1
I AM BECOME DEATH
Somewhere in Pakistan. June 3.
The coal-black of Waseem Jarrah’s hair was distinguishable only by a chiseled patch of white that tore through one side. Jarrah, the most wanted terrorist in the world, put his hands on the trembling nineteen-year-old’s shoulders.
“Khalid Kunde, your time is near,” he said. “You are a soldier of Allah, and Allah’s rewards will be grand. Remember, what you go to do now is but the first step.”
A tear welled in the young man’s eye, yet did not fall.
“I will not fail you,” the apprentice replied.
“You are the younger brother of Shakey Kunde. His name is legend. His efforts to detonate a nuclear device on American soil were valiant, his sacrifice noble. But he failed in his ultimate mission. Nevertheless, he sits at the right hand of Allah, as will you. Do you know the words?”
The young man knew Jarrah wanted him to quote the words of Robert Oppenheimer, the original inventor of the atomic bomb.
Khaild nodded his head in affirmation, stared at the floor, then choked out, “The words are, I am become death.”
Jarrah’s eyes widened as he basked in the glow of his new apprentice. He replied, “The destroyer of worlds.”
2
A SLEEPING ISLAND
NATO Listening Post, Kosrae Island, Micronesia. The Solomon Sea, 1,379 nautical miles north-northeast of Papua New Guinea. June 19, 11:33 p.m. local time (8:33 a.m. EST).
“You hear the chatter last night about the spy plane, that Air Force RC-135?”
“The Cobra Ball? Yeah. I think they were just flying around monitoring a Russki thing though.”
“Which Russian thing?”
“Same old thing. Naval maneuvers. A pretty boring night, as usual.”
“The Cobra Ball flying that same figure-eight pattern they normally do?”
“From what we could tell by watching on radar, yeah. But, they were way the hell out there, on the edge of our radar cup. We were only able to . . .” His attention diverted to a computer monitor in front of him. “Wait, did you see that? What the hell?”
A radar alarm blared on speakers mounted overhead and the two men scrambled to place headphones over their ears.
“Holy shit, that’s a missile launch!” one said.
The other keyed his headset then spoke into the mic. “NATO COMSAT, NATO COMSAT, this is Listening Post Kosrae one niner two. We’ve just detected a missile launch. Currently tracking an inbound hostile from North Korean airspace. Can you confirm?”
A crackle from his headset replied. “LP Kosrae one niner two, this is COMSAT. Roger that, Kosrae. We see the launch, but we’ve got no track. You are our eyes.”
“Understood, COMSAT. We see the inbound from central North Korean airspace, pushing through six thousand feet. Banking, banking now, turning due east. The heat signature of the missile registers as a Taepodong or Taepodong-2 class ICBM. This is the real thing. Repeat, this is not a drill. Given attitude, altitude, and direction, this could be a North Korean attack on Japan, sir. The hostile is headed right for them.”
“Roger that, Kosrae. All stations have just been issued the alert command.”
“The bird is increasing in altitude. The computer is recalculating the flight path. Hold on . . . I don’t think its target is Japan, sir. At that altitude, the hostile will fly right over.”
“What else is directly along that trajectory?” the other man said. “I don’t care how far away it is. We’ve got to know what they’re shooting at.”
The operator traced his finger across the map on the computer monitor. “Let’s see, there’s the Midway Islands, but there’s nothing there. After that . . . oh shit.” The two operators looked at each other. “Hawaii.”
The computer recalculated and spit out new coordinates for the projected trajectory of the hostile missile, and its most likely destination:
Latitude: 22-01’10” N — Longitude: 160-06’02” W
Lehua, Kauai, HI
“Oh my God, you’re right. The computer confirms. It’s Hawaii. Find out what’s on the island of Lehua. Not that it’ll matter if that ICBM showers the entire island chain with multiple independent warheads. The entire Hawaiian population will be incinerated.” He keyed his headset again. “COMSAT, this is LP Kosrae. We’ve got confirmation.” He read off the coordinates. “It’s Hawaii, sir. Lehua, Kauai, Hawaii.”
There was no reply from the other side. Only static.
“Sir?”
“Ah, roger that, Kosrae. Estimated time till impact?”
“Based on the calculated distance of 4,485 miles from the original source to target, and the fact that the hostile is now suborbital, traveling at an estimated 13,200 miles per hour, the computer estimates time till impact at three and one half minutes. That would make it exactly 3:32 a.m. Hawaii local time.”
3
TO NEW BEGINNINGS
Headquarters of the National Security Agency, aka, “The Box.” Ft. Meade, Maryland. June 19.
In the NSA command center, the months had passed. First one, then another, and Cade wondered where they went. The passage of time knows no enemies. It has no friends. It holds no grudges. It’s only solace is that it never changes, except when there is a hole in your life that you cannot fill.
Cade stared across the room at Knuckles. Ever since he had met the kid, he wondered how old he was. For all Knuckle’s intelligence experience as an analyst at the National Security Agency, the chin on the kid’s face could barely produce peach fuzz. He looked sixteen, maybe younger. Regardless, Cade knew the kid had brainpower that rivaled even “Uncle” Bill Tarleton, the NSA section chief, and the most brilliant code breaker in NSA’s history.
Knuckles looked at Cade, who was still staring at him. “You look like you’re trying to conjure the next winning numbers in the Pennsylvania state lottery,” Knuckles laughed. “I know you’re dying to find out how old I am. I’m twelve years old.”
“No you’re not,” Cade said. “You’re older than that. Come on, how old are you?”
“Not in this lifetime, pal.”
“Oh come on. We work at the NSA. We’re supposed to be able to find out anything about anyone. You know I can find out.”
“Personnel records are sealed, bright guy,” Knuckles said. “Although . . .”
“Although what?”
“We could work a trade.”
“What kind of a trade?”
“You teach me how to talk to girls, I’ll tell you my real age.”
Cade stared back, grinned, and then started to laugh until people turned to see what was going on.
“You want me to teach you how to talk to girls? I couldn’t talk my way out of a paper bag where girls are concerned. Now, my friend, Kyle, he’s who you want. He could convince a girl . . .”
“Well,” Knuckles said, “from what Uncle Bill tells me, you and that hot FBI agent seemed pretty tight.”
The prior year, during what was known as the Thoughtstorm case, Cade had become the FBI’s only insider in the sweeping terrorism investigation. At the time, he worked as a hardware systems administrator for Thoughtstorm, Inc. When it turned out Thoughtstorm was involved with terrorists, he found himself in the middle of the biggest terrorism investigation since 9/11. It had been the beautiful female federal agent that had convinced him to be a material witness in the first place, and now he was in love with her.
Cade looked down. “Yeah, I know. She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever been around. We worked so closely during the Thoughtstorm case. Things were so intense. I don’t know, I guess we just spent so much time together that we kind of became a couple there for a while.”
As the case ended, Uncle Bill had offered Cade an analyst role. Working at NSA had never occurred to Cade. But, with his old job as a systems administrator at Thoughtstorm gone, the idea of being more involved in espionage work appealed to him.
“But what about now? You’re not together?”
“Doesn’t seem that way, no. I wonder about it all the time. Whether coming to work here was worth it. Sometimes I feel like I stepped into a really cool new career for myself, but I lost Jana in the process. She spent so much time at Bethesda Medical Center recovering from the shooting. I spent a long time watching over her, first in the intensive care unit, then all that time in physical therapy. To tell you the truth, she shouldn’t have survived it. But, the good thing is, she’s been back at Quantico for a few weeks, trying to get in shape to requalify for active duty.”
The hardest part in Cade’s decision to work at the NSA had been separating from Jana. He may have been in love with her, but he had never known if she felt the same way. And, he had always known she was way out of his league to begin with. Both Jana and Agent Kyle MacKerron were now back at the FBI Academy at Quantico, regaining their strength, healing from physical injuries, and requalifying as federal agents. For Cade, who now lived in Maryland near the headquarters of the NSA, having the two of them nearby at Quantico was both heavenly and torturous at the same time. They were close, but he rarely saw them.
“I go over there whenever she lets me,” Cade said. “We’re both just so busy, you know? I get the feeling she’s pulling away from me, almost as if she knows she’s only going to be at the academy for a short time, then she’ll get assigned to a duty station far away from here.”
“Where’s she going to be stationed?”
