For Whom the Bell Tolls

Several streams feed into this. Let me explain.

First, a reader asked me to give Marigold Wilson her own story. She has appeared in three of my other stories. But I have never written one especially for her. She is the reason why I ultimately chose to put this in LW - instead of the Romance category where it probably belongs.

Also - For some insane reason – lack of originality no doubt - I have been updating the Hemingway canon. The only remaining novel is, "For Whom the Bell Tolls." But that piece presents a number of problems to a modern writer.

First and foremost, For Whom the Bell Tolls is set in the Spanish Civil war. And that tactical environment is hard to duplicate.

Then – there is the problem of convincing the reader that the hero could meet and fall in love with Ingrid Bergman in four days while living in a cave? Seriously!!?? Even back then that required considerable suspension of disbelief...

Finally, on a totally unrelated note. I have read a couple of well-written stories that purport to be about the intelligence business. I actually work in that field. And like the lawyers who cringe at narratives written by non-lawyers, I wanted to write something that was closer to the world that I know - where bureaucrats and nerds outnumber the actual agents about 10 to 1.

People who didn't sleep through American Lit will recognize that Hemingway's tale ends at the epilog. If you like your stories dark and disaffected, then please stop reading there. Me? - I'm a hopeless romantic and indisputably NOT Hemingway. So I gave Jordan and Marigold their happy ending. I'm interested which one you preferred.

Oh!! And by the way!! The Tybee Island bomb is real - and it is still out there – so sleep well. DT

Overture

The Colonel was tired. He didn't mind training flights. But this one was a simulated combat mission. And those were a lot more stressful.

He and his other two crewmates had flown their B-47E 600 miles from Homestead Air Force Base on a course to mimic a low altitude run into the Soviet Union over the Barents Sea. The mission had been successful as 02:00 approached.

The Colonel's Stratojet was carrying a single transportation configured Mk15 Mod 0 hydrogen bomb capable of 3.8 Megatons. It was dangerous to fly an armed weapon over the continental United States. But the men of the Strategic Air Command had to train with transportation configured bombs to get the "feel" for the real doomsday situation.

The bomb was twelve feet long and weighed 7,600 pounds. That was close to the Stratojet's maximum lift capacity of 10,000 pounds. The bomb itself contained 400 pounds of conventional high explosives and it had a highly enriched uranium core with a plutonium trigger.

Upon detonation, the heat it would generate would turn five square miles of landscape into spun glass. And the shock wave would flatten anything within a twenty mile radius.

The Colonel was one of the Air Force's best, an Instructor Pilot. He had flown so many combat missions over Korea in A-26 Invaders that he couldn't count them. But the Stratojet was a totally different bird entirely.

His B-47 was powered by six General Electric J-47 turbojets. That brought its top speed to almost supersonic. The only problem was that the thin wings, which gave the Stratojet its high-speed aerodynamic advantages, also made it a bitch to land.

But at this point landing was the least of the Colonel's worries. His main concern was staying awake.

For the millionth time he looked outside the bubble canopy and February's night sky was lit up with stars. It was unearthly beautiful even though the instrument reading indicated that it was minus 70 degrees outside.

His copilot/flight engineer was behind him in the sleek bomber's narrow cockpit. He was going through the standard checklist for arming the device. He was just not actually flipping the switches to do it.

The Colonel was thinking about the Valentine's Day surprise that he had planned for his wife.

The 14th was only a little over a week away. And the Colonel planned to hop on the overnight boat to Havana. Where he was going to spend a romantic weekend drinking, and dancing with the woman he had loved since the third grade.

He was just glancing over his right shoulder, when a black apparition slammed into the Stratojet's starboard wing. The impact threw the bomber into a steep right bank and all hell broke loose in the cockpit.

The navigator/bombardier, who was enclosed in the nose of the aircraft, screeched over the intercom, "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!!??"

The Colonel, who at that point was dealing with a severely damaged aircraft could only shout, "I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA."

The co-pilot/flight engineer behind him said in strained tones, "It was an F-86. It slammed into the wing, bounced off and exploded. I think that whoever was driving it ejected!!"

The Colonel wrestled with the aircraft for an excruciating few minutes before he got it back to level flight. Then he and the co-pilot/flight engineer began to assess the damage.

