Chapter 1 / Page 6

“Those look like biohazard suits.” He changed gears suddenly on them. “Does anyone remember The Hunt for Red October? The Russian captain needs to get his crew off the Red October—so they fake a nuclear accident. They frighten everyone. There is no question but to abandon ship.” He tapped his finger at the photo display. “I’ll bet the Chinese inside the sub panicked, because whatever they were working with must have been the real thing. Something went wrong or maybe it started to leak. Perhaps someone panicked on the surface ship. Everyone wanted to run away. Maybe someone thought this was a double cross or they were just plain scared and the shooting started. The easiest thing for the sub to do was to drop out of sight.”

The Deputy Secretary of State interrupted, “So what are you saying?”

Brian switched his focus. “Madam Secretary, I am suggesting that something nasty was transferred between the Chinese and Iraqi boats last night. You don’t need biohazard suits to hand out lollypops. I am further suggesting that something went wrong and there are some dead bodies floating out there. What I don’t know is whether the transfer was from the Chinese to the Iraqis or vice versa. Maybe it’s nuclear, or maybe its chemicals—I really don’t know. I don’t think its something benign like bullets, because there are many ways to procure those items short of using a nuclear submarine as a delivery truck. So something scared them and they started shooting.”

“You can’t be sure those were NBC suits,” countered the Secretary, referring to what looked like nuclear, biological, and chemical biohazard suits everyone was wearing in the photos.

“No I can’t. However, I know we paint ours DayGlow orange, and this wasn’t a casual visit. It was clandestine—timed to happen when our satellites were looking elsewhere. If they went to all that trouble, why wear something that would catch our eye as being out of place? Saddam plays the odds. He knows we can’t watch everything all the time. They know our satellite schedules. That’s why we’re still flying U-2 surveillance, and every so often we find something interesting.”

The blood slowly drained from the Secretary’s face. However the NSA saved her before she could utter some inane challenge to Stillwell. “And, Mister Stillwell, faced with a scenario as you describe, what would you recommend to the President?”