The Devil's Trinity

Chapter 15

The phone on Starling’s desk jangled at him. He lifted it from its cradle without looking at it and continued writing.

“Starling,” he growled.

“Sir, this is Jennifer.”

He stopped writing and grunted an apology; he wasn’t allowed to growl at his secretary. “Sorry Jennifer. What is it?”

“I have Commander Spade on the line, Admiral. From the U.S. Submarine Oregon?”

Starling frowned. The Oregon was a Benjamin Franklin Class submarine, converted from a former Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine, an SSBN, but no longer part of America’s nuclear fleet. So what on earth could Commander Spade want, he wondered?

“Digger? Well, well. Put him on, please Jennifer.”

He heard a click and Commander Spade came on the line. Spade and Starling were old friends going way back. They had both been commissioned as young naval officers during the Vietnam War. Their careers had run along similar paths and they usually managed to meet up with each other every two or three years. Spade had been known as ‘Digger’ and had chosen a career in submarines, whereas Starling known as ‘Birdy’, opted for a career as a navy pilot. Neither of them had used their nicknames for years.

“Jim Starling?”

Starling smiled at the sound of his old friend’s voice and recalled many, fond memories. “Hallo Digger, how are you? Long time no see.”

“Hallo Birdy, pressure of work I’m afraid,” Spade answered. “How are you these days?”

“Mustn’t grumble. Although my secretary says I often do. How can I help you?”

“Is your line secure?”

“Secure?” He laughed. “This is the headquarters of the C.I.A.,” Starling reminded him.

“Oh, in that case perhaps I should use a call box,” Spade joked.

Starling laughed again. It felt good. “So why are you calling?”

“I believe you’re interested in the Taliba?”

Commander Spade’s immediate mention of Khan’s ship took Starling by surprise. “Damn right I am,” Starling answered. “But I’m told we’ve lost her.”

“Well we’ve found her. We picked up her signature on sonar an hour ago.”

For a moment Starling didn’t quite know what to say. So he asked the obvious.

“Where?”

“At the moment she is steering a course towards Cuba. We are keeping a discreet distance from her, but we’re on station.”

Starling couldn’t understand it. “How come you’re involved in this?”

“We had a request about twenty four hours ago to look for her. We were given a bearing and asked to do a search. We’re on a shakedown cruise at the moment, so it gave us a little time to play. We’re ‘off book’. Been transferred OPCON”

In the world of military games and necessarily expedient decision making, it was sometimes useful to have a vessel transferred from its Command HQ to another agency so that it remained temporarily ‘off book’. The transfer was always OPCON: operational control.

Starling’s face screwed up into a frown. “Who requested your involvement?” he asked.

“Don’t know old boy, but it had to go through NorthCom (Northern Command). Almost certainly originated from your department.”

Starling thought about Remo Francesini and his own order to dig deep.

“I see,” Starling responded, non-committedly. “I see. You know we lost her on satellite?”

“So I believe, Birdy. But when it comes to satellite tracking, you can’t beat the submariners.”

They both laughed. “I’ll give you that, Digger. Well then, seeing as you’re on the case, there’s something I’d like you to do for me.”

“Certainly, as long as my admiral approves. What is it?”

“I won’t tell you over the phone, Digger; I’ll send a signal within the hour. Just don’t lose that boat.”

They finished the conversation in pleasantries then Starling set about putting a plan into operation that would involve the US Navy Seals. He was also beginning to feel a little better about the whole thing because the latest developments had handed him an element of control.

Four hours after James Starling had spoken to his old friend; a Hercules transport plane flew over Commander Spade’s submarine, the U.S.S. Oregon as twilight began to wash over the approaches to the Bahamian Island chain. There was a slight swell, but the submarine managed to cope with that despite being on the surface.

The rear doors of the Hercules opened. Inside the aircraft, standing by the doors but attached to a safety line was the loadmaster. Beside him were two men dressed completely in black and wearing parachutes. As the Hercules approached the drop zone, the voice of the pilot could be heard by the loadmaster through his headset. Suddenly the two red warning lights above the door went out and two greens came on in their place.

“DZ! DZ! Go!”

As the loadmaster shouted and waved the men off, the two figures dropped from the rear door of the Hercules and slipped away swiftly in the slipstream until their fall was checked by the unfurling of their parawing chutes. As they deployed in the darkness they glided gently down towards the sea and the USS Oregon until they both landed on the surface within a hundred feet of the Oregon’s inflatable rescue boat. Within thirty minutes of leaving the aircraft, the two members of the US Seals were standing in front of Commander Spade inside the submarine’s control room.

