“Does it show?” Jackson asked.
“I wouldn’t want to go up against any of you.”
“Then no hanky-panky with the boss’s wife,” Ercoli quipped. “Even we can’t get away with it.”
Terri leaned over and got McGarvey a beer from a cooler on the patio bricks beside her and tossed it to him. “Frank sure pulled a rabbit out of the hat this time,” she said. “You have our attention, Mr. McGarvey, what do you want with us that couldn’t have gone through channels?”
McGarvey opened the beer, took a deep drink, and sat down at the table. “Al-Quaida is on its way to the Chesapeake with a Libyan Foxtrot submarine and I think there’s a good chance they mean to hit Washington.”
“Holy shit,” Ercoli said softly.
“Because they didn’t hit the White House with the fourth plane like they wanted on 9/11?” Jackson asked.
“Something like that,” McGarvey said.
“How soon?”
“Five days, maybe less.”
“Send a couple of sub hunters out to look for them,” MacKeever suggested.
Dillon shook his head. “Their captain is a Brit, graduated from Perisher. The second he got wind that we were on to him, he’d launch and we couldn’t stop it.”
“He’s got missiles?” Jackson asked.
“We don’t know for sure,” McGarvey said. “But there’s a good chance he could have Russian short-range tube-launched missiles. And possibly even a small nuclear weapon or two.”
“That’s just peachy,” Terri said, and McGarvey shot her a startled look. It was the same expression Katy used sometimes. “What?” she asked.
“Another time,” McGarvey said. “This won’t be an official mission, and you won’t be getting any orders, so the shit could hit the fan.”
“But if we pull it off we’ll be heroes,” Terri said. She turned to her husband. “Gee, dear, looks like we might get our honeymoon after all.”
“This is serious,” McGarvey warned.
“We wouldn’t be much interested if it wasn’t,” she said, her smile gone. “I assume you have a plan.”
“They’re going to try to sneak into the bay and get as close to Washington as they can before they launch their missiles, if that’s what they have,” McGarvey said. “I want to be there, waiting for them.”
“Why not offshore?” Jackson asked.
“Because the sub driver wants to escape. Once they launch he can lock out of the boat, come ashore, and disappear,” McGarvey said.
“His crew won’t have time to get out,” Jackson pointed out.
“No,” McGarvey agreed. “We need to find the sub before they launch and stop them before they know we’re on to them.”
“We’d have to know where they’re headed,” Ercoli suggested.
“The York River,” Dillon said. “It’s less than one hundred miles from the White House so there’d be almost no warning time, it’s deep enough to hide a submarine, and it’s well out of Second Fleet’s way at Norfolk.”
“They’d have to get there first,” Jackson said.
“They will if we don’t warn anybody,” McGarvey said.
“You’re taking an awfully big chance.”
“I don’t want to react to an attack,” McGarvey said. “I want to stop it.” Jackson looked at his wife and the other two SEAL team members, then back at McGarvey. “I can get the equipment, including a boat, but we’ll need a non-navy staging area.”
“The Farm,” McGarvey said. “It’s on the York River and no questions that I can’t answer will be asked.”
“How soon do you want us there?” Jackson asked.
“The sooner the better. By this time tomorrow?”
Jackson nodded. He turned to Dillon. “You coming along on this one, Frank?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
SS SHEHAB, NEARING THE U.S. COAST
It was morning topside when Chamran called Graham aft to the engineering spaces.
They had just finished running on diesel to recharge the batteries and were once again surging west-northwest at four hundred meters.
All the crew, the Iranians included, had become docile after Ziyax had shot his own first officer to death for challenging Graham. They’d not been told the details, except that the shot had been fired by the Libyan captain. It was enough for the time being to make them forget about the two sick crewmen who’d handled the nuclear packages.
Chamran and al-Hari, who’d been Graham’s original choice as exec, were waiting in the battery room, one of the floor grates open. Graham stopped a few feet away.
