He shut his laptop and glanced to his right; Tim’s seat was still empty. He took out his phone and texted him and waited, but he got no response. Could the idealistic young fool have done something truly stupid?
The room was starting to get busier; all of the chairs were now full, and the big screen showed twelve separate but similar images of blurred, eerily green-lit figures climbing down ladders into boats tossing about in a nasty chop. What if there was another ship no one knew about? And what could he do with so little time if there was? What was it Tim had said? Something about not being able to let this situation go?
He broke into a sweat and found himself trembling. Then he remembered the ship tracking software they had used when they first began theorizing about the Caliphate’s true intentions. What was its name? Damn—he couldn’t remember that, either. He pulled down his saved searches menu, found the site, and typed in Dohna, hoping that he had read it right. And there it was. On a somewhat different course than the Ninotchka but scheduled to arrive at the same pier in Oakland at 9:00 AM the next day. He looked at his watch: it was already 1:15 AM.
On the big screen, the night-vision images now revealed the rapidly growing silhouettes of the Caliphate’s ships bucking up and down as the SEAL team boats shot off the phosphorescing crests of waves. Captain Lugar was standing up, too, and now the side screen was winking into action, once again displaying the President and the National Security Council. What could he do?
He looked around the room, searching for George. Thank God, there he was, at the end of a line of seats a few rows ahead. Frank stood up and sidled to the end of his row, thinking feverishly. When he reached George, he leaned down and whispered in his ear. “Gotta talk—it’s trouble.”
George frowned but stood up slowly and followed him out the door in the back of the room. When they reached the hallway, he kept walking without allowing Frank to speak. Frank wondered where you went in CIA headquarters when you didn’t want to be heard? The answer, apparently, was a men’s room. After they went in, George entered one stall and nodded Frank toward the adjacent one. Okay, this was going to be weird. Frank wondered whether he was expected to drop his pants or whether he could just take a seat.
From George’s example, the answer appeared to be that just sitting would be sufficient. He jumped when he saw a hand with a cellphone appear under the divider between the stalls. He took it and saw “What the hell is going on? Discard—don’t save—this message.”
Frank did as he was told and then tapped away as quickly as possible.
There’s another ship, and Tim’s gone. I think he wants to let one attack succeed so the government can’t get away with keeping this secret. He returned the phone.
Moments later, the phone came back: Do you know what the target is? Clearly, George was a cooler head than he was.
I think San Francisco. The ship is called the Dohna. I saw it on the original copy of the drone video on my laptop, but that part has been cut from the Agency’s version. Tim must have deleted the ship from the other data, too, before he downloaded the video and the rest of our files from our laptops to the CIA system. What do we do?
It was a full minute before there was any reaction from George. Then Frank heard the toilet paper dispenser in the adjacent stall make soft, unrolling sounds. Finally, he heard the toilet flush. Frank followed suit and then followed George back to the meeting room.
Things were deathly still when they reentered the mission control room. The SEAL teams must be on the Caliphate ships now, creeping toward the bridges, because the split screens were showing twelve almost identical, spooky, aerial views of the ships. The CIA would, of course, have drones high overhead using infrared cameras. But the resolution was poor; all that could be seen on deck were the outlines of hatches and cranes and the long shadows of waves sweeping by on either side. The White House video screen showed seven intent faces staring toward the same images Frank was watching.
George walked up to Captain Lugar and spoke quietly in his ear. Frank could see the officer tense before nodding and turning to a lieutenant sitting to his right. After a few whispered words, the lieutenant stood up, and George followed him back to Frank’s row. The lieutenant beckoned Frank to join them.
“Gentlemen, please wait for me in the back of the room.”
George and Frank did as they were told. Moments later, the Lieutenant approached them, followed by Virgil Cooper. The lieutenant led them to a conference room down the hall.
“I understand we have a problem.”
“That’s right,” George replied. “It appears that in all of the effort to staff this mission and accomplish it in a matter of days, one piece of key data fell through the cracks. Frank here thinks that there’s one more ship we’ve got to intercept—headed towards San Francisco.”
“How could that happen?”
“Let’s figure that out later. Right now, we’ve got to stop that ship before it launches its V-1s. That could be any minute if any of the other ships gets a message off to the Caliphate before our men take over.”
“Agreed. Give me everything you’ve got.”
“It’s called the Dohna,” Frank replied. “It was taking on its aircraft around the same time as the Ninotchka, at the same facility. According to a commercial ship tracking site I just checked, it’s approaching San Francisco right now. Can you send another team to take it out?”
The lieutenant turned to Cooper, who paused, frowning.
“Negative. We’ve already got more than half of all our SEAL teams involved in this operation. Given how far apart the ships are, we couldn’t train a reserve team for every location, and since we’re hitting every ship simultaneously, we couldn’t centrally locate any pre-trained reserve teams, either—it would take them too long to arrive.” He paused again. “Even assuming we could pull together enough qualified people near the Bay area, we’d have to pull them out of bed, equip them, and then brief them on the operation on the way to the ship.” He looked at his watch. “And that just can’t be done fast enough.”
