Delta Blue

by William H. Lovejoy

  *

  They were right on the deck, five hundred feet above the coast north of Bremerhaven, holding 500 knots.

  The screen displayed a flickering green land-and-sea-scape. Zipping beneath them.

  “I’m not seeing shit, Cancha.”

  “Still four or five miles, Nitro Fizz.”

  They were looking for the first mainland pumping station on the Germany end of the supposed pipeline. The aerial photos of the past several years all displayed a rather innocuous group of five large buildings and three five-foot-diameter pipes emerging from the sea.

  “Camera set for side view,” Williams said.

  “Roger.”

  Instead of the traditional view from above, they were coming in low and to the seaward side of the complex, taking photographs from the side. Amy Pearson wanted side-view elevations.

  On the highway below and inland, a dozen sets of headlights cut the night. Out to sea on his left, Dimatta saw several ships, but couldn’t tell whether they were German naval vessels or not.

  McKenna had forbidden the use of radar. No alerting the ground installations.

  “Got it, Cancha. Give me two points right.”

  Dimatta tapped the hand controller.

  The right side of the screen showed the group of tall buildings sitting at the top of a short cliff.

  “Snap, snap, snap!” Williams said, “I got twenty each of low-light and IR.”

  Twenty-six miles later, they got photos of the second pumping station, located on the headland near Coxhaven, then Dimatta applied left rudder and started a climb. He took the MakoShark to 12,000 feet of altitude, but stayed subsonic on turbojets.

  A leisurely ride.

  “We set on the sequence, Nitro?”

  “Cut straight across the offshore wells on a heading of three-zero-five. We’re looking for anything associated with the wells, but not directly attached to a platform. Cables, pipelines. We want close-ups of well number one. Then, on the ice, headed east, we’re also looking for exposed pipelines and cables.”

  “You and I may eventually get along,” Dimatta said.

  “Not if you keep eating pasta and Hollandaise and that Greek stuff.”

  “Hey, you’re going to start me dreaming about it, and we got an hour to target.”

  “Think about broads.”

  “I’ll think about taking them out to dinner.”

  *

  “Radar, Command.”

  “Radar here.”

  “We over the horizon, yet?”

  “Over, and target area coming up, General.”

  Overton switched the screen display to the repeat image from the radar. McKenna, Pearson, Milt Avery, and Arguento all moved closer for a better view. Donna Amber was in the Radio Shack, monitoring the satellite relays for voice communications. No one wanted to lose contact with Delta Green.

  “Command, Radar. I’m going to extend the range to two-two-zero.”

  There was some clutter over the Arctic Ice Pack. The dark screen flickered with snow.

  “Radar, Command. Back it off a little.”

  The radar operator shortened the range, and much of the false radar return disappeared.

  They waited twelve minutes until the edge of the ice, and the ice platforms appeared. The orbit was a bit two far to the west, and platforms twenty-two and twenty-four, on the east end, did not display on the screen. Svalbard Island wasn’t present, either.

  Delta Green was not displayed, of course.

  McKenna moved to a microphone. “Delta Green, Alpha One.”

  “Go Alpha.”

  “Squawk me once.”

  “Roger.”

  As the radar sweep passed the lower-left corner of the screen, a bright blip appeared as Dimatta flipped on the IFF, then flashed out.

  “I’ve got you,” McKenna said. “Just making your turn to the east?”

  “Roger, Alpha. We’re coming up on well number twenty-three.”

  McKenna found himself counting silently, trying to keep pace with Dimatta while looking at a nearly blank screen. Blank as far as friendlies were concerned.

  Three minutes.

  “Command, Radar. I’ve got bogies.”

  *

  Two of the Tornados were at 2,000 meters, headed west over the ice. Mac Zeigman had reversed the normal course, and was covering the ice platforms before turning south to the offshore wells.

  As was his preference, Zeigman was flying alone in Tiger Führer, having left his weapons system officer depressed and alone on the tarmac at New Amsterdam.

