The Rule Of The People (Conspiracy Trilogy Book 3)

by Christopher Read

  One missile malfunctioned, two more were destroyed, the fourth running true.

  Tieu saw the bow of the corvette bathed in a fiery glow and then the bridge seemed to collapse inwards. Tieu heard himself scream and his body was swept upward, smashing against a bulkhead, a wave of intense heat incinerating everything in its path.

  Of the corvette’s ninety crew, just four were pulled alive from the water, one man not even surviving long enough to realise it was a Chinese helicopter that had rescued him – or maybe he was the lucky one of the four.

  Terrill, U.S.A. – 14:21 Local Time; 19:21 UTC

  Anderson’s frustration with Carter was starting to create problems, both men irritated by the other’s demands, the retrieval of relevant data progressing far more slowly than the previous day. Flores had noted as much and had in turn told Anderson to push Carter harder, the latter’s transfer to a prison cell looking likely to happen sooner rather than later.

  “You need to start focusing on why you’re here,” Anderson said, thrusting his chair back in annoyance. “This is just a waste of everyone’s time.”

  “I’m doing my best,” protested Carter. “You can’t expect me to remember every little detail. Pat must have asked me to hack into scores of different networks; most of them were related to members of Congress but I just can’t recall every name and dirty little secret.”

  “Forget the innocent and concentrate on the guilty,” Anderson prompted. “A couple of names would be useful; plus something definite to link them to McDowell or Thorn.”

  “I’ve told you a million times,” Carter said, eyes squinting as though in pain, “I know nothing about Dick Thorn. I just did what Pat told me to do, anything to put pressure on Congress and the President. There was no conspiracy; it was simply a way of making a killing on the stock market.”

  The others arrested at Terrill had generally stuck with a similar story and it was true that the political crisis had sent the Dow stuttering through various highs and lows, some blue chip stocks varying by as much as twenty percent in a week, a fortune to be made by anyone with inside knowledge. The initial finance had supposedly been non-existent, a virtual resource manipulated and utilised on the stock exchange until it materialised into something more tangible – but that still didn’t explain where the money had come from for resources such as Terrill.

  “Forget the cover story,” said Anderson. “Just give me something very simple; like who supplied the money for all of this?”

  “This?” asked Carter, frowning.

  “The purchase of this site, the computer facility, all the vehicles, your food and McDowell’s scotch – all of that was bought and paid for months before the Dow started jumping all over the place.”

  “It’s the same as I said yesterday and the day before,” intoned Carter. “Pat dealt with all the finances – I’ve no idea where the initial funds came from.”

  Anderson still didn’t believe him but it was proving tricky to find that one piece of information that Carter was willing to share. Gentle persuasion was effectively now abandoned for dire warnings as to the consequences of remaining obdurate, but even that didn’t seem particularly effective, Carter proving far more slippery than Anderson or even Flores had anticipated.

  Yet there were signs he wasn’t totally indifferent to the threat, two apparently unrelated news items dragging his attention away from the task in hand. The first was on the continuing search for Pat McDowell: with three murders now specifically linked to his name, he might have long since left D.C. and Carter would be foolish not to worry that he would be the one left taking the fall. The second news report detailed a double murder, the events surrounding the deaths of Neil and Karen Ritter still somewhat confused. Their neighbours had been woken up soon after midnight by the sound of gunshots, a dramatic firefight spilling out onto the street, one D.C. police officer also killed. The identity of the three assailants remained unknown, there nothing obvious that would somehow link it to Pat McDowell.

  A bored Anderson had tried tapping into the relevant FBI report but there wasn’t one, the shooting apparently not considered a federal matter. That however had soon changed, the Ritters’ careers as political strategist and attorney finally grabbing the FBI’s interest, concern expressed as to why it took until late morning for the D.C. Police to inform their federal colleagues as to the names of the two victims and the precise nature of the attack.

