by James Phelan
Secher got up and corrected course, away from the rocks that began at Liberty Island.
Fox was thrown across the slippery stern. He grabbed hold of the gang-rail—with his one good arm—as his pistol tumbled into the cabin by Secher’s feet.
Secher turned and saw him. He smiled.
He raced the few steps to where Fox was hanging, as the yacht bumped past a craggy outcrop and rocked violently. Then Secher fell.
Fox used the motion to slide up and tumble into the cabin, right onto Secher.
The Frenchman had the wind knocked out of him, and Fox laid his elbow into his back, hammering away at his kidneys.
“Lachlan!” Kate screamed, trying to see what was happening over her shoulder.
The yacht rocked again, harder this time, and Fox looked forward to see the massive stones that cragged the shape of Liberty Island.
“Lachlan, we’re going to—” and Fox was next to her, adjusting the wheel away from the coast. He pulled at the knot tying her closest hand and then reached for the throttle and was jerked forward, Secher kicking him square in the spine. He fell to the deck in agony.
Secher was on him now, with more kicks, as Fox used his good arm to catch a leg and pull, the slippery fibreglass deck working to his advantage for a second as Secher stumbled back.
Then Fox was up, SOCOM pistol in hand. He aimed, fired …
“Coast Guard cutter Tampa, this is USS Gettysburg, SEAL One and Two are inbound hot, two minutes out of your position, both helos armed with forty-eights.”
“Copy that, Gettysburg, what’s your ETA?” the Coast Guard captain asked, looking over towards his sonarman’s console at the French sub.
“On station within ten, Tampa, good hunting,” the captain of the Gettysburg called.
Fox felt wet and cold but for his shoulder, which burned hot with pain. He lifted his head and couldn’t see for the rain, then found he was lying on coarse sand. He tried to push up but couldn’t. His left arm was totally useless. He rolled onto his right and got up, his ears ringing.
The sun had dipped to just below the horizon, and the rain was pelting down. The yacht was beached next to him, its prow smashed against the granite wall that ringed Liberty Island.
Fox stumbled towards it, struggling to see in the water that whipped at his face.
A bolt of lightning flashed through the sky.
He saw Kate, in the yacht, still tied to the seat.
He ran the remaining paces, used his good arm to pull himself up the side of the boat.
The deck was covered in watered-down blood.
No sign of Secher.
Thunder rumbled as he bent down and felt Kate’s pulse, there but faint. He untied her and laid her flat, looking her over.
“Lachlan…” Kate said, her eyes open.
“Kate, don’t move,” he replied, stroking her face. A long gash in her hairline streamed blood across her eye and down her cheek.
“I feel okay,” she said. “My parents…”
“They’re fine, I saw them.”
“Lachlan, you have to stop him.”
“Just relax, I’ll radio for some help.” Fox crawled over the angled deck to the radio.
“Stop him, please,” Kate said, as another lightning flash lit up the evening sky.
As Fox called out an SOS on the emergency channel, from the corner of his eye he saw movement.
Secher, limping; he must have taken the bullet in the leg when the yacht grounded.
Fox watched as Secher scrambled up the granite wall that led to the statue.
“I’m right here,” he said to Kate. He knelt next to her and put a hand to her head.
She looked at him through blood-soaked eyes. “Lachlan, thank you,” she said. She squeezed his hand. “I’ve done something terrible … please, don’t let him get away.”
Fox passed her the radio. “I’ll be right back,” he said, running his hand down her face.
He climbed over the shattered windshield and canopy of the yacht, running up the prow and jumping the wall onto the grassed forecourt of the statue.
There, limping around the statue, along the pedestal covered with maintenance scaffolding, was Secher.
Fox took off, his left arm dangling by his side.
Two black US Navy MH-60R Seahawk helicopters came in low and fast, all lights out, even the tail navigation beacons.
“Coast Guard Twenty-One, this is SEAL One, on station at thirty by your five,” the helo pilot called, watching in night vision as the Coast Guard helo turned about on the spot to face them.
“Copy that, SEAL One. Contact bearing two-one-five at six knots, ninety metres out.”
“Copy that, Coast Guard, we have the ball.”
The Coast Guard’s Sea King banked towards its mother ship, some eight hundred metres out on the Hudson, as the two black-painted navy birds moved in for the kill.
“Two, this is One, dropping active.” The pilot nodded to his quartermaster in the load bay, who hit the switch on the belly-mounted sonar buoy. “Lighting up now.”
“Smoke ’em out, One,” came the reply over the encrypted radio.
As soon as the active sonar buoy hit the water, all hell broke loose.
Fox ran after Secher. The Frenchman limped in a half-run to get away.
A crack of lightning struck Liberty’s torch and lit the wet twilight sky.
Secher took a glance over his shoulder before he turned the corner and Fox was on him.
Secher was knocked against the wall in a tackle that sent the wind out of him. Fox followed up with a punch to the face that Secher managed to move out from—just—and the Frenchman swung down with a double-fisted judo move into Fox’s back.
Both men fell to the ground, and it was Secher who was up first, Fox soon after.
Secher stumbled to a stack of scaffolding, pulled out a metre-long steel pole and swung it at Fox.
