“And subs?” asked the President.
“We’re on top of that, sir.”
“So, gentlemen,” said Turnbull, “what do we have? Intruder surface warships will be intercepted at what distance, Mike?”
“Eighty miles, sir.”
“Mines?”
“The course of the Alamo will be swept clean beginning tomorrow evening. I can’t do better than that.”
“Very well. And the submarine threat will be contained?”
“God willing.”
“Well, that should be no problem, as God is a Republican.” He turned to his Air Force chief of staff, General John O’Sullivan.
“Jake, are you going to let the Navy collect all the kudos?”
“Not if we can help it, Mr. President.”
“And how do you propose to avoid that catastrophe?”
“An AWACS will go aloft the moment this meeting ends. Until the Alamo is safely in port, it will have maximum air cover. The AWACS overhead will be accompanied by four F-111 attack craft equipped with air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles.”
“Any comments, Mike?”
“No, sir. I don’t see how any enemy force can penetrate, especially as I shall be sending up combat air patrols from the task force flattop, and shore-based antisubmarine reconnaissance aircraft as well.”
Tumbull turned to David D. Castle, who had been listening without comment to the service chiefs.
“I have nothing to contribute, Mr. President. It seems to me that the experts have the situation well in hand.”
“They’d better,” said President Turnbull. “It’s the Legion of Merit all around if the Alamo comes safely to Matagorda Bay, gentlemen–”
The chiefs of staff looked at each other with ill-concealed pleasure.
“–but early retirement if it should fail,” the President went on. “And if the stick seems to be mightier than the carrot, well, that is just what I had in mind.”
Back aboard the Sun King the evening of the following day, Forte was having a drink on the weather deck with Jennifer Red Cloud. A beach table and two comfortable leather club chairs had been brought up for them to observe the sunset on the broad expanse of the black deck, whose solar panels had been lowered for the night. There were just the two of them, the sea, and the sunset.
This evening the long sweep of cirrus clouds was painted a pale purple across the sky, while closer to the horizon the rays of the setting sun had erupted in a burst of brilliant reds and yellows among the towering cumulus that heralded a coming storm. The southeast trade winds blew gently against their cheeks, and only the occasional white-cap disturbed the smooth and easy swell of the sea in the distance.
Jennifer Red Cloud was talking–she hadn’t shut up for days–excited about the prospect, apparently, of the coming attack. As she chattered on, his thoughts were engaged in speculation as to what quarter the attack would come from. For the life of him, he couldn’t imagine how any surface attack could succeed. The satellite surveillance, the combat air patrols, the high-flying F-111’s, the antisub squadrons all reported no unusual air or sea activity. Merchant shipping–mainly breakbulk and ore ships and ULCCs–ultra-large crude carriers–was proceeding on courses usual for the time of year and the international markets. Naval officers had inspected their log books as well as their holds as they entered the hundred-mile cordon of naval steel that ringed the Sun King and the Alamo. So far, boarding parties had found no armaments more menacing than pistols and shotguns. Undersea activity had likewise been absent.
“–don’t you?” Jennifer Red Cloud was saying.
“Don’t I what?” He hadn’t heard a word she had said for the past five minutes.
“Don’t you ever listen to a word I’m saying?”
“I guess I was thinking about something else.” Why the hell didn’t she stop talking and go below?
“Hey!” he said, suddenly sitting up and cupping his hand to his ear.
“What is it?” She looked around her. The sun had sunk below the horizon, leaving only brilliant reds and yellows slowly draining out of the clouds. She couldn’t hear a thing.
“I thought I heard a bell,” said Forte.
“Bell?”
“Yeah. The telephone. I think it’s David calling you.”
“I see,” she said stiffly, rising. “If you don’t want my company, a simple statement to that effect would suffice. Allow me to bid you good evening and a night filled with horrid dreams, may all of which come true.”
Forte gestured wearily with his hand. “Go fall overboard, Red,” he said, wishing she were a man so that he could give her a push.
After she had gone below, not overboard–she never did anything he told her–Forte took a turn about the deck of the Sun King. It took some time to do this, as there was 370 acres of it, its perimeter enclosed by a wire-cable lifeline and footrope with running lights at five-meter intervals. Below him he could see the phosphorscent glow of the plankton as the swell of the sea broke against the side of the huge iron vessel. Astern, directly to the east, the Alamo’s running lights illuminated its forward edge. Above him the stars, which in these latitudes always seemed three times as big as they should be, flickered like fireflies in the sky. Somewhere below the horizon the crescent moon was lurking like an Arab’s scimitar poised to cut through the night.
He made two full circuits of the deck, nearly two miles in all, and was none the wiser. Keyed up more than ever, as if he had drunk a dozen cups of coffee, he walked back toward the glow of the hatch in the center of the vast black expanse of the deck. Down below, he collected a sleeping bag and brought it up and unrolled it on the deck. It was too hot to crawl inside, so he lay down upon it just as he was, fully clothed. A minute later, his eyes still half open, he was snoring softly.
He dreamed that in a dream some nameless horror was upon him. He awoke with a start and sat up. He looked down at the luminous dial of his watch. It was 3:07.
He searched the horizon.
Behind him, to the east, the reassuring lights of the Alamo were displayed like shining beads on a string paralleling the horizon. To the north and south, except for its stars, the sky was black velvet. To the west, the faintest blush of false dawn announced the coming of a new day. In an hour, at most, the sun would be up.
He lay down again. He let his eyes close. He would be up with the sun, but meanwhile he was still exhausted from the work and worry of the past three days.
He wanted to sleep, yet sleep wouldn’t come. Every time he slipped toward the timelessness of slumber, a tug of wakefulness pulled him back to the present. Something was wrong, something he had seen.
The glow of false dawn? No, this was the time of day the sun came up like thunder out of the east. Perhaps it was the–
Out of the east.
But the Alamo was to the east. Astern. The sun was rising in the west.
He leaped to his feet.
There it was, the light to the west, glowing brighter.
He felt his heart thudding against his ribs, for as he looked at the false dawn, more luminous every second, he realized that it was spreading out along the horizon in front of him. And not only in front of him to the west, but now the glow appeared on the horizon to his right and to his left. He swung around. Behind the Alamo, too, the horizon was aglow.
He was rooted to the spot, not knowing whether he was asleep or awake, hoping it was just another nightmare.
But it wasn’t.
They were surrounded by a sea of fire.
PART V
FIRE
31. TRIANGLE OF FIRE
14 MARCH 2008
THE THREE SHIPPING COMPANIES HAD MUCH IN COMMON, had anyone been interested. But of course no one was.
Each company owned a single ULCC. Each tanker had a capacity of a million tons of crude oil. Each ship was of a very similar design, having been built by the Daewoo Shipbuilding Company of Korea in the mid-1990s, when international oil economics favored megaton tankers. Each had been scheduled for the breaker’s yard now that they were old and uneconomical. All three companies had been in existence only since January 2008, when they had bought the ULCCs from, respectively, firms in Norway, Hong Kong, and Singapore. All three tankers were highly automated, requiring crews of only fourteen.
The captain of each ship was a Jew.
On March 3, the Selwa left Oran, Algeria, with a full cargo of crude for Recife, Brazil, some thirty-thousand nautical miles to the southwest. The trip would take just two weeks at an economical cruise speed of twelve knots.
Two days later, the Maryam departed the port of Lobito, Angola, with a full load of crude for New Orleans. It, too, was cruising at twelve knots.