He rolled over on his back then squirmed forward, watching concealed at the corner of the window as two closely spaced jet aircraft roared into the sky over Lake Geneva. He felt drained and shaky. Forcing himself to get up, he abandoned everything but a water bottle. By the time the Swiss security got here, he needed to be long gone.
He took just enough time to splash the contents of the police truck's twenty-liter fuel can into the shed and ignite it, then he retied his makeshift bandage tight and ran the half-mile to the parked Fiat, teeth clenched against the pain. He threw on his jacket and stuffed another undershirt against the wound.
Less than an hour later he drove back across the Italian border, waved on by casual Carbinieri. Amid the confusion of the fires, the dead hit team and the murdered Swiss police, it took almost a day before they had enough information to put out an alert for ‘Christopher Dunham’. By that time, Skull had purchased another identity from his Sicilian contacts and disappeared.
-22-
Elise Markis’ visit had been restorative for her, and a vacation for the kids, but after long consultations with Shawna it was clear that Elise had lost control of her biological research program. Edens had a lot less to fear, but nuclear fire was still one hell of a threat. People have been avoiding progress, and I’ve been subconsciously avoiding that truth. Now that I'm back at the lab, that will have to change.
“All right,” she said to her picked team. “This underground lab is the newest and best we have assembled in some time. I’ve hand-selected each of you, and you’ve all agreed to be sequestered. We’re staying here until we make the Plague airborne, so if you ever want to see the surface again, you’d better get it in gear and find a way to make it happen.”
Her pleasant face was as grim and earnest as she could make it; the speech was a bit of showmanship but she was serious anyway. “That includes me. I won’t see my husband or children until we’re done or we all agree it’s impossible, and I don’t believe in impossible. So dammit, let’s get to work.”
Two days later the Markis samples from Geneva arrived and her team’s priorities abruptly changed. She put out the call for anyone with expertise in nanotechnology. The first response was something of a surprise.
“Larry? You want in on this?”
The big engineer nodded across the video link. “I’m just up the road, and I can be useful. I’ve done more nano stuff than you might think, on the exotic materials and nanochip side.”
“You’ll have to come join us in the Roach Motel. Scientists go in, they don’t come out. Security. Think you can handle it?”
Larry glanced sideways. “Yes, Shawna’s already approved…grudgingly. But she knows what’s at stake. If the UG creates some anti-Eden nanoplague, it could kill half the people on Earth. We’re damn lucky it didn’t work on DJ; I want to find out why. Did they have an old version of the Plague? Did they test it on a weak carrier?”
“Okay, I’ll be glad to have you. If you have any others you can convince to join us, bring them along – same conditions, though. Nobody comes out for the foreseeable future.”
“All right. I’ll be there soon.” Larry signed off.
-23-
Captain Milton G. Bartholomew, Sr. UGN, stared out at the heaving swells of the South Pacific from the bridge of the UGS John F. Kennedy, one of the world’s most modern supercarriers. As the Sea Combat Commander, he had over seventy-five modern aircraft to call on through his CAG – his Commander, Air Group. He had helicopters, he had sonar, he had feeds from the whole CSG – the Carrier Strike Group – antisubmarine ships and aircraft which included sonobouys and synthetic aperture radar and all manner of sensors, he had a hundred billion dollars’ worth of technology at his fingertips. And he still couldn’t find one damned boomer. The Commissar was going to have his ass, not to mention the Admiral.
Part of it was this damned cyber attack that the free Communities had launched. UGS intel was being very closemouthed about how they knew, but the latest intelligence summary claimed 95% certainty that it was the FC behind it. No matter who it was, it was causing a lot of problems. The fleet was reduced to secondary means of communication, UHF, VHF and ultra-long-wave, since all the satellites were crapped out. Fortunately the CSG’s internal links, though degraded by the lack of satellite bounce, were functioning using over-the-horizon and line-of-sight comms. The Navy had multiple redundant systems for command and control, and they were getting a workout the last few days.
