America (13 page)

Zelda Hudson joined him in laughter. After a bit, Zip went to the refrigerator in the far corner and returned with a cold bottle of champagne. “I bought this to celebrate,” he said, and made a production of popping the cork, which shot away. He didn't bother retrieving it. As they sipped champagne from Styrofoam coffee cups, Zelda kicked off her shoes, put her feet up on her overnight bag, and tousled her long hair.

God, she felt sooo good!

“We did it!” she said, and laughed again.

CHAPTER FIVE

“How does this system work?” Jake Grafton asked Captain Piechowski. Jake, Toad, and Janos Ilin were standing with the two simulator experts near the desk in the corner of the dark, old gymnasium.

“The ship is in the computer, if you will, Admiral. The helmets contain sensors that locate them for the computer and provide the direction of orientation. Same with the gloves. The computer presents a three-dimensional holographic image on the faceplate of the helmet as you move in cyberspace.”

“Remarkable.”

“Much cheaper than a simulator made of hardware, which by the way also requires a computer to give it life.”

“Has the virtual sim replaced hardware completely?”

“No, sir. Not yet. We still have an actual control room sim to teach crew coordination and procedures. The rest of it is done here. With the exception of
America
's reactor and engineering personnel, who do their training in the base reactor and engineering simulators. Those devices are also used for
Seawolf
- and
Los Angeles
–class boats; the plants are sufficiently similar.”

“How big is the computer that runs this thing?” Toad Tarkington asked.

“It's a mainframe. The system is capable of simultaneously handling ten people and ten sets of gloves, so the computing capacity must be generous. We have a smaller portable system that we take to other bases for refresher training and retraining on procedural revisions. It will handle just four people at a time.”

“How portable?”

“An enhanced laptop runs it.”

The admiral glanced at the Russian. “Any questions, Mr. Ilin?”

“It all seems quite amazing,” Janos Ilin said, and carefully scrutinized the helmet he held in his hand. “Too bad you still use cords.” He was referring to the electrical wires that connected the helmets and gloves to the computer. The use of the wires required the wearer of the helmet and gloves to be careful not to get tangled or wrapped around a fellow trainee.

“We could go wireless,” the chief commented innocently, “but wires make the system more secure. I am told there are people in this world who have the capability of intercepting wireless transmissions. Over time they could duplicate the contents of the mainframe, thereby discerning hardware and software design characteristics of
America.
”

Jake Grafton was tempted to smile, but the urge died before it reached his lips. Someone had stolen the whole submarine, not just the design.

“Thank you for your time, Captain. You too, Chief. You've been most helpful.”

*   *   *

“Captain Killbuck, I asked for the best submariner in the United States Navy, and they tell me you're him.” General Flap Le Beau, commandant of the Marine Corps, made this remark when he was introduced to Captain Leroy “Sonny” Killbuck in the Pentagon war room. Killbuck was on the briefing platform and Le Beau was seated in his usual chair, one of the large ones reserved for the Joint Chiefs arranged in a semicircle in the front of the room. In the chairman's seat was General Howard Alt.

“That's very flattering, General,” Killbuck said. “I heard you were the toughest marine in uniform.”

“They've lied to both of us, then,” Le Beau shot back. Killbuck was a year or two over forty, just screened for flag, with a lot of American Indian in him apparently. He had high cheekbones, dark brown skin, jet-black straight hair, and a rugged, craggy face. Someone said he was Shawnee. A star on the staff of Vice-Admiral Navarre, the assistant CNO for underseas warfare, he was being groomed for high command.

An African American, Le Beau was just a shade darker than Killbuck. He was a veteran of Vietnam and several brushfire wars since, a fearless knifefighter with the knack of inspiring people to give the very best that was in them. He liked to tell people that his name, Le Beau, was from his white ancestors, a family of Louisiana planters, but in truth he had no idea where it came from. His mother, who had called herself Twila Le Beau, died of a drug overdose when he was in his early teens; he never knew who his father was, and if he had grandparents who outlived his mother, he never knew them. He was, he told his closest friends, a Brooklyn sewer rat. Those who knew him would tell you that he had given himself to the marines body and soul, that he embodied the heritage and values of the corps; the troops said that even his blood was green.

