The Gamma Option

Chapter 12

“Yo!” McCracken heard as a hand jostled him at the shoulder. “Hope you don’t mind me waking you up.”

“You interrupted a good dream,” he told the woman who was standing over him with her hands on her hips.

“I am ever so sorry. But I thought you might want to join me on deck now that we’ve reached your goddamn coordinates.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Blaine returned, but Patty Hunsecker was already through the cabin door.

Blaine threw his legs over the edge of the cot and stretched. They had been at sea for nearly twenty hours now and few of them had been easy. The Pacific was in a mean mood, seas choppy and rough. The only brief calm had come in the first few hours after setting out from Guam. If McCracken had his bearings correct, they were now somewhere around the halfway point between Guam and the island of Leyte with nothing around them but sky and water.

Thirty-six hours earlier on Saturday, Hiroshi had arranged for a private jet to fly Blaine to Guam’s Tamuning Airport. The country’s strong Pacific military presence included a complete naval air station which very likely contained the equipment he required. Unfortunately, though, under the circumstances he could not approach any legitimate authority for help. Not only had Evira forbidden him to do so, but now Mossad was on his trail and Mossad’s ears were everywhere.

Again Hiroshi provided the answer. The waters around Guam, including the nearby Marianas, contained a hotbed of research projects, and all those in the area for such purposes had to register with the naval station. Hiroshi’s check found several teams with the necessary equipment, but only one he could pin an immediate location to: a young woman named Patty Hunsecker, who was studying ecological balance in the Marianas Trench. Her boat was docked for the time being so she could assemble data to meet a grant deadline.

He had found her in a small bar overlooking Apra Harbor, where her boat was moored a hundred yards away. She was attractive but didn’t look as though she had done much about it lately. There were papers strewn all over her corner table, and a half-drunk mug of beer stood out amid the clutter.

“Excuse me,” Blaine said to her when he reached the table.

“No.”

“What?”

“I said no. You’re not excused. Go away. Whatever it is, I’m too busy.”

“You think I’m trying to pick you up?”

She looked him up and down and cast a disapproving scowl. “Mister, you wouldn’t have a chance even if I did have the time.”

“It’s your ship I’m after, Miss Hunsecker.”

“Wait a minute, how did you know my name?”

“Mine’s McCracken, if it matters.”

“It doesn’t.”

Blaine was going to sit down, then thought better of it and answered her question. “Naval records,” he said, which was mostly the truth.

She threw her pen down hard on the table where the scraps of paper swallowed it. “What’s this got to do with my ship?”

“I’d like to charter it.”

Patty Hunsecker smirked. “Yeah? Well, just take your rods and reels and head down two bars.”

“What I’m after is stuck on the ocean floor and isn’t likely to bite at any bait, Miss Hunksitter,—”

“That’s Hunsecker.”

“—and I don’t need a captain who knows where to find marlin. I need a boat with high tech salvage gear, strictly state of the art.”

“Sorry,” Patty snapped back, feeling about the paper for her pen, “I’m not for hire.”

This time Blaine did slide into the booth opposite her.

“I didn’t ask you to sit down.”

“And I’m afraid I wasn’t asking to use your boat. You see, any ship operating in these waters does so with the permission of the United States Navy. In other words they own your ass.”

“Nobody owns my ass, mister!”

“Miss Hunsecker,” Blaine responded immediately, “I could go to the navy right now and have your boat impounded indefinitely. I’m trying to do this the easy way.”

“You talk like a federale.”

“Of sorts.”

“How long?” she sighed.

“Two days, three at most.”

“At which point my grant becomes history. Look, it might not mean much to you, but the whole future of the world is tied up in the secrets of the ocean.”

“Absolutely,” McCracken told her, “but not for the reasons you think.”

And now, as he pulled on his sneakers to join her on deck, Blaine reflected on how well he had come to know her in a single day. She might have come on a little strong, but Patty Hunsecker wasn’t a bad person, and not an unattractive one either. Her blond hair was cut short and worn in a shaggy style that required little care and could survive the harshness of constant exposure to salt air and water. The sun had become so much a friend to her that she wore her tan naturally and without worry. They had sat on deck in the dark hours of Sunday night, as her boat, the Runaway, glided through the currents on autopilot.

“Interesting name,” McCracken had said.

“More than interesting — accurate. Describes my life.”

“In Bel Air?”

“The little time I spent there. I was always off at schools, and when I came home my parents weren’t there. Always loved the sea, though. My grandmother died, and as soon as I turned twenty-one I used the trust fund she had left me to buy this ship, outfit it, and run away. Learned what I had to in college. My parents thought I was studying acting.”

“They must have had good reason to if you fooled them for four years.”

“I left after three,” Patty Hunsecker corrected. “Knew what I had to by then. The rest I could learn out here. Kind of on-the-job training.”

“With all that money, why bother about the grant?”

“Legitimacy, proof that someone cares about what you’re trying to do. Otherwise I’d just be the young dreamer my parents figured I was when I sailed off.”

“Motored,” Blaine said.

“Excuse me for saying so, mister, but it doesn’t seem much different for you.”

“We’re all running away from something, Patty, and I’ve got an Indian friend who’ll tell you it’s always ourselves. We create our own little worlds of illusions, and once they’re gone, all we’re left with is reality. That can be pretty tough to take.”

“But in the end we’re the only ones who can figure it out for ourselves, right? I think that’s what I like most about making a home for myself here on the Runaway.”

“Except you’re still running, still deluding yourself. It might be the Pacific Ocean, but when you’re out here and can’t see anyone else it’s your ocean, which puts us right back where we started. Believe me, I know where you’re coming from. You’re out here to save the water. For a long time I was out to save the world.”

“Not this time?”

“It might come to that, yeah, but all I give a damn about is one twelve-year-old boy who deserves more than the short end of the stick he got stuck with at birth. It’s time he saw it in all its length.”

Patty Hunsecker eyed him quizzically but didn’t press. McCracken had taken his leave soon after and drifted off into an uneasy sleep that ended only when she had awakened him minutes before. Yawning as he stepped up into the morning sun, he noticed Patty had settled herself before one of the many gadgets on the deck of the Runaway.

“This might be your lucky day, McCracken,” she said without looking up at him.

“Planning to ask me out?”

“Even better.” Her eyes rose slowly. “My readings indicate that your coordinates are located smack dab on a large swell in the surface of the sea.”

“Is that good?”

“Well, since the pressure in regular depths in these parts is sufficient to turn any ship into a tin can, it is if you were hoping to find something reasonably intact.”

“Then it’s a ship that’s down there?”

“Magnetometer readings indicated a large steel mass almost directly beneath our present position.”

“And can you find it?”

“With a little help from a friend, absolutely.”

“Excuse me?”

“RUSS.”

“Who?”

“Not who, what. RUSS, R-U-S-S. Stands for Robotic Underwater Systems Sight. Step right this way and I’ll introduce you.”

McCracken followed Patty to the stern to a mechanism tightly wrapped in a custom-fit tarpaulin. She undid the zippers and ties, and he helped her strip the covering off to reveal a white squat object as long as he was tall, looking like a miniature submarine or an overweight torpedo.

“Meet RUSS.”

“The pleasure’s all mine.”

RUSS was mostly white with some red splashed on and came complete with a miniature conning tower like the kind found on manned submarines. Its front nose was composed of specially sealed glass, and Blaine didn’t have to be told to know that a camera behind it broadcast everything it saw back to the Runaway. It was sitting on some sort of motorized hydraulic mechanism obviously constructed to ease the process of lowering it to and raising it back from the water.

“RUSS weighs in at well over a thousand pounds,” Patty explained, reading his mind.

“Lotta weight for a little guy.”

“There has to be, considering the kind of pressure he’s subjected to in depths like the Marianas. It has something to do with weight displacement and pressure per cubic inch. RUSS’s hull is so dense, he can resist the pressure up to virtually any depth. And he’s powered by a special fuel cell that allows for extended journeys in the depths without having to recharge.”

“So we lower him into the water …”

“And I drive him robotically from up here and hope he finds whatever it is you’re looking for.”

Patty dropped the Runaway’s anchor and, with McCracken looking on, activated the hydraulic mechanism which slowly eased the submersible toward the gunwale and then lowered it into the sea. The flip of a final switch released RUSS into the water and he sank slowly, almost gratefully, like a fish tossed back after being snared.

The last of his miniature conning tower was still visible when McCracken watched Patty grasp a portable instrument panel complete with four multi-directional levers surrounding a center joystick.

“This is how I drive him,” she explained.

“Looks simple.”

“Because it is. Fully transistorized and, of course, waterproof.”

Patty eased the joystick forward and Blaine could see RUSS level out just beneath the surface. A light touch on one of the four levers and it began its descent straight down into the deep blue of the water. Fortunately RUSS possessed cameras aiming both straight above and straight below to insure it never missed anything.

“It’ll be between twenty and twenty-five minutes before he reaches the swell in the ocean floor we’re over. Here, let me show you the rest of the setup.”

They moved toward a canopied section of the deck nearest the cabin, and Patty took a chair behind what looked to be a combination computer monitor and television screen. Closer inspection revealed it to be both; the screen was atop the monitor and joined to it by a host of wires running like spaghetti through the rear panels. Patty began typing commands into the keyboard before her and instantly the screens jumped to life.

“I drive RUSS but it’s the computer that talks to him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, this kind of exploration has reached new heights — perhaps I should say depths — technologically. Can you see the picture forming on the television screen?”

McCracken leaned forward until the glare was minimized. “Looks like a big swimming pool.”

“The biggest. We’re seeing exactly what RUSS sees as he drops further and further down. Assume he finds … whatever it is you’re looking for.”

“I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

“Assume he finds it anyway. Not only do we get pictures, but thanks to the computer we get measurements, structural analyses, even infrared dating to get a general idea how old the find is. We can also use the computer to have RUSS focus his camera in close on anything we choose. That usually comes in especially handy when …”

Patty Hunsecker continued to expound on the various capabilities and virtues of the RUSS system. RUSS and other submersibles like it were no doubt on the verge of opening up whole new, never-before-seen worlds and lowering the risk to human life substantially in the process. After she was finished, they spent the next few minutes watching the screen that pictured exactly what RUSS saw as he sank into the depths.

“I notice the picture isn’t getting any darker even though he’s sinking lower and lower.”

“Very good,” Patty complimented. “I might make a scientist out of you yet. That’s something I neglected to explain. RUSS’s seeing eye automatically adjusts the light exposure to give us a consistent look. Any darker and we wouldn’t be able to see a thing. Too much light and the contrast would make accurate identification difficult.”

“Where is he?”

Patty punched a few keys on her terminal. Figures danced about the screen almost instantly.

“I’m getting confused readings. Too many echoes, too many—”

She stopped when a beeping sound started up. Blaine was unable to pin down exactly which of the machines it was coming from.

“What is it?”

“His vertical sensors, elaborate sonar actually, have locked on to something.”

“What?”

“School of fish probably….”

The beeping sound became more rapid. Patty checked the figures running wildly across her monitor.

“Well, it’s no school of fish, and it seems to be centered almost directly on the underwater rise he’s coming down on. Looks like we’re about to find what you dragged me out here for, McCracken.”

Blaine’s head was almost against hers as they gazed at the television screen. His heart picked up its pace. Something dread and cold grabbed him from within, telling him he didn’t really want to know what RUSS was about to find. The beeping became maddening and Patty turned a switch to lower the decibel level. When it became constant, she flipped another of the levers on the transistorized board on her left and brought RUSS to a dead stop in the water.

“Christ, he must be right over it! Your coordinates were right on the mark.”

“You were expecting any different?”

“I didn’t know what to expect, but I’ll tell you this much: for an object to remain totally anchored on the bottom, it’s got to carry a lot of bulk and weight.”

Patty flipped a few buttons and the picture sharpened in view. There was a shape barely discernible in the darkness. Patty gave it as much brightness as she could, and Blaine immediately made out a huge ship’s tower, something from a heavy cruiser or battleship maybe. His first thought was that he was at the wrong coordinates. Otherwise they had come all this way just to find another relic from World War II.

Patty used the joystick to maneuver RUSS closer to and over the vessel that was still gaining shape.

“What is it?” she asked Blaine.

“Some sort of warship,” McCracken confirmed to himself. “Heavy cruiser class, I think. Had their heyday in World War II and haven’t seen much of the seas since. Time passed them by.”