He had hoped a bit of fresh air would help him think but it wasn’t working, not with that damned Political Officer Stimson hovering around him wherever he tried to go. Bartholomew was as good a Unionist as anyone but no military man likes his decisions constantly reviewed and second-guessed.
Nimbly descending several ladders, he hurried back down to the Combat Direction Center, the CDC, to stare at the screens, displays, radar and sonar feeds.
The Admiral was not going to be happy, and Bartholomew was the most convenient whipping boy when things went wrong. First among equals, he was supposed to coordinate the entire surface deployment of the battle group to accomplish the mission tasking. He had coordinated; they simply hadn’t accomplished the task. It didn’t matter that the Admiral was actually the one in charge, and could order whatever maneuvers he wanted; Bartholomew had to get the job done.
He didn’t understand why he hadn’t. As soon as Pacific Command had lost contact with the nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine UGNS Nebraska, the strike group had turned toward its last reported position and raced to find it. They had gotten there within twenty hours.
At first they had thought it was some kind of accident; there was supposed to have been a rescue drill with the Frank Cable’s submersible, but the boat wasn’t where it should have been. Then they thought perhaps it was enemy action, though no explosions had been recorded by the passive sonar installations scattered about the sea floor, or by other subs listening.
Then the rumors from Fiji had turned out to be true; for the first time in naval history, a submarine had been boarded – boarded! – at sea and apparently hijacked.
The captain of the Nebraska should be court-martialed for negligence. But the coward and the rest of his men were claiming asylum in the Free Republic of Fiji, and the Australian Navy was deployed to defend that island nation. He really didn’t want to tangle with the Australians. They were the only one of these namby-pamby Free Communities he could halfway respect. They were the only ones that would stand up and fight instead of hitting and running, spreading their inhuman disease and corrupting the minds and morals of everyone they touched.
He shuddered. Unionists like me are the only things standing between the world and the complete anarchy and neo-communism of these infected Sickos.
It didn’t matter. It wasn’t time to tangle with the Australians yet. They should have been nuked early on, when everybody was hollering but nobody was willing to do anything. If those pussified French and British and Japanese hadn’t threatened to start retaliating with nukes for the strikes, they could have brought the Sickos to their knees, wiped them out once and for all. The Japanese, for God's sake! Who’d have thought they could put together nuclear weapons so quickly, and ditch their alliance with the US in favor of working with the Chinese? At least the South Koreans had stayed more or less loyal.
So now the Pacific Fleet was stretched to the limit – the same as ever – countering the Japanese and Chinese and Australian navies, protecting its trade routes, not to mention suppressing rampant drug smuggling from South America and dealing with the constant guerilla war from Free Community commandos.
But none of that mattered right now. He was just delaying the inevitable, which was to go down to the flag bridge and tell Rear Admiral Halston that he still had nothing. Not a clue. The Nebraska had just…vanished.
Pacific Command was coordinating two other CSGs and several independently- operating attack subs, sweeping the most likely lanes. They had positioned a few of their hunter-kil
lers and several detached destroyer escorts between the hijacked sub's last known position and the Australians, and he didn’t think the Nebraska could have slipped through. From the reports, there were only a few commandos aboard. There was no way they could slink through the holes in their antisubmarine net the way a full trained crew could. His submarine liaison officer had assured him all they could do was point the boat in one direction and go, and hope to get away.
He took one more look at the map display set into the smart table. They had everything westward covered. The CSG centered around the UGS Gerald Ford had the east, barring the way to any run toward the South American Coast or the Straits of Magellan. So where did that leave them?
South?
But that made no sense. There was nothing south. The pirates didn’t have the manpower and expertise to skirt the Antarctic shelf and escape close around the frozen continent. That took sonarmen and helmsmen and nuclear engineers and a host of others. What else would they do? What would he do if he were them? He slid his fingers across the touchscreen, setting the field of view just as he wanted it. He plotted angles, speeds, circles of maximum distances traveled.
