of
Luck was not with him. The British spotted his craft almost immediately and sent out a boat to capture it.
Lee jettisoned the torpedo in the hopes of lightening his vessel enough to escape the pursuing boat. His tactic worked. Gaining speed, he managed to out-distance the British long enough for them to lose his tiny craft in the darkness. Lee escaped, with the
To all appearances, the first torpedo attack was a failure. But the night was not yet over. Lying forgotten on the bottom of the river, the torpedo’s clockwork detonator continued its countdown. One hour after Lee jettisoned it, David Bushnell’s weapon went off. The resulting explosion was huge, throwing an enormous plume of spray into the air and illuminating the darkened harbor like a flash of underwater lightning.
Not one British ship was damaged, but Admiral Howe was shaken by it. Strange machines were prowling about beneath the waters of New York harbor — and the next underwater attack might well succeed where this one had failed. Admiral Howe moved his ships. The blockade was broken.
Thanks (in part) to a crude weapon, with an even cruder delivery system, America became a nation. And, from the very moment of its infancy, the torpedo began to shape world events.
CHAPTER 8
“First off, Mr. President, it looks like the British Embassy was the only target.” The secretary of homeland security’s voice warbled slightly over the secure phone. “The Pentagon, the Capitol Building, and the White House are still under security lockdown, but there don’t seem to be any follow-on attacks. We’ve issued warnings to all of the other embassies, and they’re taking whatever precautions they deem appropriate. We’ll be releasing the lockdowns shortly, but I’ve directed all federal and military facilities to remain at an increased threat condition for the next seventy-two hours, just to be safe.”
“Good call,” the president said. “Continue.”
“Sir, we’ve got four biohazard teams working the embassy: one forensic survey team and three rescue teams. We’re concentrating on survivors first. We can start thinking about moving bodies after we’re sure nobody else is left alive in there. We don’t have a formal casualty report yet, but we’ve got a head count from the initial rapid sweep. Forty-two dead, so far, and about sixty survivors, nearly all unconscious or comatose.”
“I see,” the president said.
The secretary’s voice changed. “I’m afraid that Sir Anthony is among the dead, sir.”
“I see,” the president said again. He stared across the conference room that had become his temporary Situation Room. The wall on the far side of the long oak table was dominated by a floor-to-ceiling bas relief of the Marine Corps emblem — the globe, eagle, and anchor, topped by a banner proclaiming
But where was the honor in killing an embassy full of civilians? He had no doubt that the attackers considered themselves warriors. Whoever they were, whatever their agenda was, they were probably congratulating themselves on their bravery and declaring their attack a victory for their cause. But it wasn’t a victory, and it wasn’t the act of warriors. It was murder.
“Sir?”
The president flinched. It took a second to remember that Chapman was still on the phone. “Huh? What?” The president tightened his grip on the receiver and jerked his mind back to the phone conversation. “I’m sorry, Clark. What were you saying?”
“Sir, we can go over this later.”
“No,” the president said. “Now. Go ahead.”
“We still don’t know very much about the bio-warfare agent, except that it’s a powerful hemorrhagic — the victims all show signs of bleeding from the nose, ears, and mouth. We also know that it works quickly, in hours rather than days. And that eliminates a lot of agents, including Ebola, plague, Q-fever, botulism, Hantavirus, anthrax, smallpox, and most of the other commonly weaponized bugs.”
“Do we know how the attack was carried out?”
“Yes, sir. The attack vector appears to have been the carpet.”
The president’s eyebrows arched. “Say that again?”
“Sir, I know how crazy that sounds,” Secretary Chapman said. “The bio-survey team can’t identify the agent — that’s going to take some lab work — but they
Apparently, the carpet was pretty much saturated by the agent.”
“How in the hell did that happen?”
“We don’t know, sir. Not yet.”
“All right,” the president said. “What’s our next move?”
“Well, sir, there are going to be victims outside the embassy. Personnel who went home sick at the first sign of symptoms. Visitors, couriers, reporters, people who passed through the embassy but don’t work there.
We’ll find some of them in clinics and emergency rooms. Some will be at home in bed. Some of them are probably dead by now.”
The president sucked air through his teeth. “How contagious is this thing?”
“We don’t know, sir,” Chapman said. “We won’t know that until we’ve identified the agent that was used.”
“Or when the hospitals start filling up with sick people,” the president said.
“CDC and USAMRIID don’t think that’s going to happen, sir”
“How can they possibly know that?”
“It’s an educated guess, sir,” Secretary Chapman said. “The agent concentration levels are massive. If this bug was really toxic in low concentrations, the attackers wouldn’t have had to use nearly as much to achieve the desired effect. They could have dropped an aerosol spray can in a bathroom trashcan, instead of saturating the carpets.”
“Sounds like a reasonable assumption,” the president said. “But bear in mind that the people who did this are not reasonable. We don’t know what motivates them, or even what their goal is, short of murdering British diplomats.” He sighed. “Anything else?”
“Not at the moment, Mr. President.”
“Okay,” the president said. “When can I go home?”
“The Secret Service should be giving the all-clear on the White House any time now. If you go ahead and whistle for your helicopter, the residence should be clear by the time you get there.”
“Good,” the president said. “I’ve got work to do.”
CHAPTER 9