“More nuclear weapons?” he asked. He wasn’t about to get close enough to see for himself.
“No, these are the anthrax loads,” al-Hari replied. He was grinning. “We’re finding all sorts of little toys aboard. The good colonel must have been shitting in his robes to get rid of this stuff before somebody blew the whistle on him.”
“What do you want?” Graham asked.
He’d picked al-Hari to be his exec based on the file bin Laden had provided. The man had been born in Syria, but raised by grandparents in London where he’d joined the Royal Navy Submarine Service to earn his U.K. citizenship. He quickly rose in rank to warrant officer, but was finally kicked out of the service for “activities inconsistent with the status as a resident alien.”
He’d spent the next few years fighting the jihad against the Zionists for no other reason than the thrill of the hunt. He had developed a taste for killing people. When al-Quaida went looking for submarine crewmen, al-Hari’s name was near the top of a fairly short list.
“We’re seventy-two hours out,” al-Hari said. “When do you want to load the missiles into the torpedo tubes and get them ready to fire? I only ask now because the two guys who handled the nuclear packages will be too sick to work by tomorrow, and I don’t want to waste anyone else.”
“Do it now,” Graham said, perfectly understanding al-Hari’s cold logic.
“Very well. What about these canisters? We can load them aboard a couple of torpedoes set to explode a thousand meters out. Wouldn’t do any damage but the germs might rise to the surface. At the very least they’d contaminate the bay.”
Graham shook his head. “I want them to explode inside the boat without breaching the hull as soon as we lock out,” he said. “It will be a little surprise for the navy salvage crew.”
Chamran nodded. “You’re a hard man for an English.”
“It’s a hard world.”
“Insh’allah,” al-Hari said. God willing.
SIXTY-FOUR
THE FARM
Driving up the tree-lined road back to the CIA training facility from I-64 the next afternoon, McGarvey had the strong feeling that whatever happened in the next few days would be nothing more than a prelude to his real mission.
Whether or not they stopped Graham from unleashing whatever weapons he was bringing across the Atlantic, al-Quaida would continue the jihad against the West because it was a holy war that had been going on for more than one thousand years.
This submarine attack was only one battle. And even if it succeeded, it would be no more of a decisive blow against the West than the attacks of 9/11 had been.
Only two actions would end the war. The first would be eliminating Osama bin Laden as the quasi-holy figure he’d become across Dar al Islam. Capturing him and bringing him to trial would do no good. He would have a worldwide pulpit from which he could spread his message. Sending the U.S. military to kill him, either by ground forces, or by cruise missiles as Clinton had tried, would only make him a martyr. And Muslims loved martyrs. He would have to be assassinated, quietly and with no fanfare, inside his own lair.
It was what McGarvey did, and he knew that killing bin Laden would be the most satisfying hit he’d ever made, because the terrorist’s face in death would never haunt his dreams.
The second thing that had to be done in order to stop the jihad was to interrupt the money. Iran, Syria, and Pakistan w
ere high on the list of prime suspects. But McGarvey was still convinced that ultimately the United States would have to deal with the Saudis, where the bulk of the money to fund thousands of Islamic terrorist organizations around the world—including al-Quaida—was being supplied. Ironically, most of that money came from oil purchases that the United States made.
Before World War II we had sold scrap metal to Japan that had been turned into bullets to kill our soldiers. Now we were sending our money to Saudi Arabia to buy oil that was being turned against us. History had repeated itself.
Last night, after he had come back from meeting with Dillon and the SEAL team, Liz and Todd were still at the house. They’d brought the baby over and it had been a wonderful respite after the tension of the past week or so.
No one asked where he’d been for dinner, but around ten when Liz and Todd bundled the baby into the car seat, McGarvey told them that he would be coming out to the Farm sometime today. But even then no questions had been asked.
