The Eisenhower was now moving at three or four knots, and was backing quickly away from the pier. They had two hundred yards before impact. He yelled at Banger, “Get hooked up!”
Banger ran to the aft most SPIE rope. Rat was right behind him. He dropped Duar onto the deck, hooked his harness up, and gave the helicopter a thumbs-up. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”
The helicopter pulled up gently. The SEALs hung underneath, and Duar hung precariously underneath Rat by the steel cable which ran through Rat’s harness and under Duar’s arms. The pilot pulled up quickly on the collective, increased altitude, and pulled into a hard right climbing turn. The Eisenhower had averted immediate disaster by getting out of the way in time to avoid the collision. The Galli Maru missed it by fifty feet. The Eisenhower continued to back into the bay in full reverse. The news helicopter was torn between filming the Eisenhower and the helicopter lifting the SEALs off the deck.
As they spun in the air, Rat watched the liquefied natural gas ship hit the pier in slow motion. The ship stopped dead in its tracks and the enormous pier shuddered under the force. The stern of the Galli Maru came out of the water—Rat could see the screws turning in the air, trying to drive the death ship forward. For a moment Rat thought that perhaps Duar had not rigged the ship to explode and they could go back and get the Japanese crew off. But just as the thought formed in his mind, all hell broke loose. The sides split and the top of the ship opened like a soup can with a stick of dynamite inside. Before Rat could hear anything, he saw the shock wave, the concussion spreading out from the ship. The water was driven back from the explosion; the pier was obliterated and threw splinters of wood and pieces of concrete into the sky. The Eisenhower, only two hundred feet away now from the explosion, was thrown back, and its bow caved in.
He could see the force spreading over the ground toward the Norfolk Naval Base and the city of Norfolk in a second. The shock wave spread far faster than its sound. It slammed into the helicopter. He felt as if he had been dropped into the top of a hurricane.
They were battered around and banged into each other as the he-licopter fought to stay airborne. It pitched over and headed toward the water as the turbulent air ripped the lift out of the helicopter’s blades. The SEALs bounced up against the bottom of the helicopter and down again as the unstable air thrashed them around the sky. Rat looked down and saw the cable cutting into the underarms of Duar. One of his shoulders looked like it had been ripped out of its socket.
The pilot fought to maintain control as the helicopter plummeted. The SEALs were jerked back down as the helicopter regained some lift. The pilot had the collective in the full up position demanding maximum lift from the blades and the jet engines. The engines whined as the blades beat the air down trying to keep the heavy helicopter from crashing into the water. The news helicopter, which had filmed everything including the explosion, was thrown upside down and smashed into the bay.
There was nothing left of the Galli Maru. It had vanished, a victim of the BLEVE, the Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion Rat and the others had dreaded. As the force of the explosion reached the city of Norfolk, Rat watched the glass from the distant windows being blown out of taller buildings. Cars were thrown over on their sides. At the Navy base, the ships that had been unable to get under way were being hurled around and smashed into the piers to which they were moored. The water in the Chesapeake looked like it was in the middle of a storm.
The shock wave passed the helicopter. The Pave Low climbed and pulled away to the northeast. As they hung freely in the air, Rat looked at the massive destruction beneath him, the ships and boats fighting the chaotic water, and the Navy ships struggling to free themselves from their piers.
Rat was angry that they had not been able to stop the ship. They simply hadn’t had enough time. How many had died? How many people had had their lives ruined?
He reached inside his vest and pulled out his pliers. He looked down at Duar dangling below him. Duar was either unconscious, or was staring at the water, dreading his future. Rat slipped cable into the wire-cutting teeth of the pliers, and started to squeeze. He found his anger building again, taking over. The last thing the United States needed was a circus trial with the world’s most wanted terrorist. The tribunal had turned into a fiasco, and since Duar had been captured on U.S. territory, they might not get another tribunal. He’d probably end up in federal court, where Rat himself was returning. It would be obscene.
He squeezed harder on the pliers, yearning to cut Duar loose, to watch him fall to the bay a thousand feet below. Wait, he thought. He pulled his pliers back. He switched his transmitter to UHF. “Kujo, you up?” he said to the pilot fifty feet away.
