Threat vector Read online

  This book made available by the Internet Archive.

  To the woman I cherish more than my next breath,

  Patti DiMercurio,

  my wife, my love, my world.

  I love you and I will always love you.

  Acknowledgments

  Deepest thanks to my wife, Patti, the love of my life, who fills me with inspiration and makes my life worth living.

  Thanks to my son, Matthew, and my daughter, Maria, who have filled my life with love and hope and joy.

  Thanks to my mother, Patricia, who never wanted me to climb down the hatch of a nuclear submarine but kept her peace nonetheless.

  Thanks to my father, Dee, who once reminded me that he had been commissioned as a naval officer at twenty— while at that age I was a mere third class midshipman— and kept my feet on the ground.

  Thanks to Joe Pittman, the best damn editor in the business.

  Thanks to Nancy Perpall, a great friend and a talented writer.

  Thanks to Bill Parker, the brilliant computer architect of Parker Information Resources (www.parkerinfo.com), who made the ussdevilfish.com website explosive. Please visit it at www.ussdevilfish.com.

  Thanks to my friend and enlightened critic Craig Relyea, who kept me enthusiastic when I was buried.

  Thanks to the men and officers of the USS Hammerhead, SSN-663, and to the immortal spirit of that venerable ship, for giving me dolphins and making me a submariner.

  And thanks to the late Don Fine, who, in the Hereafter, is reading this, frowning, and holding a red pen.

  Author's Note

  Comments, reviews, and letters are always welcome, whether they come from a critic from the New York Times, a reader on a jet touching down in L.A., a housewife on a break from the kids, or a fifth-grader doing a school project.

  If you are online, you can reach me by e-mail at: readermail@ussdevilfish. com. Or by visiting the website: ussdevilfish.com.

  If you don't have electronic means, jot a note to the publisher. I answer every letter received—not always on the day I receive it, but eventually, so let me hear from you.

  For those readers who've followed Michael Pacino from the day he commanded the Piranha-class submarine Devilfish, I want to express my thanks. For those who have not, if you like Threat Vector, please check out Voyage of the Devilfish, Attack of the Seawolf, Phoenix Sub Zero, Barracuda Final Bearing, and Piranha Firing Point, all of them available at ussdevilfish.com, Amazon.com, or BarnesandNoble.com.

  Welcome aboard and rig for dive. . . .

  —Michael DiMercurio Princeton, New Jersey www.ussdevilfish.com

  "... it is appropriate to comment on the relationship between goodness and stress. He who behaves nobly in easy times— a fair-weather friend, so to speak—may not be so noble when the chips are down. Stress is the test for goodness. The truly good are they who in times of stress do not desert their integrity, their maturity, their sensitivity. Nobility might be defined as the capacity not to regress in response to degradation, not to become blunted in the face of pain, to tolerate the agonizing and remain intact. As I have said elsewhere 'one measure—and perhaps the best measure— of a person's greatness is the capacity for suffering.' "

  — Scott Peck, M.D. People of the Lie, 1983

  "Once you accept the idea of demolition as a problem it is only a problem. But there was plenty that was not so good that went with it although God knows you took it easily enough. There was the constant attempt to approximate the conditions of successful assassination that accompanied the demolition. Did big words make it more defensible? Did they make killing any more palatable? You took it a little too readily if you ask me, he told himself. And what you will be like or just exactly what you will be suited for when you leave the service of the Republic is, to me, he thought, extremely doubtful. But my guess is you will get rid of all that by writing about it, he said. Once you write it down it is all gone. It will be a good book if you can write it. Much better than the other."

  — Ernest Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940

  "There's a certain knowledge you and I have because we were sub officers, Mikey, and until you've looked at a cruise ship at close range off Club Med, seen it in periscope crosshairs, knowing you could take it down with one shot, with no one knowing it was you, you don't know what being a submariner is. Warner's officials don't know and they don't want to know."

