PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII
7 DECEMBER
8:40 a.m. LOCAL/1840 ZULU
A dark hole beckoned in the bright blue water, and Skibicki's fins disappeared into it. Boomer hesitated for a second, then followed. His compass told him they were on the east side of the harbor, which meant they were near the sub pens at Pearl.
The hole narrowed to a tunnel six feet in diameter. Dim, underwater lights lit the way, showing pitted concrete walls, slowly sloping up. Boomer surfaced in a chamber about twenty feet square with a wooden dock on one side. He slipped off his fins and joined Skibicki on the deck.
"Where are we?" he asked as he took off his tanks and weight belt.
"This is the dive area for NAVSPWRGP One," the sergeant major replied, referring to the Navy special warfare group at Pearl. "We're right next to the sub pens. They use this to get out into the water without being seen, which they occasionally have to do for training. It was actually built in World War II as a service duct for the sub pens, but since the pens were expanded in the other direction and upgraded, this whole area was given to the SEALs." Skibicki pointed at a metal door. "This way. There are some people I want you to meet."
Skibicki twisted the hatch and swung the door open. On the other side a large room beckoned lit by halogen lamps. Several radio sets were operational along one wall, and a large table was in the center of the room with maps spread out on it.
There were numerous men in the room, but Boomer's eyes fastened on the lone woman with the large white cast on her leg seated at the conference table. He ran across the concrete floor and skidded to his knees, wrapping Trace in his arms.
For several minutes he simply held her, head buried in her shoulder. When he finally pulled back, he smiled as he looked into her eyes. "What the hell happened to you?"
"Just some minor problems. I'm all right." She looked over his shoulder. "You'll be surprised to see who's here."
Boomer followed her gaze and stiffened as he spotted the familiar figure of Colonel Decker. At the radios he recognized Lieutenant Colonel Falk and Colonel Coulder. Boomer turned to Sergeant Major Skibicki who had followed him over. "Who are these people?" Boomer asked. He pointed. "That's Decker. He's the one who ordered the mission into the Ukraine."
Skibicki laid a hand on Boomer's arm. "We're getting ready to brief General Maxwell. You and Trace need to hear this too, because it's the only time this story is going to be told other than when Maxwell relays it to the President. I really don't know all that's happened either, so bear with us."
Boomer looked back at Trace. "Are you all right?"
"Yes."
"Do you know what's going on?"
"Not yet." Trace ran her hand up his arm. "I missed you."
Boomer took her hand and wrapped his fingers tightly around hers. "I'm glad you're back."
Colonel Decker went straight to the head of the table. He didn't acknowledge Boomer's or Skibicki's presence other than with a curt nod. "What's our status?" he asked Falk, who had a headset held up to one ear.
"Looking Glass is down. SEAL Team Three has the SHARCC secure. We haven't heard from Task Force Reaper yet," Falk succinctly reported.
"Will someone tell me what is going on?" Boomer demanded.
"Major Watson," Decker said, holding up a hand. "Have some patience. All your questions will be answered in a few minutes. Right now I'm trying to get the information together so that I can answer them."
In confusion, Boomer slumped down in the chair next to Trace as General Maxwell was escorted to the chair next to him.
Decker spoke into the radio and seemed perturbed at the lack of answer. Reluctantly, he faced the senior ranking military man in the room and saluted. "General Maxwell, what you are about to hear must be relayed to the President and that is why we asked you to come here this morning," Decker said.
"No one asked me a damn thing," Maxwell said, returning the salute angrily.
"We apologize for some of our methods, but as we explain I think you will understand the reasoning behind our actions," Decker continued. "First, let me give a little background. The Line has been in existence for over seventy years. We," he said gesturing about the room, "have been fighting them for the last five of those years."
"Who is we?" Maxwell asked.
"Members of the Special Operations community," Decker answered vaguely.
"And who elected you to this job?" Maxwell asked.
"No one elected us," Decker said. "We have been trying to do what was right and—"
"The right thing would have been to expose The Line as soon as you were aware of its existence," Maxwell cut in. "That is what your oath of office and your sense of duty would have required."
