The Gamma Option

by Jon Land

  “Doesn’t look like a torpedo did that,” she commented. “It’s a perfect circle.”

  “More likely cutting tools.”

  She went to magnification again and the screen filled with a close-up of the hole. “On the money, McCracken. The edges are sliced evenly. Somebody made an entrance for themselves into that ship right here, and not too long ago either.” She looked up at him as he continued to lean over her shoulder. “The salvage team that preceded us here?”

  “That would be my guess. But it seems a little deep for divers.”

  “They could have ridden down in a manned submersible and emerged into the water only after the hole was made. You should see what some of the big salvage boys carry for equipment. High tech to the max. Strictly state of the art.”

  “Bring RUSS up.”

  “But he could fit through that hole. They left us a doorway inside that ship to see what they might have made off with. Don’t you want to—”

  “Bring him up. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  She sensed nervousness in his voice and went to work on the transistorized console immediately. An instant later RUSS had begun his rise and the Indianapolis had disappeared from view, returned to the isolation it had lived in for over forty-five years.

  “You spoke of a weapon the salvage team came here to recover,” Patty said. “What you’re telling me is that this is the ship they pulled it off of.”

  “At least tried to.”

  “They were successful, all right, and if you let me send RUSS inside, I can—”

  “Just keep bringing him up.”

  “You’re scared. I can hear it in your voice. But what does this have to do with the weapon you’re searching for now? You said it yourself. The Indianapolis dropped its cargo off at Tinian. Her storage holds were empty when she was sunk.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that we’re not going to find out here in the middle of the—”

  “Go on. Finish what you were saying.”

  But McCracken wasn’t listening to her. His ears had detected a faint hum approaching in the distance.

  “Get on your radio and call the naval station.”

  “What?”

  “Signal a Mayday! Give them our position!” Blaine commanded, because by then the hum had given way to a louder whirl, and his eyes picked up a dim speck on the open skyline—the shape of a plane slowly gaining size and substance as it soared toward them.

  “Jesus Christ,” Patty Hunsecker muttered, already heading for the radio inside the cabin.

  Blaine followed her inside. The plane was now only seconds away.

  “What have you got for weapons on board this tub?”

  “Saving the oceans is a pacifistic mission.”

  “I was afraid of that… .”

  “Some spear guns, a flare pistol. That’s about it, I’m afraid.” Patty searched the band for the proper sending frequency with the mike pressed to her lips. “Guam Station, this is Runaway. This is a Mayday call. Repeat, this is a Mayday call. Our position is …”

  The rest of her message was drowned out by the screech of the aircraft zooming over them and the explosion of water as a grenade dropped from it exploded just behind the Runaway’s stern.

  “They’re trying to kill us!” Patty shrieked in the midst of her repeat message to Guam Station. In the small portal window before them, they saw the twin-engined plane bank for another pass.

  “Very observant. Just keep sending … after you hand me those spear guns.”

  Patty Hunsecker didn’t bother to protest, just rushed to a supply closet at the foot of the cabin stairs and yanked out a trio of state-of-the-art spear guns. They were plenty dangerous if wielded properly, but were meant to be used underwater and thus limited for this purpose.

  “Runaway, we read you,” a voice squawked over the radio. “This is Guam Station, please come in. I say again, please come in. Over. …”

  The attacking plane swirled in from the bow, and the portal exploded into flying shards of glass behind the bullets rupturing it. McCracken flung himself on Patty, discarding the spear guns long enough to tackle her to the floor. Above them the radio smoked and fizzled.

  “Damn,” she moaned.

  “Did you give them our coordinates?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean they heard anything.”

  Blaine’s ears picked up the quickening of the plane’s engine as it came at them yet again, over the stern this time. Staying low, he pulled the spear guns toward him and was moving toward the cabin door when the next explosion rocked him. The Runaway shook like a ship struck by a great wave, then listed sharply to starboard. He slid toward the steps to the deck and just managed to avoid the ruined radio as it came flying down from its perch. He tried to grab hold of Patty, but she slipped away from him. He saw her head ram hard into the wall. She slumped over and Blaine propped her up against the bulkhead nearest the door to keep her safe from the water that would be rushing in momentarily.

  McCracken was moving for the deck, spear guns in hand, when the plane swooped down again. The next blast took them on the stern, and the dread smell of smoke and loose oil flooded his nostrils. He knocked the cabin door open with his shoulders, and thick, black smoke flooded down into the cabin. The stern of the Runaway was taking on water, and the rearmost section of gunwale was even with the sea. All of RUSS’s hydraulic lift was now under the surface.

  The plane was coming in again, from the side this time, and Blaine got his first clear look at what he was facing. It was a twin-engined job all right, a red and white Cessna 310, something any fool could rent at any flying outlet. An expanded fuel capacity and a stopover at the nearest island to fill it would have made this attack mission logistically simple. Though it was only a regular plane, the grenades and gunfire were coming from an open side window that was much too small to bother considering as a target.

  But what else did he have?

  The plane whirled closer, and Blaine grabbed one of the spear guns and rose to a kneeling position amidst the noxious smoke, which grew even blacker. He wanted to make sure the gunman saw him, so he would have the pilot drop even farther, which would make it easier for Blaine’s intended shot to find the mark.

