Straits of Power

by Joe Buff

  “No, sir.”

  Schneider used his screen cursor to measure distances, then did a calculation. For something this simple he didn’t need help from the navigator. “Pilot, make your speed twenty knots.”

  “Make my speed twenty knots, jawohl,” the junior officer at the helm acknowledged.

  “Sir?”

  “It’s natural for us to move faster now that we’re reaching the open Atlantic. . . . I’ve picked a speed so we’ll reach that nice place on the ridge in twenty-four hours. Since it will thus be broad daylight again, the deep scattering layer should be near six hundred meters.”

  The deep scattering layer was a zone thick with biologics—sea life—that blocked passive sonar at many frequencies and made false echoes on active sonar. The biologics, from large to microscopic, migrated downward each dawn, feeding, as traces of sunlight penetrated to almost two thousand feet; at night they moved back upward to more like 500 feet.

  In the bright sun expected by the latest weather forecasts Schneider had, this time tomorrow the deep scattering layer would be deeper than a Los Angeles sub could dive without imploding.

  “We go below that, Einzvo, and enter the rugged ridge terrain that’s well above our own crush depth, and twist and turn and vary our speed. The American won’t be able to keep guessing our position. Suitably masked by terrain, we’ll go to flank speed. He’ll lose contact and won’t regain it and won’t even understand why. He’ll look really bad to his crew and squadron commander. We can’t sink him, but we can ruin his career.”

  An intercom light blinked: the circuit for the radio room. Schneider grabbed the handset. “Captain. Speak.”

  “Sir,” the junior lieutenant in the radio room told him, “an ELF message with our address has come in.”

  Schneider didn’t like this. “A request to come up to floating wire-antenna depth?” That would allow a much faster data receipt rate than the on-hull ELF antenna, but the depth change and the sounds of unreeling the wire would be noticed by the trailing American boat—which might become suspicious.

  “Negative, Captain.” The junior lieutenant read Schneider the decoded text. Schneider snapped, “Jawohl.” He hung up, then cursed under his breath.

  “Sir?” Knipp queried him cautiously, seeing his sudden dark mood.

  “Challenger already put to sea, more than a day ago. Intelligence indicates their destination is Durban. The von Scheer.”

  “That’s what we expected, sir, no? It makes the most sense strategically.”

  “Sailing so early is something we didn’t expect.” Schneider felt disgusted. “I don’t see how they do it. Every time that ship goes into dry dock for repairs, Fuller takes her out again weeks ahead of what we predicted.”

  “Perhaps our other captains’ damage estimates were too optimistic, sir. Or our spies have been turned, captured, made to feed us misleading information to catch us unawares?”

  “Speculation is useless. What matters is confirmed fact.”

  Knipp nodded. “Your intentions were—”

  “I know what my intentions were.” Arrive at Durban well before Challenger could, and set up an ambush. But Challenger is on the move two weeks too soon, and another American submarine is following me. . . . I can’t imagine a more adverse scenario.

  Despite all the practice and training in Russian waters, and the exhaustive virtual battles in the attack simulator onshore, this was Doenitz’s first combat crisis at sea. Schneider met the command dilemma head-on. He made his decision.

  “We continue to act like a Russian. If we show any sudden move, the Los Angeles could get excited enough to report it. If the Allies are reading German ELF codes, and make the connection, we’ll have given ourselves away.”

  “Understood, sir. Concur.”

  “No, we pretend we don’t know or care a thing about Fuller and Challenger. I’d love to go very deep, quickly, and put a nuclear torpedo up that trailing captain’s ass, but he might release a buoy with a warning before he dies.”

  “Maintain our present course and speed, then, and use the deep scattering layer and the ridge as already planned?”

  “For now we proceed sedately, as Ivans who are anything but crazy. Then we embarrass that clown behind us who thinks he’s so very smart to have stuck with us this far. . . . Once we break into ultraquiet at our special flank speed, we’ll turn southeast and just keep going at sixty-plus knots. We’ll still get to Durban and poor Beck’s lair in plenty of time to slow, and reconnoiter and hide, and then blow Fuller’s head off.”