“Well, it looks pretty much intact. Wait, spoke too soon. Take a look at this,” Patty said, and slowed RUSS over the starboard side forward beneath a huge gun turret. She maneuvered the joystick to drop RUSS low and back him away from the ship’s hull to provide a more complete view of what they had uncovered through the front-mounted camera.

“Christ, what the hell did that?”

McCracken saw the jagged holes in the ship’s starboard hull but didn’t reply. He felt a growing realization of what they had found here but pushed it back, terrified of the consequences it might imply.

“Wake up, McCracken! I asked you what the hell did that?”

“Torpedoes,” he said finally. “You can tell by the angle of entry and blast radius. Those babies carried a rather precise signature.”

“This ship was sunk in World War II?”

McCracken’s response was to move closer to the monitor screen. “Take RUSS forward to her bow. Let’s see if we can read her name.”

She turned back toward him before maneuvering the joystick. “You know what this ship is, don’t you?”

“I don’t know anything. Not yet.”

She shrugged him off and started to work the red, ball-topped handle to bring RUSS forward along the length of the dead cruiser.

“My God, could any bodies still be inside?”

“Judging by the position of the holes that sunk her, I’d say the great majority of those on board got off alive.”

“To be rescued?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re not telling me everything you know!”

“I don’t want to distract you from your driving.”

RUSS had almost reached the boat’s front section. They could see she was wedged in the silt of the upward slope of a rise in the ocean floor. She was keeling over to starboard and seemed on the verge of tumbling over onto the submersible that had invaded her world of death.

“She’s remarkably well preserved,” McCracken noted.

“You find lots of weird stuff in the Marianas, and everyone’s got a different interpretation for it. Hold on, I think we’ve got something….”

Patty slowed RUSS to a stop and McCracken was certain he could make out a sequence of letters on the screen before him. There was some sort of pattern; though the paint had been lost years before, the stenciled border was still intact. Patty brought the submersible backward and held it in place over the boldest letters left.

U S, then a blank space followed by a splotch of shapes that were unreadable.

“I’m going to infrared,” Patty told him, and flipped another switch. “Now let’s add magnification and see what we come up with…. There we go. That does it…. What the hell?”

McCracken saw the letters and felt the same kind of cold dread those on the ship must have felt forty-five years ago when she was hit. His breath tasted drier than salt. Up until the last he had hoped his initial suspicions were wrong. But the corpse ship’s name running across the screen eliminated any chance of that:

USS Indianapolis

Chapter 13

“I know that name,” Patty was saying. “I know it from somewhere …”

“The Indianapolis was the ship that delivered the atom bombs that were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It dropped them at Tinian, then stopped briefly at Guam en route to Leyte, where it was sunk by a Japanese submarine.”

“Of course! Those holes we found farther back on starboard. It fits! It fits!” She sounded genuinely excited. “We’re looking at one of the great finds in salvage history.”

“Except we can’t legitimately claim it,” Blaine told her. “Because someone else got here first.”

“Slide RUSS back along the hull to around the midpoint,” Blaine told her.

“Why?”

“Because I thought I noticed something on the screen before when he moved by. His camera wasn’t angled right for proper viewing, so it was only a glimpse.”

“Whatever you say …”

Patty maneuvered RUSS so he was actually gliding sideways, which slowed him because of the increased resistance, but provided an excellent view of the long stretch of hull in the process.

“There!” McCracken said suddenly. “Stop!”

Patty pulled the small joystick toward her and the submersible’s eye locked on a large hole a third of the way down the exposed reaches of the Indianapolis’s hull.

“Doesn’t look like a torpedo did that,” she commented. “It’s a perfect circle.”

“More likely cutting tools.”

She went to magnification again and the screen filled with a close-up of the hole. “On the money, McCracken. The edges are sliced evenly. Somebody made an entrance for themselves into that ship right here, and not too long ago either.” She looked up at him as he continued to lean over her shoulder. “The salvage team that preceded us here?”

“That would be my guess. But it seems a little deep for divers.”

“They could have ridden down in a manned submersible and emerged into the water only after the hole was made. You should see what some of the big salvage boys carry for equipment. High tech to the max. Strictly state of the art.”

“Bring RUSS up.”

“But he could fit through that hole. They left us a doorway inside that ship to see what they might have made off with. Don’t you want to—”

“Bring him up. We’ve got to get out of here.”

She sensed nervousness in his voice and went to work on the transistorized console immediately. An instant later RUSS had begun his rise and the Indianapolis had disappeared from view, returned to the isolation it had lived in for over forty-five years.

“You spoke of a weapon the salvage team came here to recover,” Patty said. “What you’re telling me is that this is the ship they pulled it off of.”

“At least tried to.”

“They were successful, all right, and if you let me send RUSS inside, I can—”

“Just keep bringing him up.”

“You’re scared. I can hear it in your voice. But what does this have to do with the weapon you’re searching for now? You said it yourself. The Indianapolis dropped its cargo off at Tinian. Her storage holds were empty when she was sunk.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that we’re not going to find out here in the middle of the—”

“Go on. Finish what you were saying.”

But McCracken wasn’t listening to her. His ears had detected a faint hum approaching in the distance.

“Get on your radio and call the naval station.”

“What?”

“Signal a Mayday! Give them our position!” Blaine commanded, because by then the hum had given way to a louder whirl, and his eyes picked up a dim speck on the open skyline — the shape of a plane slowly gaining size and substance as it soared toward them.

“Jesus Christ,” Patty Hunsecker muttered, already heading for the radio inside the cabin.

Blaine followed her inside. The plane was now only seconds away.

“What have you got for weapons on board this tub?”

“Saving the oceans is a pacifistic mission.”

“I was afraid of that….”

“Some spear guns, a flare pistol. That’s about it, I’m afraid.” Patty searched the band for the proper sending frequency with the mike pressed to her lips. “Guam Station, this is Runaway. This is a Mayday call. Repeat, this is a Mayday call. Our position is …”

The rest of her message was drowned out by the screech of the aircraft zooming over them and the explosion of water as a grenade dropped from it exploded just behind the Runaway’s stern.

“They’re trying to kill us!” Patty shrieked in the midst of her repeat message to Guam Station. In the small portal window before them, they saw the twin-engined plane bank for another pass.

“Very observant. Just keep sending … after you hand me those spear guns.”

Patty Hunsecker didn’t bother to protest, just rushed to a supply closet at the foot of the cabin stairs and yanked out a trio of state-of-the-art spear guns. They were plenty dangerous if wielded properly, but were meant to be used underwater and thus limited for this purpose.

“Runaway, we read you,” a voice squawked over the radio. “This is Guam Station, please come in. I say again, please come in. Over. …”

The attacking plane swirled in from the bow, and the portal exploded into flying shards of glass behind the bullets rupturing it. McCracken flung himself on Patty, discarding the spear guns long enough to tackle her to the floor. Above them the radio smoked and fizzled.

“Damn,” she moaned.

“Did you give them our coordinates?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean they heard anything.”

Blaine’s ears picked up the quickening of the plane’s engine as it came at them yet again, over the stern this time. Staying low, he pulled the spear guns toward him and was moving toward the cabin door when the next explosion rocked him. The Runaway shook like a ship struck by a great wave, then listed sharply to starboard. He slid toward the steps to the deck and just managed to avoid the ruined radio as it came flying down from its perch. He tried to grab hold of Patty, but she slipped away from him. He saw her head ram hard into the wall. She slumped over and Blaine propped her up against the bulkhead nearest the door to keep her safe from the water that would be rushing in momentarily.

McCracken was moving for the deck, spear guns in hand, when the plane swooped down again. The next blast took them on the stern, and the dread smell of smoke and loose oil flooded his nostrils. He knocked the cabin door open with his shoulders, and thick, black smoke flooded down into the cabin. The stern of the Runaway was taking on water, and the rearmost section of gunwale was even with the sea. All of RUSS’s hydraulic lift was now under the surface.

The plane was coming in again, from the side this time, and Blaine got his first clear look at what he was facing. It was a twin-engined job all right, a red and white Cessna 310, something any fool could rent at any flying outlet. An expanded fuel capacity and a stopover at the nearest island to fill it would have made this attack mission logistically simple. Though it was only a regular plane, the grenades and gunfire were coming from an open side window that was much too small to bother considering as a target.

But what else did he have?

The plane whirled closer, and Blaine grabbed one of the spear guns and rose to a kneeling position amidst the noxious smoke, which grew even blacker. He wanted to make sure the gunman saw him, so he would have the pilot drop even farther, which would make it easier for Blaine’s intended shot to find the mark.

The bullets pierced the gunwale and Blaine held his ground as shards of wood sprayed around him. He waited until the plane’s call letters were close enough to read before taking final aim with the spear gun. He never felt himself pull the spear gun’s trigger, and he knew he had done so only when the mechanism kicked briefly. The spent spear was still hurtling upward when the plane flew past with barely thirty feet separating it from the sea. But the spear missed the open window and clanged harmlessly against the Cessna’s frame.

Blaine watched helplessly as the plane banked round for another run. Seconds later it plunged for the Runaway again, machine gunner clacking off a burst that effectively pinned Blaine when he started to move to another area of the deck. A misthrown grenade exploded in the water and showered him. A few seconds were now his and he seized them, knowing what he had to do.

It was imperative to knock out the pilot, instead of trying for the gunman. He could never manage the task with a spear alone, though, especially fired at so difficult an angle. He needed something more, but where to find it? He pushed himself through the deepening pool in the stern and reached into the woodstrewn muck. His hand closed on a long, thick shard that had wedged in the remnants of the deck, a piece of RUSS’s titanium hydraulic mechanism. He held his breath and went under to achieve the purchase he needed to pull it free.

When he came back up with the shard in hand, the Cessna was diving directly for him again. The grenade was right on target this time, blowing out the top of the cabin and sending the top section collapsing inward along with the canopy housing Patty’s equipment. He smelled ruined wood and found himself clawing through water as the Runaway began to drop farther and faster beneath the surface. He passed the engine opening and could smell the hot stench of an oil fire struggling to burn under the floods of seawater pouring through the hatch.

Blaine reached his two remaining spear guns as the plane flew well beyond him and banked around for another attack run. He wrenched free the steel line from one of the spear guns and used it to fasten the six-inch shard of titantium steel from RUSS’s lift onto the point of the second spear.

Work, damn you! Work!

As the Cessna came in fast, the gunman misjudged Blaine’s position and his bullets plunged into the sea. Again the plane soared and its engine sputtered as the pilot brought it around again too steeply. Blaine made sure the steel shard was wedged tight to the spear as the Cessna came straight for him. This time he rose to meet it. No calculation of the physics was involved in the shot he was about to attempt, just a reliance on the feeling of when and at what angle he should pull the trigger.

The plane’s attack run brought it directly into the sun. The pilot would have to squint, at least some portion of his vision obscured by the blinding light off the Pacific. It was the final edge Blaine needed.

McCracken rose to a full standing position, the water now stretching all the way up to his thighs and rising farther by the second. He wanted this to appear to be a futile last stand. He wanted them to think he was resigned to death so they would descend all the way to finish him.

He imagined he could feel the heat of bullets singeing the air around him; it was impossible to tell how close the last few came before he brought the spear gun to his shoulder. The plane roared at him and he imagined he could see the pilot’s eyes, not squinting but bulging, and suddenly in surprise. The weapon was just fifty feet away when Blaine pulled the trigger.

The spear jetted out and seemed to wobble briefly under the extra weight of the attached steel shard before straightening out on line with the windshield. McCracken saw the spear ram home when the plane was just twenty feet over him. He did not see the windshield disintegrate on impact or the splinters of glass spray into the pilot’s face, which drove his hands upward from the stick. What he did see was the Cessna list and drop suddenly, falling as if knocked off the edge of a table. It struck the hard surface of the water and broke apart on impact without flames or smoke, its fuselage continuing to skim the surface as if on water skis, shredding pieces of itself along the way.

Blaine had that moment to enjoy his triumph and no more, for the Runaway was relinquishing its last grasp on life. By the time he got back to Patty the water was up to his stomach and was lapping at her chest in what remained of the cabin. Her pulse was still strong and he pulled her to him with an arm cupped lifesaving-style beneath her throat. Then he eased the two of them out the doorway and away from the sinking ship.

