End of Enemies

by Grant Blackwood

  “No.”

  “Did he get a look inside the torpedo room?”

  “Not really. He peeked inside, but got shot at for his trouble.”

  “Fella sounds like he was a few sandwiches shy of a picnic,” Henry said. “What about the other civilian, the one on the pier? Did Myers get a name?”

  Tanner dug through his notes. “Yes. John Staples.”

  Henry was barely listening. “Mmm. John Staples, huh?”

  The rest of the evening he had been reserved, sitting in his chair and staring at nothing. Briggs knew the look; it was what his mom called his “lost in space look.”

  Tanner was going for another cup of coffee when the phone rang. It was Henry. “You, too, Dad?”

  “Yeah. Have you got a few minutes?”

  He arrived an hour later carrying an armload of books, maps, and a pad full of notes. Tanner poured him a cup of coffee, and they sat down beside the fire. As Henry took a sip, Tanner noticed his hands were shaking. “The story you got from Myers … Do you believe him?”

  “Yes. The man spent twenty-two years in the Navy, retired a captain. Decorations, letters of commendation, perfect evals … he was a four-o sailor all the way. Why are you asking?”

  “Here, let me show you.”

  Henry spread out his books and began talking.

  It was almost sunrise when he finished. Outside, the rain had stopped, and the sun was peeking through the clouds. Tanner got up from the table. “Dad, you’re a great researcher; I’ve always thought so. But …”

  “But it sounds crazy.”

  “Frankly, yes.”

  “I know. Listen, I’ve gone over this forward and backward. I’ve checked and cross-checked. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last eight hours.”

  “But is it possible? Were there enough—”

  “Plenty. That’s what most people don’t know.”

  It all made sense, Tanner decided. It bordered on the unbelievable, but there was an underlying logic to the scenario. If his father were right, Dick Mason and the CIA were headed down the wrong track.

  “Dad, would you be willing to tell this again to Leland?”

  “Sure.” He and Dutcher were long-time fishing companions. “When?”

  “Right now.”

  By seven A.M., Tanner and his father were sitting in Holystone’s conference room. Henry had just finished recounting his theory. Like Briggs, Dutcher and Oaken were stunned into silence.

  Finally Dutcher said, “Henry, I’ve got to tell you: This is the wrong time to be starting a wild-goose chase. Bottom line: How sure are you?”

  In all their years as friends, Henry had never seen Leland’s face so grim. It gave him pause, but only for a moment. “Very.”

  “Briggs?”

  “It all fits.”

  That was all Dutcher needed. “Okay. I’ve got some calls to make.”

  White House

  One call to Mason was all it took to get them invited to the DCI’s meeting with James Talbot. When Mason asked for an explanation, Dutcher said, “It’s best you hear it in person.” By nine, they were walking through the White House’s west entrance.

  Bookworm that he was, Henry was overwhelmed. He glanced nervously at the Secret Service agents, then smoothed the front of his cardigan. He whispered to Tanner, “You know, maybe I should have changed—”

  “You’re fine, Dad. Just tell it the same way you told me.”

  “Maybe you should tell part of it.”

  “You know the history better than I do. You’re the one who put the pieces together, not me. You’ll do fine.”

  They were ushered into Talbot’s office, which was furnished in muted gold and burgundy. Talbot walked around his desk and greeted each of them in turn. If he was surprised by their presence, he didn’t show it. He shook hands with Henry last.

  “Mr. Tanner, I don’t think we’ve met. Since we’ve got two of the Tanner family here, do you mind if I call you Henry?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Good. Dick here tells me you have something that might interest us. Let’s get to it.”

  Mason started by detailing Tanner’s and Cahil’s discovery of Stonefish and its tenuous connection to the salvage ship Toshogu. “At that point, they had nothing linking the two except pure conjecture. Out of curiosity, he asked his father for help tracking down the sub’s identity. I’ll let him explain what he found.”