  Chapter 18

  Before dawn the next morning, Ilse Reebeck settled in at her workstation, in the big and bustling war room of Admiral Hodgkiss’s headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia. Just like last night—at the end of her previous very long day—large display screens on the walls showed the status of friendly and enemy forces in the Atlantic Ocean theater of battle. Other screens provided maps and icons of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, including parts of Allied Central Command whose naval affairs were put under Hodgkiss’s control. Information was given as well on the Indian Ocean theater.

  But what was happening right now wasn’t the troubling issue. It was what wasn’t happening, and why, and the half-hidden buildup to the next major move that most bothered Ilse. The aftermath of recent events, and the unfathomable near future, riveted her attention—and kept everyone in the war room on pins and needles at their desks, or picking at their food in the cafeteria, or tossing and turning sleeplessly in their racks. Though there was much Ilse hadn’t been told, anyone in the war room with eyes and a brain could see that something nasty was heating up in the Mediterranean, and the Axis direction of advance this time would be east.

  Her job was to serve as a military oceanographer. She was the liaison between Admiral Hodgkiss and the U.S. Navy’s Meteorology and Oceanography Command—METOC—that supported the navy’s fighting fleets with tactically important science-driven data interpretations, predictions, and recommendations. METOC had their own separate headquarters, with supporting centers around the globe, but a handful of staffers from METOC sat at the workstations to Ilse’s right and left.

  Ilse glanced at the two armed marines who stood against the wall, at the end of her aisle of consoles. Hodgkiss’s orders for the constant escort hadn’t been lifted yet.

  Ilse shifted in her seat, tried to loosen up her shoulders and neck, and went back to work. Arrayed before her at the console were computer screens, a sophisticated keyboard, and a bank of secure in-house telephones. Hard-copy procedure and specification manuals, scratch pads full of scribbled notes, empty coffee cups, and well-thumbed reference books covered most of her desk, leaving little free space. Her trash bin, marked CLASSIFIED: SHRED AND BURN like all the others in the war room, was half-overflowing with crumpled papers from late into the evening before. Around her, many voices droned, phones rang, announcements came over the speakers, and couriers and messengers moved about in a constant hubbub. Ilse tuned them out.

  Her task involved an ongoing analysis of acoustic conditions in the waters from outside Gibraltar through the whole long Med. It was a gigantic undertaking. Information poured in nonstop from remote sensors in the air or in outer space, and from small underwater robotic probes—called ocean rovers—that could snoop and scoot and then upload their precious data by laser or radio to communication-relay satellites. All of this was vital for modern undersea warfare. The Axis did it too. Whoever did it more and better stood to gain a decisive edge.

  The people around Ilse assisted, and the building’s supercomputers did the numbers crunching. Ilse checked summary reports, and she’d devil’s-advocate conclusions. She offered helpful hints as needed, to solve technical problems that constantly came up, or to enhance the customized modeling software used. Hodgkiss, through his aide Johansen, had said Ilse’s valuable contributions were being made known to the Free South African legation at their embassy in Washington. She wondered if this amounted to lobbying for the Free South Africa
n Navy to promote her to lieutenant commander, or if it had to do with fending off the FBI’s mad mole hunt.

  Certainly one or the other, and maybe both. Hodgkiss never does things without good reason. Since being awarded the Legion of Merit by her government-in-exile’s tiny navy a couple of months ago, Ilse hadn’t had direct contact with either her navy or her embassy. Lately, she wondered if maybe she ought to have done more to stay in touch, even shown her face.

  Ilse was startled when Captain Johansen appeared, looking over her shoulder.

  “Come with me, please,” Johansen said.

  Ilse made sure the people near her had things well under control, then silently followed the captain. His manner suggested that he didn’t want to talk. He waved for the marine bodyguards to accompany them.

  Johansen positioned the two marines outside a metal door that was posted with security warnings. He led Ilse inside. The small room had a workstation like her other one.

