Scimitar SL-2

by Patrick Robinson

  Ravi nodded in agreement, and glanced down at Shakira’s chart. It contained so many notes, it was almost incomprehensible. But the line she had drawn from the 127th western line of longitude had four definite course changes at various points of contact, from the 47th parallel to 46.20N at 122.18W.

  Ravi had managed only two sips of his bitter hot tea when a quiet voice came down the ship’s intercom…“General Rashood to the control room…General Rashood to the control room….”

  He took his tea with him and headed for the area directly below the bridge, where Ben Badr was waiting.

  “At which point do you want to begin searching the area for surface ships? We’re about 100 miles north of the datum right now…I was thinking maybe 50 would be right…I presume we don’t want to surface?”

  “No, we don’t want to do that. But we should get up as high as we can, maybe to periscope depth every couple of hours, just for an all-around look. Meanwhile we can use passive sonar as our main lookout. We cannot risk detection. There are no suspects for a mission such as this—it would seem ridiculous to alert anyone to our presence—”

  “I agree, Ravi. So 50 miles from our firing position is okay?”

  “Yes, good. If there’s anything around, we may want to track it for a couple of days…make sure it’s well clear. Meanwhile we’ll just hope for fog.”

  The Barracuda pushed on, running quietly all through the night until midafternoon on Thursday, August 6. At 1630, Admiral Badr ordered the planesmen to angle the bow up 10, sending them smoothly to periscope depth. The Admiral himself took a look all around, and Lieutenant Ashtari called out the numbers—43 north, 127 west.

  Lieutenant Commander Shakira wrote them down on her chart, marked the spot where the line of latitude bisected the longitude, checked her distances with dividers, and wrote in blue marker pen, 290 miles to Target.

  In seconds, Ben Badr ordered them deep, bow down 10 to 600. There was no communication on the satellite, no ships anywhere nearby. Their part of the Pacific was a sunlit wilderness, devoid of engines, lacking in fog. Their only danger was the ever-present “black cobras” on the seabed who must not be disturbed. Admiral Badr ordered a racetrack pattern, speed 5, banking on the fact that the “cobras” were deaf to such low revolutions in a boat as quiet as the Barracuda.

  And so they waited for two days and two nights until at 0300 on Sunday morning, a gusting summer rain squall swept eastwards across the ocean, right out of the northwest. They picked it up on sonar and moved silently upward, through the black depths to PD for a firsthand look. They stayed there for only seven seconds, sufficient time for the Chief of Boat, CPO Ali Zahedi, to report a slashing rainstorm on the surface, very low visibility, at no more than 100 yards.

  General Rashood considered the possibility of firing there and then. But he knew it could still be clear on the shore, and he did not relish sending missiles with fiery tails over inhabited land, even at three o’clock in the morning. No, he would wait for a large-scale spell of fog, which he was sure would happen as soon as the regular warm summer air currents ran into the cold, squally Pacific gusts surrounding the storm.

  At dawn, they checked again, moving slowly to periscope depth. Ravi had been correct. A great bank of fog hung over the ocean, visibility at no more than 50 yards. Ravi guessed it would probably extend all the way inshore, with the clammy white blanket hanging heavily against the mountains of Oregon’s coastal range.

  “This is it, old boy,” he said to Ben Badr.

  “Aye, sir,” replied the young Iranian Admiral.

  “Prepare Tubes 1-4…missile director and Lieutenant Commander Shakira to the missile room…Planesman, bow up 10 to 200 feet…Put me on course zero-three-zero…speed 5…Sonar room, check no contacts…Missile Director, final check prefiring routines and settings.”

  They all felt the submarine angle up slightly, and they heard Ravi summon the crew to prayer. Those not hurrying to the missile room knelt on the steel decks in the Muslim fashion. Men clambered out of bunks, engineers laid down their tools, and everyone heard the Mission Commander’s warning of the coming turmoil, urging them to be prepared to hear the Angels sound the trumpet three times. At the sound of the trumpets, he said, only the righteous would cross the bridge into the arms of Allah. They were engaged in the work of Allah, they were His children, and they dwelt today in this great weapon of war on behalf of Allah. It was built for Him and they were born to serve Him.

