THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller

by J. G. Sandom

  “I can hear you,” someone said. “Hello, Dr. Swenson. Are you there?” The voice sounded tinny and distant, and yet Decker knew it was the President. He sounded just like on TV, with the same Texas twang and nasal overtone.

  “Agent Warhaftig has briefed us on the situation. I’m going to hand the phone over to one of my advisors so you can tell her exactly what we need to do. Is Special Agent Decker there?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “I can hear you, Mr. President.”

  Swenson grabbed Decker by the sleeve and drew him close. Their heads were almost touching.

  “I just wanted to thank you two for everything you’ve done. Secretary Dale has been keeping me abreast of your activities, every hour, on the hour, all day long. No matter what happens, whether this plan of yours succeeds or not, you two are heroes in my book. You’ve both risked your lives for your country, and that’s something that none of us will ever forget. That goes for you too, Chief Seiden. I understand that without your help, Special Agent Decker and Ms. Swenson wouldn’t be here to accept my gratitude. This will only strengthen the alliance between our two great nations. I wish you all good luck. And God speed,” he said. “Now, let me put Allegra on. Tell her exactly what she needs to do and we’ll make it happen.”

  “OK,” they heard a voice say. “Hello, Ms. Swenson, Agent Decker. This is National Security Advisor, Allegra Wheatley.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Swenson stuttered, immediately rolling her eyes.

  “Nice to meet you too, Emily. Are you okay? Don’t be nervous. Just tell me what you need. We have a Navy attack-class submarine already stationed off New York.”

  Decker could hear Swenson sigh. He felt her hand slip into his, and squeeze. “That’s not going to work,” she said. “A nuclear sub’s too big. The canyon passages are really narrow and unless you want the wave to end up on the coast, you’ll have to plant it deep inside a fissure on the eastern flank. We’re going to need a Deep Submergence Vehicle. A DSV. The nearest one’s probably at WHOI. I mean the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, in Massachusetts. She’s called the Alvin.”

  They could hear Wheatley cover up the phone and chat briefly with someone else. “That’s fine, Emily,” she continued. “How much does it weigh?”

  “Weigh? I don’t know. Ten to fifteen metric tons, I guess. In the air? Maybe more. I don’t know,” said Swenson nervously. “Why?”

  “It will take too long for the Alvin’s mother ship to steam down from Woods Hole. We’ll have to transport it by Chinook. That’s a helicopter.” She was interrupted once again. Someone else seemed to be listening at the other end. “OK,” she continued. “I’ve been told that an MH-47E Chinook can only hoist around 27,000 pounds. We’re going to have to call our friends in Cuba and ask to borrow an Mi-26. It’s got the hauling capacity of a Hercules.”

  “Are you sure the Cubans will comply?” Warhaftig said.

  Wheatley did not hesitate. “Once this tsunami hits, they’re going to need an awful lot of aid. Frankly, we’ll be their only hope, no matter what they feel politically.”

  “Cuba’s a long way away.”

  “The Mi-26 cruises at around two hundred miles per hour,” said Wheatley. “If La Palma doesn’t collapse for another nine or ten hours – which none of us thinks is likely – and if it then takes the wave another six plus hours to reach us, we should have enough time to fly her up to Woods Hole and hoist the Alvin back. Where would you like us to bring it, honey?”

  “Approximately two hundred kilometers east-southeast of Atlantic City. But don’t forget: we’re going to need at least an hour to get down to the proper depths. And what about our cruise plan?”

  Wheatley laughed. “I think they’ll let it slide this time. It may be operated by WHOI, but the Alvin’s Navy-owned. We’ll have her rendezvous with a Navy frigate. The USS Stanfield is off New York. And she’s armed with a suitable nuclear device. The Alvin, Emily; is she equipped with some kind of sample tray or bucket?”

  “A basket, yes.”

  “And how much can it carry?”

  “About three hundred kilos.”

  “That’s not going to be enough. What about manipulators?”

  “Even less. Maybe a couple of hundred kilos.”

