Authors: Patrick Robinson
“Okay, Jimmy. Keep your eyes and ears open. This bastard’s serious. He just hit the fucking mountain with missiles, and that mega-tsunami’s getting closer by the minute, no doubt in my mind.”
“Nor mine, sir.”
“What’s happened? Will you please tell me what’s going on?”
Jane Peacock had lost all interest in her magazine.
“Throw me that notebook, would you?” said Jimmy. “And that pen over there? Now, let me get some pajamas on. I’ve got to watch the news for at least the next couple of hours.”
0230 (Local), September 29.
The
Barracuda
was steaming swiftly away from the datum, 500 feet below the surface. They had been moving for three and a half hours, since the moment the last of the four Scimitars had been launched. They were headed east, making 15 knots through the dark water, a speed that Admiral Badr thought they could sustain for no more than two or three days longer, less because he feared the U.S. Navy hot on their trail than because Shakira had been uncertain where exactly the U.S. SOSUS system became more dense in the North Atlantic.
The men from Hamas were now 50 miles away from Admiral Badr’s strike zone, and a total of almost 400 miles from the stricken south coast of Montserrat. He planned to retain speed and keep running at moderate knots towards the disturbed and somewhat noisier waters over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where he would be very difficult to trace. Later, when he cut back to 6 or 7 knots, crossing from the Ridge to the Canary Islands in open water, he would be impossible to trace—anywhere in this vast ocean.
They had eleven days in which to make their next launch zone and would spend three of them moving as fast as they dared for thirty-three hours to the Ridge, then forty hours heading north above its rocky underwater cliffs. That would give them eight days to tiptoe over the ultrasensitive SOSUS wires—traps that Shakira had warned Ben were primed to scream the place down if any intruding submarine crossed them. Once they turned east
from the Atlantic Ridge, they would be in latitudes around 28 to 29 degrees, 300 nautical miles north of Miami, similar latitudes to places like Daytona Beach, Jacksonville, Cape Canaveral. Finally, they would take up position somewhere east of La Palma, depending on the U.S. defenses that Ben Badr fully expected would be patrolling the area.
In Lieutenant Commander Shakira’s opinion, there was no way that the U.S. Navy was going to let foreign submarines go charging around in the Atlantic anywhere north of the 25th parallel without wanting to know a lot about that ship’s business.
Admiral Badr, now without his ace-precision missile-direction officer and assistant navigator, was resolved to be excessively careful. He looked forward to his next satellite communication, when someone would doubtlessly tell him whether he had managed to wipe out the island of Montserrat.
0600, September 29
National Security Agency
Fort Meade, Maryland.
The CIA had been on the case all night. And generally speaking, they had drawn a blank as big as that in the newsrooms of the television networks and the American afternoon newspapers: the totally unexplained, and unexpected, eruption of the most volatile volcano in the Western Hemisphere. No reasons. No warnings. No theories.
The CIA was well up to speed with the threats and demands of the Hamas freedom fighters, and even more with the views of the most senior military figures in the nation.
They put twenty different field agents on the project, working through the night, searching and checking for any sign of a missile attack on Montserrat. But so far, they had turned up nothing except for the absolute bafflement of the local scientists, whose
equipment had registered zero before the first explosion from Gage’s Mountain.
They sent in a preliminary report to the National Security Agency at around 0500, which Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe read with interest. Particularly the last paragraph, written by the senior case officer:…
The complete absence of any warning before the eruption is regarded by the professionals as unprecedented. Every volcano betrays the smallest movement of the earth beneath its mountain, and indeed any upwards surge of the magma. This time there was nothing. Which, we think, indicates detonation by a man-made device.
Jimmy Ramshawe sifted through the reports, and the more he read, the more it became obvious that the
Barracuda
had struck again. Even small eruptions in relatively harmless volcanoes are signaled on their seismographs. And the equipment stationed in the Soufriere Hills was much more sophisticated than most, hooked up to a brand-new computerized system in the observatory.
