by Joe Buff
The ride from Challenger to Carter was short. The minisub docked onto the mating hatch and lockdown clamps behind Carter’s sail, while both full-size submarines, at all stop, drifted with the gentle under-ice current. Look-down photonics sensors in passive image-intensification mode helped keep the docking safe but stealthy; tiny lights on Carter’s hull showed where to aim, and let Meltzer judge his angle and rate of approach.
Since Carter’s special in-hull garage space—for oversized weapons and off-board probes—wasn’t designed for a sixty-foot-long minisub, Carter hadn’t brought one of her own. Jeffrey knew that she might easily have carried one on her back as she snuck out of port on the U.S. East Coast, but the external load would have caused much louder flow noise than usual, compromising her stealth. Bearing an outside mini would also have forced Carter to keep to speeds far below the optimal for her five-thousand-mile transit from New London to Alaska: otherwise, the water drag of a mini load, streamlined as it was, would have torn it from its fastenings and hurled it sternward, smashing Carter’s rudder or sternplanes or pump-jet propulsor—or all three.
But Jeffrey couldn’t help wondering how eighty Special Operations Squadron commandos and all their gear were going to get ashore quickly, clandestinely, with only one mini available. The north coast of eastern Russia had the widest, shallowest continental shelf in the world. Almost everywhere, the water didn’t reach a depth of even one hundred feet until more than a hundred miles offshore. A single round trip in the German mini at such range would take an entire day and run the fuel tanks dry; Challenger carried no refill of the extremely corrosive, explosive peroxide. The only exceptions to this unhelpful seabed geography led right toward heavily protected Russian naval bases.
Captain Charles Harley, tall, slim, clean-shaven, with piercing blue eyes and neatly combed blond hair, was waiting at the bottom of Carter’s airlock trunk as the minisub’s passengers climbed down the ladder. “Welcome aboard, Commodore Fuller,” Harley said. They shook hands; Harley had a firm, confident grip. He struck Jeffrey as rather handsome, even debonair, but stiff and distant. Other introductions were quickly done.
First things first. “I need to use your XO’s stateroom.”
Harley noticed the pouch under Jeffrey’s arm. “Come this way. The rest of us will be in the special ops battle management center. When you’re ready, a messenger can show you how to get there on the first try. The Seawolf boats were a bit of a rabbit warren even before Carter’s extra hull section was added.”
Jeffrey followed Harley forward through red-lit passageways, indicating modified battle stations for the lengthy rendezvous.
“Care for a quick look at our control room?”
“By all means.” Jeffrey couldn’t be an inconsiderate guest to one of his captains. This was also a chance to begin assessing Harley and his crew.
“Let’s take the longer way, stretch our legs, and you can see more of my ship.”
Jeffrey noted that Harley conducted himself as if giving a tour to a visitor—not being inspected by his boss. He led Jeffrey down a ladder, walked on, then climbed up another ladder. They entered Carter’s control room from forward, facing aft. Harley lowered his voice. “This part must seem old-fashioned.”
“The four-man ship control station,” Jeffrey stated.
“Yep. Enlisted ratings at helm and sternplanes, diving officer, chief of the watch. Separate sonar room. Periscope tubes.” Both were retracted, deep into their wells within the ship, but their bulky tubes and hydraulic piping, and the big red-and-white overhead rings for raising and lowering them, were visible and took up room. “No vertical launching system for Tomahawks, either. Have to shoot ’em through our torpedo tubes.”
Jeffrey peeked at console readouts. This required standing behind technicians and looking over their shoulders; there were no widescreen vertical bulkhead displays here, as on Challenger.
His strike group maintained their rendezvous formation using occasional gentle pushes from their auxiliary maneuvering thrusters; the acoustic link was working well; no threats had been detected; the gale was stronger.
Done with the instrumentation, Jeffrey took in the people themselves while they interacted by issuing and acknowledging orders or status reports. Harley’s officers and enlisted men reflected his own personality, as was typically the situation on any well-run submarine. They were formal, polished, disciplined, and competent—not exactly unfriendly, but lacking the chummy swagger of Challenger’s crew. As a group, they seemed well trained and cohesive. Jeffrey liked what he saw.