He swam only slightly, reluctant even then to abandon the vehicle that was their only hope to survive the fury of the sea. The life jackets were under ten feet of water in the cabin, and to make a try for them would mean leaving Patty alone. He knew that if Patty’s Mayday message had gotten through, even under the best of conditions it would be many hours before the rescue party dispatched from Guam could find and save them. Much too long in any event for him to maintain his hold on Patty and save himself. But it would be much, much longer if her broadcast of their coordinates didn’t get through at all. A widescale search would be required and that could take days. The sight of something white bobbing in the sea before him caught Blaine’s eye. His first thought was Shark! but his next was something else entirely. Holding tight to Patty, he paddled for the object.

At last he was close enough to reach out and grasp RUSS’s transistorized control panel. Bracing it against Patty, he fiddled with the joystick, then eased it toward him. He clung to hope, with nothing else to hold on to.

A slight churning in the water made him swing to the right. RUSS’s miniature conning tower crested through the surface and its automatic bilge pumps sent water through its vents. RUSS had the look of a small but majestic whale rising proudly from the sea. Still using the joystick, McCracken brought RUSS up close enough to pet it affectionately and then lay the unconscious Patty over its cylindrical bulk before he flung himself upon it. He ended up straddling the submersible as if it were a horse. Feeling it bob slightly beneath him, he made sure Patty was safe, maneuvered the joystick to head RUSS forward, and slammed the submersible’s sides with make-believe spurs.

“Hiyo, Silver! Away!”

Chapter 14

Amir Hassani stood in the center of the plush library deep within the fortified confines of the former Shah’s royal palace in the Niavarin district of northeast Tehran. A huge section of the room was dominated by bookshelves housing the royal library of first editions in all languages. There were four long shelves holding books of every conceivable color binding, in addition to the neatly layered stacks from floor to ceiling on the three walls enclosing the shelves.

But as his feet padded across the luscious deep red floral carpet, Hassani was aware of the books only from the scent of leather that filled his nostrils as he addressed his audience. The representatives of the various groups that had united behind him sat in seven high-back chairs upholstered in a red velvet that matched perfectly the red of the rug. At present they sat collectively aghast and dumbfounded by his report pertaining to the first stage of the plan that would ultimately see them seize power throughout the Mideast.

“The key to the success we are about to achieve,” he said, nearing the end of his presentation, “has been and will continue to be the level of secrecy I have employed in the operation that will set us on our way. There have been no leaks in security. We are poised on the brink of something awesome. It is within our grasp, and if we maintain the resolve to reach out for it, soon the state of Israel will cease to exist.”

The library hall was enormous, and the result was a background echo that would have unnerved his audience had they possessed the inclination to notice. Of the seven, three had come in military uniforms, three in traditional Arab robes, and one in an expensive western-style suit. They came from Syria, Libya, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. For himself, as always, Hassani had chosen a general’s uniform from the Revolutionary Guard he was still proud to be a part of. He wore it boldly, defiantly, as if refusing to acknowledge a war had ever been lost or, more likely, to illustrate the point that a more important war was about to be won.

“You speak of the destruction of Israel,” the Iraqi delegate said, “yet you continue to avoid the specifics. My concern is that we are being attentive here to the same kind of mindless rhetoric that preceded your unsuccessful campaign against my nation.”

Hassani did his very best to smile at the man he had been at war with just a few years before. His cap was tilted so low over his forehead that it shadowed his face all the way down to his beard. His eyes were narrow and seldom met those of the person he was addressing. He never allowed anyone a close look at him, as if any glimpse might strip away part of his aura. He was a specter who had never been interviewed by the Western press, which condemned him for being elusive and enigmatic, and for making a travesty of Iran’s post-war economic recovery.

But his smile was that of a man who saw what others failed even to look at. He had been one of the nation’s military leaders, a great favorite, during the war with Iraq. His militance had forced him to flee when the final, humbling terms of peace were agreed upon. He returned, however, during the military coup that followed Khomeini’s death and the failure of any of his successors to be installed as president of Iran with a promise to restore pride and hope.

“And is it not a great blessing,” he continued, only half looking at the delegate from Iraq, “that the strife between our nations is at last over so we can contend with our true enemy? No one supported the end of our war more than I, not because I wished to accept defeat, but because a greater victory, a victory with the word of Allah behind it, was on the horizon. Your final roles in this victory need not be made known until the last day is upon us.”

“But I have people to organize,” the Syrian delegate protested. “You promised us Israel would be ours to take in a vast sweep across lands that are rightfully ours.”

“Rightfully the Palestinians, you mean,” exclaimed the representative from the PLO. “Who, may I remind you, are supplying the largest complement of manpower to this invasion.”

“Now just wait a—”

“Gentlemen,” Hassani interrupted, raising his voice only slightly and turning his face rapidly from one man to the other, “listen to yourselves. You make the lot of the Jew easy by bickering with each other. Israel is not our greatest enemy; we are our own greatest enemy, and that in the past has prevented the miracle we have now accomplished by uniting our forces together. It also accounts for my reasons in continuing to hold back the final elements of our plan.”

“Are you saying you don’t trust us?” asked the delegate from Saudi Arabia, the single one dressed in a western suit.

“Of course I’m not. But for this operation to be successful I said from the beginning that I required your trust, your single-minded devotion to a cause that will only just be beginning when we overrun Israel. If one of you disagreed with the substance of my plan, you could leave here and destroy it. My holding it back is simply insurance against the exercise of such poor judgment. I would be foolish not to heed the lessons of the past. You will know what you need when you need to know it.”

“Hah!” the Libyan delegate laughed, rising to his feet and looking cramped in the medal-layered khaki uniform that was too tight on him. “We sit here and listen to a man who has already lost one war. I say to you, General, that you have accomplished your task by bringing us together and uniting us behind the common goal of Israel’s destruction. Now let us do it our way. Am I right?” he asked of the Iraqi delegate, searching for support.

“No,” the darker man said, “you are not.” The Iraqi’s eyes turned to Hassani who had stood rigid and silent through the Libyan’s tirade. “General Hassani did not lose the war. No man could have done more when faced against the might of Iraq.”

“Listen,” the Libyan responded, “I am not arguing intentions, only procedure. Comrades, together we have at our disposal millions of troops who can enter Israel from all sides and avoid the mistakes of ’67 and ’73. We can have them prepared within two weeks and leave words behind.”

“You would have them die for their cause?” Hassani asked.

“Of course I would! Any Arab would!”

“To die in pursuit of a dream instead of seeing that dream come to fruition? I think not. Our peoples need no more martyrs. I am not advocating denying Arabs the chance to fight for what they so richly deserve. But let them fight for certain victory instead of almost certain death at the hands of the cursed Jewish state.”

“Certain death to the Israelis as well,” the PLO delegate added.

“And they will use their bombs to obliterate all of us in a last desperate attack. What have we gained? Nothing, gentlemen, nothing at all. Overrunning Israel isn’t an end, it’s a means for all of you to come to power in your individual countries and unite the Mideast as it has never been united before. We have been mistaken in the past to be so narrow and shortsighted in our goals.”

“You continue to ignore the obvious,” the Saudi protested. “Israel may never have faced as strong an enemy as we are, but neither have we faced as strong an Israel. Nuclear weapons aside, her conventional arsenal, including jet fighters, is terrifying.”

“Granted, Mr. Ambassador. And to combat that force we now have in our possession a weapon that will render Israel helpless.”

“Why have we not been told of this weapon before?”

“There was no reason. Just as there is no reason to be any more specific today.”

“When then?” the Syrian asked.

“At our next meeting; Sunday, May fourteenth,” the general returned. “Israeli Independence Day. Three days before our invasion begins.”

On a street set back from the square in front of the royal palace, a van with traditional Islamic markings was parked. Such vans were a fixture in the streets of Tehran, though most couldn’t have said what they were, other than some version of public works.

In the back of this particular van sat a pair of men working amidst the most sophisticated recording equipment available in the world. Months before, the Mossad had managed to plant bugs throughout the royal palace, a new kind of bug with a built-in jamming device that made finding it by any kind of electronic sweep impossible.

In spite of all this, extraordinarily few dividends had been paid, as General Hassani spent little time speaking of anything they could truly make use of. The men in the van had not seen the delegates enter, so the meeting itself came as a complete shock. The man wearing headphones had started scribbling notes as was his routine, but quickly his hand began shaking too much to keep it up.

The bastards were going to destroy Israel!

The man wearing the headphones knew all the procedures and precautions. He knew he should have continued to listen patiently, even with the meeting winding down. But time had become the crucial factor in his mind, hours the issue now instead of days.

“Get us out of here!” he ordered the agent working the recording meters and levels.

“What?”

“Get behind the wheel and drive!”

“But we’re supposed to—”

“I don’t care! Do you hear me? I don’t care! Get me to the relay point. Get me there fast.”

Evira was regaining her strength. Monday had marked her third morning in the small room, and each had seen her awaken able to do more. She was exercising regularly on the dusty floor now, working flexibility back into her wounded side and neck.

Kourosh had been there with her breakfast each morning when she awoke, some bakery goods stolen from the first batch placed out in a store window six blocks away. Two mornings back he had also managed to find coffee, but it had cooled by the time he brought it up to her. She found herself following his flight through the cracks in the boards over the window, amazed at how he took to the streets as if he owned them. He bounded gracefully about with each gutter and sidewalk crack stored in his memory, long hair flapping about to the whims of the wind.

Kourosh had made a world for himself in the streets, but all the same he had become as dependent on her as she had on him. She knew he had failed to answer all her questions at once out of fear he might return from one of his jaunts to find her gone, no longer in need of him. Evira would have told him not to worry, except she knew it wouldn’t have changed anything. Trust was something that did not exist in the boy’s life. So their strange relationship was based on needs that were different for each but for the present were strong enough to keep them together.

She watched from the window now in expectation of his bouncy return down the street. Thus far he had provided her with several hastily drawn maps of the royal palace. Different sections were sketched on individual sheets of gray cardboard, drawn elaborately and exaggerated the way drawings in his comic books were. To see the whole of the palace and the sprawling grounds enclosing it, Evira needed only to arrange the cardboard sheets together like a puzzle. It was a huge white stone and marble structure built by the Shah less than twenty years before, surrounded by an outer retaining wall stretching fifteen feet high. Within the grounds, besides the palace there was a school, a guards’ barracks, and an older palace that had been transformed into office space with the construction of the newer one. The main entrance was inside the front wall, accessible only by a drive that circled round a hilly garden to prevent the gates from being rammed. There was a servants’ entrance located near the school on the northern side and a guards’ entrance near the barracks on the south.

The inside of the complex had been constructed with celebrations in mind. The front door opened onto a huge two-story ballroom, complete with skylights. A service entrance on the northern side opened onto the kitchen, with the formal dining room situated between this and the ballroom. The sleeping quarters on the second floor had been divided into separate wings for children and adults, the children’s bedrooms facing the east while the adults’ faced the south.

Nothing in the drawings gave her a notion as to how the palace might be penetrated. For this she would have to rely again on Kourosh, as she would for finding a time when the general was inside.

No longer requiring as much sleep to heal herself during these long hours, Evira found herself bored. She picked up one of Kourosh’s comic books and skimmed through it, amazed at how the same things appealed to children of all cultures. She had finished one and closed it when something caught her eye: a stamp of the bookstore where it had been purchased — Steimatzky, the largest chain in Israel. Strange. The anomaly seemed small, but Evira had learned long before that nothing was small. She inspected his horde of comics and found the same was true for all of them. It was no fluke. Every issue had been purchased at the Steimatzky chain.

Kourosh bounded into the room while she was still inspecting the comics, and she looked up at him embarrassed, as if she had violated his privacy.

“Superman’s my favorite,” he told her, and she noticed he had a tightly wrapped package beneath his arm. “I got a surprise for you.”

“A good one, I hope.”

“Wait until you see it!” He placed it atop a pair of crates and started to undo the string.

“Kourosh,” Evira called to him. “Who was it who taught you how to speak English?’

He turned to her and raised his eyebrows. “The students, like I told you.”

“Were they the same students who gave you the comic books?”

“Yes. Does it matter?”

“No. It’s just that, well, I know English, too. I can pick up where they left off.”

He turned excitedly from his chore of unwrapping her surprise. “Could you really?”

“It would be my pleasure. It’s the least I can do for you after all you’ve done for me.”

He looked suddenly sad. “I miss them.”

“Miss who?”

“The students.”

“The ones who were killed back at the plastics factory?”

“No, the ones who gave me the comic books, who taught me English. They haven’t been around in a while.”

“Say something in English for me,” Evira requested, even more intrigued.

Kourosh’s expression turned suddenly playful. “What do you want to hear?” he said in better English than she would have thought possible.

“Anything.”

