Scimitar SL-2 (2004) Read online

  Yes, a President could marginalize the military. And yes, he could dismiss them as irrelevant to his programs. But, as Commander in Chief, he would upset the Admirals and Generals at his own peril. No President of the United States had ever gone quite as far as losing the confidence of the Pentagon.

  So far, Charles McBride was only tinkering. But he was already having an effect, and soon young officers like Lt. Comdr. Jimmy Ramshawe might decide the civilian world was beckoning. But not yet.

  “G’day, gentlemen,” he greeted the two Admirals. And he stood up to shake hands with Admiral Morgan. “Peaceful retirement, sir? Not missing the factory yet?”

  Arnold chuckled, amused that Jimmy still remembered he traditionally referred to the White House as “the factory.”

  Admiral Morris took his leave, saying, “Jimmy, the Admiral wants to have a chat with you. I have to go to that meeting. You needn’t bother about it. Stay here and talk to Arnold. He’s got some interesting stuff to show you.”

  “As ever,” replied the Lt. Commander, grinning his lopsided Aussie grin. “See you later, sir. Okay, Admiral, I’m all ears.”

  Arnold Morgan took out the copy of the Hamas letter and handed it over, watching while Jimmy read. “Streuth,” he said softly. “That looks to me like these bastards just blew up Mount St. Helens?”

  “Maybe,” said Arnold, cautiously.

  “Well, if they didn’t, what’s this then?”

  “Good question, James. Good question. Although we shouldn’t dismiss the straightforward answer that it’s just an ordinary hoax, the kind we get from all manner of fucking lunatics, all the time.”

  “Yeah. But this is a bit subtle for a lunatic, sir. They’re apt to write more on the lines of…‘Listen to me, assholes. I just blew up the goddamned volcano, and I’m planning to do it again. God’s telling me to clean up the planet. Ha Ha Ha.’ ”

  “I know. That’s true. And I’m glad you’re getting a feeling of authenticity from this note. Like I am. It’s just the way it’s phrased. And George jumped on the fact that it seemed like unfinished business…‘You thought it was an accident…well, it wasn’t…it was us…and we’ll be in touch….’ That’s its tone. It doesn’t say so, but it might as well have ended by stating…‘We’ll be in touch.’ ”

  “That’s my feeling. No doubt,” replied Jimmy.

  “Well, to short-circuit a lot of chat,” said Arnold, “let’s assume they did blow Mount St. Helens. A bomb could not have done it. Which leaves a missile, or missiles.

  “As ever, they seemed to come from nowhere. As ever, they must have come from a submarine. You know, specially made cruises, big, sharp-pointed nose cones that would pierce the floor of the crater. So far as I can see, that’s the only possibility. So…where, Jimmy, is the second Barracuda?”

  “Hold it, sir. Lemme just jump into the ole computer.” He hit several keys, the screen flashed a few times and settled into the file he requested. “Sir, I’ll read this stuff off, just the important bits…You might want to make a couple of notations while I do it. Here’s a notepad and a pen…ready?”

  “Fire at will,” replied the Admiral, easing into the spirit of things.

  “July 5, spotted the Barracuda making a southerly passage down the Yellow Sea out of Huludao, where she’d been for one month in a covered dock. We got her at 40.42 North 121.20 East heading for the Bo Hai Strait. After that, it’s anyone’s guess.

  “She could have gone through the Korean Strait, or around the outside of Japan, and headed north, south, east, or west. Or even back to Zhanjiang, where she’d been for many months. The satellite shots showed three tiny figures on the bridge. I made a note, hope to Christ one of ’em wasn’t Major Ray Kerman, or we’re in real trouble!

  “She dived as soon as the water was deep enough off South Korea, then vanished. But I have two more notes here…on July 16, our SOSUS Station on the island of Attu, far west end of the Aleutians, reported a transient contact to the north, 53.51–175.01 East. They thought it was a nuclear turbine. They also thought it was Russian. Heard a lot of noise, ballast blowing, high revs for one minute. Then nothing.

