Terminal Run

But the worst news was the Snare’s course — northwest. She had no reason to be going northwest. He stormed off the conn, hurried up the stairs to his stateroom, and grabbed a world globe, a ceremonial gift from a Royal Navy submarine commander from the last time the ship had visited Faslane. The sepia-colored globe in one hand, a grease pencil in the other, he barged into the V.I.P stateroom just as McKee was dialing the phone.

“Please hang up the phone, Admiral,” Judison said urgently.

McKee stared up at him and put the phone down.

“We lost the Snare. She’s outside of Mark 58 and Vortex range.”

“So she goes around the Cape of Good Hope. We’ll redirect the submarines we had in the Indian Ocean to intercept her as she enters—”

“No, you won’t. Here’s our position.” He stabbed the globe with the grease pencil north of the equator off the African

Senegal coast. “Here’s the position of the Snare.” He put another dot down, several millimeters from the first dot, the new one to the northeast. “Here’s the Snare’s course — heading two nine zero. Let me just draw a great circle route on that course.” Judison put a piece of paper on the globe and used it as a straight edge, drawing a line with the grease pencil. He handed the globe across the table to McKee.

The admiral grabbed it and saw where the line ended. “Oh, God. It’s heading to the East Coast.”

“He’s headed toward missile range of the Atlantic seaboard, and there’s nothing we can do to stop him. Every single warship and submarine we own is in the Indian Ocean or the East China Sea. There’s nothing left to protect the coast except some Coast Guard cutters, and Snare will probably launch from far at sea anyway.”

McKee thought for a moment.

“Not every submarine is at sea,” he said. “We have one on the East Coast.”

“What boat is that, sir?” Petri asked.

“The SSNX,” McKee said.

“But, Admiral, even if the SSNX can get waterborne, there are no war shot torpedoes or Vortex missiles in the weapons depots,” Petri said. “They were all loaded on the submarines or the tender vessels to be taken into the Op Area.”

“And there are no commanding officers,” Judison said. “We’re so thin on senior officers since last summer’s attack that anyone with a warm body is already submerged. There’s not one man on the East Coast who could command the SSNX even if there were torpedoes.”

“Oh, yes, there is, Kiethan. There’s one man you’d want in a submerged fight. He’s just what you might call — overqualified.” Judison stared at McKee with a stupid expression.

“We’ll use the SSNX to vector in air support. We can supplement her with P-5 Pegasus ASW aircraft — I know the front line units are overseas, but we have at least two in the hangars under repair. The SSNX and the P-5s can detect the Snare and call in plasma bombs from Air Force bombers.”

“Or the SSNX can use the Tigersharks, Admiral,” Judison said.

McKee waved him off. “Damned things don’t work and turn against the launching ship. I’ll order the SSNX loaded with Tigersharks as a last resort for ship safety, but we’ll plan to use the SSNX in a joint op with the Air Force. I’ll call for some Mark 12 remote acoustic daylight pods to be dropped in the path of the Snare by cargo jets. We’ll be able to monitor her progress toward the East Coast. If she deviates from course we’ll lose her, but if she is heading in for a missile launch, we’ll have her locked in. Now give me some privacy so I can raise Patton on this thing.”

Michael Pacino, former admiral and current executive vice president of Cyclops Carbon Systems and project director of Project Mark 98 Tigershark, put the USS Tampa ball cap on his head and leashed the black Lab, then took the dog out and began running on the hard flat sand of Sandbridge Beach, Virginia. He started at the house and began jogging south. It was half past four, and when the sun climbed above the Atlantic, he would turn back north and shower before he went into the shipyard. He started slowly, the dog looking up at him and smiling, then increased the pace, the dark forms of the houses on his right marching by as he pounded out the miles.

His eyes were half-shut as he ran, his mind empty, when the dog’s barking startled him. Three houses ahead on the wide spread of sand, spotlights suddenly shone in his face. He could hear idling engines, and realized the spotlights were mounted on trucks parked on the sand. Above him he could hear the rotors of a helicopter, its blinking beacons coming closer as it landed on the beach behind the trucks. The dog growled, its back up, as he walked slowly to the trucks. The silhouette of a man in a wide-brimmed hat walked toward him, his face and clothes indistinct in the glare of the floodlights.

“Virginia State Police, sir. Please identify yourself,” a deep voice commanded. Pacino tried to see the man’s eyes.

“Pacino, Michael Pacino. I live up the road a few miles. What is this?”