Authors: Stephen Coonts
Liberty (58 page)
Brendan McDonald saw it happening. He didn't even have time to say anything on the tac net. He centered the crosshairs of his rifle on Nguyen Tran and pulled the trigger.
The shot knocked Nguyen back against the core of the torch. He looked down at his chest at the spreading red stain, so stunned and amazed that he didn't realize he had dropped the pistol.
I've been shot, he thought.
The fact that the bullet had penetrated his right lungâhad gone completely through his bodyâdidn't register. Now he remembered the warhead.
Gotta push the button. Blow it!
He staggered to the west, going around the balcony
toward the weapon. The switch was there, right there, and all he had to do was reach it.
toward the weapon. The switch was there, right there, and all he had to do was reach it.
Jake Grafton was watching through binoculars. He saw Nguyen, holding himself erect with one hand on the railing and one on the side of the torch, fighting grimly to put one foot in front of the other.
“Snipers, kill him! Now!”
The reports of the four marine rifles sounded as one. People getting off the work boat and buying coffee and doughnuts at the snack wagon heard it and looked up, startled.
Three of the bullets hit Nguyen Tran, smashing him against the torch. By some miracle he stayed erect, staggering, trying to reach the warhead.
Then he fell outward, against the railing. In his determination to stay erect he stiffened his legsâsoaked up another bullet from Brendan McDonaldâand went over.
Jake saw the body falling. He dropped the binoculars.
“Come on,” he roared at Sal Molina. “Come on!” He raced from the room, took the stairs three at a time, and burst from the building on a dead run.
Harry Estep, two of his men, and Dillingham, the bomb disposal expert, followed Toad and Rita up the stairs. They didn't run. It was just possible the place was booby-trappedâafter all, Sonny and Nguyen had all night. How paranoid were they?
Toad inspected the ladder leading to the torch with a flashlight before he began climbing.
Rita was right behind, with Dillingham behind her.
The timer was at the top of the ladder. It was a mechanical unit with a dial that one twisted to set the time. Less than a minute to go.
Toad wiped his fingers, looked at the faceplate of the timer. Beside it was a switch, just a simple dollar switch from an automotive parts store.
He was breathing heavily from the climb and his ribs hurt like hell.
He wiped his hands again on his trousers. The bomb expert was way back thereâand there wasn't enough room for him unless Toad went all the way up to the balcony. He had to make a decision.
He twisted the dial to the stop and released it. Now they had thirty minutes.
“This is the timer and trigger switch,” he muttered at Rita. Then he went on by, on up to the balcony.
The steel plates there had blood on them. Toad ignored the red splotches, looked over the railing. Carmellini was coming up the goddess's thumb.
“Hey, shipmate,” said Toad. “Toss me a rope.”
“I don't have one to toss,” Carmellini hissed, and set the next cup.
Jake Grafton climbed the ladder inside Liberty's arm and found no one in the base of the torch. He continued upward to the balcony.
Dillingham had the access plate off the box the warhead was in and was inspecting it with a flashlight when Jake arrived. He reached in with a set of wire cutters. When he backed out, he saw Grafton.
“It's safe, Admiral.”
As Jake helped Toad and Rita haul an exhausted Tommy Carmellini over the railing, he heard Harry Estep on his cell phone. “We've got it, Mr. Emerick. The weapon is safe.”
Carmellini flopped down on the balcony, gasping for air.
“Thanks, Tommy,” Jake said, bending over. “You gave us our chance.”
“Next time ⦔ Carmellini rasped out between breaths, “I want ⦠a desk job. Promise me!”
Rita hooted with laughter, and Toad joined in.
Aboard
Whidbey Island,
Lieutenant Coleridge told Joe Shack on the sound-powered telephone, “Stop polishing that damn gun and put the cover on it.” Then he picked
up the mike for the public address system, which had a loudspeaker in every compartment of the small ship.
Whidbey Island,
Lieutenant Coleridge told Joe Shack on the sound-powered telephone, “Stop polishing that damn gun and put the cover on it.” Then he picked
up the mike for the public address system, which had a loudspeaker in every compartment of the small ship.
