Understrike

by James Barrington

  ‘I’ve read about it,’ Pavlov said, nodding, ‘but I don’t know much about it. In Russia, they call it Poseidon.’

  ‘I think you’re wrong about this,’ Barber said. ‘I know our relations with Moscow are pretty cool at the moment, but there would be no reason for them to launch an attack using the Status-6 weapon or anything like it, because they know what our response would be.’

  Richter nodded.

  ‘I agree,’ he said, ‘and I didn’t say that they would be launching such an attack.’

  Both Barber and Pavlov looked puzzled.

  ‘Then why did you mention it?’ the CIA agent demanded.

  ‘Because I think that what they’re trying to do is initiate the collapse of the western flank of the Cumbre Vieja volcano into the Atlantic Ocean.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Steve Barber said. ‘About twenty minutes ago you gave us a whole bunch of really good reasons why that couldn’t happen, about how even a real big nuke wouldn’t be powerful enough to trigger an eruption in any volcano.’

  Richter nodded.

  ‘I had a long conversation on my mobile with a professional volcanologist who told me exactly the same thing,’ he said. ‘And as far as I know he’s right.’

  ‘Then how the fuck—’ Barber started, but Richter immediately held up his hand to stop him saying anything else.

  ‘I think what the Russians have done is apply a bit of lateral thinking. Let me take you through it, both of you, and if you come up with a different idea, let me be the first to know. In the recorded conversations Dmitri obtained at the dacha I heard a couple references to Status-6 and to some kind of an oceanic system, but I didn’t put the two things together. But in this context, the expression "oceanic system" can only mean the Status-6 weapon. Then there were the remarks about wiping out America as a world power and the kind of clincher was that statement that didn’t make sense to any of us, when that man said something like "we can even offer to help." We thought that was just some kind of ironic comment, but I think that man meant exactly what he said, that Russia would be able to offer to help, and that statement would only make sense if America was going to be hit by some kind of natural disaster, not by any kind of conventional attack orchestrated by Moscow.

  ‘If we take it as a fact that not even the Status-6 multi-megaton warhead would be powerful enough to trigger another eruption on La Palma, then the only thing that makes sense is if they’d worked out another way to achieve that same result, the collapse of the western flank of the island.’

  Richter’s mobile rang, and he glanced at the screen before answering the call.

  ‘It’s my boss, again. With any luck this call should answer the question.’

  There was still a fair amount of noise in the mess from scientists and members of the ship’s company eating and drinking and talking, and to obtain a modicum of privacy and more importantly to make sure that he would clearly hear whatever was said to him, Richter again stepped out of the mess to take the call.

  ‘Are you having a party or something, Richter?’ Simpson asked. ‘What’s all that racket?’

  ‘No party. It’s just a bunch of people in the mess on board the ship. Have you found a geologist?’

  ‘Yes, but before you listen to him, you can listen to me. First, one of the Royal Navy’s submarines has been tasked as you suggested. The problem is that the Navy doesn’t actually know where the submarine is at the moment, only more or less which bit of ocean it might be found in, so they can’t guarantee it’ll be in position in time, so your insurance policy is in the post, you might say. And I didn’t realize that submarine communications were only one way, to the boat but not from the boat, except in an emergency, which of course this is. The Navy can ask the boat to get close enough to the surface to receive high-speed transmissions, and even to send an acknowledgment, but it can only do that if the crew are certain there are no surface ships in the vicinity. If it can’t do that, you’ll only know if it hasn’t made it to the position because the target will simply steam straight past. If it does get there in time, you’ll need to work out a way of letting the crew know if you’ve managed to disarm the weapon. If you haven’t done your bit or you can’t confirm that you have, then there’ll be a sodding great bang and the Russians will be down one ship. Do you know what the target is yet?’

