by Sussman, Ben
“As a matter of fact,” grinned the detective. “I know just where to find one.”
Forty-Seven
This part of the ocean had been calm throughout the night. Now, however, as dawn crept its way toward the horizon, the water became choppy and dotted with whitecaps. Seven miles beneath its brewing surface, a tube of metal that spanned a length of thirty feet and a width of just nine rested calmly. Occasionally, an underwater swell would buffet the metal sides and jostle the occupants but, for the most part, it was still and dark outside the round portholes.
Sasha and his two companions had begun their journey beneath the rusted decks of a fruit distributor’s cargo ship. For an envelope stuffed with Euros, the ship’s captain had agreed to hide their midget submarine between stacked pallets of bananas. When they had reached edges of the Pacific Ocean, the sub was attached to ropes to be lowered into the ocean. As Sasha and the other two stowaways approached, the captain held out a small burlap bag of browning bananas for each of them.
“For your journey,” he said with a smile.
Sasha noted how the slim man with a curly beard who was their leader did not return the warmth. He was already carrying a small nylon zipped bag and shook his head at the offering.
“All packed, I see,” the ship’s captain said, nodding at the nylon bag. The man simply glared in return. Sasha took his bag of bananas with a nod of thanks to the captain.
The captain gestured for the men to step up to the submarine whose open top hatch was now level with the side of the ship. The bearded man went first, stepping up on to the wall and extending his foot towards the hatch, Sasha following on his heels. Suddenly, Sasha slipped on the slick surface of the deck. His bag of bananas shot out and clipped the nylon bag. The bearded man’s eyes went wide as he fumbled the bag briefly. Sasha saw moonlight glare off of metal inside before the bearded man caught it and zipped the bag tightly shut. His shoulders sagged in relief.
The man spun, facing down Sasha. Before a word could be exchanged, the bearded man’s free hand lashed out and struck Sasha’s mouth with a vicious punch. Blood spurted as a tooth clattered to the deck at the captain’s feet. Sasha knew better than to react so he did nothing but hang his head in shame as the group resumed their entry into the submarine. They shut the top hatch and pressed a button to seal it with a pneumatic hiss. Ropes lowered the craft down into the water where it sank beneath the waves.
For days, the men lived in near silence. Hours were filled with the mundane tasks of checking monitors and switches while plotting their course. The only interruptions came when their radar detected a large ship approaching their area above. Upon hearing the alert, the men would spring into action to power down their systems. As the shadow of the ship’s hull would pass over them, they would watch the murky water for any sign of depth charges. None ever came.
“Radar cloaking circuit boards embedded in the submarine’s skin,” the Commander assured his two fellow travelers. However, disabling the sub’s power was another layer of security to avoid detection by any prying eyes.
Their leader, the bearded man who Sasha and the other only knew as Commander, was clearly someone who had spent his life aboard submarines such as this. He was the first to know the danger of detection had passed and the only one who had every inch of their craft mapped out in his head. The three men had not met each other until boarding the cargo ship. All had been recruited by different sources that had no need to be shared amongst themselves. Compartmentalized information was always best, they all knew.
On the third day of their voyage, the Commander placed a printed piece of paper in front of the others. He pointed at the coordinates printed upon it and said, “That is our destination.”
Sasha shared a glance with the other man before nodding his affirmation. While heading to the front of the sub, they both noticed that the Commander had withdrawn the small nylon sack that had never left the inside of his shirt since its fumbling during boarding. He headed to a slim closet at the back of the sub and unlocked its door. Reaching inside, he heaved out a large box with a hard plastic shell. A large lock sealed it shut. After unlocking it with a key strung on a chain around his neck, the box’s top half swung open on oiled hinges.
“What is that?” Sasha dared to ask.
“This is why we are here,” the Commander answered. He waved Sasha over.