  Zeigman and his wingman were at 10,000 meters. He could not see his wingman, some four kilometers to his right in the dark. Below, he had occasional glimpses of Tiger Drei and Tiger Vier when their silhouettes passed over white stretches of ice.

  To keep his adrenaline level stable, Zeigman tried to think of this patrol as the typically boring routine of the past months. Still, something in Oberst Weismann’s tone had suggested that it might not be.

  Despite himself, the adrenaline level was fluctuating. He felt keyed up.

  Ready to unleash his tension on someone.

  Or something.

  “Tiger Leader, this is Platform Eighteen.”

  “I hear you, Platform Eighteen.”

  “We may have seen something on the dome camera.”

  “What is that, Eighteen.”

  “Unknown, Tiger Leader. A flash of darkness.”

  The ground crews were also tense, Zeigman thought, but then again …

  “All Tigers, Tiger Leader. Alert, now.”

  He did not listen to the rash of affirmatives on the radio, but banked slightly to the right, to give himself a better view of the ice.

  There. His two Tornados.

  And there, two kilometers ahead of them, a shadow racing.

  He could not make out the shape. It was a darkness fleeing along the ground.

  “Tiger Three. Unidentified aircraft dead ahead of you, two kilometers. Come to the left four degrees.”

  “Affirmative, Leader.”

  “Tiger Two, let us engage.”

  “Leader,” said Two, “I do not see it.”

  “Join on me, Two.”

  Zeigman rolled on over until he was inverted, then pulled the nose down. By the time he reached the proper altitude, the unidentified airplane would be east of him, and he would come down on it from its rear.

  He flashed his wing lights once for the benefit of Tiger Zwei.

  He had not taken his eyes off the phantom, and he cursed to himself when he saw his two low-level fighters pass right over it.

  “Tigers Three and Four, reverse course. You have missed him.”

  Only briefly did Zeigman think about trying to contact the unidentified airplane on an international frequency. If he did communicate with it, the pilot might give in quickly.

  And ruin a perfectly good shot.

  His speed climbed to Mach 1.

  Altitude 2,500 meters. Pulling out of the vertical dive.

  The shadow taking form.

  Delta wing. Long, long fuselage.

  It was alerted. Started a right, climbing turn.

  Without thinking about it, his fingers had run automatically through the sequence of arming two of his Sky Flash missiles.

  He switched his radar to active.

  Nothing. Only the aircraft of his own flight.

  He tried the IR seeker.

  A bare flicker.

  The missiles would not track on radar-homing or infrared.

  He flicked the switch that selected guidance from the hand controller.

  The aircraft — it had to be a MakoShark — almost centered in the gun sight.

  Launch.

  Flash of rocket fire.

  Trails arcing toward the climbing delta shape.

  Concentrating hard with the hand controller. Up, now, and to the right.

  Homing in.

  *

  The four bogies had appeared abruptly from the right side of
the screen, almost over well number twenty-one.

  Pearson gasped, “Damn it!”

  McKenna studied the screen readouts, checking altitudes, then thumbed the microphone. “Cancha, you’ve got bogies almost directly ahead. There’s a pair at six-two-hundred and another two spread out at three-zero-thousand. I don’t think they’ve spotted you.”

  “Roger, Snake Eyes. Can we go radar?”

  “Hold off. I don’t want them homing one in on you.”

  Waiting.

  No blip for Delta Green.

  The two low-level targets changed course slightly.

  The high-level fighters started to dive.

  “Okay, Cancha. They’ve got you. Hold course twenty seconds, then go to one-one-zero and start climbing. Seven-zero percent throttles.”

  Waiting.

  The tension in the Command Center was palpable.

  The blip of one German fighter was losing altitude fast, now moving back to the east.

  “Command, Radar. Two missiles launched.”

  “Scramble, Cancha!”