The Stratojet was a tough bird and it was continuing to fly. But all of the avionics in the starboard wing were off-line and the number four and five inboard engines were about to fall off their pylon.

The Colonel squawked a Mayday to Hunter AFB. The fact that the Colonel's aircraft was carrying a potential "broken arrow" got the phone lines open all the way up to Omaha and General Lemay himself.

The Colonel told the boss that there was no way he could land the aircraft without jettisoning the bomb.

Normal landings require the B-47 to come in "hot". So at the best of times there was no room for error. With two of its engines shut down and God-knows-what damage to the flaps, they were likely to either overshoot, or hit the front of the runway.

If that happened, the bomb would fly out of the front of the aircraft like a spit ball out of a straw. And Savannah might experience its own version of nuclear holocaust.

So the people in charge were faced with two very unpalatable options.

If they ordered the Colonel to land without dropping the bomb and the plane crashed it would kill the crew and in the process might create an atomic disaster.

If they ordered the four ton weight of the bomb to be jettisoned they would have a classic Broken Arrow scenario.

There was considerable discussion up the chain of command but even the remote possibility of a hydrogen bomb going off in downtown Savannah made the ultimate decision. The Colonel was given orders to drop the device offshore.

The Stratojet circled out over Tybee Island and the bomb was jettisoned at 7,000 feet into Wassaw Sound.

There was no explosion so it was assumed that the bomb had just splashed into the shallow water of the sound. The Colonel then landed the Stratojet at Hunter and he and his wife celebrated a romantic Valentine's Day 1958, in Havana.

~

The phone blasted Jordan awake. It was 3 AM. He felt around on the night table and mumbled, "What".

A parade of brontosauruses was marching through his head and his mouth tasted like they'd left their droppings.

It had been another drunken night in DC.

Jordan had never been a drinker - until recently. But the crushing sense of alienation and world-weariness that had come over him since leaving the Army was killing him.

He had no direction in life. It all just seemed so utterly pointless.

He had been a hero once. Early in the Afghan War, Joint Special Operations Command had recruited soldiers with Jordan's particular set of skills.

He had been a talented 29-Echo – definitely not a Ranger type. But he was the best Bluesniper in the Army. So the people at Fort Sill gave him his E9 stripes. And then shipped him to Fort Belvoir.

There, he got acquainted with the nerd branch of the Joint Special Operations Command.

Jordan was probably the lamest Gray Fox in the history of JSOC. But the Taliban's leadership was addicted to Bluetooth headsets. And Jordan could Bluesnarf those gadgets from two miles away - not the 300 feet that everybody assumed.

Thus, his rare talent brought a few hundred tons of JDAMS down on the Evil Doers before they wised up.

Jordan was no physical specimen – extremely tall and skinny with the shock of unkempt brown hair, lean face, high cheekbones and profound eyes of the classic intellectual.

He had barely made it through the physical part of the training. In fact, he had scraped by on sheer guts and determination. He was a nerd. But he was a very tough and gritty one. And he very badly wanted to be a Grey Fox.

So he was with DEVGRU in the Shahi-Kot. And he did the whole show with 45-Commando in Jacana. Then he chased Saddam all over the Saladin Governate until they caught him.

After that he decided that he had no long-term future as a fully weaponized geek. So he separated out.

The Army gave him a few medals as remembrance of his glory days. And he signed on with a private intelligence firm.

It was ironic really. He did the same thing that the basement monkeys at the alphabet agencies did. But, because he was in the private sector he got paid three times more.

The problem was that he was a total loner. And he had nobody to share it with - especially a woman.

In fact, Jordan was not a bad looking guy. His scholarly features combined with those bottomless brown eyes made him look thoughtful and even a little dangerous. He was much taller than average. And the exceptional width of his shoulders on his slender frame sometimes made him look like he had forgotten to take the hanger out, before putting on his coat.

His time in the Army had built some power in his upper chest and he had a long muscular neck and arms. But the overall impression was sinewy, not brawny, much like the Grey Fox that was his professional namesake.

Plus he was a genuine decorated war hero, even if his arena of engagement was 2.4 Gigahertz ISM exchanges.

