Scimitar SL-2 (2004) Page 44

  Arnold could hardly believe his eyes. The third item was equally appalling. The master of a 200,000-tonner, carrying crude oil to Rotterdam, slammed into the Goodwin Sands at low tide, six miles off the east coast of Kent at the north end of the English Channel, and was still jammed tight in about four feet of water.

  There was another huge tanker on the beach in northern Nigeria, a chartered yacht parked 300 miles adrift off the wrong island in the West Indies, and the captain of a large cruise ship out of Naples was wondering why no one was speaking Italian on the island of Corsica.

  Lloyds of London was apoplectic. Every fifteen minutes, there was another report from some remote corner of the globe where an expensive ship had lost its way and floundered ashore. Admiral Morgan was just beginning to see a glimmer of humor in all this, but the consequences of massive lawsuits directed at the United States for switching off the GPS prevented him from actually laughing out loud.

  “The legal ramifications are clearly a nightmare,” offered Adm. Alan Dickson. “Lloyds might see it as an opportunity to get back at us after all these years—you know, that nutcase U.S. judge who nearly bankrupted them twenty years ago, holding Lloyds responsible for all those asbestos cases that happened years before anyone even dreamed the stuff was a health hazard.”

  “They might at that,” said Arnold. “But they’ll have to do it here. And since it was essentially the Military that switched the GPS off for military reasons, we’ll probably refuse to submit to the judgment of civilians.”

  “Good idea,” replied Admiral Dickson. “Meanwhile the world’s beaches are filling up with shipwrecks.”

  “Driven and piloted by incompetents,” said Arnold. “Guys who should not hold licenses to navigate in open waters. And we gave all shipping corporations ample warnings of a forty-eight-hour break in GPS service. They put monkeys at the helm of their own ships, that’s their goddamned problem, right?”

  “Absolutely, sir,” said the CNO. “Guess there’s no change in the eastern Atlantic. No sight nor sound of the submarine, for what? Almost a day?”

  “Almost,” replied Arnold. “And right now we’re coming up to midnight. Just a few minutes and it’s October 9. D-day. I just hope the little bastard comes to the surface real soon. George Gillmore’s got the entire area surrounded.”

  “Well, the only good thing about not seeing him is that he can’t fire without coming to PD. Just as long as he stays submerged, he ain’t firing. And that pleases me no end.”

  “Me too,” said Arnold.

  Lt. Comdr. Jimmy Ramshawe, sitting thoughtfully in the corner with his laptop, spoke suddenly. “You know, sir. I wouldn’t be the least surprised if we were way off in our assessment of the Barracuda’s position right now. I can’t imagine why he’d run right up to the most heavily patroled spot in the area and then hang around. If you ask me, he’s still lurking off Gomera. And he won’t close in till he’s good and ready to launch.”

  “As a matter of fact, that’s what I’d do,” said Arnold. “I’d stay somewhere quiet and then run in at first light.”

  “How long’s that, Arnold?” asked the President.

  “Well, they’re four hours in front of us, so I’d say another couple of hours.”

  “Not me, sir,” said Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe. “I’d go while it was still bloody dark. And I’d go damn slow, so the minute I got there, I could get the periscope up and make my visual fix.”

  “Have you ever been in a submarine, Ramshawe?” said Admiral Morgan, sternly.

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, you shoulda been. Got the right instincts. And I think you might be correct. Let’s get Frank on the line in Norfolk. See what he thinks. Then we’ll get a signal on the satellite to George Gillmore.”

  Meanwhile, beyond the White House, the East Coast prepared for the final stages of evacuation, which, by Presidential decree, would begin at midnight. The streets were busier now than they had been for several hours. The lights were beginning to go out in several government buildings as skeleton staffs headed for the cars and the roads to the northwest.

  The Police were scheduled to make the Beltway around the city one-way, counterclockwise, and designate the main Highway 279 “North Only” starting at midnight. This would enable all members of Government to head for the Camp Goliath area, fast.

  President Bedford insisted on being among the very last to leave the deserted capital city. “Not until we know that the volcano has been blown,” he said. “Not until the tsunami is within 500 miles of our shores. That’s when we go.”

  Over at the Pentagon, the Special Ops Room staff intended to remain functional until the very last moment before flying up to Goliath. The U.S. Marines had two Super Stallions ready to take off from the Pentagon, and two more on the White House lawn. Between them, they could airlift 220 key personnel from the teeth of danger.

  As the clocks ticked into the small hours of the morning, the vast evacuation of the East Coast was almost complete. It was now October 9, and all the small towns from Maine to south Florida were very nearly depleted.

  Places like Boston, Newport, and Providence, Rhode Island, the Long Island suburbs, New Jersey, and the Carolina coastal plains were all but deserted. The one city still writhing in desperate last-moment agonies was the Big Apple—New York City—where the traffic snarls were still appalling, and the railroads were still packed with thousands of people trying to make it to safety, west of the city. But their journeys were much longer than those of the short-haul Washington evacuees and the New Englanders fleeing Boston for the relative closeness of the Massachusetts hills.

