Sleeping Dogs

by Tony Vanderwarker

  Mehran turns to the wetsuit that he has carefully laid out on the towel next to him. Other mujahid go to their maker wearing ceremonial scarves and headcloths painstakingly woven by their wives or mothers. He smoothes out the wrinkles on his suit, straightening the straps and lining up the buckles, arranging the sleek rubber garment as neatly as he can, thinking, Not only will my wetsuit enable me to accomplish my mission, it will also be what I will be wearing when I first meet Allah.

  As they slam through the heavy chop toward their destination, Howie clutches the piece of paper with the GPS coordinates on it deep in the pocket of his storm coat.

  “Can you tell me where we’re headed?” Andersen yells at him.

  The increasing winds are whipping the water up into confused peaks, some three, some five feet. Despite Andersen’s best efforts to keep the craft steady, it careens up and down the face of the waves, veering from port to starboard and back again. Howie crouches down behind the windshield to keep the flying spray out of his face, gripping the handrails tightly as the bow bangs up and down in the water.

  “A location just off Holland Point,” he shouts back at the chief.

  “Sir, can you tell me what’s there?”

  “It’s what’s not there that’s important.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t have to, Chief, just skipper us to these coordinates,” Howie says, taking the slip of paper out of his pocket and handing it to Andersen.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” he says as he keys the figures into his GPS monitor.

  Whatever Warren’s motivation was for stopping the boat, it is playing to their advantage. From the posts, he can tell the terrorists have decided that’s where the bomb is. Now all Howie has to do is reinforce the location by dropping a buoy, wait for the winds to work themselves into a frenzy, then pray like hell they take the bait.

  El-Khadr was relieved when Naguib rushed into his office and told him the news. He hurried into the control room and watched the boat that had earlier pulled out of the mouth of the Potomac. While the thickening weather obscured its progress, through breaks in the clouds El-Khadr could see the craft gradually swing to port and head north into the upper reaches of the Chesapeake. He had not seen any action from Collyer since yesterday when he completed the search and did not know what to make of it. Is Collyer waiting for recovery equipment to begin salvaging the bomb? he wondered. When the weather calms down is he planning to dive the location and check its condition?

  So El-Khadr watched with mounting interest as the boat sailed up the bay, steering north-northeast in the general direction of the same spot where Collyer had stopped the day before.

  One hour passes, the boat is halfway to the location. More people gather around the large screen on the wall showing the satellite feed, staring as the tiny object creeps northward.

  El-Khadr quickly checks the weather. As his meteorologist predicted, this storm is starting to veer east, taking a right turn and heading out across the bay into the Atlantic. If the winds hold he will be in good shape. The minutes tick by. The control room is silent as everyone’s eyes follow the boat’s course.

  El-Khadr sees the boat reduce speed. Clouds cover it for a long minute, then clear. His pulse jumps as the craft slows and pulls to a complete stop. He lets out an uncharacteristic whoop when he sees the readout of the GPS coordinates. Collyer has returned to the same location.

  “He dropped a radio buoy. He has marked the spot,” a man sitting at a screen reports to him.

  “Double-check the coordinates, it is time to give Mehran the order!” he shouts, turning and peglegging as fast as he can back to Naguib’s station.

  From the second he felt the winds die down, Howie knew he had set the perfect trap. Not only had he again marked the spot, but the weather was cooperating. If they are going to strike, they have only a narrow window of opportunity.

  “Look,” Andersen says, pointing up at the swirling clouds passing over them. “It’s pushing the front out to sea. In a matter of hours, the bay will be back to being flat as glass.”

  Howie grabs the handset, “Get those Jayhawks airborne,” he yells at Straub over the radio.

  “We haven’t seen any posts on the website,” Straub responds.

  “We can’t afford to wait. The message could come at any time. You have to get in the air now. He could come out of nowhere,” Howie shouts. “Get going!”

