Silent Waters

by Jan Coffey

  “Not yet, Admiral.”

  Pottinger glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. As much as Brown had to be berated, it was much too soon to get any information from anyone.

  “What action are we taking?” he asked, starting to pace the floor.

  “Two tugs and three smaller craft are en route from the sub base. They’re approaching the I-95 bridge, and should catch up to it in a few minutes. Coast Guard has deployed a cutter from New London to assist, as well.” Brown went on to name another submarine, a sub tender, and an aircraft carrier that were within four hundred miles of Groton. All had been put on alert and were moving in to head off Hartford if the sub tried to disappear into the Atlantic. The first real support to reach them, however, would be from the air—sub hunters flying in from South Weymouth, Massachusetts.

  “Any communication with Hartford?”

  “None, sir. All channels are down.”

  Pottinger ran his hand through his hair again. “What’s happening now?”

  “Hold on, Admiral.” Brown was speaking with a subordinate. “The sub has completed its backing maneuver. Hartford is sitting in the channel, her bow pointing south toward the mouth of the harbor.”

  “How long before the sub makes open water beyond the lighthouse?”

  “Depending on their speed, they could clear New London Ledge Light in ten to fifteen minutes.”

  Pottinger knew they couldn’t do anything to them while the nuclear submarine was in such close proximity to the Groton-New London shoreline. Whatever group was responsible for this had to know that, too. They had to be preparing to make their demands.

  “But they are moving, Captain?”

  “Not yet, sir. Their bearing is south, but they are not…Correction, Hartford is beginning to move.”

  In an avalanche of shit, this would at least be a hint of air freshener. They could deal with this much better once the nuclear submarine was in the open waters of Atlantic Ocean. With a full crew, Hartford might be able to evade detection and disappear, but not with a skeleton group. Once they were clear of the coast, the Atlantic Fleet would be able to do whatever needed to be done.

  “Brown, I want you to get any information you have on the crew that you know is aboard, and the civilian, to my office in the next ten minutes.”

  “We’re sending what we have right now, Admiral.”

  “Do you know anything about the civilian?”

  “No, sir,” Captain Brown answered. “We’re bringing up the security clearance files now.”

  Pottinger sat down. The pacing wasn’t going to prevent the inevitable.

  “How much of this has leaked out?”

  “Shipyard personnel were the first ones who realized Hartford was leaving. And with pursuit activity on the river, I believe it’s only a matter of time before the press is all over this.”

  “Well, pick a spokesperson. But I don’t want a word of any of this confirmed until you have clearance from Washington.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pottinger needed to call his boss, Bob Gerry, commander of the Atlantic Fleet. But that wouldn’t be the end of the calls. The Defense Secretary was the next on the list. The Pentagon staff would take it from there. Considering the magnitude of the situation, the President would be briefed, as well.

  Christ, all this the day before the election. That couldn’t be any coincidence, he thought grimly.

