The Escanaba was practically on his stern, and the Sea King was right behind it.
No time.
McGarvey forced himself to crawl into the cabin. Besides the dead man at the helm another body lay in a bloody heap on the deck.
For another long moment McGarvey, on all fours, simply swayed with the motion of the boat. He wanted to be lulled to sleep. He wanted to go away to another safer more comfortable place.
The Escanaba blew its ship’s whistle, the sound so loud in the confines of the pilot boat’s cabin that it was almost a physical assault on his body.
McGarvey looked up out of his stupor and shook his head as he slid back into reality, into the here and now; the CD that had been playing in slow motion in his head speeded up and came into sharp focus.
The bridge was less than fifty yards away when McGarvey scrambled over to where the bomb was wedged between the helmsman’s seat and the bulkhead. He pulled it free with great difficulty, barking his knuckles and wrenching his back under the weight. He undid the latches, threw back the outer cover and undid the inner latches. One of them stuck. He desperately hammered at it with the butt of his pistol until it suddenly snapped free and he yanked the inner lid open.
The LED counter switched from 00:00:20 to 00:00:19, but McGarvey’s eyes were drawn to the matte black aluminum plate in the lower left hand corner.
He knew this device! Goddamnit, he knew it!
The counter switched from 00:00:19 to 00:00:18 then 00: 00:17.
He almost entered the ten-digit deactivation code on the keypad when he noticed that the antitamper indicator was lit and he pulled back his hand.
The LED switched to 00:00:16.
Bahmad had reprogrammed the weapon’s firing circuits with an encrypted deactivation code. Unless you knew the code anything done to the device would cause it to immediately bypass its normal sequence and fire immediately.
00:00:15.
He knew this. Rencke’s research program had included the operations manual for the firing circuits and encryption techniques. It was a quantum mathematical code in which the riddle of SchrSdinger’s cat was apparently solved. There was no single solution to the code; instead there was a series of correct answers that could, depending upon how they were entered, also be simultaneously wrong.
00:00:14.
McGarvey entered a five-digit code that opened the firing circuit.
00:00:13,
The center span of the bridge was almost on top of the pilot boat now. McGarvey looked up and could see people lining the rail staring down at him.
00:00:12.00:00:11.
He entered a ten-digit code that when activated would, if it was the correct one, return the firing circuits to the non-encrypted mode.
00:00:10.
He pressed ##, and the antitamper indicator went out. He let out the breath he’d been holding.
00:00:09.
Shutting the weapon down was accomplished with another ten-digit code, this one the simple reciprocal of the firing code. Zero was nine, one was eight, two was seven, and so on until the end when nine was zero.
00:00:08.
McGarvey drew a blank. He’d had all the other numbers, but now there was a roaring in his ears, his vision was starting to go dark and the boat was beginning to spin.
00:00:07.
The pilot boat’s bow cut into the shadow cast by the bridge.
00:00:06.
The numbers came to McGarvey all at once. He held onto the bomb case with his left hand to steady himself and entered the ten-digit code with his right.
00:00:05.
He stared at the indicator as the boat came under the center span.
The LED indicator read 00:00:04.
Slowly he sat back on his heels as the pilot boat came out of the Golden Gate Bridge’s shadow into San Francisco Bay. The LED indicator read
00:00:04.
He turned and gave the skipper of the Escanaba the thumbs-up, and she started to toot the ship’s whistle over an dover. Other ships in the bay and out in the holding basin took up the salute, as did people on the bridge. A lot of them were whistling and cheering, though McGarvey suspected that none of them knew why.
People on the bridge were cheering and clapping as Elizabeth and Deborah emerged from the tower. Boats in the bay and out in the Gate were blowing their whistles, helicopters were flying all over the place, sirens were blaring, horns were honking and someone down on the approach road was still bellowing instructions over a bullhorn. Elizabeth’s radio came alive with chatter, but it was hard to make any sense of it. Everyone was talking at once, and they all seemed excited.
A greatly relieved Chenna Serafmi was holding her earpiece close and was beaming from ear to ear.
Deborah started to clap too, her tears completely forgotten, her face animated with excitement. She began to jog in place.
“You missed all the excitement,” Van Buren shouted over the din.
“What happened?” Elizabeth demanded. “Did we get them?”
“It was your dad. He did it.”
Something clutched at Elizabeth’s gut. She grabbed Van Buren’s arm. “Was he hurt? Is he okay?”
“Of course he’s okay,” Van Buren assured her. He was laughing. “He’s your dad. The man is indestructible.”
“I wish,” Elizabeth said softly.
Deborah was beside herself with excitement. “Can we run now? I want to run.”
“Later,” Chenna said. She gave Elizabeth a warm smile. “Tell your dad thanks for me,” she said.
