“You okay, sir? Andersen asks him as the two stand at the helm watching the smoke coil into the sky.
“Let’s get back to the station,” Collyer tells him, barely able to get the words out.
El-Khadr cannot believe his eyes. He watched with horror as the blip on the screen chased Mehran across the bay, hung over him for what seemed like an hour, and then there was a cloud of smoke. For a split second, El-Khadr thought he was seeing the blossoming of a nuclear detonation. But when he saw the explosion fizzle and the blip start back toward shore, he knew the worst had happened.
A pall of gloom blankets the room. The images persist on the glowing screens overhead and the computer consoles throughout the room drone on but everyone in control knows the mission is over. Heads slowly swivel toward him.
El-Khadr stares at them blankly. There is nothing to say. He turns and slowly walks toward the door.
Naguib is at his console. El-Khadr’s eyes are on the floor as he shuffles into his room. His leader is stooped and bent over, his wooden leg trailing behind as he crosses in front of him, no longer making the crisp rat-tat-tat, instead making a plaintive, scratching sound as it drags along the floor.
El-Khadr closes the door behind him. He stands leaning against it, staring vacantly into his office. It is over for him. There is nothing more he can do. When they hear the news in the mountains, maybe they will decide to go back to the plan to infiltrate Oak Ridge or Los Alamos. Perhaps they will choose a nuclear power plant.
But two things he is certain of. They will never go back to the lost bombs. The Great Satan has been awakened to the threat they present. And whatever operation the group chooses in the future, he is certain they will assign a new leader.
He shambles behind his desk, slowly opens a drawer and takes out a key. Inserting it into the lock on a credenza behind him, he leans down, opens the door and takes out a remote control with a black toggle switch and a chrome antenna. Three years ago, before his people had moved in, he had carefully placed the ten plastic charges at key points around the perimeter and five incendiary charges up the center line so that when he lifts the toggle and presses the red button, the interior will explode upward and the walls will collapse inward, the intense firestorm broiling everyone inside to a crisp.
As he slides the toggle forward and pushes the button, El-Khadr knows one thing for certain—his last operation will be a total success.
The hallways smell different is an expression Pentagon insiders use to describe times of momentous change in the Building.
The saying could not have been more apt or fitting as the two grim-faced generals stride quickly down the E ring corridor toward the SecDef’s office. People pause to watch since you don’t see two- and three- star generals quick timing through the hallways.
Whitey Hatkin had never heard Kessel sound so livid. If it was true that a Coast Guard helo had taken out a terrorist racing to detonate a nuke in the upper part of the Chesapeake Bay, he and Watt would pay for it with their careers.
And that’s if they were lucky. Court martials were a possibility and could even have them facing time in Leavenworth.
Both are fully aware of what awaits them in the SecDef’s office. Kessel is going into damage control. And the first thing he would do is offer up the heads of a couple flag officers.
Their worst suspicions are confirmed when they round the corner and see four armed MPs standing outside the entrance to the secretary of Defense’s suite.
43
St. Inigoes Coast Guard Station, Monday, noon
Despite the front surging out to sea, it was still blustery on the Chesapeake, blowing like stink as sailors like to say, so Howie didn’t expect a welcoming committee at the dock to greet him.
But he does look forward to triumphant smiles and celebration when he opens the front door. Instead, he sees long faces, gloomy looks, everyone sitting silently.
“Someone want to tell me what’s going on?”
Straub slowly gets up and turns to face him. “Risstup collapsed. Sharon is at the hospital with him.”
“What’s the best guess?”
“Cerebral hemorrhage. One minute he was with us, the next he was pitched face first on the table with his eyes rolled up into his head. Still had his vital signs but nothing much else. I’m sorry, Howie.”
“To get this far and then—”
“It’s a tragedy. And I don’t mean just for him.” Straub gets up and walks to a window, staring out at the neatly tended front yard of the station.
“What do you mean?”