  “OK. Let’s not worry about it now. We’ll have a team of engineers rig something up in Massachusetts while they’re waiting for the Mi-26. Where exactly are these blowouts on the Continental Shelf? Can you give me the coordinates?”

  “Thirty-six degrees, forty-five north. Seventy-four degrees, fifty west. The Young Canyons are where we’ve seen the most recent faults.”

  As Swenson continued to relay her instructions to the President’s National Security Advisor, Decker turned and looked out through the porthole at the sea below. Everything seemed completely surreal. The Atlantic was absolutely calm here. It was hard to imagine the giant wave that would soon be on their tail at the speed of a commercial jet. So much adrenaline was pumping through his veins that Decker felt giddy, almost light-headed. Swenson continued to talk with the casual tone of someone ordering up a pizza. And then the pilot suddenly cut in.

  “The Azores,” he said. “We’ll be landing in just a few minutes. Fasten your seatbelts please.”

  Decker could see the islands in the distance. They rose out of the sea, mountainous and wild, ringed by white waves. He tried not to think of what they’d look like by nightfall.

  Chapter 43

  Friday, February 4 – 12:16 AM

  La Palma, The Canary Islands

  In slightly more than nine hours from the time Pickings was boiled alive, a little after midnight, a twenty-kilometer crack opened up along the Cumbre Vieja range and the island of La Palma came apart.

  A titanic chunk of rock the size of Maui – five hundred billion tons – slid suddenly into the sea, creating a debris avalanche that would eventually extend sixty kilometers from La Palma.

  The collapse of the volcano’s western flank sent a dome of water a thousand meters into the air – three times the height of the Empire State Building – and more than forty kilometers wide in each direction. As the dome collapsed, and then rebounded, giant waves began to form and build, fueled by the great tsunami wave train, itself created as the landslide sped away below the surface of the sea.

  In less than ten minutes, it was two hundred and fifty kilometers from La Palma.

  As it traveled eastward and struck the shores of the Sahara, the wave grew exponentially, rising one hundred meters into the air. To the west, the wave began to flatten out, to roll toward the Americas – from Bar Harbor to Bahia – at seven hundred kilometers per hour. And to the north, it closed on the Azores.

  * * *

  The Seahawk helicopter landed. Swenson, Decker, Seiden and Warhaftig leapt out and ran across the tarmac to the waiting Citation X, already throbbing on the runway. The Cessna was the fastest non-military jet in the world. It would carry them at close to the speed of sound across the Atlantic, ahead of the mega-tsunami.

  They boarded the plane. Emily slipped into a short black cocktail dress and heels – the only women’s clothing they could find aboard. She derided Decker and Warhaftig and, desperate to cut the tension in the air, accused them of planning the wardrobe in advance. “You just wanted to see me in a miniskirt, didn’t you?” she said.

  They strapped themselves in and the streamlined silver ship took off like a rocket, climbing to 43,000 feet in less than half an hour. When they’d reached an altitude of 50,000 feet, the plane began to level off, cruising at around five hundred miles per hour. They were 20,000 feet above commercial traffic and the sky was absolutely clear. The ocean glimmered far below. Above, the sun looked close enough to touch.

  Decker was sitting next to Swenson. He excused himself for a moment, got up and squeezed his way back between the seats towards Warhaftig, who was chatting with Seiden in the stern. “What’s up?” Warhaftig asked.

  He was sitting on the port side of the jet, facing Seiden and the bow
, while Seiden faced the stern. Decker sat down in one of the cream-colored leather seats across the narrow aisle, directly across from Warhaftig. “I wanted to ask you something.”

  “What?”

  Decker started to speak, then hesitated.

  “What is it, John? Spit it out.”

  “I need to know something.”

  “What?”

  Decker sighed. “Why did you take my memory stick, back at the surveillance squat in Queens?”

  Warhaftig rolled his eyes. “Oh, that again.” He laughed. “All right,” he said. “If you really want to know. The Agency was aware of El Aqrab’s propensity to reveal quotations at the scene of his events. When you mentioned those wallpapers, I figured they were connected somehow. But I didn’t know how. And I didn’t know you then either, or trust you. After all, you recruited Professor Hassan, a man with no clearance whatsoever. A man, indeed, with a vested interest – pro-Palestinian as he is – to see this mission fail.”

