by Nigel Seed
Every eight minutes with mechanical precision two more missiles appeared with their ancient jet engines buzzing and pounding over the city. As they reached it the internal guillotines operated and the power dive started until the missiles smashed into the ground. The flying bombs were affected by the breezes that swirled around the tall buildings and through the broad streets. Each was affected in different ways and so the nerve gas was dropped indiscriminately over the city, but with a concentration around the Financial District at the southern end of Manhattan. The seventh missile from V4-2 smashed through the front display window of a large department store filling the space with the vapor that would not be dispersed quickly by the wind. The sixth, from V4-1, fell harmlessly into the river as its old engine exploded a minute after take-off. The eighth swung east in a gust of wind and crashed to earth on the Brooklyn end of the Williamsburg Bridge.
Many of the panicked thousands fleeing across the bridge were caught by the gas from this explosion. The rest turned and ran back toward Manhattan, trampling over those still trying to cross the bridge and adding to the panic and fear. Military and law enforcement authorities could gain no clear picture of what was happening in the city, although it was evident that a devastating attack was in progress. Calls to the Mayor’s office and to the headquarters of the police and fire departments added to the confusion as shocked officials tried to make sense of what was happening around them. The Homeland Security plans put in place after the strike on the World Trade Center swung into action, but the confusion and hysteria in the streets slowed down the practiced reaction.
Twenty minutes into the attack, a fast pass over the city by two F-16 fighter aircraft caused further panic as the sound of the jets above were assumed, by already scared people, to be another part of the attack. The two jets flew the length of Manhattan, then down the Hudson toward the sea. They failed to spot the two submarines in the mist on the water below them and would probably have assumed them to be part of the US military, never dreaming that these could be the source of the terror. The crews on the decks of the submarines heard the jets pass over them, but did not pause their deadly work.
At the docks around the river, some merchant ships were launching their boats to use the river to get away from the horror. Others, whose engines were already prepared for sea, slipped their mooring lines and left the dockside. But one old and battered cargo ship moved quietly amid the carnage. There were no boats leaving it and no rush on the decks. It slid slowly into an empty dock on Manhattan Island and dropped the mooring lines. Crewmen ran down the boarding ladder and secured the lines to steel bollards on the dock.
Had anybody had the time to look, they would have seen the freighter’s Captain on his bridge watching the arrival of the slow flying missiles through his binoculars. Beside him stood the man known as Smith, also watching and smiling with satisfaction as the plan unfolded. Both men wore full, military issue, chemical warfare protective equipment. The powerful lenses swept across the city looking up the streets and seeing the bodies lying still and stiff. The Captain stepped to his left and picked up the microphone from the wall unit. His voice was muffled by the charcoal filled filter of his mask, but it was still understandable as he spoke.
“This is the captain. Open the door and send the vehicles.”
At his command, a large section of the ship’s side opened out to form a large hatch. The hatch fell to the dockside, anchored to the ship at what had been the bottom to form a steep ramp. The rumble of engines starting came from deep inside the vessel. Then one after another, ten military Humvees drove out of the ship and down the ramp. The vehicles were painted in U.S. Army camouflage and the crews were also wearing full military chemical warfare protective equipment. Each vehicle carried a prominent sign back and front that read “Chemical Decontamination Unit.” They drove at speed out of the dock area and spread out as they went, mounting the sidewalks where they needed to get around the snarled up and abandoned traffic. They drove past bodies and frightened survivors without paying them any attention.
The first person in any sort of authority to see them was a Police Patrol Man who stepped out from behind a Yellow Cab to stop and warn them of what lay ahead. His arm was still outstretched as he hit the road surface an instant before the Humvee drove over him without slowing. The second and third vehicles drove over him too before they peeled off, away from the leading truck. The lead Humvee, still sporting the patrolman’s blood across the fender, screeched to a sliding halt outside a bank. As it stopped, four men exited the vehicle. All wore the chemical protection suits and masks, and all carried M-4 assault rifles plus a holstered pistol on their belts. Without a word being spoken and without a glance toward the civilians scattered around they trotted up the wide stairs into the bank entrance, avoiding the wreckage of the V1 that had landed in the once elegant plaza.
Customers lay unmoving across the marble floor, the security guards among them. Nothing moved. Behind the high glass screen, clerks were face down on their desks or sprawled beside them. The first of the men approached the door beside the glass screened area and smashed the lock with the large sledgehammer he carried. It took a few blows to open the security door, but nobody was coming to stop him and he could take his time. The door rocked back on its hinges and the team entered and split up. One man turned left and started to empty the cash drawers throughout the customer service area. The other three hurried through to the back of the bank and down the stairs.
