Countdown: M Day

by Tom Kratman

  The problems with Naughtius were multifold. She was old. She’d been rode hard for years. She’d been put away wet. And she hadn’t really been cared for in years, before the regiment took her. Even in her best days, she’d been, to quote the film, Dragnet, “The cutting edge of Serbo-Croatian technology.”

  So, of course, someone had to start telling Yugo jokes, suitably modified. Of course that somebody was the sub’s crew.

  “Hey,” asked the helmsman from his perch, over one shoulder, “what do you call a Yugo Class on the surface of the ocean?”

  “Dunno,” said the sub’s commander, though he clearly did.

  “A miracle.”

  “What’s the problem with diving a Yugo?”

  “Yugo down, but you can’t stop.”

  The seaman who normally manned the diver lock out chamber asked, “What’s Yugo?”

  Helm replied, “What doesn’t happen when we give ’er the gas or blow ballast.”

  Then the captain of the boat started to sing, a parody of a parody:

  “As the engine dies …

  In a used sub lot at Kotor town

  Gordo the loggie and Victor the clown …”

  “BUY A YUGO!”

  I fucking hate submarine crews, Thornton thought. Bunch of morbid bastards. Though I gotta confess, buying this thing was maybe not one of Victor’s smoothest moves.

  Coco Point Airstrip, Isla del Rey, Panama

  Leo Ross waved to the Antonovs as the second to launch joined the circling first, before they both veered to the northeast. It was pointless, of course; there were no useful windows facing in the right direction. Even so, it seemed the thing to do.

  He stood there, on the beach, by the charred residue of the fire pit they’d cooked over for the last few days, until the planes were lost in the darkness. A part of him yearned to have gone, or to be with his old battalion, despite the really shitty position they were in, by all reports.

  He shook his head. But I can’t now, not anymore. Settled down. Have responsibilities. Kid on the way …even at my age. No need to let the baby grow up an orphan just so daddy can have fun.

  Still, it was nice to be a part of it all again, to feel a little younger, if only for a few days.

  “Come on, cuñado,” he said, finally. “Let’s get back to Chitre.”

  After leaving Panamanian airspace, the Antonovs skirted Colombia’s northern coast for hundreds of miles, staying low and just out of territorial waters as long as possible. Veering sharply just past the town of Manaure, Columbia, both planes, close together, popped over Colombia’s eastern cordillera before diving low parallel to the slope of the far side. They weren’t quite skimming the treetops, but they weren’t all that far above them, either. Hearts were beating fast, breath coming in forced gulps, as the pilots leveled off just before reaching the Gulf of Venezuela.

  There they split up, number two striking for Puerto Fijo to the northeast, while number one aimed itself for the narrow passageway east of San Carlos that was Lake Maracaibo’s access to the sea.

  “Ready on the barrels, Tim,” the pilot warned as he used his dash controls to lower the rear cargo ramp. Wet, tropical air rushed into the cargo compartment, bringing with it smells of jungle and shore, and the fumes from the engines.

  “Got it, boss,” Lindell answered. He signaled with his head for his assistant to stand by on the other side of the mine shell. Those would go first, in this first pass, as fast as they could be rolled to ramp.

  “Stand by the first four,” the pilot announced. “Five …four …three …two …roll, roll, roll, roll.”

  Out the open space that had been filled by the ramp, Lindell could just see the spit of land that held the small town of San Carlos. As the last of the M-240 shells disappeared over the ramps edge, to tumble to the sea, he thought that the plane was doing under eighty knots, and flying so close to the surface that it was actually getting some surface effect.

  “Good drop,” the pilot announced. “Next gap, three shell mines, stand by to roll in ninety seconds …Five …four …three …two …roll, roll, roll.”

  That time he was sure he saw a splash rise up, almost as high as the plane. Oh, yeah, this is how even the cargo Air Force gets its moments of excitement.

  “Stand by for course change,” was sounded just in time for Tim to expect to be thrown to his butt. He managed to get to his feet in time to hear, “Two shells in two minutes …Five …four …three …two …roll …roll. Three shells in two minutes …roll …roll …roll.”