Nor had Katy questioned him in bed. She was just happy about their granddaughter. “We’ll see her grow up, and maybe get married and have children of her own,” Katy said. She looked at her husband, searching for a reaction. “Won’t we?”
“We might be a little long of tooth by then,” he told her. “But if we don’t fall off our sailboat and drown, we should make it.” He smiled. “We’ll take turns pushing each other’s wheelchair. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said, and they made love, slowly and gently.
This morning McGarvey took Katy shopping and they had an early lunch in Georgetown before he dropped her back at the safe house and headed down to the Farm.
“Come back to me as soon as you can, darling,” was all she’d said to him before he left.
On the way out of town he’d telephoned Rencke at the Building for any updates on the Foxtrot’s position, but the submarine had not been spotted since the mid-Atlantic and it was still presumed that she was headed to the canal.
“Dennis Berndt called Dick this morning wanting to know what you were up to,” Rencke had said. “The prez is getting worried and he’s circling the wagons.”
“I got some navy help and they’re going to meet me at the Farm this afternoon, but for now I want the White House and Adkins kept out of the loop in case this op goes south. There’ll be plenty of blame to go around, no matter what happens.”
“I don’t think Dick wants to know, anyway he’s not been asking any questions,” Rencke said. “But Peter has got his hands full.” Peter Franza was the CIA’s chief press officer. “The Washington Post is storming the gates, wanting to know what’s going on at Gitmo. Apparently there was another leak, and the Post found out about the riot.”
“Was my name mentioned?”
“Not so far,” Rencke said. “Peter’s stonewalling them, but that won’t last much longer.”
“I’ll tell you what. Make a blind call to the managing editor at the Post and put a word in his ear about Weiss. Hint that maybe he’s under investigation for prisoner abuse.”
“Won’t Weiss come after you in the press?”
“Only if he’s innocent,” McGarvey said. “But if he’s helping al-Quaida he’ll deny the story, and then hunker down until the storm passes. Who knows, he might even try to run.”
“I’ll get on it,” Rencke had promised.
The gate guards at the entrance to the Farm were dressed in BDUs, Heckler & Koch M8s slung over their shoulders. They were expecting him, and after he showed his ID, they raised the barrier, and passed him through.
His daughter came out of the administration building when he pulled up and got out of the SUV. “Hi, Daddy,” she said, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Todd’s down at the hand-to-hand barn. We didn’t know what time you’d get here.”
“Let’s take a walk, sweetheart. I’ve got to ask you to put your neck on the chopping block for the next day or two.”
She had to laugh. “That’s our thing, isn’t it?”
They headed down one of the paths through the woods toward the river. “You’re going to have some company this evening, but I don’t want anything said about it by anyone. And I mean by anyone.”
“What’s up, Dad?”
“We’re going to try to catch a submarine that might just show up downriver in the next day or two.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened slightly. “We’ll lock the camp down for the duration,” she said. “What can you tell me?”
SS SHEHAB, APPROACHING THE U.S. COAST
There was a lot of traffic on the surface. Sonar had forty-seven tracks in its tape recorder in the past twenty-four hours, most of which was commercial traffic inbound or outbound from New York well to the north. But they had detected no U.S. Navy warships.
“Doesn’t make sense, unless they’re laying a trap for us,” al-Hari said. It was dusk on the surface. They were running the diesel engines on snorkel to recharge the batteries. Graham called back to sonar.
“What’s the range and bearing to our nearest target?”
“Fifteen thousand meters, zero-three-zero,” Shihabi reported. “She’s a large tanker, I think, or maybe a car carrier, heading northwest.”
“Very well,” Graham said. He glanced at al-Hari. “They think we’re heading to the Panama Canal. They probably sent a carrier battle group down there to intercept us.”
The Iranian officer shrugged and glanced up at the overhead. “The Coast Guard should be up there somewhere.”
“They probably are, but closer in,” Graham said.
