Authors: David Hagberg

Critical Mass (43 page)

BOOK: Critical Mass

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“BROOD HOUSE THIS IS RED DOG ONE, NEGATIVE RESPONSE, advise,” Dimaggio radioed.

The jetliner was one mile ahead and five hundred feet below them. Dimaggio had illuminated it with his doppler radar and had a positive lock for the Sparrow.

“Red Dog One, you have permission to fire,” his confirmation came. “Repeat, you have permission to fire.”

“Roger,” Dimaggio said, and he reached with his thumb for the air-to-air weapon-release button on his stick.

McGarvey scrambled into the pilot's seat, snatched up the microphone and frantically searched for the proper transmit frequency selector. Outside, the afternoon was beautiful, with only a few low clouds beneath them, and the pale blue of the Pacific Ocean lost in the haze on the horizon. There were no signs of any warplanes, but McGarvey figured they would by now be above and behind, ready to shoot.

He pushed the microphone button. “U.S. warplanes about to shoot at the Fukai Semiconductor 747 aircraft, do you copy?”

The radio was silent. McGarvey leaned forward as he tried to get a look aft, but he still couldn't see anything but blue sky. Of course the warplanes did not have to be within sight in order to attack. Some of their missiles were accurate forty nautical miles out.

“U.S. warplanes, this is the Fukai 747 north of the Hawaiian Islands, do you copy?”

“Roger, we copy. You are required to immediately break
away from your present heading, do you understand? If so, acknowledge.”

“Negative,” McGarvey radioed. “You're going to have to get confirmation of what I tell you, but we've got to get this aircraft on the ground and soon.”

“Repeat, you are required to immediately break away from your present heading. This is your last warning. If you do not comply immediately you will be shot out of the sky.”

“Listen to me. My name is Kirk McGarvey. I am an American intelligence officer, something you can verify by calling Washington. Everyone else aboard this airplane is dead, including the crew. We're carrying a nuclear device that is probably set on some sort of timer. It's hidden in a unit marked hydraulic distribution systemâsecondary. Have you got that?”

There was no answer.

“Goddammit, ace, I asked, did you get that?”

“Stand by.”

McGarvey sat back in the seat for a long moment, closing his eyes and trying to let his mind go blank. He wanted to crawl away and curl up in some dark corner somewhere, to lick his woundsâboth mental and physical. But it was not possible now, nor had it ever really been possible ever since his parents had been killed in Kansas â¦ a century ago? Ten lifetimes?

And, as before, the death and carnage that always seemed to surround him solved nothing, offered no satisfaction. Even the woman's death, for what she had done to Elizabeth, had been empty. Liz's life would not be changed for the better because of it. Nor would his. The deaths were nothing more than another chapter in his continuing nightmare.

Minutes later the F/A-18s showed up just off both sides of the 747.

“Mr. McGarvey, you still with us?” Dimaggio radioed. McGarvey could read the pilot's name and rank stenciled on the Hornet's fuselage beneath the canopy.

“That's a famous name you got there, Dimaggio. Any relation?”

“I wish,” Dimaggio said. “You're it aboard?”

McGarvey was looking directly at the young man. “Except two female flight attendents,” he said. “That's the good news. The bad is that the biggest plane I've ever flown was a V-tail Bonanza, and that was fifteen years ago. I never did get my license.”

“Did you land it?”

“Badly.”

“But you walked away from the landing,” Dimaggio said. “So things aren't as bad as we thought they might be. Now listen up, Mr. M, this is what we're trying to work out for you.”

Twenty-three U.S. Navy and Marine Sea Stallion helicopters out of Pearl and off the
CVN Nimitz
showed up almost simultaneously along the west coast of Niihau, the most isolated island in the Hawaiian chain, and immediately began announcing the evacuation of all residents.

Eighteen miles long and five miles wide the island was home to less than two hundred people who spoke only Hawaiian, though they understood English, who did not use electricity, plumbing or telephones, and who got around by bicycles and horses.

