by Brian Cain
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
One am, Thursday the first of April, nineteen ninety-nine. The British guided missile frigate HMS Dover battled heavy seas whipped up by cyclone Victor as she entered the Yellow sea, mid way between Nagasaki in Japan and Shanghai on the China coast. She was under surveillance by China; the Dover had broken away from joint war games with the Americans in the North Pacific off the coast of Okinawa. Tracking the Dover was now impossible as she fought huge seas amid the cyclone. North Korea had scrambled a squadron of Migs as the Dover came in range; they turned back in the impossible weather. Japan contacted the British Prime Minister for an answer. Silence crept through the airwaves of communication as the world watched.
As the Dover struggled on, Jason’s slumber was shattered by his ADAM alarm vibrating on the bedside cabinet; he hastily dressed trying not to wake Anita. He rang Sloan, now the police commissioner, as he crept down the stairs, asking for an escort to the airport. He left a note for Anita then used the fastest means of transport available from the garage. Malinda’s Ferrari, now treasured by Anita, left the driveway in a cloud of smoke. Jason then rang his pilot on stand-by at the Adelaide airport, instructing him to have the small sleek jet ready for take off immediately, destination Woomera.
The British Prime Minister was in contact with British Admiralty, demanding answers on the Dover’s movements. He was informed that no such instructions had been given to the Dover. She was acting of her own accord; there was no response to the constant attempts of radio communication. The Dover displayed all the signs of being on red alert.
The Dover’s captain stood on the bridge. He clung to a hand rail beneath the window overlooking the ship’s bow; he steadied himself as the ship crashed through the ten metre waves and across the deck. His lieutenant stood beside him. “The weather should break within the hour captain, the cyclone is heading south; the worst is over.” There was silence as the lieutenant studied the radar screen, showing the ship’s location on the northern most edge of cyclone Victor. “Do you think we will come under attack sir?”
“As soon as we clear this weather, they may wait for first light; we remain at battle stations till further notice. We have two hours, at the most,” said the captain, looking straight ahead and showing no emotion.
“Why us sir?”
The captain continued his gaze across the bow. “We just follow orders lieutenant, we don’t question them. You saw them yourself, in war code.”
“This is madness sir, there’s no chance of us succeeding.”
The captain gave the lieutenant a stern look. “Hand me the intercom lieutenant, if you feel that way, write a letter to your family and put it in your top pocket. We don’t know what’s going on elsewhere, for all we know Europe may be a pile of rubble by now; our orders are clear.” The captain took the hand piece of the intercom from the lieutenant. “Now hear this, this is your captain speaking. I will now inform you of our objectives. We have been and will remain on red alert; we are entering the Yellow Sea and have received orders to strike several mainland China targets with our warheads. The cover of cyclone Victor has helped our cause till now; the weather should break within the hour, our first missiles will be launched then, target, Shanghai. We can expect a mass air attack with the weather break. All aircraft in range are to be considered hostile. Part of the Chinese fleet is two hundred kilometres north northwest of us, under full power on our heading. We will engage them at eighty kilometres. The reasons for our orders are unknown. The Dover is the best equipped frigate on the surface of the earth as regards armaments, technology and manpower. Good luck gentlemen and may God be with you.”
The crew looked at each other with solemn, stunned faces. A young strike technician wiped tears from his cheeks as he monitored the co-ordinates required to deliver the Dover’s deadly nuclear warheads to the targets. Many were in prayer throughout the Dover’s crew; the captain bowed his head and closed his eyes.
Jason’s pilot put the jet down on the stretch of road leading to the bunker; Harry and Beagle used car lights to guide him either end of the road. The nose wheel of the little jet came down exactly on the white line in the centre of the road; it taxied to a stop at the bunker entrance. Jason left the pilot with the aircraft and entered the bunker with Harry and Beagle. Harry explained what they knew. “A British guided missile frigate, the Dover, has been ordered into the Yellow Sea from manoeuvres with the Americans in the North Pacific. We know her orders are to strike several mainland targets. She has been under cover of Cyclone Victor. The North Koreans have attempted a strike; it failed due to the weather. China are about to engage the Dover by air and sea. The Dover is heavily armed and capable of causing a lot of trouble; she has multiple nuclear warheads on her long range missiles. She would be capable of repelling two waves of air attack, by then she would have delivered her load destroying mainland China and be a sitting duck. No warship above or below the water is close enough to engage her by that time.”
“Why is she there?” asked Jason.
“No one seems to know,” replied Harry. “The British and French are busy ordering all naval, land and air forces back to their own waters, obviously preparing to defend themselves. All American and Russian forces are on yellow alert.”
Jason looked puzzled. “If the British are doing that, why is the Dover behaving like it is?”
“The British are under pressure from every one, they don’t have an answer. We may be able to help them with that. No one has been able to communicate with the Dover. ADAM has found that her orders are not coming from British Admiralty, but somewhere in the Bahamas. We can’t pinpoint it exactly, seems the Dover and the area her orders are coming from are somehow cloaked from location. The radio waves aren’t traceable until they are ten thousand metres from their source and are not detectable ten thousand metres from the Dover. ADAM thinks it’s changing frequency somehow, but we can’t be sure. The computer will tell us when it comes up with something. Meanwhile, we better do something about World War Three.”
Jason rang the Governor General, Sir Anthony Owers. He informed him of the situation and his intent to use ADAM to defuse the problem for all concerned. Sir Anthony was already awake, the British Prime Minister had contacted him only minutes earlier to brief him of the events. Sir Anthony knew nothing of ADAM but agreed anything that could be done, should be. He would inform Westminster of the information. Jason studied the worsening events on the screen in front of him. “Dispatch three pods, one to hover above the Dover at a thousand metres, rendering her immobile. The other two to circle her at twenty thousand metres causing any attacking ships or aircraft to have the same problem; would that work Harry?”
