by Joe Buff
"I sometimes wonder if it'll end up finished, Jakob, or finished."
While Beck spoke, a far-off nuclear detonation sounded through the hull, drawn out and growing to a crescendo before dying off. The tragedy of his words was heightened by the reality of their tactical situation.
"If we lose this time," Coomans said half to himself, "it will be very bad." Beck nodded somberly. There could be no quitting halfway now.
The two men, lost in their own interior journeys, were startled from their reverie by a knock on the door: a messenger.
"Sir, the captain's compliments. Enemy Convoy Section One is approaching. We're almost in attack position, and he requires your presence in the Zentrale."
Beck forced a smile; it was his job to help put this convoy on the bottom of the sea today…. He thought of his twin sons, now ten. He thought of having grandchildren someday, of playing with them when he retired, long after this war. Germany's place in the sun. He was doing it for them.
He followed Coomans wordlessly, down the short corridor, past the Christmas decorations.
* * *
Deutschland's crowded Zentrale, her control room, was rigged for red. The men were up, excited, and Beck took an inner pride in their readiness. He'd taught them, drilled them, made them the eager tools they were for Kurt Eberhard. "Attack stations manned and ready, Captain." Convoy Section One was the target.
"Very well, First Watch Officer. I don't like surprises."
Beck winced. Intel on the rendezvous of relief warships from England with the convoy had proven inaccurate. The enemy reinforcements were coming hours ahead of expected.
Beck saw Eberhard study the tactical plot and frown.
"Now we're caught between the convoy's frigates driving from the south, and fresh destroyers converging from the north. And the escorting carrier battle group has us boxed in from the west."
Beck nodded ruefully: The carrier was the nuclear-powered Harry S. Truman, one of America's latest and best, probably escorted herself by four Allied fast-attack subs.
Eberhard gave Beck a withering look. "If this first convoy section does get through, in spite of the beating it took off the Azores yesterday, and the second section suffers acceptable losses, Allied morale and logistics will get such a boost this war could drag on for years!"
Beck shuddered to think of the consequences if Deutschland failed today. Whole continents were waiting to choose sides, or to pick through the cooling ashes when the First World immolated itself: all of Asia, half of the Middle East, and most of South America were holding back from the fight. Everything hinged on starving out the U.K. quickly, exposing America's impotence, and scaring U.S. voters to sue for peace.
Beck told himself there was no choice but to press on. Luck and timing, good or bad, were always crucial factors in armed conflict. Merchant ship tonnage sunk was what mattered.
"I will not settle for sniping at the convoy from the flanks," Eberhard said. "To hit the priority targets with confidence, we need to get in very close, and damn the escorts."
Beck eyed the large-scale digital tactical plot on his console. Deutschland steamed due west, on an interception course with Section One. She made top quiet speed, thirty knots. Her depth was fifteen hundred meters, exploiting a temperature/salinity layer caused by conflicting currents deep in the ocean — excellent concealment from searching Allied planes and surface ships.
"Sir," Beck said, "recommend update target motion analysis on the carrier group. They may cease steaming semi-independently and close up with the convoy for the rendezvous."
Beck knew his ship had a clear playing field here today, which meant she'd get no interference from Axis forces, but no help: The German Class 212's, and captured French SSNs, were striking Convoy Section Two way off to the south. This made sense, to avoid friendly fire, but Beck suspected Eberhard had had a hand in it: no friendly forces present, no credit shared.
"Concur, Einzvo, update the data. A more concentrated target for us if they do close up, but better all-around protection for them… which only adds to the time pressure."
Beck turned to the sonar officer, who sat at the head of a line of consoles on the Zentrale's starboard side. He was a likable young man, Werner Haffner, an Oberleutnant zur See — lieutenant junior grade — from Kiel, a major base and port on the Baltic. Haffner was earnest and talented, though high-strung.
Beck asked Haffner the optimum depth and course for a good passive contact on the enemy carrier group. Haffner conferred with his sonarmen, then responded to Beck. Eberhard issued the piloting orders. Jakob Coomans, the battle-stations pilot, acknowledged; Coomans sat at the two-man ship control station, on the Zentrale's forward bulkhead. Deutschland went deeper.