“Liberty call for everyone except the duty section. If you have the hots to see New York in the rain, now's your chance. Bosun, get the launch in the water.”
Joe Shack threw his rag on the deck and ran for the railing. When his stomach settled down, he stood looking at the Statue of Liberty. He drew himself to attention and saluted. She didn't salute backâmerely stood there against the gray sky with her torch held aloft.
Shack got out the cover for the gun and began the process of installing it.
Grafton, Carmellini, and the Tarkingtons were sitting with their backs to the torch facing Manhattan a half hour later when Jake's cell phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket. It was Callie, calling from Washington.
“Where are you?” she demanded.
“Sitting on the balcony of the Statue of Liberty watching the clouds over Manhattan. It's a gorgeous day, misting rain. The Empire State Building is fading in and out.”
“Emerick is on television. He just announced that the FBI found a warhead in the statue. Do you know anything about it?”
Jake began laughing and couldn't stop. He passed the cell phone to Rita, who listened to Callie, said something, and also dissolved into laughter.
When he got the phone back, Jake told his wife, “I'll tell you all about it this evening. Thought I might take the train home with Carmellini and the Tarkingtons this afternoon. Could you meet us at Union Station? I'll call you later, tell you when we're getting in. Bring Amy and we can get some dinner somewhere.”
“I love you, Jake.”
“I love you, too, Callie.”
In the weeks following Fleet Week, Jake Grafton's ad hoc computer staff was transferred in toto, people and equipment, to the joint antiterrorism task force. Their labors had begun to bear fruit. The tangled skein of money transfers throughout the world was being untangled, the identities of those people and governments around the world who put up the money for terrorism were being established, and terrorist cells in America and Europe were being uncovered, cells that were made targets of traditional law enforcement investigations.
Tommy Carmellini went back to his regular job at Langley, only to find that the paper on his desk had accumulated dramatically in his absence. Rita Moravia went back to the Fleet Week staff, which was in the midst of its own post-event wrap-up and planning for the event the following year.
Gil Pascal left for a Pentagon billet, and Toad Tarkington received orders to the staff of Atlantic Fleet. Toad had to find a new job because Jake submitted his retirement papers, as he said he would, and scheduled himself for terminal leave.
Zip Vance married one of the secretaries after a whirlwind courtship and found himself assigned to the CIA's permanent technical staff. He stopped in to shake Jake's
hand, muttered something about Zelda that Jake didn't catch, and said good-bye.
hand, muttered something about Zelda that Jake didn't catch, and said good-bye.
Zelda Hudson's future was very much up in the air. She stayed at the remnants of the bank of computers in the basement and finished her self-assigned project, which she titled “A Day in the Life of a Drug Dealer.” The video tracked a drug dealer through the streets of Washington using traffic surveillance cameras, video cameras at convenience stores and those that monitored pay telephones, cameras in malls, department stores, and the public housing projects. The video ran for twenty-two minutes.
Jake sent it to the Justice Department for a screening. The legal eagles were horrified, apparently, because three days later an assistant attorney general telephoned Jake and demanded that he personally destroy the tape and delete the computer file.
“Outrageous!” the lawyer thundered. “Never in my career have I seen a more egregious violation of the civil liberties of an American citizen.”
“What did you think of that doper driving around the nation's capital peddling poison?”
“The amazing thing,” the lawyer said, “is that you made the tape in direct violation of the statute that prohibits the CIA from spying on Americans.”
“I was thinking of sending copies to CNN and CNBC,” Jake said lightly. “Think they'd air it?”
“I am referring this matter to the attorney general with a recommendation that you be court-martialed.”
“Better hang on to your copy of that tape, then,” Jake retorted. “You're going to need it as evidence.” He hung up on the assistant attorney general.
Three days later he was summoned to the White House by Sal Molina. The president wasn't in town just then, so the White House lacked its usual charged energy, that center of the universe feeling. Jake found Molina in his cubbyhole office a few yards down the hallway from the Oval Office.
