A grim look spread across the Vice President’s face as he finished reading the note and held it up before him.

“I’ve just been informed by Rudi Gunn at NUMA that their research vessel Narwhal has gone missing in the Northwest Passage, off Victoria Island. The ship is presumed captured or sunk with all hands, including the Director of NUMA, Dirk Pitt.”

The Secretary of Defense broke into a wolfish grin as he gazed across the table at Sandecker.

“It would seem,” he said pointedly, “that we have suddenly found your threshold.”

Chapter 71

71

THE UNITED STATES HAS LAUNCHED ARMED IN- cursions into Canada on at least a half dozen occasions. The bloodiest invasion occurred during the Revolutionary War, when General Richard Montgomery marched north from Fort Ticonderoga and captured Montreal, then moved on Quebec City. He was joined by a secondary force that had entered Canada via Maine, led by Benedict Arnold. Attacking Quebec City on December 31, 1775, the Americans briefly captured the city before being beaten back in a fierce battle with the British. A shortage of supplies and reinforcements, as well as the loss of Montgomery during the fight, meant that the Americans had little choice but to break off the foray into Canada.

When hostilities heated up again during the War of 1812, the Americans launched repeated strikes into Canada to fight the British. Most ended in failure. The most notable success occurred in 1813, when Toronto (then York) was sacked and its parliamentary buildings burned to the ground. The victory would prove to haunt the U.S. a year later when the British marched on Washington. Angered by the earlier destructive act, the British returned the favor by taking a torch to the public buildings of the American capital.

With colonial independence achieved in 1783, Canada and the United States quickly grew to be amicable neighbors and allies. Yet the seeds of distrust have never completely vanished. In the 1920s, the U.S. War Department developed strategic plans to invade Canada as part of a hypothetical war with the United Kingdom. “War Plan Red,” as it was named, called for land invasions targeting Winnipeg and Quebec, along with a naval assault on Halifax. Not to be outdone, the Canadians developed “Defence Scheme No. 1,” for a counterinvasion of the United States. Albany, Minneapolis, Seattle, and Great Falls, Montana, were targeted for surprise attacks, in hopes that the Canadians could buy time until British reinforcements arrived.

Time and technology had changed the world considerably since the 1920s. Great Britain no longer stood in Canada’s defense, and America’s military might made for a dominating power imbalance. Though the disappearance of the Narwhal angered the President, it hardly justified an invasion. At least not yet. It would take weeks to organize a ground offensive anyway, should things degrade that far, and he wanted a quick and forceful response in forty-eight hours.