Scimitar SL-2 am-7

by Patrick Robinson

  Arnold replied, “Would General Patton have liked it?”

  “General Patton would probably have lived in it!” replied Jack.

  Two other armed agents in a private White House car followed hard astern. They too had bulletproof glass.

  They swung north up the parkway and drove quickly through the sprawling countryside surrounding the National Security Agency. At the main gates, a security guard walked to the driver’s side and asked for passes. He was hardly able to finish his sentence.

  “Get in, and escort me immediately to the office of the Director, in OPS-2B.”

  The guard recognized the former Tsar of Fort Meade, and understood that he might be working out the last three minutes of his career if he was not careful.

  “SIR, YES, SIR!” snapped the former U.S. Army Master Chief, and hopped right into the backseat. Harry knew the way, and the guard jumped out and hissed to the next guard on the main doors. “Chuck, it’s the Big Man — I’m taking him up to Admiral Morris.”

  “Rightaway, sir,” he replied and opened the door while Arnold was disembarking. He and his escort went up to the eighth floor in the Director’s private elevator.

  “Tell Harry to take you back, then to wait right outside for me…and thanks, soldier.”

  “You’re welcome, sir,” he replied holding the door open and waiting to hear Admiral Morris greet the Big Man, as he knew he would.

  “Arnie, great to see you…come and sit down. It’s been too long.”

  Actually it had been about two months. Too long, for both of the old seafarers. And for the first time, Admiral Morgan did not walk around to the big chair, which he had once occupied himself. He accepted an offer of coffee, declined lunch, and parked himself in a large wooden captain’s chair in front of the Director’s desk.

  Solemnly, he reached into his inside jacket pocket and handed over a copy of the letter he had received a couple of hours previously. George Morris stared at it, his bushy eyebrows raised.

  “Jesus,” he said. “When did this arrive?”

  “This morning.”

  “How?”

  “Regular mail.”

  “From where?”

  “The Middle East. All the postmarks were very smudged. But I think the stamp was Palestinian, the special ones issued in parts of Israel. Had a picture of some sheikh on it.”

  “Have you told anyone?”

  “Oh, sure. I sent the original over to the White House, to my successor. Told him the letter had come to me by mistake.”

  Admiral Morris nodded. “You did not elaborate about our previous discussions on the subject of Arab terrorists and volcanoes?”

  “Hell, no. They would have loved an opportunity to imply that I was a paranoid old relic from the Cold War…and anyway, I don’t have the energy to argue with jerks.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I know. But I don’t feel like it.”

  George Morris looked again at the message from Hamas. And he recalled their evening together with Jimmy Ramshawe in Chevy Chase a couple of months before.

  “Of course I know what you’re thinking, Arnie…your honeymoon mountain in the Canaries last January, right? One of them almost certainly a Hamas assault commander? And we have your photograph of him, in company with two volcanologists from Tehran? And now this — eight months later, Hamas sends a note…implies they blew Mount St. Helens. Kinda fits together.”

  “Well, the coincidence is a little striking. Although I understand you can’t just go around blowing up volcanoes. So far as I recall, no one’s ever done such a thing. Not in all of history, and volcanoes have a lot of that — thousands of years.”

  “Yeah, but the last sixty are the only ones that count,” said George. “No one had a big enough explosive before that.”

  “You read anything about nuclear fallout in the Mount St. Helens area?”

  “Well, I haven’t looked. But we would have been informed if there was any such thing. I’d guess that mountain is still a lot too hot for anyone to make any checks.”

  “I don’t get it,” pondered Admiral Morgan. “I cannot believe anyone just planted a bomb in the crater. And anyway, a bomb probably would not have done the job. They don’t explode downwards. Surely to blow a volcano, you’d have to burrow down into the ground, way down, and then detonate.”

  “Christ,” said George. “Imagine doing that. Excavating the main lava chimney of a volcano, probably several hundred feet, knowing the damn thing could erupt any moment and fry you.”

  “How about a missile?” said Arnold suddenly. “How about a missile coming in at high speed with a sharp front end, designed to bang its way into the rock on the floor of the crater?”

