Silent Waters

by Jan Coffey

  “There’s a basic difference between Brody and McVeigh, though,” Dunn said.

  “Yes. The rage that builds up and makes him feel he needs to do one horribly violent act. I don’t see it, either,” Sarah explained. “But it still could be there and we’re just not seeing it.”

  Bruce stared at a bookcase across the room. She could see he wasn’t thinking about books.

  “This entire situation is very fascinating. This could be a rerun.”

  She waited for him to say more, but Dunn sat back in his chair. He took a bite of his donut, drank his coffee. He occasionally opened one of the folders that she had on the table and glanced inside. He went through his own notes, too, and checked a couple of things on the laptop. He was concentrating fully, and she found herself watching him. She wondered what was going through his mind.

  She also wondered what he was all about. As a person.

  He had a wiry build, maybe five foot ten or eleven. Definitely a runner. He walked and moved with confidence. At the same time, he didn’t overpower. He shared his knowledge but welcomed what others had to offer. Sarah had already seen that, not only in her own dealing with him, but in the way he worked with the rest of the people in their group.

  He was not standard navy issue.

  She stole a glance at his face. He had a thin face, broken nose, and short, thinning hair that he was definitely not ashamed of. She’d seen a number of officers who were letting their hair grow a little longer on top in a comb over attempt. He had a strong jaw and a well-defined chin. But his eyes were the best part of his face. They were amazing. Green or maybe hazel. No, she definitely thought they were green. They seemed to change every time she looked at them. And they were intense. As reasonably handsome as the individual parts of his face might have been, his eyes pulled all the elements together.

  Those eyes turned on her, and there was a long moment of awareness. She shook herself out of it.

  “What do you mean, this could be a rerun?” she asked, not too comfortable that he’d caught her looking at him.

  “Do you know that demand for the release of the two dozen prisoners at Guantanamo Bay? It’s all bullshit.”

  He’d just thrown her for a loop. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I had them run a check on the names—looking for any possible connections—and as far as I can tell, none of those people mean anything. From what the preliminary reports show, they’re Afghani nobodies who have just been cooling their heels there for the past few years. They were all scooped up during operations south of Kabul in 2004 and, based on what’s on file, should have been released long before now.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “And how is this related to your comment about this situation being a rerun?” Sarah asked again.

  “I was thinking back to your comment about the Oklahoma City bombing.”

  She nodded. “What about it?”

  “Early reports after Oklahoma City suggested that a Middle Eastern terrorist group may have been responsible for the bombing,” he explained. “Even liberal Democrats in Congress were saying it.”

  “But within days, federal authorities linked the attack to McVeigh,” she countered.

  “Yeah. Days,” he repeated. “We only have hours. Maybe minutes. And while the president is a guy who’d nuke the entire Middle East if Hartford makes one false move, we have enough to suggest that the hijacking might be the work of homegrown boys.”

  Sarah swiveled her chair to face him. “You thought that an outsider could be running that submarine.”

  “It was a possibility, but the hijackers must be mostly mercenaries hired to do the job. Now, I believe that these men are acting on their own. And that means we could meet all of their demands, real or fake, and they’ll still go out in a blaze of glory, blowing up the entire East Coast.”

  She knew he was just thinking out loud, but something about his analysis wasn’t sitting right with her.

  “If what you say is correct, then why are they waiting? Why make ultimatums? Why not do what McVeigh did and go after the greatest carnage. Hit us hard and do the most damage possible?”

  “Maybe it’s not political. Maybe they’re just after the money, and the rest is just a smoke screen.” He shrugged. “The truth is, I don’t know. But I think that’s what we need to go after. Motivation. We have to figure out what the hell is going on in these people’s minds. But the bottom line stays the same. The combination of guys on that boat just doesn’t sound like a foreign terrorist group.”