"Yes, sir, you are correct," Decker said. "Unfortunately, I became aware of the existence of The Line over twenty years ago on Ring Weekend as a cadet at the Academy when I became a member of the organization. I only turned against it five years ago, and by then I was already too far involved to be able to walk away or expose it."
"For a long time, I thought I was doing the right thing. It was only in the late eighties, after a good friend of mine was killed by The Line, that I changed my convictions. It has taken years to gather together a few men that I could trust in order to accomplish what we did today."
Decker then proceeded to relate the story of the fight between the Special Operations community and the regular Army for the past several decades.
"After the death of the 1st Ranger Battalion commander, Colonel Bob Kelly, one of my roommates from West Point," Decker continued, "there were certain people in Special Operations who realized that The Line was a threat that went beyond intra-service animosity. I knew—because I was on the inside—that The Line had caused Bob's death and the cover-up of the crash of his Blackhawk at Eglin. I approached a few people, and we began watching and waiting."
"We didn't know about Colonel Rison having the diary, but we did know about the events at Nha Trang where he had been arrested and we knew that the war between the regular forces and our forces was continuing."
"Even then there was no consensus on action to be taken. That is until we discovered that The Line was plotting against the President. At that point, we no longer felt we had an option. We had to act."
"Since I was already on the inside it was felt that it was best if I continued to play my part. Major Keyes also was on the inside and turned against The Line when he heard what I had to say after I approached him at Fort Benning. In fighting The Line we had the support of many people within the Special Operations forces," Decker said. "Otherwise today would have turned out much differently than it did."
"I understand all that," General Maxwell said, "and your story is very interesting, but please tell me what is going on right now."
"General Martin and the Army, Air Force, and Navy Joint Chiefs of Staff are dead," Decker said. "Their E-4B command and control aircraft was destroyed by a bomb less than an hour ago forty miles southeast of Oahu."
"You're joking!" Maxwell said.
"No, sir, I'm not."
"You killed them," Maxwell said.
"We transferred a bomb they had placed on board Air Force One onto their E-4B. I prefer to think they killed themselves. They were preparing to take over all satellite media in the United States after the death of the President and declare martial law. It was thought best they not have that opportunity."
He looked Maxwell in the eyes, and Maxwell nodded for him to continue. "General Hooker, the man who has been in charge of The Line—and the members of his staff, the controlling committee of The Line—should be dead. That was Major Keyes—Task Force Reaper's—responsibility at the VIP quarters a quarter mile away from where we are right now. Unfortunately we haven't heard from Major Keyes yet."
"What about The Line?" Maxwell asked.
"It will wither and die," Decker said. "Hooker has been the brain for The Line for the past fifty years. Without him and the influence he exerted through the Joint Chiefs, The Line is finished."
"Wait a second," Boomer said. "I don't understand what's going on. Why was I involved and—"
"We knew The Line had a plot against the President," Decker interrupted. "So we had to come up with a plan to foil them." He rubbed his forehead, as if trying to figure out the best way to tell the story. "All right—let me back up and tell you first what The Line had planned. Then you will see why we had to do what we did."
"Between the MRA, the recent budget cuts, the cancelling of Hard Glass, the events in the Ukraine and Turkey . . ." Decker paused. "Well, I could go on and on, but to cut to the chase. The Line—and many other people— have not been very happy about the direction the country is going in. The difference is that The Line does something about it when they don't like the way the country is going. And usually something illegal."
"There were many small incidents—the raid into the Ukraine that Major Watson participated in for example—that were done to embarrass this administration and try to manipulate policy. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on whose side you're on—those efforts didn't work."
"The MRA passing Congress was the final straw, so to speak. General Hooker didn't think it had a snowball's chance in hell of getting Congressional approval but the President won that round. Hooker didn't want to wait around and take his chances with the Senate. He decided to take action and this trip by the President to Hawaii played right into his hands. As you could tell by Hooker's diary, The Line has a history of acting drastically against presidents if necessary."
