Terminal Run

Mason Daniels helped Patton plan a rendezvous at a second-tier presidential evacuation bunker on the eastern shore of Maryland, a structure buried deep underground and surrounded by empty farmland, all of it owned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The bunker had a concealed four thousand-meter runway, with two feet of topsoil and vegetation growing over the strip in movable pans controlled by a hydraulic system that would uncover the runway on command from the approaching aircraft. The problem was how to get his men to the bunker without the people tailing them becoming wise to an urgent meeting with their boss in Washington. Daniels had proposed how to bring in Patton’s men, and reluctantly he’d agreed. But then the matter was his own departure to the bunker, since he was watched even more closely by the adversary’s intelligence forces than McKee or Ericcson.

Daniels had arranged that as well. Patton had asked Marcy, his wife of twenty-five years, for a Saturday evening off to see some old Academy classmates, and had kissed her good night and taken a cab to a Georgetown pub. One of Daniels’ men brought the drinks that evening to a group of friends also cast by Daniels, and during the evening Patton appeared to take aboard too many beers, although not one contained a drop of alcohol. As the clock struck midnight, Patton’s face went pale. He excused himself and hurried to the men’s room, where a man wearing Western regalia waited for him in the back hallway. The cowboy gave him a Stetson ten-gallon hat and led him out the back door to a waiting black sedan idling in the parking lot. Feeling foolish, Patton got in the back seat and slouched down despite the blacked-out windows, the car roaring off to a small civilian airport, where a corporate jet helicopter waited. Before Patton left the car he traded the cowboy hat for a helmet with an intercom headset. The chopper took off and flew to a second airport, where he transferred to a second helicopter, then flew out over the Chesapeake, eventually landing where Kelly McKee’s helicopter waited.

He joined McKee but waved off the inevitable questions until they landed at the bunker. Once in the underground conference room he greeted Ericcson with a handshake, the taller man’s big hand crushing his palm.

“Vie,” Patton said, “meet Vice Admiral Kelly McKee, Commander Unified Submarine Command and my acting Vice Chief of Naval Operations for Submarine Warfare. The paramedic outfit is part of the ruse to get him here. Kelly, this is Vice Admiral Egon “The Viking’ Ericcson, Supreme Commander-in-Chief U.S. Naval Forces Pacific—”

Ericcson shook his head and growled, “Former commander, Admiral Patton. I’ve been demoted to be the commander of the NavForcePac Fleet. And call me Vie,” he said, pumping McKee’s hand. “It’s less formal than The Viking.” “

Patton grimaced in exasperation. “Admiral Ericcson has been demoted by request to Commander NavForcePac Fleet,

but he’s still the acting Super-CinCPac. Until I appoint his replacement.”

“You know, Admiral, it’s not really a demotion until you take away the responsibilities and put someone in the Super CinCPac job

Admiral John Patton, the Chief of Naval Operations and the commanding admiral of the U.S. Navy, ignored the comment, the crow’s-feet at his eyes wrinkling in a serious expression.

“I know you guys have a hundred questions about how and why you were brought here. But let’s put all that on the back burner until the briefing is over. Agreed?” Both of his admirals nodded. Patton pointed to the conference table. “Gentlemen, take a seat.”

Patton glanced over at his subordinates, unable to avoid the thought that they made a damned odd couple. On his right sat Ericcson with his imposing physique. On Patton’s left sat the far slighter form of Kelly McKee, the youthful-looking submarine chief a head shorter than Patton and towered over by Ericcson.

The two admirals began and ended worlds apart. Ericcson was a supersonic naval aviator who’d earned a Purple Heart and the Silver Star over the Sea of Japan in a dogfight that nearly killed him, and had moved on to command fighter squadrons, deep draft ships, two aircraft carriers, and finally a carrier battle group McKee had spent his life underwater in the operational isolation of a nuclear submarine, his reputation that of an easygoing sailor’s commander, but he had proved vicious and cunning and aggressive in a desperate undersea battle, the crisis earning him the Navy Cross and command of the submarine force. To Patton’s knowledge, the two starkly different admirals had never met before this moment.