  Henry Tanner stood up, walked to the podium, and shuffled his notes. “The account I’m going to give is based on an interview with a retired Navy captain named William Myers as well as several unclassified documents.

  “The submarine Briggs found off the coast of Japan was a World War II S-class fleet boat named Stonefish. At the time of her disappearance, she was commanded by Lieutenant Hugh Carpen.

  “Navy records, which we now believe to have been falsified, indicate Stonefish was sunk by enemy aircraft near the Bonin Islands on July 30th, 1945. One survivor was reported found: the boat’s executive officer, then Ensign William Myers. Myers has confirmed this story was contrived by the Navy. And now we think we know why.”

  Henry spent the next ten minutes recounting the voyage of Stonefish, from her penetration of the antisubmarine nets to her sinking off the coast of Honshu.

  “Did Myers explain the purpose of their mission?” asked Talbot.

  “No. According to him, there were only two people on board who knew that: Captain Carpen and the civilian.”

  “Please continue.”

  When Stonefish hit bottom, Myers realized she was badly damaged. They were taking on water in two areas, one of which was the after battery compartment.”

  “Gas,” Talbot said quietly.

  “Exactly.”

  He’s got them, Tanner thought. Like any good history teacher, Henry was a superb storyteller.

  “Myers had another problem, however. During the surface attack, the civilian shot and killed one of the crew. Myers ordered the survivors to don their Momsen Lungs and head for the escape trunks. Once they were on their way, he went to check on the civilian. According to Myers, the man refused to leave. With no other choice, Myers put on a Momsen and made his own escape.”

  “So this civilian … he’s still down there?” asked Talbot.

  Briggs nodded. “Chained to the stanchion. We also found the master-at-arms lying on the wardroom deck, exactly as Myers described.”

  “So everybody else got out?”

  “They all got out,” said Henry, “but only thirty-eight survived to be picked up by the Japanese.” Henry finished the story with the crew’s imprisonment, torture, and subsequent release following the Japanese surrender. “After spending three weeks in the hospital, Captain Myers returned to active duty and spent the next twenty years as a submariner.”

  Talbot said. “This is a fascinating story, but I don’t see how—”

  Henry nodded. “I know. I’ve saved that for last.”

  He then retold the first part of Myers’s story: the off-loading of torpedoes at the Volcano Islands, the army trucks, and the mysterious “military civilian.”

  “As Myers was leaving the boat, he saw Carpen and this man shaking hands. Myers remembered his name: John Staples.”

  Both Mason and Talbot looked at him blankly.

  “The name doesn’t ring a bell?” asked Henry.

  “No, should it?”

  “John Staples was a Navy captain during World War II. In 1945, he worked as ordnance coordination officer of the Bomb Delivery Group at Los Alamos. In other words, gentlemen, John Staples was the man responsible for the delivery of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.”

  47

  The room was completely silent. Though Briggs had heard the story twice already, he again felt a chill on his neck. God help us if we’re right about this. … Tsumago could be anywhere, headed anywhere.

  Finally Talbot said, “Henry, let me get this straigh
t: Are you telling me you think an atomic bomb was loaded aboard Stonefish and that bomb has been salvaged and may now be in the hands of a terrorist group?”

  “I don’t know about the latter, but as for the former, yes I am. I’m not suggesting the device was usable as it was found. And compared to today’s standards, it would be crude—probably of the gun-type variety—something designed to be ejected through the sub’s torpedo tubes.”

  “Explain that—a gun-type bomb.”

  “Physics is not my strong suit. Perhaps Walter can explain it better.”

  Oaken said, “A gun-type bomb involves ramming a uranium bullet down a barrel into what’s called a pit … a lump of uranium. Separated from one another, the bullet and the pit are stable, but when combined with enough force, they form the critical mass required for an explosion.

  “The engineering is pretty straightforward. Anyone with the right kind of machining equipment and a rudimentary understanding of physics and explosives could make one. It’s the uranium that’s hard to get hold of.”