  Trains took twice as long to return to New York, across the vast New Jersey flatlands, most of which were about six inches above sea level. And there were so many more thousands of people with nowhere to go. The Army was coping valiantly, bringing in hundreds upon hundreds of trucks, and commandeering just about every gallon of gas in the state. But the evacuation was just swamped with the massive throng of people trying to get out of the city, and the Army Commanders began to think that there were not enough trucks, buses, and trains in the entire world to sort them all out, before the whole goddamned place went underwater.

  The Ops Room in the Pentagon received a new and heartfelt request from New York every hour. More transportation, more manpower, more helicopters. The last request read by Gen. Tim Scannell was from a Gulf War veteran, a high-ranking Colonel, and it ended thus…“Sir, you have absolutely no idea what it’s like up here. I never saw so many frightened people. Terrified people, that is. They don’t know what’s going to happen to them. I implore you to get another hundred trucks into Midtown Manhattan. Or I’m afraid we’ll just go under.”

  Admiral Morgan was well aware of the crisis facing the Big Apple, and he conferred with General Scannell on an hourly basis. They banned any form of crisis coverage by the media, shut down the New York newspapers, and took over the television networks, using them strictly to broadcast Military information and instructions to the population. Coverage of any kind of confusion, or of human-interest stories that might spread panic, was absolutely banned.

  Admiral Morgan told all corporate media managements that if one of them dared to transgress his guidelines, their building would be instantly shut down and then barred by the heavy guns of the tanks that roamed the New York City streets.

  General Scannell actually appeared on the screen in a closed-circuit television linkup to all broadcasting stations on the East Coast to confirm the Martial Law threat made by the Supreme Commander of Operation High Tide. “We can cope with damn near anything,” he said. “Except for mass panic. Do not even consider stepping out of line.”

  So far, no one had.

  And now it was 0100 on the morning of October 9, D-day for the Hamas hit men. With exception of the churning cauldron of New York City, the East Coast evacuation was winding down. Millions of people had made their way to higher ground and now waited in the western hills from Maine to the Carolinas and b
eyond.

  Military spokesmen occupied every television and radio channel, and their words were professionally calming, assuring the population that the front line of the United States Navy still stood between the terrorists and the execution of their attack on the great volcano in the eastern Atlantic.

  Admiral Morgan had instructed the military broadcasters to sign off each one-hour bulletin after midnight with the reassuring, morale-boosting words…“We have the power, the technology, and the bravest of men to carry out the Pentagon’s defensive plan—and always remember the words of the great American sportswriter Damon Runyon, The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong—but that’s the way to bet!”

  0905, October 9

  Eastern Atlantic

  Barracuda, 28.21N 17.24W

  Speed 5, Depth 600, Course 290.

  The waters were still dark above the Barracuda as it ran silently along its west-nor’west course. They were three miles short of their launch position, running well below the layers, transmitting nothing, still undetected.

  At 0530 local time, Admiral Badr slid up to periscope depth, and inside his seven-second exposure limit he was immediately aware that the entire area was “lousy” with antisubmarine units, active and therefore probably passive too. But the “layers” had protected him well, and he threaded his way deep again, into the great underwater caverns, which so distort and confuse probing sonars from the surface.

  Ben had enough time to assess that there were almost certainly Viking aircraft combing the surface above him, but few ships. As they continued forward, however, he could hear active transmissions from helicopters and frigates inshore of him. All in all, he concluded there was a highly active layer of U.S. defense from about 12 miles off the towering eastern shores of La Palma.

  For the fifth time in the early morning journey, he ordered a major course change, just to check that there was no one trailing behind him. Then he corrected it back to two-nine-zero, and slowly, making scarcely a ripple, he once more brought the ship to periscope depth for his final “fix.” And as the submarine slid gently into the now-brightening surface waters, he made one single order:

  “PREPARE MISSILES FOR LAUNCH!”

  They detected no close-active transmissions, and Admiral Badr nodded curtly to the helmsman, CPO Ali Zahedi, who cut their speed to just three knots.

  “UP PERISCOPE, ALL-ROUND LOOK!”

  Twenty seconds later—“DOWN!”

  Ahmed Sabah, keenly aware of the seven-second rule drummed into him by Admiral Badr, knew the mast had been up too long. And he stared at the CO, trying to read either “rattled,” “desperate,” or “confused” into his leader’s facial expression. But he saw nothing, apart from a certain bland acceptance. And he did not like what he saw. Not one bit.

  Allah! thought the brother of Mrs. Ravi Rashood. He’s given up, he thinks we’re trapped.

  “Sir?” he said, questioningly.

  And Ben Badr, apparently unhearing, said mechanically, “The place is swarming with helicopters. And I thought I saw a frigate inshore.” And then:

  “STAND BY FOR FINAL FIX AND LAUNCH! UP!”

  “Point Fuencaliente Lighthouse. Bearing. MARK! DOWN!”

  “Two-eight-six.”

  “UP! Point de Arenas Blancas Lighthouse. Bearing MARK! DOWN!”