Fox used his quicker leg speed to move away from the onslaught, and he was able to back around to the pile and get his own piece of scaffolding.
The pair swung and parried, slipping and sliding on the wet ground.
A well-placed blow beat Fox’s defensive swing and he was hit in the ribs. He fell down on all fours. He rolled onto his back and raised his pipe, just in time to block a head-crushing blow. The force was enough to knock the pole out of Fox’s hand, and Secher took a few steps around his quarry, wiping the water from his face, heaving breaths.
“Target just put down the pedal, we’ve got flank-speed cavitations,” the sonar chief said.
“Counter-measures in the water,” the sonar officer said, listening to his own headset.
“This better work,” the captain murmured. He picked up the external radio handset. “SEAL One, drop your fish.”
“Copy that, Tampa,” the pilot of SEAL One said, his co-pilot releasing their Mark 48 torpedo. “Torpedo in the water.”
The French submarine knew it had nowhere to go. In the shallow and narrow confines of New York Harbor, the chances of evasion were nil. With a blast of her klaxon, she blew her ballast tanks and prepared for an emergency surface.
“Target has surfaced!” SEAL Two called out, the prow of the massive ballistic-missile submarine rising out of the water at a thirty-degree angle. The water around her was a geyser of foam as she came crashing down.
“Killing the torpedo,” the co-pilot of SEAL One said. He flicked off the arming and propulsion systems, the weapon drifting to the seabed for later retrieval.
“SEAL Two disembarking aft the con tower.”
“Copy that, Two, covering with mini,” One called.
The pilot of SEAL Two hovered over the surfaced submarine, the aft section churning up spray as the pump jet worked in reverse to bring the vessel to a dead stop. The French sub knew they were beaten.
“Ropes, ropes, ropes,” the co-pilot of Two called, as the cabin gunners un-spooled four ropes, and the eight-man SEAL
team was on the aft deck of Le Vigilantin seconds.
Six of the team advanced with their laser-targeted M4s trained on the conning tower, four immediately climbing the dripping ladder while the vessel fought to steady, the other two placing charges along the deck. The sub was going nowhere they didn’t want it to go.
The Tampaclosed the distance, its big spotlights lighting up the conning tower of the sub.
The captain squinted to make sure he was seeing right. “Is that a French flag painted on that con tower?”
122
AIR FORCE ONE
“Mr President, confirmation that the Brits have taken the DGSE base at Fort Gaucher,” Larter said. The Secretary of Defense resumed his seat at the table, physically relieved.
The Security Council were in the briefing room, as the aircraft flew a circuit over the mid-western states. The F-22s were in the process of mid-air refuelling. Considering the firepower outside the windows, Air Force One was perhaps the most secure place in the world at that second.
“Admiral, how’d it play out?” McCorkell asked, the Chairman of the JCS just hanging up the phone to the op centre at the Pentagon.
“SAS with air support, two friendly casualties,” Vanzet said. “General Danton, head of DGSE, was killed. No sign of Sianne Cassel.”
“The SAS will be doing an intel sweep of the location, they’ll find her whereabouts,” McCorkell said to the room. “They—”
“Bill,” Vanzet cut in. “We have confirmation that a SEAL team has control of the French submarine in the Hudson.”
McCorkell considered the looks on the faces before him. The military aide with the nuclear launch codes seemed to shrink in stature out of relief. The senior political staff were relieved too, while the military chiefs looked more pensive.
“Have they confirmed that there are nuclear missiles aboard?” the President asked, and there was silence as everyone waited for the answer. “I gotta know,” he said, to no one in particular.
Vanzet relayed the order over the secure radio link and waited a full minute for the reply.
McCorkell sat and watched his president tapping his pen on the table.
“Affirmative, Sir.” Vanzet paused, waiting to hear the list of the boat’s inventory. The SEALs were trained to gather such information, fast. “She’s identified as Le Vigilant, Triomphantclass ballistic-missile submarine. Fully loaded.”
123
NEW YORK CITY
Fox lay there on his back, heaving deep breaths. The rain eased to a drizzle, each drop falling as if in slow motion, lit from above by the powerful strobes that illuminated the great lady. Liberty Illuminating the World, Fox thought, his ears still ringing.
Secher knew Fox’s vulnerabilities. He’d been in enough hand-to-hand combat to know what to do. He took two steps and fell onto Fox, forcing the pipe down onto his throat.
Fox caught the pipe, the force smashing the bones in his hand. His strength with just one working arm was not enough to keep off the weight of Secher. The downward pressure slowly closed off his air. The veins in his neck reached exploding point.
He gritted through the pain.
“Come on, then!” Fox tried to shout, the words a hoarse whisper. He kicked up, the move requiring all of his effort. The blow glanced off Secher’s side, useless.
Fox knew he had seconds to live. He weighed up his options. If Secher was closer, he might have a chance to knock him off his feet.
“Drop it!” Kate called.
Fox and Secher looked across. She stood there, Fox’s SOCOM pistol shaking in her outstretched arms.
“Drop it…” she repeated, more quietly this time. Fox couldn’t tell if it was for threat’s sake or if she were fading.