"Their primary plan was to kidnap the President when he attended the command and control exercise aboard the SHARCC. When that was canceled, they went to their secondary plan which was to kill the President this morning on the Arizona Memorial with a torpedo fired from a Mark IX swimmer delivery vehicle."
"How did they think they could get away with that?" Maxwell demanded.
"The SDV that was to fire the torpedo was delivered offshore by a Barbel Class submarine that we captured from Iraq during the Gulf War back in—''
"Wait a second," Boomer said. "What about the Sam Houston?"
Skibicki answered that. "The Sam Houston is further offshore—but it is under our control. We had to be prepared to stop all The Line's plans. The SEALs on board the Sam Houston were ready to take over the SHARCC and save the President if he had gone through with the C&C exercise."
"For foiling the secondary plan, we were relying on Sergeant Skibicki, whom you assisted in doing just that this morning. The Barbel Class Iraqi sub was carried by the Glomar Explorer, which also does resupply for the SHARCC. The Line's plan was that they would let the wreckage of the Barbel sub be found after counter-submarine actions by the Navy. Thus the destruction of the memorial and death of the President could be laid at Iraq's doorstep, which would kill two birds with one torpedo so to speak."
"You deceived me," Boomer said, looking at Skibicki. "You told me the Houston was moving in to shore."
"I only found out about that yesterday," the sergeant major said. "And we had to stop the SDV off the Iraqi sub which was moving in. Vasquez found all that out. I didn't have time to get into all this. What I told you was essentially the truth."
"Their third plan," Decker continued quickly, "was to destroy Air Force One with an altitude-detonated bomb. This was a backup in case the other two plans failed and the President attempted to depart the island alive. We were not aware of this plan. It was just fortunate that Sergeant Major Skibicki discovered and followed the men from the Barbel Class sub who infiltrated Hickam and planted the bomb on board Air Force One two nights ago. He retrieved it and placed it aboard Looking Glass."
"We have since discovered that The Line's cover for that action was to be an attack by long-range Iraqi bombers. Again captured during the Gulf War. The two F-16s that fly security for the President were to be flown by pilots loyal to The Line. Not too hard to find after the events in the Ukraine last week. They would swear to the attack by Iraqi planes, which they would have destroyed, when in reality the bomb would have destroyed Air Force One."
"The Barbel sub is currently being tracked down by the Sam Houston and will be captured shortly. The SHARCC is under our control. It was boarded by Navy SEALs from the Houston at the same time Looking Glass was destroyed. The two pilots are also in custody and the two Iraqi bombers are also under our control."
"My God," General Maxwell exclaimed. "These people were insane."
"No, sir," Decker said. "They were desperate." He looked at Boomer. "And we were desperate also."
"You ordered me to kill Americans," Boomer said staring hard at the colonel.
"The mission you did into the Ukraine was done under direct orders from General Martin. I knew it was a setup designed to work against this administration. But I had to go along with it or else expose my role as a double-agent. Like I said, we knew they were planning to kill the President here in Hawaii, and I had to continue playing my part until we could directly attack and destroy The Line and save the President."
"The Coventry excuse," Boomer said. His voice was bitter. "For the greater good, right?"
Decker met his look. "I don't justify what I did. I did it, and it's done. I could have saved those men in the Ukraine and ordered you to abort, but that would have tipped our hand and the President and whole bunch of other people would be dead. I'm the one who has to live with it."
"No, I have to live with it too," Boomer said. "Why me?" he asked. "Why did you use me?"
"Because you were the right person in the right place at the right time." Decker explained. "We needed someone to go to the President. Someone who wasn't involved with us."
Boomer looked about the room. He could see it all now. "Keyes and his A Team—the jump into North Shore?"
"We set that up. We needed Keyes and his men here. To take down Hooker."
"There never was a plot against the Vice President?"
"Not as far as we know," Decker said.
"What about the two men we killed that night?" Boomer asked Skibicki. "Were they more pawns to be sacrificed for the greater good?''
