America (48 page)

“That missile didn't make it halfway around the world to the Maldives. It would have had to achieve orbitable velocity to get that far. It went in the Atlantic, someplace.”

“I agree,” said Captain Killbuck. He pointed out likely ships, ships that had cranes and thrusters and sufficient deck space to be used for salvage work. One of them, a cable layer, was in Cadiz.

“What's it doing there?”

“Who knows? We can find out, but it will take awhile.”

“I think the satellite is on a seamount or continental shelf. Without a salvage ship, they can't work helmeted divers in deep water. I would bet it's where scuba divers can get to it, say less than a hundred feet. The divers could come out of the sub, open the missile, take out the satellite.”

“They can't get it into the sub,” Killbuck objected. “The airlock opening is too small.”

“That's right. But maybe they could put a cable on it, tow it, take it someplace where it can be raised by a ship with a crane. At night. What we've got to do is find that ship.”

“Why did they need the minisub?”

Jake Grafton took his time with that one. “I don't know that they needed the minisub. It was on
America
when they stole it, but I think the target was really
America.
They needed a sub that a small crew could man. As you know,
America
is more computerized than any other American submarine. And it's stealthy. If they had had any other boat, they'd be dead after a sea battle with two
Los Angeles
–class attack boats.”

“I think they'll use the minisub to go back and forth between another ship and the submarine.”

“I think so too,” the admiral said. “They know all about radar and IR recon satellites. And they know we're looking. What they need is a ship that they can get the minisub into.”

Killbuck made a note. Then he asked, “What do you think they will do with
America
after they have the satellite?”

“You know the answer to that. They'll abandon her. Submerged.”

“So they'll use the minisub to get the people out?”

“I doubt it,” Jake said. “Those fifteen men killed six American sailors and stole a submarine. They fired missiles that killed more than six hundred more Americans. They sank
La Jolla
and killed her crew. They're the most wanted men on Earth. Whoever is behind this doesn't want those men to ever talk to prosecutors or sit on a witness stand. I have this sneaking suspicion that USS
America
will be their tomb.”

*   *   *

The foreign liaison types, Ilin included, went to lunch at noon. Jake hadn't spoken to Ilin since immediately after Jadot was killed. He had been avoiding the man. Jake had nothing to use as a lever to pry whatever Ilin knew from him, so there was no point talking. They were past the point of idle chitchat.

He was sitting at his desk staring out the window when Toad and Carmellini came in carrying a pizza. “Want a piece, sir?”

“A couple, if you can spare them.”

“Normally we wouldn't, but since you're regular navy…”

As they opened the box on Jake's conference table, Toad said, “We got lucky this morning. A Beltway bandit has a former FBI agent as their security guy. He keeps the prints of everyone who gets access to the inner sanctum in a card file. He found this.” Toad handed Jake a copy of the access card.

“Zelda Hudson. Hudson Security Services.” He read the address in Newark aloud, then put the card on his desk. “No photo?”

“I was saving the best for last.” Toad whipped another sheet of paper from his pocket. This was a sheet of copy paper with the photo reproduced on it. A white woman with regular features and a mass of dark hair. She looked as if a smile would transform her face, make her radiant.

“Well?” Jake said, looking at Carmellini.

“It's her, all right. Sarah Houston, Zelda Hudson.”

As he worked on the pizza, Jake thought about it. “Maybe we ought to wait to find out what Krautkramer finds in that CIA West Side apartment.”

“I don't care what he finds,” Carmellini retorted. “We have a name and address. We even called information and got the phone number of Hudson Security in Newark. I called and asked for her. I recognized her voice. Didn't say anything, just hung up.”

“What did she say?” Toad asked with his mouth full.

“‘Hello.'”

“That's it? You can recognize women with two syllables?”

“How many does it take before you figure out it's your wife?”

“The degree of familiarity is a bit different, but your point is well taken.” Toad turned his attention to Jake. “What say Tommy and I take a car and zip up Jersey way this afternoon. Maybe we can have a little talk with this woman.”

