America (42 page)

“It's a question of probabilities, Admiral,” Killbuck said, rubbing his hands together. “This is pretty neat. I wish I could have taken credit for it, but the engineers at NASA came up with this.” He used a pen on a sheet of paper to illustrate. “The trajectory that the missile was to follow is this line, which is also the line of highest probability. Lines are then drawn, say one degree apart, radiating outward from the Goddard platform. Inevitably, the greater the distance from the intended track, the lower the probability that the third stage came to rest there. The distance from the Goddard platform is also a function of probability—we know precisely where the missile was when we lost it on radar. Voilà, with those parameters we drew the chart and started searching the areas of highest probability first, then worked our way down.”

“Scientific as hell,” Jake Grafton said and whistled softly.

“Left alone, engineers are dangerous,” Killbuck agreed.

“How many assets are devoted to this task?”

“Thirty ships, sir. Everything that will carry magnetometers and side-scan sonar. And every area gets searched twice.”

It was indeed a neat system, but the searchers had yet to find the missing third stage. Jake refrained from commenting on that obvious fact.

“How about doing a computer study, by tomorrow, if possible. I want you to identify all the areas in the Atlantic between, say, Britain and Natal, with one hundred feet of water or less. Better make it a hundred and fifty.”

“I'll do it both ways, sir. Shouldn't be difficult.”

When FBI agent Krautkramer came in an hour later, he had a file on Heydrich. An underwater demolition and salvage expert, Heydrich had worked all over the globe. Jake studied the file as Krautkramer briefed him on the state of the FBI's investigation.

“One of the SuperAegis techno-kings is missing. Peter Kerr. Told his wife he was going fishing for a few days and never came back. She called us yesterday, fearing foul play.”

“‘Foul play.' I didn't know real people used phrases like that.”

“Her words, not mine. Kerr is in his fifties, got a daughter in grad school, been married over thirty years. In any event, before he went fishing he cleaned out his savings account and withdrew all the money from his 401(k) plan. We're going through his house and office now.”

“SuperAegis and
America.
”

“According to the scientists, Kerr could have put SuperAegis in the water. His specialty was software, but he worked on the launch team and had access to everything. It's a break.”

“He did have access,” Jake agreed. “I know him. I sat in several meetings he chaired. He's one of those guys who knows a lot about everything. A lot of people think they do, but Pete Kerr really does.”

Krautkramer scratched his head. “If we can somehow connect the satellite and the submarine…”

“Not to change the subject, but your guys did a good job playing assassins the other day.”

“They loved it. They want an invite the next time you throw a party. Did Ilin bite?”

“I don't know. He said some things worth thinking about, but he certainly didn't spill his guts. Here, look at this.”

Jake tossed Krautkramer the list of military investors from the Jouany computer, then sat silently as he scanned it.

“What is this and where did you get it?”

The admiral explained. Krautkramer looked him in the eyes as he spoke. “So you never invested a dollar with these people?”

“No. My family's stupendous fortune is with an American broker.” Jake named the company. “It strikes me that someone has gone to a lot of trouble to slander the senior officers in the American military who might be looking hard for
America.
Or SuperAegis.”

Krautkramer nodded.

“My prediction is that this list will surface shortly in London as part and parcel of Jouany's libel suit. Then the American government will be asked if they know about this, and lo and behold, the answer is yes. A CIA agent filched the list from Jouany. If the president or government spokesperson denies it, they will ultimately be branded liars; if they admit it, it looks like the Americans have something to hide. Either way, it's going to be bad. And the people on that list will be under a cloud.”

“You included.”

“You betcha.”

“Why?”

“Whoever put this together wanted a lot of smoke. The more smoke there is, the more difficult it becomes to find the stick that's actually on fire.”

“So what do you want to do about this?”

“I want everything there is to know about Jouany and the European aerospace consortium, EuroSpace, and I want it by five o'clock today.”

Krautkramer looked at his watch. “I'll do my best,” he said. “May I have this list?”

“Not yet.”

Jake snagged his hat and the telephone book and on the way out of the office motioned for Toad to follow. Down the endless staircase, then out to the car. Another car. The one Jake drove to northern Virginia and abandoned alongside the road had been quietly returned to a government motor pool so that Ilin wouldn't see it again.

“Where to, boss?”

“Federal Protective Service.” Jake flipped open the telephone book and after a minute came up with an address.

He had to use his letter with the president's signature, but he eventually got what he wanted. The copy machines were toast, so he and Toad pored over the records and made notes. It was midafternoon by the time the two men left the building, just enough time for Jake to get to the Pentagon to see Flap Le Beau.

Flap looked harassed. “Give me some good news,” he pleaded.

Jake dumped the bag. When he finished, Flap frowned. “So you don't have any hard evidence that the loss of the SuperAegis satellite and the theft of
America
are connected.”

“They must be,” Jake insisted and went over to the map hanging on the commandant's wall. “What are the odds that two major events would happen two months apart? And the connection has been staring us in the face all the time. That satellite is somewhere in this ocean”—he tapped the chart—“
America
is carrying a minisubmersible on her back and she has an underwater salvage expert aboard. The salvage expert is not critical, but the minisubmersible is.”

“We're hunting for the satellite,” the marine pointed out. “Hunting hard, I might add. We've got thirty ships out there right now towing magnetometers and using every gadget in the book.”

“It's a stupendously big ocean,” Jake replied. “We may never find the thing. I think the salvage guy on
America
has a huge advantage—I think he knows where it is. Or where it should be. Peter Kerr could have told him. Indeed, Peter Kerr could have put it there.”

“One guy in a minisubmersible. He doesn't have the diving gear or enough stuff to salvage the satellite, let alone the upper stage of that rocket.”

