Straits of Power

by Joe Buff

  “Yes.”

  “Lieutenant, he was stopped from going further by you and your team.”

  “Concur, sir.”

  “That’s all I need to know. Chief, where’s the module now?”

  “Azavedo should have it here in a minute.” Paulo Azavedo was one of Felix’s enlisted SEALs.

  Someone knocked. “Let him in,” Jeffrey said. Everybody scrunched together to make room. Parker showed distaste at having Felix and Costa press against him, defiling what he considered to be his innermost personal space. Jeffrey had no sympathy whatsoever for Parker’s discomfort.

  Azavedo came in with the module. He held the heavy box high for Mohr to examine, causing his ample muscles to bulge. Azavedo had a broad, open face. He peeked through the exit hole while Mohr sighted through the bullet entry point. Jeffrey watched them make eye contact this way; neither man was smiling.

  “Herr Mohr,” Jeffrey asked, “can the damage be fixed in twenty-four hours?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. It depends on what spare parts and materials you have, and on how much help you can give me.”

  “We’ve got quite a lot of things in inventory, and some of the finest engineering and electronics people in the world. . . . Can you also dovetail the repairs with training Lieutenant Estabo’s team in how to use your gear?”

  “In the next twenty-four hours?” Mohr was aghast.

  “Well, twenty-seven, actually. That’s all the time our mandatory egress schedule allows, before the German offensive begins and we’re badly stuck. The rest of that is classified.”

  “Twenty-seven hours for what you ask is impossible.”

  “You’re positive? Even by staying awake the whole time, throwing as many of my crew into the job as you might need?”

  “Captain, I understand what it means to make heroic efforts under time pressures. I know the American expressions about achieving the impossible, about the word ‘impossible’ not being in your dictionary. But when I say impossible, I am not using an expression. To accomplish what you ask is impossible.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  “Concentrate on repairing the module. Instead of trying to train your SEALs, I then go with them.”

  Parker gave a harrumph of total disgust. But squashed against the bulkhead, with two other men’s bodies in very close contact, he’d lost his fragile dignity. Now, to Jeffrey, his latest objection came across as almost comical.

  “Herr Mohr,” Jeffrey asked, “if you don’t train and you go with the team, is the module repairable in twenty-seven hours?”

  “We can only know by trying. Is there any choice?”

  “No. Okay, Lieutenant, stay, but your men can leave now.”

  Once the door was closed, Jeffrey was again with Felix, Mohr, and Parker. “I want to ask you another question, Herr Mohr. Could your equipment, in Allied hands, be used to do to the Axis what they’re trying to do to Israel?”

  “Eventually, potentially. There would have to be much research on reducing quantum decoherence with range. Israel from north to south, and Jerusalem to Cairo, are each two hundred and fifty miles. German-occupied Europe alone measures five times that in any direction, which means twenty-five times the total target area. Decoherence worsens exponentially. That makes the problem much more than twenty-five times as hard to solve.”

  “And we’d need a whole new worm, wouldn’t we, one the Axis won’t have a patch for? Plus, from your work and then your disappearance, the Axis will be forewarned.”

  Jeffrey called the control room and told Bell to join him; Bell arrived in seconds. Jeffrey filled him in. Bell’s eyebrows rose higher and higher. He kept glancing between Felix and Parker and Mohr, and Jeffrey could sense him straining to catch up and digest everything. “We have our hands full, Captain,” Bell said when Jeffrey was finished.

  “And then some. XO, take Herr Mohr and use your stateroom and ask Lieutenant Willey and COB to join you. Start getting everything and everyone you need freed up to focus on repairing that damaged quantum module.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And have a messenger find out when the wardroom will be clean after surgery’s finished. We’re tight for working and planning spaces as it is.”

  Mohr paused in mid-stride as he and Bell began to leave, and Mohr’s head jerked to one side. He frowned darkly, not just with his mouth but with his entire face. “Captain, I’ve thought of something. No, two problems I must mention. They interrelate.”

  “You better tell us, fast.”

  “The worm is designed to not become active immediately when inserted, but at a specific future moment, to coordinate with the Afrika Korps attack.”

  Jeffrey pondered this. “So Israel isn’t warned of the worm too soon? When it reveals itself in action as regular program code? To keep Israel from writing their own patch, and recovering before the real shooting starts?”