  One of their aides called out that President Hawkins was going on air with another address to the nation.

  ~~~~

  Chapter 28

  The White House

  11:10 a.m.

  “That’s a wrap,” the director of the camera crew called out.

  President Hawkins waited in his chair until the microphone was removed before getting up. He moved past the cameras and lighting equipment to his staff, who were waiting at the other end of the Oval Office.

  “How did I come across?” he asked.

  Three of the aides blurted out compliments in rapid succession.

  “Excellent.”

  “Tough and in charge, sir.”

  “The country is lucky to have you in that seat, Mr. President.”

  Hawkins was pleased with the response, but he knew he’d only hear the truth from his campaign manager, Bob Fortier. The old pit bull never minced words. He didn’t care about hurting the President’s feelings or chewing him into little pieces and spitting him out. He was a no-nonsense, straight-from-the-hip guy who, when it suited him, could be a wheeler and dealer who knew exactly how to get a job done. Right now, Fortier was standing behind the military advisors, near the window. His stony expression revealed nothing.

  They needed to wait for the camera crew to leave the room. Someone handed the President a cup of coffee. He gulped half of it down, not minding the hot liquid burning his tongue and throat. He was in overdrive now, and he needed to stay that way until this thing was behind them.

  When the television crew finally went out ahead of most of the staff, Joe Smith jumped to get his two cents in before anyone else could talk.

  “Mr. President, your stance of not giving in to these thugs’ demands is rock solid,” the rear admiral said passionately. “I think it’s brilliant to lay out a detailed counter-attack strategy of your own before the American public. Put these barbarians on the defensive and keep them there.”

  “Thank you, Admiral. I appreciate your support.”

  “What I must disagree with,” Smith continued, “is your insistence that you remain at the White House, and announcing this to the country on live TV and radio. Everyone, Mr. President, including these hijackers, is listening, and you know damn well that we’re within the range of a Tomahawk cruise missile from Hartford. At this very minute, a missile could be headed for us, and there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to knock it down before it strikes.”

  “Do you think I should be afraid, Admiral?” Hawkins asked with a smile, glancing out the window at the sunny skies of Washington, DC.

  “Not afraid, sir, but cautious.”

  “I’m taking precautions. The Vice President has been taken to a safe location. If the worst should happen and these thugs, as you call them, are not the cowards they appear, then I am sure that this great country of ours will continue to function even if the White House comes down around my ears.”

  “Mr. President—” Smith started again.

  “I have great faith in our military superiority,” Hawkins continued.

  “Naturally, sir. But that doesn’t mean you should be exposed. Take yourself out of the line of fire,” the rear admiral wasn’t about to give up. “We don’t want to give these people a target.”

  Hawkins passed on his cup to be filled again. “Life is about choices, Joe, about roads that we decide to take or not to take. Each step paves the way for the next.
Each road leads us to a new adventure,” he said. “The events of this morning stand in history as the greatest threat ever raised against the American people. The magnitude of evacuation that is going on all along the East Coast is the largest ever engineered anywhere. People are scared, Admiral Smith. There is chaos across the country. I’ve ordered every facet of our government to do what we can to assist our people.”

  “All completely admirable, Mr. President—”

  “Now, by staying at the White House, Admiral, I’m doing exactly what I’m ordering my troops to do. A captain remains at the helm of his ship until the very end. People need to see that I’m calm, in charge, and not afraid. The American people need to see that, and the hijackers need to see that. This is the road that I’m determined to take. Whatever road my actions lead me to, then I shall welcome that venture, as well. But in the end I believe the men aboard that submarine will back down. If they don’t, they’ll rue the day they were born, Admiral.”

  With a nod, Rear Admiral Smith acquiesced. Hawkins looked over at Bob Fortier. The old man was watching someone beside him. It was a reporter from the Post, and the man was writing notes ferociously on a pad.

  The President glanced back at Fortier, who gave him an approving look.

  ~~~~

  Chapter 29

  USS Hartford

  11:30 a.m.

  When the two men paused outside the locked engineering office, McCann stood with Amy behind him, his pistol leveled at the door. He didn’t think either of them was breathing as they waited. They knew when the hijacker put his hand on the door latch, but the door didn’t open.

  A moment later, they saw them on the monitor. They’d moved to the next level up and were working their way past Maneuvering.

  That was half an hour ago.

  McCann looked at the monitor of the Multi-Function Display. The two men had finished their search of the engine room and had moved into the forward compartment of the sub. He could see them now in the torpedo room.

  Rivera and his coworker were keeping their attention on their own jobs as the other two checked outboard of the racks. There was no view of where he’d left Brody, so McCann had no way of knowing if the sonar man was still unconscious, or whether it had been discovered that the duct tape that bound him had been removed.

  McCann switched views and stopped at a blank screen. He frowned.

  “What was this supposed to be?” Amy asked.

  “The control room,” he told her. “They’ve disabled the cameras, figuring we might get access to an MFD. Whoever’s running the show up there doesn’t want us looking over his shoulder.” Whoever is in charge, McCann thought to himself, knows details even as minute as this.

  McCann guessed he had Cav to thank for that.

  “And maybe they’re afraid you’d recognize them.”

  McCann’s thoughts had been moving more along tactical lines, like how many men were in the control room, what stations were left unmanned, and if there was any way he could force his way in. Fear of recognition on the part of the leader of the hijackers had never crossed his mind.

  “I have a question for you,” Amy whispered. “Do you think they might have sealed off the engine room at the reactor tunnel?”

  He thought about that a moment. “They might have, but I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  He’d already accepted the fact that Amy Russell was no doormat, no matter how dangerous a situation became. He was also resigned to the fact that she expected answers.

  “Because once they’ve locked down that door coming through the reactor tunnel, they’d need a combination code to reopen it. That code is locked in the safe in my cabin.” He shook his head. “They can’t risk not having access to Maneuvering or the engines at this point.”

  “So how are we going to shut down the reactor?”