“From what FBI Director Latent tells me, due to her heroism during the Thoughtstorm case, she can choose to be stationed wherever the hell she wants.”
4
WEAPONS GRADE POSTURING
Outside the United Nations Headquarters building, New York. June 19.
“Okay, Mike,” the cameraman said, “they’re cutting to us live in three, two . . .”
“This is Mike Slayden, WBS News, reporting live from UN headquarters in New York. More info coming in on yesterday’s statements made by supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, Jeong Suk-to. As you know, the country of North Korea has become a thorn in the side of the United States, as well as other nations. Supreme leader Jeong Suk-to’s consistent rhetoric and threats have alarmed world leaders. This morning, United Nations Secretary-General Ashanti Birungi made a statement in front of the UN General Assembly. Mr. Birungi stated, and I quote, ‘The North Korean government has made past claims as having achieved the manufacture of fissile nuclear material. Although these claims are as yet unsubstantiated, the United Nations has issued an edict to Supreme Leader Jeong Suk-to urging him to immediately withdraw his quest to obtain a nuclear weapon. North Korea now also claims to be nearing launch capability. If weapons-grade fissile material is combined with a long-range missile, the threat to human life is great. The time is near and the United Nations must act.’
“Tension between North Korea and Western allies has grown considerably in past months as the North Korean leader continues in a tirade of posturing.
“To further complicate an already escalating situation, in an unrelated issue, the Russian delegation to the UN is pressing the North Korean government as to the whereabouts of one of their delegates, who went missing one month ago on a diplomatic mission to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. North Korean leaders in Pyongyang are refusing comment, fueling further speculation and distrust between Russia and North Korea. We’ll keep you abreast of developments as they unfold. For now, I’m Mike Slayden. Watch your twenty-four-hour news leader, WBS, for news, weather, and traffic on the fives.”
5
THE OVAL OFFICE
The White House, Washington, DC. June 19, 9:35 a.m. EST.
“Mr. President.”
“Goddammit, General, what is it? I’m in the middle of a call with François Hollande!”
“Sir, we’re tracking an inbound. Taepodong-class ICBM from North Korean airspace. Launched just minutes ago.”
The president stared at the man, then blurted into the phone, “Président Hollande, mes excuses. Une situation plus urgente. Urgent matters of state.”
He hung up the phone then looked at the General, whose face looked like the blood had drained from it.
“Where is it headed?” the president said. “Can we intercept?”
“Hawaii, and no.”
“Hawaii? But there’s over a million people in Hawaii! We can’t . . . we can’t shoot down the missile?”
“Population 1.4 million. No sir, we tried. Patriot anti-missile defense systems out at Pearl missed, twice. She slipped through, sir. I’m sorry.”
The president buried his face in his hands.
“Time till impact?”
“Any moment.”
“You can’t mean that!”
“A SATCOM device is being moved in here now, sir. We’ve got two communication uplinks. One to Navy Hawaii Command and the other to a NATO listening post at Kosrae, Micronesia. The listening post is tracking the missile.”
Two young Air Force officers burst into the Oval Office, flanked by the national security advisor and two members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The captain spoke into the SATCOM’s mic. “Go ahead, Kosrae. The president is listening. Repeat what you just said.”
“Roger that, captain. This is NATO listening post Kosrae, Micronesia. The hostile missile is in full descent. Time till impact on the island of Lehua, Kauai, Hawaii, sixty-five seconds.”
“What’s the population of that particular island?” the president said.
“Zero, sir,” the major replied. “Lehua is an uninhabited outlying island of the Hawaiian chain, about twenty miles off Kauai. But I don’t think that matters. If the North Korean government has finally combined long-range-missile launch capabilities with a nuclear tip, we could be looking at a total loss of the Hawaiian Islands.”
“Forty seconds.”
The volume of the president’s voice exploded. “But we’ve had security briefings for months on the topic of whether or not the North Koreans had the technology to combine a long-range rocket with a nuclear tip. Dammit! CIA was so sure that they hadn’t achieved it yet,” the president said as he slammed his fist into the desk. “Why did I listen to them? Shit, we knew they had launch capability, but not the nuclear tip. My God, if I’d only known. If I’d only known. I could have done something . . . but I had no idea that that lunatic leader would actually take a first strike at us. A madman. A madman.”
“Thirty seconds to impact.”
The president paced the room. “How come we’re not hearing from Hawaii Command right now?” he screamed. “Where are they?”
“It’s three thirty in the morning there, sir,” the major said.
“General, bring our military to DEFCON 2,” the president said.
“Fifteen seconds to impact.”
“Ah, sir?” cracked a young voice across the SATCOM radio device. “Ah, this is Seaman Jimmy Timms, Hawaii Command. Third watch, post number four, sir.”
“Seaman Timms, this is Major Walter R. Robbins, United States Air Force. Son, just stay on the line with us.”
“Yes, sir,” the young seaman mumbled.
“Ten seconds to impact. Nine, eight, seven . . .”
“Ah, sir, what impact?” Seaman Timms said with all the timidity of a mouse.
“Three, two, one,” the operator at LP Kosrae said. “Hostile missile is down. Hostile is down.”
The president’s hands dug into his hairline and he leapt toward the SATCOM device. “Seaman Timms, are you still with us? Son? Are you there? Dear God, where is he?”
“Yes, sir. I’m here, sir. I just, I don’t understand what’s happening. What was that countdown? I don’t know who I’m on the line with, sir.”
The men in the Oval Office looked at one another. The general whispered, “I don’t know. Maybe it didn’t detonate?”
“Don’t you worry about that right now,” the Major said. “You just talk to us, son. Tell us where you are stationed and what your duties are.” He released the mic and said, “General, this seaman would be stationed on Kauai, correct? Kauai is just twenty miles due east of the missile impact zone. If a nuclear blast just occurred, he’d be able to see it. Hell, he should be dead right now.”
“That’s correct, Major.”
Seaman Timms droned on in the background about his duty station, what his duties were, where he was raised, his mother’s favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies, which he was currently enjoying. The major interrupted him. “Seaman Timms, can you pinpoint which direction is west of you right now?”
“West? Well sure, sir. The sun sets just past the flag pole right out the window over there . . .”
“Son, stand up and look to the west. Tell us what you see.”
“Yes, sir. Ah, sir, I don’t see anything really. Just darkness. It’s the middle of the night here. I mean, I can see the flagpole, of course, but after that, the hillside slopes off and drops down to the beach. But off in the distance, if that’s what you mean, I can’t see anything. No lights or anything like that, sir.”
“All right, Timms, just keep looking out in that direction and report anything unusual. Someone will stay on the line with you. Thank you, son.”
“Listening post, Kosrae,” the Major said into the SATCOM. “Can you confirm a detonation?”
“Negative, sir. We see no detonation signature.”
The president was the first to speak. “What the hell happened? The missile didn’t detonate? Was it a dud?”
The general answered. “That’s what we’ll want to discuss with the Joint Chiefs. But if you ask me, it was no dud. My bet is that the psychotic leader of North Korea is playing with us. He’s taunting us. He wants us to know he can get us whenever he wants. He’s crazy enough to do it, and he’s this close to putting a nuclear tip on one.”
“A madman. An absolute madman,” the president said as he straightened his hair. He cast a gaze on National Security Advisor James Foreman.
Foreman registered the president’s piercing gaze and a cold shiver rode his spine.
“General,” continued the president, “cancel that order to take us to DEFCON 2. Let’s find out if the public knows about this missile launch. If not, keep it quiet, very quiet. I don’t want a panic on our hands.”
The president stared out the window in the Oval Office. “Something is going to have to be done about North Korea.”
6
QUANTICO
FBI Academy, Marine Corps Base Quantico, Quantico, Virginia. About twenty-seven miles south of Washington, DC. June 19.
Jana pushed upwards, but the hill was daunting. Not only was she out of shape after spending four months at the hospital and physical rehabilitation center, but hot pain radiated from her spine. On that day at the bluegrass festival in Kentucky, one of the bullets fired by Shakey Kunde had pierced her Kevlar vest, clipped the seventh thoracic vertebrae, and come within a fraction of a millimeter of piercing her spinal cord. Had that happened, she’d have been strapped into a wheel chair for the rest of her life.
