THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller

by J. G. Sandom

  “Believe it or not, John,” said Warhaftig, “I would actually enjoy seeing you two again, once this is over.”

  “I think the whole world will,” said Seiden.

  “Question is: What kind of world will it be?” said Decker. “I’m not sure it’ll be much fun picking up the pieces.”

  “You really want to know?” Warhaftig said. He pulled a piece of paper from his jacket and handed it to Decker.

  It was a damage assessment report, labeled Top Secret, an exercise in scenario planning run by DARPA and the CIA. Decker studied it carefully. It estimated damages, lives lost, infrastructure ruined. And the ripples extended worldwide. Apparently, with the annihilation of financial systems, of telecommunications and energy infrastructure, of so much industry and government and academia on the east coast, not only would the United States begin to slide into a deep depression, but every nation of the world would be affected.

  With one third of it crippled, the global economy would eventually disintegrate. Without American funding, transnational groups would fall apart. The U.N. and NATO would flounder. Each country would be left alone to struggle in defense of its own petty national interests. Regional conflicts would expand into all-out wars. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, accompanied by regional instability, would encourage extremist groups. The oil-producing nations of the Middle East would fall into the hands of radical Shi’i clergy, or pseudo-fundamentalists, military potentates. Oil exports would be severed, precipitating worldwide shortages. Depression would spiral into lawlessness and blight, hopelessness to anarchy and chaos, which in turn would stimulate totalitarianism, and a whole new generation of fascists.

  At the bottom of the page were the words: Probability of Occurrence: 89%.

  Decker looked up. “We have to succeed,” he said. “We have no choice.”

  “The sad part is,” said Swenson, “we’ll probably never know.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The shock will hit us long before the two waves come together.”

  Chapter 44

  Friday, February 4 – 3:08 AM

  Atlantic City, New Jersey

  The pilot of the Citation X decided to land at the Atlantic City Airport because the runways were a lot more manageable and even longer than the runways at McGuire. It was a cold wet night in Jersey. The Hotels and Casinos on the boardwalk were deserted. News of the impending wave had already hit the media and it seemed like every resident was boarding up his house before heading west. As if it would make a difference, Decker thought.

  They ran across the tarmac and transferred to another S-70B Seahawk helicopter. It lifted off immediately. They flew at breakneck speed over the grim Atlantic coast. The water was choppy and fierce, flecked with white-tops, frightening. Decker grumbled to himself. It couldn’t have been a nice night, he lamented. It couldn’t have been starry and clear, windless and pacific. He glanced out of his window and saw the USS Stanfield glowing off to port. She didn’t look very big, he thought.

  The helicopter banked steeply and Decker felt a hand slip over his. Swenson was sitting next to him. He looked down at her fingers. They fit perfectly around his fist. The ship descended, fell, and finally settled on the deck. Decker looked outside. It was raining hard. It was absolutely pouring. He could see two men running toward the helicopter wearing raincoats, holding hats to their heads, trying to avoid the puddles on the deck. They were carrying closed umbrellas. A moment later the door to the Seahawk opened, and a gust of ocean wind whisked through the cabin. Decker and Swenson made their way forward, joined by Warhaftig and Seiden at the door.

  A young sailor held an umbrella up outside. Beside him stood an officer. His back was still in the rain, and it was getting soaked.

  “This is Captain Tom Mason,” said the sailor.

  Warhaftig introduced himself. “And this here is Dr. Emily Swenson, Special Agent Decker of the FBI, and Ben Seiden, Israeli intelligence.”

  “I’m not a doctor yet,” said Swenson.

  “Well, practically,” Warhaftig said. “We’ll make it semi-official then, an honorary degree. I hear captains have extraordinary powers in these kinds of situations. Isn’t that right, Captain Mason?”

  “I can even marry people,” Mason added with a wink. The captain was a relatively young man, in his late thirties, early forties, with a fine, well-chiseled face and pale green eyes. He tipped his hat at Swenson. “Shall we go?”

