The Seventh Angel - Страница 44

In the foreground, the black shape of a submarine was silhouetted against rolling waves, its wake a line of white foam across blue water. In the middle distance, two more submarines could be seen making their way toward the breakwater.

The screen shuffled through a series of similar scenes: submarines tied to piers or returning to various harbors, sometimes accompanied by Navy tug boats, sometimes not. With each changing scene came an identifying caption … Kings Bay, Georgia; New London, Connecticut; Bangor, Washington; Norfolk, Virginia; Pearl Harbor, Hawaii …

The screen finally settled on a view looking out across empty ocean waves, with no submarines in sight. The subtext of the video was clear; our nation has no submarines at sea.

The moderator looked into the camera. “We are witnessing an event that is literally without precedent. For the first time since the creation of America’s nuclear submarine force, every submarine in our country’s arsenal has been ordered to return to port.”

He turned toward the guest on his right. “Mr. Gohar, you’re first in the hot seat tonight. How does the recall of our submarines affect national military strategy? And, more to the point, does this move leave our country open to attack?”

Gohar frowned slightly. “Those are deceptively simple questions, Darren. I can’t really give useful answers without putting your questions into some kind of meaningful context. For all practical purposes…”

Senator Blair cut him off. “Thirty seconds into the program, and you’re already starting with the doubletalk!” he snapped. “President Chandler has handed over control of our nuclear submarines to a proven enemy of the United States. Not one of our submarines. Not some of our submarines. All of them!”

He gestured toward the video screen, the gently rolling waves devoid of any manmade object. “How much context do we need to understand that?”

The moderator raised a hand. “Please, Senator… You’ll get your chance to respond.”

Gohar cut a quick sideways glance toward the senator. “As I was saying…” He paused, as though waiting for another interruption. “For all practical purposes, we already have been attacked. We’ve had a nuclear detonation within a hundred miles of a major U.S. city, and — if we hadn’t managed to intercept them — we would have had two more detonations within a few hundred miles of the west coast.”

Gohar looked directly into the camera. “We’re dealing with a madman here. He has an entire arsenal of nuclear warheads at his disposal, and he’s already proven that he’s not afraid to use them against the United States.”

“Of course Zhukov is not afraid,” the senator said. “We’ve got a president who goes belly-up at the first sign of a threat. Why in the hell should anybody be afraid to attack us?”

“Excuse me,” the moderator said. “I’d like to get back to my original question.”

Gohar ignored him. “Six and a half million,” he said. “That’s how many people would be dead if those three warheads had reached their targets.”

He glared across the table toward his opponent. “I realize that they’re not your constituents, Senator Blair, but surely we don’t have to risk the incineration of six and a half million Americans to uphold your sense of national dignity.”

Sitting at her desk, Veronica Doyle cracked another smile. Ouch! Let’s see how fast old Dick backs away from that one…

“I’m not talking about dignity,” the senator growled. “I’m talking about national security. Strategic deterrence. National policy. Do any of these words ring a bell?”

Veronica Doyle picked up the remote and turned off the television. The show was just warming up, but she’d heard all she needed to hear.

A lot of people around the beltway were already treating Richard Blair as the presumptive Republican nominee for the next presidential election. He was clearly positioning himself for the nomination. One thing was certain; the crafty old bastard had identified the theme of his campaign.

CHAPTER 32

USS TOWERS (DDG-103)

WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN

MONDAY; 04 MARCH

0141 hours (1:41 AM)

TIME ZONE +11 ‘LIMA’

Bowie woke into darkness, his heart still pounding in his chest as the dream grudgingly released its grip on his mind. He lay in the bunk of his at-sea cabin, tangled in his sheets, his throat burning with remembered adrenaline.

He blinked away tears and concentrated on slowing his breathing while his brain sorted through the jumbled logic of the nightmare, separating dream images and memories of the past, from the realities of the present. The urgency of the dream began to give way, the memories gradually fading from his conscious thoughts.

