Nick gazed over his shoulder briefly and saw Marina out of the corner of his eye. She was pale with fear and sadness. She, too, could only imagine the ramifications from the launch. It was clear now their mission was to kill Andri. Even if it meant their own destruction.
“Assume course two-six-four,” barked Sasha.
“Two-six-four,” repeated the rudder man sitting next to Nick.
This was more alarming. Nick expected to hear a course that took them straight under the ice pack. A place for them to hide. Instead he had set a course west. Straight into the oncoming ships that the Russian government was sure to send. It was extremely dangerous and gave everyone on the bridge no comfort.
“Full ahead,” said Andri. He was calm and cool. His plan had yet to fail. He drew confidence from this, and his ego began to swell.
When Dan finally got out his front door, he was met by the same two marines that had sought him out at the diner. This time each had a smile, as if they knew what had happened between him and his guest.
“Mr. Archer. You are needed again.”
The words were uncomfortable. He knew that the sub could not have reached the Mediterranean by now. Something must have gone wrong, terribly wrong.
Instead of the White House, Dan found himself being sped to the Pentagon. The marines escorted him inside and straight through the security lines without being checked. They went unopposed into elevators and high-level security areas. Eventually they wound up in one of the deep basements of the great building. It was the only time they had to present their badges.
Where they finally took Dan was to a huge meeting room next to a gigantic control room displaying a computerized map of the world. It didn’t take an expert to figure out what most of the little flashing lines that covered the map meant. They were the US and Russian air forces on full alert. In the corner of the giant room was a blinking sign. It read DEFCON 4. The world was on the brink of disaster, and only a few knew it.
In the room sat the president. He beckoned Dan to come in. Along with him were the heads of all the military branches, his chief of staff, and the secretary of state. The mood was serious but not desperate.
Sukudo was in the room too. He sat next to Admiral William Baxter, his only superior in the navy. Baxter was unemotional and had confidence in Sukudo to handle the details. After all, it was the navy that was on top of the situation.
One person Dan expected to see here would have been Anthony DeCurtis, his boss. He was conspicuous by his absence. Dan didn’t know if it was on purpose or not.
“Come in, Dan,” the president said, gesturing for him to come in. “Gentlemen, this is Dan Archer. One of the reasons we have somewhat of an upper hand on the problem.”
Everyone nodded. Sukudo shot him a welcoming glance as he sat down.
“Admiral Sukudo, would you please fill Mr. Archer in on the events of the last six hours,” ordered the president.
“Yes, sir. Well, Dan, as you can probably guess, the Saratov never made it to the Mediterranean. Instead it charted a course east up the northern Russian coast and launched a short-range nuclear warhead.”
Surprisingly, Dan found himself more analytical than emotional about the news, yet he couldn’t muster a reply.
“The good news was that no one was killed. The warhead was purposely detonated in an area of Russia that lacks any population.”
He exhaled, relieved about the information. “Where’s the War Eagle?” he asked.
“We think they’re in pursuit. We aren’t sure, though. I received a message from Jim Hickman two days ago informing me that he had lost contact with the Saratov and would try to pick it up again. We couldn’t figure out why he had fallen so far behind until we heard from the aircraft carrier Toledo, now operating in the Arctic Circle area.”
“The captain is a friend of yours, isn’t he?” asked Admiral Baxter.
“Booker, yes. Book intercepted the message sent to me and had his sonar operators go over the sonar tapes they recorded for twenty-four hours prior to the message. He accounted for every sound except two faint, almost dead waves that the operators couldn’t hear, but his equipment picked up. His best people enhanced them as much as possible, and their best guess was that it could have been two torpedo explosions. If that’s true, we have to assume that the War Eagle sustained damage and had to repair before she continued on.”
“Had to repair? It can’t be that bad if she went back in the hunt.” The president was in rare form in his assessment, which drew contemptuous looks from the staff.
“Hard to say. There may be many reasons for them to continue the chase, whether they’re damaged or not.”
Dan was getting excited. “Do we know where the Saratov is now?”
Everyone looked to Admiral Sukudo.
“I have found that I have made an error,” Sukudo continued, rather embarrassed. “Normally in situations like this we’d rely on Josh Brand to supply us with pictures from Houston. I mistakenly put him on the War Eagle to help them get near the Saratov. There isn’t any real replacement for him in Texas. They got some computer nerd to step in, and he crashed the system. Seems Josh didn’t want anyone messing in his files so he booby-trapped the codes. We can’t get anything from there.”
“Make sure Captain Brand is fired upon his return,” said the president.
The air force general seemed to slouch in his chair a little but held his tongue.
The president continued. “Basically we’re always one step behind this guy, Dan. I want to know his next move. We need to get in front of him.”
“Ah.” What the president said surprised Dan. Everyone looked to him for an answer. “I don’t think I can help. I don’t know anything about military strategy or the technical stuff.”
“You know the man. Stemovich.”
“Not really, Mr. President. I’ve only read the standard reports on him and a few other things. The guy who would really know would be Mikhail Nemokov, but he’s also on the War Eagle.”
“Is there anybody else on that fucking ship we could use, Sukudo?” the president demanded.
Dan spoke again, hoping to break the tension. “I wouldn’t be sure of anything with Stemovich. I could perhaps throw out some options if I had the right information. I would think that we could put something together in this room.”
“Good enough. What do you need to know?”
“Well. Was the nuclear target of any importance at all? What could Stemovich have gained by firing on a nonpopulated area?”
The senior ranking army general spoke. “In the various scenarios that we draw up for a ground assault across Russia, we know that area to be a nuclear wasteland. Seventy years ago, there were several little communities thriving in that zone until the Russians became sloppy with their testing. Some towns were wiped completely off the map and more evacuated because they had other types of serious disasters. The whole place was fenced in. Then things became worse. Reports said that they used the area to dump nuclear waste from their power plants. In a ground assault, we wouldn’t even go in. You run over that ground, you’re dead in a week.”
“So he wasted a missile,” Dan thought out loud. “He got nothing in return. Could it have been a test?”
“Probably not,” said Sukudo.
“He sure as hell got my attention,” said the president.
“Yes, he did.” The comment struck Dan as funny. “You know what, though? He didn’t want your attention.” A TV sat in the corner of the room. He went over and pressed it on. “Does this get CNN?”