The physical pain wasn’t so bad when she was sitting or holding still. And sometimes walking wasn’t so bad. But running the obstacle course at the FBI training ground on the Marine base at Quantico resulted in a thrash of pain that pounded with each step. She began to hate her running shoes, although she knew they had nothing to do with it. And at one hundred and seventy-five dollars a pair, they’d better not.
Surrounded by a new class of FBI trainees traversing the running trail at Quantico, she struggled to keep pace. All but a few were faster than she was, and weakness lay on her mind like a cold weight. Pain or no pain, Jana wasn’t giving up, and she damn well wasn’t going to tell anyone about it. The FBI and its male-dominated leadership would just have to accept the fact that she was as tough as they were. She had proven that once already by jumping into the line of fire and facing down a terrorist.
Physical pain was one thing, but it was the mental demons that Jana found most disturbing. The bullets not only tore holes in her body, they tore a vicious gash up the middle of her psyche as well. And the damage to her psyche carried a much deeper component to it than she let on.
She first noticed it on the firing range after detecting a slight tremble in her right hand. The tremble came and went, but became most pronounced when she was on the firing line with her finger on the trigger of her SIG Sauer. Then, things got worse. Just the sound of gunfire began to unnerve her. Waiting her turn on the firing line began to rattle her to the core.
Worst were the nights when she’d wake from one of two recurring nightmares. In the first, Jana found herself dangling from the stairwell on the twelfth floor of the Thoughtstorm building. Gunfire permeated the space, and the air was filled with white smoke that felt like acid in her lungs. Her friend, Agent Kyle MacKerron, leaned over the stairs and put a vice grip on her arm. He was yelling to her, you go, we go! But then an eruption of gunfire tore through Kyle, killing him, and Jana fell down, down, down, into a screaming oblivion.
In the second, she’d relive the horrifying scene at the bluegrass festival. In the dream, she ran full speed toward the white van; its sides brightly decorated with a bouquet of balloons. She fired three rounds into the lock of the back door, ripped it open, and found herself face to face with Kunde. Then her gun would jam. The horrifying face of the terrorist roared, and he fired repeated rounds into her chest. He laughed a monstrous laugh, then plunged his hand into the steel canister and detonated the nuclear device. The white-hot flash was blinding. And afterward, Jana would face the horrors of the dead. They walked the earth all around her, most of their flesh burned off from the nuclear radiation.
In both dreams, Jana would awaken, screaming. Since she was not technically a member of this new class of FBI recruits, Jana had been assigned a dorm room all to herself. That was a good thing because not a single time had someone heard her scream in the night. If they had, they would have been duty-bound to report the dangerous post-traumatic stress that embroiled much of her sleeping and waking hours. Jana could tell no one. She was alone, alone with her fears.
And the truth was, she missed being around Kyle now that his retraining period at Quantico was over, and he had been reassigned. But mostly, she missed Cade, although she would never admit it.
7
THE FIFTEENTH PROTOCOL
The White House. The next day, June 20, 6:17 a.m. EST.
“It’s confirmed then?” the president said.
“Yes, sir,” replied his national security advisor, James Foreman.
“No doubt?”
“None.”
The president faced away, his silhouette etched into brilliant morning light pouring from the window in the Oval Office. “I want it done. And no one can know. I want the full plan. Everything we discussed.” He turned back around, yet, in the stark morning light, none of his facial features were discernible. “I want it done, I said.”
“But, sir . . .” trembled Foreman’s reply. His voice was hoarse, with a touch of gravel.
“I’m not asking. And I’m not going over it again,” the president said. “The decision is made. We’d already planned for this contingency. Now, I’m adjusting our timetable and moving it forward. Look at me, Foreman. There can be no mistakes. It has to look like someone else did it. You make damn sure of that.” The president handed the man a single sheet of paper—presidential authorization for the operation to take place. “If I ever see this paper again, it’ll be your ass.”
As the national security advisor took the paper, he looked like a man receiving a jury’s unpleasant verdict. At the top of the document, just below the presidential seal, it read:
Classified: 15.8. E.O.
Access level C12 eyes only.
James Foreman did not have to read the rest. He knew what it said. His stomach churned—an ominous sign—and acid began to rise in his esophagus.
“Fifteen point eight,” Foreman whispered. “President Palmer. My God, sir. The fifteenth . . .” his voice skipped and his hands began to feel clammy, “the fifteenth protocol.”
The president sat at his desk and immersed himself in his work. Foreman knew it was too late for talk. He stood to leave, but his legs were shaking so badly he flopped back down. He exhaled, then stood once more and traversed the room, allowing the door to close behind him. He stopped just outside at the desk of the president’s personal assistant to steady himself, then walked past two Secret Service agents before darting into the nearest restroom. It was a one-man’er that sat just twenty-five feet down the side hallway. No sooner had the door swung closed behind him did he begin to vomit. He didn’t stop retching until there was nothing but bile. He was too late—too late to stop the operation from going forward.
8
THE CALM OF THE AEGEAN
French research vessel Marion Dufresne II, the Aegean Sea. Three nautical miles north-northwest of the Isle of Kia. August 29th.
“Come right bearing two two five, Mr. Cameron.”
“Oui, capitaine.”
“The seas are finally calm enough,” the captain said from his leather seat inside the bridge. He propped his feet up. “It’s about time. Any more weather delays and we’d all have been about out of a job again.”
“Was it that bad, Captain?” Jean-Paul Cameron, the steersman, said.
“Was it that bad? You should hear the ship’s owners complaining. Do you know what it costs to run a ship this size?”
“No, sir. Sir? Aren’t we just about on top of the coordinates of the resting place of the HMHS Britannic? The one that hit a mine back in the First World War and sank?”
“Yes, Jean-Paul, yes. We are very close now.”
“Is that where we are going, sir? Are we going to deploy the deep submergence vehicle, the DSV mini-submarine, to the ocean bottom to study the wreckage?”
“No, my young sailor, no. The university has no such appetites. No, this time our ship is filled to the brim with scientists. Oceanographers and geologists. They are interested in studying the minor geologic fault lines that run in between Kea and the Greek mainland. They say our mini-sub will submerge from our decks, then attempt to locate and map them.”
“Sir? Each vessel at sea has a name, no? What is the name of our little sub?
“The DSV Nautile.” The captain smiled. “So many questions.”
“We have a full boat then, sir?”
“Yes, Jean-Paul, a full boat indeed. Full of people smarter than you or me.”
“Hmm. I wonder what our chef, Rémi, will cook for us tonight. He studied at the Sorbonne, you know—”
A booming rumble that sounded like a muffled explosion rattled through the bridge. An emergency water-sensor alarm pulsed overhead, indicating that the hull had been breached.
“Merde,” the captain said as he launched from his chair and grabbed a microphone. “All hands, all hands. This is the capitaine. Situation report. All stations, report in.”
Four more explosive rumbles shuddered through the ship’s superstructure at perfect one-second intervals. New alarms sounded on the control panel, indicating flooding in all four water-tight compartments.
“Capitaine! What’s happening?” Jean-Paul stammered. “Did we hit something?”
“No, those were explosions of some kind. Besides, there’s nothing out here to hit. It’s a crystal-clear day. We must have had a catastrophic mechanical failure. The control panel indicates flooding below decks. How do we have flooding? Where are my status reports?” He punched three numbers into the phone keypad. “Engine room? Engine room?” he was yelling. “Pierre? Bastien? Is that you? I can barely hear you. What happened?” The captain concentrated on the screaming man’s reply. “A what? Sabotaged? What do you mean we’ve been sabotaged? Can you—”
A final explosive rumble, this one clearly audible in the phone, shook the bridge. The phone line went dead.
“My God,” the captain mumbled. He looked at Jean-Paul. “Everyone in the engine room was yelling. I couldn’t understand, but they were saying something about a bomb, that we’ve been sabotaged. I don’t understand. We are a research vessel. Why would anyone bomb a research vessel?”
“Sir!” stammered Jean-Paul. “What do we do?”
“The whole engine room is flooding. I think they’re all dead. Send out an SOS. Do it now, son. Hurry. We’re sinking and we’ve got to get everyone off.” He punched more numbers into the keypad activating the overhead speaker system throughout all compartments of the ship. “This is the captain speaking. Abandon ship. Abandon ship. This is not a drill. All passengers and crew, abandon ship. This is not a drill. Move to the nearest life-boat station as calmly and quickly as possible. Abandon ship. All crew, all crew, man the life boats . . .”