  The bullets pierced the gunwale and Blaine held his ground as shards of wood sprayed around him. He waited until the plane’s call letters were close enough to read before taking final aim with the spear gun. He never felt himself pull the spear gun’s trigger, and he knew he had done so only when the mechanism kicked briefly. The spent spear was still hurtling upward when the plane flew past with barely thirty feet separating it from the sea. But the spear missed the open window and clanged harmlessly against the Cessna’s frame.

  Blaine watched helplessly as the plane banked round for another run. Seconds later it plunged for the Runaway again, machine gunner clacking off a burst that effectively pinned Blaine when he started to move to another area of the deck. A misthrown grenade exploded in the water and showered him. A few seconds were now his and he seized them, knowing what he had to do.

  It was imperative to knock out the pilot, instead of trying for the gunman. He could never manage the task with a spear alone, though, especially fired at so difficult an angle. He needed something more, but where to find it? He pushed himself through the deepening pool in the stern and reached into the woodstrewn muck. His hand closed on a long, thick shard that had wedged in the remnants of the deck, a piece of RUSS’s titanium hydraulic mechanism. He held his breath and went under to achieve the purchase he needed to pull it free.

  When he came back up with the shard in hand, the Cessna was diving directly for him again. The grenade was right on target this time, blowing out the top of the cabin and sending the top section collapsing inward along with the canopy housing Patty’s equipment. He smelled ruined wood and found himself clawing through water as the Runaway began to drop farther and faster bene
ath the surface. He passed the engine opening and could smell the hot stench of an oil fire struggling to burn under the floods of seawater pouring through the hatch.

  Blaine reached his two remaining spear guns as the plane flew well beyond him and banked around for another attack run. He wrenched free the steel line from one of the spear guns and used it to fasten the six-inch shard of titantium steel from RUSS’s lift onto the point of the second spear.

  Work, damn you! Work!

  As the Cessna came in fast, the gunman misjudged Blaine’s position and his bullets plunged into the sea. Again the plane soared and its engine sputtered as the pilot brought it around again too steeply. Blaine made sure the steel shard was wedged tight to the spear as the Cessna came straight for him. This time he rose to meet it. No calculation of the physics was involved in the shot he was about to attempt, just a reliance on the feeling of when and at what angle he should pull the trigger.

  The plane’s attack run brought it directly into the sun. The pilot would have to squint, at least some portion of his vision obscured by the blinding light off the Pacific. It was the final edge Blaine needed.

  McCracken rose to a full standing position, the water now stretching all the way up to his thighs and rising farther by the second. He wanted this to appear to be a futile last stand. He wanted them to think he was resigned to death so they would descend all the way to finish him.

  He imagined he could feel the heat of bullets singeing the air around him; it was impossible to tell how close the last few came before he brought the spear gun to his shoulder. The plane roared at him and he imagined he could see the pilot’s eyes, not squinting but bulging, and suddenly in surprise. The weapon was just fifty feet away when Blaine pulled the trigger.

  The spear jetted out and seemed to wobble briefly under the extra weight of the attached steel shard before straightening out on line with the windshield. McCracken saw the spear ram home when the plane was just twenty feet over him. He did not see the windshield disintegrate on impact or the splinters of glass spray into the pilot’s face, which drove his hands upward from the stick. What he did see was the Cessna list and drop suddenly, falling as if knocked off the edge of a table. It struck the hard surface of the water and broke apart on impact without flames or smoke, its fuselage continuing to skim the surface as if on water skis, shredding pieces of itself along the way.

  Blaine had that moment to enjoy his triumph and no more, for the Runaway was relinquishing its last grasp on life. By the time he got back to Patty the water was up to his stomach and was lapping at her chest in what remained of the cabin. Her pulse was still strong and he pulled her to him with an arm cupped lifesaving-style beneath her throat. Then he eased the two of them out the doorway and away from the sinking ship.

  He swam only slightly, reluctant even then to abandon the vehicle that was their only hope to survive the fury of the sea. The life jackets were under ten feet of water in the cabin, and to make a try for them would mean leaving Patty alone. He knew that if Patty’s Mayday message had gotten through, even under the best of conditions it would be many hours before the rescue party dispatched from Guam could find and save them. Much too long in any event for him to maintain his hold on Patty and save himself. But it would be much, much longer if her broadcast of their coordinates didn’t get through at all. A widescale search would be required and that could take days. The sight of something white bobbing in the sea before him caught Blaine’s eye. His first thought was Shark! but his next was something else entirely. Holding tight to Patty, he paddled for the object.

  At last he was close enough to reach out and grasp RUSS’s transistorized control panel. Bracing it against Patty, he fiddled with the joystick, then eased it toward him. He clung to hope, with nothing else to hold on to.

