Twenty-four Days

by Jacqui Murray

  Until the man named Salah suggested Najafian had been misled.

  Counters wiped, beakers organized, voltage probes in place, accelerometer and spectrometer secured—Najafian unlocked Penbury’s windowless office and sat in front of the computer. He ran through the plan one more time knowing if this man he’d known half his life was the devil, Najafian would do everything to stop him. First, he would verify Salah’s proof.

  That’s when the alarm blared. The building was on fire.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Day Five, Friday evening, August 11th

  Englewood, New Jersey, Home of Zeke Rowe

  The early evening sky purpled. One hand on the wheel at twelve o'clock, the other tapping out the rhythm to Trace Adkin’s Arlington, Zeke Rowe took Van Nostrand to Summit and turned left. To one side lay the Flatrock Nature Center, on the other the multi-million dollar estates of New York’s mega-rich. Nestled within this enclave was the safe house Rowe called home. It had been compensation for assisting in the capture of Salah Mahmud al-Zahrawi, number three on the FBI’s most wanted list. The case remained open until the terrorist’s body turned up so to Rowe’s thinking, he continued to assist.

  Despite himself, ever since James’s visit, Rowe’s brain tingled as though he was beginning a job. It came, he guessed, from a life lived on the edge, pitting his wits against those who would destroy the world he loved, and Rowe’s statistical ability to stop them.

  He wasn't worried about Virginia. An American sub had never been hijacked. Sub CO's were cowboys—supposed to be. They would do what must be done and ask forgiveness later. And the crew—God help the terrorists who thought those guys would cower, no matter the odds.

  But two hijacked subs on opposite sides of the planet could control the globe.

  He crept by his house, talking on an empty phone line while scanning cars, dog walkers, joggers, and a utility truck parked after hours. He’d done this since his SEAL days and couldn’t shake it—didn't want to, either. Rowe knew typical. Anything else would be like perfume at an Augusta member's meeting.

  Satisfied, he pulled his 1978 350 SL into the drive of the two-story wood-and-stucco house. The car had been the treasured possession of a SEAL who gave his life for his country while under Rowe’s command. He had no family, so Rowe kept it until he could find its rightful home.

  He studied a couple walking arm-in-arm until their faces clicked into place.

  “Enjoying your visit, Mr. and Mrs. Shellock? Joe treating you right?”

  They chattered back and forth a few minutes until Rowe limped into his house. He sniffed, looking for scents out of place, but otherwise, couldn’t stop thinking about this evening’s dinner with Kali. ‘To talk’ was code for the heart-to-hearts women considered necessary and men liked as much as ballroom dancing. Explaining himself was not Rowe’s strength. He had planned to swear he was not the man she met last year. Now he had to explain why he would be breaking his promise.

  A run would help. He threw on navy blue shorts, a sleeveless sweatshirt, and Nikes. Each time he ran, he took a different path. Today, it was a five-mile loop along Flatrock Brook, and then cut uphill into the underbrush adjacent to his house. After two miles, he increased his pace to a five-minute mile. Two miles later, knees throbbing and lungs burning, a thought struck him like lightning. He slowed, chest heaving, lungs working hard to pull in oxygen, and turned toward what would be North Korea if he could see that far. He rolled the idea over in his head. The more he did, the more it became the only thing that made sense. The best reason not to use a stolen sub was because it was in transit.

  Rowe took off, covering the final mile in four-point-seven minutes and puffed to a halt in his driveway where he found James leaning against a government-issue Buick checking his Blackberry.

  “You’re as predictable as ever.”

  James grinned and stabbed a one-fingered message into his phone. "Can I get a beer?"

  James’s stress tell twitched. Rowe went inside with a follow-me gesture, then toweled the sweat from his neck and face while James stood before a picture of the dig that had rocketed Rowe to paleoanthropologic stardom. Finding proof of early man in that location was historic. James stared a moment longer, then settled into one of the two Lazy Boys, de rigueur in safe houses.

  Rowe popped open two beers, rolled one across his forehead, and extended the second to James. The agent downed a mouthful and stared into space. Rowe waited, knowing his friend would talk when ready.