  “Well, who knows? It would take a pretty wide investigation to find out if such a thing was possible — like how thick was the floor of the crater…You know, it might have been impenetrable. And, anyway, where could the missile have come from — I imagine you’re not talking ICBM, are you?”

  “Well, not from Hamas. God help us if they’ve got one of those. But I’m thinking maybe a cruise aimed at the crater. Or two. Or three. Or more.”

  “Fired from?”

  “Usual place, George. Possibly that second Barracuda, which appears to have vanished off the face of the earth.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s all possible. But with this Administration, we cannot spend a lot of time chasing up theories like that. They’re already asking us to downsize every department. There’s going to be enormous budget cuts, and they have their own agendas, mostly to do with calling off our worldwide hunt for imaginary terrorists.”

  “Hmmmm,” said Arnie. “Do you think they’re going to react in any way to the letter from Hamas?”

  “Romney will dismiss it as a hoax. And the President will agree with him. My guess is, it will never get as far as here. Though they might just forward a copy to the CIA.”

  “How about it isn’t a hoax. How about they did hit Mount St. Helens? How about they are in that fucking nuclear submarine, loaded to the gunwales with missiles, planning God knows what? How about they really did send a letter of warning?”

  “I guess we’ll know soon enough,” said George.

  “How’dya mean?”

  “Well, that letter was unfinished,” said George. “ ‘You don’t think Mount St. Helens was an accident,’ because it wasn’t…We did it…and what’s more…”

  George’s voice trailed off. “That’s what it really said, right?”

  “Absolutely. And if the letter has any substance whatsoever, we’ll hear again, correct?”

  “That’s my take on it, Arnie, old buddy.”

  “Okay. But meanwhile I would like you to ask young Ramshawe to do a bit of sleuthing, check a few things up for me…I want to show him the letter, if that’s okay by you.”

  “No problem. I’ll walk you down to his office. He’s less busy these days. We all are.”

  The two Admirals finished their coffee and walked down to the office of the Director’s assistant. Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe was hunched over a pile of papers, his office much less like a rubbish tip than usual, the clear and obvious sign of a workload reduction.

  Everything had changed in the world of international Intelligence. Where once people in the White House and the Pentagon jumped when a single word of warning emanated from Fort Meade, nowadays there was only cynicism. NSA suspicions were dismissed curtly. The new Administration’s significant operations staff followed their President’s lead — that is, the CIA, the FBI, the Military, and the National Security Agency were comprised of a group of old-fashioned spooks, out of touch with reality, living in a somewhat murky past of Cold Wars, Hot Wars, and random terrorism.

  The modern world, at the conclusion of the first decade of the new millennium, was a completely different place. What mattered here was friendship, cooperation, not military buildups, witch-hunts for allegedly corrupt dictators, and truly ferocious attacks by America’s Special Forces against those wh
o displeased or ran foul of the United States.

  People like old Arnold Morgan, even General Scannell, Admiral Dickson, and certainly Admirals John Bergstrom (SPECWARCOM) and George Morris, were regarded as dinosaurs. Young White House execs had taken to using Jurassic Park as a kind of insider’s code name for the great Fort Meade Intelligence complex. The Pentagon’s high command were The Psychopaths. And President McBride had served notice that he did not like being surrounded by the Military, not inside his own White House. And this despite the fact that the Navy practically ran the place, the Army providing the cars and drivers, the Defense Department the communications, the Air Force all aircraft, and the Navy the helicopters.

  Yes, a President could marginalize the military. And yes, he could dismiss them as irrelevant to his programs. But, as Commander in Chief, he would upset the Admirals and Generals at his own peril. No President of the United States had ever gone quite as far as losing the confidence of the Pentagon.

  So far, Charles McBride was only tinkering. But he was already having an effect, and soon young officers like Lt. Comdr. Jimmy Ramshawe might decide the civilian world was beckoning. But not yet.

  “G’day, gentlemen,” he greeted the two Admirals. And he stood up to shake hands with Admiral Morgan. “Peaceful retirement, sir? Not missing the factory yet?”

  Arnold chuckled, amused that Jimmy still remembered he traditionally referred to the White House as “the factory.”

