the Toutle River. It was like an open-cast coal mine set in the garden of Santa’s Workshop.
Ravi knew the facts verbatim. But the part that captivated him most was one particular detail of the blast. The central “chimney” of Mount St. Helens was blocked with hundreds of tons of lava from the previous eruption, and the surging new magma, climbing into the volcano, had nowhere to go. It ultimately forced its way higher into the north flank, pushing outwards and forming a giant swelling, a dome of rock, volcanic ash, and general debris.
These great carbuncles are not unique to Mount St. Helens. They happen often with active volcanoes. But shortly before the eruption, this one had developed into a fair size — a mile across and probably 120 feet high. And it was not the rising magma that finally smashed the great bulge asunder, but a relatively small earthquake that completely destabilized the north face of the mountain.
The dome, cracking on all sides, blew outwards within minutes of the quake, and crashed down the mountainside in a landslide. The mammoth weight of a half-million cubic yards of rock was now removed from the upward flow of the lava, and the gases decompressed instantly, detonating out like a bomb, leveling every tree in sight.
It was the carbuncle that Ravi now focused on. According to Professor Landon, another one was forming on the same gutted north face of Mount St. Helens, right in the old crater, 46.20N122.18W on the GPS, to be absolutely precise.
There had been strong, steaming activity inside the volcano for several years, since the early 1990s — occasional eruptions of steam and ash, less frequent pyroclastic flows, with intermittent swellings on the northern rock face of the mountain. A much more violent blast of steam and ash on July 1, 1998, had frightened the life out of the locals before it had seemed to subside again. The new mile-long carbuncle had begun to develop in 2006, right in the middle of that massive, sinister crater that scarred the once-beautiful north face.
As they crossed the 46.20N line of latitude, Shakira knew they were dead-level with their target, dead-level with the four-mile-wide estuary of the Columbia River. They were 200 miles offshore, 600 feet below the surface, steering one-eight-zero, straight down the 127-degree line of longitude. Mount St. Helens lay 75 miles due east of the estuary. Right now, moving slowly, they were exactly 195 miles from their target, a mere formality for the North Korean — built Scimitar SL-1 missiles currently resting malevolently in the magazine room of
The Pacific was a little less than a mile deep here, the seabed a flat, scarcely undulating plain. On the surface, the swells were long, rising 10 feet, but here in the quiet depths of the cold, gloomy ocean, there was nothing, save for the stark network of the U.S. Navy’s SOSUS wires, resting like angry black cobras in military formation on the ocean floor, ready to spit venomous, fatal betrayal on any unsuspecting intruder.
Admiral Badr recommended running south for another 100 miles, a position that would put them in easy range of the great scarred mountain in southwestern Washington. Shakira’s missile course was plotted and agreed upon. General Ravi had decreed there was no reason to move too far away. His overall strategy had been something of a surprise: He was ordering a daytime firing, rather than using the hours of darkness, which they all felt to be much safer, although when cocooned in their boat at 600 feet, there was not the slightest difference between night or day, summer or winter, or the days of the week.
When Shakira wanted to know why, Ravi’s explanation was succinct. “Because a big cruise missile trails a large fiery tail when it leaves the water. It can be seen literally for miles, especially in the dark. If we do it in the day it will be much, much less visible.”
“But before we fired at night.”
“That was because we did not want the missiles to be seen by security guards at the target end. This is different. We are firing into a void. Into the open wild, where there are no guards, no surveillance, no people.”
“Hmmmm,” mumbled Shakira, irritated that she had not thought of that herself.
“Our only danger on this mission,” said her husband, “is being detected by a passing warship, out there in the night, with the ocean lit up like a bloody amusement park by our rocket motors.”
“The missile could still be seen during the day,” said Shakira, “if there were passing ships.”
“There won’t be,” replied Ravi.
“How do you know?”
“Because I intend to fire when there is fog on the ocean surface. And I intend to use passive sonar and my own eyes to ensure there is nothing around.”
“But even you cannot just order fog.”
“No, but this part of northwestern America is well known for the rain that sweeps up the Pacific. And where there’s rain and cool temperatures interrupted by warm air currents, there’s fog.”
“But there may not be any, not exactly when we want it,” said Shakira.
“We’ll wait.”
Shakira Rashood asked him if he would like some tea, and her husband replied that he considered that an excellent idea, briefly toying with the temptation to remark how thrilled he was that she had decided to return to what she was good at. But he quickly rejected it, not wishing to have the entire contents of the teapot poured over his head.
Instead he looked up and smiled. “I’m very grateful, my darling,” he said, “the way you force people to explain themselves.”
“You’re too clever,” she said, affecting a mock pout. “Always too clever. I like being on your side.”
“You’re a good officer, Shakira. Ready to challenge when you do not quite understand. But in the end, respectful of your Commanding Officer. As we all must be.”
“I am a good officer,” she said seriously, but smiling. “But I hope you think I’m a better wife. Because I expect to be that for much longer.”
“If you go on doing as I tell you — at least while we’re in this ship on Allah’s mission — you will be my wife for a long time. I usually know what to do, and how to keep us safe.”
“You see,” she laughed, “you don’t even have a Commanding Officer. You make your own rules.”
“I have a Commanding Officer,” he replied. “And I hope He’s watching over both of us.”
Shakira looked at him with undisguised adoration — this powerfully built ex — British Army Major, the toughest man she had ever met, with the polish of a Sandhurst-trained officer and the strategic brilliance of an SAS commander. And yet he was an Arab still, with his dark tanned skin, the softest brown eyes, and the inborn fortitude of his Bedouin forebears.
And she thanked Allah for the day she had fled with him, terrified, through the rubble of shattered Hebron, while all around them there was only the blast of shells and the whine of bullets and the cries of the wounded. She thanked Allah for the strength she had found to take him into hiding with the Hamas freedom fighters.
Looking back, when she dared, to the devastation of that blasted cement house in the Palestinian district, she could still see her slain children, and the blood from the wounds of the dead SAS sergeants, blood pouring down Ravi’s combat uniform, blood on her children, on her own hands and dress. And she remembered how her own little Ravi had lain so still in the dust, next to his tiny dead sister, and how Ray had saved her life by committing two savage murders.
There was nothing, she thought, that could have been worth all that. But the former Maj. Ray Kerman had made it almost so. She could not imagine anyone loving another person more. She would have followed him into the mouth of hell.
As it happened, Ray followed her into the mouth of the galley, where the cooks were not working, and he kissed her longingly behind the shelves of canned fruit.
“You said this is why girls are not allowed in submarines,” she giggled, twisting away, in case anyone discovered them.
“People are only required to do as I say,” he said, cheerfully. “Not as I do.”
“You see — I’m always telling you — you do just as you like, because you have no Commanding Officer.”
Ravi looked admiringly at his wife, her beauty undiminished even in her standard dark navy-blue sweater, and he said simply, “I don’t think Allah would desert any of us on this mission. He has given us the power of the false gods of the ancient world, and He will guide us to victory. We are doing His work.”
“And to think,” said Shakira, shaking her head in sham disbelief, “you used to be an infidel…one sugar or two?”
General Rashood chuckled, quietly thankful at the talent Shakira had for diminishing the tensions of his great