The Taliba lay at anchor off the island of Cuba. Although the lights from the shore were clearly visible, the ship was anchored well away from the shoreline. It was past midnight and nobody stirred on deck except the two men on watch; one forward, the other aft. It was a warm night and music could be heard very faintly drifting over the calm sea from other craft anchored offshore. The lights of the distant port shimmered above their reflections in the water, their colours fused into the mirror blackness. The riding lights of the other boats swayed gently.

The cocktail of distant lights and faint music drew the attention of the two men on watch, each in his own private world, each one wishing that he could be ashore, enjoying the seductive pleasures on offer. Behind those two men, each separated by the length of the Taliba, the black ocean swept out into the vast emptiness of the night, offering nothing of interest other than an occasional passing ship.

And in that vast emptiness, two heads bobbed above the surface without a sound, just one hundred feet from them.

The two US Navy Seals were wearing wet suits. Their faces were blackened, although one of them was of West Indian origin. His face was blackened to keep it to a matte appearance. They both had rubber caps covering their heads and were virtually invisible to anyone on board the Taliba.

After several minutes studying the ship, they swam beneath the water towards her, surfacing alongside the hull. Then carefully they moved to the stern of the vessel where they knew they would find the boarding platform common with ships using divers. The platform was hoisted vertically into its stowage position, but that presented no obstacle for the two Seals.

They climbed aboard the aft deck and slipped out of sight behind the base of a lifting winch. One of them pointed to the crewman on watch, barely thirty feet from them and made a gesture to his companion. Then he edged forward.

The crewman continued leaning on the ship’s rail, blissfully unaware that he now had company. The Navy Seal stood up behind him without a sound, whipped an arm around his neck and pressed two fingers into the side of his neck beneath the ear. He held him like that for a while until he felt the crewman relax. To avoid letting the man slump to the deck, he positioned him in such a fashion that the unconscious man’s bodyweight kept him propped up against the rail. To casual observation, it looked as though he was staring absently into the sea below.

He quickly turned to his colleague who sprinted from his hiding place to a locker fixed horizontally along the ship’s inboard bulkhead. It was alongside the bulkhead that faced the shore. Inside were mainly lifejackets and ropes. Satisfied it would serve his purpose; he unzipped his wetsuit and pulled a plastic bag from inside. He then opened it and sprinkled the contents into the locker. He then pulled a lighter from his pocket and, shielding the flame with a cupped hand; he lit a piece of saturated gun cotton and dropped it into the locker, closing the lid.

The other Seal waited until he could see smoke billowing from the locker, then he ran across the deck to the crewman who was still unconscious and shook him vigorously. He shouted “Fuego! Fuego!” well into the man’s ear and ran for cover on to the opposite of the ship.

The crewman shook himself and began rubbing his neck, thinking he had fallen asleep. Suddenly he straightened and turned round, his expression turning from one of puzzlement to shock. He began shouting and ran for a fire extinguisher. The crewman on forward watch heard the shouting and ran down to the aft end of the ship. On the way he pushed an alarm button fixed to a bulkhead and suddenly all hell was let loose. Alarm bells burst into life; someone dashed from a door and ran up the steps to the bridge. Others began falling out of doorways, half asleep, all of them heading towards the pall of smoke that billowed out from the rope locker.

The two Navy Seals waited until most of the activity was on the far side of the ship from where they were concealed. Then they ran towards the door leading to the accommodation deck. They took the steps two at a time and pushed open another door. One of them pulled the door back on himself so that he was partially concealed while the other Seal went along the companionway trying each door. As he suspected, none of them were locked because their occupants had all taken to their emergency stations. Except two. One would be Helen Greg and the other Harry Marsham.

At the first door he came to that was locked, he called out Marsham’s name.

Inside the cabin, Marsh was awake. He had heard the commotion but had made no attempt to leave his cabin because he and Helen were locked in at night. When he heard his name being called out, he assumed for a moment that it was Malik. But the voice was different; it was deliberately quiet and hurried. Whoever it was called his name again.

“Marsham! Are you in there?”

Marsh nodded. “Yes!” he answered.