  That time Tim was certain he saw a splash.

  “Okay,” the pilot said. “Next we’re going to drop dummies, as many as you can shove out the ramp. Course change in one minute.”

  Lindell swayed over to the ramp and a stack of three millimeter thick, half meter in diameter steel plates. His assistant did the same on the far side, both men waiting until the turn was complete, hanging on for dear life while it was underway, before undoing the straps that held the dummy plates in position.

  “Ready …start tossing the dummies …continuous until ordered otherwise.”

  Two more passes and all eight barrel-mines had been unloaded. Another added yet more dummies. Now came the really back-breaking part, getting the one-ton ex-Yugoslav M-70 mines out the door. The pilot swung out over Lake Maracaibo, then assumed a north-northeastern heading, aiming for the major outlet to the sea by San Carlos. As best he could, he aimed his aircraft along the most common track for ships leaving the lake for the Gulf.

  “Roll …roll. Last two in four minutes …Roll …roll.”

  “And, boys and girls, as your captain for this journey I hope you had an enjoyable time flying with AirVenture, your guaranteed mine delivery service. Now let’s go to Colombia and turn ourselves in.”

  “Um …captain,” Lindell asked, “I realize that I’m just lowly loadmaster and all, but why the fuck are we turning ourselves in?”

  “Because, O ye of little vision, we’ve been ordered to. Now if you want my personal guess, I think headquarters wants the Colombians to give us sanctuary, which will piss off the Venezuelans, so that they do something that will piss off Colombia.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective,

  that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to

  prevent access to the coast of the enemy.

  —Treaty of Paris (1856)

  MV Manuel de Cespedes, Puerto Cabello, Guyana

  She was still under charter, and her captain under orders from Raul Castro’s government to give all possible support to Hugo Chavez. Thus, having dropped off Conde’s Marines, the de Cespedes had gone to Puerto Cabello, this time to pick up a mixed load of a couple of hundred Marines and a slightly larger number of dock workers who—on promise of a substantial bonus for helping out in Georgetown—had volunteered for the enterprise. All of these were camped out, catch as catch can, anyplace horizontal that was at least two square meters. She also carried about four thousand tons of miscellaneous supplies, some of them explosive, but mostly inert.

  De Cespedes backed up from the dock under her own power, although under the guidance of a port pilot called in at the last minute to replace the unaccountably disappeared scheduled pilot. A tug shoved her around to aim generally to the east Then, under her own, but minimal, power, she began to make slow way out of the complex port.

  The mine had no name, but only a number. Indeed, the number wasn’t even really of the 240mm shell that made up the bulk of it, but of the modified destructor kit that had converted it into a mine. Neither the shell, not the kit, were capable of caring a whit, one way or the other.

  In any case, the mine was armed and counting. It sensed the passage overhead of a fairly large body of ferrous material, making the requisite noises. Had the mine been capable of caring, it would have thought something like, Aha, a target.

  Happily for the de Cespedes, however, this mine was set to go off on “three.” Since the
ship was “one,” it did not quite meet parameters. The mine stood down. Better luck next time. Two more to go. Not that it cared.

  Quite unwitting, de Cespedes increased speed slightly as its bow came to point directly at the harbor mouth. It passed over another 240mm mine, a barrel, another barrel, and then an M-70. All of those were set to count and for none of them was “one” the number.

  Fully laden, de Cespedes passed out the narrow channel, and then veered right to assume a northerly heading. This was also, approximately, the route followed not so long before by The Countess.

  * * *

  The M-70, a ton in weight, seventy percent of that weight explosive, waited at the bottom of the sea with as much indifferent patience as had its brethren inside the port. In many ways, being considerably older in its design than the Israeli-supplied destructor kits on the other, ad hoc, mines, it was less sophisticated than they were. Still, it met the broad parameters.

