America

CHAPTER SIX

The director of the CIA was a tall, balding, sixtyish man with a portly frame. His smooth, round face wore a perpetual frown; he looked as if he hadn't smiled since he got out of diapers. He scowled now at the copy of the letter Jake Grafton handed him, inspected the letterhead, read every word, grimaced at the signature — which was that of the president of the United States — and reluctantly laid it on the desk. Then he read the second sheet of paper Jake had handed him, another letter, this one an original. He laid it on the desk next to the first, arranged the edges so that they touched each other.

This morning Jake was decked out in his blue uniform. He got a look at himself in the mirror in the foyer as he was shown into the director's office. The thought occurred to him that the uniform with its gold rings on the sleeves and splotches of color on the left breast looked incongruous, out of place among the gray men in this gray building. He had shaken off that thought and looked the director straight in the eye as he said hello and passed him the letters.

When the director had read both documents twice, he looked again at Jake.

Okay, said the director, whose name was Avery Edmond DeGarmo. He was one of those men who routinely used all three names. No doubt even his pajamas were embroidered with all three initials. "The president appointed General Le Beau to investigate this submarine mess and he sent you over here with full authority to ask questions in his place. So ask."

Jake Grafton took his time responding. He crossed his legs, flicked an invisible mote of dust off his trousers. "I have been told that the CIA was training a team of Russian and German expatriates to operate a submarine with minimum manning."

"That is correct."

Jake waited. When nothing else was forthcoming, he asked, "Why?"

The CIA director picked up the letters, studied them again. "The answer to that question is classified above your security clearance."

"Oh?"

"You have only a top-secret clearance, according to my staff."

"Mr. DeGarmo," Jake shot back, "those letters are all the clearance I need to ask any question I choose."

"These letters are not clearance to violate the security laws. If you think this" — he fluttered one of the sheets—"grants you carte blanche to stroll willy-nilly through that building asking any question that pops into your head, regardless of its bearing on the matter you are investigating, you are sadly mistaken."

Jake Grafton had been in Washington long enough to know that you got only as much respect as you demanded. "General Le Beau and I will decide the relevance of the information I receive," he replied smoothly. "If you're in the mood for a pissing contest this morning, sir, I'll be delighted to get the commandant on the telephone and you can take it up with him. If you wish, he will call the White House and get someone over there to discuss the fine points with you."

"The responsibility for security breaches will be on your head, not mine." First and foremost, Avery Edmond DeGarmo was a bureaucrat. "I want that clearly understood."

Jake gave a curt nod.

"What was the question?" said DeGarmo.

"The CIA trained this crew?"

"What crew?"

"The crew that hijacked America."

"I don't know who hijacked that ship. Do you?"

"The FBI agent in charge has informed us that these were the men."

"But you don't know for a fact."

"I am not going to split legal hairs with you this morning, sir, or debate the meaning of 'is.' Did or did not the CIA train a team to run a sub with minimum manning?"

"I have answered that question. Yes."

"Why?"

"The operation was properly authorized and funded. We did what we were told to do."

"What was the objective of the operation?"

"To steal a Russian submarine."

"Was that Operation Blackbeard?"

"Yes."

"Why did the CIA want a Russian submarine?"

DeGarmo shifted his weight in his chair. He leaned forward, played with the letters, tapped his fingers on them. Both men were well aware that this information was available elsewhere. Finally DeGarmo said, "For several years the Russians have been working on revolutionary new torpedoes. The technology, we believe, uses supercavitation and rocket propulsion to drive a torpedo through the water within a bubble, reducing drag dramatically. Our theoretical physicists think the technology might ultimately yield a torpedo capable of a thousand knots. The Russians aren't that far along yet. We hope. They have produced a torpedo that uses the first generation of this technology, we believe. They call it the 'Shkyal' or 'Squall.' The Kurst{ was testing this torpedo when the thing exploded, fatally damaging the submarine."

Jake had seen classified summaries speculating that this was the case. So far, DeGarmo hadn't told him anything he didn't know. "We are doing similar research and having our problems," DeGarmo added. This Jake didn't know. "We wanted to see what the Russians really have, if anything."

It went on like this for five minutes before DeGarmo agreed to make the complete, raw files on the men the CIA trained available that afternoon for Commander Tarkington to study. "We'll need copies of those files," Jake added, "and I would appreciate your staff making them and sending the copies over. For now, however, a look at those files will be sufficient."

It took another minute to persuade DeGarmo to have his staff run the copy machine. Then Jake asked who authorized the operation to steal a Russian sub.

"The national command authority, of course."

"Who wanted this information?"