During the Second World War an airstrip had been laid down on the island's arid interior, and although it had been lengthened to take jets almost twenty years ago, it had never been used except in emergencies.

Even before the evacuation had begun, a C-130 Hercules was touching down on the strip with fire fighting and medical units out of Pearl, while another C-130 circled overhead, ready to lay down a thick blanket of foam along the entire runway and surrounding area the moment the supplies and personnel were secured and the first C-130 took off.

Also among the personnel were two Air Force nuclear weapons specialists on loan to the Navy at Pearl. Everything humanly possible to secure the bomb aboard the 747 when the jetliner landed was being done. McGarvey's survival was
secondary, even though it was up to him to bring the big jet in.

“Ten to one he doesn't make it,” one of the technicians aboard the circling AWACS commented. “But the device should survive a controlled crash landing with no real problem.”

The 747's controls were surprisingly light, the jetliner even easier to fly, in some ways, than the small four-place Beech Bonanza.

Ted Kinstry, a veteran 747 pilot for United Airlines, had been brought out from Honolulu aboard the AWACS to talk McGarvey in, and although he figured the chances of pulling off a survivable crash landing were far less than ten to one, he instantly established a rapport with McGarvey and talked him through the motions, step by step.

“I have the island and the runway in sight now,” McGarvey radioed. On instructions he had dumped most of the 747's fuel out over the ocean before changing course for the nearly five hundred mile straight-in approach.

While still well away from any land, Kinstry had McGarvey make two simulated landings, using an altitude of twenty thousand feet as the imaginary ground level. On the first landing, McGarvey managed to pull up and level off at eighteen thousand five hundred feet; the second time at nineteen thousand seven hundred.

“You crashed and burned both times,” Kinstry had told him. “But there was an improvement.”

“Let's try it again,” McGarvey suggested.

“No time or fuel. Sorry, Mac, but the next time is the big one.”

Which was now.

“We're going to start using flaps now,” Kinstry's voice came into McGarvey's headphones.

“Why so soon?” McGarvey asked.

“Because we need to slow you down sooner. This time we're not using landing gear. You're going to belly her in.
It'll tear hell out of the aircraft, but the landing will be easier.”

“You're the boss,” McGarvey said, trying to blink away the double vision that was coming in and out now, at times so badly he could barely read the instruments. He hadn't told that to Kinstry. It wouldn't have helped.

“You don't have to reply from now on unless you have a question,” Kinstry said calmly. “Reduce throttles to the second mark.”

McGarvey pulled back on the big handles on the center console, and the aircraft's nose immediately became impossible to hold.

“Don't forget to adjust your trim each time you change a throttle or flap setting,” Kinstry cautioned, and McGarvey did as he was told, the jetliner's nose immediately coming up, the pressures on the control column easing.

“Now we're going to five degrees of flaps. Again, watch your trim.”

McGarvey lowered the flaps which acted as huge air brakes, slowing the plane even more, the roar of the wind over the added wing surface suddenly loud.

Ahead, the runway seemed impossibly narrow and much too short.

“I have you in sight. Come right slightly to line up with the runway.”

McGarvey turned the wheel very slightly to the right as he applied a little pressure to the right rudder pedal. The big jet ponderously swung on line, then passed to the right. He had to compensate left, then right before settling in.

“You're at eight thousand feet, glide path a little high. Reduce throttles to the third mark, and flaps to ten degrees.”

McGarvey did both, remembering to adjust the trim each time, and the plane slowed even further, the roar now very loud.

“Looking good,” Kinstry said. “Reduce throttles to the fourth position, and increase flaps to twenty degreesâmaximum.”

The big jetliner was no longer so easy to handle even with
the trim tabs properly adjusted. The controls seemed sluggish and unresponsive, and McGarvey got the unsettling impression that the jetliner was hanging in the air by the very narrowest of speed margins just above a stall.

“Your glide path is a little low, pull up the nose.”

McGarvey eased the wheel back, and the stall horn began beeping shrilly, a red stall-indicator lighting on the panel flashing brightly.

“I'm getting a stall warning,” McGarvey radioed.

