by Jan Coffey
“That will take some time. There are a lot of places to hide on a submarine.”
“Then start now,” Mako ordered. “Keep thinking what would be the biggest bang he can get for a buck. And buy us time. Even if you keep him on the run, we’re moving closer every minute to our objective. That’s the most important thing.”
“What do you want done with him when we find him?”
“Either he surrenders or you kill him.”
“And the woman?”
“She’s of no real use to us, and you know the complication she’d be if she lives.”
“Very good, sir.”
~~~~
Chapter 24
Pentagon
9:45 a.m.
Seth McDermott cruised into the conference room waving a copy of Hartford’s hijackers’ demands before Bruce and Sarah even knew that communication had been established.
“They don’t identify themselves,” Seth told the gathered team. “But it sounds strictly al-Qaeda. They’ve identified two dozen prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. They’re demanding their immediate release.”
Bruce Dunn took the piece of paper and quickly scanned the names of the prisoners on the list. He didn’t recognize any. He passed the list to Sarah and turned to one of their assistants.
“Don’t bother with an A to Z, yet. I need to know where they came from and how they got there. I also need to know how long they’ve been there. Anything you need besides that?”
“No,” she said, handing the list to the assistant.
“Then get going,” Bruce snapped. “I want it done ten minutes ago.”
The young officer took off with the list.
“Is that all of it?” Dunn asked Seth.
The young man shook his head. “They’re demanding the transfer of five hundred million dollars to a bank account in Switzerland and safe transport out of the country.”
“Or what?” Sarah asked.
“If their instructions aren’t followed, they intend to detonate the submarine in New York Harbor at 0600 tomorrow morning,” Seth relayed the information. “And if there is any attempt to stop them, they’ll launch every Tomahawk cruise missile on the sub at targets up and down the Eastern seaboard and then self-destruct right there in Long Island Sound.”
“The end result is the same,” Sarah said.
“Worse,” Bruce replied grimly. “We’ll have mass destruction in the cities from the missiles and radiation poisoning that will make much of the region, including New York City, uninhabitable. It’ll make the meltdown at Chernobyl look like an afternoon in the park.”
For a long time, Dunn had felt that the East Coast was way too vulnerable. The entire region was so densely populated and, in the event of an emergency, there was really no place for people to go. Not in a short time frame like the one they were facing now.
Seth wasn’t finished. “You’re right. They say they have the VLS weapons locked in on an unspecified number of nuclear power plants—starting with Waterford, Indian Point, and Three-Mile Island.”
“The question is whether the president will order a strike,” Sarah said, looking at Bruce.
“They’re also claiming that their sonar is fully operational,” Seth added. “They say they have the ability and the will to sink any ship and down any aircraft that directs hostile action against them.”
“Jesus,” one of the team murmured.
Dunn put a checkmark next to the name of Paul Cavallaro before looking around the room. Between those assigned to the job and others who were in and out with information, there were a dozen people in the conference room. But after Seth’s news, you could hear a pin drop. The impact of this could be so far reaching, the fatalities unimaginable.
“What’s the mood next door?” Sarah asked the question that had also been forming in Bruce’s mind.
It was all fairly straightforward, Bruce thought. Does the U.S. lie down and submit, hoping that these hijackers would honor their promise? Or do we take the old approach of acting tough, of charging in and having the situation very literally blow up in our faces.
Seth said. “No one is committing to anything yet. They’re trying to sort out the information before putting together a number of possible responses.”
And most of the senior officers were probably already aboard choppers en route to the White House. Potential plans would be formulated next door, but the final decisions would be made by the man on top, President Hawkins. Well, Bruce thought, by Hawkins and the string-pullers behind the curtain.
“New reports are in from FBI on the pictures from the shipyard’s surveillance cameras,” Sarah announced, looking at her computer screen and the message that had just popped up. “Let’s get back to work people and see if we can figure out who these bastards are.”
~~~~
Chapter 25
Newport, RI
10:00 a.m.
All modes of transportation on the East Coast had come to a screeching halt. The airlines were grounded. Private planes were not being given permission to fly, either. The skies had to be left clear for military aircraft. The rails for most of New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts ran along the shoreline, so Amtrak and all commuter lines shut down, too. The traffic jams on every highway leading from the coast—from Atlantic City to New York to Boston—had paralyzed the entire region.
In short, the East Coast was in a state of panic.
Anthony McCarthy could handle panic. For three decades, he’d been in the business of politics. He worked on his first presidential campaign, stuffing envelopes, while still in high school. Now a nationally connected political operative, he was a principal in one of Washington’s most sought-after lobbying consulting firms. Many present and would-be political figures believed that, if you wanted to get elected, Anthony McCarthy was absolutely the best man out there to run your campaign.
He had skills, he thought matter-of-factly. And he had a few gifts.
One gift that McCarthy had recognized in himself early on was his ability to predict during the last three months of campaigning the outcome of any race. Not just most of the time. One hundred percent of the time. In presidential races, he’d been correct in every one of the past seven elections, and his own candidate wasn’t always on the winning ticket.
