Текст книги "Gideon's War / Hard Target"

Автор книги: Howard Gordon

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Gideon's War and Hard Target

He picked up the stoutest of the screwdrivers he had...

He stared in disbelief. The box was empty.

As he slowly lowered the lid, he heard a familiar voice behind him. “Gideon.”

Gideon turned, at first relieved and then confused by the sight of Parker standing inside the doorway, holding a gun at his side.

“Uncle Earl. How did you get away from them?”

Parker said nothing, but Gideon got his question answered when he saw the bearded man appear behind Parker, aiming the barrel of his AK at Gideon’s chest. The number 82 was tattooed on his wrist. But he wasn’t Tillman.

The harsh realization of what was happening washed over Gideon like a wave that swept over him and drew him out to sea. He felt as if he was drowning.

“I could have spared you the trouble, Gideon. You won’t find the bomb in there.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

MAJOR DALE ROYCE JR. had only been commanding his unit for a month now, coming into Operational Detachment Delta after a stint in Afghanistan with the 101st. He still hadn’t quite gotten the rhythm of his team. Everyone always told him, “Delta is different,” and sure enough they were right.

He’d led several hoo-rah units before, full of chest-pounding alpha males. But Delta was different. For one thing, these men were quieter. Sometimes he found their quiet intensity unnerving, but mostly it was a source of tremendous comfort. He never had to yell at them or berate them or chew their asses like he had to with other units. They always seemed to be a step ahead of him, to the point where he sometimes got the impression that they were more or less just tolerating his presence.

And here he was, being dropped right into the Big Game, his team the tip of the spear in one of the most important Spec Ops missions of the past twenty-five years. Talk about failure not being an option. This was it, he thought to himself as their C-17 bucked and rattled. They had reached the rough edge of the typhoon en route to the Obelisk. The pilot’s voice came over the cabin speaker. She wasn’t much to look at, Royce thought, but she had a soothing voice. “Sorry for the bumpy ride, gentlemen. The president is ready for you.”

“Go ahead,” Major Royce said.

There had been several false starts connecting the Delta team with President Diggs, but the technical difficulties were finally sthou severaightened out, and now the air force sergeant running communications nodded to the president. The screen at the front of the Situation Room lit up, showing a fuzzy, green-tinted image of a row of soldiers strapped in their seats inside the vast airplane hold. The men were bouncing around as though they were on some violent theme park ride.

“Gentlemen,” the president said, “what I’m about to tell you is highly unusual for a commander in chief, but I feel strongly that you all deserve a fuller explanation than the one you’ve been given in your briefing packets. I wanted you to hear directly from me that the implications of your mission extend well beyond rescuing the hostages and preventing the destruction of the Obelisk. As you know, a growing insurgency is challenging the current regime in Mohan. The Sultan is an important ally who is committed to democratic reform and human rights. I believe he can prevail against these violent extremists without the intervention of our forces. Certain members of Congress disagree with my assessment and want us to fight the Sultan’s war. These politicians are well intentioned, but I fear they are misinformed and misguided. So far I’ve been able to resist the political pressure they’ve generated. But if these hostages are killed and this rig is destroyed, I will have no choice but to respond. Sometimes war is necessary. But not this time. Not yet. You men know far better than any politicians the real cost of going to war. What happens from this point on will be determined by the outcome of your mission. You don’t need my encouragement or my praise, but on behalf of the people who elected me to this office, please allow me to express my gratitude for your courage and dedication.”

There was a pause, then Royce said, “Thank you, Mr. President. We appreciate your honesty.”

Gideon's War and Hard Target

“Thank you, Major,” the president said. “At this moment,...

“That’s all the time we’ll need, sir.”

“Our prayers will be with you.”

The president ran his hand across his Adam’s apple, where a lump had formed in his throat, and the air force sergeant cut the connection. The screen went dark.

Only a few hours ago President Diggs had sent sixteen soldiers to their deaths at the bottom of the South China Sea. Every one of them someone’s son, someone’s father, someone’s husband. And now he was sending another group of men to risk their lives in order to prevent tens of thousands of their fellow warriors from having to risk theirs. President Diggs saw General Ferry looking at him. He knew the general shared his sadness and dread. The odds on this mission being successful were 50 percent. At best.

“Don’t bother giving me any status reports, General. I want a direct uplink on this operation in real time.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

PARKER’S BETRAYAL HAD LEFT Gideon disoriented, lost inside some kind of black hole. As the jihadis disarmed him, he heard Parker’s voice as if through a long tunnel.

