Ruthless.Com

Chapter Six

"Get it straight, Alex. It isn't the locks, but the keys your friend Gordian should be training his sights on… ah, stuff it up this contraption's wire-clogged asshole, I'm falling behind the pacer!"

In his career heyday, Rear Admiral Craig Weston, Ret., had been among the biggest of the U. S. Navy's big fish in his position as chief officer of SUBGRU 2, the command organization for all attack submarines on the Atlantic coast, based, along with the primary student training facility of America's submarine force, in Groton, Connecticut. This included the three nuclear submarine squadrons docked along the deceptively tranquil New England shoreline, as well as two squadrons split between home bases in Charleston, South Carolina, and Norwalk, Virginia — a total of forty-eight SSNs, one research submarine, and numerous support vessels. Considering that the payload of conventional and nuclear munitions aboard a single SSN was sufficient to erase a major coastal city from the map, the magnitude of the destructive force that had been under Weston's control was, in a word, remarkable.

For Alex Nordstrum, the best part of observing Weston on the rowing machine at the Northwest Health and Fitness club was seeing how much of that force he seemed to have taken with him into retirement. A tall, lean man in his late sixties with a silver flattop crew cut, stormcloud-gray eyes, and a jaw like a lofty mountain ledge, Weston approached his morning workouts with utmost seriousness and concentration… and a biting ferocity that was often manifested as a rather prolonged salvo of expletives, characterized by creative anatomical references, and uttered at a volume just quiet enough to avoid violating the gym's rules of acceptable conduct.

"Son of a bitch! I'm on you now, you hungry fucking crotch louse!" he growled, accelerating the rhythm of his strokes. He was wearing gym shorts and an athletic shirt to showcase — quite intentionally, Nordstrum believed — a physique that would have been impressive on someone thirty years his junior, and been considered truly phenomenal on a man his age in the best of health. Having recently undergone a program of intensive chemotherapy to combat prostate cancer that had metastacized to his lymph nodes, Weston had almost achieved superhuman status in Alex's estimate. Lateral muscles bulged in his thighs as he began his drive. Abdominals and pectorals that looked two inches thick flexed under his tank top midway through his extension. Biceps swelled on his arms as he pulled the handles to complete his stroke, then leaned back in toward the flywheel for his recovery, his hips swinging slightly, the tension cord vibrating like a bowstring.

On the exercise bicycle beside him, Nordstrum glanced down at his own softening middle, felt a twinge of embarrassment, and fingered the touchpad to increase his level.

"I thought you'd be giving me background on the Sea-wolf today," he said, struggling not to sound winded. "So how come we're talking about Roger Gordian?"

"Don't be a wise guy," Weston said. "I'm not always this generous with my advice."

Alex frowned. " 0kay, have it your way. But I really do need that information."

"And you'll get all you can handle in a minute."

Weston rowed, his sinews working, inhaling and exhaling softly through his nose. His eyes were centered on the rowing machine's video screen, where tiny red and blue boats were racing over green water past a strand of white beach in a computer-simulated regatta. Nordstrum waited for him to resume speaking, peripherally aware of the smooth-operating silence of the modern equipment filling the gym. There was the occasional pneumatic hum of inclines being raised on the treadmills, and now and then the metallic clank of weight adjustments on the presses, but what he mostly heard were the sounds of controlled human exertion in uncluttered acoustical space: measured expulsions of breath, the rhythmic pounding of feet on rubber.

"Let me ask you something," Weston said at length. 4 4 Which would be of more concern to you — a bunch of thieves moving next door with a home security system identical to yours, or those same crooks moving in without any security of their own, but having the tools and wherewithal to disable your system? To open your front door, switch off your alarms, and walk into your bedroom any time you're sleeping or gone?"

"Rhetorical as posed," Nordstrum said. "I'd prefer they have neither."

"So would anybody, but that wasn't one of my choices. Indulge me, will you?"

Nordstrum shrugged and pedaled, his upper body bent forward over the handlebars, the towel around his neck damp with perspiration.

"Suppose I wouldn't want them getting into my house," he said.

Weston looked at him briefly. "There it is. My whole point. Gordian wants to make his case about crypto tech to the public, it ought to be his point too."

"That as far as you're going to spell it out?"

"Yes," Weston said, and then turned toward the screen again. "What do you want me to tell you about the sub?"

Nordstrum wondered if he'd missed a segue. "Everything you can. I should probably know what sort of boat I'll be riding in."

"And writing about."

"As a conscientious member of the press, and someone who doesn't like looking foolish," Nordstrum said.

