The Bin Laden Plot

The lights in the Control Room were extinguished, leaving only the faint multicolor indications on the submarine’s control panels and the red digital navigation repeaters glowing in the darkness. Kern adjusted the sonar display on the Conn, reducing its brightness to the minimum. Reaching up, she pulled the microphone from its holder and punched the button for the Captain’s stateroom. “Captain, Officer of the Deck.”

Murray Wilson answered, “Captain.”

Kern delivered the required report, to which Wilson replied, “I’ll be right there.”

Wilson entered the Control Room and joined Kern on the Conn, settling into the Captain’s chair on the starboard side. After reviewing the sonar display and the submarine’s parameters, Wilson said, “Proceed to periscope depth.”

Kern reached up in the darkness and twisted the port periscope locking ring. The barrel slid silently up through the submarine’s sail, and Kern folded the periscope handles down as the scope emerged from its well, then placed her right eye against the eyepiece.

“Helm, ahead one-third. Dive, make your depth eight-zero feet. All stations, Conn. Proceeding to periscope depth.”

The Helm rang up ahead one-third on the Engine Order Telegraph as the Diving Officer directed his planesmen, “Ten up. Full rise, fairwater planes.”

As Michigan rose toward the surface, silence descended on Control aside from the occasional depth reports from the Diving Officer.

“Passing one hundred feet.”

The Diving Officer reported the submarine’s depth change in ten-foot increments until the periscope broke the ocean’s surface. Kern began circling, completing a revolution every eight seconds, scanning the darkness for nearby ships. She spotted only two faint white lights to the west.

“No close contacts!”

Conversation in Control resumed, now that Michigan was safely at periscope depth, and Kern slowed her rotation, periodically shifting the scope to high power for long-range scans.

The Quartermaster announced, “Conn, Nav. GPS fix obtained.”

A moment later, Radio followed up. “Conn, Radio. Download complete.”

Kern announced, “All stations, Conn. Going deep. Helm, ahead two-thirds. Dive, make your depth one-eight-zero feet.”

The Helm and Diving Officer acknowledged, and Michigan tilted downward. After the periscope slid beneath the ocean waves, Kern lowered the scope back into its well.

“Rig Control for gray,” she announced, and the low-level lights flicked on.

A few minutes later, as Kern ordered the Control Room rigged for white, a radioman entered with a message clipboard in hand. Captain Wilson flipped through the messages: all but two were routine traffic. Michigan had received a new waterspace management message, along with new operational orders.

Wilson studied the OPORD, noting the complexity and urgency of the mission: eleven hours to get into position and sink a merchant escorted by Russian warships. Additional information would arrive SEPCOR — via separate correspondence. Wilson also noted the unique tandem arrangement with Jimmy Carter, which Wilson assumed had just received new orders as well. Sonar’s next report confirmed his assessment.

“Conn, Sonar. Detect burst of cavitation from Jimmy Carter. Down doppler. She’s increasing speed and turning to the northeast.”

Wilson called the Messenger of the Watch over to the Conn.

“Round up all officers. There will be a meeting in the Wardroom in fifteen minutes.”

To his Officer of the Deck, Wilson ordered, “Come down to six hundred feet, course zero-seven-zero. Increase speed to ahead flank.”

61 LEESBURG, VIRGINIA

It was after 5 p.m. when Christine emerged from the Pentagon, having stopped by the Navy’s operations center coordinating the merchant ship attack, ensuring the CIA had provided all relevant information about the ship and its contents. As a former Pentagon weapons program analyst and national security advisor, she was interested in the planning — it was a part of her previous job that she missed.

By the time she departed the secure spaces in the Pentagon and retrieved her cell phone, a message from McFarland awaited: the address of the CIA facility in nearby Leesburg, Virginia, where the radio taken from the Abbottabad compound was stored.

It was rush hour on the Capital Beltway and its arteries, and the ninety-minute trip to Leesburg in the back of her SUV provided an opportunity for her thoughts to wander: the pending attack on the merchant ship transporting the gas centrifuges, Secretary Verbeck’s potential involvement in the scheme and its cover-up, the prisoner taken from Abbottabad and what had happened to him, and Khalila’s true identity.