“Yes it should, but the aircraft would be uncontrollable and probably crash. Their hydraulic and guidance systems are all electric,” replied Harry.
“Is there any way we can inform everyone of this?” asked Jason.
Harry smiled. “ADAM can do that in a jiffy. I’ll send the pods; Beagle you put in the information message for all frequencies, now we find out if this thing works.”
All land, sea and air forces and governments throughout the world received a message by whatever means available to them, it read as follows:
URGENT MESSAGE. AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE ARMS MANUFACTURERS INTEGRATED DEFENCE SYSTEM. REGARDING, HMS DOVER. LOCATION, YELLOW SEA. DOVER NOT ACTING ON INSTRUCTIONS FROM BRITISH AUTHORITIES. SOURCE OF INSTRUCTIONS UNKNOWN. SITUATION IS THREAT TO AUSTRALIAN AND WORLD SECURITY. ADAM DEFENCE PODS ENTERING FOREIGN SIR SPACE TO ASSIST DEFUSING TENSION. DOVER WILL BE RENDERED CALM AND INOPERATIVE. AREA AGGRESSION WILL BE RENDERED CALM AND INOPERATIVE UNTIL SITUATION RESOLVED. MESSAGE CONCLUDED.
The Dover had pushed on to calmer waters; she was on countdown to missile launch, ten, nine, eight. The air defence radar operators had no time to announce the arrival of ADAM before their screens went dead along with all electrical systems. The A10 pod cancelled the power of the Dover’s attack, defence and navigation system and she lay calm in the swaying waters. The c
aptain yelled to his lieutenant, “What the hell is going on?”
“We seem to have lost all power sir. We have nothing, not even the radio.”
Port and starboard visual watch seaman came onto the bridge at the same time. “Captain, I think you better see this for yourself sir,” said one of them. The captain and lieutenant walked into the warm morning air as the sun began to show signs of its impending presence. The seaman pointed directly above the ship. They saw the bright blue glow of the A10 as it hummed above them.
“What the hell is that lieutenant!?” asked the captain.
“Whatever it is, radar reports it was travelling so fast, they couldn’t calculate its speed before we lost power.”
The captain stared at the blue glow. “This thing must have something to do with the power loss. Manually crank the two hundred millimetre gun turret to engage it lieutenant, we must try something. The gunnery crew cranked the manual handles of the turret to align the conventional weapon with the A10 pod. They fired a round. A bolt of light from the base of the A10 pod destroyed it no more than a hundred metres from the muzzle of the gun. Sparks from the explosion showered down onto the ship. The captain and crew ran for cover of the bridge. “All crew to stay under cover until further notice lieutenant, I have no idea what this thing is; I can only assume it is not of this world.”
Harry received a message from ADAM on his screen. “Communication with the Dover from the unknown source has ceased, the cloak around her has gone; we can talk to her.” The A10 above the Dover withdrew to three thousand metres and sent a message to the ships captain, as power was restored to the vessel. URGENT MESSAGE. AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE ARMS MANUFACTURERS INTEGRATED DEFENCE SYSTEM. CONTACT BRITISH ADMIRALTY, PREVIOUS ORDERS FROM UNKNOWN SOURCE. MESSAGE CONCLUDED.
British Admiralty gave the Dover orders to immediately withdraw. The two circling A10 pods had intercepted a squadron of Migs deployed from Shanghai. The pods came under attack from the planes and destroyed all incoming air to air missiles launched at them. The pods then closed in to one thousand metres, the planes lost all power, and all nine planes of the squadron fell from the sky, the pilots ejecting before impact. During this time, the British convinced China that all was well; China and North Korea came off full alert. ADAM informed China its planes had gone down giving the exact location in the Yellow Sea, two hundred kilometres due east of the Shanghai coast. The Dover was the closest thing to initiate a rescue of the downed airmen. In an offer of goodwill, the Dover was committed to rescue the airmen by the British Prime Minister. Once rescued they were to transfer them to the Chinese battleship the Gansu also directed to the rescue mission by the Chinese, now going full ahead to the rescue location, deferred from its mission of engaging the Dover. Forces around the world came off alert as the Dover picked up the airmen by means of her long boats and transferred them all safely to the Gansu.
The Russian nuclear submarine the Rostov sitting in shallow water below the rescue area had fired her reactor on orders from the Kremlin, in reaction to the day’s events. She slipped quietly towards the Sea of Japan a little earlier than expected, heading for Vladivostok, her replacement whisked silently into the Yellow Sea.
It was five am on the morning of the third of April before ADAM was withdrawn from foreign air space; Jason had been in the bunker for forty-eight hours. The pilot and jet waited in the car park above the bunker; Beagle visited him every few hours. ADAM had done all it was designed to do. Jason thought about what had happened. He saw it as the first clue to his task; military might being used in a manner as to only create terror. ADAM had found that none of the targets given to the Dover were of any military significance; all were civilian locations, hardly a strategic military manoeuvre. The end result would have been millions of dead innocent people, the loss of a British guided missile frigate and probable holocaust in the pursuing mayhem. ADAM had found the Dover’s bogus instructions had come from the Florida, Puerto Rico, Bermuda area, better known as the Bermuda Triangle. Jason stood in front of the giant screen looking at the flashing lights in the area he was thinking about. “What do you think about all this Jason?” asked Harry.
“I have to find six people, Florida may be a good place to start,” said Jason.
Harry looked perplexed. “What are you going to do with these six people that seem to be so important?”
Jason looked very seriously at Harry, “I’m going to kill them.”
As British seamen and Chinese airmen told stories of flying saucers, the military might of the world turned to Australia for an explanation.