  “Brown. Listen hard. There will be no move to board or cut them off until I order it. That is a direct order.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Pottinger hung up and stared at his notes for few seconds. Punching the number of his next call, he thought that he should have retired the last time he’d had the chance.

  ~~~~

  Chapter 8

  USS Hartford

  5:33 a.m.

  They were a two-person wrecking crew.

  Everything that was screwed, bolted, or glued to the outboard bulkhead was being removed. McCann was determined to get the two of them out of this office. Their only possible escape lay on the other side of the wood-veneered, sheet metal bulkhead that formed the outboard wall.

  “Once we remove this bulkhead, you know we won’t be able to go forward or aft,” Amy told him as she moved the things he was ripping out to the far side of the office, near the door. “The frames running up and down cut off most of the space, and the piping and cable banks take up the rest. Going up or down is the only possibility, and I’m not sure we’ll be able to do that.”

  “I know we can’t go fore or aft,” he replied. “Going up won’t work, either. Even if we can get up into the sonar equipment room, we’ll be forward of the control room and cornered. The only way to go is down.”

  “To the torpedo room,” she replied.

  “Right.”

  McCann remembered that Rivera, one of the torpedo men, had stayed on board last night. He didn’t want to believe that any of his nine men were involved in what was going on now. He imagined them in situations similar to this, maybe even worse. Still, someone was operating this sub.

  Unlike the Florida flight school courses taken by the 9/11 hijackers, learning to operate a submarine wasn’t available in any class open to the public. The people running the show here had to know their stuff. And this worried McCann even more. They also had to know the extent of the power of this single vessel—and how McCann’s key-and-vault combination information made them an entirely different threat. That was the only explanation he could think of as to why they would keep him alive.

  “Are we still on the surface or do you think we’ve submerged?” Amy asked quietly.

  “We’re still on the surface.”

  She took a clock and a file holder that he’d stripped off the wall and put it behind her. “The navy must know by now what’s happening, don’t you think?”

  “A missing sub doesn’t go unnoticed for too long,” McCann answered, working on a final sheet metal screw. “Yes, I guarantee you that the navy knows this sub has been hijacked.”

  Dropping the screw on the deck, he turned his attention to the other edge of the bulkhead panel. He had no access to the screws securing that side since they were buried behind the file cabinet. Using the screwdriver, he dug at the edges of the panel, trying to wedge it back enough to get a good grip on the thing.

  “Then shouldn’t they be stopping us?” she asked, adding as an afterthought. “They can, can’t they?”

  “They can blow us out of the water. But considering the nuclear reactor that powers us, I’d say they won’t, at least not while we’re in New London harbor.” There was no reason for Amy to know that this submarine was also armed with two nuclear warheads. That was top-secret information. It was bad enough that he suspected the hijackers had this knowledge.

  “Great.” She sat down on one of the paper boxes, watching him. “I feel like a death row inmate who’s been given a second final meal while they tune up the electrical generator.”

  McCann jabbed himself on the hand with the screwdriver, but the surface wound was well worth it because the paneling was clearly starting to give in. She was right there, moving everything else away so he had elbowroom. Driving the screwdriver back in at another point along the edge, he pried the panel back an inch. As he did, Amy leaned over him and jammed a stapler into the opening, effectively wedging the panel open.

  He sat back on his heels, and she saw the blood on his hands.

  “Use these,” she said, retrieving a pair of work gloves from the pocket of the jacket she’d taken off. “You’ll get a better grip.”

  The gloves provided the grip he needed. Bracing himself against the cabinet, he yanked the panel back, exposing a small bank of cables, a pair of small copper pipes, and insulation. The space was not the rat’s nest he’d expected.

  “A little space, but you’ll never get through,” she told him, looking over his shoulder. “On the other hand, I might.”

  “I’ll get through,” he said, determined. “We just need to cu
t those cables free and I think I can work my way down between the frames.”

  “We’ll end up behind the starboard torpedo racks,” she said, thoughtfully. “We’ll be able to climb out from there.”

  “I’ll go. This is the safest place for you to be.”

  “I don’t think so,” she argued. “Right now, I feel like a sheep in a slaughter house. They locked us in here because they want to know where we are. If you get spotted out there, they’ll come right back here looking for me.”

  “I don’t know what I’ll be facing, or who might be waiting down in the torpedo room to greet me.”

  “I think I’ll take my chances,” she told him, grabbing a pair of wire cutters off the counter. “We have to do some path clearing before we climb anywhere in there.”

  “Those are high voltage,” he pointed to specific cables.

  “I know that,” she said. “I’m only going to cut the metal bands holding them together. I’m not going to cut the cables. May I?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  She motioned for him to let her by. “This is one area where I do have some expertise, Commander McCann.”

  It went against his principles to let her get involved, and not because she was a woman. She was an innocent civilian.

  “Tell me what to cut and I’ll do it,” he told her.

  “You really don’t know how to let people work, do you?”

  He snorted, taking the wire-cutters out of her hand. Turning his back, he started yanking some of the loose insulation out of the opening.

  She picked up another wire-cutter off the counter and forced her way next to him as she crouched down.

  “I’m helping,” she said stubbornly. “This is a union shipyard.”

  “You’re salary personnel. Besides, I guarantee you that we’re not in the shipyard anymore.”

  “Look,” she said seriously. “My life is on the line, too. There’s too much at stake for me to be a passive observer.”

  He looked at her for a moment, then handed her the work gloves. “Put these on.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  McCann noticed Amy glance at her watch before pulling the gloves on. The pained look in her expression was impossible to miss.

  “This is the normal end of the shift for you, isn’t it?”

  “Another hour or so.”

  “Worried about your family?”

  She nodded and looked away. Her eyes were glistening with emotion and she swiped impatiently at something on her cheek. She was doing her best to be tough.

  “It’s too soon for them to know what’s going on here.”

  “I hope so,” she whispered, focusing more closely on the puzzle before them. She started pushing at the cables.

  McCann admired her strength. She was holding herself together better than he’d have thought. There were a half dozen cable hangers holding the bank in place.

  “You cut the bands on as many as you can see above us,” she said. “I’ll cut the bands on the ones below us.”

  He followed her directions, cutting and moving cables as she directed. In a few minutes, they’d cut enough of the hangers to allow McCann to shove the cable bank aside. Above the opening, several cables separated themselves from the bank.

  “Let me have the gloves,” he ordered. “I’m cutting a few of these lines.”

  “You do that and they’ll notice some minor power outages here and there on the sub,” she responded, peering up at him and handing him the gloves. “Nothing too major.”

  “That’s too bad. I want major.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “You mentioned something before about the main power cables to the ESGN being up there. I’m trying to think of what kinds of havoc we could do to the control room instrumentation if we were to disconnect it from here.”

  “I wish I had the schematics,” she said, thinking. “My guess would be some malfunctioning of the sonar equipment, but that’s it.”

  Time was of the essence, McCann realized. The space between the frames was now large enough for him to be able to get through. Getting free of this office wasn’t enough. Once Hartford reached the mouth of New London harbor and dived, the stakes rose substantially. Somehow he had to stop the ship.

  For a brief second, the thought ran through his mind that maybe the hijackers’ object wasn’t just to try to disappear into the Atlantic. Perhaps, much like the terrorists who’d flown those planes into the buildings in New York and Washington, these people intended to cause major damage here on the East Coast.

  But that was too grim a possibility. What they intended was outside of his field of action. McCann decided to focus only what he could do.

  As much as he loved Hartford, he’d tear his ship apart, piece by piece, if that’s what it took to stop them.