The voice told him to wait for a moment. Marsh could then hear an unfamiliar sound at the keyhole of his door. Suddenly the door flew open and Marsh reeled back in shock.

Standing in front of him was a giant of a black man wearing a wetsuit. He had his finger pressed to his lips, urging Marsh not to say anything. He stepped into the cabin and closed the door behind him.

“Harry Marsham?”

Marsh nodded. “Yes. And who are you?”

“Lieutenant Santos sir, United States Navy. Now will you please tell me what the fuck is going on?”

The door of Francesini’s office swung open and Starling burst in like a bear with its backside on fire. The expression on his face left Francesini under no illusion that this was anything but a friendly visit.

“Read this,” he said and flung a file on Francesini’s desk.

Francesini picked up the file, opened it and began to read. Starling poured himself a coffee and sat in the chair beside the desk. His eyes never left Francesini’s face. He was smouldering.

“Well?” he asked when he saw Francesini look up. “There’s little doubt now, is there?”

Francesini shrugged, still erring on the side of caution. “It’s still supposition and theory, sir. We need expert advice on this. And I don’t mean a bunch of gung-ho generals leading the way. If it’s purposeful and genuine oil exploration using new techniques and we go in with all guns blazing, there’ll be hell to pay.”

“There will be hell to pay if we don’t,” Starling countered.

“I understand that, sir, but I need twenty four hours before I can recommend what you’re asking.”

“And what will you do if I agree to wait that long?” Starling would only concede this because he trusted Francesini’s judgement completely, and valued it.

“I’ll go to Massachusetts, sir; to the Woods Hole Institute.”

“What’s up with our own specialists?” Starling asked. “I know they’re clever buggers at the Institute, but can we trust them?”

“It isn’t a question of trust, Admiral. If we hand this to our own specialists we could be in danger of having this taken out of our hands. I know it may not seem reasonable to go outside of the C.I.A., but in this case I am prepared to back my own judgement.”

There was a profound logic in Francesini’s argument. The admiral often found himself fighting his own corner because of internecine warfare breaking out between departments at Langley. And there always seemed to be small, wounding security leaks between heads of departments. By going to the specialists in the Woods Hole Institute, they could swear them to secrecy under the dire threat of draconian measures if they dared pass on anything the department had released to them.

Starling acquiesced. “OK Remo, twenty four hours. Meanwhile I will get an assault team on standby.” He stood up. “Incidentally, was that you’re idea to get the US Submarine Oregon on Khan’s tail?”

Francesini shook his head. “No sir that was Cooke’s. He told me that satellite imagery is fine if the weather’s ok, but the submarine’s a better bet. If you can get one!”

Starling chuckled. “We ought to promote that boy. Good, sound thinking. And with the Oregon on station.”

Francesini interrupted his boss, holding his hand up. “Ah, no such luck I’m afraid. Operational priority has taken the Oregon off the case. She’ll be miles away by now.”

Starling’s eyebrows knitted together in an instant frown. “So who’s keeping an eye on the Taliba now?”

Francesini didn’t want to tell him, but he had to. “I’m afraid we’re back with the satellite.”

“You’re still not convinced?” Captain de Leon asked Khan.

They were in Khan’s cabin and had been discussing the sudden outbreak of fire in the rope locker.

“That fire was no accident, I’m sure of it.” Khan insisted. “But Allah is still with us.” He reached for the familiar bottle of tablets. A glass of water was beside him. The pain was more advanced now. He swallowed the tablets and gulped the water down. De Leon could see the pain in Khan’s face and almost feel it himself.

“You should be in hospital,” he told him.

Khan reacted angrily. “No! In two days the Trinity will be complete. I will live to see it. I must live.” He kept striking the top of his desk lightly with a clenched fist as he spoke. “Two days, Captain. Two days.”

“Inshalla,” the captain said.

Khan looked up at de Leon through hooded eyes and nodded gently. “You think like an Arab too. It is good.”

“You are paying me a lot of money.”

“Ah,” Khan said lightly. “And would you sell to a higher bidder?”

De Leon shook his head. “Not my soul, but my mother? Maybe.”

Khan laughed softly. “Then I am glad I am not your mother.”

The ship rocked suddenly as a gust of wind slammed into the hull. Khan looked over to the cabin window. Outside the sky was overcast and he could see the storm clouds moving quickly.

“How long do we have, Captain?” he asked.