  “But we picked up something on July 22, six days later, precisely consistent with a submarine making a very slow 5-knot passage for 720 miles to the Unimak Pass. It was just a radar contact…five seconds…three sweeps on the screen.

  “Then it disappeared. Tell you the truth, sir, I would not have bothered much. It was just the length of passage, 120 miles a day for six days, average 5 knots, just the exact numbers you would expect from a sneaky little son of a bitch, right?”

  “Running north of the Aleutians, eh?” said the Admiral. “How about its passage from the Yellow Sea to Attu? Does that fit a pattern?”

  “Hell yes, sir. Ten days, no trouble. I should think they were moving pretty carefully. It could have been the Barracuda. Plus, I checked the boards and there’s not another bloody submarine within a thousand miles, except our own patrol in the Aleutian Trench.”

  “I wonder,” said Arnold Morgan. “I really wonder. Could these little bastards really have exploded a massive volcano? You’ve got to doubt that. But with this Ray fucking Kerman, who knows? And he was checking out the most dangerous volcano in the world when I last saw him!

  “Jimmy, I think we want to get in touch with a top volcano guy and find out once and for all whether it was possible to have exploded Mount St. Helens. Then we want to find out if there was anything remotely suspicious about that eruption. Maybe check out the local police and FBI. Then we want to cast a long look over any major volcano story that appeared anywhere in the past year. Anything that might show that the guys we seek are active in the field…”

  “Sir, we’ll have to settle for one of the top volcanologists, rather than the top volcanologist.”

  “We will? Why’s that?”

  “Because the top man was found murdered in London last May. He was called Prof. Paul Landon. Washed up in the middle of the River Thames, some island halfway along the University Boat Race course according to the London Daily Telegraph…”

  “Christ,” said Arnold. “That sounds bad. Must have been Chiswick Eyot, just upstream from Hammersmith Bridge—that’s really the only island around there.”

  Arnold chortled, always pleased to have bamboozled the young. “I know the river pretty well. A long time ago, I pulled the bow oar for Annapolis at the Henley Regatta in the Thames Cup. And a few years later, I did a couple of stints helping coach the eight.”

  “Ah, well, Landon was the main man in his field. I don’t believe the police ever did find out who or why. They seemed to write it off as mistaken identity of some kind. I wouldn’t have been so sure myself. The Professor was executed, two bullets in the back of his head. Doesn’t sound much like an accident to me.”

  “Jimmy, have another look at that, will you? Talk to someone about the feasibility of blowing Mount St. Helens. And find out if anyone had any suspicion whatsoever about the eruption…meanwhile I’ve gotta go…tell George g’bye and keep him well posted.”

  “Okay, sir, I’ll walk you downstairs.”

  “No need, kid. I was finding my way in and out of this place while you were throwing toy tanks across the room.”

  They both laughed, shook hands, and Admiral Morgan was gone. Four hours later, a copy of the letter from Hamas arrived on George Morris’s desk. It was direct from the White House, headed “FYI,” and signed by Cyrus Romney. At the bottom was a note scrawled by hand informing the Admiral that both Cyrus and the President regarded it as an obvious hoax and no action would be necessary, nor should time be wasted upon investigation.

  Admiral Morris, who had been sequestered with Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe for the past two hours, just muttered, “Oh, I see, Mr. Romney. And that’s with the benefit of your entire five months’ experience of international terrorism? Asshole.”

  Meanwhile, down the corridor, Ramshawe was in full cry. He tackled the London murder first, because they were five hou
rs ahead and if he needed to call anyone today, he’d have to be quick.

  He keyed into the Internet and searched diligently for anything more on the Professor. Found nothing after the report of the body being washed up, and an account in the Telegraph about the subsequent Memorial Service in London, attended by Great Britain’s heaviest academics. But he’d read that already in the Court and Society Page, a couple of months ago.