"The navy, primarily. The planning people at DOD. My staff. Everyone was interested."

"Admiral Stalnaker?"

DeGarmo nodded.

"Why a team of Russians and Germans? Why not Americans, who presumably would have been more trustworthy?"

"The committee thought that the difficulties involved in getting Americans onto a Russian naval base where they could get access to a submarine with Shkyal aboard lowered the probability of success to an unacceptable level. If the Russians caught these people, the fallout would be manageable if they were former Soviet-bloc sailors but damn near catastrophic if they were Americans. And of course there was the deniability issue, which I think was crucial to getting it approved."

"How were these men recruited?"

"We went after ex-submariners who spoke Russian. The Germans served in the East German Navy and spoke fluent Russian."

"Were they reliable?"

DeGarmo's habitual frown deepened. "In my opinion, Blackbeard was flawed from the start. The minutes of those meetings will prove that I was against it from the get-go. These people couldn't be trusted. That risk was significant." He went on, explained how the crew was isolated, held incommunicado during training.

"The operation was ultimately scrubbed."

Another nod.

"Why?"

DeGarmo shrugged, shifted his weight while he considered what to say. The thought occurred to Jake that this was one of the least loquacious men he had ever met.

"I am not going to respond to that. Suffice it to say that Black-beard was canceled. The reason is not germane to your investigation, in my opinion."

"Who canceled it?"

"The intelligence committee."

"Did the Russians find out about it? "I'm not going to comment." DeGarmo looked at Jake as if he were an obtuse child. "Ask someone else."

Jake studied DeGarmo's face. "If someone else can tell me, why not you?"

A low growl. The CIA director pursed his lips. "That fact couldn't conceivably be relevant to your investigation."

Jake Grafton stared into the director's eyes, unwilling to break contact. "How good is your information?"

The director leaned forward and waggled a finger. "You are in an area that… is… not… relevant to your investigation."

"But the operation was canceled for a credible reason? Or reasons?"

"Obviously."

"Why didn't the CIA seek other ways to get information on the Shkyal and supercavitation?"

"We tried, obviously. And continue to try. The difficulty is that credible intelligence about Russian research is practically impossible to obtain. Under the Communists, Russia was a society as closed as a locked bank vault, with half the population employed in watching the other half. That's changed since the collapse of communism. In Russia today there are countless people anxious to sell all sorts of technical information. Everything is for sale. You can buy boxes full of secrets on Moscow street corners. Criminals and con artists are busy as beavers. Since the Foreign Intelligence Service can't plug all the real leaks, they are also busy selling bogus stuff. Apparently creating classified files to sell to credulous foreigners is the only growth industry in the country. So you negotiate like hell and fork over and take home your nifty treasure map and add it to the pile you already have.

"Consequently, stealing a submarine looked like a risk worth taking. If we could pull it off, the payoff would be real hardware that could be properly evaluated, not boxes full of fiction. The decision makers thought that, all things considered, the potential payoff justified the risk." He stopped speaking, yet since he looked as if he might say more, Jake remained silent.

After a moment's thought, DeGarmo added, "In an era of tight defense budgets worldwide, those countries doing research are trying to make every dollar count. It isn't enough merely to improve weapons, to spend billions for five or ten or twenty percent more capability; the dollars are too hard to come by. This reality forces us to search for technologies that have the promise of leapfrogging whole generations of weapons development. The Shkval is a quantum leap in torpedo technology, five times faster than any other existing torpedo: If it becomes operational we have no defense against it. Whoever possesses it will have a huge military advantage. Perhaps an overwhelming one, unless we can find out exactly how it works and develop defensive countermeasures."

Here DeGarmo leaned forward. "This isn't a game, Admiral. We can't take the risk that potential opponents might bring weapons to a future battlefield that give them a winning military advantage. The atomic bomb was such a weapon; jet fighters would have been if Hitler could have deployed a sufficient quantity. Our way of life is on the table, Admiral. The stakes are too high."

"And Revelation? Is it a quantum leap? A new paradigm?"

"I think so, yes."

"Did the Russians steal it? Is that why America was hijacked?"

"I don't know."

"What do your Russian sources say? The ones who told you the Russian government knew about Blackbeard, about your sub-stealing team?"

DeGarmo didn't even glare. He merely waggled a finger at Jake. "Don't leap to conclusions. Blackbeard was canceled for reasons that do not touch on this investigation."

Jake Grafton refused to be intimidated. "If the Russians didn't swipe that boat, who did?"

"I don't know," Avery Edmond DeGarmo said bitterly. "I wish to Christ I did."