“How you managed to stay alive this long is a damn miracle. Surviving that ambush outsiwanl. I de the airport, then getting through the storm and the bullets to make it all the way out here to the rig . . .” Parker trailed off and shook his head. “But then, you always were a stubborn sumbitch.”

A dozen questions clouded Gideon’s mind, but one kept pushing to the front, and he finally asked, “Where’s my brother?”

“We found him in Kampung Naga.” Parker nodded toward the bearded man, who kept his AK leveled at Gideon. “Mr. Timken here managed to procure some aerial assets from a private contractor.”

“You carpet-bombed a village.”

“A nest of insurgents.”

“Where is my brother?”

Parker said nothing for a few moments. Something resembling regret crossed his face, and he pulled a dog tag on a chain loop from his pocket. He tossed it to Gideon, who caught it and looked at the stainless-steel wafer. Dried blood was caked between the embossed letters:

DAVIS

TILLMAN B.

231-12-2019

A POS

NO RELIGIOUS PREF

“Mr. Timken here was forced to put him down.”

A sudden anger rose up in Gideon that nearly drove him to lunge at Parker, but Timken touched his trigger, daring him to make a move. It would be suicide.

“Don’t you see, Gideon? What happened to your brother . . . it’s your fault.”

Gideon squinted, tried to make sense of Parker’s insane accusation. “My fault?”

“I sent you to the best schools, made sure you were surrounded by people who mattered. I paved the way for you to lead this nation toward security and prosperity. But you threw it all back in my face with your self-righeous nonsense, going around telling the world that this plague of terrorism was payback for our sins.”

“I never said that.”

“You keep trying to reason with evil! It’s foolish and it’s obscene. And coming from someone with your gifts, it’s dangerous. That’s why I had to bring you into this—someone had to stop you. That fool president of ours was actually starting to believe your bullshit. You can’t reason with evil. The only way to stop evil is to kill it. Tillman understood that. Till-man understood what had to be done. Until you polluted his mind.”

Parker’s face had become a mask of pure contempt as he continued. “He actually started buying into all that bullshit you kept peddling at the UN. That insipid little book of yours became a thorn in his side. After four years in Mohan, he started doubting his mission. He said we were driving our allies toward our enemy.” Parker’s voice was high and mincing and sarcastic. “‘Maybe Gideon is right,’ he said. Which frankly, made me want to puke.”

Gideon remembered finding the bloodstained copy of his book on Tillman’s nightstand in Kampung Naga. He assumed Tillman had only read the book to dismiss its contents. Instead, Gideon’s words had caused Tillman to rethink his life and to realize that he didn’t like the man he’d become. It must have been an agonizing processall¡€†, and Gideon wished he could have been there to help him through it.

“Instead of completing his mission,” Parker continued, “your brother wanted to come in from the cold and go public with every unfortunate little incident that had happened in Mohan over the years he’d been there.”

“What incidents?”

“We’re fighting a war! You cannot prosecute a war and expect to keep your hands clean. If you don’t have the stomach to do what it takes to win, fine, step aside and let someone else do the job. Except Tillman didn’t just want to quit, he wanted to air his dirty laundry . . . confess his sins. I couldn’t let that happen. Especially not with the insurgency in Mohan heating up like it is. Because unless we commit ourselves to winning this war, we will lose. It may be a small country, but it’s a bellwether. We let Mohan fall, the rest of Southeast Asia will fall like dominoes. We all may as well start covering our women with burqas and praying toward Mecca.”

Parker’s usual restraint had vanished. He was animated in a way that Gideon had never seen, as if he was finally releasing a lifetime’s worth of frustration and anger that he’d kept locked inside him.

“Senator McClatchy’s got it right, but that fool president of ours has his head in the sand. Hear no evil, see no evil. No one wants to hear some gloomy old man making the same gloomy predictions about how our enemies are waiting to take us down. They all want Gideon Davis to tell them if we just reach out and give the terrorists a hug, everything will be all right.”

“If you think that’s what I’ve been saying, you haven’t been listening.”

“I’m not debating, Gideon. Not anymore. The clock is ticking. Eight hours and twenty-one minutes. And when the clock runs down, the people of the United States will see just how evil our enemies really are.”

“Except it’s not the enemy killing everyone on this rig. It’s you.”

“Not as far as the president of the United States and the rest of the world is concerned. For the purposes of this exercise, Mr. Timken is Abu Nasir, one of the most wanted insurgents in Mohan. And once this rig is destroyed, the people of the United States will wake up and realize we’re still fighting a war that cannot be won just by putting up a few new scanners at the airports.”

