The Seventh Angel (35 page)

When the call was completed, the satellite phone kept the connection open, and transmitted the access code for its voicemail box. There was one waiting message, which the satellite phone downloaded, before terminating the call.

The incoming message was double encrypted in the same manner that the outgoing message had been. It was routed from the phone’s message queue to the adjoining microprocessor, which unraveled both layers of encryption, before shooting it back down the Kevlar cable toward the hanging titanium cylinder.

The process continued in reverse, and ended when the transducer injected a stream of white noise into the water, 100 meters below the ice. The transmission sounded a great deal like the ordinary noises of feeding krill, and not at all like tactical instructions to a nuclear missile submarine.

A kilometer away the K-506 received its updated orders. With slow but deliberate speed, the submarine turned and began to move north.

WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM

WASHINGTON, DC

SUNDAY; 03 MARCH

2:40 PM EST

National Security Advisor Gregory Brenthoven walked into the empty room. The high-backed leather chairs were all pushed against the long mahogany table. The air was still, and quiet.

Brenthoven closed the door, and stood alone on the heavy wine-colored carpet.

Something was tugging at his mind, a tiny prickle at the fringes of his subconscious. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but knew that he had missed something. Some little detail that had slipped past his conscious mind without making an impression. He didn’t know what it was, but he had a feeling that it was something important.

He walked the length of the table, stopping behind the chair where he usually sat. At the far end of the room, the projection screen was retracted into its recess in the ceiling. The remote control lay in the middle of the table.

Without knowing why, Brenthoven picked up the remote, and pressed the button that raised and lowered the screen. Electric motors whispered, and the screen descended, hanging at the end of the table like a blank tableau.

He pulled his chair out from the table and sat down, his eyes studying the empty display screen. Something in his mind stirred. He almost had something, flickering just out of sight at the edge of his memory.

What was it? Something he had watched on this screen, maybe?

He pressed another button, calling the hidden projector to life. The default image appeared on the screen: the presidential seal, set against a blue background.

Another series of buttons called up a menu of available presentation files. Admiral Casey’s Sea of Okhotsk brief was at the top of the
recent files
list. Again without knowing why he did so, Brenthoven called up the CNO’s briefing package.

He paged through the images slowly, studying each in turn. The map of the Sea of Okhotsk. The circle representing the launch point. The photograph of the Russian submarine. The map of the Pacific. The curving lines of the incoming warheads. The converging arcs of the interceptor missiles.

He reached the end of the presentation. Nothing

With a sigh, he dropped the remote on the table. The clatter of plastic against wood seemed to echo in the quiet of the empty room.

He’d been hoping that one of the images might jar something in his memory. But nothing was coming to him.

He leaned back in the chair and rubbed his eyes. Nothing. Damn it.

He’d go back to his office. Maybe it would come to him if he stopped thinking about it so much.

Or maybe there was no ‘
it
.’ Maybe the ‘
it
’ was nothing more than wishful thinking. Maybe he wanted so badly to find an answer, that his brain was conjuring phantoms.

He didn’t know. He reached for the remote, and pointed the device toward the screen to shut off the projector.

On the screen, the map of the Sea of Okhotsk was showing. In the northeastern corner was the red circle that represented the submarine’s launch position. The adjoining label showed the latitude and longitude of the circle: 58.29N / 155.20E.

Brenthoven’s finger reached toward the power button. It paused, hovering above the button. He studied the numbers … 58.29N / 155.20E.

Why did they seem familiar? Because he’d seen them during the admiral’s brief?

No, that wasn’t it. Now that he thought about it, they’d seemed familiar
then
too. He’d seen that same sequence of digits somewhere else, in a different context.

He read them aloud. “Five … eight … two … nine … one … five … five … two … zero …”

Damn it! Where had he seen them before? He almost had it now …

The answer hit him, and he sat up straight in the chair. He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket for his little leather-bound notebook. His fingers fumbled it, and he nearly dropped it.

He rifled through the pages until he found his notes from a recent intelligence brief. There it
was
. The same sequence of numbers. Five—eight—two—nine—one—five—five— two—zero.

The unidentified numbers that the Russian courier, Oleg Grigoriev, had given to the DIA agents from his hospital bed in Japan. And that had been the day
before
Zhukov’s submarine had launched the first missile.

Grigoriev had given them the position for the first missile launch,
before
the launch had occurred. He’d known ahead of time. He might very well know the
rest
of the planned launch positions as well.

Up to this point, that bastard, Zhukov, had been five steps ahead of them at every turn. If Grigoriev knew the rest of the launch points, they could get ahead of Zhukov for the first time. They could finally move from defense to offense. They could end this thing.

Brenthoven pulled out his cell phone and speed-dialed the White House chief of staff. The instant she picked up the phone, Brenthoven said, “I don’t care what he’s doing. I need to speak to the president.
Now
.”

USS TOWERS (DDG-103)

WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN

MONDAY; 04 MARCH

2218 hours (10:18 PM)

TIME ZONE +11 ‘LIMA’

Ann Roark stumbled climbing the aluminum stairs to the USS
Towers
wardroom. She would have fallen if Sheldon hadn’t grabbed the sleeve of her jacket and steadied her.

The young Sailor who had led them here from the flight deck looked back down from the head of the stairs. “These ladders are sort of steep, Ma’am. You’ve got to watch your footing.”

