by Ted Bell
“We’ll just have to take that chance, John. I need that vessel on the bottom.”
3:47 A.M., EST
“What’s his bloody problem?” Hawke asked Mariucci. Hawke had sounded the recorded “Abandon Ship” alarm repeatedly throughout the ship beginning at 3:30 A.M. Word of the impending nuclear disaster had spread throughout the ship rapidly. Chinese nuclear reactor technicians, reluctant kamikazes all, had been ordered to remain hidden aboard by their superiors in Beijing. Now they came crawling out of the woodwork—and made a mad dash for the promenade deck. Bright orange-topped, motorized lifeboats, thirty on each side of the ship, hung fifty feet above the water.
Two full lifeboats had already been dispatched and disappeared over the horizon. The third and last one was ready to be lowered away. Captain Dechevereux, who had originally stated he was staying with his ship, had understandably changed his mind. He was now seated in the bow of the lifeboat smoking furiously and cursing the name Bonaparte. Von Draxis had gone missing. Hawke thought perhaps the man had done the only sensible thing and jumped overboard.
Hawke had the controller in his hand, ready to push the button that would lower away the lifeboat. The last to board, an over-wrought Chinese technician, was bouncing up and down on the deck, screaming.
Mariucci, climbing into the boat, said, “He says he’s not getting in the lifeboat without the rest of his colleagues.”
Hawke looked at the man. “You’ve got one second. In or out.”
The man turned on his heel and ran off toward the stern. Hawke looked at his watch and said, “Twelve minutes.”
“Okay. That’s it,” Mariucci said. “Climb in and let’s get the fuck out of Dodge.” Hawke didn’t move. He was looking at him funny. Something was wrong.
“Where’s Tynan?” Hawke said.
“Hell, I don’t know,” Mariucci said. “I figured he was coming.”
“Where did you last see him?”
“In that bar, directing the Chinese to the lifeboats.”
“Which bar? There are about thirty.”
“Where we first met von Draxis.”
“Normandie? How quickly we forget.”
“Alex. We got to go. Now.”
Hawke pushed the button and the lifeboat jolted into movement, rapidly dropping away down the side.
“Jump in!” Mariucci cried.
“No man left behind, John. I’ll catch the next boat.” Hawke ran up the nearest stairway, taking them three at a time. He remembered the Normandie bar as being one deck up, overlooking the bow. He had less than ten minutes now, to find that young Coast Guardsman and get the bloody hell off this ship.
Chapter Sixty-four
The North Atlantic
3:48 A.M., EST
“MR. PRESIDENT,” JOHN GOOCH SAID, “ SEAWOLF IS AT TEN miles and closing. Leviathan is one mile from the ‘Wall,’ proceeding on autopilot at thirty knots. ETA two minutes.”
“Is everyone off that boat?”
“We can’t get hold of anybody on board. Coast Guard Search and Rescue helo approaching the target area from the north reports two lifeboats in the water. Riding low. Full.”
“Full?”
“That’s what the Yankee Victor pilot said, sir.”
“So they’re probably all off. Inform Seawolf. Launch torpedoes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is the Chinese premier on the line?”
“They’re getting him now, Mr. President.”
“Good. Get Hawke on the radio. Make sure he’s safely away.”
“Trying every twenty seconds. He’s not responding, sir.”
“Probably a little busy. Keep trying.”
3:50 A.M., EST
Hawke burst into the Normandie bar, his eyes scanning the large room for any sign of movement. Deserted. Tynan could be anywhere. He had nine minutes. Less. His mobile rang again. It was incessant. What the hell did they want now? He had nothing to report except his imminent demise. He heard a soft moan coming from a banquette to his left and sprinted through the sea of empty tables. He saw Tynan spread-eagled on the floor. He was on his back, staring upward, his eyes unfocused, his chest heaving rapidly. His shirtfront was a bloody mess.
Hawke bent down and spoke softly to him.
“Tynan. If you can hear me, clench your fist.”
His right hand opened slowly and closed tightly.