“Forty eight hours at the most,” de Leon told him. “The wind is strengthening from the south east. At the moment we are safe, but if the winds strengthen any more, we can expect a hurricane, here in the Gulf, within two days.

“What about the rig?” Khan asked.

De Leon shrugged. “The direction of the storm is unpredictable, but we have to assume the rig will be hit. To think otherwise would be neither logical nor sensible.”

Khan gave this some thought, and then shrugged. “No matter; once we have Marsh and the Challenger under water, the third bomb will be in place and the Trinity will be complete. Then the hurricane can do what it likes.” He stood up from his desk with some effort. A thought crossed his mind. “Incidentally, have you arranged for the freighter?”

De Leon nodded. “As you asked sir. It’s offshore about fifteen miles. We’ll call it in after nightfall.”

Khan was satisfied. “Good. Then I’ll leave everything to you, Captain.”

De Leon gave a perfunctory nod. “Anything else, sir?”

“No, nothing else. Thank you Captain.”

De Leon thought that Khan might have mentioned the fire again, and was relieved that he didn’t. Heart attacks he could handle; paranoia he couldn’t. He threw up a gratuitous salute and left the cabin.

Khan glanced out of the window and offered up a prayer. His heart trembled and a sudden fear flashed through his mind. He reached for the water bottle and his tablets.

Two days, he thought; just two more days. Inshalla!

As the light of a grey day filtered through the windows of his office at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, Professor Alan Schofeld grappled with the desperate thoughts running through his mind, fervently wishing that his conclusions were wrong.

But they were not; of that he was absolutely convinced.

He turned away from the window, his expression as grey as the overcast sky outside, and picked up the report from his desk that he had received that morning. It had been delivered by hand, by two senior officers in the C.I.A. who had considered it important enough to bring it in person.

Schofeld had decided that it was his own natural and professional scepticism that had persuaded him to ask them for time. His initial reaction was perhaps a trifle condescending, but now, having had time to consider the impact of what he had read, he realised just how shamefully patronising he had been.

The two men from the C.I.A. had introduced themselves as James Starling and Remo Francesini. They had agreed to leave the report with him but had sworn him to absolute secrecy. Schofeld had reluctantly agreed to their request, wondering what all the fuss was about. Now it all seemed so preposterous and churlish of him. What he had concluded after studying the document and researching the facts was quite frightening, and he wished he had never seen it or the two men who had brought it to him. He had used several computer programmes to convince himself of his own diagnosis. He had used computer modelling to try and break down his own argument, based on the information he had before him, but finally he had come to the inevitable conclusion that the two men from the C.I.A. had every right to swear him to secrecy.

He leaned back on his desk, the report still in his hand and wondered if Starling and Francesini already knew just how big and dangerous a threat it contained. And now he knew he had been invited to sup at the Devil’s table and he didn’t like it at all; it frightened the life out of him.

He twisted round and pushed the button on his desk intercom and asked his secretary to contact the two C.I.A. officers and ask them to come to the office.

Schofeld was still struggling with the incredible possibilities of the report as he poured coffee for Starling and Francesini. He pushed their cups towards them. His face was like stone.

“Gentlemen,” he began. “I suspect that some of what I am about to tell you, you will already know, but it will be necessary for me to recount the facts in order to persuade ourselves that my deductions are sound and my conclusions honest. Although I wish to God they were wrong.”

He picked up the report and they could almost see his nose wrinkling at the prospect of what it contained.

“I was sceptical at first, I must admit,” he told them, “but I know Harry Marsham quite well. I’ve worked with him on several occasions and trust his professional and personal judgment completely. Everything he has suggested accords with my own view.” He cleared his throat. “Unfortunately. Anyway, let us begin.”

He switched on a projector that immediately showed an oceanographers map of the Atlantic Ocean stretching from the east coast of the United States and Canada to the western approaches to northern Europe.

“During the winters in our Northern Hemisphere, a high pressure system develops over Siberia and Central Asia which brings the coldest temperatures on earth outside of the Polar ice caps. It means that a great deal of the northern countries like Latvia, northern Russia, etcetera, are frozen over for almost six months of the year. The average temperature in those areas can be as low as minus eighteen degrees Celsius; about minus sixty degrees Fahrenheit. It wouldn’t happen of course if it wasn’t for the fact that the Himalayas buttress the warm air of the Indian Ocean, preventing it from flowing up into Central Asia.