“Go ahead, Rat.”
“We lost two men on the ship. All the hostages and terrorists were on board when it went up,” he said transmitting in the clear, so anyone listening would be sure Duar was dead. “At least we think the hostages were. We never saw them.”
Kujo paused. “You didn’t get any of them off?”
“Nope. Just us. Ten of us.”
The other SEALs looked at Rat, confused. Then they got it. They nodded and smiled.
“Why don’t you take us to Langley?”
“Wilco,” Kujo said.
“And maybe you can call my bosses so they can meet us there.”
“Roger that. Understood.” He understood completely. Rat’s bosses were the CIA. He wanted his friends from the Agency to meet him at Langley to quietly take Duar off their hands.
* * *
Those in the situation room in the White House sat back, partly out of relief, and partly out of anger. The ship had made it into the Chesapeake and had plowed into the carrier pier at Norfolk Naval Base. Several ships had been damaged, a few badly, but thankfully none had been sunk. The Eisenhower, apparently part of the target along with the city of Norfolk, a city of 350,000, not to mention Hampton Roads, Newport News, Virginia Beach, and the Chesapeake Bay, had been damaged but not seriously.
President Kendrick stared at the map and the images on CNN that continued to be repeated up to the moment when the news helicopter pitched over into the bay. “Not good at all,” he finally said. “Any indication of radiation?” he asked of no one in particular.
Stuntz replied, “No, sir. The nuclear officers on the Eisenhower have been checking carefully. They have very sensitive instruments in case of their own nuclear problem. They’re not detecting any radiation at all.”
Kendrick nodded. “Could have been a hell of a lot worse. How many people killed?”
St. James looked at a message she had been handed. “Very preliminary, sir, but it looks like twenty-three so far, not counting the Japa-nese crew. Looks to me like Lieutenant Rathman did a fabulous job, considering.”
Stuntz replied, “He didn’t stop the ship, he didn’t get the Japanese hostages off, he didn’t divert the ship, he allowed it to blow up inside of one of our major cities and the largest Navy base in the world.”
“Considering we gave him about four hours’ notice I think he did admirably. In fact,” she said, looking at the President, “I think we owe it to him to stop the trial. I can’t even imagine what the Washington Post would do with the story of a Navy counterterrorism hero convicted for manslaughter of a terrorist, the very one who worked for the man who just blew up Norfolk Naval Base. How do you think that will sound?”
“Who cares how it sounds? We can’t just stop a trial.”
“Why not?” She turned to the Attorney General. “Can’t we just ask the U.S. Attorney to dismiss the charges?”
The Attorney General shook his head. “If we do that without some new evidence it would look like we were just pandering.”
“Mr. President? What do you think?” she asked, watching Kendrick’s expression.
“The trial will take care of itself. Now if you’ll excuse me, like you, I’ve been up all night. I’m going to go prepare a statement to the press, catch about twenty minutes of sleep, and go tell ever
yone how great we are.”
Chapter
28
The courtroom was jammed with reporters and spectators. They had started lining up the night before. The press was in a frenzy with coverage of the explosion near Norfolk, and when they realized the man who had averted the disaster was the same one on trial they were beside themselves. Full-page coverage, photographs, special articles on Special Forces, diagrams of SPIE Rigs, continuing coverage of the Navy divers who were searching the bay for the Russian radioactive cores, and pictures taken from the exhaustive coverage of the media helicopter were everywhere. The print journalists had fought for the passes to the front two rows of the gallery for Monday morning, when the jury was expected to come back with a verdict on Lieutenant Kent Rathman.
The jury didn’t let them down. After one hour of deliberation on Monday morning they announced to the bailiff that they had reached a verdict.
Judge Royce Wiggins brought the courtroom to order and the jury was called in. Rat and the others stood. He had a dressing on his forearm where the bullet had grazed him aboard the Galli Maru. He wanted to be outside the building, even outside D.C. when the verdict came in, so he could get his athletic bag and head to the airport if necessary. But Skyles told him he had to be there. He’d have to wait and be released on bail during the appeal. But Skyles told him that was unlikely. He was trapped.
