America (29 page)

“The lawyers can argue about intent,” Toad said. “As far as I'm concerned, that isn't a question. It's obvious that they intend the warheads to cause damage.”

“The only thing that is obvious is that the missiles were aimed and fired intentionally,” Jake Grafton replied. “Each warhead that explodes sets off a chain of events, some of which are predictable, some of which aren't. Once an avalanche starts down a mountain, where it goes and what it hits are events beyond anyone's control.”

“They must intend to hammer the economy,” Toad insisted. “That's what's happening.”

“And a great many things will flow from that,” Jake said. “Fortunes will be made and lost, careers ruined, careers built … tens of millions of lives will be affected, which will cause profound reactions to these events in the years to come. My point is simply that once a missile is launched, no one can predict or control the consequences.”

“Where does that train of thought take you, Admiral?”

“Damned if I know,” Jake Grafton said and threw a pencil at a photo of a submarine hanging on the wall of a cubicle eight feet away.

He was staring at the submarine when Krautkramer walked in. “Since the telephones are out of whack, thought I should drop by and let you know how we're doing.”

“Uh-huh.” Jake threw another pencil at the sub. The point of this one went into the soft soundproof cover of the cubicle panel and stuck.

They talked about the state of affairs in Washington for a few minutes, relating stories about life without electricity. Toad and Krautkramer did most of the talking, with Jake listening. Every so often he selected a pencil from a coffee cup on the desk and threw it at the submarine on the cubicle wall. The first one that stuck in the wall was apparently a fluke. The others struck at the wrong angle and fell to the carpet.

“We've identified the unknown man, the last one, we think,” Krautkramer said finally, when the rehash of the missile attack had run its course. He opened a cheap attaché case and extracted a file, which he passed to Jake. The photo in the file was of the unknown man boarding the submarine, glancing up. That look straight into the video-camera had been blown up on regular film. Jake glanced at it, then consulted the other documents the file contained.

“He's an underwater salvage expert,” Krautkramer explained. “Name of Heydrich. Works for the European aerospace consortium, EuroSpace. In the past he's reported to a vice president named Willi Schlegel. In addition to his salvage abilities, we think he does general smoothing work.”

“Smoothing.”

“Uh-huh. Whenever there is a problem he is brought in to smooth things out.”

“How does he do his smoothing?” Toad asked.

“Any way at all.”

“Amazing that you can identify people from pictures,” Jake said as he looked at Heydrich's photo.

“The computer age is truly here. Everyone is wired up together. Sharing databases was one of the antiterrorism initiatives.”

“I remember when the privacy people jumped up and down about it.”

“That's why it gets zero publicity. The idea of government databases scares some people silly. But there's no way to stop it. The information is there, it's on computers, no one wants airliners or trade centers or government buildings bombed by wild-eyed maniacs with a righteous cause. Ergo, government agencies share databases.”

Jake glanced at the other items in the folder, then handed it back to the FBI agent. He went to the window, stood staring out. The view here was to the north. He could see a corner of Reagan National Airport and most of the Pentagon. In the distance the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument were prominent. The sky was empty.

“The Europeans,” Toad mused. “Underwater salvage. They must know where the SuperAegis satellite wound up.”

“We're trying to find a link between the European aerospace consortium and someone on the SuperAegis launch crew. So far we've had no luck.”

“Are you checking bank accounts?” Toad asked.

“Can't do any of that foolishness until we get a warrant.”

“Hmm.”

“Strictly by the book.”

Jake Grafton turned from the window. “I need some help on a project,” he said. “Won't lead to a prosecution, so nobody will have to testify about it.”

“Sounds like something immoral, unethical, and illegal,” Krautkramer said with enthusiasm. “Ought to be right down my alley.”

“Is there any other way?” Toad asked and sniffed self-righteously.

Twenty minutes later Jake was standing by the window looking down into the street when he saw Janos Ilin get out of a limo. At least it appeared to be Ilin—from eight stories up it was difficult to tell.

