Tom wiped the sweat from his face as he rounded the aft end of Missile Compartment Upper Level again, passing the twelve missile tubes on the starboard side of the submarine before returning past the other twelve tubes on the port side.
Fifty laps to go.
* * *
While Tom paced the decks in Missile Compartment Upper Level, the ship’s Captain sat with the XO in the Wardroom discussing Malone’s retirement plans over a friendly game of cribbage. This was Malone’s sixth and last patrol aboard the Kentucky. He had his twenty years in and would retire after his change of command upon return to port, going home to Iowa to take over his father’s farm. His parents were getting on in years, and Malone’s two sisters had no interest in continuing the family farming heritage. Working the earth and growing crops were a far cry from Malone’s last twenty years, yet he and his wife, Karen, also from the Midwest, looked forward to leaving the metropolitan area with its fast-paced life and returning to the countryside, where people had time to chat. He would miss the Navy, and especially the dedicated men he worked with. At the same time, he looked forward to the next phase of his life.
Malone picked up his next set of cribbage cards, pausing for a moment to savor the unmistakable omen of good luck. He had just been dealt a twenty-nine-point hand, his first ever in twenty years of play. The odds of being dealt a twenty-eight-point hand were fifteen thousand to one, and the even rarer twenty-nine-point hand, considered a good luck omen among submariners, one in a quarter million. As Malone looked down on his twenty-nine points, he could not but reflect on the hot summer day in Mare Island Naval Shipyard years earlier, his submarine one of the last to complete overhaul before the historic shipyard closed down, the victim of a shrinking submarine fleet and associated industrial infrastructure.
He had watched his Captain escort an elderly woman off the boat following lunch, returning moments later to the Wardroom, where Malone waited. As the Captain eagerly unwrapped a thin package left on the Wardroom table, the brown wrapping paper pulled back to reveal an eighteen-by-twenty-four-inch nautical chart covered in glass and surrounded by a plain, worn wooden frame. Annotated on the chart were two merchant ship sinkings in the Yellow Sea between China and Korea, and the yellowed edges of the chart combined with the lack of a separate North and South Korea told Malone the nautical chart was a very old one. Dates were inscribed on the map beneath each sinking: 19 and 21 March 1943, and the dates and locations tugged at his memory until he finally recalled their significance.
In 1943, while the U.S. Surface Fleet slugged its way westward across the Pacific, Executive Officer Dick O’Kane and his Captain, Mush Morton, led the submarine Wahoo on her fourth war patrol deep into Japanese-controlled waters in search of enemy ships. In particular, they were looking for the prized merchant ships, the lifeblood of the island nation of Japan. By mid-March, transiting into the Yellow Sea, the crew had nothing to show for the long weeks at sea, morale deteriorating as each day passed. Their spirits lifted on March 18, when Dick O’Kane, playing cribbage with his Captain, was dealt a rare twenty-nine-point hand. Lady Luck made good on her promise—the Wahoo sank her first merchant ship of the patrol the following day. A scant two days later, O’Kane was dealt a twenty-eight-point hand, the Wahoo sinking a second merchant ship within the hour.
The two cribbage hands had indeed been omens of good luck for Dick O’Kane and the crew of the Wahoo, and as Malone studied the framed document in the Captain’s hands, he noticed two sets of playing cards affixed to the chart, five cards in the top right corner and a complementing set in the bottom left. Only then did he realize what the Captain held in his hands. The elderly woman was Dick O’Kane’s widow, and she had left the Captain with her husband’s twenty-eight- and twenty-nine-point cribbage hands, dealt to him aboard the Wahoo on March 18 and 21, 1943.
Malone played out his twenty-nine-point hand, pegging from behind and winning the game. As he leaned back in his chair, the cloud of uncertainty that accompanied the beginning of each patrol, as the ship and its new crew members settled into their routine, finally lifted. He slowly pushed the cards across the table toward the XO. As for Dick O’Kane and the Wahoo, this would indeed be a lucky patrol for the USS Kentucky, BLUE Crew.
