LITMIR.BIZ

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over the spy-in-the-sky data second by second,” he said, “working backward from the instant the sub surfaced off Port Angeles. There’s no evidence that it surfaced before that. DOD satellites would have caught it for sure. They would have caught it optically. So, I’ve been looking for anomalies in UDAR laser surface refraction, temperature gradients, sonar signature, anything that would give us a directional vector seaward.”

      “And?” Kurtzman said.

      “Zip, vis-à-vis the sub. At a certain point using these analytical techniques, we hit old Heisenberg—the software filters start distorting the evidence, making its reliability suspect and therefore worthless. That’s the point I’ve reached.”

      “So we’ve got nothing?” Kissinger said.

      “Not quite,” Tokaido said, tapping the keys. “Check this out.”

      A coastal map of the U.S. side of the strait appeared on the screen, overlayed by a faint green distance grid-work. The map scale was such that the Hook was visible in silhouette at the bottom left. Tokaido tapped on his keyboard again. “This is a real-time-sequence run-through,” he told them. “Estimated object speeds are in the bottom right screen.”

      Three fine, parallel, brilliant orange-colored lines suddenly appeared well offshore. They grew longer and longer as they headed straight for land.

      “Wakes,” Kissinger said.

      “High speed, shallow running,” Brognola said. “Was it a torpedo launch?”

      “They aren’t torpedoes,” Kurtzman said. “Or if they were, they didn’t detonate.”

      “Jet Skis?” Delahunt said.

      “Damn, they’re wave skimmers!” Kissinger exclaimed. “Superfast water assault vehicles. Like riding a Tomahawk missile bareback. They’ve got a Graphic User Interface, touch-screen controls. Our versions are two-man. SEALs use them.”

      “And the Russian equivalent to our SEALs is Spetsnaz,” Wethers stated.

      “Right,” Kissinger said.

      “Where was the skimmer launch point relative to Port Angeles?” Brognola asked.

      “About ten miles west,” Tokaido said.

      “And landfall?”

      “Freshwater Bay. It’s mixed rural and residential. Sparse population.”

      “Any reports of a beach landing there?”

      “Not yet, but things are very confused on the ground. At the moment 911 emergency lines are jammed.”

      “How long before the sub’s grounding did the skimmers reach land?” Kurtzman asked.

      “Looks like the wakes hit the beach twenty-three minutes prior,” Tokaido said.

      In an explosion of pent-up frustration, Brognola demanded, “Are we under attack? If so, by whom? And by what? We have to come up with answers, people.”

      The outburst was met by an uncomfortable silence.

      Then Delahunt said, “We haven’t been able to ID the ship, Hal. The configuration isn’t part of the existing archive. It has elements of two previous designs, the Alfa and the Akula, and other elements that are unique to itself. Hunt and I have assembled a list of all the architects and engineers known to have worked on those programs. It spans almost forty years.”

      “A penetration like this, however it was accomplished, requires new technology,” Kissinger said. “This is way beyond Akula.”

      “How long have the Russians had it?”

      “A long time,” Kissinger said. “My guess is it would take a decade or more to actually design and build a ship around it. The question is, how did they manage to hide an entirely new class of vessel from our inspectors? How many more are there? Where are they?”

      “And why are they letting the cat out of the bag now?” Kurtzman added.

      “DOD is going to have a field day tearing that sub apart,” Wethers said.

      “Bear, do we know where it came from?” Brognola said.

      “We know where it didn’t come from. It didn’t sail out of any of the previously identified naval shipyards or sub bases in the last twenty-four months. The construction site is equally a black hole.”

      “Why aren’t we already at DEFCON 1?” Delahunt asked.

      “The President has ordered our missiles retargeted and ready for launch,” Brognola replied, “but he is holding back the go-code. He has reason to believe that if this is an attack, it wasn’t coordinated by the Russian government or its armed forces.”

      “Because they’re still denying it’s their ship?” Wethers said incredulously.

      “No, Hunt, because the Russian government and military have just given the President complete access to their most sensitive internal-security material and to crack black-ops units already in the field,” Brognola said. “That’s what the last call from the White House was about. It appears that today’s events may be part of an isolated conspiracy on the fringes of the Russian military establishment. If that’s the case, the Russian politicians and generals want to root it out as badly as we do. As an act of good faith, they haven’t reprogrammed their launch codes or prepped their missiles. And they’ve invited us to participate in the ground action, on their home soil.”

      “Whoa,” Kissinger said.

      “The details are for our eyes only,” Brognola said. “No other clandestine service will be involved—none of the information we receive will be shared. That’s the deal the President made. We’ve got to live with it.

      “Able Team’s Homeland Security credentials and closed-airspace flight authorization are waiting for pickup at Boeing Field in Seattle,” Brognola went on. “Barbara, do we have a live link to Phoenix Force?”

      “I just finished alerting David to the necessity of a quick exit from the U.K.,” Price replied.

      “What about just scrubbing his current mission in light of events?” Kurtzman said.

      “David said there’s no need, and I agree with him. We’re basically still in a holding pattern at this end. The presence of the target at the London location has been confirmed. Phoenix Force is closing in as we speak, about to initiate contact on-site. Mission wrap-up in the next hour.”

      “With any luck we’ll know more by then,” Brognola said. “Make sure the Gulfstream at Heathrow is fueled and cleared for a flight east.”

      CHAPTER SIX

      London East End,

      2:20 p.m. GMT

      David McCarter and Rafael Encizo hustled down the rain-slick East End street, a treeless, winding canyon of two-story, nineteenth-century brick. In the middle of the gray afternoon, it was deserted but for a few mothers pushing prams on the opposite sidewalk. McCarter noted the huge For Sale signs in upper-story windows. This neighborhood of tenement slums was gradually being gentrified. Where immigrants from Eastern Europe had once lived ten to a room without running water, frantically upscale yuppies from the city’s financial district cooked on their Jenn-Air ranges under expansive skylights.

      The white panel van following behind McCarter and Encizo turned hard right, then angled down an alley that ran parallel to the street they were on.

      Phoenix Force was closing in fast.

      McCarter and Encizo walked on with their heads slightly lowered, their stocking caps pulled down over the tops of their ears. They looked like a couple of workmen, painters or plasterers in white-spattered coats, pants and shoes, hurrying to get back to a remodel job after an ale break.

      They stopped in front of a take-out curry shop.

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