The first few lines he spoke were enough to confirm what she suspected but could make no sense of. She was good with languages. Learning them, recognizing tone and intonation, came naturally for her. Which was why she was sure that Kourosh had learned his English from Israelis!

“How many students?” she broke in suddenly.

“Oh, plenty. All haters of injustice and poverty.”

“And you didn’t meet them until …”

“I don’t know. Six months ago, maybe nine. I met them through the others in the plastics factory.”

“But you don’t see them anymore.”

“I go but they are no longer there. They used to meet in a building not far from here, but it’s deserted now. It looks like no one was ever there.”

Evira was barely hearing him. A classic strategem was being employed. The insurgent cells in Teheran had been infiltrated by Israelis.

What have I stumbled upon here? Israelis posing as students in Tehran?

A large group that had settled in the area and then departed, possibly leaving some of their number in place.

“Do you want to see your surprise?” Kourosh was asking.

She nodded, and he went back to tearing the brown bag apart until he could gently lift the contents from inside and hold them out for her to see.

“What do you think?”

She looked at him speechless, for her means of access to the royal palace and Hassani were before her.

Kourosh was holding the uniform of a palace servant.

The two women approached the heavy front door of the stone house in Falmouth, England, unconcerned about being seen. Clearly the house was too isolated for neighbors to be a problem, and if someone had unexpectedly been in the vicinity one of them would have felt their presence earlier.

The smaller of the two led the way, the larger one bringing up the rear with the graceful menace of a jungle cat. She was exceedingly tall for a woman, six inches over six feet not counting the boots she was never without. She moved soundlessly, except for the slight creaking of her skin-tight leather pants and matching waist-length jacket. Her hair was cut close and sharply edged in punk style, with wisps jutting in every direction. The smaller woman had a tomboy haircut but was dressed like a schoolgirl in plaid skirt and green sweater. Her persistent smile seemed as false as the larger one’s ever-present scowl looked natural.

The door opened just as the two women began ascending the steps.

“What are you two doing here?” It was the puzzled voice of the Arab power broker Mohammed Fett.

“We have come for the boy,” the smaller one said.

“Ah, Tilly,” Fett said, “you are too late. He was moved to the other location two days ago.”

“Other location,” the taller one echoed.

“On whose orders?” Tilly asked.

“Rasin’s, of course.”

Tilly turned behind her to the large figure in black leather. “Lace, did you hear what he said?”

“Regrettable,” Lace said. She stepped forward until she was next to Tilly.

“What’s wrong?” Fett asked.

“Rasin sent us to kill the boy,” Lace told him.

“What?” the flabbergasted Fett exclaimed, and then he realized what had happened. “Evira! It must have been Evira’s doing. Of course! She must have — But I know where he was taken. I can send you there.”

Lace shook her head. “He won’t be there any longer.”

“You shouldn’t have been so careless,” Tilly added immediately.

“It’s all right,” Fett assured them, stepping out onto the porch. “I’ll alert my people. The boy will be found, I assure you.”

“Yes,” Lace said as her hands darted up from her hips and closed on Fett’s head. “He will.”

With that she lifted Fett effortlessly off the stone until his head was even with hers and his toes were dangling. He was still trying to speak when she twisted his head violently to the right. There was a snap, and his whole body spasmed. Lace pressed him close against her then to feel his final breath against her face as it fled from his dangling body. He was suddenly quite cold.

“Fool,” she said, and tossed him aside. She felt very hot. “Tilly,” she called.

The smaller woman opened the door and passed through ahead of Lace, who dragged Fett’s body behind her. She placed him in a chair and arranged him so he could watch what transpired with his dead eyes. There were only two things Lace enjoyed doing, and it was nice when they could be done in sequence, for that heightened the pleasure of both. She kissed the corpse once on the lips and turned to find Tilly already on the floor with her skirt and panties torn off and fingers stroking her vagina.

“It was beautiful, Lace,” she said to her friend, who was pulling off her leather jacket. “Beautiful.”

“Like you, Tilly. Like you.”

And then Lace was on top of her. Their mouths met in a hot passion as Lace’s hand replaced Tilly’s over her clitoris. The smaller woman’s fingers raked through the stubbly blond hair of her partner, as the dead eyes of Fett looked on.

“Beautiful,” they said almost in unison.

Chapter 15

McCracken and Patty Hunsecker spent six miserable hours atop RUSS before the navy search planes out of Guam finally spotted them late Monday afternoon. Blaine greeted their universal drop-wing signal that they’d sighted him with no small degree of relief; he had feared days more would pass before they found him. He also knew that Patty could not go much longer without medical attention. When she failed to come to during their first hours at sea, Blaine feared she had slipped into a coma.

Dusk was fast approaching when a jet-powered helicopter, adorned with navy colors, hovered over them and lowered a line. McCracken sent Patty up ahead of him and found her already being worked on by paramedics when he joined her inside the cabin.

“Guam,” he told the pilot with a healthy smirk. “And step on it.”

Patty Hunsecker regained consciousness in the early hours of Tuesday morning after being hospitalized at the naval base. Blaine was at her side when she awoke, glad for the opportunity to talk before he had to leave the island.

“Managed to save RUSS, though,” he said, after doing his best to apologize for what he had cost her. “Crew on the chopper wasn’t exactly overjoyed.”

“I’m sure you didn’t give them much choice.”

“I was a perfect gentleman about it. Merely threatened to break their fingers one by one.”

“How’d you explain to the Navy what happened?”

“Some double-talk about an explosion. It’ll hold long enough for me to sneak off the island.”

“Probably help if I backed you up.”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“Just tell me what you told them.”

When he was finished, Blaine’s tone turned apologetic. “When all this is over I’ll make sure the government picks up the tab to re-outfit you.”

“How do you plan on managing that?” she asked, skeptically.

“Let’s just say they owe me lots of favors. In the meantime, why don’t you rest up at Bel Air? Get reacquainted with your family. They really are concerned.”

“You spoke with them?”

“In your condition I thought next of kin should be advised.”

“You’re a bastard, McCracken.”

“Go home, Patty.”

“Stop running, you mean.”

He took her hand. “I have to go.”

“But you waited until I regained consciousness.”

“It was the proper thing to do.”

“And if it had taken another day?”

Blaine shrugged.

“You’re a strange man, McCracken.”

“I do my best.”

The Mossad chief, Isser, conferred with the prime minister of Israel at least once a day and often more frequently than that. Seldom, though, did they meet in person because of the security problems posed by Isser’s secret identity. The head of Mossad needed anonymity to perform his duties and never compromised that if it was at all possible.

Today it wasn’t. Isser had requested an in-person meeting and the prime minister was wise enough not to ask why. They met in the older man’s private study in his home. He had feigned illness earlier in the day to establish the ruse, and Isser was waiting for him when he stepped through the door, white hair flung wildly across his scalp and still wearing his bathrobe. The sickness might have been a ruse, but Isser felt saddened by how stooped his shoulders had become, how frail and old he looked.

“You’d better sit down,” the Mossad chief advised.

“I’m not really sick, remember? This is just a costume for the benefit of anyone who might be sneaking a peek.”

“That doesn’t mean you won’t be sick after I’m finished.”

The prime minister settled himself in a leather chair and Isser placed a cassette tape player on the table closest to him. He pushed the play button and spoke as he waited for the voices from Tehran to replace his. “This reached me from our team covering Hassani just hours ago. It speaks for itself.”

As if on cue, the voice of General Amir Hassani came on. He greeted the delegates seated around him, and Isser fast-forwarded to the spot where the discussion got interesting. The prime minister sat transfixed through it all, mouth dropping at the intent of the words. Near the end of General Hassani’s final speech, Isser switched it off.

“The ‘delegates’ were never named but I recognize their voices. I know them, don’t I, Isser?”

“Seven of our nation’s greatest enemies.”

“And they have come together to plan our destruction.”

Isser nodded. “Hassani has turned their fanaticism into ambition. Ambition makes a much more potent foe.”

The prime minister rose from his chair and paced nervously to the window, then started back. “My God, could this truly be?”

“You heard the tape, sir. We have no choice but to believe it can.”

“A mass invasion preceded by the employment of this … weapon. What weapon, Isser?”

“My men have no idea. You heard the tape. This was apparently the first mention even the delegates had heard of it.” Isser hesitated as if to catch his thoughts. “Hassani’s movements since he came to power have been strange. He disappears for days on end, weeks sometimes. We can only assume now that those disappearances are directly related to his unification of the militant Arab world and this mysterious superweapon he refers to.”

“A collection of madmen!”

“Poised along our very borders.”

“Any conventional attack we can put down, but obviously General Hassani has something more in store for us.”

“Most certainly,” Isser agreed. “And you are correct in limiting our problem to the general himself.”

The prime minister returned to his chair and sank into it, appearing to have been swallowed. “Go on.”

“The tape says their next meeting will be held on our Independence Day. Accordingly, I suggest we activate Operation Firestorm ahead of schedule.”

“The old bastards would never go for it.”

“Then we won’t give them a choice. We agreed to underwrite their bizarre plan on the condition that final control was left in our hands. I suggest we exercise it.”

“Easier said than done. The old men have planned everything to the minute. And you forget, my friend, that part of what attracted us to Operation Firestorm was the fact that traditional lines of communication were bypassed. The old men’s soldiers are divided into individual insurgent cells that will not connect with each other until the hour of Firestorm is upon us. Before that time, reaching them all to move up the timetable is not feasible.”

Isser wasn’t ready to give in yet. “I’ll pay Isaac another visit in Hertzelia. Maybe we can work something out.”

“You seem to get on quite well with the old war horse.” The prime minister chuckled, making fun of himself at the same time since he was not far from being a contemporary of Isaac’s.

Isser nodded. “I met with them last two days ago. Apparently their people alerted them to the next step Evira took after Ben-Neser’s failed attempt to take her in Jaffa Square.”

“Which was?”

“She went to Tehran to assassinate Hassani.”

“And the old men stopped her, no doubt. My God, they don’t miss anything when it comes to their mission. If they had left Evira alone, maybe Hassani wouldn’t have been around to chair that meeting we just heard. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“They stopped her, sir, but they didn’t kill her. She remains at large, although stripped of her contacts and probably on the run.”

The prime minister laughed again, only this time there was no trace of amusement. “Hah! Perhaps we should help her. Whatever threat we are facing begins and ends with Hassani. Eliminate him and … Achhhhh, what am I saying? We must look for other options anywhere we can find them.”

“One might be closer than we think.”

The prime minister leaned forward. “What are you talking about?”

“Back to Jaffa Square again. You read my report?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“My correspondence with U.S. intelligence has convinced me the American agent McCracken was operating on his own when he met with Evira. The picture remains vague, but the trail that led him here indicates he was somehow coerced.”

“By Evira? For what possible reason?’

“We don’t know. What we do know is that McCracken went to Japan from here and then to Guam.”

“Guam?”

“The specific destinations are unimportant. What is important is that he is obviously on the trail of something that Evira put him onto. And something is obviously stopping him from seeking outside help, at least openly.”

“What is your point?”

“Evira wanted McCracken for this job and only McCracken. And whatever she has set him after must have something to do with what took her to Tehran to kill Hassani.”

“You’re jumping from one assumption to another, Isser.”

“The key is those ex-soldiers that fired on the crowd in Jaffa. Assume they were there to kill Evira, perhaps McCracken as well. Then Evira reappears in Tehran intending to kill Hassani. The connection is obvious.”

“Not to me.” The old man sighed.

“Evira needed McCracken, and the reason must somehow be connected to her plan to assassinate Hassani. My hope is that if we can find out what McCracken is pursuing, the shadows of Hassani’s plan will gain substance. So McCracken pursues the answers …”

“While we pursue McCracken,” completed the prime minister. “I remember him and his men from the Yom Kippur War in ’73. Good luck finding him, Isser.”

“We have the Americans’ cooperation.”

“With McCracken, that may work against us.”

Yosef Rasin listened to Daniel’s report with growing impatience. Distance had already blurred a connection further disrupted by scrambling and rerouting.

“The boy was gone by the time the women arrived, you say,” Rasin commented when Daniel was finished, apparently more interested in that than in the failure to kill McCracken in the Pacific.

“It was Evira’s work. We have confirmed that much.”

“Interesting she would care enough about the boy to go to such trouble.”

“We have misjudged her before. Several times. Word is she is still at large in Tehran. Do you hear me? Tehran!”

“I hear you, Daniel. There is no reason to shout.”