  He scrolled down into a Web site that pulled up front pages of the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the London Times, and the Financial Times. He’d found it useful before, and he went into each day from May 9, when Professor Landon was first missing.

  Jimmy had checked out the Daily Mail and the Telegraph before, but that was three months ago, when no one else was interested. He was much more thorough now. Whereas last May he had only persisted for a week after the Professor’s disappearance, he now went further. And he checked those front pages assiduously.

  It was the edition of the Daily Mail for May 18 that caught his eye. There was a splash front-page strapline, which read: SCOTLAND YARD BAFFLED BY THE ALBERT HALL MASSACRE.

  Beneath this, in three decks of huge end-of-the-world type, set left, it demanded:

  WHO KILLED THESE

  MEN ON THE NIGHT

  OF MAY 8TH?

  To the right were three photographs showing Police Constables Peter Higgins and Jack Marlow, and then Professor Paul Landon. A photograph of Roger, the dead German shepherd attack dog, was set much smaller in the center of the page. “GUNNED DOWN: A CRUEL END FOR BRAVE ROGER,” was the caption.

  Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe almost had a seizure. The Daily Mail had skipped over one highly significant fact: that the Special Branch had been called in to investigate one of the police murders. Jimmy knew there must have been some suspicion of terrorism.

  The Daily Mail knew something really important, however, of which James Ramshawe had been utterly unaware so far. All three murders may have been committed within a few yards of each other at precisely the same time.

  Jimmy sat back and regained his composure. He poured himself a cup of cold coffee and settled down to read every word of the newspaper account.

  And slowly, as he read the story, the indisputable facts became clear. On the night of May 8, Professor Landon had delivered his speech at London’s Royal Geographical Society, and then headed southwest, towards his car. The vehicle was later found nearby, parked in the precincts of Imperial College off Queens Gate. The Professor had been seen by a member of his audience hurrying through to the wide steps at the rear of the Albert Hall.

  That was the last time Lava Landon was seen alive. He never returned home that night, and his body was found in the river six days later on the afternoon of May 14. The police pathologist said he was uncertain of the time or even the day of death, because the body had been in the river for some time.

  That same night of the lecture, the two policemen were murdered in the area directly behind the Albert Hall, on the precise route of Professor Landon’s walk to his car, at the precise time Professor Landon was there on the wide steps. The Daily Mail had shrewdly connected the two and, taking a leaf out of Roger’s book, bounded eagerly into the fray, announcing THE ALBERT HALL MASSACRE. There were, after all, three dead bodies. Plus Roger.

  Of course, an Intelligence officer would instantly ask the crucial question: Who said the Professor was murdered, like the policemen, on the back steps of the Albert Hall? Plainly the Professor could have been kidnapped and taken anywhere, and in the end, been shot anywhere. There was not one lick of evidence to suggest he too had died on the steps of the Albert Hall.

  Indeed, if he had, the killers would probably have left his body there, together with the policemen.

  In Jimmy’s opinion, the Daily Mail was essentially on the right track. The devastating coincidence of the place and time of the crimes was simply too great. There must have been a connection of some kind, and the big London newspaper had made it, even though Scotland Yard had not been able to come up with a motive.

  But, Jimmy thought, chances were that the Professor had been taken alive, and the two cops had been killed for interfering. The question now was: What the hell were the Special Branch doing, involved in a civilian crime?

  “Well, it wasn’t a bloody kidnap as such, was it,” mused Jimmy. “Otherwise there’d have been a ransom demand. Whoever grabbed Landon wanted him for something else. They took him away alive, then killed him later. I’d be bloody certain of that.”

  He pondered the problem, called someone, and inquired what precisely one had to do to get a hot cup of coffee around here? And was there anyone in residence who cared one way or another whether he carried on trying to save the world, or instead died of thirst. The resident eighth-floor manager of the twenty-four-hour-a-day executive kitchen had a very soft spot for the affable Aussie Lt. Commander, although he secretly believed that Jimmy was becoming more and more like the terrifying Admiral Arnold Morgan every day.