  “Setting the activation clock in the quantum worm is one thing Berlin insisted that I automate in the module sets. A Kampfschwimmer can enter the start time easily. I showed them all how.”

  Shit. “So their high command isn’t locked into Tuesday. They could move up the whole offensive.”

  “After Friday night’s events, it seems likely they will.”

  “There’s more time pressure than we thought.”

  “Yes. There will also be no way for us to be sure the patch got into their systems ahead of the worm, until the scheduled start time arrives.”

  “You mean, even if our intrusion goes off without a hitch, tactically and technically, we can’t tell if we beat every Kampfschwimmer team till the main battle starts?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Jeffrey was deeply disturbed. “We do all this work and take all these risks, and we won’t know if it paid off until it’s too late for us to do anything but watch for unfolding disaster?”

  “That is an accurate way to put it, Captain. I’m sorry if I caused you to think the result would be more definite sooner.”

  “XO, you and Herr Mohr better get to work.” They left.

  Jeffrey focused on Felix. “Lieutenant, you have five fit men including yourself?”

  “Correct, sir.”

  “We need to start planning where and how to make a covert landing on the coast of Israel tomorrow afternoon. You’ll have a maximum of six hours to depart Challenger, get to the beach, do your thing from there, and return to the ship. That’s not negotiable. Six hours. Challenger has a fixed appointment elsewhere, later. Beyond that you don’t want to know, because you don’t need to know and you’ll be on hostile turf. Yes, we have to view Israel as hostile. For security, they were never told we’re in this theater. If they detect us they won’t know who we are, and they might attack. If they detect us and their naval command was infiltrated by Germans, then German antisubmarine forces from Greece or Crete will attack. Mohr’s disappearance cancels any advantage we gained from the loss of Ohio. The Axis will have seen through the cover story for your Istanbul raid by now, even if Turkey hasn’t. They’ll know an extraction could have been done via water. That’s the score. If you’re not back by 2000 Sunday evening, I leave without you.”

  “Understood, sir.” Felix sounded grim.

  “Talk to Bell and COB. See if we’ve got anybody who speaks some Hebrew. Try Meltzer on that, he’s a qualified ship’s diver. Have Bell pick two of my crew to pilot and copilot the minisub. You arrange scuba lessons for Mohr in a partly flooded lock-out trunk. Compressed-air diving in shallow water isn’t all that hard. And keep a careful eye on Mohr during this mission. At the least sign he’s pro-Axis, kill him. That’s an order.”

  “How will I know if Mohr is really pro-Axis?”

  “Learn as much as you can about him and his equipment. Then, on the ground, as unit commander use your discretion.”

  “What if I misinterpret something? He’s about to save the world, but I goof? If I kill him he can’t save the world.”

  “Every op has its downside. Cope.
Mohr is not to know about this. I don’t want him being on guard. We act as if we accept him completely. Dismissed.” Felix left; only Parker remained.

  “I repeat that I must protest, Captain. The basis for your decision is sketchy, and the arrangements become more tenuous at every turn. Mohr’s latest utterances are the most ridiculous double-talk I’ve ever heard from a supposed defector’s lips. We won’t know if the patch worked until the offensive starts. He snookered you! Bought himself an out! The cyberattack succeeds and Israel goes under. Mohr says, Oops, I guess my patch didn’t get there in time, or, the repairs to the module were flawed. We’ll be long gone, too late to undo the damage he did!”

  “I haven’t decided to trust Mohr. I’ve decided to implement his recommendations. Those are two quite different statements. If you don’t want to help, go to your quarters. When the XO has a spare moment, he’ll make sure your protest is recorded nice and legal. Don’t make me have to say that again! Your repeated disrespect of my authority has put you on thin ice.”

  Parker waved, as if that didn’t matter in the least to him. “You’ll be court-martialed, you realize. You’re committing an act of war, invading Israel on your own.”

  “The court-martial won’t be till later. If this new plan succeeds, I exonerate myself by producing results.”

  “It’ll all be on your head. You’ll make powerful enemies.”

  “Mr. Parker, it’s all been on my head from the minute we got under way in Norfolk.”

