Fatal Thunder: A Jerry Mitchell Novel (11 page)

Jerry forced himself to smile, and tried to make some sort of noncommittal reply, but the CNO cut him off. “Don’t try to lie about looking forward to shore duty, mister.” He grinned. “But we need people like you here, and you’ll just have to endure it like the rest of us.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Jerry left, following Patterson, and after collecting his bag at the security station, they headed for the Mall entrance, where her car was waiting. As they got in, he heard her tell the driver, “Back to my office, please.”

He was a little confused. In her e-mail, Patterson had insisted that he stay with her and Hardy at their place in Georgetown, after dinner. As they pulled away, she explained, “Slight change in plans, Jerry. I’d like to show you something, and ask your opinion.”

*   *   *

She filled the drive to the White House with questions—not only about Emily, but about Guam, where he’d moved her after his boat was transferred there, and even about Commodore Simonis, his squadron commander, and the other submarine captains in Submarine Squadron Fifteen.

She seemed to be hurrying as they passed through the gate and more security on the way to her office in the West Wing of the White House. Jerry focused on answering her question about the repairs to his new quarters in Guam, while telling himself that the White House was just another government office building.

It was late afternoon, almost evening, but there were still many people working. She greeted everyone by name, but rushed on without introducing Jerry to anyone, not even her secretary Kathy, who started to offer her boss a handful of message slips, but stopped when Patterson said, “No visitors until I say so, and please contact Lowell. Ask him to come here.” Kathy nodded, and reached for the phone.

Jerry followed her into her office. It was spacious, and as Jerry had expected, tastefully furnished. “Make sure the door is locked behind you,” she asked, and Jerry made sure the door had latched before turning a substantial-looking deadbolt.

She was rummaging in a safe built into her desk, and pulled out a fat folder with brightly colored security markings. She handed it to him and pointed to a chair as she sat down. “Remember that?” she asked.

Jerry looked at the label on the file, and was so surprised he sat down a little harder than he normally did. The chair took the hit without ill effect, and he hardly noticed the impact.

In the middle of the warning labels and prohibitions, the tab on the folder had a single word: “Rainfall.” It was intended to be meaningless to anyone who wasn’t supposed to know anything about it, but Jerry knew all about it.

He opened the file, and paged through material he hadn’t seen or thought about in many years. There was the track of USS
Memphis
in the Kara Sea, pages of testimony from the officers and crew, and eight-by-ten photos of the two nuclear warheads they’d removed from a barge that had been deliberately sunk by someone who’d wanted to hide not just two bombs, but dozens of them, weapons that weren’t supposed to even exist. It was a thick file, with photos of them all, looking more like mug shots, including one of Emily, Patterson’s assistant on that mission. She’d worn her hair shorter back then.

He probably paused for too long on Emily’s photo, because Patterson said, “There’s an exploitation report all the way in the back, by Sandia Labs.”

He found it, a spiral-bound booklet with Sandia’s blue thunderbird logo on the cover. Even the title was classified as Top Secret/Sensitive Information: “Analysis of Russian Nuclear Warheads Recovered by USS
Memphis,
March, 2005.”

Some of it was familiar to him.
Memphis
’s XO, Bob Bair, had actually identified the bombs from markings on the cases. They were reentry vehicles for the SS-20 Saber intermediate-range ballistic missile. The Russian name was “RT-21 Pioneer.” The analysis confirmed that, and other obvious facts, before getting very, very technical. There was a section on the casing, with photographs, and he realized that they were disassembling the warhead, taking photos as they went. He wondered how they’d dealt with the anti-tamper devices. Half of him wished he’d been there to watch, and the other half was very glad he hadn’t.

After that were sections on fusing …

“Find the section on ‘fissile material,’” Patterson instructed.

It was marked by a tab, and Jerry opened the booklet to that page, which showed a color photo of polished dull-colored metal surrounded by an intricate framework. It was an actual piece of the bomb’s core, exposed during the disassembly.

“The next page has an analysis of the material,” she prompted.

