by Joe Buff
Soon they were at the intake gate. It was a giant fine-meshed titanium cage. Jeffrey was sucked against the outside of the cage.
"Hold on hard," Montgomery said. "Then stay still." Jeffrey gripped the bars. He felt Montgomery probing with his hands, checking Jeffrey's equipment by feel, cinching the straps and fasteners uncomfortably tight. Montgomery gave a final yank to the straps of Jeffrey's dive mask and mouthpiece/mike.
The chief unclipped his own end of their swim-buddy lanyard, and clipped the free end to the cage near the gate. This way Jeffrey was secured, but had some slack.
Montgomery tapped his shoulder. "Climb inside. Grip your regulator with your teeth hard. Face upstream, backward, into the flow, or your mask will get pulled off."
Jeffrey struggled through the access gate, into the cage. He had a surge of claustrophobia, for the first time in his life. He felt the water tearing at him, at his gear. The rapid flow began to chill him. It made a constant roaring, noise.
Montgomery, himself clipped to the cage now with a spare lanyard, guided Jeffrey's hand to the guide rope. By feel, facing the flow and gritting his teeth, Jeffrey threaded the rope through the rappel fitting buckled to his weight belt. By feel, Montgomery checked him again.
Jeffrey heard thumps and clunks and almost pissed his pants. Were Germans setting up a crew-served weapon on the shore of the Wiek? The team was so shallow, machine gun or mortar fire would kill them easy.
"Relax, Commander," Montgomery said. "That's One and Two, cutting through the debris catcher."
Jeffrey looked at his vital signs on the mask display. His pulse was 132, his respiration 38. Too high. This was scary.
"Ready?" Montgomery said.
"Ready."
"Start down."
Jeffrey loosened the friction brake at his waist and slid into the pipe a little at a time. The pipe was less than five feet in diameter. His body partly blocked the flow, and made the suction stronger. The inlet was too constricted for someone else to work beside him — he was on his own.
Jeffrey tried to keep track of how far inside he'd gone, and which direction was up, underwater. In the dark, in the pipe, he relied completely on his head-up display. When he judged the distance was right, he turned on his flashlight. He started searching. Nothing. He went further in. Still nothing. Unless he found it, they'd have to scrub the mission. He slid along the pipe a little more.
There. He spotted the outer automatic blast-shield door, recessed into the top of the pipe. He traced the flange in the bottom of the pipe, into which the door dropped tightly shut. He reached for the edge of the door. He lost control and spun wildly in the flow. Fighting panic and vertigo, he tried to brake himself by splaying arms and legs against the slippery pipe walls. His mask said his pulse was up to 170, his breath rate a ragged 52. He had to reach that door edge. Almost losing his mouthpiece twice, he finally got a hand on it. The liquid jet stream tried to bend him double. He fought with all his strength. The noise of the cascade was deafening.
He pushed up. His orders said he had to make doubly certain. The blast shutter gave an inch or so, with increasing reluctance. He let go, and it came back down and stopped. It was spring-loaded, and held in place by an electromagnet or solenoid. So far, so good, for the mission ROEs.
Jeffrey switched off his light to save the battery. It was running very low, because of the cold.
Barely intelligible over the gertrude, Montgomery told Jeffrey to hurry up. Jeffrey went further into the pipe, in pitch darkness. Still the water roared in his ears. His own blood roared in his ears. His fingers grew numb, from effort and cold, the fast water flow the equivalent of an undersea windchill.
Jeffrey just kept sliding down the rope. He glanced at his inertial nav. So far yet to go. He felt his determination flag — the cold was getting to him, and would only get worse and worse.
Jeffrey's jaw began to ache, but he dared not let up on his-mouthpiece and trust the strap alone. If he should lose it, without first rotating closed the airway seal, salty water would get in the rebreather works. The caustic soda would turn to acid. Trapped deep in the pipe, with nothing to breathe and no swim buddy near, he'd drown for sure.
FORTY MINUTES LATER.
Ilse tried to rest, frozen solid. She'd begun to shiver, and had almost no feeling in her hands and feet and face. Her dark-adapted eyes could see well enough, by reflected glow from flashlights, as the SEALs worked above her.