9
SHE’S READY
FBI Academy, leadership reaction and obstacle course. September 1.
“Come on, Baker! Make that hill one more time!” the instructor yelled.
Jana’s lungs burned and her spine screamed in pain, but her face looked like gritty steel. If there was one thing she resolved of herself, it was to never let them see her pain. And certainly, never let them see the demons that now prowled inside her, lurking in the deep recesses of her mind. The demons only came in the quiet times, and Jana did whatever she had to do to keep them at bay.
Through the dirt-trodden trails, woven between pine trees, the hilly “leadership reaction and obstacle course” snaked through the woods of the Marine Corps base like an angry child who was never satisfied. It formed a loop with no start and no end. And, like a spoiled child, it demanded and demanded. The trail knew no mercy and felt nothing of the agony it extracted as pounding feet coursed through its veins. It lived and breathed and demanded food in the form of sweat and toil. And when it didn’t get what it wanted, it threw a lashing tantrum and would not stop until it had blood.
Jana chugged further and further up the last daunting hill, the one Quantico trainees had nicknamed the widow-maker. The hill was one hell of a piece of work. But the hill wasn’t the problem. The problem was that FBI trainers liked to end their training runs with the widow-maker. The instructors pushed each trainee to his or her breaking point across the unforgiving woodland trails. Then, when the trainee was about to crack, the group would round the last bend toward the widow-maker. In every training class, more than one trainee would succumb to the hill’s sheer size and power. To them, it represented a monster that exposed their true fear. But to Jana, the hill was just another challenge, one that the male instructors thought the females couldn’t conquer. It represented one more mocking sneer in a male-dominated culture, and she was determined to be viewed as an equal.
The worst part for the newest trainees was how the instructors would charge them up the hill at the highest speed possible, burning out every last ounce of breath, fortitude, and pain. Then, the trainees learned the truth—once they reached the top, the run was not over. It was just their assumption. In true FBI fashion, instructors would point them down the hill, then back up, and repeat. If ever there was a place that could push a recruit past their breaking point, this was it.
Jana hated it and loved it at the same time. It represented another ass for her to kick, another challenge she would eat for breakfast, another notch in her belt. Her silent motto had been yes, I’m a girl—try to keep up.
She looked down from atop the hill at the rabble of male trainees still slogging upwards. Some looked like they were running while standing still, and one was on all fours, crawling upward in a never-ending fight to reach the top. Back when Jana herself had been a new FBI trainee, she thought it pathetic to see another trainee literally crawling up the widow-maker. But now, watching this man, something changed in her thinking. Instead of feeling disgust, Jana felt a jolt of inspiration. The trainee was in an epic struggle against himself, and he wouldn’t give up. He was well past his physical limits, yet he fought on. It catapulted her back to her time in the intensive care unit when she had overheard her physician say, she’s a fighter and it’s the fighters that survive.
Jana ran down the hill toward the man. She’d seen him before. He was the typical age for a new trainee, around twenty-eight, and was a little out of shape. But he had a fight in him that came from somewhere deep down. He’s got guts, and guts is enough, she thought. She dropped onto all fours next to him and began yelling, “Come on! Don’t let this hill beat you! You’re better than this! One hand in front of the other. One at a time, you can do this, that’s it!” Other trainees already at the top turned around, then went down to join Jana to cheer on their classmate. Soon, everyone joined in. It was a glimpse into the spirit of the word “teamwork,” and into a brotherhood few people ever see.
At the top of the hill, two instructors wearing embroidered golf shirts and navy-colored FBI ball caps nodded to one another. One said, “She’s almost ready.”
The other replied, “Thank God. Call the director.”
“Call the director? What are you talking about?”
“He’s been calling to ask about her progress every damn day for the last three weeks.”
Section Two
An October Storm
10
THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
Submarine USS Colorado, near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. October 16, 1:01 a.m. local time (Oct. 15, 4:01 p.m. EST).
The intercom in the control room of the submarine cracked to life as the sonar operator, Petty Officer Third Class Thomas, stationed in an adjoining compartment, called to the captain in the control room. “Conn, Sonar. New sonar contact bearing 025. Designate contact, Sierra One.”
“Sonar, conn, aye,” the captain replied. He then asked, “Is it surface traffic?”
“No, sir. This contact is submerged. It’s a long way out. About twelve thousand yards off the starboard bow. Can’t identify. The computer’s chewing on it now, sir.”
“Sonar, conn, aye.” The captain turned to the executive officer. “XO, slow to ahead two-thirds. Station the section-tracking party. We expecting any company?”
“Aye, sir. Helm, all ahead two-thirds.”
“All ahead two-thirds, Helm, aye,” another sailor said.
The executive officer picked up a mic. “Station the section-tracking party.” He then turned to the captain. “No, sir. Latest intelligence shows nothing on the boards. Sure as hell wouldn’t expect to find another sub out here.”
“Conn, sonar,” sonar operator Thomas called, “I’ve got a possible ID on that contact, sir, but you’re not going to like it.”
“Whad’ya got, Thomas? The computer can’t identify it definitively? I’ve got to know if this is a hostile, son.”
“At this distance, the computer is only offering up a guess.” Thomas winced as he delivered the news that this was an older-class ballistic missile submarine. “But, it’s designated the contact as a Delta IV.”
“A Delta IV? A Russian boomer? You’ve got to be kidding me. And, anyway, every sub the Russians ever built is in that computer’s database. How could it not know for sure?” the captain said.
“I don’t know, sir. But I’ve refocused the sonar at the contact’s bearing to see if I can get a better reading. And there’s something strange. I can hear the turning of the screws.” Thomas tried to imagine a sub, its propellers turning while it sat dead in the water. “But it’s like the Russian sub’s not in motion, sir.” Something about the thought chilled him.
“What do you mean the sub isn’t in motion? You just said the screws are turning.”
“Yes, sir. From what I can hear, I’d say the sub is not in motion. The computer agrees. It’s weird, the screws are turning but the contact isn’t advancing forward. And, I’m hearing . . .”
“Hearing what?”
“Grinding, sir. I hear a grinding sound.”
Lieutenant Commander Omansky, executive officer of the USS Colorado, leaned toward the captain. “Sir, what if the Russian is grounded? It would make sense, right? The screws are making revolutions but the boat’s on the bottom, causing the grinding sound.”
“If it hit the floor, why the hell would it still have its screws making revolutions?”
“Conn, sonar,” sonar operator Thomas called, “I can hear . . . its, shit, it’s cavitating. I’m definitely picking up the heavy sounds of bubble formation and their subsequent popping. But, I don’t get it. We normally only hear that when a propeller suddenly increases in speed.”
“So?”
“The sound isn’t coming from the screws, sir.”
“Christ, if it’s not coming from the screws, what’s causing the cavitation sounds then? What the hell is going on?”
“At this distance, the sounds are very faint, but it’s definitely cavitating. I can hear a huge plume of bubbles. It’s like they’re escaping from the hull. It’s just that I can’t—I can’t make it out, sir.” He paused, listening to the diminutive sounds. “Ow, shit!”
The sonar operator yanked the headset off, wincing against a sudden loud noise.
“Sonar, conn, what’s going on?”
“Sir, I think the contact’s hull just breached!”
“What?”
“There was a huge, metallic cracking sound. Sounded like the hull just cracked wide open. I could hear water rushing in. That submarine is flooding with water, sir.”
Spinning around, the captain called out. “XO, man battle stations. Come right, heading 025. All ahead two-thirds.”
11
THE TURNING OF THE SCREWS
Submarine USS Colorado. October 16, 1:02 a.m. local time. The Persian Gulf (Oct. 15, 4:02 p.m. EST).
“Aye, sir.” The chief of the watch ripped a microphone from above his head and issued the command. “Battle stations. This is not a drill.”
In every compartment of the boat, warning lights illuminated, indicating the heightened state of alert. Men scrambled through hatches to their stations both fore and aft.
In the adjoining compartment, the sonar supervisor said to the sonar operator, Petty Officer Third Class Thomas, “Concentrate, Thomas. This is the real thing. Just like I showed you.”
The sonar operator placed the headphones back over his ears, but held them just off his head, fearing another loud cracking sound. The captain rushed into the tight space and leaned over his shoulder.
“Tell him what you heard,” the sonar supervisor said.
