By Dawn's Early Light, page 24
“…committment…naval…last…Seawolf…”
“That’s John Galt,” Marnie shouted in amazement.
“Stewart Ellington. It’s a P.O. box in the city.”
“Get the box holder’s physical address. The main branch will have it on file,” Marnie told him. She got on the radio. “Dispatch, this is blue bonnet. I have an urgent red flag. We need assistance.”
“Go ahead, blue bonnet.”
Fuller came up with an address that he pinpointed on a map of Georgetown. “It’s an apartment building. South side of the street. The Winfield Arms. Top floor, four-oh-two.”
The cellphone conversation was still going on in her headset, but it was meaningless again.
Marnie repeated the address to the mission dispatcher as Brian climbed up front behind the wheel, started the van, and pulled away from the curb.
“This could be John Galt,” she said. “We’re rolling.” This got the dispatcher’s attention.
“Help’s on the way. ETA less than fifteen.”
“We’re monitoring the phone call. If he breaks it off we’re going in immediately.”
“Watch yourself, Marnie.”
“Will do.”
The lights were with them, and eight minutes later they made a first pass in front of the Winfield Arms. There was a fair amount of traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, but nothing looked out of the ordinary.
The four-story brownstone apartment building was well maintained and was an expensive address. The cars parked along the curb in front were mostly Mercedes and BMWs. Marnie was monitoring the tone connecting the in-service cellphone that John Galt was using with the cellphone provider through the tower. One moment it was there, and the next it was gone.
Fuller was turning left with the light at the corner. Marnie yanked off her headset and tossed it aside.
“He just pulled the plug,” she shouted. “He might have spotted us.”
Fuller made a hard-right U-turn, tires squealing, horns blaring as he expertly dodged traffic.
Marnie got on the radio. “Dispatch, this is blue bonnet. We’ve lost the signal. We’re going in.”
“You’ll have backup in under ten minutes.”
“Block the street behind the building. We might flush him toward you.”
“Will do,” the dispatcher replied tersely. There was no further reason to warn them to be careful. They were trained special agents who knew their jobs.
Marnie pulled on her dark blue windbreaker with FBI stenciled in yellow on the back, as Fuller screeched to a halt at an angle in front of the apartment building.
They were out of the van at the same time, pulling their weapons as they ran. Startled pedestrians immediately began to scatter. Marnie carried the Sig-Sauer P226, while Fuller carried the larger, though lighter, Glock 17. Both fired the European 9mm Parabellum round.
A woman in a blue pant suit was just coming out of the apartment building. They brushed past her and into the small lobby. The emergency stairwell was to the right, the elevator straight ahead, and the mailboxes to the left. A short corridor went back to the two apartments on this floor and an emergency exit to a courtyard garden in back.
The only way down from the upper floors was the single stairwell and the one elevator.
The elevator car was on the ground floor. The door was closing. Fuller went across the lobby, blocked the door from closing, then reached inside and shut it off.
Now there was only one way down.
Marnie took point as Fuller, his pistol in both hands, muzzle up, positioned himself to one side of the stairwell door, out of the line of possible fire.
He nodded, and Marnie opened the steel door, ducked inside and swept her pistol left to right up the stairs.
Nothing moved.
She signaled for Fuller with one hand, and scrambled up to the turn of the first landing, holding her gun out in front of her.
Still nothing moved on the stairs above her, nor could she hear anyone coming down.
She stopped at the first floor and peered out the window in the emergency door. The corridor was empty. With Fuller maintaining a half-flight interval below her, she worked her way up to the fourth floor where she paused to catch her breath and look through the window.
The corridor was deserted. The doors to apartments 401 and 402 were closed.
Fuller caught up with his partner and this time he took point, slipping out into the thickly carpeted corridor and silently reaching the door to 402. He flattened himself against the wall beside the door and waved her on.
When she was in place across from him, she tried the doorknob. It turned easily in her hand. She looked up at Fuller who gave her a nod, and then she shoved the door open and fell back.
He entered the apartment in a rush, keeping low, moving fast, sweeping the room with his pistol.
“Clear,” he shouted.
Marnie came in as he swept the adjoining kitchenette to the left. She smelled cigarette smoke. An ashtray on the glass and brass coffee table in front of an off-white leather couch held the stub of a still burning cigarette.
There was something about it that was bothersome. But she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
A short hallway led back to the bathroom and bedroom that overlooked the small courtyard.
Marnie backstopped Fuller as he checked it out.
“We just missed him—” Fuller said, when all of a sudden it struck Marnie.
She raced back to the living room. The cigarette’s filter tip was smudged with lipstick. Lipstick!
“Goddammit,” she shouted in frustration. She turned her lips to her lapel mic. “Dispatch, this is blue bonnet on foot. John Galt is dressed as a woman! Tall, wearing a blue pant suit with long blond hair.” She stared at the cigarette. “And bright red lipstick!”
2
1115 LOCAL
KUSONG, DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA
ISI Director General Jamsed Asif bit his tongue to hold back a sharp retort. Pakistan’s existence teetered on the brink of disaster, and it was up to the ISI to hold it together until their nuclear missiles were ready to fly.
