“Then where did they get the money to finance this operation?”
“We don’t know yet, sir. We have some leads, which we are tracing now, and-”
The general glared. “Yeah, well, I know, and I don’t need to trace any so-called leads and neither does anyone else in this room with half a brain.” His tone made it clear that he was excluding the CIA’s man from that number.
“Ladies, gentlemen,” the representative from the White House said, and everyone shut up. “This was too close. We must take steps to see that it never happens again.”
“Sir-” the Coast Guard representative said.
“Stir up your service, Captain. Come up with some recommendations for the defense of the coastline and our ports that we can put into effect immediately. What almost happened here is deeply disturbing to every thinking member of this committee. Thank you all for coming.”
The audience was at an end. The crowd dispersed. The representative from the White House lingered to talk to the Coast Guard captain who had given the briefing. The captain concentrated on gathering up the handouts, perhaps two of which had been looked at by the attendees.
“Imagine,” the man from the White House said, chewing reflectively on the earpiece of his reading glasses, “they almost pulled it off, they almost sailed that puppy right into an American port and set off a dirty bomb that if detonated would have taken out nearly three hundred thousand people and rendered a strategic air force base and an entire city uninhabitable for years to come.”
The captain closed his briefcase.
“This is going to happen again, isn’t it, Captain.”
It wasn’t really a question, but the Coast Guard captain answered it anyway. “Yes, sir, it is.”
CAPTAIN LOWE WAS BURIED with full military honors in his hometown of Valentine, Nebraska, his wife, son, and two daughters present. His wife was presented with the flag that had draped his coffin and she accepted it, dry-eyed, as her daughters wept quietly and her son stared straight ahead with a stony face.
HELMSMAN EUGENE RAZO WAS buried with much more fanfare and ten times the family members present in his hometown of Kodiak. His fiancee’s family hosted a memorial potlatch that is still remembered for its cornucopia of food and the amount and quality of the gifts given those who attended. His parents started a scholarship fund in his name at the held indefinitely without bail or representation. His uncle died later that year, but he never knew it.
THE BODIES OF TERRORISTS, mercenaries, and ship’s crew floated ashore in Resurrection Bay for months following the incident. Ja Yong-Bae’s body was not among them.
The younger Noortman’s leg healed, although he would walk with a slight limp for the rest of his life. He remained in Hong Kong doing contract work for various organizations, some legal, some not. A year after the events recorded here he was recruited by a Russian mafia don who wanted to expand his empire into maritime shipping. He never did track down the true owners of the Agafia.
PETER WOLF NEVER RETURNED to Odessa. There was a Pedro Lobo who surfaced in Rio de Janeiro a year later. He was joined by a ravishing young Russian woman who lavished affection on him and then disappeared with a substantial portion of his more liquid assets, including a handful of uncut diamonds from the wall safe, the combination of which he had been so unwise as to give her. He took it well. “At least she left me enough to live on,” he said, and was soon seen in the clubs with another, even more ravishing girl from the Philippines.
No evidence was ever found to connect the Ja brothers to the bombing of his office.
WHEN LAST HEARD FROM, Arlene Harte was in Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska, writing a column about the annual migration of the Western Arctic caribou herd. Knight-Ridder has made an offer for a syndicated column, and she is considering it.
IN MAY ENSIGN HANK Ryan was promoted to lieutenant and given command of a one-hundred-ten-footer out of Pensacola, Florida. Ensign Robert Ostlund took early retirement with a medical disability. Ensign Reese was promoted to lieutenant, junior grade. Seamen Delgado and Lewis were promoted to petty officers. Chief Mark Edelen put in for retirement and invested in a marina in Corpus Christi.
FIVE YEARS LATER, LILAH Chase was diagnosed with a virulent case of pancreatic cancer. She died two weeks later, in great pain. Shortly thereafter Eli Chase was diagnosed with leukemia. He survived.
“IT REALLY IS OVAl,” Sara said, looking around her.
“Ye-ees,” the flunky said. “The president will be right with you, Commander, Admiral.”
“Thank you,” Sara said politely. She seemed incapable of being anything but these days. She limped forward with the aid of a cane. It turned out she had cracked her right fibula when the Sojourner Truth went aground on Fox Island, and in the press of business hadn’t noticed. It was taking a tiresomely long time to heal.
Admiral Elwood “Woodie” Long, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard and no fool, gave her a penetrating look, and held his peace.
Sure enough, a few minutes later the president walked in and exchanged handshakes and backslaps with Admiral Long, who then introduced Sara. Sara accepted the president’s hand and stared at the face usually seen at the top of the hour on CNN and pretended to listen to his words of praise with a pleasant, attentive expression.
She became aware of silence and realized that the president had stopped speaking. “Thank you very much, sir,” she said gravely, and looked at the admiral, waiting for the signal to go.
“I mean it, Commander,” the president said, who seemed like a nice man, only very insistent on getting and keeping her attention. He smiled. “I heard you backed your cutter onto the beach. Is that true?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, still polite. “We lost the bow when we rammed the freighter. It was the only way.”
His smile widened. “An inspired solution.” He sighed, his smile fading. “I wish we could acknowledge your heroism, Commander, and that of your crew, but we feel at the present time that it would be most unwise to allow this story to be told. Later, perhaps, when the country is less unsettled…”
“I quite understand, sir,” Sara said, looking at the admiral again.
“Anything we can do, Commander,” the president said, “say the word.”
Sara smiled her bright, shiny smile and took the offer for what it was, a politeness, a courtesy, meaningless.
And then, halfway through the door, she turned. “Mr. President?”
He looked up from his desk, around which more flunkies had begun to gather like moths to a flame. “Yes, Commander?”
“There is something you could do for me.”