which any enemy could have done this much damage to the United States, except by using a nuclear submarine. A diesel electric must have been detected already because of its need to snorkel and recharge batteries and, ultimately, to refuel. In the electronic minefield of the North Pacific, and the Gulf of Alaska, they could not have avoided being discovered.
But a nuclear boat — this was different. It did not need to surface or refuel. It could stay deep, unseen and unheard. If it was out there now, as Arnold was quite certain it was, that ship could be anywhere, lost in thousands of square miles of ocean. It could be on its way to China, or Russia. It could have turned back west, or south. Or it could have just meandered down the West Coast of the United States looking for new targets.
Worse yet, it could hear any searching U.S. surface ship, and then just slow right down, maybe one thousand feet under the surface, and NEVER be detected.
In his worst nightmares, Arnold Morgan had imagined the hopelessness of looking for a nuclear marauder off the U.S. coast, and he had always felt the same terror and frustration everyone feels in dreams of running hard without moving. Those nightmares had always given him the creeps. And right now he was in one.
To activate the Navy on a massive search-and-destroy mission would have been useless and likely to alert and terrify the populace. But in his heart, Arnold Morgan believed the United States was under similar threat as 9/11—though he did not know how, or why, or what to do. And he paced his office, fists clenched, head down, not for the first time, alone, at the front line of American defense.
He was afraid of what the marauder might do next. But he was powerless to stop him. He knew his best chance was to let his opponent move first, betray his position, or at least betray something, like he was on this side of the Pacific rather than the other. But he knew he must wait, and for a man of Admiral Morgan's temperament, this was very close to torture.
Meanwhile, in Valdez, the flames were dying. Firefighters had contained the blaze to the operational storage areas only. The terminus was a write-off, as was the giant tanker that had blown up at the bow on the night the missiles came in.
The fires in the storage area above the town had died a day earlier because the destruction of the main control center had cut off any incoming crude to the fuel farm. What was already there burned, in an incinerating heat, but when it was spent, the fires died.
Nonetheless, the area around the town looked like Berlin in the aftermath of the Allied bombing in 1945. A pall of black smoke hung low over the landscape, helicopters clattered through the skies, searching for clues, searching for an enemy redoubt, searching for anything. FBI Agents swarmed all over town, assisting the police, talking to anyone who might have seen anything. Under strict instructions from the National Security Agency in distant Maryland, not one word was released to the public about the observations of the late-night stargazers Harry Roberts and Cal Foster.
Although the snow made everything in a sense more difficult, it also provided incontrovertible evidence that no enemy or terrorist force could possibly have gathered to the north of the town. The helicopters searched miles of perfect, unmolested snow, across hills and mountains, valleys and fields. They saw the tracks of bears and moose, but not the tracks of any vehicle, way off the beaten track, which could have launched a missile sufficiently powerful to wreak the damage that had been inflicted last Friday night.
Neither did they find any signs of a troop of at least eight people, who must have been scuffing the virgin snow, in an extremely remote area, in order to launch such an attack. And by Thursday night, March 6, there was no doubt in the minds of any of the investigators: Whatever had slammed into the Valdez terminus had come in from the sea. Except that no surveillance system in either the U.S. Coast Guard or Navy heard one single squeak on that darkest of nights. The official record of shipping activity in the significant area read a great fat zilch.
The Barracuda cruised slowly, 1,000 feet below the surface, a little less than twenty miles southwest of the Jackson Seamount, a boomerang-shaped shoal that rises up from the two-miles-deep ocean floor. Since its highest point is still more than 5,000 feet below the surface, the Jackson is of little significance save as a landmark and a point of navigation.
Ben Badr had placed his ship in firing position, 175 miles off the coast of Oregon, twenty miles north of the California border. Directly east of them was the estuary of the Rogue River, a wide, often frenzied torrent that comes tumbling out of the Coastal Range, into the Pacific at Gold Beach.
General Rashood had specified no firm time for his next attack, except that he intended to carry it out in the dead of night. And the night could not get much more dead than it was right now, out here in the pitch-black, lonely waters of the world's largest ocean, miles from anywhere, hidden beneath the surface.
'Well, Ravi, do we fire or wait?' Captain Badr was calm but concerned. His crew was tired. The tension of the long journey and the two attacks had placed a strain upon them all. And, given his way, Ben Badr would have recommended a twenty-four-hour rest for everyone. But he guessed, correctly, that Ravi would opt for instant action rather than any waiting around.
And he understood the urgency, because he knew the fourth and final attack depended on split-second timing, and that the General would prefer to burn off time in the hours immediately before that last missile launch, than waste a day here in deep, safe water.
'I intend to attack immediately,' said the General. 'Please order the crew to prayer, and then alert the Missile Launchers. Shakira reports preprogrammed navigation systems complete. Nothing has changed. Two salvos, three missiles each, initial course fifty-five degrees.'
'Aye, sir. Missile Director to the Control Room.'
'STAND BY TUBES ONE TO SIX… '
Captain Badr offered a prayer on behalf of the crew, who, he was convinced, were attacking on behalf of Allah. He mentioned the oppressors who had caused so much hardship to his people, and who were especially cruel and brutal to the Palestinians, who had been unjustly robbed of everything. Except for their beliefs, their courage, and their dignity.
He prayed that Allah might speed on his missiles, and guide mem toward the most heartless of enemies, whose arrogance had given strength to the evil hand of Israel. And who, even now, was supplying the Semites with weapons once more to murder the devout Muslims, who now cowered in their country.
Allah be praised, for you are great… and please grant us the power to wound the Great Satan.
'TUBE ONE LAUNCH!' snapped General Rashood.
And the first of the mighty RADUGAs lifted off, out of the launcher, arrowing up through the black waters, and then howling vertically to around 200 feet and leveling off, its guidance systems swinging it around northeast to 55 degrees.
The gas turbines cut in, and the deadly missile accelerated to its cruise speed of 600 knots, racing above the water, neither losing nor gaining height, cleaving through the cold night air, on its twenty-minute journey to the coast of Oregon. Directly astern, the second missile was under way, and the third was already under the control of the launch sequencer.
The RADUGAs would not cover identical courses, but they would be similar, and they would cross the U.S. coastline approximately one mile apart, close to Yacquina Head, a great Pacific promontory that lies 120 miles due south of Grays Harbor.
At this stage, the missiles were headed deep inland, on a 220-mile journey up toward the city of Yakima, still on a fifty-five-degree heading. By the time the opening three-weapon salvo reached the Oregon coast, they were undetected by any ship's radar and now they streaked in over near-deserted land, still maintaining their height of 200 meters.
They were propelled through the dark skies, west of the city of Salem, and came rocketing over the border into Washington State, high above the mighty Columbia River, crossing it just west of the massive John Day Dam.
Straight above the vast Indian Reservation they flew, across some of the most beautiful, desolate land in the United States. The missiles awakened no one in the sleeping river town of Wapato as they screamed into their long left-hand turn out by the Rattlesnake Hills, swerving around the City of Yakima, over the long timber-rich valleys.
At that point, the missiles had been running for a little more than forty minutes, and Shakira had selected a
