by Joe Buff
Jeffrey threw some radiation sensors into the water, then closed the top hatch; the sensors would transmit in a few days, to show if the bay was contaminated. Meltzer got underway, following the narrow dredged channel leading from the pier.
* * *
Montgomery, watching the sonar, shouted that a speedboat was attacking. Jeffrey opened the top hatch — the water was much too shallow for the mini to submerge. Water splashed and sloshed as the minisub picked up speed. It had low freeboard; one shell through the hull and they were finished.
Jeffrey shouldered a Stinger that a reserve SEAL passed him from below. Jeffrey drew a bead on the speedboat. He was afraid the Stinger might not work, out here in the conductive seawater with the solar storm, but he got a tone as green tracers probed in his direction. He fired, and the missile tore away. It hit the boat, and fuel and ammo blew in wild secondary bursts. The aurora high above, reflecting off the choppy bay, plus the exploding ammo train, made a beautiful light show. Flying debris kept landing in the water all around.
Jeffrey dropped back inside and dogged the hatch. In the lock-out sphere, bending around and leaning under the missile, the two reserve SEALs were finished suiting up. Each held a compressed-air-powered underwater rifle, which fired depleted uranium bullets, deadly out to twenty or thirty feet.
"In case we meet enemy swimmers, sir, leaving the bay. They may try to block the hole in the concertina, or put limpet mines on our hull."
Jeffrey nodded. These men were up, clicked in, ready to fight. He knew he was in good hands.
Jeffrey went into the back to check on Clayton. The wound was through his lower left pelvis, from front to back. SEAL One said it must have been a. 7.62mm round — .30caliber. It hadn't tumbled, but cleanly pierced muscle and went right through the saddle of the pelvic bone, below vital organs and away from key blood vessels and nerves. Clayton was very, very lucky — he might even return to combat status. He was shocks getting plasma from an IV, and groggy from a morphine shot, so Jeffrey didn't try to talk to him.
Jeffrey gave silent thanks that Clayton had survived; Jeffrey had grown very attached to the man, his forthright confidence and clear thinking under pressure. Jeffrey knew Clayton would be torn up inside over the deaths of three more of his men, plus so many fallen Gastarbeiter. It was just as well he was sedated for a while.
Jeffrey spoke gently to Salih, who sat with one arm in a bloody bandage and a sling. Salih seemed in mental shock himself, morose and distant. He began to murmur in Arabic, a Muslim prayer.
Jeffrey pulled himself away. He had much too much to deal with to get sentimental now, and didn't want to grow maudlin himself over their heavy losses. This was his own third SEAL raid, counting the one years ago in Iraq, and the loss of friends in combat never got easier:
Jeffrey chided himself. He'd sworn after the first time not to introspect; it just worsened the hurt. Plenty of chance after the war — if he lived and if the Allies won — to think back at reunions over beer or something stronger.
* * *
Jeffrey steadied himself as the mini started to roll in deeper water. Montgomery announced they were diving. Jeffrey heard the ballast tanks begin to vent. The continued detonations from the ammo train, transmitted through the water, boomed and reverbed like a distant thunderstorm.
Jeffrey went through into the control compartment, dogging the hatches after him. He squeezed behind Meltzer's seat. Ilse stood behind Montgomery; the chief was pilot again. In the rig for red, out of line of sight of the chief and Meltzer, Ilse reached and squeezed Jeffrey's hand.
Was she feeling it, too, the postaction emptiness? The elation of being alive fast turned to black depression over the wastefulness of it all?
Jeffrey squeezed back, gratefully, and felt a bit less lonely. Ilse's touch lingered seconds longer than it should. Finally, she reluctantly broke his grip, and wiped a tear from her left eye. Jeffrey tried to make eye contact, but she stared stoically ahead, at the tactical plot.
* * *
Speedboats and more helo gunships charged about, firing MGs and cannon at the water.
"Pilot," Jeffrey said, "ahead flank. Zigzag smartly. We need to get out of here before somebody with a depth charge or torpedo reaches the bay. Those sonar helos may come back, if their avionics aren't scrambled by the storm."
Montgomery acknowledged.
"Sir," Meltzer said, "if we make it through that hole in the concertina, what do you want to do? There's hardly any fuel left."
"Let me see the nav chart."