If that meant that he had to continue dealing with lunatics, then so be it. In’shah Allah.
He looked across the empty runway and deserted tarmac toward the mountains. Such views always calmed him.
North Korea was essentially a bankrupt nation, with nothing but disintegration in its future. Pakistan, on the other hand, was the real power of the two.
And soon Pakistan would become the seat of power for the entire Indian subcontinent and all the nations surrounding it. The goal was worth his patience.
“My dear General Syng, of course I am certain of my information,” Asif said. For the past hour since his plane had set down at this isolated and deserted former DPRK air force installation he’d tried to placate Gen. Sin Syng, director of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Central Intelligence Service. “It came from the usual impeccable source.”
“Perhaps he made a mistake,” Syng shouted. He was an easily agitated man. His position in the government was an extremely tenuous one. They stood just inside the ruins of an old aircraft hangar. Their bodyguards were not in sight.
“He has never been wrong before,” Asif tried to assure his North Korean counterpart. “The warship that attacked Most Revered two-six-oh-six was the American Seawolf submarine. Her captain is Frank Dillon, a highly reliable and resourceful officer.” Asif handed a manila envelope to Syng. “That is his dossier. The fact that your submarine survived at all is a miracle.”
“Don’t talk to me about miracles, Asif,” Syng raged. “My government has done yours a very great favor at a very great risk to our own security. It is why we are meeting here, like animals in the wilderness, instead of civilized men in the city.”
“It is a job that your government has done admirably well,” Asif said. He did not add: And for which your government has been handsomely paid.
“Why weren’t we warned of the attack?”
“But you were warned. That is why Most Revered’s captain decided to arrive at the firing point early. He expected to detect the arrival of the Seawolf. Apparently something went wrong.”
“Do not impugn my crew of brave sailors. It was you who insisted that we have an Iranian naval officer in command. Now see where it has gotten us.”
“Mohammed Zahedi is the most capable and cunning submarine commander in any navy outside England or the United States.”
“Do not mention those warmongering nations to me,” Syng screamed.
It was all an act, of course. Asif knew this. And Syng knew that Asif was aware of his reasons for such histrionics. Even the director of DPRK intelligence could not be certain that his conversations were being monitored, even here.
“There will be extra compensation for your government, of course,” Asif went on smoothly.
“There better be.”
“But the job is not finished. The Jupiter satellite was successfully visted by the crew of Discovery. We must assume that it has been repaired. It must be taken out of commission again once Discovery has landed.”
“I’m listening,” Syng said.
What Syng had not asked was why the second attack had been planned on the satellite while the American astronauts were working on it. Asif didn’t completely understand the logic himself, except that Pakistan was taking its rightful place around the table of nations. Despite all the international nonproliferation treaties, and satellite protection acts, Pakistan would continue to develop thermonuclear weapons and the means to eventually deliver them intercontinentally. And Pakistan would not tolerate any nation spying on it by any means.
“I assume that Most Revered was damaged,” he said.
“Yes, but my people tell me that the damage can be repaired in very short order.”
“Good. Then that is what must be done. Most Revered must return to the Bay of Bengal as soon as possible. But first you will have to deal with the Seawolf.”
Syng laughed. “I am listening.”
“He’ll follow your submarine back to its base,” Asif said. “He may even attempt to destroy the boat once he knows its destination. I believe that you should make preparations.”
“Thank you for your concern, General Asif, but my staff assures me that a submarine of that size would never enter the Yellow Sea so close to our coast. The water is simply too shallow here in most places. It has been our natural defense.”
“Perhaps you are correct. But the Americans seem to be doing the unexpected lately.”
“If Seawolf shows up in our waters, our glorious navy will overwhelm it. With no room to maneuver, the Americans would have to understand that any attack on us would amount to suicide on their part. We would kill them all, and rightly so.”
3
0800 GMT
SEAWOLF
“Gentlemen, sierra three is a North Korean submarine,” Dillon said as he poured a cup of coffee. Eight of his key officers, plus Lt. Bill Jackson, were gathered in the wardroom.
This news did not come as much of a surprise to any of them. Seawolf had tracked the Kilo boat for twelve days across the Bay of Bengal, down the Strait of Malacca and back north into the China Sea. Thirty-six hours ago they had crossed the Ryukyu Trench that rose sharply from depths of twenty-five thousand feet onto the Asian continental shelf, through the islands between Japan and Taiwan and up into the Yellow Sea, where the water was less than two hundred feet deep and in some places of open sea less than one hundred fifty feet.
The Kilo did not turn west toward mainland China, but instead angled to the northeast, toward North Korea.
“We hurt her, so she’s running back to her home port for repairs,” Dillon said. “But I don’t think that her captain is a North Korean. And maybe some of her crew are from somewhere else too. Which means that we still have a job to do.”
“What’s your best guess, Captain?” Bateman asked.
“I don’t think her captain is Pakistani either. They just don’t have the submarine experience to fight the way sierra three’s skipper and crew fought.” Dillon shook his head. He had done a lot of thinking about this over the past few days. He had drawn some conclusions. They weren’t etched in platinum, but they were better than hunches.