Jake Grafton stood up. "If there is a mole in the United States government, sir, we are going to discover that fact. Then I'll be back to see you with more questions. A lot more."

DeGarmo let out a roar. "Goddamn it, sailor. You are in way over your head. I feel like I am explaining the facts of life to Inspector Clouseau." He sprang from his chair with a grace that surprised Jake. "It's not just torpedoes! Supercavitation could revolutionize naval warfare. Antisubmarine bullets fired from airplanes, two-hundred-knot submarines… Think of it! A two-hundred-knot submarine! A half dozen of those might well obsolesce the entire world's fleet of surface combatants. What the hell do you think Stuffy Stalnaker worries about in the middle of the night? Everyone wants this! Everyone! The British, the Chinese, Germany, France, the United States…"

DeGarmo sat down and leaned forward in his chair. "And it is not just submarines. There is a parallel technology that might have aerodynamic applications. There are rumors that the Russians are working on plasma research, firing a beam of microwaves ahead of an aircraft, ripping the air into a plasma of ions and electrons. Flying in plasma would dramatically reduce the drag on an aircraft, allow hypersonic speeds, kill the sonic boom. And yes, plasma absorbs radio waves, so plasma fighters would be invisible to radar. Think stealth at Mach five." Words failed him and he fell silent.

"Tell me what you think," Jake Grafton prompted. "Is supercavitation real? Or magnificent fiction? Complex, fascinating disinformation?"

DeGarmo took a deep breath, gathered himself, and levered his bulk out of his chair. He came around the desk, casually took Jake's elbow, and began steering him toward the door. Jake had run out of questions, so he was willing to go.

"Maybe there's hope for you after all, Admiral. Good luck with your investigation. Keep me advised on what you find out."

With those parting words DeGarmo eased Jake through the door and pulled it firmly closed.

Out in the hallway Jake remembered that he had wanted to ask the director about Janos Ilin. Too late now, but he would be talking to DeGarmo again soon.

"Yes, Carmellini, what is it?"

Two floors below and a light-year away from the director's office, Tommy Carmellini stuck his head into his department head's office and asked if he might have a few minutes. Now he stepped inside, pulled the door shut, and seated himself across the desk from the great man, whose name was Herman Watring.

"Mr. Watring, I wanted to discuss the reasons why you didn't give me a performance bonus this year. I think I deserve one and so did my supervisor, who gave me the highest recommendation in the department."

"I saw his recommendation. Ridiculous!"

Carmellini wrapped his hands around the arms of the chair he was seated in and squeezed. "I have done an outstanding job all year. In addition, I invented the energy grenade, got a classified patent and assigned it to the agency. If I hadn't invented the thing and financed the prototype, they wouldn't exist."

"The agency is reimbursing you for your expenses," Watring said without enthusiasm. "I don't think you are entitled to anything else."

"I think I'm entitled to reimbursement and a performance bonus for my efforts, and so does my supervisor."

"Energy grenades! Pfft! You read classified summaries about the research into directed energy weapons. Your so-called invention was nothing new. The patent office should never have granted you that patent."

Tommy Carmellini struggled to keep his voice under control. "I'm not going to argue with you about what the patent office should have done. They did grant a patent, and I did assign it to the agency."

"As the law requires."

"Yes, sir. And the regulations contemplate that I will be rewarded for my industry and diligence. After all, I could have just sat on my ass like most of the people around here, swilling coffee and waiting for the eagle to shit me a paycheck." Watring's fondness for gourmet coffee was legendary.

Now Herman Watring leaned forward in his chair and a finger shot out, one pointed at Carmellini's chest. "I'm not going to take any more insubordination from you, foul mouth. Your supervisor made the bonus recommendation and I turned it down. That's the way it was and the way it's going to stay. I don't think you deserve a bonus. You aren't a team player, Carmellini. You're a thief. A burglar. A criminal. You are fortunate that you aren't in jail. Personally I find it difficult to understand why the agency keeps you on the payroll."

"So fire me! Send me out into the big wide world to starve on the sidewalks, to beg for quarters from employed civil servants on their way to their offices to earn their daily crust. Fire me! If you have the guts."

"As much as I'd like to, you know I haven't the authority."

"Okay, okay! I'm the cross you have to drag through life. My heart bleeds. Let's cut through the personal animosity, shall we?

What about the energy grenades? Surely you see how valuable they are?"

"Valuable to thieves and terrorists, perhaps. Not to an agency of the United States government."

"You say that like the CIA was the post office." Keeping himself under tight control, Tommy Carmellini rose from his chair and headed for the door. "You're a foolish, incompetent, vindictive knave, Herman."

