Silent Waters

by Jan Coffey

  The broadcast was from Fox and the aerial shots were of different boroughs of Manhattan. An ocean of people and cars and trucks and buses had flooded the streets. The pedestrians were the only ones who were moving. Total pandemonium reigned.

  “What is he saying?” he asked, as a reporter came on. He placed his hands on her shoulders, leaning close to her face. The news bands at the bottom of the screen were too small to read.

  “He’s recapping a speech the President must have just made.” Amy took the earphones off, holding one side of it to her own ear and the other next to his.

  McCann pressed it to his ear.

  “…not meeting their demands. America will not give in to terrorists. As you know, those were President Hawkins’s exact words.”

  The screen split, showing an anchor man along with a shot of people leaving the city.

  “What does that mean to the people of New York exactly?” The anchor asked. “Should we be evacuating the city?”

  As the reporter started to answer, McCann thought he saw a flicker on the MFD displays. Moving back to them, he switched through the functioning camera views. There was still no sign of the two goons who’d been searching for them. The tunnel to the nuclear reactor was clear, too, and back in Maneuvering, his petty officer was still at his station.

  “He’s saying he has great faith in our military’s ability to defend the country,” Amy recapped for him. “The President refuses to leave the White House, in spite of Hartford’s ability to reach Washington with a missile.”

  She paused for a moment. McCann focused on the MFD screen.

  “Is that true?” she asked. “Can the hijackers hit the White House with these weapons?”

  “Yes, they can,” he replied, not taking his eyes off the screen.

  Things were happening in the torpedo room. Rivera and his helper were shuffling the fish.

  He didn’t like the look of this at all.

  “There seems to be a demand for lots of money and freeing of some Middle Eastern prisoners,” Amy said, repeating what she was hearing. “An unnamed Islamic terrorist group appears to be behind it.”

  McCann doubted the truth of that statement. They were easy scapegoats. If the media used the work ‘Islamic’ in a sentence, nine times out of ten they’d finish the phrase with ‘terrorist.’

  “You’re of Iranian descent?”

  “Yes, I am.” He looked at her and then turned back to the screen. “Are they saying that?”

  “Yeah.” She paused. “McCann doesn’t sound like an Iranian name. I hate it when the media does that.”

  “What?”

  “They focus on what they want to see and not the whole person. And what does parentage have to do with this, anyway? They’re so full of shit.”

  He glanced at her. She continued to curse under her breath as she watched the screen.

  McCann figured he was the most Middle Eastern of anyone he’d seen on the ship so far. Money had to be the motivator, especially for someone like Cav, or Rivera, or whoever else on his crew was involved. None of them were Muslims. None had any ties to the Middle East, at all. He was familiar with the backgrounds of his entire crew. He knew their personnel files inside and out. They wouldn’t follow the orders of an Islamic terrorist even if they had guns held to their heads. He looked at the petty officer in Maneuvering. No one was holding a gun to his head. What they were saying on the news made no sense at all. It had to be something else.

  “They think the nuclear power plants are more likely targets than the cities,” Amy relayed. “But they’re not ruling anything out.”

  McCann looked down at his chart. They were already past the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant in Waterford, Connecticut. But the structure was still an easy target for the Tomahawks.

  He’d waited long enough. He had what he needed. His plan was clear. Shutting down the reactor wasn’t enough. He had to go on a search and destroy mission before attempting to shut down the reactor. That wouldn’t force the sub to surface. With enough of the hijackers still armed, they could use the auxiliary power, remain at periscope depth, and fire some of the weapons. But once on the surface, they wouldn’t be able to use the Vertical Launch System.

  Amy was white-knuckled and pale when McCann turned her chair around to face him. He pulled away her headset and crouched down until they were eye to eye.

  He pulled out one of the two guns and held it in front of her.

  “This is very easy to use,” he told her, showing her the gun and the little there was to know about it. “Keep the safety on until you want to use it. I don’t want you shooting yourself or me by accident. If the situation warrants it, though, I want you to shoot. Don’t hesitate because, I’m telling you, the bad guy won’t hesitate. Someone tries to come through that door, you aim at the middle of his chest and shoot them dead.”

  “Where are you going?”

  Her eyes were huge, and he could see the mist of tears forming. “I’m going forward to the torpedo room.”

  “What about shutting down the reactor?”

  “I’ll come back for that.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  He shook his head. “This is the safest place on the sub for you right now.”

  “What are you going to do there?”

  “They’re getting ready to do some damage. I have to try to stop them.” McCann gave her the weapon. Her fingers were like ice cubes, but they wrapped around the handle. She looked down at the weapon in her hand.

  “Will you please reconsider and take me along?”

  He pushed back the hair that had fallen across her brow. He lifted her chin until she was looking into his eyes again.

  “I need to know you’re here,” McCann said softly. He pushed to his feet. “Lock the door from the inside. I’ll come back for you.”

  She nodded reluctantly. “You promise?”

  A chuckle rose in his chest. He imagined one of her twins asking that question in just the same way. “I will. I promise to come back for you.”