“We don’t have a leg to stand on any longer.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Look, we took care of a terrorist and we’ll get credit for that, but with Risstup gone we don’t have any evidence there ever was a bomb.”
Hearing a car pulling up, Howie quickly walks to the window and looks out. Sharon slowly climbs out of a sedan marked with a Coast Guard insignia. She has a handkerchief in her hand, her eyes are red. She dabs at her cheeks.
Howie starts for the door, opens it, then stops and without looking back into the room, says, “Yes, we do.”
“What are you talking about?” Straub asks.
“Get me in to see the president,” is all Howie says before he hurries out to meet Sharon. As she comes down the walk, she lets out a wail and collapses into Howie’s open arms.
44
The White House, Tuesday afternoon
The president wants me to convey his appreciation for uncovering the terrorist plot. Without the help of experienced and dedicated people like you, we would not be winning the war on terror,” the president’s chief of staff says, leaning over his desk and smiling at the group standing in front of him.
“Cut the crap, Donalson,” Howie sneers. “We didn’t come here to get a pat on the back from his flunky, we came to see the president.”
“The president deeply regrets that he could not fit you in. But as you can understand, he has a crowded schedule these days.”
“Have it your way,” Howie nods. He slowly gets up and walks to the door as if he’s going to leave. He turns back with his hand on the doorknob, saying over his shoulder, “Then he can read about it in The New York Times.”
Reuven Donalson looks like just he pulled his finger out of a light socket. “I beg your pardon,” he sputters.
Howie walks back toward Donalson. “I pitched the story of these lost nukes to the Times two years ago. Back then they didn’t want to touch it. But now they might be interested.”
Donalson is deferential to the point of being insulting. “You’ll have to help me understand, Mr. Collyer. Has anything changed?“
Howie looks him in the eye, “I know where a hydrogen bomb is.”
Donalson smiles dismissively, “Mr. Collyer, I’m afraid that’s old news.”
“Really? How about if I show you a picture?” Howie slips a manila folder out of his coat pocket.
Donalson’s eyes bug out, his gaze riveted on the yellow envelope held in Howie’s hand. “You don’t have photographs—” he stammers.
“Full color. Sure candidates for a Pulitzer,” he says, holding the envelope out to Donalson. He reaches for it tentatively. Just as his hand touches it, Howie snatches it back.
“On second thought, I think we should wait for the president,” Howie says, slipping the folder back into his pocket. “These photographs might be for his eyes only. Now would you get him?”
“Just a minute, please,” Donalson says, suddenly displaying a new attitude.
Howie smiles at Straub and Sharon as the president’s chief of staff scurries out.
“Amazing what a good photograph can do,” Howie says to Winn. Though the water was cloudy, there was no mistaking the contours of the twelve-foot-long object jutting out of the floor of the bay. And any expert could confirm that the photograph was of an Mk-15 mod 0.
Chief Andersen is aan expert scuba diver. It had taken longer to sail up to Herring Bay and back tha
n to locate the bomb and snap the photos. The first time he surfaced, Andersen shook his head and said in amazement, “Dammit if there isn’t a bomb down there. I wouldn’t have ever believed it unless I’d seen it for myself.”
When he first saw the telltale signature on the Coast Guard workboat’s magnetometer, Howie had not been able to believe it either. Not in the area it was supposed to be, it was a good two miles from where he’d charted its location. Fortunately he was at the helm when the boat passed over it, twenty minutes before Warren sabotaged the water line. Fortunately Winn had prepped him to ignore it. So except for Howie, no one else knew its location. The GPS coordinates had stayed tucked away—until he needed them.
“As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words,” Straub says.
All turn at the sound of a door opening. “Ms. Thorsen, Mr. Straub, Mr. Collyer,” Donalson announces. “The president will see you now.”
45
Arlington National Cemetery, Friday
Despite the presence of the president of the United States, a host of dignitaries, and the din of the horde of photographers and reporters hovering behind the barricades, the ceremony is quiet and dignified. The morning is sunny but cold, the leafless trees swaying overhead in the light breeze and the endless rows of white gravestones adding to the somber atmosphere.
