“Do you think some of your crew is involved with this?” She realized this was the wrong question to ask the moment it left her lips.
His expression became even fiercer. The drawers opened with more vengeance. “I have no information on that right now.”
No ship’s captain would take the idea of mutiny lightly.
As she patted the back pockets of her jeans, her gaze fixed on the laptop that she’d hurriedly tucked under the desk.
She pointed to it, excitedly. “Remote access to the network. I might be able to connect to the shipyard’s system and send a message out. We could warn them what’s happening here.” The news she’d received not too long ago came back to her. “That fire…”
“What about it?”
“It was probably a decoy. They’re trying to distract everyone.”
He reached under the desk for the laptop and handed it to her. “Don’t build your hopes up about getting connected. You’re talking about a signal that has to penetrate two inches of HY-80 steel.”
“We have to try.” Amy unzipped the bag and booted the computer up. The wait felt forever. Finally, the Windows start-up icons appeared. She searched for network access.
“It shows a remote signal,” she said, turning the laptop to face him.
“It could be from our in-house router in the control room,” he said thoughtfully, “but we’ll take whatever they give us.”
He started typing, his fingers flying over the keyboard. Most of it was gibberish to her, codes, time, date. He pressed Send, and the computer started grinding. The cursor locked, nothing happening.
“Come on, damn it,” he said under his breath.
The clocked cursor stared back at them.
“We lost it. It’s not there.”
He was talking about the signal. The bars had disappeared. Amy forced down her disappointment.
He turned the laptop toward her. “Don’t give up. Keep searching for the signal.”
She squeezed by and watched him go back to search the drawers and cabinets. A box cutter’s sharp edge introduced a whole new realm of possibilities. Her attention returned to the screen. No signal.
“You were going to remove the paneling in this ceiling to get to the wiring of the navigation system in the sonar equipment room,” he said. “Is there any chance of climbing through?”
She shook her head. “No, from the stage where they do the wiring installation in the modular sections at Quonset, there’s no space. We’ve stuffed ten pounds of shit into a one-pound container… at your request. There’s no way to get through up there.”
He’d reached the last set of cabinets and methodically began to search them.
She now knew what he was planning to do. They had to work their way out of this room, since the door was locked from the outside. This was one of many restricted areas on the sub.
He pulled two pairs of scissors from a drawer before crouching down to inspect the bottom shelves.
Amy felt a faint shudder in the deck, and she knew something had gone wrong. McCann’s gaze went to the door, then to the ceiling and bulkheads.
“What’s going on?” she asked in a whisper.
He stared at her for a long moment before answering.
“We’re moving.”
Chapter 7
Admiral Norman Pottinger, commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet Submarine Force, was still asleep when the phone rang. He stared at the dark ceiling of the bedroom for a couple of seconds before rolling onto his side and patting the bedside table in search of his glasses. He glanced at the clock. His alarm would go off in twelve minutes. On a normal morning, he would have been awake in eleven. He turned off the alarm.
Patricia switched on the light on her side of the bed and checked the caller ID.
“Groton,” she told him, reaching for the handset.
He knew his wife wouldn’t bother to speak into the phone. No son of a bitch in Groton was stupid enough to call at this hour unless it was an emergency. She passed the phone to him.
Pottinger sat up and cleared his throat before speaking. Don Brown, the commander of submarine base in Groton was on the line.
“We have a disaster on our hands, sir.”
“Hold on.”
Pottinger immediately put his bare feet on the carpeted floor and stood up. Padding across the floor to a desk by the window, he turned on a lamp and picked up the pen lying beside a yellow legal pad. Behind him, his wife turned off her light.
“All right. Give me the specifics.”
“Seven minutes ago,” Brown started, speaking formally, “USS Hartford left the pier of the Electric Boat shipyard without authorization and with unknown passengers aboard.”
“What do you mean left?” Pottinger pulled out the chair and sat down. “They were deployed twenty-four hours ago.”
“Well… yes, sir. They were directed to return to port because of a malfunction with their navigation equipment. Your office was notified, Admiral.”
His office may have been, but he wasn’t. Pottinger had taken a rare weekend off, spending time with his family on the Outer Banks and closing down their summerhouse for the season.
“Who’s in command of the ship?”
“We don’t know for sure who has the conn on Hartford at this moment, Admiral, but it’s Commander McCann’s sub.”
“That’s right.” He jotted down the name. McCann was a good officer. “What the hell were they doing at Electric Boat?”
“The shipyard had a replacement system. A joint decision was made by NAVSEA, the Undersecretary of the navy’s procurement liaison, the defense contractor, and Commander McCann, who was then directed to dock the sub in the shipyard. The system replacement was to be completed before 1200 hours today.”
“But the replacement was not completed and McCann took his ship anyway?”
“Not exactly, Admiral. The replacement was not completed, but we can’t be certain of the circumstances of the undocking. In fact, we’re operating under the assumption that Hartford has been hijacked.”
“What are you talking about, Captain Brown?” Pottinger picked up the pad of paper and walked out of the bedroom. He could hear the volume of his voice rising sharply. “No one can hijack a fully manned submarine.”
“All but nine members of the crew were given leave, sir.”
“Why the hell would McCann do that?” he barked. “That submarine was fully armed. That crew had already been deployed.”
There was a pause on the other end. “Commander McCann ran that decision by me, sir. This crew’s time ashore had been cut substantially short. McCann believed the sailors could use the extra day with their families before going out on patrol, and I agreed. There was no reason to believe the sub’s security stood to be compromised in that short duration of time in a secure defense contractor’s facility.”
Pottinger considered the ramifications of this security breach. If that submarine so much as ran up on a sandbar, the potential for disaster was incomprehensible. If that sub had really been hijacked…
“Where the hell is McCann now?”
“He’s aboard Hartford, Admiral.”
“Say that again.”
“One officer and eight enlistees were left on board. Per shipyard security, at 0400 today, Commander McCann arrived at the gate. He made a stop at the NAVSEA office and a few minutes later boarded the submarine in the company of a shipyard superintendent who was to be responsible for the navigation equipment replacement.”
Pottinger ran his stubby fingers through short, thinning hair. He walked into the kitchen. “So we have a civilian aboard, as well.”