But in the matter of human relations he was and always had been a complete nowhere man. He was utterly closed up and conflicted - too shy and awkward to have any success with the beautiful women. And he had no interest in the ugly ones.

He just couldn't get outside his own head long enough to make lasting friendships. He must have been the only soldier to serve two full combat tours in the Sandbox and never have a battle-buddie. He was a legend in JSOC for his isolation from the teams he served on. And his only regular sexual experience had been with Rosie and her five sisters.

His only friend was canine. Buster was a big muscular brown-dog. But he was loyal, loving and a fabulous listener. Jordan got him from the pound. He was so scary looking that nobody else wanted him.

Buster's origins were unknown. But Jordan guessed that he had been bred as a fighting dog. Certain elements in DC still do that.

But he was like Ferdinand the Bull. He wouldn't fight. Instead he chose being beaten to death over hurting another creature. Jordan decided that he and Buster had a lot in common.

Jordan worked at a business in Roslyn. Why Roslyn? Because a little "Company" is located right next door in Langley, the NCTC is just up 66. And the Pentagon is two stops down on the blue line. That was the customer base.

Which brings us back to the 3:00 AM phone call and explains why Robert Jordan had made it a regular habit of over-medicating.

The call was from the boss. He wanted Jordan at the Ballston I-Hop – NOW!!

I hear you ask - why the I-Hop?

Does anybody really think that important stuff goes on at an I-Hop? Plus, it's located next to a Metro stop and it's open 24 hours a day.

So in actuality - that particular place hosts more clandestine shit than the Hoover building.

But seriously???!! – Three AM???!!

Bernie Golz was a generation older than Jordan. He had played the spy-versus-spy game in the 70s and 80s in the alleys of East Berlin. And Jordan had tons of respect for him.

The fact that Golz was sort of a father figure was a bonus.

Jordan's actual father never came close to "getting" him. But of course his dad rarely ventured off his little dairy farm outside of Madison, Wisconsin – so why the fuck should he understand any single thing about his son's life?

Golz was disgustingly alert and energetic as Jordan slid into the booth across from him. The old man never seemed to sleep.

Jordan must have looked like he felt - because Golz said kindly, "You are really going to have to stop doing this to yourself Bobby Lee."

Golz ordered coffee and eggs with bacon for both of them. It was obvious that he was trying to sober Jordan up. They ate in silence for a while.

Then Golz said casually, "Did you know that the Air Force lost an intact hydrogen bomb offshore near Savannah Georgia back in 1958."

Jordan thought, "Okay – that's a bizarre opening gambit."

But he said, "Was it hard to recover? It must have been a real engineering feat to pull a big bomb out of the muck."

Golz arched his eyebrow. It was like he was disappointed that Jordan wasn't getting it.

THEN Jordan GOT it. He said with horror, "They never found it!?"

Golz said, "No they didn't. Oh, they launched a nine week search right after the incident. But the bomb likely sank into the silt at the bottom of the Sound and the technology of the time just wasn't good enough to find it."

Jordan said without much conviction, "it's a good thing that it's buried somewhere."

Golz said ominously, "Until now."

Jordan looked appalled, "What!!? Are you telling me that the bomb has been recovered?"

Golz said, "That is EXACTLY what I am telling you. And that is the reason why I am meeting you at 03:00."

Jordan said, "Do you have any idea who has it?"

Golz said, "All we have is deepweb background chatter that indicates that an individual, or individuals have obtained a Cold War hydrogen bomb and are planning to use it."

Jordan asked the obvious question, "Why are we involved? This sounds like something that the FBI, or CIA ought to be handling?"

Golz said, "The U.S. has fully mobilized all of its intelligence assets but our little firm was contacted by an independent party for a couple of good reasons."

Golz raised on finger, "First, if somebody has a fully functional nuclear device the world has to scramble every agent available to prevent it from being used."

Then he raised another, "Second, our people are the best of the best. And our customer wants to keep his involvement off the record."

That last bit of information told Jordan that the customer was POTUS.

No wonder, this was a political nightmare of epic proportions. POTUS knew who the press would blame If the bomb went off. Even if it was Eisenhower who lost the damn thing in the first place.