  They dashed into the rain, only partially protected by the flapping black umbrellas. The wind whistled across the unprotected deck, blowing the water sideways. By the time they ducked into a hatchway, they were soaked.

  Another sailor appeared and handed them some towels. The Seahawk gradually ascended. Decker watched it fly away through the open hatchway and he felt curiously alone. Now there was nowhere to go – but down, into the deep.

  Swenson ran a towel across her hair. The rain had smudged her mascara. Her skin was shiny and raw. She was staring at a nearby gangway. Decker heard, then saw a pair of feet descending. A young man ambled slowly into view, smooth as a trickle of molasses.

  “This here is Second Lieutenant Roger Speers,” the captain said. “He’s going to be piloting the Alvin. Volunteered.”

  Speers was a young man, in his late twenties, with a buzz cut, baby blue eyes, and jolly round features. “Assuming it gets here,” he said laconically.

  “Don’t worry. It’ll get here,” the captain assured him.

  Speers leered at Swenson. “Helluva ride in this weather.”

  Emily stepped back.

  “Better take that off.”

  “What?” Swenson looked down. Her black cocktail dress clung to her skin like a wetsuit.

  “Your makeup, ma’am. No makeup in the DSV.”

  “Yes, I know,” she answered testily.

  Captain Mason stepped up. “Let me show you to your cabin, Dr. Swenson. Give you a chance to freshen up a bit before your descent.”

  “You don’t mind if I join you?” Seiden said. “I could use a change of clothes.”

  “Not at all,” said Captain Mason.

  They ambled off with Speers in tow. Decker and Warhaftig were left topside alone. “I’ve got some news,” Warhaftig said. He stood there cleaning his glasses with his tie.

  “What now?”

  “El Aqrab emailed a video clip to Seamus Gallagher right before the bombing. In it, he proudly announces his intention to set off the nuclear device on La Palma and kick-start the mega-tsunami. It’s been all over the Net. The Agency thinks it’s real. They believe it was recorded just before the nuke went off. At least I hope so.” Warhaftig shrugged. “Ironically, Gallagher’s on vacation. His assistant picked it up. From the recording it appears that El Aqrab expected to die in the explosion. We haven’t heard anything to the contrary.”

  “Don’t count on it,” said Decker.

  All of a sudden, the giant Mi-26 appeared like a seabird off to port, thundering towards them through the halo of the deck lights, with the lumbering submersible suspended underneath by cables. Decker watched it through the open hatch. The helicopter hovered over the Navy frigate and slowly lowered the Alvin to the deck. Within minutes the submersible was being armed with a modified W-80 nuclear device stripped from the warhead of an 18-feet Tomahawk missile.

  The entire operation took less than half an hour. Swenson and Speers and Seiden reappeared. She was dressed in a dark blue flight suit with a zipper running down the front, and a pair of solid boots. But no uniform, no matter how plain, could conceal her womanly figure. They dashed across the deck to inspect the modifications. Decker was about to join them when Warhaftig held him back, out of the rain.

  “Hold on a second,” he said. “I wanted to tell you something.” He hesitated. “Before you go.” He suddenly looked old and out of shape. He looked exhausted. “You were right, John,” he said. “I knew about those murders in Tel Aviv. When you first spotted that calligraphy on the PC in Moussa’s apartment, as soon as
you uttered those words, I knew. We got a video clip of the killings soon after they occurred. Unofficially,” he said. “I couldn’t tell you. You didn’t have the clearance. And your illicit meetings with Hassan made you high risk.”

  “I still don’t,” Decker said.

  Warhaftig chuckled. “So court-martial me,” he said.

  “You have a man on the inside, don’t you?” Decker said. “Within the Israeli government, in the intelligence services.”

  Warhaftig looked out at the DSV and nodded. “He got us a copy of the tape,” he said. “But we couldn’t tell you. That’s why I took your pictures. But when we realized your facility, we began to feed you information bit by bit, and staged that robbery in Tel Aviv as a cover for our man. Then we recruited Hassan.”

  “We?”