"You can't call me names! Who the hell do you think you are? You can't march into this office and insult me!"

Why was he wasting his life conning women and picking locks for these pinheads? "Fire me!" he told Watring again. "Knave, varlet, fathead, toady, gossip, brownnoser, nincompoop—"

"Out!" Watring shouted, pointing toward the door, his face beet red and jowls quivering. "Out! Don't ever come through that door again unless I send for you. Understand?"

Carmellini went. He was in the hallway when the thought occurred to him that perhaps he should try quitting. Just turn in a letter of resignation and wait to see what happened. After all, this is America, he reminded himself. You gotta admit, it's a helluva country — people quit jobs every day. The CIA had had its pound of flesh: They wouldn't prosecute him for those old burglaries. Would they?

When he was a young man, Flap Le Beau never went anywhere without two knives secreted under his clothes, a throwing knife that he liked to keep in a sheath hanging behind his neck, and a fighting, or slashing, knife that he often wore behind his belt or up a sleeve. "Without the knives I feel sort of naked, you know," he had once explained to Jake Grafton, who met Flap and flew with him after the Vietnam War when Jake had the misfortune to be sent to a marine A-6 squadron aboard an aircraft carrier. That was long ago, Jake reflected ruefully as he shook hands this morning with Flap and lowered himself into a stuffed leather chair at the end of the commandant's desk.

Of course the room was outrageously decorated in red and gold, with the marine's globe and anchor emblem plastered on everything, from the paperweights to the carpet and furniture. Jake related the substance of the conversation with Director DeGarmo. Flap tapped a pencil on the desk as he listened, asking no questions. When Jake was done, he said, "Come on," and bolted for the door. Grafton trailed along in his wake as Flap strode through the outer office, not even breaking stride to talk to his executive assistant, a colonel. "We're going to see Stuffy Stalnaker. Be back in a bit."

Stalnaker was in a meeting, but he stepped into an adjacent meeting room to spend a few minutes with the marine general. "We need some background on this CIA operation that didn't fly, Operation Blackbeard. Why was it canceled?"

Stalnaker looked at each man, then pulled a chair around and dropped into it. He glanced at the door to ensure it was closed before he spoke. "The Russians got wind of it," he said.

Flap glanced at Jake, then pulled a chair away from the table and sat in it. Jake dropped into one against the wall.

"How do you know that?"

"DeGarmo told me. Apparently he told the intelligence committee too. They canceled the operation."

"Any idea how the CIA learned that fact?"

"Of course not. DeGarmo would never share that kind of information. We have no need to know."

"What," Jake Grafton asked, "if he was lying?"

Stalnaker ducked his head, swung it ponderously from side to side as he considered his answer. He looked up, eyed Jake. "There are some rocks sailors can't look under, and that's one of them."

General Le Beau asked, "How valuable is supercavitation technology?"

"Until we see where it is, Flap, what's involved, I can't answer that. I can tell you this, the Russians have successfully launched at least one of those Shkyal torpedoes. That's classified top secret, by the way. The thing ran straight as a bullet for about twenty miles, did two hundred and eighty knots, as near as we can determine. We had two subs close enough to record this on sonar."

"Thing make a lot of noise?"

"No, it didn't. That is the intriguing part. Some noise, yes. If they shot it at you, that's the last thing you'd hear before you died."

"So you are still interested?"

"Very."

"DeGarmo said supercavitation might lead to two-hundred-knot submarines, which would obsolesce conventional navies."

"I don't know where it would lead — far too early to tell. That's what's so tantalizing about it. But sure as God made Viagra, two-hundred-knot submarines would make scrap iron of every existing antisubmarine weapon and ship."

At this point, Flap glanced at Jake Grafton and raised his eyebrows in invitation.

"Admiral, if I might," Jake said, "let's talk about the technology aboard America. Who would want it?"

"Everyone," Stalnaker shot back. "Everyone will want it unless they got all the juice from the people who built the systems. In America that is the usual course of events. Espionage, industrial espionage… whatever you want to call it, someone buys the technology from someone in government or private industry while it's still in the blueprint stage. Or some twisted little bastard gives it away to save the human race from the evil military-industrial complex. The Russians, or Chinese, or Japanese, or Koreans — whoever — are usually a few years behind us turning the new tech into hardware, which is due more to manufacturing capacity and budget restraints than anything else. Anyone who thinks that competent, determined foreign intelligence services can't discover the secrets of Revelation is living in a fool's paradise. The circle of people with access is too darn big. All big secrets leak — in America that's a universal law."

"What about Russian technology? I have heard that since the collapse of communism, all the really great innovations that their research institutes were working on are for sale. For the right price."