  He read from the Koran—

  “ ‘From Thee alone do we ask for help…

  Guide us to the straight path,

  The path of those whom you blessed.’ ”

  General Rashood ended as he often did with undying praise of Allah. “ ‘I have turned my face only towards the Supreme Being who originated the skies and the earth…To You be the glory…Yours is the most auspicious name. You are exalted and none other than You is worthy of worship’ ”

  They prayed silently for a few seconds and then returned to their tasks. Shakira reported to the Missile Director and checked once more the Scimitar’s preset guidance programs—“Zero-three-zero from blastoff to latitude 46.05N degrees. Then course change to zero-nine-zero to longitude 127W…Then course change to three-six-zero for 30 nautical miles…Then final course change to two-one-zero 15 miles to the precise position of the target.”

  It was 0630 when General Rashood gave the order…“STAND BY TUBES ONE TO FOUR!”

  Then, seconds later, “TUBE ONE LAUNCH!!”

  And at long last, the 26-foot steel guided missile, driven in an army truck from the bowels of Kwanmo-bong last May, was on its way. Barracuda II shuddered gently as it blew out of the launcher, lanced up to the surface, and split the Pacific swells asunder, its engines igniting, the searing light of the fiery tail obscured by the fog.

  It blasted upwards, crackling into the morning sky, adjusting course and leveling out at 200 meters above the surface. At 600 knots, the gas turbines kicked in, removing the giveaway trail in the sky, steady on its northeasterly course, its flawless precision a tribute to the craftsmen of Kwanmo-bong.

  As they prepared to launch Tube Two, the senior command felt safe in the knowledge that the Koreans had sworn to make a true and faithful replica of the old Russian RADUGA, and that the Scimitar would match its performance in every way. The refined new rocket motor would be no problem, and the automatic rear wings would spread immediately when the missile was airborne.

  At this very moment, the North Koreans were batting 1,000, and the cruise missile they had created was hurtling diagonally towards the distant northern shores of the American state of Oregon. It was 220 miles to its landfall, and it would cross the coastline in twenty-one minutes, by which time three other identical missiles, already under the control of the Barracuda’s launch sequencer, would be streaking line astern right behind it. Same course. Through the fog. Destination: the fractured, haunted north face of Mount St. Helens.

  BARRACUDA STANDS OFF THE OREGON/WASHINGTON COAST, DRAWING A BEAD ON MOUNT ST. HELENS

  Missile One screamed in over the high, rugged coast, just north of Tillamook Head, at 1654. It thundered on across the 3,000-foot peak of Saddle Mountain, rising and falling with the contours of the earth. It passed Clatsop State Park and into Columbia County, making 600 knots as it crossed the wide river, then the state frontier, 20 miles downstream of the city of Portland.

  This was high country, deep in the towering southern uplands of the Cascade Range. The Scimitar’s preset computer brain, reading the sonar altimeter, was working overtime dealing with the dramatically changing ground levels. But the Chinese technicians had served General Rashood well.

  The big Mark-1 missile ripped across Interstate 5, and shrieked through the peaks of Cowlitz County, heading along the Kalama River Valley to the Swift Creek Dam, where it swerved north, right on schedule. By now, the mighty tower of Mount St. Helens was just a dozen miles to port, and the missile swept right past, still heading north. It flew swiftly over the grea
t forests of the Cascades, and just after the little town of Gifford, it made its turn, wheeling left in a great semicircle.

  The wilderness below was silent, but from the high peaks you might have heard the W-H-O-O-O-O-SHHHHHH! of disturbed air, as the Scimitar turned to the southwest. It held course two-one-zero, drawing a bead on the giant, unstable carbuncle, which grew on the floor of the volcano crater, near the pinnacle of the mountain.

  It came in fast, gathering speed as it lost height, almost 700 knots as it cleaved through the morning air above the foothills of Mount Hughes, where the Green River rises, east of Coldwater Creek. Moments later, it hurtled into the skies high above the fog-shrouded blue waters of Spirit Lake.

  It rocketed through the thick, damp mist and crossed the north shore, still making over 600 knots, and then angled up sharply to follow the steep slopes of Mount St. Helens. It scythed through the air, taking just under nine seconds to make the one-and-a-half-mile ascent to the summit, where it banked wickedly downwards, and hammered its way straight into the middle of the crater.