“Right in here.” Harley left Jeffrey alone and went aft.
Jeffrey locked the stateroom’s doors to the corridor, and to the head that was shared with the captain’s stateroom. He sat at the little desk, cleared the XO’s odds and ends to
one side, and switched on the reading lamp. He disarmed the security device on the inner sealed pouch, removing his mission orders.
They took more than two hours just to gain a broad overview. By the time he got that far, he felt he’d aged ten years.
Chapter 10
Jeffrey grabbed the intercom handset next to Carter’s XO’s desk. He wasn’t sure how to reach the Special Operations briefing space, so he called the control room.
“Messenger of the Watch, sir.”
“This is Commodore Fuller.”
“Yes, sir. Captain Harley asked me about ten minutes ago if I knew how much longer you’d be, but then he said I shouldn’t disturb you.”
“Have Captain Bell and Lieutenant Meltzer see me now.”
“In the XO’s stateroom, sir?”
“Yes. Inform Captain Harley that I’ll be needing him here, too, in private. I can’t say when yet, so give him my compliments and ask him to please continue waiting.”
“Understood, Commodore.”
Soon someone knocked on the door. Jeffrey got up and unlocked it, letting Bell and Meltzer in.
Jeffrey sat, Bell took the one guest seat, and Meltzer stood politely.
He studied the two of them, his flagship captain and his part-time executive assistant. He sized them up, measuring for himself whether they could handle the difficulties that Jeffrey now knew lay ahead.
“I’m not sure quite where to begin.” He tiredly rubbed the bridge of his nose. “There’s a major counterespionage effort going on back home that’s all too relevant to us. There’s an Axis mole somewhere in undersea warfare planning. . . . A remark Commander Nyurba made to me, that Carter’s mission to Norway had been compromised in advance, resonated strongly with a cautionary warning in my orders here.”
“Why do we need to know about this?” Meltzer asked.
“There’s danger of undetermined degree that our present mission was also leaked by the mole.”
Bell opened his mouth to say something; Jeffrey held up a hand to not interrupt.
“That’s why our current tasking has been organized and coordinated by a group of senior people selected by the President. Extraordinary compartmentalization was used to implement each detail. Even more than usual, those outside the President’s closed group have only very tiny pieces of the puzzle, with elaborate cover stories to justify activity they saw going on, those same cover stories spun so as to hide the special security measures. This gives only partial reassurance, as we proceed, that we haven’t been compromised. . . . My strike group has been provided with a cover story to use ourselves, explaining why we’ll be where we’ll be once we get there.”
“In case we’re detected, sir?” Bell asked.
“This is where it goes byzantine. Part of Challenger’s job, but not Carter’s, is to be detected. More than just detected.”
“Sir?” Meltzer blurted out.
“Patience. I want Captain Harley involved for that part. One difficulty is the battle with the Amethyste-Two. The Amethyste being there to begin with might have been the work of the mole. Let’s pray that compartmentalization kept the actual reason for the rendezvous, and the specific identi
ty of our two ships, hidden from the Axis. If so, but only if so, our sinking the Amethyste, and surviving, have largely negated the work of the mole. Pray I’m right on that. If I’m wrong, and our adversary knows the actual reason why we’re coming, we’re heading into a terrible trap.”
Jeffrey reached for the intercom. “Tell your captain I’m ready for him.”
In two minutes Harley knocked and came in. Meltzer scrunched to make room; the compartment was packed. Bell offered Harley the guest chair. He shook his head. He stood instead, in a proprietary manner, arms folded, leaning against the bulkhead. Jeffrey sensed he was feeling slightly violated—from his angle, a close-knit clique from Challenger had been caucusing alone, in a subordinate’s stateroom on his ship. Harley could tell that the caucus had not been fun.