This was not the Siraji minefield. There was no torpedo clawing its way up the wake of his wounded ship. Those events belonged to the past. They were gone and done with, no matter how many times they came back to haunt his sleep.

The parade of corpses was fading as well. Bowie was lying in his bunk alone. He was not standing in Combat Information Center, and he was not surrounded by the broken and bloody ghosts of the Sailors who had died under his command.

He stared toward the darkened ceiling, and didn’t reach for his wristwatch. He didn’t want to know what time it was. Not yet. He didn’t want to know how much sleep he’d had, or rather, how little.

He thought about trying to go back to sleep.

Maybe tonight would be different. Maybe this time, the dream wouldn’t come again. Maybe he would sleep, with no dreams at all. He jerked the sheets away from his legs. And maybe the Tooth Fairy would leave a quarter under his pillow.

The dream didn’t come often. Sometimes it left him alone for days at a time, and once he’d gone three weeks without a single troubled night. But sooner or later, it always came back. Always.

If he let himself fall asleep now, he’d be back in the minefield, standing shoulder to shoulder with Clint Brody, and Alex Sherman, and Julie Schramm, and all the rest of them — with their torn and burnt flesh, and their mangled limbs.

They wouldn’t question him, or accuse him. They hadn’t done it in life, and they didn’t do it in the dream. They just stood there, mangled and lifeless, reminding Bowie of the terrible price that each of them had paid for following his orders.

Damn.

He might has well get up. He wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight.

Bowie sat up on his bunk. He was reaching for his coveralls when the phone rang. He fumbled for it in the dark, locating it by touch, and unlatching the receiver from the cradle.

He held the phone to his ear. “Captain speaking.”

The voice of his Executive Officer came over the line. “Captain, this is the XO. I apologize for disturbing your sleep, but we’ve got Flash message traffic, sir. Immediate execute.”

Bowie yawned. “Thanks, Nick. I’ll meet you in the wardroom in a couple of minutes.”

He yawned again. “You’ve seen the message. Is this something we’re going to need to wake up the Department Heads for?”

“I think so, sir,” the XO said.

“Alright,” Bowie said. “Roust them out, and head them up to the wardroom. I’ll be up there in two shakes.”

He hung up the phone. Immediate execute? That could only be one thing.

The XO hadn’t given him any details, because the ship’s regular internal telephones were non-secure. He’d find out in a minute, when he read the message. But it had to be the submarine. Bowie couldn’t think of anything else that would justify Flash message traffic with Immediate execute orders.

He stood up and began pulling on his coveralls. The Towers was getting orders to go after the Russian missile sub. That had to be it.

They were going to go kill the submarine. He whistled through his teeth. Nothing like a little taste of déjà vu to get the morning started off right.

CHAPTER 33

NEW KOBOSHI HOTEL

CHIBA PREFECTURE, JAPAN

MONDAY; 04 MARCH

0326 hours (3:26 AM)

TIME ZONE +9 ‘INDIA’

Someone was knocking on the door.

Ann Roark grunted and rolled over, pulling a pillow over her head.

The knocking continued, this time accompanied by a voice. “Ann … Get up.”

It was Sheldon.

Ann opened one eye. The miniscule Japanese hotel room was still dark, the only illumination coming from the green digits of the clock radio and the red LED on the ceiling smoke detector. The muted glow of streetlights against the backs of the curtains made the window a rectangle of lesser darkness.

Ann tried to focus on the clock, but her vision was too blurry to resolve the digits into anything meaningful.

Sheldon knocked again. “Wake up, Princess Leia. It’s time to go save the galaxy … Again.”

Ann reluctantly peeled back the covers and half-stumbled out of bed, shuffling in the general direction of the door. She located a doorknob, twisted it, and found herself gazing blearily into the dark confines of the hotel room’s tiny closet. She shoved it closed, located the correct door, and opened it.

The light from the hallway nearly blinded her. She shielded her eyes with a hand that felt like lead, and squinted toward her intruder. Sheldon stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the brightness like a Blake painting of an angel radiating heavenly glory.