Just as he hit it.
Chapter 3
It was a few minutes after six in the morning in Norfolk, Virginia, and the dawn mist had already burned off. The sun was up, casting its rays through the partially opened slats of the Venetian blinds in Admiral Bingham Clay’s office. The gray carpet was striped in sun, as were Commander James Monahan’s khaki-clad legs.
Monahan sat in one of two low chairs on either side of a matching couch, self-consciously rubbing his cheeks with the fingers of his right hand. He had not shaved very well in the sleepy moments after he got the call to report. There was a minor forest of stubble below his left ear. The day was shaping up badly. He was supposed to have a three-day weekend, he and Mona and the boys going over to Fredericksburg.
A rear admiral, a captain, and a lieutenant commander took up the rest of the conversational seating. The diminutive Admiral Clay, commander of the Atlantic Fleet, sat in his tall swivel chair behind a teak desk the size of an aircraft carrier. A large model of an F-18 Hornet was parked in one corner of the desk.
Clay was talking to Admiral Aaron Stein, who headed the U.S. Navy Ship Research and Development Center. The conversation was amplified over the telephone’s speaker and shared with the visitors.
“Hit me with it again, Aaron; my people are all here, now. Some civilian boat has been sunk?”
“It’s worse than that. Both of the Sea Spectres are gone, Bing. Vanished.”
“They can’t be.”
“They are.”
“Shit. What did the Antelope recover?”
“No bodies yet, if that’s what you mean. But we’ve got lots of fiberglass and cushions, and we’ve got a registration number. We’re tracing the owner now.”
“As if that’s going to lead us anywhere. Any media people show up yet?”
“No, and I’m not holding any press conferences, Bing. Hell, if it hadn’t been for that Post story, nobody would have known about the Sea Spectres. The damned Air Force kept the F-117 Stealth fighter buried for seven years.”
“Yes, well, that’s history, Aaron. We’ve got to… ”
“Hold on, Bing. My exec just came in.”
Clay wiped his hand across his eyes. They were reddened and droopy. The admiral had been called away from his bed early, too. Clay was only five feet, six inches tall, but he had the presence of a six-footer. His build was blocky, with a strong torso always clad in an immaculate uniform. Monahan could picture him at sea, in the middle of a Force 10 typhoon, every crease in place. He had hard, dark eyes under thick gray eyebrows that matched the iron in his hair. Rusty iron, as the original red hung on for as long as it could. There were a lot of lines in his face, brought on by weather, worry, and the weight of command.
Stein came back. “Now we’ve got a body, Bing.”
“Damn! That’s just great. It’s going to be difficult to keep it quiet now. Civilian?”
“Yeah, but get this. My people recovered the body off Pier Nine, not at the site of the sunken boat.”
“What?”
“That’s right. And we’ve also got a sunken Zodiak.”
“What’s going on, Aaron?”
“Damned if I know. I’ve got Navy Intelligence on the way over here from suitland.”
Monahan was not so sure that would help matters. He knew some people who belonged to the NIS, and he had yet to be impressed.
“Any ID on the body?”
“None. It’s been mangled pretty good. And Captain Melchor tells me it appears to be of Latin heritage, or possibly Middle Eastern.”
“Anything else?”
“Not now. I’ll keep you posted.”
Clay leaned forward and cut off the phone. Resting his elbows on the arms of his chair, he pursed his lips and swiveled his chair toward the couch. “Gentlemen?”
Rear Admiral Matthew Andrews, who headed the Second Fleet’s intelligence arm, said, “Seems to me, Bing, the bigger boat brought the Zodiak in from somewhere. They may have intended to scuttle the larger craft but blew it up as a diversion when the Antelope spotted them. After they transferred to the Zodiak.”
“Perhaps, Matt. Check it out. What about the body?”
Andrews shrugged. “Accident? Discord within the group? Who knows.”
“Okay,” Clay said. “I want you to get in touch with Defense Intelligence, the CIA, and the FBI. Let’s see what they know about any group who would be interested in having their own Sea Spectres. What’s the mission for them, Jim?”
Monahan sat up straighter. “Night assault and reconnaissance, Admiral. The prototypes use stealth technology. The RCS — radar cross section — is so thin, the boat has to be within a couple miles of a heavy duty radar to be picked up. And then on the screen, it looks like a sea gull at rest. Sonar can ping it, but by the time it does, it’s probably too late. During daylight hours, they can be spotted visually, but at night, they’re all but invisible.”
“All but?”
“They do leave a wake.”
“Yes, okay. How many do we have?”
“That was it,” Monahan said.
“Damn.” Clay flicked his eyes toward Captain Aubrey Nelson, the man in charge of the morning watch in the Operations Center. “What’s the range of those boats, Captain?”
“As I recall, Admiral, those rotaries are very fuel efficient, even with their turbochargers. With a full fuel load, it seems to me they have a range of nearly four thousand miles.”
“They can cross the Atlantic?”
“Easily, sir, at a cruise speed of forty-five knots.”
“What’s the top end?”
“Sixty-five knots with a full crew of four and a medium load.”
Clay shook his head dishearteningly. “Okay, Captain, I want you to set up a search. The area is going to have to be as large as the range at maximum speed at,” he checked his watch, “possibly five hours. Cover the entire Eastern Seaboard and the Atlantic. Be prepared to extend into the Caribbean. Bring in the Coast Guard and start canvassing marinas and ships at sea. We’re going to have to have some visual sightings from witnesses to go on.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Jim, I want you to coordinate all of this and report to me on the hour.”
“Yes, sir.” Monahan had known that, as Clay’s aide, he would end up with the duty. It would go round-the-clock until the end, and there would be short tempers and jealousies involved. Mona’s would be one of the short tempers. Monahan got along well enough with Aubrey Nelson, but Rear Admiral Matt Andrews got highly irritated anytime he sensed that his channels to Clay were required to go through a lowly commander.
The phone rang, and Clay flipped the toggle.
“Bing? Aaron again.”
“Something new?”
“And bad,” Stein said.
“How bad?”
“Both of those boats were armed. We were conducting trials.”
“Armed with what?”
“M61 Vulcan cannon and the new Mini Harpoon surface-to-surface-missiles. There were forty-four on each boat.”
“Son of a bitch! How difficult are they to operate, Aaron?”
“You ever watch an eight-year-old at a video arcade? These are easier.”
Admiral Clay looked over at his subordinates. “Get cracking, gentlemen.”
Ibrahim Badr had begun to worry that he had made the wrong decision. There were so many blips on the radar screen, and he was totally unfamiliar with the particular radar set. Yet, when he finally spotted the tanker hull-down on the horizon, he was elated.
He pushed the throttle forward and felt the boat pick up speed. The readout indicated sixty-two knots, but the noise level was surprisingly low. Or perhaps the insulation was very good. The engines seemed to only produce a heavy, low whine at high speed.