Upon peering inside the box, the man saw nothing but a group of gunmetal gray pieces set into die-cut foam to keep them steady. He reached out to touch one but the Commander’s hand instantly clamped down to stop him. “Looks like a bunch of junk to me,” Sasha mumbled, rubbing his wrist and stepping away.
Over the next twenty-four hours, the Commander tinkered with the contents of the box. Electric screwdrivers whirred and the stench of ozone filled the stale air of the chamber. The other two men only caught glimpses of large metal components coming together but had yet to see what the final product would be. The Commander seemed to be working from an instruction booklet in his head, having no need for direction or help. He only looked up when the submarine slowed its engines.
“Why are we stopping?” he snapped, looking up from his work.
“We are at the final destination,” Sasha told him.
The Commander glanced at a digital watch on his wrist. “On schedule,” he murmured to himself, nodding with satisfaction. He stood up and crossed to a small laptop computer resting nearby. Tapping on its keyboard brought the screen to life. His eyes scanned it briefly, before snapping it shut.
“We are on schedule,” he announced again. Sasha tried recalling a schedule that he been told about, but could not. Ignoring his companions’ slightly confused expressions, the Commander went back to his makeshift workstation. With swift movements of his hands, the disparate metal pieces were snapped together. He reached into the box and pulled out a dull black cone and screwed it on one end of what he was making. The mysterious object was now revealed to the other men.
“A missile,” breathed Sasha.
The Commander nodded. He withdrew the small nylon sack and unzipped it. With steady hands he withdrew a square metal box. On its top was a yellow sticker with a black circle in its center, intersected by three black triangles. Sasha and the other man shared a worried look, knowing exactly what that sticker indicated. They watched as the Commander slipped it into a space in the center of the missile and adjusted it until a loud click was heard. He screwed a metal casing over its top to hold it into place.
“You,” he said to the man at the sub’s controls. “Put this into the launching chamber, there,” he pointed at a latch in the floor. The man nodded and scurried to follow orders. When the missile was safely tucked inside, the Commander strode to the front of the submarine and sat heavily in the small chair. He checked his watch again, then stared out the window at the inky depths of the ocean.
“What do we do now?” asked Sasha when the other man had returned from placing the missile.
“We wait,” came the Commander’s answer.
Forty-Eight
Purgatory was cold, black and filled with the tinkling of metal against metal. That was the thought that was running through Emma’s mind, or rather the dim corner of her brain that still seemed to be operating. Between the endless expanses of black that filled her inner eye, there were flashes of images.
Her grandmother. Stooped over a boiling pot of Ramen noodles, looking up to give a glowing smile upon seeing Emma.
Mike. Suit rumpled, out of breath after having caught up to Emma on the Stanford quad.
Jason. Sitting on the edge of Emma’s desk, his injured leg resting casually over the side.
The pictures soothed her and for a moment they were the only ones present. Then others began to arrive in rapid-fire succession, blazing in their intensity and pain.
Cameron Allen. One arm lifelessly spread across the keyboard he had spent most of his life bent over.
Mike again. Not the encouraging mentor that she had known but the man eaten up by rage an
d frustration, raising his gun to fire.
Emma knew the image that was coming next. She tried to resist it but it slammed into her unheeded.
Jason again. Her loyal coworker and friend. Bullets created a crimson collage across his chest. Inside her soul, a deep wail was keening its way to the surface. She tethered herself to it, allowing her mind to be lifted from the dark swirling fog of painful memories. She was almost there. Almost…
“Emma.” Someone was calling her name. Her mouth attempted to form an answer but refused to work.
“Bring her out of it,” the same voice was saying, to someone else this time. A muffled voice gave a reply before the same voice barked, “Do it.”
Emma’s eyes flew open. Bright fluorescent light assaulted them as sounds came crashing into her ears. She gasped and sucked in a giant gulp of air. Slowly, the world came into focus.
Emma was lying on a narrow cot. Just a few feet above her head was a concave metal roof studded with rivets. She tried to raise herself up on her arms but a jab of sharp pain made her stop.