“Von Draxis,” Tynan croaked. “He…had a knife and he…I didn’t see him, he just—”
“Hold on, Tynan. I’m going to get you out of here,” Hawke said, getting his arms under the big man.
“Ready? Here we go.”
It took every bit of Hawke’s strength to stagger to his feet with the dying man in his arms. He ran for the door, knocking over any tables and chairs that got in his way, stumbling, almost going down twice. He stayed on his feet. Ten yards and he’d be back on deck. A shadowy figure appeared in the doorway, lurching toward him with his head down and his heavily muscled shoulders bunched.
Von Draxis. How had he escaped? An enraged bull, his white dinner jacket spattered with Tynan’s blood. Hawke kept moving forward, somehow heaving Tynan up on his right shoulder to free his left hand. The German still had the knife. A big one, and it was coming up in his hand as he recognized the man coming at him.
“My Lord Hawke!” von Draxis said, sputtering furiously, his eyes dancing, “I’ve finally figured out who you are. General Moon told me. You’re not George Moran. You’re that bastard Hawke, aren’t you? You’re the one who—”
“Get out of my way,” Hawke said and kept moving.
“Ha! You think you’re leaving? Deserting the ship like those Chinese rats? I told Luca we could never count on the Chinese! Come here! You’re not going any—”
Hawke’s left fist flashed out, connected with the man’s nose, and there was a soft crack of bone, a dry twig snapping in two. Von Draxis dropped the knife. His hands flew to his face, blood trickling from beneath them, and his legs gave way. He went down hard. He was trying to get up but he couldn’t get anything to work. He looked up at Hawke, blood streaming from his nose.
“You think this is the end?” he said, red bubbles forming on his lips.
“Don’t you?”
“Bonaparte and I, we are invincible. Unsinkable, just like this beautiful ship I built. We—”
“Bonaparte is going down, just like you and your boat. Auf wiedersehen, Baron. Schlafen Sie gut.”
Hawke paused at the top of the steep stair leading down to the life-boats. There was no way of descending with Tynan over his shoulder. He had five minutes now. No time to lower the boat anyway. No. He would have to—his mobile was ringing in his pocket and he fished it out.
“Hawke,” he said, his mind racing ahead, searching for a way out of this.
“Alex, it’s Jack McAtee. You’re in the lifeboat? You’re away?”
“No, sir. Not in the lifeboat at all, I fear, Mr. President. Are we—are we over the—over the ‘Wall’?”
“Alex, the torpedoes are launched! Yes, you’re well over the ‘Wall.’ Get off that boat now!”
“Right. Good idea. It’s just that unless you sink this bloody ship…I don’t know—she’s got to go down! To the bottom, or—”
“That’s my problem! Listen to me, damn it! You get your ass off that—”
“Mr. President. I’ve a badly wounded man here. He’s not going to make it unless he—medical attention. Or—”
“Alex, do you see the chopper? There’s a Coast Guard—hold on—somebody get that pilot to drop a goddamn rescue sling…Hawke is still aboard the damn boat—Alex, listen to me. Get somewhere where you can—”
Hawke staggered beneath the weight, his strength all but gone. Searching the skies, he moved forward toward the rail and open deck. He simultaneously heard and saw the chopper to starboard, coming in low over the water. Orange-suited crew stood in the open bay and paid out line.
“Alex, are you still there? You’ve only got one shot at th
is!”
“Yes, sir, I—” a sharp blow from behind. Like a blow from a hammer. A searing pain in the small of his back. The bloody German. The bloody knife. He went down hard on his left shoulder and rolled, trying to hold on to Tynan, trying to break the gravely injured man’s fall.
3:52 A.M., EST
“Coast Guard helo Yankee Victor, this is the president speaking. Copy?”
“Roger, Mr. President, sir, this is U.S. Coast Guard Yankee Victor. I now have your man in sight, sir. He’s on the upper deck forward atop the forepeak. Some kind of a struggle going on—he’s, uh, he’s down, sir.”
“Listen to me, son. You’ve got three minutes before that ship blows sky-high and takes you with it.”