  Inside the M-70, a sensor detected the sounds of an approaching vessel. This was enough for it to power up its other sensors. These normally remained dormant, until powered up, to save life on the battery. Mines, after all, had to last for a while.

  The second sensor, now brought to life, felt around itself for the proper magnetic field. There was one, but it was a little too distant for the nonce to justify suicide. Still, that field came closer …and closer …and closer. Soon, between it and the noise, the relatively primitive computer inside the mine could have said with a fair degree of confidence that it was a ship, that the ship was coming close enough to justify detonation, that the ship was probably big enough to justify detonation, and that—here, a less digital form of intelligence might have exulted, Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy! This is going to be so much fun!—the pressure wave from the ship’s passage was also going to be large enough, and close enough, to justify detonation.

  Happily, if not for the mine, still less the ship, then at least for the organization at whose behest it had been laid, the M-70’s counter was set to “one.”

  And then the magnetic field decreased ever so slightly. The sensors all reported what they had to the central processing unit. It decided that things were about as good as they were going to get. It sent the message, in the form of a straight, uncoded, jolt to the detonator.

  Boom.

  Nearly three-quarters of a ton of high explosive is not small change. When it detonates, as this one just had, it creates a large bubble of hot gas in the water. Pressure then collapses that bubble, as this one collapsed. Internal pressure will recreate it. That cycle lasts until the bubble breaks free to the surface.

  The pressure, however, is not even. It comes mostly from the bottom, where pressure is greater. This acts to drive the bubble upward, much—very much—faster than a normal bubble rises. Pure factors of natural physics will guide this bubble, without any human intervention, in the direction of a hull that it not too far off from directly above. Between that, and the pressure, and the power of the initial explosion, if that bubble hits a ship’s hull it forms a water jet that is, in its effects, not all that different from the hot gas jet of a hollow charge, antiarmor, warhead. Except much, much bigger.

  Standing right at the broad, glass, forward-facing windows of the bridge, the captain never felt a thing and barely had time to notice the rising bubble of water on one side of his ship. The water jet cut through the hull, tore its way through the cargo—some of that cargo human, none of whom felt a thing, either—through the deck of the bridge and then through the captain. It was large enough to take out the bridge crew, as well, barring, oddly enough, the captain’s dog, which was off in one corner, asleep, and thus out of the path of the jet.

  This alone would have been enough to sink de Cespedes. It was not, however, the lone effect. Additionally, there was a shock wave that loosened most of her seams. This, too, would have eventually sunk her. Worse still, the bubble that arose, initially on one side, before the jet pierced her, had the effect of also raising the ship’s center, straining her keel. As the jet was passing through her, and before the bubble entirely collapsed, there was a brief moment when nothing supported the ship except the water at bow and stern. The center, keel already strained to the breaking point, collapsed into the remnants of the bubble. At that point the keel was broken, though sections of the hull still held together.

  And then the water returned as the bubble escaped upwards. It slammed into the ship with unimaginable force, breaking her back entirely. She split in two.

  Of the two sections, the forward one capsized almost immediately. A couple of people who had been on deck were thrown overboard. They died quickly as the ship turned over on them. The rest were caught below decks. Most drowned, civilians and Marines both, in a panic-stricken cacophony of screams and pleas to the Maker. The drowning was not quick, but rather quite a slow and disgusting process.

  The rear section, to which the bridge was mostly still attached, bobbed like a cork for a few moments. Then water rushed in, filling her from forward to rear. She slid beneath the waves in a long, drawn out gurgle. There was just enough time for some few of the people caught in the stern section to escape and hurl themselves into the water. Most never had the chance before the stern, too, slid beneath the waves.

  Happily, the dog, sensible critter, waited until the water was almost flush with the bridge, jumped off, and paddled to shore.

  Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela

  Half a million barrels of heavy crude can make for quite a maritime bonfire.

  Of the ship that had been carrying that half million barrels, there was not a sign. One minute it had been there. The next it was gone with a roaring fire in its place. Worse, the fire was growing and spreading out as more oil arose from below to feed it.