9
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
Mike Patton stood in the rain on the curb along South Quincy Street, hands in his coat pockets, wet hair plastered to his forehead as water trickled down his face. He made no attempt to shelter himself from the weather, because he was in an altogether different place. Or to more accurately describe it—the same place, but a different and better time. As he stared across the busy street at the empty restaurant patio, he could still see her sitting across from him that night, see the sparkle in her eyes as she smiled, hear her laughter spilling into the street. Two weeks after their dinner at Carlyle’s, Mike had returned to Washington alone, wearily ascended the steps to his dark and morbidly quiet brownstone off Dupont Circle, and entered the nightmare that never ended. Now, three years later, he had received the phone call he’d been waiting for. He would soon complete his task and finally sleep in peace.
It should have been perfect. For their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Mike booked a nine-day Mediterranean cruise, sailing from Athens and visiting the Italian cities of Messina, Naples, and Rome before continuing westward for port calls in Monaco and Barcelona. But first, they had flown to Israel to visit Theresa’s aging parents. That detour had ruined everything.
Thirty years earlier, Theresa had left her homeland to attend Cornell University, and it was Mike’s good fortune, he always said, to have sat next to her that first day in freshman English. It was easy to strike up a conversation with the vivacious young woman who seemed at ease in the foreign country she had arrived in only four days earlier. By the end of the week, the two had established a friendship that blossomed into romance. They married following graduation, after Theresa made the difficult choice between the man she loved and the country she loved. Theresa’s thoughts were never far from her family and homeland, and as they booked their anniversary cruise, she had requested they add a leg to their trip and visit her parents in Jerusalem.
Less than three hours after arriving in Theresa’s homeland, their lives were forever changed. After getting settled in the guest bedroom of her parents’ apartment and spending a few hours catching up on family news, Theresa had insisted on rushing out to find the perfect gift for her niece’s bat mitzvah. It was this search that led them to the less frequented stores on the outskirts of Jerusalem’s shopping district. Theresa’s memory of the city was no longer accurate, and they found themselves on an unfamiliar street. But she was certain the desired store was only one block over, and they would arrive there after a quick shortcut through the narrow alley connecting the two streets. As they turned into the cool, dark alley, it was the last time Mike held his wife’s hand in his.
Mike heard it, but never saw it coming. His only warning was his wife’s startled scream, and as Mike turned in her direction, his head jolted forward from a blow that could have easily fractured his skull. He awakened an unknown number of hours later, lying on his side on a dirt floor in a small room, his hands tied behind his back, duct tape covering his mouth. The back of his head throbbed with every heartbeat, and as he tried to make sense of the sideways world that swam in his eyes, the image of his wife eventually steadied.
She was kneeling on her hands and knees only a few feet away, sitting back on her ankles as she looked up at two men circling her, their faces concealed behind black keffiyehs. They probed her with questions, eventually making the only inquiry that seemed to matter. It was easy to see that Mike, with his ruddy Irish complexion, was no Jew. But Theresa’s dark hair and eyes combined with her slender build begged the question. As Mike struggled to scream through the tape covering his mouth, warning her to not answer, Theresa, proud of her heritage, confirmed their suspicion. That had been enough to seal her fate.
Black hoods were shoved over
Theresa’s head and then Mike’s. He struggled in vain while his wife’s screams became fainter and fainter as they dragged her to another part of the building. Now, three years later, all that remained were the memories, memories that haunted him each night, memories that always began as Mike was woken from a restless slumber and dragged down a long hallway.
Bright, sterile lights blinded Mike as he was pulled to his feet and the dark hood was removed from his head. His eyes slowly adjusted, and the first images of what would become forever seared into his mind materialized out of the white haze. He stood at the back of a small, dilapidated room, its walls coated with a thin layer of cracked brown cement, a rack of spotlights supported by a metal stand glaring down on its occupants. In the middle of the room, Theresa sat on the only piece of furniture, her waist tightly bound to a chair, her hands tied behind her back. A streak of dried blood ran down her chin from cracked and swollen lips, evidence of her less than cordial treatment. But it was the fear in her eyes that worried Mike the most as they flitted between her husband and the other men in the room.