The lieutenant interrupted. “What about the Coast Guard? Or Army Special Forces?”
Cooper looked offended. “What about them, Sir?”
“Damn it, forget the inter-service rivalry bit. Do you know whether any other branch keeps any kind of qualified team at the ready?”
“I don’t, Sir. But I don’t know why they would, stateside. Maybe in the Gulf region, but that doesn’t help us here.” He paused again and then committed himself.
“Sir, I think our only option is to pull the advance SEAL team off the other ship off San Francisco the minute the Chinook lands to secure and sink the ship, and then do the same with the Chinook team when they’re done. They already know the drill, and we can start briefing the team leaders as soon as they lift off from the first vessel. We should be able to scramble a Coast Guard cutter, too, in case we lose the advantage of surprise.”
“Why don’t you just disable the ship from the air, Lieutenant?” George interrupted. “If you put one missile into the bow, they wouldn’t be able to launch anything.”
“No. If we do that, the whole ship would blow; their flight deck will be full of jet fuel and warheads. You’d see the fireworks halfway to Sacramento, and our orders are to do this covertly.”
A steady stream of CIA and military staff had been entering while they were speaking. The last to arrive was the Captain Lugar from the mission room.
“Brief me,” he said to the lieutenant as he sat down.
“Sir, it looks like the new ship is heading towards San Francisco. I think our best option is to move the SEAL team from the other ship in the same area as soon as we possibly can. Anything else would take too long, running the risk that the ship starts launching before we act. And anything faster, from the air, risks blowing the ship up.”
“There’s no
submarine nearby? A torpedo to her stern below the waterline should disable her without setting her off.”
“But she might not sink quick enough, Sir. As soon as she was hit, she could start launching.”
“Right. In that case, be sure that the redeployed SEAL platoon gets all the support it needs in taking on the second ship. Anything it needs, it gets. And direct immediately to that area any kind of backup we might possibly need in case we need to improvise. That includes air power. Not just drones, but the heavy stuff, too, just in case.”
The captain frowned and paused before speaking again. “Mr. Adversego, thank you for this additional information. Better late than never, but sooner would have been a damn sight better. Lieutenant, I think that we’ve kept Mr. Adversego up late enough. Have someone escort him to the entrance.”
* * *
“I’ll follow you back in a minute,” George said to Frank’s escort when they reached the entrance.
“Should I read anything into being sent off home to bed?”
“Dunno. Right now, all the admiral knows is that he doesn’t know everything he needs to. I expect he’s being cautious. I would be, too—can you explain to me how this happened?”
“Yes, but there’s something else you should know first. Have I mentioned to you that Tim and your godchild have been an item for quite a while now and that Marla’s hoping they’ll get married?”
George pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “No. No, you haven’t. So that makes this more complicated.”
“No kidding. Anyway, as you know, Tim’s been livid ever since you told us you thought the government might try to keep this hushed up. I think he must have decided immediately that he might want to do something if that decision stuck. He was handling all of the data gathering and analysis relating to ships and shipyards. Since we weren’t supposed to be moonlighting on my crazy theory, we kept all our data on our laptops until we finally convinced the Agency we were on to something, so Tim had time to delete all data relating to the Dohna from what he downloaded from our laptops to the CIA system. Frankly, he’s been acting pretty crazy lately. I thought it was just strain and overwork, but clearly this was weighing on him a lot more than I realized.”
“I see. So how are you going to explain your sudden revelation without exposing Tim?”
“I think this should work. Our analysis of the shipping records led us to guess that there were probably three different shipyards involved in converting the vessels, taking into account where the ships had been over the past six months and how long they stayed in each port. When I checked earlier tonight to find out where the Dohna is now and what was supposed to be her next port of call, I checked backwards, too. As it happens, the Dohna was the ship that was refitted at the only yard that worked on just one Caliphate ship. I’m sure that’s why Tim picked it, since if he deleted the information relating to that shipyard, too, there would be a good chance the Agency would never find the Dohna. So I can just say that he and I missed the third shipyard.”
“That could work to explain how you found it but not what made you look for it all of a sudden.”
“This part is actually close to what happened. I’ll say we didn’t think one ship was enough for San Francisco, so when I noticed only one ship headed that way, I checked the records of any other ship due to dock in San Francisco the next day. I found one called the Dohna whose last port of call was the same one in Myanmar where the other ships picked up their V-1s.”
George nodded. “I guess that all holds together. Anyway, it’s not like they’re going to want to publicly take you to court no matter what happens. Now what about Tim?”
“Yeah, Tim. I’ve been thinking about that, too. He’s quite the fan of Edward Snowden. My guess is that Tim will be on a plane to somewhere this morning that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S.”