  ~~~~

  Chapter 9

  USS Hartford

  5:49 a.m.

  The crew knew him only as Mako. He often went by other names, but this one, he felt, suited him.

  Short and solidly built, he had a head of bristly blond hair that was heavily streaked with gray. Mako was in his late fifties, ancient by normal standards in his line of business. If there was anything called normal in the mercenary business. But clients never asked his age, and he didn’t offer. He prided himself on a reputation for being intense, brutal, accurate, and he was the only absolute expert for hire in this field, as far as he knew. He spoke eight languages fluently, and he believed in no country or God. His loyalties were to himself and to the one who was transferring a fat amount of cash into his bank account at the moment. And of course, next week or next month or next year, when he was ready for a bit more excitement, the allegiance would shift to someone else.

  Mako stood on the periscope platform a step above the conn. The crosshairs in the periscope view locked on the waterline of the Coast Guard cutter. The ship was on a course that would put them directly in the path of the bow of the submarine. It was a larger cutter, and Mako could see helmeted Coasties manning machine guns fore and aft.

  Mako made a 360-degree sweep with the periscope. Two small navy launches were running alongside Hartford. There was another smaller Coast Guard cutter following in the sub’s stern wake. He was keeping his speed at only three knots. They were staying close, obviously waiting for orders. “Increase speed to five knots.”

  “Very good, sir.” Paul Cavallaro was sitting in the X.O. chair, and he passed on the order. “Speed, five knots.”

  Mako looked away from the periscope optic module and glanced around the control room at his four-man crew. The geographic plot of their course and destination was already visible on the navigation screen.

  “We have to shake them a little, boys. Show them we mean business. Have two MK48s loaded into the trays.”

  “We need to turn on the PA, sir,” Cav reminded him.

  “Do it.” Mako ordered, looking back through the periscope. “I have a target. Now mark.”

  “Target mark set, sir. We have a firing solution.”

  “Offset zero degrees,” Mako directed. “Low active snake. Give me a read back.”

  “Attention!” another one of his men barked. “Firing point procedures, tubes one and two, zero degree offset, thirty-second firing interval.”

  Mako watched the firing panel until the torpedoes were programmed. He looked through the periscope again. “Last call, shit head. You might want to move your carcass.”

  “Ship ready.”

  “Weapons ready.” The calls sounded from the crew.

  “Stay right there and I’ll shove these torpedoes up your ass,” Mako warned, looking into the periscope again.

  “If we shoot now and hit that cutter, sir, we risk damaging our sonar.”

  He looked at Cavallaro for a moment and saw the doubt in the young man’s eyes. It was more than sonar that he cared about. “We’ll risk it. I want to show these morons we mean business.”

  Mako looked through the periscope again. They were near the mouth of New London harbor. Beyond the C
oast Guard cutter, the rising sun was reflecting brilliantly off the New London Ledge lighthouse. This had to be done.

  “Solution ready.”

  Mako looked one last time. The cutter wasn’t giving up. You asked for it, asshole. “Tube one, shoot.”

  “Set,” Fire Control responded.

  “Fire.”

  ~~~~

  Chapter 10

  USS Hartford

  5:53 a.m.

  Just a few seconds after a shudder went through the submarine, a loud boom nearly knocked Amy off her feet, and her ears felt a sudden change of pressure.

  She stretched out her hands and arms toward McCann. She’d been standing on one of the boxes, working on removing the overhead panel. He reached for her, steadying her just as a second boom rocked the sub, tumbling her into his arms.

  “What was that?”

  “A pair of torpedoes hitting something.”

  She held onto him, every nerve in her body jumping. This was it. The end of her life. And she hadn’t said goodbye to her children. She’d made no plans about who would raise them. Her mind raced in a hundred different directions.

  Ryan would take the kids, since he was their father. But his heart wouldn’t be in it. His job and life style wouldn’t allow it. Kaitlyn and Zack would be better off with her parents, but the kids really had too much energy for them. They would be a burden. Her sister would be the most likely person. But she was on the West Coast. And did she tell anyone about the last life insurance policy she’d bought? Would they disqualify any claim because this hijacking would be construed as an act of terrorism?

  She pressed her hands to her ears. They hurt.

  “Yawn, Amy. The concussion causes a change in pressure.”

  He had to repeat it a couple of times before she shook herself out of a self-misery that was drowning her. Scared and confused, she looked up at him. Every line in McCann’s face was tight. His dark eyes looked almost black, and they were blazing. He cupped her hands over her ears.