  A slight churning in the water made him swing to the right. RUSS’s miniature conning tower crested through the surface and its automatic bilge pumps sent water through its vents. RUSS had the look of a small but majestic whale rising proudly from the sea. Still using the joystick, McCracken brought RUSS up close enough to pet it affectionately and then lay the unconscious Patty over its cylindrical bulk before he flung himself upon it. He ended up straddling the submersible as if it were a horse. Feeling it bob slightly beneath him, he made sure Patty was safe, maneuvered the joystick to head RUSS forward, and slammed the submersible’s sides with make-believe spurs.

  “Hiyo, Silver! Away!”

  Chapter 14

  AMIR HASSANI STOOD in the center of the plush library deep within the fortified confines of the former Shah’s royal palace in the Niavarin district of northeast Tehran. A huge section of the room was dominated by bookshelves housing the royal library of first editions in all languages. There were four long shelves holding books of every conceivable color binding, in addition to the neatly layered stacks from floor to ceiling on the three walls enclosing the shelves.

  But as his feet padded across the luscious deep red floral carpet, Hassani was aware of the books only from the scent of leather that filled his nostrils as he addressed his audience. The representatives of the various groups that had united behind him sat in seven high-back chairs upholstered in a red velvet that matched perfectly the red of the rug. At present they sat collectively aghast and dumbfounded by his report pertaining to the first stage of the plan that would ultimately see them seize power throughout the Mideast.

  “The key to the success we are about to achieve,” he said, nearing the end of his presentation, “has been and will continue to be the level of secrecy I have employed in the operation that will set us on our way. There have been no leaks in security. We are poised on the brink of something awesome. It is within our grasp, and if we maintain the resolve to reach out for it, soon the state of Israel will cease to exist.”

  The library hall was enormous, and the result was a background echo that would have unnerved his audience had they possessed the inclination to notice. Of the seven, three had come in military uniforms, three in traditional Arab robes, and one in an expensive western-style suit. They came from Syria, Libya, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. For himself, as always, Hassani had chosen a general’s uniform from the Revolutionary Guard he was still proud to be a part of. He wore it boldly, defiantly, as if refusing to acknowledge a war had ever been lost or, more likely, to illustrate the point that a more important war was about to be won.

  “You speak of the destruction of Israel,” the Iraqi delegate said, “yet you continue to avoid the specifics. My concern is that we are being attentive here to the same kind of mindless rhetoric that preceded your unsuccessful campaign against my nation.”

  Hassani did his very best to smile at the man he had been at war with just a few years before. His cap was tilted so low over his forehead that it shadowed his face all the way down to his beard. His eyes were narrow and seldom met those of the person he was addressing. He never allowed anyone a close look at him, as if any glimpse might strip away part of his aura. He was a specter who had never been interviewed by the Western press, which condemned him for being elusive and enigmatic, and for making a travesty of Iran’s post-war economic recovery.

  But his smile was that of a man who saw what others failed even to look at. He had been one of the nation’s military leaders, a great favorite, during the war with Iraq. His militance had forced him to flee when the final, humbling terms of peace were agreed upon. He returned, however, during the military coup that followed Khomeini’s death and the failure of any of his successors to be installed as president of Iran with a promise to restore pride and hope.

  “And is it not a great blessing,” he continued, only half looking at the delegate from Iraq, “that the strife between our nations is at last over so we can contend with our true enemy? No one supported the end of our war more than I, not because I wished to accept defeat, but because a greater victory, a victory with the word of Allah behind it, was on the horizon. Your final roles in this victory need not be made known until the last da
y is upon us.”

  “But I have people to organize,” the Syrian delegate protested. “You promised us Israel would be ours to take in a vast sweep across lands that are rightfully ours.”

  “Rightfully the Palestinians, you mean,” exclaimed the representative from the PLO. “Who, may I remind you, are supplying the largest complement of manpower to this invasion.”

  “Now just wait a—”

  “Gentlemen,” Hassani interrupted, raising his voice only slightly and turning his face rapidly from one man to the other, “listen to yourselves. You make the lot of the Jew easy by bickering with each other. Israel is not our greatest enemy; we are our own greatest enemy, and that in the past has prevented the miracle we have now accomplished by uniting our forces together. It also accounts for my reasons in continuing to hold back the final elements of our plan.”

  “Are you saying you don’t trust us?” asked the delegate from Saudi Arabia, the single one dressed in a western suit.

  “Of course I’m not. But for this operation to be successful I said from the beginning that I required your trust, your single-minded devotion to a cause that will only just be beginning when we overrun Israel. If one of you disagreed with the substance of my plan, you could leave here and destroy it. My holding it back is simply insurance against the exercise of such poor judgment. I would be foolish not to heed the lessons of the past. You will know what you need when you need to know it.”

  “Hah!” the Libyan delegate laughed, rising to his feet and looking cramped in the medal-layered khaki uniform that was too tight on him. “We sit here and listen to a man who has already lost one war. I say to you, General, that you have accomplished your task by bringing us together and uniting us behind the common goal of Israel’s destruction. Now let us do it our way. Am I right?” he asked of the Iraqi delegate, searching for support.

  “No,” the darker man said, “you are not.” The Iraqi’s eyes turned to Hassani who had stood rigid and silent through the Libyan’s tirade. “General Hassani did not lose the war. No man could have done more when faced against the might of Iraq.”