“Everybody listen up,” Jeffrey said, “and listen good. The President wants our mission to be accomplished in a hurry because we have to forestall the next major German move, whatever that might be, and our own forces globally are becoming too worn out. In particular, the delivery of the next Eight-six-eight-U nuclear sub from Russia to Germany is scheduled very soon, and from what we know of its capabilities we must forestall that delivery.”
“We sink it?” Harley asked. “Blockade it?” He seemed game for the fight.
“It’s far more complicated, I’m afraid, because far more is at stake. There’s the unlimited supply of oil and natural gas, aircraft, tanks, other arms of all different kinds that Russia keeps supplying to the Axis. . . . Our assignment is probably the single most important and dicey mission ever attempted in this war or any shooting war. It’s a last-ditch chance to halt the brinkmanship once and for all, before humanity incinerates itself. . . . We need to squelch our ethical reservations, we dare not flinch, because an objective observer could easily argue that what we’ve been ordered to do is a war crime.”
“Huh?” Harley’s guard was down now, so Jeffrey eyed Bell and Meltzer, then began to hit the three with the conclusion he’d been leading to.
“We’ll go into details with Lieutenant Colonel Kurzin and Commander Nyurba and their people in a few minutes. I want to set this up by asking you a question first, Captain Harley. It isn’t a trick question.”
“Go ahead, sir. Commodore.”
“How do you think this war will end?”
“With Allied victory, I hope.”
“Even though the Axis has nuked several populated islands, including Diego Garcia, very painfully for us? Even though they attempted to get two South American countries embroiled in tactical atomic combat with each other, on land, while trying to make it look like the U.S. was to blame? And even though, failing in that by a fraction of an inch, they then launched an offensive in the Middle East that could easily have unleashed Israel’s nuclear arsenal? With staggeringly catastrophic consequences if that had happened, which it very nearly did?”
“The oligarchy in Berlin are desperate dictators.”
“With no intention whatsoever of surrendering to avoid an apocalypse. They’ve proven that time and again. Like desperate dictators everywhere, they care nothing for the lives of their own citizens. Their intention all along has been to use the threat of apocalypse to get the U.S. to back down.”
“Would we do that? Back down? Ever?”
“If events continue as they have, voters may force Congress to offer an armistice. Let the Axis have Europe and Africa. Let the United Kingdom fend for themselves and go under. That’s exactly what Berlin and Johannesburg have been gunning for all along. Their envoys in Sweden prod ours, then they talk to the international media when we refuse, make Washington look like the heavies, the ones who drag out the war. Put enough pressure on the American public, that pressure gets passed to Capitol Hill. They’d override the President’s veto, we’d have peace of a sort, with our war leader gone from the White House in disgrace. Forget Election Day 2012. Armistice means impeachment. Escapist pacifism quickly takes firm hold.”
“That’s a grim picture.”
“Especially since the Axis wouldn’t be satisfied to just keep what they got. They’d use that lopsided peace to squash the U.S. economically, flush our remaining prestige down the toilet, put a noose of diplomatic isolation around our neck, build up their military might, and eventually have another major stab at the parts of the world they don’t yet control.”
Harley scratched his jaw. “Agreeing to an armistice is a snare, an illusion? It only delays the inevitable?”
“Very much so. Thorough wargame simulations have been performed in the past few months, to see where things could possibly go from here.” Jeffrey tapped the thick hard-copy orders on the desk. “Several independent sets of players and computer models were used, including at the Naval War College. I was assigned to their simulations department before I wangled a transfer to Challenger. I can testify that those folks do objective, reliable, conclusive work. They’re the best.”
“I know. They have a world-class reputation.”
“Other war colleges, private think tanks, consulting firms, were also involved. They all came up with similar results.”
“Which were? . . .”
“Suppose we continue the war, with the aim to unseat the Axis leadership. How do we do it, and what happens when we try? A D-day-like assault across the English Channel, after a big buildup in Great Britain, is out of the question with tactical nukes in play. Ditto for an amphibious push from North Africa using the Med. And a land-route invasion of Germany, through the Middle East or Asia, will certainly cause the German regime to introduce widespread tactical nuclear weapons on land to defeat our oncoming offensive, no matter how broad the front along which we and our allies attack, and no matter how severe the collateral damage and civilian deaths.”