"Einzvo, prepare for arming nuclear weapons."
Beck and Eberhard went through the sequence with their special keys. Deutschland had eight wide-body torpedo tubes, and sixteen vertical launch tubes for her cruise missiles. Soon, the Sea Lion deep-capable eels, German Navy slang for torpedo, and the Modified Shipwrecks, supersonic antishipping cruise missiles purchased from Russia, were ready to fire. Each carried an advanced U-235 warhead of Axis design.
Beck eyed Eberhard, standing there in his austere black jumpsuit and beautifully polished sea boots, with the diamonds of the Ritterkreuz glittering at his throat, next to his bloodred arming key. Eberhard looked eager for what was to come.
That's the difference between us. I fight to make a better peace, and to protect my family. He fights because he likes it.
CHAPTER 7
ONE HOUR LATER, ON USS CHALLENGER
Ilse heard a beep on her headphones: Someone was breaking in on the circuit she and Jeffrey and Clayton and Bell were using during this SEAL mission briefing. The air in the front of the boat was still toxic from the engine room fire, and the foursome wore spare sonar headsets under their respirator masks; this way they could talk more easily, and privately. Bits of duct tape made airtight seals for the lip mikes. At this point people had gotten used to pausing rhythmically to draw breath; Ilse hardly noticed the constant hissing and whooshing all around.
"Captain, this is the Conn," Lieutenant Sessions's voice reported — he was the one who beeped.
Jeffrey turned from the digital navigation plotting table at the rear of Challenger's CACC.
"Your requested ten-minute update, sir," Sessions said from the command workstation. "The ship is at ordered depth, three thousand feet. We have fifteen thousand feet of water beneath the keel. Our course is three one five." Northwest. "Making for the Azores at top quiet speed, twenty-six knots."
"Very well, the Conn," Jeffrey said.
With water so deep, Ilse knew, long-range sonar conditions were perfect. Jeffrey wanted to stay above the deep sound channel now, to hide.
Another beep.
"Captain, Sonar," Kathy Milgrom said. "Your requested ten-minute update. One distant nuclear detonation, range and bearing match Convoy Section Two. No other new sonar contacts, sir."
Ilse, standing next to Jeffrey, saw him face Kathy and give her an appreciative nod, mask and all — Some fences had been mended there. "V'r'well, Sonar." Kathy smiled behind her faceplate, clicked off the circuit, and turned back to her console.
Bell keyed the intercom switch clipped to his belt. "Sounds like Section One is having a quiet day, Captain." Bell leaned against the nav console, right next to Jeffrey, their elbows often touching. The tension between the two men had melted quickly — as had bad feeling in general — once Jeffrey had made public amends for losing his cool. His sincerity had been moving to see, and now, if anything, people felt more tightly knit than ever.
And it's a good thing, Ilse told herself. There was lingering tension enough from those Abombs going off like strings of firecrackers during their dose call with the 212 and 214. There was added tension from Challenger's new destination, their new target. The enormous responsibility placed on their shoulders was almost staggering.
"Play it again," SEAL team leade
r Shajo Clayton said. He wasn't smiling. The assistant navigator, a senior chief, pressed buttons on his keyboard. Ilse watched the horizontal large screen on the plotting table.
The satellite image looked down at Earth from hundreds of miles in space. Northern Europe was shrouded in rainy overcast. There were gaps where the cloud cover was thinner.
The computer overlaid the northern coast of Germany and occupied Poland on the picture, tracing the edge of the land-locked Baltic.
At first there was nothing to see. Then it started.
There were quick flashes in some of the cloud gaps, unevenly spaced. The flashes occurred from west to east, from Germany toward Russia. They were arrayed in a line that stretched about a hundred fifty nautical miles. A very straight line. The whole thing took under a minute.
"Initially," Jeffrey said, "the Joint Chiefs thought it was a cruise missile training exercise."
"Missiles ripple-fired from a line of frigates or submarines?" Bell said. "That would explain it." Ilse knew that Bell, as weapons officer, was in his element here.
