The Cup (24 page)

CHAPTER 57

Rashid Jaffari stood on the bow of the
Athena
and looked out over the rolling surface of the Atlantic. So far it had been a smooth journey, except for squalls in the gulf as they'd left Turkey. Now the ship was more than halfway to America without running into any serious weather. At the moment it was sunny, but late October on the Atlantic Ocean meant that Rashid wore a heavy jacket and woolen watch cap against the cold and the wind.

The
Athena
was an old ship and slow, not long for the scrap yard. Streaks of rust ran down her sides. Her ancient engines struggled to push through the heavy swell. A serious storm could sink her. Her captain had been keeping an uneasy eye on the weather reports. It was late in the year, but hurricane season wasn't yet over.

For the first three days of the voyage Jaffari was seasick, unable to keep anything down. Then his equilibrium returned and the sickness left him. His mind was free to imagine what would happen when the bomb went off in the enemy city of Savannah.

He'd decided not to try and take the device inland. American customs officers could be efficient if they chose. Rashid had no illusions that the packaging around the bomb would stand up to close scrutiny, but a thorough customs inspection wouldn't take place until they were docked. Once in port, he would detonate the bomb.

Savannah was a critical hub for American commerce. Major rail, land, sea and air networks all came together in the city. With Savannah gone, American trade and shipping infrastructure would be crippled. The bomb would obliterate everything for a radius of several miles. Anything left would be covered with a lethal dose of plutonium radiation for a thousand years or more. For all practical purposes much of Georgia and the Southeast would cease to be livable.

Allah would be pleased.

CHAPTER 58

Stephanie sat at her console, watching streams of data flow across the screen. It was amazing how many articles, pictures and references existed about Athena. She'd programmed a series of filters to eliminate most of it, but there were still thousands of entries.

Nick had called her from somewhere over the Atlantic. She'd had nothing for him.

"Why is Athena important?" she'd asked.

"It was written on a piece of paper we found in Haddad's pocket."

"Haddad? As in Abdul, our spymaster?"

"Right, you don't know what happened."

Nick told her about finding the box and the encounter with Haddad.

"That scrap of paper was the only thing on him except for a phony passport and some currency. It has to mean something. It might be the code name of an operation but like I told Selena, that doesn't feel right."

"It could refer to an object or a place, something named Athena."

"He must have written it down, stuffed it in his pocket and forgotten about it. I can't shake the feeling it's important."

"Freddie is working on it as we speak."

Stephanie named all of her computers. Freddie was her favorite, a maxed out Cray that was her pride and joy.

"Good old Freddie," Nick said. "Anything new from the hospital?"

"Nothing's changed. She's still unconscious. But her brain is active and that's a good sign."

"I could use a good sign about now," Nick said. "I'll be back in about four hours."

After he'd disconnected, Stephanie had thought about what he'd said. Putting Haddad into the equation narrowed the search. They'd been running across ISIS at almost every step of the way on this mission. If Haddad's plans involved something named Athena, it had to be high priority for ISIS.

Think like the enemy,
Steph thought.
If I'm running ISIS, what do I want to do? What do I want to accomplish?

The answer didn't require much thought. Annihilate the infidel and raise the black flag over the entire world. Islamic fanaticism had only one goal in mind. Stephanie couldn't believe there were still people who refused to see the reality of that goal and acknowledge the hatred aimed at achieving it. But then again, reality had never been popular if it conflicted with belief. In this case, far too many people wanted to believe only in the positive aspects of Islam without looking at its dark side. All they had to do was study history to see that the cancerous aberration of ISIS was nothing new.

Annihilate the infidel.

Trying to pin down the ISIS connection to Athena was worse than trying to find one particular grain of sand on a beach.

She needed to come up with new assumptions if she wanted to find anything useful.

Okay, start assuming. Assumption number one is that Haddad wouldn't have that in his pocket if it didn't mean something. Assumption number two is that it has to be important because of his role in ISIS. Assumption number three is…What is assumption number three?

She sat back in her chair and glanced over at her sleeping child.

What's the most important thing we need to know right now, about ISIS?

That was easy. If they had a bomb, where was it and what were they going to do with it? Thanks to Adam, they knew the answer to the second part. They'd set it off somewhere in America.

Assumption number three is that first they have to get it here.

She didn't think they had a way to fly it in. ISIS had captured some planes when they overran parts of Iraq, but they didn't have anything that could reach America.

You couldn't just put the bomb in a box and ship it FedEx. It had to be reasonably large, possibly leaking radiation that could be detected when it entered the country. You weren't going to fly here on a commercial plane with the bomb conveniently checked into baggage. She supposed you might be able to get it overland through Europe and into England. But then they'd still have to move it from there to America.

Across the ocean.

A ship! It has to be a ship. There can't be any other way they could get it here. If it's a ship, it's registered somewhere. If it's not registered, that's a problem I can't beat. But if it is, there's a record of any ports of call and I can find it.

Her fingers flew over her keyboard, changing the search filters she was using.

An hour and a half later she had the answer.

CHAPTER 59

Nick drove to Virginia and found Stephanie sitting at Elizabeth's desk. The baby was on the couch. Burps lay on the next cushion. He looked up as Nick came in.

"Mrreow."

Nick walked over and scratched him behind the ears. Stephanie got up from the desk.

"I didn't mean to take over your desk," she said.

"It's still Harker's desk," Nick said. "Did you find out anything about Athena?"

"Do you know how many references there are to the goddess Athena?"

"No. A lot."

