He walked over to the bank of ship’s phones and called his deck officer/loadmaster Lazlo Schumatz in his quarters. “This is Panagiotopolous, it looks like we’re going to get that weather sooner than expected. Are you ready?”
“The deck cargo is secure, and Heiddi’s section should be finished in the holds in about an hour. Do you want me to go down there?”
“It might not hurt,” the captain said.
“What are we in for?”
Panagiotopolous glanced again at Green, who was staring intently out the windows across the cluttered cargo deck toward the bows, which were already beginning to rise and fall with the action of the increasing waves. “We’re in for a force eight, maybe a nine.”
Schumatz laughed. “Thirty-five to forty-five knot winds, and you call me? What, is Green quaking in his boots again?”
The captain was a great respecter of rank. He didn’t hold with disrespect. “Maybe you should double check the deck cargo as well, especially before it gets any rougher,” he said.
“As you wish.”
“Thank you.” The captain hung up the phone and followed Green’s gaze out the bridge windows. The Margo was a tight ship. With an overall length of 654 feet and a beam of ninety-six, she could transport nearly one thousand containers in her seven holds and lashed to her cargo deck. A pair of Sulzer diesels could push her through the seas at sixteen knots, and since her 1978 launch from the Cockerill Yards in Hoboken, New Jersey, she had never been in a collision or any serious accident at sea. She’d been retrofitted with new hatches and bow thrusters at Tampa Marine Yards in Florida in 1985, and had undergone a complete rebuild in 1996. But now they wanted her back for a second overhaul even though it was too soon, and there was not enough wrong with her to pull her out of service for the two months it would take. But it was the owners’ decision and there was no arguing with them.
They would sail up the Red Sea, transit the Suez Canal, cross the Med, and then head out across the Atlantic to the Port of New York where they would unload their cargo. From there it would be Tampa, and after that it was up to the owners. Everything was up to the owners, always. Panagiotopolous had been at sea for most of his life, and he understood the score. His job was to sail the boats, and leave the business and the politics to others. Not his responsibility. Green turned and gave the captain a bleak look. He was just a kid and he was frightened. But he was also the principal stock holder’s son, so he had to be treated with respect. And he did have his first officer’s papers.
“These kinds of storms are confidence-builders,” the captain said, not unkindly. “Once you’ve gone through forty-five knots, and you see that you and your ship have done just fine, why then forty-five knots will never present a problem again.”
“But fifty knots will,” Green said, relaxing a little. “What’s the biggest storm you’ve been in?”
“I’ll tell you about it sometime over a beer,” Panagiotopolous said. He had his own upper limit like all men did.
“How big?”
The helmsman was studying the binnacle compass even though they were on autopilot. But he was listening.
“A hundred sixty knots,” the captain said quietly. He grinned. “And I was pissing in my pants.”
Green looked nervously out the window. “In other words this is no problem.”
“Something like that.”
General Roland Murphy appeared as if he hadn’t slept in a week, but unlike Rencke who looked like a wild man, Murphy looked ill. The skin hung on his jowls and neck, and his complexion was pasty. McGarvey was shocked by his appearance. He’d never seen him this way. The rumor was that Murphy was going to retire in six months, but McGarvey had to genuinely wonder if the man was going to make it that long. The general had worked for the CIA almost as long as McGarvey had been involved with the Company. During that time they had never been friends, but they’d maintained a mutual respect. They each were the best at what they did, which was one of the reasons why Murphy had gotten behind McGarvey’s appointment as last year, a move that stunned some people and angered others, and why it had gone through without a hitch. But he seemed to have greatly diminished in the week or so that McGarvey had been gone. Both of them had been beaten up by the mission.
He got up from behind his desk and extended his hand. “Welcome home, Kirk. I’m glad to see you in one piece.”
McGarvey took his hand and was happy that the general’s grip had not weakened. “Thanks, but I would rather have come home to a better set of circumstances.”
“Partly my fault, I’m afraid,” Murphy’s face fell. “When you went off the air we thought you were dead and bin Laden was playing games with us.”
“Dennis Berndt’s idea?”
Murphy nodded. “Everyone’s except Otto’s.” He motioned for McGarvey to take a seat, and then he slumped back down in his chair. “I assume that you’ve already been briefed about bin Laden’s daughter.”
“I got the high points on the way in from Andrews.” “A terrible business.” McGarvey nodded, there was nothing else to say about it. “I’ve called a National Threat Assessment meeting for eleven.”
“That’s cutting everyone a little short, isn’t it?” Murphy said, glancing at the desk clock. It was a little before 10: 00 a.m. “The President wants to see you.”
“He’ll have to wait until this afternoon,” McGarvey said, and before Murphy could object he went on. “The bomb is on its way here, General. We don’t know how it’s coming, where it’s coming or even when it’s coming, but we have to deal with the problem. The sooner we get to it the greater our chances for success are going to be.”
“Which are?”
“I don’t know,” McGarvey said tiredly. “But the advantage is definitely his.”
Murphy took a memo out of a file folder and passed it across the desk. It was on White House stationery and was signed by Haynes. “You’re going to be asked to assassinate bin Laden.”
McGarvey read the note and passed it back. “At least this is one President who’s not afraid to take responsibility,” he said. “But he’s too late by at least six months, which is about how long it would take to pull off something like that — if it could be done at all.” McGarvey’s headache was coming back, and he passed a hand over his eyes. “Those days are gone, thank God.” He shook his head. “But even if we could push a little red button right this instant, and bin Laden would suddenly cease to exist, the bomb would still come here.”
“Not without his orders.”
“He’s gone to ground now. He set the machinery in motion, and even he might not be able to stop it even if he wanted to.”
Some of Murphy’s spark came back. He’d personally seen just about everything that could happen in the shadow world, and he still controlled the largest and most powerful intelligence agency in the world. “Okay, how do we proceed?”
“We’re going to tighten our border controls to start with. We’re putting tracers on all of bin Laden’s known associates and business connections here in the States and everywhere else. We’ve got the word out to be on the lookout for a special package. Something that’ll be getting more attention than whatever it’s disguised to look like should be getting. And we’re watching the possible routes. It started out in Tajikistan and had to have been transported overland through the mountains into Afghanistan. Assuming it’s on the move again it either has to be taken east to Pakistan or west to Iran. We have people on the ground who will be moved into positions to watch the roads, the trains, the planes and the ships.”
“What’s your best guess?”
“Best guess or worst fear?” McGarvey asked. “Because the worst case scenario would be the simplest They load the bomb on a commercial airliner, and as it approaches either New York City or Washington it goes off.”
“Security at every international airport around the world will have to be tightened. Just like after Lockerbie.”
“Maybe it’ll go by ship to Hamburg, then by truck to Frankfurt and from there by air to Washington,” McGarvey said. “Or any other combination you’d like to dream up.”
“I see your point.”
