“There’s just one thing, Ted.”
“There would be.”
“I’ve decided to keep the boat.”
Daimler groaned. McCory did things like that. Always the unexpected. When he was younger, Daimler had been able to take it.
McCory wore his gray slacks and a blue blazer. He wore a white dress shirt and a conservatively striped blue tie. Except for his single suit, it was the best combination in his wardrobe.
Ginger Adams was a knockout in a white sheath that was just a little taut in the right places. She had her hair up in a carefully sculptured style that, counting her three-inch heels, made her over six feet tall. He figured she could stop traffic better than any cop.
It was a festive occasion, the annual summer dinner party for the bank’s employees. McCory didn’t feel very festive, and he knew that Ginger didn’t either. Still, she kept a bright smile in place, and she appeared very comfortable in the company of her tellers and the members of her board of directors. She was good at small talk.
McCory had never been invited into her banking family before, so this was kind of a formalization of their relationship, he supposed. If it hadn’t been planned for three weeks, he might have begged off.
The lights in the ballroom of the Adler Hotel had been dimmed to a level that competed with the flickering candles on the tables. A multi-faceted, mirrored ball rotated over the dance floor, like something out of the forties, and the raised bandstand was outlined with white Christmas tree lights. It felt like Tommy Dorsey or Guy Lombardo.
The dinner came off well, with the president and vice presidents making gratefully short speeches, though McCory could have listened to Ginger for a while longer. They passed out awards to outstanding employees. They served roast beef contributed by a very lean steer. Afterward, a trio of guitar, bass, and piano, fronted by a college-girl singer, played music that had been mostly recorded before the band members were born. They were heavy on Eddy Arnold’s stuff, and McCory guessed that Ginger had not been on the selection committee.
She came back to their table from a gab session and said, “Dance with me.”
“That didn’t sound like a question.”
“It wasn’t.’
“I’m a terrible dancer.”
“I’ll judge that.”
After he got into the rhythm of “Turn the World Around,” feeling her close to him, her fingers keeping time against the back of his neck, he figured he wasn’t too bad.
She agreed. “You’re only half-terrible.”
“That’s what all my friends say.” He pulled his head back to look into her eyes. There were golden sparkles among the hazel. “I’m afraid I’ll spoil your night.”
She pulled his head back and rested her forehead against his cheek. “No, you won’t. I understand. The Marines.”
“I’d like to find the son of a bitch.”
“Maybe you will,” she said. “Maybe I’ll help you find him.”
Ibn el-Ziam deplaned and walked through Miami International’s teeming terminal into a hot, moist night. From a dispenser, he bought a copy of The Miami Herald. The headlines, and practically the whole front page, were devoted to the terrorist attack on Camp Lejeune. It was all he could do not to throw his arms up and shout, “Rejoice!”
He looked at the first taxi in the line, rethought his needs, and went back inside to rent a car. The lady told him he would like a Pontiac.
He did not like it. Americans were too soft, surrounded themselves with unnecessary luxuries. He had not liked the Mercury he had had to rent in Washington, either. Sitting in a restaurant or hanging around the alley near the office building on New Hampshire Avenue drew too much attention to himself, so he had rented the car and parked it successively in different spots around the block, staying within range of the transmitter attached to the Advanced Marine Development telephone.
The company had a large number of telephone lines coming into it, and el-Ziam had selected the first one. He had almost gone back into the building several times in order to change the tap to another line, because the calls made to the first number were so infrequent.
But finally, in midaftemoon of the second day, his patience had been rewarded. He had two names. Rick Chambers and McCory. He did not know what either of them looked like, but he did know that Chambers was searching for McCory among the marinas of Miami. The Justin on the telephone in Washington seemed certain that McCory was responsible for taking the boat. Of interest to Ibrahim Badr, too, would be the fact that this Justin assumed that McCory had taken both boats.
As he pulled into one of the multiple lanes of the Airport Expressway, el-Ziam wondered if the man named Chambers had been exaggerating when he said that he had a hundred marinas to search.
Surely, he must have been.
But then, el-Ziam had never been in Miami before. Even if it were true, it should not take him long to locate someone who had seen Chambers. If the man had asked many questions, he had probably left a broad trail behind him.
A trail that would lead el-Ziam directly to McCory.
Ala bab Allah. Whatever will be, will be; let us leave it to Allah.
Chapter 10
Ibrahim Badr was enjoying himself immensely. Allah was on the side of the righteous. The news reports on the radio of the consternation in the American military were gratifying. The Marine Commandant had demanded, in front of some reporter, the right to invade the Middle East and had subsequently been reprimanded by the Secretary of Defense.
The success of yesterday’s raid on the Marine base was with them all. Heusseini had slept all day, sweating in the heat of the day and the cargo tank, in one of the bunks. Amin Kadar was a little more relaxed, his eyes focused upon this world for a change. Ahmed Rahman had prepared himself — shaving, trimming his full mustache, cleaning his glasses — as if he were to meet a beautiful woman.
The cabin was almost totally dark, but Badr could feel the changes vibrating in the air. It was optimism. It was invincibility.
“They will expect us,” Omar Heusseini said.
“Yes,” Badr replied over the headset. “I expect the American president has ordered his bases to the highest state of alert.”
Through the windshield, he could see that the submarine base was lit with every available light. It was six kilometers away to the south. Badr had brought the Sea Spectre into the Intracoastal Waterway near the head of Cumberland Island and threaded it silently southward down the waterway.
Small boats crisscrossed the nighttime bay, their probing searchlights rotating about, skipping across the surface of the water.
The Sea Spectre was making ten knots, riding smoothly on waveless water.
“Launcher deployed,” Rahman said.
“I have too many targets,” Kadar said from his sonar position. “At least six small boats. I think a submarine is moving south.”
“On the surface?” Badr asked.
“I cannot tell. Perhaps. Probably.”
“Omar?”
“I may go active?”
“In one minute. Amin, you will go to the back now and assist Ahmed.”
They had practiced the new procedure several times that afternoon, using Kadar as an assistant to Rahman in reloading the launcher.
As Kadar left his seat at the sonar, Badr said to Heusseini, “You may go active.”
Badr switched in the radio. Kadar had used the manuals to locate the frequencies, as well as the scrambler and encryption modes, for several channels utilized by the Kings Bay Submarine Base operations center. Kadar programmed the radios to scan all of the channels. There had been very little activity on the radio. Occasionally, some of the small boats patrolling the outreaches of the submarine pens had reported in.