Final Flight (38 page)

“Did the water harm them?” Qazi heard Ali
say. “Oh no,” Jarvis replied. He tilted
his gas mask away from his face and sniffed
experimentally, then removed it. “They’re waterproof
so they can be carried on external bomb racks through
rain and snow and still function.” He was examining one
of the devices under a powerful flashlight. The sheen of
moisture on the top of his bald head glistened
occasionally in the stray light reflecting from the
water’s surface. He spread his legs and lowered
his gut like a sumo wrestler. He used a
screwdriver on an access plate. In seconds
he had it off and was shining a flashlight into the
znterior of the weapon. “Hail wouldn’t do the covering
on the adar transceiver in the nose any good, of
course,” Jarvis continued softly, “but a little bath
shouldn’t hurt anything. As long as these access
panels were properly fitted…” He knelt in the
water and bent his head down so he could get
a better view inside the weapon.

He looked up at Noora. She had removed
her mask too and was using her hand to fluff her
hair. “This one looks fine.” He searched her
face expectantly and was rewarded. A trace of a
smile lifted the corners of her lips. His eyes
flicked down and he grinned nervously as he moved
toward the next bomb.

“Put this one on a dolly and connect your
device to it before you check the others,” Qazi said.

They positioned a bomb cart beside the weapon and
four of them surrounded it, two on the nose and two
on the tail. There were no good handholds, but they were
running out of time. Jarvis danced from foot to foot,
chanting, “Oh, don’t drop it. Please, don’t
drop it.

They got it two inches out of the cradle and set it
back down. It was too heavy. “Use a
pulley,” Qazi said.

On the end of the chain was a piece of metal that
fitted into the two metal eyes on top of the
weapon. These eyes would fit up into an
airplane’s bomb rack where two hooks would
mate the weapon to the plane.

With the mechanical advantage provided
by the pulley, it only took two men pulling on the
chain to lift the weapon from its cradle and lower it
gently onto the dolly.

The water lapped at the bottom of the weapon.
Jarvis opened the access panel and used strapping
tape to secure the trigger device he had
constructed to the top of the weapon. Then he ran two
wires with alligator clips on the ends from the
device through the access panel.

He used the flashlight to attach the wires
inside the weapon. When he was finished, he stood
back as Qazi bent to look inside.

The interior of the weapon was a maze. Qazi had
expected this. He tried to remember exactly what
he was looking for. Yes, that clip was on the wire
leading from the battery. And this other clip was on the
wire bundles that led to the detonators. Jarvis
had had to scrape some insulation from both wires
to affix the clips. “Satisfactory.” He
straightened and found himself looking at Admiral
Parker, whose face was still obscured behind his gas
mask. “I’m sorry, Admiral. But we need
these weapons.

Parker turned away. He seemed to be listening.
Now Qazi heard it too, a faint
rumbling. What was that? Qazi pointed his flashlight
at the water contact with the doorway. The water was
moving, ever so slightly.

But it should move as the ship rocked at anchor.
Parker was looking at the water too. Qazi felt
the deck beneath his feet tremble.

Now he understood. The rumble had been the anchor
chain running out.

The ship was underway!

THE OFFICER-OF-THE-DECK of the Aegis-class
cruiser, SS Gettysburg, anchored three
miles north of the United States, was momentarily
confused. The carrier’s lights were moving in elation
to him. The lookout on the port wing of the bridge had
called it to his attention. The lights of the carrier
had only been isible for the last fifteen minutes,
since the rain had slackened. He quickly scanned the
wind-direction indicator to see if the wind ad
changed; that would cause the ships to swing on their
anchors. No. Perhaps his ship was moving, dragging its
anchor nlikely, since the wind velocity had also
eased.

But… He wung the alidade to the lighthouse
at the entrance to Naples arbor, just visible through the
rain, and noted the bearing. He checked
another point a little further up the coast. The
bearings were the same numbers as in the passdown log,
the same numers the radar operator in Combat had
been verifying all evening. is ship was still stationary.

But the carrier wasn’t. “Bridge, Combat.”
It was the squawk box, on this class of ships known
as the Internal Voice Communication System which
combined a telephone, a speaker system at
selected locations, and all of the internal networks in
the ship. “Bridge, aye.”

