“Perhaps,” Monahan said. “It’ll depend on Admiral Clay. And I’m already in defiance of my orders.”
The message came soon thereafter.
ENCODED, TOP SECRET MSG 07120607
TO: CMDR J E MONAHAN, NIGHT LIGHT
COPY: SAFARI ECHO, SAFARI CHARLEY, SAFARI DELTA
FROM: CINCLANT
INSTRUCTIONS MSG 04170607 CONFIRMED.
Chapter 15
Justin Malgard had received a call at his motel in Norfolk at 4:15. A lieutenant asked him to report to the Operations Center.
His taxi arrived at the main gate by five, and he was somewhat excited about being part of the operation. That wore off quickly when the cab was stopped by Navy SPs and Marine guards at the barricaded gate. The base was closed down, and he had to get out of the taxi and wait for an escort.
An ensign in a Navy sedan pulled up a few minutes later, cleared him with the Marines, and put him in the backseat. The ride to the Operations Center relieved him of any excitement he still had.
The destruction was random, and he did not get to see much of it, since it was spread all over the base. In a couple of spots, buildings, vehicles, shrubbery, and landscaping were merged in nearly unrecognizable heaps, still smoking. He could see fires several blocks away that still raged. Ambulances and trucks and jeeps cut around corners and sped down streets in a frenzy. With the window rolled down, he heard the cacophony of sirens, yells, and racing engines. Passing one building on fire, he heard the crackling of flames, the hiss of water directed at it by pumpers standing in the street. Everything was soot covered. Emergency lights were pulsing all around him. A major conflagration near, or on, the Navy docks lit up the early-morning sky.
When he arrived at the door to the Operations Center, Rear Admiral Matthew Andrews passed him by the checkpoint. Inside, Andrews pointed at a chair in the corner.
“Sit there, Mr. Malgard. If we have a question, we want you nearby.”
He sat there for almost three hours, drinking coffee and eating donuts passed around by a seaman. He studied the intricate electronic map on the wall and began to identify the movements of some selected ships.
He could not quite figure out what was going on. Messengers came in and left. Console operators talked into their headsets, signaled officers milling around the room, took orders. The dots on the map changed. Andrews seemed to be in charge until around seven o’clock, when Clay came back. Clay’s uniform was filthy with soot and dirt, and he and Andrews had a heated exchange on the far side of the room. Malgard guessed that Andrews prevailed, because the intelligence officer was smiling when they broke up the discussion.
Clay barely acknowledged Malgard with a nod. His attitude seemed to have changed significantly. He left the room, and when he returned, he was in a fresh uniform. There was an angry bruise on his forehead, and his eyebrows had been singed.
He came directly across the room to Malgard.
“You sure you don’t know a Devlin or a Kevin Mc-Cory?” the admiral asked.
“I can’t say as I’ve ever heard of them, Admiral. Is it important?”
“Very. Kevin McCory has a Sea Spectre out there.” He pointed in the direction of a bunch of blips on the map. “He’s a fucking cowboy who thinks he can take out Ibrahim Badr.”
Damn. No wonder he had not heard from Chambers.
“I don’t understand, Admiral. This is an American who’s been attacking the coastal bases?”
“Not according to my aide, who is on board the boat with McCory.”
For Christ’s sake! “You’ve got a man with McCory?”
“I don’t believe it was planned that way, but yes.”
“So you’ve got one of the boats back?”
Clay grimaced. “We’re not certain. It doesn’t look like they’re responding to orders.”
“Well, can’t you force them?”
“You’re forgetting, Mr. Malgard. We can’t even find them.”
Clay spun around and headed for one of the consoles. Malgard’s head felt as if it were spinning. McCory did have a boat, but apparently, so did this terrorist. McCory and some naval officer wanted a confrontation.
He could only hope that Badr would put a missile right up McCory’s ass.
The Hormuz had not been where it was supposed to be.
Ibrahim Badr suspected that it had broken down in reality and required repairs. By this time, he thought that Abdul Hakim was frightened enough of him, as well as taking some pride in the accomplishments of the Warriors of Allah, so that he would not abandon them.
If it came down to it, he could abandon Hakim. The stealth boat had been fully fueled before beginning the attack on Norfolk. With conservation, he thought he could make North Africa, perhaps even Tripoli for refueling. The idiot Colonel would want to take the boat away from him if he did that, of course.
All day long, they had been drifting south, keeping the engines barely idling at six or seven knots. Badr was certain that the Hormuz could not be north of them. It was supposed to be on a direct northerly heading along the seventy-one-degree, fifteen-minute track. If he continued south, he would run into it.
Then, one more attack. Against the City of New York. Oh, the panic that would create!
Allah, rejoice!
And then they would return to the camps in southern Lebanon, heroes of the cause. Heroes with a fabulous weapon to be used against the infidels.
“I have a sonar reading,” Amin Kadar said from his place at the console. “Twin propellers, ten thousand meters.”
“Bearing?”
“I cannot yet tell.”
“Let me know if it comes closer. We will alter course to avoid it.”
“We should attack it,” Kadar said.
“Not just yet,” Badr told him.
As he had been doing regularly, Badr scanned the seas through the windows, then glanced down at the rearview screen. For all intents, they were alone on the ocean. The day could not have been better. The overcast had lowered, perhaps to a four hundred meter ceiling. The swells had shortened, the troughs had deepened, and the boat sometimes tilted alarmingly as it drifted. The bouncing was endless and becoming more abrupt. Omar Heusseini had become sick in midmorning.
His vomit was still drying on the back of the dining table bench and the deck. The deck was also littered with candy wrappings, chicken bones, pieces of meat and bread. A plastic water glass wandered back and forth beneath the table. His crew was not a disciplined one.
It did not matter. They were good at what they did. Heusseini had taken active readings on the radar twice during the day. Despite the appearance of emptiness, the sea around them contained a surprising number of ships, many of which he suspected belonged to the United States Navy.
Caution was called for. They would drift, and they would avoid any contact. Soon, the Hormuz would come into view.
Night Light also drifted, but aimlessly. McCory was trying to keep her in the area, while still eluding any probes by the Safaris Charley, Delta, and Echo.
Several times, he had gone aft and opened the hatches to let fresh air enter the cabin. The salt tang tasted good on his tongue. The waves were capping higher, a few washing over the stern deck. Once, he heard a helicopter pass by to the east.
Jim Monahan had apparently accepted his fate. He seemed to have signed on for the duration. He might even use McCory’s strained rationale — his claim on the SeaGhost and his rights as captain — to alibi himself later. McCory had slept for three hours in the afternoon, and when he climbed out of the bunk, he found that Monahan had not taken control and headed for Norfolk.