  “Three-zero-seven.”

  The planesmen held the submarine at PD. And the seconds ticked away before Ben Badr again ordered:

  “UP! High Peak, Cumbre Vieja Mountains. Bearing. MARK! DOWN!”

  Lt. Ashtari Mohammed, drawing swift, straight pencil lines on his chart, connected the final X that marked the High Peak and the launch point, then called clearly:

  “TWO-NINE-SEVEN…range 26.2 miles.”

  “Plot that pilot—and get the positions into the computer right away—for launch.”

  0556 (Local), U.S. Army Patriot Station

  Cumbre Vieja Volcano Summit.

  To the east, the American guided-missile men, manning the ring of Patriot rockets, had a sensational view of the Atlantic Ocean, beyond which the sun was shimmering dark red as it eased its way above the horizon. The rose curtain of dawn reflected the burning west coast of Africa, and it seemed to illuminate their battleground.

  The Americans stared down-range towards the waters that shielded their enemy. They were out there somewhere, but hidden, an unseen force waiting to strike at them from out of the blue. But the men of the Patriot batteries were ready, and many of them stood, fists clenched tight, watching the tireless Navy helicopters and Vikings clatter over the distant ocean wilderness, sonars probing.

  Maj. Blake Gill had snatched some sleep late the previous afternoon, but had been wide awake ever since, patrolling his eight missile batteries ranged around the crater. He made his patrols on foot, accompanied by four Special Forces bodyguards. At each one, he stopped and stared at the looming launch platforms above his head, as if probing for a mistake, a wrong angle, a wrong electronic connection. But he found nothing.

  The MIM-104E-enhanced guidance Patriots, the only SAM that had ever knocked a ballistic missile out of the sky in combat, were immaculately deployed on all points of the compass. All thirty-two of them were in place, ready to go at a split second’s notice. Blake knew he was looking at the greatest interceptor ever built, a steel hit-to-kill weapon.

  He had towering pride in the equipment he controlled, and he told each and every team as they gathered around him up there in the dark, on the summit of the volcano…“I been in the ole missile game a long time. And I seen a lot of guys come and go. But if I had to name the one team I ever met who would damn-and-for-sure knock this bastard out of the sky, it would be you guys. And hot damn! I mean that with all of my heart.”

  He left them all feeling 10 feet tall, ready to operate at the absolute top of their game. And now he was watching the screens inside the Engagement Control Center, just a little higher up the hill from the eight batteries, and he was demanding a last-minute check on communications, ensuring they were in constant touch with the missile launch and tracking stations on the four frigates in the immediate area, the Elrod, the Nicholas, the Klakring, and the Simpson.

  Major Gill opened up the lines and checked with Admiral Gillmore’s ops room in the Coronado. He checked the computer lines and the comms to the patrolling airborne helicopters. Blake left nothing to chance. Any one of those guys out on the water—radar men, lookouts, sonar rooms, pilots, or navigators—anyone who saw anything was just two touches of a button from instant contact with the Patriot Engagement Control Center.

  They needed to move fast. But they still had time. In Major Gill’s opinion, the U.S. defense forces were heavy odds-on to win. Just as long as everyone stayed on top of their game.

  The big 17-foot-long Patriots would do the rest. At least the 200 pounds of TNT jammed inside the warheads would, as they streaked in towards the Scimitars at MACH 5. The Hamas missiles had the element of surprise in their favor, but the U.S. Patriot was six times as fast, and well proven over the course.

  Major Gill spoke to Admiral Gillmore, and the two men once more checked their entire comms systems. The new Patriot could cope with bad weather—a long, 40-mile-plus range, any altitude, and it did not need to collide with the incoming missile. The Patriot’s state-of-the-art proximity fuse would detonate when it came close, which would blast the Scimitar to bits without even hitting it.

  0635 (Local), Barracuda

  28.22N 17.28W, Launch Zone.

  “UP! Better all-round look…”

  Ben Badr looked and felt relaxed. He marked a helo in the dip three miles to the west, and another in transit two miles to the north. He noted the class of the Oliver Hazard Perry frigate inshore of him, and its bearing.

  It was a rather leisured survey of the waters around the submarine, conducted by a man who believed he had all the time in the world, but knew, in his heart, that there would be no escape in the end. They couldn’t stop him firing, and they pr
obably would not have time to stop the Scimitars. But whatever happened, they would not let him out of the waters around the Canary Islands. This had become, most definitely, a suicide mission.

  The Barracuda’s periscope was jutting out of the water for all of sixty seconds—too long, too hopelessly long. And the U.S. helicopter in transit, piloted by Lt. Don Brickle, caught it on radar, at 0635.

  He swerved towards it for a dip on the last known position, and instantly alerted the ops room in the Nicholas, plus any other helicopter in the vicinity.

  Three minutes later, the Barracuda’s sonar room reported the helo’s hydrophone effect (HE) and sonar transmissions from close astern.

  Simultaneously Lieutenant Ashtari called out the positions inserted into the Scimitar’s fire-control computer.