“What if she knows the truth? What if she understands the true substance of our plan? What if she has figured out the—”

“She understands nothing! You are giving her credit for reaching conclusions she could not possibly have reached.”

“But she is still out there, still dangerous.”

“She is not the problem, Daniel. McCracken is the problem.” Rasin paused. “We can assume he found what he was looking for, of course.”

“Yes.”

“Then his next move is obvious. We must anticipate his questions, and where the answers to those questions will take him. Yes. Yes …”

“And then what?”

“Send our two women to America. We will leave his elimination to them this time. No mistakes that way, Daniel,” Rasin told him. “No mistakes at all.”

Chapter 16

“Morning, Hank,” McCracken said to the figure on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. And when Belgrade started to rise, Blaine signaled him back down. “No need for formality among friends. Besides, don’t want the contents of those file folders under your leg to blow away now, do we?”

“Jesus H., MacNuts,” Belgrade responded in his lazy South Carolina drawl. “You better be right about how important this is.”

“How many terrorists have I brought in for you, old buddy? This wipes the slate clean.”

“All the same, if they hang my ass in a sling, I’d like to think it was worth it.”

“Sling ain’t been made big enough to cover your ass, Hank.”

McCracken had reached Washington Tuesday evening and found himself with no desire to do anything but take a long shower. After the shower he ordered up a meal from room service and then felt he was ready to get Hank Belgrade out of bed. The call to his old friend, who now liaised between the departments of State and Defense and handled the dirty linen of both, had not taken very long. Belgrade hadn’t put up an argument but Blaine could tell from his voice that he was baffled by the information requested.

When Blaine finally did drift off to sleep, he dreamed of Matthew, of the first time he had seen the boy charging down the sideline of the rugby pitch. The pride warmed him in the dream, overcoming the raw cold of that damp day. But then the dream turned sour and he stood on the sideline looking for Matthew and not being able to find him among the other boys. And then John Neville was by his side with his head twisted all around and blood leaking from the sides of his mouth and not seeming to know he was dead.

Leave me alone, Blaine wanted to tell the corpse in the dream. It wasn’t my fault!

And even then he wasn’t sure what he was referring to, or which of the characters in the dream he was addressing. At last he woke up to a sky still dark, sweating despite the low temperature of the air-conditioned room and tangled tightly in his bedsheet. He took another shower, a cold one this time, and sat by the window looking out on the stillness of the Washington night.

He slid off to sleep again in the chair, where he was warmed by the sun as it began to stream through the window. He was awakened finally by his eight A.M. wake-up call. He showered and had barely dried himself when room service arrived with the breakfast he had preordered the night before. A fresh set of clothes was the next order of business, and Saks was more than happy to oblige.

At ten A.M. sharp a taxi deposited him at the Vietnam memorial, and he was drawn to the black granite display. The men who had died with him weren’t even listed here because they had been part of something so secret that its existence, and thus their passing, remained unacknowledged. How meaningless their deaths seemed in view of that. Blaine passed the notes squeezed into the cracks and the flowers left at the foot of the wall. He stole one last glance backward at the dark stone as he made his way toward the Lincoln Memorial where Hank Belgrade was waiting.

“Okay, MacNuts,” Belgrade said, making sure the file folders were safely stowed beneath one of his plump thighs as Blaine sat down next to him, “I got the dope you asked for. But I ain’t about to budge this leg until I know what in hell accounts for your sudden interest in the long dead Indianapolis.”

“As they say, the reports of her death were somewhat exaggerated.”

“Son, you may have made me a hero plenty often in these parts, but I tend to be in a bitch of a mood when someone disturbs my beauty sleep with one riddle and then greets me in the morning with another.”

“Then I’ll come right to the point. The Indianapolis is enjoying a second life.”

Belgrade’s eyes widened. “You mean someone’s found her?”

“Absolutely.”

“You talk like someone who’s—”

“Seen her? You bet that unslung ass of your, Hank. Not up close and personal, but on a sharp screen to be sure.”

“Where’s all this leading?”

“Long story. Since I know you’re tired, I’ll stick to the most crucial elements. Does the name Yosef Rasin mean anything to you?”

“Sure. Israeli militant who’d like to see every Arab in the world blown to hell.”

“He got to the Indianapolis ahead of me and pulled something out of its hull.”

“That’s crazy! Do you know what you’re saying?”

“I know what I saw. Neat hole had been sliced right out of her side to allow divers to pass through. They didn’t go in to raid the storage lockers, that’s a safe bet.”

“So what did they go in for?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“Sorry.”

“Then how about a weapon that can wipe out all the Arab nations while leaving Israel totally intact?”

“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” Belgrade asked, trying for a laugh that wouldn’t come.

“I’d hate to say deadly so under the circumstances.”

“If it was on board the Indianapolis, that means it was ours.”

“Yup.”

“Then what you’re saying is that she was carrying something else besides the atomic bombs.”

“That’s right.”

Belgrade looked genuinely scared by the prospects. “Okay. What exactly are you looking for?”

“If the Indianapolis was carrying something else, I wouldn’t expect the crew or even the captain to know. But someone had to do the loading, someone had to notice something.”

“She was loaded in San Francisco,” Belgrade said.

“But she stopped at Pearl Harbor en route to Tinian. The additional baggage could have been put on board there.”

Belgrade shook his head. “Nope. I’ve been over the logs. She stopped at Pearl only long enough to pick up the observers who were the original nuke groupies. We were about to make history, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“My guess is another kind of history was under consideration as well.”

“Our mystery superweapon, of course.”

“There you go.”

“Only the files, memos, and reports I just accessed make no mention of any, Blaine. It’s all here, just like you requested, but I can save you the bother of poring over it all by saying that even the most classified upper echelon memos say nothing about another weapon on board the Indianapolis.”

“Then they buried it, Hank. They were better at burying things in those days.”

“Not this good. They couldn’t have hidden the existence of the kind of weapon you’re talking about.”

“Unless they had their reasons.”

“And either way what you’re telling me is that this Rasin character has dug up what they tried to bury.”

“Like the fabled Phoenix, Hank. You and I know all about that bird from previous experience.”

“Let me give it to you in a nutshell, then,” Belgrade offered. “Of the original team of crew members who loaded the Indianapolis before she set out for Tinian, only one is still alive. Bos’n’s mate by the name of Bart Joyce who currently runs a restaurant up in Boston.”

“Anything else I should know about him?”

“Other than his address, that’s all I’ve got.”

McCracken looked at him closely. “Maybe on him it is. But I can tell from your reactions to what I’ve said that you dug out plenty more in your travels last night. Care to enlighten me?”

Belgrade hedged. “It’s all here. In the files.”

“How about just the highlights?”

Belgrade sighed and gazed quickly over his shoulder as if expecting someone to be there. “MacNuts, you opened up a can of worms with this thing big enough to fish the whole damn Mississippi. Follow me close now, ’cause I ain’t tellin’ this story twice. The Indianapolis dropped her bombs at Tinian and proceeded as planned to Guam. Then she got routed without explanation — or escort — to Leyte.”

“You mean they sent her out there with their secret weapon still aboard?”

“Your secret weapon, not theirs. Anyway she was sunk just before midnight and the captain responded by sending a distress signal. The SOS was picked up within five minutes at Tolosa and was taken to the commander personally.”

“He turn a deaf ear, did he?”

“And a blind eye. Ordered no reply to be made or response team sent. Told the yeoman to notify him and only him if any further messages were received.”

“He sent no help to a ship sinking in the middle of the Pacific?”

“Not a single vessel. Don’t ask me to explain that or how it was covered up at the naval board of inquiry.”

“Wow …”

“It gets worse. It’s a pretty safe bet that if the Indianapolis’s distress signal reached Tolosa, it reached plenty of other places as well, but no one acted, no one.”

“But Tolosa’s the only one we can be sure of.”

“Yes and no.”

“What do you mean?”

“That by the time the board of inquiry was held, the base commander was dead and the radio log at Tolosa destroyed. Everything else was hearsay.”

“How convenient …”

“I’ll leave the editorializing to you, MacNuts. Plenty of balls to bust here, for sure, and more to come. A day later a pilot flying four hundred miles out of Manila came upon pieces of the wreckage that had been adrift….”

“Don’t tell me, let me guess. His report was dismissed as well.”

“On the money, MacNuts, but remember to forget where you heard it.”

“None of this is classified anymore, though.”

“Sure. Except you’d have to know where to look, and there aren’t many people who do. In fact, you can count ’em on one hand.”

“How was it the surviving crew members of the Indianapolis ever got rescued?”

“A young pilot flying a Ventura caught sight of them on routine patrol and called for a rescue effort without going through channels.”

“Bold young man.”

“He was praised for it, but it’s my guess he had the boys in Washington seething. Only three hundred of the twelve hundred crew members survived, but a day or two more would have claimed them as well.”

“Seems to me, Hank, that our government was determined to make sure no trace of the Indianapolis ever made it back, crew included. That Japanese sub that sank her did Uncle Sam and Harry Truman a whopping big favor.”

“That’s a ludicrous proposition. No one even thought to consider it.”

“Until now,” McCracken told him.

To Evira the fresh air and sunlight had never felt more welcome on her face. After four days of being confined to Kourosh’s small room, she at last felt well enough to venture outside. Kourosh had learned that the general was hosting a gala dinner party for the highest ranking Iranian officials in his continued attempt to reunify the country. The dinner was scheduled for tomorrow, which meant Evira had only today to acclimate herself to the setting and prepare a plan. With the maid’s uniform the boy had stolen from a laundry, she could get inside through the servants’ entrance and blend with others on duty. She would have to go in weaponless, though, because a thorough search of anyone entering the palace grounds seemed a certainty. But finding a weapon did not concern her as much as the chance that one of the supervisors might realize she didn’t belong. She would have to hope the hectic pace of such a huge event would be sufficient cover.

That morning Kourosh had supplied her with heavy, drab clothes, including the typical shawl and veil of an impoverished Iranian woman. Many such women lingered outside the walls of Hassani’s palace these days. It caused more trouble to shoo the people away, so the Revolutionary Guardsmen let them stay most of the time.

The hardest task before them was getting there. The Niavarin district was three hours from Naziabad under present conditions. Kourosh led her on a long walk to the nearest bus stop, where her heart sank at the sight of the dozens in line ahead of them.

“Make believe you’re blind,” he instructed her.

“Blind?”

“Do it! Hurry! Before we’re noticed!”

Evira did her best. The boy pretended to be her son, and because of her handicap even the poor of Tehran let them go to the front of the line. Furthermore, once on board the jam-packed bus, they were given seats. Four more bus changes followed with long walks in between. Finding herself utterly exhausted, Evira could do nothing but rely on already depleted reserves of energy; she began to fear she would not have the strength to complete her mission.

Secretly she was hoping she and Kourosh would run into one of the “students” who had taught the boy English and given him those comic books. In the back of her mind the anomalous presence of significant numbers of Israelis in the city continued to nag at her. Who were they? What were they there for? Her sources in Mossad knew of no operation, and she was unable to imagine what a small complement of Israelis could accomplish anyway.

“Here we are,” Kourosh told her. “You can look up now. Nobody’s watching.”

Evira turned her eyes slowly upward toward the main entrance of the royal palace. From this far away, the fifteen-foot security wall obscured much of the white-stone structure. But the distance could not hide the fact that Kourosh’s drawings had not done justice to the scope of the complex. Her heart sank at the huge amount of territory, gardens and greenery, that lay between the wall and the palace itself. Already she was rethinking her plans. Making use of the servant’s uniform remained critical, but clearly she needed a new scheme to gain access.

What would Blaine McCracken do?

Take matters one step at a time, to begin with. He would think only as far ahead as the next corner. Alternatives always presented themselves. The key was to keep the mind open enough to seize the proper one.

“You said there were tunnels running beneath the palace,” she said to Kourosh. “What if you found me an entrance to them? Could I get into the palace that way?”

The boy shrugged. “If you didn’t get lost. The chances you would are too great. And even if you succeeded—”

“Here now,” a husky voice said from behind them, “what have we here?”

Evira went back into her blind woman act and grasped Kourosh’s shoulder.

“This blind hag your mother, young one?” a second man asked, this one bearded and smelly, bigger than the first.

“Lucky to be blind, too, she is, so she can’t see how ugly you are,” Kourosh responded.

The first one laughed and then the bigger one joined in.

“You’ve got lots of spunk, don’t you, young one? Need some discipline, though, you do.” He winked to his fellow. “And then we’ll see about your mother.”