Fox could see her swaying on her feet.
Secher stared at her, keeping the pressure down on Fox, pinning him to the ground. Fox could see him smiling.
Fox slipped into a haze of unconsciousness as he saw Secher say something, just another hollow lie from a professional intelligence officer. But Fox couldn’t make it out, it was so distant, it was gone before he could comprehend.
Two gunshots rang through the air.
The pressure was off his neck.
Fox gasped air, deep breaths into his lungs, coughing from the effort and sputtering out the rain he inhaled.
There was a dead weight on him. Secher. Two bloody holes were drilled through his chest. Fox pushed him off as he turned to see Kate falling.
“Kate!” He was hoarse, almost no sound came out. She hit the ground, lying in the grass. Motionless.
“Kate!” he called, scrambling to his feet, running, stumbling in the effort.
As Fox ran, a spotlight followed his progress, shining down from the Coast Guard’s helo. For a moment it seemed as though everything was illuminated, blinding.
Fox fell to his knees, crawling the last few metres, and sat next to Kate, pulling her to him. He cradled her head on his lap, pushing her bloodied hair out of her eyes.
She was alive, but only just. She looked up into his eyes, and he saw her smile at recognising him, his body shielding her from the rain.
“Don’t go. Look at me. Kate, look at me! Kate! Kate…!”
For that one sublime moment, they both realised what could have been.
Fox looked down at her, at times his tears dropping into her closing eyes.
Epilogue
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND
Dunn sipped his bourbon, the bottle empty on the desk, a fresh one on the floor yet to be opened.
He looked at the wall of his home office, this one with many more photos than he displayed at work. Leaning against the wall, under all those photos of too many good men lost too early, was the large framed ensign from the Liberty. Its battered and burned condition was an apt reminder of how Dunn viewed his country. His life.
Attached to his computer via a firewire connection was his NSA key. On his computer screen were a series of bank accounts, with cash totalling over three hundred and twenty million dollars. He typed in some details, got it all ready for one final transfer. This was what he’d been skimming off his Advocacy Center deals with John Cooper. Cutbacks from US companies. Money he knew how to use for the good of the nation.
A pistol sat on his desk, a shiny nickel-plated Colt automatic he’d been given by Reagan. He glanced at it, still unsure. A single bullet was there too, sitting on its base as if standing to attention.
Dunn drained his drink and reached for the fresh bottle but stopped short. He clutched at his chest, coughing violently. Burning, tight, no breath.
He went red in the face, the veins in his neck angry and enlarged. Before he could register another presence in the room, he was dead.
The SSB assassin moved in from the doorway, and checked for a pulse. No one would ever suspect it was anything other than a heart attack, that’s how good these drugs were. His clean-up mission was almost over.
WASHINGTON
McCorkell and Wallace walked along the Potomac Track at a steady pace, taking in the river and its early-morning traffic.
“Joint houses session starts in three weeks,” McCorkell said. “A special task force in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is trawling through Dunn’s databanks now, collating information that is going to be vetted through the President and party leaders prior to any further eyes.”
“What will happen with the program?”
“NSA’s COMINT programs? FBI has been granted control on the domestic front, so they now have access to intercept all communications travelling within the US. It has a sunset clause that comes up every six months, so it’ll be kept on a tight leash, and everything goes through a new branch of the FISA court with additional oversight from a panel of three former FBI directors.”
“Sounds like the seeds to Orwell’s Big Brother are sown,” Wallace said, pausing at a water fountain.
“They were sown long ago, old friend,”
McCorkell replied. “The Feds will keep it clean. There’s too much heat on the program to do otherwise, plus although it’s now going from the property of the Department of Defense to the Department of Homeland Security, it still falls under the Office of the DNI, which is more oversight than it would have received if it had fallen under CIA control—which it very nearly did.”
“How did you avert that?” Wallace asked.
“A good investigator in the FBI has put forward a case to the Senate Select Committee of Intel and the House Permanent Committee, on some dubious CIA action in relation to this. It’s hitting the fan as we speak.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, you’ll see a new director appointed in the next couple of days, someone in uniform this time. CIA has been the only departmental agency outside the scope of the DoD-run intelligence community. Having a general at the helm will get around that little issue, with the view to pulling them into the fold in the near future. That said, some agents and task forces are going to be taken through the ringer first,” McCorkell said.
“What happened with Cooper’s NSA key?” Wallace asked.
“Wasn’t even an access key into NSA data,” McCorkell said with a smile. “Have to give Boxcell and his goons kudos on that one—they were never about giving foreign access to the storage banks, just the scandal that is Dunn and Cooper’s little side project. They must have figured that if Fox got it out in the public, coupled with a major security failure on behalf of the NSA, it would be scandal enough for them to assume the reins.”
“The Advocacy Center kickbacks?” Wallace asked as they resumed jogging.
“Yep, the so-called NSA key accessed nothing but their black-ops bank accounts and related files. Over the years Dunn and Cooper accumulated over three hundred million dollars,” McCorkell said. “It’ll be interesting. Only the President and senior staff know of it, so they’re looking at funding a few things that Congress doesn’t let them get through at budget time.”