A cousin named Caroline was the only living Risstup able to travel. Caroline Risstup couldn’t stop talking about the flight on Air Force One from San Diego to Andrews. “It’s so roomy and comfortable. The food is a far cry from airline food. Rice pudding is my favorite. And it’s so nice of the president to fly me home,” the blue-haired octogenarian would prattle on to anyone who would listen.
Howie’s entire family came up from Charlottesville, Sylvie, Grace, Bridey and Donald, baby Jasmine of course and Jock and Richie, Howie’s two irrepressible grandsons. Due to the boys’ fascination with the caisson and riderless horse, the resplendent royal and navy uniforms of the U.S Army Ceremonial band and guns carried by the honor guard, they are on their best behavior and not a peep’s been heard from them.
Sharon declined the president’s offer to fly her sister and brother in from Hawaii, telling him, “Thank you, but no one knew Major Risstup except for myself.”
The president had bent over backward to make sure Risstup received every honor and courtesy possible. He granted an exception so he could be honored with a caparisoned horse with one boot facing to the rear, a venerated tradition reserved for higher ranks. Back pay and the funds accumulated in his pension fund would be awarded to his cousin Caroline, a presidential citation would be placed in his permanent record and a Silver Star was pinned on the uniform he was to be buried in.
While the chaplain performs the service, Howie scans the faces solemnly gazing down at the flag-draped coffin. Though everyone is reflective and respectful, looking behind their expressions Howie can easily read other emotions. The color had come back into Sylvie’s face and she looked glamorous in the new suit she had purchased for the occasion. She couldn’t stop gushing about how proud she was of Howie. Which after the past two weeks was music to Howie’s ears.
Next to Sylvie stood Winston Straub, the newly appointed deputy director of the CIA. Though he was wearing an understated dark blue suit and a muted tie, Winn looked like he’d swallowed a canary. And he might as well have.
While Abner Dickson had received accolades from the president for spearheading an undercover operation against terrorists and had been lionized in the press and media, the understanding was he would step aside at the beginning of the year citing health problems and the president would name his new deputy to succeed him.
Winn Straub had received Langan’s word that civilian control over intelligence would be restored and the Pentagon’s role would be dramatically reduced. Kessel had already been fired, unceremoniously escorted from his suite of offices by the president’s chief of staff, and rumors around the Beltway were that the other shoe was going to drop—DIA and NSA would soon be transferred to the CIA. Winn’s wife Barbara stands at his side, looking snootier than ever having discovered that as a result of her husband’s recent heroic exploits, they were even more in demand on the Washington social scene.
Lucien Jimmick and his wife Cassie stand at the foot of the grave, reserved but gratified smiles on their faces. The president had been generous to DHS, promising Jimmick increased funding for the Coast Guard, instant access to the Oval Office and a right-out-of-the-box Gulfstream so his wife wouldn’t miss her garden club meetings in Miami. The president offered Lucien the plane along with a bunch of other goodies for staying on for another two years.
President Langan had been endlessly accommodating for good reason—his own self-interest. The last thing he wanted was for his administration to go down in history as having nearly allowed terrorists to detonate a bomb thirty miles from the Capitol. So with a few revisions, the story of how a few brave Americans conducted an undercover operation with the support of the CIA and DHS to disrupt a terrorist plot involving nuclear weapons was released at an elaborate press conference the day before.
President Langan pinned Medals of Freedom on the lapels of Winn Straub, Lucien Jimmick, Abner Dickson, Sharon Thorsen and Howie Collyer and praised them to the skies for their bravery and devotion to their country.
Of course, the story the president told had undergone extensive edits—there had never actually been a live nuke in the Chesapeake—the sanitized version was that a dud had been planted to deceive the terrorists. No point in unnecessarily alarming the nation. But as the president stated in his press conference, the incident dramatized the threat that weapons posed and he proposed mounting an international effort to locate and recover all bombs lost by the nuclear powers over the past forty years.