“Less than that, I’m happy to say, sir. I’ve got two torpedoes a couple of miles out and closing fast. I’m going in now. One pass. Okay, this is it. He’s, uh, he appears to be on his feet again. He’s…I, uh—can anybody tell what’s going on down there?”
“There is no time, Yankee Victor. Get him off that deck. And get your medic ready for that wounded man. Do it now.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Two-man rescue net is deployed. We’re going in now.”
3:54 A.M., EST
Hawke climbed to his feet. He was reaching behind his back to see if the knife was still there as he faced the grinning German. The man’s nose had swollen to twice its size and coagulated blood clotted his lips, teeth, and chin.
“I get off,” said Von Draxis. “I must get off this—”
“Certainly,” Hawke said, lunging forward, lifting the man in one fluid motion from the deck, and heaving him over the rail and into the foaming sea far below, “I insist.”
He turned to his right at the whumping sound of the approaching helicopter, swooping in and out of a sharp bank and heading straight toward him. He bent and picked up the unconscious American, surprised at how easily he was able to get Tynan’s body up onto his right shoulder again. Directly overhead now, the chopper was slowing and flaring. The bright red rescue net hung from the hoist in the open bay and was swinging in elliptical loops. Trying desperately to keep Tynan balanced on his shoulder, he braced one foot against the rail and stretched out his right hand. The net was tantalizingly close. He was tempted to lunge for it—no, wait! Christ, he’d missed it! Missed his chance!
Still, the chopper hesitated above, whipping left and swinging the basket back once more—
What the hell? Two white torpedo trails just beneath the surface of the black water, racing toward the ship. One veered sharply toward the stem, the other continued straight toward the bow. A hundred and fifty yards…ye gods! They were seconds from impact and—there was the rescue net, swinging right toward him!
He reached up and snagged it. Wrestled with it a second, got the net’s hard square base down on the deck, managed to heave Tynan inside the opening as gently as possible under the circumstances…and climbed in after him.
“Tynan!” Hawke shouted at the man cradled in his arms over the deafening roar of the chopper’s engine. “We made it! You’re going to be all right! Just hold on!”
Then, at the precise moment the first two heavyweight torpedoes impacted the ship and exploded, Hawke felt the net jerk suddenly upward. The chopper lurched violently skyward, as if lifted by the horrific explosion below.
3:57 A.M., EST
After the first two torpedoes struck, the Mark 48s kept coming. One narrowly missed the bow, swung hard left, circled, and slammed into the port side, successful on its second attempt. The torpedo salvo unleashed by Seawolf had already caused horrific but not imminently lethal damage. It wasn’t over. One more trail, another explosion. Then two, three, four huge explosions as more blackened holes appeared amidships. The center of the ship buckled. Her entire stern, blown off by the very first torpedo Fraser fired, to take out her propulsion pods hanging below, was still afloat, drifting way from the main body of the ship. What remained of the great liner, roughly two-thirds of her, lay dead in the water.
Hawke watched Leviathan founder from his lofty perch. He was still dangling twenty feet below the navy helicopter as the hoist reeled his rescue net upward. She had a slight list to starboard, but she was still pretty much balanced on her keel. Watertight compartments made the water rush from the starboard quarter to the port and then back again. This was probably what kept her remains on an even keel.
God almighty, it was just as he’d feared. Torpedoes, no matter how powerful or how many, were not enough to sink the damn thing! She had watertight bulkheads from stern to stern! It would take a bloody—wait! His peripheral vision had picked up something.
Hold the phone, the president had not let him down after all.
There, screaming across the water about thirty feet above the wavetops, was a squadron of Navy Tomcat F/A18 Super Hornets. He saw two spurts of flame beneath the wings of the lead jet. Two white trails streaked toward the liner. Two Onyx missiles had been fired. Then the fighters flanking the lead fired. Deadly and unstoppable, six Mach 2.9 ramjet antiship cruise missiles skimmed the waves and slammed into the great ship. The sheer force of the missiles, each with the impact energy of fifty-five hundred pounds striking at terminal velocity of 2,460 feet per second, literally vaporized the entire center section of the hull.