  Chapter 40

  During the trip from outside the Dardanelles Strait to the coastline of Israel, there was a frenzy of activity inside Challenger. Jeffrey made another round of visits to the racks where lay the crewmen badly injured from his steep dive to escape as Ohio came under fire and sank—glum duty, both for Jeffrey and the men he tried to cheer up. It reminded them all of something they’d rather forget, and emphasized how their broken limbs, wrenched backs, severe concussions left them feeling useless while a mood of crisis filled the ship. Then Jeffrey spent most of his time making sure the preparations for his invasion of Israel went as well as possible. The stress and sleep deprivation everyone felt were starting to lead to flaring tempers; Mohr, Felix, and Salih argued often over little things. Bell, Willey, and COB were being worn ragged.

  Gerald Parker had accepted the change in plans as a fait accompli. He made himself useful by helping to devil’s-advocate Felix’s sketchy plan for the clandestine operation in Israel.

  He figured out that his life depends on us succeeding. As for consequences later, at the CIA and the Pentagon, or the cabinet and the White House, I’m too busy to think about that now.

  Once Challenger passed the island of Rhodes, on the way out of the Aegean, Jeffrey took the conn and stayed just beyond the edge of Turkey’s twelve-mile territorial limit. This helped him sidestep German threats as he worked south toward Israel. But Turkey’s navy, though neutral, was relatively strong, and she protected her home waters proudly and aggressively. Complicating matters was the fact that Turkey owned over a dozen diesel subs, all of them made in Germany, variants of the type 209, with eight torpedo tubes. It would be tricky to know a submerged contact’s true nationality—even if they started shooting.

  They gave Cyprus a wide berth as their destination neared.

  Bell provided an updated threat assessment. A handful of modern Israeli diesel subs were based in Haifa. Very quiet when cruising slowly on batteries or their air-independent propulsion, Challenger might bump into one, with dire effects.

  Different Israeli diesels would also be deployed, though their captains would want to evade other submarines at all cost. These were the boats that served as boomers, with nuclear-armed cruise missiles launched through torpedo tubes. Now they most likely hid well west of Jeffrey, to bring German-controlled North Africa in range. Whether they’d serve as a deterrent or an initiator of tactical nuclear war on land remained to be seen. At least we know they won’t target the Aswan Dam if desperate enough, sacrificing their Egyptian allies to create an impassable tank trap. When Germany nuked Warsaw and Tripoli at the very start of the fighting, mid-2011, Egypt drained the gigantic artificial Lake Nasser behind the dam; experts cautioned that if the dam were smashed, a radioactive tsunami would sweep down the Nile and wash away most human life along the banks—including Cairo, population twenty million.

  Bell said Israel also had oceangoing corvettes, 1,000 tons and 250 feet long, such as the Improved Sa’ar V+ class, built for Israel in Mississippi. Though smaller than Turkey’s frigates, these each had six antisubmarine torpedo tubes and an ASW helo.

  The final approach would be no picnic even for Challenger.

  Jeffrey was increasingly plagued by a disturbing thought. The Germans might have an entire underground of science wizards. What proof did Jeffrey have that Mohr was truly their head guy on quantum hacking? What if there was someone smarter, and—as Parker had tried to warn before—Mohr had, unawares, indeed been misled about what his gear set with the patch would do? What if he’s a Trojan horse of a different sort, an unconscious one? In that case Mohr could feel all the sincerity in the world, but it would count for nothing.

  Later, taking a break for food in the wardroom before he grabbed a catnap, something else bad played on Jeffrey’s mind.

  He kept thinking about the two dozen ekranoplans Russia had sold to Germany. These would have been the top-priority target for Ohio, with her egress orders—as he now knew—to linger and hurt the German offensive. Using more than a hundred Tomahawks programmed in antiship mode, four or five cruise missiles would have ambushed each hybrid sea-skimmer aircraft, with the missiles moving at twice the aircraft’s speed. But that was not to be.

  Each ekranoplan could lift eight of Germany’s Leopard III main battle tanks, with tank-rider support infantry. When the time came for the Axis assault to open, the ekranoplans might head straight down from Italy to occupied Libya to unload, or they might turn east and threaten the coast of Egypt and Israel.