  “Unless you happen to find it sitting at the bottom of the ocean,” Talbot muttered. “God almighty, an untraceable, deniable source of uranium.”

  Tanner saw Talbot glance at Mason and knew what they were thinking: Could this have been the real purpose behind Parece Kito? The compartmentalized clean rooms, the machinery … Could it have all been for the disassembly of Stonefish’s bomb, the extraction of the uranium, and the construction of another device?

  “How big would something like this be?” Talbot asked.

  “Little Boy was a gun-type. It was ten feet long and weighed almost 10,000 pounds. But a lot of that weight was necessary to make it droppable from a plane; not only did it have to be aerodynamic, but it had to detonate just like a conventional bomb.”

  “So it’s conceivable something similar could have fit aboard the Stonefish.”

  Henry answered. “Easily. Her Mark 14 torpedoes were twenty feet long and weighed 5,000 pounds.”

  “Okay, that was then,” said Mason “How about now?”

  “With current technology,” replied Oaken, “the sphere enclosing the pit could be the size of a beach ball, and the attached barrel would be about the size of three soda cans stacked on top of one another.”

  Talbot said to Dutcher, “Leland, I haven’t heard your take on this.”

  “Assuming we’re right about Stonefish, I think it’s a very real possibility there’s a workable nuclear weapon out there somewhere.”

  “Holy Christ.”

  “How about yield?” asked Mason.

  “We know Stonefish’s device couldn’t have been a Fat Man type … an implosion bomb,” said Oaken. “It would’ve been too big; it had to be similar to Little Boy. Say, twenty kilotons. With today’s technology, it could go as high as thirty.”

  “Casualties?” Talbot asked.

  “It would depend on the target, but on a population center the blast alone would probably kill 150,000.”

  Once again, silence settled over the room.

  “Let’s not hit the panic button quite yet,” Mason finally said. “We don’t know anything yet First of all, how can we be sure we’re talking about the same John Staples?”

  “We can’t,” said Henry. “But I did do some digging into his activities during that time.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “No. He died in 1953.”

  “You said he was in charge of delivering the damn things,” said Talbot. “When Myers claims to have seen him, wasn’t he supposed to be on Tinian with the Hiroshima bomb?”

  “No. In fact, his deputy, Howard Tudor, handled Little Boy. From the time Tudor left for Tinian—while the bomb was en route there aboard Indianapolis—until just before Fat Man was dropped, there is no account of Staples’s whereabouts.”

  “Could he have been aboard Indianapolis?”

  “It’s possible, but I don’t think so,” said Henry. “My guess is we had three to five bombs at our disposal in August of ’45. Truth is, back then, no one knew how powerful they were going to be. In fact, there was a pool going at Los Alamos to guess the yield. The planning committee felt it might take as many as fifty bombs to bring Japan to its knees.”

  “Fifty!” said Talbot.

  “Or more. The military had instructed them to be ready to deliver six to seven a month until it was over. Of course, they ran tests at Trinity, but until one was dropped on a real target, there was no telling what it would do.”

  “All right,” Talbot said. “First things first: How do we prove or disprove it?”

  “First, we take a photo of Staples to Captain Myers. Next, we round up all the surviving top-level people from Los Alamos and start asking questions. And lastly, we press the Navy to open its classified archives on Stonefish.”

  Talbot nodded. “Dick, put it together. Leland, we’ll need you and your people as well … including you, Henry.”

  Henry looked up, startled. “Pardon? I’m not qualified—”

  “I think you are. We need your help. Will you give it?”

  “Well, uh, of course.”

  “Good. As far as Tsumago goes, nothing’s changed. We’ve got to find her before she reaches her destination. Dick, where do were stand?”

  “I’ve got four satellites looking for her and a team of analysts working on the feed round the clock.”

  Talbot pushed his intercom button. “Betty, I need to see the president immediately; have the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs meet me there.” He clicked off and said, “Gentlemen, once we find Tsumago, we’d better have options for stopping her. Mr. Tanner, Mr. Cahil, you two know her firsthand. Is a boarding feasible?”