A man’s face swam into view, followed by his hand. Emma did not recognize him. A penlight shone into her pupils.
“Ms. Hosobuchi, can you hear me?” the man was asking.
“Yes,” Emma replied weakly, her mouth cotton dry.
“Can you follow the light with your eyes please?”
Emma did as requested, then blinked rapidly to clear away the trailing stars in her vision. The man ducked away and Emma made another attempt at sitting up. The pain was not quite as bad this time and she leaned on her left arm for support. She noted an IV tube strung from her vein. A bandage lay above it.
“I was shot,” she suddenly remembered.
“Yes, you were,” a familiar voice said to her right. It was the same voice that had been calling her name before she became fully awake. Emma recognized it now. She turned to its owner. “Griggs,” she said.
The general had a chair pulled next to her bed. His face looked haggard, the lines and creases deeper than Emma recalled. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Hosobuchi.” He pointed at her IV. “Your sedatives should be wearing off soon. The doctors had a hell of a time stitching you back up but they did it.”
Emma looked down at her torso. The clothes she had been wearing were gone, replaced by a hospital gown. A quick glance inside it revealed three wounds expertly bandaged. The skin felt tight around them but Emma did not feel much more than that. As her senses slowly returned, Emma noted the low thrum of an engine somewhere. She glanced around at her surroundings, trying to discern her location.
“Where am I?” she finally asked Griggs.
“A plane. We’re heading towards San Clemente Island.”
“San Clemente,” Emma repeated. Yes, now she remembered. The servers. Mike’s betrayal. “Jason,” she blurted out, looking to Griggs.
“I’m sorry,” he answered gravely. His hand took hers. “I truly am.”
The world spun again, making Emma want to vomit. “No. He can’t be. Just can’t.”
The general’s hand squeezed hers. “Listen to me. There will be time to mourn later. I heard everything that Mike said and I’ve pieced together what you were trying to figure out. Right now, we’ve got only one shot to try to stop what he and whomever he’s working for did. You’re that shot, Emma. Do you understand?”
Emma met his eyes, trying to understand what he was asking from her. “But the servers were destroyed. There’s no way we can get to San Clemente in time…” she trailed off, the gears of her mind slowly grinding back into motion.
“We’ll be there in twenty-two minutes,” Griggs said.
“What? How?” Emma stammered. “What kind of plane can get us from Colorado to California in that little time?”
“The kind that’s top secret,” Griggs replied cryptically, leaving no room for further questions.
Emma pinched the bridge of her nose in thought. “If I can get there and reboot the system, there’s a chance I can move the data strings to new servers. That would bring it back online.”
“Did Mike know about the backup?”
“Yes,” she said.
“How would he make sure to take it down?”
Emma tried to focus. She could finally feel the cobwebs clearing from her mind. “An EMP,” she said at last.
“Electromagnetic Pulse Weapon?” Griggs asked.
Emma nodded. “It knocks out anything running on electrical power for a sustained period of time. But if it’s not launched from a missile, the range on them is pretty small. It would have to be deployed on the island itself. Once it was, it would render the backup useless. Pretty smart, actually.”
“I sincerely doubt that Mike was smarter than you.”
“Was that actually a compliment, General?”
“It’s the only one you’ll get until we’re out of this mess, hopefully still alive. It’s time for you to prove your worth on the battlefield.” He released her hand, sitting back.
“You should be looking for a submarine,” Emma said, her mind beginning to reboot itself. She did not bother waiting for Griggs to ask why, instead plowing ahead. “There’s no point in doing all of this unless the enemy is poised to attack when the defense systems are down.”
Griggs looked to a uniformed man at the rear, who nodded his understanding and disappeared into the cockpit.
Emma sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the cot. With a stinging pinch, she slipped the IV out of her vein. She stood on shaky feet, then steadied herself.
“What do you need?” Griggs asked her, sounding more helpless than Emma had ever heard him before.
