“For foiling the secondary plan, we were relying on Sergeant Skibicki, whom you assisted in doing just that this morning. The Barbel Class Iraqi sub was carried by the Glomar Explorer, which also does resupply for the SHARCC. The Line’s plan was that they would let the wreckage of the Barbel sub be found after counter submarine actions by the Navy.
Thus the destruction of the memorial and death of the President could be laid at Iraq’s doorstep, which would kill two birds with one torpedo so to speak.”
“You deceived me,” Boomer said, looking at Skibicki.
“You told me the Houston was moving in to shore.”
“I only found out about that yesterday,” the sergeant major said.
“And we had to stop the SDV off the Iraqi sub which was moving in.
Vasquez found all that out. I didn’t have time to get into all this.
What I told you was essentially the truth.”
“Their third plan,” Decker continued quickly, “was to destroy Air Force One with an altitude-detonated bomb.
This was a backup in case the other two plans failed and the President attempted to depart the island alive. We were not aware of this plan.
It was just fortunate that Sergeant Major Skibicki discovered and followed the men from the Barbel Class sub who infiltrated Hickam and planted the bomb on board Air Force One two nights ago. He retrieved it and placed it aboard Looking Glass.
“We have since discovered that The Line’s cover for that action was to be an attack by long-range Iraqi bombers.
Again captured during the Gulf War. The two F-16s that fly security for the President were to be flown by pilots loyal to The Line. Not too hard to find after the events in the Ukraine last week. They would swear to the attack by Iraqi planes, which they would have destroyed, when in reality the bomb would have destroyed Air Force One.
“The Barbel sub is currently being tracked down by the Sam Houston and will be captured shortly. The SHARCC is under our control. It was boarded by Navy SEALS from the Houston at the same time Looking Glass was destroyed.
The two pilots are also in custody and the two Iraqi bombers are also under our control.”
“My God,” General Maxwell exclaimed.
“These people were insane.”
“No, sir,” Decker said.
“They were desperate.” He looked at Boomer.
“And we were desperate also.”
“You ordered me to kill Americans,” Boomer said staring hard at the colonel.
“The mission you did into the Ukraine was done under direct orders from General Martin. I knew it was a setup designed to work against this administration. But I had to go along with it or else expose my role as a double-agent.
Like I said, we knew they were planning to kill the President here in Hawaii, and I had to continue playing my part until we could directly attack and destroy The Line and save the President.”
“The Coventry excuse,” Boomer said. His voice was bitter.
“For the greater good, right?”
Decker met his look.
“I don’t justify what I did. I did it, and it’s done. I could have saved those men in the Ukraine and ordered you to abort, but that would have tipped our hand and the President and whole bunch of other people would be dead. I’m the one who has to live with it.”
“No, I have to live with it too,” Boomer said.
“Why me?” he asked.
“Why did you use me?”
“Because you were the right person in the right place at the right time.” Decker explained.
“We needed someone to go to the President. Someone who wasn’t involved with us.”
Boomer looked about the room. He could see it all now.
“Keyes and his A Team — the jump into north shore?”
“We set that up. We needed Keyes and his men here.
To take down Hooker.”
There never was a plot against the Vice President?”
“Not as far as we know,” Decker said.
“What about the two men we killed that night?” Boomer asked Skibicki.
“Were they more pawns to be sacrificed for the greater good?”
“That’s something that doesn’t have to be on your conscience,” Skibicki said.
“Remember those men we killed the previous evening outside Major Trace’s house? How we couldn’t find their bodies and show them to the cops?
They were the ones who had broken in and were ready to kill her. They worked for The Line. I hauled the bodies up to the point and dumped them. The whole firefight we had was a staged event. We were firing blanks and so were the men — members of Keyes team — shooting back at us.”
“So the message on the drop I broke out was a setup too,” Boomer said.
“We needed to get you thinking — and relay that thinking to the President — that something was going to happen,” Decker confirmed.
“As you can see. Colonel Falk and Colonel Coulder were in on it.” He looked at General Maxwell.
“If one of us had come to you, you might not have believed us and you certainly would have stopped our counteractions. But having Major Watson and Major Trace believe in the plot and trying to convince you allowed us to continue our counteractions without interference.”
General Maxwell looked at Boomer and Trace.
“Yes, I believed them.”
“You can’t use people like that,” Boomer said.
“We had no choice,” Decker replied.
“What about Colonel Rison being killed?” Trace asked.
“Did you plan that too?”
“That was unexpected,” Decker said.
“The Line has always had its own sources of information, and they were ahead of us there.”
“Damn right they were,” Trace said.
“They almost killed me.”
For the first time Decker showed some ignorance of events.
“We don’t know how The Line got onto you so quickly. You should have been able to get in and out with the diary. I don’t know what happened at West Point.”
Trace had been doing a little bit of thinking on her own.
“They must have gotten my license number when I went to visit Mrs. Howard — the woman who told me about The Line in the first place.”
“That was foolish on your part,” Decker said.
“They would have had an alert out for you there. We know about them killing her. It was “unfortunate. We didn’t think they would be that vindictive.”
“Vindictive? Foolish? Unfortunate?” Trace said, her voice rising.
“This is all insane} You just killed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and you’re telling me I was foolish? You’re calling the deaths of innocent people unfortunate?”
“I prefer to think of it as we just saved the President’s life and prevented a coup which would have cost many more innocent people their lives,” Decker calmly replied.
“I’m sure you would,” Boomer joined in.
“But others might see it differently. I see it differently. I was directly responsible for the death of a friend of mine in the Ukraine.
You set me up to do that. You put our lives on the line-Trace and me.
Who the hell do you think you are? God?”
“No,” Decker said.
“You put your lives on the line.”
He pointed at Trace.
“No one said you had to write about what Mrs. Howard told you. That’s what brought you into this. No one said you had to go to the mainland to see Colonel Rison.” He shifted to Boomer.
“You’re the one that came up with the theory that the President was threatened.
What if we had given you the real information?
Would it have made any difference? The plot was real. The Line was real.”
“Gentlemen,” General Maxwell interrupted.