His hand lashed out at Kourosh, knuckles whipping toward the boy’s cheek. At the last, the very last, Evira moved her fingers from Kourosh’s shoulder and grabbed the hand in midair. She twisted the captured wrist violently and the bone cracked in an instant, drawing a howl of agony from the big man. The smaller one lunged at her and Evira countered with a foot that lodged squarely and expertly in his groin, doubling him over.

“You shouldn’t have made her mad,” Kourosh yelled after them, already leading his blind mother down the street again.

Chapter 17

Bart Joyce’s establishment, the Cityside Deli and Restaurant, was located in the Quincy Market — Faneuil Hall complex of outdoor shops on Boston’s south side. The cab left McCracken off on Congress Street and he stepped out into an unseasonably warm May day. The area was packed with people, and Blaine noticed several milling about behind him near the monster truck Godzilla, which was displayed on a brick island to advertise the upcoming car show at the Boston Garden.

McCracken tempted fate with a daring dash in front of speeding vehicles and approached the statue of Samuel Adams that eternally greeted visitors at the entrance to the complex. It seemed to him that Adams’s granite eyes were leering at Godzilla across the street, as if resenting the monster truck for infringing on his territory. Blaine tapped the statue’s base tenderly to reassure it before heading for the cobblestone walk that would take him to the Cityside.

Faneuil Hall had become a model for other developments like it all across the country, combining strong historic elements with modern shopping convenience. The colonial buildings, restored to their original beauty, housed a variety of shops ranging from food and clothing to electronics and tourist knickknacks. Though Faneuil Hall is the title normally attributed to the entire complex, it actually makes up only a single large building just beyond Congress Street. Blaine passed it as he moved into the more expansive Quincy Market, formed by three parallel buildings separated by twin three-hundred-yard cobblestone walkways, each about thirty yards wide.

People moved in all directions around him, strolling, window shopping, emerging from stores with bags in hand, or relaxing on benches eating cookies or ice cream. Blaine continued to ease by them until a sign finally alerted him to the Cityside Deli and Restaurant over to his left in the center building. A large canopy stretched over a host of outdoor tables that looked across at the stores forming the South Market. Even at this midafternoon hour few vacancies could be found, and waitresses shuffled agilely in the aisles balancing trays of drinks and sandwiches.

McCracken moved up to the cash register and waited for a couple to pay their check before leaning over toward the hostess behind the counter.

“Is Bart Joyce around?”

“I think he’s in the office. Who should I say is here?”

“He won’t know me. Tell him it’s a personal matter and that it’s important.”

The hostess agreeably picked up a telephone, hit two numbers, and spoke briefly into the receiver.

“He’ll be right up,” she said, looking back at McCracken.

It was two minutes later when Blaine heard a voice at his side say, “Hi, I’m Bart Joyce. What can I do for you?”

Joyce might have traveled the world as a twenty-two-year-old bos’n’s mate, but today he was all Boston. His pronunciation of “Bart” sounded more like “Baaaaaht,” and he looked the part as well — big and stocky with a belly draped over his belt and the start of a seasonal New England tan showing on his bald dome and oversized jowls.

Blaine showed him the ID Hank Belgrade had furnished him to make such encounters simpler. “Can we talk somewhere, Mr. Joyce?”

Joyce inspected the ID and stiffened suspiciously. “There’s a table open over there by the chain.”

“Somewhere more private would be my choice.”

“This’ll do.”

Blaine followed Bart Joyce to the table squeezed between other patrons on one side and strollers down the South Market on the other.

“You got no business with me anymore,” Joyce snapped harshly when they were seated.

“Something changed.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“Why don’t you tell me about loading the Indianapolis in San Francisco prior to her departure for Tinian.”

Bart Joyce squeezed his features into a mean stare. “Wait a minute, what’s this all about?”

“It’s about exactly what I just asked you.”

He shook his head. “You’re no spook, least not in the traditional sense, but even if you were, you wouldn’t give two shits about something I did over forty years ago.”

“So what am I?”

“Some reporter or something digging for yet another story on the late, great Indianapolis. I eat assholes like you for breakfast. I’m gonna do you a favor and let you leave now on your own.”

Joyce might have been about to stand up. Instead of waiting to find out, McCracken jammed a hand across the table and pinned his forearm in place. What surprised Joyce more than the move itself was the fact that his arm was already starting to go numb from the pressure the man was giving it.

“Now why don’t you stay awhile? See, you were on the right track before. I am a spook, just not in the traditional sense.”

“What sense, then?”

“I work for myself. I normally only take on assignments I believe in. This time it was different. This time I was forced into helping some people I don’t particularly like, which tends to put me in a very bad mood.” Blaine’s eyes narrowed like a Doberman ready to attack and he gave Joyce just a little extra pressure on the arm. “You wanna know something, Mr. Joyce? You can kill a man in under two seconds with your hands if you know the right ways, and there are plenty of them. I could reach across the table, prove it to you, and be gone from here without anyone raising an eyebrow from their chicken soup. That’s not what I have in mind, though. I just want you to understand that I’m plenty pissed off already. People talking tough when I want to talk serious piss me off even more. But what gets me the most pissed off of all is innocent people dying for no reason, which is just what’s going to happen unless you and I have a heart-to-heart right now.”

Joyce threw the arm that was still his up in a gesture of conciliation. “Look, buddy, I got a past I’d rather forget and I get kind of ornery when strangers make me remember. Let’s start over fresh, okay?”

“Let’s start with the Indianapolis,” Blaine said, and let go of his arm.

Joyce shook the limb to bring the circulation back. “What do you want to know?”

“You were on the loading crew, correct?”

“Absolutely. Never been more fucking frightened in my whole life. I mean that was a hell of a thing we were loading, right? Fucking atomic bombs. Nobody knew what they were back then. Be like fucking death rays are now. We didn’t load the bombs themselves; lots of people think we did but we didn’t. All it was were the unassembled parts, most of them crated up real tight.” Joyce leaned a little forward, defenses lowering. “Now look, I know you’re probably here because somewhere along the line somebody told you there were more than two bombs on board the Indy. But trust me, there weren’t. And even if there were, they’re buried with her.”

“Somebody found her.”

Joyce’s face seemed to droop. “What?”

“Why the concern? Why worry if two bombs were all you loaded? History can certainly account for both of them.”

“Don’t play games with me, okay, mister? Lay it out plain and simple.”

“Fair enough. I know something else was loaded onto the Indianapolis besides those unassembled atomic bombs. I know because whatever it was was salvaged from the wreck about a year ago.”

“My God …”

“Plain and simple, here’s the story. There’s a madman in Israel named Rasin who’s got it in for all Arabs; good, bad, doesn’t matter a damn to him. He’s going to kill them all without harming a hair on his country’s chinny chin chin with that other weapon you loaded onto the Indianapolis.”

“I didn’t load it!” Joyce blared loud enough to draw attention from nearby tables. “Hey, you want to go somewhere more private?”

“This is doing just fine. Keep talking.”

“I helped load the bombs, I’ll admit that, but that’s all I loaded. The bunch of us felt like part of history, so it was only right we go out and celebrate ’fore we set out the next morning. Night falls and five of us get lucky and find broads. War freaks these women turn out to be. Figured we could be sure of an easy fuck if we took them to see the ship carrying the atomic bombs.”

“Word treason mean anything to you then?”

“Mister, only word in my vocab that night was horny. What was the harm in it anyway? The women were too smashed to remember a damn thing besides me slamming ’em hot and heavy.”

“Get back to the ship.”

“Yeah, that’s just what we did. Middle of the night, we brought them to the dock. The Indy wasn’t due to set off until dawn. Trouble was, the dock was swarming with people, lots of whom I didn’t recognize and a few others I didn’t want to.”

“Why?”

“Get to that later. Anyway, what I saw was a bunch of guys loading something else on board the ship.”

“Loading what?”

“Cannisters. One at a time. Real careful they were.”

“Describe these cannisters.”

“I don’t know, ’bout the size of scuba tanks I guess. All silver-gray and smooth, marked with some kind of symbol.”

“What kind of symbol?”

“Looked like a funny kind of v. Yeah, I think it was the Greek letter gamma.”

“Get back to those people you preferred not to recognize….”

“Hey, I had good reason. One of them walked with canes in both hands. Even drunk, that’s something you can’t forget. He looked like he was supervising everything, but I’ve never seen a more miserable face in my life. I didn’t see it again until a couple years later, and I don’t mean on no baseball card, either.”

“Go on.”

“His picture was on the front page of the paper. Story was about Nazis, infamous Nazis still at large.”

“Who did the story say he was?” Blaine asked after a long pause.

“A scientist. Went by the name of Bechman. Don’t know anything else about him, ’sides the obvious. We musta needed him for something real big, and whatever it was I figure got placed on the Indy next to the bombs.”

“So you kept your mouth shut.”

“Damn straight. I was plenty scared, too. Here it was we all thought we’d loaded the most dangerous weapon man had ever come up with only to come back at night to see something else being loaded in secret. Shit, at least we knew what the A-bombs were supposed to do. Had no idea what the shit in those cannisters was capable of, and none of us were about to let on we had any idea they were on board. I was the only one knew about the cannisters who made it out of the water alive and I still never told, even after …”

“After what, Bart?”

“I’ve said enough.”

“Not nearly.”

The man’s oversized jowls puckered with fear. He leaned farther over the table and lowered his voice.

“You gotta understand nobody would’ve ever believed me. I had no proof.”

“Go on.”

“Thing was, in the water we got ourselves all linked together in tight circles. Could fall asleep and not drift off that way. We kept regular watch for the sharks. I was right next to the captain himself, dragged him into our circle with my own two hands. A few minutes later the moon pops out and his eyes go all kind of funny. We were facing the same direction so I could see the same thing he did: a conning tower, Mr. Spook, from a submarine.”

“The Indianapolis was sunk by a sub.”

“Sure. Only this one was one of ours.”

Chapter 18

“Do I have to spell it out for you?” Bart Joyce was saying, the floodgates fully open now with his secret released at last. “Fucking American sub sunk our ship. Coulda been an accident, except she surfaced and still left us there. They wanted the lot of us dead, Mr. Spook, and they did everything they could to make sure that was the only way we’d be found. Our own sub, damn it, our own government…”

Joyce’s voice tailed off and Blaine’s mind raced ahead. He was stunned but somehow not surprised. Joyce had supplied the missing piece to his puzzle, and out of the madness came the sense. The Indianapolis had indeed sailed from San Francisco with something other than A-bombs: cannisters only a select few knew about, marked by the Greek letter gamma. Obviously the intention was to unload them at Tinian in addition to, perhaps instead of, the bombs. But equally obvious was the fact that something had happened en route that required a change in strategy. The cannisters had never been unloaded and the Indianapolis had been sunk to conceal their existence.

But why?

The key was Bechman. Joyce remembered him as a Nazi scientist, and it was common knowledge the Nazis were advanced far beyond the allies from a weapons standpoint. The end of the war, in fact, became a battle between the Russians and Americans to gain their services. But with Bechman the Americans must have had reason to jump the gun, and that reason could only have been the gamma cannisters. Whatever they were, their very existence had called for all traces of the Indianapolis and her final mission to be buried forever.

“I never told anyone,” Bart Joyce was saying, “I never—”

Joyce’s head snapped backward suddenly, and a red circle appeared in the center of his forehead. He toppled over as if someone had yanked the chair out from under him. Blaine’s dive took him to the ground ahead of Joyce’s corpse, and ahead of the next burst which shattered the empty glasses on the table top. Blaine brought the table down over him to use for cover while those patrons nearest him scattered screaming. Traveling on a regular flight from Washington with no luggage had made bringing a gun along impossible without attracting undue attention to himself. He had never felt more helpless.

The automatic fire continued to dig chasms out of the table, causing pandemonium through the restaurant and in the cobblestone walkway beyond it. Whoever the shooter was, he was good. He knew enough to keep his concentration on his target through everything. His mistake had been not going for McCracken first.

The bullets ceased thudding into the wood over him, and Blaine stayed low at the feet of the panicked crowd that was rushing everywhere at once. Find the origin of the shots and he would find the shooter. The pyramid-shaped roof of the South Market thirty yards across the cobblestones was the only possible location. Blaine climbed to his feet and scanned the roof-line but found no sign of anyone perched there.

The gunman would be on his way down then, to attempt an escape or perhaps another try at Blaine. McCracken’s eyes swept across the scene at store level and encountered the shape of a small man emerging rather calmly from one of the shops. A second glance told him it was a woman wearing a boyish haircut, tight jeans, and a leather jacket. She seemed unfazed by the panic swarming around her.