  James’s eye twitched again. "I’m worried about Triumph. Why steal a nuclear sub if not to use it? Each missile has multiple warheads, and each of those has the power of fifteen Hiroshimas.”

  Rowe rolled the beer can in his hands. “Relax. If the hijackers could use those warheads, they would have."

  James shrugged. "That’s supposition."

  “But I’m right. On an American sub, the launch process for nuclear warheads requires a Presidential key, to preclude a rogue—or hijacked—sub using them. The Brits have something similar.” Rowe waited for James to respond, but nothing. “Any word on Virginia?"

  “It’s still in the window which means my bosses aren’t yet officially worried,” and he fell silent.

  Rowe decided to push. “What have the Brits done to find Triumph?”

  James shrugged. “It can stay underwater until food runs out, which is up to six months. It could hide in the Swedish fjords where MAD” Magnetic Anomaly Devices, “can’t penetrate.”

  Rowe sat up, elbows on his knees and fingers cathedraled. “But why, unless they’re planning a surprise attack on Iceland? SOSUS will light up any exit from the area.”

  James wouldn’t make eye contact. “Speculation is something about Triumph makes it invisible to sonar. They didn’t demagnetize it because they wanted to see if the gadget worked—whatever ‘the gadget’ is. What would make a sub invisible to sonar?"

  Without a word, Rowe went to his office and pawed through a pile of files on a chair.

  "Metamaterials,” he called as he strode back waving a magazine. "Manmade artificially engineered structures this article predicts will make warships invisible in ten years."

  "Let me see." James skimmed the article. "The leading researcher is British.”

  Rowe took a swallow of beer and nodded toward the TV. “The press says that Britain allowing a nuclear sub to fall into terrorist’s hands makes her as much a loose cannon as the hijackers.”

  An alertness filled James’s eyes. “North Korea plans to launch a satellite August 30th. What if that isn’t a satellite but a space-based weapon, and what if Triumph—or Virginia—is part of the plan? How do we stop it?”

  Zeke shrugged. “We’d have to sink it, Bobby."

  James’s temple throbbed. "No one's ever sunk a nuclear sub."

  “But nuclear subs have sunk with zero contamination to the seas around them. The reactor is welded into a core assembly inside a pressurized vessel. Even if that leaks, seawater dilutes the radiation at a rate of ten percent for every two feet of water. Sink it in twenty feet of water and you neutralize the effect."

  James went outside to make a phone call. Rowe’s thoughts drifted to the men on Triumph. The hijackers would cherry pick the crew, separate out the weak and kill the rest. The longer Britain took to find their sub, the more men would die.

  James returned and stood there, hands in his pockets.

  "There's more." Rowe’s neck tingled waiting for the other shoe to drop. He sat back, laced his hands behind his head, and waited while James paced. His eye twitched. Twice. Whatever this was, was personal. A news story about Sir George Linley popped unexpectedly into his brain. George, one of the few people Rowe called friend, was following the Royal Family’s proud history of military service.

  "George is on Triumph."

  James cleared his throat and explained about the dead sailors, one of which was George.

  Rowe’s ears started to ring. His chest got so tight he feared it would crush his heart. A wave o
f pain washed over his body as though hit by an explosion. He had met George at the University of Paris where Rowe taught a lifetime ago. He remembered his open smile, easy acceptance of a pacifist teacher with barely the francs for an apartment. They had beers after class one day and ended up discussing William F. Buckley’s quote, Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive. Rowe considered it the jaded opinion of an old capitalist while George, despite his youth, understood ideals often were not shield enough against the treachery man rained on his fellow man.

  When Rowe’s fiancée was slain by the very mob his socialist principles respected, Rowe might have self-destructed if not for George whisking him away to a thousand-year-old castle nestled in the British hinterlands. There, Rowe ate, exercised, read, and beat himself up for his naïveté. After a month, he found he could talk to people, even walk outside, but nothing touched him as it had before. He was stronger but colder, smarter but numb. When he left, he found a new home with the SEALs where emotion became a liability, where right was black or white and only victory mattered. Rowe happily rejected the romantic notion of a fair fight. SEALs used whatever tool was required to win, bringing that warrior mentality to bear for family and country.