  “I’ll show you when we get there. But first we need to get our bearings on where this sub is headed and what they want to do. I also need to figure how much time we have.”

  McCann jotted down a few notes on his pad.

  “Those two torpedoes were the only ones that were fired,” Amy said quietly. “They’ve got Tomahawks in the Vertical Launch tubes, don’t they?”

  He heard the quaver in her voice and turned to look at her. Her chin was high, her blue eyes clear and direct. She was doing her best to stay strong, and he admired her for that.

  “Yes, they do. And it’s possible they won’t use any of the weapons remaining on board,” he suggested. “We’ve been cruising at periscope depth. That tells me they’re in communication with the surface. Most likely they’re making their demands.”

  “How do you know we’re still at periscope depth?”

  “I just know.” He thought about it a second. “The pitch of the deck hasn’t changed since we submerged...and from this.” He grinned and pointed to the MFD.

  “What else do you know?”

  “That these guys are not in any hurry to get wherever they’re going.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “We haven’t gone over eighteen knots since leaving New London harbor.”

  Amy’s expression brightened a little. “What do you think their demands are?”

  He shook his head and then stopped. “There might be a way to find out.”

  McCann could have kicked himself for not thinking about this before. He looked around the small room and pointed to a seven-inch screen two panels away.

  “Use the headset and check it out. Normally, it’s not live TV. The set runs off the communication system, which was shut down before. But our friends in the control room might be as curious as we are about how this hijacking is being played on the networks. They could be bringing in the news live, or taping the broadcasts from satellite. Either way, check out the channels and see what you find.”

  Amy moved to the chair before the unit, put on the headset, and went to work. “Maybe I can pick up Regis and Kelly Live,” she said, smiling.

  McCann realized this was exactly what she needed. To get involved.

  He switched the MFD from the surveillance displays to the ship’s stats. He brought up navigation. The GPS system screens came up with no problem, and McCann cursed under his breath at the thought of Cav sabotaging the unit with that phony failure. He looked at the three dimensional navigational fix, getting the latitude and longitude. He then turned to SINS, the ship’s inertial navigation system used to keep constant track of the sub’s position by way of an advanced three-dimensional gyroscope system that followed the movements of the ship from a known starting point. As skipper, he always used both systems to keep Hartford on course. He could see the same thing was being done now.

  When he’d come into the submarine service, the plotting on the submarine was done manually, by a junior officer, on tracing paper over a standard navigational chart. Now, in spite of the electronics, he still insisted on using that method, as well.

  A thought occurred to him and he pushed to his feet and opened an upright steel box secured to the bulkhead. Aside from diagrams of the propulsion system and the associated electrical components, he knew there were a number of duplicate charts kept here. He searched until he found the specific chart of New London harbor and Long Island Sound. He spread the chart over a table and started plotting the numbers the navigation screens had given him before.

  “Where are they taking us?” Amy asked a couple of minutes later.

  McCann looked up to realize she wasn’t checking the TV screen. She was watching him intently.

  “New York City,” he told her.

  “Jeez! What do they have against New York City? Why is it that all these terrorists have to focus on that one city? Why not Chicago or Miami or Houston or L.A., for God’s sake? Haven’t those poor people suffered enough?”

  McCann worked quickly to finish graphing the charts. “I don’t know why you’re being so negative. Maybe this is not intended to be an attack,” he suggested. “Could be it’s just a sights
eeing tour. A little Christmas shopping.”

  “Commander, I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”

  He gave her a quick glance. “I don’t. I’m serious.”

  She smiled and turned her chair back to the small TV screen and ran through the channels.

  Hartford was traveling at exactly fifteen knots now. Based on the graph, they were on a line directly between Hammonasset Point in Connecticut and Orient Point on Long Island. With the kind of firepower they were carrying, there was no point in moving any closer, as dozens of cities, including New York City, were within striking distance. Their slow but steady approach toward Manhattan probably had more to do with strengthening their negotiating position than anything else.

  If they weren’t after something, they could have let the missiles fly the moment they went to periscope depth outside of New London harbor.

  “I think I have something here,” Amy said from her chair, readjusting the earphones on her head and leaning closer to the screen.

  McCann switched to the surveillance displays first, making sure everything and everyone was where they were the last time he’d checked. The two men searching the torpedo room must have moved onto the next section, for they were no longer in view of the cameras. He thought about Brody. There was nothing he could do for him now, but he hoped he was all right.

  He considered the two men. He couldn’t imagine they’d be backtracking to the engine room. But even if they did, the locked door and the two guns he’d taken from Dunbar and his friend gave them more protection than they’d had in the ship’s office. Plus, it was a big submarine and there were a million places to hide.

  Amy let out a gasp. “That’s unbelievable. Look at this.”

  He moved behind her to see what she’d discovered. The broadcast was live. Just as he’d expected, the only way for the hijackers to know how their destructive plans were playing out was by getting the news via satellite.