by Jan Coffey
“I know we can’t go fore or aft,” he replied. “Going up won’t work, either. Even if we can get up into the sonar equipment room, we’ll be forward of the control room and cornered. The only way to go is down.”
“To the torpedo room,” she replied.
“Right.”
McCann remembered that Rivera, one of the torpedo men, had stayed on board last night. He didn’t want to believe that any of his nine men were involved in what was going on now. He imagined them in situations similar to this, maybe even worse. Still, someone was operating this sub.
Unlike the Florida flight school courses taken by the 9/11 hijackers, learning to operate a submarine wasn’t available in any class open to the public. The people running the show here had to know their stuff. And this worried McCann even more. They also had to know the extent of the power of this single vessel—and how McCann’s key-and-vault combination information made them an entirely different threat. That was the only explanation he could think of as to why they would keep him alive.
“Are we still on the surface or do you think we’ve submerged?” Amy asked quietly.
“We’re still on the surface.”
She took a clock and a file holder that he’d stripped off the wall and put it behind her. “The navy must know by now what’s happening, don’t you think?”
“A missing sub doesn’t go unnoticed for too long,” McCann answered, working on a final sheet metal screw. “Yes, I guarantee you that the navy knows this sub has been hijacked.”
Dropping the screw on the deck, he turned his attention to the other edge of the bulkhead panel. He had no access to the screws securing that side since they were buried behind the file cabinet. Using the screwdriver, he dug at the edges of the panel, trying to wedge it back enough to get a good grip on the thing.
“Then shouldn’t they be stopping us?” she asked, adding as an afterthought. “They can, can’t they?”
“They can blow us out of the water. But considering the nuclear reactor that powers us, I’d say they won’t, at least not while we’re in New London harbor.” There was no reason for Amy to know that this submarine was also armed with two nuclear warheads. That was top-secret information. It was bad enough that he suspected the hijackers had this knowledge.
“Great.” She sat down on one of the paper boxes, watching him. “I feel like a death row inmate who’s been given a second final meal while they tune up the electrical generator.”
McCann jabbed himself on the hand with the screwdriver, but the surface wound was well worth it because the paneling was clearly starting to give in. She was right there, moving everything else away so he had elbowroom. Driving the screwdriver back in at another point along the edge, he pried the panel back an inch. As he did, Amy leaned over him and jammed a stapler into the opening, effectively wedging the panel open.
He sat back on his heels, and she saw the blood on his hands.
“Use these,” she said, retrieving a pair of work gloves from the pocket of the jacket she’d taken off. “You’ll get a better grip.”
The gloves provided the grip he needed. Bracing himself against the cabinet, he yanked the panel back, exposing a small bank of cables, a pair of small copper pipes, and insulation. The space was not the rat’s nest he’d expected.
“A little space, but you’ll never get through,” she told him, looking over his shoulder. “On the other hand, I might.”
“I’ll get through,” he said, determined. “We just need to cut those cables free and I think I can work my way down between the frames.”
“We’ll end up behind the starboard torpedo racks,” she said, thoughtfully. “We’ll be able to climb out from there.”
“I’ll go. This is the safest place for you to be.”
“I don’t think so,” she argued. “Right now, I feel like a sheep in a slaughter house. They locked us in here because they want to know where we are. If you get spotted out there, they’ll come right back here looking for me.”
“I don’t know what I’ll be facing, or who might be waiting down in the torpedo room to greet me.”
“I think I’ll take my chances,” she told him, grabbing a pair of wire cutters off the counter. “We have to do some path clearing before we climb anywhere in there.”
“Those are high voltage,” he pointed to specific cables.
“I know that,” she said. “I’m only going to cut the metal bands holding them together. I’m not going to cut the cables. May I?”
“I’ll do it.”
She motioned for him to let her by. “This is one area where I do have some expertise, Commander McCann.”
It went against his principles to let her get involved, and not because she was a woman. She was an innocent civilian.
“Tell me what to cut and I’ll do it,” he told her.
“You really don’t know how to let people work, do you?”
He snorted, taking the wire-cutters out of her hand. Turning his back, he started yanking some of the loose insulation out of the opening.
She picked up another wire-cutter off the counter and forced her way next to him as she crouched down.
“I’m helping,” she said stubbornly. “This is a union shipyard.”
“You’re salary personnel. Besides, I guarantee you that we’re not in the shipyard anymore.”
“Look,” she said seriously. “My life is on the line, too. There’s too much at stake for me to be a passive observer.”
He looked at her for a moment, then handed her the work gloves. “Put these on.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
McCann noticed Amy glance at her watch before pulling the gloves on. The pained look in her expression was impossible to miss.
“This is the normal end of the shift for you, isn’t it?”
“Another hour or so.”
“Worried about your family?”
She nodded and looked away. Her eyes were glistening with emotion and she swiped impatiently at something on her cheek. She was doing her best to be tough.
“It’s too soon for them to know what’s going on here.”
“I hope so,” she whispered, focusing more closely on the puzzle before them. She started pushing at the cables.
McCann admired her strength. She was holding herself together better than he’d have thought. There were a half dozen cable hangers holding the bank in place.
“You cut the bands on as many as you can see above us,” she said. “I’ll cut the bands on the ones below us.”
He followed her directions, cutting and moving cables as she directed. In a few minutes, they’d cut enough of the hangers to allow McCann to shove the cable bank aside. Above the opening, several cables separated themselves from the bank.
“Let me have the gloves,” he ordered. “I’m cutting a few of these lines.”
