She paused.
“I’ll take that into consideration. Thank you, ma’am.”
She put down the handset. There was a fine tremor in her hand. That’s new. She then let out an explosive breath.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
“One of the officers along the Chain Bridge called in with the report that another Officer had seen a shark in the Potomac.”
Sam blinked. “A shark?” A flash of insight hit him. “A midget submarine! That’s how they’re moving the bomb into D.C.!”
“It seems that way,” the secretary said, sounding unusually hesitant and uncertain. “We don’t have time to put together a team or anything else to be able to prevent it from destroying the whole area. It’s already in position, although if they moved just a little further south, they’ll be able to do more damage.”
“Get me on a helicopter!” Sam said excitedly, in a loud voice that was nearly a shout.
“Sam, it’s too late. We need to concentrate on evacuation instead.”
“Just get me out there. I’ve got an idea.”
The secretary picked up the phone, then tossed it into a chair and stepped out of the office door. “Henriks! Get me a helicopter pilot out on the pad now!”
Sam knew his way and was already running full-speed down the halls.
Chapter Eight
In moments, Sam was approaching the Pentagon’s helicopter pad. A VH-60N Black Hawk converted to VIP use was waiting on the helipad, engine running, rotors slowly turning.
Sam spotted a single-link steel chain crossing the paths between the pad and the walkway leading up to it, and quickly unhooked it on both sides. About fifteen feet of chain in total. — it might just be enough.
People waiting to receive VIPs leaving the danger area via helicopter were just going to have to take their chances on getting too close to the machines. He had a plan for that chain. He wrapped it around his chest — cold, heavy links. The weight reassured him.
The Secretary of Defense caught up to him as he was heading for the Black Hawk.
“Sam Reilly, what are you going to do with that?” she shouted.
“You’ll see.”
Bent over, the two of them jogged up to the helicopter. Sam started to climb in.
An airman intercepted them, standing in Sam’s way. “Stop! What are you doing?”
The secretary waved the pilot down. “We’re appropriating this chopper! It’s of national importance!”
The pilot was already shaking his head. “No can do, ma’am. Every one of the twenty-six helicopters of the 12th are en route to the Capitol to extract designated public servants as part of the Continuity of Government Plan. I’m pretty sure that this man’s not on the list.”
“You don’t understand,” the secretary started to say.
Sam interrupted the argument. “No problem, Captain. I just need a ride to the Potomac. You can drop me off on the way to Capitol Hill.”
Chapter Nine
A few curt words over the pilot’s headset and they were on their way. It sounded like this pilot was engaged to assist in White House evacuation. Whatever vital function was being sacrificed or delayed to carry out Sam’s plan, he didn’t ask.
Within two minutes, they were above the Potomac, flying upstream.
“Any word on where the sub is now?” Sam asked the secretary through his headsets. The Black Hawk was fast, but noisy.
“The officer trailing it on foot lost sight of it near Bear Island in the Potomac Gorge. He states it submerged completely under the water at that point.”
Sam shook his head. Something about the situation wasn’t right. The two of them leaned over the sides of the helicopter, searching for evidence of movement.
She asked, “See anything?”
It was a bright and sunny day. Sam peered into the clear water to the brown riverbed. “Not yet.”
They passed the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Already traffic was a nightmare.
“Sam!”
He quickly switched to the secretary’s side and looked into the deeper blue water. The ripples sparkled back at him. A rill of lighter water within the river caught his eye. At the head of it, a dark shape.
There’s the midget sub.
“Get me down as low as you can,” he shouted over the headset, then ripped it off.
The pilot dipped the nose and took the Black Hawk into a hover just above the water. Sam unwrapped the heavy chain from around his chest, forming it into a circular link that he could still hold. It was as good a position as Sam was going to get — just ahead of the path of the submarine.
Sam slid open the door, fighting a stream of wind.
Holding onto a support handle, he studied the location of the midget sub one last time. Ten feet under water, it was not the kind of thing he wanted to dive straight onto.
The pilot shouted something.
Sam could just catch the secretary saying, “The only thing he can do. He’s sacrificing himself to save the rest of us.”
Sam grinned as he had a plan. No one was getting sacrificed today, especially himself! They were coming up to the Three Sisters, three rocky islands, west of the Key Bridge. Now was as good a time as any.
Taking a deep breath, he jumped into the water.
The surface split around him, and cold water rushed over his head. The submarine was moving faster now that it had hit the deeper water around the Three Sisters. He was going to have to hurry. He kicked upward, swimming with difficulty. The chain was trying to pull him down onto the rocky bottom of the river.
He let it unwind, quick as he could.
The midget sub, which looked like a Japanese Type A Ko-hyoteki — of which only fifty had been built during World War II — was driven by a single propeller. It controlled its depth by adjusting its fins like a torpedo rather than by adjusting its buoyancy the way a full-sized sub would. But for its fins to be useful, the Ko-hyoteki’s propeller would need to be turning.
Stop the propeller and the sub would sink.
He let the smooth dark side of the sub pass by underneath him. The weight of the chain seemed determined to drag him under. He had to expend most of his effort powerfully kicking his legs, just to keep his head above the water.
The aft end of the sub approached. Sam heaved the chain over the tail end of the hull, metal grinding against metal. The weight dragged the aft downward, aiming the forward end up. The flow of water over the sub’s hull caused the chain to slide backward toward the propeller.
Sam kept the remaining end of the chain gripped in one hand. Now, he fed it into the blades of the propeller. At first nothing happened, and Sam began to swear. Did I miss it completely?
He was holding his breath, letting himself sink to the depth of the min-sub when he felt a tug on the chain. Obligingly, the blades caught the links and started to draw them back around the shaft.
The chain pulled smoothly for only a second.
Sam waited.
The chain caught against one of the blades and fouled around it, winding around the shaft. The propeller ground to a halt. Still straining to turn, the shaft started to leak dark oil into the water…
Sam kicked his legs hard, swimming away from the sub. A moment later he watched the craft start to sink. Without the forward momentum needed, it would soon be at the bottom of the deepest part of the Potomac, about eighty feet under at this point. After taking a few quick, deep breaths, he duck-dived, keeping his eyes on the submarine, until it finally reached the silty bed of the Potomac.
The hatch remained shut.
He waited as long as his lungs would allow him, and then swam back up to the surface. He didn’t idle in the middle of the river. Instead, he rapidly stroked toward the shore.