The Trident Deception Page 34

  Humphreys nodded for the Weapons Officer to accept Wilson’s recommendation.

  The Weapons Officer looked up, awaiting Wilson’s order.

  “Set search depth to eight hundred feet.”

  * * *

  Wilson retreated to the aft of Control, preparing for the long wait before the opposing torpedoes reached their destination. Unlike in World War II movies, where the submarine fired its torpedo and the enemy ship was sunk in the next scene, modern submarine combat took time. In many scenarios it could take hours to generate a target solution accurate enough to fire on, and firing ranges were usually measured in miles, not yards.

  Both of the Collins’s torpedoes had been fired from long range. As Wilson watched their torpedoes advance across the combat control display, he did the calculations in his head. Even with the first torpedo traveling at high speed, it would be more than twenty minutes before it caught up to the Kentucky. And that’s when the combat would really begin.

  Until then, he would wait.

  74

  ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

  29 MINUTES REMAINING

  As the USS Kentucky reacted to the incoming torpedo, securing from their missile launch and fleeing for their lives, Christine struggled for hers on the cold stone floor of her kitchen. With her strength fading as she strained against her ex-husband’s hands, her eyes squeezed shut from the effort, her other senses seemed somehow heightened. A light rain had started falling and she could hear the raindrops pattering softly against the windowpanes. There was the creak of a nearby door and the scrape of metal against stone. The footsteps of passing pedestrians were impossibly loud, almost as if someone were walking across the floor toward her.

  “Drop the knife.”

  The new voice was male and familiar, but she couldn’t place it. The pressure against her hands suddenly eased, and the sharp pain in her neck faded to a dull throb.

  Christine opened her eyes.

  Hardison stood above her, the Smith & Wesson Centennial in his hand, pressed against Hendricks’s temple. She realized the sounds she’d heard were her front door opening, Hardison picking up the metal gun from the tile floor, and his footsteps as he approached.

  The knife clattered onto the floor next to Christine, the end of the blade covered in blood. Hendricks stood slowly, then leaned against the kitchen counter, looking away. Hardison kept the pistol pointed at Hendricks but he glanced at Christine lying on the floor, concern clear in his eyes.

  Christine pressed her hand against her neck, trying to assess the damage. She pulled her hand away, examining the blood on her fingers. She wiped the blood on her blouse, then pressed her fingers against the incision in her neck again. She pulled her hand away slowly. Her fingers were coated in only a thin sheen of blood.

  She’d been lucky.

  The knife hadn’t sliced through any of her veins or arteries. She winced as she touched her nose, realizing it was broken from the unusual angle. Blood still trickled down the left side of her face, but she could deal with that, as long as her life wasn’t in danger.

  “Help me up.” Christine extended her hand toward Hardison, who looked at her incredulously.

  “You’re not serious? Stay there until the ambulance gets here.”

  “I’m getting up. You can either help me or not.”

  Hardison hesitated, then extended a hand, keeping his eyes and gun fixed on Hendricks. He pulled her to her feet, holding on to her until he was sure she was steady.

  Christine expected to feel light-headed as she stood but was surprised she felt okay.

  No, not okay. Strong, invigorated. She’d been just seconds away from death, but now she had a new lease on life.

  She felt exhilarated.

  Relieved.

  Angry.

  She approached the man who’d tried to murder her, stopping an arm’s length away. Curling her right hand into a fist, she punched him in the face with all the force she could muster. Hendricks’s head jolted to the side from the impact. He turned back toward her, blood trickling from split upper and lower lips.

  Christine grabbed an ice cube from the freezer and held it against the left side of her nose to stop the bleeding, then turned back toward Hendricks. “Tell me how to disable the missile defense targeting corruption.”

  Hendricks glared at her. “I’m afraid my account is password protected.”

  “Tell me the password.”

  He looked away.

  “Tell me the password and how to disable whatever you’ve done, or I swear I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

  “You already know the password.” His voice was vacant as he spoke.

  “Could you be more specific?”

  Hendricks turned back to Christine, his eyes suddenly aware he’d said too much. “That’s all I’m going to tell you.”

  “Fine, have it your way,” she said, mimicking the words he’d used when he’d tried to force her into her study. She held her hand out toward Hardison. “Give me the gun.”

  Hardison shot a glance at Christine. “No. I’m not going to let you kill him if he doesn’t talk.”

  “I don’t have time to argue with you, Kevin. Millions of lives depend on reversing what he’s done, and he’s either going to tell me how to fix it, or die. It’s that simple.”

  “It’s not that simple.” Hardison stepped away from Christine, moving to the other side of the kitchen island. He eyed the phone on the counter next to him as he maintained his arm extended, the gun pointed at Hendricks. “I’m going to call the police and get you some medical attention. There’ll be no more talk about killing Hendricks.”

  “What the hell, Kevin,” Christine said. “Up to now, you’ve been trying to kill him. Now you want to protect him?”

  “I already explained this, Christine. I didn’t try to kill him. I only wanted to silence him, to offer financial incentives to ensure his loyalty. I’ll lower myself to bribery, but not murder. I can’t believe you thought I wanted to kill him.”