Parker sighed, his anger giving way to a kind of sadness. “I never questioned your patriotism, Gideon. Only your judgment. I know you meant well. But you need to be stopped. And now that you’re here, I hope you’ll find some consolation in knowing that you’ve sacrificed your life for your country.”

“And what about you?” Gideon said. “Let me guess. You’ll be the lucky one who makes it off the rig in one of those orange rescue pods.”

Gideon's War and Hard Target

“Someone needs to tell the story.” Parker shrugged. “And...

Gideon nodded toward Timken. “How do you explain him?”

“According to the records at the embassy in Mohan, I brought a bodyguard with me to the rig. His nam¡€†e was Orville Timken. We’ve got pay stubs, flight records, security camera footage, endless documentation explaining his presence on the rig.”

“And the rest of Timken’s men? Are they just collateral damage?”

“I told you, we’re done debating. The clock is ticking down, and it can’t be stopped. I wish it had turned out differently. I do. I keep thinking about those two boys back in Virginia whose father was my best friend, and I feel very sad.” He looked off into the distance for a moment. “You were like sons to me. Both of you.” Parker’s eyes welled as he looked at Gideon, as if for the last time. Then he turned to Timken and said, “Put him with the others.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

IT TOOK KATE AND Big Al only a couple of minutes to access the files that Cole Ransom had created for the Obelisk. Several files contained engineering models simulating a range of scenarios involving the passive damping system. The models were complex, and Kate was unfamiliar with the programs Ransom had used.

Because they ran slowly, Kate decided to leave one of the programs running in the background while she opened a Word file titled “Obelisk Stabilization Damper Failure.” She began reading. The first section outlined the conditions that would cause the passive damping system to fail. “Sustained seas in excess of twelve meters will cause the inertial module to batter the cradle, eventually causing metal fatigue at joints J-7, J-3, and J-1. Ensuing weld failure will cause catastrophic collapse of the affected limb (see Animation 1.1). J-7, J-3, and J-1 being the most heavily loaded points on the rig, force vectors as shown will cause . . .”

She scanned the rest of the report. It contained nothing that Ransom hadn’t already told her over the phone. Suddenly, the engineering model that had been running popped up. ANIMATION I.I LOADED, the screen said.

Then a small CAD model of the Obelisk appeared on-screen. Force vectors and loads carried by various structural sections of the rig were also shown, with colors corresponding to the amount of stress carried by each structural element. Green indicated the lightest load, followed by blue, yellow, and then orange. Some of the heaviest loads were carried by the tops of the concrete piers supporting the rig. It was the reason Kate had thought the storage room on D Deck was the most destructive place for the bomb to be detonated.

But the brightest oranges, the heaviest loads, were well below the water’s surface, along the seam of the cradle that held the passive damping system.

Suddenly the model on the screen began to move. Hypothetical waves and other vectors caused the skeletal rendering of the Obelisk to sway from side to side, just as the massive waves outside were doing to the real rig. As the rig flexed, the struts supporting its passive damping system changed colors, going back and forth from green to orange. The weight and stress on the various component parts of the rig shifted and redistributed, but the rig remained intact. Even at thirty-five feet, the highest predicted wave height, the Obelisk remained standing.

“If this is right,” Prejean said, “if Ransom’s numbers are accurate, the Obelisk will get through the storm. It’ll get rough, but the rig will still be standing.”

“As long as Gideon disarms the bomb,” Kate said. Her relief at the rig’s structural integrity under typhoon conditions was tempered by her persistent awareness of what still had to be done to save her crew. She had seen Garth and Eddie killed, and Big Al had told her about some of the others who’d been shot trying to resist. And as much as she didn’t like Stearns and Tina, their deaths had shaken her. Their safety had been her responsibility, and she had failed them. She would do whatever she needed to do to save the rest of her crew. Even if it meant sacrificing her own life.

Her somber resolution was interrupted by the sound of voices in the corridor outside the cabin. “Quick, chérie, put that away.” She closed the computer just as the door opened. Kate expected Earl Parker, but her face fell when she saw Gideon being shoved through the doorway, his wrists and ankles bound. Timken appeared behind him, shoving him again, harder this time. He tumbled to the ground, barely able to catch his fall with his cuffed hands.

Timken closed the door, ignoring Prejean’s glare. Kate went to help Gideon to his feet. Despite the ugliness of the moment, Gideon felt an unaccountable wave of happiness at seeing Kate, who asked him what happened.

“It’s Parker . . .” He trailed off and shook his head.