“Even if everything turns out okay, that’s going to be hard to explain,” George said. “Another ship suddenly pops up and the guy responsible for the data skips town.”
“I know. Do you have access to the NSA database? Tim would have to book a plane ticket in his own name, so if I’m right, you could find out where he’s taking off from and where he’s headed.”
“I do. Look for a text message with a telephone number in it. The flight number will be in the last four digits. You’ll have to take it from there.”
* * *
Frank walked to his rental car in the CIA parking lot, his mind spinning with conflicting thoughts and a hollow feeling in his gut. This was way too close to his own experience as a young teenager, when his father had—according to the false story given to him by his mother—abandoned the family without a word of explanation.
What, if anything, would Tim have said to Marla before leaving for the airport? Would he have left a note or just disappeared? Probably just disappear, since he expected the data centers to go up in flames any time now; anything he told Marla would either be a lie or might implicate her. Frank was furious at him for abandoning his daughter and risking innocent lives, but in the back of his mind, there was also a small voice expressing grudging admiration for the sacrifice the young man was making in order to be true to his convictions.
Or was he simply an arrogant fool? Snowden, at least, had his defenders; some people were even calling for him to be pardoned. Maybe someday he’d be able to come home. No chance of that happening for Tim if the SEALs didn’t take control of the last ship before it got its V-1s away. No one would have any sympathy for someone who let a swarm of buzz bombs take out a few billion dollars’ worth of corporate investment and incinerated the servers that supported the core of the technology industry. The data centers largely operated autonomously, but still, somebody might be killed by those V-1s, too.
He reached the car, unlocked the door, and then turned to look back at the looming bulk of CIA headquarters, floodlit in the night, looking as massive and impregnable as any medieval fortress. What could anyone ever hope to do to confront an organization like that, not to mention all the other secretive agencies and forces at the beck and call of the president? Likely enough, no one would ever learn what was happening tonight. If that proved to be the case, Frank was sure that no one would ever do anything about the vulnerability of the data centers.
He got in the car and drove slowly out of the parking lot and back toward Washington. What had he done about the administration’s plan? Nothing. Just kicked the can down the road, always saying they would worry about it later. But whom was he kidding? He never would have done anything at all on his own. Would he even have backed up Tim, if Tim went public? He hoped he could at least head him off in time at the airport, so he and Marla could still have a future together.
Then he got another kick in the gut. If the SEALs did stop the attack, what would Tim think of him? Would he and Tim have to spend a lifetime pretending nothing had ever happened? Making nice for Marla’s benefit even though Tim would secretly despise his father-in-law? And what about their future and his grandchildren’s future? How long would it be before somebody really did take out the data centers—all of them? Even if he and Tim started telling everyone about the danger, would anyone listen to them? Should he have kept his mouth shut and just let Tim’s plan take its course?
He looked for an answer in the glow of the sky over the nation’s capital up ahead and then imagined everything suddenly going black—the spotlighted memorials to Washington and Lincoln and Jefferson; the rotunda of the Capitol; everything—plunging millions into confusion, with far worse to come. The blinking lights of a helicopter passed slowly through the glow, and in that image, he found his answer and a long-shot plan that just might work.
He gunned the car and sped off the highway at the next exit. Fifteen minutes later, he was fumbling in the glove box of his camper at the storage lot. Then he headed for the airport.
* * *
<
br /> 25
Please Proceed to the Gate Area;
Your Flight is Now Boarding
Tim’s harried eyes were riveted on the TV screen hanging from the ceiling. Passengers were beginning to queue up at his gate, waiting for boarding to begin, so he stood up as well. The news anchor was reporting that the Caliphate had just launched massive attacks against neighboring countries, but there was no mention of a data center being hit. Shouldn’t someone have broken into the broadcast by now to report the attack?
“The fun should begin any minute now,” a voice said softly, almost in his ear.
Tim whirled around.
“Why don’t you sit down again? You wouldn’t want to miss the show, after all the work you’ve done.”
“Frank—what, I mean, ah, what do you mean?”
“Don’t worry. But do sit down. Look—it’s starting!”
Tim turned back to the TV monitor and didn’t resist as Frank put a hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back into his seat. Behind them, the passengers crowded around the gate began filing on board.
We’ve just received word from San Francisco that something unusual is happening just outside the Golden Gate. Let’s go now to our local affiliate for live coverage. Ron Luton, can you tell us what’s going on?
Hello, Doug. Not yet, but whatever it is, it’s certainly something unusual. One of our helicopters was out getting ready to cover pre-rush hour traffic when the pilot spotted something he thought looked unusual offshore and decided to check it out. We don’t yet know whether it’s a rescue of a sinking ship or maybe a downed aircraft, but there’s a lot of activity, and we aren’t getting any answers from the Coast Guard. Let’s go to the chopper and find out what they’re seeing. Can you hear me, Steve?
The Doodlebug War: a Tale of Fanatics and Romantics (Frank Adversego Thrillers Book 3) Page 25