  Whether Neil Ritter – or perhaps even his wife – was involved with McDowell was open to conjecture but there was enough to at least look a little deeper. The police were unwilling to settle on a specific motive and the officer killed had been shot within seconds of reaching the scene, the attackers eventually pursued down and across Georgia Avenue before being lost in the complex of buildings which made up Howard University.

  The Ritters’ neighbours had mostly kept their heads down, the occasional fleeting glance seeming to confirm the police’s version. Of more interest was a grainy video clip which had surfaced on the internet: obviously taken from one of houses opposite, it revealed a lone gunman standing in the street firing at several figures framed against the front of a house. It wasn’t much, the sequence lasting less than twenty seconds with the camera stationed a good forty yards away; the gunman was seen from the back, bare-headed, dark clothes, pistol held two-handed. If there was more footage then it had been redacted and the FBI was keen to urge anyone with information to come forward. Everything about the Ritters’ personal life and work was now subject to media speculation, their links to Washington’s political and legal community scrutinised for some clue as to why they had been murdered.

  Flores remained non-committal as to Neil Ritter’s possible role in the conspiracy and it fell to his colleagues in the Hoover Building to pursue any potential connection with McDowell. It was still enough of a coincidence for Anderson to try and get something more from Carter, wondering out loud whether McDowell might be responsible for the double murder, with the Ritters merely a loose end that needed tidying away.

  Carter stayed silent but the point was made. Eventually, one slow step at a time, intimidation and perseverance would drag something relevant out of him; Carter was definitely not that keen on spending more than a week stuck in a U.S. jail, the lure of warmer weather and a secluded beach a potential incentive Anderson was keen to promote at every opportunity.

  Chapter 4 – Monday, November 14th

  USS Benfold – 10:51 Local Time; 02:51 UTC

  The destroyer’s Combat Information Centre (CIC) was an uncomfortable environment for Tanner, his civilian clothes marking him out as someone who shouldn’t really be there, his presence merely temporary. It was always worse when the Benfold’s captain made an appearance, saying little and occasionally stopping to peer at the red-tinged images sent back from the ROV’s (Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle) five cameras.

  Tanner had never promised it would be a quick and simple process: they might have a good idea as to where the submarine had sunk but the sonar evidence from the attack on the USS Milius showed that it had broken apart before plummeting three quarters of a mile down to the seabed. For seven days now the ROV had been following a standard search pattern, traveling at a steady three knots with sensors probing the depths for any metallic or visual anomaly. The South China Sea was littered with wrecks, thousands rather than hundreds, with well over fifty from World War Two alone, including two Japanese aircraft carriers. Three more surface ships had joined that list in the past ten days, two frigates – one Chinese, one Vietnamese – plus a brave but foolhardy corvette. Vietnam was doing what it could to make Beijing pay for its aggression and the attack on the Chinese Carrier Group had been a suicidal attempt to enforce the exclusion zone.

  Tanner’s specialist company was more used to being employed by the scientific community than the U.S. Navy; however, the ROVs operated by the Seventh Fleet were designed to neutralise mines not carry out deep-water searches, and the twenty-plus years Tanner had spent operating a
nd working with ROVs ensured he was the preferred option – that and the fact he was based in Singapore with one versatile ROV immediately available for hire. Galene was her official name, called after the Greek goddess of calm seas; sadly, the South China Sea had been fairly unappreciative of such name-dropping, three days of storm-force winds severely restricting the number of hours the Galene could be deployed.

  The Galene herself wasn’t the problem: a cube some four-foot in size, with multiple attachments added as if by random, she plainly lacked the streamlined elegance of the USS Benfold. However, the ROV would happily function on automatic mode whilst a hurricane thrashed the surface above, and it was the link to the base ship that restricted her operation. Power, control and data exchange between the ROV’s high-resolution cameras, the manipulator, and single grabber arm, were via an armoured umbilical cable and then a separate tether; a bucking ship could easily damage the 38mm thick cables beyond repair, or at the very least interfere with the signals to and from the Galene. If all else failed, the ROV had her own back-up power supply, the Galene’s automated systems able to bring her safely to the surface.