  — Admiral Richard Donchez

  Late Director of the National Security Agency East China Sea Conflict

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  Threat Vector —U.S. Navy term meaning the direction from which the enemy's most lethal and immediately dangerous element approaches.

  The definition assumes that the afloat commander knows who the enemy is. . . .

  rim of the cup. He poked up the fire, settled into a chair opposite Diana's, and looked into her eyes.

  "You said you had something important to say," he prompted.

  "Kelly, I want you to leave her," she said over her coffee, no longer smiling. "This affair has gone on long enough."

  He almost choked on the coffee. He held his hands apart and protested innocence, babbling.

  "I don't mean a woman," she said, a frown forming on her brow. "It's the other her."

  "The ship," he said, his voice dead.

  "The ship. I want you home. With the baby coming, you need to do something else with your life. The time for Boy Scouts is over, Kelly."

  She'd never understood. The sea wasn't just what he did. It was who he was. It defined him. It was as much a part of him as his voice or the shape of his face.

  Though the argument began gently enough, it escalated over the course of the day. He didn't care about her or the baby, she accused. She didn't give a damn about his point of view, he shouted. His point of view should be for the welfare of the child, she shouted back. As if the kid would stop breathing the instant he went to sea, he said, and then more came. This was her insecurity talking. She was being selfish and childish. She returned fire: the ultimate in childishness was clinging to a seafaring career when he could easily make a fortune working for her father. He let loose on her: that was what this was really about, that he wasn't making enough money for her, or enough to suit her father,

  the industrial baron who'd brought three-dimensional projections to the marketplace. Why the hell had she brought this up now, when she was pregnant? She'd known who he was when she married him.

  He left to let things cool off, taking a long walk across the river on a century-old trestle bridge, the rails long removed for scrap. He returned as the sun began its descent toward the western range. He found her silent and annoyed. He tried to apologize, but made the mistake of restating his insistence that the sea was part of his identity, that it was his career.

  She interrupted that when they were newlyweds he'd planned to leave the sea behind to seek a job elsewhere. How the hell, he shot back, was he to know he would be so good at this? The core of his argument came to him, landing in his mind with a thump. He looked at her swollen belly and said, "It would be like me telling you I don't want you to be a mother, that I want you to be like you were before." An expression of shock flashed across her face as if he'd slapped her. Her face closed like a fist. Her eyes shut, tears leaking from them. She ran to the bedroom and slammed the door behind her. Her disappearance was so sudden and so final that a sense of unreality flooded him. One moment they were having a disagreement; the next their relationship was dead. It was as if, after carefully constructing his argument, his logic building on the idea before, one step after another, the last step had led him over a cliff, and he was plummeting headlong, stunned. And when it happened, he

 
began to wonder whether it was the last step he regretted or the entire torturous journey.

  He started after her, pounding on the door, calling her name, begging her to come out, to forget that last thing he'd said—he'd only meant that the sea was as important to him as the baby to her, not that he didn't want her to be a mother. The only thing she said, in a choked voice, was, "If the fucking sea is so important, go back to it and leave me alone." After that no amount of pleading would bring her out. He knew it was useless. With darkness overtaking the valley, he retired to the back bedroom, the cabin's addition behind the kitchen.

  In the light of the moon, he stared up at the knotty pine paneling. His marriage was a tomb. Like pulling over a refrigerator, it would rock back and forth hard before it would come down, and their marriage had been rocking hard. This might just be more than an argument. It could be Diana's last straw.

  To remain with her meant leaving the sea, and he was not sure he could give that up. He stared at the ceiling, wondering if he could live life without the boat, and it was as hard as thinking about living without Diana. He knew he had to choose. But how could he? He drifted in and out of sleep, his dreams torture, awakening in a sweat. He pushed off the blankets, close to a decision. He was a husband and father first, he told himself. He sat up in bed, scratching the back of his neck, and wondered whether he should tell Diana now or wait for the morning. He found his diving watch by

  the bed, its luminescent dial reading shortly after 2 a.m., mountain time. He yawned, then froze.