  Programmed to detonate two seconds after impact, the missile’s sharp reinforced steel nose lasered into the crater’s unstable base of loose rock and ash, burying 15 feet below the surface before exploding with a booming impact. Rock and shale flew 100 feet into the air.

  The Scimitar’s warhead sent cracks like lightning bolts deep into the crust of the earth, splitting open the already shifting strata, way down where the magma seethed and churned, ever seeking an outlet. By itself, the Scimitar could not have caused Mount St. Helens to erupt. But there were three more where that came from, and the great volcano, had it known, would have braced itself for the incoming man-made thunder.

  As it was, a great belch of steam did shoot skywards, but local residents did not see the warning; not even those driving trucks through the morning mist along local routes 503, or 90, or south on 25 from Gifford. Even in clear conditions, it was not always easy to see the mountain peak from the tree-lined roads, and almost everyone had seen gouts of steam up there before, even the occasional fiery burst of ash.

  Fifty-five seconds later, Missile Two hit, in exactly the same spot, 46.20N 122.18W. It drove deep into the brand-new hole, not 10 feet from Missile One. It slammed into the lava rubble, detonating with staggering force into a part of the mountain that was rotten to the core—a shifting, sliding heap of black fragmented rock debris.

  The fury of the explosion, though muffled to traffic five miles away, was enough to send long fissures deep into the upper conduit of the lava chimney. White-hot magma now came seething up through the black shale, as yet only eking its way out of the relatively slender gaps, but moving steadily higher.

  Less than a minute later, there was a breakthrough. Missile Three came screaming in with sufficient force to knock down three skyscrapers. More burning magma came searing up through the underground channels—not yet a blast but close. The lava began to spill into the crater; steam and fire burst into the foggy skies.

  And then came Missile Four, arrowing straight down into the molten lava and exploding instantly, with the same force as the others, the same place, the same effect. The metal casing melted, but the warhead’s TNT did its work. It blew the crevice wide open, releasing a zillion cubic feet of compressed gases. At 0706 on Sunday morning, August 9, 2009, Mount St. Helens erupted with savage force for the second time in less than thirty years.

  The explosion leveled thousands of Douglas fir trees within roughly a 12-mile half-circle to the north. The crater, which contained the unstable carbuncle, was already tilted that way, and when the eruption came, it exploded northwards, leaving the area behind it, to the south and west, more or less unharmed, except for a rainstorm of ash.

  Again, as in 1980, the massive pyroclastic flow of molten lava surged down the upper slopes of the mountain, creating a terrifying nine-foot-high white-hot river of molten rock from the very core of the earth. It seemed to move slowly, but it was making 40 mph as it crackled and growled its way into Spirit Lake, burning everything in its path, wiping out the lake’s vegetation, boiling the water, sending hot steam up into the fog.

  Of the campers on the north side of the lake and on the lower slopes of the mountain’s pine forest—mostly kids and college students—none had a chance. A handful of burnt dust buried deep in volcanic rock would be all that remained of the soldiers, in a cruel and sadistic war no one even knew was being fought.

  The fog had cleared now around the little towns of Glenoma, Morton, and Mossyrock up on Route 12 and 508, and the pinnacle of Mount St. Helens could just be seen jutting up through the summit’s mist, belching fire and spewing thousands of tons of rock and red-hot ash hundreds of feet into the air.

  It looked awesome, like many displays of nature too frightening to contemplate. But every man, woman, or child in those picturesque little Washington townships knew they were witnessing havoc, pitiless destruction, and heartbreaking loss of lives. Everyone who stood helplessly watching knew there would be many, many empty places at dinner tables tonight, all over the American Northwest.

  The lava rolled over a total of fifteen cars parked around the lake’s perimeter, and the burning hot deposits of avalanche debris cascaded into the north fork of the Toutle River, almost damming it in some places. It completely blocked Coldwater Creek. A vast area of lateral blast deposits, thousands of tons of ash, spread over a distance of 200 square miles, choking rivers, burying forest and remote farmhouses.