“Sir,” Thomas said, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow, “what I heard sounded more like a sub sitting on the bottom with its screws turning. Then the sub cracked apart and water rushed in.”
“Before it cracked up, was there a high-speed screw? Did it sound like a torpedo hit the Russian?”
“No, sir. No torpedo in the water.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. No explosion? Well, it didn’t hit a mine. All right, widen your sonar listening zone. We can’t go tunnel vision and focus on just this one thing. We’ve got to know if there’s anything else out there. If someone attacked that submarine before we came into the area, we have to know who.”
“Aye, sir,” Thomas said.
“What’s the range to the downed sub?” the captain asked.
“We’ve closed to about six thousand yards, sir,” replied the sonar operator. He pushed his hand against his headset in order to listen closer. “Wait, sir, I think I’ve got a new contact. That’s affirmative. Designate the contact Sierra Two, bearing 029. It’s submerged also . . . it’s a high-speed screw! Wait, what the hell? Hold on, it’s a high-speed screw all right, but it’s definitely not a torpedo. I’d say it’s at about ten thousand yards.”
“Another submerged contact? Can you identify?”
“Not yet, sir. It’s definitely another sub, but it doesn’t sound very large, though. The revolution of the screw . . . Jesus Christ. It’s very high pitched. What the hell is that?”
The captain turned toward the executive officer and said, “I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re not taking any chances. XO, flood torpedo tubes one and four.”
“Aye, Captain. Fire control, flood tubes one and four.”
“It’s . . . it’s tiny,” the sonar operator said, still listening with intent to the high-speed sounds of a submerged propeller. “Ah . . . computer’s coming back now, sir. Computer identifies Sierra Two as the Nautile, a deep submergence vehicle. It’s French. DSVs are used for research, aren’t they, sir?”
Tension vacated the captain’s brow.
“A DSV? Hell, there can’t be more than ten DSVs in active service in the entire world. What is a French DSV doing out here in the Persian Gulf? What’s her length, son?”
The sonar operator focused on the details displayed on the computer monitor. “DSV Nautile is only twenty-five feet long, sir. No wonder it sounded so tiny on sonar. It says she’s equipped with the usual research gear, cameras, lighting equipment, two robotic arms, maximum depth of . . .”
“All right,” the captain said, “that’s a civilian mini-sub. It’s no threat. You scared the shit out of me. Any other traffic on sonar, Thomas? I doubt that DSV is out here on its own. It would have to be with a larger research ship nearby.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got surface traffic. Nothing hostile though. I’ve got a Russian fishing trawler about ten thousand yards off the port quarter, and a Chinese oil tanker about three thousand yards closer. She sounds low in the water; probably topped off with crude. And . . . a ship the computer identifies as the Padma, a research ship; one of those with the split stern. She’s Pakistani flagged. Maybe that explains the DSV in the area?”
“Roger that. Deep submergence vehicles are lowered from the deck of a research vessel into the water by a crane. Or, they use a split-stern vessel like this ship has to deploy from.”
“The computer’s now got more data about the first submarine, our downed Russian, sir,” Thomas said. “Since we’re closer now, the sounds detected by sonar are clearer, and the computer’s been able to definitively identify it. It’s a Delta IV-class all right. It’s a sub called the Simbirsk. It says she’s a Russian boomer . . . but, wait, I don’t get it. Sir? The computer says the Simbirsk was decommissioned in 1996 and scrapped in 2008. This sub isn’t supposed to be in service anymore.”
The captain shook his head then walked back to the control room, studying the computer printout. “Great. I’ve got a computer telling me a Russian ballistic missile submarine has magically come back to life out of the scrapyard and has cracked apart four thousand yards in front of me. That’s quite a magic trick. The damn thing’s so old that my dad probably chased it around in his submarine days during the Cold War. All right, people, let’s work up closer to this thing. We need to find out what happened to it, and fast. Sonar?” the captain called into the open mic.
“Conn, sonar, aye.”
“You hear a sound, anything strange, I mean anything, you call it out, son. I don’t care what it is.”
“Aye, sir,” the sonar operator said.
“Is that little DSV mini-sub still pushing away from us along the same course?” the captain asked.
“Aye, sir,” said STS3 Thomas, still pressing his hand against his headset. “Sir?”
“What is it, Thomas”
“Well, speaking of the DSV, I know it’s just a civilian craft, but you said to point out anything that I hear.”
“And?”
“It doesn’t sound right, sir.”
“How so?”
“Remember how at first I said it was a high-speed screw, and thought it was a torpedo?”
“How could I forget?”
“Well sir, there’s something strange about the pitch of the screw. The pitch is too high. Based on the DSV mini-sub’s listed aspect ratio, displacement, and the current revolution velocity of its screw, the little sub should be moving a lot faster than it is. It sounds heavy in the water, sir. I’m picking up a fair bit of cavitation from the single screw. Under normal operation, that shouldn’t be there. I don’t know if any of this is important, sir. It’s just strange. It almost sounds . . . like she’s weighted down.”
“Conn, aye,” the captain said.
The executive officer leaned toward the captain. “Captain, back to the downed Russian boat, what the hell is going on? We’ve got a ghost Russian sub that was supposedly scrapped several years ago. It obviously wasn’t scrapped, and now seems to be sunk on the ocean floor with its screws still turning. What do you make of it?”
“Damned if I know, Charlie. Maybe it got attacked before we came on scene, or maybe they had an accident on board. Whatever caused it to sink and crack apart might have damaged their propulsion controls. We’re going to have to find out what happened to it, and if they need assistance, fast. There could still be people alive on that thing. But, I agree with Thomas, there’s no way that civilian DSV mini-sub limping off in the distance has anything to do with our downed boat.”
“I agree. What’s the play, sir?”
“We’ll work right up to the downed sub as quickly as possible and find out if there’s any signs of life. If there is, then God help those sailors. We’ll have to notify Fifth Fleet and see what type of rescue assets are in the region. Wait a minute. We’ve got all that hydrographic ultrasound mapping equipment on board, right? Call that civilian geologist up here. Wake him up if you have to. I know that equipment was designed to map the ocean floor, but maybe we can use it to get a view of the Russian sub.”
“Conn, sonar,” cracked the voice of the sonar operator.
“Sonar, conn,” the captain said. “Christ, son. What the hell is it now?” The captain rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry, son. Speak freely.”
“I’ve just been reading historical information about the mini-sub, the DSV Nautile, from the computer, sir.”
“And?”
There was a long pause.
“Sir, the computer says the DSV Nautile was previously attached to a French research ship, the Marion Dufresne.”
“So? What’s the problem?”
“The Marion Dufresne was reported lost at sea. Three months ago, in the Aegean. She was sabotaged. Some of the crew were rescued. But everything, including the DSV Nautile, were assumed a total loss.”
The captain’s shoulders slumped and he looked at the executive officer. “No one’s ever going to believe us. You just can’t make this stuff up.”
12
BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE TAKES A SHOT AT US
Submarine USS Colorado. The Persian Gulf. October 16, 1:24 a.m. local time (Oct. 15, 4:24 p.m. EST).
A clean-cut man dressed in civilian clothes rubbed his eyes, ducked his head as he passed through an open hatch into the control room, then said, “You asked to see me, sir?”
“You’re the geologist, right?”
“Yes, sir. Carl Branson.”
“Yes, thank you for reporting, Mr. Branson. Look, we’ve got a situation here and I need your help.”
“Yeah, when the boat went to battle stations, I kind of figured something was up. Some kind of a drill?”
“Tell me more about the ultrasound equipment you’ve got on board. I know the admiral has us mapping the ocean floor throughout the Persian Gulf region, but what I need to know is, how accurate are the images the equipment can produce? What kind of resolution can you get?”
“The equipment is state of the art, Captain. Its topside equivalent would be a camera that could capture a thousand megapixels of detail. If you can get me close enough, I can see a shrimp on the ocean floor and tell you what it had for dinner.”
“Lovely. How quickly can you have the equipment ready?”
“Ready for what, sir? It’s ready now.”
“We’ve just picked up some disturbing sounds on sonar,” the captain said.
“I imagine that’s what the battle-stations drill is all about?”
