The unpalatable truth was, and is, a huge industrialized Western country like the United States happens to be vulnerable to grand-scale, State-sponsored terrorism. The Senators in Washington did not yet know it, but they had much to be thankful for — namely that General Rashood did not approve of mass killing and would not indulge in it. However, the Senators did not know of the existence of General Rashood or the steely determination with which the Hamas military chief intended to drive the United States, and the State of Israel, from the Middle East forever.
By Thursday morning, March 13, General Rashood and Captain Badr were creeping down the pristine central coast waters off some of the loneliest beaches in California. They were just beginning to move out into deeper water 130 miles off Los Angeles and were making a quiet five-knot course to the southwest.
The Barracuda, now a month out of Petropavlovsk, was running perfectly, the reactor ticking along at low pressure, the turbines at cruising speed. The only discordant note in the entire submarine mechanism was the slightly arched converstaion between General Rashood and Lt. Comdr. Shakira Rashood.
The world's first lady submarine officer was quite certain they should continue with the policy of sending in missiles on a roundabout route to the American mainland, disguising at all costs the true direction and launch point of the RADUGAs. Shakira's point was simple. It has worked well for us so far, no one has come after us, and no one knows we're here. We should continue with a successful policy.
General Rashood held no such illusions. And he told his wife so in the gentlest possible terms.
'Shakira,' he said, 'the Americans will have been momemtarily baffled by our opening attack in Prince William Sound. But someone will have seen something, and the Pentagon will by now know the oil terminus was hit by an incoming cruise missile. They will also have known we were very close indeed to the spot where the oil pipeline was breached on the Overfall Shoal.
'When we hit the refinery in Grays Harbor — if indeed we did hit the refinery — they will know of our existence. The big military brains will have worked out the missiles were most certainly fired from a submarine because there was nowhere else they could have come from.
'I would be surprised if they had not found out this Barracuda was missing from the Russian Naval Base. They will know that someone dragged the fishing net off that Japanese trawler and it must have been the Barracuda… '
'Yes, but what about the Chinese diversionary plan to help us?' she asked.
'Forget it. Because nothing will happen until tomorrow, and that's not important, anyway. What is important is that the Americans will know for sure and certain that the total destruction of the refinery at Grays Harbor was the work of a terrorist firing missiles from a nuclear boat… '
'But how will… ' she interrupted.
'Trust me, my darling,' he said. 'We are playing a game of cat and mouse with some of the biggest brains in the world, particularly the U.S. President's National Security Adviser. Believe me, they know what's happening. And it won't make one lick of difference whether the missiles come howling in to Lompoc from out of the San Rafael Mountains or straight down the freeway from Santa Maria. It doesn't matter what we do, they'll know.'
'But surely they'd be better coming in from the east, the unexpected route… like the others?'
'Negative. Everywhere's unexpected. Our only advantage, and it's a big one, is that they have no idea within, say, five hundred miles where we are. My orders will be to fire a salvo of four RADUGAs' straight at the Lompoc power station, straight out of the ocean, direct at the furnace and the turbines, from about two hundred miles out, a twenty-minute missile run, then hightail it south before the missiles even reach their target.'
'You mean fast?'
'Oh no, never fast. Just quietly offshore, in a million square miles of ocean, one thousand feet below the surface, chugging our way to safety. When the first of those missiles hits, every major military brain in the Pentagon is going to know what we've done. I just hope to spread enough confusion to allow us a clean getaway.'
'You mean my missile deception program is obsolete as of now?'
'Absolutely. This is our last throw, Shakira. And it's a punch that will come in straight and hard, at two of the most sensitive areas any great power has. Its competence and its pride. And the United States has a ton of both.'
'So have I. And I sense you have just fired me. Would you like me to leave?'
'No. But I might ask you to take off your uniform,' chuckled Ravi. 'Once we find somewhere private.'
Shakira punched her Commanding Officer playfully on the arm. 'That's my punch,' she said, laughing. 'Straight and hard. Did I ever mention how inappropriate you are?'
'I believe so. But right now I'd like you to be my wife rather than my missile planner. Hop below and organize a couple of cups of tea and some toast, would you? I've been here since two o'clock this morning.'
'My last humiliation. From Lieutenant Commander to steward. Right here in the middle of the Pacific. Demotion for the great mind that suggested Lompoc in the first place.'
General Rashood smiled and watched his wife turn out of the control room. 'Just another couple of days,' he said. 'And we're on our way home.'
The Barracuda continued slowly westward into deep, silent waters, way off the coast of California, her great turbines moving her 8,000-ton weight effortlessly, under the deft guidance of Captain Ben Badr.
Meanwhile, California went about its business. Aside from the endless tensions in the Governor's Mansion, and the near panic gripping the electric industry, life continued as normal.
The only other pressure spot was around the junction of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue in northwest Los Angeles, where streets were being closed and blocked off in preparation for the movie world's annual extravaganza on Sunday evening — the 80th Academy Awards ceremony, with its modest little worldwide audience of about a billion people. Shakira Rashood would have given almost anything to be there, dressed to kill, on the arm of her handsome, iron man husband. Though, in a rather different sense, she would be. So would her iron man husband.
For weeks now, they had been preparing the spectacular $100 million Kodak Theatre, the world's largest television studio, smack-dab in the middle of one of the grandest new shopping malls on earth.
Right here in Hollywood, in the permanent twenty-first-century home of the Oscars, there were more electricians per square mile than would-be actors. The bustling Hollywood Boulevard was actually closed down for five days. On the night, they would block off Highland Avenue, Orange Drive, Franklin Avenue, and a dozen other streets.
The fabulous shopping complex of the five-level Hollywood and Highland Mall contains seventy upmarket retailers, restaurants, nightclubs, and the new 640-room Renaissance Hollywood Hotel. On this Thursday afternoon, anything open was seething with sightseers, flocking into the custom-built H&H train stop, directly off a fifteen-minute ride on Metro Rail's Red Line from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles.
The actual Kodak Theatre, resplendent at the top of forty wide, marble steps, is situated to the east of the six-screen, ornate Grauman's Chinese Theatre. The Kodak stands at the head of Award Walk with its elegant plaques, mounted on pillars, commemorating eighty years of acting brilliance, an exclusive little garrison for the living and dead immortals of the screen.
Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda, Burt Lancaster, Sidney Poitier, Gene Hackman, John Wayne, Paul Newman, Al Pa-cino, Jack Nicholson and Tom Hanks; Susan Hayward, Kate Hepburn, Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, and the rest. Their momentous achievements will once more pervade the complex on Sunday night, when this year's nominated make the 500-foot Sunday-night strut along a red carpet, five boulevard traffic lanes wide, to the electronic wonderland of the Kodak Theatre.
There the 3,300 guests will assemble beneath the massive silver-leafed tiara of a ceiling, based on Michelangelo's Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome. More than one hundred television cameras, inside and out, earthbound and raised, on gantries and bridges, tucked into alcoves, would be zooming in on the main stage and the audience, striving for the best pictures.
All through the theater, concealed cableways are hidden in the actual support beams and balcony fronts, ready to cope with the demands of television lighting and sound equipment on the big night. The theater's own sound system uses as much electric power as a space shuttle launch. There is an entire catwalk for rigging and lights; even the orchestra pit is an electronic elevator.
There is every kind of lighting, designed to flood, flash, or pinpoint. These searing theater lights can irradiate in white, red, purple, blue, or any other hue. The Kodak will illuminate the hopes and dreams of every actor, director, producer, costar, and writer in the audience. When they hit the 'on' switch for this lot, the Lompoc power station shudders.
