“What makes you think Russia has anything to do with this?” Paul Barnes broke the silence. “Just because the assassin who went after Dr. Talbot once worked for the KGB doesn’t mean anything.”
Mercer realized that he had just stepped on the toes of the director of the CIA.
“Tish Talbot told me that after her rescue from the Ocean Seeker, she heard some of her saviors speaking Russian.”
“Christ,” Barnes said, glancing around the room. “You said she was blown from the ship, stunned. Who knows what she heard — she was half dead at the time.”
“I doubt that St. Peter speaks Russian during his interview at the Pearly Gates, Mr. Barnes,” Mercer said evenly. “But that’s not the fact I’m relying on.
“A friend of mine in Miami is an expert in maritime law. I had him research Ocean Freight and Cargo, the owners of the September Laurel. He found that the company is a front for the KGB.”
“I had a court order demanding Saulman turn over all the information that you requested,” Henna said incredulously. “He withheld that from the FBI.”
“If you knew Dave Saulman, you wouldn’t be surprised. He’s as crusty as a Paris bakery. But he is a walking encyclopedia concerning maritime commerce and his word is gospel truth.”
“If we take his word about the KGB for the time being,” Paul Barnes said suspiciously, “what about this submarine idea of yours?”
“The first piece of evidence is really just simple reasoning. According to the news reports there was a combined naval and coast guard search of the area, using, I’m sure, the most sophisticated hardware in the world. Yet they failed to find any survivors. The Ocean Seeker’s last known position was well documented by her Loran transmissions, yet the search turned up nothing except an oil slick and a few pieces of debris.
“Then, two days later, the September Laurel happens along, ‘aiding’ in the search, and miraculously they find Tish. That freighter, which was a hundred miles away from the Ocean Seeker when she blew up, managed to accomplish something the coast guard and navy couldn’t do. I don’t buy it. There were no weather problems during that time, no storms, no fog.”
“You’re wrong there, Dr. Mercer,” Admiral Morrison interrupted. “There was a tremendous amount of surface fog, and because of the President’s order not to send out surface ships, we were confined to an aerial search only.”
“Admiral, tell me honestly, is there any logical reason why your planes would have missed her, even with the fog?”
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs ran a hand across the tight whorls of hair on his large head before answering. “If she had been out there, my boys would have found her.”
“Since there is no logical reason why she wasn’t found by the coast guard or navy, I looked for an illogical one. The only one that fits, gentlemen, is a submarine.”
Morrison turned to the President. “It makes sense, sir. There could have been a sub out there and we never would have known it. None of the search aircraft used sonar buoys or acoustical gear in the search for survivors. That sub could have sat just under the surface and listened to us flounder around.”
The President nodded. “What other proof do you have, Dr. Mercer?”
“Since I couldn’t learn anything more about Ocean Freight and Cargo from Dave Saulman, I knew I needed a firsthand investigation, so Tish and I broke into their offices in New York.”
“What did you find?” asked Dick Henna.
“For one I found a fish tank in the vice president’s office, a large tank that contained only a single fish.”
“So?”
“Well, OF&C has a practice of naming their ships after months and flowers and painting those flowers on the stack of vessels. Tish remembers seeing the design on the stack of the ship that rescued her. It was a black circle surrounding a yellow dot, yet the September Laurel is marked with a bunch of laurels. The distinctive pattern that Tish remembered matches that of a European game fish I once caught in France.”
“What’s the connection?”
“The name of the fish is John Dory and that tank at the OF&C office contained a prime specimen.”
“That’s the thinnest connection I’ve ever heard,” Barnes remarked.
“I’d agree with you, if I hadn’t found a base file tab in the drawer with the ownership papers for the company’s vessels. The tab read ‘John Dory.’ At the time I thought the reference was simply a misfile, but it makes more sense that they own a ship by that name but don’t keep any paperwork on her. When I got back to D.C., I called the friend I went fishing with and he confirmed the name of the fish. The design on the stack pins down the source of the name, and the only ships ever named after fish are submarines.”
“You’ve got to be joking.” Barnes chuckled indolently.
Mercer stood up. “Mr. President, you said I was a guest and not a prisoner. If that’s true, I want to leave. If you don’t want to listen to what I have to say, then I see no reason to stay here and try to explain. In the past few days, I’ve been shot at a dozen times, and not because I have a bad standing in the community. I’ve stumbled on something, and if you gentlemen are not interested in what I have to say, I’m going.”
“Dr. Mercer, please wait,” Henna said. “Tell us what happened in New York.”
Mercer told them about the break-in, the armed soldiers guarding the building, and his impressions about the office.
“There is something nefarious behind Ocean Freight and Cargo, and so far all indications point to the Russians,” Mercer concluded. “I just don’t know why.”
“Mr. President,” Henna said, turning in his seat, “I had some agents go to the OF&C offices soon after Dr. Mercer and Dr. Talbot had left. The scene had been sanitized — no corpses or blood. My men could tell that a gun had been discharged in the building. The air fresheners couldn’t mask the smell of the cordite. I can’t confirm what Dr. Mercer reported, but I certainly can’t deny it either.”
“I just remembered something.” Paul Barnes rejoined the conversation with a more accepting tone. “I can’t remember any details, but a report crossed my desk a few years ago from a metallurgist in Pennsylvania. It sounds similar to the conditions Dr. Mercer described about the explosion in 1954. He had obtained a sample of some element; I can’t remember what it was called, but it had something to do with radiation and seawater.”
“Do you remember anything else?” Admiral Morrison prompted after Barnes had lapsed into silence.
“Abraham Jacobs,” Barnes finally replied. “The scientist’s name was Abraham Jacobs. I’m sure he knew something about what we’re discussing.”
“Can you find him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want him in my office by this afternoon.” The force in the President’s voice galvanized the room. “We now have a more grave situation in Hawaii than we first estimated. If Dr. Mercer is right and this does go beyond Ohnishi’s personal coup and in some way involves the Russians, I don’t even want to think of the consequences.”
“It seems too far-fetched to me that Takahiro Ohnishi and the Russians have been planning this since the 1950s. Too much has changed in the world to make a plot of this type viable.” This from Henna.
“This could be an alliance of convenience,” hazarded Mercer. “Something that was formed recently, as new situations developed.”
“That makes sense,” the President agreed. “But we have to get in touch with this Dr. Jacobs. Hopefully he can tell us exactly what’s at stake here.”