Gerry Doyle
From the Depths
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my parents, who taught me the joy of fusing imagination and the written word; to Kara, whose love is an inspiration and whose red pen led me to many thoughtful ideas; to the countless teachers, mentors and friends who have supported me along the way; and to God.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank Dr. Kylie Vannaman and Lt. Rich Federico for their technical assistance and thoughts as I prepared my manuscript. If it weren’t for their help, my characters would be limited to the technical expertise of an imaginative journalist. Thanks also to Tami Miller, Erica Meltzer, Ben Hubbard, Charlie Dickinson and Theresa Schwegel for their comments and generosity with killer ideas. Christine McClure made sure readers saw my good side. Pete Valavanis got me behind the trigger of an MP-5 (and an AR-10, and an M-4, and…). I owe Nhan Nguyen and Adam Brown for their expert counsel.
These people and countless others have inspired and encouraged me during the course of my career-too many to list, but without whom I would not keep putting pen to paper.
War is a contagion.
**EYES ONLY**
PROPERTY OF U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
ALL INDIVIDUALS HANDLING THIS INFORMATION ARE REQUIRED TO PROTECT IT FROM UNAUTHORIZED DISCLOSURE IN THE INTEREST OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES.
HANDLING, STORAGE, REPRODUCTION AND DISPOSITION OF THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENT WILL BE IN ACCORDANCE WITH APPLICABLE EXECUTIVE ORDER(S), STATUTE(S) AND AGENCY IMPLEMENTED REGULATIONS.
VIOLATIONS WILL BE PROSECUTED AS TREASON.
SUBJECT: Myers, Dr. Christine M.
INTERVIEWERS: Olsen, Jorge C., Rear Adm., USN Trent, Greg L., Capt., USN
LOCATION: —redact—
TIME: Interview transcript is compilation of four eight-hour sessions on 03, 04, 05 and 06 June, 2007.
OLSEN: Please state your name for the record.
MYERS: No. Why am I being held here? Have I committed a crime? Do you think I'm a terrorist?
TRENT: Ma'am, we just want you to tell us—
OLSEN: We've read through your written version of what happened. It's incredibly detailed and helpful. But we'd like to go over it with you, to have you walk us through everything so we can gather as much information as possible. Get a complete picture, so to speak.
MYERS: Of course it's detailed — I'm a scientist. And it's not like I've had anything else to do. I've been here, what, four days? It's a big suite I'm in, sure, but don't think I didn't notice the door to the hallway was locked. I can't sleep. There are no windows. The television isn't connected to anything except an empty DVD player. If the orderly hadn't brought me a pen and some paper, my only entertainment would be watching the doctors examine me. That got old fast.
TRENT: Ma'am, please. We need you to answer some questions. That's all.
MYERS: Prisoners usually get lawyers. Do I?
OLSEN: You're not charged with a crime, ma'am. This is just a debriefing. You're being cared for here in this facility for your own safety.
MYERS: My safety? What about my rights? I know you haven't spoken with Gen. Patterson. There's no way he would allow me to be held in detention, with no visitors, interrogated every day—
TRENT: This isn't an interrogation.
OLSEN: Look, ma'am, it's standard. This interview is the last step in the information-gathering process. We just want to know what occurred onboard the Dragon, and you're the only person who can tell us. So we need to see the events that transpired through your eyes. Then we'll write a report. And then you'll get to go home, as soon as the doctors say it's OK.
MYERS: I feel fine. I AM fine. No one's bothered to show me my charts, but there's nothing wrong with my body — except for the splint on my finger — and no amount of blood work will show otherwise. I'm fairly certain that I'm suffering low- to mid-level symptoms of post-traumatic stress, though. Not that anyone's asked. And I want to leave. Now.
TRENT: It's not our decision or yours. It's the doctors'. I know how difficult all this must be to understand.
MYERS: That kind of condescending bullshit angers me. Just so you understand.
OLSEN: It's just an interview. Nothing more. We'll ask a few questions, but mostly we just want to hear what you have to say.
MYERS: Every time I close my eyes, I see the inside of that sub. It's dark, but I can tell what's waiting out there. Blood everywhere. I haven't turned the lights off in my room since I got here. Yet you want me to talk about it some more.
OLSEN: It's the only way.
MYERS: What do you want me to say?
OLSEN: Just start with your name. Then tell us the day and time when you first became involved in this, and go from there, with as many details as you can remember. Tell it… tell it as if you were sitting in a bar or a restaurant. Relax.
MYERS: Are you for real? Sitting in a bar? Right. Fine. My name is Dr. Christine Megan Myers. I'm a forensic scientist for the Central Intelligence Agency. My specialty is recreating violent crimes. Is this debriefing classified?
TRENT: Yes, ma'am.
MYERS: It better be.
I
I had worked with Gen. Patterson before. I don’t feel comfortable discussing the details of those instances. In all of them, however, my work involved dissecting mayhem. Figuring out how someone died. When they died. How the attacker escaped.
So when I heard Patterson’s voice on the phone, I knew that further sleep would be impossible.
“Dr. Myers, this is Jack Patterson,” he said. His voice was like a file sawing through a lead pipe. “I apologize for the hour.”
I rolled over and struggled to bring my bedside clock into focus. The glowing green display told me I was having a telephone conversation at 2:45 in the morning. It was a Sunday. The last Sunday in May.
“General Patterson. What can I do for you?”
He didn’t bother asking whether my phone line was secure. A crew from Langley came once a month to make sure it was “clean,” free of bugs or taps. Calls like this meant it had to be.
“We need you to examine a submarine full of dead people,” Patterson said. The words, which lacked intonation or excitement, slipped through my head without registering.
“Say that again?”
He ignored me. “But we know why they’re dead. It appears that the sub was flooded with chlorine gas.”
“Wait, General, I’m confused. Someone launched a chemical attack on a U.S. sub?”
“No, it was an accident. That’s the way it seems at this point, anyway. And it’s not one of our subs. It’s North Korean. Diesel-electric.”
I took a breath to ask him why he was calling me, but he cut me off. “Look, I know this is confusing. I’ll sketch the situation out as briefly as I can. This submarine contained some important weapons research, and it was defecting to the United States with its crew. It was being escorted by one of our attack subs. Last night, about eleven o’clock, the escort’s sonarman heard unidentifiable mechanical noises, shouting, alarms and, finally, gunfire. A few minutes later, the North Korean boat surfaced.
“The escort tried to hail it, but no one responded. They sent a boarding party over, and that’s when the chlorine accident was discovered.”