It all depended on how much of a hurry they were in. If they were patient, if, say, they gently grounded the boat on the bottom in the trackless southern latitudes, a handful of men could stay down for years. They might go stir-crazy, but they could do it. Then they could reemerge at any time. It would be a constant threat.
Maybe that was their game. A deterrent. Maybe that insight would redeem him somewhat in the eyes of the hawklike Admiral Hanson. He shrugged silently. What could they do to him? Deny him his flag? He didn’t care about that. He just wanted to get to kill some Sickos. And maybe, just maybe, if they turned the CSG southward right now, they could catch these sons of bitches.
He gave such orders as were within his authority, extending the battle group’s perimeter southward. He then issued a fleet advisory that noted the possibility of the enemy running south. Perhaps that would prompt the independent attack subs to look harder in that direction. The UGS Tucson was closest; Captain Absen was one of the best. He might read between the lines. It was all he could do right now.
He hurried to brief the Admiral, that weasel Political Officer Stimson following silently behind.
-24-
Jill Repeth saw that Colonel Nguyen had dragged Alkina with him into the control room and bound her into a seat with liberal use of duct tape. A couple of turns around her mouth ensured her silence. She was still out cold from the trank. She wondered how long that would hold the woman; it had only kept Jill out for fifteen minutes or so, and it was an eight-hour dose for a normal non-Eden. Thus the tape. “All right, sir, what’s going on? Where is the rest of the team?”
“No one is answering their comms. It looks like we are all that are conscious. Unfortunately we do not have time to find out. The missiles show they are ready for firing, and our launch window opens in four minutes and closes in ten. One of you will have to turn Alkina’s key.” The Colonel pointed at the chain around Alkina’s neck.
“Not me, thanks,” answered Bitzer. “You’re going to need me to keep the boat at proper firing depth. When those things all launch they’ll shake us something fierce, and change the specific gravity of the boat, a thousand tons of missiles and counterflooding. Unless you want us rolling over and the latter half of them misfiring, you and Reaper will have to do it.”
Nguyen wasn’t sure if Bitzer was exaggerating or not, but there was no time to argue. No point in forcing him when he was the only one who could drive the boat. “Very well. Jill, you will have to do it. Can I count on you?” His eyes bored into hers.
Her return gaze was steady. “Of course, sir. I’m a Marine. Just tell me what I have to do.”
“Thank you. The codes are already programmed in. All you have to do is turn your key when I do, first left to arm, right to fire. I will count as follows: one, two, three, arm; one, two, three, fire; one, two, three, neutral. Then we select the next missile, and do it again. Eighteen missiles, six in reserve. We have to do it fast and precisely to fire them all in six minutes; then we dive, we run, and we hope we are not killed.”
“One minute, sor,” called Bitzer. “Opening missile hatches.”
Repeth grabbed the key from Alkina’s neck, snapping the chain. The bound woman’s eyes were already half-open, hazy, wandering.
“All right, there’s your station. Here’s mine. Open the cover. Insert the key. Select missile number one. Ready?”
She nodded.
“Remember, it’s toward the left to arm, right to fire, center to neutral reset. Ready to arm: one, two, three, arm.”
They turned their keys together; Trident missile one indicator changed from ‘ready’ to ‘armed.’
“Thirty seconds.”
Alkina moaned, rolling her eyes.
“Bitzer, trank her again, will you?”
“Can’t sor, not if you want to launch on time.” His hands gripped the helm controls, sweat breaking out on his brow.
“Never mind. Call out at five seconds.”
Jill’s heart hammered in her chest, her palms sweating. She let go of the key for a moment to reach under her tunic, wiping her hands on her undershirt.
“Aye, sor. Five seconds…now.”
“Ready to launch, Gunny?” Nguyen’s voice was preternaturally calm.
Jill put her hand back on the key, nodded.
-25-
Captain Henrich J. Absen was not a man to fret. Affable, cheerful, slow-talking and deep thinking was how his crew would describe him. But today, he was as far from his usual demeanor as they had ever seen. Today, and for the last several days, he was wound tight, concentrating. Today he was hunting.