The Hawkins-Penn presidential race had been in the bag for the past six months, if not longer. Hawkins had done everything he could to alienate the world, and the American public had grown tired of it. In fact, McCarthy was so relaxed about the outcome of the election that he’d gone along with his client’s decision not to campaign the final day. When John Penn wanted to go home, he’d just passed the word, made the requisite cancellations and apologies, thanked everyone for their support, and let the affected organizers know that President Penn wouldn’t forget them down the road.
But then the tide had turned.
This morning, in his house in Georgetown, McCarthy woke up sweating, staring up at the dark ceiling, knowing that the bottom had dropped out. A moment later, his phone had started to ring.
Transportation was a colossal problem for everyone on the East Coast. But for a man who’d helped generals and admirals and astronauts win Senate seats, it was a non-issue.
McCarthy had pulled out all the stops. He twisted arms and called in favors. Inside of an hour, he was on an Air Force jet that took him from Washington to Quonset Point, Rhode Island. And from there, a navy chopper delivered him to Newport, depositing him on the front lawn of Senator John Penn’s mansion on the water.
Striding across the soft wet ground now, looking at the mist clinging dismally to the white edifice, McCarthy wasn’t worried that a nuclear submarine was about to blow a few million people off the face of the earth. No, he had more important things to worry about. He wasn’t ready to arrange for the burial of a campaign. They might be done. Defeated. Kaput. But they could at least go down with some dignity.
Inside, the mood of his client and the staff and aides was far worse than McCarthy had
foreseen. Congressman Peter Gresham, Senator Penn’s running mate, was stranded in Ohio where he’d been campaigning the day before.
McCarthy rolled his sleeves up and went to work.
“There’s a line of reporters at least ten deep out by the gate,” he announced to the roomful of gloomy faces. “We’re calling a news conference, Senator.”
“And say what?” the senator asked. “Repeat what they already know? I’ve made a dozen phone calls to the Pentagon, the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security. I’ve even called the White House, but there’s not one iota of material that they’re not controlling carefully.”
Despite McCarthy’s connections, he hadn’t been able to get anything out of Washington, either. “President Hawkins had a press conference at nine o’clock. The White House has already announced that he’s planning to have another one at eleven o’clock. And knowing the crew that’s pushing his campaign, he or the Vice President will continue to have one every two hours after that.”
“He’s updating the people with what’s going on. He has a legitimate reason to be on camera,” Penn argued. “I don’t. This isn’t the time for politics.”
“Excuse me, Senator, but why do you think he’s on? He could put any number of his people in front of those cameras. He has a press secretary to do the job.”
“This is different.”
“Is it?” McCarthy argued. “In 2001, Bush only appeared on camera once on September 11th.”
“That wasn’t an election year,” Greg Moore chirped in.
“You got it.” McCarthy pointed to the young man. He looked around the room, waiting for his enthusiasm to start to ripple through the rest of them. Everyone seemed to be avoiding eye-contact.
Two of the aides rushed to get a fax that was printing in the next room. Another aide rubbed on an imaginary spot on the coffee table. A young woman reached for the phone practically before it rang. They were all scared shitless. This was not the same firecracker bunch that had helped get them to this point.
“Anthony’s right, honey,” Penn’s wife said from the doorway. “We have to find a reason to put your pretty face on TV.”
McCarthy hadn’t noticed the willowy red-head come in. She was wearing a white turtleneck shirt under faded jean overalls and holding her wet lap dog, a yappy and beloved shiatsu, under an arm. As always, Anna Penn looked so completely opposite to any potential First Lady ever. But Anthony didn’t think her husband minded, nor did the segments of the population they’d polled over the past year. People simply liked her as she was—crazy and unpredictable to the bone. Somebody else would have to rein her in once they were in the White House. It was just his job to get them there.
“Actually, coming up with a reason for a press conference is easy,” she continued, winking at McCarthy. “We’ll just have Aileen take Owen out for some air in his wheelchair and push him down the Forty Steps and off the Cliff Walk.”
The suggestion elicited a small gasp from one of the junior aides. McCarthy eyed the young woman. She obviously hadn’t spent much time in the company of the senator’s wife. If she had, she’d have known of the woman’s sometimes bizarre sense of humor.
“It’s raining outside,” Penn responded to his wife with a smile. “Even if Owen is willing, I don’t think Aileen will go for it. You know how she hates getting wet. No, honey. We’ll save that one for another day.”
“Just trying to help, dear.”
As she went out, the senator turned his attention to McCarthy. “Look, Anthony. I already looked like a fool once today. I’m not doing it again. I’m not going before TV cameras knowing less than they know.”
“We can come up with a reason” McCarthy said, looking around the room, hoping for some contribution. “Perhaps not what Mrs. Penn is suggesting, but something legitimate and meaningful,”
“You can volunteer to be on any team that will negotiate with the hijackers, Senator,” Greg Moore suggested.
