by Jan Coffey
“Open your mouth wide. Yawn.”
She did as she was told and felt her ears pop. She had to do it a few more times. “Who fired the torpedoes?”
“We did, I think.”
She started shaking. She lived in Stonington, half a block from the water. How far out from the mouth of New London harbor would they have to be to get a direct shot at Stonington? Her two angels were still in bed. Her eyes welled with tears, but she didn’t care.
He motioned over his shoulder at the outboard wall. “I’m almost there. I’ll have to work my way through any other obstructions after I climb in. It looks like I’ll have a clear drop to the torpedo room, though.”
She nodded.
“I want you to stay here for now. Do what we decided on the wiring above the panel. Wreck that navigation instrumentation, if you can.”
Amy was afraid, but she wasn’t going to admit it. She wouldn’t slow him down. It looked like he was the only one who could stop them. She gathered all of her strength, wiped away the tears on her face and nodded again.
“Go,” she said as calmly as she could muster. “I’ll cut the bastards’ juice from here.”
~~~~
Chapter 11
Newport, Rhode Island
6:15 a.m.
Senator John Penn was, if nothing else, a creature of habit.
It didn’t matter if he was in Rhode Island or in DC or on the campaign trail in some small town somewhere in the middle of the country. Good weather or bad, five days a week, he was up at 5:45 a.m. and out of the house or hotel or anywhere else he was staying by 6:15 a.m. for his morning run. Half a mile of walking and stretching, two miles of running, another mile of cool down walking as he began to conduct business with one of his aide.
The exercise was a wuss workout compared to the standards of a lot of his colleagues, but at fifty-four years old, John Penn loved the routine. It kept his weight down, his stomach reasonably flat, and his cholesterol numbers within a healthy range without medication. And that was good enough.
Over the past year and a half of political campaigning, there’d been an additional advantage to the morning exercise routine. Acting on a suggestion from his campaign manager, Penn always invited one or sometimes two members of the media to join him on his exercise route. His aides called it a ‘casual chat’ with the senator, as opposed to a formal interview. But the end result was the same, good publicity from a cadre of increasingly friendly reporters.
Before running for president, John Penn had always been extremely protective of his family’s privacy. Even as a U.S. senator, he’d taken the position that his service to the nation did not make his family members celebrities. All of that had changed, however, the moment he’d put in his bid for the highest political office in the country. He and his family had agreed to make the sacrifice.
Oddly enough, he found he enjoyed the relationships that he was developing with members of the media. In creating a casual rapport, Penn found that the way the reporters dealt with his family was very positive. Many of the questions that came up during these jogs had to do with the melting pot that best described his family. Whether it was his nineteen year old son, Owen, who’d become a paraplegic after a car accident three years ago, or his gay, twenty-four-year-old daughter, Aileen, who was pursuing a career in the movie business, or his free-spirited and outspoken red-haired Irish-American wife, Anna, who didn’t believe in or practice any specific religion, or the fact that Penn was African American, the media had—for the most part—portrayed them with respect.
To the surprise of many political gurus, his family’s diverseness had actually helped him in the opinion polls. They were unique, and the American public seemed to accept that. He and his family seemed to provide a refreshing change to the lack of humanity that characterized the sitting president’s administration.
The best part of it all, John Penn found, was that in making himself accessible to the public through the media, he’d finally become truly comfortable with who he was and what he stood for. Smart, black, born and raised in a project in the Bronx, he brought to the table his vision of a government that he believed matched the qualities of the people of America—a government that was better, fairer, more compassionate, and less belligerent than that of President Will Hawkins.
Greg Moore, one of his aides, was waiting in the kitchen of John Penn’s small mansion in Newport. The young man’s tee shirt and shorts were a contrast to his own long sleeve, foul-weather jogging suit. But the senator figured their age difference was enough to explain Greg’s tolerance for the weather. If Rush Limbaugh was standing at the end of the drive in a tee shirt, though, John was going to be annoyed.
Greg told him about the weather and ran down the day’s schedule that had been faxed to the house an hour earlier. The young aide never mentioned the election tomorrow. John had reached the saturation point after a dinner speech in California the previous night. He’d made a decision. No eleventh hour campaigning, he’d told his team. They were to cancel everything on his schedule. There would be no two-dozen stops on the way home. He was going to spend today quietly in Newport, and that was that.
“Who do we have jogging with us today?”
“Two reporters. We decided to go with local connections for this final…uh, today.” He told him the names of the reporters from the Boston Globe and the Providence Journal.
The senator knotted the laces on his sneakers as Greg rattled off the reporters’ names and their recent work. Both papers had vigorously endorsed him. Penn’s campaign manager had made sure they’d invited younger reporters, since their surveys showed that—as strong as he was in every demographic—nearly eighty percent of the under-fifty age group were Penn supporters.
“And where are they meeting us?”
“Considering the bad weather, we recommended that they join us along Ocean Drive by the start of the Cliff Walk. This way, you’re done with most of your run, and they won’t be too wet or pooped to want to talk.”