“So where's that submarine?”

Sonny Killbuck gestured toward the map that formed the wall behind the podium. “We drew the black circle an hour ago, sir. The submarine was hijacked thirty-six hours ago, so this is a circle with a seven-hundred-and-twenty-nautical-mile radius, centered on New London. The submarine is somewhere within that circle.”

“I thought
America
had a maximum sustained speed of nearly thirty knots.” Le Beau shot a glance at Stuffy Stalnaker, the CNO, who was sitting in his usual seat, looking sour. Vice-Admiral Navarre was sitting beside him. His face was stony.

“It does, sir, but at anything over twenty knots the boat will begin to make some noise—and we haven't yet detected it on SOSUS.” Beginning in the 1950s, the United States placed hydrophones on the ocean floor all over the world and gradually built a complete system. Today the raw data from hydrophone arrays was processed through a regional evaluation center, and the processed results were then passed to the main evaluation center in Washington, where they were correlated with information from other sources, such as satellites, human intelligence, patrol planes, etc.

“The senior hijacker was apparently a former Russian submariner named Kolnikov,” Sonny Killbuck continued. “Presumably he knows a great deal about SOSUS, knows to keep his speed down.”

“The yellow circle?”

“That is the ten-knot circle, sir, with a three-hundred-and-sixty-nautical-mile radius. Obviously both circles continue to expand; eventually the submarine could be under any of Earth's oceans.”

“Okay.”

Killbuck used a pointer. “This is the Goddard SuperAegis launch platform, east of Cape Canaveral. We have a battle group proceeding into that area at twenty knots. Two of our attack boats that were in port in Georgia are now at sea, and two are being readied for sea. We have four boats on patrol in the North Atlantic; those are being diverted back to the seaboard of the eastern United States. Our antisubmarine patrol assets are flying patrols searching for the boat. In addition, Space Command is retasking their reconnaissance satellites to concentrate on the North Atlantic.”

“What is the range of the Tomahawk missiles aboard
America?
”

“About one thousand nautical miles, sir.”

“So the Goddard launch platform is already within range of
America
's weapons?”

“Yes, sir. That is correct.”

“I understand that
America
surfaced south of Long Island to put the rest of the crew in the water. Did any of these P-3s or satellites see her?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“What else should we be doing, Val?” General Alt asked Vice-Admiral Navarre.

“We are doing everything within our power to find that ship, sir,” Navarre shot back. “We'll not find it, though, until the hijackers start doing something with the boat, torpedo something, shoot a missile, or surface. We must be ready to close in if and when they break cover.”

“You think they'll use the ship's weapons?”

Navarre took his time before he answered. “Taking the sub to sea is a hell of a feat for an untrained crew, or an undertrained one. Operating the ship's weapons systems is a whole different ball game. The submarine combat system is a fully integrated package, constructed like a telephone network. There is no one single monstrous software package, but a series of packages, all of which work together. Parisian taxicab drivers who once went to sea in old boats back when the world was young aren't going to have a clue.”

“This whole scenario is improbable,” said General Alt. “But the fact is the damn submarine is gone and our crew is on dry land.” Alt was a politician-bureaucrat to his fingertips, and he looked it. Smart, well educated, from a prominent family, Alt was the possessor of a large inherited fortune, which made him an anomaly in the armed forces. The American military had drawn its officers from the middle and lower middle class almost exclusively since the end of the Korean War. Perhaps Alt had seen the military as a bureaucracy to be conquered; in any event, he attended the Military Academy and made the army his career while his brothers went to Ivy League schools, then burrowed into the merchant-banking business.

“When we get some idea of why they stole the ship,” Stuffy Stalnaker said, “then we'll get a glimmer of where to look for it.”

