Silent Waters

by Jan Coffey

  He wasn’t talking. That was the President’s job, and he wasn’t going to undermine any ongoing efforts. Period.

  As the chopper touched down on the lawn, Greg Moore and two additional Secret Service agents met Senator Penn.

  “McCarthy had to pull out all the stops to set up this call,” Greg told him as they moved toward the house. “They’re just getting started.”

  Penn knew what his campaign manager was trying to do. It was risky, but McCarthy wanted to delay the election.

  Yesterday, Penn was being told with confidence that he was going to win by a landslide. Now, less than twenty-four hours later, the outcome of the election was anyone’s guess. He figured that this suggestion would make Hawkins’ campaign people happy, too. They had to agree. With the eastern half of the country trying to evacuate to safer areas, an election would be pointless.

  He was greeted at the door by his wife, Anna, who kissed him and took his arm. “How is everything out there?” she asked. “As bad as it looks on TV?”

  This was one of the million reasons he was still so crazy about his wife after all these years of marriage. She couldn’t care less about the election tomorrow. Her only concern was people. Despite Greg’s prodding, John took two minutes and told Anna about where he’d been and about the spirit of the people he’d seen at each shelter.

  She gave him an affectionate hug before he had to go and whispered in his ear. “Don’t forget. It doesn’t matter. If they don’t elect you, it’s their fucking loss.”

  Penn was still chuckling when he entered the dining room, which was now set up for the teleconference. Two of his aides were sitting at the table, and McCarthy was already lecturing into the conference phone. He stopped mid-sentence to inform those on the other end that the Senator had joined them.

  John Penn exchanged pleasantries with the people on the phone before motioning to his campaign manager to continue what he was saying. He knew Jane Atwood, the National Security Advisor, very well, and Ned Harris from the Department of Justice even better. He’d gone to law school with Harris, and he’d been a pompous jerk back then. These two were nothing, if not devoted watchdogs for President Hawkins.

  “What I was saying, Ned,” McCarthy started again, “is that there was a possible precedent set for this during the 2004 elections. After September 11th, Homeland Security recommended that the country be prepared to postpone the election in the event of a terrorist attack on or about the actual day.”

  “I remember,” Ned Harris said. “And have you contacted Homeland Security?”

  From the bastard’s arrogant tone, Penn figured the paper pusher already had his answer.

  “Yes, we have contacted them,” McCarthy said, rolling his eyes at Penn.

  “And what did they say?”

  “They pushed off all questions regarding the matter to your office. And that’s why we’re on the phone right now,” McCarthy’s tone took on a cutting edge. “We’re not asking you to do us a favor, Ned. There are logistical issues about tomorrow that make voting impossible. Perhaps you’ve heard that the country is facing the possibility of a nuclear holocaust.”

  “I believe I heard the President say this morning that the U.S. Government is open for business.”

  “I think the shops in Hiroshima were open for business when—”

  “Gentlemen,” Jane Atwood interrupted, “if we could just cut to the chase. I’m rather busy this morning.”

  “Sorry, Jane,” McCarthy replied. “Go ahead.”

  “There is not enough time to get Congress involved in putting off the election.”

  “We don’t need legislation,” the campaign manager argued. “We feel that a legal memo from the Justice Department is all we need. Consider the circumstances. We’re faced with a possible doomsday scenario. Who would even think to challenge it? It’s the only reasonable course of action.”

  John Penn watched Greg Moore scribble a note and slide it to McCarthy. McCarthy looked down at it. “If you need some kind of actual precedent, New York officials postponed their September 11, 2001, primary elections after those planes flew into the World Trade Center. It has been done before,” McCarthy said.

  “We’re discussing federal elections here,” Ned Harris interrupted. “Not some local primary.”

  All of them knew this. But that wasn’t the point.

  John sat forward in his chair. “Jane?”

  “Yes, Senator?”

  “I also want to cut to the chase.” He waved off his campaign manager. “Has this issue come up with the President?”

  There was a long pause before she replied.

  “Yes, Senator,” she said in an emotionless voice. “President Hawkins has discussed this matter with members of the Intelligence Committee, Homeland Security, and select members of his Cabinet. The election stands as scheduled for tomorrow.”

  McCarthy started to argue, but the National Security Advisor stopped him.

  “The Administration has taken the position that, in spite of being far behind in many of the polls, the correct course of action is to hold the elections as scheduled.”

  “Dr. Atwood—”

  “Let me finish, Mr. McCarthy. We’ve held elections in this country during natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes. We’ve held elections while we were at war, and even during the Civil War. We will hold to that precedent, gentlemen. Tomorrow is a statutory election. It will go ahead, on schedule, and no one will change it.”

  “Thank you, Jane. Ned,” Penn said, his attention drawn to the images on the muted TV that had been set up in the corner of the room.

  There’d been another missile launch by Hartford.

  They were done fighting this point. It was up to the American people to decide if Will Hawkins or John Penn was the best man to handle the country’s future. Even if they were under attack at this very moment.

