Chapter Twenty-one
Wearing a trench coat over a charcoal Brooks Brothers sport coat and a black turtleneck, Grant Mercer sauntered out of the Windsor Hilton lobby in blue jeans and snakeskin boots. Stubble covered his chin and he was wearing dark sunglasses. A clip-on earring with a silver cross hung from his ear.
Mercer had driven the used Accord along I-94 to Detroit and had crossed the Ambassador Bridge to Windsor, Ontario. Once in Canada, he had dyed his hair from chestnut to sandy blond. Although he stood to gain great riches, he had tried to talk his friend out of stealing the Colorado.
He had expected Jake to fail and die, and when Jake had called him from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Mercer thought it had been the voice of a ghost. Worse, in his paranoia, he feared it might have been a federal agent simulating Jake’s voice.
Thoughts of ghosts and paranoia vanished as Mercer reached a street corner payphone and called his bank.
Jake had trusted him to receive each Taiwanese payment into his account and then divvy up each accomplice’s share. McKenzie, Bass, and Gant would each keep ten percent of the payments, Mercer twenty, and Jake fifty.
Mercer verified the latest payment.
“My account shows a deposit of forty million dollars, right?” he asked.
“Yes,” said an operator with a European accent Mercer couldn’t place.
Ten million down, and now forty more, he thought. And we’re only half way through.
“Good,” he said. “I’d like to make a few transfers to other accounts in your bank.”
He pulled a sheet of paper from his breast pocket, unfolded it, and read the account number written next to the name ‘McKenzie’.
“Four million to account number seven-three-two-four-four-nine dash seven-three-three.”
He continued with four million-dollar transfers for Gant and Bass. The last name on his list was Slate’s.
I could keep Jake’s twenty million for myself, he thought. Shit, I bet I could still take back the twelve from the other guys.
“Sir?” the operator asked.
“Yeah...hold on...I’m thinking,” he said.
Greed is good, he thought. But loyalty is better.
He decided to let Jake have his money.
“Okay, let’s transfer twenty million to fund number four-eight-eight-five-four dash seven-three-seven.”
Mercer waited for the confirmation.
“That’s it. Thank you,” he said.
Okay, Jake, he thought, I’m still with you.
With intent of leaving his Honda behind, Mercer drove to a used car lot. As he stepped out of the Accord, a fat man with slick hair approached him.
“What are you looking for?” the beer-bellied salesman asked.
“Look, man, a buddy of mine saw my wife and some guy making out in this car last week. I’ve had troubles with that bitch before, and I don’t want her getting this car in the divorce. It’s in decent shape.”
“Let me check her out,” the fat salesman said.
As the salesman checked out the Accord, Mercer decided to postpone the purchase of his next car. Better to clear his tracks by dumping his car here and getting the next one elsewhere.
“It’s not in too bad shape,” the salesman said. “I can take it. You want to use it as a trade in?”
“No,” Mercer said. “I just want to put this nightmare behind me.”
*
After paying American cash for a Ford Taurus on a second used car lot, Mercer drove along Route 401 toward Toronto. As the bleak sun backlit flat farmland, he reconsidered the dangerous role awaiting him if he continued to help Jake.
Signs indicated a handful of kilometers to Toronto, and Mercer faced a decision. He contemplated abandoning Jake for a life of independent wealth in Canada. He could continue to Montreal or even Quebec City, settle down, learn French, and enjoy his wealth. No one would find him.
As the off ramp for Route 400 north approached, Mercer remembered having promised Jake that he would go the distance. But by going the distance, Canada wouldn’t be far enough away to hide.
Mercer swallowed, uttered a curse, and chose to keep his promise. He turned onto Route 400 and pointed his Taurus at Ontario’s sparsely populated regions. At the top of the Great Lakes, he would then double back west – and then north – en route to Alaska.
By turning onto Route 400, Mercer had committed. With one hundred sixty-four thousand dollars in American cash and thirty-eight hundred Canadian, Mercer headed down the slippery slope of no return.
*
In his stateroom, Brody spoke with the Miami’s executive officer.
“Pete, I need you to be ready to do me a favor.”
“What’s that sir?”
“You’ve been selected to command a submarine of your own soon. I’m considering letting you to take the Miami home as the acting commanding officer. I’m just about ready to pack it in.”
“Captain?”
“I’m also annotating the deck log with your formal recommendation to open range to the Colorado before we were counter-detected.”
“Sir, that annotation will do more harm to you than good for me. It’s destructive.”
“After letting the Colorado get away, my career’s officially over. If I can turn my mistake into your advantage, then let’s do it. You’ve learned a lot from me. My last lesson is to show you how to lose graciously.”
*
Pacing in the Oval Office, Lance Ryder spoke with David Rankin, his National Security Advisor.
“Let’s face it,” Ryder said. “Admiral Mesher can pump all the sunshine up my ass that he wants, but we’ve had no contact with the Colorado for twenty-eight hours. It’s gone and we’ve got a crisis. We need allied forces to help with this one.”
“Sir, the implications of sharing this are too-”
“This could cost me the Presidency.”
“It would destroy the nation’s confidence. We can’t afford that - not now - not with your neck sticking out in the Middle East. Not when you may have to pry the Chinese off of Taiwan.”
“What other choice do I have?” Ryder asked.
“We can set up others to take the fall. Blame needs to go no higher than Admiral Mesher.”
“If I go down, I go down with my integrity intact.”
“But consider the nation,” Rankin said. “You can’t take this public without creating widespread panic, sir. There are options.”
“What options?”
“We can get help secretly. I could leak this through intelligence channels and get allied resources to join us in the search. We should regain the Colorado when it passes through the Straits of Gibraltar. We can look for the warheads’ radiation if they escape from the ship.”
“Those options might work.”
“We know that the Colorado is in the North Atlantic and probably heading toward Gibraltar, but the third party supporting this hijack doesn’t know that we know. We need to retain that advantage. Silence and secrecy are your best options.”
“Gather the Joint Chiefs, the DCI, and the Secretary of State to discuss using the intelligence channels,” Ryder said. “We’ll keep this quiet until I confer with them.”
*
Four-foot swells rocked the chained network of three cargo containers under the eleven o’clock sun. The detonator in the top crate generated an electrical pulse. In unison, C-4 charges exploded and tore off the crate’s door.
Attached to the plummeting steel door, a depth charge reached five hundred feet. Bellows sensors registered two hundred and twenty pounds per square inch of water pressure. The weapon exploded.
A shockwave shook the upper crate as water flowed into it and pushed the two buoys from the Colorado against its customized inner jail cell wall. As the inrush subsided, one buoy rose cleanly to the ocean’s surface. The other bumped against the top of the crate prior to ascending. Having sensed immersion in water, the buoys reached the surface and transmitted a doomsday message that the USS Colorado had descended below crush depth.
As the buoys shrieked their message, the three crates descended below them. The metal walls of the remaining airtight crate groaned, creaked, and crumpled as the network of twisted metal plummeted to the ocean floor.