“This isn’t Hollywood, Mr. Branson. It’s no drill. There could be lives on the line here. I want your full attention. We think a Russian submarine might have just cracked up in front of us. She’s about a thousand yards off our bow at the moment, sitting on the bottom. I’m going to work up close to her and I need you to use your ultrasound equipment to take a look at the bottom. We’ve got to see if we can tell what happened to her, and if they need assistance.”
“Holy shit. It’s not exactly what a geologist is used to doing, is it? The equipment can be ready whenever you are.”
“Get to your duty station. And get on the comm. The executive officer here will go with you. I want as much detail as you can give me about that downed sub, and any damage it might have sustained.”
13
FROM SILENCE TO RUBBLE
Abbattabad, Pakistan. About 316 miles north of Islamabad. Population 916,000.
On a two-lane neighborhood road in Abbattabad, Pakistan, a man sat in a car. Scorching sunlight radiated through the windshield, cooking the dashboard. The car was a nondescript, white four-door with a dent in the left rear quarter panel and a crack in the windshield that ran up the right side. The dinge of a year’s worth of road grime clung to the aging paint the way a shawl might drape a grandmother bracing against the wind.
A woman in a house across the way had taken notice of the car an hour earlier. After checking her front window for a third time and finding the car still there, she removed a broom from her closet, wrapped a hijab over her head, and stepped onto the porch. The car driver was preoccupied and took little notice. He sat staring in the opposite direction, across the street at an abandoned building that had stood shrouded by fourteen-foot walls and secrecy for several years. He didn’t avert his eyes from the structure, he just kept staring.
To the woman, he looked like he was lost in thought and couldn’t break free. She thought this quite odd.
The large compound was vacant, yet had been occupied in the not-so-recent past. During those years, no one in the neighborhood had known who actually lived there. But the secret had finally been revealed. Now that it was completely deserted, she wondered what all the fascination was about.
The compound had a checkered past. During the days of its use, it had many occupants, yet only one owner. At that time, there was no way any of the neighbors could have known who owned the building. The man was never seen, ever. Sometimes other men would come and go from the compound, or women would make their way to market, only to return and disappear behind the heavy steel gates. The cement walls that surrounded the compound were thick and smooth, with no footholds, and towered just higher than the ground floor of the structure. Now, however, the drab-colored walls sported more than just sand-colored paint. The top of one side showed signs from the damage caused that terrifying night of May 1, 2011.
The night seemed so long ago. But in reality, the shock of those events played tricks with the woman’s mind.
The weather had been even hotter than normal, and at about four in the morning she had awoken from a dream in which she had been in a car accident. The sound of shredding metal in the dream had been horrendous. Yet it was actually the sound of something happening at the compound across the street, etching itself into the nightmare. When the woman rose and peered out the front window, what she saw across the street made no sense. Hanging over the top of the smooth cement wall was what appeared to be the tail section of a helicopter. Not shaped like the ones she’d seen coming and going from the Pakistani Military Academy that sat just a mile away, but awkward in shape—it looked more enclosed. It was as though the rotor of the helicopter was built into the tail itself, instead of being mounted on the outside of it. When she saw a second helicopter of the same description fly close overhead, she knew something dreadful was happening.
As bizarre as the sights were, what struck her most was that she had not heard the sounds of either helicopter. No roaring engine, no thumping of rotors thrashing through the night air. It was as though they were silenced. And why would a helicopter try to land inside the walls of that compound in the first place? Did it crash? Was it some kind of new helicopter from the military academy and something went wrong?
It wasn’t until a few moments later that she heard loud popping sounds. They would stay etched in her memory forever, scratched into the fibers of her brain. The first sound was a boom that shook the glass windows. It was almost loud enough to pierce her eardrums. The other sounds were quieter, like firecrackers muffled to a whisper. Whatever was happening across the street had her wide-eyed and gripping the curtains.
The last sight she saw across the road before bolting into her five-year-old’s bedroom was a flash of light and several strange red dots, like those made by laser pointers, dancing their way across the outside of one of the compounds’ upper-floor windows. She grabbed her child in her arms, flipped his bed on its side, and huddled on the ground behind it, her body in between the child and what she only described as “something evil happening across the street.” When the night of terror was over, she silently thanked Allah that they were still alive.
As she refocused on the man in the parked car, she noticed a singular patch of white in his otherwise dark hair. He turned and looked straight at her, his eyes squinting in the bright sunlight. To her, the eyes carried the very essence of the word vengeance. A chill touched her spine near the base of her neck and rode across her shoulders on a shiver. There was something cold about the eyes; something dead.
He looked ahead, started his car, and drove away.
Had she known the driver was the most wanted terrorist in the world, Waseem Jarrah, she would have never made eye contact with him. She later described the stranger as having soulless eyes that seemed to revel in their own pain. Yet in them was painted a deep sense of satisfaction, as someone who had just found what he was looking for, and now knew exactly what to do.
As the car disappeared over the hill, it occurred to the woman that the compound, once the property of Osama bin Laden, was slated for demolition the very next day.
Jarrah looked in his rearview mirror at the woman staring at him as he drove away. A new chapter in his quest for retribution was in motion; retribution for the murder of his mentor.
14
SOUND COLLISION
Submarine USS Colorado. October 16, 1:51 a.m. local time. The Persian Gulf (Oct. 15, 4:51 p.m. EST).
The geologist, Branson, and the executive officer wove their way through the internals of the sub, toward the lowermost deck.
In the control room, the captain said, “Quartermaster, what’s the current sounding?”
“Ocean floor is at seven hundred and seventeen feet, Captain.”
“Roger that.” He turned toward the dive control officer. “Dive control, make your depth six hundred feet. Five degree down bubble. All ahead one-third. Let’s slow the old girl down. Chief of the Boat?”
“Aye, sir,” chirped a reply from the COB, the senior-most enlisted man.
“Radio, conn. Deploy the Deep Siren communications buoy to the surface. We’re going to be sending a coded transmission back to Fifth Fleet.”
“Conn, radio, aye. Prepare for an encoded transmission to Fifth Fleet.”
A young ensign on his first deployment asked the chief, “COB, what’s a Deep Siren?”
“It’s a special buoy made by Raytheon. At the moment, we don’t want to leave our current depth and go close enough to the surface to raise our antenna to radio back to Fleet. And since we can’t send radio transmissions when we’re at this depth, we release a buoy which floats up to the surface. It’s a satellite communications device. We’ll use it to communicate to the Fifth Fleet.”
“How do we retrieve the buoy when we’re done?”
“We don’t.” The chief looked at the captain. “Captain? What’s the message we want to transmit, sir?”
“Just handed it to the radio operator. He’s keying it into the system now. That buoy is rated to float upwards at a rate of about a hundred and fifty feet per minute. Let’s see, if we’re at six hundred feet of depth, that’ll take four minutes to rise to the surface before we can talk with Fifth Fleet. The admiral is never going to believe this. Good Christ, we could be looking at anything from an accident to a deliberate act of war. At any rate, if anyone is alive on that downed boat, a rescue effort has to be launched, and right-the-hell now.”
“Aye, sir,” the COB said. “Sir? Something has been bothering me.”
“Just one thing? What is it COB?”
“It’s just, sir, it feels like we’re smack dab in the middle of someone else’s dogfight. I’d hate to get caught at the scene of the crime, sir.”
The captain stared back at him. “I hear you, COB. That’s part of the reason we need to get this message back to command. I don’t want to get caught down here and have it look like we’re the ones who sank this Russian boat either.” The captain’s banging on the keyboard sounded like an old ticker tape machine gone haywire. He prepared the message describing what they had found, their plans to try to get a look at the sub using the advanced ultrasound mapping equipment, and the list of all other contacts currently on sonar.
“Sonar, conn. Any new contacts, Thomas?”
“Conn, sonar. No, sir. No new contacts.”
“What is the target solution on that DSV mini-sub?” the captain said.
“Conn, sonar. Sierra Two, the DSV mini-sub is proceeding on its original course sir, bearing 029. She’s lugging slowly east, toward Pakistan. She’ll be out of range in about seven minutes, sir.”
“Sonar, Conn, aye. Any sounds of life coming from Sierra One?”
“Conn, sonar. Just the turning of the screws and the same grinding sound. Sounds like metal grinding against sand. Some sounds of air escaping. But, no sir, no sounds that indicate signs of life.”
“Shit.” The captain plucked a sound-powered telephone from above his head to call the executive officer.