  He was willing to wait and see where the chips fell.

  ~~~~

  Chapter 35

  USS Hartford

  12:12 p.m.

  “Brody, put the gun down,” McCann ordered a second time, speaking in a low voice. But the young man’s aim didn’t change.

  McCann looked intently at the man standing three steps away. The petty officer’s pistol was pointed directly at his face. A quick glance told him that the firearm had been Rivera’s.

  Brody didn’t seem too steady on his feet. One look at his face and McCann could see that the young man hadn’t completely come around.

  “You killed Rivera, sir.” His speech was slurred, but the note of accusation in his tone was unmistakable.

  Brody must have been unconscious for some time. He clearly had no clue what was happening on the boat. At least, McCann thought, he wasn’t one of them.

  “You killed…him,” he said, not taking his eyes off McCann.

  McCann could take him out right now. He held his own pistol at his side. But he couldn’t do it. Brody was the only member of the crew left on the submarine that he could trust right now. And he needed the sonar man.

  Still, time was running short. McCann was certain that whoever was running this operation must know by now that the loading of torpedoes had stopped. From the orders being barked into the headset, he also figured that there would be someone down here in a hurry. He didn’t want to hazard a guess how many would be coming.

  “Listen to me, Brody,” McCann told the younger man with some urgency. “You’ve been out cold for hours. I’m the one who cut the tape binding you.”

  “You—”

  “Listen. Hartford has been hijacked. I don’t know by whom. But with the exception of you and me, I suspect everyone else who was left on board last night is either dead or cooperating with the hijackers.”

  “You killed Rivera,” Brody repeated.

  “Yes, Brody, I had to. He was helping to load and fire torpedoes at American targets. They shot their way out of New London harbor!”

  The young man blinked a couple of times. McCann hoped thi
s meant that the words were registering.

  “Look at this man, Brody.” Slowly, he reached down and lifted the head of the hijacker who’d been operating the small crane. “Do you know him? Is he a member of our crew?”

  Brody stared at the gun still in McCann’s hand before looking at the dead man. His confusion was obvious. He shook his head.

  “He’s not one of ours,” McCann said.

  “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t know who’s behind the hijacking. One thing I do know is that a few of them will be coming down those steps any minute.”

  Brody didn’t move. The gears in his head were not operating at full capacity.

  “We can’t let them kill us, Brody.”

  The hand wavered a bit. He still didn’t appear to comprehend what he was hearing.

  “Petty Officer Brody,” McCann snapped in an official tone.

  There was an immediate straightening to attention by the young man. His face cleared somewhat. The hand holding the weapon actually dropped to his side.

  “Shit,” McCann cursed as he heard footsteps on the top of the stairs on the deck above them. “They’re here.”

  He pushed Brody to the side just as the first shot was fired down at them, ricocheting off the torpedo rack near to where they were standing. They came down the stairs, guns blasting.

  “They’re shooting at us,” Brody said in disbelief.

  “Yes, they are. And they’re planning to kill us,” McCann asserted, moving along the end of the racks as he checked the weapon and what little ammunition he had.

  “What are we gonna do?”

  “We’re going to finish what I started. Kill them before they kill us.”

  “How many are there?”

  Brody’s brain was starting to work. McCann peered around one of the torpedoes. Two hijackers fired at him, the bullets striking the VLS panels behind him and causing the electronics to short out in an explosion of sparks.

  “I only see three. There might be more,” he told Brody. “They don’t have a full crew. I think there’s only a handful of them trying to pull this thing off.”

  “Tell me what you want me to do, sir,” Brody demanded.

  “Distract them so I can get around the outside of the rack.”

  Trust had once again been restored between them. There was no questioning, no doubt. The young man followed the orders as McCann slid around the rack.

  The gunfire continued as he worked his way back from frame to frame until he reached the aft end of the torpedo rack. He could see the three hijackers spread along the racks.

  This is it, he thought, taking a deep breath.

  Aiming at the one closest, he fired at the man’s temple and then fired repeatedly at the two gunmen further along.

  The first two went down, but he had no time to take any satisfaction in it. The third hijacker’s shot nicked McCann’s left shoulder, and he immediately felt the burn of the bullet and the numbing of his arm.

  Brody fired a series of shots from his position as the hijacker ducked behind the corner of the rack. The firing stopped for a moment, and then the man broke for the stairs, shooting at Brody and McCann as he went.

  McCann fired back, and at the base of the stairs, the hijacker ducked behind two large bottles of compressed air.

  McCann could hear Brody uttering a string of curses. “Brody, are you hit?”

  “It’s only my leg, Skipper,” Brody called back through gritted teeth.

  The hijacker fired off a round in McCann’s direction.

  ~~~~

  Chapter 36

  USS Hartford

  12:20 p.m.

  To Amy, it sounded as if the shooting was still happening right in the passageway. No, she decided, it had to be down one level.

  As scary and nerve-racking as that was, at least it meant McCann had to be alive. The hijackers must have been shooting at someone in the torpedo room.

