by Jan Coffey
“You’re bleeding. Oh my God…you’re shot!” she said urgently, trying to open the front of his shirt.
He trapped her hands against his chest. “Only a scratch. There’s nothing to it, really.”
“Then let me see.”
She tried to push his hands away, but he stopped her again. “We don’t have time, right now.”
He looked around the room, forcing himself to see past the dead young men who were members of his crew only twenty-four hours ago. He had to figure out what the hell went wrong and what made them act the way they did.
McCann turned back to Amy. “How am I going to get it in your head that I need you to stay in one place?”
“No. No way. I refuse to stay in a room with all these dead bodies.”
He knew she wouldn’t stay in any other room, either. Showing up here had proved that much.
“Okay, you follow me,” he told her. “But I expect you to obey orders. Got it?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” she muttered, picking up her gun again.
He pushed the muzzle to the side, so it wasn’t pointing at his chest. “I’m the good guy. Try to remember that.”
As he leaned out the doorway, looking up and down the passageway, he could hear her mumbling under her breath, repeating what he’d said, but twisting the words. He thought that was a very good sign.
There was no one in sight.
“Where are we going?” she whispered.
“Back through the reactor tunnel to the engine room. First, I want to make sure Brody, my sonar man, is still conscious. I left him down in the torpedo room.”
“He’s not with them?”
“Definitely not,” McCann said. “He was knocked cold. He was a little confused at first, but he’s on our side, so don’t shoot him. Understood?”
Her head butted him lightly on the back. He took that as a yes.
McCann looked both ways again before stepping over the sailor’s body. She was right behind him. As they went, he touched his chest, feeling for the key he’d need to get into Maneuvering. It was still there.
In a moment, they were looking down the stairs into the torpedo room. He peered down through the entry. There was no sign of Brody.
“There’s something important that you should know,” she whispered. “There was a man they called Kilo who shot your two men by the officer’s stateroom.”
He stared at her. “You were there when they were shot?”
“Yes, but that’s not the point,” she told him. “I heard this Kilo guy say something to one of the men going down into the torpedo room. He said he was doing a cleanup. There was a mention of fourteen hundred, too, but I don’t know what the context was.”
McCann didn’t know any Kilo, but most submariners went by one nickname or another. He looked down at his watch. It was already 1:25.
Little more than half an hour until 1400 hours.
He wasn’t about to wait around wondering what the hijackers intended to do in another thirty five minutes. The torpedo tubes were shut down, but the Vertical Launch System might be operational if they were to go back up to periscope depth again. Why had they gone deeper?
It didn’t really matter, he supposed. The nuclear reactor could be a disaster at any depth.
“I’m going to do what I planned to do from the beginning. I have to shut the reactor down before they can use that as a weapon, too.”
Just as McCann stopped talking, he heard footsteps behind them, and then the shooting began again.
~~~~
Chapter 40
Pentagon
1:40 p.m.
There were no new aerial shots of the pursuit of Hartford. The media had been banned from the area, along with all private boats. All nonmilitary aircraft in a five-hundred-mile radius had been grounded. The camera crews of the local affiliates, however, were staying busy, filming from the shore with the most powerful lenses they had. Across the water, the smoke and flames rising from the oil rig made for dramatic footage.
Sarah stood in front of the television in the conference room. The room buzzed with faxes and phone calls coming and going and agents walking in and out. She was in her own world, enclosed in a bubble that blocked out the noise, the people, and everything else.
Her thoughts were on Darius McCann. She was determined to think of him still alive, fighting the hijackers. He had a warrior streak in him, something he’d entered the navy with. She liked to think that it was in his blood, a fighting spirit that came to him through his ancestors. It was in the name his mother had given him. Darius the Great, of the royal family of Achemenides. King of Persia from 521 to 486 BC.
Over the years, Sarah had studied Persian history, its culture, its customs. The curiosity had begun with her interest in Darius, in an effort to understand him. But soon the civilization itself had won her over, the centuries of history and the evolution of the region had fascinated her. It was through this knowledge that she believed she was now better able to understand the conflicts in the Middle East.
Persia encompassed many countries, cultures, and various religions. It had always been a bomb with a slow burning fuse. The centuries-old conflicts had roots running back to the days of the Persian Empire, long before a prophet named Mohammed rode in from the desert. More recently, it has been an area rich in oil, where poverty-stricken people seethe at excesses of the rich puppets who are kept in power by the West in general, and by American oil companies in particular. To many in the Middle East, Americaand the oil companies mean the same thing—brutality and decadence. What America called democracy and capitalism were simply terms for a Judeo-Christian coalition bent on taking all they could from those living in the region. They saw no evidence to make them think otherwise. They saw no reason to temper their resentment.
Sarah believed that the lack of understanding of all parties involved perpetrated the flaring violence. There seemed to be no end in sight. Fear and distrust were the breeding ground of war.
And terror was the weapon of those without weapons.