“Could the Russians have gotten another limo from someplace?”

“Probably. More than likely their UN mission drove a few down for the embassy staff to use. The French and Brits did that, I heard. Maybe they rented one from one of the services out in the suburbs.”

Ilin crossed the sidewalk toward the entrance. It looked like him anyway, the way he walked.

“Is the car that picked me up this morning still downstairs?”

“Yes, sir. Driver should be there.”

“I'll take that car and send the driver upstairs. Wish me luck.”

“Be careless,” Toad said.

Jake snagged his hat and walked for the front door. He met Ilin climbing the stairs.

*   *   *

“Zelda, I think you should come look at this.”

Zip Vance was at the computer near her. She could see what was on his monitor, but no one else could. She and Zip had purposely arranged the office that way. “So no one can see you play FreeCell,” the secretary said knowingly. Everyone laughed dutifully, but rank has its privileges, privacy among them.

She got up from her desk and went over for a good look at Zip's monitor. The display was a photo of a man, a single frame. He was in his early thirties, tall, with wide shoulders and craggy good looks. The camera was looking at him almost full face, but he appeared to be paying no attention to it.

“It's Tommy Carmellini. You asked to be notified if and when he returned to the country. This shot was taken early yesterday evening at the immigration office at Champlain, New York. He came in from Canada.”

Scanners to read the numbers of passports had been installed in immigration offices all over the nation for years. Now the data from the scanner and a photo taken simultaneously was sent to the INS, which could compare the information to the info in the State Department's passport database. And photographs of known terrorists, criminals, and fugitives.

Carmellini was a sore spot. After all that work setting him up to get Jouany's file and bring it home in triumph to the CIA, he had taken a look and bolted. Disappeared. Leaving McSweeney infuriated and pounding out furious E-mails to Langley.

Zelda Hudson wouldn't have thought it possible. She had spent hours in Carmellini's company on repeated occasions. He was a nice hunk, with an A+ smile, C+ brains, and a D− character.

Back at her desk, she logged on to one of her computer terminals. In minutes she was looking at rental car records. Yesterday, the Montreal airport … There he was! Carmellini, Tommy A. Virginia driver's license.

While she was at it, she typed in another string of numbers. Up popped a face of a man she had never met. She recognized his name, however: Heydrich. The FBI had identified him from the television video taken during the hijacking.

He should not have boarded
America
in New London. The presence of a television helicopter was predictable. He would be photographed, the FBI would eventually identify him … and like prophecy, the event had come to pass.

So Jake Grafton and Tom Krautkramer knew Heydrich was aboard. From Heydrich the trail would lead to France, to EuroSpace. Willi Schlegel just didn't understand the cyberage.

What would Grafton and Krautkramer's next move be?

*   *   *

The sea was empty. Nothing visible on sonar in any direction. The towed array was stowed, so the range and definition of the Revelation system were degraded, but even so, it was better than any sonar Vladimir Kolnikov had ever dreamed of. Yes, the American navy was hunting its lost submarine, but the North Atlantic was vast indeed.

With the boat stable and trimmed and making three knots, Kolnikov raised the electronic support measures, or ESM, mast, studied the frequencies of the energy detected by the WLQ-4 gear that processed the signals. He knew only enough about the gear to get the most basic frequency readouts. At least there didn't seem to be a P-3 twenty miles away. He then raised the communications mast to get a GPS update. When he had that, he raised the photonics mast a few feet above the wave tops for a ten-second look around. With all the masts retracted he studied the photonics image on a bulkhead-mounted screen. A fair day, some high cirrus clouds, not much wind. He had known that the swells weren't breaking before he raised the mast.

“How much do the positions differ?” Kolnikov asked Boldt, who was studying the GPS input.

Boldt made another input into the computer before he answered. “Twenty-five feet, the system says.”

“You always check that before you update, don't you?”

“Aah…”

“Our lives are the wager, Boldt. Don't do anything without thinking.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“We are ready to shoot,” Rothberg announced.