“Don't worry about it. Your glide path is looking good, bring it right a little more. From now on you'll probably have to hold a little right rudder, looks as if you have a slight crosswind.”

The plane came right and lined up perfectly this time. The stall warning continued to buzz.

“At one thousand feet, glide path is a little low, pull up,” Kinstry said.

The stall warning continued to buzz, and now the runway was definitely too small by at least a factor of ten, maybe more.

“At eight hundred feet, glide path still a little low, pull up.”

The jetliner began to shudder, the control column vibrating in his hands. McGarvey knew enough to understand that the wings were on the very verge of stalling.

“Four hundred feet,” Kinstry said. “Three hundred feet, your glide path is perfect.”

The end of the runway was less than one hundred yards out.

“Two hundred feet â¦ one hundred feet â¦ You're over the end of the runway, chop power now!”

McGarvey hauled back on the throttles, cutting all power to the engines, but instead of dropping out of the sky like a stone, the ground effect between the wings and the runway took effect and the 747 seemed to float for a second, or longer, then it touched down with a terrible crash. The big airliner bounced once, hit on its belly again, and then the controls were yanked out of McGarvey's hands, everything
outside his windows turning opaque white as the plane plowed through the fire retardant foam.

He could do nothing but brace himself against the inevitable crash, and he finally let himself succumb to his wounds, his loss of blood, and lack of rest over the past weeks.

Slowly the big jetliner began to decelerate, turning almost gently to the right. And finally something crashed against the portside wing, the plane slewed sharply left, and came to a complete halt.

For a long time McGarvey allowed himself the luxury of breathing, and of not having to think or concentrate for his own life, and his world collapsed around him into an indistinct but pleasant grayness.

VERY EARLY ON THE MORNING OF THE SEVENTH DAY OF McGarvey's hospitalization at San Francisco's General, Kelley Fuller, wearing a pretty knit dress and sandals, showed up. She was still deeply frightened, and when she touched his lips with her fingertips she was shaking.

“Phil said he pulled you out of there just in time,” McGarvey said. Most of the past week had gone by in a blur for him. Until today the doctors had kept him sedated most of the time to hold him down.

“I was going crazy,” she said. “I didn't know what had happened to you. I thought maybe you had drowned.”

“I found the bomb.”

“I know, and Fukai is dead. All the papers are saying he died of a heart attack when his plane crashed-landed on that island. They're calling him a national hero in Japan.”

“It doesn't matter,” McGarvey said. “He's dead and it's over.”

She was staring at him, an odd expression in her eyes. “You're really an extraordinary man,” she said softly. She went to the door and closed it, then propped a chair under the knob so that no one could come in. “I came to see how you were, and to thank you for saving my life,” she said, coming back to the bed. She stepped out of her sandals, and then pulled the dress off over her head. She wore nothing beneath it.

“If you pull my stitches my doctors will have your hide,” McGarvey said, throwing back the covers.

“So let them sue me,” she said, gently slipping into bed
with him, and easing her body on top of his. Her skin was like silk against his, and the nipples of her breasts were hard, her breath warm and fragrant.

He let his hands run down her back, along her hips and the mound of her buttocks, feeling himself responding almost immediately.

The bedside telephone rang, and he reached over and picked it up. “Later,” he said, “One hour.” He broke the connection, but left the phone off the hook.

“I don't know if that will be long enough,” Kelley said, kissing his forehead.

“Let's try,” McGarvey said. “We can at least do that.”

“Who was that on the telephone?” Kelley asked when they were finished. She'd gotten out of bed, used the bathroom and then put on her dress and stepped into her sandals.

All through their lovemaking she had asked him questions about what he had seen and done while in the Fukai compound. Each answer had seemed to spur her on, almost as if she were playing some sort of sexual game with him.

“It was Phil Carrara,” McGarvey said tiredly. Because of his wounds he had no energy, no stamina. He felt very weak.

Kelley's breath caught in her throat, but McGarvey didn't see it. “Get some sleep before you call him,” she said. “You need it.”

“Are you going to stay?”