She tried to shake off thoughts of politics, now. She had a job to do, and she focused on the running script at the bottom of the television screen. Most of the images were a continuous loop showing the damage to the lighthouse and the Coast Guard cutter in New London harbor and to the oil rig on Long Island Sound. There were two known fatalities on the rig, but they expected the numbers to grow. The fire was nowhere under control.
“Anything new?” Bruce asked, moving next to her.
He handed her a cup of coffee. She didn’t have to look. She knew it’d be perfect and just the way she liked it. She took a sip. “The networks are already announcing that President Hawkins is planning another press conference at three o’clock,” she told him. “What do you think is left for him to say?”
“That they’ve attacked Hartford.”
Her heart twisted. She looked at Dunn. “Have they?”
“My sources say engagement is imminent,” he said quietly.
Sarah’s breath caught in her chest. She forced herself to swallow the painful lump forming in her throat. Fighting to control her emotions, she took a long sip from the cup.
“It’s okay to be upset,” he said softly. “No one is going to think less of you because of it. For God’s sake, I didn’t even know most of those people, and I’m upset.”
Sarah appreciated what he was trying to do. She looked past the brim of the cup at the television screen again, hoping the unshed tears would hurry up and dissolve.
There were now showing footage of the White House again. The President and some of his cabinet members were leaving the Oval Office.
“They must think that if they show President Hawkins enough times at the White House, then people might believe that he’s really there holding the fort,” Bruce commented.
“He is there, isn’t he?” she asked.
Bruce nodded, taking a step closer to the screen. “But have you noticed that there are a couple of people who should be there, but
aren’t?”
Sarah focused on the faces, recognizing everyone she saw. The cameramen were catching every attendee.
“This is a submarine hijacking,” Dunn said. “Who do you see from the military?”
Sarah understood that he wasn’t necessarily asking her, but just questioning aloud.
“The members of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense. There’s the Secretary of the Navy,” she said as the men appeared.
“And from the Submarine Service?”
“That’s Admiral Pottinger, Commander of Submarine Force of Atlantic Fleet.”
“He hasn’t commanded a sub in fifteen years,” he told her, staring at the television screen. “Where are the sub drivers? Not at the White House, and not here helping us.” Bruce turned to her. “This is exactly what you were talking about before.”
“You were the one who said we should attack.”
“That’s true, but they should have done it hours ago, before these people got their legs under them, before they got too far into this.”
“Back to the experts.” Sarah took the pad of paper she had tucked under her arm and flipped the pages until she found what she was looking for. “I’ve done a little research since we came back.”
“About experts?”
“Right. For the past ten years or so, under the last three administrations, the exact same sub commanders have been called upon by the president and the media for advice and commentary whenever emergencies came up having to do with submarines. They’re the same experts that General Dynamics Electric Boat Division and Newport News use as consultants to sit in on engineering-design reviews. They’re supposedly sought after by people like Admiral Pottinger and Admiral Gerry for practical advice. I haven’t heard even one of their names mentioned today.”
“Let me guess.” Bruce gave her a sideways glance. “You’re talking about Whiting, Erensen, and Barnhardt.”
“Very good.”
“Between them,” Bruce continued, “they’ve commanded or supervised the sea trials of every sub that has been built for the navy since the late seventies. Since Admiral Rickover died, those three are considered more knowledgeable about subs than anyone on the planet.”
Sarah looked down at her list. “I’m impressed, Commander Dunn.”
“Don’t be,” he told her. “Our minds are in sync. I dug up the names ten minutes ago.”
“If you and I could come up with the same list, then why isn’t the Atlantic Fleet using these people? Why doesn’t the media have them on television?”
“Maybe they are using them. Maybe they have them on the sub that’s chasing Hartford. Maybe they’re working behind the scenes in tactical positions.”
“In that case, it would be nice to have them available to us, too,” Sarah commented. “Some of the questions that are taking us hours to research, these people might have answered in seconds.”
“You’re talking about the overhaul Hartford went through this past year. Four months ago,” he said specifically.
She wasn’t surprised that he’d picked up on that. One of the items on their agenda this morning was to find everything that might be new and different about Hartford.
“There were some system changeovers that were unique to that SRA,” Sarah added. “And the crew of Hartford had to go through some training for it. I’d like to know how practical it’d be for someone lacking this training to operate that submarine. And depending of what the answer might be, I have more questions that could narrow down our search of who could be qualified and trained to head this hijacking.”
Before Bruce could say anything, Sarah continued. “Of course, my questions are based on the assumption that Commander McCann has no hand in the hijacking.”
“Whether he’s involved or not, we could use the help of one of these guys.” Bruce nodded thoughtfully. “I think just because Meisner and company haven’t assigned any of them to our team, it doesn’t mean we can’t go out and get them. Meisner said we have access to every resource and investigative unit of the U.S. Government. And from what I found, Whiting, Erensen, and Barnhardt are kept on retainer all the time. ”
“And if they’re too busy with the tactical side of things?”
