Deep Sound Channel

by Joe Buff

  There was another distant rumbling, with a crackling overtone.

  The corpsman glanced up at the overhead. "Must have hit the ice pack that time, in case we went under there. Guess again, Tommy." He made a rude gesture toward the south. Van Gelder swallowed, with difficulty. "How, how long'?"

  "Till you're out of bed? A couple of days."

  Van Gelder shook his head, then felt himself begin to drift away.

  "Oh. Durban. Sorry, sir." The corpsman's voice was fading, coming from the bottom of an oil drum. "We'll be inside the bluff three days from now. . . . Once we're fixed up some, we go hunting Challenger."

  Van Gelder jerked awake. "She's been spotted?"

  "Easy, sir, easy. . . . At Diego Garcia, eight thousand klicks from here, just a little while ago. On the surface first, then a battle underwater. Two well-spaced detonations, both atomic. Wreckage from our boats, then heavy bubbles farther off and aircraft searching for survivors. Intel in Pretoria thinks she's dead."

  "Challenger destroyed?"

  "The captain won't believe it—says see the beating we just took, forget about Pretoria. Says he knows her CO too, they met before the war. He's sure that they're still out there. Somewhere."

  ABOARD CHALLENGER

  When the briefing wrapped up, Jeffrey walked Ilse through a twisting maze of compartments and then up a ladder back to her state-room. Well, make that my closet, she told herself. It was barely two meters on a side, and like everywhere else on Challenger, the ceiling was very low. Good thing she had Jeffrey as a guide—on her own she'd be utterly lost.

  "Three people usually live in here?" she said.

  "Junior officers," Jeffrey said. "I've had to shuffle them around. Some are hot-bunking."

  "Sharing beds?"

  "We call them racks. The youngsters are in different

  watch sections. Different shifts. A few of the junior enlisteds hot-rack too, but it isn't very popular. SSN crew size keeps shrinking, thanks to automation, but they keep installing new gear, so we're actually more crowded than ever."

  "Urn, how big's your crew?"

  "One hundred twenty, counting me and the captain. That's down about a dozen from the Sea-wolfs and Virginias, and the 688 (I)s need over one forty. . . . You can put your things in that middle drawer."

  The so-called drawer was less than two inches high. "What's this?" Ilse said, lifting the little curtains, pointing to the boxes, secured with nylon strapping, that now filled the top and bottom racks.

  "Just what the labels say. Xerox paper, printer toner, pens and pencils, scratch pads."

  "Scratch pads?" Ilse tried to imagine what 120 men might do, left to themselves at sea, without even fish or birds for witnesses. An image of Cape buffalo rubbing their butts on tree stumps came to mind.

  "Writing tablets," Jeffrey said. "Our manuals and charts are all on-line, but we still go through a lot of paper."

  "Oh," Ilse said. It's like sleeping in a warehouse. She'd noticed that throughout the parts of the boat she'd seen so far, storage cabinets were recessed in every conceivable nook and cranny.

  "You're all set for toiletries, and, urn, you know, other stuff?"

  "Yes, Commander," Ilse said. "The supply officer on Frank Cable made me up a package. She was very helpful."

  "Yeah. There are things we don't stock on submarines."

  Ilse had to look away. He was so coy about it. Men always were.

  "There was one other thing," Jeffrey said.

  Ilse looked directly at him. "Oh?"

  "Laundry."

  "That's right." She hadn't thought of that. "My clothes are filthy."

  "Did you bring a change?"

  "Just what I have on. At Pearl Harbor they made me travel very light. Before I got on the plane they even took my hair dryer."

  "Home appliances don't mix well with seawater and steel," Jeffrey said. "We can fit you out. That's not a problem."

  "I like those denim jump suits some enlisted men were wearing."

  "I'll take care of that," Jeffrey said.

  "Also, besides these khakis, those blue shirts and pants are nice."

  "No problem," Jeffrey said. "There's, um, there's one other thing."

  "Yes?"

  "Could you, um . . . do you mind . . . doing your own underwear?" Ilse laughed. "Don't your laundrymen have wives or sisters?"

  "Oh, no, it's not that. It's just that, um, well, the machines are rough on delicate things." Ilse pointed to the little metal sink, where a pair of panties and a bra were soaking. Jeffrey blushed.