As expected at this time of day, the main vault had been opened. A bank employee lay face down across the threshold. The body was dragged unceremoniously to one side of the corridor and dropped to the marble floor. They stepped inside the vault. Sitting trembling in the corner of the large vault was a survivor. A young woman sat on the floor shaking and crying with shock. She reached a trembling hand toward them in hysterical supplication. She was cured by a single round between the eyes from the rifle of the first man into the vault. The others made no comment and began to collect the cash stacked on the shelves in the middle of the room. The safety deposit boxes were next. Smashed out of the wall by the heavy sledgehammer and the large crowbars they had also brought.
As two men continued to work their way through the boxes, one went back up the stairs carrying two full sacks. As he exited the front door of the bank, the fourth team member was already standing on top of the Humvee with his rifle at the ready, watching for any movement in the street. The two sacks were thrown into the back of the truck on top of the one that already lay there. Without a word to his colleague the man from the vault returned there, to continue collecting whatever the team could find of value. Cash, jewelery, deeds and share certificates were now stacked on the metal shelves in the middle of the vault. The third man started to sweep these into the heavy duty sacks he carried back to the waiting Humvee.
As the fast, efficient search ended there were now six remaining sacks at the door of the vault. The three men stepped out into the corridor and started to move the sacks up the stairs. The leader stopped, turned back to the vault to a place the security cameras could not see and just inside the door dropped a set of Muslim prayer beads.
They loaded the sacks onto the cargo bed of the Humvee and all climbed in. As they drove slowly to their rendezvous point they scanned the silent streets. They had one more stop to make before they were finished. The vehicle pulled up outside a catholic church and three of them got out and headed for the steps up to the entrance. The fourth man resumed his station on top of the vehicle, scanning for any interference from survivors. The streets were still. Nothing moved except the trees in a small park, waving in the gentle breeze.
The man keeping over watch turned to see his team leaving the church. One carried an ornate crucifix and the other a set of large antique candlesticks that looked valuable. The third man carried nothing from the church, but stopped to press the button of a radio detonator in his left hand. The stained glass windows of the church erupted with the blast, scattering fragmen
ts in all directions. Smoke billowed out of the door and the sound of falling masonry and splintering wood came with it. They paused and looked back to make sure that the fire had started, then returned to their seats in the truck.
Moving on slowly they continued to watch for survivors or other interference. There were very few and fewer still who approached them. Those that did were dispatched with one or two accurately placed rounds from an M-4. There was no sound from the men. They coldly took lives, but seemed to generate no emotion in themselves as they did. This had clearly been planned in great detail as hardly a word passed between them.
Only once did they show any sign of twisted humanity. The driver stopped the Humvee next to a roadside stall selling tourist trinkets. He climbed out and went across to the deserted stall, returning bearing four tee-shirts emblazoned with the logo that proclaimed “I Love New York.” They drove on.
Ninety minutes had passed since the launch of the first flying bomb from V4-1. The U-Boats may have been dimly seen on the misty river, but had not been identified as the attackers. They continued to the next phase of their part of the plan.
Meanwhile in the stricken city the other Humvee teams were rummaging through the bank vaults that were their allocated targets. In only two banks did they find the vaults closed. One had not been opened yet and in the other they found the body of the dedicated employee who had given his life to safeguard his employer’s business. These two teams wasted no time trying to crack open these massive doors and moved on quickly to their secondary targets where they found the vaults open. The haul of booty from these vaults was probably not as large as the primaries would have been, but speed was now essential. As each team finished their allocated task they moved rapidly to the rendezvous point, outside Our Lady of Victories Church on William Street.
In one of the banks an Arab Ghutra headdress had been caught on a splintered door frame, artfully placed out of sight of the cameras to suggest it had been wrenched off accidentally. No other clues had been deliberately left. More would have made the trail too obvious.
As the last of the Chemical Decontamination trucks pulled up to the back of the line the sound of sirens could be heard heading toward them. The New York authorities had recovered amazingly quickly and were trying to regain control of their city to help their stricken and traumatised people, using plans they developed after the attacks on the World Trade Center.
The leader of the attackers, standing by the front vehicle, waved his arm and climbed back into his seat. The convoy moved off, traveling quickly and staying close together. They turned away from the sound of sirens and headed back toward the port, turning into the dock they had left not long before, and without hesitation drove up the ramp in the side of the cargo ship. Cables from the deck cranes were now attached to the dockside end of the ramp and as soon as the last vehicle had mounted it, the ramp was hauled back up to once again become the side of the ship. Sparks flew from the edges of the improvised hatch as waiting welders secured it back in place with spot welds.
Mooring lines were cast off from the dock and the ship slowly edged back from the quay.
Chapter 20
Unknown to the crew of the slowly moving cargo ship, as they moved down the river toward the sea, they passed directly over the top of one of the submerged submarines waiting until the appointed time before executing the next phase of their mission.
