“Mister, I got a bomb going off here in ’bout half an hour. Talk.”
“I have just rescued a hostage from the Cubans. She has important information regarding that bomb.”
“Go ahead, son, spit it out for chrissakes!”
“According to Cuban guards she overheard during captivity, you have an extremely lethal biological weapon hidden inside a toy bear.”
“What?”
“An American sailor, name sounds like Gopher or Gomez, inserted the weapon inside a teddy bear and gave it to an officer’s child as a gift.”
A split second of silence was followed by an explosion from the speaker.
“Holy Mother of God!” Nettles screamed. “That stupid asshole who blew himself up! Gomez! Christ! He gave my daughter a big white teddy bear for her birthday! My own goddamn daughter!”
“Sir, I hope this is helpful. I know you—”
“Son, I appreciate the call. My wife, Ginny, and our little baby, Lucinda, and her bear are aboard the John F. Kennedy right now, and I hope you’ll excuse me but—”
“Certainly, sir,” Alex said, but the connection had been broken.
Aboard the Kennedy, the secure phone that linked CINCATFLT, the commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet, Admiral George Blaine Howell, to the commanding officer, Guantanamo Naval Air Station, rang on the bridge one second later.
Howell, who was on the JFK’s bridge monitoring the takeoffs and landing of nine separate squadrons flying sorties over Cuba, picked it up, knowing who it was.
“Find it yet, Joe?” Howell said.
“Do you know somebody named Alex Hawke?”
“Hell yes, I know him. British billionaire. Ex-Royal Navy. Works for us a lot. Tracked down the boomer the Cubans bought, and definitely on the good-guy side.”
“In that case, I’ve got some bad news, George. The bio-weapon is no longer here at Gitmo. It’s aboard Big John.”
“What did you say?”
“Hawke has a rescued hostage aboard his vessel who says the bomb’s inside a teddy bear given to an officer’s child by somebody named Gomez.”
“Gomez? Sounds familiar—wasn’t he that guy in your minefield couple of days ago?”
“Yeah, same guy. Three weeks ago, the same dickhead gave my daughter Cindy a big white bear for her fourth birthday. It’s gotta be the one, George!”
“Jesus Christ, Joe!”
“Yeah. Cindy takes that goddamn bear everywhere. She’s got it with her now. That bear is somewhere aboard your flagship, partner.”
“How much time have we got, Joe?”
“According to the official Cuban deadline, you’ve got twenty-nine minutes and sixteen seconds. George, goddammit, go find my little girl.”
“God almighty. Okay, I’m on it.”
Admiral Howell hung up and turned to the JFK’s CO, Captain Thomas Mooney. “Sound general quarters, Captain. We’ve got a Level Five biological threat somewhere onboard this ship. Came aboard with the evacuees at Gitmo. I’ve got CDC memos stating that it’s probably a highly lethal new bacteria strain, weapons grade, with a delivery system capable of wiping out everyone at Gitmo.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That bomb is somewhere on this ship. It is hidden inside a toy bear belonging to Gitmo CO Joe Nettles’s daughter. I want that goddamn thing found and neutralized. We have less than half an hour.”
Within five minutes, Captain Mooney’s most trusted aide, Lieutenant Arie L. Kopelman, was sent directly to the converted wardroom where, among others, the Gitmo commander’s wife and daughter were housed. He went to C deck, found their room, and opened the door. The sound of snoring filled the room. Everyone was still fast asleep. He looked at his watch. Twenty-two minutes.
Shouldn’t be a problem.
He entered the darkened cabin, a wardroom where some twenty-five to thirty women and children were currently berthed and, since he had no description of who he was looking for, simply rapped his fist on the bulkhead.
“Mrs. Nettles?” Kopelman said. “Mrs. Joseph Nettles? Would you and your daughter please step out into the companionway? Sorry to disturb you.”
“They’re not here,” a woman’s sleepy voice said. “They were moved yesterday. We were too crowded.”
“Where were they moved?” Kopelman asked, trying not to let the rising panic in his voice show.
“I think one deck down. Wardroom D-7?”
“Thank you,” Kopelman said, and sprinted for the closest stairwell. He took the steps three at a time and burst into the long companionway of D deck. D-7 would be to the left, toward the bow, he thought. Had to be.
It was. He swung open a door marked D-7 and rapped his knuckles hard on the bulkhead.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Joseph Nettles and her daughter,” he said loudly. “Are they in this room?”
“Oh,” he heard a woman’s voice say. “Yes, we are.”
He saw her now, a silhouette sitting up against the far bulkhead. He heard her say, “What on earth do you want?”
“Would you please step out into the companionway? Both of you? It’s very important.”
Kopelman watched the sweeping second hand on his watch. Less than nineteen minutes now, until the ka-boom or whatever it was. In just over a minute, Mrs. Nettles and her four-year-old daughter were standing in front of him, blinking and rubbing sleep from their eyes. Both were wearing nightgowns and robes. It had taken seconds of precious time to find and put on robes.
“I’m Lieutenant Kopelman. This is your daughter Cindy?”
“Yes. How can we help you, Lieutenant?” Ginny Nettles said, wrapping her robe tightly around her.
“I’m looking, actually, for Cindy’s bear,” Kopelman said, not caring how foolish he sounded. “I’ll explain later. But if you don’t mind, ma’am, could you please just step back inside, pick the bear up very carefully, and bring it out here to me?”
“Her teddy bear? Is this a joke?”
“No joke, Mrs. Nettles. Believe me.”
“Well, I would if I could but I can’t. Her bear’s not in there, Lieutenant,” Ginny Nettles said, giving the young officer a look both quizzical and ominous. “Sorry.”
“Not in there?”
“That’s what I said.”
“This is extremely important, Mrs. Nettles. Where, uh, exactly is the bear as we speak?”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant … Kopelman, is it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What time is it, Lieutenant?”
“Oh-five-forty-five, ma’am. Fifteen minutes before six A.M., ma’am.”
“You know, it’s funny. I’ve been a Navy wife for over thirty years. And I have never, ever encountered anything remotely as ridiculous as this. And that, by God, Lieutenant, is truly saying something!”
“Ma’am, I totally appreciate that. But it is desperately important that I retrieve that bear. Do you understand? I said ‘desperately’ I can’t say any more.”
“What’s wrong, Lieutenant?” Mrs. Nettles said, her mood turning from annoyance to concern to fear in less than a second.
“We, I mean Admiral Howell needs that bear now,” Kopelman said, looking into her eyes. “That bear is … contaminated. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mrs. Nettles? Right now!”
“Sweetheart, why don’t you tell the nice man where your bear went?” Mrs. Nettles said, bending down to look in her daughter’s face.
“Oh!” Cindy said, as if suddenly remembering, “Teddy went up in an air-o-plane!”
“An airplane?” Kopelman asked, his nerves now twanging from the back of his neck down along each arm, all the way to his fingers. He looked at his watch for the third time in as many minutes.
Thirteen minutes.
“That’s right, Lieutenant, what my daughter says is true. We ran into Cindy’s Uncle Chuck, my husband’s younger brother, who is a wing leader of the Black Aces.”
“Are you saying that Captain Nettles has the bear, ma’am?” Kopelman asked. Perfect little beads of nervous perspiration had popped out all around his hairline.