The ramp was littered with parked helicopters. At least a dozen. Two civilian biz jets. Some military ones.
The sailor waiting when the chopper settled onto the ramp led me around all this aviation iron to the base operations building. We entered through the back door and climbed the steps to the main level, and got there just in time to watch through the front glass doors as a black limo pulled up and four men in civilian suits got out of it. A couple of high-ranking officers — they had a lot of gold braid on their sleeves — standing there shook hands and escorted them into the building. Chinese men. Probably the ambassador from the People’s Republic, I figured, and some of his flunkies. I remembered learning sometime during the day that the ambassador was coming to prove that China had been maligned on the Internet by evil Americans.
They went along the hallway with the military brass and disappeared into an open door. The room was packed, I found out later, with every politician around, including the mayor of Norfolk and the governor of Virginia, plus assorted congressmen, senators, county officials, sheriffs, police chiefs and folks from the State Department. No wonder the ramp looked like a used-helicopter sales lot.
My sailor led me upstairs and along a hallway to a conference room, which was packed with people huddled around a big table covered with satellite photos, maps and drawings. Grafton was there, along with Admiral McKiernan, a captain or three, a couple of commanders, some warrant officers, people I took to be senior noncoms and a handful of civilians. There wasn’t room for anyone else around the table. I stood against the wall and tried to make myself smaller.
I gathered they were figuring out what sectors of the base and harbor had been searched, and planning what to search next. One of the captains was marking up a map with a Magic Marker.
They left the room one by one, striding quickly. Finally there was just Grafton and me left. He motioned me over. Showed me the marked-up map. “What do you think?” he asked.
“Why did you use four colors on this thing?”
He explained the color code. Trust the military to use logic. This search was organized to the hilt.
“Beats the hell out of me,” I said, and dropped into a chair.
Grafton fell into another, put his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand as he scrutinized the map.
“How come there are no colors out on Willoughby Spit?” I asked. “You going to search it?”
“We are using all our assets to search the base and harbor. Already searched Craney Island, that Corps of Engineers dump across the river. We don’t have anything left to do beyond the base perimeter.”
“Maybe the Chinese figured that would be the case.”
“If it’s in a house three miles from here,” he mused, “the damage would still be the same.”
“How’d they plant it, you think?”
“From a boat.” He told me about the Ocean Holiday.
“How heavy is it?”
“Figure anything from seven hundred fifty pounds to maybe a thousand.”
“So they didn’t carry it through the streets to put it into someone’s garage or basement.”
“Unless they had a truck, probably not.”
“Got to have equipment to handle something that heavy. And they didn’t climb the seawall carrying the thing and trot across the runway and stuff it into a hangar or down a storm drain.”
Grafton frowned and chewed his lower lip.
“I’d concentrate on the harbor bottom,” I said, “all the stuff the navy uses to service ships, and the waterfront. As far as I could search.”
“We’ve already done that in the harbor,” Grafton said. He picked up the handheld radio from the desk and called several people, issued orders. “Instead of area A, take your people to Willoughby Spit. Start at the tunnel entrance and work east along the waterfront. Get your divers into the water off the beach.”
He pulled some more people from another area and sent them south, up the Elizabeth River.
When he had done that, I asked, “How are they going to trigger this thing?”
“That’s what the experts have been working on. If the trigger is underwater, it is extremely doubtful if it’s a radio signal device. Only the very longest wavelengths will penetrate water.”
“Maybe it’s got a clock that’s ticking,” I suggested.
“That option deprives the bomber of any control. Most military minds don’t work that way. The guys giving the orders want to be able to change the target, or in this case the timing, right up to the last possible moment. No plan survives contact with the enemy.”
“So how are they going to do it?” I asked.
“Damned if I know,” Jake Grafton admitted.
“I don’t know anything about boats,” I remarked.
“Neither do I,” Grafton said. “Never owned one. Never even spent an afternoon on one. But I’ve heard guys talking. I was saving boats for my old age.”
I couldn’t resist. “Maybe it’s time.”
I don’t think he heard me. He was scowling at the map, fingering the handheld radio.
After a bit Admiral McKiernan, another admiral, the CO of the base and Captain Joe Child, the SEAL team commander, came back in to consult the charts and talk to Grafton. More aides and department heads followed. Someone brought coffee. The room got so hot some junior man cranked the windows open.
Grafton and the brass discussed depth finders and fish finders, everyone put in his two cents, and then Grafton caught my eye and the two of us escaped.
The motor roared and the wind shrieked though the shot-up window as Choy Lee drove as fast as he dared through the boulevards and highways eastward toward Point Comfort and tried to think. Not a police car in sight. Zhang Ping had a shotgun. He was going to kill both Choy and Sally, so they couldn’t tell the authorities what they knew.
Every few seconds Choy looked in his mirrors. He was still back there, a bit closer perhaps.
A fire station? No one there had weapons. A military base!
The amphibious base at Little Creek was ahead on the left. A mile or two more perhaps. He jerked his ride into a hard left turn, as fast as he dared. The tires squalled. Now right onto Route 60, a four-lane. Passed a couple of cars heading west. Pedal to the metal. The highway angled south and crossed a bridge over an inlet. There, the main gate! He slammed on the brakes to slow for the turn. No cars waiting to get in. The barrier was down. He ran through it, right by a sentry. Smashed the thing to splinters.
Kept going, accelerating, as he checked his mirror. The sentry came running from the booth — Choy hoped he had pushed the alarm — and stood in the road. He was still standing there when Zhang Ping swung his SUV into the lane and hit the man, sent him flying over the vehicle.
A traffic circle loomed ahead. Choy was going too fast. Brakes full on, he went around the thing with all four wheels sliding … and he was heading back toward Zhang. He swerved the car left and sideswiped Zhang.
Glimpsed Zhang at the wheel at the instant of collision. Fighting the wheel, trying to go straight. But it was over in a flash, and Choy’s steed was going off the road toward the right.
Jumped the curb, now going sideways into a tree. Smashed into it on the right side. The engine was still howling, but they were going nowhere. Choy flipped off the ignition as he roared at Sally, who was dazed from the impact, “Out, out, out!”
Both right doors were jammed, as was the driver’s door. Sally’s door was against the tree. Both rear windows were gone. Choy managed to get Sally out of her seat belt and climbed over the middle to the back. Then he grabbed her and pulled. “Wake up, goddammit, wake up and help or die!”