High Flight (100 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: High Flight
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“He's dead.”
 
The ride from Dulles seemed to take forever. It had begun to snow and the roads were slippery, but there wasn't much traffic, so they made good time, Lusk driving and McGarvey and Harrington in the back seat. They were bracketed front and back by D.C. cops, lights flashing and sirens wailing. Lusk pulled up at the Tenth Street entrance to the J. Edgar Hoover Building, and McGarvey was hustled upstairs to a fifth-floor conference room, where Whitman waited with Kenneth Wood and a steno. The guard at the door was armed.
“At long last, Mr. McGarvey,” Whitman said.
“Are you John Whitman?”
“That's right …”
“Have your people picked up Edward Reid or Bruno Mueller yet?”
“I think we'll ask the questions here,” Wood said, motioning for the steno to begin, and for McGarvey to take a seat.
“Unless I miss my guess the President is in the White House situation room trying to figure out why the Japanese attacked us, and how to avoid an all-out war.”
“We'll get to that in due time.”
“If you don't listen to me right now, it'll be the biggest fucking mistake of your life. The Japanese didn't bring down our airplanes this time. Reid and Mueller did it through a company called InterTech.”
“Sonofabitch,” Whitman said. He looked at Wood.
“What do you have?” McGarvey asked.
“We think all of Guerin's 522s have been sabotaged. We got that from you. But the triggering signals were sent through InterTech to a series of devices that were
planted at the eight airports, plus Andrews. The signals were generated in Tokyo, we know that for sure, but the repeaters were not Japanese-made.”
“A computer hacker could have set up the signal transfer to make it look like it came from Tokyo.”
“It was confirmed from NSA.”
“For Christ's sake, John,” Wood warned.
“What do you have on Reid and Mueller?”
“Even if they are involved, they're working for the Japanese,” Wood said.
“A Japanese
zaibatsu
called Mintori Assurance sabotaged the fleet. They brought the American Airlines flight down in '90, and they were going to bring down a few others over the next couple of years. But not this time.”
“This is crazy,” Wood shouted angrily. “You've been directly linked to I don't know how many murders. You've had meetings with Japanese spies and Russian spies, and the CIA thinks you should be shot on sight.”
“You've seen my file.”
“You're damned right we have!”
“Then what would I have to gain?”
“Frankly I don't know, yet. That's why you were arrested.”
“I called you, remember?” McGarvey said. “Unless you want a lot more people killed, you'd better cooperate with me.”
“Jesus Christ!” Wood swore.
“If it was Reid and Mueller, how did they do it, and why?” Whitman asked.
“I don't know. But Reid has the answers, if we can get to him in time, and convince the President.”
“Put him downstairs, and get an interrogation team in here. Maybe they can get the truth out of him,” Wood ordered.
“Just a minute, sir,” Whitman cautioned. “What if he's right?”
“He's a murderer. Even the CIA cut him loose.”
“But what if he's right? Can we afford to take the chance now?”
Wood was fuming, but he said nothing.
Whitman turned back to McGarvey. “Reid and Mueller are in upstate New York right now. They're probably going to try for the Canadian border.”
“How many people has Mueller already killed?”
Whitman hesitated. “A pair of our agents in front of Reid's place, two Japanese nationals in what appeared to be a surveillance van, and a Maryland Highway Patrol cop. New York H.P. is setting up roadblocks, but they're taking it easy because of the woman.”
McGarvey went cold. “Dominique Kilbourne?”
“Yes.”
McGarvey looked away for the moment. Mueller would know that Reid was under suspicion by the FBI as well as the Japanese, but he would protect his benefactor because running and hiding took money. But why take Dominique?
“Would Reid know that I was involved in the investigation?” McGarvey asked.
“It's possible.”
He should have killed her. She was excess baggage. She would slow him down. Almost impossible to get across a border with a hostage. Too many things could go wrong.
“What is it?”
“He knows that he's lost, so he's willing to exchange Reid and the woman for me.”
“Do you know him?”
“He's one of the ones who killed an old friend of mine in Paris a few years ago. He'll think I want to settle an old score.”
Wood shook his head. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“There's no place for him to go. Has he switched cars since he killed the highway patrol officer?”
“Presumably not,” Whitman said, understanding dawning in his eyes.
“You're talking about some high-noon standoff,” Wood said. “You're crazy.”
McGarvey thought about it. Compared to the Kennedys
and Socrates and Kilbournes of the world he probably was.
“Have the local cops isolate them until you can fly me up there.”
Wood was speechless.
“You want answers that only Reid can give you. But you'd better make up your mind, before it's too late.”
 
