Scimitar SL-2

holding the latest message from Ben Badr, which simply read: 72.30N 76.00E. The Hamas General quickly decoded the true position and marked the spot on his map of the Atlantic.

Ben had made almost 10 knots since Tuesday morning, covering 700 miles across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The Barracuda was now almost on the line of the Tropic of Cancer, creeping at only five knots over the SOSUS wires. They were roughly 775 miles short of their ops area, which at this speed—120 miles a day — was six and a half days away. Ravi’s fingers whipped over the buttons on his calculator. It was now around midday on Friday where the Barracuda steamed, and they should arrive at the Canaries firing zone around midnight next Thursday, October 8.

“Right on time for the hit,” said Ravi to himself. “Just pray to Allah the Scimitars work again.”

“I’m hearing a certain amount of mumbling here,” said Shakira, who had just appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “Would you like some tea, to calm your nerves?”

“Thank you. That would be perfect,” said Ravi. “By the way, I’ve just received a signal from the Barracuda, and it’s good news. They report no illness or casualties, they’re right on time, right on course, in mid-Atlantic, 775 miles short of La Palma.”

“I was just watching CNN on the television,” said Shakira. “The Americans are very concerned. The President has broadcast twice, and an evacuation of the East Coast is in full swing. They seem to have accepted the reality of our threat.”

“Are they saying anything specific about their defensive measures…You know, a deployment of ships around the islands?”

“Nothing much, only that they’ll be starting an extensive search for the Barracuda soon.”

“Hmm,” replied Ravi. “They’ll have a lot of search power out there, but I don’t think they’ll be able to catch Ben. He’s firing from 300 miles out, way to the southeast…and so far as I can see, there’s no way they’ll catch him in that deep water…not if he stays slow and deep, and launches from 200 or 300 feet below the surface.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever missed anything,” said Shakira, thoughtfully. “You think our luck will hold?”

“This isn’t luck. It’s planning,” said Ravi. “Planning over a long period of time.”

“You think they know it’s definitely a submarine, definitely launching missiles at the volcanoes from below the surface?”

“Hell, yes,” said General Rashood. “They know that.”

“Well, what would you do, if you were them?”

“Evacuate,” said Ravi. “As fast as I could.”

“Nothing Military or Naval — no aggressive action?”

“Well, I’d certainly send ships out to hunt for the submarine, but the Atlantic’s a big place. I would not hold my breath.”

Shakira was still thinking. “You know, my darling,” she said, “I spent a lot of time plotting and planning with the missile guidance systems. They do work from the satellites, you know.”

“Just on the regular Global Positioning System.”

“How about if the Americans somehow interfered with that. Made it nonoperational?”

“Well, I believe there’s nearly thirty satellites up there, and I’ve always thought they were involved in television, telecommunications, and all kinds of things. And every ship in the world is entirely dependent on them for navigation. I don’t think even the Americans could somehow turn off the entire communications and navigation system for the whole world. They’d be too afraid of the lawsuits that would probably amount to billions of dollars.”

“Let’s hope they are,” said Shakira, pouring tea into two glasses with little silver holders. “Otherwise, Ben will miss our target.”

Midday (Local), Friday, October 2

National Security Agency.

The Fort Meade code breakers had almost done their job. Admiral Morris had taken the first signal off the Chinese Navy’s satellite and drawn a large circle on a chart of the North Atlantic.

“That’s where we think the Barracuda is,” he said. “In there somewhere. We are nearly certain this signal with the numbers 71.30N 96.00W is reporting her precise position. Try to come up with something, will you?”

Shortly before noon on the previous day, the code room had come up with a close solution. “On the first number, we think they just subtracted 50…or maybe 49 or 48. No more. On the second number, the W for West, means E for East. And we are nearly certain they just cut the number 96 in half. Which would give us 21.30N 48.00W, and that’s right about in the center of the circle.”

Admiral Morris and his assistant were delighted with that. And they were waiting anxiously for a new signal. At 12:30 P.M. Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe located something on the Chinese satellite…OLD RAZORMOUTH 72.30N 76.00E.

Jimmy whipped 50 off the first number, and divided the second one in half. He changed the West to East and came up with 22.30N38.00W. He checked on his detailed computerized chart of the Central Atlantic, and recorded the precise spot where he believed the Barracuda was steaming, probably three hours ago. He checked back with the previous numbers and plotted the submarine 700 miles farther east than they’d been on Tuesday morning.

He calculated the speed, and like the faraway General Rashood, he assessed it at just below 10 knots. He keeps that up, he’ll spring one of those SOSUS wires for sure in the next few hours. Jimmy Ramshawe’s confidence was rising by the minute. The submarine was slightly farther north, maybe 60 miles, but the overall difference was definitely 700 miles. That put her on a direct route to the Canary Islands.

He called Admiral Morris, who guessed it might take four hours to get surveillance ASW aircraft into the area, which would mean the Barracuda would be possibly 70 miles farther on. But they had no further guarantee of her course, which could change at any time. And that presented a large surface area — as much as 5,000 square miles to search.

George Morris called Admiral Morgan, who followed the conversation on his wall-sized computer chart, which was now in the Oval Office. He said to put the information on the wire immediately to Admiral Doran in Atlantic Fleet Headquarters, Norfolk, and to the CNO in the Pentagon.

“George,” said Arnold. “This comes down to the same thing, as always. A huge area to search, out in the middle of the Atlantic, and almost no chance of catching him if he’s deep and quiet. Also, we don’t know the timing of the signal from the Barracuda.

“I think Jimmy’s right. It was probably sent three hours before we picked it up. But it could have been yesterday. This bastard is very smart. Note that there was no time and date on the signal. I guess they know when he’s scheduled to transmit, and so long as he says nothing, they know he’s on schedule.

“But I continue to think any kind of wide search in the remotest areas of the Atlantic is hopeless. We’re not going to find this son of a bitch until we can drive him inshore. Then we have an excellent chance.”

Ten minutes later, Admiral Doran was on the line to the Oval Office. His view was the same as Arnold’s. “We could waste an enormous amount of time and effort out there. And it’s still only about a 5 percent chance we’d catch him,” he said. “The value of that signal is it confirms the existence of the Barracuda. And it confirms roughly where he is, or was, plus his course and obvious destination. We just have to force him inshore…Any luck with the French?”

“I’m speaking to their Foreign Minister in a half hour, Frank. At this stage I’m not hopeful. I think it’s going to come down to President-to-President. But I’ll be doing my best to scare this little son of a bitch in Paris.”

Admiral Doran replaced the receiver. He instructed someone to alert all Atlantic ships as to the perceived whereabouts of the Barracuda. And then he returned to the colossal task of evacuating the Norfolk shipyards.

One hour later, thirty minutes late, Kathy got the French Foreign Minister on the telephone. Arnold did not know the man, and decided that politeness was the sensible course to steer. They introduced themselves, formally. The Frenchman spoke good English and the Admiral decided to come straight to the point.

“Minister,” he said, “you probably already know why I’m calling. You must have read about the terrorist threat in the newspapers, right?”