  ****

  McCann was on the loose, so Mako was not about to use the P.A. system for communication. What he wanted done needed to be conveyed from the conn to the torpedo room only, and the headsets were the way to go. Kilo distributed the equipment to the rest of their own men. It was time that they left Commander McCann guessing.

  Standing on the conn, he strapped on his headset, adjusted the boom mike and single earpiece, switched on the wireless transmitter. He left one ear open for the room.

  “Man battle stations.” Mako stepped up onto the periscope platform and made a preliminary sweep of the surface as everyone moved into position.

  “Battle stations manned, sir.”

  “Attention, fire control team. Attention, sonar,” Mako ordered.

  He glanced at his watch. They were right on schedule. He looked around at his men. All eyes were on him. The room was quiet.

  “This is the plan gentlemen. Four torpedoes. We’ll hit them where it hurts most—in their pocket. We’ll target that brand new exploratory oil rig that has been going up this year off Orient Point. I want a firing solution. Prepare to engage.”

  As the men in the control room turned to their tasks, Mako watched Cavallaro mark the coordinates on the charts.

  “Prepare for the firing sequence.”

  ~~~~

  Chapter 30

  USS Hartford

  11:55 a.m.

  The floor shook as another torpedo fired.

  With his weapon drawn, McCann rushed forward along the passageway. No one appeared to be around. It all came down to a matter of priorities. He had to do what he could to lessen the damage they could inflict upon innocent people on the outside. Keeping Hartford intact was no longer the primary objective of his plan. As bad as a reactor leak would be if the submarine were to sink in Long Island Sound, the resulting problems would be secondary to the damage the hijackers could wreak on the population of the East Coast if they started firing the missiles.


  Two of those Tomahawks in the VLS were tipped with nuclear warheads, and McCann was beginning to wonder if they didn’t need him to arm the weapons.

  He now had to operate under that assumption, and his first priority was to stop them from firing anything.

  At the top of the stairs to the torpedo room, McCann got down on his hands and knees, peering as far as he could into the lower level. He could see no one, but the sound of operating torpedo racks reached his ears.

  Before moving, he assessed his position. At the bottom of the stairs, three sets of torpedo racks stretched forward, filling the room. On either side of the center rack, a narrow passageway led to the torpedo tubes.

  As McCann slid down the stairs, he saw Rivera operating the small crane while the hijacker helping him muscled the nose of the torpedo into tube number 3. He quickly dropped behind the starboard rack and then cautiously peered up over it. Both men were wearing headsets.

  McCann, keeping his head below the level of the center torpedo rack, moved silently down the aisle toward Rivera’s back. The time to let anyone surrender was past. The numbers had to be diminished. What he knew about each member of his crew was sealed and put away in the recesses of his mind. They were now the enemy.

  He reached Rivera just as the hijacker shut the breech door. McCann was close enough that he heard the order from the conn through Rivera’s headset.

  “Match bearings and shoot.”

  The firing of the torpedo coincided with McCann shooting point blank into the back of Rivera’s head. The muscular seaman went down like a rock in the passageway. McCann stepped past him and fired again as the other man turned, his hand still on the tube’s flood drain mechanism. The second shot echoed loudly throughout the torpedo room, but the shot was true. The bullet struck the man in the chest and he went down, dead before he hit the deck.

  McCann took another look at Rivera, who was lying in a spreading pool of blood. He had been a trusted crewman. A shipmate.

  “Stay focused,” McCann muttered to himself.

  He glanced at the VLS control panels, located in the center of the ship, between the torpedo tubes. It would take him only a moment to remove the back of the panel and rip out the internals of the firing connections.

  Before moving to that task, McCann turned and fired two shots at the camera above the racks.

  ~~~~

  Chapter 31

  Pentagon

  12:00 noon

  Bruce Dunn considered the avalanche of information on the computer, in the phone calls, in the hundreds of pages of files that were stacked up on the conference table. These contained what he needed to know about everyone possibly connected with the hijacking.

  But Bruce was more confused now than when he’d started.

  He felt as if he knew less about some of these people after reading their files. Nothing made sense. Ends didn’t meet and from the phone conversations he was having with Admiral Meisner, it seemed that no one realized that something was wrong.

  He shut the file on Paul Cavallaro and leaned back in the chair, his hands threaded together behind his head. He stared into space, but a muted TV screen at one end of the conference room caught his attention.

  The TV cameras were inside the White House. President Hawkins and a group of high-ranking military advisors were going into a conference room. The President waved at the camera and shook hands with reporters before going in. He acted like it was a normal day. La-di-dah. Nothing much happening. If the sun stayed out, he’d probably get in a round of golf later. Just another day like any other in his presidency.

  There wasn’t even a sense that it was the day before the elections.

  As the door of the conference room closed on the President and his advisors, the shot changed to views outside the White House. Pennsylvania Avenue was deserted, and cameras zoomed in on the military snipers on the roof while F1 fighters flew by overhead.