The alphabet agencies were too mired in their own political shit to be totally trustworthy so the President was calling in his own operators.

At least he could work them without fear of major backstabbing.

Golz said, "The only information we have is from the deepweb. You are our best asset when it comes to tracking things down in that labyrinth. Here are some rabbit holes you can dive down. We hope you can pick up the trail."

Golz handed a nondescript file to Jordan. There was nothing in it but some deepweb references that he might be able to wave a dead chicken at.

Jordan said, still skeptically, "Is everybody sure that there is even a problem, because if this is the source of the information it is pretty tenuous? Nobody but an experienced darkweb trawler would even know how to access these places, let alone do anything through them."

Golz said with conviction in his voice, "Oh, we know that somebody has the bomb."

He steepled his fingers and said, "A body was found in a hotel room in Savannah. The authorities were investigating it as a simple prostitute-client homicide until a bunch of the victim's redneck friends came forward."

Golz looked intently at Jordan and added, "They ALL said that the deceased had bragged about discovering a huge bomb underwater in Wassaw Sound."

Jordan looked shocked.

Bernie added, "Given that piece of information, the Savannah police called the FBI. And one of their analysts connected the dots. We know that the guy found the 1958 H-bomb."

Now Jordan looked horrified.

Golz said, "We might still be none the wiser except the same day the police found four dead men in an old house near Port Charlotte. Those four men were all crewmembers of a dredge that was known to be working an area offshore from there."

Golz continued with, "Since they knew where the dredge had been anchored, it didn't take the Navy long to confirm that something big had indeed been dug up."

He added, "The FBI questioned the local fishermen and one of them said that he had seen something big being loaded on a moving van just before sunrise that day. So YES we know that someone has dug up and transported the Tybee Island Bomb."

Golz said wearily, "Hopefully you can find a starting place in the stuff that I gave you."

Then the two men rose and shook hands. And Jordan trudged up Fairfax to his war room. It was Jordan's special place. It was full of the most advanced technology on the market. And it was stocked with all the things that a nerd needs to get his work done - a refrigerator full of Mountain Dew, endless bags of Skittles – plus a ratty old couch.

It was 0430 and Jordan was soaring over the world that he felt most comfortable in – the virtuality of cyberspace.

The first thing he did was configure and launch a very large network telescope. The telescope let Jordan monitor millions of sites at once.

The only hints he had were a couple of darkweb addresses. So he set the telescope to record any activity at – or around - each of those sites.

It was like setting up physical surveillance on an abandoned block of houses. Since any traffic to them was by definition suspicious, a lot of things could be learned by just sitting and watching.

But like physical surveillance, it was always "hurry up and wait." No matter how urgent the business something had to happen. So patience was the essence in deepweb monitoring.

And Jordan was an everlastingly patient man. He sent out for a pizza and dozed on his couch.

Jordan finally got a hit 22 hours after he started. There was a message posted on an abandoned MilNet site. It was one word, "Success."

The sheer dereliction of the site was what made the message stand out. Somebody had just used an address that was last visited when Ronald Reagan was President. More importantly, the posting was from a conventional TCP/IP connection.

Jordan was guessing that it had originated from a mobile phone. Perhaps it was sent when the bomb reached its destination. The person who posted it must have been in a hurry. Or, maybe he thought that the location was so obscure that nobody would notice.

Either way they had made a BIG mistake. Jordan now had the packet information.

Traceroute told him that the endpoint was an IPv4 address belonging to a company named "Eleven Rivers".

Jordan did a fast deepweb lookup of that organization and discovered that it was one of a series of shell corporations owned by an outfit headquartered in San Antonio.

Jordan now had a solid name and place to start.

He picked up the encrypted landline. He didn't care that it was 02:30. This was exciting.

He dialed the special number that Golz had given him. Golz answered on the second ring. His voice reflected the steel trap that was his mind. He said, "Bobby Lee?"

Jordan said, "Sorry to wake you Bernie but I have to talk to you."

Golz said with a laugh in his voice, "Nonsense, Old spies don't sleep".

Jordan said, "There was action on one of the deepweb sites and I have a target. The owner of the device that made the contact is a shell corporation in San Antonio. I am going to dig some more and I'll let you know what I find out."