  “You didn’t arrange for that car that almost ran him over outside Whitlow’s?”

  “That was my handiwork,” Hendricks said. “You would’ve been killed, saving me all this trouble, if you hadn’t reacted so quickly.”

  “The car was aiming for me?”

  “Right at you. I had you pinned between me and my car, but you jumped out of the way just in time. And you thought Hardison was trying to kill me. You’re so blind, Chris.”

  Christine pursed her lips together for a second before replying. “Yes, it appears I haven’t been particularly observant.” Her attention wavered between Hardison and Hendricks, irritated by both her incorrect assessment of Hardison’s intentions, and his refusal to hand her the revolver.

  As Hardison reached for the phone, his hand holding the gun suddenly jerked backward. Blood splattered Christine’s face as the revolver fell to the floor, sliding to the back of the kitchen. There was a bullet hole in Hardison’s right wrist. He clutched his wrist with his other hand, crying out in pain as blood oozed between his fingers. Christine reversed the trajectory of Hardison’s gun, following the path toward the front door. A man stood in the foyer pointing a gun at Hardison, a silencer screwed into the barrel.

  Christine was not a woman with an extraordinary amount of patience, and by now, she was clear out.

  “Who the fuck are you?” she asked.

  The man swiveled his gun toward her.

  “It’s about time you got here,” Hendricks said as he walked past Christine. “It seems I always have to take matters into my own hands, waiting for the professional help to arrive.” He retrieved the gun from the floor, then stopped beside Christine. “If my friend had arrived on time”—he paused, his eyes probing hers—“it would have been much easier on you.” He looked across the kitchen. “And if you hadn’t stumbled in here, Kevin…”

  Hendricks addressed the man at the front door. “Kill them. I need to clean up and get back to the Pentagon. Make sure nothing goes wrong.”


  “There’s been a change in plans,” the man said, his pistol still aimed at Christine.

  Christine wondered who the man was. A professional, from the look of him, someone she and Hardison had no chance of outwitting or overpowering. As she prepared to take a bullet from the man across the room, cold water trickled down the side of her face, and she realized she still held the ice cube against her nose to stop the bleeding.

  What’s the point?

  She tossed the ice cube across the kitchen toward the sink and heard the distinctive whisper of a silencer as the ice left her hand. The ice cube seemed to float in midair, arching gracefully toward the sink in slow motion until it hit the stainless-steel basin with a sharp, high-pitched tink.

  Christine didn’t feel the bullet enter her body. She waited for the pain to materialize, spreading through her body like a crack spidering across a broken window. She waited for her strength to fade, for her knees to buckle, for her body to crumple to the ground.

  But nothing happened. She hadn’t been shot.

  Christine released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She looked at the man. A wisp of smoke drifted up from the end of the pistol, confirming the gun had been fired. But where had the bullet gone? Looking closer, she noticed the man’s aim was slightly off. The gun wasn’t pointed at her. It was pointed at—

  Her head spun toward Hendricks. He was standing next to her, his eyes wide, a thin stream of blood trickling down from a hole in the center of his forehead. His knees gave way as he crumpled to the floor at Christine’s feet.

  The man pointed his gun back at Christine. “As I said, there’s been a change in plans. You will proceed to the Pentagon and do what you can to destroy the missiles if they are launched.” He reached into his coat pocket and extracted a folded piece of paper. “I don’t know the password to Hendricks’s computer, but if you can get in, this is the name of the program and the cancellation code that will disable the virus corrupting the targeting information.”

  He placed the paper on the foyer table next to the front door.

  “I’ve done you a favor. Now I expect one in return. Forget what I look like. If I find out my description has been provided to anyone or entered into any database, I’ll kill both of you. Do you understand?”

  Christine nodded, and the man looked expectantly at Hardison.

  “Yes,” Hardison said, pain evident in the tightness of his voice.

  The man holstered the gun under his coat and left.

  Christine rushed over to Hardison and examined his hand. The man had put a bullet right through the center of his wrist, and it was still bleeding profusely. She pulled the tie from his neck and tied it tightly around his wrist, then picked up the phone and dialed 911.

  Hardison slumped to the floor, resting his back against the kitchen cabinets, and she knelt down with him. “Help is on its way. I have to go to the Pentagon.”

  “Go,” Hardison said. “I’ll be all right. I’ll wait for the authorities and clean up your mess. As usual.” He forced a smile.

  Christine squeezed his shoulder, then retrieved Hendricks’s CAC ID card from his wallet and dashed to the front door, grabbing the piece of paper from the foyer table on her way out.

  75

  PENTAGON

  20 MINUTES REMAINING

  Christine burst into the Current Action Center, almost tripping over Captain Brackman, who opened the door. As the watchstanders turned toward the commotion, shocked expressions cascaded across their faces. She’d received a similar response at the entrance to the Pentagon; her face and neck were coated with dried blood and her blouse smeared with red stains. The entire left side of her face was swollen and her nose was crooked, her lips split open.