  Friday, Jimmick had ordered three Jayhawks, the Coast Guard’s version of the Black Hawk, positioned just inland from Herring Bay, parked in a field out of sight behind a line of cedars. The three white helos with their orange stripes sit prepared to take off at a moment’s notice. Specially equipped with Hellfires, 7.62-caliber machine guns and .50-caliber Robar sniper rifles designed to blow the engines out of drug-running boats, they can be out over the bay in seconds ready to deal with anything.

  Howie’s relieved to hear Winn’s voice saying, “They are starting their engines.”

  “Patch us into the pilot’s frequency,” he tells Winn. “I want to hear what’s going on.”

  Howie has Andersen throttle back when the boat is a safe distance from where they dropped the buoy and they sit rocking up and down on the waves. Howie’s scanning the coastline looking for any craft coming toward them.

  “We’re airborne, sir,” Howie can hear one of the helo pilots reporting to Jimmick.

  “Stand off a half mile from shore. Hang tight, we’ll be talking to you,” he hears Jimmick order the pilots. Straub had told Howie that he and Jimmick had run operations together in Florida, remembering that Winn had boasted, “You ought to see the two of us in command mode, we’re right out of the movies.”

  “No posts, Howie, nothing’s coming across the screen.”

  Howie can tell Winn’s exasperated. If the Pentagon is watching, with their AWACS radar, even if they are not visible on satellite, they can easily pick up on the three blips hovering over Maryland farm country. A half hour later Vector Eleven would be swarming all over them. Howie creeps his binocs across the coastline.

  “Still nothing, Howie, I’m going to set the helos back down.”

  “No, Winn, wait a minute.”

  “I’ll give you thirty seconds. If anyone at the Building picks up these birds they’ll be on us like flies to shit.”

  “Just give it a little more time, Winn.”

  Howie’s counting to himself, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27—when he hears the magic words, “Wait a minute, we have a post. Time to dig up dahlias.”

  The second Mehran sees the words on the screen, he tosses the phone aside, scrambles into his wetsuit, hustles down the stairs, vaults on deck and slides into the cockpit. Flipping the switch to open the doors, he hits the button to lower the Donzi. As the doors crank open, the bay is revealed, the chop heavy but the visibility workable. Once in the water, Mehran knows that he can accomplish the mission blindfolded. He clicks on his GPS. The coordinates he entered earlier will take him to the precise spot.

  As the Donzi settles into the water, Mehran turns the key and the engines rumble to life. The doors open fully, folding up into the roof and leaving the Chesapeake spread out before him.

  He shoves the throttles forward and blasts out with its engines thundering. Above the roaring Donzi and windswept water, he’s the only one who can hear the blood-curdling shriek that he leaves hanging in the air behind him.

  Allahu akbar!

  Straub shouts, “Who’s on the target? Who is on the target? Has anyone picked it up?” He barks out the coordinates again to the Coast Guard helicopters. “Is anyone seeing it? C’mon, guys, give me some help here. I need it fast.”

  Howie’s sweeping the coast, all of a sudden he can make out the pinpoint profile of a boat silhouetted against the shoreline. “Check out the object coming off Holland Point at ninety degrees,” Howie yells into the handset.

  Static, then a click and the sound of an unfamiliar voice buzzes over the radio, “This is Lieutenant Waite in He
lo Three. I have the target.” Waite’s circling his Jayhawk over the fastboat banging through the chop a hundred yards below him. “I’m perched right off his stern. I don’t think he has a visual on us yet. Standing by for orders.” Waite is low enough to see a man in a wetsuit standing at the wheel of the speedboat crashing hell bent for leather across the bay.

  Jimmick lets out a sigh of relief, “Okay, Lieutenant Waite. I want to make sure the target notices you. Come around on his bow and fly up his nostrils. Let him know you’re the boss and he’s going exactly where you tell him.”

  Even though they are directly overhead, Mehran can’t hear the throbbing sound of the helo’s engines over the roar of his own and the slamming of the Donzi’s hull as he pounds across the bay. All his attention is focused on his GPS screen, six-tenths of a mile, five-tenths, four-tenths, three, two, until he reaches his target.

