Scimitar SL-2 (2004)

by Patrick Robinson

  The threat to the U.S.A. was to erupt the Cumbre Vieja on the Canary Island of La Palma, thus setting off a mega-tsunami across the Atlantic that would wipe out the American East Coast and greatly harm the shores of Western Europe and North Africa—unless the American President agrees to move its entire military force out of the Persian Gulf area, and strong-arm Israel into conceding an Independent State of Palestine, vacating the left bank territories.

  So far as we know, the United States has made no effort to comply with these demands, and is believed to be conducting a massive search in the Atlantic to find a nuclear submarine apparently containing the terrorists and submerge-launch cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.

  The terrorists’ threat, that horrendous prospect of a mega-tsunami, is believed to have proved too much for President McBride, who was reported to have collapsed on hearing the news that the terrorists had hit Montserrat on Monday, carrying out a previous threat, almost to the minute.

  President Bedford has vowed to catch the submarine and destroy it, and has announced plans to evacuate the cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

  Scientists say that from the moment of impact in the seas off La Palma, there would be only nine hours before New York City went under more than 100 feet of water.

  On the opposite page was an large picture of Admiral Morgan in Naval uniform, beneath the headline—THE RETURN OF THE IRON MAN. The accompanying story began:

  Admiral Arnold Morgan, the former nuclear submarine commander who held the last Republican Administration together, was called yesterday out of retirement and summoned to the White House by the new Democratic President.

  The White House confirmed that the Admiral has been appointed Supreme Commander of Operation High Tide, the code name for the massive submarine hunt currently under way in the Atlantic to locate and take out the terrorist warship…

  Since the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had been reluctant to admit there was any connection between the McBride resignation and the threat from Hamas, the U.S. television networks had been reluctant to join the two stories. The devil-may-care treatment of the situation by the London papers, however, gave them all the Dutch courage they needed, and by breakfast time, there was no doubt in the minds of Americans: Charles McBride had cracked, and wimped his way out of the Oval Office, afraid to face the personal torment of ordering his fleet into action to destroy an aggressor. Worse yet, he may not have had the courage to order an evacuation of the big cities and coastline communities. And there were several newspaper and television features on Arnold Morgan, “The Man the U.S. Government apparently cannot do without.”

  There were various headlines on the same drift:

  ADMIRAL MORGAN—THE LION OF THE WEST WING

  THE DAY ADMIRAL MORGAN FACED DOWN CHINA

  ARNOLD MORGAN—AMAN FOR TROUBLED TIMES

  ADMIRAL MORGAN—PATRIOT OR A GLOBAL GAMBLER?

  MORGAN—THE MAN WHO FLEXES AMERICA’S MUSCLE

  What no one wrote, anywhere in the world, was that President McBride had been frog-marched out of the Oval Office by a Detail from the United States Marine Corps, while the Service Chiefs looked on.

  It had been a military coup of the kind that usually happens in those restless countries around the world in which economic crises, drug wars, and power-hungry dictators had taken their toll. But with the difference that this was America, Land of the Free, where the coup, if the term even applied, had lasted only ten minutes, after which order was restored and the flag never lowered.

  Wednesday morning, September 30, saw a drastic change of pace in Washington. The entire city was dominated by the Military, the National Guard, and the police. All unnecessary business was halted, criminal and civil cases were suspended, arrangements were made to evacuate court officials. In two instances, it was necessary to isolate the juries—certainly for nine days, possibly longer.

  Colleges and schools were preparing to close down at the end of the day. Hospitals were canceling planned operations, discharging as many patients as possible, and preparing for the evacuation of the seriously ill.

  The Army were already in hospital corridors assisting with the removal of high-value medical equipment. At some of the bigger establishments, there were as many as six 18-wheelers parked outside emergency room entrances, while the troops loaded up and recorded space-age hospital diagnostic machinery in readiness for journeys to U.S. Air Force bases on higher ground.

