end of its flight path just west of Tatoosh, its IR feed became thicker with hotspots. These were smaller than the bobbing hotspots of fishing vessels’ radar masts and the like but appeared to the general significantly more numerous.
The phone jangled.
“Freeman!”
It was David Brentwood calling to ask if he had more details, via Darkstar, about the explosion. The officers’ mess at Fort Lewis, he explained, was a hive of contradictory rumors, CNN camera-equipped choppers from the news networks apparently not yet on the scene. Some were saying CNN’s crews were chickening out because of the fear of radiation.
The general, concerned as he was by the sudden increase in the number of hotspots on the IR feed, was nevertheless encouraged by Brentwood’s tone. He knew that curiosity about the world beyond oneself was a sign of recovery from post-traumatic stress disorder. Perhaps with Aussie’s help Brentwood had finally accepted the hard truth that he was finished, not only in SpecOps but for the regular forces as well. Surely the Medal of Honor winner now realized how downright irresponsible it would be for any commander, extant or retired, to send an injured man into combat, endangering the lives of all those around him because of his handicap — or what, Freeman thought, politically correct reporters would call his “limb-challenged” ability. Even worse, in the general’s view, would be the danger posed to David’s comrades’ by their preoccupation with his safety rather than with the mission objective.
“David,” the general said, “I’d like you and Aussie to get up here to Port Angeles. Salvini and Choir are due momentarily. Tell Aussie to bring his Draeger.”
“Roger that,” said David. “I’ll bring mine too.”
There was silence on the general’s end.
“Can you hear me, General?”
“What? Ah, yes, yes. Bring your tank. Sorry — I’m glued to an IR printout of the coast,” said the general, and seeing the hotpots multiplying, added. “Could do with you boys’ advice on this. Something strange going on.”
“Metal debris from the destruction of the Aegis?” suggested Brentwood. “Lot of it would still be pretty hot even in the sea.”
“Some of that in the sea, I agree. But this is all over the place. On Tatoosh Island?”
“Where’s that?”
“Bird sanctuary. No one allowed near it but our UAV. It’s showing hundreds of hotspots. Like damned confetti.”
“Is this Toosh Island anywhere near where the Aegis blew up?”
“No. Much further west. ’Course, most of the hotspots I’m seeing could be body heat from the thousands of birds. Got every species here from little stormy petrels to giant albatross. But there’s other stuff too — bigger’n damn houses — along supposedly
“Close those drapes!”
Freeman was startled by the police bullhorn, but he walked over to the window and closed the curtains, stealing a glance at the dark strait. Not a single light was visible, where only shortly before it had been crowded with naval ships. The remainder of what had been the
In Bangor, Walter Jensen was standing outside the blacked-out Admiral’s House, waiting for the sub’s return. “What a humiliation,” he told Margaret, who stood silently by his side, her hand gently moving back and forth across his steel-tense back as he stared into the fog-clogged darkness of Hood Canal. “Battle group didn’t even get past the choke point. It — I’m finished,” he said quietly. He waited for her to cloister him as she always did. But Margaret said nothing.
Walter Jensen was telling the truth. His chances of becoming CNO, replacing the soon retiring Admiral Nunn, had been destroyed, along with the careers of a sacrificial slew of officers unable to explain why on their watch the United States Navy, with all its billions of dollars’ worth of computers and other electronic wizardry, including aircraft-borne forward-looking infrared scanners and magnetic anomaly detectors, had failed to pick up either a heat signature or magnetic disturbance from the midget sub reported by SEAL diver Rafe Albinski.
*A A *A A *
A caller into Larry King’s interview with CNO Nunn, which Freeman had on in the background as Aussie and David arrived, was graciously trying to help Walter Jensen and, by extension, the Navy and the U.S. armed forces in general, by surmising that even with all the scientific know-how available “it must be a much more difficult job to detect a midget sub than a regular one?”
“Yes,” agreed Nunn. “And if I could take your analogy further, searching for a midget sub would be like looking for a single automobile dumped on the sea bottom as opposed to, say, looking for an Amtrak train.”
The next caller quipped, “If you’re lookin’ for an Amtrak, Admiral, all you have to do is check with CNN — see where the latest derailment is. They’re goin’ off the rails ’bout one a day. And if—” King cut him off, obviously displeased with his call screener. The next caller identified himself as a former electronics warfare officer, and said the MAD — the “stingray” tail on any of the battle group’s early warning planes or ASW helos — could easily have missed the midget because MAD’s range of detection was limited to a third of a mile, “for ’bout six or seven hundred yards max either side of your track. That’s only ’bout as far as a par five.”
“That’s a bogey ten for me,” quipped Larry, trying to ease the tension, the admiral smiling.
The note of levity, however, backfired, the caller becoming irate. “I don’t see anything funny ’bout it. We’ve lost more Americans in that Juan de Fuca Strait than we did on 9/11, and we’re gonna lose more if we don’t find out what the [blip] is going on.”
“You’re quite right,” King responded. “How about the other detection gear, sir? This FLIR — forward looking infrared. How good’s that?”
“It’s fine,” said the mollified caller. “But again, how high are you flying? Best thing is to get satellite surveillance for that.”
“Didn’t Admiral Johnson—” Larry began.
“Jensen,” the CNO corrected politely.
“Sorry, yeah, Jensen. He said he got satellite-reported anomalies in the strait early on and had ’em checked out.”
“Yes,” answered the CNO. “He dispatched a UAV.”
“A Predator.”
“No, another type,” answered Nunn.
“Can you tell me what kind it was?”
“No.”
“It was—” began the caller, but King used his delay button to call up a commercial, CNO Nunn visibly relaxing and thanking Larry during the break. “A retiree, right?” mused King, “stickin’ it to his old employer. I’m gonna get crap, though, for cutting him off. Censorship, blah blah blah …”
Nunn shrugged. “People generally understand it’s not a good idea to tell the enemy what kind of surveillance we’ve been using.”
King didn’t comment. Truth was, the Navy didn’t think it was a good idea to tell anyone anything anywhere, except come appropriations time on the Hill.
The red light was back on. “Admiral,” asked King, “you think the midget sub is still with us? In our waters? Maybe it’s gone. Hit the Aegis cruiser — that’d be three in a row — and ran?”
Nunn was caught unawares. Everyone, even the maverick Freeman, was operating on the assumption the enemy sub was still there.
“Ah, well, I doubt it’s gone, Larry. A midget sub doesn’t move that fast underwater and hasn’t got anywhere near the range of a normal-size sub.”
“Garbage!” It was Douglas Freeman, who, now with Aussie and David Brentwood, was listening to the King interview while still watching Darkstar’s flight south of Tatoosh Island down the wild beauty of the Pacific’s pounded coastline. Here and there, streaks of white appeared on the grayish screen, not surf, but isolated, pristine beaches that marked the verdant and rocky edge of America.
“What d’you mean, ’garbage’?” asked Aussie.