Senator Penn trusted his staff’s judgment for these types of decisions. He drank the glass of orange juice already poured for him by the housekeeper, did his routine stretches, and glanced quickly at the headlines of the three newspapers sitting on the counter. His name and face were on the top half of each of the front pages.
Everything looked good. Too good, Penn thought apprehensively.
One more day. He took a deep breath, stretched again and nodded to Greg. By the door, two members of the Secret Service, also dressed in running clothes, joined them.
“Let’s get this show on the road.”
At the end of the winding driveway, by the gates of the mansion, the real show was already waiting for him. News vans blocked the street as a dozen or more reporters with microphones and cameramen in tow surged toward the gates past the line of additional Secret Service agents and state police. Some of his neighbors were even out on the sidewalks, raincoats on over their pajamas.
“What the hell is going on?” Penn asked his aide.
“I don’t know, sir.”
The reporters started screaming all at once as soon as John Penn walked within earshot.
“Has something come up that you guys forgot to tell me?” he asked quietly.
Greg put a hand on the senator’s arm, motioning for him to stop as he reached for his cell phone. Senator Penn, putting on his best campaign smile, decided to continue on, though. Whatever it was, he wasn’t about to turn tail now. After the craziness of this past six months, there was no question that he couldn’t answer. There was no topic that stumped him. He was confident and ready for anything.
John motioned to one of the state police officers to open the wrought iron pedestrian gate. John Penn waved back the secret service and stepped into what looked to be a feeding frenzy.
“Senator Penn,” a reporter shouted. “Do you have any comment about what’s happened at Electric Boat?”
“Who do you believe is behind it?” another one called out.
“Shouldn’t there be an emergency broadcast?” a woman shouted from the back.
“Do you advise people to stay indoors?”
John Penn glanced over his shoulder, searching for Greg. He wasn’t going to admit to this throng that he had no clue what was going on.
“Senator…Senator!” A female reporter shoved a microphone into his face. “What do the events of this morning do to your promise of bringing our troops home from the Middle East?”
“If you’re elected president, are you just going to let the terrorists do whatever they want?” another one asked. John heard the note of accusation in his tone.
“If you’re elected tomorrow, will you declare war on whoever is behind this?”
The crowd seemed to be growing in size. There was the same kind of borderline hysteria in the air that he remembered seeing in September 2001, right after the planes had crashed into the Twin Towers and into the Pentagon. But John had no clue what had happened this morning. Electric Boat made nuclear submarines. Had there been an attack on the shipyard?
For the first time in his career, the senator from Rhode Island found himself speechless.
“How about your platform of peace?” someone else shouted.
“Are there any nuclear warheads on that submarine?”
Penn saw Greg fighting his way through the reporters to get to him, motioning to him to retreat.
John Penn heard himself saying the one thing that he despised whenever he heard other politicians say it.
“I can’t comment at this time,” he said, backing toward the gate. “But I’ll be communicating with the media as soon as I have something constructive to convey.”
As he and his small entourage hurried back down the drive, the shouts of the reporters filling the morning gloom, he felt the cold, uncomfortable sensation that he was being set up somehow. What he had to do now, however, was find out what the hell was happening.
~~~~
Chapter 12
The Pentagon
7:09 a.m.
Clearing the security checkpoint, Lieutenant Sarah Connelly hoped that she wouldn’t be the last one arriving at the conference room on the fourth deck of the E-Ring. She’d received the call only thirty minutes ago from her superior, Admiral Meisner, the head of Naval Intelligence. Ready in ten, she’d had to put her fate in getting here on time in the hands of the driver they’d sent to get her. The car had barely touched the ground on the way to the Pentagon.
As an attorney and a senior naval intelligence officer, Sarah was regularly directed to sit in on hearings or emergency briefings beyond the full caseload of assignments that she and her staff were assigned. Nothing out of the ordinary there.
Today was totally different. The Admiral’s news of a submarine hijacking had her scurrying to get ready. When he mentioned Darius McCann’s name, she’d come running.
In the car she considered how odd it was to hear the Admiral refer to Darius. As she thought about it, Sarah had felt a sense of relief almost that her superiors didn’t see a conflict in calling on her with this specific situation. She and Darius had known each other for thirteen years. For two of those years, they’d been lovers. For ten of those years, they’d been good friends. During the past year, however, their only communication had been a birthday card that she’d put in the mail for him. That was just last week. He hadn’t bothered to remember hers.
To everyone who knew them, the relationship had run its course for both of them. They each had adjusted well to the breakup and had gone their separate ways. But Sarah couldn’t ignore how she felt this morning when she’d heard he was in the middle of a naval investigation—in the middle of a potential nightmare. It was just another reminder of those invisible wires that still connected them.
She ran the last few steps to the elevator, just as the doors were closing. Someone near the door put a hand out, holding it open for her.