  Rowe would have done anything to save George. Now all he had was revenge.

  "I need Duck."

  "Already taken care of."

  James left, saying he’d see him tomorrow. Rowe leaned against the kitchen counter, head hanging, and breathing ragged. He talked to Kali’s voicemail and then checked the batteries on the five flashlights he’d hidden around the house. If anyone broke in, Rowe would blind them, buying time to take care of business.

  Next, he went to the back of his bedroom closet, behind everything stuffed there over the last year, and pulled out his Colt, Sig Sauer, and a Springfield Armory XT, the first weapon he ever owned and in his estimation the best. He placed Hoppe’s solvent, lubricating oil, Q-tips, and a wire bore brush on a newspaper, and cut an old t-shirt into cleaning patches. One after another, he field stripped and cleaned the weapons. It felt natural, soothing, like coming home. The odor of solvent and oil took him back to a time when he considered himself undressed without a gun—or two—on his person.

  Everything ready, he drove to a shooting range. It had been a year since he last fired a gun. Men had lost their shooting eye in a shorter time, but all it took to clear Rowe’s mind was one round downrange. The percussive pops felt right and he inhaled the burned powder. After a dozen shots, he no longer thought about it. His hands knew the way. The brass bounced at his feet as he devoured all his rounds and got a hundred more. He started at twenty-five feet, moved to fifty, then one hundred, switching from right-handed to left-handed. He worked the Sig first, switched to the Colt, and then the Springfield Armory XT.

  Ninety minutes later, he went home, took the carry permit out of his safe, and stuck it in his wallet.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Day Five, Friday, August 11th

  The USS Bunker Hill, San Diego CA

  "FCO. Request location."

  LT Paloma Chacone, Fire Control Officer, dismissing the radio call as she barreled down the pway of USS Bunker Hill, nearly colliding with the Auxiliary officer. "Why the rush, AUXO?"

  "Change in the watchbill. Better check yours," he replied without pausing.

  “Later,” she muttered as she ducked into the Wardroom. It'd been ten hours since her last break. The only thing Chacone wanted more than to sit was coffee.

  Her radio crackled again. "FCO. Request location."

  She’d turn off the volume but XO might call. The ship’s Executive Officer, second-in-command to the Captain, couldn’t be ignored.

  The coffee smelled scorched and old and tasted like manna from heaven. She poured more into her mug and collapsed, enthralled with the quiet, willing her muscles to relax and her brain to slow. Her eyes burned. Her shoulders ached, but nothing like her feet. She'd run fo’c’sle to fantail of the 567-foot ship ten times in four hours. She’d been up and down five flights too many times to count, raced through pways so narrow she had to stand sideways, and sweated in Auxiliary Engine Room One where temperatures reached 110 degrees or higher while replying to the Chief Engineer’s questions.

  Thank God the Congressionally-mandated INSURV ended today. If she answered one more what-if question, she might explode. What were the examiners doing—writing Cruiser Operations for Dummies?

  Chacone sipped her coffee, thinking back to the path that led to this day. Two years preparing the perfect USNA application while taking the hardest classes her high school offered, the day she tore open a letter, not knowing whether it was congratulations or rejection.

  The day her life changed.

  Four years later, commissioned, she reported for duty to the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill. She saluted the national ensign and the Petty Officer of the Watch, intimidated by the knowledge she walked in the footsteps of thousands before her who defended America from the decks of a warship. Her granddad served on the cruiser Houston, WWII's Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast. His love for the Navy convinced her to grab the last spot on the last cruiser ship selection night at the Naval Academy. He was so proud a year and a half later when she earned her Surface Warfare Officer pin.

  She sighed and bit into a granola bar. At least INSURV took her mind off XO. What was up with him?

  "Break time, huh?"

  She cracked an eye. "Electro," the Electrical Officer.