There were reports of staggering amounts of ash covering Montserrat’s buildings, even in the supposedly safe north part of the island. Any building with a flat roof seemed to have a minimum of 12 to 18 inches of the stuff—thick, heavy ash, more like baking flour than the light, airy remnants of a bonfire.
There were reports of ash covering the gardens of Antigua on the southwest coast, especially at Curtain Bluff and Johnsons Point. Guadeloupe awoke to a hot, gray cast over the whole of Port Louis. The southern beaches of Nevis were distinctly off-white. And the southern end of Montserrat was on fire. Miles of green vegetation were still burning from end to end of the exclusion zone. The devastation was almost complete in the south, with even the old disused jetties on fire out over the water.
As the morning wore on, the pictures became more and more graphic. The television networks had helicopter crews up and filming at first light. This was the second mammoth volcano explosion in the Americas within four months, and every news
editor in every newsroom in the entire country knew that this was a very big story. Not one of them, however, had any idea precisely
how
big.
Admiral Morris had his 48-inch screen tuned to CNN as soon as he arrived at Fort Meade. There were other home-news items of some interest, but nothing to rival the live pictures from what looked like the detonation of an atomic bomb in a Caribbean island paradise.
He and Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe took only ten minutes to scan the incoming reports, and a lot less to arrive at the inescapable conclusion that Hamas had done exactly what they had threatened.
Pay attention…You will see what we can do…and perhaps change your mind.
The words of the letter were stark in the minds of both men. Dead on time, almost to the minute, they had blown another volcano. Now everything was in place. Tony Tilton’s missiles were real. They had exploded Mount St. Helens. Last night had proved it. And now the U.S.A. faced the greatest threat in its long history of wars and battles.
Admiral Morris picked up the telephone and called Arnold Morgan, confirming their meeting in General Scannell’s office at 0800. Arnold had been up most of the night, studying charts of the Atlantic, wondering exactly where the
Barracuda
might be, wondering where it was headed, wondering how to catch it. In thirty years, George Morris had never seen him so worried, so utterly anxious.
He and Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe gathered up all relevant charts and documents and climbed into a staff car at 0700, fighting the traffic and arriving at the Pentagon by 0750. Up in the General’s office, the pervasive concern of the military had been heightened by the arrival of a new communication from the Middle East. E-mail. Traceable only to either Syria, Jordan, Iraq, or Iran. Useless.
It had arrived at 0415, and it was formal in its tone…
To the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, The Pentagon, Washington, D.C.:
We do not, you see, make idle threats. Remove your armed forces from the Middle East now. And bring the Israelis into line. You have exactly eleven days.—Hamas.
Admiral Morgan was already in his place at the head of General Scannell’s conference table. He was flanked by General Bart Boyce and the CJC himself. General Hudson was also in attendance, with Admiral Dickson and the Atlantic Fleet’s Commander in Chief, Admiral Frank Doran, former Commanding Officer of the
Lake Erie
, a 10,000-ton guided-missile cruiser out of Norfolk, Virginia.
The other newcomer was General Kenneth Clark, Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, and Admiral Dickson said he had the Commander of Submarine Force (Atlantic Fleet) on standby to fly in from Norfolk, if required.
Admiral Morgan opened the discussions by saying, “Gentlemen, it is perfectly clear now that Hamas have exploded their second volcano. We were 99 percent sure they had erupted Mount St. Helens, and I think we can now make that 100 percent.
“Last night, precisely as they had promised, they blew up Montserrat. I guess that’s game set and match to Hamas. With one match still to play…I need hardly remind you of the peril we are all in…It’s a scenario that once seemed remote, then much more likely…Now it’s a goddamned certainty. Are we broadly agreed on that summation?”
Everyone at the table nodded.
“So that leaves us with three essential tasks—the first of which is to begin the evacuation of Washington, Boston, and New York. The second is to nail the
Barracuda
, if and when it shows. Third is to hit and destroy the missile or missiles, if and when they are launched at the Cumbre Vieja.”
