The Last Line (43 page)

The Mark 48 ADCAP torpedo—the standard antiship weapon for all U.S. submarines—was wire guided, a crewman at the weapons station guiding the warshot by sending command signals down a slender wire unspooling behind the torpedo as it traveled through the water. Though the publicly stated speed of a Mark 48 was “in excess” of twenty-eight knots, the weapon's actual top speed was closer to fifty-five knots.

At a range of 9,500 yards, the warhead would reach the target in just under six minutes.

KILO CLASS SUBMARINE

OFF CAPE MAY

0121 HOURS, EDT

“Captain!
Torpedo in the water!
”

“Where?”

“Bearing two-six-four!”

“Conn! Hard right rudder!”

“Hard right rudder, Captain!”

“Thirty degrees down planes! Put us on the bottom!”

“Thirty degrees down plane, Captain!”

Basargin felt the deck tilt sharply beneath his feet. They were still in relatively shallow water here—less than forty meters. The Americans set their torpedoes to detonate beneath the keel of a target vessel. It was just possible that the Russian submarine could slip deeply enough quickly enough that the incoming torpedo would strike the bottom.

“Torpedo now passing in front of us, Captain! Range … about—”

The detonation thundered through the submarine, slamming Basargin against the periscope housing and rocking the vessel savagely to starboard. A second shock followed as they kissed the bottom.

“Are we still in one piece?”

“That appears to have been a warning shot, Captain. A shot across our bows.”

Basargin's first loyalty was not to the men who'd hired the services of the boat, himself, and his crew. So far as he was concerned, this accursed mission had ended when he'd sent the Mexican and the Persian ashore.

“Captain, radio room. We are receiving a message by transponder.”

“What is it?”

“Two words, sir, in Russian. ‘Surface now.'”

“Mr. Shuvalov! Are we in international waters yet?”

“It's close, Captain. But probably another four … perhaps five kilometers.”

He nodded. “They have us. Blow ballast, Mr. Khristenko. Take us up, if you please.”

“Aye, Captain,” the diving officer replied. “Surface the boat!”

For an anxious moment, he feared the submarine was damaged, that it might not rise. Then the deck tilted, bow going up, and he heard the roar of ballast tanks being blown.

TELLER

EASTON, MARYLAND

0135 HOURS, EDT

The traffic had been backing up for an hour, becoming a sea of red brake lights stretching forward into the night. Outside of Easton, Maryland, Teller and Dominique finally had pulled off the road next to an open field. Minutes later, a CH-53E Super Stallion, the largest and heaviest helicopter in the U.S. military, had dropped out of the sky, spotlights glaring out of the darkness in a display that must have had other motorists thinking of UFOs and alien abductions.

The huge aircraft touched down in the field, its seven-blade rotors still turning. Together, Teller and Dominique had left the car, running bent forward to avoid the still-turning blades. If not a UFO, Teller thought, it was at least a black helicopter—
all
black save for a serial number stenciled on the tail boom in gray. Pounding up the lowered rear ramp, the two entered the aircraft's cavernous cargo deck, and in another moment they were airborne, flying north across that river of slowly moving vehicles.

“Welcome aboard!” a marine crew chief greeted them, bellowing to be heard above the Super Stallion's thunder. “You Dominique and Teller?”

“Yeah!”

“Good! If you weren't I'd have to kill you and kick you out! Here, put these on!”

He handed them helmets with built-in communications gear and noise-suppression headsets. Once hooked up to the intercom, it was easier to hear and talk.

A second man greeted them forward. “I'm Major Walthers,” he said. “Welcome aboard NEST Two/Two. They said you had an idea for finding our target.”

“I think so,” Teller told him. “We need to get up to the Baltimore–D.C. Corridor. And I need to access this.” He patted his laptop case.

“We can do that. Or you can use our network.”

Much of the huge cargo bay on the helicopter transport was walled off, providing space for computer workstations for two technicians and for the massive backscatter X-ray equipment. Walthers led them forward and into the control center, giving them what he called the fifty-cent tour.