“Whenever you wish,” Kolnikov said.

At a nod from Rothberg, Eck turned off the sonar so the noise of the launch wouldn't destroy the system … or his eardrums.

“Number six,” Rothberg said. “Open the outer door.”

When the door had been opened hydraulically, Rothberg pushed the firing button. The missile was ejected upward with a roar that was loud even with the sonar off. The rush of incoming water helped balance the loss of the weight of the departing missile, but still the bow bucked upward a little, almost like hitting a speed bump.

“Open the outer door on number seven.”

A minute later he fired the missile.

The Tomahawk in tube ten went a minute after that.

“Close the outer doors,” Kolnikov said. When the panel showed green, Turchak pushed the power lever to all ahead two-thirds and pushed the joystick forward a quarter inch. Kolnikov opened the valves to the ballast tanks, began letting water into the boat. Turchak's control input rotated the bow planes down and the stern planes up. As the submarine accelerated and gained weight and dropped her nose from the horizontal, the thrust of her screw drove her down into the dark, silent sea.

*   *   *

Sonny Killbuck was standing in the main SOSUS processing center when a North Atlantic operator called, “Missile launch.” In seconds the computer triangulated data from three different sets of sensors and displayed a probable launch position on the graphic of the North Atlantic.

The duty officer was already busy, issuing orders to navy P-3s and ASW hunter-killer task groups already at sea. Contacting the attack submarines hunting for
America
was more difficult. Only radio signals with very long wavelengths could be detected underwater. To communicate with the submarines, a signal had to be transmitted on an extremely low frequency (ELF) array that the submarines could receive on an antenna wire that trailed behind their sail. The signal told the submarines to come to periscope depth, where they could raise their communications antenna and receive an encrypted burst transmission on a UHF radio frequency. This process took time. Still, Killbuck noticed, the display depicted a
Los Angeles
–class submarine,
La Jolla,
only forty-five miles from the launch position. Of course, it could be dozens of miles from that position. Still, he thought,
La Jolla
might have heard the missile launch on its sonar.

*   *   *

USS
La Jolla
's senior sonar operator was Petty Officer First Class Robert “Buck” Brown. He recognized the unmistakable sound of a missile launch. He had called it to the OOD's attention and notified the commanding officer. He knew from message traffic that
America
had fired three Tomahawks thirty-six hours ago, so he had been listening for another one, just in case. He punched the buttons to put the raw sonar audio on the control room loudspeaker. Everyone in the room heard the second launch. The rumble silenced conversation. The sailors stood frozen, listening, silently speculating, when the noise of the third missile being ejected from
America
's vertical launch tubes arrived through the water.

The bearing to the launch noises was plain enough. What wasn't plain was the distance that separated
La Jolla
from the launch site.

“Whatd'ya think, Buck?” the skipper asked. His name was Jimmy Ryder, Jr. He was several inches over six feet and had unusually large hands. Behind his back the sailors liked to call him Junior.

“At least thirty miles, Skipper. Maybe twice that.”

“Okay,” said Jimmy Ryder, who glanced at the screen to get the bearing. “Let's go find this guy. Chief of the Boat, steer three zero five. Let's try to get there quick. Flank speed.”

Flank speed in
La Jolla
was thirty-two knots. Of course they couldn't hear anything at that speed, but they could dash toward the launch site, then slow down and begin listening.

When they heard the order, several eyes widened in the control room. The name of this game was finding the other fellow before he found you. Rushing to the scene of the crime was a risk. A calculated risk, but a risk nonetheless. Everything depended on how long Ryder was willing to keep the boat at speed before he slowed.

Buck Brown wondered about that as he tried to concentrate on the sonar. He could feel the boat accelerating, knew that he wouldn't hear much, but he wanted to stay busy.
America
was out there, the quietest, stealthiest submarine in the world, and it was manned by a group of ex–Russian submariners. According to the scuttlebutt, those guys knew their shit.