“Helm, right fifteen degrees rudder, steady on course one seven six.”
“Right fifteen degrees rudder, steady on course one seven six aye…my rudder is right fifteen.”
“Dive, Make your depth two three zero.”
“Make your depth two three zero aye, sir. Stern planes two-degree down bubble.”
Sonarman Leslie Morton looked up at the Chief of the Boat, the most senior enlisted man on board, who was holding a cup of coffee perched on his ample gut. “We’re still heading south?” he whispered. “Aren’t we almost to Antarctica?”
The COB shrugged, took a sip of his ever-present brew—what submariners called ‘lifer-juice’. “The Old Man knows what he’s doing. Just keep your ears on.” He felt a lot more relaxed, even in combat conditions, since that damned Political Officer had his fatal ‘accident’. Thinking of it made him smile to himself.
Morton reached up to put the other headphone on his right ear. The one on the left never came off when he was on watch. Computers would alert him, but he liked to hear any contact live and right away, no matter how good the equipment was.
Ten minutes later he got his wish. “Conn: Sonar, submerged narrowband contact, possible sub, bearing two zero five, range…computer estimates thirty to sixty nautical miles by bottom bounce ranging.”
The Captain’s voice was steady. “Helm, all ahead flank. Right fifteen degrees rudder, steady on course two-zero-five. Sonar, go active sector search with minimum power. Man battle stations.
The men in the control room glanced at each other as they complied. “Maneuvering answers all ahead flank, steady on course two zero five.” The submarine, so usually silent, now hummed with a machine vibration, a sound that made everyone nervous, set their teeth on edge, like laughing in a library.
“What the hell is he doing?” Ensign James Cooper whispered to the COB. “They’ll hear us, we’re cavitating at flank speed!” He meant the boat’s screws, or propellers, were going so fast that they formed bubbles of water vapor in the water, and with those bubbles came noise. “And they’ll hear the sonar pings!”
The COB looked at the green young officer with a mixture of condescension and patience. “If they had a crew, son, you’d be right. But the reports said these
pirates only have a couple of bubbleheads, max. Think about it – a handful of men to capture a boat, you send SEALs or suchlike mostly, not sub drivers. So the Old Man’s taking a chance going to flank speed, catch up with them. The sonar is for the ice. Be kind of pointless if we run into an ice keel and kill ourselves.”
The devil was listening. “Conn: sonar, active sonar contact ice, dead ahead six thousand yards, depth three three zero.”
“You see?” The COB chuckled.
Captain Absen called, “Dive, make your depth five zero zero.”
“Make my depth five zero zero, aye.” As the helmsman angled the bow planes slightly down the powerful steam turbine engines drove the boat to the target depth of five hundred feet, plenty of room to miss the mountain of ice looming above them.
Six hours later the contact was still intermittent but strengthening. It had moved around, echoes thrown here and there off the sea floor and the floating mountains of sea ice, but it was still generally to the south-southwest.
Ensign Cooper handed the captain a secure computer tablet. “ULF message from Fleet, sir.”
Absen looked at the decoded print. He turned the screen over, face down to the console. “Thank you, Ensign.”
“Any return message, sir?”
“That will be all, Mister Cooper.”
The junior officer swallowed. “Aye aye, sir.” He nodded and walked back to the Chief. He really should be asking the Executive Officer questions like these but the COB was a lot more tolerant of his inquisitiveness. “Master Chief, he’s not doing anything. The orders tell us to turn west.”
“Sir.” The honorific dripped with barely-concealed sarcasm. “Neither of us is qualified to second-guess the Old Man. If you want that little gold bar to ever turn silver, I suggest you watch and learn.” The Chief of the Boat stared at his nominal superior, then relented. “Look, Ensign, we know the situation out here better than Fleet. They say look over there, but we know we got something over here. What’s more important, following orders or completing the mission?”
The Demon Plagues Page 14