  ‘No,’ Richter replied. ‘What I think I know is what it isn’t. I’m pretty sure it won’t be a Russian sub, because the American satellites track those pretty much continuously and they’re already running a check just to make sure none of them are in the area. So it’ll be a surface vessel of some sort, and probably a fairly big one to handle a weapon of that size. I mean, not a trawler, so at something at least the size of a small cargo vessel. That’s why I asked you to run a check on shipping movements, but I presume you’ve had nothing back yet.’

  ‘You presume correctly, but the request is being dealt with, according to some jobsworth I rang about ten minutes ago. Right, I have a geologist waiting on the other line. Before you even start talking to him, you might like to know that I asked him the same question that you asked the volcanologist, and he gave me exactly the same answer, so this might just be some kind of a pipedream you’ve come up with. His name is Baldwin, and I’m switching you now.’

  There were a couple of clicks in the earpiece of Richter’s mobile, and then another voice muttered something almost inaudible.

  ‘Mr Baldwin?’ Richter asked.

  ‘It’s Dr Baldwin, actually,’ the man replied, sounding somewhat testy. ‘I gather you have a question about the geology of the Canary Islands.’

  ‘Not the Canary Islands,’ Richter replied, ‘because I know they’re basically the tops of submerged volcanoes, but I am interested in one island in the group in particular, and that’s La Palma. And particularly in the geology of Cumbre Vieja.’

  ‘You might do better if you talk to a volcanologist,’ Baldwin suggested, ‘though I gather from your superior that you already have.’

  ‘I did, but I finally worked out that I was asking him the wrong question.’

  ‘So nothing to do with nuclear weapons and volcanoes?’

  ‘Directly, no, but indirectly, yes. I fully accept that you cannot get a volcano to erupt simply by dropping a nuclear weapon on it or somehow getting one inside the cone or the magma chamber and exploding it there. What I want to know now is the overall geography of the southern part of La Palma. I’ve seen aerial photographs of the volcanic area of Cumbre Vieja, and I know it’s basically a line of volcanoes that form the spine of the southern part of the island, and they have erupted numerous times in recorded history, since about the end of the fifteenth century.’

  ‘Correct,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘The first eruption we really know anything much about was in 1470, but the probability is that there have been eruptions there going back millions of years, ever since the islands first emerged from the Atlantic Ocean. And you’re right about the geology, at least in general terms. So what exactly do you want to know?’

  ‘From what I’ve found out,’ Richter said, getting to the point, ‘there have been eight eruption events that we know about at different locations on the southern half of La Palma, the 1470 eruption being right at the northern end of Cumbre Vieja, and the last activity taking place at the southern tip of the island in 1971. Does that mean that there’s a huge magma chamber underneath the entire southern part of the island, or is it more likely that there are a number of smaller magma chambers?’

  ‘Almost certainly there’s only one chamber, though as I said, I’m a geologist, not a volcanologist. Volcanoes are huge structures, and in my opinion the activity we’ve seen over the last half a millennium or so on La Palma is consistent with a single magma chamber that allows eruptions to take place through a number of different vents on the southern half of the island.’

  That was more or less what Richter had expected.

  ‘What about the undersea geology?’ he asked. ‘What’s the shape of the s
eamount below the waterline? And is it surrounded by fissures or is it a completely solid structure?’

  ‘I’m not that familiar with the Canaries, but I do remember seeing a kind of schematic diagram, a three-dimensional relief map if you like, of the island and basically once you get beyond the beaches, the terrain slopes down almost vertically for about a thousand metres, maybe even deeper, before the slope decreases and merges with the ocean floor. And because the island is volcanic in origin, there are lots of creases and fissures marking the sides of the seamount. That is my recollection of what the map showed, but you might want to check what I’ve said with someone more familiar with that region. Is there anything else?’

  ‘No, I think that’s all I need to know,’ Richter said. ‘Thank you for your time, Dr Baldwin.’

  ‘Anything else you need, Richter?’ Simpson asked when he came back on the line.