Blaine picked up his pace through the crowd, intending to cut the woman off. Sirens were already screaming as she walked briskly toward the Congress Street side of the marketplace. She never so much as gazed back, so Blaine had no chance to meet her eyes as he fought his way through the surging crowd.

So intent was his focus on this woman that he almost missed the second. His first glimpse was of a figure in black rising out of nowhere and the crowd suddenly spreading before her twenty-five yards from the street. He saw the machine pistol next and dove headlong behind a steel divider as the rat-tat-tat split the air. The bullets clanged and ricocheted wildly. Glass from a nearby flower shop shattered and sprayed the air. The panicked crowd charged everywhere in search of escape. McCracken ran low to the ground as he tried to close the gap between himself and the shooter.

A pair of police cars spun to a halt on Congress Street, and the officers lunged out with guns drawn.

“Stop! Police!”

McCracken heard that command just before the woman turned and emptied the rest of her clip in their direction. One of the cops was blown backward instantly, while the other managed a single shot before his chest was shredded. McCracken was back on his feet now, slithering forward behind what meager cover he could find. The taller woman tossed the machine pistol aside as another police car screeched to a halt before her. The officers had barely started to jump out when the smaller of the women yanked a nine-millimeter automatic from inside her leather jacket. She lunged forward, firing repeatedly, even after the policemen had fallen. She stopped only when she drew even with her much larger companion.

The big one turned and Blaine fixed his stare on her. She was decked out in black leather and had blond stubble for hair. She was huge, maybe a couple inches under seven feet if you included her boots.

McCracken thought of the killers of John Neville and Henri Dejourner and went cold.

These two! It had to be!

They must have read his expression, because before Blaine could get near them, the huge one with spiked hair led the other toward the closest abandoned police car and lunged inside. These women had orchestrated this entire murderous episode, and had earlier killed a pair of men he liked. What’s more, they had kidnapped Matthew and might thus be his only chance of finding the boy if Evira had failed to recover him from Rasin’s clutches.

The women in the police car headed into traffic on Congress Street, bearing onto North Street even as McCracken stood there. He began to sprint futilely in their direction. A vehicle was what he needed, and the perfect one for the job loomed directly before him.

Godzilla bucked and thumped like a horse restrained for too long. A driver who’d been about to ease it onto a nearby carrier had abandoned the monster truck with the gunshots and left the door open. A deft leap brought Blaine into the cab and he slammed the door behind him. The cockpit looked not much different from an ordinary pickup truck, except for a series of additional gauges mounted upon the dashboard. What was new to him was the notion of driving from a vantage point over a dozen feet off the ground.

McCracken shoved Godzilla into reverse, and the monster truck’s long-idling engine greeted the move with a huge thrust backward that threw him toward the dashboard. After fastening the shoulder harness, Blaine spun the wheel for North Street, intending to veer directly across Congress in pursuit of the police car comandeered by the two women. He shifted into drive and gave the monster truck some gas.

Godzilla shot forward as a pair of police cars from opposite directions spun into screeching skids that brought them hood to hood directly before him. Blaine was in no mood or position to change his course at that point. The murderous women already had a headstart on him. Blaine simply kept the champion car crusher going toward the pair of police cars.

He felt only a brief jolt as the crusher’s Alaskan tundra tires rolled upward onto the hoods, one tire for each. Then Blaine felt a settling and heard the sound of twisting, collapsing metal. Godzilla’s progress never stopped. Its back tires finished the job its front ones had started before the stunned police could even draw their guns. He managed a glance in the rearview mirror and saw the police cars compressed into neat rectangles in the center of Congress Street as he steamed down North Street.

Faneuil Hall was on his right and the modern Bostonian Hotel on his left as he started his pursuit of the murderous women. Where there was no room in the pulled-over traffic to maneuver, Blaine created it. Fenders, doors, even entire front or rear ends were destroyed as a result. McCracken for his part barely felt a single impact, and only occasional glances in Godzilla’s rearview mirror revealed the carnage left in his wake.

He turned right onto Surface Road beneath the Route 93 overpass and was caught instantly in a hopeless snarl of traffic. Frustration had just started to set in when he noticed a single police car in the midst of it, the only squad car that was heading away from the chaos instead of toward it.

The women! It had to be!

He had them now. No reason to rush or be too bold. Just lay back and make his move once traffic started going again.

Who was he kidding? He was behind the wheel of a towering monster the women had certainly noticed by now. They would know it was him. They would know because they were professionals.

As he formed that very thought, traffic started flowing again and the police car veered instantly right onto Central Street at the very rear of the marketplace.

“Come on!” Blaine urged the traffic before him, losing his patience at the last second and forcing a pair of cars into a wild spin when he cut between them to continue his pursuit.

He caught a glimpse of the squad car as it grazed the rear of a delivery van that had backed up blindly. The driver had just lunged out, arms raised, when Godzilla slammed his van sideways from its path. The vehicle rocked as if weightless and McCracken continued on his way after the women, who had turned onto Milk Street from Central.

Milk Street was strangely free of traffic, but India Street adjacent to it was jammed. The women had at last activated their siren to clear their path, which was much too narrow for Godzilla to manage without endangering the lives of dozens of motorists by crushing their vehicles. That left him with only one option.

Blaine spun Godzilla to the right and drove the tires on its driver’s side up onto the row of cars parked bumper to bumper along the street, while his passenger-side tires balanced precariously on the sidewalk. Parking meters toppled like twigs before him. Water sprayed from a ruined fire hydrant, and McCracken reached for the windshield wiper switch. He kept the fleeing police car in sight as best he could as it passed back beneath the Route 93 overpass en route to Surface Road once more.

A ramp leading onto the expressway was dead ahead. The women were heading toward it now, knowing full well there was no way he could catch them on the open road. No way at all. Blaine did the best he could to give chase, honking his horn to keep Surface Road passable and alert unsuspecting drivers to what was coming.

It seemed futile. The squad car was gone up the ramp by the time McCracken pushed Godzilla through a red light after it. Expressway pace would provide the women the advantage they needed, with the monster truck’s size and poor visibility certain to cause chain collisions that would create a hopeless snarl. Still Blaine gave it gas and reached the head of the ramp. Frustration simmered within him, and he was about to pound the windshield when the greatest sight ever greeted his eyes:

Traffic, enough to keep the squad car from getting up speed. Already the women were opting for an immediate exit ramp labeled “South Station.” Blaine felt recharged. Godzilla filled out the width of an entire lane, but that was plenty enough to keep him on the trail. Cars before him blindly tried for lane changes left and right, and the monster truck claimed their vacated spots and rolled on to take whatever else it wanted. He motored onto the exit ramp with the squad car dead ahead, heading toward an area of heavy construction with a right down Summer Street.

Godzilla followed its quarry from Summer onto High Street by way of a short cut across Bay Bank Plaza which sent pedestrians scurrying. To keep close on High Street, Blaine mashed parked cars where space demanded. Whatever time was lost in the effort was made up by the constant weaves the squad car was forced to make to avoid cars. They came at last to Bedford Street and crashed through a sawhorse without seeing the telltale sign:

Construction on a water main had shut down Bedford Street from end to end, but the squad car had already committed. The street was totally torn up; it was an obstacle course of deep holes, sawhorses, and open ditches.

The women’s car took an awful beating, but Godzilla negotiated the conditions easily. McCracken felt himself being jolted upward in his seat time and time again, but he was gaining, damn it, he was gaining!

Just a car-length away, he saw the huge blonde lean out the passenger window and fire pistols with both hands. Godzilla’s windshield exploded and Blaine ducked low to avoid the spray of glass. The next series of shots clanged off the crusher’s grill and Blaine knew the blonde was now aiming for the tires or the radiator. But the tires were solid all the way through and the radiator reenforced with extra layers of steel.

Feeling confident, Blaine rose just enough to see over the dashboard and jammed Godzilla’s accelerator all the way to the floor. The crusher’s engine roared as it shot forward with a burst of speed that brought its monstrous tires within a yard of the police car. Then an unmarked ditch off to the right caught one of Godzilla’s tires. Blaine felt the sudden drop with a jolt. He gunned the engine but the monster truck was caught at a difficult angle even for the 640-cubic-inch engine to power out of. As the squad car struggled down the rest of Bedford Street, Blaine rocked Godzilla between forward and reverse. At last the monster truck jumped free. Blaine gunned the engine and roared the final stretch down Bedford Street to where it ended directly before Lafayette Place. He had either a left or right to take now, and he was certain the women had turned right.

Soon after swinging onto Chauncy Street, he saw the tail of their squad car screech into another right. McCracken sped past traffic, which pulled over in front of him, and followed the women down Summer Street. The traffic was heavy, but by blowing his horn to alert drivers to his presence he succeeded in having enough cars pull over to keep his path cleared.

When he passed between South Station and the Federal Reserve Building, traffic suddenly thinned. He had the squad car dead in his sights. Only a hundred yards separated them, but the women were speeding away from the field, seizing the open stretch down Summer Street for their final escape.

McCracken was fighting with Godzilla for more speed when ahead he saw an eighteen-wheel tractor trailer backing slowly across the width of Summer Street. It was obviously having trouble negotiating a delivery slot in a building on his side of the road. The squad car came to a halt behind the eighteen wheeler, trapped once and for all.

Seeing his chance, Blaine darted into the empty lanes of opposing traffic and sped forward. He sideswiped one car and then squeezed between two others. Suddenly the police car was directly before him. He gave Godzilla all the gas it would take and felt it shoot forward as though eager for the task ahead.

The monster truck mounted the squad car, and trunk, roof, then hood gave way like plastic. A series of pops followed as jagged metal pressed into the tires and flattened them. The police car sunk even lower. Godzilla continued to roll forward.

At last the crusher touched pavement again and Blaine threw Godzilla into neutral and jumped down. He reached the driver’s door, ready and eager to deal with the women inside.

A frightened Boston police officer with his face bleeding from a host of cuts gazed up at him in abject terror. And all McCracken could do was melt innocently away, wondering where exactly it had been that he’d lost the women.

Chapter 19

“You don’t mind me saying, Mr. M., you look, ayah, like fucking hell.”

McCracken almost asked the harbormaster, with his sun-wrinkled flesh, sunken eyes, and liver-spotted hands, who was he to judge? But instead he just shrugged and settled farther back on the bench to wait for the ferry to take him across the bay to Great Diamond Island.

“Been a slow night, has it, Abner?”

“Was till near about two hours ago. Someone at the Estates must be having a party I’d say, ayah.”

Blaine forced his shoulders upright at that. “Lots of people make the trip over?”

“Near ’bout a dozen, ten anyway,” the harbormaster replied. His faced angled in its typical quizzical expression. “Funny thing now that I think about it, they were all men. Three cars, three or four to a car.”

“Shit,” McCracken said, standing up.

“Huh?”

“How long ago, Abner?”

“Couple hours, like I said.”

“How long exactly?”

The harbormaster scratched at a wrinkled, sunken eye with a finger blackened with dirt. “Five runs back. Say two-and-a-half hours.” His eyes bulged suddenly. “Hold on. You’re gettin’ that look you had when you made that man drive his car into the bay. Took me a half day to dredge it out. Don’t make me do that with three cars, not three cars, please!”

“Don’t worry, Abner, I’m not in the mood.”

Blaine’s mind was working fast. After abandoning Godzilla, he had stolen a car from the Boston Aquarium parking lot and driven straight through to Maine. He arrived at the harbor two hours past sunset, which would have given the women plenty of time to have arranged for a team to be waiting at his island condominium. They would have expected him to head back home under the circumstances. The only anomaly was that they hadn’t left any of their number here at the harbor. Then again, if they tried for him here and missed, he was gone. If they went for him on the island, their chances would be better and his opportunity for escape far worse. Should have been more careful with Abner, though, maybe sent the cars over one or two at a time to avoid suspicion. They’d learn their lesson when he didn’t show up.

“Still got that double-barrel twelve gauge, Abner?” he asked the harbormaster.

“Mr. M., you promised you wouldn’t—”

“I’m not gonna use it on them, Abner. I just need a little insurance. Like to borrow it, if I could.”

The old man eased himself behind the counter and drew the iron relic out. “Take care of it now. It belonged to my daddy.”

“Which makes it older than you.”

“Ayah. Considerably.”

“Terrific.”

Abner handed it over. “Tip you gave me last Christmas more ’an entitles you to the favor, but if you’re in trouble, Mr. M., seems a mite better to sit here awhile and think it out, I’d say.”