"Sometimes I wonder how anybody figured anything out before we had computers. Without those Crays downstairs crunching data, I wouldn't have gotten anywhere."

"Does that mean you got somewhere?"

"I hope so. I made an assumption that the word 'Athena' was somehow related to the nuke ISIS obtained."

"Go on."

"We know they want to set it off here. I asked myself, how do you get a bomb here from Syria? The answer is, it has to come by ship. There isn't any other way for them to transport something like that without being detected. I looked for any ship named Athena that had recently left a port somewhere in the middle east. Guess what?"

Her voice was edged with excitement.

"Son of a bitch. You found one."

"Yes. A freighter.
Athena
left Turkey five days ago, headed for Savannah. She's somewhere in the Atlantic."

"Steph, that's great work."

"I could be wrong. It's all based on the assumption that the word 'Athena' and the bomb go together."

"It's a hell of a lot better than anything else we've got," Nick said. "I'll get Hood on it. If that ship's out there, we'll find it. If it's got that bomb on board, we'll sink it."

"It could just be bringing olives or dates or something," Stephanie said.

"Maybe. We've got technology that can smell a radioactive date from twenty thousand feet," Nick said. "If you're right, we'll find it."

"I'm going downstairs to feed the baby. Let me know if you need anything."

"Great work," Nick said again. "I'll call Hood now."

Hood answered on the second ring.

"Nick."

"Director, we may have something."

He explained about the slip of paper in Haddad's pocket and what Stephanie had discovered.

"It's a long shot but it's better than no shot at all."

"It makes sense," Hood said. "We're not talking about something you can carry in a suitcase."

"I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of radioactive signature," Nick said. "If we can find that ship, we can do a flyover and see if we can pick anything up."

"Even if we don't, we can intercept and board her. There's only one problem."

"What's that?"

"We have to find her, first."

CHAPTER 60

Two days later, they still hadn't located
Athena
. They knew she was headed for Savannah, but it was a big ocean. The shipping lanes weren't marked with nice white lines. For all they knew, she wasn't following a conventional path. Besides, she was a tramp steamer. She could have stopped off in any one of half a dozen places before setting out across the Atlantic. Satellite overpasses and surveillance flights by the Air Force had failed to turn up the ship.

Nick sat at Elizabeth's desk and found himself drumming his fingers on the wooden top. It was uncanny, almost as if whoever sat there was channeling her energy. She was still in a coma. Her EKG was stable but that was the only positive sign. They'd had to take her back into surgery to relieve pressure on her brain, where fluid had built up from the injury. Now there was nothing more to do but wait and see if she woke up.

The rest of the team was in the room. The box they'd found in Syria rested on the desk in front of him.

"When are we going to get a look inside that box?" Lamont asked. "Hell, I'm dyin' of curiosity."

"We all are," Nick said. "I've been focused on this search for the
Athena
."

"It says a lot about the way the world has changed," Selena said.

"What do you mean?"

"That box may contain the most sacred relic in Christianity. A thousand years ago no one would have hesitated to get it open. But we're worried about a bunch of lunatics with a nuclear bomb instead."

"It's a question of priorities," Nick said.

"That's what I mean about how the world has changed," Selena said. "People have lost a sense of spiritual things, things that inspire all that's good in the world. The Grail is one of those things. Maybe our priorities are wrong."

Nick was about to say something when his phone signaled a call from Hood.

"Yes, Director."

"Please call me Clarence, Nick. I hear director all the time. That's not why I called. We've spotted
Athena
."

Nick pumped his fist in the air. "Yes!"

He turned on the speaker. "They found
Athena
," he said to the others. "Director, uh, Clarence, I put you on speaker so the others can hear."

"The good news is that we found her," Hood said. "The bad news is that she's thirty miles offshore, headed straight for Savannah. I would've preferred to find her farther out in case something goes wrong. I've talked with Rice about what to do."

"What did he say?"

"He wants to board her. She's well within our waters and there's nothing she can do about it. The Coast Guard is heading for her right now with two SEAL teams on board. With a little luck this will all be over in an hour."

"It might be smarter to sink her before she gets any closer," Nick said.

On the couch, Lamont and Ronnie were nodding.

"I argued for that with Rice," Hood said. "He was adamant that we don't do that. He's not convinced she's anything more than what she appears to be. I can see his point. If we sink a civilian ship because we think it's got a bomb on board without proof, we'll be vilified by the international community. Accused of war crimes."

"What else is new?" Nick said. "Three quarters of the UN wants to try the last ten presidents for war crimes. Hell, if they could get away with it, they'd indict Eisenhower. As far as I'm concerned they can take their hypocritical bullshit and shove it."

"I happen to agree with you," Hood said, "but Rice is running the show. We'll board her and see what we find. Tell Stephanie to access Odin. You can watch the intercept live."

Stephanie was already tapping keys on her laptop. The monitor on the wall lit with a live satellite shot of a small ship moving across the ocean. Stephanie zoomed in and the
Athena
filled most of the screen.

"Got it," Nick said. "How long until intercept?"

"About twenty minutes."

"I can see a radar array on the Athena. She'll pick up the Coast Guard coming in."

"Nothing I can do about that," Hood said. "It won't necessarily spook her. The Coast Guard routinely stops ships approaching our shores, for a lot of reasons. They won't know it's anything unusual until the SEALS board her."

"You got that right," Lamont said.

"That had to be Lamont," Hood said.

At Langley, someone said something in the background.

"I have to go, Nick."

Hood disconnected.