The ship’s com buzzed. “Con, this is the forward torpedo room. Let me talk to the captain.” It was Ziyax.
Graham took the phone from its bracket. “This is Graham. You’re supposed to be off duty.”
“We have a problem up here, Captain. A serious one.”
“What is it?”
“It would be better if you saw for yourself,” Ziyax said.
Graham was irritated. The next twenty-four hours approaching the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay would be the most crucial. If the Americans had somehow guessed that the Shehab was not headed south, and was instead heading toward Washington or New York, the U.S. Navy or Coast Guard could indeed have laid a trap for them. Last night he had ordered Russian conventional free-running HE torpedoes loaded in the remaining four bow tubes, as well as the four stern tubes, in case they got backed into a corner and had to fight their way out.
Winning such a fight one-on-one against an American ASW ship was not likely unless they got lucky, so he meant to avoid a confrontation whatever it took.
That was the major issue facing them, not some glitch in the forward torpedo room.
But if they were cornered he would immediately launch the missiles.
“Go up there and find out what’s going on,” Graham told al-Hari. “Whatever it is, get it fixed.”
“Yes, sir,” al-Hari said, and he left the con.
Graham was about to call sonar again, but he stayed his hand from flipping the switch on the com. Something was spooking him; something niggling at the back of his mind. Like al-Hari had done, he glanced up at the overhead as if he could peer through the maze of plumbing and wiring and the inner and outer hulls to the surface, to see what was waiting for them.
He walked over to the periscope pedestal, raised the search scope, and did a quick three-sixty in the fading light. The nearest sonar target was fifteen kilometers away, well over the horizon. They were utterly alone for the moment out here, the skies clear, the seas two meters or less.
He looked away from the eyepieces. The men were docile. They were obeying their orders without question now.
But something was playing with him, as if he were forgetting something important.
He took a second look, then lowered the periscope. The ship’s com buzzed.
“Con, this is the torpedo room.” It was al-Hari.
Graham answered. “Yes, what’s the problem up there, Muhamed?”
“Tube two’s inner d
oor will not seal properly. The gasket is shot.”
“Do we have a spare?” Graham asked.
“Yes, Cap’n, but that’s not the problem. No one wants to open the door, not even at gunpoint, because of the radiation. And without the fix we will not be able to fire that missile.”
“Transfer the missile to another tube,” Graham ordered. His nerves were beginning to jump all over the place.
“As I said, no one will touch the missile,” al-Hari replied. His tone was maddeningly calm. “Do you want me to start shooting people? I can begin with Captain Ziyax.”
“No, we need every man aboard,” Graham said. He desperately wanted to visualize Jillian’s face. It was important to him. She’d known the right words, the right gestures to calm him down whenever he got like this. “You’re in charge up there. We need that missile, otherwise this entire exercise was for nothing. If you can’t get someone else to work the problem, do it yourself.”
Graham slammed the growler phone back in its cradle.
The bastards weren’t going to get away with it.They could have broken radio silence to call him home. They hadn’t been at war. No big secrets would have been revealed.
They would pay. All the sons of bitches would pay.
SIXTY-FIVE
THE FARM
McGarvey stood at the dock waiting for Jackson and his SEAL team to show up with the boat they’d promised for this time yesterday. It was late afternoon, nearly forty-eight hours since the backyard barbecue, and he was acutely conscious that time was not on their side.
There was a light chop on the river, and tonight it was supposed to be overcast with light rain likely. Nearly perfect conditions for a submarine to sneak past Norfolk and make it into the York River. And terrible conditions for a search-and-seize mission.
“Not their fault,” Dillon said at McGarvey’s shoulder. “NSW Group Three didn’t want to part with a boat unless they knew what the mission was.” Special Operations boats belonged to Naval Special Warfare Groups Three and Four, and always came complete with their own highly trained crews. They weren’t items of military equipment that were usually loaned out.
Allah's Scorpion Page 41