“What are you going to say to her?”

“Stolen any submarines lately? Hired any killers?”

Jake finished his slice of pizza before he spoke. “We'll wait for Krautkramer. He might want to put a wiretap on their phones. Maybe he won't want to do anything until he's had a wiretap in place for a while. If he wants to talk to her, perhaps he'll let us tag along.”

Toad didn't argue. He knew who called the shots.

Tom Krautkramer showed up at quarter to one. He listened in silence to Carmellini's report, looked at the copies of the fingerprint card and photo, then said, “These were the prints in the West Side apartment. A cleaning service had been in there, but they missed a few prints. Apparently someone put some bum info into the computer in Clarksburg.”

“Wonder who?” Toad said innocently.

“I'd like you to tap her phones,” Jake said, “as soon as you can get a judge to sign something. And I want to interview her. Today if possible. Will you come?”

“Let's go by my office and I'll dictate an affidavit. One of the guys can fill out the rest of the form and get it to the judge. With luck, we can have her phones tapped in about six hours.”

“Maybe we should wait and interview her tomorrow, after the taps are on,” Jake said, tugging at his ear.

“That would certainly be normal procedure,” the agent agreed, “but I had another blast from the director this morning. Max effort. The president has given us our marching orders. He wants that submarine found and put out of action. That's priority one, so the airlines can fly and the economy can level out. Jailing those responsible is priority two.”

“If you put them in the can and they ultimately get off because you don't have a good case, you'll hear about it then,” Toad objected. “You know this town.”

“Can this woman lead you to the submarine?”

“Maybe,” Jake said. “Let's go.”

An hour and a half later when Krautkramer came out of the FBI building and climbed into the car with Jake, Toad, and Carmellini, he looked at them with new respect. “Hudson Security Services has forty telephone lines,” he said. “I talked to the judge, and he'll sign the warrant, but monitoring forty lines is going to be a major operation. We're going to have to bring in assets from all over.”

“We've all been hoping for a break,” Jake said. “Maybe this is it.” Toad was behind the wheel. Jake tapped him on the shoulder. “Let's go to Newark.”

*   *   *

An ambulance and a small sedan belonging to U.S. Customs were waiting when the Gulfstream V taxied up in front of the Teterboro executive terminal and shut down its engines. As the door opened and the linemen maneuvered a stairway against the plane, a customs officer and an immigration officer got out of the sedan and strolled over. They were joined by a paramedic.

A man in a business suit came down the stair with a handful of passports. “Monsieur Schlegel wishes to thank you for your hospitality,” he said in a French accent.

The immigration officer flipped through the passports, stamping each of them. “Which one is the sick woman?”

“This one,” the man said, indicating a passport. “The ambulance will transport her to the hospital.”

“Anything to declare?” asked the customs official respectfully.

“Nothing, Monsieur. We will only be here a few hours. The woman is a relative of Monsieur Schlegel and needs to see a specialist. We will be leaving this evening after the consultation.”

The immigration officer nodded at the paramedic, who climbed the ladder and disappeared into the plane. In less than a minute he came to the door and waved at his colleague, who removed a stretcher from the ambulance and carried it up the stairs into the plane.

The group on the tarmac were joined by an official of the FAA. He went up the stairs to talk to the pilots. When he came back down, the immigration and customs officers were driving away.

“Thank you for allowing us to land,” the Frenchman said to the FAA man.

“Humanitarian emergencies justify some risks,” the FAA official replied. “Your embassy explained everything. We're delighted to be of assistance, but I wanted your pilots and Monsieur Schlegel to realize that there is some danger. If there is another attack by missiles armed with electromagnetic warheads, control of the aircraft could be lost. The consequences could be catastrophic.”

“Monsieur Schlegel appreciates the danger. Still, the lady is very ill, and risks must be taken.”

