The Seventh Angel

UNABLE TO CONFIRM THAT DELTA III HAS OVERRIDDEN SAFEGUARDS TO PERMIT INDEPENDENT LAUNCH. ALL PARTIES, U.S. AND RUSSIAN, AGREE THAT WORST CASE SCENARIO MUST BE ASSUMED. REF A REFERS.

7. (SECR) ONI AND NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE HAVE INDICATIONS THAT RUSSIAN MILITARY IS RAMPING UP TO AN ADVANCED STATE OF COMBAT READINESS. HUMINT SOURCES CONFIRM THAT RUSSIAN NUCLEAR FORCES HAVE BEEN ORDERED TO INCREASED ALERT STATUS. APPROXIMATELY FIFTY-PERCENT (50 %) OF THE RUSSIAN PACIFIC FLEET IS PUTTING OUT TO SEA.

8. (SECR) RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT HAS FORMALLY DECLINED OFFERS OF U.S. MILITARY ASSISTANCE. RUSSIAN DIPLOMATIC SOURCES INSIST THAT COMBAT OPERATIONS IN KAMCHATKA AND UNAUTHORIZED DEPLOYMENT OF DELTA III NUCLEAR MISSILE SUBMARINE ARE INTERNAL RUSSIAN MATTERS. AS SS-N-18 MISSILES HAVE THE RANGE AND CAPABILITY TO STRIKE NUMEROUS U.S. TARGETS WITH NUCLEAR WARHEADS, SENIOR U.S. LEADERS ARE NOT INCLINED TO TREAT THIS AS AN INTERNAL RUSSIAN PROBLEM.

9. (SECR) USS TOWERS AND USS ALBERT D. KAPLAN ARE DIRECTED TO DETACH FROM CURRENT DUTIES AND DEPART THEIR RESPECTIVE OPERATING AREAS UPON RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE. PROCEED AT MAXIMUM AVAILABLE SPEED TO INTERNATIONAL WATERS IN VICINITY OF SOUTHERN KAMCHATKA PENINSULA FOR COVERT SURVEILLANCE OF DEVELOPING EVENTS. AS MENTIONED ABOVE, RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT HAS DECLINED U.S. MILITARY ASSISTANCE, AND PRESENCE OF U.S. WARSHIPS MAY BE TREATED AS PROVOCATION. IN VIEW OF THIS, BOTH UNITS ARE DIRECTED TO OPERATE WITH MAXIMUM STEALTH, AND TO AVOID DETECTION BY RUSSIAN MILITARY FORCES. DO NOT CROSS INTO RUSSIAN TERRITORIAL WATERS.

10. (SECR) ADDITIONAL ORDERS AND AMPLIFYING INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION TO FOLLOW.

11. (UNCL) THIS IS A TRICKY ASSIGNMENT, BUT I KNOW YOU’RE UP TO THE JOB. GOOD LUCK. ADMIRAL DAVIS SENDS.

//272042Z FEB//

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//SSSSSSSSSS//

Bowie read the message through twice before looking up at his executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Nicolas Bishop. “What do you think, Nick?”

The XO grimaced. “You know I’m a can-do kind of guy, Captain. But we are not ready for this. Not even close. The crew is only about half-way through the training cycle, about forty-percent of our missile cells are empty, and we don’t even have a helicopter embarked yet.”

Captain Bowie nodded. “I’m not too worried about the helo,” he said. “We probably couldn’t use it anyway. Our orders are to make like the Invisible Man, and while SH-60s might be good helos, they’re not exactly stealthy.”

“We’re going to have to borrow a helo from somewhere, sir,” the XO said. “In the short term, at least. These are immediate execute orders. We don’t have time to pull into port, and we’ve got to get our civilian guests off the ship before we head into harm’s way.”

“Good point,” Bowie said. He sighed. “I agree with your assessment, Nick. We’re not ready for this. But it doesn’t look like we’re going to have much of a choice.” He scanned the message again. “I’ll contact the bridge and order the Officer of the Deck to steam due-west to get us moving in the right direction until the Navigator has a chance to lay out a new nav-track. Have Ops get on the satellite phone and arrange a helo for the civilians, and then pass the word to have all officers gather in the wardroom for briefing and tactical planning.”

He dropped the message on his desk. “We should try to tune into a satellite news feed. CNN may not exactly be a reliable intelligence source, but if things are really heating up in Kamchatka, they probably know about it by now. I’ve got a feeling we’re about to stick our head in the lion’s mouth. If we don’t want to get it bitten off at the neck, we’re going to need all the smarts we can get.”

CHAPTER 18

U.S. NAVAL HOSPITAL

YOKOSUKA, JAPAN

FRIDAY; 01 MARCH

0901 hours (9:01 AM)

TIME ZONE +9 ‘INDIA’

Lieutenant Eric Hogan, MD, United States Navy, yawned and rubbed the back of his neck as he ambled down the corridor toward the nurse’s station. He needed a cup of coffee, but first he wanted to order some more labs on Seaman Landry, the young Sailor with the heart arrhythmia. The patient was lean and muscular, an obvious gym- hound, so the arrhythmias were probably just premature ventricular contractions, triggered by an electrolyte imbalance, or too much exercise.

But the patient’s skin showed signs of pigmentation loading. That might mean nothing, but it could be a subtle symptom of hemochromatosis. They’d better pull some more blood and run the genetic differentiation tests, just to be on the safe side. The kid was probably tired of being poked with needles, but the only other way to rule out hemochromatosis would be a liver biopsy, and the seaman would like that a lot less.

Hogan made a left at the nurse’s station, and walked the thirty or so feet to his office. He’d punch the new test orders into the computer, and then he could slip down to the break room for that coffee. And maybe a sweet roll, if the stuff in the vending machine didn’t look too wilted.

He swung the door open to find two people waiting in his office: Captain Krantz, the commanding officer of the hospital, and a stranger wearing a dark gray civilian suit.

The captain nodded. “Good morning, Dr. Hogan. Come in, please. And close the door.”

Hogan hesitated for a fraction of a second. He’d been stationed at Naval Hospital Yokosuka for the better part of two years, and the commanding officer had never come down to his office before. What was going on here? He supposed he was about to find out.

It was not a large office. Hogan had to squeeze past the civilian to reach a standing spot near his bookcase.

He nodded to his superior. “Good morning, Captain. What can I do for you, sir?”

Captain Krantz crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned a hip against Hogan’s desk. His words and tone of voice were cordial, but his posture and body language were overtly defensive. The captain was not a happy camper.

“Dr. Hogan, this is Agent Ross, from the Defense Intelligence Agency. He and his partner, Agent DuBrul, have just arrived on this morning’s MEDEVAC flight from the Philippines. They were escorting the MEDEVAC patient, whom — I’m led to understand — is a foreign citizen under the protection of the U.S. State Department.”

Hogan nodded, still not seeing what any of this had to do with him, or what the captain and this agent were doing in his office.

The man identified as Agent Ross was almost professionally nondescript. He was of about average height and weight, and his medium brown hair was cut in a style (or perhaps anti-style) typical of middle class office workers. Even his face was unremarkable. He had the sort of features that your eyes could glide over without settling. You could see the man, and then instantly forget him.

Only his eyes stood out. They were a quite ordinary shade of blue-green, but there was a concentration of focus in the agent’s gaze that was nearly feral in quality.

Hogan was struck by the sudden and oblique certainty that this oddly-intense man remembered every person he had ever seen, and every word that had ever been spoken within his range of hearing. That almost certainly couldn’t be true; the human mind didn’t operate that way, but the impression stuck with Hogan anyway.