“Reload and prepare for next target,” the masked man said in a voice just barely above a whisper.
The captain of the New Jersey’s fishing boat, Lieutenant Commander Bjordson, had seen the barrage of three massive shells hit the beach, and from his position about a mile and a quarter away, had witnessed and felt their devastating aftermath.
Now he watched as the RPV turned southeast and headed for a quartet of Norse subs about two miles away. Sensing an impending attack on the subs was just seconds away, he knew that even the wake from the violent sixteen-inch barrage could swamp his small vessel. He hit the throttles of the fishing boat and began to put some distance between himself and the three Norse subs.
His role on this fateful day was to act as a backup communications ship between the New Jersey and the United American forces on shore and in the air. The high-flying AWAC’s planes were just about at peak load coordinating the air strikes along the two-hundred-mile front, and thus there was a need for a close-in support radio ship.
Therefore, ever since the fighting had begun, Bjordson had been plying the waters off the invasion coast, sending information on sub dispersion, enemy troop strengths, and target coordinates to the United American HQ at the Naval Air Station as well as back to the New Jersey.
His crew had also taken full advantage of the 20mm all-purpose deck gun mounted on the fishing boat’s bow. They had found out very early that the Norse landing crafts carried no weaponry of their own, short of the rifles belonging to the individual troops. So, in between sending out intelligence broadcast, the fishing boat’s crew had been firing on any landing craft in their vicinity, sinking several and damaging many others.
While the captain was understandably proud of his crew’s accomplishments, the sinkings seemed hardly necessary with the ongoing slaughter up and down the coast. He, like many others fighting the Norse clans on that bloody late afternoon, just wanted to get the whole grisly business over with.
Bjordson yanked back on the throttles after he determined that he was a good two and a half miles away from the doomed Norse subs. Sure enough, ten seconds later, the first three shells from the New Jersey’s second battery landed in amongst the Norse Krig Bats, blowing one of the war boats right out of the water and cracking the other two like they were dried sticks of wood. The fourth sub, the Volk Bats that was carrying the LST’s, was instantly swamped, the seawater pouring into its wide-open, vast storage chambers. It went down even quicker than the boats that had been closer to the blast.
The resulting shock wave hit the fishing boat, too, causing it to be tossed about violently in the suddenly swelled waves.
Bjordson had yelled a warning to his men just seconds before—as if they needed any—and all hands held tight as the quick, invisible storm blew over.
“Survived another one,” Bjordson said to himself with a breath of relief.
But a moment later he heard an ear-piercing scream from one of his men.
Swinging around in the bridge he saw a huge, dark shape looming up on their portside.
“Christ … no!” he shouted involuntarily, leaping toward the boat’s controls in a desperate attempt to turn away.
But it was too late. The enormous black-and-red Fire Bat submarine hit the fishing boat amidships, instantly splitting it in two.
It sunk inside of ten seconds, taking all on board down with it.
Chapter Forty-six
HUNTER HAD JUST DROPPED his last pair of cluster bombs from his second reloading when the top of his spine began to tingle.
Deep within him, something was compelling him to change course—to steer the Harrier jumpjet not back to the Naval Air Station for reloading as planned, but out to sea, out beyond the smoke and fire rising from the hapless trio of Norse subs.
Out into the unknown.
Hunter knew better than to doubt this intuition. From the moment long ago when he had recognized his extrasensory perceptive gift, he had always gone with it.
But this particular vibration was different.
As he burst through the funnel of smoke and flames rising from the destroyed subs, the feeling was washing over him to the degree he’d never imagined. And although it seemed as if all of his warning panel lights were blinking at once, he ignored them. What he was feeling could not be picked up on a radar screen or an infrared scope. It could not be detected by a heat-seeking sensor or a microwave beam.
Yet, it was all within and without him. Something way down deep was telling him to get ready …
He dipped the Harrier’s wing to the east and pulled back on the throttle. Before him lay the depths of the mighty Atlantic and something—or somebody—down there was calling to him.
He closed his eyes and gripped the Harrier’s control stick tightly. The vibration from his brain and spine was now running down his arms to his hands to his fingertips and into the jet itself. Suddenly it was as if the airplane knew which way to go. Hunter waited—five seconds, ten seconds, fifteen. Then he took a deep gulp of oxygen and opened his eyes.
Below him was a submarine.
It was apparent right away that this boat was not like the submersible lugs the Norsemen traveled in. This vessel was as sleek and futuristic in design as the Norsemen’s troop subs were bulky and cloddish. This submarine was smaller by a third in length and sleeker by a factor of five. It was painted shiny black with bright red highlights and featured an elaborate, bright design that ran right up to the Norse monster head on its bow.
On one hand, the sub’s design was reminiscent of the old Soviet Alpha 1-class, with its contoured swept-back conning tower and overall bullet design. Yet Hunter could also see traces of the US Navy’s Lafayette class of subs, especially in the deck length and beam. The truth was that this sub could only be a hybrid, designed by taking bits and pieces from other subs and therefore allowing it to be mistaken for any number of submersibles.
But what was unmistakable were the two rows of hatches—four on each side—that were very prominent just aft of the conning tower. These, Hunter knew, were the coverings for missile-launch tubes.