  Hotels and motels all along the East Coast were refusing all new reservations, and guests already in residence were asked to leave as soon as possible. The Hamas threat was not, after all, from a group of reasonable, educated people. It was from a bunch of Middle Eastern brigands who would stop at nothing, and who might even panic and blow the Cumbre Vieja four or five days early, since it was now obvious the U.S.A. could not, or would not, comply with their demands.

  If the tsunamis of Krakatoa were anything to go by, any heavy, loose objects, like automobiles, railroad cars, pleasure boats, even light aircraft, would be swept up and hurled around like toys. This applied also to more permanent structures like telegraph poles, statues, billboards, electric pylons, and trees.

  Evacuation of the areas was essential for every citizen. FEMA was already drafting plans for removal of such structures, and trucking corporations—even from outside the areas—were to be sequestered by the Government in order to support the evacuation. Railroad stock, both passenger and freight, would be put on standby.

  In the meantime, Arnold Morgan pondered the difficult question of how to persuade the awkward and noncooperative French to shut down the European GPS satellite Helios for a couple of days. The question was kicked back and forth in the Oval Office for three entire hours.

  Finally, it was decided to make a formal request via the Master Control Station in Colorado, direct to the French Government, to close the satellite down for forty-eight hours, in accordance with the U.S. closure. This would be necessary in order to test significant improvements in the system, which would of course be shared, ultimately, with the Europeans.

  All three Admirals agreed this would receive a resounding non from their counterparts across the ocean. And at this point, the U.S. would come clean about their real reason for the GPS blackout.

  Arnold Morgan had scientific data showing the presumed path of the tsunami, fanning out from the opening landslide all the way to the nine-hour hit zone along the U.S. East Coast. In three hours, the tidal wave would be a wide crescent in the middle of the Atlantic, but also would head north, with gigantic tidal waves already in the Bay of Biscay.

  According to the scientists, the tsunami would likely thunder into the French naval headquarters of Brest, three hours and thirty minutes from the initial impact. The tidal waves would not be as great as those crossing the Atlantic, but they would form a 50-foot-high wall of water that would hammer its way onto the rugged western tip of France.

  The Americans knew they would have to explain the terrorist threat in some detail to the French, but that was unavoidable if they were to hunt down the Barracuda before it wiped out New York.

  The sight of Arnold Morgan’s tsunami maps was a chilling reminder of the reality of this wave of destruction. The Cumbre Vieja represented a rare geological time bomb, able to ravage countries on the other side of the world. Recent research into the last known mega-tsunami caused scientists to look carefully at the seabed around Hawaii, and they were astounded at what they discovered—the gigantic remains of ancient landslides, millions of years old. The tsunami’s first landfall to the west would be the northern coastline of Brazil, six hours after impact, waves 120 feet high. One hour later, the tsunami would swamp the Bahamas and the outer islands of the Caribbean.

  Two hours after that, the gigantic wave would roll straight up Massachusetts Bay, and Boston would be hit by a 150-foot-high wave that would probably sweep away the entire city. The tsunami would then thunder onto the U.S. coast, hitting New York next, then Philadelphia, followed by Washington,
and onto the mainly flat coastline of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, all the way to Miami and the Keys.

  Arnold Morgan’s dossier of recent studies estimated that the first wave could be 2,000 feet high a half-mile west of La Palma, following the mammoth splash caused by maybe a half-trillion tons of rock crashing into the water at 200 mph. Traveling at high speed, 160 miles in the first ten minutes, the wave would weaken as it crossed the ocean, but it would definitely still be 150 feet high when it hit the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

  On the other side of the Atlantic, the shores of the western Sahara would receive waves of 300 feet, from crest to trough, although there would be shelter in the eastern lee of the bigger Canary Islands, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, depending on where you found yourself as the tidal wave developed.