  ‘Not from the scientific community, but we need the shipping information pretty damn sharpish so we can identify the target vessel. So you might like to light a fire under whoever’s supposed to be providing it, and we still need to sort out the details of the intercept. Means and method, that kind of thing, but that all depends upon exactly what the target is. I’ll get the Yanks to run checks as well and Steve Barber – he’s the CIA rep here on the ship – will need to start the wheels turning at Langley and wherever else we’re going to need assets, so I’ll get on with that right now.’

  Richter walked back into the lounge, sat down at the table opposite Steve Barber, Dmitri Pavlov sitting at the end, and told the two men what he’d worked out. And then he told Barber what he would need the Americans to do if they were going to stop the Russian operation.

  ‘Hell of a lot of variables in that, Paul,’ Barber said, when he’d finished. ‘I’ll make some calls, but it’d be a real good idea if you could bring Carole-Anne into the loop as well. She’s better connected with the Company wheels than I am.’

  Chapter 35

  Saturday

  Tromsø, Norway

  Carole-Anne Jackson and John Mason had encountered no problems whatsoever after they’d climbed onto the SAS aircraft at Longyearbyen. The flight had been smooth and pleasant, and they’d checked into a hotel – another Radisson Blu – on Sjøgata in downtown Tromsø, only about three miles from Tromsø Lufthavn, the city’s airport, so they’d be ready to leave Norway as soon as Langley told them where they had to go.

  Jackson had called her superior in the Company as soon as she’d checked in, sitting on the end of the wide double bed and staring out of the window at the busy waterfront below. She’d been making verbal reports twice every day while they were on Svalbard but hadn’t contacted Langley since that morning. She hadn’t had time during the hasty operation to rescue Dmitri Pavlov and the events that had followed, and the Longyearbyen equivalent of an airport departure lounge had been too crowded to allow her to speak openly on her mobile, she couldn’t use the phone on the aircraft and so the hotel in Tromsø had been the first opportunity to present itself.

  And at least she had been able to relay good news. She and her team had completed their briefed tasking, in that they had identified and then snatched the Russian defector from the clutches of his pursuers and putative assassins, although her reporting officer was somewhat bemused by the fact that she and Mason were now in an entirely different part of Norway, while the third member of the CIA team and an English intelligence officer who had somehow become involved in the operation were now passengers on an American research ship, along with Dmitri Pavlov. It wasn’t the neat and tidy result Langley had probably been expecting – the three CIA officers and the Russian defector occupying adjacent seats on an aircraft heading west for the US of A – but it was still a good result.

  And, as the RV Thomas G Thompson was heading for Tromsø, where Jackson and Mason had just landed, her reporting officer made a pragmatic decision and instructed the two of them to remain there until the ship arrived. Then the four of them could fly to America together and Pavlov’s formal debriefing could begin.

  A couple of minutes after she’d finished her call to Langley, Jackson had phoned Richter’s mobile just to get a sitrep from him. She already knew they’d made it to the ship, because Barber had sent her a very brief text message as the vessel steamed away from the harbour, but she’d wanted to confirm that everything was OK on board. That call had been brief, because Richter had told her he was just about to sit down with Barber and get some initial information out of Dmitri Pavlov, but he had called her back a few hours later and given her some idea of what the Russian had told them.

  Since then, they’d talked another couple of times, and she hadn’t been expecting to hear from him until late on Saturday evening, so she was slightly surprised when her mobile rang again and she immediately recognized his number.

  ‘Something wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Richter replied. ‘We think we’ve finally worked out what the Russians are up to, and we’ve got about a day and a half to find a way of stopping them before they turn the American eastern seaboard into the world’s longest uninhabited beach.’

  ‘Oh, shit.’

  ‘Funnily enough, that’s exactly what Steve Barber said,’ Richter replied. ‘Are you in a secure location? I mean, can I speak fairly openly?’