“You do that and they’ll notice some minor power outages here and there on the sub,” she responded, peering up at him and handing him the gloves. “Nothing too major.”
“That’s too bad. I want major.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “You mentioned something before about the main power cables to the ESGN being up there. I’m trying to think of what kinds of havoc we could do to the control room instrumentation if we were to disconnect it from here.”
“I wish I had the schematics,” she said, thinking. “My guess would be some malfunctioning of the sonar equipment, but that’s it.”
Time was of the essence, McCann realized. The space between the frames was now large enough for him to be able to get through. Getting free of this office wasn’t enough. Once Hartford reached the mouth of New London harbor and dived, the stakes rose substantially. Somehow he had to stop the ship.
For a brief second, the thought ran through his mind that maybe the hijackers’ object wasn’t just to try to disappear into the Atlantic. Perhaps, much like the terrorists who’d flown those planes into the buildings in New York and Washington, these people intended to cause major damage here on
the East Coast.
But that was too grim a possibility. What they intended was outside of his field of action. McCann decided to focus only what he could do.
As much as he loved Hartford, he’d tear his ship apart, piece by piece, if that’s what it took to stop them.
~~~~
Chapter 9
USS Hartford
5:49 a.m.
The crew knew him only as Mako. He often went by other names, but this one, he felt, suited him.
Short and solidly built, he had a head of bristly blond hair that was heavily streaked with gray. Mako was in his late fifties, ancient by normal standards in his line of business. If there was anything called normal in the mercenary business. But clients never asked his age, and he didn’t offer. He prided himself on a reputation for being intense, brutal, accurate, and he was the only absolute expert for hire in this field, as far as he knew. He spoke eight languages fluently, and he believed in no country or God. His loyalties were to himself and to the one who was transferring a fat amount of cash into his bank account at the moment. And of course, next week or next month or next year, when he was ready for a bit more excitement, the allegiance would shift to someone else.
Mako stood on the periscope platform a step above the conn. The crosshairs in the periscope view locked on the waterline of the Coast Guard cutter. The ship was on a course that would put them directly in the path of the bow of the submarine. It was a larger cutter, and Mako could see helmeted Coasties manning machine guns fore and aft.
Mako made a 360-degree sweep with the periscope. Two small navy launches were running alongside Hartford. There was another smaller Coast Guard cutter following in the sub’s stern wake. He was keeping his speed at only three knots. They were staying close, obviously waiting for orders. “Increase speed to five knots.”
“Very good, sir.” Paul Cavallaro was sitting in the X.O. chair, and he passed on the order. “Speed, five knots.”
Mako looked away from the periscope optic module and glanced around the control room at his four-man crew. The geographic plot of their course and destination was already visible on the navigation screen.
“We have to shake them a little, boys. Show them we mean business. Have two MK48s loaded into the trays.”
“We need to turn on the PA, sir,” Cav reminded him.
“Do it.” Mako ordered, looking back through the periscope. “I have a target. Now mark.”
“Target mark set, sir. We have a firing solution.”
“Offset zero degrees,” Mako directed. “Low active snake. Give me a read back.”
“Attention!” another one of his men barked. “Firing point procedures, tubes one and two, zero degree offset, thirty-second firing interval.”
Mako watched the firing panel until the torpedoes were programmed. He looked through the periscope again. “Last call, shit head. You might want to move your carcass.”
“Ship ready.”
“Weapons ready.” The calls sounded from the crew.
“Stay right there and I’ll shove these torpedoes up your ass,” Mako warned, looking into the periscope again.
“If we shoot now and hit that cutter, sir, we risk damaging our sonar.”
He looked at Cavallaro for a moment and saw the doubt in the young man’s eyes. It was more than sonar that he cared about. “We’ll risk it. I want to show these morons we mean business.”
Mako looked through the periscope again. They were near the mouth of New London harbor. Beyond the Coast Guard cutter, the rising sun was reflecting brilliantly off the New London Ledge lighthouse. This had to be done.
“Solution ready.”
Mako looked one last time. The cutter wasn’t giving up. You asked for it, asshole. “Tube one, shoot.”
“Set,” Fire Control responded.
“Fire.”
~~~~
Chapter 10
USS Hartford
5:53 a.m.
Just a few seconds after a shudder went through the submarine, a loud boom nearly knocked Amy off her feet, and her ears felt a sudden change of pressure.
She stretched out her hands and arms toward McCann. She’d been standing on one of the boxes, working on removing the overhead panel. He reached for her, steadying her just as a second boom rocked the sub, tumbling her into his arms.
“What was that?”
“A pair of torpedoes hitting something.”
She held onto him, every nerve in her body jumping. This was it. The end of her life. And she hadn’t said goodbye to her children. She’d made no plans about who would raise them. Her mind raced in a hundred different directions.
Ryan would take the kids, since he was their father. But his heart wouldn’t be in it. His job and life style wouldn’t allow it. Kaitlyn and Zack would be better off with her parents, but the kids really had too much energy for them. They would be a burden. Her sister would be the most likely person. But she was on the West Coast. And did she tell anyone about the last life insurance policy she’d bought? Would they disqualify any claim because this hijacking would be construed as an act of terrorism?
She pressed her hands to her ears. They hurt.
“Yawn, Amy. The concussion causes a change in pressure.”
He had to repeat it a couple of times before she shook herself out of a self-misery that was drowning her. Scared and confused, she looked up at him. Every line in McCann’s face was tight. His dark eyes looked almost black, and they were blazing. He cupped her hands over her ears.
“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 presi
dent, 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.