Ilse glanced up. The whole team was bunched inside the accessway, several hundred yards into the cooling pipe. Below the maintenance ladder, beneath Ilse's feet, the water rushed. A fine mist filled the accessway, and droplets splashed her dry suit. Everyone still used the Draegers ― the accessway was hermetically sealed, to avoid breaking the suction of the cooling flow. The Draegers protected the team from asphyxiation in the stagnant air, tainted by swamp gas from below, and maybe by chemical weapons to discourage intruders, from above.
Ilse clung hard to the ladder. Out of the water, her equipment regained its full weight. She glanced up again, impatient to get on with it. SEAL One was holding a stethoscope to the wall.
On Clayton's command, everyone helped each other out of their packs; they fastened the packs securely to the steel rungs of the ladder. They withdrew their weapons, removed the waterproof muzzle plugs, and inspected them carefully. They powered them up on safe with rounds in the chamber. They pulled out several kinds of grenades, and loaded the pockets of their combat vests. They donned their battle helmets and eye shields and night-vision goggles; they'd worn their flak vests, neutrally buoyant, all along. They put their dive knives in their packs, but retained their K-Bars and their survival knives. They also retained their Draegers, as gas masks.
Ilse realized Jeffrey had noticed she was shivering; he massaged her arms and legs. She tried to relax, and let him go to work. When his hands got too close to her backside, she shoved them away.
"Standard procedure," he said, enunciating inside his mouthpiece. "Against hypothermia. Works every time."
"Thanks," Ilse said, grateful for his help, and sorry she'd misinterpreted his explorations.
"It was good for me, too," Jeffrey said.
Ilse realized what he'd done. By flirting, he'd made her core body temperature rise fast, and her fatigue melt away. She made eye contact with him for a split second, then looked away before it went too far. Inside a secret German lab, of all places. Just when I think I have Jeffrey figured out, he surprises me again.
Ilse reminded herself why she was here. To help the SEAL team spy, and then escape, if espionage and escape were really possible. In any case, to help make very sure to thoroughly destroy the place. Beyond that, because of ARBOR's arrest, they didn't have much of a plan, and she had no idea what to expect from moment to moment.
Ilse glanced up. At the top of the ladder, SEALs One and Two worked to unfasten the manhole cover from underneath. Clayton kept eyeing his wristwatch.
"Ready," One said.
Clayton cleared his throat. "This is when we find out if they're waiting for us…. Weapons free."
The team poured out of the manhole as fast as they could and formed a perimeter. Jeffrey saw they were in a utility space. It was large and hot and humid, and deserted. Air whistled as it was drawn into the accessway. SEAL One used a handheld chemical sniffer.
"Air's clean."
Quickly the team retrieved their packs. SEALs One and Two resealed the manhole.
"We're here," Montgomery said. "ARBOR was supposed to have hidden a package."
"I don't see anything," Jeffrey said.
"Find it," Clayton said.
The team searched, systematically at first, then with increasing desperation. Inside storage cabinets, behind equipment, on top of pipes hung from the overhead. Jeffrey warmed up, then began to sweat. He opened his flak vest and unzipped the front of his dry suit.
"Trouble," SEAL One hissed. Jeffrey heard footsteps approaching steadily from around the corner of a drab, ill-lit corrid
or.
Everyone lifted their packs and hid them and knelt behind the pumps and transformers. Jeffrey pulled a dental mirror from his load-bearing vest, and peeked around the corner of an electrical switching cabinet. The cabinet bore the international symbol for DANGER — HIGH VOLTAGE: big red lightning bolts. Jeffrey wondered if he'd fry if a bullet hit the cabinet.
A guard entered the utility space. He approached the manhole, casually at first. He noticed the wet footprints. He reached for his walkie-talkie mike. Jeffrey pulled his K-Bar and charged the man. The guard turned and raised his carbine. Montgomery charged from the other direction, also knife in hand. The guard turned toward Montgomery.
Jeffrey was on the man in a flash and Montgomery grabbed him from the other side. Simultaneously they plunged their fighting knives into the base of the German's' neck, Jeffrey from the left and Montgomery from the right. Jeffrey flicked his K-Bar one way to sever the spine and the other way to cut the heart in two. He withdrew his knife the same time Montgomery pulled out his. Montgomery lowered the body to the floor, holding the head by the hair so blood wouldn't drip.