“No can do, Abner,” Blaine said, already making his way for the door.

“Got someplace you gotta be?”

“Just going to visit a friend.”

McCracken made sure to announce his presence on Johnny Wareagle’s land by breaking selected trip wires in a pattern that could only be purposeful. The last thing he wanted to chance after coming this far was an arrow from one of Johnny’s many bows.

“How unnecessary, Blainey,” Wareagle said after McCracken stepped through a door that had already been opened for him.

“Good evening to you, too, Indian. Suppose you were expecting me.”

“For several days now. The disruption of your manitou is brighter than a beacon. I could feel you drawing closer and closer, almost since the very time we parted ten days ago.”

“I’ve seen plenty of the world,” Blaine told him, “some of which hasn’t been seen by anyone for over forty-five years.”

Wareagle looked at him more closely.

“It’s a long story, Indian. And right now I’ve got to tell the last part of it to someone else. Let’s take a ride.”

McCracken filled Johnny in on everything that had occurred over the past ten days, from the details of Matthew’s kidnapping to his travels to Japan by way of Israel and then, literally, into the Pacific Ocean. The Indian had been concerned by the cryptic message received the week before with instructions of what to do in the event of Blaine’s death. He claimed he paid it little heed since he knew McCracken would be returning.

“I guess what it comes down to, Indian,” Blaine said at the end, “is that the world has never mattered less to me. It’s just one life I’m out to save this time, and if I can’t get the boy out of this alive, then stopping Rasin won’t mean shit.”

“But you would try anyway, even if not for the boy.”

“A couple of years ago for sure. Today I don’t know. What all this has shown me is whatever I’ve felt I’ve been lacking these last few months is purely a state of mind.”

“Everything is a state of mind, Blainey, and that state of mind affects our state of being as well. When there is harmony between them, we are content with our lives. When one is out of balance, we search blindly for that which can be found only inside ourselves.”

“Should I take that to heart?”

“The boy became the stitching which rejoined your two states together. That is what has changed in you these past months, but even I did not realize it clearly until now.”

Blaine felt himself nodding. “It was like an emptiness. I felt it go away that day I spent with him in London, and even when those women kidnapped him the emptiness didn’t return.”

“Because in either case the boy supplied you with purpose. Through all our years in the hellfire and beyond, purpose is what maintained harmony in the triangle of your mind, body, and spirit. The betrayals — and your acceptance of them — stole that purpose away and cast you on your own, where you had to create your own purpose. Sometimes the justifications came up short. You became an orphan of your own lost emotions. But then you saw yourself in the boy and that changed everything.”

“He’s mine, Johnny. In this whole crazy life I’ve led he’s all I’ve got that’s really mine.”

Wareagle looked at him from the driver’s seat of the Jeep slicing through the night. “No, Blainey, he is but another object to pursue in striving to find meaning and purpose in your life. You said so yourself. Think of the original hellfire that first brought us together. We were not concerned with victory as much as continuation. One mission mattered most in that it set the stage for another. They called it the Phoenix Project after a bird who rose from its own ashes, in the hope that our war effort could do the same. But as we strove toward this end, our own spirits were being reduced to ashes.”

“So what are you telling me, to stop reaching, to stop striving?”

“I am telling you nothing, Blainey, except that if it hadn’t been the boy, it would have been something else. That is neither good nor bad, just what is necessary for your existence. That is what you must understand.”

“Let’s make a phone call,” McCracken said as a gas station appeared before them.

Hank Belgrade was less than happy to hear from him. “My phone may be tapped,” the State and Defense Department liaison told him. “Keep talking at your own risk.”

“Now that’s no way to greet an old friend, Hank.”

“Look who’s talking. When we met in Washington, you could have told me you’d been flagged.”

“Flagged? Again? What color this time?”

“You mean you didn’t know? Christ … The code is blue.”

“Well, that’s something to be thankful for. I’m used to red.”

“Wait a minute, you really didn’t know about this?”

“First I’ve heard of it. Who’s after me?”

“Can’t tell for sure but I’m proceeding on the notion that they know about our meeting and are just playing it cool in the hope that we do lunch in the near future.”

“Only if you’re buying.”

“They don’t know about the material I furnished you on the Indianapolis. That’s something anyway.”

“Do they know about Boston, Hank?”

“What about Boston?”

“I met with Bart Joyce, who had a chance to be most enlightening before a pair of ladies eliminated his need for a government pension.”

“What in hell are you talking about?”

“Watch “Headline News” at the top of the hour to hear all about it.”

Belgrade hesitated. “You didn’t call me to discuss my viewing habits.”

“Nope. See, there’s another favor I need….”

“You gonna put my kids through college if they boot me out of government service?”

“By the time they find out they’ll be patting me on the back again and you, too.”

“What is it this time?”

“An extension of our original discussion. Something else was indeed loaded on board the Indianapolis, cannisters marked with the Greek letter gamma. Bart Joyce saw them being loaded. A rather interesting gent was supervising the work who happened to be an ex-Nazi scientist named Bechman.”

“Wait a minute, MacNuts, you’re talking way out of my league now. Ex-Nazis working for our government? Why don’t you call your friends at the Gap?”

“I don’t have their number handy. Besides, I don’t feel like breaking anyone new into this story. Somebody’s after me, remember?”

“But you don’t know who or why.”

“Well, I’ve got a couple ideas….”

“You want me to find out what happened to Bechman?”

“At least what he may have been working on in our behalf during those last days of the war.”

“This stuff may be buried too deep for me to dig up.”

“I’ve got faith in your ability to shovel.”

“Yeah, well, you never were much of a judge of character.” Belgrade paused. “I know you’re on the trail of something big here, MacNuts, and that’s good enough for me. But it would make my life a little easier if you gave me some reason to share your concern.”

“No sweat, Hank. See, it goes like this. If what Joyce said is true, then I’ve got to figure we loaded this gamma secret weapon with the full intention of using it on the Japanese either in addition to or instead of the A-bombs. Only something stopped us. And something led to a decision to sink the Indianapolis and cut our losses.”

“What?”

“Joyce saw the sub that did it. The story about the Japs being responsible was a cover. It explains why no escort was ordered, why the distress signal was ignored, why everything possible was done to make sure the survivors weren’t rescued.”

“Holy shit …”

“Now Yosef Rasin is in possession of the superweapon we sunk the Indianapolis to keep secret, and I’ve got to ask myself what happens if he doesn’t know what stopped us from using it when we had the chance. That clear enough for ya, Hank?”

“Crystal. Now get off the phone so I can make some calls.”

“Stay away from the window,” the man advised, reaching for the boy’s shoulder.

“Why?” Matthew demanded as he twisted from the man’s grasp.

The man pulled away as if his hand had been burned. After removing Matthew from Fett’s charge, he and the two others assigned to the boy had expected a response on his part of fear, obedience, submissiveness. What they had gotten was obstinance and rebelliousness.

“It’s safer,” the man said. “That’s all.”

“From who?”

“People who want to hurt you.”

“I don’t have to look out the window to see them,” the boy shot back. He continued to gaze stubbornly outward.

“We’re not your enemy.”

“That’s what the man you took me from said.”

“He was lying.”

“And you’re not?”

The man reached across him and yanked down the shade.

“Why don’t you just let me go?” the boy asked matter-of-factly.

“It’s for your own good.”

“The other man said that too.”

“This time it’s the truth.”

Matthew tilted his head back toward the covered window. “He’ll find me, you know.”

The man smiled, glad at last his reassurance might mean something. “I promise you he won’t. You don’t have to be scared.”

“Not the Arab,” the boy snapped disparagingly. “Blaine McCracken. When he finds out what you’ve done, he’ll find me. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when he gets here.”

The man looked at him dumbfounded. He had not had much experience with children, and if this was any indication of what they were like, he had no desire to have any experience with them again. He watched the boy swing arrogantly back to the window, and with a quick flick of his hand the shade spun from the glass again.

“He’ll be coming,” Matthew assured. “And it won’t be long now either.”

“You cheated! I take my eye off the board for one second and you make an extra move!”

“Putz,” Abraham snapped back at Joshua, waving an arm before his face.

“You took three of my men with one jump from a spot you shouldn’t have been in.”

“You forgot I moved there move before last. You forgot and you want to blame me because you’re going soft in the brains.”

“Putz,” Joshua snarled this time.

Sitting in the shade outside the house in Hertzelia, not far from where the two old men were playing checkers, Isaac and Isser caught pieces of the argument.

“Are they always like this?” the head of Mossad wanted to know.

“You want them — we — should change after all these years? We’re soldiers, Isser, and nothing frustrates soldiers more than age.” He cocked an eye back toward the deck. “They fight with each other mostly to remember. Believe me, I’m no better, and someday neither will you be.”

“Will there be a ‘someday’ for me, Isaac, for my children?”

“There has been one these past forty-five years and there always will be. We were there at the start, don’t forget. We’ve seen it all.”

“You mean you had seen it all. You haven’t seen Hassani.”

“I’ve seen others like him. Plenty.”

“So you’re not worried.”

“Worried? Of course I’m worried. I was worried in ’48 and ’67 and in ’73 too. And I’m worried today after what you’ve told me. But you learn after awhile that if God wasn’t resigned to taking care of us, we wouldn’t have survived this long.”

“God might need some help this time. I’ve laid out the scenario of what we may be facing. I want you to consider moving up the timetable for Operation Firestorm.”

Isaac just looked at him, wisps of his stray white hair blowing in the breeze.

“You don’t seem surprised by my request.”

“I didn’t think you came here to discuss history.”

“Can you do it?”

“You knew the answer to that even before you came, Isser. You know the logistics. Our people are too spread out, they’re not in contact with each other. We all agreed it was the safest setup on the chance that one of the cells was penetrated. No trail, remember?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“For a year now we have planned everything toward a single day. Thousands of people are involved, hundreds of thousands. Firestorm can’t be moved up. Not by a week, not by a day, not even by an hour. All was finalized when we received those Comanches from the Americans.”

“Apaches, Isaac. They’re called Apaches.”

“Whatever they are called, I can do nothing to move up the timetable.”

“Even if it means Hassani’s forces beat us to the punch?”

Before Isaac could respond, red and black game pieces flew wildly off the deck, followed by the checkerboard itself as Saul fought to position himself between Abraham and Joshua.

“You can’t plan for everything,” the old man told the chief of Mossad, “but you do the best you can.” A grimace stretched across his face as his eyes found the ruined checkerboard halfway between their chairs and the deck. “The problem is sometimes no matter what you do, nobody wins.”

It was past midnight when Blaine called Hank Belgrade at a second number, as arranged at the end of their last conversation.

“I found your Nazi for you, MacNuts,” Belgrade said.

“He’s alive?”

“Yes and no.”

“I don’t like the sound of that, Hank.”

“Wait until you hear the details. Dr. Hans Bechman was the charter member of something called the Paperclip Club. Ring any bells?”

“Nazis who we wanted to salvage from the war were identified by a paperclip attached to their files. Right?”

“On the money. Except Bechman came over so early he didn’t even have a file. I haven’t got a clue as to what he was working on for us in 1945, but as near as I can make it out, his specialty for the Reich was genetic engineering.”

“Gene splicing, recombinant DNA, and the like?”

“Yup. Man was way ahead of his time. Fortunately, Hitler didn’t think much of his work when compared to the nerve gases those Nazis were creating, so his project never really found an audience. It if had …”

“You still haven’t told me if he’s alive or not.”

“Yes, he’s alive, or at least what I’ve been able to dig up indicates he is. Over eighty now and who knows in what condition, but alive. Trouble is you can’t get to him.”

“Try me,” Blaine said.

“Look, MacNuts, this is out of even your league.”

“Just tell me where to go, Hank.”

“It’s not that simple. Men like Bechman aren’t allowed to retire to beachfront property in Florida for obvious reasons. Government takes care of them a different way and my balls are on the line for merely mentioning this to you.”

“You haven’t mentioned anything yet.”

Hank Belgrade took a deep breath. “Senior citizens who fall into the know-too-much category require special care. Think about it, MacNuts, all those deep dark secrets stored in a mind going soft. Our enemies could have a field day picking those minds apart.”

“So no gin rummy in South Beach. What, then?”

“Permanent residence at a very secret retirement community known only as the O.K. Corral.”

“And don’t tell me when I get there I’m supposed to ask for Wyatt Earp.”

“Not quite. The official in charge of the community calls himself Doc Holliday.”