  A sound, a sound that had no business here—a chopping noise, coming from the wider part of the valley, distant helicopter rotors. As soon as he thought he'd heard it, it faded away, and he knew he'd been dreaming. He checked the watch again, and it read 2:30. He must have dozed sitting up in the bed. He tried to blink back the sleep, then stood. He had to tell Diana.

  The floor creaked under his feet. A shadow passed across the moon, just for a moment. He paused, scanning the hallway in the moonlight, then shrugged. He stepped toward the front room on the way to the master bedroom. He was almost at her door when something hit his face, a spider or a bug. He reached up to bat it away, but it was wet. A rushing noise sounded, and the air near his face was filled with mist.

  An aerosol spray, part of his mind reported. Inexplicably, he felt himself go limp and begin to sink to the floor, yet his mind was fully alert. Was he having a stroke? Did he need to go to a hospital? Almost in slow motion he reached the floor, his head striking the wood, the ceiling panels in view, and he could not move his arms. He couldn't move his legs. He could barely blink his eyes. He could feel his limbs, but they would not respond to commands. He could still breathe, and his heart was racing, the fear pumping through him. Paralyzed, perhaps dying, he tried to see through the moonlight, tried to move so that he could make a noise,

  to wake Diana, to try to get her to take him to the nearest doctor in Saratoga.

  As he looked up at the ceiling, a black shape came into view and then came closer to him. The man wore a black ski mask, and black gloved hands reached out for him, a rectangle of something in the hands. Duct tape was slapped over his mouth. The big man rolled him over and taped his hands together and his paralyzed legs. Strong arms lifted him up and he felt himself carried by the first man and three more out the door.

  Slowly the men carried him across the grassy center of the town, past the old log town hall, past the well-water hand pump to the other side where the trail dead-ended. Ahead in the moonlight was a buggy with a roll bar and a rear deck, like that of a pickup truck. The man he'd seen first gave a hand command, and the buggy rolled quietly, perhaps powered electricially, bouncing up over the trail and on into the thick woods. Some time passed, perhaps five minutes, before the vehicle came to a halt. The men came out and pulled him from the back, carrying him again.

  A fugitive thought flashed through his mind: what about Diana? What would she think when the sun rose and he was gone? Would it ever occur to her that he'd been kidnapped? Of course not— she'd assume he had left her. But there was no time to consider that, because looming ahead in the moonlight high over his head was the biggest helicopter he'd ever seen. It was a flat gray color, with a large star inside a circle with stripes on either side, and beside the logo were block letters

  spelling u.s. navy. As he was carried toward the gaping door in the flank of the aircraft, the engine turbine began to spool up, whispering, whistling, screaming a high-pitched shriek. The second engine came up to full revolutions. He was lowered into a canvas seat and strapped into a five-point harness, the duct tape still on his mouth, wrists, and ankles.

  The men who'd carried him to the helicopter took off their balaclava hoods, wiped the black makeup off their faces, and donned flight helmets, taking their positions. The first one he'd seen climbed into the pilot-in-command seat. Overhead the rotors slowly began to turn. The huge blades moaned as the pilot engaged the clutch, and the aircraft shuddered as the rotor came up to idle. The jet helicopter took off, the mountainside shrinking below, and the pilot glanced at the copilot and climbed back to the cabin.

  The man pulled the duct tape off as gently as he could, saying in a deep voice over the roar of the rotors: "Commander McKee, sir, I'm Lieutenant Commander Sonny Sorenson, Second Platoon Commander, Seal Team Seven. Sorry about the black-bag job to get you here. Very specific orders from Admiral Phillips. The aerosol should be wearing off in a few minutes. We're taking you to the Saratoga airport. The admiral has a supersonic transport for you with some weird spooks onboard. I don't know anything else, sir, but it must be damn important."