“I have to go. But I'll come again tomorrow.”

McGarvey was beginning to drift again. He watched as Kelley pulled the chair away from the door. She blew him a kiss and then was gone.

For a long time he let his mind drift, his eyes half closed. Odd, he thought, that she had left so suddenly. Odd that she hadn't even kissed him goodbye.

He turned that over in his head, worrying it like a dog might worry a bone. Something wasn't adding up, but it was hard to make his brain work.

A nurse bustled into the room, a stern look in her eyes. “Are you awake?” she demanded.

McGarvey opened his eyes. “Just barely,” he answered, smiling, but something was bothering him. Something he couldn't quite put a finger on.

“Well, your telephone is off the hook, and somebody from Washington wants to talk to you,” she said. She replaced the phone on its cradle, and almost immediately it rang. She answered it. “Yes, he's awake.” She handed the phone to McGarvey. “As soon as you're done, I want you to get some rest.” She breezed out of the room, shaking her head.

“Kirk, is that you?” Phil Carrara asked.

“Sorry I hung up on you before, but something came up,” McGarvey said, his attempt at humor as weak as he felt.

“They said Kelley Fuller was out there to see you. Is she there now?”

“Just left.”

“I wanted to tell her that her friend Lana Toy is all right.”

“She's not dead?”

“No. We have her in protective custody.”

“But you told Kelley â¦” McGarvey let it trail off.

“We needed her help, Kirk. In the meantime how are you feeling?”

“I'll live,” McGarvey said, understanding now what was wrong with Kelley. It was the business. There was no honor to it.

“The general is grateful, I mean that sincerely. And the President will be calling you in a couple of days to thank you.”

“What about Kathleen and Liz? Are they all right, Phil?”

“They're back in Washington. Your daughter insisted on coming out to be with you, but we convinced her to stay here for the moment. Just in case.”

McGarvey's heart was jolted. “Just in case what, Phil?”

“We finally came up with some answers in Switzerland.
Two
sets of triggers were taken from ModTec, not one. Which means it's very possible there's a second bomb floating around out there somewhere.”

McGarvey closed his eyes, and tried to make his muddled brain work. Something just outside his ken was nagging at
him. Something Nakamura had said to him aboard the airplane. He tried to bring it back.

Carrara was saying something about tracking down the British-made initiators, but McGarvey was back on the 747.

“ â¦
your government would not dare interfere with me,”
the Japanese billionaire had said.
“Even if they were suspicious, they would wait until we landed to ask my permission to search the aircraft.”

McGarvey remembered having thought that the man was probably correct, but then Nakamura had said something else. Something odd.

“Even in that unlikely event, it wouldn't matter.”

McGarvey opened his eyes. “Was the bomb aboard the plane set on a timer?”

“Yes, it was,” Carrara said. “But we had all the time in the world to disarm it, because it hadn't been set to go off for another 98 hours.”

McGarvey did the arithmetic. A little over four days. “What day would it have gone off?”

“Thursday.”

“I mean the date, Phil. What date was it set to explode in San Francisco?”

“The sixth of August.”

McGarvey was suddenly very cold. He had no idea what the date was now. “What day is it today, Phil?”

“It's Sunday, August ninth â¦ Oh, my, God.”

“On August 6, 1945 we dropped an atomic bomb on the seaport city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9th, we dropped a second bomb on a seaport city, Nagasaki, south of Hiroshima. Nakamura's first bomb was set for San Francisco. His second is set for Los Angeles.”

“Today,” Carrara said, amazed.

“What time was the Nagasaki bomb dropped?” McGarey asked. He looked up at the digital clock in the overhead television. It was 8:47 A.M.

Carrara was back a few seconds later. “The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at 8:05 on the morning of August
sixth. Nakamura's bomb was originally set to go off in San Francisco at exactly that time.”

“What about the second bomb?”

“This morning at 11:02,” Carrara said. “Your time, I hope, which gives us less than two and a half hours. But where the hell is it?”