“I’ll take care of that part,” Bruce assured her. “There’s three of them. We should be able to get at least one to lend his expertise for an hour or two.”
~~~~
Chapter 41
USS Hartford
1:50 p.m.
Shoved back around a bend in the passageway, Amy held her pistol where she could hand it to McCann if he ran out of bullets.
She’d fired down at the hijacker standing at the bottom of the stairs to the torpedo room, but she wasn’t about to risk shooting McCann in the back. Luckily, the firefight didn’t last long. She didn’t see it happen, but she knew their attacker was killed by one of the commander’s bullets.
“Follow me,” he told her.
She didn’t have to be asked twice. McCann was a lifeline and she wasn’t going to let more than a couple of steps come between them. At the top of the stairs to the torpedo room, he paused.
“How are you holding up, Brody?”
“I’m fine, Skipper. The bastard dead?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want me up there, yet?”
“Not yet.”
“I’m ready, Skip.”
Amy could only make out the top of Brody’s head from the angle she was looking. His voice sounded very weak.
“This is the ship super, Amy Russell,” McCann said quickly to his man. “I told you about her before. She’s been watching my back.”
Amy could have laughed, but she was afraid that her laugh might sound a little hysterical at the moment. Brody moved enough to the side just until he and Amy each saw the other. The young man saluted. She returned the gesture. He looked very pale and there was a bloody footprint on the deck where he’d stepped.
“Stay alert, Brody.” McCann turned and looked past the bodies down the passageway.
“How badly is he hurt?” she whispered.
“He’s got a bullet in the knee.”
“How’s your shoulder?” she asked him, glancing at his blood-soaked shirt.
“What shoulder?” he asked, still looking down the passageway, ready to go again.
“Listen…” she started. She wanted to stay with McCann, but her common sense was nagging at her.
“What’s the matter?”
“Could I do anything for Brody if I stayed with him?” She shook her head. “What I mean is, tell me where I can be the most help to you.”
“How squeamish are you about blood?”
“I have two active kids, and I’ve seen plenty of shipyard accidents.” She looked at his shirt again. “I’ve been watching you bleed to death, and I haven’t passed out yet, have I?”
“No.” He started to tell her where the closest first aid kit was. “I’ve got one down there, but you might want more gauze and tape to bind the wound tighter. I’ll be needing both you and Brody before we’re done.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” she told him as she headed forward to find the first aid kit.
As he disappeared toward the engine room, she had a moment’s regret. She’d just cut the lifeline, and now she was roaming around Hartford alone. She could run into a hijacker anywhere and get her brains blown out.
Amy focused on what she was doing. She’d stayed alive this long.
~~~~
Chapter 42
USS Hartford
1:52 p.m.
“Conn, Sonar. Contact has slowed. He’s on a course parallel path to ours,” Cav announced loudly.
Mako smiled and looked at his watch before starting to bark out more orders.
“Helm, all back two thirds!” he shouted. “Mark speed two knots.”
The deck trembled violently as the two men in the engine room opened the astern turbine throttles and reversed the direction of the propeller. The submarine shuddered as it slowed. O
rders continued to be passed along until the submarine was again traveling ahead, but now at a crawl.
“Two knots, Captain,” one of the men reported.
Mako stepped off the platform and looked into the Sonar Room. Cavallaro was carefully monitoring the contact on his screen. The hijacker turned back to the conn before speaking into his headset. “What’s the progress, Kilo?”
The security man’s response came back in seconds. “McCann is still alive, but I’m finished in the engine room. I’m on my way up.”
“Eight minutes to the rendezvous. McCann is finished. You have more work here.”
“Aye, sir.”
Mako turned to the men in the control room.
“Helm, all stop. Diving officer, prepare to hover.”
Paul Cavallaro came out of Sonar and approached the conn, looking perplexed.
“You’re preparing to hover at this depth, Captain?” Cavallaro asked, looking over his shoulder at the instrumentation doubtfully.
Mako ignored him.
“Ready to hover, Captain.”
“Commence automated hovering.” Mako looked at Cavallaro. “Return to your station, Lieutenant.”
As the officer moved back to Sonar, Mako signaled to his men to get ready. They immediately began picking up their equipment and gear.
“Conn? Sonar. Captain, contact is getting ready to connect to the sub,” Cav announced questioningly. “It looks like a DSRV, sir.”
Mako glanced at his watch once more and saw Kilo come into the control room. The captain motioned with his head toward the Sonar Room as the others started filing out.
Paul Cavallaro turned as Kilo entered the room. As he looked up, he was surprised to see a pistol pointed at his head.
It was the last thing he saw.
~~~~
Chapter 43
USS Hartford
1:55 p.m.
As McCann passed through the reactor tunnel into the engine room, he considered the possible reasons for bringing the submarine to a complete stop.
One reason was to hide. As silent as Hartford was, if the hijackers wanted to completely disappear from the sonar of a pursuing submarine, they may have decided to go ‘all quiet’. But the engine room had not been completely shut down yet.