The fog had lifted somewhat, and the visibility was two or three miles, I estimated, when we reached the radar reflector on old Fort Wool, the southernmost terminus of the Hampton Roads tunnel. We cruised up to the radar reflector; Jake Grafton took a look and raised a closed fist. Stop.
I went over for a look. Saw a wire leading up the wooden post to the reflector, and some kind of little antenna sticking up in the middle of the pyramid that faced east, toward Fort Henry and the Atlantic.
“This is it,” Grafton announced. The bastard looked happy. He leaned in the open door of the helmsman’s domain, told him to anchor here, right here, then came back out on deck. Molina was right there holding onto a wire railing, looking like a tourist in a whorehouse.
“Got a knife, Tommy?”
“Nope.”
He turned to the nearest sailor. “Got a knife?”
The sailor produced one, a folding knife with a three-inch blade that looked as if it had been made in China. Grafton handed it to me. “You do the honors. Cut the wire that runs down the pole.”
I stood on the inflatable gunnel, then grabbed the pole, as the boat seemed to move away, and started sawing on that wire. Got the insulation off, but the wire looked like copper. Terrific. The knife wasn’t very sharp either. I got a grip on one of the reflector’s braces with my left hand, wrapped my legs around the pole and sawed away on the wire with my right hand while trying not to fall into the water. If I did, I wouldn’t drown because I was wearing my orange life vest.
I heard Grafton on the radio calling for SEALs. Just about the time I got the wire sawed in half, he shouted, “Ten minutes. They’ll be here in ten minutes.”
The coastie coxswain maneuvered the red inflatable rail back under me, so I stepped down on it and let go of the reflector. I handed the sailor back his knife.
I flopped down beside the machine gun. Maybe we were going to live a bit longer. I tried to analyze how I felt. Damn, I didn’t know.
It wasn’t even ten minutes, maybe eight, when an inflatable boat roared up containing a couple of guys in wet suits. They had scuba tanks on their backs and flippers on their feet. They put the mouthpieces where they were supposed to go, jumped into the water right by the pole and went straight down. The coxswain moved the boat so they wouldn’t surface under it. I was glad that I wasn’t a SEAL.
I surveyed the fog bank, now maybe a couple miles away. I could just make out the Hampton end of the tunnel, Newport News. Helicopters were hopping up and down from Chambers Field on base. I could see the two carriers lying beside their piers, and of course the stop-and-go traffic trying to get into the tunnel.
In a moment the SEALs came up, two of them holding a device about the size of a laptop, flippering to keep themselves on the surface. They passed it to Grafton.
“It’s the trigger,” Grafton said, giving it a good look-over with his glasses in place. The divers had cut the wires. SEALs carry serious knives. Grafton motioned to the SEALs. Down. Find the bomb.
Grafton handed the thing to me. It was waterproof and heavy, at least ten pounds, because it contained batteries and, no doubt, a capacitor. I tried to pass it to Sal Molina, who looked but refused to touch. I gave the thing back to Grafton, who looked as if he were going to get it mounted to display in his office or den.
So we were all going to live, after all.
If there was only one weapon.
The divers came back up and, hanging on to the side of the boat, shouted at Jake Grafton. “The bomb is there. A few rocks had been shoved over it, but when we moved them, there it was.”
“What do you need to raise it?”
“Some kind of harbor crane.”
The admiral got on the radio. I flaked out by the gunner and gave him an expansive smile.
Oh baby, we were going to live at least until dinner. Unless there was another bomb. Yet I suspected — knew — there was only one. Two doubled the chances that one would be discovered, two were at least twice as hard to plant, and two wouldn’t do any more damage than one. After all, a nuke? How big do you want the smoking, radioactive hole to be?
So, after cogitation, I convinced myself there was only one bomb … and, by God, here it was with the fuse pulled. Ain’t life terrific?
Grafton might have been with me on this. Maybe. But he sent coasties in boats hither and yon to inspect radar reflectors. He got the navy involved, and before long patrol and harbor boats were looking on the Eastern Shore and Hampton and Newport News and up the James and Elizabeth Rivers.
When he finished with his radio, he had the coasties put us ashore on the nearest rock, the breakwater of old Fort Wool, and go off to examine the reflectors in the navy yard. The coasties willingly marooned the three of us: Grafton, Molina and me. Two over-the-hill paper pushers and one young stud looking for an action movie. I gave the gunner his life vest back, shook his hand and sent him on his merry way.
I felt so good that I actually sat on that wet, greasy rock and leaned back and studied the sky. The clouds. The water. Boats and stuff. This being alive was pretty damned great.
I didn’t get a chance to talk to Grafton. He was more or less continuously on the radio. Molina ignored me. He took out his phone a time or two, and apparently the last time found he had service. He climbed precariously across rocks until he was well out of my hearing, then dialed. Someone somewhere was apparently willing to talk to him, because I saw his lips moving. Maybe he was just saying the rosary or reciting poetry. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I got out my cell phone. It logged right on to the Net. So they had turned it on again. I put in a call to Sarah Houston. She answered it almost immediately.
“Hey, kiddo. It’s me. We found the damn thing.”
“Oh, thank God,” she exclaimed, and I had to agree.
The fog was lifting somewhat as Lieutenant Commander Zhang Ping came south down the bay with the city of Hampton off to his right. He was passing Buckroe Beach when he saw a Coast Guard patrol boat come out of the fog heading northward.
Zhang cut his speed to a few knots, well off the plane. He watched the patrol boat approach. It had a machine gun on a swivel mount in the bow, manned. Another man on the fantail, now walking up the port side by the little wheelhouse. Third man at the wheel.
The boat slowed, and the man amidships shouted something. Zhang waved his arms. The patrol boat slowed and came alongside.
Zhang pulled the Beretta from under his jacket and shot the man on the bow first. The man amidships second. Now the helmsman, right through the glass. Three shots for the helmsman.
The engine of the patrol boat was at idle.
Zhang Ping turned his boat, put it alongside, idled the engines and scrambled aboard carrying the iPad. The Whaler drifted away.
He made sure each man was dead, then checked the machine gun. It had a belt in the breach. He pulled the bolt back and let it go home, chambering a round. Engaged the safety. Then he went into the wheelhouse and added a bit of throttle. Turned the boat slowly to a southerly heading and removed his iPad from its case. Got out the wires. Looked at the radar presentation.
Everything was different from the Boston Whaler. He was going to have to find the radar equipment and trace out the wiring to install the iPad.
No time for that now.
He added throttle and checked the radar presentation. Willoughby Spit was quite plain, as was Fort Wool. Five miles ahead. The reflector at Fort Wool beaconed brightly on the screen. Too brightly. Zhang realized something was wrong, but what?
He had gone no more than a mile when the fog disappeared completely, as if a curtain had risen. He glanced behind him and saw gauzy gray. He had cleared the fog bank.