  She stood against the wall beside the open door, holding the heavy pistol in her hand. She would use it. But she had no illusions about her ability to shoot. Before today, she’d never held a gun. She didn’t know if she’d be a help or a hindrance if she were to enter the fray.

  The shooting continued. Finally, Amy just couldn’t wait any longer. She crept toward the door. Crouching down, she felt for a pulse on the man who lay slumped in the doorway. There was nothing. She noticed that he was wearing the same coveralls as Gibbs. He was probably one of McCann’s crew, as well.

  She angled her head into the passageway. A second body, again in Hartford coveralls, lay in a twisted pose a few feet away. Amy couldn’t help but cringe at the sight of the blood that covered the man’s face.

  Something was happening. It was obvious that they’d started killing the crew members of Hartford. Whoever had killed these two men—they’d called him Kilo—had done so in cold blood. There had been no provocation. Amy wondered what had suddenly changed. She remembered what Kilo had said. Clean up.

  Clean up seemed to mean death. The end. Fourteen hundred. Military time for 2:00 p.m. Engagement in less than two hours.

  Amy took a couple of deep breaths and made sure she was holding the gun correctly, the way McCann had instructed her to. She jumped as more shots echoed in the passageway. The shots were definitely coming from below.

  She moved to the top of the stairs and looked down just as McCann called out below. At the bottom of the stairs, crouching behind a pair of pressurized bottles, a man began to shoot in the direction of the commander’s voice.

  Raising her pistol with both hands, Amy squeezed the trigger.

  The pistol almost bucked out of her grasp, but the man at the bottom of the stairs looked up in surprise, raised his gun and fired a shot at her. She pulled back, feeling the buzzing heat of the bullet an inch from her ear before it buried itself in the wiring above, showering her with sparks.

  Stumbling over the bodies behind her, she backed away from the stairs.

  Shots continued to ring out below, and then everything fell completely silent. She didn’t know if she’d even hit her mark.

  ~~~~

  Chapter 37

  White House

  12:40 p.m.

  With the exception of the Vice President, who had to be relocated under the present crisis, the rest of President Hawkins’s war cabinet were assembled at the White House when the executive order was issued.

  “They are clearly targeting our energy resources,” Hawkins told his group. “This time they hit that exploration facility in Long Island Sound. The next missiles will be headed for nuclear power plants. We won’t let that happen. We’ve waited long enough.”

  “All the pieces are in place, sir,” the deputy Secretary of Defense announced.

  “That’s correct, Mr. President,” the head of the Joint Chiefs concurred. “USS Pittsburgh is in Long Island Sound and in hot pursuit. The navy has two frigates following and a destroyer standing by in New York harbor. Air support is ongoing. We’re waiting for your order, sir.”

  “Good. We’ve discussed your tactical options, General. I want you to blow them out of the water.”

  The head of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense both looked at Admiral Norman Pottinger and nodded.

  He’d been waiting for this all morning. It was finally time to go to work.

  ~~~~

  Chapter 38

  USS Hartford

  12:42 p.m.

  In the control room, Mako watched his crew as he tugged a Yankees cap out of his back pocket and pulled it on. He was ready for action.

  Three of the men glanced over their shoulders at him, waiting for his orders. Paul Cavallaro, unaware of Mako’s intentions, continued to plot their course on the charts.

  Mako marked the time on his watch before beginning to bark out orders faster than they could be acknowledged.

  “Officer of the Deck, all ahead one third. Helm, turn for fifteen knots, right ten degrees rudder, steady course. Prepare to dive, depth
six hundred feet. Officer of the Deck, give me tube status. Dive, helm.”

  The deck inclined downward as the helmsman pushed the control yoke for the stern planes forward. As the depth was called out, he eased back on the yoke. The deck leveled off, and several in the control room moved quickly to monitor the additional stations that they were manning.

  Mako stalked to the firing panel, where one of his men was trying to program the torpedoes.

  “Nothing down there, sir. We’re shut down,” he said under his breath.

  “The VLS?”

  The man checked the monitor at the next station. “Also down, sir.”

  “We don’t need it,” Mako said, stepping back onto the conn platform. He looked down at his watch again and saw Cavallaro as he moved into the Sonar Room.

  “Conn? Sonar,” the officer called out the door. “Captain, we have company. There’s an approaching object. A small object.”

  “Can you identify it? Is it a torpedo?”

  “Negative on the torpedo, sir. But I can run it through the computer.”

  “Negative, Lieutenant. That won’t be necessary.”

  Mako smiled. They were right on schedule for their appointment.

  ~~~~

  Chapter 39

  USS Hartford

  12:55 p.m.

  Brody was pressing a rag against the wound to stanch the bleeding, but McCann was not ready to leave him like that. A medical kit was bolted to the bulkhead by the stairs, and he went running for it. He was back in seconds.

  “How are you holding up, Brody?”

  “Real good, Skip.”

  McCann knew he was lying through his teeth.

  “Let me look at that.”