"We could try to bluff our way at one of the German bases on the Baltic," Montgomery said, "and get more fuel and have more options."
"I don't think so," Jeffrey said. "Even with comms disrupted by this magnetic storm, and power blackouts, they'll have fiber-optic land lines." Jeffrey was sure the alert would go out soon, if it hadn't already, even if German intercommand and army/navy connectivity were slow. Jeffrey knew his team's whole survival now came down to a race against German reaction time.
"Sir," Montgomery said, "we'll barely have enough range to reach the southern coast of Sweden at four knots. It's fifty nautical miles."
"It'll take forever," Meltzer said. "The Germans will cut us off."
Big cannon shells impacted close, probably from more Leopard III's, and Montgomery veered to starboard. Jeffrey held on tight.
"It's our only chance," Jeffrey said. "Make for neutral territory. Maybe we can escape-and-evade into the hinterland with our booty, and contact the American embassy or something."
There was another heavy explosion in the water.
"The mountains in the winter will be murder," Ilse said. "Stockholm's a long way from the southern coast."
"If the Swedes pick us up," Montgomery said, "and don't shoot us on sight, we'll be interned for the rest of the war. They'll keep our goodies themselves, sir, even give them back to Germany." Another big shell landed, somewhere ahead, and Montgomery veered to port.
"Ilse," Jeffrey said, "you have any other thoughts?"
"I wish I did."
Jeffrey stifled a heavy yawn. The adrenaline was wearing off, and he felt an overwhelming drowsiness.
"Ilse, there's nothing more you and I can do right now. Let's go in back and try to get some sleep and let these guys do their jobs. Pilot, Copilot, your objective is the Swedish coast."
CHAPTER 23
THREE HOURS LATER, IN THE GERMAN MINISUB
Jeffrey jerked awake. He'd heard an explosion — it wasn't a dream. The transport compartment seemed half empty, because of the three SEALs killed in action, and Andy Cooper staying behind. Equipment packs littered the deck. The hard-drive cases were stacked near the chemical head.
Jeffrey glanced at Clayton and Salih. Clayton slept, but his color seemed good, and the SEAL attending him gave Jeffrey a thumbs-up. The reserve SEALs clutched their uranium-pellet air guns.
Salih looked very pale. "I'm seasick, and I'm feeling claustrophobic."
Jeffrey forced a knowing grin. "You just need something to do, Gamal. Remember your army first aid?"
"Ja."
"Help us take care of the lieutenant."
Salih nodded, and stopped feeling sorry for himself.
"Let me see what's going on." Jeffrey went forward. In the lock-out sphere he eyed the Mach 8 missile, and wondered if it would ever reach friendly lines. Ilse was already up and in the control compartment.
Jeffrey had noticed this at Durban — in combat she had boundless energy. She was getting to be quite a veteran. So was Meltzer.
Jeffrey read the display screens. The mini was making flank speed, all of twelve knots, on a course near due north. Their depth was one hundred thirty feet, in one hundred fifty feet of water. German frigates and patrol craft had them surrounded. The fuel gauge read five percent, and they were many miles from Sweden.
"That blast just now was an old design of torpedo," Montgomery said, "launched from a missile boat. Crappy software, made bottom capture, blew a hole in the mud." M
ore explosions sounded in the distance.
"Depth charges that time," Jeffrey said.
"We're stealthy," the chief said, "but they're closing in."
"Any mines nearby?"
"We're still in their submarine exercise area…. Of course, they could drop new mines."
"Where are all their training subs?"
"Warned away, we think, Captain," Meltzer said. "To give the combat-ready surface force an open field."
Jeffrey glanced at Ilse. She tried to smile back reassuringly — without success. "Can't we blend in?" Jeffrey said. "Pretend to be a training sub, like before?"
"What's that get us?" Montgomery said. "A POW cage, and a gibbet for Salih and Ilse."
"Torpedo in the water!" Meltzer said. "Bearing zero seven zero!.. Constant bearing! Sounds like an SUT unit, Captain, wire-guided, launched from that Class one-thirty corvette east of us."
A corvette was smaller than a frigate, but nimble and aggressive still.
"Range?" Jeffrey said.
"Seven thousand yards."
"Torpedo attack speed?"
"Er, thirty-four knots."
"Impact in six minutes," Montgomery said, "unless we keep running, and run down our peroxide."