“Lord.”
“Worse. Following a period of armistice with America if one is indeed arranged, their second wave of aggression would be just as murderous. The juiciest prizes left for grabs, with Russia continuing as Germany’s pseudo-neutral friend, would be the big countries in the Middle East and Asia. With a whole different lineup of targets and objectives then, cross-ocean sea lanes wouldn’t have today’s significance. Tactical nuclear weapons would come into use offensively and defensively, unlimited, on land. . . . In either of the two potential scenarios, continuing to prosecute the war or granting an armistice, according to our planners the ultimate outcome remains the same. With so many countries getting involved and so much destruction and slaughter in main population centers, the conflict is certain to escalate into wholesale thermonuclear war. The U.S., Russia, China, Israel, Japan, everybody else. Hundreds of millions dead right away, maybe billions, and billions more not long after that if there’s a nuclear winter. The end of modern civilization, maybe the end of humanity.” Jeffrey tapped his orders again to emphasize the reality of what he’d been told in such harsh terms in writing.
“So what do we do?” Harley asked. “Why doesn’t the Pentagon glass Germany right now? Preempt?”
“Because Russia brought Germany under her own thermonuclear umbrella. Even if Russia broke that promise and held her fire, us glassing Germany would kill tens of millions of innocents outside German borders from fallout alone. Because Russia’s command-and-control systems are so gimpy, they might think our missiles were coming at them, and launch a massive retaliatory strike . . . at America. Because Germany has cruise missiles with fission warheads hiding at sea, which would come in low and fast and nuke the whole U.S. East Coast, and Gulf Coast, and reach inland past the Mississippi. Tens of millions more dead.”
“So what do we do?” Bell repeated Harley’s question.
“We perform our mission. There is a third scenario. One and only one alternative to Apocalypse Soon or Apocalypse Later. We take Kurzin and his men to Siberia, where they pretend to be Germans pretending to be Russians, infiltrate a missile silo field, take control of several brand-new SS-Twenty-seven ICBMs with one-megaton warheads, and launch them at the United States.”
&
nbsp; Chapter 11
Bell and Harley were horrified. “What?” Meltzer blurted.
“I have documentation, Captains Harley and Bell, which you can authenticate with your own emergency-action-message codes. This way you can satisfy yourselves that these are valid, legal orders from our commander in chief. . . . The goal is to appear to try to start a nuclear exchange between Russia and the U.S., and leave ironclad forensic clues that German operatives, disguised as Russian extremists, did it.”
Harley fidgeted nervously. Bell squirmed in his seat. Meltzer chewed his lip so hard that Jeffrey thought his teeth might break the skin.
“There’s finely reasoned method in this madness. If the commando squadron, and I, succeed in our assigned roles, and Carter’s stealth holds up, the missiles that take off from Siberian silos, fully armed by technicians from Kurzin’s team, will detonate long before they actually land on American soil. Instead, the warheads will be set to go off outside the atmosphere over Russia. The radiation from the blasts will dissipate into the already-radioactive Van Allen belts surrounding our planet, and from there be blown by the solar wind safely away into deep space. The Greater Moscow area will be blanketed by a nonlethal but extremely damaging electromagnetic pulse. This much we know from tests performed in the late nineteen-fifties and early sixties. . . . Russia, hurting, panic-stricken at the thought of American vengeance and outraged at German treachery, will at a minimum withdraw all support from the Axis, and she might well, of sheer necessity, join the Allied side. That would leave Berlin isolated, cut off from strategic sustenance. On the ropes, with the Boers withering on the vine at the far southern tip of Africa. The Axis leaders, knowing that they’re not at fault but being unable to prove to Russia that we so cold-bloodedly framed them, would also have been sent a stinging message. One with plausible deniability, but unmistakable, about what ruthless risk-takers Americans are once sufficiently provoked, thus destroying the Axis sense of control and undermining their power. An amnesty, if the oligarchs step down at that juncture, could neatly wrap up the war.”