The bow section and stern section angled upward and started their long slow slide into the sea.
Leviathan’s keel, which, after all, was made of lead, was borne down to the depths below. The unexploded bomb, compressed and buckled by the enormous pressure, plunged two and a half miles down the face of the sheer wall at the edge of the continent, straight to the bottom.
Chapter Sixty-five
Washington, D.C.
THERE WAS A STUNNED SILENCE IN THE WHITE HOUSE SITUATION Room. Everyone had his eye on the monitor showing a live feed from USCG Yankee Victor, the bright orange helo now hovering at one hundred feet above the scene. The ship had finally sunk. No trace of an explosion. No underwater mushrooms. Everyone held his breath.
“Mr. President,” John Gooch said, “the Chinese premier is still on the line.”
“What’s his mood?”
“If Wild Card’s intent was to create psychological paralysis at the top, we’ve succeeded beyond our wildest expectations. Premier Su Ning’s afraid to breathe at the moment.”
“Good. Keep him holding. Get Hawke on the speaker. Get someone to hand him a radio.”
“He’s on, sir.”
“Alex?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any visible or audible sign of an explosion from the keel? As it descended?”
“None at all, Mr. President. The impact of the ramjet missile would have sent what was left of the keel straight to the bottom.”
“It’s on the bottom.”
“Affirmative. If it still exists at all, the bomb is two and a half miles down, sir, and rendered inert by the massive damage to its internal mechanism.”
A spontaneous outburst of applause and loud cheering filled the room.
“Good. That’s very good news. If you could stay with me, Alex, I’m going to inform the Chinese of this latest development.”
“Yes, sir. I’m not going anywhere.”
“How about Seawolf?” the president said, turning to General Moore.
“Mr. President, Seawolf reports no acoustic signature of any explosion. No shock waves, no tremors. They have a confirmed sonar location of the keel on the bottom. Based on sonar imaging, deformed pieces of the keel are scattered on the ocean floor. Crumpled and buckled. Nothing remotely large enough to indicate a viable nuclear device. No trace of radioactive leakage, sir.”
“Your assessment?”
“The nuclear threat to New York City no longer exists.”
The president took a deep breath and took the receiver the Marine guard handed to him.
“This is the president,” he said.
“Yes,” said the premier, “I’ve been waiting. My patience is wearing thin.”
“Mr. Su, the Chinese device in New York City has been neutralized. I have a demarche. A new list of American demands. Are your aides prepared?”
A moment of stunned silence followed.
“Neutralized? What do you mean?”
“You’re no longer in a position to threaten me. You got that?”
“Wait, I want to confirm—”
There was some loud background shouting, muffled and heated conversation, and then Su said, “Go ahead. We will listen to what you have to say.”
“Good. I’m now going to give you a list of American demands. Once they are met, and this has been wholly verified by the United States, I will consider taking Operation Wild Card off the table. Do you understand me?”
“What are these demands?”
“You are shouting, Mr. Su.”
“I apologize. Your demands, Mr. President?”
“That’s better. First. I want you to now order Chinese naval and air forces in the Strait of Taiwan to stand down. I want your shore batteries to stand down. Now, Mr. Su. Are we clear? My patience is wearing thin.”
The president could hear a hurried conversation in Chinese. Then the premier was back.
“Yes. They are standing down. Please continue.”
“I need to know that it’s being done. Now.”
“It’s being done, Mr. President. Orders are going out to the commanders in the field now.”
“Good. Second. This is a long one, so pay very close attention. I want you to guarantee immediate withdrawal of all Chinese military and political personnel from Oman. I want a stop to Chinese migratory forces infiltrating the Sudan. In addition, you will inform President Bonaparte’s French government that you no longer support their presence in Oman. Make it crystal clear to him that the United States and China are wholly unified on this issue. We are both firm in our insistence that all French naval and ground troops withdraw immediately from the Gulf. And that the sultan’s family, now en route from Masara Island to Muscat by sea, is guaranteed safe passage home.”