposal. His means and abilities should
not be underestimated."
"You are certain he aims to target the United States with a biological
attack?" asked Peterson.
"That's what he insinuated and I don't believe he was bluffing. The
incident in the Aleutians would seem to have been a test application
of their technology to disperse a bio weapon into the air. Only now
they have boosted the strength of their smallpox virus to a much more
virulent form."
"Not unlike stories I've heard that the Russians may have created a
vaccine-resistant strain of smallpox back in the nineties," Gunn
added.
"Only this one's a chimera. A deadly combination of more than one
virus that takes on the lethal elements of each," Summer said.
"If the strain is immune to our vaccines, an outbreak could kill
millions," Peterson muttered, shaking his head. The room fell silent
for a moment as the occupants considered the horrifying prospect.
"The attack in the Aleutian Islands proves that they have the means to
disperse the virus. The question becomes, where would they target a
strike?" Gunn asked.
"If we can stop them before they have the chance to strike, then it
doesn't matter. We should be raiding Kang's palace, and his shipyard,
and his other sham businesses, and we should be raiding them right
now," Summer said, slapping a hand on her leg for emphasis.
"She's right," Dirk said. "For all we know, the weapons are still on
board the vessel at the Inchon Shipyard and the story can end there."
"We'll need to assemble more evidence," the homeland security man said
flatly. "The Korean authorities will have to be convinced of the risk
before we can assemble a joint investigative force."
Gunn quietly cleared his throat. "We may be on the verge of providing
the necessary evidence," he said as all eyes shifted his way. "Dirk
and Summer had the foresight to contact Navy Special Forces before
leaving Korea and briefed them on Kang's enclosed dock facility at
Inchon."
"We couldn't authorize them to act, but a well-placed call by Rudi got
them to at least listen to what we had to say," Summer grinned toward
Gunn.
"It's well beyond that now," Gunn explained. "After you and Dirk
departed Osan, we formally requested an underwater special ops
reconnaissance mission. Vice President Sandecker went out on a limb
to obtain executive approval in hopes we'll be able to locate a smoking
gun. Unfortunately, with the ruckus over our military deployment in
Korea it's a sensitive time to be nosing around our ally's backyard."
"All they need to do is snap a picture of the Baekje sitting at Kang's
dock and we've got proof positive," Dirk said.
"That would certainly boost our case. When are they going in?" Webster
asked.
Gunn looked at his watch, then mentally calculated the fourteen-hour
time difference between Washington and Seoul. "The team will be
deployed in about two hours. We should know something early this
evening."
Webster silently gathered his papers, then stood up. "I'll be back
after dinner for a full debriefing," he grumbled, then made his way
toward the door. As he left the room, the others could hear just a
single word being muttered repeatedly from his lips as he vanished down
the hall: "Korea."
Commander Bruce McCasland looked up at the Korean night sky and
grimaced. A heavy bank of low rain clouds had drifted in over Inchon,
obscuring the earlier clear skies. With the low clouds came
illumination, the optical boomerang of light waves from thousands of
the port city's streetlamps, residences, and billboards. Refracting
off the clouds, the lights brightened the midnight hour with a fuzzy
radiance. For a man whose livelihood depended on stealth, the dark of
night was his best friend, the arrival of clouds a curse. Perhaps it
will rain, he thought hopefully, which would improve their cover. But
the dark clouds silently rolled by, holding their moisture with
taunting stubbornness.
The Navy SEAL from Bend, Oregon, hunched back down in the rickety
sampan and glanced at the three men lying low under the gunwale besides
him. Like McCasland, they were clad in black underwater wet suits,
with matching fins, mask, and backpack. As their mission was one of
reconnaissance, they were armed for only minimal close quarters combat,
each carrying a compact Heckler & Koch MP5K 9mm submachine gun.
Clipped to their vests were an assorted mix of miniature still and
video cameras, as well as a pair of night vision goggles.
The weathered boat putted past the commercial docks of Inchon, trailing
a pall of blue smoke from its sputtering outboard motor. To the casual
eye, the sampan appeared like a thousand others in the region used by
merchants and tradesmen up and down the coastal Korean waters as a
common mode of transport. Hidden beneath its aged-appearing exterior,
however, was a fiberglass-hulled assault craft. With a high-speed
inboard motor, the covert boat was specially built to launch and
retrieve small teams of underwater special forces.
Meandering through the quiet north corner of the harbor, the sampan
approached within two hundred meters of the Kang Marine Services entry
channel. Exactly on cue, the twenty-two-foot boat's motor sputtered
and coughed several times, then died. Two SEALs, di
sguised as a pair
of derelict fishermen, began swearing loudly at each other in Korean.
While one of the men tugged at the outboard motor to restart it, the
other made a loud show of grabbing an oar and splashing it in the water
in a clumsy attempt to row them toward shore.
McCasland peered over the gunwale with a pair of night vision
binoculars trained on the sentry post at the mouth of the channel. Two
men looked back from the interior of their guard hut but made no move
toward a black speedboat tied up a few feet away. Satisfied the guards
were too lazy to investigate further, he called quietly to the three
men beside him.
"In the water. Now."
With the gracefulness of a Persian cat leaping from a settee, the three
men slipped quietly over the side and into the water with barely a
gurgle. McCasland adjusted his faceplate, gave a thumbs-up to the two
"fishermen," then followed the frogmen over the side. Having grown hot
in the boat wearing the insulated wet suit, he was refreshed by the
cool water as it seeped against his skin. Clearing his ears, he
submerged to a depth of twenty feet, then leveled off, peering around
into the black gloomy murk. The dank polluted harbor water offered
only a few feet of visibility, which fell to zero at night without a
flashlight. McCasland ignored the blind diving conditions and spoke
into a wireless underwater communication system attached to his face
mask.
Dirk Pitt18-Black Wind Page 40