“It's called Z-Backscatter,” he explained, pointing to a large flat-panel display screen on the starboard-side bulkhead. “That's because it uses wavelengths reflected by what are called low-Z materials—that's low-mass elements like carbon and hydrogen, molecules like water. Here … Kaminsky.” He pointed at the line of cars visible in ordinary light on a smaller monitor to the side. “Give 'em a show.”

“Sure thing, Major.”

The technician did something to the touch-screen controls on his console, and a car appeared in shades of gray on the large screen, frozen motionless, viewed from overhead and to the right. The vehicle itself appeared ghosted, with even the engine block almost invisible. The tires were more easily seen than the hubs or axles. A man, a woman, and two kids seemed to float in space, their clothing vanished, their faces oddly plastic. Teller glanced at Dominique. She met his eyes, then looked away with a small shrug. He could almost hear her thought.
I'd just be happier if I knew the Peeping Tom bit is
strictly
line of duty …

The technician grinned. “Hey, that's a nice set on the—”

“
That
will do,” Teller snapped, his voice cold. “Save it for the bad guys.”

“Hey, I didn't mean any—”

“Just keep it professional,” Teller told him. Briefly, he considered pinning the man's ears back, but he was wearing civilian clothing at the moment, and he didn't want to turn the conversation into an officer-enlisted pissing match.

He clearly heard Kaminsky mutter the word “asshole” in response. Probably the guy had no idea the high-tech helmets they were wearing transmitted even words that were all but whispered. He let it go.

“Ah, yes,” Walthers said, embarrassed. “Really dense materials—lead or uranium, say—will reflect well, but the low-Z radiation passes right through steel as easily as it does glass…”

Teller found himself wondering, though, not about the physics of the surveillance equipment but about that family. What were they doing out on a normally empty stretch of Maryland highway at one thirty in the morning? The kids in the backseat looked like they were asleep. Maybe they'd left Ocean City that evening, hoping to drive all night and reach their home, wherever that might be, by morning. From the look of that middle-of-the-night traffic jam down there, they weren't going to make it.

“We've used this technology before,” he said, feeling weary. “We don't need the physics lecture. Let's just get it to where it can do some good.”

REYSHAHRI

CONOWINGO DAM, MARYLAND

0150 HOURS, EDT

It was only about fifty kilometers from the point where they'd turned off the main road north in Delaware to the bridge and dam they were looking for across the Susquehanna, but the trip had taken them almost an hour. Telegraph Road had turned out to be a long, single-lane highway with a speed limit of fifty-five, but slowed by stretches where the speed limit had been reduced to thirty. The others in the car were becoming increasingly agitated and impatient.

Now, however, they were back on Route 1, heading south across a narrow road that was actually the top of a dam across the river. “Once we're across,” Reyshahri told them, “we'll be safe. No more toll roads or bridges. We'll take the long way around Baltimore to avoid the Key Bridge or the Harbor Tunnel. We will have our choice of roads south.”

“I, for one, dislike the change,” Hamadi said. “We should have stayed with the original plan. What about New York?”

“The New York part of the operation,” Reyshahri told him, “is unnecessary. We have the freedom to make our own decisions. And we are doing so.”

“
You
are doing so, Captain Reyshahri. If the mission fails because of your delays, it will be entirely your responsibility.”

Reyshahri did not reply, focusing instead on the driving. The road across the dam was narrow, with no shoulders, and he felt hemmed in, almost claustrophobic.

He wondered if his decision to spare New York City was due to caution or because he actually pitied the Americans.

Reyshahri had questioned the necessity for using the nuclear weapons at all, during his briefing back at VEVAK headquarters, in Tehran. Colonel Ebrahim Salehi, his commanding officer, had merely shrugged. “Those are our orders, Saeed,” he'd said.

“But to launch a nuclear attack on America, sir—” Reyshahri had been horrified. “Such a strike will kill thousands and leave two cities in ruins. If they learn that it was us, they will not rest until our nation lies in ruins.”

