As if Hayat’s thesis had predicted her mental response, its next paragraph stated that a submarine falling into fundamentalist hands would pose such a significant threat to legitimate governments that the only way to counter it was to prevent it from happening.
Olivia reflected on the irony of that conclusion and flipped to his conclusions on target selection.
Hayat noted that the optimal targets for fundamentalists were those of the simplest and least ambiguous symbolism. Symbolism was more important than lives taken or detriment to an economy or military power. The World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been perfect symbols of economic and military might. The USS Cole had provided a symbol of unwelcome intrusion.
Olivia scanned Hayat’s catalog of targets that read like a prioritized laundry list, but she read ahead to the conclusion. His ultimate choice for a target would be a combination of symbols, he had written, such as sinking a capital warship such as an aircraft carrier under the Golden Gate Bridge.
Or an Indian aircraft carrier in Mumbai, she thought.
That’s what the legitimate government had to protect against, Hayat had written. He made note that a smart defensive tactic would be to create opportunities that appeared like ultimate symbolic targets and to set them as traps to flush out the attackers. Their will could be defeated through the threat of failure if attacks against the ripest targets turned out to be traps.
Blinking, she rested her eyes on a wall clock. She realized she had been studying all day. She opted for a break and stretched her legs along the small passageway outside her stateroom. Looking for a conversation to clear her head, she walked into the wardroom.
At the tiny table designed to seat six, Renard and Lieutenant Wu were playing cards.
“You guys having fun?” she asked.
“Jake and Commander Ye are on watch at the moment,” Renard said. “They will operate through the night. Lieutenant Wu and I were just playing cribbage to wind down.”
Wu looked at her and smiled.
“We need our beauty sleep,” he said. “I’ll be in the rack as soon as I teach this guy how to play this game.”
Olivia noticed that his teeth were perfect. She also noticed that his pairing with Renard validated something she had consciously ignored. After Commander Ye, Lieutenant Wu was the highest-ranking military man aboard.
If he didn’t have a girlfriend, she thought. But that’s a distraction I don’t need.
“Wind down from what?” she asked.
“We submerged six hours ago and are just outside the limit of the Chinese Economic Exclusion Zone, at least as they have proclaimed it,” Renard said. “We had to be on our guard during the transit, but we’re now in open ocean.”
She pulled out a chair and sat.
“How goes the research?” Renard asked as he dropped his cards to the table.
“Slow but steady,” she said before recounting how Hayat had become a shining star in the Pakistani Navy and how he had turned his back on the extremist upbringing he had narrowly escaped.
“You say he was raised in early childhood in the Northwest Province?” Renard asked. “Could he have been faithful to their ways all along and his career a charade?”
“No way,” she said. “He’s smart and he knows it. There’s too much real angst in his writing. He understands that his talent would have been wasted if he had followed the paths of his brothers. I’m sure he maintained an adequate face in practicing his beliefs and going through the gesture of ceremony and prayer—”
“Like many Christians of dubious piety,” Renard said.
“Pretty much,” she said. “But given his tone, I think he held a grudge against Islam, at least the extremists and how they had soured the core teachings.”
Renard blew smoke forward in a hard stream. He appeared intense, as if wrestling for an epiphany.
“Perhaps he somehow returned to Islam,” Renard said.
“That might explain his actions, but I’ve just barely scanned half the stuff I have on him. But if he’s really turned one-eighty on his beliefs, then nuking the Viraat in Mumbai would be in line with what he sees as a hardline extremist act.”
“Why?” Renard asked.
She mulled it over and recalled the thesis.
“Symbolism,” she said. “The size of a carrier and its ability to extend war to the Pakistani coast. The Indians have used carrier power against them in the past.”
“The group that ISI says is supporting him,” Renard said, “Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Are you familiar with them?”
“A little,” she said. “From the research, but mostly from CIA history. The CIA armed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the soviets. I’m not sure what promises were made or expectations were set, but the Mujahideen felt used and abandoned when we pulled out.”
“And their sympathizers and comrades in arms must certainly agree with them,” Renard said. “Including the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.”
Cobwebs cluttered her mind. She needed time to assess and thought Renard was pressing her for too much too soon.
“I suppose,” she said.
Renard leaned forward and his glare sharpened.
“This group, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, is bitter against whom?”
“America,” she said. “But they’ve been associated with attacks on India, too. Look at the December 13 attack on the Indian parliament.”
Renard leaned back, blew a cloud, and sighed.
“This is all speculative,” he said. “But you have concluded that he’s attacking a major warship, have you not?”
“Most likely,” she said. “Maybe a city, maybe a cargo ship, but with the high probability that he’s carrying nuclear weapons and the potential for fallout, the optimal attack is major warship near major city.”
“Good,” Renard said. “I like the logic. Land approaches to Indian harbors are well guarded, and a submarine in extremist hands presents perhaps their only means of striking an Indian carrier. As you said, the symbolism of such an attack, especially if near a city like Mumbai, would be ideal. However, given that you found that HUM also harbors ill-will against the United States—”
“America is also a potential target,” she said. “Maybe even more so.”
Renard slid back his chair and stood.
“Lieutenant Wu, I concede this game. Either the cards were cursed, or you were dealing from the bottom of the deck. I’m afraid we must delay our rest. We have some estimating to do in the operations room.”
Renard and Wu left the cards on the table and were half way out the door when Olivia called to them.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“It’s time for a strategic snapshot,” Renard said. “We’ll look at the Hamza’s starting point in Ningbo eight days ago, draw a circle of places it could hope to reach before running out of food and fuel, and then contact Keelung.”
“Keelung?”
“Yes. They must have a good idea of where the American carriers are deployed. After our conversation, I want to see if the Hamza can reach any of them.”
CHAPTER 29
The Hai Lang nosed downward as it descended from periscope depth. An exchange with Keelung had produced the information about the American fleet that Renard needed. Half-listening to Jake give commands, he huddled beside Wu over the navigation chart on the operation room’s starboard side.
He studied a map. From Ningbo, China, where the Hamza had received its supposed arsenal, a line wavered south, kinked northwest around Singapore, turned once again and tickled India’s eastern coast. Also from Ningbo, a semicircle extended eleven hundred miles to the east.