  “It’s feasible,” Tanner replied. “But given her cargo and construction, it would take the right kind of team and careful planning. We’d only get one shot.”

  “Understood. Okay, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.” He stood and smiled grimly. “As this is by no means a finished race, I’ll save my thank-yous for when it’s over. Yes, Dick?”

  “One more thing: Yesterday, Latham interviewed Vorsalov and Fayyad. The man they met in Khartoum is second-in-command of the group that contracted them. His name is Mustafa al-Baz. We know very little about him, even less about the leader, who wore a mask during his meeting with Vorsalov.”

  Talbot asked. “And this al-Baz is the one piloting Tsumago?”

  “Right Here’s the interesting part: Vorsalov claims al-Baz is a deep-cover operative for the Syrian Mucharabat and that he works directly for General Issam al-Khatib.”

  “Khatib … Where’d that name come up recently?”

  “General al-Khatib is in charge of the exercises the Syrian Army is conducting.”

  Talbot sat back down. “You think Syria is—”

  “We don’t have enough to draw that conclusion yet,” Mason said. “But at first glance, it appears so.”

  “So, if in fact there’s a bomb out there, it could be in the hands of a Syrian intelligence operative.”

  “That’s correct.”

  Everything had just changed, Tanner knew. Having a rogue terrorist group holding a nuke was terrifying enough, but for Syria to have one was a nightmare come true. Syria was the wild card in any Mideast peace initiative. If in fact they had the bomb, the scales of power in the region had just collapsed.

  Langley Operations Center

  Walking into the Op Center, Tanner saw DORSAL’s staff of analysts had doubled in the space of hours. The murmur of voices and ringing of phones filled the room; the walls were covered with photos, maps, and flowcharts.

  “The party’s gotten bigger,” said Cahil. “You think any of them know?”

  “Doubtful. They know something’s changed, but not what. Hell, I’m not sure I’d want to know, myself.”

  Cahil nodded across the room to where Art Stucky stood. “There’s your buddy. You ever gonna tell me the story?”


  Tanner nodded. “How about lunch? Give me an hour; I want to check something.” He left Cahil and walked to the audio room. “Have you got a minute?” he asked the technician.

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “I’d like to listen to our mystery man again … the one talking to Fayyad.”

  “No problem. Use the first booth. I’ll cue it up for you.”

  Tanner found the booth, sat down, and donned the headphones. The tech’s voice came through. “You’re all set. Just use the buttons in front of you to control it.”

  “Thanks.”

  For the next hour, Briggs played and replayed the minute-long conversation. The nagging feeling in the back of his head continued to grow until it became a conviction: He knew the man on the tape. Tanner couldn’t tell from where, or when, or how, but there was no doubt.

  “Who are you?” he muttered aloud.

  The rational side of his brain balked at the connection: The chances were astronomical, but the intuitive side of his brain—the same one that hadn’t let him quit on Stonefish—was saying something different.

  There was a knock on the glass. It was Cahil. “Lunch-time,” he mouthed.

  It was Chinese buffet day in the cafeteria. They went through the line and then found a table. Bear’s tray was a pyramid of egg rolls, sweet and sour pork, and crab Rangoon. “A little hungry?” Tanner said.

  “I’m a growing boy.”

  “I’ve noticed. Did Maggie know that when she married you?”

  Cahil nodded, his mouth full. “It was why she married me. She loves to cook.”

  Tanner smiled and shook his head. Good ol’ Bear. Looking back at their years together, he knew he couldn’t have asked for a better friend. How many scrapes wouldn’t he have survived without Bear? In Japan alone the tally was at least four. But that went both ways, didn’t it? It was part of the cement of their friendship: Both knew the other would be there when it counted.

  “So,” Cahil said. “Stucky.”

  “It was back when we were still on the teams. He and I met on an op in Peru—”