Montgomery flashed Jeffrey a grin. "Now who's who with knives, Skipper?"
"Any life-signs sensor?" Jeffrey snapped.
"We're clear."
Jeffrey and Montgomery wiped their knives on the guard's uniform blouse. From the uniform, Jeffrey could tell he was German naval infantry — not a marine, but a sailor who guarded a shore activity.
Clayton pulled a body bag from his pack; the team came prepared. "Help me get him in this. We need to lock in the body fluids and smells."
Jeffrey did as he was told. Around him, utility equipment whirred and hummed. He smelled steam and ozone and lubricant, hot metal and warm oil-based paint.
"Trouble," SEAL One said. More footsteps, more tentative than before. A security alert?
Everyone took cover. Again Jeffrey watched from his hiding place, using the dental mirror.
A man came around the corner. He wore a dirty orange coverall. Over his shoulder he carried a black plastic garbage bag. A point man in camouflage? A decoy?
The man saw the wet footprints. He knelt, and Jeffrey saw him notice drops of blood. Montgomery charged with his K-Bar.
Jeffrey charged out, too. "No!" Jeffrey waved his arms at the chief. Montgomery pulled up short.
There was something odd about this man. He was old, and shuffled stoop-shouldered, more like a prisoner than a guard — he wore plastic sandals like beach clogs. He had a thick black mustache, so large and bushy Jeffrey wondered how he could eat or drink. In fact, the man looked malnourished. Strangely, he had a dark suntan. No. His skin was brown. Jeffrey studied his face.
He's a Turk, Jeffrey realized. A Gastarbeiter, a so-called Guest Worker…. So the Germans are using forced labor after all.
The man said something in fluent German. Montgomery responded, barking questions. The man put down the garbage bag and stepped back. He gestured for the chief to open it. Montgomery covered him with his rifle, and told him to do it himself. Clayton ordered everyone else to stay behind cover. It might be a bomb.
The man knelt and untied the bundle. Out, poured blank ID cards, a portable retinal scanner and a digital camera, a floor plan, two sausages, and a pretzel.
SEALs One and Nine defended the bend in the corridor while the rest of the team parleyed. The Turk squatted on the floor; there was no place to sit except on bare concrete.
Montgomery spoke out of earshot of the man. "He says there's about a hundred of 'em in here. A lot of them lost their relatives in the big earthquake in Turkey in the nineties. They came to Germany to get away and find work."
"But why?" Clayton said. "The Axis keeps claiming they're not racist; they say even in Africa they're restoring law and order. Turkey's neutral, like in World War Two. Why would Germany possibly take the chance on antagonizing them like this?"
"Let me try," Ilse said. She walked over and sat down next to the Turk.
"Wie heissen Sie?" she said. In formal address: What's your name?
"Gamal Salih. Und Du?" And you?
He used Du, not Sie, a sign of affection in German. Ilse felt drawn to him at once, as to a kindly uncle, in spite of his tattered dress and smell. The Turk seemed remarkably poised, surrounded by commandos armed to the teeth. Up close, he didn't look as old as she'd first thought.
"Ilse," she said, touching her chest. "Ilse Reebeck."
"Süd Afrikaner?" South African?
He picked that up right away.
"Eine guter Afrikaner." A good South African. Jeffrey came over.
Salih pointed to the rest of the team. "Kampfschwimmer?"
"Ja." Then Ilse said slowly in English, "U.S. Navy SEALs." Salih nodded, as if they'd passed some kind of test.
"Why do they keep you here?" Ilse said in German.
Salih shrugged. "Labor shortage," he said in English. "The white Germans go to the Army. White Germans, they don't like cleaning garbage, washing toilets, sweeping floors. Instead, we wipe up their lubricant spills, pick up the shavings from their lathes."
He made a gesture with his fingers, as if to say Ouch. Ilse realized the metal shavings must be razor sharp.
"So you're like janitors?" Jeffrey said.
"Slave janitors."
"They don't let you out?" Clayton said.