“Is there no chance of evacuating the Military in time to make any difference?” asked Admiral Morris, wanting to explore all options.
“Not in the few days we have left,” answered General Scannell firmly. “Not many enough to convince Hamas. And in any case, they want the Israeli peace plan signed and settled by then, with
the State of Palestine recognized. We simply cannot get that done. For a start, the Israelis have indicated that they will not cooperate, so it’s out of the question, even if we had more time.”
“Especially with a President who is not involved in the discussions,” said General Scannell.
“And not interested in the defensive measures we must take to avoid this attack taking place on our shores,” added Admiral Morgan. “I am therefore proposing that we see him today, explain our aims, and why we believe he should now face up to the problem.”
“And if he refuses?”
“Then we will have to remove him from office,” replied General Scannell. “I see no alternative. Under the Constitution of the United States, there is no provision for a state of Martial Law being declared without the whole rigmarole going through Congress. And we don’t have time for that. I did ask Arnold a few days ago to check out our options. And although I sincerely hope we do not need to realize them, I’m sure he would be glad to outline the alternatives.”
Every eye in the room turned towards Admiral Morgan, who said, with neither sentiment nor emotion, “In accordance with Article II, Section I, of the Constitution of the United States of America, the President may be removed from office. It states the reasons for this as his death, resignation, or ‘
inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office.’
“It also says that his powers and duties shall devolve on the Vice President. It’s very clear on that, and if both of them need to be unloaded, the Congress has to make a choice.”
“Did James Madison actually use the word
unloaded
?” asked Admiral Morris.
“No. He stuck with
removed,”
said Arnold. “I’m just trying to keep it clear.”
“Thank you, Admiral,” said George Morris. “Just checking.”
“That’s what you’re good at, George. Stay with it.”
Even at a moment of such national gravity, Arnold Morgan could still set precisely the tone he wished.
“And, gentlemen,” he said. “We have no choice but to get this man out of that damned Oval Office. Since it would plainly suit our purposes to have Vice President Paul Bedford onside, and ready to do as we ask, I have asked him to attend this meeting and he’ll be here at any moment. You’ll understand, I have undertaken this purely because we have only one week to make our moves effectively to put the East Coast under direct Martial Law with regard to the evacuation—and we don’t have time to sit and wait while those damn Congressmen twitter around like a bunch of schoolgirls.
“It’s my view that if these Hamas guys fire a couple of nuclear-headed missiles at Cumbre Vieja, the mountain will collapse into the sea and the mega-tsunami will happen. And that’s the view of every darned scientist we have consulted. We have to either destroy our enemy or be ready to cope with whatever he throws at us.
“And remember, he’s not asking us to
agree
to anything. He’s simply asking us to fulfill their demands, now. We’ve wasted several weeks, thanks to the incumbent in the Oval Office. And right now, time’s running out in a big hurry. These guys are almost ready.”
Everyone knew that the President had selected a Democratic Senator from the right of the party to help him in the South. It had not done much good, all in all, but Paul Bedford still remained a far less radical liberal than any of Charlie McBride’s other acolytes. And he had served as an officer in the U.S. Navy for a five-year term that included the first Gulf War.
He was a fairly worldly man, and was already being sidelined by the strong liberal mainstream of McBride’s White House. In the editorial offices of the
Washington Post
and the
New York Times,
the somewhat sardonic Virginian was regarded almost as an outlaw, thanks to his resolute and sincere support in the Senate for the Republican President who went to war with Iraq in 2003.
His presence in the Pentagon was announced by a young
Marine Lieutenant on guard duty outside the CJC’s headquarters. And everyone stood up to greet the Vice President when he made his entrance. General Scannell introduced him, then moved back to the long antique sideboard that ran half the length of the main table and poured coffee for everyone. There were no lower ranks in this meeting, no one to take care of menial tasks, except, perhaps, for Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe, who was too busy to even look up from his charts and notes.