In addition to the two men holding Mike’s arms, still bound behind his back, there were three other men in the room. Two stood motionless on either side of Theresa’s chair, their hands clasped behind their backs, and a third stood in front, a video camera held down by his thigh. All three men were dressed in the traditional garb of Muslim extremists that had become so familiar on television: black long-sleeved salwar kameez shirts tucked into baggy white sirwal pants. Black keffiyehs covered their faces, exposing only their eyes. A sword, still in its sheath, leaned against the wall in the far corner of the room. As Theresa looked up at her captors through puffy, cried-out eyes, she examined first one, then another man, searching for a clue to her abductors’ plans.
A door in the back of the room opened and another man, dressed like the others except entirely in black, emerged from the dark recess. Stopping by the corner of the room, he retrieved the sword. The man in front raised the camera to his right eye, and the red recording indicator illuminated. Twisting to the side in her chair, Theresa attempted to determine who had entered the room and what his purpose might be. Locating the man as he walked toward her, Theresa’s eyes followed him until he stopped on her left side. Her eyes widened when she spotted the object in his hands, her panic cresting as the sword slid from its sheath with a tinny metallic scrape.
A low moan escaped her lips, cut short as she began struggling violently, almost convulsively, to escape from her bonds. The man tilted the sword in his hands, adjusting it until the harsh spotlights reflected off the metal into his victim’s eyes. Theresa intensified her efforts to escape, her chair rocking on its legs as she struggled in vain, calling for her husband to come to her aid, to somehow make everything turn out all right. Mike tried to leap to his wife’s defense, but his hands were still tied behind his back and the two men restrained him, strong hands gripping his arms.
The man with the sword nodded, and the two men began to untie Theresa’s hands. Her resistance eased, unsure of her captors’ intentions.
Hope shined in her eyes.
Mike brightened with the thought that their captors had only meant to frighten Theresa and record her reaction. Perhaps they would take her back to the dark room where she’d been beaten, where she would wait until a ransom was obtained or a political prisoner freed.
Or perhaps not.
After the men untied her hands, they pulled her arms out until they were extended. Placing their hands on the back of her shoulders, they forced her to bend at the waist until her upper body and neck were parallel to the floor. Turning her head to the side, Theresa looked up at her executioner, desperation on her face. As tears streamed down her cheeks, she begged for her life. The man responded by gripping the sword firmly in both hands, lifting it upward. Theresa’s eyes filled with the kind of terror that comes with the certainty of death, and she lost whatever self-control she had left. Screams mingled with cries for mercy, and her feet slid frantically in the sand that coated the hard dirt floor as she attempted to push herself back and away from her fate. But the two men held her firmly in place.
The sword’s upward movement halted, high above the executioner’s head, and he waited. Theresa’s fear suddenly turned to rage, and her head turned toward the man, cursing him, spittle flying from her mouth as she condemned her captors to the fiery pits of hell. The executioner stood there, sword held high, waiting for Theresa’s rage to run its course, to transition into despair. Mike could tell he had done this many times, and relished every moment. Theresa eventually spent her curses, sobs occasionally escaping as she turned her face down toward the ground, her head sagging as she prepared to die.
A blow to Mike’s stomach forced him to his knees, where, as he kneeled across from his wife, the worst part of it all began. Rough hands worked behind him, and then his arms were suddenly free and the tape ripped from his mouth.
They had untied his hands because they knew—
As if the horror of what was about to happen wasn’t enough, they knew that once his hands were free, Mike would instinctively reach for his wife, caress her flushed cheeks as she kissed his palms, that he would hold his wife’s tear-streaked face in his hands.
Theresa looked up at him, her eyes suddenly radiating a serene calm. “Don’t be afraid,” she said, as if Mike’s blood, rather than hers, would soon be soaking into the parched earth. “This is supposed to happen. It is God’s will.”
Mike groaned, unable to find the words to express his despair, or his feelings for the only woman he had ever loved. Or ever would.