The clerk stated, “Please be seated. This court is now in session.”
The judge looked at the jury. “Have you reached a verdict?”
A frail elderly woman in the front row stood up. “We have, Your Honor.”
The bailiff collected the verdict from her and handed it to the clerk, who handed it to the judge. With a completely unexpressive face, the judge looked at the verdict to make sure it was in order, refolded it, and handed it to the clerk. “Please read the verdict,” he said to the clerk.
“In the case of United States versus Kent Rathman, for the charge of manslaughter, we the jury find the defendant . . . not guilty.”
The gallery erupted.
Wiggins frowned and banged his gavel. “This court is adjourned,” he said.
Skyles turned with a big grin on his face and shook Rat’s hand. “I told you. I told you we’d get you off!”
The relief washed over Rat as he nodded at Skyles. “Can I go?”
“You sure can. You’re a free man.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Rat said as he walked out of the courtroom without looking back or acknowledging the calls of the journalists. As he pushed through the enormous steel door to the hallway, he looked for Andrea and saw her immediately. She ran to him with her eyes full of questions and doubts. “What happened?”
“Not guilty.”
“Thank God,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I’m so glad. I’m glad the jury did the right thing.”
They walked quickly to the elevator as several sailors from Dev Group blocked the path of anyone who was considering following them. They stepped into the elevator and the doors closed. Rat looked at her. “You think maybe the article in the Sunday newspaper may have been a factor? Rat this, and Rat that. Big hero, saved Norfolk from radiation, risked his life, the whole thing.”
“What are you saying?”
“Our names don’t get put in newspapers, Andrea. Somebody planted the story. Somebody who wanted the jury to read it.”
“Who would do that? Who would have the power to do that?”
“I don’t know. Wish I did.” He held the elevator door for her and they stepped out into the lobby then walked out into the Washington sunshine.
She said, “The article said Duar was killed in a gun battle on the ship so you left him on board.” She thought about what Duar had done. “I’m not sad to see him dead. What a horrible person.”
Rat walked along silently.
She read something in his silence. “He is dead, isn’t he?”
“No, I secretly dragged him off the ship and pulled him out on the SPIE Rig with us. Just us SEALs and our good friend Wahamed Duar. In fact I carried him off myself. Rigged a special steel cable so he could come with us. He’s probably all showered and clean now, smoking a cigarette somewhere.”
She laughed. “I’m still glad he’s dead.”
Rat put his arm around her. They walked for half a block, away from the buzz that was forming behind them at the courthouse, and stopped on the curb. He looked at her. “I need some time off.”
She nodded, not sure what he meant.
“What do you say we go to the Virgin Islands? You have a scuba certificate?”
“No. But I’ve always wanted to.”
“I’ll teach you.”
“I’d like that,” she replied as he stepped into the street to hail a cab.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I received tremendous assistance from several people in the preparation of this book. I’d like to thank my good friend Robert Conrad, the United States Attorney for Charlotte, North Carolina, for his help and guidance. Likewise, John Wallace, the Special Assistant to the Attorney General, helped me through the maze of international human rights law and the Geneva Convention. His experience in military law and prosecuting U.S. forces was invaluable.
I would also like to thank my good friend Don Chartrand, whose insight and advice was, as always, invaluable.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A graduate of TOPGUN, James W. Huston flew F-14s off the U.S.S. Nimitz with the Jolly Rogers. He served as a naval flight officer and worked in naval intelligence before becoming a lawyer and the acclaimed author of Balance of Power, The Price of Power, Flash Point, Fallout, and Secret Justice (all available as HarperCollins e-books). He lives in San Diego, California.
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ALSO BY JAMES W. HUSTON
Balance of Power
The Price of Power
Flash Point
Fallout
The Shadows of Power
Copyright
SECRET JUSTICE. COPYRIGHT © 2003 BY JAMES W. HUSTON. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © MAY 2003 ISBN: 9780061809422
FIRST EDITION
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