It took less than a nano-second for Hunter to put it all together: he was staring down at one of the Fire Bats.
An instant later, the Harrier was shooting straight up in the air. With the gaggle of antennae and radio scopes poking out of the sub’s conning tower, it was a good bet that there was air defense-sensing equipment on board capable of detecting him within a close radius.
Now his hands, still linked to the psychic tendons deep within, had rocketed the jumpjet up and away from the mysterious Norse submarine. Up through twenty-five hundred feet, through five thousand. Straight up—not like a bird, not like any other airplane.
Straight up, like a god ascending into the heavens.
He leveled off at ten thousand feet. From this height he could keep an eye on the sub while being relatively sure that they couldn’t see him. It was steaming due north, and by evidence of the miles-long, very distinct white seafoam trail left by its wake, Hunter deduced correctly that the boat had just cruised right through the battle area.
He felt an involuntary shudder run through him at the thought of what several nuclear-armed ICBM’s could have done during the one-sided battle. Yet the people inside the sleek sub had just borne strange witness to the virtual destruction of the huge Norse raiding army.
And they had done so without firing so much as a single shot.
Hunter’s brain switched into overdrive at this realization. Wolf had been right after all. The whole Norse invasion of North America had been a smokescreen.
But if this was indeed true—that the Norse invaders’ actions had been a cover for yet another, more insidious plot—then it opened up another big question: What were the real intentions of these modern Vikings?
Hunter checked his watch. It was 0710 hours and getting darker by the minute. Yet he found following the sub in the waning sunlight presented no problem. Flying a zig-zag northerly course and trailing the vessel from t
wo miles up and a mile behind, he could still clearly see the long white almost luminescent wake of the Fire Bats. Even when it got dark, he knew that his look-down radar would still be able to follow the sub.
And if the damn thing decided to submerge, then he’d fall back on pure intuition to keep it in track.
For there was more than a professional curiosity about this submarine—that had been evident from the moment he spotted it. No, the crackling cauldron within his soul was bubbling for more reasons than just another attack-and-destroy mission. Something aboard the submarine was calling to him—like a siren, it was sending out a psychic message that only his extraordinary internal antenna could receive. But this time the message was not bouncing off his spirit and then going straight to his brain. This time, the vibrations were ricocheting off his soul and racing straight to his heart.
And though the storm of psychic messages was complex and overlapping, he knew its presence could mean only one thing: Dominique was on that boat.
Chapter Forty-seven
Aboard the USS New Jersey
FOR THE FIRST TIME in more than an hour, Wolf was able to lean back and relax for a moment.
The frantic activity that had inundated the CIC for the past hour had now calmed down to a more civilized buzz. Cigarettes were being lit and slowly smoked. Tea and coffee were being passed around. Conversations were being punctuated by relieved breathing and an occasional congratulatory laugh.
And there was reason to celebrate: The New Jersey had just gone through its first real sea battle and it had performed flawlessly.
The whole story could be told on the CIC’s multitude of TV screens. The surface radar monitor displayed little else besides the lifeless green blips of the dozens of crippled and sinking Norse subs. The below-surface sonar monitor was pinging madly off the dozens of hulks of Norse subs already sunk. The radio-intercept monitor, cued to pick up broadcasts from the Norse subs, was so quiet, it might as well have been turned off altogether. Unlike at the height of the battle, now there were no more enemy radio transmissions. There were no SOS’s, no calls for help. The remaining Norse subs were dying silently, for most of them, their grand adventure ending in the pale-blue waters off the Florida coast.
But it was the large TV screen that told the biggest story. The RPV was still diligently sweeping back and forth above the Jacksonville coastline, documenting the aftermath of the disastrous invasion attempt. Every sector within the RPV’s range looked the same: dozens of wrecked and burning landing craft, hundreds of dead Norse on the beaches and in the nearby surf, burned and sinking subs offshore. The RPV’s TV transmission was stark proof that in the zone stretching from Jacksonville flats down to cliffs of Vilano Banks, no invader had made it off the beach.
Wolf finally accepted a cup of tea and spontaneously toasted those sitting around him. From the first shots fired against the Norse troops on the beach to the last barrage sent into the already-burning hulk of a Norse supply sub, the New Jersey had wreaked destruction on the hapless enemy that to some might have seemed inconceivable. The total was simply awesome: twenty-three Norse troop subs sunk, another twenty-five left afloat but burning, and six more probably sunk. The total of forty-four, three-gun six-teen-inch barrages fired with pinpoint accuracy at the troops on the beaches had undoubtedly killed literally thousands. This firepower, combined with the unopposed air strikes performed by the United American attack jets, had delivered an astounding defeat that rivaled few events in military history.
Still, after taking a few sips of his tea, Wolf could not shake the feeling that the victory was in certain aspects fairly hollow. As backward and loutish as the Norsemen were, they still had to be stopped. Yet much of the battle had seemed like little more than shooting fish in a barrel. Slaughtering unsophisticated if gallant soldiers did not sit well with a man like Wolf.
