Ahmed and Amal transferred armloads of dirty laundry into the back of the van, got in their vehicles, and then drove back to the main road. Ahmed turned right in the van and continued toward Jeddah while Amal turned left in the Land Cruiser toward Mecca.
“Ground, this is Makkah One.”
“Go ahead, Makkah One.”
“The suspects have exchanged vehicles and split up. The SUV is now headed back toward Mecca with two occupants, and our three original occupants are now in a van headed toward Jeddah. I can’t follow both. They are separating rapidly. Which one do you want me to follow?”
“Stand by.”
“Also, they transferred some massive objects from the back of the SUV to the van. I could not tell what they were.”
“Roger, stand by.” After a few moments the ground controller ordered, “Follow the van. We’ll have ground forces stop the SUV. Command is concerned about the objects they transferred to the van. They could be other components of the warhead. We don’t want them to have the opportunity to assemble them.”
“Ground, there are no distinguishing features of the van. It’s like many others on the highway and in Jeddah. It will be difficult to keep track of them once they get to Jeddah.”
“Roger, stand by.” There was a short delay, and then the order, “Makkah One, Command says take them out. Weapons free.”
“Roger that. Understand weapons free?”
“That’s affirmative, Makkah One. Weapons free.”
The attack helicopter maneuvered to a position behind the van as it neared the outskirts of Jeddah in the pre-dawn darkness. The pilot locked the missile onto the target and fired. In an instant, the van and its occupants were obliterated. There was nothing but scrap metal strewn across the road and the surrounding desert sand. Ahmed, Angel, and Juan never knew what hit them.
Chapter 33
“I know, Captain, it’s a great plan, but it’s getting harder and harder to operate this boat with so few crewmembers,” complained the XO.
“Well, it’s going to get a lot harder, XO. You have to find ways to cross-train and rotate personnel. I know it’s not the way we were taught to do it, but these are extraordinary circumstances. We have to rely to a much greater extent on the automated capabilities of the boat. Remember, it’s just for a few weeks.”
“But Captain, we normally have a complement of a hundred and fifty-five crewmembers. We’re down to less than thirty!”
“On a normal patrol, with the full ship’s complement, we have a great many people routinely checking equipment just to make sure it’s operating normally. Others are performing preventative maintenance on redundant systems, which we’re not doing. Others are administrative people tending to necessary paperwork, and we’re not doing that either. Still others are mess-cooking for a hundred and fifty-five people, running the ship’s laundry, cleaning compartments, and performing other services necessary for supporting a hundred and fifty-five human beings living in a tube under the water. We don’t have those luxuries or the demands of that many people on this mission.”
“Still, sir, this is an extremely complex boat. I’m not talking about not having people to mess-cook or clean compartments — I’m talking about not having essential personnel to man the ship’s vital systems!”
“I understand, XO. To a great extent, we have to rely on the quality of the USS Louisiana to perform well and on her automated capabilities to operate without human intervention.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Captain.”
“I know you will, and I know you’ll do a great job. That’s why I selected you for this mission. Remember, though, we’re now headed down the east coast of South America, and several of our Spanish-speaking crewmembers are ready to obtain new identities in Argentina and other South American countries. That means another six teams, twelve more crewmembers, will be offloaded in the next two weeks before we round Cape Horn. By my calculation, that should leave us with a complement of fourteen people. We’re going to need those fourteen at battle stations. We’re bound to have a welcoming committee when we get to the Cape. The main ASW forces are deployed around Africa to block our exit around the Cape of Good Hope. But Cape Horn is the only other chokepoint for getting out of the south Atlantic. They would be totally remiss if it was left unguarded.”
“Captain,” said the XO incredulously, “I can’t imagine how we could possibly run this boat at general quarters with only fourteen people!”
“Well, XO,” said the captain, “you better think of how we’re going to do it with twelve because at any one time at least one of our fighters will be on patrol.”
Chapter 34
“Control, we have a problem here!”
The panicked call had come from the Missile Command Center on the main deck just forward of the missile compartment where the extracted nuclear warheads were being stored. Within the missile compartment, the boomer’s twenty-four ballistic missiles were housed in two parallel rows of twelve missile silos, which ran fore and aft down either side of the large, open compartment. At the level of the main deck, there was a system of suspended, open-grid, metal walkways. A central walkway enabled crewmembers to travel through the missile compartment, a distance of 125 feet from the forward to the rear hatch. Three-foot wide arms of the elevated walkways also extended laterally between the silos, where they joined up with exterior walkways, which ran along each side of the submarine, between the silos and the hull.
“Missile Command, what’s the nature of your problem?” asked the captain.
“Captain, this is Seaman O’Connor. The problem is John Ellis, sir. He’s gone insane! Petty Officer MacKenzie and I were making our rounds, and when we got here to the missile compartment, Mr. Ellis threatened us and screamed at us to get out. He was holding one of the peanuts, sir, and two of the three arming lights were RED!”
“I’ll be right there! XO, you have the conn!”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
By the time the captain reached the forward hatch to the missile compartment, a small crowd had gathered there. Sergeant Ramirez stood at the hatch, armed with a .45 caliber pistol and an M-16 assault rifle.
“All right, who can tell me what’s going on here?” the captain asked as the crowd made a hole for him to get through. “Where’s John Ellis?”
Petty Officer MacKenzie stepped forward and said, “He’s still in the missile compartment, Captain, and he has a warhead… I mean peanut… that he is apparently arming. We don’t know why. The way he was screaming, sir, we didn’t want to provoke him. When he said ‘get out,’ we got out!”
“That was good thinking, Mac. You did the right thing. Where was he when you last saw him?”
“He was aft, on the main deck on the starboard side. Captain, he looked and sounded pretty crazed when we saw him.”
“How far aft?”
“I’d say just one or two silos from the aft bulkhead, sir.”
“Sergeant Ramirez,” the captain said.
“Yes, sir?”
“I may need your and Corporal Williams’s special talents. However, you won’t be needing that M-16. The quarters are too close in the missile compartment for a rifle. It’s like Sherwood Forest in there — no opportunity for a long-range shot. Besides that, even though we took the warheads off, we’ve still got missiles in those tubes and they’re loaded with highly volatile rocket fuel. If the situation deteriorates to shooting, we can’t afford to have any missile silo hit by a stray bullet. We might as well let John Ellis blow us up — either way, we’d be just as dead. Understood?”