  Commander Kyle Liam Ellison "Kelly" McKee, U.S. Navy, stared at the Seal commando, his mind racing. He had been on leave, and no one, not

  even his relatives, knew where he had been going. Feeling returned to his neck, and he could move his head, the muscles spasming and aching. Then his arms and legs, pins and needles running through him. When he could move his arm, he checked his watch. It was three in the morning. Out the window the mountains rushed by, too close and too fast. The noise was too loud to shout over and be heard. McKee kept his peace, waiting for the chopper to land. It took less than ten minutes to reach the Saratoga airport. When the chopper settled, the Seal officer handed McKee a naval air service jumpsuit, socks, and combat boots. McKee looked down, realizing he was wearing only boxers and a T-shirt. The Seal platoon commander grabbed McKee's arm and led him to the Gulfetream supersonic private jet in the shadow of a hangar.

  In the dim light of the parking lot lamps, McKee climbed into the jet. The twelve seats were empty, and two men in dark suits stood in the aisle with grim expressions on their faces. The Seal officer saluted and withdrew.

  "What's going on?" There was no sign of a flight crew, just the yellow glow of the cabin lights and the two stiff men.

  "Commander McKee, sit down, please." The older one pointed to the mid-cabin seat. "I'm Special Agent Calvert, NIS."

  Naval Investigative Service, McKee thought, trying to piece the puzzle together but coming up blank. He sat in the seat and looked up at the spook.

  "Read and sign," Calvert said, handing him a

  folder with a document full of tiny print. McKee squinted at it.

  "Million-dollar fine? Death sentence or a hundred years in prison? What is this?"

  "Release Twelve security clearance paperwork. The term 'Release Twelve' is top secret code word, by the way. I'm sure you're aware of the punishment for release of TS code word material?"

  "You guys drag me out of my vacation house at three in the morning to threaten me? Excuse me, I'm making a phone call." As he stood to go to the front of the plane, he felt four hands forcing him back into his seat. Calvert's coat came open, revealing a shoulder holster and MAC-12 machine pistol.

  For the next half hour the spooks read him the harsh government regulations surrounding the Release Twelve security clearance, then made him stand and raise his right hand and swear he would never divulge Release Tw
elve information on pain of execution. He signed the paperwork, they signed as witnesses, a notary seal was applied, and the NIS agents left. As they filed off the plane, a Navy pilot in a jumpsuit similar to McKee's climbed on, a younger one behind her. She threw a salute at McKee, said her name was Lieutenant Davis, and vanished into the flight deck.

  "Give me the phone," McKee said, leaning in the flight deck door. His wife would be furious when she woke up to an empty cabin. She had to know he hadn't left her. If he were unable to get through to her, she'd assume he was finished with her, with their marriage.

  "No phone, Commander," the pilot said. She reached into the overhead console and snapped a breaker, bringing the cockpit avionics to life. "Express orders of Admiral Phillips." A second breaker caused a hum to the left of the cockpit— the hatch coming shut with a thud. The outside wind noise was replaced with a sudden quiet. "I recommend you take a seat and strap yourself in, Commander," she said, her ponytail flipping as she looked over her shoulder at him. "We'll be airborne in two minutes, transonic in three." She turned back to her console and hit the starter button on the port engine. The jet growled as it turned, then caught and whispered to life. Within a minute the plane tilted dramatically toward the black sky. The cabin became whisper-quiet as the Mach indicator changed from 0.99 to 1.00, the numerals scrolling up to Mach 1.80. When the supersonic jet leveled off, McKee was loosening his belt to get up to ask the lieutenant where they were going, but she walked back down the aisle instead, a black portfolio in one hand.

  "Here," she said, tossing the folder down on the table in front of McKee. "You should be cleared to get into that. Admiral Phillips' instructions were for you to enter your midshipman number from the Academy when the computer asks for a password." She headed aft to the bathroom, leaving McKee staring at the portfolio.