Counterplay

by Richard Aaron

  “Hang on, Dana,” her mother said. “This guy is out of control.” She took her foot off the gas and gently snubbed the brakes. They both watched as the large pickup went from an oscillating rear to doing complete 360s. The Wittenberg Toyota was slowing and under control. Then came the unexpected. A large eight-axle rig loaded down with iron was headed north. He was going at a good clip—after all, he had thirty tires on the pavement and was weighed down by a heavy load. The trucker rounded a corner and there was the kid, doing donuts, wondering how this could happen given that he had four-wheel drive and Monster Mudders.

  In an attempt to avoid the pickup, the trucker cut sharply to the right, which unfortunately jackknifed the truck. The rear of the second trailer clipped the pickup truck, and both the trailer and the pickup smashed into the little Toyota at highway speed. The effect of the impact was so great that the hood of the Toyota was dislodged from its mountings and smashed through the front window at a combined speed of over 140 kph. The hood came directly through the windshield. It decapitated Dana’s mother. Dana was not completely spared. A sharp edge caught her forehead and delivered a terrifying laceration that required multitudes of layered stitches to repair. But the pain was nothing in comparison to sitting next to her decapitated mother, blood still pumping through the aorta and spraying out through the carotid arteries.

  “Mom!” she screamed. “Mom, mom, mom!” She wanted desperately to hug her but could not look at the monstrosity that seconds before had been her mother. “Mom, mom, mom . . .”

  She felt a strong hand gripping her shoulder and shaking her. “Hey, Dana, it’ll be okay. It will be fine. Wake up, Dana.”

  She opened her eyes, pooled with tears, and saw the wheelchair. She immediately hugged its aging occupant, tightly, attempting to suppress the sobs. “It’s okay,” Dana said. “It’s my mom, Lee. She died. In front of my eyes. I have this scar . . .”

  “Want to talk about it a bit?”

  “Lee,” she managed to get out. “It was an old accident. Almost twenty years ago. My mother died and I remember it every day I look in the mirror. I remember every time that those, those prosecutors call me scarface.”

  Lee pressed her further, and she talked about how her father reacted, which was equally tragic for her. “He really adored her and could not cope with the stress of losing my mom that way. He was an executive in a large software company, brilliant, but he stopped showing up for work. When he came to work, he was usually drunk. They gave him a nice severance package and sent him on his way. Alcohol led to drugs, and drugs led to heroin. He hangs around the back alleys in Gastown these days.”

  “Do you ever see him?”

  “I try to go down on Sundays and get some nourishment into him. But it’s scary down there. And Dad, well, he’s just basically lost his mind. He’s changed. He used to be kind, charitable, loving. The absence of money, and I guess the absence of love, has turned him into a different person. He lives a harsh and brutal life on the street. In times of stress those memories come back, and I can’t control it, Lee. I just can’t. Especially now. You know what Lestage did for a living. It’s so tough, Lee.”

  They talked for a bit, and the hideous memory faded. She then realized that Penn-Garrett was inside her cell.

  “What, did the old goat throw you in here, too?”

  Lee Penn-Garrett shook his head and laughed. “The sheriff in charge of the lockup knows me well. We all know this is a travesty. He let me in here.” He saw her red and swollen eyes. “Hey, young lady, this’ll work out. You are going to win this trial, even though that stinker Mordecai is picking on you a bit.”

  “A bit? He’s making my life a living hell. If there was any way I could get out of the trial I would, and go to med school. This trial is wrecking me.”

  “Now, now, Dana. I’m here to help you. Don’t disparage the whole profession. There are a few good judges and a few good lawyers around, although I’ve got to admit that they seem to be a minority.”

  “Fine, Lee. How can you help me?”

  “That ruling was so far off the wall that it’s appealable.”

  “Yes, but how does that help me now?”

  “I have some connections, still. I have already filed the appeal and prepared an affidavit. I need that document that you were dealing with when Mordecai shut you down.”

  Dana fluttered through her papers and pulled it out. “Here it is.”

  “Good, Dana. We’ll call this Exhibit B. Now read the thing, and if you swear to the truth of it, I’ve got what I need.”

  Dana read through the document Lee had compiled. It set out the history of the case, what had occurred thus far, and attached a transcript detailing everything that occurred in Courtroom 401 the day before.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing Lee?” Dana asked cautiously. “I mean, I don’t want to offend you, but the judge has been screaming at me all day, the prosecutors are carving me up like a Thanksgiving turkey, and look at me. I’m in jail.”

  “Well, young lady, a lot of people think I’ve gone senile. But I haven’t. You’re not watching the jury. I am. They are totally with you. And once we win this appeal, which is a slam dunk, you can ask those questions about missing documents, and you will destroy their case that way.”

  “How can you get us in front of the Court of Appeal so quickly?”

  “You know, Dana, as soon as they see the wheelchair they think my brain has turned to slop. But I maintain a little office near the courthouse. I’ve done this for at least fifty years, and I can do it fast. I had to call in some favors from the court reporter to get the transcript. Not that many favors, actually. They are all cheering for you. Now swear this affidavit. You have to trust me.”

