Tasi and Inapo swam around their enclosures. Below the surface, each enclosure was draped with netting that allowed the marine systems to swim out of the cove to be taken to sea for training exercises. Both dolphins looked in good shape. They were relaxed, rested, well-fed, out of the stressful environment of the Strait of Hormuz and the Somalia coast. They enjoyed the sun and warm weather along the Virginia coast, a setting familiar to both of them.
In adjacent pens, a pair of Atlantic bottlenose dolphins had been flown up from the Florida Keys, their littoral training exercise cut short by the national security emergency. Having never worked with those navy dolphins before, Merk observed their behavior, tuned into their traits. One appeared to be rambunctious, the other docile and relaxed. Neither one measured up to the gregarious Tasi or the obsessive-compulsive Inapo.
Within seventy-two hours, six to eight more dolphins flown in from the navy Marine Mammal Program on Point Loma peninsula, across San Diego Bay, would join the quad of biologic systems. More MMS personnel would be flown in from Coronado SPAWAR to support the mobile veterinary clinics and mobilize the staging area in New York City.
Merk met with the veterinary clinic supervisor. Together they double-checked supplies, reviewed inventory including food, gear, and dolphin accessories, such as GPS tags, dorsalcams, nuclear probes, and the types and amounts of food they would need in Little Creek and then in New York. Merk voiced his concern about the low number of transport hardboxes — about half of what would be required — but said he would make due with whatever SSC San Diego would provide for the operation.
The supervisor told Merk that he would call NMMP and follow up to finalize the details.
Minutes later, a CIA agent and the Team Two CO drove Merk to the Naval Network Command Center at the Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach for a meeting that would get the ball rolling.
Chapter Seventy
Inside, the Naval Network Command Center, Merk, the CIA agent, and the Team Two CO met with the SEAL Team Two Navy Commander (O-5). He was a tall, trim, graying man with an angular face and creased forehead. They saluted the commander; he saluted back, motioning them to take a seat. Via a videoconference on a wall screen, he put Merk in touch with NMMP Director Susan Hogue in San Diego — they hadn’t spoken since the death of Morgan Azar.
After a quick round of introductions, the navy commander spoke to Director Hogue, saying, “We need to move fast and coordinate our efforts on the fly with SPAWAR. We need to do so under a total press blackout. No FBI, no local police privy to NMMP counter ops.”
“No tripping the alarm bells that will chase the terrorists away. I’m fine with that plan,” Director Hogue said, understanding the absolute need for secrecy of the operation. She focused on Merk: “Lt. Toten, we need a full list ASAP of what you’re planning to do for the marine surveillance in New York, including Mobile Vetlab items, quantity, gear, etc.”
“Yes, Director Hogue. We can start by sending MK-4 mine-detecting systems and MK-6 combat diver systems to Little Creek, until I find a temporary home for them in New York. The NMMP team can load the transport plane with accessories, transport slings, devices, and teams of personnel, just like we were sending the systems overseas,” he said.
When she received and confirmed the order, she would email the list back to Merk and the SEAL navy commander, and other officials on a need-to-know basis in the Pentagon.
Merk turned to the ONI official and the navy commander. He asked for a list of all navy ships, aircraft, and drones that would be in New York for the Fleet Week and Memorial Day celebrations. He needed to see what the SEALs, CIA, and other spy agencies were planning in terms of deploying drones, divers, land-based cams, underwater cams, and helicopter sweeps searching for nuclear materials. He felt the latter would pose problems, as the sensitive scans would tag the wrong kind of radioactive material, generating a slew of false positives, such as medical X-ray machines and nuclear density gauges used by inspectors testing soil compaction. Giving off hot reads would add layers of complexity, coordination issues, and confusion, while overt stress by the authorities might scare off the terrorists.
The CIA agent showed Merk a digital map of radioactive sensor buoys that ringed the waters thirty miles out in the ocean, in Long Island Sound, and off the 137-mile coastline of the Jersey Shore. Set up in the shipping lanes and routes of local pleasure craft and fishing boat traffic, the buoys could detect nuclear material being smuggled into the US from box carriers and cruise ships, to yachts and sailboats.
Merk was impressed with what he saw. But he pointed out that the stolen nuclear material was likely already in the New York area, having been smuggled across the porous border of Canada and New England. He told Director Hogue and the others that he was going to conduct the waterborne searches himself, in order to do it right, and that going the path of a hundred cooks would only jeopardize the operation. The data would flow from him and the dolphins to them and the other intel agencies in real-time analytics.
The navy commander concurred, warning, “We have no room for error in New York. Tens of thousands of lives are at stake, including your own.”
Merk understood that. Failing to prevent an attack of that magnitude would kill lots of people and ruin numerous military and political careers. The collective guilt from such a debacle would be overwhelming. So he grabbed a pad and sketched the island of Manhattan, locating small islands in the East River he drew from memory, then the Hudson River, from the tip of Manhattan north past West Point, sketching the bridges and tunnels that crossed the rivers.
Chapter Seventy-One
Merk spent the morning in the water with Tasi to make sure she was healthy enough for recon duties in New York. Had it been any other operation, at any other time, in which the lives of thousands of people weren’t exposed to an overhang of a massive terrorist attack, he would have sent her back to NMMP to give birth.
In the cove, Merk cupped his hand on Tasi’s beak. She rode him around underwater. First in a figure eight, then in an ever-widening loop, more than once grazing his side against the netting of the enclosures. Surfacing at near minute intervals to allow Merk to catch a breath of air, while she burst a breath through her blowhole, Tasi dove under and propelled him out to Little Creek inlet and the sea beyond.
There, Tasi surfaced with Merk for a breath, and then returned to the cove where she glided over the sandy bottom. She allowed Merk to feel the strength of her flukes. With a powerful thrust, she showed she was fit for duty—no excuses. He got the message. He tapped her to speed ahead, slow down, then motioned her to circle around a mooring line. In each turn and transition, the dolphin proved agile, nimble, and responsive. Still, Merk needed to give the pregnant dolphin rest before her next assignment and more downtime in between surveillance runs once they arrived in New York.
The decision to take Tasi along was Merk’s alone. NMMP Director Hogue ordered that she receive health status and swim updates of the system on a daily basis, as a second check.
The NMMP had lost only one dolphin in its combat history of more than sixty years. And Merk remembered that dark day all too well. Neither Navy SPAWAR nor NMMP wanted to scuff its sterling record in New York Harbor. With the recent death of Lt. Morgan Azar, Merk didn’t want to put anyone or any MM system in harm’s way.