Independence Day (40 page)

A variety of key White House and Pentagon aides were also present, including Chief of Staff Adrian King, Bill Polk and Josh Gant from Langley, and Mark Raditz, the deputy secretary of defense.

The walls were covered in a dazzling array of plasma screens. On one wall, several screens displayed photos of the ocean as Defense Intelligence Agency satellites swept for the remote possibility of spotting the boat as it crossed the high seas. Another wall showed a large three-dimensional digital map of the U.S. East Coast, with small lights representing, in real time, all U.S. naval, military, and law enforcement assets and their current positions. A screen at the far end of the room showed live feeds of news media: Fox, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Al Jazeera, BBC, and Russia SkyView, monitoring for any mention of the bomb or terror plot.

On the wall just inside the door was a clock. In red digital letters, it displayed a countdown of time remaining until 12:01
A.M.
on July 4.

Outside the room, down the hallway, just past a pair of soldiers with submachine guns, President J. P. Dellenbaugh was standing. He was alone, waiting outside the door. His hand was on the wall and his eyes were shut as he steadied himself and tried to find strength.

Dellenbaugh had just finished the last of the phone calls to the parents and, in two cases, spouses of the six dead CIA men. Telling them they died doing something they believed in. That they died protecting the United States of America.

It was Dellenbaugh’s first crisis as president. He’d been a U.S. senator when 9/11 occurred. His memory was permanently scarred by the sight of flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon.

This threat, he knew, was worse. If the nuclear bomb were detonated on U.S. soil, the casualty count would be in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps more. The psychological scars on individuals, on children and families, on schools and communities, on government, on America itself would be impossible to heal.

Dellenbaugh kept his eyes shut for more than a minute, praying silently. Then he stepped into the room. Conversation ceased. Every man and woman in the Situation Room stood up and saluted him. At this moment, he was the commander in chief.

“Harry, where are we on finding the boat?” asked Dellenbaugh, taking his seat at the head of the table.

Black hit the remote. A screen cut to a map of the Atlantic Ocean.

“The boat passed through the Strait of Gibraltar three days ago,” he said.

A bright red rectangle appeared on the plasma above a section of ocean. At the top of the screen, Greenland and Iceland were visible to the north.

“Based on our estimates of the boat speed, tides, that sort of thing, we believe the terrorists are somewhere within this band of ocean.”

“What’s the bottom line?” asked Dellenbaugh.

“They’re less than two days out, sir.”

Dellenbaugh turned to Brigadier General Phil Tralies, chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

“General?”

“We’re throwing everything we have at it, Mr. President,” said Tralies, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “We have every long-range UAV we can spare searching for the boat, based on the description of the vessel, estimates of when it passed Spain, and assessments of shipping channels, tide, weather, and of course the speed of the vessel. We have an active interagency protocol that is now live-wired across the U.S. defense and intelligence infrastructure. We’re also coordinating with NATO, Interpol, and all major shipping lines that do business with the United States.”

Black hit the remote. Another screen cut to a photo of a fishing trawler.

“This is what the boat looks like,” said Black. “Approximately two hundred feet long, aft wheelhouse, made to fish in deep water. Unfortunately, there are about half a million of these floating around the Atlantic Ocean right now. And therein lies the challenge of finding it.”

“Not to mention the truly scary thing,” added Tralies, “which is they might’ve switched boats by now, in which case we have a bigger problem.”

Black tossed the remote across the table to Raditz.

“DIA satellites are scouring that rectangle of ocean,” said Raditz. We’re snapping photos at a rate of one thousand per second, sweeping in a controlled arc that we hope will locate the boat.”

Raditz pointed to the screens behind him, showing a rapidly changing series of close-up photos of the sea.

“That’s the digital feed. We have a lot of people looking at it and, perhaps more important, it’s being run against some pretty sophisticated analytical software programs at NSA.”

“Have we seen anything?” asked Dellenbaugh.

“We’ve identified twenty-four boats matching the description,” said Raditz. “They were all legit.”

“How do we know they’re legit?” asked Dellenbaugh.

“We ask for papers, then run them against various registration and commercial filings,” answered Raditz. “We also run an interrogation protocol designed to quickly identify possible suspicious behavior and separate those folks from the rest of the pack. We’re coordinating those interviews, as they occur, with interrogators from Langley. We also run the audio through lie detectors. If anyone looks suspicious, we will board.”

Dellenbaugh stared at the screen—photo after photo of black ocean, interrupted occasionally by whitecaps.

“And if we don’t find it while it’s out at sea?”

Raditz handed the remote to the man on his left, Rear Admiral Henry Turner, chief of naval operations.

“We’re building a cordon off the East Coast,” said Turner. “That’s a military and law enforcement resource line up and down the coast. Subs, ships, boats, planes, and on-the-ground personnel. Obviously, we’re placing particular emphasis on cities and populated areas. We’re working with Homeland to coordinate communications with state and local law enforcement so we’re not panicking at the eleventh hour.”

“What about a blockade?” asked Dellenbaugh. “Why can’t we just shut the damn coast down?”