  ‘I’m sitting in my hotel room in Tromsø by myself. If I was in Moscow, I would expect it to be wired for sound and vision, but here in Norway I guess it’s about as secure as anywhere. So what’s the story?’

  ‘I think the Russians are trying to collapse the western side of the island of La Palma into the Atlantic Ocean to try to create a mega-tsunami that would have enough force to destroy everything on the east coast of mainland America from Rhode Island down to Florida.’

  ‘You are joking, aren’t you?’

  ‘I wish to God I was. Have you heard of the Status-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System?’

  ‘The Russian doomsday weapon? I probably know as much about it as you do, which isn’t a hell of a lot, though our people seem to think it’s most likely real. But I thought that was supposed to be able to create a massive wave on its own. How does the La Palma stuff fit in?’

  ‘The point about a doomsday weapon is that you only use it when you’ve got nothing left to lose. If the Russians detonated one of the Status-6 devices in the open ocean, we’d know about it immediately because the satellites would pick up the explosion, and we’d also know exactly who was responsible. Russia would cease to exist about two hours later as your salvos of ICBMs did their stuff. But if they could manage to split that island in the Canaries in two, that would be a natural disaster, and nothing to do with Moscow. In fact, as we heard one of these bastards saying on the recordings Dmitri made, the Russians could even offer to help you clear up the mess.’

  ‘If I remember rightly from a briefing I attended months ago, the Status-6 weapon could have a warhead with a yield of up to one hundred megatons if they incorporated a uranium-238 tamper. Would that be enough to trigger a big enough volcanic eruption to blow the island apart? And isn’t the heat inside a volcano enough to melt a nuclear weapon before it could be detonated?’

  ‘The two answers are no and yes,’ Richter said, ‘and that’s where the Russians have been really sneaky. You’re quite right. Because a volcano is basically a cone of solid stone, even a huge nuclear weapon probably wouldn’t do very much damage. And, in any case, you’d need to get the weapon into the magma chamber, and if you did that it would melt before it detonated. As I said to Steve, what we have here is a good example of lateral thinking.’

  ‘And what does that mean, exactly?’

  ‘I think the Russians looked at the problem from the other end. Instead of trying to work out a way of getting enough explosive inside the volcanoes of Cumbre Vieja to blow them apart, collapse the ridge and cause the tsunami, I think they looked at one particular type of volcanic eruption and figured out a way to cause that to happen. You ever
heard of the word "phreatic" in relation to a volcano?’

  ‘Nope. What does it mean?’

  ‘It basically means a volcanic eruption triggered by superheated water.’

  ‘Water? Are you kidding me?’

  ‘Definitely not. Remember Chernobyl back in 1986. We still don’t know for certain exactly what happened to cause that meltdown, because as usual the bloody Russians won’t tell us, but our best guess is that most of the destruction of the reactor buildings at the site was caused by a steam explosion. And when they were trying to contain the damage there was a real fear that there would be another really massive steam explosion, one big enough to cause fallout over the whole of Europe. That would happen if the melting nuclear fuel managed to tunnel its way down through the basement areas of the building where it would come into contact with residual water from the firefighting activities and a lot of groundwater. The only way the Russians managed to prevent this happening was to dig tunnels underneath the wrecked reactor, pump out the water and fill the basements and the area underneath them with concrete before the melting fuel reached them.

  ‘Water exposed to the very high temperatures of a volcano’s magma chamber will be converted almost instantly into steam, with an absolutely massive and instant increase in volume, and it’s that which causes a phreatic eruption. The forces involved are colossal. Krakatoa was probably destroyed by an event like this, and that was one of the deadliest volcanic eruptions in history. In fact, it’s believed that the eruption was caused by part of the island sinking beneath the waves. That allowed seawater to enter the magma chamber through open vents, and when the water came into contact with the magma it produced the massive explosions which destroyed the island. And that, I think, may have been where the Russians got the idea from.’