  Ilse chuckled. "We Boers are self-sufficient people. I take it you're not married."

  "No."

  "I thought you might not wear a ring. Safety or something. You know, machines and radiation. Electricity."

  "That's true," Jeffrey said. "Sometimes jewelry can be dangerous. But no, I'm single. . . . You just called yourself a Boer."

  Ilse sighed. "It's still what I am. Murdering my family hasn't changed that. There are many of my generation

  who want to stop what's happened—older people too. It seems to me sometimes that we live just to try to stop it. But that can't change who we are, Commander."

  "It must be hard for you."

  "Have you ever been to South Africa?"

  "No . . . never."

  "The mountains, the coastlines, the vineyards, and the veld. The cheetahs, the lions, the flowers, and the birds. The native art, the deserts, the Valley of Desolation, the Valley of a Thousand Hills." Ilse stopped to draw a breath.

  "It all sounds very nice."

  "I've been many places, Commander. Research trips, and travel just for . . . just for fun, I almost said. Nowhere compares to home. I want that back. We'd come so far in recent years, and now we've lost it all. We're shamed before the whole free world for what a few of us made happen. Or let happen. Can you understand?"

  "It's like Cuba going communist, or France with the Resistance."

  "Both of which you read about in books."

  "Yeah."

  "Well, this is happening to me. You have your ship, your crew, your relatives back home. Your country is united, now more than in sixty years. I have none of that. I've lost my country. I want it back."

  "I'm sorry. It, um, it, you, you must be lonely" "It's something no uitlander could understand." "A foreigner, you mean?"

  "There's no translation." Ilse yawned, although she didn't want to.

  "I see you're tired," Jeffrey said. "I'm pretty bushed myself. Some sleep will help. We'll wake you in six hours. I'll post a schedule for the shower."

  "How military of you."

  Jeffrey blinked. He actually seemed hurt. "The submariner day is eighteen hours," Jeffrey said. "Three six-hour watches. One on, two off, usually."

  "I'll get awful jet lag fitting into that."

  "You can ask the corpsman for a sleeping pill." "No."

  "There's one other thing," Jeffrey said. "The captain asked me to bring this up with you. You'd mentioned you knew people in our navy."

  "Just some guys I went out with in San Diego." "Captain Wilson, he, uh, he wants to know. In South Africa, did you know people there?"

  "You want to pick my brain, for intelligence?" Not again. Didn't I get enough of this in Washington?

  "Something like that," Jeffrey said. "There's one guy, he was high-profile. Now he's in command of Voortrekker."

  "Voortrekker?"

  "That's their ceramic boat, commissioned a year before Challenger, built in Germany with help on the propulsion plant from Russia. It was supposed to be a concession, a gift from the German bankers, a legal bribe to get to make some lucrative loans to a Boercontrolled armaments conglomerate. The hull's a composite multilayered matrix, like tank armor, but much less dense than steel."

  "I know," Ilse said, "Sessions told me. And the Germans have their Deutschland and the Brits have HMS Dreadnought. And the Japanese started the whole thing."

  "Yeah, there was an arms race," Jeffrey said. "Anyway, we thought you
might have met Voortrekker's captain, Jan ter Horst."

  Ilse stiffened.

  "What's the matter?" Jeffrey said.

  "I know him."

  "Very well? If we could understand his mind-set, in case we go up against him, it would help."

  "Yes, I know Jan ter Horst." Ilse said the name with bitterness.

  "What's he like?"

  "Arrogant. Innovative. He'll take shrewd risks, and he learns very quickly. Aggressive, a brilliant leader, religiously devout. One of the instigators of the Putsch."

  "Sounds like a tough character."

  "He's the best they have, and he knows it. If you ever do encounter him, be very, very careful."

  "Sure you're not exaggerating?" Jeffrey said.

  "I'd fear for my life if I were you. I really would. He's ruthless, more than you can possibly imagine."

  "The problem is he did the Severodvinsk school, in Russia, not the British Perisher, then went to sea a lot on Russian SSNs, for the experience. Now our agents can't get his file in Moscow or anywhere else."

  "I can help. But just so far. Be warned, for future reference. . . ."