"If Shkval is for sale, I haven't heard about it," Stalnaker replied. "Ask DeGarmo."

"He would know, wouldn't he?" Flap said, glancing again at Jake.

"The problem is buying blueprint tech." Stalnaker scratched his head. "It's so damned tricky. You have to know a lot in order to evaluate what the seller is offering."

"Revelation. Does it work?"

"Oh, yes."

Flap asked, "If Russia didn't have it, would they steal a sub to get it?"

Stalnaker weighed the question. "Maybe. But as I said, stuff leaks. I would be amazed if the guts of Revelation are still an exclusively American secret."

Jake asked, "If not Russia, then who?"

"Make a list. A long list. Every country with a high-tech defense industry could make money with the guts of Revelation, which is nothing more than software that runs on high-speed computers. But you should be talking all this over with Navarre." Vice-Admiral Val Navarre was the navy's head submariner. "He knows America inside out."

Le Beau and Grafton thanked Stalnaker and left.

In the hallway the two flag officers were met by Captain Killbuck. He handed Jake a sheet of paper. "Here is the America weapons loadout you asked for, Admiral."

Jake glanced over the list. "Flashlights? Ten of them?"

"Yes, sir. First operational cruise."

"Thank you, Captain."

Back in Le Beau's office, Jake showed the list to Flap. "Flashlight is the new warhead on the vertically launched cruise missile, the Tomahawk."

"I've read about it," Flap responded after scanning the list. "Maybe they wanted Flashlight more than Revelation."

Jake's lips compressed into a firm, straight line. He thought for a moment before he spoke again. "The Russians assigned a so-called technical expert to the SuperAegis liaison team last month, a couple weeks after the satellite was lost. Guy's name is Ilin. CIA says he's a spook with SVR. He's been playing me for a sucker." Jake told Flap about Ilin's solo talking and the transmitter in his belt. "The FBI is assembling a serious surveillance team to watch this guy, but…" Jake shrugged. "I don't know what he could be telling the Russians except what he is seeing and hearing."

"Okay," Flap Le Beau said.

"We've also got a Brit, a Frenchman, and a German on the liaison team. All are intelligence professionals and freely admit it. I don't know why we do this to ourselves, but we're stuck with these people. The question is, who stole that submarine? If any of those countries are behind the theft, then it stands to reason that their rep knows or has orders to report anything he hears about submarines, etc. In any event, I want to give them something to report. I want permis-

sion to take them to the war room this evening for the Joint Chiefs brief."

Flap eyed Jake. "You want to let them see what we are doing to find the sub?"

"Yes, sir."

"The Russian too?"

"Especially him."

"He'll ride the subway across town to the Russian embassy and tell them all about it."

"I expect all four to make beelines to their respective embassies. If one doesn't, well, that would be interesting. It would be doubly interesting if we could read some of the intel codes these folks use to communicate with the folks back home."

"Beats the hell outta me," Flap said slowly, eyeing Jake.

"My suggestion, sir, is that you talk to the appropriate people at NSA and the White House, see if you can get permission. And we'll see what happens."

"The White House doesn't want America to slip through our fingers."

"We aren't close to finding that sub," Jake shot back. "We couldn't be. America is state of the art. We might stumble across her by accident, but we're not going to hear her on the SOSUS or find her with P-3s. The Atlantic is a damned big ocean. We lost a satellite in that pond two months ago and still haven't found it, and everyone was looking right at it when it disappeared."

"How did that happen?" Flap asked. "NASA and the FBI haven't told us anything."

"They haven't told the liaison office anything either," Jake said slowly. He ran his fingers through his hair. "It may have been one of those things, the software hiccupped or the rocket burped, whatever, and at the same time the tracking stations' power supply failed temporarily. Far more likely, someone arranged for all that to happen. They haven't found that someone, nor have they found the satellite. And they aren't talking."

"Do you think the loss of the satellite and the theft of the sub are related?"

"Yes, sir, I think so. But I can't imagine how. The only reason I can point to is the little lecture I got this morning from DeGarmo, the CIA director, all about high tech and quantum leaps. And the fact that the only people who want SuperAegis in the sky and functioning are the Americans. In every direction, as far as the eye can see, are people who don't want the United States sitting comfortably under an ABM umbrella. The Americans twisted arms in Europe, got them to go along. Very reluctantly. But the Chinese, the Indians, the Arab world were left out."

"Thank God the missing satellite isn't our problem," Flap said with a wave of his hand.