  “We’re putting you on something else, Lieutenant.”

  Ilse was puzzled, then annoyed and angry. “Is this about my security clearance?”

  “First of all, that sort of attitude won’t help anyone.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “More to the point, we need you at the moment for something new and different. Too new and different, is the problem.”

  “Sir?” Now Ilse was confused.

  “The Russians have deployed the first in a new class of nuclear-powered fast-attack submarines.”

  “I thought their fleet was mostly defunct.”

  “When you start out with a few hundred operational subs at the end of the Cold War, and are down to a couple of dozen twenty years later, mostly defunct is mostly accurate.”

  “So . . .”

  “The two dozen SSNs they’ve got left are among the best in the world. They’ve had decades now to perfect the lessons they learned from the Walker spy ring, and from other spies we probably still haven’t caught.”

  “You’re saying two dozen very good subs is a lot?”

  “It’s a lot when they’re playing at being neutral, while they hold over us the threat of joining the Axis side. It’s bad enough they announced after your last trip on Challenger that they’d consider any American use of hydrogen bombs on land in the Eastern Hemisphere as a direct attack on Russia herself, and retaliation in kind would be swift and merciless.”

  Ilse nodded.

  “We need to know everything we can about this new sub. The code name we gave it is the Snow Tiger class.”

  “Like with the old NATO names, Golf or Delta or whatever?”

  “Correct. The Russians themselves we do know designate it the 868U, and they call the class the Malakhit-B, after the Malakhit Design Bureau, their people who came up with the thing.”

  “Where do I come in?”

  “You’re aware that since the war broke out and Russia declared her supposed neutrality, we had to stop sending American spy subs into the Barents Sea?” The Barents lay north and east of Norway, and led to the Russian Northern Fleet ports and supporting maritime-bomber airfields.

  “Too provocative if one was detected?”

  “Exactly. But a submarine like the Snow Tiger isn’t built to rust at a pier, like most ex-Soviet Navy hulls are doing. This one came out, just a little while ago. It went through the G-I-UK Gap according to standard procedures for innocent passage. While verifying that it wasn’t actually a German unit, we got to look and listen. . . . This console has access to everything we have on the Snow Tiger so far, which isn’t much. We want you to go through the sound profile, the visuals, tell us everything you can about this ship.”

  “Don’t you have experts who are much better at this sort of thing?”

  “Of course. You’re not the only person on this.”

  Ilse winced.

  “But the admiral wants your conclusions. You have a unique perspective, from working with the sonar people on Challenger, and from your experiences on her in combat against advanced new Axis submarines. You’re available, whereas battle-seasoned sonar men are deployed fighting other battles.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “The admiral does not expect miracles. He does want a second opinion.”

  “About what, exactly?”

  The captain pointed at the console desk. “That manila folder has your instructions. Basically, tell us everything you can about the Snow Tiger’s hull design and materials, propulsion system, sensors that you see or suspect, and anything else you can think of. It’s open season. Give us all you’ve got.”

  “How long do I have?”

  “I need your initial findings by eighteen hundred.” Six P.M. “Food, drink, coffee will be brought to you. There’s a rest room through this side door here. You need anything, or see anything important you think I should know before eighteen hundred, call me. The green handset is my direct line; the staff will find me if I’m not in my office. The other phones aren’t live, by the way. Your console does have access to a walled-off portion of one of the basement supercomputers.”

  “When will I go back to helping Challenger?”

  “Between you and me, Lieutenant, I’ve no idea if there’s even an if, let alone a when.”

  “But you said—”

  “Just stick to the Snow Tiger until you’re instructed otherwise. Step one, sign these receipts and security forms.”

  “But what about my team outside in the war room?”

  “They’ll be perfectly fine without you. METOC has plenty of bench strength, believe me.”

  “Why do I have the feeling I’m being locked up and shunted aside?”