“Russian?” Alvarez asked.
“Maybe,” Dillon said. “I think their laser is probably Russian, which means they’re carrying at least one Russian techie.”
“Pakistan is the only country with a vested interest in knocking out our Jupiter system,” Bateman suggested. He was playing devil’s advocate.
“I think you’re right, Charlie,” Dillon said. “But our assignment is to not only stop the attacks, but to find out who’s doing them.” He looked around at his officers. All of them good men, ready to do whatever he asked of them. The Seawolf was not a democracy, of course. But a good CO knew how to ask for, listen to, and take good advice.
“Well, we have the advantage, Captain,” Jablonski said. “The Kilo boat thinks that they killed us back there. They think we’re dead, or at least no danger. They can’t know that we’ve followed them.”
“That’s a point,” Dillon agreed. Twenty-four hours after the fight, Seawolf had come to periscope depth, raised their comms mast, and phoned home. Their orders were specific: Follow the Kilo home and find out who’s fighting her. The only problem in his mind was John Galt. If the spy were at a high enough level in the Department of Navy he might have seen or perhaps gotten wind of what Seawolf was up to.
“If they somehow knew that we were here, we’d be heading into big trouble, sir,” Brown said.
“How’s that, Mr. Brown?”
“The water’s way too shallow for us to maneuver effectively. We’d only be able to develop about seventy-five percent of our top speed.”
In waters shallower than the length of the submarine the shock wave of the bow moving through the water echoed back from the bottom before the stern of the submarine passed by. It created a powerful drag, almost like suction, that slowed them down.
“We can’t dive deep beneath a thermocline, nor can we run away very fast,” Dillon summed it up for them. “But we can fight. And if need be that’s exactly what we’ll do. This mission remains weapons hot.”
No one flinched.
“They damaged three of our satellites, and they would have fired a fourth time, while our astronauts were right there. That, according to Washington, was an act of war.”
Since Afghanistan and Iraq there was a new world order. Although some countries, evidently North Korea among them, could see what was happening around them, they did not yet understand that Americans were no longer willing to turn the other cheek.
The incident twelve days ago in the Bay of Bengal may have given them the general idea. But the point was going to be driven home for them real soon. In a way that the North Koreans and anyone else doing Pakistan’s dirty work would not mistake.
“They’re probably heading for Nampo,” Bateman said. “Their best repair and retrofit yard is there. But once we’re sure, what then, Captain?”
“How much do we know about this repair facility?” Jackson asked before Dillon could answer.
“We have the charts, if that’s what you mean,” Bateman said. “We also have some satellite photos, and we have the capability of listening to at least some of their military communications.”
“Okay. Assuming they do go to Nampo for repairs, we’re still not going to know who’s conning that boat. Or who’s running the laser.”
“No, we’re not,” Bateman said. “What do you have in mind, Lieutenant?”
“I suggest that you settle on the bottom as close in as you can, and let me and my people go ashore and snoop around.”
Bateman stared at the SEAL officer for a long moment, then turned to Dillon and raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Do you think that you can pull it off?” Dillon asked.
“Well, Kandrach would have gone okay if they hadn’t been tipped off that we were coming,” Jackson said. “With the element of surprise on our side…” He smiled. “We can do it, skipper.”
4
0100 LOCAL
KANDRACH ISI PRISON
“Ma’am, can you hear me?” Scott Hanson called softly. He looked over his shoulder at the door to his prison cell. Sometimes a guard listened from the corridor. If Hanson was quiet he could hear the man shuffling his feet. But there was nothing tonight.
He turned back to the narrow crack that he’d managed to pick in the mortar between a couple of concrete blocks in the corner. “Ma’am, I’m an American. If you can hear me, give me a sign, please.”
His tiny cell reeked of human waste and his own filthy body. There’d been no retaliation after the attack nearly two weeks ago. In fact, their torture had even stopped. But Hanson had not been let out of his cell, nor had his food and water rations changed. He didn’t know how much longer he could go on. Just the effort of picking the loose bits of mortar from between a couple of concrete blocks near the floor had taken him four days and nights. The opening was only four or five inches long, and not very deep. The mortar joint was smeared with blood from his damaged fingers.
But it was something. He had managed to do at least one thing.
He glanced again at the door. Had he heard something? He held his breath and listened. But the cell block was quiet. Deathly still.
He turned back to the wall. “Ma’am, can you hear me? This isn’t a trick. I’m an American just like you. A prisoner.”
Hanson had picked up snatches of conversation from the ISI captain and the guards in the torture cell and in the corridor, about a fifth prisoner. An American. A woman whom they had rescued from the ocean. It wasn’t clear why she was being held prisoner if she had been rescued, but Hanson was fairly sure that she was still here and that she was in the cell adjacent to his.
Once he began to suspect that there was a woman prisoner here, he had listened even more carefully to the goings-on out in the corridor. He heard the cell door next to his being opened, and then closed just before his own food and water were delivered each day. And once he thought that he’d heard a woman’s voice, crying or pleading. But it was cut off, as if a hand had been clamped over her mouth.