  The scientists were also unanimous that a mega-tsunami off the Canaries, caused by a sudden volcanic eruption, would be the highest wave in recorded history. Even the south coast of Great Britain, though not in its direct path, would still be subject to serious flooding.

  In world geohazard opinion, right there, laid out on Arnold Morgan’s reclaimed office table, the Cumbre Vieja was an absolute certainty to be next. Everything was ideal for mass destruction—the towering peaks of the mountain range, the colossal height, the depth of the ocean, the sonorous rumbling of the volcanoes. The last explosion, some sixty years ago in the South Crater, proved it was all still active, and that the molten lava was not so very far below the surface. The underground lakes were ready to boil over at the instant of eruption. And of course there was the enormous fracture-line crack in the cliff, which had already caused a 10-foot shift in the rock face high above the ocean.

  The newest report pointed out, thoughtfully, that the last time a volcano erupted with anything like the tsunami potential of Cumbre Vieja was 4,000 years ago on Reunion Island, a French territory since 1643, situated 420 miles east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.

  A report from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, which had high-tech facilities to re-create model waves created by landslides, stated flatly, “If the Cumbre Vieja were to collapse as one single block, it would lead to a mega-tsunami.”

  So far as the scientists understood, the volcanoes on the southwest flank of La Palma erupted about every two hundred years. And there was no evidence that one single eruption would cause the landslide. In fact, it might take five eruptions. There was, of course, no section in the report that dealt with the probable effects of a couple of 200,000-ton nuclear warheads blowing up in the middle of the Cumbre Vieja crater.

  Admiral Morgan had another fearsome little aid to his presentation—a two-foot-square, 18-inch-high scale model of the volcanoes on the southwest corner of La Palma. It came from the University of California and had been flown in to Andrews by the U.S. Air Force, arriving at the White House by helicopter.

  The model showed the seabed to the top of the peaks, the steeply sloping volcanic cliffs falling away from the mountains, way down below the surface of the water. The shoreline was marked, highlighting the sudden sweep of the land into the depths. It showed the probable zones of the landslide on the seabed, and it starkly illustrated the tremendous impact such an avalanche would create upon the water.

  On the top of the model were the great peaks of Caldera de Taburiente, Cumbre Nueva, and just below them, Cumbre Vieja, sitting atop a massive craggy rock wall 2,000 feet above the ocean, which, the model showed, shelved down to a 4,000-foot depth.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Admiral Doran. “That puts a pretty sharp light on it, eh?”

  “Just look at the position of the Cumbre Vieja, perched up there on top of the wall,” said Arnold. “Just imagine what a nuclear bomb could do…Holy Shit! We gotta find this bastard!”

  “I’ve just been reading a damn good book by Simon Winchester about Krakatoa,” said Admiral Dickson. “Been meaning to read it for years. That was one hell of an explosion…goddamned mountain blew itself to pieces, punched a damn great hole in the ocean, wrecked three hundred towns and villages, and killed 36,000 people. And you know what? Almost all the destruction, and absolutely all of the death, was caused by the tsunami. And the son of a bitch was nothing like the size of the one we’re looking at.”

  “Jesus, Alan. You’re making me nervous,” said Arnold. “But I guess we have to face the reality, otherwise we’ll all end up under medical supervision at Camp David.”

  “Okay,” said Alan Dickson. “We’ve dealt with the President. We’ve taken care of the French. Nearly. Now we’re about ready to sort out the ships. Maybe Frank could give us a rundown on the Atlantic Fleet as it stands.”

  “Perfect,” said Arnold. “Lemme just call the President. He’d better sit in on this. Since he has been C in C of the armed forces for all of four hours.”

  He called upstairs to the private residence, and within five minutes, Paul Bedford was back in the Oval Office, listening to the rundown of the Navy situation. He had never forgotten his days as a frigate Lieutenant, and he often recalled the excitement of being a young officer, racing through the night at the helm of a U.S. warship.