  The fireboats, some from Maracaibo, itself, others from Puerto Fijo and other spots, were totally outclassed. A tanker rupture they could have dealt with. The sudden dumping of that much oil? Not a chance. Instead of beating the fire back, it was beating them back, and threatening them with being fatally outflanked wherever they tried to make a stand.

  Indeed, one of those fireboats had disappeared. And nobody quite knew how or why; it was just gone.

  Outside the lake, toward the northern end of the Gulf of Venezuela, a thin picket line of Coast Guard patrol boats was being established. The crews of those boats were distinctly nervous. They had a pretty good idea of the problem—ships, particularly big oil tankers—don’t just disintegrate on their own as a general rule.

  * * *

  Buz, the crocodile, had had about enough. Home just wasn’t home anymore. First there had been that dammittohell baited trap that had caused him to lose a large number of his teeth, to say nothing of searing his taste buds so badly that he hadn’t even been able to relish the savory deliciousness of mostly rotten meat ever since.

  Then had come that nasty thump running through the water that almost caused him to choke up his last meal. If he’d been any closer, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t have made it.

  Last, and worst, was the glowing stuff out on the water. Sure, Buz knew that fire was a bad thing; he’d had to run to the water more than once in his life to escape it. But when the fire was on the water, too? And it stank? And made the air stink?

  Nope, I’ve had about enough. When the going gets tough, the smart move on.

  Without another word—without any word, for that matter; Buz was a crocodile, after all—he turned his snout to the north and his tail to the south and began paddling off.

  Orinoco River Mouth—la Boca Grande, Venezuela

  With jungle on either side, at a distance of several miles, the propeller of the steamer churned water to a muddy froth behind it.

  The cargo was mixed; clothing from India, electronics from Japan, medicines picked up in Vancouver, and food from the United States’ west coast. Venezuela produced little or none of any of that, except for food. Even so, it was still, since not long after the reorientation of the country’s economy away from agricultur
e and toward oil, not self-sufficient in food.

  The Orinoco was deep here, especially with runoff from the recently ended rainy season. Thus, while the mine was a barrel, and contained the equivalent of about six hundred pounds of TNT, the shock, the jet, and the bubble were not sufficient to rend it in two …or even to kill anybody. They just sprung a few of the seams in minor ways, while the jet pierced the engine compartment, shutting down both speed and power.

  The ship sank gently. The crew, barring only one unfortunate killed in the engine room, was able to get off in good order, some directly to the boats, others to the water in which they swam for the boats.

  Buz would have been very surprised to learn that he had a distant—as in about a million years’ removed—cousin, living on the banks of the Orinoco. The cousin, quite a bit smaller than Buz and not as bright, made his living, such as it was, off the fish of the river and the occasional unwary quadruped. When not hunting for food, that croc’s major interest was watching the ships go by. Sometimes, even, when hunting was poor, it went out to investigate in the hope of getting a handout from the ships’ garbage.

  Hunting had sucked for the last week. It decided it was time for a little panhandling. It hesitated for a moment as it felt an uncomfortable rippling thud in the water. That passed and it noticed the ship had stopped moving. Oh, boy, free eats! The crocodile speeded up as he noticed the ship getting lower. Behind it, forty-odd more of its closer cousins likewise dove into the water.

  Number One Lime Street, London, United Kingdom

  “No, sir,” said the broker, “I am sorry, but your ship was lost to an act of war, while sailing into a declared war zone, and you did not have a war risks policy …No sir, I am afraid that it is far too late for reinsurance …Yes, sir, I am aware your company is going to be sued for those poor sailors eaten by crocodiles …No, sir, so far as I am aware, nobody intends to underwrite war risk policies for ships sailing to and from Venezuela, and certainly not after so many losses in such a short time …Yes, sir, I am sure you do have hulls currently stuck in Venezuelan ports …Well, sir, I suppose you will just have to leave them there, and pay the demurrage, or have them sail out, and risk the greater loss …You do have my sympathies, sir …”