  “Yes,” said Dana, also identifying the two exhibits for him. “Okay, the trial starts at 10, and so does the Court of Appeal. How does that work? And what will Judge Mordecai do? He’s likely to send you down to the cells, too.”

  “No, no,” said Penn-Garrett, smiling. “You are going to have a blast in court tomorrow. Good luck, kid,” he said, taking the sworn affidavit with him. “Tomorrow will be a regular three-ring circus. You watch. Now I have a surprise for you.” He turned and nodded to one of the sheriffs. A few seconds later, a metal door clanged and a throaty whuff echoed through the concrete hallway. With one bounce, Bam-Bam launched himself through the open cell door and pinned Dana against the wall with his massive paws. Chris was two steps behind.

  30

  Richard looked in dismay at the armada of police, Coast Guard, and military vessels that were arrayed between KDDE and the open sea.

  “How are we possibly going to navigate through that? I don’t care how fast you say the Allegro Star is, she’s not going to outrun a BrahMos or Harpoon missile.”

  “They won’t see us,” said Kumar.

  “Fat chance,” said Richard. I see that she rides pretty low in the water, and that might help if maybe one ship was looking for us, but damn it, Kumar, the entire Pakistani Navy is sitting out there. There are choppers in the air. And it’s a narrow harbor. It’s solid decks from one shore to the other.”

  “Guys, get in now,” said Jimmy, pointing to an open hatch on top of a low superstructure. “If they’re looking for you, Kumar, they’ll be looking at KDDE because they know this is your home turf. Grab your stuff and move.”

  As Jimmy was uttering these words, a harbor patrol cruiser, having spotted the open harbor doors at KDDE, headed toward them. A searchlight began to play along the KDDE structures.

  The four men ran along the spine of the Allegro Star and jumped down the hatch. “Start her up, Jimmy,” yelled Richard, the last of the four to descend into the craft. Richard paused for a second to look again out over the harbor. The momentary pause was critical. The search beam came into contact with the Allegro Star and illuminated the exotic craft, catching Richard’s face and outstretched arm as he reached for the hatch.

  “You there, halt!” came the command in English as
Richard ducked into the interior of the ship. At the same moment, Richard could see several other smaller harbor police speedboats change course and head toward them. Further searchlights began to play across the water adjacent to the Allegro Star.

  “Jimmy, get the hell out of here,” he yelled. “We’ve been made.”

  There was a burst of heavy machine gun fire from the first police boat, and the tink-tink of metal striking the superstructure resonated through the interior of the Allegro Star.

  Kumar yelled at Jimmy, “Take her down, now!”

  “But the cabin is not fully pressurized,” Jimmy protested.

  “The hell with the air pressure. Fill up the ballast tanks and take her down!” The staccato sound of metal against metal punctuated his point, as more bullets struck the ship’s upper deck.

  Slowly the Allegro Star moved forward toward the harbor police craft that were drawn to the open doors of KDDE like moths to a flame. One of the more distant Coast Guard ships banked sharply toward starboard and was coming in their direction.

  But then, when it appeared certain that the Allegro Star was cornered, she dipped beneath the waves.

  “What the hell,” said Zak. “It’s a submarine?”

  “To some degree it is,” said Kumar. “It cannot go below forty fathoms, and it can’t stay down for longer than twenty hours, but yes, it can fully submerge and operate for short periods beneath the waves. We were perfecting the design at Pacific Western Submersibles in California when the, the attack . . .” His voice drifted off and he did not finish his sentence.

  Richard surveyed the interior of the ship. They were in a navigation center that could have been a mini version of the TTIC control room. Half a dozen large video monitors were curved along the front of the room. A large cluster of controls, levers, and buttons of various sorts protruded from a dashboard beneath the monitors. There were large gauges along the edges of the dashboard, displaying depth, speed, GPS, and other critical information.

  One large central monitor provided a 3-D representation of the route ahead of the Allegro Star. The contours of the harbor bottom were modeled on the screen, and the locations of surface vessels were portrayed on another screen. The monitors gave a stunningly clear representation of the water’s surface and subsurface. “Quite a wheelhouse, Jimmy,” said Richard.

  There was confusion amongst the occupants of the closest harbor police craft. “Where the hell did they go?” was the dominant question. None of the three men trusted their eyes. Had they seen what they just saw? Did an eighty-foot boat just disappear?

  The message was radioed to the Navy ships guarding the mouth of the harbor. The commander of the small fleet, Captain Ghundeep, received the message. He was well connected with the Navy procurement process and aware that KDDE had the capability to manufacture submarines, and, in fact had, sold several to the Navy.

  “They’re below the surface,” he said over the ship-to-ship radio frequency. “Everyone, watch your sonar and be ready to drop torpedoes in the water.”

  The warships carried a copious supply of Italian A-244S ship-to-sub torpedoes, and Captain Ghundeep would have dropped a dozen into the water the moment any submarine appeared on his sonar screens. None did.