“Call the FBI,” McGarvey said, throwing off his covers and painfully crawling out of bed. “Have them standing by with the fastest plane they have to get me down to Los Angeles. I'm leaving here immediately. I know where the bomb is locatedâexactly where.”

“Where?” Carrara shouted.

“Aboard the
Grande Dame II
disguised as a sewage lift pump.”

Kelley Fuller was just climbing into a cab when McGarvey emerged limping from the hospital. He'd found his freshly laundered clothes in the closet and over the doctor's protestations and threats had bullied his way out. Kelley fell back in shock.

“What's happening, Kirk?”

“There's a second bomb down in Los Angeles,” McGarvey shouted, shoving her aside and climbing in.

“What's this about a bomb?” the cabbie demanded.

“Never mind, just get me to the airport as fast as you can. The general aviation terminal.”

“I'm going with you,” Kelley said, trying to climb in after him, but he pushed her back.

“You're staying here.”

“I have to go with you,” she cried.

“Your friend Lana Toy is not dead.”

She looked at him, her eyes suddenly wide. “What?”

“She's in protective custody. She's not dead, I swear it.”

“Was it Phil Carrara?” she asked in a small voice.

McGarvey nodded.

“Why?”

“He needed your help, and he was willing to tell you anything.”

“Now you?”

“I'm different.”

She looked into his eyes. “Yes, you are different,” she said, stepping back. After a moment she turned and walked away.

A Learjet with the FBI seal emblazoned on its fuselage was warming up on the apron for McGarvey when he arrived at the airport and paid off the very impressed cabbie. Special Agent Sam Wilke helped him aboard and even before he was strapped in they were taxiing toward the active runway, Special Agent Richard Conley piloting.

“We'll be in L.A. in about an hour,” Wilke said as they started their takeoff roll. “Washington wasn't real specific about what was going on, except that you're CIA, you need help, it's damned important, and we need to go like a bat out of hell.”

“All of the above,” McGarvey said, sitting back. “Can you have a helicopter standing by for me?”

Wilke nodded. “Where are we headed?”

“To wherever the
Grande Dame Two
is docked. She's a pleasure vessel out of Nagasaki, but registered in Monaco. Should have pulled in yesterday or maybe even this morning.”

“Do you want her and the crew impounded?”

“Negative,” McGarvey said, opening his eyes. “Under no circumstances is that ship or her crew to be approached by anyone.”

Wilke was looking at him. “I'll take care of it.”

“Good,” McGarvey said, lying back again as they climbed. He closed his eyes, and he could see the look on Kelley's face when she'd learned that Carrara had lied to her, and that her friend was still alive. Relief. Hurt. Finally, fear.

An FBI 206 JetRanger helicopter was waiting for them on the pad at Los Angeles International Airport. Wilke came along with McGarvey and Kelley, and minutes after they stepped off the Learjet they were airborne toward the waterfront.

“The
Grande Dame Two
came in last night, and just cleared customs about two hours ago,” Wilke shouted over the roar. He'd been on the radio most of the way down.

“Where?” McGarvey asked.

“The Long Beach Marina. About twenty miles from here. We'll make it in a few minutes. But would you mind telling me what the hell is going on? Your boss said he's on the way out.”

“What's nearby?” McGarvey asked.

“Huntington Beach, Long Beach, of course.”

“Strategic targets.”

Wilke's left eyebrow rose. “Long Beach Naval Shipyard, Los Alamitos Naval Air Station.”

“Anything high tech?”

“TSI Industries is building a new research unit somewhere down there, I think.”

McGarvey looked at him. “There's an atomic bomb aboard that ship.”

Wilke didn't know whether or not to believe him. “Set to explode when?”

“Two minutes after eleven, this morning.”

“Christ,” Wilke swore. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” McGarvey said. “I think I'll be able to find it, but the problem might be the crew. Could be someone aboard who'll push the button if we show up in force.”

Wilke was shaking his head. “It won't matter,” he said. “At least it won't in another fourteen minutes. That's all the time left.”

The
Grande Dame II
was tied up at the end pier, and although the marina was very busy there was no one to be seen on deck.

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