"That's something that doesn't have to be on your conscience," Skibicki said. "Remember those men we killed the previous evening outside Major Trace's house? How we couldn't find their bodies and show them to the cops? They were the ones who had broken in and were ready to kill her. They worked for The Line. I hauled the bodies up to the point and dumped them. The whole firefight we had was a staged event. We were firing blanks and so were the men—members of Keyes team—shooting back at us."
"So the message on the drop I broke out was a setup too," Boomer said.
"We needed to get you thinking—and relay that thinking to the President—that something was going to happen," Decker confirmed. "As you can see, Colonel Falk and Colonel Coulder were in on it." He looked at General Maxwell. "If one of us had come to you, you might not have believed us and you certainly would have stopped our counteractions. But having Major Watson and Major Trace believe in the plot and trying to convince you allowed us to continue our counteractions without interference."
General Maxwell looked at Boomer and Trace. "Yes, I believed them."
"You can't use people like that," Boomer said.
"We had no choice," Decker replied.
"What about Colonel Rison being killed?" Trace asked. "Did you plan that too?"
"That was unexpected," Decker said. "The Line has always had its own sources of information, and they were ahead of us there."
"Damn right they were," Trace said. "They almost killed me."
For the first time Decker showed some ignorance of events. "We don't know how The Line got onto you so quickly. You should have been able to get in and out with the diary. I don't know what happened at West Point."
Trace had been doing a little bit of thinking on her own. "They must have gotten my license number when I went to visit Mrs. Howard—the woman who told me about The Line in the first place."
"That was foolish on your part," Decker said. "They would have had an alert out for you there. We know about them killing her. It was unfortunate. We didn't think they would be that vindictive."
"Vindictive? Foolish? Unfortunate?" Trace said, her voice rising. "This is all insane! You just killed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and you're telling me I was foolish? You're calling the deaths of innocent people unfortunate?"
"I prefer to think of it as we just saved the President's life and prevented a coup which would have cost many more innocent people their lives," Decker calmly replied.
"I'm sure you would," Boomer joined in. "But others might see it differently. I see it differently. I was directly responsible for the death of a friend of mine in the Ukraine. You set me up to do that. You put our lives on the line—Trace and me. Who the hell do you think you are? God?"
"No," Decker said. "You put your lives on the line." He pointed at Trace. "No one said you had to write about what Mrs. Howard told you. That's what brought you into this. No one said you had to go to the mainland to see Colonel Rison." He shifted to Boomer. "You're the one that came up with the theory that the President was threatened. What if we had given you the real information? Would it have made any difference? The plot was real. The Line was real."
"Gentlemen," General Maxwell interrupted. "We can sit here all day and argue the finer moral points of what has happened, but it has already happened. There are important issues that have to be decided very shortly, and I need to go back to the President and inform him of what has occurred."
Decker nodded. "It is over."
"What about Looking Glass?" Trace asked. "How are you going to explain that?"
"The same way The Line got rid of so many of its enemies over the years. We will control the report issued by the investigation board. They won't find much of the E-4B to investigate anyway. It went down over deep water. We regret the loss of the crew, but we had no choice. They were preparing to cut in to the satellite media coverage of the ceremony and broadcast a message from General Martin. It would have blown the lid off this country. We couldn't allow that. We also couldn't allow the Joint Chiefs to survive."
"Most of the people who were on board the SHARCC and the Barbel submarine didn't know what they were involved in." He looked at Boomer and Trace. "They were simply following orders. They'll be quietly transferred."
"The DIA men?" Boomer asked.
"They were The Line's agents," Skibicki answered. "The rest of them will be taken care of."
Decker pointed about the room. "This group of people will go back to their lives and their careers, and that is why, General Maxwell, you are here. You need to go to the President and tell him it is over. He has Hooker's diary. I assume he does not want that information made public. Neither do we wish our activities made public. It's over."
Lieutenant Colonel Falk suddenly spoke from where he had been monitoring the radios. "Keyes and his team are all dead."
Boomer stood. "Playing God didn't work out too well, did it?"
"What about Hooker?" Decker asked. "Did they get him?"
"I'm listening to the naval security frequency," Falk said. "I can't tell. There are a lot of bodies there. Sounds like it was a bloodbath. They probably got him."