He found it quickly enough. It was even marked with a sticky note with the word “Mixed.” After a description of how the material had been removed and analyzed, it listed the chemical composition of the metal: isotopes of uranium and plutonium, lithium, traces of chemicals that had been used in the extraction process. Jerry understood it well enough. It was the same physics he’d studied learning how to run a reactor—just applied to a different purpose.

Patterson leaned forward and offered Jerry another document, with its own colorful security markings. “Here’s the report on the air and soil samples from the Kashmir explosion. Look at the table on page fifteen.”

Jerry studied the table in question. It listed the substances in the samples, and the two key elements, uranium and plutonium, both present, and in exactly the same proportions. But it was the yellow sticky note that drove it home; the plutonium isotope ratios were identical to the ones of the material in the Russian reentry vehicle.

He sat back in his chair, trying to fit this into what he already knew. “We were still at sea when I saw the news reports about the blast not being from an Indian weapon. That meant rogue nukes, and of course I thought about the ones we found, but this proves it.”

“It’s from the barge, or one just like it,” Patterson replied.

“I’d bet on the barge,” Jerry answered, “but I don’t know if it’s much help to know where the weapon came from.”

Patterson nodded. “You’re right. In fact, the only thing it really tells us is that we’re probably dealing with more than one loose nuke. Master Chief Reynolds said there were dozens on that barge.”

Jerry shivered at the thought. It had been years since they’d discovered the thing. Had whoever put them there gone back for some of them? All of them?

“Knowing, or having a strong suspicion we know, where the bomb came from gives us another lead to run down.”

“Straight into Russia,” Jerry completed.

Patterson’s desk phone buzzed, and Kathy Fell’s voice came over the speaker. “Senator Hardy’s here.”

As she said “Thank you” to her secretary, Patterson nodded to Jerry, who got up and unlocked the door. As he opened it, he quickly stepped to one side, and Senator Lowell Hardy (D-CT), Commander, USN, retired, stepped inside. Jerry closed and locked the door again as Hardy gave his wife a small hug and a peck on the cheek. She was as tall as Hardy, which meant they both were taller than Jerry, but he was used to that. Hardy had always been a big man, although with his retirement from the navy, some parts had gotten even bigger, and he fought a continual battle with his middle.

Hardy had been Jerry’s first skipper, aboard
Memphis
, and while their relationship had not started out well, Jerry now regarded the retired submarine captain as one of his closest friends and a mentor.

He greeted Jerry warmly. “It’s good to see you, Jerry. I’ll get the lowdown on Emily and the house later. I assume since you wanted me here instead of the house…” He saw the security markings on the documents Joanna offered him, and immediately sat down. Jerry took another chair to the side.

Patterson reprised Jerry’s report at the Pentagon, and then her discovery about the likely identity of the Kashmir bomb. He skimmed the sampling report as she talked. “I hadn’t seen the classified version of this yet,” he remarked after she finished. “I wouldn’t have thought to compare this with the analysis of the warheads we recovered.”

She accepted the compliment with a small smile, but her expression changed to concern. “If you agree that the barge is the most likely source for the Kashmiri warhead, then the next logical step is to tell someone. As soon as Jerry started talking at the Pentagon, I suspected the connection, but I couldn’t mention it then, because Admiral Hughes isn’t briefed in, and I had to double-check to make sure that Geisler and Foster were both on the list.” She tapped the folder for emphasis.

The “Rainfall” incident had been “deeply compartmented,” which meant that if you didn’t need to know about it, you didn’t even know that it existed. Revelation of the recovery of two nuclear warheads from a sunken barge in Russian waters, even if limited to the classified community, would create as many problems as it tried to solve. There was also the unwelcome fact that nothing stayed classified in Washington forever. They’d managed to keep Rainfall secret by ruthlessly limiting the number of individuals on the “need to know” list. If the list grew longer, the risk of public disclosure would become very real.

Hardy chewed on the idea for a moment, then observed, “Knowing where the bomb comes from simplifies the search tremendously. And everyone needs to know that there is a very real chance that more than one weapon is involved.” He stood, and then started pacing. Her office was big enough that he could go a fair distance in one direction before turning, and he made two full circuits before continuing to speak.