Inside the submarine, the control room clock moved incredibly slowly for the crews waiting on the bottom of the river. Eventually it reached two o’clock in the afternoon. Both submarines drifted up to periscope depth and the captains took a careful look around. Fire, police and Coast Guard boats and ships scurried around them helping to find survivors and searching for the madmen who had carried out the attack. These vessels were not the targets the attackers were waiting for. They must wait until the targets they had been told to expect appeared. They settled down to the muddy bottom again, as they had been instructed and waited, listening to the sounds of the traffic in the river above them.
The man at the sound station of V4-1 strained his ears to identify the sounds he had been trained to recognize, over the last four months. Nothing but small boats racing past in the confusion of the surface and slower heavier merchant ships trying to leave the area. He stiffened in his seat and the captain and first officer, who had been watching him, stepped closer. There it was, the deeper sound of a warship or a large sized commercial ship entering the area. Then another. Their targets were here. He turned to his captain and nodded, holding up three fingers. Three targets; better than they had hoped.
The captain returned to his control room and ordered periscope depth and waited as the greased tube hissed upwards. As the water cleared from the lens he could see the gray bulk of the US Navy warship, that had been visiting the city as part of Fleet Week. He did not care what type it was. Soon it would be making a nice new reef for the fishes to hide in, if there were any fish in this cold, dark, polluted water. He ordered the forward torpedo room to make all four tubes ready for firing and maneuvered his boat slowly to bring the bow round toward the warship. They were making no effort to avoid him. They did not even suspect his presence. Fools. They would pay dearly for this arrogance. He called out the range and direction to his tactical officer who made the calculations and passed instructions to the torpedo room.
The Captain took his eye from the periscope and looked at the tactical officer.
“Ready?”
“Ready sir!”
“Fire two. Fire three.”
The order was passed and the U-Boat juddered slightly along its length as it fired its first ever torpedo attack and the weapons, made for a very different war, surged through the water.
The number two torpedo failed after running half the distance to the target. It nosed down and plunged to the bottom of the river. It had run just long enough to arm itself and as it struck the bottom of the harbor the contact detonator operated and the warhead exploded, sending a tower of white water boiling up from the surface of the river. The bridge crew of the warship heard the explosion and saw the tumbling water rise from the river. Then they saw the track of torpedo three aiming straight for them. They were moving too slowly to maneuver out of the way and the first officer had just time to sound the collision alarm before the torpedo struck the ship four seconds later.
In a war zone, with all the crew on high alert, those four seconds might have been time enough to close at least some of the watertight doors, but this was New York and most of the crew was on deck wearing clumsy chemical warfare equipment and staring at the city they had come to try and help. The massive explosion amidships punched a huge hole in the side of the ship and sent tons of filthy river water flooding through the hull. The damage control parties were helpless and the pumps had no chance to save the ship as she filled with the water of their own river. The radio officer tried desperately to get a message sent but the rapid list of the ship to port gave him little time.
Out of the mist still hanging over the river came a larger gray US Navy ship this one marked with the large red crosses on a white background that signified an unarmed hospital ship. With not a care for their own safety this unarmed vessel pulled alongside the stricken warship to rescue her crew. The recovery nets were thrown over the side nearest to the men in the water and the hospital ship’s boats were being lowered when she was seen through the periscope of V4-1.
The submarine skipper could not believe his luck. The large navy ship had stopped exactly where he had just fired his torpedoes. With no need to move the boat to achieve a firing solution he ordered the immediate firing of tubes one and four. Again the boat shuddered as the torpedoes accelerated away. This time there was no failure and both the underwater missiles struck the hospital ship on the port side and exploded, ripping huge holes below the water line. Despite the warning from the previous torpedo attack the rescuers had not secured the watertight doors. They had made the sad mistake of relying on their hospital ship markings an
d had concentrated on saving the men in the water. Their undoubted courage contributed to the rising death toll on the river.
Having launched her four forward torpedoes, V4-1 settled back gently into the river mud in the deepest part of the shallow water to reload the tubes. Due to the specialized design of these boats, only enough extra torpedoes for one more load were carried in the forward torpedo room. While this reload was going on it was the turn of V4-2 to cause mayhem and confusion in another part of the river.
Her captain decided to make his attack on the largest ships he could find rather than wait for navy targets. He brought the boat to periscope depth as soon as large propellers were identified by his sound man. The water cleared from the periscope lens and presented him with a view of a huge, laden, container ship. Her decks were piled high with the large metal container boxes holding the consumer goods that this decadent society craved. As soon as he had a firing solution, tubes one, two and four were flooded and their torpedoes launched. A ship of this size would need more torpedoes to sink than the navy ships. He kept one torpedo in reserve in case another target swam into his path.
The three torpedoes ran hot, straight and normal. At this range he could hardly miss a target of this size and all three underwater missiles struck the ship along the starboard side. The impact shook the huge vessel, dislodging a number of containers from her decks into the river where they settled to float with their tops at water level.