  “We see ’em, Snake Eyes. No sweat. Can I punch this bastard out?”

  McKenna sighed and looked at Overton. The general kept his face passive. Pearson’s eyes were wide.

  “You’ve been fired upon, Delta Green. Fire at will.”

  *

  “Hot damn!” Dimatta said over the intercom.

  “Give me two Wasps, Cancha,” Williams said.

  Dimatta’s arm reached out for the armaments panel even as his helmet was levered full back against the collar of the flight suit so he could look upward. The two missiles coming at them were black pupils surrounded by harsh white eyes.

  He glanced at the armaments panel, hit pylon two and missiles one and two.

  Looked back at the missiles.

  Now.

  Slammed the throttles full forward.

  The MakoShark accelerated abruptly.

  The missiles flashed by behind them, headed for the ice. He didn’t watch for impact.

  Roll hard right, pull the hand controller back.

  On its side, the MakoShark looped back toward the first two fighters. The one that had fired its missiles at them slashed the night above, trying to pull out of its dive and regain altitude.

  The enemy had to be up high, looking down, to spot them, unless they went to active radar.

  “I need radar, Cancha.”

  “Take it.”

  The radar image flickered onto the screen.

  The MakoShark radar could scan for new targets while simultaneously tracking and holding up to twelve targets. As Dimatta pulled out of his sideways loop, rolling upright, he saw the orange sight scooting across the screen, guided by Williams’s helmet.

  “Lock on one,” Williams said. “He’s at three thousand. Next one’s higher.”

  Dimatta pulled the hand controller and the nose went up.

  “Lock on two.”

  “Go, Nitro”

  “Committed … launched.”

  The tracks of the two missiles appeared on the screen, spreading out, homing on the active radars of the two fighters.

  The fighters went into evasive action as their threat receivers detected the Wasps.

  “They’re Tornados,” Williams said.

  “Were,” Dimatta corrected him.

  The radar screen indicated the other two were in a tight circle at five thousand feet. One of them started to dive toward them. More tentatively, the second one followed his leader.

  Dimatta continued into a right turn, headed north.

  On his left, a bright splash of white against the semidark sky partially killed his night vision.

  “That’s one,” Williams said.

  Another splash of light.

  “And two.”

  The threat receiver sounded in his earphones.

  “Incoming locked on,” Williams said.

  Dimatta hit the Tac-1 frequency. “Snake Eyes?”

  “That’s enough, Cancha,” McKenna said. “Lesson taught.”

  “Kill the radar, Nitro.”

  “Done.”

  Again, he rolled onto his right side and pulled the nose into a tight loop. The hostile missile, having lost its radar target, missed them by half a mile.

  At Mach 1.8, they passed over the last well a few seconds later.

  “That last picture’s going to be blurry, Cancha.”

  “Way it goes, sometimes.”

  Dimatta wasn’t going to review this mission in his mind for a while, not until they returned to Themis, but his blood felt as if it were singing in his veins.

  He wasn’t even hungry.

  And behind him, he thought that two German Tornadoes were frantically searching a barren landscape for him.

  And finding only fragments of Tornadoes.

  Ten

  The Hochkommandieren was composed of the commanders-in-chief of the army, the navy, and the air force. Along with innumerable advisors, staffers, and flunkies. The overflowing headquarters building and three annexes were located in Bonn, close to the civilian government to which the High Command reported.

  The three men who headed Germany’s military establishment took themselves and their charter very seriously, and they took the civilian government somewhat less seriously. Chancellors and legislators, they reasoned, could not possibly understand the fine nuances of strategy, tactics, overt and covert operation, and proud tradition.

  Gen. Felix Eisenach understood the subtle distinctions that existed between the civilian and the military leaderships. The civilians wanted a strong, world-respected posture for Germany without paying too much for it, and they set that policy for the High Command, leaving the strategy for achieving it to men who had fought as youngsters in, and been soundly defeated by, World War II.