“The United States is underway. We have them
headed course Two Five Zeroz at four knots
on radar.” The watch officer in Combat had
established a track on the SPS-55 radar, which
was operating.

The carrier was heading directly into the prevailing
wind, in the same direction she had been pointing as
she rode at her anchor. “Keep tracking her and
call her up. Find out if we’ve missed something.
Have someone check the messages.” Lieutenant
(jg) Epley already suspected the worst. Somehow,
some way, a message notifying the cruiser of a
planned ship movement had gone 1 astray. If
so, he thought glumly, there would be absolute hell
to pay. Somebody had dropped the ball rather
spectacularly. I “Aye aye, sir.”

The OD looked again through the water-streaked
bridge window at the carrier’s moving lights as he
twirled the handle on the “growler,” an
old-fashioned intercom box. He could just hear the
growler sounding in the captain’s cabin directly beneath
the bridge.

“Captain.” The Old Man sounded half
asleep. No doubt he was.

“Sir, this is the OD. The United States
seems to be underway. There’s no mention-“

“What?” The captain was fully awake now.
“Yes sir. She’s moving.

Combat verifies on radar.”

“Have you called her on the bridge.to.bridge?”

“Not yet, sir. Combat-“

“I’ll be right there.” The connection broke.
Epley pointed his binoculars at the carrier. He
could see the masthead lights and the floodlights around
the top of the island, though his view was slightly out of
focus with all this moisture in the air.

“Bridge, Combat. Her speed is up to seven
knots. No answer to our calls on Fleet
Tactical or Navy Red.” Fleet
Tactical was a clear voice UHF
circuit. Navy Red, or Fleet Secure, was
an encrypted 1 voice circuit.

“Keep trying.”

“Watch to see if she turns,” the 00Do
told the port lookout and his quartermaster, who had
already noted the time and event in the log.

The captain arrived on the bridge in less than
a minute. He carried his shoes in his hand and tossed
them on his chair. He wasted only ten seconds
verifying that the United States was indeed underway,
then grabbed the Navy Red radiotelephone. No
answer. He called Combat and found they had had no
luck either. He stuck his head out of the port
bridge-wing doorway and yelled to the signalman
to try and raise the carrier with his flashing light, then
spent a tense, unhappy minute on the phone with the
cruiser’s operations officer, who was as mystified as
he was. The navigator was equally perplexed.

“Set the special sea and anchor detail,
Mr. Epley. We’re going to see how fast we can
get underway. We can’t let the flagship just steam
off over the goddamned horizon without us. Then
call the communications officer and tell him I want
to see him here on the bridge in precisely sixty
seconds.” He sat down in his chair and
put on his shoes, fuming, “The goddamn flagship
gets underway in the middle of the fucking night and no
one aboard my ship knows jack about it. I’m going
to get out of the goddamn navy and buy a pig farm.”

The call, when it came, was from Admiral
Parker. The chief engineer summoned Jake to the
telephone. He had been huddled with the navigator
over a chart, plotting a course that would take the
ship as far away from land as quickly as possible. The
navigator had had to obtain the chart from his
stateroom, since he couldn’t get up into the island
to his office.

“Captain Grafton.”

“Jake, this is the admiral. I’m here with
Colonel Qazi and he asked me to call you.”

“Yes sir.” Jake listened intently. “Where
are you, sir?”

“Uh, I think we’d better skip that. Are you
the senior officer in charge?”

“Yes sir. I think so.” Jake could hear
someone whispering, but he couldn’t make out the words.

In a moment the admiral spoke again. “Qazi
has armed a nuclear weapon.

He…” Jake heard a muffled phrase, then
a new voice came on the line.

“Captain Grafton, I am Colonel
Qazi. You have heard Admiral Parker tell you
I have armed a nuclear weapon. Do you doubt it?”

“No.”

“Unless you and your men cooperate and do
precisely as I tell you, I will detonate this
device. I will destroy this ship and every living soul
aboard her.”