"No," Jeffrey said. "The coordination of the flashes is too perfect. Computer analysis tracked one for a fraction of a second, and studied the engine's exhaust spectrum. There's no question we're seeing a single missile, liquid hydrogen powered, a ground hugger, doing Mach eight."
"Jesus," Clayton said as he stood next to Ilse.
Bell whistled. "Nothing we own can intercept Mach eight… except for a nuclear area burst. We have trouble enough with ballistic missiles, the type that follow a nice parabola up in the sky."
"Our side doesn't have something like this, too?" Clayton said.
Jeffrey shook his head. "NASA's work on hypersonic flight was all for high-altitude scramjets. Single-stage-to-orbit reusable low-cost spacecraft, or something to replace the Concorde."
Bell nodded ruefully. "And that technology's not much use for cruise missile hardware. These platforms skim the wavetops."
"There's a mole inside the missile lab," Jeffrey said. "Code name ARBOR. She was recruited by the Israeli Mossad long before the war. The Germans have been rolling up Mossad's network, but they haven't found ARBOR yet…. She worked her way to the top of human resources at the lab. She's our way in. The nuclear demolition itself is codenamed RECURVE."
"And this satellite data proves ARBOR hasn't been turned," Bell said. "She's not feeding us false information under duress, as a trap."
"I almost wish she were," Clayton said.
"The location of the lab right on the Baltic makes sense," Jeffrey continued. "It was built, supposedly, as a hardened underground communications center, during the war scare in Asia five years back, when Germany started rearming in earnest. It's huge, subdivided, self-contained. Now it's been disguised as a depot-level repair facility for the German Navy."
Jeffrey gestured, and the nav chief brought another picture on the screen. Ilse read the caption. "Greifswald." The old houses and shops had exposed beams, Tudor style. The colorful church steeples were picturesque. Evergreen forests covered undulating hills beyond the town.
"Greifswald is near the Polish border, in what used to be East Germany. It's not far from Peenemunde, where the Nazis perfected the V-2 rockets. Isolated, easy to protect, with the Baltic as secure test range right there."
"If we know where it is," Ilse said, "why not just hit the place with big high explosive bombs?"
Jeffrey sighed. "Won't work. NATO ground-penetrator munitions can't get through the forty-foot composite armor roof, either."
Bell thought for a moment. "A U-235 bomb on the outside would throw up massive fallout. The whole Baltic rim is heavily populated, and the winds are unpredictable."
"We have to go inside with this one," Jeffrey said. "Two man-carried warheads, each yielding a kiloton. Detonators coordinated by atomic clock."
"Okay," Clayton said. "A self-contained tactical nuclear blast. Underground, no fallout… That works for me." As Ilse had seen, very up-close and personal at Durban, Clayton was an expert in atomic demolition.
Jeffrey went on. "This mole ARBOR says they're about to start mass production of the missiles, inside the lab…. But it gets worse."
Another picture came up. It showed a schematic of a submarine.
"The Germans are building a boomer?" Ilse said.
"Not an SSBN. An SSGN. A guided missile sub. They got the idea from us. The U.S. Navy reconditioned some Ohio-class ballistic missile subs a few years back."
"They put collars in the silos," Bell said. "Instead of one large ICBM, each silo can hold six or eight conventionally armed cruise missiles. Tactical Tomahawks or whatever, for power projection on land. Almost two hundred in all, based on the Trident boats' two dozen silos."
"Tomahawks are subsonic," Ilse said.
"Yeah," Jeffrey said. "Imagine instead a ceramic-hulled SSGN, able to dive to ten thousand feet or more and hide there. Armed with two hundred unstoppable Mach eight cruise missiles, each one tipped with a Hiroshima-size A-bomb."
Clayton stood there with arms crossed tightly on his chest, staring at the deck, his lips pursed in tense concentration, his eyes very hard.
"In one blow," Bell said, "they could smash the entire eastern United States, or wipe out Great Britain. Nuclear antiaircraft fire over the friendly homeland, to shoot down the missiles, would be self-defeating."
Ilse frowned. "But the Axis said they wouldn't be the first to hit cities with atom bombs. After the first two, I mean. Poland and Libya."