"Pilot," Jeffrey said, "go shallow, thirty-three feet. Maintain flank speed. Steer two five zero." Away from that torpedo. "Copilot, stand by to equalize the lock-out sphere. Ilse, gimme a hand."
Jeffrey and Ilse went into the sphere. In a small locker was a case of three-inch chemical noisemakers. The mini took a steep up-bubble. The missile shifted, and Jeffrey almost broke an ankle. He and Ilse got the noisemakers out.
The mini leveled off. The air pressure in the sphere began to rise. Jeffrey and Ilse pinched their noses and blew. The pressure held at two atmospheres. The torpedo began to ping.
Jeffrey knelt and opened the bottom hatch. Water splashed from the mini's high speed. Jeffrey held out a hand. Ilse gave him a noisemaker. He threw it into the water, hard. She gave him another, another. Contact with saltwater would do the rest.
Jeffrey grabbed the intercom. "Pilot, make a knuckle, steer due north."
He and Ilse held on as the mini banked into the turn.
Jeffrey dropped three more noisemakers, then closed the bottom hatch. Again he grabbed the mike.
"Equalize to one atmosphere, then go deep."
"How deep?" Montgomery asked on the intercom. "Ten feet off the bottom."
Jeffrey and Ilse went into the control compartment as the mini nosed back down. The incoming torpedo pinged more rapidly.
"Torpedo still on constant bearing," Meltzer said. "Range decreasing fast." There was a tremendous concussion, and the mini lurched and yawed. One of the wide screens went blank, and smoke came from the environmental control console. Meltzer cut the power there and sprayed with CO2. An acrid stink lingered.
"We're still under control," Montgomery said. "That fish went for the noisemakers."
Jeffrey watched the tactical plot. The surface craft converged on the latest datum.
"New passive sonar contact!" Meltzer said. "Bremen-class frigate, bearing two eight zero, range twelve thousand yards…. More new passive sonar contacts, two helos, closing fast from two eight zero."
"We're never gonna make it," Jeffrey said. "We're almost out of fuel, and almost out of noisemakers. We lie doggo on the bottom, they'll just wait us out or hunt us down. Our environmental control is fried, and our battery's almost flat."
"Torpedo in the water!" Meltzer screamed. "From two eight zero, the Bremen. It's a prewar U.S. export, a Mark forty-six." A dangerous one.
Jeffrey eyed the nav chart. "Bottom the boat in this hollow just ahead on zero one five. Maybe we can hide in he terrain."
"Air-dropped torpedo in the water! ASW helo overhead!"
"Damn," Jeffrey said. The Mark 46 dashed by with a scream and hit the lip of the hollow. The detonation shook the mini and warning lights came on. The air-dropped unit, another 46, spiraled down and also exploded nearby. The mini was shoved sideways against the bottom muck and boulders.
"Seawater leakage in the external battery cans," Montgomery said. Another console shorted out. Meltzer sprayed more CO2, sparingly, but now they'd have to breathe it and the smoke — the mini lacked air breathers to go around, and the few undamaged Draegers wouldn't last long. The built-up CO2 made Jeffrey sluggish and depressed. Ilse coughed. More depth charges blasted, much closer now, from the Class 130.
"Another torpedo in the water!" Meltzer said. "Bearing two nine five!"
"I'm sorry, people," Jeffrey said. "We tried. In the interest of saving as many lives as possible, I'm ordering the mini to surface and surrender."
Ilse looked at Jeffrey. He saw a sense of betrayal in her eyes. "I'm sorry."
Ilse wondered if she'd go to Hell for taking her own life. Was that better or worse than hanging, than dangling and kicking naked while she endlessly choked and her tongue tried to burst and her bladder let go? Was Hell better or worse than being gang-raped first and then strung up for the rapists to watch?
"Captain!" Meltzer shouted. "Latest torpedo now on diverging course! Screw-count and engine noise show it's an Improved ADCAP Mark forty-eight, targeting the Bremen!"
"Are you sure?"
"Confirmed! Second ADCAP in the water, targeting the Class one-thirty… New passive sonar contact! Polyphems, torpedo-tube launched, aimed at the helos overhead!" Polyphems were small anti-aircraft missiles.
"What's going on?" Ilse said.
The message light blinked.
"Answer it," Jeffrey snapped.