  The warm, sleepy Sunday morning of August 9 would be remembered forever throughout this lonely rural corner of the 42nd State, as Mount St. Helens, the towering snowcapped sentinel of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, suddenly, without warning, reared and destroyed the very land that gave it grace.

  On that Sunday morning, those who had not witnessed the shocking 1980 eruption saw the real nature of the mountain. And it had little to do with grandeur or with the great silent peak that had dominated this southern part of the Washington State mountains—the bastion of strength, Queen of the Cascades.

  This was the real St. Helens—a colossal 8,000-foot-high black, unstable pile of rotten volcanic rubble, spewing forth dark-gray burning ash, white-hot rock, black smoke, and lava, vomited up from the basement of Hell. And it was bent on burning everything it could reach.

  Within minutes of the first major eruption, right after Scimitar-4, the fires began. Great hunks of molten rock and dense showers of red-hot ash were landing in the pine forests. The dead tinder-dry needles on the forest floor practically exploded into flame, and the trees took only moments longer to ignite. The inflammable resin inside the needles, boughs, and trunks of the Douglas firs popped and crackled into a giant, highly audible bonfire. From a distance, the blaze sounded like the eerie murmur of a battlefield.

  Thousands of acres burned ferociously, spreading with terrifying swiftness before the west wind that billowed gently off the Pacific, dispersing the fog, fanning the flames. Every five minutes, there was another grim and furious roar from the summit, and another plume of fire and ash ripped into the powder-blue sky, and another obscene surge of magma rolled over the crater and on down the mountainside.

  By 0830, every household, every car full of tourists, every truckload of outdoor sportsmen inside a 25-mile radius knew that Mount St. Helens had erupted. The radio stations were cobbling together news bulletins based on almost nothing except the incontrovertible fact that the damn mountain just blew its goddamned head off. Again.

  Volcano experts from all over the area were being rounded up, electronically, and interviewed. All of them admitted to absolute bewilderment, and by 0900, radio and television newsrooms were desperate for information. The State Police had placed a ban on media helicopters, and it was impossible to get near the mountain.

  The “experts” who were permanently monitoring the volcano were impossible to find, and the university study groups, collecting data in the foothills below the crater, were dead. Most of the observation posts to the north of
the mountain were devastated, the buildings on the high ridges reduced to burned-out hulks, the low ones swept away by the incinerating magma.

  Trees smashed by the blast leaned at ridiculous angles against the others that had withstood the explosion. These now formed enclosed, towering pyramids of volatile, combustible dry pine branches lit from within, as the fire raced across the dead needles on the forest floor.

  From above, they looked like scattered furnaces, burning to red-hot flash points and instantly setting fire to anything made of wood and resin within spitting distance.

  By lunchtime, the President had declared southwest Washington State a disaster zone and Federal help was on its way. The trouble with volcanoes, however, is that there are no half-measures, no wounded, no traumatized persons—and no witnesses. The fury of this type of assault on the planet is too formidable.

  If you’re near enough to cast light on the actual event from a close-up position, your chances of survival are close to zero. It was no different at the base of Mount St. Helens on that Sunday morning…except for one big four-wheel-drive-vehicle that had been parked all night on the northwest shore of Spirit Lake. This contained a selection of sporting rifles, fishing rods, and four sportsmen, three of them local—one from Virginia.

  The leader of the little expedition was Tony Tilton, a former attorney from Worcester, Massachusetts, currently President of the Seattle National Bank. Accompanying him was the legendary East Coast dealer of marine art Alan Granby, who had moved west with his wife, Janice, after a money-grabbing private corporation threatened to build a massive wind farm opposite their backyard on the shores of Nantucket Sound.

  The third member of the party was another East Coast native, the eminent broadcaster and political observer Don McKeag, who had finally abandoned his show on a local Cape Cod radio station for a huge network contract that required him to live and work out of Seattle—the “Voice of the Northwest.”

  The fourth serious sportsman in that accomplished little group was the big-game fisherman, duck hunter, and car racer Jim Mills from Middleburg, Virginia. They were on a weeklong hunting, shooting, and fishing trip, and they’d been camped by the lake all night, ready for an assault on the superb trout that made Spirit Lake their home.