  Her civilian name was Jane Auburn, but everyone went by job titles on duty. Electro was new to the ship, right out of NROTC at Notre Dame. Decent officer, but Chacone wondered if the woman could handle pressure. She was junior to Chacone, so Paloma shut her out, returning to a world without sailors looking for directions, senior officers looking for a scapegoat, and guys with clipboards looking for mistakes.

  Electro ignored the snub. "You surviving?"

  Chacone started to tell Electro to shut up, but stopped when she saw the blue-black bruise blooming on her left cheek.

  "What happened?"

  Jane touched it gingerly. "I fell into a pipe climbing through the catacombs of #3 GTG room. No biggie." She winced, hooked a straggle of hair behind her ear, and poured coffee. "So why'd the mess decks get a Cheers renovation and our wardroom got Moby Dick?"

  Chacone smiled, comfortable in the narrow, featureless room decorated with Formica tables and Naugahyde chairs. Pre-packaged snacks littered the bland counters, available to be eaten on the run. "The enlisted guys deserve it. They work their butts off."

  Electro sipped her coffee. “We’re gonna pass, aren’t we?” Her voice was uncertain.

  Chacone thought a moment. Would the Powers That Be fail Bunker Hill after giving it an expensive upgrade and a new captain? She shrugged. “Everyone wants us to succeed."

  Electro’s mouth turned up a fraction. "XO acted weird today."

  Chacone smiled absently and reveled in the caffeine churning through her veins. After a moment, she turned to Electro. "What do you mean?”

  “He took a picture of a DC plate down in CCS—a flooding drill he said, but he marked the battery shop. We never practice flooding there."

  DC Plates were oversized laminated canvases, suspended vertically so they could be paged through, providing deck-by-deck blueprints of the ship. Crew members used grease pencils to run disaster scenarios. It appeared XO was experimenting with flooding different spaces to see how that affected the buoyancy of the entire ship.

  Or finding what could sink the ship. She was the one officer outside of the senior command entrusted with the Top Secret DC Book, one chapter of which explained how to scuttle the ship should that be necessary.

  Something nibbled at Paloma’s memory. She tried to catch it, but yawned instead.

  “Who really knows why he does anything?” But she frowned, dug for the thread and gave up. She’d figure it out later, hopefully before a WTF moment threw it in her face.

/>   Electro's radio screeched. "Electro. Cheng. Come to CCS.”

  “Be right there, sir.” She gulped the last of her coffee, sketched a wave, and disappeared.

  Chacone tried to return to empty thoughts, but XO nagged at her. Why take a picture when anyone with clearance to view the data had digital access on the LAN? Had she been there, she would have said something. XO would thank her—We're in this together, his standard response meaning everyone on the crew was cut from the same blue cloth.

  No, he wouldn’t. XO hated criticism. The last officer to cross him was reassigned as Departmental Operations Record Keeper—DORK in the Navy's acronym-crazy world. XO found it hilarious.

  Did this have something to do with his girlfriend? Chacone had become suspicious of XO’s ‘consulting’ job advising a writer on cruisers when it included all expenses paid research trips to Las Vegas and a new Porsche. What did he tell her to earn that?

  And yesterday he announced their engagement, showing Paloma her snapshot. Paloma expected a dowdy, pasty-faced, bespeckled creature who spent fifteen hours a day at a keyboard. Instead, the woman was stunning with a heart-shaped face, a glossy ebony mane that fell in a shimmering waterfall to her waist, and eyes that spoke to the soul. XO was twenty years older with a body solidly in a no man’s land between portly and overweight and he chewed his food with his mouth open. What did she see in him? No one believed it was love except XO. He told everyone Shalimar—what else would she be named?—loved men in uniform.

  Now, hearing this, Chacone wondered if he had crossed the line.

  Her radio squawked. "FCO. XO. Report to CIC." The Command Information Center.

  "On my way, Sir.”

  Three hours later, two hours after her shift ended and an hour after her energy ran out, she stumbled to her car, somehow drove home without an accident, and fell through the door of the apartment she shared with Trish Andrews, an officer on the destroyer, USS Preble.