“I think the sub will rendezvous with a ship—somewhere—get more people and gear, then recover the satellite. If they can find it. That's going to take some doing, but with Revelation … I think it's possible.”

“Then why is the salvage guy already aboard?”

“Sir, I don't know.”

“How deep can the submersible go?”

“On its own, down to a few hundred feet. Attached to the sub, it can go as deep as the sub takes it. The limitation is not the crush depth but the capacity of the ballast system.”

“Two hundred feet,” Flap said thoughtfully, examining the chart. “That's still a lot of real estate.”

“Offshore waters for all of Europe, Africa, and the Atlantic islands,” Jake agreed. “And even some of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.”

“And the attacks on Washington and New York?”

“Diversions. Profitable ones.” He pointed toward the list from Jouany's computer. “This didn't just happen. Someone planned very carefully, and the plan is working. The American economy is staggering like a dying horse and Europe is doing quite well, thank you. Nations around the world are selling dollars and buying euros. European investors in American stocks are taking their money home. European companies will pick up a lot of international business when American companies have difficulty meeting their delivery dates, for whatever reason. The business that American companies lose will go to European enterprises that can meet the demand.”

“So who is the man inside?” Flap Le Beau asked.

“I've got a candidate,” Jake Grafton told him.

“Okay.”

“The problem is that the timetables don't fit.”

*   *   *

Zelda Hudson found the message on one of her regular visits to a hacker's bulletin board. “Butterfly,” the caption said. It was encrypted, of course, a meaningless gobbledygook of letters. She downloaded it, got off-line, checked the message for viruses—there were none.

She reached for
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
on the bottom shelf of the nearby credenza and looked up the word
butter.
Then she checked the posting date, added those numbers together, multiplied by another number, and began counting words that began with the following letter,
c,
ignoring words with fewer than six letters. When she found the word she wanted, she typed it into an encryption matrix and pressed Enter. The computer then used that word to construct a complete matrix, which was used to transform the downloaded message into another long sequence of apparently random letters.

Fly.
She counted again, carefully, in the compilation for words beginning with
g,
found the word, typed it into another matrix. The computer ran the message through the second matrix, and voilà!

I am writing to express my concern with the course of current events. When you offered me the information about the Blackbeard team, requesting that I reveal it to DeGarmo, thereby killing the operation, I knew then that I was fulfilling some purpose that would benefit you. After consultation with my superiors in Moscow, the decision was made to do as you requested, for several reasons. The current political situation in Moscow would be destabilized by the successful theft of a Russian submarine or by a thwarted attempt. And our relationship has been quite successful—we hope it continues to our mutual profit into the future.

The possibility that you had other plans for the Blackbeard team did not occur to us. I think I see your hand in subsequent events. So does Admiral Grafton, who I suspect is closer to the truth than he realizes. Certainly closer than you thought possible.

My government does not want the SuperAegis satellite to end up in foreign hands. I think your most likely customer is EuroSpace. It must not happen. Russia and the United States have similar interests in this matter. Frankly, do not rely on your relationship with us to protect you in a matter of such gravity.

Zelda Hudson read the message through again, then deleted it and the matrices that had decoded it. Then she purged the trash file and reformatted the disk segment she had used.

Peter Kerr, the fool! His disappearance must have incited Grafton's suspicions.

*   *   *

Like many of Washington's power elite, Avery Edmond DeGarmo lived in the Watergate apartment complex near the Kennedy Center. And like many of his fellow residents, he had decamped during the power crisis. When Jake, Toad, and Tommy Carmellini arrived the following morning, the building was deserted. There were two guards at the desk in the lobby but not a resident in sight. Not even a doorman. Jake and his friends sat in the front seat of the van looking things over.

“You'd think for all that money the tenants would get a doorman,” Toad said.

“Where'd DeGarmo go, anyway?” Carmellini asked Toad, who carried around a surprising store of useless, unimportant facts.

“Bunking with the marines at Quantico, I heard. The grunts deliver him and a bunch of others to Washington every morning by helicopter.”

“Simplifies commuting, I suppose.”

“They may never move back to town.”

“You think you can get into this place?” Jake asked dubiously. He was in the passenger seat of the carpet company van, Carmellini was behind the wheel, and Toad sat between them.

“Just watch the master at work,” Carmellini said. From the hip pocket of his coveralls he removed a pack of chewing tobacco, broke the seal, and helped himself to a mansized plug, which made his unshaved cheek bulge nicely. Then he got out of the van and headed for the main entrance.

Carmellini was wearing a one-piece coverall with the carpet company's name and logo across the back. So were Toad and Jake, who remained in the vehicle. Last night Carmellini called a fellow he knew, and the man rented him the van and uniforms for the day for the magnificent sum of one hundred dollars.

“Are you sure? That doesn't sound like a lot of money.”

“You aren't going to get caught, are you? Nothing will come back on me?”

“You'll hear not a peep from anyone. Guaranteed.”

“A hundred is enough, and I'm glad to get it. With the power mess and all, our business has dried up to nothing.”

Outside the Watergate, Tommy Carmellini spit on the sidewalk, adjusted his chew, and went in. He went up to the security desk, where the guards had supplemented the light coming through the glass door with a small kerosene lantern. There were two of them, in uniform, a man and a woman.

“Got a carpet delivery for … for…” Carmellini removed an invoice from his hip pocket and scrutinized it. “DeGarmo. Apartment 821.”

The male guard consulted a list on a clipboard. “He's not in today.”

“By God, I hope not. Gonna have to pull up the bedroom and living room carpet and lay new. Not many customers want to watch us do it.” He glanced at the closed-circuit camera mounted above the guards' desk and at the dark monitor behind them.