  And predictably, he asked questions no civilian would ever dream of. “Frank, these Oliver Hazard Perry frigates. They were brand-new when I was serving, and I haven’t kept up…good ships?”

  “Excellent, sir…3,600 tons, 41,000 hp…couple of big gas turbines, single shaft, 4,500-mile range at 28 knots, need refueling when they reach the ops area. But that’s no problem. They pack a pretty good wallop too…four McDonnell Douglas Harpoon guided missiles, homing to 70 nautical miles at Mach zero-point-nine…plus ASW torpedoes.”

  “Beautiful,” said President Bedford. And he really meant it. “That little son of a bitch comes to the surface, he’s history, right?”

  “Just so long as we can see him,” replied Admiral Doran. “And we are putting a lot of faith in the helicopters…You know, each frigate carries two of those excellent Sikorsky SH-60R Seahawks…They got state-of-the-art LAMPS Mark III weapons systems. They’re just great machines, 100 knots, no sweat, up to 10,000 feet.

  “They’re exactly what we need…airborne platforms for antisubmarine warfare. That Barracuda shows up where we think he’ll be, we got him. Those helos have outstanding dipping sonar, Hughes AQS-22 low frequency.

  “They all have USY-2 acoustic processors, upgraded ESM and Integrated Self-defense. Plus APS-124 search radar…and twenty-four sonobuoys. Those helos carry three Mk-50 torpedoes, an AGM-114R/K Hellfire Missile, and one Penguin Mark-2.”

  “I just hope the French cooperate,” said the President.

  “They will ultimately not be a problem,” said Arnold Morgan. “If they won’t shut the damn thing off, we’ll shut it off for them. I was not joking when I first said that. We’ll shoot it down, because we don’t have any choice.”

  “This means,” said the President, “you have entirely abandoned the idea of a wide search out in the Atlantic, west of the islands?”

  “Again, no choice,” replied Arnold. “With a hundred ships out there in deep water, we could still miss him easily. It’s too vast an area, hundreds of thousands of square miles of water.

  “So we’re sticking to a small force of just twelve frigates, plus the carrier group. Perhaps, Frank, you could let the President know where we are with the fleet right now?”

  “Sure,” said Admiral Doran, flicking the pages of his notebook. “We just diverted two ships from the Gulf of Maine on a southwest course to the Canaries, that’s USS Elrod, under the command of Captain CJ Smith, and USS Taylor, under the command of Captain Brad Willett.

  “The Kauffman and the Nicholas were both in the North Atlantic, and have been heading south for the past three days. Comdr. Joe Wickman’s Simpson was off North Carolina, and we sent him east two days ago. Tonight, seven more frigates are due to clear Norfolk by midnight.

  “That’s the old Samuel B. Roberts, commanded by Capt. Clay Timpner—rebuilt, of course, since she hit a mine in the
first Gulf War; USS Hawes under Comdr. Derek DeCarlo, the Robert G. Bradley, under a newly promoted young Commander, John Hardy, from Arizona. Then there’s USS De Wert, commanded by Capt. Jeff Baisley.

  “My old ship, the Klakring, will be ready next. She’s now commanded by Capt. Clint Sammons, from Georgia, who’ll probably make Rear Admiral next year. The Doyle’s already on her way under Comdr. Jeff Florentino. And the USS Underwood, commanded by Capt. Gary Bakker, will be the last away. She only came in yesterday morning.”

  “How about the helos for the carrier deck?”

  “We’re sending the Truman out from Norfolk with fifty Seahawks on board—they’ll transfer to the Ronald Reagan flight deck as soon as possible, then bring the fixed wings home.”

  “So that’ll give us over seventy Seahawks active over the datum?”

  “Correct, sir. We’ll be flying a lot of patrols around the Islands, as from midnight on October 7. He sticks that mast up for more than a few seconds any time in the next two days, we’ll get him. If he doesn’t have any satellites, he’ll need time to get an accurate range.”