“I don’t understand,” Kate said.

“He’s been playing us the whole time. He’s behind this.” Kate and Prejean were visibly stunned. Gideon gave them a moment to absorb this before he explained that Parker had staged the siege of the Obelisk and framed his brother in order to provoke a military response from the United States. The bearded man with the counterfeit tattoo was just some sadistic mercenary named Orville Timken, who bore some physical resemblance to Tillman and who had killed him in order to assume his identity, as he had done with Cole Ransom.

“Then you were right . . . about your brother,” Kate said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” Gideon said, comforted by her sincere sympathy.

Prejean couldn’t help but notice the connection between them. He’d sensed something in her voice before, when she had described this man Gideon, but now Prejean saw for himself that their connection was mutual. But his satisfaction was short-lived when he glanced at his watch. He reminded them that they now had less than eight hours to disarm the bomb, and that their only viable plan had just been scuttled.

“Not to make it more difficult than it already is,” Gideon said, “but there was no bomb in D-4. All I saw were some fairly elaborate electronics which looked like wireless triggers. Which means it could be anywhere.”

“Not anywhere,” Kate said, exhaling her frustration. “Before, when I identified the weakest structural point on the rig, I only considered the section above the water. But the most vulnerable points are actually under the surface. The cradle that holds the passive damping system is more than fifty feet underwater. The piers that stabilize the rig each have vibratory nodes that sway at a certain frequency and—” Kate saw that she was losing them. “Sorry. Bottom line is this221±€†: the cradle is anchored by three big steel braces that connect to the piers. If those braces are taken out, the passive damping system will fail. There’s a four-hundred-ton weight in the cradle. Once it starts moving, it won’t stop until it yanks the piers apart.”

“The components I saw had wires leading out of the cabin,” Gideon said. “Could they feed into the ocean from D Deck?”

Kate nodded. “There’s a conduit outside the cabin that runs power down to a bunch of work lights under the rig.” Kate opened Ransom’s computer, turned it around, hit a key, and said, “Here. Look at this.”

The animation of the Obelisk appeared, wobbling back and forth. Kate hit a button that paused the simulation. “Right there. See these orange sections? They’re the most vulnerable points, the link connecting the damper cradle to the pier.”

Gideon studied the image, then said, “Here’s what I don’t get, though. I counted twenty-four wires leading out of the detonation control unit. Why so many? I could understand a few extra wires—monitor circuits, dummy circuits, redundant circuits, whatever. But twenty-four?”

“It makes sense,” Kate said. “When a building is demolished, they use multiple sequenced charges to take out the most important structural members. It’s almost surgical. A few small explosions properly placed can create a very dramatic structural failure. Blow out a couple of bolts and beams, and let the weight of the structure do the rest. It implodes.”

Kate zoomed in on the rig, tighter and tighter. The view closed in on the cradle. Kate touched the seam between the cradle and the pier, twelve dots spaced equidistantly. “See that? Twelve bolts. Two sets of wires for each bolt. It would have been easy enough to set the charges, probably took a two-man dive team an hour, tops.”

“And it would be a two-man job to disarm them,” Gideon said.

“Except we can’t do anything as long as we’re stuck in here,” Prejean said.

CLUNK!

The floor and the walls shook again. Gideon looked at Kate for an explanation. “That’s the damping system I mentioned . . . the one Ransom was supposed to repair.”

“How long do we have before it fails?”

“Big Al and I were just reviewing Ransom’s simulations. Turns out we caught a break. If Ransom’s numbers are right, the rig should actually make it through this storm.”

Gideon’s eyes lit up with an idea. “But Parker doesn’t know that.”

“As a matter of fact, no, he doesn’t,” Prejean said, trading a look with Kate, who was beginning to understand where Gideon was going with this.

“For Parker, this is all political theater,” Gideon said, explaining Parker’s intention to provoke a war. “But he needs a global audience. The last thing he wants is for the rig to come down before anyone can see it happen.”

Kate was already working the keyboard with a flourish. “I can alter Ransom’s simulation to demonsPre±€†trate that the rig’s gonna come apart. If we can get Parker to send us down there to fix the problem we can disarm the bombs.”

The computer’s disk drive light went on for at least a minute as it chugged away.

“Look at that,” she said, mesmerized by the increasingly violent sway of the skeletal rig. “If you decrease the periodicity of W by fifty percent, theta zero starts to go asymptotic.”

“I’m guessing there’s a way of saying that in English?” Gideon said.

“Let me just show you,” she said, turning the computer around.