All her tears had been for nothing, and Darius had done what he felt he was meant to do. In the end he’d managed to succeed in his career, and he had made his parent proud of him. They were proud of him and everything he’d accomplished.
Now, she could only think the worst. Hartford had sunk. There had been a nuclear accident. Where was her son? It was his birthday today. Forty years old. It felt only like yesterday that he was just an infant. A little boy…
“What are they saying?” she asked, feeling her body go numb joint by joint. But not her grieving heart.
He shook his head. “They suspect hijacking. But nothing is for certain. We’ve had no calls from the navy. We don’t even know if he was on board. They were docked at Electric Boat for some reason. This could all be nothing. I want to think it’s all nothing.”
“Did you try to call him?”
“I called his house. No answer.”
“Then we have to call someone else,” she said passionately. “His superior. That Admiral… what was his name… the one we met at that dinner in D.C. last year. I’ll call the secretary of the navy. I’ll call the President directly. I’ll demand to know what he’s done to my son.”
Mina’s emotions swung from one end of the spectrum to the other. Grief turned to anger. Numbness was replaced by uproar.
“We’re his parents,” she cried. “We have the right to know what’s happening to him.”
“We’ll do all that, my love,” Harry told her, placing a kiss on her forehead. “But for now, let’s not think the worst. We just have to assume that Darius is fine. We have to.”
Harry took her by the hand and led her back onto the porch. But before they could go in, they heard the sound of the cars. Two state police cars, escorting a black SUV with tinted glass, pulled in front of the house.
Mina leaned against her husband. Suddenly, her legs weren’t strong enough to carry her weight.
Two state troopers got out of the vehicles. Two navy officers stepped out of the SUV, looking at the McCanns intently as they crossed the lawn.
The men were all strangers. It couldn’t have come to this, she told herself. These strangers couldn’t be bringing news of their son’s death. She bit her lip as a knot formed in her chest, stopping her from breathing. Her head was pounding. She brought her hands to her mouth. Everything around her started to blur, as if the lens on a camera had become loose.
“Mr. and Mrs. McCann?” one of the navy officers asked, stepping onto the porch.
As Mina’s world went dark, she was vaguely aware of the fragrance of jasmine on her fingers.
Chapter 15
Mako glanced at his watch. Everything was moving according to schedule. Perfect. He mounted the conn and looked at the displays, the status board, and the plotting of the course. He reached up and pressed a button.
“Radar? Conn.” His voice rang on the communication system. “Anything happening with the sub hunters overhead?”
A couple of planes equipped with air-drop torpedoes had joined them a few minutes earlier. Now that they were almost out in open water, Mako wouldn’t put it past the brass at Atlantic Fleet to return his earlier gesture by launching a couple of torpedoes at them.
“Nothing, sir. The three choppers are holding their position and the two planes continue to circle.”
Mako stepped up onto the periscope platform and swung around, looking to their stern. Far off in the distance, smoke continued to belch into the air above what was left of the lighthouse. The New London Ledge lighthouse had been a square, stone-and-brick edifice rising right out of the water, but now it was smoke and rubble. Beyond the lighthouse, the Coast Guard cutter they’d clipped with the torpedo was listing to one side and a tug was alongside, assisting her. He swung the periscope around and noted that the two navy launches were now keeping a respectful distance.
Above them, he could see the three helicopters. One was from a news station; two belonged to the navy. Mako guessed that they were not firing any torpedoes because they were about to drop a dozen navy SEALs out of those helicopters in an attempt to try to land them on the bridge at the top of the sail. A few minutes later, they’d blast open the hatch. That meant he had another ten minutes, tops.
He wouldn’t need that much time.
They were vulnerable as long as they stayed on the surface, but he knew these waters like the back of his hand. He knew when and where he should dive. And they were almost there. In another thirty seconds they’d be in water over eighty feet deep. Twenty seconds. Ten.
“Down periscope.” Ten seconds. “Take her down to sixty feet. Ten degrees down angle. No alarm prior to diving.”
“Aye, sir.” The orders were repeated.
Seconds later, the deck angled downward as the helmsman followed the orders. The hull groaned slightly and the sub leveled out moments later. Mako ordered some quick checks for water integrity. Everything moved smoothly. The boat settled. The first leg of the mission was complete.
There was no point to go any deeper now. He didn’t want to hide. The threat had to lurk right at the edge. He just had to stop them from trying to land on him.
From the periscope stand, Mako studied his crew. Every one of the men in the control room was an absolute expert in taking and executing his commands. But something in the navigation area caught his attention. A screen blinked a couple of times and went dark.
“What the hell is going on there?” He crossed to the panels.
Paul Cavallaro, noticing the same thing, was there before Mako and sat in the chair in front of the dead screen.
“They must be cutting the juice to it.” He started running some tests. “Shouldn’t we let them know?”
“Hardly,” Mako replied. “You know what your orders are.”
The screen at the next panel started acting up, going blank a couple of seconds later.
“They keep this up, we’ll lose sonar,” Cav said over his shoulder.
Mako motioned his man Kilo to the conn. He spoke in a low voice to him.
“Send two men down there now.” Kilo and his men had been signed to handle situations such as this. He’d done a good job taking care of the security guards. “Make sure they keep McCann alive. We might need him yet. Just stop him from doing any more damage. But that yardbird is a nuisance. We should have finished her hours ago. Have them do it now.”
Chapter 16
McCann didn’t know if they were still in Long Island Sound or in the Atlantic, but from the pitch and length of the dive, he knew they had taken Hartford to periscope depth, which meant they were now capable of using the vertical launch system.
His time was running short.
Working his way down to the torpedo room, Darius had found the last few feet the tightest of all. Hung up at one point when his clothing caught on a pipe hanger, he’d finally been able to work his way through, emerging outboard of the torpedo racks. A torn shirt and a few scratches were all he had to show for his trouble.
The area was the arsenal of the attack submarine. Three sets of double-decker racks held twenty-two smooth, white torpedoes. Four more fish sat ready in the tubes. Two of those were already fired, though, McCann recalled. On less critical missions, a couple of racks were usually left empty for the purpose of maintenance and movement. But that wasn’t the case on this patrol. Their destination in the Persian Gulf mandated that Hartford should be fitted with every ounce of firepower that she could carry.