“So you're retiring,” Molina said with amusement.
“Yep. Gonna become a civilian and get rich in corporate America. Get an accounting job with some stock options.”
“Sure. You'll fit right in at America Incorporated. By the way, I got a call yesterday from an assistant attorney general. He wants your head on a platter. Demanded that you be court-martialed. What in hell was that all about?”
Jake told Molina about the tape, about how Zelda Hudson cobbled it together from various video feeds.
“You let her do it, of course.”
“Of course.”
Molina removed a classified file from his desk, took out the document and tossed it across his desk. “Page three,” he said.
The document was the daily intelligence brief for senior White House and National Security Council executives. Jake found a paragraph that had been circled. Walney's Bank in Cairo collapsed three days ago, the item noted. Then last night, Cairo time, the president of the bank, one Abdul Abn Saad, was murdered with a car bomb.
“Saad, his wife, and their chauffeurâboom!” Molina said when Jake handed the document back. “You know anything about this?”
“I might be able to throw a little light in that corner,” Jake admitted. “I asked Zelda to loot the bank, bleed money from Sword of Islam accounts into some accounts Saad had in Switzerland. She told me she covered her tracks pretty well.”
Molina grinned. “Won't be the same without you around here.”
Jake smiled.
“What are we going to do about Zelda?”
“I suggest you send her over to NSA.” NSA was the National Security Agency. “They're tearing their hair out over there trying to decrypt these public key codes that every software store in the world is selling. Zelda is a certified genius. Maybe she can help.”
Molina thought about it, sighed, then said, “I'll talk to the president about it.”
They chatted for a few more minutes, then Jake shook hands and left.
Molina was as good as his word. The Monday following the White House visit, Zelda stopped by Jake's office. She was going to NSA. “Thanks, Admiral, for everything. You've saved my life twice now.”
A smile and a handshake, and she was gone. Jake pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk, propped his feet up, and was deep into a copy of
Trade-A-Plane
when he heard another knock on his door. “Yo.”
Trade-A-Plane
when he heard another knock on his door. “Yo.”
Tommy Carmellini came in and dropped into a chair. “I hear you're retiring.”
“That's right. Terminal leave starts in ten days.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
Jake held up
Trade-A-Plane.
“Going to buy a Cessna 170 and go flying with Callie. Been thinking about it for years. We're going to do the whole lower forty-eight before the snow comes.”
Trade-A-Plane.
“Going to buy a Cessna 170 and go flying with Callie. Been thinking about it for years. We're going to do the whole lower forty-eight before the snow comes.”
“And after that?”
“Well, I don't know. Might do it again next summer. And the summer after that. Might even take up fishing.”
Carmellini nodded. From his coat pocket he produced a postcard. “Got something I thought you might be interested in, Admiral. Arrived at my apartment in yesterday's mail.”
The picture was of a riverboat on the Seine.
“Didn't you meet Ilin in Paris?” Carmellini asked.
“Yes, I did.”
Jake turned the card over. It carried a French stamp and an illegible postmark. The message was in English. “I'll be back someday. Love, Anna.”
“That her handwriting?” Jake asked as he passed the card back.
“I think so.”
“Looks like life isn't over for you after all.”
Carmellini got out of his chair and stretched. A smile
crept across his face, then he grinned broadly.
crept across his face, then he grinned broadly.
Jake Grafton slammed his lower desk drawer, grabbed his hat and the copy of
Trade-A-Plane,
and said, “Let's give ourselves a meritorious day off. There's a plane in Frederick the owner wants me to flyâhe thinks I'm a sizzling hot prospect. Let's go do it.”
Trade-A-Plane,
and said, “Let's give ourselves a meritorious day off. There's a plane in Frederick the owner wants me to flyâhe thinks I'm a sizzling hot prospect. Let's go do it.”
As he walked out of his office with Carmellini trailing in his wake, Jake shouted, “Tarkington! Lock up and turn out the lights. Let's go fly.”
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