79

SITUATION ROOM

THE WHITE HOUSE

The Situation Room was crowded with the president’s top military, homeland defense, and national security team, including Vice President Donato, the seven members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Army chief of staff, the commandant of the Marine Corps, the chief of naval operations, the Air Force chief of staff, and the chief of the National Guard Bureau. Also present were key cabinet members and Agency heads: Calibrisi; Defense Secretary Harry Black; National Security Advisor Josh Brubaker; Tim Lindsay, the secretary of state; George Kratovil, director of the FBI; Arden Mason, secretary of homeland security; Piper Redgrave, director of the National Security Agency; Martha Blakely, the secretary of energy, and John Wrigley, the secretary of commerce.

A variety of key White House and Pentagon aides were also present, including Chief of Staff Adrian King, Bill Polk and Josh Gant from Langley, and Mark Raditz, the deputy secretary of defense.

The walls were covered in a dazzling array of plasma screens. On one wall, several screens displayed photos of the ocean as Defense Intelligence Agency satellites swept for the remote possibility of spotting the boat as it crossed the high seas. Another wall showed a large three-dimensional digital map of the U.S. East Coast, with small lights representing, in real time, all U.S. naval, military, and law enforcement assets and their current positions. A screen at the far end of the room showed live feeds of news media: Fox, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Al Jazeera, BBC, and Russia SkyView, monitoring for any mention of the bomb or terror plot.

On the wall just inside the door was a clock. In red digital letters, it displayed a countdown of time remaining until 12:01 A.M. on July 4.

Outside the room, down the hallway, just past a pair of soldiers with submachine guns, President J. P. Dellenbaugh was standing. He was alone, waiting outside the door. His hand was on the wall and his eyes were shut as he steadied himself and tried to find strength.

Dellenbaugh had just finished the last of the phone calls to the parents and, in two cases, spouses of the six dead CIA men. Telling them they died doing something they believed in. That they died protecting the United States of America.

It was Dellenbaugh’s first crisis as president. He’d been a U.S. senator when 9/11 occurred. His memory was permanently scarred by the sight of flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon.

This threat, he knew, was worse. If the nuclear bomb were detonated on U.S. soil, the casualty count would be in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps more. The psychological scars on individuals, on children and families, on schools and communities, on government, on America itself would be impossible to heal.

Dellenbaugh kept his eyes shut for more than a minute, praying silently. Then he stepped into the room. Conversation ceased. Every man and woman in the Situation Room stood up and saluted him. At this moment, he was the commander in chief.

“Harry, where are we on finding the boat?” asked Dellenbaugh, taking his seat at the head of the table.

Black hit the remote. A screen cut to a map of the Atlantic Ocean.

“The boat passed through the Strait of Gibraltar three days ago,” he said.

A bright red rectangle appeared on the plasma above a section of ocean. At the top of the screen, Greenland and Iceland were visible to the north.

“Based on our estimates of the boat speed, tides, that sort of thing, we believe the terrorists are somewhere within this band of ocean.”

“What’s the bottom line?” asked Dellenbaugh.

“They’re less than two days out, sir.”

Dellenbaugh turned to Brigadier General Phil Tralies, chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

“General?”

“We’re throwing everything we have at it, Mr. President,” said Tralies, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “We have every long-range UAV we can spare searching for the boat, based on the description of the vessel, estimates of when it passed Spain, and assessments of shipping channels, tide, weather, and of course the speed of the vessel. We have an active interagency protocol that is now live-wired across the U.S. defense and intelligence infrastructure. We’re also coordinating with NATO, Interpol, and all major shipping lines that do business with the United States.”

Black hit the remote. Another screen cut to a photo of a fishing trawler.

“This is what the boat looks like,” said Black. “Approximately two hundred feet long, aft wheelhouse, made to fish in deep water. Unfortunately, there are about half a million of these floating around the Atlantic Ocean right now. And therein lies the challenge of finding it.”

“Not to mention the truly scary thing,” added Tralies, “which is they might’ve switched boats by now, in which case we have a bigger problem.”

Black tossed the remote across the table to Raditz.

“DIA satellites are scouring that rectangle of ocean,” said Raditz. We’re snapping photos at a rate of one thousand per second, sweeping in a controlled arc that we hope will locate the boat.”

Raditz pointed to the screens behind him, showing a rapidly changing series of close-up photos of the sea.

“That’s the digital feed. We have a lot of people looking at it and, perhaps more important, it’s being run against some pretty sophisticated analytical software programs at NSA.”

“Have we seen anything?” asked Dellenbaugh.

“We’ve identified twenty-four boats matching the description,” said Raditz. “They were all legit.”

“How do we know they’re legit?” asked Dellenbaugh.

“We ask for papers, then run them against various registration and commercial filings,” answered Raditz. “We also run an interrogation protocol designed to quickly identify possible suspicious behavior and separate those folks from the rest of the pack. We’re coordinating those interviews, as they occur, with interrogators from Langley. We also run the audio through lie detectors. If anyone looks suspicious, we will board.”

Dellenbaugh stared at the screen—photo after photo of black ocean, interrupted occasionally by whitecaps.

“And if we don’t find it while it’s out at sea?”

Raditz handed the remote to the man on his left, Rear Admiral Henry Turner, chief of naval operations.

“We’re building a cordon off the East Coast,” said Turner. “That’s a military and law enforcement resource line up and down the coast. Subs, ships, boats, planes, and on-the-ground personnel. Obviously, we’re placing particular emphasis on cities and populated areas. We’re working with Homeland to coordinate communications with state and local law enforcement so we’re not panicking at the eleventh hour.”

“What about a blockade?” asked Dellenbaugh. “Why can’t we just shut the damn coast down?”

“Theoretically we could attempt it, sir,” said Turner. “We’ve war-gamed it. But there are a couple of very significant challenges. First, we’re talking about thousands of miles of coastline. Based on the volume of boats out there versus our enforcement capability set—hardware, manpower—a smart ship captain is going to get through. If we focus on two or three cities, odds are they won’t get through; they’ll simply go to city number four, five, six. Or they’ll wait us out. We believe the best strategy is what we’re doing—a flexible line of defense with transparent vertical coordination down through the military and law enforcement complex.”

Dellenbaugh was silent for a dozen seconds. Then he turned back to Tralies.

“General, what are the odds we find this thing?”

Tralies nodded, considering his words.

“Normally I’d give it a twenty-five percent chance,” he said. “But…”

“But what?”

“The vessel has moved very quickly across a challenging navigational course. This suggests an experienced ship captain. He knows what he’s doing. That, for me at least, lowers the odds.”