"The missing satellite and sub may both be faces on the same Rubik's cube," Jake replied. "If we could figure out how they are related, we'd be a whole lot closer to laying hands on that boat than we are now."

Flap Le Beau grinned at Jake Grafton. "I'll make some calls," the marine said, "tell them we want to take tourists to the war room this evening. I'll call you at your office."

"Yes, sir."

The marine commandant added, "Talk to Navarre and the FBI this afternoon, then brief me in the war room."

"Yes, sir."

As Flap started back to his desk, Jake added, "General, I'm curious. Do you still carry any of those knives you used to pack?"

The motion was almost too quick for the eye to follow. Flap Le Beau reached behind his neck inside his blouse with his right hand, then lunged forward, sweeping his hand down. Jake caught a glint of polished steel flying through the air, then the knife stuck in the far wall with an audible thunk. As it quivered there, Jake could see that the weapon was small, with a handle and blade about six inches long.

Flap straightened, shot the cuffs of his blouse. "The grunts expect it. I hate to disappoint 'em."

"Yes, sir."

Vice-Admiral Navarre was on the telephone when Jake was shown into his office. He was in his shirtsleeves, his tie hanging over his blouse on the back of a chair. He motioned for Jake to sit, then concentrated on listening to what the other person on the line was saying.

"We can't sit on them, sir," Navarre said. He was on the phone to the CNO. "Sure, we can keep the America crew isolated in debriefing for another day or so, but the families have a right to talk to the press."

He paused, listening.

"We had to level with the families. We have to keep faith with our people or we lose our credibility with them."

After another pause, Navarre snarled, "The White House doesn't send submarines to sea. The navy does. We do. I do! The families had a right to be told what we know, so by God I told them! If the chief of staff and national security adviser don't like it, I'll clean out my desk anytime they want. I'm ready for the golf course. Tell those clowns that I can turn in my ID card and building pass and be on the first tee by five o'clock…."

He toyed with the cord of the instrument he held, then said, "We can't stop the families from talking to anyone on Earth. And we'd be fools to try."

The pause was longer this time.

"We'd look like flaming idiots, trying to hide ten pounds of shit under a cocktail glass."

He talked in monosyllables for another minute or so, then muttered, "Aye aye, sir," and tossed the phone on its cradle.

He glared at Jake Grafton. "The families are talking to the press. Some of them are on television. The White House is upset."

Jake showed him the letters from the president and General Le Beau. Navarre scanned them and handed them back.

Navarre's finger darted out, pointing at Jake's chest. "Stealing a submarine was an act of war. Yet the White House approved the theft of a Russian sub — that's the big secret that the politicians don't want anyone to know. Now the fucking Russians have done it to us. Sooner or later this is going to explode in the newspapers and television news shows. Hell, for all I know it's already on the Internet. Congress is going to crucify those silly sons of bitches at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

"DeGarmo, the CIA director, said that the navy wanted the Russians' supercavitation technology."

"You bet your ass we did. We do. But the idea of stealing a Russian sub to get it didn't originate in this building, and that's a goddamn fact. I didn't know a thing about it until this morning. The idea was absolutely moronic. Those incompetent spook sons of bitches just got fourteen American sailors killed. Or sixteen."

"Sir, that's a hell of a stretch."

Navarre took a deep breath, then exhaled convulsively. "You're right. I withdraw that comment. But you've listened to me fulminate enough. What do you want to know?"

"You've answered most of my questions. Why was Flashlight on ten of the Tomahawks?"

"Because it's ready to go to sea and America was designed to launch it. That's our job: take the best technology we can devise to sea to defend our country."

"Was Flashlight always scheduled to go to sea on America?"

"Yep. We tested it on the operational evaluation workup. On this cruise we were going to launch two of the missiles on the Pacific missile range, ensure the software is bug-free and the warheads work as advertised. America was going to transit around Cape Horn submerged, shoot the missiles, then work an antisub exercise in the Caribbean on the way home."

"How many people knew Flashlight was on that boat?"

"Jesus, I don't know. The program is classified, of course, but the number of people who knew it would be on America would be in the hundreds. The people in the company that made the thing who weren't told it was being deployed could certainly make an educated guess. I would estimate that the number is a couple of thousand."

Jake had a few more questions, but the telephone rang and the admiral snatched it up, so he mouthed a thank-you and slipped out.

"Ship up there," Turchak said, tapping Vladimir Kolnikov on the shoulder. He had been watching Rothberg construct mission profiles for the Tomahawks, check the coordinates, the firing checklists. Fortunately, as they had been told, the targeting computer database was indeed universal; North America was in there so that missiles carrying dummy warheads could be shot at targets on stateside bombing ranges.