  "You have my attention."

  "I won't be with you long, and I want you to survive this war. Jan ter Horst enjoys being unpredictable, and he loves to rub it in. He's very energetic, and he has a wild imagination." In spite of herself Ilse gave a secret smile. "He's also a terrific liar." Unlike you, Jeffrey Fuller. You're too easy to figure out. In some strange way you're even sweet. Predictable but sweet. Both could cost you.

  "How come you know so much?" Jeffrey said.

  "Up until the Putsch, for two years, Jan and I were

  lovers."

  12 HOURS LATER (D DAY MINUS 4)

  "Morning, sir."

  "Morning, sir."

  Jeffrey nodded back. The two enlisted men got coffee, then took off. Jeffrey turned back to the table, piled with lethal-looking gadgets.

  Sitting in the booth in the enlisted mess was Lieutenant Shajo Clayton, now in his element. Ilse sat across from Clayton, but Jeffrey stood—it helped him think. Four SEALs sat at another booth, adjusting bulky cases that said

  DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE on the sides. Two of these men,

  Clayton said, were logistics and equipment guys not going on the raid; they were alternates, just in case.

  The other four men in the augmented team were in the booth across from Jeffrey, all blindfolded, racing each other to field-strip and reassemble South African assault rifles. COB, off watch, was timekeeper, obviously enjoying himself. A pile of twenty-dollar bills sat on the table, almost lost amid the trigger groups and slide stops.

  "How you guys making out?" Jeffrey said.

  "Halfway there," COB said. "Winner's best of fifty." "Best of fifty?" Jeffrey said.

  "Hey," Clayton said, "endurance counts."

  "I guess it does," Jeffrey said. "Okay, Shaj, what's next?" Clayton tossed Jeffrey a combat helmet and gave one to Ilse too. Jeffrey put his on. Clayton asked one of the mess management crew, cleaning up from breakfast, to kill the lights.

  "Flip down the helmet visor," Clayton said. Jeffrey did.

  Twin oculars came down before his eyes, flat-screen displays. The stereoscopic image began to switch back and forth, between infrared and low-light-level television. Jeffrey looked around the room. The data coming at him blew his mind.

  "Total tactical awareness," Clayton said. "Notice how the contrast's enhanced by the flickering positive-negative effect."

  see it," Jeffrey said.

  "That's great for your reaction time."

  Jeffrey glanced at a bulkhead. On IR he could see

  right through the wall, to the racks and sleeping figures in the accommodation space beyond.

  "This is awesome," Ilse said. Jeffrey studied her through his visor, until she turned to look at him.

  "They're like the X-ray goggles they advertise in comic books," Jeffrey said. He squelched the thought before it could go further.

  "The helmet's ceramic," Clayton said. "Stops a thirty-cal at almost point-blank range. Neutral buoyancy too, though you have to watch out for trapped air. The battery's conformal. Feel that little switch inside, by your right ear? That controls the interval. You might try half a second on each mode for starts."

  Jeffrey played with it, making the picture flash back and forth faster and then slower. " Antiblooming feature?"

  "These have pixel gain control. Lets you look right past glaring headlights and see someone in the shadows, all in real time."

  "What about a mushroom cloud?" Ilse said.

  Clayton laughed. "Keep your fingers crossed," he said. "These don't have much EMP

  shielding. By then we should be done and out of there."

  Jeffrey reached to his left ear and folded down the tiny built-in mike. "What about our comms?"

  "Digitized voice, encrypted," Clayton said. "Using frequency-agile low-probability-ofintercept radar pulses." "Not plain radio?" Jeffrey said.

  "Nope. Too easy to detect or jam. These go through trees and bushes better. The signal bounces well through building clusters too, and windows, hallways, things like that. You get distortion from multipath, but it's workable."

  "Super," Jeffrey said.

  "Lights, please," Clayton called. The crewman hit the switch and the fluorescents came back on. "Speaking of which, the moon will be well up as we insert, two days past full, so there'll be plenty of light through the clouds to drive the image intensifiers. In a completely darkened room you'd stick to infrared."

  "Right," Jeffrey said.

  "Next," Clayton said. He gave Ilse and Jeffrey diving masks, with wires that ran to little chest packs.