John Penn shook his head. “No. You can bet Jesse Jackson is already putting together an expedition.”
“Maybe he hasn’t.” McCarthy said with enthusiasm. “We should try.”
“I’m not about to risk making this situation worse by jumping into the middle just to get a little attention,” Penn said shortly.
“You brought up Jesse Jackson. If the hijackers aboard that ship will respect a black American—”
“Stop right there,” Penn said, standing up. “I want everyone out…except Anthony and Greg.”
The aides quickly cleared the room. Greg Moore looked uncomfortable. When the door closed, Penn turned to McCarthy.
“Look, Anthony. I’m in the position I’m in today because, in the view of my party, I represent a philosophy of governing that is better than the man in the White House. They back me because I have a record in the Senate that says exactly what I stand for. I’m a lawyer and I stand firmly within the mainstream of U.S. political thought. Jesse Jackson has made a career out of being an outsider. Whether he really is an outsider or not is beside the point. He has met with successes negotiating with some of America’s enemies because of his status as an outsider.”
There was no point in pursuing this argument. The senator was right. McCarthy decided on stating the obvious.
“Because Hawkins is in the White House, and making himself appear to be in total command of the situation, your run for the presidency is about to crash and burn,” he asserted. Picking up a pile of faxes they were just receiving, he glanced at the pages and held them up. “These are the raw numbers from this morning’s polls. We couldn’t get any from New York or Philly, but look at the early numbers from Chicago and St. Louis. We’re not slipping. It’s a goddamn freefall. Look at these comments. The people of America suddenly think we’re at war. Forget about any kind of change in presidents. All Hawkins’ sins are forgiven.”
John Penn walked to the hutch to pour himself another cup of coffee. “Sometimes we’re faced with events that are out of our control.”
“All I’m saying is that we need to be part of these events, sir.” McCarthy looked at the glazed expression that had slid across John Penn’s face. “You like to quote Shakespeare, Senator. How about, ‘There’s a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.’”
“Interesting that you should pick that speech, Anthony. When Brutus says it, he’s trying to convince Cassius to attack Marc Antony. It’s a great speech, but Brutus turns out to be wrong. He wins the argument, but loses the battle, and democracy loses out to monarchy in ancient Rome.”
“I just mean that we need to be proactive now, show the American people that you’re the leader they think you are.”
“Hawkins might have been my opponent for the past year,” Penn replied, waving his coffee mug at McCarthy. “We’ve referred to each other in some pretty unflattering ways. Some of his negative smear ads were downright hateful. But on this day—even if it is the day before the election—Will Hawkins is my president, and I won’t do anything that might jeopardize what he’s trying to do to save the lives of people who are counting on him.”
“Senator—”
“We’re wasting our time here.” Penn shook his head. “For the rest of the day, we’re going to go to work to see if we can help prepare shelters, hospitals, law enforcement agencies…whatever…for what we could be facing at any moment. I’m going to work and help and it’s going to be done without TV cameras. We’re not going to do this for publicity. We’re going to do it because it’s the right thing to do.”
Damn it, if Penn couldn’t talk when he got pumped up, McCarthy thought. Glancing at Greg Moore, he saw the aide discreetly turn off his tape recorder.
Oh yeah. This was better stuff than he could write himself.
They weren’t done campaigning. Not by a long shot.
~~~~
Chapter 26
USS Hartford
10:15 a.m.
“What are we looking at?” Amy whispered.
&nbs
p; “Those are the control consoles in Maneuvering, just above us,” McCann told her, pointing at the red gas-plasma monitor display on the MFD. “If I can get in there without them knowing up in the control room, we’ll be able to shut Hartford down.”
“What exactly do they do?” she asked.
“Those three consoles monitor and control the submarine’s entire nuclear power plant.”
She leaned over his shoulder to get a closer look. Despite the sweat and dust and all the places he had to crawl through to get here, there was something raw and intoxicating about his scent. To keep her balance, she rested a hand on his shoulder and felt his muscles immediately contract beneath her fingers. She instantly withdrew her hand, tucking it between her knees, while still leaning forward.
“I’ve never seen the inside of Maneuvering. Once we build the structure, we’re not allowed in there at all.”
“I know.” He pointed to the monitor. “The console to the left controls the electrical system, the center one is the nuclear reactor control panel, and the right one controls the steam turbines.”
“The person manning the panel.” She pointed to the man seated at the consoles. “Is he one of yours?”
McCann didn’t answer immediately, but their faces were close enough that she could feel the heat rise from it.
“Yes, he is,” McCann said finally. “He is a reactor technician, one of my petty officers.”
“Was he the only one on your crew that was left back here?”
“No, three were stationed aft of the reactor—the reactor technician, the machinist’s mate and a machinist. I haven’t seen the two, but that’s why we were so careful coming through the reactor tunnel.”
“You thought they might be guarding the entrance to the engine room?”