  Waite sweeps his Jayhawk wide, swinging around the boat and dropping down to pull up fifty feet off its bow and twenty feet in the air, the helo’s rotor wash splashing over the deck and frothing up the waves, forcing the driver to shield his face with his arms from the spray flying at him from all sides.

  Mehran doesn’t see the source of the spray until the helicopter settles down in front of him. A gigantic orange-and-white insect hovering over the water twenty feet overhead with its turbines whining, its bulbous fuselage suspended off his bow, rotors slashing the air overhead, he’s staring right into the dark barrels of its machine guns and two banks of missiles.

  Mehran jams the throttles wide open and races into the nose of the chopper, daring the pilot to take him out.

  Waite gooses his twin GE turbines, backing off the onrushing Donzi but still holding position. “I’m right in his face, sir,” Waite reports. “But this boy’s on a mission. He’s not stopping at anything.”

  “Put a volley into his stern, take out his engines,” Jimmick orders.

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Waite quickly darts back alongside the boat and lines up the stern in the crosshairs of his sniper rifle. Squeezing off three quick shots, he watches as the slugs stitch across the boat’s butt. Waite smiles as the sleek, glassed tail shatters. Donzis aren’t engineered to take a bunch of .50-cal slugs in the ass, the Coast Guard lieutenant thinks as he watches flames blaze up from the back of the boat followed by a soaring cloud of black smoke.

  Waite hangs off twenty feet to his starboard, fifty feet in the air, keeping an eye on the boat’s skipper.

  “Wherever he was headed, he’s not going there anymore. Our target’s dead in the water,” Waite reports as he hovers over the crippled Donzi.

  Mehran senses his stern settling under the waves. He turns the key, flicking it back and forth frantically. No power. Nothing. He feels acrid smoke billowing around him, the flames from the back surging forward, licking up into the air. Reaching around and feeling for the collar, he grabs it out of the rack, making sure the remote is clipped to his wetsuit.

  The helicopter hangs above him, its rotor wash fanning the flames. If I can just get into the water, he thinks as he lifts the heavy collar and slips it over his head.

  “Keep an eye on him, Waite,” Jimmick orders, “we don’t want him getting out of the damn boat. Take him out if you have to.”

  “I’m starting to lose him now.” Waite slants his helo so the rotors sweep the swirling gray clouds off the cockpit.

  “You can’t let him get into the fucking water! If he gets in the water we’re goners,” Jimmick screams. “Take him out! Take him the hell out!”

  Waite drops down to not more than ten feet above the blazing Donzi and scans the cabin area, looking for any sign of the diver.

  “Do you see him? Do you have him?” Jimmick bellows.

  “He must have slipped overboard.”

  “Lieutenant Waite, do you see a stainless ring anywhere on the boat?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How about a set of monofins, big flippers?”

  “Negative, sir. But his tanks are on board so he’s not going far. I’ll blow him away the second he surfaces.”

  Waite hears the radio go silent. No one on the other end is saying a thing.

  At that instant, Straub, Jimmick and Howie are sharing a single thought. Have we let the unimaginable happen? Right this second is a suicide diver streaking somewhere underneath the waves with a collar packed with C-4 to slip over the nose of a nuke and detonate in a millisecond?

  “Howie, is it possible they know where the bomb is?” Straub screams over the radio. “Howie? Howie? Are you there?”

  Howie hears his friend’s frantic voice. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I’m trying to figure out what could have gone wrong.” Howie was certain he had found the bomb, sailed right over another location five miles away when he was in the workboat. No one else had seen it, Sharon was feeding seagulls, Waite was down below. Scribbling down the coordinates, he had tucked the piece of paper in his pocket. Howie Collyer’s secret.

  But was he wrong? Had he read the magnetometer incorrectly? Has he been the victim of a cruel joke? Thinking he was laying a trap for them while all along he was leading them to the nuke?

  “He’s in the goddamn water, Howie. If the nuke’s down there it’s only a matter of minutes.”

  “Is there anything we can do?” Jimmick asks.

  “Pray,” is the only thing Winston Straub can think of saying.

