Scimitar SL-2

“Tell him it’s in relation to the contact from Hamas,” he said brusquely, his anger not so far beneath the surface. “And to call me back after he’s done with whatever the fuck he’s doing.”

The General slammed down the phone. On the other end, Bill Hatchard experienced no sense of triumph. Instead he felt a rather unnerving sense of apprehension, knowing that he had just made an enemy of America’s most senior and most revered Military Commander, a man who was not afraid in any way of either him or his boss. That was not good.

Bill Hatchard knew the rules. These high-ranking Pentagon guys were extremely powerful, and, more importantly, permanently installed in the White House. General Scannell would be there long after President McBride had departed. So would most of the other gold-braided Generals and Admirals who surrounded him. Quietly, Bill resolved not to mention the bad blood that had so quickly developed between himself and the CJC, to make light of it, as if all was well.

That was all forty-five minutes ago. And General Scannell still hadn’t heard anything from the Oval Office. He would undoubtedly have been even more furious had he heard the short, sharp conversation between the Chief and Hatchard half an hour previously. In essence it proceeded on the following lines:

“Sir, I wonder if you could return a call to the CJC’s office in the Pentagon?”

“What does he want?”

“Something about that Hamas business?”

“Have they received something new?”

“Don’t know, sir. He did not really want to talk to me, it was you he wanted.”

“Call him back and tell him if it’s new to try my line again. If it’s not, forget about it. I’m extremely busy.”

“Yes, sir.”

But the mighty nerve that had never deserted the slow-moving, ponderous Yale defensive lineman in a dozen games for the Eli’s now folded up on him. He simply could not bring himself to call the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and make him look small. This was nothing to do with tact and empathy. This was pure and simple dread. Bill Hatchard was not about to engage General Tim Scannell in open combat. And like many would-be executives, operating in waters too deep and too hot, he elected to do…nothing.

Which left an extremely angry General Scannell simmering in the Pentagon, currently on the line to Admiral Arnold Morgan—the only person around here who understands precisely what is going on.

The two men spoke very seriously. According to Admiral Morgan’s guess, the Barracuda was probably in the South Atlantic by now, somewhere in a million square miles of ocean off the east coast of Argentina.

He listened with interest to the General’s report of the troop movements out of the Middle East and was pleased to hear that there was no longer a Carrier Battle Group in the Gulf. Both men believed that the Hamas demand to vacate the U.S. Navy facility in Diego Garcia was insolent in the extreme. DG was, after all, an official British colony and, in any case, thousands of miles closer to Hindu India than Muslim Iran or Iraq.

But what occupied them most was the knowledge that the terrorist attack had been threatened for October 9. And that was a mere fifteen days away. Arnold was seriously worried about the deployment of one hundred U.S. warships in the Mid-Atlantic, both in terms of logistics and the fact that the C in C of all the U.S. Armed Forces knew nothing of the operation. And that he actively refused to know anything about the operation.

At this point, neither General Scannell nor Admiral Morgan cared one jot for the moral rectitude of the mission. As Arnold put it, “It cannot be right, just because the President says it’s right. And it cannot suddenly become wrong, just because the President refuses to consider it. The judgment itself, right or wrong, remains sacrosanct, whatever he thinks.”

The fact was that both men sincerely believed the United States to be under threat; a threat in which a million people or more might die, and several of its greatest cities might be destroyed. Unless, that was, the military moved fast and decisively. In General Scannell’s opinion, “If there is one chance in twenty this tidal wave might actually happen, we must either stop it, or harness all of our considerable defenses. Any other course of action represents a gross dereliction of duty.”

Given the evidence, the General put the chances of this attack on the lethal granite cliff face of La Palma not at one in twenty, but even money. They had to get the President on their side.

0100, Monday, September 28

Communications Center

The Pentagon.

The duty officer stared at the screen, punching the button to download and print. The E-mail signal, unencrypted, was addressed personally to:

THE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS,

The Pentagon, Washington, U.S.A.

Sir, you plainly have not taken our last communique seriously. Pay attention just after midnight tonight, September 28, and you will see what we can do, and perhaps change your mind. — Hamas.

Maj. Sam McLean, a veteran infantry officer in the Second Gulf War, was instantly on full alert. He ordered someone to trace the E-mail immediately and then, checking his watch, fired in a call to the senior officer on duty in the United States Army ops area on the third floor.

Just the word Hamas, like terrorist, caused him to relay the message immediately to the CIA in Langley, Virginia, and the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland.

It was circulated to the ops-area night staff, with a copy to the Director’s Assistant, Lt. Comdr. Jimmy Ramshawe, who was still in his office, poring over photographs and signals that might betray the whereabouts of the elusive Barracuda submarine.

The Army Colonel, holding the fort at 0100 in the Pentagon, did not hesitate. He opened up the hot line to the home of the CJC and reported the message to General Scannell, word for word. Jimmy Ramshawe was already on the wire to Chevy Chase, where Admiral Morgan came out of his sleep like a Fourth of July mortar shell.

He scribbled a short note and called Tim Scannell who was still on the line to his office. By 0130, all the key players were tuned in to the new threat. General Scannell convened a meeting in the Pentagon for 0700.

Meanwhile, the tracers in the communications center had come up with a vague solution. The E-mail had originated somewhere in the Middle East. Either Damascus, Jordan, Baghdad, or possibly Kuwait. Definitely not to the west of the Red Sea, nor to the south or east of the Arabian Peninsula. The investigation was so sketchy that Major McLean relayed it only to the CIA, for possible further clarification.

By 0700, there was a pervasive sense of unease throughout the Pentagon. Word had inevitably leaked out that there was a new threat from Hamas. And it had not been specified. It could be anything, even another lunatic driving a passenger aircraft into the building. By the time the meeting began, the entire place was moving to red alert.

In the CJC’s private conference room, Admiral Morgan again chaired the meeting, and there was no one who believed that the Hamas writer was not deadly serious.

“I suppose there’s nothing on any of the nets that might throw light on the Barracuda, is there?” asked Arnold. “I mean, a possible contact anywhere in the world?”

“Nothing, sir,” replied Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe. “I’ve been up all night searching. But there’s not a damn squeak. The only item on any Naval network of any interest to anyone came from France. They’re saying the C in C of the Senegalese Navy has gone missing.”

“Probably been eaten by a fucking lion,” growled Admiral Morgan. “Anyway, we’re going to find out what these Hamas guys are up to seventeen hours from now. If nothing happens, maybe the President’s right. Maybe all of our evidence is just coincidental.”

“Not a chance, Arnie,” said Admiral Morris. “Something’s going to happen, somewhere. And you know it.”

“Then we better get the President of the United States of America off his ass, right now,” replied Arnold