Kolnikov glanced at the horizontal tactical display, then checked the sonar displays on the bulkheads, which were essentially windows on the sea. With the sonar display enlarged as much as possible the screen was dark, gloomy, illuminated from within by a faint light, a light that signified the noise generated by a ship's propellers and machinery and the hiss of the hull cutting the swells. As he watched, the light assumed a faint shape, the hull of a ship as seen from underneath.

"It's about fifteen miles, bearing zero one zero relative." Only ten degrees off the starboard bow, the destroyer was almost dead ahead.

"What do you think?" Kolnikov asked Heinrich Eck, who was manning the primary sonar console.

"A destroyer with a towed array. He's got a helicopter dipping. I've heard it, but it's too far away to pick up. If we streamed our own towed array, we could triple the range of our system."

Kolnikov didn't want to stream the sonar array, a raft of hydrophones that could be towed along in the submarine's wake. The array would limit his speed. He looked at his watch. Hours yet.

No, the thing to do was turn north and get away from this destroyer, then come back to a westerly heading in a couple of hours. He gave the order to Turchak, who was at the helm.

"Do you think the Americans have heard us on SOSUS?" Turchak asked.

"No. I think they are just searching." Addressing Eck, Kolnikov asked, "Have you heard any patrol planes?" I wo.

"Did either of them cross directly overhead?" He wasn't worried about sonobuoys but about the magnetic signature of the boat, which the magnetic anomaly detectors, MAD, in the patrol planes could pick up if they flew close enough overhead. Theoretically, under ideal conditions the MAD gear could detect a submarine as deep as three thousand feet, but that was theory. The practical limit, Kolnikov knew, was much less. And conditions were never ideal.

"No," Eck whispered, shaking his head. He was listening to the raw audio on his headset, verifying with trained ears what the computer was telling him.

"They are engaged in a random search pattern. They haven't heard us."

"Lidar?" The Russians and Americans were experimenting with blue-green lasers mounted in aircraft to search shallow water for submarines. America had lidar detectors mounted on the sail and hull. Kolnikov didn't think the lasers could detect a sub at this depth, five hundred feet, but one never knew.

"Not a chirp."

The Russian skipper smoked a cigarette as he monitored the display, watched Rothberg, kept an eye on Turchak and Eck.

"Are we below the surface layer?" he asked Turchak.

"I don't know."

The bottom of the surface layer in the Atlantic should be between three and six hundred feet deep, depending on weather conditions. The surface layer was an area of relatively uniform temperature as the water was mixed by wave action. "Let's go deeper for a while. Go down to a thousand feet. Watch the water temp gauge."

"A thousand feet," Turchak echoed. "Aye aye, sir." He opened the appropriate flooding valves and eased the stick forward a trifle, letting the boat sink deeper as it took on more water. Passing 575 feet there was a temperature drop, which Turchak mentioned to Kolnikov.

The destroyer had almost faded from the display when Heydrich came into the control room. He glanced at the heading indicator.

"What are you doing?" Heydrich demanded. "Where are we going?"

Kolnikov swiveled the captain's stool until he was facing Heydrich. "There has been a change of plans," he said coldly. He removed his automatic from his trouser pocket and examined it. Heydrich stiffened a trifle.

The pistol's safety was on. The Russian captain held it up, clicked the safety off.

"A double cross! I should have known."

"No double cross," Kolnikov said. "Willi Schlegel will get exactly what he paid for. But we have plenty of time, so Turchak and I thought we would make some money in the interim. Hope you don't mind."

"How?"

"We are going to shoot Tomahawks at some targets we selected. Mr. Rothberg has kindly agreed to help. I explained that you wouldn't mind, that this small project wouldn't interfere with our main mission. So he agreed."

Heydrich didn't take his eyes off Kolnikov. "I cannot understand," he said conversationally, "why you haven't killed me."

"Don't tempt me. I'm very close."

"Perhaps you worry that the men are loyal to me, not you. The Germans know who supplied the money. They will do as I say. Even Eck, he works for me. Tell him, Eck."

Heinrich Eck's eyes widened and he sat up very straight. He looked from Heydrich to Kolnikov, then back again. "Don't get me in this. I do as I'm told. I just want to live to get paid, start out in a new life with a new passport and real money."

Kolnikov never took his eyes off Heydrich. "Willi Schlegel likes you," he said. "And Willi is paying the bills. Or some of the bills. Still, I do not think he would suffer unduly when this is over if I tell him that you didn't make it. An accident at sea, perhaps. Or a tragic incident with a loaded weapon. Maybe I'll just tell him I killed you because I didn't enjoy looking at you. Schlegel understands the uncertainty of life. You might be the shit that is going to happen." Heydrich eased himself into an empty chair in front of an unused console.