So when his executive officer turned and asked him almost nonchalantly: “What next, Skipper?” Wolf felt a chill run through him. Although he knew it wasn’t the XO’s intention, some part of Wolf’s brain interpreted the remark to mean: “Who’s our next victim?”
Wolf just stopped himself in time from lashing out at the man. Instead, he clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. He was the captain of the most powerful surface vessel left on the face of the earth, and at times, the job seemed like a nightmare.
“Call in Bjordson,” Wolf said quietly. “Tell him to retrieve the RPV and head back. Have the crew go on half stations, except in turret number two. They’ll be on alert until midnight when turret three takes over. Prepare the steam screen just in case we have to go undercover.”
The XO immediately put down his coffee cup and stood at near attention. He knew by Wolf’s tone that the skipper was still operating in the all-business mode.
“Is that all, sir?” he asked crisply.
“One more thing …” Wolf told him, nervously adjusting his mask. “Contact the Jacksonville air station. Advise them of our position and tell them we will be standing by for further communications.”
The XO saluted smartly and quickly left the CIC. His departure signaled an unofficial end to the respite among those in the war room. Coffee cups were drained, and the chatter immediately died down. Technicians went back to their green screens and weapons officers to their control panels.
But still the XO’s question rang in Wolf’s ears: What next, Skipper? What next?
The answer came an instant later.
It was the air-defense radar technician who saw them first. Two blips, then three, then four, moving rapidly onto his long-range screen, coming in from due east.
“Skipper …” the tech called out, watching as three more blips suddenly popped onto the oval screen. “Look at this …”
By the time Wolf was staring into the bright green control panel, the number of blips had increased to nine. Within two seconds, four more appeared, and then four after that.
“What’s their range and heading?” Wolf asked the man.
A quick check of his instruction manual and another glance at the screen provided the answer to the tech.
“Thirty-eight miles out,” he said slowly, “and on their present course, they’ll pass seven miles to our south.”
“That’s too close,” Wolf said under his breath. A second later he hit the ship’s attack-warning buzzer.
The klaxon immediately started blaring, and the sounds of men running to their battle stations echoed through the ship again. Suddenly the CIC was bathed in tension once more. Techs rushed back to their screens, weapons officers began readying their guns and missiles systems.
“Could they be the Americans, sir?” the air-defense radar tech asked with a slight gulp.
Wolf shook his head slowly. “Something tells me no,” he said grimly. “Those are basic attack formations.”
Other sensors were now picking up the mysterious airborne force, warning via a cacophony of buzzers and electronic whistles that the approaching aircraft were not only carrying radar-guided weapons, but that their cockpit radars were locked onto “hot” attack modes.
Three seconds later, the XO was on the radio to Wolf. By that time the number of bogies had increased to twenty-four.
“We have an unknown airborne force bearing thirty-seven miles out and ten miles down,” Wolf told the second in command. “Seal everything up, and fast!”
The aura of good feeling that had invaded the CIC after the cessation in fighting on the beaches now quickly drained away, to be replaced by an atmosphere of surprise and dread.
“Buck up the air-defense system …” Wolf called into another microphone, turning away from the radar screen for a moment. “Program to automatic, with immediate manual override.”
When he looked back at the screen, he saw there were now no less than thirty-six blips.
“Is there anyway to ID these guys?” Wolf asked the radar officer, who valiantly reached for the long list of instructions left behind by Hunter.
The second radar man spoke up at
this point. “I can tell by the signatures that they are not anything like the UA attack craft,” the man said, his voice quavering with concern. “Besides coming in from the ocean, they are moving much too fast for A-7’s or A-4’s.”
From across the room, the main radio officer called: “Jacksonville must have picked them up, too, Skipper. They are sending out an emergency F-O-F signal …”
Wolf felt his heart start beating an extra thump a second. The F-O-F signal—for Friend or Foe—was broadcast as a kind of last resort before an accidental—or sneak—attack.
By this time, the incoming force was only thirty-five miles away.
“SAM status,” Wolf yelled out.
“All missiles ready, sir …”
“AAA guns?”
“Locked and ready, sir …”
“Weapons computers?”
“Main is on and ready, sir. Backups on stand-by.”
Wolf punched another button. “Activate steam screen …”
“We’ve got a stray indication,” the radar officer called out, drawing Wolf’s attention back to the massive air-defense radar screen.
The captain followed the man’s finger to the tiny, lone blip that had suddenly appeared between the oncoming airborne force and the Florida shoreline.
“Who the hell is that?”
The radar officer dialed the screen to a slightly clearer intensity.
“It seems to be hovering out there,” he told Wolf. “It might be a helicopter …”
Wolf took a long look at the solitary blip that for all the world looked like an electronic David waiting for the flying army of Goliaths.
“That’s no helicopter,” he said grimly.
Chapter Forty-eight
ON HIS WORST DAY, Hunter had never imagined the scene that now played out before him.
Hovering at a point 32.6 miles out and 3,623 feet above the sea, Hunter watched with rising trepidation as the swarm of thirty-six black dots moved in and out of the heavy cloud break heading right at him. They were still too far away for normal visual identification—but Hunter did not have to see them to know what was coming.
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