Weston eyed the screen, produced another stream of epithets, and pulled more forcefully at the cable.

"You ever see that old TV program Voyage to the Bottom of the SeaT' he said. "My boys used to watch it religiously when they were young. Sunday nights at seven. When I was on tour I'd have to call in and listen to their episode summaries."

Nordstrum shook his head. "We didn't receive American programming in Prague at the time. Blame my ignorance on the Commies."

"Sure, forgot where you grew up," Weston said. He drove, recovered. "On the show there was a futuristic sub called the Nautilus, named after the one in the Jules Verne story. The Seawolf's its real-life equivalent, loaded with capabilities that the designers of Los Angeles-class vessels could only imagine. Goddamn thing's a testbed for advanced naval warfare technologies. It's got a modular construction for limitless upgrades. New low-signature hydrodynamics, and integrated detection, telemetry, and communications systems. Carries the usual array of anti-ship Harpoons, Mark 48 torpedoes, mines, you name it, plus the new Block 5-series Tomahawk. A land-attack missile that can hang in the air for up to two hours and has more warhead options than I can rattle off, including Hard Target Smart Fuze munitions able to penetrate to twenty feet underground before detonation."

He winked and lowered his voice confidentially. "While the Navy doesn't officially have nuclear-armed Tomahawks aboard its subs, the capability naturally exists."

"Naturally," Alex said.

"I should add that the Seawolf's able to operate in the littorals."

"Near ports, cities, enemy strongpoints, other land-based targets."

"Exactly." Weston examined his reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, swore disgustedly under his breath, and straightened his posture. "Before I get into more detail, you ought to know why the Seawolf's deployment under SEAPAC isn't just one of the President's typical mental farts, but his worst stinking room-clearer yet."

"Let me take a wild stab at it," Nordstrum said. "You're troubled by the prospect of having Japanese, South Korean, and other regional crew components aboard, even in exclusively non-combat roles… medical, research, and the like."

"You know me well, Alex. It's the treaty's dumbest provision."

Nordstrum pedaled. Though Weston hadn't yet broken a sweat, he was already starting to feel bushed.

"I don't know, Craig," he said. "Maybe you used the wrong television show for your analogy. The better comparison might be thinking of the Seawolf as a kind of USS Enterprise. Representatives of the world's peace-loving peoples consolidating their resources to guard against the Klingons."

"Never understood how that sappy shit got so popular," Weston said.

Nordstrum smiled. "Be that as it may, you know our Asian Pacific allies have been moving toward greater participation in regional military operations for some time. The Japanese alone spend millions on joint ballistic missile defense research with us every year. And there are Klingons in their part of space. North Korea's got Nodong-2's capable of dropping chemical and biological weapons into the heart of Tokyo." He paused, feeling a little out of breath. "This isn't anything that was pulled out of a hat, but a logical evolution of existing strategic policies."

"So you've stated ad infinitum in the editorial pages," Weston said. "And here I thought you were only doing it for a free thrill-ride on a submarine."

Nordstrum gave him a look. "Should I be offended by that comment?"

"It was a joke," Weston said without a trace of humor in his expression. "Look, cooperation is one thing. But how did we go from that to letting foreign seamen live and work aboard a nuclear sub, a fucking leviathan of the deep? What were our defense and intelligence communities thinking when they allowed it? I've never been phobic about the Japanese, but they will do what's in their own best national interest. For the past few years that's included joint military exercises with China and Russia. They're reaching out in directions besides just ours."

"I've never suggested SEAPAC doesn't have its risks. Obviously there have to be tough security procedures—"

"You mentioned medical personnel. As you'll see for yourself in a couple of weeks, even the biggest sub feels like a claustrophobic tin can once you've been aboard a while. It's a short hop from the infirmary to the torpedo room. Or the control room. Ghosts have a way of floating between decks, Alex. Of going wherever the fuck they want without being noticed. Because they can make their damned selves invisible."

Weston rowed silently, seemingly with nothing more to add, and having shed very little light on the technical workings of the submarine. How had they gotten sidetracked onto policy matters?

Alex swung his leg off the bike and wiped his forehead with his towel.

"That's it for me," he said. "Feel like breakfast?"

"I owe this cocksucking torture machine another fifteen minutes of my life," Weston said. "Next time, though. We'll have some pancakes."

"Sure," Nordstrum said, starting toward the locker room.

"Alex—"

He paused and looked over his shoulder.

"It's the key, not the lock. Tell that to Roger Gordian. Before the press conference. Okay?"

Alex regarded Weston a moment, then nodded.

"Okay," he said.