"Don't sit," Kolnikov said. "You aren't staying. The captain's cabin has a keyed lock on the door. You will stay there for a few days. There are books on seamanship and navigation for you to read. I'll feel better knowing you are there improving your mind."

As the two men were going down the passageway with Heydrich leading, the German shifted his weight, spun, and kicked with his right foot. Kolnikov had just enough warning. He grabbed the foot and pulled. Heydrich crashed to the deck. Two of the Germans heard the commotion and came running.

"Back to your stations," Kolnikov said, glancing at them. He had the pistol in his hand pointed at Heydrich. "Heydrich isn't hurt."

"What is this all about, Captain?"

"Later. Back to your stations."

They went. Kolnikov locked Heydrich in the captain's cabin and pocketed the key. He was under no illusions about the strength of the lock, which was designed merely to allow the American captain to ensure that his private papers remained private. If Heydrich wanted out of that cabin badly enough, he was coming out. But that, both men knew, would lead to a final showdown. And Heydrich needed Kolnikov. At least Kolnikov hoped he did.

When he got back to the control room, he sat down on the captain's stool and lit another cigarette. "Let's run through the launch sequence, Rothberg. Right up until we shoot the first missile."

Turchak put the boat on autopilot and came over to stand by Kolnikov. He whispered in his ear, "Why didn't you kill him?"

Kolnikov pretended that he didn't hear the question, and after a bit Turchak went off to the head.

At the end of the day, after everyone else had left, Zelda Hudson reviewed the E-mail messages Zip Vance had culled for her attention. Tonight there was quite a collection. These were classified, encrypted E-mails, messages sent from one department of the government to another, or to other persons within the department.

The government's new encryption protocol, developed by two Belgian software designers, was good, very good, but had several small flaws. Zelda's field was computer security, encryption standards, barriers to entry, trapdoors, backdoors, worms, etc. One of the foremost experts in the field, she had worked with the FBI, NSA, CIA, and Pentagon converting to the new protocol. And she had added on a few wrinkles of her own. In effect, she had developed wormholes that allowed her access to the U.S. government's deepest secrets.

Her colleagues here at Hudson Security Services were also experts, expert hackers, as she was when she was young. Her hacking had got her thrown out of her first college. She didn't get caught again but learned everything the universities could teach about the new science of computer systems.

Out of college she began consulting, applying her expertise for a fee. Soon she was swamped and began recruiting other hackers, people like herself who came to her attention when their hacking feats landed them in the news or in jail. When the furor died down or they were finally released from prison, she was there with a job offer that topped all others.

Of course, her company had been strictly legit for years and, as far as her employees knew, with the sole exception of Zip Vance, still was. The expertise of the hackers revealed the vulnerabilities of government and industry information systems, and she was in the perfect position to sell her services reducing those vulnerabilities. "Expensive and darn well worth it," was the phrase she used in her presentations to win contracts. So she had grown her business and her reputation, made millions, paid huge salaries.. and one fine day discovered that it wasn't enough.

Tonight she left her monitor and walked through the loft, remembering. She checked the elevator; the last person to leave, Zipper, had left it in the down position. She pushed the button to bring it up, waited as it rose clanking and groaning, and when it reached the top floor, threw the switch to disable it.

There was a trapdoor under one of the tables, and coiled beside it, thirty feet of knotted rope. That was the only emergency exit in case of fire. Still, in her mind the risk of unauthorized entry was potentially more devastating.

She had earned a hundred million from the Europeans for putting the SuperAegis satellite in the water. If EuroSpace could ultimately recover it, the corporation would owe her another hundred million. Her deal with Jouany was more complex, with incentives based on the exchange rate between the dollar and the euro. She thought again about the possibility Jouany would refuse to pay. Obviously, if he stiffed her she couldn't sue to collect. What she could do was prove to the world that he had been in a deal to devastate the American economy. A revelation like that would ruin him.

No doubt Jouany had thought of that. His best move to counter that possibility was to destroy this computer center. Which would work if this were the only computer center she had.

Tomorrow she would go to the backup location and have Zipper send her the updated critical files. She would back them up and hide the disks.

Oh, the irony. The CIA had named Kolnikov and his crew the Blackbeard team. Kolnikov! Now Jouany and Willi Schlegel, those two were pirates\ Two of the blackest scoundrels God ever made, and both wore business suits, pontificated to the press, made flashy charitable donations, and took their wives to the opera.

And she was going to take huge piles of money from them!