“Do you have anything to contribute to this conversation?” Flap asked Killbuck.

“They broke cover once already, surfacing,” the captain said. “We heard the boat surface. We didn't know it until two hours later, when the sound could be matched to an event. We haven't yet listened to
America
enough to collect a decent database.”

“This boat has been to sea numerous times for workups and testing,” Flap objected.

“Yes, sir. We haven't yet run it through the acoustic range off Andros Island. We are going over the sea trials and SOSUS records now, doing statistical studies. In forty-eight hours or so we hope to have a database we can work with.”

“Anything else?” Alt asked with the slightest edge in his voice. He, not the other chiefs of staff, ran the war room.

“Yes, sir. During the night the SOSUS sensors picked up a sound that we could not identify. I'll play it for you.”

Killbuck signaled to one of the enlisted men who worked in the war room. Flap took a deep breath, exerted control over his own emotions. Parading useless information before the brass was an old, old briefing technique designed to deflect criticism when one had nothing tangible to report.

Flap half closed his eyes, listened to a faint, faint sound. Definitely metallic. Killbuck played it four times.

“And?”

“The SOSUS people refuse to identify it,” Killbuck said. He paused for a heartbeat, then added, “It's a low-frequency sound, perhaps a torpedo tube being flushed with compressed air. And that's just a guess.”

“Where?”

Killbuck used his pointer. “What you heard is sound picked up by four sensors and mixed together by computer. We think it originated here.”

“Did you get a P-3 over there?” Flap Le Beau asked.

“Yes, sir. He came up dry.”

“We must do better,” General Alt said. “We must have planes out there to investigate anything suspicious. Let's get out there and get after that sub. Find him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We find it, we're going to sink the son of a bitch,” Stuffy Stalnaker said. “Shoot on positive identification. We aren't going to run over to the White House and watch the politicians wring their hands while those assholes sail off into the sunset. We're going to send those sons of bitches to Davy Jones.”

“Getting positive identification is critical,” Val Navarre remarked. “We're putting our attack boats out there to look for
America.
The best way to find a sub is with another sub. We should have six boats at sea by tomorrow night. Other nations will do the same. There are going to be a lot of submarines in the North Atlantic very soon.”

*   *   *

After dinner in the sub-base officers' club, Janos Ilin excused himself and walked across the street to the bachelor officers' quarters, the BOQ, leaving Toad alone with Jake Grafton.

“The FBI has the place surrounded,” Toad said in a low voice, trying not to be heard by diners at other tables. “If he leaves the BOQ he'll be followed.”

“Ilin knows that. Or suspects it. He won't leave.”

“I saw you talking to that FBI agent just before dinner,” Toad continued. “A report?”

“They've found where the hijackers stayed for the past two weeks. The place is a cheap motel near Providence. Thirty-dollar rooms. And the FBI went into our beach house after we left this afternoon. The place is bugged, and the bugs are wired to a low-power transmitter.”

“Russian?”

“Apparently.”

“But you didn't invite me and Ilin for the weekend until Friday.”

“The house has stood empty all summer, Toad. When Ilin joined the security team he learned the identities of everyone on the team. The FBI is checking, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that our apartment in Rosslyn is bugged, and Blevins's townhouse, and your house.… The FBI will check all of them.”

Commander Toad Tarkington leaned back in his chair. He was a few inches shorter than his boss, with a perfect set of white teeth and deep laugh lines that grooved his tan face. An F-14 radar intercept officer, or RIO, early in his career, he had spent the last few years as Jake's aide or executive assistant.

Jake told Toad of seeing Ilin talking in the street during a smoke break that morning. “I don't think the Russians can get a surveillance team onto the base, but they might. If he does it again, we'll be listening too. And we'll burn the surveillance team.”

Toad looked speculatively at Jake. The admiral thought he knew what the younger man was thinking. “Yes, I know having Ilin around is a risk. But the Russians are our prime suspects for the theft of
America.
We need to determine if they are involved, and the sooner the better.”