Ann rolled her eyes. Like she needed a teenager to tell her how to walk. And they weren’t
ladders
; they were
stairs
. Any idiot could see that. Why did the Navy have to use a different word for everything? Why couldn’t they say
floors
, and
walls
, instead of
decks
, and
bulkheads
? It was like they went out of their way to make things as complicated as possible.

Ann started climbing again. She was so tired that she had trouble lifting her feet enough to make it up the steep incline of the stairs. And the rolling of the ship wasn’t doing anything to steady her.

Even Sheldon, Mr. Perpetual Happy-face, was showing signs of wear and tear. He didn’t look quite as bad as Ann felt, but the fatigue was visible in his face. They’d been travelling for fifteen or sixteen hours since Narita. First the van ride to the Air Force base, and then three helicopter flights, with stops to refuel the aircraft on two ships along the way. They’d probably crossed a couple of time zones in there somewhere, but Ann’s brain was too tired to do the math.

Her ears still felt numb from a very long day spent listening to the shriek of poorly-insulated aircraft engines. Little creature comforts, like soundproofing, were evidently not a priority to the U.S. military.

It was after ten o’clock, and the lighting in the ship’s hallways had been dimmed from bright white, to soft red. In Navy lingo, it was after
Taps
. Couldn’t they just call it
lights out
, like everybody else on the planet?

They reached the top of the stairs, and Sailor Boy led them through a short passageway toward a door that Ann recognized as the entrance to the ship’s wardroom.

She stopped, and lowered her bags to the floor. “Wait a second,” she said. “Can’t you take us to our staterooms first? I’d like to drop off my bags.”

What she
really
wanted was to get a few hours of sleep. Her brain felt like it was stuffed full of cotton. Did the Navy boneheads really think they could drag her out of bed at three in the morning, jerk her all over the Pacific for sixteen hours, and then put her straight to work?

The young Sailor smiled. “Just leave your bags here in the passageway. I’ll take them down to your staterooms. The captain wants to see you right away, Ma’am.”

The kid’s tone of voice pushed Ann’s annoyance up another notch. She resisted the temptation to parrot his words right back in his face. ‘
The captain wants to see you right away, Ma’am
.’

The kid was probably only nineteen years old—twenty at the outside—and the Navy already had him mentally conditioned. He honestly could not conceive of someone not giving the exalted
‘
captain
’ exactly what he wanted.

Automatic obedience was dangerous. Couldn’t these people see that? Couldn’t they see what it could lead to? Ann wondered what Sailor Boy would say, if she told him that his almighty captain could go to hell.

Sheldon lowered his bags to the floor and nudged Ann gently with his elbow. “Come on, let’s go save the world.”

Ann didn’t budge.

Sheldon cocked his head and showed Ann his most elaborately pitiful puppy-dog face. “Am I going to have to sing the ‘Kitty Paw’ song?”

Against her will, Ann felt herself smile a little. “Alright, asshole,” she said. She nodded toward the young Sailor. “Let’s go, Popeye. The excitement has arrived.”

The Sailor knocked on the wardroom door, and opened it, but didn’t enter. He stepped to one side, holding the door for Ann and Sheldon.

Sheldon muttered a
thank you
as he stepped past the Sailor. Ann followed Sheldon into the wardroom without comment.

Captain Bowie stood when they entered the room. He smiled, and motioned for them to sit.

“
Welcome aboard
Towers
,” he said. “It’s good to have you back.”

He nodded, and a young Sailor in a blue smock jacket and white paper hat stepped forward to place cups of steaming coffee in front of the only two empty chairs at the table.

By the looks of it, nearly every officer on the ship was present. At least Ann thought they were all officers. She had never bothered to learn to distinguish military rank insignias, but they all wore khaki uniforms.

Ann took the chair on the right. She skipped the preliminaries, and reached straight for the sugar and cream.

Sheldon returned the captain’s smile as he settled into the chair to Ann’s left. “Thank you for inviting us back, Captain. We’re glad to be here.”

Ann raised her eyebrows, but didn’t comment. They hadn’t been
invited
. They’d been freaking
summoned
. And she was, most assuredly,
not
glad to be here.

She sipped at her coffee, and was mildly surprised to find that it wasn’t horrible. Not as good as coffee in the real world, but better than the acrid glop they usually served aboard ship. No doubt the improvement had something to do with the presence of the captain. When the big boss was in the house, the cooks probably put in a little extra effort.

Ann took a larger swallow. Well, maybe not
too
much extra effort.

Captain Bowie took his seat and pulled his own coffee cup across the table toward himself. “I realize that we got you up before the roosters,” he said. “And I know you’ve been in the air most of the day. I’m sure you’re both exhausted, so we’ll try to keep this as short as possible.”

“
Thank you, sir,” Sheldon said.

“
We’ll sketch out the basic tactical situation tonight,” the captain said. “Then we can sleep on it, and get into the details tomorrow morning.”

Sheldon fought off a yawn. “Works for me.”

The captain faced one of his people, a redheaded woman with a rounded face that seemed out of proportion to her trim build. “Chief McPherson, can you get us started?”

Chief McPherson stood up. “Aye-aye, sir.”

She laid a navigational chart on the table top, and unrolled it, weighting the corners with coffee mugs so that the curled paper didn’t roll itself back into a tube. A series of lines and symbols had been drawn on the chart using colored pencils. “Before we jump into the tactical situation,” she said, “how covert is your Mouse unit’s underwater transponder system?”

Ann shrugged. “We don’t really know yet.”