"So let him blow up some fish, what’s the big deal?"
"That is the bit I can’t tell you. It is a big bomb and a big target. Can we just leave it at that?"
"Do I have any choice?"
"None whatsoever" said Matt slowly.
"Count me in then, I always wanted a holiday in California, I have never been there."
Chapter 110
The door to Bill Simpson’s office flew open and in bounded Matt and Natasha.
"Sorry to barge in Bill, but this couldn’t wait" said an out of breath Matt Peterson.
"What have you got?" questioned Bill as soon as the three had seated themselves at the round table.
Matt passed across a large blowup of a picture of a blue green mess.
"What the hell is this?" enquired Bill.
Matt explained, "This is a blowup of a satellite picture from the U.S. Maritime Administration. One of the things that poses the greatest danger to shipping is containers that fall into the sea during bad weather. They are supposed to be securely lashed to the deck, but sometimes they move around and fall over the side. If they sink then there is no problem, but sometimes they float, or worse still, they partially float just above or below the surface. USMA use regular satellite passes to try and identify the location of these containers, and these are noted and either picked up, or they just advise ships of their location. I have been reviewing images all day and came across this one."
"Ok, but how does that help us?"
"Take a good look at this part of the picture" said Natasha pointing with a pen.
Bill grabbed a magnifying glass from his desk drawer and took a really good look at the image.
"I am not exactly sure what I am seeing, there is something that looks rectangular, and there is maybe a fish or a whale beside it" speculated Bill.
"Bingo" said an excited Matt "I got the scale of the picture worked out right. The rectangular shape is a twenty foot shipping container, maybe just below the waterline. The shape beside it scales to thirty five feet long, way too big for a fish, it is a sailing boat."
"Fine, but what makes you think this is the boat we are looking for?"
"There is no one thing, but a number of things together that grabbed our attention" explained Natasha.
"First, there was no mayday call from the boat. At the very least there should have been a call to USMA letting them know the location of the container to advise other vessels."
Now it was Matt’s turn to speculate "After the lead from USMA, we got footage from other satellites. I was able to plot the course of the boat after hitting the container. First it sailed south east, away from the U.S. coast. Then it turned directly toward California. That was last week, but we had bad weather for three days down there and we could not see anything through the cloud mass over California. It could be almost anywhere along the coast by now."
"What are the most likely targets?"
"Maybe San Francisco, or more likely San Diego. Perhaps our naval facilities there would be a high value target. Or maybe even Miramar air station. There is even a nuclear power plant down that way" speculated Natasha.
"Good work, grab a flight to California. You can’t get to San Diego directly, head to L.A. or San Francisco and let me know when you arrive. I’m going to brief Adam so he can have a word with the President."
The telephone rang and Bill picked it up straight away, it was the White House calling.
"Please hold for the President".
A few seconds President Connolly came on the line.
"Bill, we have a major incident."
"What happened, Mister President?" asked Bill.
"Adam Scott has been shot."
"On no" said Bill with a sinking feeling "is he ok?"
"He was shot from long range by a sniper. He was killed instantly. I know you guys were starting to get close so I wanted to tell you in person. I am very sorry."
"Thank you Mister President, I really appreciate you taking the time to call personally."
"One more thing Bill, I have been thinking about this Pashwari guy. I think maybe our paths crossed once before."
"Can you tell me about it?" asked Bill in surprise.
"I am a few years older than him, and I was studying Law at Harvard. I also used to sail, and sometimes we competed against other Universities" announced the President.
"What exactly do you …" began Bill, but was cut off in mid sentence.
"Please let me finish, I am not proud of what happened. There was a foreign guy sailing one of the boats, I am pretty sure his name was Kamal. He was in front, I was in second place. He had rounded the final mark, and was sailing back towards me. I was on starboard tack and had right of way. I steered right for the guy, clipped his sail and made him capsize. I went on to win the race. Later on I found out that the guy was a poor swimmer and nearly drowned. What I did was legal, but I should not have put him in danger. This might be personal."
"Mr. President, I hardly think that…"
The President interrupted again "Bill, it gets worse I am afraid. When he was brought ashore, I laughed at him, and he shouted he would make me regret it. I thought he meant he would beat me in the next race, but I never saw him again after that."
President Connolly severed the connection.
Bill Simpson just bowed his head.
"It looks like you got some bad news. Do you want us to come back later?" suggested Matt.
"Yes, give me a few minutes will you? Adam Scott was just shot and killed. Also the President just explained that there might be some bad blood between him and Pashwari, let’s assume he is the target."
Chapter 111
Bill I’m sorry I can’t help you. The President is away from Washington and he won’t be back for three days" explained Neil Baker, the chief of the President’s security detail.
"Neil, I thought you travelled with him?" said Bill Simpson.
"I do, I’m leaving in a few minutes. There were a few loose ends I needed to attend to."
"Where are you headed?"
"Sorry Bill, it is top secret as usual."
"Ok, if I can’t speak to the President, can you at least relay a message to him when you next talk with him?" pleaded Bill.
"Sure, no problemo. Go ahead."
"Please tell him we have tracked the bomb threat to the Californian coast, either San Francisco or San Diego, we have peo…"
"Stop, let me think for a moment" said Baker and the line went quiet for a few seconds.
"I need to share something with you. The President is on his way to a super secret summit meeting in San Francisco right now. He is meeting the Prime Ministers of Britain and Australia to discuss coalition troop numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan."
"Fuck" yelled Bill "you have to call it off!"
"I will try" whispered Neil as he hung up hastily.
Chapter 112
"Airforce One Operator" said a deep southern voice.
"This is Neil Baker, I need to speak to POTUS pronto."
"Please hold sir."
"Hey Neil, what time are you leaving?" asked President Connolly.
"Any minute Mister President. I have just had a conversation with Bill Simpson at CIA. They have hard data about a possible terrorist target in California. He wants me to get you to scrub the San Francisco visit."
"Neil, you are starting to sound like my wife. Listen up young man. I am going to this meeting. If there is a terrorist somewhere, I have every confidence that our people will neutralize the threat. Never ever am I going to get scared and run from fanatics, never ever" said the President deliberately.