LCDR Omansky picked up the phone from the geology workstation in the sub’s lowermost compartment. “XO.”
“XO, get me an update on the ultrasound equipment. Are we ready to deploy the cable? We’re about four hundred yards out from the downed boat.”
“Aye, sir” the XO replied. “The geologist, Mr. Branson, is ready, sir. Permission to start streaming the ultrasound cable?”
“Permission granted. And XO, be sure Mr. Branson records everything, and be sure he understand the gravity of the situation. He’s a civilian, and as much as I love civilians, I’d hate to have to flush him out one of the torpedo tubes if he screws this up.”
“I heard that,” Branson said.
“Aye, sir,” the executive officer said.
“Captain?” the chief of the boat said. “The buoy is away, sir.”
As the Deep Siren communications buoy floated toward the ocean’s surface with its encrypted message in tow, the captain tried to think through all possible scenarios. If the downed submarine was intact, then it was possible that sailors were trapped inside. And in the submarine community, the unwritten code among sailors is that if submariners are trapped, no matter who they are, you do anything you can to help them. Aside from coordinating a rescue effort, the Colorado itself had no means of directly connecting to the downed boat to pull sailors out.
The other conundrum revolved around the fact that this boat was the Simbirsk, a Russian-made ballistic-missile submarine that had reportedly been scrapped years earlier. The captain was disturbed at the very thought of it. If the Russians reported to NATO that they had scrapped the Simbirsk, yet had illegally sold her, what else had they sold, and to whom? There’s no way they’d sell her with warheads aboard, thought the captain, there’s no way.
“Chief of the Boat,” the captain said, “give me a rundown of all systems.”
“Aye, sir,” the chief replied. “We’re at battle stations, torpedo tubes one and four are loaded, tubes are flooded, and outer doors are closed. Depth, six hundred feet. Speed, ahead one-third. The Deep Siren communications buoy is deployed to the surface and still within tactical range. Awaiting further orders from Fifth Fleet. Ultrasound equipment is deployed and is scanning the ocean floor below. The cable is extended to seventy-five yards. Sonar operator listening for any signs of life aboard Sierra One. Sonar also just reported a single surface contact, Sierra Three, an Iranian fishing trawler.”
A young communications officer spoke out. “Sir, incoming message traffic from Fifth Fleet. Received by the buoy, sir.”
A paper printout pushed from a digital printer next to the communications officer. The captain tore it off and read.
“All right, no surprise there. We are to investigate the wreckage with all due priority. No shit.” The captain pulled a phone from the overhead. “XO, how much more time does Mr. Branson need to finish the ultrasound survey? I’m getting nervous hovering over a downed nuclear submarine. Somebody might get the wrong idea. Know what I mean?”
“Aye, sir,” the XO said. “Mr. Branson says his scan will be done within thirty minutes. We’ll be back in the control room after that and can pull up the scans from there. For all his joking around down here, he actually knows what the hell he’s doing.”
“Thirty minutes, huh? Just in time to hit the mess deck,” the captain said.
“Aye, sir. Apparently geologists just love chicken-fried steak and canned oranges. Sir, it will take a good thirty minutes after the ultrasound is completed for the computer to finish crunching the data it gathers. After that, we can look at the high-res images.”
“Conn, aye,” the captain said. “Tell Mr. Branson no steak for him until he’s done.”
The level of tension in the control room was palpable. Most of the sailors had never been under a real battle-stations alert. Sailors on other parts of the USS Colorado began to hear the scuttlebutt that a downed Russian-made submarine was on the ocean floor just below them. It was a sobering thought. Each sailor knew the dangers of their assignments, but none of them actually thought they’d be in a situation like this. The Russian-made sub had sunk, and sunk for a reason. It could have been hit by a torpedo, depth charge, mine, or had some type of internal catastrophe. But with no sounds of life coming from the hull, the full complement of submariners were likely dead.
The executive officer and the geologist walked into the control room. “Captain?” LCDR Omansky said. “The ultrasound scan is completed.”
“We’ll be able to see the first images in the next twenty-five minutes,” Mr. Branson said.
“Thank God. I want to get to the bottom of this, no pun intended, and relay what we find back to fleet. In the meantime, we’ll hold our position until we see what’s down—”
“Conn! Sonar! New contact, designate Sierra Four, bearing 041. It sounds like it’s submerging. I’d say we’ve got a fast-attack boat headed right for us, sir!”
“Range?” the captain yelled.
“About twenty thousand yards. She’s increasing speed. Now that she’s submerged, I’d say she’s doing at least twenty knots.”
“Goddammit. Helm, all ahead standard. Bring us up to speed slowly, son. He may not know we’re here. I want to keep it quiet. Fire control, make torpedo tubes one and four ready in all respects. Sonar, conn. Got an ID on that fast mover?”
“Conn, sonar. Computer’s making its ID now, sir . . . computer IDs Sierra Four as the PNS Hamza. An Agosta-class, Pakistani navy attack submarine.”
Standing in between the sonar station and the control room, Branson leaned toward the XO. “Omansky,” he said in a low voice, “what the hell’s going on?” Lines carved into his forehead.
The executive officer replied, “Well, Mr. Branson, the downed sub on the bottom is Russian-made, but if it turns out that she’s now Pakistani flagged, and this new Pakistani sub finds us near it, he’s going to be pissed. Captain’s trying to evade quietly before the new Pakistani sub finds us.”
“Is the Pakistani a real threat?” Branson said, wringing his hands.
“Oh hell yes she is. Pakistani navy subs are French-built. Small, quiet, fast as hell, and they carry the Black Shark torpedo. We don’t want to get into a scrap with her if we can help it.”
From the sonar room, the operator called. “Conn, sonar. Sounds like she’s going deep, sir.”
“Sonar, conn, where’s the thermocline? Still hovering at around one hundred and eighty feet?”
“Conn, sonar, yes, sir.”
Branson whispered to the executive officer, “Omansky, what’s a thermocline?”
“It marks the depth where the water temperature changes. See, when a large layer of warmer water exists on the surface, and colder water is below, the two different temperatures touch each other and form a kind of sound barrier. It’s hard for subs to hear through a thermocline using their sonar. Right now, the water temperature is warmer above the depth of a hundred and eighty feet, and much colder right below it. The hostile Pakistani submarine is above and we’re below.”
“Conn, sonar. Sierra Four, the Pakistani attack sub, appears to be diving hard, sir. She’s already at about one hundred feet of depth. Making no effort to stay quiet either, her screw is turning full bore.”
“Son of a bitch, we’ve got a real hothead on our hands,” the captain said. “XO, slow to ahead one-third. Rig ship for ultraquiet. We might slip right under this asshole without him hearing us.”
The executive officer belted out the captain’s orders. The geologist, Mr. Branson, pressed himself further against the bulkhead in between the control room and the sonar compartment. He wanted to stay in the control room to hear what was happening and thought that if he could melt into the wall, perhaps no one would notice him.
Having a civilian on a sub during such a high-tension scenario was something the US Navy wanted to avoid. But risks like endangering a civilian had to be taken in order to accomplish certain naval goals.
No one had ever done a full-scale mapping of the ocean floor in the Persian Gulf region. But with the number of wars that had gone on in the area, America and her allies needed details. What if a full-scale war erupted at some point in the future? High-resolution mapping of the ocean floor might mean the difference between success and failure.
Branson studied the faces of the officers and crew. With the exception of the captain, the executive officer, and the chief of the boat, they were a pretty young group. Most looked like they were still in high school, but in reality they were older. When he’d stepped aboard, Branson had met some of the young sailors, but now, they looked different. In a span of just hours, they had aged. The tension painted their expressions and protruded through jaw muscles that seemed to endlessly flex. They left port as kids and were now facing a level of fear most adults could not comprehend.
Branson struggled to keep his emotions in check. Being a geologist was almost never dangerous. And yet now he found himself thinking that surely, this wasn’t happening. At some point, the captain would grab the mic from the overhead and announce that this had all been a drill. It was so surreal.
The decision to come on board a US Navy submarine and map an uncharted section of ocean floor sounded like such a good idea at the time. Now in the realities of life and death, Branson was astounded at his own naiveté. The chief of the boat walked over and stood beside him.
“Conn, sonar,” sonar operator Thomas said. “Pakistani contact, Sierra Four, now penetrating through the thermocline. She’s at about two hundred feet of depth, still moving under full propulsion.”