After a few hours sleep on Okinawa while his Orion P-3C was refueled, Fred White's eyes were gritty, but he was alert. So was his entire crew. Shots had been exchanged between the
Thorn
and the
Samisho
, and Seventh was taking the situation very seriously. The Japanese sub-driver was probably crazy, and it had everyone worried.
Kadena had sent out a squadron of F-16/91As, designated Charlie-Seven, which were on station keeping, in relays, one hundred miles south. They were seriously crowding the fifteen-minute separation order—in fact at Mach two they could be overhead in a little more than four minutes—but nobody was complaining.
They'd found nothing on MAD in a dozen sweeps over a grid ten miles on a side, so White had dropped to within two hundred feet of the surface and throttled back to deploy dipping sonobuoys. Either the sub had bugged out, or it was hiding beneath the seasonal thermocline, which around here was at about nine hundred feet.
“We've got company,” Ensign Gifford said. “Two bogies in the air, bearing zero-one-zero. They have us on radar.”
“Tanegashima?” White asked.
“Definitely F/A-18s, estimated closure speed above Mach one-point-five.”
“Sonar, have you got contact yet?”
“Negative, the buoy is still deploying.”
“I have a definite weapons radar lock,” Gifford reported excitedly. “Skipper, they have us.”
“Get that off to Charlie-Seven.”
“Aye, aye,” Lieutenant Littlemore said.
“How far out are they?”
“Forty miles … Skipper, they've launched missiles! Two missiles incoming, same bearing!”
“Deploy ECMs!” White shouted.
 
“Home Plate, this is Charlie-Seven leader.”
“Charlie-Seven leader, Home Plate, we've monitored the transmission. You are authorized to engage. Splash them.”
“Roger,” Lieutenant Todd Kraus said. “Let's go, Gene,” he radioed his wingman.
Kraus hauled his aircraft left in a seven G turn, hit the afterburners, then set the weapons selector on his stick to the new Hughes AIM-140 air-to-air missile. He activated his target-detection radar, but they were still too far out for a positive lock. The Orion was probably as good as dead, but the two bogies wouldn't survive either.
 
“I have a positive contact,” the Orion's sonarman reported. “Depth two thousand feet … sounds quiet … she's just lying there.”
“Get that off to the
Thorn,”
White ordered. He slammed the throttles full forward and forced the nose of the big four-engine ASW aircraft down. Their only chance of survival was to fly so low to the waves that the incoming missiles' targeting radar would be confused by the surface clutter. It was a long shot.
“Oh, shit …” Gifford shouted. A split second later the Orion exploded in a ball of flames.
 
“The Orion is splashed,” Sattler reported excitedly from CIC. “Charlie-Seven has orders to engage!”
“Have we got the targeting data on
Chrysanthemum?”
Hanrahan demanded. His blood was singing.
“Roger that.”
“Program two Captors for zero delay at two thousand feet and launch immediately.” The Captor, or Encapsulated Torpedo, consisted of a Mark 46 Mod 4 torpedo housed in a tube. It was designed to sit on the ocean floor
and, using its passive sonar, watch for traffic. When a submarine was identified the sonar system went active and the torpedo was launched.
“The data is entered,” Sattler reported moments later.
“Launch one, launch two!”
 
“Shit, the Orion is a definite kill,” Kraus's wingman, Gene Levitt, said.
“Range is forty-four thousand yards. I have target acquisition on bogie one,” Kraus replied calmly, although his heart was pounding.
“I have a lock on two,” Levitt reported. “But they're starting to turn away.”
The pipper on Kraus's head-up display was correct. He hit the trigger once, and then a second time. Both AIM-140 missiles streaked away, accelerating to better than Mach four.
A second later Levitt launched his pair of missiles.
 
“Kan-cho
to the conn!” The battle stations Klaxon sounded throughout the
Samisho.
Kiyoda felt sluggish because of the high CO
2
content in the air. He stumbled to the attack center without bothering to button his tunic. Sweat poured from his forehead.
“Sonar reports two objects passing through the thermocline, but we can't make them out,” Minori reported, his voice hoarse. “No sounds of torpedo screws.”
Kiyoda tried to think it out. He stepped back to the sonar compartment.
Nakayama, his head cocked, was intently listening to something in his headset. He looked up and shook his head.
“ASROC?” Kiyoda asked. He had to think. His boat and crew were in jeopardy.
“Iie, Kan-cho.”
“Captor,” Kiyoda said, suddenly making the connection. He raced back to the attack center. “Launch all weapons!
Ima! Ima!”
Now! Now!
“What range and bearing?” Minori shouted.
“Extrapolate from their last known position!” Kiyoda screamed. “Emergency surface the boat. Launch the SOS buoys!
Ima!”
 
The distance was too great for Kraus to see the flash of the explosions, but both enemy radars went off the air within moments of each other, and his targeting radar showed a clear sky.
“Home Plate, Charlie-Seven-Leader. Splash two bogies.”
“Many targets incoming!” Levitt radioed.
Kraus switched his APG-88 to search mode, which expanded his look-up radar range to one hundred miles. At least six targets were just entering their sensor envelope.
“Say again, Charlie-Seven,” Kadena demanded.
“Many targets incoming from the north,” Kraus responded. “We need help!”
 
“We've lost the Captors below the thermocline,” Zwicka reported.
“We had good targeting data,” Hanrahan said triumphantly. “The sonofabitch won't get away this time.”
 
A tremendous explosion hammered the
Samisho
somewhere aft, increasing the already severe upward angle they'd assumed to emergency surface the boat. Still the submarine's extremely tough double hull withstood the hit.
Kiyoda was violently thrown against the attack periscope, breaking his shoulder. He tried to straighten up when the second Captor torpedo struck them just below the attack center. The last conscious thought he had was that they'd not had time to launch their weapons when the tremendous pressure of the ocean at this depth crushed the hull like an eggshell.

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