  Both of these Allied countries knew about the ekranoplans, but couldn’t know where they’d come ashore to disgorge their cargoes. They’d land wherever Israel’s tanks weren’t, preferably in their rear—this was elementary strategy. It created multiple quandaries for Israel’s generals, since their own tanks couldn’t be in two places at once. Israel’s tank brigades had been mostly poised in the Sinai Desert—Jeffrey knew this from things he’d heard before leaving Norfolk. They formed a defensive bulwark behind the twin water barriers formed by the Nile and the Suez Canal. This was to try to halt the Afrika Korps formations thrusting east on land.

  But the ekranoplans moved much faster than any tank. The exposed parts of Egypt’s and Israel’s coastlines ran 150 miles. Where would almost two hundred Leopard IIIs do the most for the Axis? Then Jeffrey saw it.

  If the Israeli brigades stayed in place, or advanced via bridges and pontoon ferries to forward positions in Egypt’s western desert, the ekranoplans would just continue coming east at sea. They’d keep Israel’s generals guessing, and ultimately deploy the modern panzers in two groups north and south of Tel Aviv. The city was right on the coast, in good tank country. Even with no immediate logistical support—ammo resupply and more fuel—those tanks would surround and cut off Israel’s biggest city, a horrendous outcome and perhaps decisive combined with the worm attack if Mohr’s patch attempt failed. If Israel kept their own tanks back by Tel Aviv, they left African Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula weaker. The ekranoplans could off-load on the Sinai coast instead, concentrate to spearhead the main body of the Afrika Korps, and the Israeli homeland would become a battleground in a different way.

  The ekranoplans would be heavily escorted by Luftwaffe fighters flying from Libya and Greece—also basic strategy. The Israeli Air Force would have no choice but to come out and fight, reducing their ability to support the Israeli Army. They’d suffer disproportionate losses, torn between defense over land and at sea, torn further between conflicting roles of air superiority and
antiship or ground attack. With the Luftwaffe so powerful, and the ekranoplans giving them all the initiative theater wide, the Israelis had almost no chance to win.

  And none of it would be necessary if Ohio hadn’t been sunk.

  The final run to Israel took Challenger southeast. The slope up onto the continental shelf was gradual but relentless. Before, in deep water, if fired on, Challenger could outdive conventional torpedoes, which had crush depths of 3,000 feet or less. Now, with the shallower bottom, that option was forfeited when Jeffrey and his ship might need it most.

  The SEALs, with Salih, Meltzer, and Klaus Mohr, got ready to depart in the minisub. Jeffrey went to battle stations; Bell sat next to him. Challenger used the established shipping lane that led toward Haifa harbor, which presented many perils but helped avoid naval mines. He ordered two off-board probes to be deployed, to scout ahead for uncharted mines or wrecks, bottom sensors, and prowling ocean rovers. When the bottom reached 600 feet—miles into Israel-owned waters—he and his probes turned south, on the inner edge of the corridor for coastal traffic. He wasn’t surprised there were so few cargo vessels in the area. Rumors, of a German offensive that would be soon, must have spread far and wide. Merchant mariners would’ve noticed changed military behavior, and civilian anxiety and dread, in any port of call—including Haifa.

  A probe’s feed suddenly went dead. Lieutenant Torelli said the fiber-optic line was good, but the probe had broken down. Without its motor working, there was no way to retrieve the 3,000 pound unit, and no time to improvise a retrieval. Jeffrey ordered the line cut. He had no more probes as replacements. Challenger needed to go on, half blind, leaving dead-certain proof that an American submarine had been through here. The probe’s malfunction might indicate Israeli interference; the loss of its feed could be the prelude to an assault on the mother ship. Everyone braced for the worst, staying quiet, barely moving.

  Nothing happened. Then Jeffrey remembered that Challenger might have gotten this far because of unwanted aid: Some of the Kampfschwimmer attack teams, with sets of Klaus Mohr’s gear, would be doing the same sort of infiltration, in U-boats. They might be diverting Israeli forces that otherwise would be denser in Challenger’s area—but their presence could also alert Israel to search with the greatest care for more subs sneaking toward the coast. And nothing says we won’t bump into one of those U-boats. Then there are the Kampfschwimmer, whose movements might warn Israel to watch out on land . . . and who might even cross paths with my SEALs. Things could get ugly.