“The letter to you from this Romney character is, in my view, nothing short of a disgrace. The head of our National Security Agency, an Admiral and former Commander of a United States Navy Carrier Battle Group? I’m absolutely shocked. But all that pales before the real problem. And that’s the reluctance of this Administration to act in the true interests of this nation.
“Even if the President does not believe it personally, he has to face up to the truth that these terrorists may already have killed maybe a hundred of our citizens up in Washington State. And that dismissal of the facts may mean that Charles McBride is in serious breach of his oaths of office.”
“So what do we do?”
“For the moment, we keep very quiet. But I do want to alert General Scannell and Admiral Dickson. If something as serious as this is really happening, I want to ensure that the proper authorities are up to speed. We probably should tell ’em to keep a weather eye out for a slow Russian nuclear, anywhere along our West Coast waters.”
“Arnie, what would you recommend we do if we locate that Barracuda somewhere in the Pacific offshore, but maybe not strictly in our national waters?”
“Sink it, George,” replied the Admiral. “Sink that son of a bitch, hopefully in damn deep water. No questions asked. Deny all knowledge.”
“Right on, sir,” said Jimmy, grinning. “That’s the spirit.” And all three of them, at that moment, wished to high heaven that Admiral Morgan was still in his old office in the West Wing.
The Barracuda cruised slowly south-southwest, following the coastline of the U.S.A. and then Mexico, about 500 miles offshore, 600 feet below the surface. She had stayed farther west while they ran the gauntlet of the huge U.S. Naval Base in San Diego, then angled left, moving inshore.
There was apparently no one searching for her. They heard no transmissions and made none themselves. They had not surfaced for more than a week, and were now running parallel with the great 800-mile-long Mexican peninsula of Baja California. Indeed, they were heading in the direction of the Tropic of Cancer, just about opposite the most southerly headland of the peninsula.
Ahead of them was an 8,000-mile-long haul, all down the west coast of South America, around Cape Horn and up the Atlantic. At their current speed of only five knots, this would take more than two months. But the ocean ahead of them was lonely, largely unpatrolled by the U.S. Navy, and not heavily photographed by the U.S. satellites.
Down there, along the wild and woolly coastline of Peru and then Chile, they could make much better speed. They could wind those big turbines up to perhaps 15 knots in very, very deep water, where the southern Pacific shelves down steeply west of the colossal mountain range of the high, craggy Andes.
General Rashood spent the day, along with everyone else, in a watchful but relaxed mood. He and Shakira dined together quite late in the evening, while Ben Badr had the ship. And Shakira went to bed at around midnight.
It was almost two o’clock in the morning when Ravi ordered the Barracuda to periscope depth. They came sliding up out of the black depths and immediately raised their ESM mast.
They made no report to the satellite. They just sent a fast signal of a couple of words in the six seconds their mast remained visible.
Saladin Two.
6
The satellite signal from General Rashood arrived exactly on time. And Admiral Mohammed Badr received it with some relief. They were still operational. And his beloved son, Ben, was safe.
The sealed documents in the package next to the telephone were almost burning a hole through his desk. The Admiral rose swiftly and stepped out into the night. A staff car drove him out of the base on the north road, and then swung sharply west down to the airport, less than two miles from his office.
Already on the runway, its engines howling, was a small private jet from Syrian Arab Airlines. Admiral Badr’s car took him right up to the aircraft and he handed the package personally to the pilot.
Then he stood and watched the little jet scream into the dark, hot skies, banking northwest for the 1,200-mile journey across the Gulf, along the Saudi — Iraqi border to Jordan, and then north up to Damascus.
A Lieutenant Commander from the Iranian Navy would be awaiting it, and he would drive the package personally to the Saudi Embassy on Al-Jala’a Avenue. From there it would be placed in the Kingdom’s Diplomatic Bag to the Syrian Embassy at 2215 Wyoming Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.
One way or the other, that’s a package just about impossible to trace. It would arrive in the White House mail room delivered by the Special Diplomatic Courier Service, addressed to the President of the United States. Official. Very Official. But origins unknown.
Admiral Badr was rather proud — and rightly so — of the circuitous route he had planned for its arrival in the Oval Office.
President McBride’s Chief of Staff, “Big” Bill Hatchard, former underachieving defensive lineman for Yale University, tapped lightly on the door of the Oval Office. The President was on the phone, but Bill was used to waiting for the former Rhode Island Congressman, having served him on the Hill, driven him, written for him, protected him, and finally headed up his campaign for the Presidency. Charlie McBride treated him like a brother.
Finally, he heard the old familiar call, “C’mon in, Bill, what’s going on?”
Bill entered, clutching the package from the Navy Base at Bandar Abbas, which he had opened and skipped through. Only packages that the President’s aides deemed of unusual importance went directly to the White House Chief of Staff. And this one looked highly important, having arrived by diplomatic courier, marked for the specific attention of the President: PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL.
Nothing, however, got past Big Bill Hatchard en route to the Chief Executive. As opposed to his fairly disastrous football career, he could stop anything or anyone from his West Wing office. “Safe Hands” Hatchard, that was Bill.
But this morning, a worried frown clouded his big, broad, usually cheery face. It was an expression mightily familiar to all his colleagues on the Yale bench, but it was seen much less in the White House. Part of Bill’s Presidential brief was to keep morale high throughout the building, to jolly people along, to play down the stress, to make light of any problems.
“Whatever you’ve got in your hand, young William, is giving you cause for grave concern,” said the Chief. “If it’s anything less than a direct death threat, I’m going to find it necessary to lighten your mood.”
Bill laughed, thinly. “Sir, it might be a whole lot worse than a death threat. And I would like you at least to read through it — it’s only two pages. Mind if I have a splash of this coffee?”
“Help yourself, buddy, and get one for me too, will you? Meanwhile, I’ll take a glance at the ill tidings you bring me.”
Mr. President:
You will by now have realized that the eruption of Mount St. Helens was not an accident. It was indeed perpetrated by the freedom fighters of Hamas, as I intimated in my communiqué to Admiral Morgan. I am now ready to lay out my demands, which you must obey, in order to prevent us from destroying the entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States of America, including Boston, New York, and Washington.
We intend to do this by causing the greatest tidal wave this world has seen in living memory.