"The Axis said a lot of things," Jeffrey responded sourly. He looked at her and Bell and Clayton in turn. "There's concern that if this ceramic SSGN gets underway, armed with those warheads, our side may have to sue for an armistice. The threat is just too great. Deutschland or a squadron of Class two-twelves equipped with a clutch of the things would be devastating. Probably cost us the war at sea. A new iron curtain descends. The Axis wins."
There was stunned silence.
Ilse heard more nuclear explosions.
Kathy broke in to say they came from the northeast. Convoy Section Two is taking a beating.
Clayton cleared his throat. "So why don't we go after this fancy sub?"
"We're not sure where it is yet," Jeffrey said. "Maybe Kiel, maybe Gdansk, maybe even Trondheim. The most dangerous thing is the missile. We have a very tight window, from two factors. One, this year is a solar maximum. You all know that. The eleven-year sunspot cycle."
"Some people think that's why the Axis picked 2011 to start the war," Bell said.
The nay chief brought up another slide.
Stellar meteorologists had recently identified a new, massive twisting of magnetic field lines on the surface of the sun. In another two or three days they would split asunder and a record-breaking solar flare would erupt, releasing a billion tons of charged particles into space — reaching Earth in forty-eight hours.
"The effects of the flare should persist for a day or two, once it hits," Jeffrey said. "That's our target window: electromagnetic disturbances worldwide. Disruption of enemy comms, good masking of our signature from a lot of enemy sensors."
"That's an awfully compressed schedule, sir," Bell said. "Get to the Texas, do what we have to do there, then get way over to the Baltic and do what we have to do there.
"And then extract and egress," Jeffrey said. "I know. We're playing catch-up ball."
Ilse had a question. "You said there were two factors. The solar flare, okay. What's the other one?"
"Based on the timing of this flare, and using her position, ARBOR is supposed to plant a delayed-action virus in the lab's security system. She's a talented hacker, unknown to her bosses. Seems as a teenager she once pulled off a harmless but very clever intrusion. German police never found the culprit, but Mossad managed to track her down. That's why they recruited her."
"This virus'll help us get in?" Clayton said.
Jeffrey nodded. "ARBOR's role is critical. Once we're inside she'll meet us, show us around, then help us get out…. Th
at last part is absolutely vital, because we're also tasked to receive from her copies of the missile design and control software, off their supercomputer."
"Right," Bell said, thinking aloud. "With that the Allies could design an interceptor, one that works with high explosive, not a mushroom cloud."
"Or at least build our own missiles, I suppose," Ilse said. "To stay even with theirs." This war is a terrible arms race. What a perversion of the efforts of some of humanity's smartest people.
"Do we have blueprints of the lab?" Clayton said.
"We're clueless on the layout," Jeffrey said. "The place is shielded against ground-penetrating radar. But ARBOR works there."
"If the Germans are busy shutting down the moles," Ilse said, "how safe is ARBOR now?"
"If they grab her before we get there, we're in a heap of trouble… and so is she."
Ilse nervously rearranged the intercom wire and air hose, leading from her neck to sockets in the overhead. Her own brother and his girlfriend had been hanged on TV in Johannesburg, for standing up to the old-line Boers. The executioners always made it take a while. Since the Durban raid, Ilse kept having dreams she was next…. After all, she'd help set off an atom bomb.
"What about a contingency plan?" Clayton said. "You know, in case ARBOR can't deliver?"
"There's nothing in the mission brief," Jeffrey said. "Don't you think we need one, sir?"
"I'll have to think about that."
Two machinist's mates came through the CACC, lugging heavy canvas sacks full of repair tools. Their jumpsuits were soaked with sweat. The nav chief punched a button to blank the briefing screen while they passed by, for security. The men paused to plug their air hoses into unused sockets, drew deep breaths, then continued aft.
"Anyway," Jeffrey said, "assuming all goes well, this raid should set the Axis missile project back at least a year, and give us a chance to catch up."
Lieutenant Willey, the engineer, hobbled into the CACC, cane and broken leg and all. He and Jeffrey huddled, speaking through their masks. Ilse caught snatches about material condition and damage control. Satisfied, Willey went back aft.