“Thanks,” she said, stepping into the crowded elevator.
Wanting to keep her mind focused, she did not look at any of the faces around her. Instead, she stared at the panel displaying the floors. The elevator nearly emptied on the third floor. Stepping out on the fourth floor, she nodded thanks to a navy commander who motioned for her to go ahead of him. He was the same person who’d held the elevator door open for her.
After signing in at the security desk, Sarah started toward the large conference room where she’d been told the meeting would take place. Her companion from the elevator was right behind her, and they both stopped at a reception desk just outside of the conference room.
The young man behind the partition looked up from his computer screen, reading their badges. “Lieutenant Connelly. Commander Dunn. They’re waiting for you inside.”
“I guess that’s as good as any introduction,” the commander told her, extending a hand as they headed toward the conference room door. “Bruce Dunn.”
“Sarah Connelly.” Surprised at his lack of formality, she moved her briefcase from one hand to the other and shook his hand. Clear green eyes, strong chin, Dunn was definitely easy on the eyes. A nose that looked like it had been broken once or twice only added character to his face.
“How much time did they give you to get here?”
“Half an hour,” she said. “How about you?”
“About the same.”
“I live twenty minutes away,” she added. Sarah noticed the tiny bit of tissue still attached to a cut right under his chin. She pointed to it. “Your stitches are showing.”
He wiped a hand down his throat, brushing the tissue away. “Better?”
“Much.”
He reached to open the door of the conference room. “They better have some cinnamon donuts in there.”
She liked his sense of humor, but her thoughts about him were cut short the moment they walked in. Seeing the gathered brass, Sarah felt her stress level go to about a thousand RPMs. This was not the standard briefing. The tension inside the room was crisp, and the subdued conversations stopped as the Admiral entered with the Head of the Joint Chiefs. About two-dozen uniformed and civilian-dressed personnel crowded around a huge conference table. She immediately recognized some of them, but her attention was immediately drawn to a large TV screen at the far end of the room. The volume was turned up as a reporter described the live footage of New London Harbor. The man’s voice bordered on frantic. A large electronic map on the wall next to the TV screen highlighted the location of Hartford.
“…can see where the unmanned New London Ledge lighthouse has sustained damage. The landmark, a brick building that sat by itself in the water at the mouth of the harbor, appears to be totally destroyed. Smoke is rising from the ruin. From here, we can see smoke from the…get a shot of the Coast Guard cutter,” the reporter said to his cameraman, “there, you can see it now. Smoke is engulfing the Coast Guard cutter that the submarine clearly fired on. It’s hard to believe that this is taking place right here on the Thames River.”
The network anchor cut in as the camera zoomed closer. It appeared that they were filming from the top of a building in downtown New London, overlooking the harbor. Groton was visible across the river. Just then, the screen split into two images and an aerial shot of the scene appeared. Sarah could see the submarine gliding through the dark water.
“The submarine looks to be heading for Fisher’s Island or what locals call ‘the Race’, the opening that leads to the Atlantic from New London harbor. But, of course, we can’t tell for certain,” the reporter said to the network anchorman.
The anchor cut in. “We’re getting unofficial word that the submarine we’re looking at from our New London affiliate’s helicopter is the USS Hartford, one of the navy’s improved Los Angeles-class submarines.”
“What the hell is that news helicopter doing up there?” one of the generals barked.
A member of the Admiral’s staff picked up a telephone and spoke into it briefly.
“We’ve just been told that there will be a press confere
nce at the navy submarine base in Groton any minute, now,” the anchorman added. The image shifted to an empty podium in a briefing room. A number of officers were standing behind it, and others were coming in an out of the picture. “For those viewers who’re just joining us…”
Sarah felt a touch on her arm. Commander Dunn pointed to two empty seats against the wall, away from the TV screen. Admiral Meisner had seated himself at the table in front of the chairs, and he nodded to the two of them as they made their way to be seated.
The admiral rolled his chair away from the table and leaned back as Sarah sat down.
“Are you up to this?” he whispered.
“Absolutely,” she said confidently.
“We’ll take care of the tactical side of things and any negotiations when they come up,” Meisner explained. “You and Commander Dunn will handle the investigative side of it.”
Sarah realized Bruce Dunn was listening to the conversation.
“By the way, have you two met?”
They both nodded.
“Your primary objective is to identify who is running the show inside. We want to know the man on top and everyone else on his crew,” Meisner continued. “Most of us in this room believe that only a present or a former U.S. sub driver could pull this type of maneuver. Also, you should know right up front that we’re not ruling out that some or maybe all of the ten crewmembers left on board Hartford are willing participants in the hijacking.”
The sudden rush of temper set Sarah’s ears on fire. She knew McCann, and so did they. She held back her comment, though. She knew she needed to come across as cool and objective or she would immediately be removed.
“Are you okay with this?” the admiral asked her directly.
Sarah’s past relationship with Darius was no secret to anyone that she worked with. “Of course, Admiral.”
