“You’re quite right,” King responded. “How about the other detection gear, sir? This FLIR — forward looking infrared. How good’s that?”
“It’s fine,” said the mollified caller. “But again, how high are you flying? Best thing is to get satellite surveillance for that.”
“Didn’t Admiral Johnson—” Larry began.
“Jensen,” the CNO corrected politely.
“Sorry, yeah, Jensen. He said he got satellite-reported anomalies in the strait early on and had ’em checked out.”
“Yes,” answered the CNO. “He dispatched a UAV.”
“A Predator.”
“No, another type,” answered Nunn.
“Can you tell me what kind it was?”
“No.”
“It was—” began the caller, but King used his delay button to call up a commercial, CNO Nunn visibly relaxing and thanking Larry during the break. “A retiree, right?” mused King, “stickin’ it to his old employer. I’m gonna get crap, though, for cutting him off. Censorship, blah blah blah …”
Nunn shrugged. “People generally understand it’s not a good idea to tell the enemy what kind of surveillance we’ve been using.”
King didn’t comment. Truth was, the Navy didn’t think it was a good idea to tell anyone anything anywhere, except come appropriations time on the Hill.
The red light was back on. “Admiral,” asked King, “you think the midget sub is still with us? In our waters? Maybe it’s gone. Hit the Aegis cruiser — that’d be three in a row — and ran?”
Nunn was caught unawares. Everyone, even the maverick Freeman, was operating on the assumption the enemy sub was still there.
“Ah, well, I doubt it’s gone, Larry. A midget sub doesn’t move that fast underwater and hasn’t got anywhere near the range of a normal-size sub.”
“Garbage!” It was Douglas Freeman, who, now with Aussie and David Brentwood, was listening to the King interview while still watching Darkstar’s flight south of Tatoosh Island down the wild beauty of the Pacific’s pounded coastline. Here and there, streaks of white appeared on the grayish screen, not surf, but isolated, pristine beaches that marked the verdant and rocky edge of America.
“What d’you mean, ’garbage’?” asked Aussie.
“CNO’s saying midget sub hasn’t got enough speed or range,” Freeman replied, his eyes still fixed on Darkstar’s feed. “Damn Piranha-class midget can do near ten knots and run for over a thousand miles. If it’s one of those, it could be halfway to Japan by now.”
“So you think the midget’s taken off, General?” put in Aussie.
“No. Why should it? Last kill less than twenty-four hours ago. Still undetected. Son of a—” Freeman pointed at Darkstar’s feed. “Get a load of this, boys.” The general pulled his head back from the screen to give them a better look. There was a knock on the door, a pause, then four sharp, rapid taps. Freeman pushed back his chair, strode quickly to the door, looked through the spy hole, and opened the door a crack, but left the chain on. “I gave at the office!” he quipped, then slid off the chain and opened the door fully.
“What we got, General?” It was Salvini.
“Trouble,” said Freeman, shaking hands with the “Brooklyn Bad Ass,” as he called Salvini.
Choir Williams, following, smiled. “General.”
The three men walked over to the laptop, David and Aussie exchanging greetings with the two newcomers, Aussie asking Salvini, “Who’s your fat friend?”
Choir Williams was in fact the slimmest Aussie had ever seen him, as trim as all of them except the general, who, as an inveterate jogger, was in remarkably good shape for his age, despite a slight post-middle-age paunch which he insisted was “hereditary muscle.” There was an awkward moment as Sal and Choir realized David Brentwood could shake only with his left hand.
“Well,” pressed the general, his impatience and wish to avoid any further embarrassment to David disallowing his four ex-SpecFor boys any opportunity to catch up on what each other had been doing in “peacetime”—a word they habitually uttered with the same contempt as did a grounded fighter pilot, “what d’you make of these?” He’d asked Salvini and Choir before they even put down their bags and heavy Draeger rebreathers. “Feed is coming in from south of Cape Flattery.”
“Piloted recon?” asked Sal.
“UAV,” explained Freeman. “Hot-spot feed. And we got a lot of small hot spots — the salt shaker effect on Tatoosh Island — off Flattery. Birds, yes, but other big hotspots that Aussie thinks are media news trucks, among other things. More big hotspots down on the Pacific coast. Must be over forty so far, and we haven’t reached Father and Son yet.”
“Seals,” said Salvini.
For a moment the general, tired, thought he meant “SEALs.”
“That so?” said Aussie doubtfully.
“Yeah,” said Salvini confidently, looking about the motel room for something to drink. “Surprised you haven’t got more of ’em on that trace.”
“Seals?” said Freeman, whose vanity habitually denied he was surprised by anything.
“Yeah,” repeated Salvini, his hands flapping in a bad imitation of the sea mammal. “You know, Flipper? Caves must be full of ’em.”
Seldom had Sal, Choir, Aussie, or David seen Freeman so taken by surprise.
“Sea caves are full of ’em,” continued Salvini. “That’s why the IR hot spots you’re seeing are so big.”
“Well,” Freeman began, “that’s no damn good! I figured on having you guys swim in and check out anything that might be the size of midget sub, but dammit — we haven’t enough people to investigate every damn cave up and down the coast.” He paused, fixing an anxious brow on Salvini. “How in God’s name do you know this, Sal? Seals? You’re from Brooklyn, for God’s sake.”
“The zoo,” said Sal. “Not seals but sea otters. Used to take my sister’s kids in the evening. Took my squad IR goggles for fun so the kids could see the critters all nestled up in their lairs. Big white blobs just like on your IR feed right there. They huddle together.”
“Aw,” said Aussie, “you don’t know dick! Could be anything in those sea caves.”
“Yeah,” conceded Sal nonchalantly. “But if you look at the feed’s scale—” He leaned closer. “—two inches to the mile. It’s got to be some pretty big mammals.” He paused, joshing Aussie, “Maybe they’re elephants!”
“Oh, very droll, Sal,” said Aussie. “Ha! Ha!”
“Wait a minute,” interjected David. “Sal could be right, General. The midget sub could be using a seal colony as infrared cover.”
Choir good-naturedly dismissed the idea of the enemy, whoever they were, using the collective heat signature of mammals as IR cover.
“And what d’you know about mammals, Choir?” challenged Aussie. “ ’Cept for those Welsh tarts you used to bed.”
“I’ll ignore your antipodean vulgarity.”
“Antipodean. I’m an American citizen, you Welsh turd!”
Freeman, ignoring Aussie’s joshing, pressed Choir for his explanation of why terrorists wouldn’t use such a cave.
“Noise,” answered Choir. “Ever hear the racket those creatures make? It’s worse than Aussie’s snoring.”
“So,” proffered the general, “what we need to look at are the caves without a hot spot. A cold cave’s where the sub’s mother ship, its milch cow — a trawler, whatever — stashes its food, torpedoes, mines, diesel fuel. An otherwise empty cave. Sub comes in literally ’when the coast is clear.’ Surfaces inside the sea cave, resupplies quickly, and heads back out.”
“Maybe,” suggested David, “that’s why the Navy hasn’t seen any signs of the midget surfacing for air replenishment.”