After the incredible adventures that Sam had survived in the last few years, he should have been able to handle the idea. However, like the rest of the world at the time, he had grown up under the fear of nuclear destruction. It was a fear that had literally haunted his childhood nightmares, he found that it chilled him even more than other threats he had faced.
Staring at the pitcher of water, Sam wondered if he should pour himself another drink.
“Would you like something stronger?” the Secretary of Defense asked, noticing the direction of his gaze.
He shook his head. “How long have you known?”
The secretary returned to her seat. “Less than three hours.”
He poured himself another glass of water but didn’t drink it. Suddenly it seemed like he was riding a storm on a small boat being tossed in the waves. He put his tumbler down and stood up. It was his turn to pace the room.
His mind raced. “What have you done so far?” he asked.
“As soon as you arrived, we shut down the major roads, highways, tunnels, and airports. Everything inside the beltway, the metro, water traffic on the Potomac and Anacostia…”
He whistled. “Where, exactly, was the crash site?”
“Buried deep within an old disused gold mine, located at the Great Falls of the Potomac in Maryland.”
“A gold mine?” Sam cocked an incredulous eyebrow. “How did it remain hidden for so long?”
“At the start of World War II, all gold mining activity was banned by the government nationwide as it was felt the manpower to operate a mine would be better used in the war effort. They originally planned to reopen the mine after the war, but this never happened.”
“You’re saying a failed German bombing attempt on Washington, D.C. resulted in a crash directly into one of these abandoned mine shafts?”
“Yes.” The Secretary of Defense opened a map of the region dated late 1939. Sam came to her side, bent over to study the chart, his hand on the table.
“As you can see here,” she said, “the whole area was riddled with open mine shafts. In January 1945 there was a massive eastern blizzard. The event resulted in a total whiteout. We believe that’s the day the German FW Condor made its bombing run.”
“If that’s so, it makes sense,” Sam said, “The pilot must have run out of fuel and put down in what appeared to be a gradually sloping field of white.”
“Right,” she acknowledged. “And then, unexpectedly the nose of the FW Condor fell through the boarded-up entrance to the mine shaft. Whereupon, the pilot escaped, and realizing what had happened, he hid the aircraft’s wings — which were a metal and fabric composite — inside the mine, as well, to conceal his aborted mission and its cargo. He then re-boarded up the entrance, where the aircraft and nuclear bomb must’ve remained hidden ever since — well, until recently.”
“Radiation, even at low levels, may have damaged the nearby plant life,” Sam mused. “But it’s been sealed off?”
“Completely.”
“And how long are you going to be able to keep D.C. under lock and key?”
The secretary grimaced. “There’s already an uproar, half an hour after you arrived. That’s not your concern. We can deal with it.”
The Washington D.C. area would be particularly susceptible to major problems from a lockdown of any sort — many of the people who worked in the area lived elsewhere. Including the members of Congress, which was currently in session. Sam didn’t envy the secretary the job of trying to keep that group under control.
He set the thought aside. “What do you need me to do?”
He had half an idea of what she might need from him, but he suspected it would probably involve breaking a number of laws. If so, he needed her to be absolutely clear about what she needed.
She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “We have some very discreet, very intelligent people working on what possibly could have happened to the bomb and the various ways that such a thing could be brought past the Beltway without our knowing it.”
“But you already know how it was done,” Sam said.
“I have my suspicions.”
“And?”
“How would you bring a nuclear weapon into the D.C. area, Sam?”
Sam’s wry grin wasn’t a happy one. “You know how I’d do it. I’d go straight along the Potomac River.”
Chapter Six
Officer John Dwyer was one of the four Virginia-based police officers who had been chosen to stand guard on the Chain Bridge over the Potomac. The cars had been parked at the intersection of North Glebe Road and Chain Bridge Road. The George Washington Memorial Parkway, which ran alongside the river and which passed over North Glebe Road, was packed nose-to-tail with traffic. North Glebe and Chain Bridge Road were busy, but nothing that the four of them couldn’t handle — yet. If the situation went on much longer, it would cause nothing but problems.
A few minutes earlier, he had spotted movement in the green woods below the bridge. Several running and hiking paths ran through the trees nearby. Their orders had been to block off the Virginia end of the bridge, not to prevent anyone moving along the recreational trails, but he still thought he’d better take a closer look. Telling the others what he’d seen, he started moving back along the bridge, checking the rocky riverbank for a swimmer or a boat. Something small. Perhaps a canoe.
He didn’t spot anyone, but he decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have one of his men take a walk along the bridge to check every few minutes from now on.
He turned back to return to the others and froze.
One of the officers yelled back at him, “What is it? Do you see something?”
Officer Dwyer’s mouth had fallen open. Surely, he must be going nuts or something…
“I’ll be damned,” he said.
“What is it?”
“A shark.”
“Are you out of your ever-loving mind?” the other officer asked.
But there it was, a dark fin slicing through the surface of the water, heading downstream toward the bridge.
Officer Dwyer blinked as one of the other officers started to swear. He heard pounding footsteps running toward him.
No, not a shark — the top of a shark’s fin wasn’t squared off like that. Whatever was down there was man-made. Fortunately, it wasn’t moving too quickly, and it was leaving a wake behind it that would be hard to miss.
He grabbed the shoulder of Officer Jackson, who had run up to stand next to him.
“Call that in, Jackson.”
“Me? You’re the one who spotted it. You try to explain it.”
Officer Dwyer said, “The parkway’s backed up all the way to the Francis Scott Key Bridge, Jackson.”
“So?”
“So I’m going to follow the thing on the running trail. Unless you want to haul ass down there and run after it?”
Jackson, who was built like a Mac truck and huffed like he'd been running on the jogging track, shook his head. Officer Dwyer sent up a mental “thank you” to his father, who had always taken him jogging as a kid. Pleased to be generating some heat in the cool morning air, he ran to the end of the bridge, waved at the cars backed up on the overpass, and took off running along the trails.
A few minutes later his cell phone rang.
“Yes, ma’am,” he confirmed to no less than the Secretary of Defense. “I still have the mini-sub in pursuit…”
Chapter Seven
The Secretary of Defense said, “Thank you, Officer Dwyer. Please keep it in sight at all times, if possible. We have sent out several drones as back up. You should be seeing them soon.”