  “Yes. I was in contact with him too, but he preferred to deal with you. What I couldn’t get out of you, he did. He had no choice but to cooperate. You know what we could do to him if we wanted to – detention, deportation. And, frankly, it was better for Jusef if he worked through you, rather than through more official channels. I thought you should know.”

  “Thanks, Otto.” Decker started to leave but Warhaftig held him back.

  “Good luck,” Warhaftig said. He stuck his hand out.

  Decker was standing in the rain. It was washing down his back. He looked down at Warhaftig’s hand. Then, finally, he shook it. “Thanks for everything,” he said. With that he turned and ran across the deck.

  Swenson and Speers had already climbed up into the DSV. Decker could see her golden hair disappearing through the hatchway. He clambered up the narrow ladder, slipped through the hatch, and waved once more at Seiden and Warhaftig who were standing in the rain on the deck below. Then he closed the hatch, and the Alvin was hoisted slowly up and over the side, down into the waves.

  “God help them,” Seiden said as the submersible faded out of sight.

  “God help us all,” Warhaftig whispered back.

  * * *

  The Rêve de Chantal steamed slowly south, toward Venezuela. Topside, the Gambian, Momodou Marong, was fishing with a hand line, his shirt off, and a huge cigar dangling precariously from his lips.

  Suddenly, he heard what sounded like distant thunder. He looked up but the sky was clear, dotted with stars. The noise grew louder. The Gambian stood up and looked across the rail to starboard. He could see whitecaps in the moonlight flowing evenly into the great bay of Bathsheba on the island of Barbados only a mile or two away. Then the freighter seemed to lurch as if she’d run aground. Marong looked back toward the shore. The sea was pulling back. It was retreating from the beach. The freighter yawed and rolled. He held on to the rail. His fishing line drew taut. He let it go and ran across the deck.

  In the distance, off the port beam, Marong could see what appeared to be a great white wall of water, rising higher and higher as it approached the freighter at a frightening speed. It rose above the tallest boom, above the highest mast or funnel. It seemed to block out the entire sky, and then it was upon him, bursting his body like a great balloon against the bulwark, lifting the freighter up and over until she rolled and rolled submerged onto the island, coming to rest at last, a twisted wreck of steel and wood and dying flesh, more than a quarter of a mile inland.

  Chapter 45

  Friday, February 4 – 4:27 AM

  The Young Canyons

  The Alvin descended slowly into the black Atlantic. The water in the upper column was fairly turbulent but this, Speers assured them, was relatively normal. The mega-tsunami was still two hours distant.

  During the descent, Swenson and Roger Speers briefed Decker on the history and capabilities of the DSV. Originally constructed in 1964, the submersible was 7.1 meters long and 3.7 meters high, with a cruising speed of approximately half a knot. Despite her age, the DSV remained a state-of-the-art submersible, thanks to a host of reconstructions and numerous improvements over the years. Constructed of 4.9 centimeters of titanium, the hull could tolerate pressures of up to 208 centimeters OD, allowing two scientists and a pilot to descend to depths of more than 4,500 meters for more than 70 hours.

  Generally, a support or “mother” ship called the Atlantis accompanied the vessel. In this case, due to time constraints, the USS Stanfield was going to have to serve this role, catching the acoustic pulse the DSV emitted every three seconds through the frigate’s transducer array. Everything about the voyage had been rushed and, during the descent, Speers and Swenson fretted about the compromises they’d been forced to make.

  Generally, when working at maximum depths, it took about two hours for the DSV to reach the ocean floor, and another two to surface. The four hours of working time during a Day On Station (DOS) was crammed with carefully planned experiments, photography and sampling by scientists using the vessel’s three twelve-inch diameter view ports, four video cameras, two hydraulic robotic arms, and a sample basket mounted on the prow. To ensure maximum productivity within this narrow timeframe, scientists spent weeks, sometimes months, preparing for a voyage before setting out to sea. A preliminary cruise plan was drawn up, including a complete dive profile, equipment requirements and descriptions (dive by dive), as well as navigation requirements.

  “We haven’t done any of these things,” said Swenson, shaking her head. “We’re basically winging it.”

  “We have no choice,” said Decker.