Soon the paramedics carried a stretcher from the plane. The man who followed them was in his late fifties or early sixties—it was difficult to say—of medium height, with wide shoulders and a flat stomach. On his right cheek was a faint shadow of a dueling scar. He was wearing an exquisitely tailored blue silk suit, hand-painted tie, and custom-made leather shoes. He looked every inch the billionaire accustomed to command.

Three other men followed him. They waited respectfully while he whispered to the woman on the stretcher, then all of them watched the paramedics place the stretcher in the waiting ambulance.

Schlegel nodded to the FAA man, then, followed by his entourage, walked toward a stretch limo that had pulled up between the plane and the terminal. The four men got into the limo, which followed the ambulance toward the gate in the perimeter fence.

“Did you have a nice flight?” the FAA man asked the Frenchman who remained.

“Very nice. Never has it been so easy to get into the New York area. The controllers let us descend across Manhattan. The sky, it is empty.”

A look of irritation crossed the FAA man's face. “Yes,” he acknowledged, “completely empty.”

*   *   *

“Why do you want out of the CIA, anyway?” Toad Tarkington asked Tommy Carmellini. They had just crossed the Delaware Bridge and were on the New Jersey Turnpike headed north. Carmellini hemmed and hawed, and finally produced a metal cigar canister from his pocket. At least, it looked like a cigar canister, complete with the logo of a well-known cigar company. It was, however, a bit larger in diameter.

“I invented this,” Carmellini said, “and they won't give me any royalties or pay me for it. They're just a small-caliber bunch.”

Jake held out his hand and Tommy passed it to him. “Don't turn the cap,” he advised. “That's the fuse.”

“It's an explosive device?”

“That's right. An electromagnetic grenade, or E-grenade.”

“And you carry it around in your pocket?”

“Well, yeah. I gotta carry it somewhere. Won't do me any good if it's at home when I need it.”

“What if it pops?” Jake passed it on to Krautkramer, who gave it a cursory glance and handed it back to Carmellini.

“That would ruin my day,” Carmellini acknowledged. “And put every electronic device within fifty feet out of commission, including this car. We'd be walking. And if that pistol in your pants goes bang, you too are going to have a problem.”

“You're not supposed to notice that.”

“Right.”

“I can't believe this,” Krautkramer said, sticking his fingers in his ears. “Here I am riding around with a bunch of guys armed to the teeth with illegal weapons.”

“Hey, this is America,” Toad said, as if that explained everything.

*   *   *

“That is her building,” said the man sitting in the back of the limo with Willi Schlegel. He pointed. His name was Crozet. “Hudson Security Services. Apparently legit. I have made the acquaintance of several of the women who work there, talked to them in bars and gymnasiums. The office is on the top floor. The rest of the building is an open, empty warehouse. The only access to the top floor is an elevator.”

“Is she in there?”

“Yes, sir. She went to lunch at noon and returned an hour later.”

“Fire escapes?”

“There is a hole in the floor, and a rope. A person using it would end up on the ground floor inside the building. There is a back door made of steel, which can be opened only from the inside; it opens onto a loading dock in the alley behind the building. The building is a flagrant violation of the local building code.”

“Access to the roof?”

“Yes, from the offices. A ladder that can be pulled down, then a door allows access to the roof. However, there is no way off the roof, so anyone up there would have to be lifted off by a ladder truck or helicopter.”

“So what do you propose?”

“I think some smoke grenades in the adjoining building, which is a warehouse for furniture donated to charity. The fire department would then, I believe, evacuate the adjacent buildings as a precaution.”

“She may not come out.”

“If she doesn't, I thought that I and one of the men might go in from the roof. A helicopter can land us there while the evacuation is under way. I have made arrangements with the pilot of a television news helicopter. He will earn a fast ten thousand dollars.”

“The door on the roof?”

“Plastique. A small charge should do it.”

Willi Schlegel looked up and down the street. “And the timing?”