“How long will this take?” Zak asked.
“Three or four days. Possibly longer if we can’t find the right equipment.”
Steiner threw his arms up in exasperation. “And in the meantime, two nukes might be on their way to our doorstep.”
“He’s right,” General Gabriel said. “If one of our enemies has taken them, could they be used right away? Aren’t there codes or something to arm them?”
Mordechai answered. “There are codes, and we have good reason to believe they’re secure. To use one of the weapons without them, the current arming and fusing system would have to be reprogrammed, or the whole device rebuilt. Either case would require highly skilled scientists. To reprogram you would also need the bomb’s technical design specifications. Without that, it would be easier to just take the thing apart and rebuild it with your own triggering device.”
“How can we be sure these codes are secure, given how things are in South Africa?” someone asked.
Mordechai grinned. “Because they’re not in South Africa. They’re on the bottom floor of this complex.”
The room was silent and nobody asked the obvious question. Bloch was compelled to explain, “As soon as Polaris Venture left Cape Town, General Van Ruut personally handed the codes over to my man, who brought them straight to us. We needed them to prepare the weapons for storage.”
The Prime Minister summed it up. “So it’s likely that these two weapons are sitting on the bottom of the ocean. If someone has taken them, but doesn’t have the codes, they’d need three or four weeks to make them usable — worst case. More likely months. We have enough time to take a look without going on high alert.”
“And if they are on the bottom of the ocean?” Deputy Prime Minister Franks asked.
“We leave them there,” Mordechai replied happily.
“Let’s get on it,” Jacobs said. He directed Paul Mordechai to quietly find an appropriate submersible, then turned to Bloch.
“Keep up the passive monitoring for any intelligence about the sinking or, God forbid, hijacking of Polaris Venture.”
The Prime Minister then reminded everyone of the extreme sensitivity of the situation. If they kept a tight lid, the whole thing would probably be a nonevent in a few weeks. The members of the Cabinet concurred.
Jacobs inquired about any other business. General Gabriel said there had been a grenade attack on a troop convoy near the Lebanese border. He also reported that the Syrians had launched an SA-6 surface-to-air missile the previous night. There were no Israeli aircraft in the area and the missile seemed unguided, so it was likely a technical glitch. “One less they have to fire at us,” he reasoned. Anton Bloch said a headquarters Mossad man had been killed while on vacation in London, but that it appeared to be an accident. All in all, a quiet day aside from Polaris Venture. The Cabinet adjourned and its members filed out of the War Room.
After all had left, the Prime Minister sat alone and directed a circumspect gaze at the map with a big black X on the far wall. A “nonevent,” he’d said. To everyone except those sixteen people who’d been on board. And their families. Jacobs knew why he had lost his temper with Steiner. One of his own men was out there. Bloch had told him the name — David Slaton. A man gone off to do his duty. No one had expected it to be a dangerous mission, but those were the ones that always stung you. Jacobs had commanded an IDF infantry company in the ’73 war. His unit took thirty percent casualties, but he was proud that he’d never left any dead or wounded behind. Looking at a map full of ocean he knew General Van Ruut must be having similar thoughts. Van Ruut had fifteen men out there.
Jacobs got up, walked to Bloch’s seat and picked up the remote control. He’d never met David Slaton. Hadn’t selected him for the mission. All the same, as Slaton’s commander, he’d made the final decision to leave him out in the ocean, with no real attempt made at a rescue. At the time, there seemed to be sound, practical reasons for doing so. But now they escaped the Prime Minister. Jacobs pressed the button that turned off the projector and the screen went blank.
Windsom crashed along at eight knots. The sky was dark, and strong southwesterly winds drove a following sea. Christine looked to port and saw the Isles of Scilly passing ten miles abeam. The craggy islands of rock jutted up defiantly, sentries locked in a perpetual battle against the crashing swells. It was the same sight that had been seen for centuries, ever since sailors began venturing into the open ocean southwest of England. To see it on the return voyage was traditionally a good thing, a transitional signal that the hardships of sea were behind and the comforts of port ahead. Christine saw nothing hopeful in it.
She watched her tormentor at the bow. He had just changed out the jib, going with a smaller, heavier canvas in the strengthening wind. Now he was stowing the bigger sail into the forward hatch. His movement was sure and confident, no relation to the broken creature she’d dragged aboard four days ago. She was quite sure he’d never done any serious sailing before, yet Christine was amazed at how fast he picked it all up. The new sail was up, the old one stowed, and now he was on his way back, no doubt to ask what he should do next.
The last days had been a strange, awkward experience. At times they were a crew, tending to chores on the boat, taking meals together. Then uncertainty would prevail over the sleeping arrangements or a clipped conversation. When they did talk it was always about her, never giving Christine insight to the man or his intentions.
Christine looked again at the sky. A line of clouds, almost black, was immediately to the west and bearing down fast. The weather forecast, taken from the one radio he allowed her to use, had been right. It was going to be a serious blow.
She had wanted to outrun it, hoping to make a case for ducking into the first port, which happened to be Penzance. But now it was clear they were going to get caught, and maybe that was for the better. Christine still didn’t know where he planned to pull in, or what he would do with her. She had tried to obliquely broach the subject a number of times, but neither his answers nor his expressions gave anything away. In the distance, Christine could just make out Land’s End.
England. Freedom. It seemed so very far away.
The gust hit suddenly twenty minutes later. Windsom heeled over so far that her side cabin windows went under for a moment. Christine stayed at the tiller and reefed in the main, leaving out just enough sail to keep up steerage. She decided to roll in the jib, but the line wouldn’t move when she pulled it. The seas were still following, and Windsom surfed ahead awkwardly on huge twelve-foot swells. Sheets of cold rain lashed across the ocean, making undulating patterns on a crazy, uneven surface. Christine had to get more sail in. She gave a few sharp tugs on the line that controlled the mechanism at the base of the sail. Nothing. It was jammed.
“Great,” she fretted. Christine looked below and saw him at the charts. His legs bent in concert with the boat’s wild gyrations, and he showed no interest whatsoever in nature’s display above deck.
“I need your help!” she shouted over the static noise of wind-driven rain slapping against the fiberglass deck.
He poked his head out. “What?”
“The reefing mechanism on the bow is jammed,” she said, holding up the offending slack line. “I need you to go up front and take a look.”