  While the sea conditions were the main factor as to operational safety, it was Tanner who invariably had the final say – a fact which was causing a certain amount of tension with the Benfold’s Captain. Commander Vaughn hovered now, somewhere behind Tanner, his presence a reminder of the Navy’s need for answers, the pressure on Tanner to take risks subtle but still there even if not spoken out loud.

  The Commander’s unease was also making Tanner more edgy, everyone aboard well aware of how volatile the situation in the South China Sea had become. And the USS Benfold was on her own, treading water uncomfortably close to the Chinese-occupied islands of the Paracels. The nearest U.S. carrier strike group, headed by the USS Gerald R Ford, patrolled well to the south-east and, even though air support could arrive within minutes, Tanner still felt a little isolated. The destroyer was a capable ship, upgraded in 2013, and her only serious deficiency was the lack of her own helicopter – the Benfold had a suitable flight deck but no hanger, the destroyer perversely able to refuel and rearm a Seahawk helicopter but not maintain one.

  Despite the dangers around them, patience and persistence were essential if the search was to succeed, backtracking accepted as routine, it not helping that the various predictions as to the submarine’s likely position had proved inaccurate – either that or Tanner was being incompetent. The newly extended search area had brought its own set of problems and the maximum sea depth of some three miles was now dangerously close to the Galene’s limit. Optical visibility with the ROV’s four adjustable lights remained at around twenty feet, imaging sonar used to expand the viewing range by a factor of at least ten, and the Galene could typically take up to six hours to search a single square mile. The sonar images were automatically analysed in real-time with the software highlighting areas worthy of a more detailed look; that generally meant a delay whilst the ROV’s operator undertook a visual inspection, the colours optimised and enhanced to help the human observer.

  Quite what Tanner and his team of three were required to do once the submarine was detected was still unclear; he assumed they would be looking to confirm the boat’s identity as one of China’s ageing Ming-class, but Vaughn had hinted that Tanner might be required to search out something very specific – precisely what hadn’t as yet been discussed.

  The image on the control panel’s monitor abruptly flickered as an area ahead was highlighted; Tanner immediately slowed the ROV, switching to visual mode. It was definitely something metallic, circular and a couple of feet across, the amount of corrosion indicating it had been there for years. Fishing gear, oil drums, a metal seat, even a massive shipping container – the Galene had found them all in the last few days, but not yet a mystery submarine.

  Tanner paused the search while he checked the Galene’s exact position, quickly becoming distracted by an animated conversation behind him; the atmosphere in the CIC was noticeably tense, the crew’s attention focused on a radar contact approaching from the north-west. Tanner tried to ignore it, concentrating on his own problems, thankful at least that something else had captured the Captain’s interest.

  It was another forty minutes before he was relieved, Tanner’s place at the control panel taken by someone much slimmer and a good twenty years his junior: Coop was an Australian with a vicious sense of humour, his enthusiasm just about making up for his lack of experience – in any event Tanner always reviewed the various recordings and data at the end of every session.

  With Coop duly updated, Tanner left the air-conditioned claustrophobia of the CIC and started to make his way to the stern, wanting to check that all was well with the Galene’s power and control module; securely fitted to the Benfold’s flight deck on the port side, the integrated winch gave the ship a splash of red amongst the boring grey, Commander Vaughn not yet insisting that it needed to be re-painted.

  A call to the bridge forced Tanner to change his plans, unsure why he was being so honoured and worried that it was to tell him something he wouldn’t like. In fact Vaughn said barely a word, content to hand Tanner a pair of binoculars and gesture at a vessel sitting less than a mile off the Benfold’s starboard bow.

  Tanner didn’t need the binoculars; the ships’ profile was one he instantly recognised and a large photograph of the vessel even adorned his office wall in Singapore, Tanner invariably jealous every time he looked at it. China’s new oceanographic research ship, Dayang Er Hao, translated as Ocean Two, was an impressive sight: much smaller than the Benfold, her sonar and imaging systems were second-to-none, the ROV at the stern far superior in every sense to the three year-old Galene.