"It's plain text gertrude," Montgomery said.
"On speakers."
"This is USS Challenger. Repeat, this is USS Challenger." The voice was scratchy and garbled, but Ilse knew it was the XO, Lieutenant Bell, the acting captain.
"They're on bearing two nine five," Meltzer said. "Range fifteen thousand yards."
Ilse saw Jeffrey grab the gertrude mike. Before he could answer, the roaring Polyphems hit the German helos in harsh eruptions. There were pops as debris impacted the surface. The wreckage made a rushing noise as it plunged to the bottom, then thumped into the silt. Something clunked onto the mini's top deck, then something else. The high-explosive ADCAP hit the Bremen. The frigate's magazines went up. Reverb from the detonations drowned out the other sounds as the surface warship died. The other ADCAP hit the Class 130 corvette. The minisub rocked.
Jeffrey looked furious.
"Challenger, Challenger, this is Captain Fuller! What in God's name are you doing in the Baltic? I told you to get out if there was trouble!"
"Captain," Bell said, "we were ordered in by COMSUBLANT. Stand by for rendezvous and hangar pickup."
* * *
The minisub was docked, stowed snugly inside Challenger's conformal hangar. The pressure-proof hangar doors were closed, the pressure relieved, the water in the hangar drained. Meltzer opened the mini's bottom hatch, mated to the top of the ship's forward escape trunk, aft of her sail.
Jeffrey went down the ladder first, and fast. He helped the enlisted SEALs pass a groggy Clayton through the trunk, then onto a waiting litter outside the trunk's bottom hatch, in Challenger proper. Clayton grimaced in pain from being manhandled, but with the missile in the lockout sphere they couldn't bring a stretcher up. Clayton's wound — actually two, an entry and an exit hole — began to bleed again. The acting corpsman looked him over as Salih and crewmen carried the litter toward the wardroom, which doubled as Challenger's operating theater. Salih's arm wound bled, too. Ilse came, down next, followed by Meltzer. Chief Montgomery stayed behind to deal with his men and their gear. Minisub maintenance specialists went up the ladder with tool bags.
Bell came to meet Jeffrey. "Sessions has the conn."
Jeffrey and Bell shook hands warmly. "Mission accomplished, so far," Jeffrey said. " Lab destroyed, intel gotten." Compared to Bell's crisp appearance Jeffrey realized how grungy he must look.
"Who's that guy with the bi
g mustache?"
"A Turk guest worker turned resistance leader. He has quite a story." Jeffrey heard more torpedo hits in the distance, then heavy secondary blasts. Challenger banked to port and then to starboard as she made a knuckle. From the feel, Jeffrey judged they were doing close to thirty knots, about as fast as they could go with their damaged pump-jet.
"Will you please tell me what's going on?" Jeffrey knew the ship was at general quarters — he saw the damage control and first-aid parties stationed. He and Bell rushed along the corridor to the CACC. Ike and Meltzer tagged behind.
"Mossad has a covert team in the mountains in southern Sweden, sir. They put up a Predator long-range recon drone with a laser downlink, to monitor Greifswald."
"Nosy bastards," Jeffrey said.
"They watched you come out of the lab with the missile. They must have contacted our embassy in Stockholm, and the attaché reached the Pentagon somehow, maybe land-line through Russia."
"How did SUBLANT reach you?"
"They activated a submarine commo satellite when it was over Denmark, then burned through a message before the satellite got fried by the solar storm. I'd raised the radio mast an inch when Milgrom heard your atom bombs go off, on the off chance. "
"How did you get through the Sound?"
"On the surface, Captain, the only possible way." The Sound was very shallow "When German forces asked for the recognition code, we said in plain text we were Deutschland. We'd been on patrol too long, and our crypto books were stale. Surprise, poor visibility, no quick way to check… We fooled 'em."
Jeffrey looked Bell in the eyes, and saw Bell's confidence, his pride — he was shaping up as a worthy protégé. "That's damn fine work, XO." Jeffrey could picture it, too, that long run south: the endless minutes of vulnerability and nerve-racking suspense, moving further and further into enemy-held waters surfaced, waiting to be found out and destroyed at any time. "I don't think that's gonna work on the way out."
"I know, Captain," Bell said. "Still, it's good to have you back." Bell turned and gave Ilse and Meltzer congratulatory handshakes, too.