  Admiral Morris took his leave, saying, “Jimmy, the Admiral wants to have a chat with you. I have to go to that meeting. You needn’t bother about it. Stay here and talk to Arnold. He’s got some interesting stuff to show you.”

  “As ever,” replied the Lt. Commander, grinning his lopsided Aussie grin. “See you later, sir. Okay, Admiral, I’m all ears.”

  Arnold Morgan took out the copy of the Hamas letter and handed it over, watching while Jimmy read. “Streuth,” he said softly. “That looks to me like these bastards just blew up Mount St. Helens?”

  “Maybe,” said Arnold, cautiously.

  “Well, if they didn’t, what’s this then?”

  “Good question, James. Good question. Although we shouldn’t dismiss the straightforward answer that it’s just an ordinary hoax, the kind we get from all manner of fucking lunatics, all the time.”

  “Yeah. But this is a bit subtle for a lunatic, sir. They’re apt to write more on the lines of…‘Listen to me, assholes. I just blew up the goddamned volcano, and I’m planning to do it again. God’s telling me to clean up the planet. Ha Ha Ha.’ ”

  “I know. That’s true. And I’m glad you’re getting a feeling of authenticity from this note. Like I am. It’s just the way it’s phrased. And George jumped on the fact that it seemed like unfinished business…‘You thought it was an accident…well, it wasn’t…it was us…and we’ll be in touch….’ That’s its tone. It doesn’t say so, but it might as well have ended by stating…‘We’ll be in touch.’ ”

  “That’s my feeling. No doubt,” replied Jimmy.

  “Well, to short-circuit a lot of chat,” said Arnold, “let’s assume they did blow Mount St. Helens. A bomb could not have done it. Which leaves a missile, or missiles.

  “As ever, they seemed to come from nowhere. As ever, they must have come from a submarine. You know, specially made cruises, big, sharp-pointed nose cones that would pierce the floor of the crater. So far as I can see, that’s the only possibility. So…where, Jimmy, is the second Barracuda?”

  “Hold it, sir. Lemme just jump into the ole computer.” He hit several keys, the screen flashed a few times and settled into the file he requested. “Sir, I’ll read this stuff off, just the important bits…You might want to make a couple of notations while I do it. Here’s a notepad and a pen…ready?”

  “Fire at will,” replied the Admiral, easing into the spirit of things.

  “July 5, spotted the Barracuda making a southerly passage down the Yellow Sea out of Huludao, where she’d been for one month in a covered dock. We got her at 40.42 North 121.20 East heading for the Bo Hai Strait. After that, it’s anyone’s guess.

  “She could have gone through the Korean Strait, or around the outside of Japan, and headed north, south, east, or west. Or even back to Zhanjiang, where she’d been for many months. The satellite shots showed three tiny figures on the bridge. I made a note, hope to Christ one of ’em wasn’t Major Ray Kerman, or we’re in real trouble!

  “She dived as soon as the water was deep enough off South Korea, then vanished. But I have two more notes here…on July 16, our SOSUS Station on the island of Attu, far west end of the Aleutians, reported a transient contact to the north, 53.51–175.01 East. They thought it was a nuclear turbine. They also thought it was Russian. Heard a lot of noise, ballast blowing, high revs for one minute. Then nothing.

  “But we picked up something on July 22, six days later, precisely consistent with a submarine making a very slow 5-knot passage for 720 miles to the Unimak Pass. It was just a radar contact…five seconds…three sweeps on the screen.

  “Then it disappeared. Tell you the truth, sir, I would not have bothered much. It was just the length of passage, 120 miles a day for six days, average 5 knots, just the exact numbers you would expect from a sneaky little son of a bitch, right?”

  “Running north of the Aleutians, eh?” said the Admiral. “How about its passage from the Yellow Sea to Attu? Does that fit a pattern?”

  “Hell yes, sir. Ten days, no trouble. I should think they were moving pretty carefully. It could have been the Barracuda. Plus, I checked the boards and there’s not another bloody submarine within a thousand miles, except our own patrol in the Aleutian Trench.”