  “Professor Jusef Hassan?” said Seiden, interrupting. “From Columbia? What does he have to do with this?” He stared at Warhaftig.

  “He helped me figure out the quotes from the Qur’an. If you were so upset about it,” Decker continued, “why didn’t you do something, Otto? Why didn’t you tell Johnson? God knows, he always suspected something.” He paused for a moment, then added, “Maybe you did tell him.”

  “I didn’t have to,” said Warhaftig. “You’re right, he did suspect you of exploiting ‘unofficial’ resources. Why do you think he was always bitching?”

  “But if you knew, how come you didn’t try and stop me?”

  “John, this isn’t the time or place to discuss all this.” He glanced forward at Seiden.

  “Just answer me, Otto. I need to know.”

  “Alright, alright,” said Warhaftig. “We were thrilled when you began to interpret those designs. None of our experts had had any success, and the Israelis – no offense, Ben – were not exactly forthcoming. We were happy to have you use Hassan . . . unofficially, since he obviously had no interest in being exposed as an FBI collaborator. Either way, Johnson won. If Hassan turned out to be useless, the SAC could let it pass, or hang you out to dry, at his discretion. On the other hand, if Hassan turned out to be effective, as the supervisor of the task force, the SAC would get the credit. Even if it got real ugly, if Hassan’s participation were revealed, Johnson’s strident warnings to you, his obsession about protocol and intelligence sharing would help insulate him from blame. Why do you think he was so public always in his criticism? It wasn’t just because he didn’t like you – which he doesn’t, by the way – or because he was ‘forced’ to add you to the team.”

  Warhaftig smiled. “But in the end, John, it was you who elected to work with Hassan, despite the risks, and without official knowledge or approval. You were so eager to solve that puzzle, you didn’t care how you did it. I didn’t know if I could count on you, if you’d already been compromised by Hassan, or if you were just plain naïve. Face it, John – you’re not a team player. You never have been. Some call you a loose cannon and–”

  “I don’t buy it,” Decker said. He shook his head. “And I don’t buy that story about evidence going missing.”

  “What’s that?” said Seiden.

  “I was told there was a robbery at Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv, and that the videotape which El Aqrab made of the Miller murders had been stolen.”

  “Ah, I see,” said Seiden. He focused on Warhaftig, a tiny smile playing on his lips. “Now I think I understand. Yes, Agent Warhaftig. Very good. Mazel tov.” Then he looked across the aisle at Decker, adding, “There was no robbery in Tel Aviv. Although it was certainly made to look that way.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Warhaftig said. He reddened visibly. “John, get back to your seat.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” Decker said. “One of the most wanted men in Israel, and no one bothered to make a copy of the tape that documents his latest killings? That doesn’t make any sense. And even if there were only one copy, why wasn’t it in some evidence locker in Jerusalem, or in the Knesset someplace, instead of in Tel Aviv?”

  Decker suddenly realized he was shouting. He lowered his voice and said, “Just before he tried to kill us, El Aqrab confessed Garron had stolen money from him, cash his father kept at home in case the ben Saad family had to flee the country. A lot of cash – almost two and a half million dollars. He said Garron used it to finance his elections.”

  “And you believed him,” Seiden said, “because, as a baby killer and murderer of women, he is such an honorable man.” He looked derisively at Decker but there was something about his voice – the slightest hesitation, a faulty intonation – that undermined its authenticity.

  Even Seiden’s unsure, thought Decker. “He had no motive to lie. He thought I was about to die. Yes, I believed him. That’s why Garron was so damned sensitive. Do you really think he’d let the only copy of that tape remain in Tel Aviv? Something doesn’t add up.”

  Decker stood. He hovered in the narrow aisle. “No,” he said. “You had a copy of that tape already, didn’t you? I don’t know how, but you knew about that illustration, even before I saw the wallpaper in Queens. You recognized those words. I saw your face, Otto. You probably already knew about Garron too. After everything we’ve been through together and you’re still lying to me.”

