“The thing you’ve got to accept. Boomer, is that people are scared,” Skibicki said.
“They will never admit it, but they are. They’re threatened — from the Joint Chiefs down to the lowest snuffy. Scared people don’t act according to logic. And sometimes they act in ways that are destructive all around. That’s what I think we’re seeing here.”
“You seem to have thought about this a lot,” Boomer said.
“I haven’t exactly been overwhelmed with work here the past year or so,” Skibicki said.
Both their heads snapped up as they felt the air pressure change.
Boomer had his Browning High Power out.
“It’s probably Vasquez,” Skibicki said, but he had a gun in his own hand also. They waited until a figure turned the corner at the end of tunnel one. They both relaxed as they recognized the newcomer.
Vasquez was wearing biker shorts and a sleeveless shirt, both of which accented the sleek lines of her sculpted muscles, but her tousled hair and drawn face looked like she had had a rough night. She had a can of soda in her hand and popped the top as she entered Coulder’s office.
She looked around, then settled into the colonel’s chair.
“What do you have?” Skibicki said without preamble, ignoring her breach of etiquette.
“This one is gonna cost you big time, sergeant major,” Vasquez said.
“I want off the duty roster for the next two months.”
Skibicki waved that aside.
“What have you got?”
Vasquez looked at Boomer. “First off, sir, you was right.
That Ethan Alien Class sub — the Sam Houston. It isn’t a current missile carrier. It works for Navy Special Ops.”
“The question is,” Boomer said, “is what is it doing now?”
“It’s heading for the unidentified sub and the Glomar Explorer” Vasquez said, laying out her Xeroxed maps.
“The other sub moved in and has been lying still for the past twelve hours, here, about 150 miles southwest of Oahu. The Glomar is steaming toward it and should rendezvous in about six hours. The Sam Houston is closing in on both of them very slowly and at its current rate of speed” should be in the immediate vicinity the afternoon of December sixth.”
“What about the other sub?” Skibicki asked.
“Anything on what it is?”
Vasquez took a deep breath.
“Sergeant major, what I’m about to tell you is classified Top Secret, Q Clearance.
Don’t ask me how I got the information. Just trust me that I got it and it’s true. If anyone finds out that I know, never mind that I told you, we’re both going away for a long time.”
Skibicki nodded and looked at Boomer who also nodded.
“The bogey sub is called the SHARCC. That’s SH-AR-CC,” she added, spelling out the acronym.
“It stand for Submerged Headquarters and Reserve Command and Control.
It’s the Navy’s version of Looking Glass, the post attack airborne command and control system for use in case all our fixed facilities get nuked.”
Boomer looked at Skibicki who returned the eye contact.
“We got Looking Glass coming in also for a command and control exercise.” Boomer said.
“Why both?”
Skibicki rubbed his chin.
“I never heard that we had an underwater system like that, but if you think about it, it makes sense. The airborne platforms were designed in case of nuclear war. That way the national command could take to the air and become less of a target. The only problem is that Looking Glass can only stay airborne for so long. Even with inflight refueling, they eventually have to land somewhere.
But this sub could probably stay out at sea for six months or more.”
Vasquez nodded.
“It’s a nuclear-powered boat, using the same keel as the Ohio Class missile subs, but set up totally different on the inside for command and control. My source tells me there are two of them, one in the Atlantic and this one in the Pacific. My source also tells me that since they were launched two years ago, they have never gone back into port.”
“What?” Skibicki said.
“How can they do that?”
Vasquez tapped the imagery she’d brought the previous day.
“The Glomar. It shuttles between the Pacific and the Atlantic. The SHARCC can dock with the underwater barge, then be brought up into the hold of the Glomar for repairs and maintenance. The crews are rotated then too.
Since the SHARCC never surfaces, it can never get spotted.”
“So maybe this C&C exercise on the sixth will be on board the SHARCC involving both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President,” Boomer said.
There was a long pause before Skibicki spoke.
“Now it all makes sense,” he said.
“It’s not going to be Pearl on the morning of the seventh. They’re going to take down the SHARCC from the Sam Houston on the sixth while our friends from Okinawa take out the Vice President up at Turtle Bay.
“If that SHARCC is set up just like Looking Glass then once they have it, they can cut in and take over all command and control for the military and even use the emergency overrides to cut into all civilian satellite traffic. Since practically all television feeds through satellites nowadays, they can effectively control the media.”
“It’s perfect,” Boomer said.
“No one will even know.”
“We need to report this,” Vasquez said.
“To who?” Skibicki asked.
“Someone,” Vasquez said.
“We can’t just let this happen.”
“We don’t know for sure that it is going to happen,” Skibicki said.
“But we know something is going to happen,” Vasquez exclaimed.
“The problem is that we have no proof,” Boomer said.
“What about the men who attacked you at Kaena Point?” Vasquez asked.
“It was in the paper. The police have the bodies.”
“If we brought that up to anyone,” Boomer said, “it would only cause Skibicki and me to be thrown in jail.”
He looked at the phone on the colonel’s desk.
“No, what we need is solid proof that The Line exists, and Major Trace should be calling anytime.”
“How about if I go to the police?” Vasquez offered.
“I wasn’t involved in the shooting the other night and I can tell them all that has happened and what you all are afraid is going to happen.”
“We still have no proof,” Boomer replied.
“But at least the President could be warned,” she argued.
“He doesn’t have to go out to the SHARCC for the exercise and maybe the Vice President could leave Turtle Bay early or something. We wait for proof, we might be waiting a long time,” she added.
“Trace will come up with something,” Boomer said.
“We still have two days,” Skibicki reminded them.
Boomer thought about it. “Even if the information about the Sam Houston and the SHARCC is correct, and there is a plan to take down the SHARCC if these guys have planned this correctly, and there’s no reason to believe they haven’t, then I’m sure they have one, if not several, backup plans.”
Skibicki agreed.
“If the night of the sixth doesn’t work, they still can come into Pearl Harbor on the morning of the seventh off the Sam Houston using the SDVS. Those guys are trained on that kind of infiltration and they’ll be infiltrating their own back yard.” He made a decision.
“We don’t hear anything from Major Trace by tomorrow morning we’re going to have to take action regardless.”
“So what do we do in the meantime?” Boomer wondered aloud.
“We’re—” He paused as the air pressure changed again.
They all turned and looked. As the first person turned the corner.
Boomer drew his gun again. It was Decker and he wasn’t alone.