  “An unwelcome addition to our little party,” Vaughn said with a hint of annoyance. “We’ve suggested she might want to fuck off somewhere else but our recommendation was politely declined. We seem to have a race on our hands, Mr Tanner; one the U.S. Navy has no intention of losing.”

  Bolshoy Kamen, Russia – 16:15 Local Time; 06:15 UTC

  The drive from Vladivostok around the twisting curve of Ussuri Bay had been another tortuous crawl one slow kilometre at a time, over a hundred in total, the Lada Niva cramped and uncomfortable. The town of Bolshoy Kamen might only lie thirty kilometres to the east of Vladivostok but with no ferries running and the rail link closed, there had been little choice but the frustration of a six hour road trip. The fear of a Chinese attack might have started to fade but thousands were still determined to flee the city; the port was virtually devoid of ships, hundreds of containers unable to be loaded in time and even the smaller vessels had chosen to leave while they could. The ATMs had long since been emptied and even though Markova’s new ID had been backed up with a good amount of credit, a second drunken spree through the city’s bars had turned a minor difficulty into a serious concern.

  On the plus side, the previous evening had at least proved rather more productive than the Saturday, the rumours surrounding the Zvezda Shipyard Complex in Bolshoy Kamen definitely worth pursuing. Government-owned, Zvezda was involved in both military and commercial projects, its workers’ expertise even extending to the decommissioning of nuclear submarines. It was interesting but not necessarily that relevant, Markova’s curiosity growing once details had emerged as to one recent project: ultra-high security, twenty-four hour working, outside specialists brought in and kept apart from the locals – it had to mean something.

  The atmosphere in Bolshoy Kamen appeared equally strained, the Lada passing through two military checkpoints on its way deeper into the town, the habitual search not restricted to just their car or baggage. The local area had only been opened up to visitors in 2015, the shipyard and its military connection ensuring that strangers were invariably treated with suspicion. Although the town centre was virtually empty of traffic, there were plenty of pedestrians prepared to brave the weather and most shops looked to be open; yet for some reason hotels were hard to find, Nikolai eventually pulling into a
mini-hotel on October Street close to the bay area.

  They booked a twin room, Nikolai knowing better than to draw any false assumptions as to the actual sleeping arrangements. Markova regarded him as a trusted colleague and good friend, nothing more; Nikolai’s feelings were slightly more ambiguous, an almost brotherly affection battling with the fact Markova was both attractive and unattached – he would never try to advantage but it didn’t mean he was never tempted.

  They left the Lada and headed out on foot, following the curve of the bay as it headed north, a flurry of snow quickly reducing visibility. Markova simply wanted to get a better feel for their surroundings and how best to play the next stage. The town had suffered badly with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a good third of the men having to leave to find new work; the last few years had witnessed a steady recovery, government money helping modernise and expand the shipyard complex, but the symbols of past decay remained, the crumbling concrete buildings adorned with graffiti still awaiting either a second chance or the heavy embrace of a bulldozer.

  The Zvezda shipyard eventually came into view about a kilometre away, it proving difficult to get much closer without it being obvious. The yard had recently seen yet more investment and as far as Markova could tell it appeared to be operating as normal; she could even pick out two naval vessels berthed alongside the dock, a crane towering high overhead. Security looked to be tight, although no more extreme than the naval facilities at Vladivostok.

  They turned east, walking slowly towards Karl Marx Street and the town’s shops and restaurants. Markova wasn’t in the mood to talk and she huddled up against the cold, lost in thought. The Beijing Government had fiercely denied responsibility for the attack on the USS Milius and with the White House oddly reluctant to apportion blame, conspiracy theories abounded. Most were variations on the theme that the submarine’s country of origin was not in fact China but the equally difficult alternative of North Korea; a few supposed experts were even prepared to blame Russia.