  “I didn’t know about Garron,” Warhaftig answered testily. “But, frankly, I’m not surprised. He and his son have been under a financial cloud for years. Just because I’m a Jew doesn’t mean I automatically like the man.”

  “What does it mean, then, Otto?”

  “Don’t be a fool, John. I have a job to do, and so do you. Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East. This isn’t about the Palestinians. Or the Israelis, for that matter. It’s about our country, John. Yours and mine. Our industry and commerce. And good old American jobs. All that we are as a nation, as a people depends upon the oil and, therefore, the politico-economic security of one of the most volatile regions of the world. A world that’s getting smaller, mind you, and deadlier every day. Why do you think we’re in Iraq, for Christ’s sake? Just because Saddam was a sadistic tyrant? Why do you think we’re in Afghanistan? We have to support Israel, no matter what we think.”

  “I am trying to support her. Don’t you get it?” Decker said. “It’s time the Israelis tested the resolve of the Islamic faith. They should sue for peace. A real and lasting peace. Now that would be truly brave, instead of simply obdurate. Then, if the fundamentalists refused to cease hostilities – as prescribed by the Qur’an – they’d lose their moral authority. In front of the whole Islamic world.” He shook his head. “Of all the peoples on this earth, you’d think the Israelis would understand what it means to be persecuted, to be . . . abused. It’s as if they’re suffering from a collective legacy of guilt, as if – as victims of abuse – they’re compelled to abuse others.” He paused. Then he looked down at Seiden and said, “‘The sins of the father.’ You’re a student of psychology, aren’t you? You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “Look John,” said Warhaftig. “It isn’t up to us to judge. We’re not the politicians, thank God. I’m just trying to do my job. Sometimes it isn’t a very pleasant one, but it’s what I swore an oath to do.”

  “Oh, I get it. ‘I was just following orders.’ Isn’t that what they said at Nuremberg?”

  Warhaftig leapt to his feet. He clenched his fists. Decker puffed himself up. Seiden jumped in between them, facing Decker, a scowl darkening his face.

  Then Swenson suddenly appeared. She had overheard them arguing. “Who fucking cares?” she said. “We’re probably all about to die anyway.”

  “I care,” said Decker, rising to his full height. Seiden was still a good three inches taller.

  “We don’t have time for this,” she said. “The world’s about to be destroyed and you’re bickering like children. Men!” she spat. “Look at you prance. That
’s why this planet’s so fucked up – you idiots are running things.” Then she turned away and said, “I have to prepare for my descent.”

  “What descent?” said Decker, suddenly sobered.

  “Who do you think’s going to navigate the Alvin to set off the counter-wave? I’m the best shot we’ve got.”

  “She’s right, you know,” Warhaftig said.

  “Shut up,” said Decker. “You keep out of this. Why do you have to go? I thought you said you’d never set foot in a DSV again. Shouldn’t the Navy or–”

  “I know those canyons better than anyone on the East Coast,” she said. “And I know the Alvin.” She placed her hand on Decker’s shoulder. “You know I’m right, John. Think about it.”

  The argument reached its logical conclusion. He had known it all along. He had seen this darkened terminus at the far end of the labyrinth as soon as she had mentioned Newton, and there was no amount of foliation, no plenitude of mirrors or gilded tiles that could blind him from the truth. Equal and opposite reactions.

  “Then, I’m going with you,” Decker said. He spoke with grim finality. “I’m not breaking up this team. Not now. Not after everything we’ve been through.”

  “I’m sure the Navy will provide me with a pilot. I don’t need you, John. We probably won’t . . . ” She hesitated. She took him by the hand. Then she said, “We won’t have time to get too far before we have to set off the device. Otherwise it won’t work. The mega-tsunami will be on us.”

  Decker looked deep into her eyes. “You don’t have a choice, Emily,” he said. “It’s a three-man sub. I’m paid to risk my life, as Otto here just reminded me. If you go, I go. At least that will solve his problem. Fewer people talking once this is over.”