He paused and Jake pressed the telephone
against his ear. “Did you hear me, Captain?” His
voice was calm, assured, confident.

“I heard you.”

“This is what you will do. You will restore power to the
weapons elevators servicing the forward magazine.
You will call off your marines. You will ensure your
crew does not interfere with me or my men as we
leave the ship. You will not interfere with the helicopters
on the flight deck. If you interfere with me in any
way, Captain, if you try to thwart me, I will
detonate this device.”

“Let me talk to the admiral.”

“I think not, Captain. This is your decision, not
his. You hold his life, your life, and the lives of
every man on this ship in your hands.”

“Including yours.

“Including mine. I am in your hands. You have the
power to decide if this weapon will be detonated. If
it is, you will be responsible.”

Jake tried to laugh. It sounded more like a croak.
“This is deadly serious, Captain.”

“Looks to me like we have a Mexican standoff here,
Colonel. You fail if you die here too.”

“No, sir. If this bomb explodes I will have
shown the world the Americans cannot be trusted. No one
will ever know why this bomb exploded, but the evidence will
be irrefutable that it did. Your fleets will be
disarmed by the American people. Your ships will be banned from
the oceans of the world. I will have dealt a mortal blow
to American power. I will have accomplished what the
Germans and the Japanese could not in World War
II. I will have destroyed the United States
Navy. And I will have accomplished it very, very cheaply,
at the cost of only my life and a few of my men.
Think about it, Captain. You have ten seconds.”

Jake was acutely aware of the sound of his own
breathing. He rotated the phone so the transmitter
was up over his head and azi could not hear it. The
bastard sounded so goddamn confient, so sure he had
all the cards. And he did. The U.s. Navy was
finished if a nuclear weapon detonated
aboard a ship; Congress would sink it to the cheers of
outraged, frightened voters. And the oviets would inherit
the earth. “Your answer?”

“How do I know you won’t leave the ship and then
blow it up?”

“You don’t, Captain. What is your
decision?”

“You’ll get what you want”

“I thought you would arrive at that rational conclusion. I await an
announcement over your public-address system.”
The connection broke and Jake was left with a buzzing
in his ear. Jake slammed the instrument into its
cradle.

Get a grip on yourself, man! Don’t let these
sailors see you out of control. He took three
or four deep breaths and tried to arrange his face.

“Trixorn, how long until we can get power
restored to the weapons elevators up from the forward
magazine?”

“Oh, maybe fifteen minutes.”

“Do it.” Jake turned to the marine officer,
Lieutenant Dykstra. “Get your people off the
flight deck. Nobody, and I mean nobody,
pulls a trigger unless I give my
personal approval. If they do, I’ll
court-martial them and you.”

A sneer of contempt crossed Dykstra’s
face. “I hope to God you know what the fuck
you’re doing. Sir.” Dykstra turned and stalked
away.

The navigator was still bending over the chart. Jake
glanced over his shoulder. The navigator was on the
phone, probably to the sailor in the after steering
compartment. The emergency helm was there, below the
waterline in the after part of the ship, near the giant
hydraulic rams that controlled the rudder. The
navigator covered the mouthpiece with his hand and
looked at Jake, who asked, “Where are we?”

The navigator pointed. About ten miles
southeast of the anchorage.

“What’s our speed?”

“Seventeen knots.”

“Let’s put on all the turns we can. Work
her up to flank speed.”

“There may be ships out there. The radar’s not in
service and we only have two lookouts.
Visibility is poor. I’m DRing our
track.” DR meant “dead reckoning,” drawing a
line based on speed and time.

“Flank speed.” Jake wanted the United
States as far from land as possible in case Qazi
pushed the panic button. He would just have to pray that
Lady Luck kept this blind, stampeding elephant from
colliding with another ship. The two lookouts
wouldn’t help much with this limited visibility; by the
time they saw and reported a ship on a collision
course, it would be too late to avoid the collision.
And Lady Luck seemed to be off duty just now.

Jake picked up the I comMC microphone from
its bracket on the engineering watch officer’s
desk. The watch officer flipped the switches. This
had better be good. Qazi would hear it. He cleared
his throat, pushed the button and began to speak.