“Sonar, conn. Range to the Pakistani?”
“About four thousand yards, Captain. She’s still diving hard but . . . hold on, hold on. That sounds like . . . conn, sonar! Torpedo in the water, bearing zero six eight!” The sonar operator yelled loud enough into the comm that his voice could easily be heard in the control room without it.
“Is the torpedo actively pinging?” the captain said.
“No, sir!” STS3 Thomas said.
The captain spun toward the executive officer. “That means the torpedo is on a wire. Goddammit, they must know right where we are. Helm, all ahead flank, cavitate! Dive control, make your depth one hundred fifty feet.”
As the diving officer responded, Branson put a vise-grip on the chief’s shoulder.
“Chief, what the hell is going on? What does that mean? They fired a real torpedo at us? It’s on a wire?”
“Torpedoes either acquire and hone in on their targets through active sonar pinging, or they are attached to a wire that leads all the way back to their boat. The Pakistani sub is manually controlling the direction of this torpedo through the wire.”
“Hang on, everybody,” the captain said. “This might hurt just a little bit.” The sarcasm was only amusing to the captain.
The boat’s bow pitched upwards in one long, violent motion as an enormous amount of air blasted into the main ballast tanks, pushing seawater out. The effect was like blowing up a balloon underwater and then watching it rocket toward the surface.
“Sonar, conn. Give me an update on that torpedo, son.”
“Torpedo is turning upwards, sir. She’s following us. Making turns for about fifty knots. Computer confirms, it’s a Black Shark torpedo. Max speed, fifty knots, max range thirty miles. Range, fifteen hundred yards and closing. She can chase us all day and outrun us in a matter of seconds, sir.”
“Goddamn Italian-made torpedoes,” the captain said.
Branson watched as the captain clicked the button on an old-school digital stopwatch, leaned against the periscope assembly, and closed his eyes in focused concentration.
As the boat thrust upwards toward the surface, it leaned back at a thirty-degree angle. Any gear not strapped down slid off shelves and bounced across linoleum floors.
“Passing three hundred feet,” the diving officer said. “Passing two hundred seventy-five feet.”
The sonar operator and diving officer chirped out a cadence of echoing updates every few seconds, indicating their depth and the distance from the torpedo.
“Range to torpedo, six hundred yards.”
“Depth two hundred fifty feet.”
“Torpedo closing to four hundred yards.”
“Depth two hundred feet.”
“Torpedo picking up speed! Range two hundred and fifty yards.”
Through shut eyes, the captain yelled, “Range and speed of the Pakistani sub?”
“Range to Sierra Four, two thousand yards, speed twenty-one knots.”
The captain pushed the button on a second digital stopwatch, starting the timer.
“Depth one hundred eighty feet. We’re about to cross above the thermocline,” the diving officer said. “It will be harder for them to hear us once we cross.”
“Torpedo range, one hundred yards!” The sonar operator’s voice cracked.
“Steady at one hundred fifty feet. We’ve crossed above the thermocline,” the diving officer said.
The captain’s concentration was unshakable and his eyes remained shut like a blind man.
“Sonar, conn. Is the torpedo following us by coming up through the thermocline?”
“No, Captain,” the sonar operator said. “I, I can’t hear it, sir. But it’s definitely not punching through the thermal barrier.”
“Chief?” Branson said. “What just happened? Are we safe?”
The chief of the boat looked at Branson the way a seasoned buyer might look at a slab of salmon before beginning to haggle with the vendor.
“Are we safe? I won’t bother to justify that with an answer. At any rate, the torpedo is on its wire and being controlled by the Pakistani sub which can no longer hear us effectively since we’re on different sides of the thermocline. So, they don’t know where to guide the torpedo at the moment.”
The USS Colorado maintained a depth of one hundred fifty feet, hugging the edge of the thermocline, which was just thirty feet below them. Fear splashed across the face of the twenty-two-year-old communications officer, who looked like he’d just been pulled from a burning car.
The captain opened his eyes and exhaled, though no one would have noticed. He grabbed a clipboard, flipped the pages back, and began to write something. When he finished, he looked at LCDR Omansky.
“XO, if you were the Pakistani sub’s skipper, and you were attacking us, what would you be doing right now?”
Without pausing, the executive officer blurted out in one breath, “I’d guide that torpedo up through the thermocline, pop the wire off, and have it actively ping for us.”
“And what’s the tactical advantage in doing that?”
The executive officer shrugged. “If I were the Pak skipper, I’d figure to have us nailed. The torpedo would be actively pinging for us above the thermal layer, and we couldn’t duck below the thermal layer because he’d be sitting down there waiting for us.”
“Leading the hounds to the hunters,” the captain said, this time with a grin. “That answer is exactly why you’ll get your own submarine command one day. You will make one hell of a skipper.” With that, the captain turned the clipboard around to show the others what he had written a moment before.
1. Send torpedo up through thermal layer
2. Clip the wire, have the torpedo actively ping
3. We’d be trapped
The captain smiled and nodded his approval at the younger officer.
“Conn, sonar. Change in torpedo acoustics. The torpedo is punching up through the thermal layer. She’s coming up after us, sir.”
Branson’s eyes locked on the captain. “Chief, why did the captain just start smiling? The torpedo is coming up after us?”
The chief said nothing. He was confused himself.
“Sonar, conn, aye,” the captain said. “Estimated speed and distance to the Pakistani sub Hamza?”
“Conn, sonar, it’s hard to tell, sir. She’s still below the thermocline so I’m having trouble hearing her. She’s slowed. I’d say she’s about six hundred yards out in front of us, heading toward us, but about a hundred feet below our depth.” A few seconds elapsed. “Sir! The torpedo has come up through the thermocline and is actively pinging for us.”
“She locked on us yet, son?”
“No, sir. The torpedo is headed away from us at the moment, moving at a decreased rate of speed. The torpedo is turning, she’s turning. She hasn’t locked on us yet. Hold a moment . . . she’s turning in our direction. Conn, sonar! Torpedo has acquired! Four hundred yards and closing, increasing speed. She’s at fifty one knots, sir.”
Branson’s breathing went shallow. The captain took a deep breath of his own, sat, reset the stop watches, then closed his eyes once again.
“All right people, time to earn your pay. Sonar, call out your best estimates on our range to the Hamza.”
“Conn, sonar, aye,” the sonar operator said, his voice beginning to shake. “The Pakistani sub Hamza, range, three hundred yards, depth, two hundred feet. She’s now just fifty feet below us, sir. Heading right toward us.”
The captain’s body rocked in gentle succession as he counted under his breath.
“Conn, sonar. Torpedo range, one hundred twenty-five yards off the stern and closing! Pakistani sub, range two hundred yards off the bow.”
The captain’s nodding continued and his eyes remained closed.
“Conn, sonar! Torpedo seventy-five yards! Hamza, one hundred yards!”
The captain said, “Emergency deep! Sound collision.”
A siren began wailing in all compartments of the boat, warning sailors of an impending impact.
“But sir,” yelled the diving officer, “if we go deeper, we’ll collide with the Hamza! She’s right in our path below us! Captain, say again?”
The captain screamed out, threat threaded throughout his voice, “Captain said emergency deep! Do it now!”
The submarine pitched downward straight through the thermocline and headed directly toward the PNS Hamza, which barreled forward, unaware the Colorado was in a violent dive and headed right into her path.
“Conn, sonar. Torpedo following us down, captain,” Thomas said. “She might be faltering as we enter the colder waters.” The sonar operator started to yank his headset off, fearing the torpedo impact was moments away, but stopped himself.
Everyone in the control room gripped tightly to avoid falling forward as the boat pitched, nose down.
“Conn, sonar! The torpedo is trying to reacquire! The Hamza, twenty yards! Collision imminent!”
“Everyone hang on!” the captain yelled. An alarm that sounded like a fire engine’s horn pulsed throughout the interior.
The nose of the Colorado scraped the bow of the Hamza as the Colorado thrust downward. The impact was felt throughout the boat, and alarms sounded in forward compartments. The two ships scraped past one another just as the torpedo’s pinging reacquired its target. A cacophonous explosion shuddered throughout the Colorado and many sailors looked back and forth in a frantic effort to find where the water would be rushing in.
Buy Protocol 15
Amazon | Apple | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Google Play