  “I wonder,” said Arnold Morgan. “I really wonder. Could these little bastards really have exploded a massive volcano? You’ve got to doubt that. But with this Ray fucking Kerman, who knows? And he was checking out the most dangerous volcano in the world when I last saw him!

  “Jimmy, I think we want to get in touch with a top volcano guy and find out once and for all whether it was possible to have exploded Mount St. Helens. Then we want to find out if there was anything remotely suspicious about that eruption. Maybe check out the local police and FBI. Then we want to cast a long look over any major volcano story that appeared anywhere in the past year. Anything that might show that the guys we seek are active in the field…”

  “Sir, we’ll have to settle for one of the top volcanologists, rather than the top volcanologist.”

  “We will? Why’s that?”

  “Because the top man was found murdered in London last May. He was called Prof. Paul Landon. Washed up in the middle of the River Thames, some island halfway along the University Boat Race course according to the London Daily Telegraph…”

  “Christ,” said Arnold. “That sounds bad. Must have been Chiswick Eyot, just upstream from Hammersmith Bridge — that’s really the only island around there.”

  Arnold chortled, always pleased to have bamboozled the young. “I know the river pretty well. A long time ago, I pulled the bow oar for Annapolis at the Henley Regatta in the Thames Cup. And a few years later, I did a couple of stints helping coach the eight.”

  “Ah, well, Landon was the main man in his field. I don’t believe the police ever did find out who or why. They seemed to write it off as mistaken identity of some kind. I wouldn’t have been so sure myself. The Professor was executed, two bullets in the back of his head. Doesn’t sound much like an accident to me.”

  “Jimmy, have another look at that, will you? Talk to someone about the feasibility of blowing Mount St. Helens. And find out if anyone had any suspicion whatsoever about the eruption…meanwhile I’ve gotta go…tell George g’bye and keep him well posted.”

  “Okay, sir, I’ll walk you downstairs.”

  “No need, kid. I was finding my way in and out of this place while you were throwing toy tanks across the room.”

  They both laughed, shook hands, and Admiral Morgan was gone. Four hours later, a c
opy of the letter from Hamas arrived on George Morris’s desk. It was direct from the White House, headed “FYI,” and signed by Cyrus Romney. At the bottom was a note scrawled by hand informing the Admiral that both Cyrus and the President regarded it as an obvious hoax and no action would be necessary, nor should time be wasted upon investigation.

  Admiral Morris, who had been sequestered with Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe for the past two hours, just muttered, “Oh, I see, Mr. Romney. And that’s with the benefit of your entire five months’ experience of international terrorism? Asshole.”

  Meanwhile, down the corridor, Ramshawe was in full cry. He tackled the London murder first, because they were five hours ahead and if he needed to call anyone today, he’d have to be quick.

  He keyed into the Internet and searched diligently for anything more on the Professor. Found nothing after the report of the body being washed up, and an account in the Telegraph about the subsequent Memorial Service in London, attended by Great Britain’s heaviest academics. But he’d read that already in the Court and Society Page, a couple of months ago.

  He scrolled down into a Web site that pulled up front pages of the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the London Times, and the Financial Times. He’d found it useful before, and he went into each day from May 9, when Professor Landon was first missing.

  Jimmy had checked out the Daily Mail and the Telegraph before, but that was three months ago, when no one else was interested. He was much more thorough now. Whereas last May he had only persisted for a week after the Professor’s disappearance, he now went further. And he checked those front pages assiduously.

  It was the edition of the Daily Mail for May 18 that caught his eye. There was a splash front-page strapline, which read: SCOTLAND YARD BAFFLED BY THE ALBERT HALL MASSACRE.

  Beneath this, in three decks of huge end-of-the-world type, set left, it demanded:

  WHO KILLED THESE MEN ON THE NIGHT OF MAY 8TH?

  To the right were three photographs showing Police Constables Peter Higgins and Jack Marlow, and then Professor Paul Landon. A photograph of Roger, the dead German shepherd attack dog, was set much smaller in the center of the page. “GUNNED DOWN: A CRUEL END FOR BRAVE ROGER,” was the caption.