  Bruce swiveled his chair away from the screen and realized that across the table, Sarah had done the same thing. She’d been watching the same segment. He wondered if he looked as perplexed as she did.

  “Do you want to step out for some fresh air?” he asked.

  “Yes, that sounds great.” She pushed to her feet and grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair, pulling it on.

  Dunn didn’t bother to tighten his tie or put on his coat. He just said a couple of words to one of their group and hurried to catch up with Sarah as she left the room. It had been his suggestion to step out, but she appeared more eager to get out of here than he was.

  “Where do you want to go?” he asked, once they were out of the conference room.

  “Outside,” she said, never slowing down as they headed toward the elevators.

  “I have my car keys.”

  “Good. I don’t care where we go, but I need to get away from this place. Even just for a few minutes.”

  His mind immediately moved into the gutter, for the first thing that ran through his mind was taking her back to his apartment. Actually, he’d thought that every time he’d seen her at one function or another. Not that she’d even noticed him. He pushed away the ridiculous thought. He certainly had never had the opportunity of getting her attention.

  They shared the elevator with four other people, so neither said a word until they were out of the building and walking to the parking lot.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she blurted when they were out of earshot of every one else. “Nothing makes sense.”

  “Thank you,” he said, taking her by the elbow to hold her back as a car sped past in the parking lot.

  “Thank you for what?”

  “For speaking my sentiments. You must be reading my mind.”

  They reached his car, and he opened the door for her. But she stood there, staring at him. “Are you pulling my leg, Commander Dunn?”

  “Hold on. Let’s not start with formality now. It’s Bruce. And no, I’m dead serious. There’s definitely something out of whack with this case.”

  She got in. Bruce hurried around the car and got behind the wheel. He turned on the engine and stared ahead, trying to decide where to go.

  “I don’t know where to start—”

  “Wait,” he interrupted.

  He couldn’t explain it, but after a career of military service, he was suddenly feeling a little paranoid. The sense that someone might be listening in on their conversation. It would be easy for someone to plant a bug in his car. He’d learned long ago to trust his instincts.

  “Wait until we can compare notes.”

  He pulled out of the parking spot and headed for the exit. Sarah didn’t require any explanations. Bruce sensed that she understood. Outside of the parking lot, he took couple of quick turns.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Arlington Cemetery.” He saw her smile. “What?”

  “I would have picked the same place.”

  Bruce checked the rearview mirror before giving Sarah another side glance. He saw her look in the side mirror, too. They had more in common than both of them had realized. And he figured this was what happened when you planted the seed of suspicion. Nothing was safe. No one was to be trusted.

  “I know why I was picked to work on this case,” she said to him. “Why were you?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied.

  “There had to be something,” she insisted.

  “Although it was a long time ago, I did one tour of duty on a 688-class sub. Actually, it as about a zillion years ago. Right after that, I transferred into Intelligence. And I have headed a few NCIS cases.” Dunn would have liked to think that his stellar career put him head and shoulders above everyone else who might have been given this assignment, but he wasn’t that naïve. “I can think of at least half a dozen people out there who are better qualified for this specific case.”

  “More submarine experience?”

  Bruce looked up at the sky as an Air Force fighter jet made a maneuver overhead. “Y
es, every one of them.”

  “Do you know or have you ever met Darius McCann?” she asked.

  “Know him, like a friend? No. Know of him? Yes. Have I ever met him? Yes. In fact, the one time that I met him was at a function where you were in his company.”

  “I was?” She sounded surprised.

  He flashed his ID at two armed soldiers standing at the entrance to the Arlington National Cemetery and drove up through the rolling lawns and gray and white stone monuments. The grounds were covered with yellow leaves, although there were still quite a bit of brightly colored foliage in the trees. He pulled over at a spot overlooking the Potomac River.

  “You were attending a reception at Annapolis,” he told her. “We weren’t introduced, though. While McCann and I spoke, you were talking to some admiral.”

  “I ignored you?”

  “No, the old geezer pulled rank.”

  She turned around fully to face him. “How many years ago was that?”

  “Two, maybe two and a half.” He wasn’t going to say any more, or she’d be scared shitless. Exactly two years and two months ago. It was the first time he’d seen her. The event had been a cocktail party that was held after a speech at the Naval Academy. Bruce could provide more details about the longer length of her hair and how she wore flat shoes and that her hand had barely dropped from McCann’s arm that night. But he decided not to share any of that.

  He also decided not to tell her what he’d thought that night—and still thought—Darius McCann was one lucky son of a bitch.

  Suddenly, his sports car seemed a little small. He needed some air to get that tempting scent of her out of his head.

  “Let’s walk.”

  She nodded, not waiting for him to come around to open the door. They met in front of the car. The air was brisk and the earthy smell of autumn was strong.

  “Will you be warm enough like that?” she asked him.

  “Hey. I’m a tough guy.”

  She smiled and he had to force himself to keep his hands at his sides. She wasn’t wearing a hat, and the wind had her hair dancing in every direction. He guessed the strands were silky soft.