“Then see to it that they do
not
learn, Captain. We will place clues, through our network in Mexico, that the attack was either by al Qaeda or by the Mexican cartels themselves.”

“There must be other ways to destabilize the United States.”

“Are you questioning your orders, Captain?”

Reyshahri had sighed. “No, sir. But to take such an extreme step…”

“Operation Shah Mat is intended to deeply shake the American economy, its government, and its military's internal command and control. The creation of a free Aztlán will be possible only if the Americans are so … distracted by the attack that they cannot respond.”

“I understand that, Colonel.”

“If you are feeling soft about American casualties, Captain, remember that the United States has been carrying out a covert war against us for years. It was they, we are certain, who produced the so-called Stuxnet virus that destroyed the centrifuges at Natanz, delaying our nuclear program. And the Americans were working with the Jews when Mossad sabotaged our ballistic missile facilities near Tehran. They were probably behind the attack on Estafan as well.”

“I am aware of all of that, Colonel. But there is an enormous difference between covert sabotage and the detonation of two nuclear weapons.”

“A weapon is a weapon, a means to effect an end, Colonel. We have acquired two nuclear weapons—two very small nuclear weapons—and their use will cause the United States to draw back to within its own borders to deal with its own more pressing problems. And that leaves us free to pursue our ambitions in Iraq and in Syria, without American interference.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you do not have the stomach for this, we can find another officer who does.”

Reyshahri had stiffened to attention. “I can do it, sir.”

“Good. I would hate to lose so promising an officer.”

What would have happened, he wondered, if he'd refused the mission? Reassignment, certainly. Demotion, possibly. Questioning by Internal Security, probably—with just a chance that they would investigate his loyalty to the regime.

He was thinking of Hasti, his wife, and his daughter, Mehry, as he drove off the bridge and left the Susquehanna behind them. It was not unknown for the families of men accused of treason to … disappear.

He would have to see this through, no matter how distasteful the assignment might be.

NEST 2/2

ABOVE HAVRE DE GRACE, MARYLAND

0155 HOURS, EDT

With a cruise speed of 150 knots, it had taken the CH-53E Super Stallion just twenty minutes to fly from Easton to the port of Havre de Grace, at the mouth of the Susquehanna River. They could see the city lights of Havre de Grace out the big helicopter's windows to port, the smaller town of Perryville to starboard, as they swung northwest and flew up the midchannel of the river.

“Not much traffic up here,” Major Walthers observed.

“Exactly,” Teller replied. “The traffic jams haven't hit this far north yet.” They would.

“So what are we looking for, anyway?”

“A vehicle. We don't know the make or model. At least two passengers. And a small nuclear weapon.”

“Chris thinks they'll want to avoid toll roads and bridges,” Dominique added. “Only if they want to reach Washington, they
have
to cross either Chesapeake Bay or the Susquehanna River.”

Teller nodded. “Right. Their first choice would be the Bay Bridge, of course. No toll going west, but it's such an obvious direct route to D.C.
and
such a major bottleneck that I don't think they're going to try that way.”

“I'd have to agree,” Walthers said. “But NEST is setting up a muon detector at the Bay Bridge anyway, just in case.”

“Right. The only other way from the Eastern Shore into central Maryland is to swing way north, past the top of Chesapeake Bay at Elkton, then head southwest, which brings them to the Susquehanna. There are just three vehicular bridges across the river in Maryland—Route 40 and Route 95, both of which are toll bridges, and the Conowingo Dam. The next nearest crossing is way up in Pennsylvania somewhere.”

“So you think they're trying to cross at Conowingo?”

“Good chance. I just hope we're ahead of them.”

“What, they might've already crossed?”

Teller turned his laptop to show Walthers. “I've been using Tracker.”

Highway Tracker was software designed for use by law enforcement agencies and government organizations. You entered starting time and completion times and a point on a map, and the program downloaded data from Highway Department Web sites and law enforcement networks on factors such as heavy traffic, local speed limits, and construction. A moment later, it showed you on a computer-generated map just how far a target vehicle could have traveled in the requested period of time.