He paused as if to consider his next point. “So the only tempering influence on the upper reaches of the northern hemisphere comes from the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Atlantic Ocean.”

“The Gulf Stream,” Francesini said. Starling nodded and continued to study the Professor’s face.

“Quite,” the professor continued. “Now, global warming seems to be coming to the aid of these frozen parts, but quite slowly, and of course, not for a good many years yet. Those countries will still continue to struggle under these extreme conditions, probably for much of what’s left of this century, maybe longer.”

Starling and Francesini nodded, neither of them sure just where this was leading. Schofeld carried on.

“Now, let’s consider the Gulf Stream for a moment. As you both know, I’m sure; it is born in the Gulf of Mexico, jets through the Florida Narrows between Miami and the Grand Bahamas, and flows up the eastern seaboard of America as far as Cape Hatteras. From there it swings right across the Atlantic Ocean, passes by the British Isles, continues up to Norway and then on to Russia. By which time it doesn’t do the Russians much good at all.”

Francesini and Starling allowed themselves a little victorious smile.

“There are two important considerations here. The Gulf Stream has a direct effect on the Sargasso Sea. That’s the large, almost motionless area in the centre of the Atlantic. It holds it in check. If the Sargasso Sea was able to drift and circulate a few degrees north, it would provide a warmer climate for the whole of Scandinavia.”

He paused, letting it sink in. But for the two men listening, there was nothing yet that worried them. They both wondered when the Professor would get to the point.

“The other important consideration, gentlemen, is the Irminger Current. This is a small finger of warm water that leads away from the Gulf Stream. It flows up to the Western Coast of Greenland and helps to prevent that coastline from freezing. If it were not for the upward flow of the Irminger current, then the LaGregor Current, sometimes known as the Ogden Pump, would flow down through Newfoundland as far as Cape Hatteras, and the eastern seaboard of America would freeze over in the winter. It would mean extreme conditions all along the eastern territories of the United States during the winter months and perhaps longer.”

Schofeld stopped then and lifted his cup from the desk. He looked over the top of his cup at the two men, waiting for them to either say something or let him continue. They said nothing.

“If it was possible,” he went on after finishing his coffee, “to alter the direction of the Gulf Stream by a couple of degrees, or indeed even stop it, the following things would happen.”

He began ticking them off on his fingers.

“The Sargasso Sea would tighten and warm up. The prevailing westerly winds would absorb much of this heat and bring a more temperate climate to parts of Scandinavia. Good for them, no doubt.”

“The Irminger Current would almost certainly disappear, and the effect would be to bring the LaGregor Current sweeping down the Eastern seaboard of America. This would change the climate of the north eastern states drastically, and they would be like Siberia for much of the year.”

He picked up the report which had been drawn up by Francesini, using the information obtained from Marsh by the Lieutenant Santos, the Navy Seal.

“Marsh says there are three bombs. To alter the topography of the sea bed between Florida and the Grand Bahamas in order to achieve a two degree shift of the Gulf Stream and possibly stopping it altogether, would result in a rise in sea level of about two feet along the eastern side. This would almost certainly flood the entire Bahamian Archipelago. Everything would disappear.”

“When the bombs explode, the resultant tidal wave, a Tsunami, would overrun the whole of the State of Florida as far south as the Keys. It would engulf most of the Gulf of Mexico Seaboard, Central America; places like Guatemala, Belize, Eastern Mexico. Coastlines and low lying countries like Cuba, Puerto Rico and all of the West Indies would be devastated. The tsunami that struck Indonesia and killed two hundred and thirty thousand people in 2004 would be small fry in comparison.”

“The energy pulse from the three bombs would silence all communication, cell phones, air traffic control systems, public transport, computer highways, the internet, everything. Anything that relied on telecommunications would cease to work within a two hundred mile radius. Everything!”

He dropped the report on to his desk. The two men remained silent. Schofield continued.

“Khan is attacking the soft, underbelly of America. There are nearly four thousand oil and gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico supplying almost thirty percent of our domestic oil and gas. Our economy could be wrecked. The knock-on effect for the other Western economies would be disastrous. The death toll in the Gulf alone would reach well over a million; to say nothing of the total devastation and havoc brought down on the survivors.”

He paused, letting it sink in. Starling and Francesini sat there impassively; the expressions almost wooden.

“Gentlemen,” the professor said gravely. “You must stop this madman. If you do not, you are looking at a doomsday scenario of apocalyptic proportions.”