  The control room has fallen silent as thirty pairs of eyes search the monitors hoping for a sign. Groans of shock and dismay went up from the group when they saw the first explosion but El-Khadr screamed for them to shut up.

  “Much too small to be the collar exploding, Mehran can still be in the water going for the bomb!” he shouts, waving his arms for them to be still. Through the clouds over the bay, he can see tiny dots circling the smoke from Mehran’s boat. The Americans are all over him but if they are lucky and Allah is watching, Mehran could be bearing down on the bomb.

  Twenty feet below the surface, Mehran silently glides toward his rendezvous, the collar tucked in tight to his body, his powerful legs silently and gracefully sweeping the monofin up and down as they race him through the water. He quickly checks the GPS readout on his wrist receiver. Less than forty yards remaining. His body is behaving beautifully, just as it was trained, his lungs not yet screaming for air, his mind clear and focused on the prize ahead.

  He ducks his head so the water at the bottom of his mask sloshes up and clears the glass. Though the water is murky, through the gloomy haze faint outlines of an object come into focus. Long and cylindrical, it sits askew in the sand, as if it had settled in at an angle. He struggles to keep his heart rate under control.

  “Lieutenant Waite, do you see him? Do you see anything?” Jimmick shouts into his handset.

  “No, sir. Nothing yet,” Waite reports as he circles a hundred feet off the water, the two other helos on his port and starboard. “How long can this character stay under water? It’s been seven minutes already. He can’t last much longer.”

  Neither can I, Straub thinks, checking his wristwatch again.

  Everyone stands motionless in the control room in Indonesia. Eyes riveted on the monitors overhead, staring at the satellite feed showing clouds drifting over the bay, every once in a while parting to reveal the drama going on hundreds of miles below. Each person praying that Mehran at any moment will sight the steel nose cone and gently slide the collar down. When it clicks into place it will change the world forever.

  At first he thinks barnacles have grown over the bomb. His fingers scratch at the rough surface, seeking metal, knowing that the collar has to have contact. He has seconds of air left, he takes his knife and gashes at the strange material but it billows into a cloud. He stabs at it again but he is running out of air. His chest is beginning to cramp, the muscles around his lungs vainly grabbing for oxygen. One more slash with his knife reveals the reality. It is bark he has been scraping at—tree bark. Flotsam off some barge, stuck in the sand at an odd angle.


  Mehran’s training tells him that in five seconds he will black out, the collar will drift down to the bottom and his body will slowly ascend. Breaking the surface, it will bob helplessly on the waves, a perfect target for the American helicopters.

  I will not let that happen. They will pay, at least in a small way. He kicks quickly to the surface, slipping his body inside the ring. If he plans it right, his first breath of air will be his last and he will go to greet Allah having taken an enemy helicopter along with him. He pushes upward, the steel bird hanging high above the water. Taking the remote in his hand, he puts his finger on the trigger as his head breaks the surface.

  “I have him,” Waite shouts over the radio. “He’s surfacing off to my port, fifty yards ahead. He’s got a life preserver and he’s waving at us like he wants to be rescued.”

  Howie’s mind stumbles over the helo pilot’s words. He yells to Jimmick and Straub, “Tell him that’s a goddamn bomb, not a life preserver. Get him the hell away from there!”

  Jimmick immediately responds, yelling into his radio, “Lieutenant Waite, get your ass out of there pronto, do you understand? He’s going to blow himself sky high.”

  Mehran’s hand clenches the detonator, he says a silent prayer and presses the button.

  Waite swings the Jayhawk up and away just as a sharp, rattling explosion booms over the water and a second later a three-hundred-foot orange fireball spurts up from the spot where the swimmer used to be.

  “Thanks for the heads up, guys,” Waite says to the crowd back in the boathouse as he hovers above the water watching the greasy column of fire and smoke blaze up into the swirling gray sky. “You sure were right about that life preserver.”

  In the instant before the collar exploded and the terrorist went to Allah, Howie Collyer’s life had flashed in front of his eyes. He would be held responsible for alerting the terrorists to the bomb’s existence and for leading them to it. His only consolation would be that, having been less than a mile away, he would be instantly vaporized.