“Sure, Pierre, I know we’ll find it if it’s there. But then what? I was expecting to have permission to blow it up and move on with our lives.”
Renard smiled as he pressed an expended Marlboro into an ashtray.
“No, my friend,” he said. “I expect that our fate and that of the Leviathan will be quite more intriguing than a simple torpedo detonation. Director Rickets informed me in our last communication of a plan under development to retake the submarine and lead it safely home.”
“I’d love to know the details.”
“We will shortly. What I know now, though, is that it will involve us, an Ohio-class SSGN submarine, and a team of Navy SEALs. And we will no longer be taking orders from Director Rickets but from the Commander of the Atlantic Fleet. I trust you find this interesting.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Then you will also find it interesting that there will be a new commanding officer of the Leviathan for its journey home.”
“Oh yeah, who are they sending?”
“The operation is too dangerous to risk sending one of Israel’s few seasoned, command-qualified officers,” Renard said. “Instead, it appears that the Mercer will be my second to last command. You are looking at the future commanding officer of the Israeli Naval Ship, Leviathan.”
CHAPTER 16
In the combat information center of the USS Bainbridge, Lieutenant Commander Robert Stephenson looked over the shoulder of a seated sailor. A monitor showed the Bainbridge in the center of a circle one hundred and fifty nautical miles southeast of Nantucket.
The ship’s radar systems created dots on the circle representing fishing vessels and traffic in shipping lanes from New York and Boston. Information from distant radar systems added to the picture as far as Philadelphia and Halifax.
Whirring air conditioners kept the internal, windowless room cool. Stephenson pulled his sweater sleeves to his wrists and turned.
Behind him in a Naugahyde throne, the section’s watch officer orchestrated the efforts of a dozen men who staffed the center. Stephenson had trained the watch officer and several like him to manage the overwhelming amount of data that the Aegis combat system could supply, and he trusted him to react when the ship was threatened. But when a situation required extended tactical action — the known likelihood of exchanging weapons — the throne belonged to Stephenson.
“Good evening, XO,” the watch officer said.
“Good evening. What’s our emissions status?” Stephenson asked. He knew that nothing had changed in days, but in the nerve center of a naval vessel, where one word launched missiles, specifics and confirmations mattered.
“The SPY-1D radar system is optimized for high-altitude targets, sir,” the officer said. “All surface radar systems are off. The ship is dark and in modified emissions control.”
“Very well,” Stephenson said, translating the answer in his mind to mean that the Bainbridge was painting the sky with electromechanical radiation, searching from the horizon to the heavens for missiles and aircraft. In contrast, the ship’s radar system was putting little energy into sea-level searches to minimize the chance of surface vessels electronically eavesdropping and finding the Bainbridge. The ship also had all outwardly visible lights turned off so that it could not be seen.
Stephenson wished the officer a quiet night and left the center. He climbed stairs to his stateroom where he sat at a desk and typed a letter to his wife and two daughters. After reading and rereading the note to verify it held no tactical information about the Bainbridge and its operations, he dumped the note into an email queue. At the next satellite communications uplink, his note would give his family a welcome and a smile.
Olivia found spying on Farah Ghaffari to be routine. The Iranian professor was completing her third day of following a mind-numbing pattern. She drove to Old Dominion University, parked near the Perry Library, and walked to the Mills Godwin Life Science Building where she spent her day.
Posing as a post-doctoral researcher, Olivia worked her way into the library and found a table near a window overlooking the life science building and Ghaffari’s car. She read books of whatever topic came to mind while glancing out the window. On the third day of watching the professor, Olivia found the conservativeness of her day to be conspicuous.
In the late afternoon, an hour after her last class of the day, Ghaffari appeared in front of the life science building. Her head down, she marched to her car. As she drove away, Olivia raced out of the library.
Driving a rented gray Ford Fusion, Olivia sped down Hampton Boulevard behind Ghaffari’s Mustang. Later, as she turned into a grocery store, Olivia parked, trailed her into the store, and followed her from two aisles back.
Through her peripheral vision, Olivia saw her glance in her direction. She held her breath, studying a jar of tomatoes until she looked away. Unsure if her spying skills had rusted, Olivia continued to shop for her dinner and checked out at a register far from the line in which Ghaffari stood.
She lost time waiting to check out and fell five minutes behind Ghaffari. When Olivia pulled into her newly rented apartment that had a view of the professor’s home, she saw Ghaffari in her kitchen making dinner. Olivia strolled to her door and dropped her groceries on a rented coffee table.
Instead of settling in to a third night of watching the professor hide in the solitude of her apartment, Olivia placed her phone to her ear, called Commander Sanders on his cell phone, and heard his voice.
“Hello.”
“Hi, it’s Olivia McDonald. I met you at your office last week.”
“I remember you. Of course. What can I do for you?”
“Take me to dinner on that rain check. I’m in town.”
“Sure. But it has to be on base at the officer’s club. I’m working late, but I could use a break. I can get out of here soon. Is seven o’clock okay?”
“Yes. I’ll see you then.”
At dinner, he wore his uniform and looked less energetic than their first meeting. He glanced around the room.
“I haven’t been here in a while,” he said. “It looks kind of plain. I think I had better memories of it than what it looks like now.”
“I was thinking it’s like an austere country club, which is probably the look you’re going for in an officer’s club. Just enough ambiance to know that you’re dining but not too much to forget that you’re in the military.”
“Maybe. I’m just tired.”
“You look it.”
A waiter took their meal order, and Olivia tipped back a glass of water with a lemon wedge straddling its rim.
“I thought you were upset about us being set up by Director Rickets,” he said.
“I was,” she said. “But screw him. I’m a big girl.”
He smiled.
“Sure. So what have you been up to?”
“Not much really. Just working an assignment.”
He stared at her, waiting for details. In that moment, she realized the Achilles Heel of two people from the intelligence community trying to enjoy conversation. They could share nothing about the topics they cared about most.
“What about you?” she asked.
“Working hard. A lot of hours.”
She nibbled on a buttered breadstick.
“So you flew helicopters before you joined the intel group, right?” she asked.
“Yep,” he said. “SH-60 LAMPS helicopters off the back of destroyers. Anti-submarine warfare. And I was pretty darn good, too.”