Paradise shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Well, he just sent me an eyes-only. God knows what they’ve cooked up now.” Harding glanced again toward the departing Japanese submarine. “Stay here, I’ll go see what he wants.”
“Say that again?” Captain Merkler shouted into the phone. He nodded again and turned to Admiral Hamilton. “Harding bugged out.”
They were on the bridge, and Hamilton gave the captain a hard stare: “Bugged out where?”
“One of our Hornet drivers said the Seawolf submerged.”
“Did we try to make contact?”
“There was no time.”
“What the hell is going on down there now?” Hamilton said, an angry set to his features. He did not like surprises.
“I don’t know, but I sure as hell think we ought to find out.”
“Sonar, conn, are they still looking for us?” Harding asked.
“Aye, Skipper. They’re all over the place up there. I’m counting at least nine active sonars. They’re stepping all over each other.”
Harding glanced over at Paradise, who gave him an uncertain grin. Their latest orders from Admiral Rencke were crazy, considering what was going on out here, but not quite as crazy as the sonofabitch they were ordered to pick up. It seemed to Harding the the entire world had gone nuts, and he didn’t think it was going to change for the better anytime soon.
“Sooner or later they’re going to figure out what we’ve done,” Paradise said. They could hear the rhythmic swish of the tug boat above them. They had sugmerged in the confusion and had tucked in under the Natsushio under tow. Hopefully by the time the MSDF ships searching for them figured out what had happened, they would be in the clear and be able to submerge deeper and slip away.
Harding looked again at the message flimsy. He had no idea who Admiral O. Rencke was, but in a way he was grateful to the man, because he much preferred rescue missions to peacetime battles.
TWENTY-SIX
McGarvey was trying to get some sleep. His seat was reclined in the nearly empty cabin of the air force VIP Gulfstream V jet, the steady hum of the engines fading to a dull rush, like water running in a small river. His head was turned toward the window, the early afternoon western sun blasting on the thick cloud cover below.
Getting out of CIA headquarters with everything he needed had been relatively simple. The only people who knew he was back weren’t talking to Murphy, and it had taken his staff less than an hour to work up his legend and the necessary paperwork to match his Pierre Allain Belgian passport.
He was a journalist with the Associated Press, currently on assignment as a travel writer in Japan. Using a news service as a CIA cover was sharply frowned upon by the media, and was rarely done. But if some curious Japanese official called either AP Tokyo, or AP’s world headquarters in New York,his background would hold up. There was, for the record, a Belgian journalist by the name of Allain currently on assignment in Japan. Rencke had inserted his personnel file in the AP’s computer system without their knowing about it. When the assignment was over, Rencke would quietly extract the file. As long as there was no trouble, no one would be the wiser.
His secretary’s nephew, Captain Elias Swanfeld, had been happy to help out. Traffic going west was heavy, and in fact the Gulfstream was heading to Japan via Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska with a full bird colonel and two majors. The officers had been briefed not to ask McGarvey any questions. The only problem was that the Gulfstream was going to Misawa Air Force Base on the far northern coast of Honshu, three hundred fifty miles from Tokyo and a farther seven hundred miles to the south coast of the Japanese island of Kyushu. McGarvey had checked the flight ops schedule to see if anything was going over in the next few hours that would put him closer to Tanegashima, which was fifty miles off the coast of Kyushu, but there was nothing.
“We can get you there, sir, but after that you’re on your own,” Captain Swanfeld said. McGarvey could see the family resemblance with his secretary.
“Sounds like a B movie, but I was never on this flight,” McGarvey told him.
The captain grinned just like his spinster aunt. “You got it.”
His staff had briefed him on Japan’s transportation and communications systems and had supplied him with the guides, maps and phrase books that a journalist might carry. But the difficult part was going to be the Japanese officals he came in contact with. At the moment anti-American sentiment was running high. The rumor had swept across Japan that somehow the U.S. had been involved in the Korean underground nuclear explosion. It was the same rumor that had gone around when India exploded its nuclear weapons: The United States had supposedly encouraged India to go ahead to counter the threat that China’s alliance with Pakistan was causing instability in the region. It was nonsense of course, but McGarvey could only hope that the sentiment did not include all westerners, especially Belgians.
The other difficult bit was the timing. The launch window opened in a little more than thirty-six hours. It would take at least twelve hours to get to Misawa, leaving him only a day and a night to make it nearly the entire length of the two main islands, somehow get across the fifty miles of sea to Tanegashima, penetrate the heavily guarded space center and somehow stop the launch.
On top of that they were expecting him. Any doubts he’d had on that score had been dashed when his call to Frank Ripley had been abruptly cut off. Otto had tried to get through again, but Ripley’s phone was out of service.
The smart thing would have been to convince Murphy of what he suspected and put pressure on NASA to somehow stop, or at least delay, the launch until an investigation could be mounted.
McGarvey’s lips compressed. He’d blown that option by confronting the President. He’d been charged up. Twice he’d nearly lost his life and his family put in harm’s way, so he’d not been thinking straight. Stupid. The President had undoubtedly called Murphy and demanded McGarvey’s removal as DDO. He might even have ordered McGarvey’s arrest. So this was his last shot at figuring out what was going on and stopping it. If he failed this time his effectiveness would be zero.
The steward, Sergeant Wilkes, touched him on the shoulder, and he looked up.
“Sir, we’re at cruising altitude now. The captain says it’s okay for you to use your phone. Or, if you want, you can use our comms equipment.”
“Mine’s encrypted,” McGarvey said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Can I get something to eat? Maybe breakfast?”
Sergeant Wilkes smiled. “It’ll take ten minutes. In the meantime how about a cup of coffee?”
“Sounds good.”
The lieutenant colonel glanced back at McGarvey, but then turned away.
McGarvey straightened his chair and then phoned Rencke, who picked up on the first ring. A moment later the encryption circuits cut in, and reception cleared.
“Still no word from Ripley,” Rencke said.
“Have you talked to anyone in Houston?” McGarvey asked.
“A guy by the name of Hartley. He’s in charge of the Tiger team, and he admitted that he hasn’t been able to get through to his people over the last few hours either.”
“What are the Japanese telling him?”
“Nothing that makes any sense,” Rencke said. “I didn’t tell him what Ripley told us, because I didn’t think it would make any difference down there. They’re all hung up on their own bureauacracy. And we’re talking about beaucoup bucks here.”