  Swenson frowned and looked out through her view port. Despite the quartz iodide and metal halide lights mounted on the hull, there was nothing to see as they descended slowly through the depths. “I know that,” she said tightly. Then turning to Decker she added, “But I’m a scientist, John, remember? Experiments are all about the preparation. Developing a hypothesis and a way to test it.”

  “Either we succeed and save millions of lives, or we don’t. I don’t mean to be glib, but that about sums it up.”

  Speers chuckled to himself. “How long you guys known each other?” he said.

  “None of your business,” they snapped in unison.

  “Not long,” added Decker sheepishly.

  “Just asking.” Clearly Speers had hit a nerve and he turned back to the console. “The guys at WHOI did a good job with the bomb mount,” he said, changing the subject. “With the sample basket gone, we should have no problem maneuvering. How big did you say those blowouts are?”

  Swenson sighed. Speers had already asked this question twice before. “Some are as wide as fifteen hundred meters,” she replied, “fifty deep and up to five thousand meters long.”

  Speers whistled. “Must have been a pretty big explosion to make that kind of hole. How were they formed?”

  “Gas upwellings, in all probability, but we don’t really know for sure. A couple of years ago a team from WHOI and Duke University towed a SUBSCAN – a seafloor and sub-bottom imaging system – about two thousand kilometers along the shelf. They also took some sediment core samples using a gravity core.”

  “Two thousand miles!” said Decker. “That’s a lot of coastline.”

  “It wasn’t linear, of course. The ship traveled back and forth over the study area in a pattern called ‘mowing the lawn.’ Then they built a grid of overlapping data sections to create a final image. Gas has a characteristic signal,” Swenson said, “that commonly shows up as a bright, high-amplitude reflection obscuring any deeper signals. The data showed that the entire area is charged with gas, and we suspect the cracks are a system of large depressions along the edge that were formed by gas erupting through the seafloor. These layers look like the remnants of an ancient delta that reached out far beyond the current coastline during the last ice age. Sea levels were much lower then than they are today. The samples the team recovered included silty clay, sand and gravel from the bottom, and these are consistent with deltaic settings. Where these deposits are absent, the gas simply percolates harmlessly to the surface.”

  “So these impermeable sediments are keeping the gas from getting out,” said Spe
ers.

  “That’s right. But, over time, we believe pressure from the underlying gas builds up.”

  “Like a cork in a champagne bottle,” Decker said.

  “A very big bottle,” Speers added ruefully. “As my daddy used to say: When you got gas, let it out.”

  “Some scientists,” Swenson continued, ignoring him, “from both Columbia University and the Texas Institute for Geophysics speculate the rising gas might play a role in triggering collapses of the shelf. The Continental Shelf here is historically prone to landslides. An enormous slide occurred just to the south of here only sixteen to eighteen thousand years ago, at the end of the last ice age.”

  “So that’s the plan then,” Speers responded. “We plant this bomb inside one of the blowout depressions, trigger it before the other tsunami gets here, and hope it knocks a chunk off the Outer Continental Shelf. Is that it?”

  “That’s it,” said Swenson.

  “Sounds pretty straight-forward.”

  “It won’t be. We can’t just drop the bomb on the bottom and hope for the best,” said Swenson. “To make sure the gas erupts – causing a landslide – and radiates a mega-tsunami in the appropriate direction, we’ll have to navigate the Alvin as deep inside one of the dormant tunnels within the blowouts as we can.”

  Speers nodded. “I’ve made more than thirty dives in the Alvin over the last six years. I was on the mission when we recovered that hydrogen bomb some knucklehead dropped onto the bottom of the Mediterranean in ’98. I’ve surveyed the Titanic and helped explore those deep-sea hydrothermal vents covered in tube worms. But I’ve never taken this DSV into a tunnel. The Submerged Operating Limits guide specifically states that Alvin – and I quote – ‘will not be operated in such a fashion so as to pass under an object, either natural or manmade . . . Alvin will remain clear of wreckage, debris, or natural terrain features which have entanglement or entrapment potential.’ Unquote.”