To the Death

“I think the CIA guys know that,” said Alan Brett. “How long have they got?”

“I’m going to tell the president to ship this guy out directly to Guantánamo Bay at noon tomorrow,” said Arnold.

“Then the interrogators right here have around eighteen hours.”

“No more than that,” said the admiral. “But they really should operate as if they’ve got about two hours. Any news on the 737?”

“Just before I left, the president was talking to the CNO. Sounded like the Navy was about to take over the salvage and investigation.”

“And Houston? No sign of Ramon Salman?”

“Not a thing.”

“Okay, Alan. I don’t need to brief the CIA guys. Just tell ’em to get going.”

2030 Same Day The White House

“Nice speech, Paul,” said Admiral Morgan. “Let’s keep the focus on the heroism of the Boston cops, because that’ll shut the media up for a few days — keep ’em prancing around trying to speak to their goddamned relatives and schoolmasters, while we quietly turn the screws on the terrorists.”

“You mean ‘terrorist,’ old buddy. Right now we’ve only got one.”

Arnold Morgan surveyed the interior of the Oval Office and then muttered, “With all the great resources of the American empire at our disposal, we have to be able to find the missing Ramon Salman, and that’s what I’m counting on.”

The president nodded and then added, “By the way, Arnie, you probably could get a job as a press officer if you really tried. You sure as hell threw ’em off the scent of the missing airliner.”

“I was actually thinking of taking out an ad,” replied the admiral. “Lies, evasions, subterfuge a specialty. Expert at vanishing tricks. Morgan the Magician.”

Paul Bedford chuckled. Then he looked up, much more seriously. “Will anyone ever find that aircraft and discover what really happened?”

“Not if I have anything to do with it.”

0200 Saturday 15 January United States Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia

The night was clear, freezing but cloudless, over the world’s largest naval station. A hard frost was already forming all along the 8,000-acre waterfront sprawl, home to the breathtaking oceanic muscle of the United States.

Lights gleamed from the massive nuclear-powered aircraft carriers berthed along the piers, the USS John C. Stennis, George Washington, and Theodore Roosevelt. All of them glowered in the bright moonlight, great bruising veterans of the world’s most troubled regions, frontline keepers of the honor of the United States of America.

There was hardly a sound in the vast naval complex, which in its way is just about landlocked, save for the narrow throughway out of the Hampton Roads, past Old Point Comfort and Fort Monroe to port and Fort Wool to starboard. But tonight the thin freezing air magnified the sounds. The very occasional helicopter landing echoed on the night air; mobilized guard patrols drove slowly to and from the long, frosty jetties. Footsteps sometimes accompanied the watch changes. But none of the forty warships in residence was moving.

At 0200, the incoming tide was rising all the way down the long “inland” coastline, which joins the naval station to the shipyard thirteen miles to the south. And out to the northeast, beyond the protective land, lies Chesapeake Bay, its waters ebbing and flowing with the tides of the Atlantic Ocean.

But the tide rises silently along the Navy piers, and the sudden throb of four powerful Caterpillar diesels driving a 4,200-hp ship north in the dark caught the attention of anyone who happened to be out in this cold night, either on deck or onshore.

There’s a bush telegraph in Norfolk, and most people knew when any warship was scheduled to clear the station in the small hours and make an exit to the open ocean. But right now, no one had the slightest idea what kind of vessel was steaming straight up the exit channel. Equally, no one much cared. It was just a bit unexpected, even though she was showing all the correct navigation lights and had plainly come up from the repair berths down in the shipyard.

The reason for her late, or early, departure was mainly due to an intense evening of painting that had eliminated every marking that showed this was a Navy vessel.

But now she was “clean,” the 2,880-ton Safeguard-class salvage ship USS Grabber, fully disguised as a civilian, smelling of fresh paint, and moving as fast as her engines would allow. That was twelve knots, and she was being closely followed in line astern by a couple of flatbed Navy barges, self-propelled and in a similar state of newly painted self-denial.

There was no insignia, and in the dawn there would be no Navy pennants flying. This had become, in a few hours, just a tiny fleet from a private salvage company, heading through the night, toward the hottest political hot potato in the entire country; orders of the commander in chief, acting personally on the advice of the Big Man, Admiral Morgan.