  “Be right over, sir…Want some cookies or anything?”

  “Those are the words of a bloody Christian,” replied Jimmy, in his best Aussie accent. “Ship ’em in.”

  And he put the phone down slowly, still wondering what exactly the New Scotland Yard’s Special Branch was doing in the investigation into the London murders.

  Not for the first time, he decided to call an old Navy buddy, Rob Hackett, over in the CIA at Langley, just to check if they had anything on the murders. The answer was sharp. Nothing. It was a purely British domestic crime and the CIA had made no inquiries.

  Jimmy’s pal couldn’t help with the question of the Special Branch, but he immediately agreed to make a few calls. Within forty-five minutes, Rob was back.

  “Ve-e-e-e-ry eeeenteresting,” said the CIA man slowly, impersonating Hercule Poirot, or some other European gumshoe. “The Special Branch were in there because of the manner of death inflicted on one of the policemen…Not the one who was shot, like the woofer. The other one whose skull was split.”

  “Yeah?” said Jimmy. “I didn’t even know his skull was split.”

  “And how,” said Rob. “Straight down the middle of his forehead, like he’d been hit with a fucking ax. And then we have the e-e-e-e-nteresting part. What killed him was a terrific punch under his nose, which drove the bone directly into his brain. It was a blow, according to my guy in London, that could only have been delivered by a trained Special Forces expert in unarmed combat. That’s why the Special Branch was in there. Plus four antiterrorist guys. Scotland Yard never announced one word of this.”

  Jimmy Ramshawe froze in his chair. “Have we been here before, Rob?”

  “We surely have. Last year. That Member of Parliament, Rupert someone, was killed in exactly the same way. Though with less of a long fracture of the forehead.”

  “No wonder the antiterrorist guys were in there,” said Jimmy. “Hey, Rob, thanks a million…”

  “Okay, Jim,” chuckled the CIA man. “Now don’t go rushing in there and adding up two and two to make six.”

  “Not me, old mate. I’m about to add things up to at least four hundred, maybe more.” He slowly replaced the receiver, blew out his cheeks, and expelled the air noisily—the universal sound of utter amazement.

  “Holy shit,” he said to the otherwise empty room. “That fucking Lava Landon was grabbed by Major Ray Kerman. I think. Told him how to blow up a volcano. And he’s just bloody done it. And what’s more, he’s just TOLD us he’s bloody done it. H-O-L-Y SHI-I-I-T!!…”

  He steadied himself, cooled down his excitement. Thoughts rampaged through his mind…What do I do first? Call George? Call Admiral Morgan? Write a report? Stand on my fucking head? Have another cup of coffee? How urgent is this? Hold it, Jim…get into control…

  He’d been given three tasks by Admiral Morgan, and he’d done two of them—checked out the volcano stories and checked out the Special Branch involvement. Scored a bull’s-eye both times.

  Conclusion: Professor Pa
ul Landon, the world’s leading volcanologist, was snatched in London by Major Kerman and his men. In the course of this operation, they had to kill two interfering policemen and one attack dog. Kerman then grilled and subsequently executed the Professor. Three months later, on behalf of Hamas, the ex–SAS Major calmly informed the U.S. he had blown up Mount St. Helens.

  The third, and only, outstanding task Jimmy had left was to check with the Washington State police whether there was anything to suggest a missile had been fired into the bloody crater near the top of the mountain.

  With the West Coast three hours back, he picked up the phone and asked the operator to connect him to someone in the State Police HQ who had firsthand knowledge of the Mount St. Helens dossier. It took a while to make the call, because the highly trained Fort Meade operator went from person to person until he found a trooper likely to satisfy a high-level investigator from the National Security Agency. Then they had to call back to verify the validity of the call from the NSA.