Sharon winces at the honor guard’s rifle volley resounding across the rolling fields of Arlington. Howie smiles, catching her eye. She’s planning to do graduate work in nursing and is hoping to get into a program at UVa. Sylvie’s given her a standing invitation for dinner so at least Howie will get to see her once in a while.
As the mournful sound of taps echoes around the cemetery, the tears again start to stream down Sharon’s cheeks. So many times she’d talked about looking forward to filling in the rest of the blanks in Mark Risstup’s memory, promised to take him back to Arcata, locate any old Air Force buddies who might still be alive, find out how he finally made it to Pittsburgh. Now that was not to be. Sharon’s not the only one crying. Howie’s eyes are brimming too.
As they slowly fold the flag and the officer in command presents it to Risstup’s cousin, Howie thinks back to his second meeting in the Oval Office. He went in expecting he would have to fall on his sword. But he was delighted to hear that ridding the nation and world of the threat of unrecovered nukes had become the president’s priority. “You gave us a huge wake-up call, Mr. Collyer, a warning that no one in this administration is going to ignore.” And when the president asked him what a grateful nation could do for him, Howie shrugged and said, “Frankly, Mr. President, I’d just like a little peace and quiet.”
At the end of the ceremony, the president takes the time to walk around and shake hands and say a quick word to the attendees before the Secret Service whisks him off, leaving the mob of reporters swarming around the remaining dignitaries.
Howie’s able to avoid the crush, hustling Sylvie and Sharon over the grass to their waiting limousine while Jimmick, Dickson and Straub stand in front of the crowd of reporters fielding questions.
“I’m going to take the two smartest and most beautiful women in the world to the fanciest restaurant in Georgetown and we’re going to enjoy a lavish lunch,” Howie had announced as they drove into Arlington before the service. Both were tickled and eagerly accepted. Though invited, the rest of the family was eager to get back to Charlottesville. As he helps the ladies into the backseat, just about to lean down to climb in behind them, he’s surprised to hear a voice calling his name.
“Mr. Collyer! Mr. Collyer!” He looks down the roadway and sees a familiar face jogging toward him waving. An up-and-coming investigative reporter, Jason Foote was recently named Washington bureau chief of the Times. Howie smiles, thinking, Two weeks ago, this boy wouldn’t have given me the time of day. Now he’s salivating to get an interview.
“Mr. Collyer, I’d like to talk to you if you have a minute,” he says, rushing up to the open door.
“I’m sorry, it’s not really a good time, Mr. Foote.”
“I’ve heard you were the point person on foiling the terrorist plot.”
“Where in the world did you get that?”
“Word is you were the mastermind.”
Howie shakes his head and says, “Hate to disappoint you but I only played a minor role.” He nods in the direction of the three men, Straub, Jimmick and Dickson, who are facing the cameras. “Those guys deserve all the credit.”
“I want to hear your point of view on the nuclear weapons recovery operation. I’d like to do an in-depth interview with you soon.”
“Be glad to.”
“When’s a good time?”
“Let’s say next December.”
“But that’s a year a from now—”
“I’ve got a lot of bushhogging to do down on the farm, all kinds of stuff I’ve neglected. See you next year, Mr. Foote,” Howie says, quickly ducking into his car and pulling the door shut.
Jason Foote watches the sleek black limousine slowly pulling down the roadway toward the exit to Arlington National, wending its way through the rolling fields of stark white gravestones. He has a nose for a story. And he senses one here. Way beyond the barebones version the president is peddling in the press—a whistleblower, a VA nurse, an elderly B-52 pilot, a lost H-bomb, Collyer’s best buddy who’s a top dog at the CIA, interagency rivalry, al Qaeda—all the ingredients of a great tale begin to come together in the reporter’s mind.
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