But Theresa’s luminous green eyes simply stared at him. “You will know what to do,” she said. “It will soon become clear.”
Mike struggled with the meaning of her words. What would soon become clear? He prepared to ask her to explain, but never got the chance.
A whistling sound filled Mike’s ears. It took him a moment to recognize its significance, to realize it was the swift movement of the executioner’s sword through the air. He never saw the blade moving, never saw the bright glint of the sword as it sped downward. Instead, he saw his wife’s wedding ring sparkle from the corner of his eye as her hand twitched.
They knew—
Theresa’s face suddenly became heavy in his hands, and Mike noticed the sword was no longer held high, its tip now buried in the dirt floor, a six-inch-wide swath of crimson coating the blade. His wife’s lips parted, as if to speak, but no words came, and he could no longer feel her warm breath on his skin. The color drained from her face, the animation fading from her eyes until she stared at him with dull, lifeless orbs.
As he held his wife’s head in his hands, horrified yet incapable of releasing it, her face began to blur as tears collected in his eyes, then streamed down his cheeks. His body shook, his breath coming in short, shallow spurts. Rocking back and forth on his knees, he was unwilling to believe Theresa had been taken from him; that he would never hear her laughter, never hold her in his arms again. The pain of his loss was unbearable, and he couldn’t imagine living without her. As his mind swam with ideas on how to end his anguish, Theresa’s words came back to him.
You will know what to do.
It seemed there remained a single purpose in his life; some act he must accomplish before he could join his wife. But what? It was too hard to think. Perhaps Theresa was right, and it would soon become clear. Slowly, Mike’s resolve solidified and his breathing steadied, determination replacing despair. Whatever he was supposed to do, he would figure it out.
* * *
Later that night, Mike was pushed from a van on the outskirts of Sderot. Dazed, he stumbled to the nearest police station, incoherently recounting the ordeal. But enough of what had happened eventually became clear. As Mike sat alone in a hotel on Yoseftal Street, authorities found Theresa’s severed head rotting on a deserted street corner in Gaza, and it wasn’t long before an Iranian-sponsored terrorist group proudly claimed responsibility. There wa
sn’t much to go on, as Mike and Theresa’s abductors had kept their faces covered, and Mike had no idea where they had been held. There were far too many crimes committed and loved ones lost to expend effort chasing a murder with no leads, and the case was soon abandoned.
Six months after his wife’s murder, after the bruises had healed and he had passed a battery of psychological tests, Mike returned to work at the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon. But he had lied to everyone; the dream had never stopped. Each night, he relived that day in excruciating clarity, the nightmare torturing him with the terrifying last moments of Theresa’s life.
* * *
Each night when Mike awoke from his nightmare, the ceiling fan greeted him, spinning slowly in circles that never ended. Then one night, a turbulent nor’easter tore through the city. As the rain drove against the windowpanes and the ghostly shadows of trees bent in submission to the howling winds, his town house lost power, and the fan drifted to a stop. It was at that instant that everything suddenly became clear, just as Theresa had promised. A stranger stepped from the shadows the next day, as if he’d been waiting patiently for Mike’s epiphany.
The man was no longer a stranger, and his call earlier today requesting they meet had given Mike hope that the next time his mind drifted into darkness, there would be no dreams. For this afternoon’s meeting, Mike had picked the restaurant where he had proposed to Theresa and where they had eaten dinner the night before their fateful trip. As he started across the street, still lost in thought, the blaring horn of an approaching car startled him out of his reverie. He stood there for a split second, part of him wanting it all to end now, splattered over the front of the vehicle. But he stepped back just as a dark green Volvo sped by. There was one task he had yet to complete; not until then could he join his wife.
Mike requested a table in the far corner of the restaurant that offered a clear view of the entrance, something he knew his companion would insist upon. The few patrons were scattered widely throughout, none within earshot. Mike ordered a glass of red wine and had taken his first sip when he saw his friend, if one could call him that, pausing near the hostess to scan his surroundings.
The Trident Deception Page 7