Pitt didn’t like the sound of that. He stepped forward, though it wasn’t really his place. “What would it take to hit us here?”
The man straightened his glasses and cleared his throat. “The power output of a small city channeled into a vigorous magnetic array of some type.”
“Where would this magnetic array have to be?” Pitt asked.
The man didn’t hesitate. “It would ha
ve to be located roughly halfway between the weapons emitter and the target.”
That made the threat seem less likely. There weren’t any islands out there, certainly no place big enough to generate the kind of power this man was talking about. Then again…
Pitt turned to the Pentagon staffer who was operating the tactical display. “Widen the screen to show the entire Atlantic,” he demanded.
No one objected, and the task was accomplished in two quick strokes of the keyboard.
On the big screen the familiar profile of the American East Coast appeared on the left-hand side. Africa and Western Europe took their places on the right.
The battle group and the Quadrangle continued to be marked by a series of tiny icons in the lower right-hand side, just under the bulge of West Africa.
“Show me the location of the Liberian tanker Onyx,” Pitt said. “Based on Kurt Austin’s last report.”
It took a few seconds and then a new icon appeared in a blue tint, one so pale it looked almost white. A tiny flag next to it read “Onyx: Liberia.”
Dirk Pitt stared at the icon along with everyone else in the Situation Room.
It sat almost dead center of the screen, exactly halfway between the Quadrangle off the coast of Sierra Leone and the city of Washington, D.C.
“My God,” Sandecker said. “When do our submarines attack?”
The Navy’s attaché answered. “Thirty minutes just to get in range. They won’t be able to stop it.”
With that, Sandecker sprung into action, grabbing the aide.
“Get the President to the bunker,” he said. “Order an immediate alert on the Emergency Broadcast System. Contact all law enforcement and emergency services personnel and the power companies. Tell them to have their people take cover and be ready for an emergency shutdown. We’re going to need them to get this place back up and running if this happens.”
As Sandecker spoke to the aide, a brigadier general from the Air Force was on a phone to Andrews, passing the word and ordering a scramble. Other people around the room were giving similar commands, in person or over phone lines. The normally quiet Situation Room suddenly resembled a busy telemarketing center or a Wall Street trading pit.
Pitt grabbed his own cell phone and sent an emergency text that would reach all NUMA personnel in the vicinity. He called the office to follow up.
For his part, Brinks looked stricken, fumbling with a cell phone, trying to call his wife. Dirk understood that; he was thankful that his wife, Loren, and his children, Summer and Dirk Jr., were on the West Coast this week or he’d have been doing the same frantic dance.
Brinks hung up and wandered unsteadily over to Pitt, of all people.
“Voice mail,” he said as if in a trance. “What a time to get voice mail.”
“Keep trying,” Pitt told him. “Ring that phone off the hook.”
Brinks nodded but continued to act as if he’d been drugged. The shock had stunned him into inaction.
He looked at Pitt through starry eyes. “Did your man get on that ship?” he asked quietly.
Pitt nodded. “As far as I know.”
Brinks swallowed, perhaps his pride. “I guess he’s our only hope now.”
Dirk nodded. One man on a tanker in the middle of the Atlantic now held the fate of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, in his hands.
59