“You’re going to have to take this out of its box, so the community can start investigating. No choice.” He paused for a moment. “Politically, this is one secret that doesn’t embarrass anybody, except the Russians. There will be hell to pay if they find out. At least we’d be revealing it at a time of our own choosing. That lets us have a response prepared in case it does go public.”

Patterson put the documents back in her desk safe as she spoke. “I’ll be briefing the president on both of these tomorrow morning.” She turned to face Hardy. “Lowell. I have to have recommendations for President Myles when he hears about this. What do you think I should advise him to do?”

“I think you already know the answer, Joanna. Brief anyone who’s working on the Kashmir explosion into Rainfall, and keep looking for something that will corroborate or explain what Jerry’s reported. There’s a lot to do before we understand what’s going on. I’ll bet our bio on this Vice Admiral Dhankhar isn’t even current.”

She nodded. “That’s what I thought, but it’s nice to have a reality check.” She stood up, and reached for her purse. “If we head straight for the restaurant, we can still make our reservation.”

5

CASCADE

23 March 2017

0830 EST

The Oval Office, the White House

Washington, D.C.

“Don’t even think of saying no to me, Senator. You’ve already done that once, when you turned down that ambassador’s posting.” President Myles saw Hardy look toward Patterson. “And don’t blame your wife for this one. Andy Lloyd came up with this, and I agreed.”

Senator Hardy started to say something, then closed his mouth. After a thoughtful pause, he replied, “Mr. President, it’s not that I’m refusing to do it. I just don’t know that I’m the best person to be communicating what will undoubtedly be a very unpleasant message, and I certainly can’t predict how the Russians will react.” His tone mixed unhappiness with uncertainty.

They were seated in the Oval Office, on two couches facing each other. President Myles and Secretary of State Lloyd were on one, Patterson and Hardy on the other. There was a low table with a coffee service between them. Nobody had touched it.

Lloyd spoke up. “Senator, I’m still trying to grasp that we’ve had two Russian nuclear bombs in our possession for years, and that many more have been lying hidden on the seabed. And that’s on top of a possible conspiracy by part of the Indian military to use some of said weapons.”

“Too many questions, not enough answers,” Myles remarked.

Lloyd nodded emphatically. “Exactly. Any more clues and we won’t even be sure of our own names. We need answers, and I believe we don’t have a lot of time.”

“Until early April, at least, if Petrov and Samant are correct,” Patterson replied.

“I disagree,” Lloyd countered. “If there is a conspiracy, and they’ve changed the schedule once, they could do it again. And there has been one detonation already. We don’t know if it was deliberate or accidental, but the risk of a second explosion heaven knows where can’t be ignored. Even if it’s not on U.S. soil, it could still affect our interests in a dozen different ways, none of them good.”

Myles explained, “Until Dr. Patterson briefed me yesterday, I was willing to go with the simplest theory—that somehow a Chinese weapon had been given or fallen into LeT’s clutches, and they suffered an epic fail while preparing it for use. The intelligence community seems to be leaning that way.”

Hardy sniffed. “Based on nothing but supposition.”

“But it was consistent with all the facts,” Myles replied, “or it was until Dr. Patterson shows up with not one, but two revelations. That was before we called you here.

“I hadn’t forgotten about the barge you found, but the match between the two reports can’t be ignored. The information that Commander Mitchell provided, that’s another matter. It’s largely based on rumor and speculation.” He raised one hand as Hardy tried to reply. “But we’ll run it down, as best we can. Our intelligence coverage in India is thin, at best. But Andy and I agreed that the connection between the Kashmir explosion and the barge is much stronger, and takes precedence.”

“Your wife just recommended that we needed to tell people about the barge if we were going to get anywhere,” Secretary Lloyd explained. “And I realized we had to tell the Russians. That’s when we called you.”

Lloyd added, “And there’s another consideration. I understand why the previous administration did not want to tell the Russians about this when we first discovered the hidden weapons. But since then, we haven’t been able to find out anything else, and now we have evidence that at least some of those bombs are no longer on the seabed. If we sit on this any longer, and another bomb goes off anywhere, we will bear some of the responsibility. We need the Russians to understand the urgency of the issue, that’s why I thought it would be best to have the captain of the U.S. submarine that actually took the weapons explain it to them. It’s all about credibility, Senator.”