Terminal Run

“How many do you have?”

“Twelve, Admiral.”

“Are they plasma-tipped? Any chance of converting them to fusion bombs?”

“No chance, sir. They’rein a ballast tank and we don’t have the ability to pull them out at sea. We could pull into a high bay facility and work on the missiles—”

“No. Plasma warheads will have to do, and I want the missiles in the air soon. I want to use my limited firepower to inflict the most pain.”

“What do you want me to attack?”

“I want you to destroy some American symbols so that the Americans will ache for their country the way I ache for my own. I want you to target the White House. The Capitol building. The Pentagon. The Statue of Liberty. The Empire State Building. Independence Hall. The Sears Tower. I want you to extract vengeance from the American Navy — target their Unified Fleet Headquarters in Norfolk, and their Unified Submarine Command HQ across the quadrangle. I want you to hit the submarine bases in Groton, Connecticut, and the submarine piers at Norfolk Naval Station. And the tomb of their John Paul Jones in the chapel at their naval school in Annapolis, Maryland. Twelve targets, twelve missiles. You must strike with all twelve missiles at once, so that none of the U.S. Air Force coastal defenses are alerted early.”

“Leave it to me, Admiral. Once I have fired the missiles, I will need to abandon ship. I can put it on a default course for the Bo Hai Bay, but I fully expect that my firing position will be found and that the U.S. Navy will fill the water surrounding that position with ordnance. There will be nothing left there.”

“Good luck, Krivak.”

Chu broke the circuit. Krivak disconnected the radio and went down the ladder to tell Wang he was done, then climbed back into the interface couch.

“One, plot our position on a global chart, then form a circle that shows the range of the Javelin cruise missiles.” Krivak studied the chart. “Plot the great circle route that brings Washington, D.C.” New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Groton, Connecticut, and Norfolk, Virginia, inside the circle.” The track flashed up on the display. “Now calculate, using speed thirty knots, the time of arrival at the range circle.”

The time flashed where the track intersected the range circles — showing Monday afternoon local time. With a missile flight time of two hours, he could have target impact before the close of business. Perfect — just in time for the evening news.

Krivak disconnected from the interface and plugged his satellite phone into the antenna. The number for Pedro was set to the speed dial. As he waited, the deck rocked gently in the swells at periscope depth.

“Yes,” Amorn’s voice crackled.

“Amorn, it’s me.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Amorn, it’s me. Krivak. On the Snare, dammit.”

“Yes, sir, I can hear you now.”

“Listen to me. Get a motor yacht, a fast one, and get it to the Atlantic coordinates I’m about to read to you.”

Amorn copied the latitude and longitude of the firing point.

“When can you gel there?”

“The Falcon is ready now. We can get a yacht out of Bermuda and be there by Sunday night.”

“Get to the coordinates no later than two a.m. Monday morning. If you get there early, just wait for me. I’ll get one last piece of business done, and then I’ll be leaving the ship.”

“We will stand by there.”

“I will see you then, my friend. Goodbye.”

Krivak clicked off the connection and took the ship’s ladder up to the interface bay and climbed back in the couch. When he was reconnected to the ship, he ordered One Oh Seven to descend from mast broach depth and continue their transit deep. The deck inclined downward as the ship plunged deep and sped up to thirty-five knots.

Captain Lien Hua and First Officer Zhou Ping rushed aft to find the chief engineer. Leader Dou Ling, standing on a rubber mat wearing rubber boots and rubber gloves in front of the open electric plant high-voltage main distribution panel. A rope was tied around his waist as if he were a prisoner, the rope held by two enginemen standing well away from the panel.

“Can you repair it?” Captain Lien asked.

Dou sounded peeved when he answered, spitting his spent cigarette to the deck. “Captain, either I’ll fix it or I’ll take four hundred and eighty volts right up my ass, and you can eject my burned-to-a-crisp corpse out the torpedo tube. Now, Captain. Mr. First, if you two don’t mind, can I finish this lecture and reach into the panel now?”

“Go ahead, Leader Dou.”

The chief engineer reached into the panel as carefully as if trying to steal jewels from under a laser burglar alarm. With a rubber-handled wrench he painstakingly unscrewed a copper bolt from an arcing copper bus bar, and pulled the scorched bars out of the cabinet one by one. Over the next two hours he worked. When he withdrew from the panel his coveralls were soaked.

“How is it?” Zhou Ping asked.

“It’s fucking bad, Zhou,” Dou roared. “If it weren’t, would I be risking my damned neck in an energized panel? Now, by your whore of a mother, will you leave me the hell alone?”