  As he was waiting to give the order, the Allegro Star stealthily crept directly beneath the huge Navy cruisers and headed toward the open ocean. Not so much as a blip registered on the sonar screens.

  31

  The streets of London, England, were heavily guarded, and there was a “no-go” zone established around a circular area extending a good ten blocks in all directions from the Parliament buildings. Beyond the zone were endless parades, protests, and demonstrations. Traffic along the streets of Old London was snarly at the best of times. Now with the G20 meeting, things were a spaghetti tangle of blaring horns, cursing, and diesel fumes. Those with means got out of town.

  The American embassy off Grosvenor Square served as a base of operations for the American contingent, which included the president, the secretary of state, the secretary of commerce, and a host of other officials. More than a thousand heavily armed Marines encircled the embassy. The news media—authentic or fake, depending on perspective—was by itself a cast of thousands. The other nations, most notably the Chinese, the Russians, and the Germans, all had similar security arrangements. If one were to aggregate the costs for all the security, accommodations, travel, and incidentals, the price for bringing twenty world leaders together on one stage for two days was equivalent to the gross domestic product of an average third world nation.

  There were, of course, the main meetings in conference halls and assembly chambers in the Commons, the House of Lords, and a multitude of annexes. But in gatherings like the G20, the real business of assembling partnerships, trade relationships, currency, and debt meetings took place away from the public eye. Much happened that was not reported on. One such meeting took place in a relatively small boardroom in a nook of the Grosvenor Square annex.

  Yousseff Said al-Sabhan remained seated when the door opened, and the American president, together with several Secret Service agents, scribes, and aides entered the room. Yousseff was by himself.

  “Tell everyone to get out,” Yousseff said in nearly perfect Oxford English.

  One of the Secret Service agents protested, as did a number of aides.

  “Stay just on the other side of the door. I will be fine,” said the president.

  “At least let me search this man for weapons or chemicals,” said one of the agents. Yousseff reluctantly agreed, and when it turned out he was implement free, the small crowd exited the room, leaving the two of them. The president sat across the table from Yousseff.

  Yousseff’s eyes locked with the president’s. It was the president who blinked. When he did, Yousseff spoke. “You are aware that Kumar has escaped from Inzar Ghar?”

  The president nodded imperceptibly.

  “He made it to your embassy in Islamabad. From there he was taken to the docks on Karachi Harbor, to my firm, Karachi Dry Dock and Engineering.” Again the president nodded slightly.

  “He slipped by a Naval blockade at the mouth of the outer harbor. He was in one of my experimental ships, the Allegro Star. Here are the engineering drawings showing the outlines and specifications of this craft.” Yousseff flipped a sheet of paper onto the table.

  The president again nodded, looking at the various profiles of the Allegro Star.

  “You have a trillion-dollar intelligence community and security apparatus at your disposal. Everything from satellites to submarines. Find that craft and sink it. With Kumar in it.”

  “Do you know where it could be, which direction it went?”

  “No. But I can tell you that there is a high likelihood two American agents are with him. Zachariah Goldberg and Richard Lawrence. Your military and intelligence agencies will know these two. Enlist these agencies. They, between them, should be able to figure this out. My loss is your loss. My gain is your gain.”

  “And what if I simply tell my agents outside that door to arrest you and slam your terrorist ass in Guantanamo?”

  “Sure, Mr. President. Go ahead and do that. But know that most of our conversations have been recorded. Most of these recordings, in fact, are videos of our meetings. Those videos are lodged in a data farm. In the cloud, as you Americans would say. If I do not make a telephone call to my security people in the next ten minutes, those videos will be uploaded to a Facebook page and dozens of other social media sites. I think it will be your ass that will be in Guantanamo Bay. And if you would care at all to maintain a presence in Afghanistan, you need me.” The president nodded again.

  “Do not ever threaten me, Mr. President. Now find that ship and destroy it.” Yousseff stood up and exited the room. The aides and Secret Service found their president sitting at the table, pale and shaken.

  “What’s going on, sir?” Tyra Baylor asked.

  “Get me CJ,” he said. “I need to speak to the director of the Office
of Naval Intelligence. They need to find a ship for me. This ship.” He slid the drawings of the Allegro Star across the table.

  “Of course, sir, right away,” Tyra replied. “The ONI has many satellites and drones and intelligence-gathering devices on the water. You need to find a ship? They can find a twelve-foot car topper in the middle of the Pacific should that become necessary.”

  The Allegro Star was speeding at an astonishing rate of sixty knots some fifty miles off the Goa coast of Western India. The craft was designed so that at top speed, the central fuselage, containing the navigation area and small living quarters, would lift out of the water, and the struts attached to the two outriggers were displaced downward in relation to it. Once the speed exceeded fifty knots, the only portion of the craft touching the water’s surface were the thin hydrodynamic outriggers and the main propeller assembly, reducing the water resistance by almost 90 percent. The craft was stabilized by a series of flaps, ailerons, and horizontal and vertical stabilizers, all controlled by the computers in the navigation center. There was more jet than ship in her DNA.