“We didn't hit that hard,” the Colonel objected.
“I already said that. Want me to make the call?”
“Yeah, go ahead. Have you checked the threat board?”
“The world's at peace, Colonel, sir. I checked.”
The “threat board” was mainly an expression. The alert level of the government agencies that dealt with various problems depended on the expected level of danger in the world. The greater the possible danger, the more assets were kept ready to deal with them. At the moment there was no perceived threat to the United States of America, and that meant that only a single aircraft was kept ready to back-stop the President's VH-3. The major placed the call to Annacostia.
“Yeah, let's keep dash-two warm. Dash-one is down with electrical problems… no, we can handle it here. Oughta be back on line by midnight. Right. Bye.” The Major hung up just in time for Pete Connor to enter their cabin.
“What gives?”
“Bird's broke,” the Colonel replied.
“I didn't think we hit that hard,” Connor objected.
“Well, that makes it official,” the Major observed. “The only one who thinks we did hit that hard's the friggin' airplane.”
“The backup's on alert status,” the Colonel said, as he finished shaving. “Sorry, Pete. Electrical problem, maybe has nothing to do with the touchdown. The backup can be here in thirty-five minutes. Our threat board is blank. Anything we need to know about?”
Connor shook his head. “No, Ed. We know of no particular threat.”
“I can bring the backup bird here, but it means exposing it to the weather. We can take better care of it down at Annacostia. That's your call, sir.”
“You can leave it down there.”
“The Boss still wants to watch the game up here, right?”
“Correct. We all get a day off. Lift off for D.C. tomorrow about six-thirty. Problem with that?”
“No, ought to be fixed before then.”
“Okay.” Connor left and walked back to his cabin.
“What's it like out there?” Daga asked.
“About how it looks,” Pete said. “The chopper's broke.”
“I wish they'd be more careful,” Special Agent Helen D'Agustino observed as she brushed her hair.
“Not their fault.” Connor lifted the phone to the Secret Service command center, located a few blocks west of the White House. “This is Connor. The chopper is down with a mechanical problem. Backup is being kept at Annacostia because of weather conditions. Anything on the board I need to know about?”
“No, sir,” the junior agent responded. On his status board, in LED characters he could see that the President of the United States — designated POTUS on his display — was shown to be at Camp David. The First Lady of the United States — FLOTUS — space was blank. The Vice President was at his official residence on the ground of the U.S. Naval Observatory off of Massachusetts Avenue, North West, along with his family. “Everything's nice and calm, far as we know.”
“How are the roads down there?” Pete asked.
“Bad. Every Carryall we have is out retrieving people.”
“Thank God for Chevrolet.” Like the FBI, the Secret Service used the big Chevy four-wheel-drive trucks to get around. Heavily armored and with roughly the fuel-efficiency of a tank, the Carryall was able to do things that only a tank could excel. “Okay, it's nice and snug up here.”
“I bet the Marines are freezing their cojones off.”
“What about Dulles?”
“The Prime Minister is due in at eighteen hundred. The guys say Dulles has one runway open now. They expect to have everything clear by afternoon. Storm's slacking off a little here, finally. You know, the funny thing…”
“Yeah.” Connor didn't need to hear the rest. The funny thing was that weather like this made the job of the Secret Service easier. “Okay, you know where to reach us.”
“Right. See ya tomorrow, Pete.”
Connor looked outside when he heard the noise. A Marine was driving a snow-plow, trying to clear the paths between the cabins. Two more were working on the roads. It seemed rather odd. The equipment was painted in the Pentagon's woodland camouflage pattern of greens and browns, but the Marines were in their whites. There were even white pull-over covers for their M-16A2 rifles. Anyone who tried to get in here today would find, too late, that the perimeter guard force was totally invisible, and these Marines were all combat veterans. At times like this, even the Secret Service could relax, and that came rarely enough. There came a knock on the door. Daga got it.
“Morning papers, ma'am.” A Marine corporal handed them over.
“You know,” D'Agustino observed after she closed the door, “sometimes I think the guys who deliver these things are the only people you can really depend on.”
“What about the Marines?” Pete asked with a laugh.
“Oh, them, too.”
“Aspect change in Sierra-16!” the sonarman called. “Target is coming left.”
“Very well,” Dutch Claggett replied. “Mr. Pitney, you have the conn.”
“Aye aye, sir, I have the conn,” the navigator said as the XO went into the sonar room. The fire-control tracking party perked up, waiting to restart their calculations.
“Right there, sir,” the sonarman tapped the screen with his pencil. “Looks like a beam aspect now. Conn, sonar, bearing is now one-seven-zero, target is coming left. Radiated noise level is constant, estimate target speed is unchanged.”
“Very well, thank you.”
It was the third such turn they had tracked — Claggett's estimation appeared to be correct. The Russian was conducting a very methodical, very conservative — and very smart — search pattern of this patrol area, just like the 688s did in looking for Russian subs. The interval between the rungs of this ladder seemed to be about forty thousand yards.
“X, that new feed pump they have is a beaut,” the sonarman observed. “His plant noise is way the hell down, and the sucker's doing ten knots according to the tracking party.”
“Couple more years and we're going to have to worry about these guys.”
“Transient, transient — mechanical transient on Sierra-16, bearing is now one-six-four, still drifting left. Speed constant.” The petty officer circled the noise blip on the screen. “Maybe, sir, but they still got a lot to learn.”
“Range to target is now four-eight thousand yards.”
“Mr. Pitney, let's open the range some. Bring her right,” the executive officer commanded.
“Aye, helm, left five degrees rudder, come to new course two-zero-four.”
“Turning for another leg?” Captain Ricks asked as he entered sonar.
“Yeah, looks like the legs are pretty regular, Cap'n.”
“Methodical son of a bitch, isn't he?”
“Turned within two minutes of our estimate,” Claggett replied. “I just ordered us right to maintain distance.”
“Fair enough.” Ricks was actually enjoying this. He hadn't been aboard a fast-attack boat since his first assistant-department-head tour. Playing tag with Russian submarines was something he had not done in the past fifteen years. On the rare occasions he'd heard them at all, his action had always been the same: track long enough to determine the other sub's course, then turn perpendicular to it and head away until it faded back to random noise.
Necessarily, the game was changing somewhat. It wasn't as easy as it used to be. The Russian subs were getting quieter. What had been an annoying trend a few years ago was rapidly turning into something genuinely troubling. And maybe we just had to change the way we do business…