“Get me some clothes,” she answered. “And a computer.”
Forty-Nine
The Porsche Panamera receded from Matt’s sight, carrying Ashley and Luke with it. As it disappeared from view, Matt swung around the corner of San Vicente Boulevard where he and Larsen had been dropped off. He glanced up to see the destination that Detective Larsen had remained silent about.
“The Beverly Center?” Matt asked, as the hulking mass of the shopping center loomed into view. The massive mall and its surrounding streets were quiet at this pre-dawn hour. The little traffic that passed them was zipping by with the freedom that morning hours provided in Los Angeles.
Larsen started walking. “Let’s go,” he told Matt.
Obeying, Matt followed him to the mouth of a parking garage. A steel gate blocked their entrance. Larsen did not bother with trying to open it, instead pushing the red button of an intercom on a nearby wall. There was a small burst of static, followed by a voice.
“Help you?” it said.
“This is Detective David Larsen from the LAPD. I’m responding to a report of suspicious activity up on the helipad.”
Matt looked at Larsen with realization. He had forgotten about the little-known private helicopter landing that rested atop the Beverly Center mall. It was mainly used by high-powered executives and the occasional celebrity to be whisked from meetings in Hollywood to the outer regions of Los Angeles when they needed to avoid traffic. Matt himself had picked up a Russian billionaire from the helipad when the man wanted to buy a block of servers in a building on a nearby street.
There was a perplexed mumble coming through the intercom before the voice said, “I didn’t call anything in. Are you sure-”
“Listen to me!” roared Larsen. “The call came from the Sofitel Hotel across the way. They said they saw something that may violate national security. Now are you going to let me in or are you going to keep worrying about the forms your boss is going to make you fill out while the building explodes around you?”
“Sure, sorry, of course,” came the quick response. It was followed by a dull buzz as the steel gate crept open. As soon as they were able, Matt and Larsen ducked underneath and sprinted to a nearby stairwell. Racing up the steps two at a time, they reached the roof and pushed open the door.
Facing them was a sleek Bell 206 Jet Ranger, its red a
nd white rotors at rest. The pair hurried towards it.
“Good work, detective,” Matt had to admire.
As he pulled open one of the doors, Larsen shrugged. “I heard this one was used to transport a government official yesterday. We got lucky that it’s still here.”
They climbed inside the instrument-studded cabin. Larsen placed himself in the driver’s seat, while Matt took the one next to him.
“Don’t we need keys or something?” Matt asked.
Larsen shook his head, already reaching for the numeric pad nesting beneath the flight controls. “It starts up on a command code,” he said, rapidly punching in the numbers. With a cabin-shaking whump, the rotors kicked to life above them and at the rear. “Okay,” Larsen whispered, steadying a hand around the grips of the controls. He thumbed a switch and the copter lifted slightly off the ground.
Suddenly, there was a clunk and the helicopter nosed back down towards the pad. Matt and Larsen looked out the side window to see a red-faced man in a rumpled police uniform hanging on to the skids. His shouts were lost in the prop wash that was bearing down on him.
Larsen opened up his cabin door to yell at the man, “This is a police emergency!”
“I am the police! Get the hell out of there!” the man screamed back.
Larsen sighed, turning back to Matt. He nodded at the wall behind Weatherly’s head. “Get me that, would you?”
Matt followed the detective’s gaze to see a small arsenal of rifles on the wall. He grabbed one and put in Larsen’s waiting hand. The detective spun back around and pointed the gun down at the policeman. “Get off!” he repeated.
The man stared daggers but lifted his hands from the skids. The copter lifted into the sky as Larsen slammed the cabin door shut again. Tossing the gun to Matt, he steadied the shaky craft and banked it hard to the right.
The smoggy gray carpet of Los Angeles spread before them. Larsen headed for the horizon, where the azure blue of the Pacific Ocean beckoned.
“Where did you learn to fly?” Matt finally inquired.