  The captain stared at Ilse. “You tell me. From what we do know, the Snow Tiger design is very good, and more are being built. We can’t afford to have Ivans trailing our fast-attacks in a war zone, putting our boomers under greater threat, snooping outside our submarine bases, gathering intell for Moscow to pass to Germany. To me this sounds like a choice assignment for someone with your credentials and rank. If you think you’re being locked up, maybe you’ve got a persecution complex. Outward paranoia is often a warning sign of a guilty conscience. Ever since that U-boat cruise-missile attack against Newport News, questions are being asked everywhere about how the Germans could have known Challenger’s sailing time so exactly.”

  “That wasn’t a nice thing to say, sir. With all due respect.” Actually, Ilse found the comment stinging.

  “I’m not nice, this war isn’t nice, the Snow Tiger isn’t nice, and most of all counterespionage isn’t nice. If you like, think of this as a test of your loyalty as well as your skill.” Johansen pointed abruptly at the console again. “Come up with some good stuff for Admiral Hodgkiss in your written report by eighteen hundred. Hold back, throw in red herrings, we’ll know. Like I said, other people are looking at the same data.”

  “What if I—”

  “Draw a blank? Your value to us will be called into question.”

  “You know I’m not a specialist at this kind of work.”

  “Commander Fuller’s reports say you’re adaptable and smart. I certainly hope he didn’t exaggerate for personal reasons.” Ilse held her tongue with difficulty. Johansen knew it. “Private acts have public consequences. You’re an adult, you should know that without being told. . . .” The captain looked impatiently at his watch.

  “This is—”

  He waved a hand forcefully to cut Ilse off. “Look, the admiral has many demands on his time. Fighting with the FBI over you could become a distraction. More and more signs do point to there being a mole. The FBI is under tremendous pressure to find the culprit and halt the leak. The sheer weight of personnel numbers versus a suspected junior navy staffer is on their side, and the politics and jurisdictional issues remain in flux. If Admiral Hodgkiss starts to get too much heat from above, he’ll only stick his neck out so far.”

  “But he’s a four-star admiral!”

  “One of several, and not the most senior. Every one of wh
om wants to be the chief of naval operations before they retire. And each of whom has to please civilian Pentagon and cabinet secretaries, and the U.S. Senate, to ever get that top-most uniformed job. . . . Being familiar with the admiral as I am from two solid years as his right-hand man, if your utility declines, so will his support.”

  “Then what? I’m thrown to the wolves? To that lynch mob of so-called special agents?”

  “Again, Lieutenant, you said it, not me.”

  Chapter 19

  A message arrived for Challenger, in a code that only Gerald Parker knew. Parker went and decrypted it on his laptop.

  “Captain Fuller, contact has been made between Aardvark and Peapod. Your SEALs need to be briefed.”

  Parker didn’t seem at all happy. This made Jeffrey uneasy, but he knew to hold his tongue for now. He decided to conduct the briefing on Ohio; it was high time to pay a visit to his task group’s other vessel, Parcelli’s ship. And if there’s trouble, let everyone hear it at once from our master spook himself.

  The German minisub, still docked inside Challenger’s pressure-proof in-hull hangar, was overcrowded. Felix and his team alone made eight, which would be full capacity in the passenger compartment. The mini had an operating crew of two—standard doctrine had one man be a submariner and one be a qualified specialist SEAL. Jeffrey picked David Meltzer, Challenger’s battle-stations helmsman, as the submariner pilot. He’d driven the Swedish-built minisub, as well as the American ASDS version, on combat missions several times. Jeffrey wanted him to keep in practice for what was to come. One of Felix’s chiefs, Costa, a quiet and serious man, sat next to Meltzer in the tiny control compartment of the minisub as the SEAL copilot. But the mini also held Jeffrey and Gerald Parker, Gamal Salih, Lieutenants Milgrom and Sessions—plus Felix’s other chief, Porto, with his jocular temperament and always-lively eyes. Jeffrey squeezed into the control compartment behind Meltzer’s seat, and suggested Parker stand—or rather, stoop, with the low overhead—next to him behind Costa. Since there weren’t enough seats to go around, two of the enlisted SEALs crouched in the lock-out chamber.