Chapter Thirteen
The reactor had reached criticality. White water over its bow, the Colorado glided through Cumberland Sound under a cloudless sky. For Jake, anticipation and fear gave way to confidence.
He took in his surroundings. To the left of the moonlit St. Marys River was the desolate southwestern tip of Georgia’s Cumberland Island. To his right, the lights of Fernandina Beach, Florida, glowed on the horizon.
“Sir,” Bass said, “steaming both sides of the engine room, ready to answer all bells. The electric plant is in a half-power line up on the port turbine generator.”
“Shift to fast speed reactor coolant pumps,” Jake said, “all ahead flank.”
Jake knew that within the engine room, Bass was spinning a chrome-plated oversized steering wheel throttle and inundating the main engines with steam. The extra straining of the steam turbines would squeeze out only an extra few knots of speed, but every knot counted.
He made two turns through the channel that pointed the Colorado eastward, passing the stone buttresses of historical Fort Clinch on the northern tip of Florida’s Amelia Island.
The Colorado squeezed through the narrow passage between Georgia’s Cumberland Island and Amelia Island. Half a mile later, stone jetty walls, erected to protect vessels from currents, jutted through the water.
“Mister Lion,” Jake said, “take the helm from Mister Cheetah and order the crew’s evacuation.”
“I have the helm,” Kao said. “My team is positioning for the evacuation.”
“I want to talk to Mister Renard,” Jake said. “Have him report a visual fix.”
“I hold us a half mile beyond the jetties,” Renard said.
“Good,” Jake said. “Not even the strongest swimmer could reach civilization before we submerge.”
“I agree. It would be impossible,” Renard said.
“Very well, release the crew,” Jake said.
Jake watched the duty crew assemble topside.
“The entire crew is topside. Mister Cheetah is back in the control room with me,” Kao said.
“Mister Lion, have Mister Tiger inform the crew that I will stop the shaft for twenty seconds,” Jake said.
Jake looked over his shoulder. Tiger shut the hatch and left the Colorado’s duty crew to its fate. Jake ordered the shaft stopped, and turbulence behind the ship subsided.
After a moment of trepidation, one man braved the leap. Courage spread, and the entire crew jumped. Two men jumped together with a wrapped Dowd in their arms.
When the last bobbing head floated into the darkness, Jake returned the ship to all ahead flank.
The Colorado lurched forward. One hour and forty-five minutes had passed since the heist began, and the plan was on track. Jake gave himself a cautious and silent congratulation.
West of Cumberland Island, the trawler, Tiger Lily, floated at anchor in a fishing haven. Michael O’Neil, a plump man with a bulbous pockmarked nose, slept in his captain’s chair as a cool breeze tickled his graying beard.
He awoke, glanced at the half-empty fifth of Canadian Club whiskey he had sipped before his fitful slumber, and studied white anchor lights to check his neighbors’ moorings. Then he sniffed the sweet salt air. Finally, he walked behind his pilothouse to make one last inspection of his nets and rigging before heading below.
East of the jetties, a dark mass that he recognized as the deceptively small black form of a surfaced Trident submarine raced across the water’s surface. O’Neil knew how to spot Tridents and avoid them, but he had never seen one outbound at night.
He returned to the pilot house and grabbed his radio.
*
President Lance Ryder would not earn a second glance in a crowded room. His nose was too big. Although in his mid-fifties, his hairline had been receding toward a balding crown for decades. When speaking, his voice issued from thin lips tightened by deep thought.
Ryder was a war hero. While he was flying over Vietnam, flack had cut through his leg, costing him years of knee rehabilitation and giving him a limp. The old battlefield injury gave the nation confidence that his military decisions were grounded in reality.
At three forty in the morning, an aide awoke Ryder and informed him of a Broken Arrow, the theft of American nuclear weapons.
Ryder ordered the aide to have his top naval admiral contact him. As he slid into the clothes he had worn the prior day, his hopes of awaking from the nightmare dwindled. An encrypted telephone rang by his bedside.
“Ryder,” he said.
Admiral Mesher, the Chief of Naval Operations and a no-nonsense submarine officer, was on the line.
“Mister President, this is the CNO. A Trident submarine is in egress from Kings Bay, Georgia, under control of an unknown force.”
“How did that happen?”
“We don’t know yet, sir. The USS Colorado was spotted forty minutes ago by a fisherman. We have no visual on its present location, but we assume it’s heading east with intent to submerge. If we act quickly we can contain this.”
“What do you mean ‘if’? A Trident submarine can’t actually slip from our grasp.”
“It’s possible if we can’t stop it before it submerges. We have an hour. I’ve already ordered every anti-submarine warfare asset on the east coast into motion. I’ve also asked the other force commanders to help me scramble every airborne gunship-”
“Hell, no! The last thing we need is for the entire world to know we’ve lost a Trident.”
Ryder rubbed his hand against his forehead.
“You said we have an hour,” Ryder said. “Just send what you need to stop her. Don’t turn this into a fleet exercise and a public relations disaster.”
“I need to catch her before she can submerge.”
“I got that part! What do you need from me?”
“I need control of any air asset that can be airborne, armed, and over the Colorado within forty-five minutes,” Mesher said. “There’s no telling which assets will be scrambled first, but if it’s not Navy, I don’t want to fight red tape getting it under my command.”
“I’ll make this easy for you. You can have assets in the area in two minutes. Use NORAD jets. Launch two alert aircraft and bump up the backup aircraft to the runway.”
“NORAD armaments may not be enough, sir.”
"Damn it, Admiral, I was an aviator. I know you can’t stop a major warship with an anti-air load out. But surely you can do something with a pair of fighter jets? You can damage the rudder, can’t you?”
“Yes, sir, we could certainly cripple the Colorado so that it can’t submerge.”
“Do it, then.”
Ryder waited for Mesher to relay the order.
“The NORAD assets are taking off now, sir.”
“Someone has taken our most potent weapon system, Admiral. I want it back and I want to know who did this.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”
“If not, I’ll have your balls on a silver platter.”