  Brackman stepped back. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “It’s not important.” Christine’s eyes went to the electronic map at the front of the CAC. Four red lines arched up from the Pacific Ocean, slowly diverging as they headed west.

  “Four missiles were launched,” Brackman announced. “We don’t know why the Kentucky stopped. But we’ve been unable to intercept the missiles for some reason.”

  “The targeting data is corrupted.”

  Brackman’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”

  “How I know doesn’t matter. What matters is that I can fix it. I need to access Dave Hendricks’s computer account.” Without waiting for permission, Christine sprinted along the top tier of the CAC into Hendricks’s office. Stopping behind her ex-husband’s desk, she hit the space bar on his computer keyboard, bringing the monitor to life. As Brackman stopped behind her, she slid Hendricks’s CAC ID card into the computer slot. The standard password window appeared in the center of the screen, awaiting the six-character pass code required to gain access.

  During her short trip from Clarendon to the Pentagon, Christine had mulled over the possibilities, and was almost positive she knew Dave’s pass code. When forced to choose a six-character code, he had always used his birthday. She tried to think of alternate six-digit codes but came up empty.

  It was his birthday.

  He had better not have changed it, or she was gonna kill him.

  She typed in the six digits, then pressed Enter.

  Christine held her breath as the screen stared back at her, giving no indication the entry was correct.

  Then the screen cleared.

  She released her breath and prepared to wait for the start-up scripts to run, but the computer screen turned a solid blue instead, with one word across the screen in large white letters:

  PASSWORD:

  This must be the extra security program Dave was talking about. He said she knew the password. Perhaps it was the one they had used on their computer network at home when they were married. Closing her eyes, she pictured him sitting at their desk, typing in the password, one letter at a time.

  The password sprang into her mind.

  Hendricks had graduated from Clemson, and many of his passwords were related to his alma mater. She typed TIGERS, then hit Enter. The monitor responded instantly:

  INCORRECT PASSWORD. ATTEMPT 2 OF 3:

  PASSWORD:

  Christine’s heart sank. What could it be? As she scanned the pictures on Dave’s desk, searching for a clue, her eyes halted on the framed photo of them on their wedding day. Could that be it? Their wedding date? She had to admit she’d used it as a password on several of her Internet accounts.

  She typed the date into the computer, then hit Enter. The computer responded:

  INCORRECT PASSWORD. ATTEMPT 3 OF 3:

  PASSWORD:

  WARNING: 3 INVALID PASSWORD ENTRIES WILL DISABLE THIS ACCOUNT

  Christine’s mind spun. What password was so obvious she would know it? She’d have to go back to the day they met, searching for that special event, that special day, that special—

  Weekend!

  That was it! The first weekend of their honeymoon in Rome, when they had been forced to spend the first two days in that fleabag hotel. A weekend Dave said he would never forget. A weekend at—

  The Esplanade!

  Christine hesitated, searching through her memories a moment more. But there was no other obvious choice. She flexed her hand, then typed in the name of the hotel. The computer cursor blinked at her, waiting for her to hit Enter. If she was wrong, she would be forced to watch the destruction of Iran from video feeds into the Current Action Center, the might of the entire U.S. military overwhelmed by a single ballistic missile submarine.

  She pressed the Enter key firmly.

  The cursor blinked at her, still sitting after the last character of the password.

  Then the blue background disappeared and messages appeared on the monitor, informing her the computer was running start-up scripts and loading Hendricks’s account profile.

  Christine breathed a sigh of relief. After the desktop appeared, she selected the Search function, typing in the name of the virus. The hourglass spun for a few seconds, th
en displayed the program, buried in one of Hendricks’s personal folders. She launched the program, then typed in the code the man had given her. One word appeared on the screen, followed by a Yes or No option for the reply:

  TERMINATE?

  She clicked Yes, and the question disappeared, leaving only the computer desktop.

  A moment later, the workstations throughout the Current Action Center updated with new targeting information. Seconds later, SM-3 missiles from cruisers in the Gulf streaked up toward their targets, followed by four THAAD missiles from their battery in Afghanistan.

  Christine followed Brackman, stopping behind the Watch Captain’s console as the missiles closed on their targets.

  “This had better work,” Brackman said softly. “We’re almost out of missiles. These are the last four THAADs and we have only one cruiser left with SM-3s.”

  As Christine stared at the display, the first SM-3 closed on the Kentucky’s first missile. The green trace representing the SM-3 intersected with the red trace representing the Kentucky’s missile; the two traces kept on going.

  “We missed,” Brackman said quietly.

  The Watch Captain’s hands moved quickly across his panel. There was another SM-3 following behind, and it was reassigned. Christine’s stomach knotted as the second SM-3 intersected the Kentucky’s missile, but this time the red and green traces terminated.

  Cheers erupted in the Current Action Center.

  The Kentucky’s first missile had been destroyed.

  But there were three more to go.

  Christine turned her attention to the next SM-3, closing on the Kentucky’s second missile. She followed the green trace until it intersected the red one. Both terminated.

  The second missile was destroyed.