  With the sting of memory still aching in their minds and with the annual debate and underfunding of military appropriations by liberal thinkers in the Bundestag, the marshals, generals, and admirals had been pressured to look elsewhere for funding to meet their charter.

  They found the necessary support in a loose confederation of bankers, entrepreneurs, and financial manipulators of like mind. The confederation operated under the VORMUND PROJEKT. Where the shortsighted tinkers and tailors who made up the Bundestag failed to provide, the GUARDIAN PROJECT supplemented. The bankers, naturally, sought more than military and national stature. They were looking for long-range profits and were already beginning to see them in increased employment, an expanding industry, and a growing economy. The revenues from the sale of new energy flowing from the Greenland Sea was already meeting the debt obligations of capital investment and would show a sliver of profit in this fiscal year.

  Both the visible government in Bonn and the invisible underwriters of the GUARDIAN PROJECT were willing listeners to reports of advancement. Setbacks, extended timetables, and minor failures were not received as well.

  Thus, when Eisenach left the High Command headquarters, after listening to the two marshals and single admiral, he understood his instructions. There would be no advertising of the losses on the Arctic Ice the night before. Such a revelation would generate spirited and vivid debate in the federal parliament, and quite possibly, investigations into the Bremerhaven Petroleum Corporation, the makeup of its board of directors, and the role the military played in economic development.

  More undesirable, from the High Command’s point of view, was a public discussion of the tremendous amount of energy production and energy reserves that had been developed over the past three years. Wars were won or lost, based upon the availability of energy. Ships stayed in port and aircraft on the ground when there were no fuels available. Armies, with their insatiable need for ammunition, stores, and support services, became immobile when the fuel tanks of trucks, jeeps, and tanks went dry. Any airing of the rationales for the High Command’s objective of hoarding energy supplies and sources was to be avoided at all costs.

  As Eisenach and Oberlin descended the
steps of the headquarters building, Oberst Albert Weismann joined them. He had been waiting in the corridors outside the staff rooms, in the event that he might be called upon to explain how his two Tornadoes had been shot down.

  When Eisenach saw him, he stopped in the middle of the long, wide flight of marble steps and waited. The street ahead of him bustled with pedestrians and automobiles, most of them good Germans on their separate ways home, to work, or to lunch. Not one of them, he was certain, realized how hard their country was working for them.

  “General?” Weismann asked.

  “The mood was not playful, Colonel.”

  “That is understandable.”

  “Steps must be taken.”

  “I agree,” Weismann said.

  “The pre-sited defense units are to be moved to the platforms,” Eisenach said. “You will arrange with Admiral Schmidt for their transport and use your heavy helicopters to emplace them.”

  “At once, General.”

  “Then, remember that our public relations with the High Command, the government, and” — Eisenach swept his hand palm up toward the street — “the people are most important, Albert. They all must understand our increased stature and our equivalence with any power in the world. We need to have the Ghost Project operational.”

  “I have already taken steps toward that end,” Weismann said, glancing at Oberlin.

  Oberlin nodded slightly.

  “It would be helpful, too,” the general said, “if I had better news to deliver the next time I enter this building. I want to be able to say that American intruders have been shot down.”

  “Or Soviet?”

  “Or Soviet. Neither country will, I think, raise public objections, if that should happen. It would only open the doors to scrutiny of their, or at least, the Americans’, actions in destroying our aircraft.”

  Oberlin and Weismann both nodded their agreement. “Small confrontations go unnoticed in those barren spaces,” Oberlin said.

  “That is true,” Eisenach said. “In the particular area of operations, there are very few witnesses to such incidents. We can demonstrate our resolve to either the Americans or the Soviets quietly and simply. Bring me the ears of a pilot, Albert.”

  “I will, General.”

  *

  “Goddamn it, McKenna! Dimatta could have boosted his ass out of there. He didn’t have to shoot back, for Christ’s sake! I know his damned profile. He’s quick on the trigger.”