"Never." Salih grew angry. "My father was born in Germany. So was I. We were citizens. I was a building engineer, at an office tower in Frankfurt."
"Your English is good," Jeffrey said.
"What did you expect? Everybody studies it in school. Then I went to technical college. You don't speak German?"
"No," Jeffrey said. "Just Arabic, and Russian."
"Prepared for the wrong wars, didn't you?"
"How'd you end up here?" Ilse said.
Salih sighed. "German antiaircraft winged one of your Tomahawks. It crashed near my house…. My family.. They're all gone now."
"How'd you survive?"
"I was at the office."
Ilse hesitated. "I know how you feel, Mr. Salih. The survivor guilt, for being alive when they're not. I lost my family, too. Executed, or disappeared, for fighting the Johannesburg regime."
Salih nodded. "They said they were hiring us, for good money. Instead we're starved and beaten. Betrayed, by my own so-called countrymen."
Ilse winced at his bitterness.
"Didn't you complain?" Jeffrey said.
"Yes, we complained. They hanged the spokesmen and made the rest of us watch. Now, we don't complain."
"But ARBOR — I mean the woman who is, was, helping us — she spoke with you?"
"She knew, how do you say it, internal security was getting close. She knew I was a sort of imam for the others."
"Like a priest?" Clayton said.
"More like a teacher. Turk Muslims, we're so-so observant. I'm forty-five, have my degree. Most of the others here, they're kids really, did menial work before the war. I'm the unofficial elder now, like it or not."
"Of the Gastarbeiter?"
"Ja. ARBOR, as you keep calling her, swore me to secrecy. She has a name, you know. Erika Rainer. She was six months pregnant. Did you know that?"
Ilse blanched. "What happened to her?"
"No one's been told…. She said you might still come, and I should try to help. I hope these ID things are helpful."
"They're not inventoried?" Jeffrey said.
"She wrote them off. She said she spilled coffee on them. She told me she altered their electronic serial numbers so they'll still read as valid when you use them."
Jeffrey gestured for Clayton and Ilse to follow him to a far corner, well away from Salih.
"We have a big problem, folks."
Clayton nodded, reluctantly. "We nuke this place, we'll kill a hundred innocent people."
"Wait a minute," Ilse said. "If this guy's telling the truth, then ARBOR knew all about the Turks. Why didn't she get word out?"
"Oh, boy." Jeffrey rolled his eyes
. "Maybe she did, and Mossad decided not to tell us. They want this lab destroyed, real bad. Israel has no defense in depth, Ilse, the country's so small. A barrage of these new missiles could wipe out the whole population, Jews and anti-Axis Arabs both."
"So they withheld information?" Clayton said.
"I wouldn't put it past them…. Give me Salih's floor plan." Clayton handed it over.
Ilse watched Jeffrey study it carefully. She translated some words for him.
"We have another problem," Jeffrey said. "According to this, the missile lab is subdivided into two hardened independent sections — one for the heavy test equipment and machine-tool manufacturing work, the other for the computer installation and offices and dormitory."
"Dormitory?" Clayton said.
"People must be working round the clock. This way they can grab some rest, then get right back at it. Besides, it's safer than living topside, right?"
Clayton studied the map. "So, we need to plant one bomb in each section." He glanced around the utility space, and eyeballed the overhead, the walls, the structural beams, the fire suppression system. "Based on what I'm seeing, this place is stronger inside than we thought… With the aggregate volumes enclosed, the yields of our special items should just do the job, but… we can't put them just anywhere."
Jeffrey frowned. "That means we need to penetrate much further into the installation than we thought…. And we're still left with the problem of the Turks."
Ilse saw Jeffrey grimace, then start massaging his left leg. His old wound was acting up.
"Maybe we don't tell Salih what we're really up to,"
Clayton said. "Let him think it's a spy mission or something. When the bombs go off, it's not like they'll feel anything. The atmospheric overpressure alone…"
Jeffrey glanced at Salih, still squatting on the floor. He was eating an energy bar from one of the SEALs. Salih looked at Jeffrey and smiled.
"No," Jeffrey said. "This part's my decision. Leaving the Turks in the dark, and saving our own skins, that's cold-blooded murder. If it ever came out, which it will, it's terrible statecraft."