“Theoretically we could attempt it, sir,” said Turner. “We’ve war-gamed it. But there are a couple of very significant challenges. First, we’re talking about thousands of miles of coastline. Based on the volume of boats out there versus our enforcement capability set—hardware, manpower—a smart ship captain is going to get through. If we focus on two or three cities, odds are they won’t get through; they’ll simply go to city number four, five, six. Or they’ll wait us out. We believe the best strategy is what we’re doing—a flexible line of defense with transparent vertical coordination down through the military and law enforcement complex.”

Dellenbaugh was silent for a dozen seconds. Then he turned back to Tralies.

“General, what are the odds we find this thing?”

Tralies nodded, considering his words.

“Normally I’d give it a twenty-five percent chance,” he said. “But…”

“But what?”

“The vessel has moved very quickly across a challenging navigational course. This suggests an experienced ship captain. He knows what he’s doing. That, for me at least, lowers the odds.”

“How low?”

“One in ten, sir.”

Dellenbaugh paused. He reached forward and poured a cup of coffee, then turned to a woman with long blond hair, seated at the far end of the table: Martha Blakely, the secretary of energy, whose agency was responsible for building America’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

“They needed explosives from the Vietnamese boat,” said Dellenbaugh. “What does that tell you, Martha?”

“Sir, this sort of nuclear bomb needs conventional explosives in order to trigger the nuclear reaction,” said Blakely. “Presumably, their nuclear expert opened up the bomb and found that the explosives were somehow compromised or degraded.”

“How hard is it to replace them?”

“Not very hard, Mr. President. There’s a chance they’ll fail, but it’s small.”

Dellenbaugh looked at Calibrisi.

“What about intelligence, Hector?”

“We know who’s behind the plot, which is a significant first step,” said Calibrisi. “Now we’re just trying to find him.”

Calibrisi nodded to the plasma. The map of the U.S. eastern seaboard was replaced by a tile of photographs, six in all. They were all photos of Cloud.

The key elements of Cloud’s biography appeared:

“You’ve already seen this, everyone,” said Calibrisi, “so we don’t need to waste time rehashing Cloud’s bio. Let me cut to the chase. We believe he’s in Moscow. We’re doing everything we can to find him. It’s a game of hide-and-seek.”

“What do you have on the ground in Moscow?” asked Dellenbaugh.

“Right now, we have two operators and a case officer.”

“Is that enough manpower?”

“No, and we’re doing everything we can to build a bigger team.”

“Did we have anything to do with the events that are on the news?” asked Lindsay, the secretary of state.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On what events you’re talking about, Tim.”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about. The abduction of the ballerina.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been on the phone four times with the Russian foreign minister.”

“How’s he doing?” asked Calibrisi.

Lindsay shook his head, slightly exasperated.

“He’s pissed,” barked Lindsay. “We could’ve run this through the Russian foreign ministry. We could have—should have—flown over there and sat her down and talked to her, official channels.”

“I doubt that.”

“Why do you doubt it? Do you think he’s lying? We need to work
with
the Russians, Hector. And I’m not talking about the Russian mafia. My God, what has Langley gotten us into?”

Calibrisi nodded, then glanced at Rickards, the attorney general, who had obviously shared the Malnikov deal with Lindsay and others.

He took a deep breath.

“It was your State Department that led the negotiations regarding the disposition of nuclear materials after the Soviet Union imploded,” said Calibrisi. “It was Russia’s foreign minister who claimed, as recently as last month, that all Soviet-era nuclear materials and weapons were accounted for and safeguarded. This bomb was one of those weapons. If you’d like to play Monday-morning quarterback, I’d start by looking in the mirror.”

“I was a United States senator when those deals went down—”

“So it’s not your fault?” asked Calibrisi. “Is that what you want us all to know?”

“How dare you—”

“We’re in the real world now, Senator,” said Calibrisi, interrupting. “In that world, a nuclear bomb is on its way to the United States. In that world, a terrorist succeeded in penetrating Langley’s computer networks and killing six American soldiers. I will do everything in my power to stop that bomb from detonating on American soil, including working with people like Alexei Malnikov. You had to take some angry phone calls? All I can say to that is, stop your whining and either start pitching in or get out of the way.”

Lindsay, face beet red, lurched forward in his chair. But Dellenbaugh held up his hand, telling him to keep quiet.

“Enough,” said the president.

“But Mr.—”

“I said enough. If you two want to take it outside, that’s fine with me.”

The president was silent for several moments as he took control of the room. He looked at Lindsay.

“I authorized the Malnikov deal,” he said, before turning to Calibrisi. “And I was in the Senate when the Soviet Union broke up and we paid lip service to the warnings by Mossad about their nukes. So I guess if you two want to blame someone, you can blame me.

“When I was on the Red Wings, I could always tell when we weren’t going to win the Stanley Cup. It was during those seasons when guys would start pointing fingers at each other in the locker room after we lost a game.

“I would trade my life to stop that bomb, and I expect each of you feel the same way, regardless of your title, your rank, or your beliefs. If you don’t, I want your resignation right here, right now. If that bomb goes off, our country will be forever, permanently scarred. Hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions, will die. We have to stop that bomb. There is no other option.”