  "The mask fits under the helmet?" Jeffrey said.

  Clayton nodded. "And the rig's compatible with mixed-gas Draegers."

  "You still use those things?" Jeffrey said. He turned to Ilse. "They're closed-circuit scuba gear, rebreathers. The works fit across your chest so you can reach everything easily."

  "I've heard of them," Ilse said.

  "There've been improvements," Clayton said. "A U.S. contractor beefed up the endurance of the 02 renewer, the carbon dioxide scrubber's more efficient, and they've got heliox for deeper depth. . . . They also added a mike to the mouthpiece, for clandestine digitized underwater telephone."

  "You mean like gertrude?" Jeffrey said.

  Clayton nodded. "Except now it's low probability of intercept and frequency agile, encrypted, just like our radio."

  Ilse donned her diving mask and turned it on. "Wow! It's a head-up display!"

  "See everything you get there?" Clayton said.

  "Left side's time and depth, water pressure, and compass heading," Ilse said. "Plus other stuff. I'm not sure how to read it."

  Jeffrey held his to his face and smiled. "It's a swim board."

  "Yup," Clayton said. "Except it keeps your hands free, and it has inertial nav with programmable way points and a steering bug. Senses water temperature and currents too, and gives you swimmer speed over the bottom. And," Clayton added, holding up a palm-sized

  object, "watch this. Ultrasonic sonar simulator. Your skipper gave permission, it won't get through the hull." He switched on the handheld transducer. An indicator began to pulse on Jeffrey's mask display, showing the bearing to Clayton's hand.

  "Jeez," Jeffrey said, "you've got built-in acoustic intercept!"

  "Uh-huh," Clayton said. "The hydrophones react to any loud noise too. Figure of merit's pretty poor, the directivity could be better. But it does give back your sense of undersea direction."

  "This could come in handy," Jeffrey said.

  "Amen, bro," Clayton said. "Like if some patrol boat screw starts up, or someone's dropping antiswimmer charges, you need to know which way they are before they know where you are."

  "What's this other stuff ?" Ilse said. "The numbers on the right?"

  "Diver data," Clayton said. "Monitors your physiology objectively—which is kinda hard to do yourself when s
omeone's shooting at you. Pulse and respiration, remaining air supply, 02 partial pressure and consumption rate."

  "How does that part work?" Jeffrey said.

  "You have to put the chest pack on. It picks up from your body, like a lie detector, and from the regulator valves."

  "That's clever," Ilse said. She modeled the chest pack, which was broad and flat. "You forgot a lady's model," she said deadpan. The thing squashed her breasts. "It's heavy."

  "Not when you're swimming," Clayton said. "Same density as seawater, won't affect your buoyancy, like the flak vests we'll wear over it, underneath the Draegers."

  "Great," Ilse said.

  "It also shows your rate of rise or dive," Clayton said. "It sets off an alarm—the transducers vibrate at your

  temples—if you go too deep or start coming up without exhaling, like if you're wounded or you just go stupid. That feature can be switched off in tactical situations. It's loud enough for your swim buddy to hear. I'll be yours, by the way."

  "You really thought of everything," Ilse said.

  "You bet," Clayton said. "Remember, when in doubt while going up or down, thirty feet per minute always works."

  "Right," Ilse said. "I have a scuba Openwater Two certificate."

  "I've kept at it myself," Jeffrey said. "I'm a qualified safety diver. Hull inspections mostly, for maintenance or damage, and for any sabotage when we leave port." Clayton nodded. He held up a little keypad, also with a wire. "Dive computer, standard navy tables and the classified aggressive ones. This goes on your wrist, plugs into the pack. The output shows up on your mask. Keys are big enough for frozen fingers or some hard corner of your gear."

  Ilse laughed, obviously impressed. Two more crewmen came into the mess, grabbed coffee and donuts, stared at the group with all their weapons, and left quickly.

  "How long do these batteries last?" Jeffrey said. "Long enough," Clayton said.

  "What's the mean time between failures? I've a sneaky feeling these were rushed into production."

  "Like so many other things." Clayton shrugged. "Long enough. As long as some still work, and we stick together, we're okay. We're taking backup gauges, analog mechanical, for the basic data."

  Jeffrey nodded.