Fulcrum: V Plague Book 12 (14 page)

This sound was unlike any of the previous.  It had the
same low frequency, bass rumble, but there was also a high pitched scream, like
the tortured souls of the damned.  I spotted the lead Humvee, racing along
the narrow roadway atop the dam.  The moan suddenly stopped, leaving only
the scream.  An instant later, a crack sounded, so loud and violent it
made me take a step back.  Then everything went still and quiet.

The straining engine was loud in the night, and I breathed a
sigh of relief.  I could clearly see Sam’s face behind the windshield, and
he was going to make it safely across.  Only a couple of hundred yards
separated us.

I heard the roar of jet engines an instant before a
brilliant streak of fire rushed through the darkness to a point on the face of
the dam just below the road surface.  There was a thunderous explosion, an
intense ball of fire instantly spreading to consume the Hummer.  An instant
later, a second missile flashed in and detonated within the fireball.

Screaming a warning into the radio, I snapped my head up in
time to see a Russian Yak fighter bank sharply and turn to continue over the
lake.  Spinning, I grabbed Rachel and Tiffany and started running away
from the dam.  Dog raced ahead of us, and I looked over my shoulder as we
opened up some space.   

The fireball was subsiding, and I could just make out the
road along the top of the dam, and the Hummer on it, through smoke and a cloud
of pulverized concrete.  Then, the entire top of the dam began tilting
towards the empty, 700-foot-deep gorge on the downstream side. 

“Oh my God, no,” Rachel breathed.

She was looking over her shoulder, too, and was
slowing.  I yanked on her arm to keep her running, desperate to reach
cover before the fighter jet returned.  We were in the open and would be
sitting ducks for a strafing run.  I risked another glance, hoping that
Sam would make it across.

But, the tilt was increasing.  Then, a huge section of
the top began to slide.  At first, it was a barely perceptible
movement.  The roadway was slipping towards open air, but the Humvee was still
coming towards us, emerging from a thick cloud of debris that had been blasted
into the air. 

In slow motion at first, but rapidly accelerating, the upper
thirty feet of Hoover dam broke free and began to tumble into the canyon
below.  Billions of gallons of water, suddenly free to flow, pushed
against the indescribably massive chunk of concrete.  Another second and
everything was obscured by a cloud of roiling mist as the waters of Lake Mead
rushed through the gap left behind.

Commander Jason Talbot, Captain of the North Carolina,
wasn’t a happy man.  For that matter, he was rarely in a good mood, or so
it seemed to people who didn’t know him.  But, he was one of the best
submarine skippers the United States had ever put to sea.  Meticulous
attention to detail, and demanding near perfection from the men and women under
his command and pushing them harder than they’d ever been pushed in their lives
was the only way he knew how to operate. 

Traits such as these can easily lead to resentment amongst
the ranks, but he had repeatedly shown that he lived by the same high standards
he expected from everyone aboard his boat.  And while he might seem a
rigid taskmaster to an outsider, he was the most upfront and fair officer any
of them had ever encountered.  He didn’t accept excuses, but he understood
valid reasons.  His crew loved him.

Times had been hard since the attacks on America and the
spread of the virus across the world.  Based out of Pearl Harbor, the
majority of the crew had been able to talk to family members who lived in
Hawaii.  Not that there weren’t parents and siblings, and a few spouses
and children who had perished on the mainland, but for the most part, none of
them were dealing with the complete and total loss of their entire family.

That had softened the blow to morale, yet hardly eliminated
it.  The Captain himself had lost his wife, who was visiting friends in
Denver when the attacks happened.  His two daughters, both in their teens,
had stayed behind in Hawaii to work summer jobs.  Living in officer
housing on the base, they had been watched closely by the Navy wives that lived
around them.  And, he’d gotten to see them once, briefly, when the North
Carolina had put in for a restock of food stores. 

A nuclear powered submarine can stay on patrol indefinitely,
except for one small problem.  The crew has to eat.  The reactor
provides endless propulsion and electricity, also powering a desalinization
unit that produces unlimited fresh water from the surrounding sea.  But,
food.  The only thing, other than the psychological pressure of being in a
steel tube deep in the ocean for months on end, that could force a sub to
return to port.

The North Carolina had been near the end of a planned 60-day
patrol in the South China Sea when the nukes went off in New York, DC and
LA.  They had received new orders, scrapping plans to return to Pearl
Harbor within the week.  Joining with the hastily created NATO armada, they
had fought the Chinese invasion fleet.  By the time the battles were over,
Captain Talbot had expended all of his torpedoes and Tomahawk missiles,
accounting for seven of the enemy ships that were sunk.  And the cooks
were getting pretty creative with what remained in the mostly barren pantry.

A quick trip to Pearl Harbor to restock their stores was
necessary.  Surfacing near the entrance to Pearl Harbor, just after
sunset, the North Carolina had taken aboard a pilot who was responsible for
navigating the waters of the harbor and delivering the 8,000-ton boat safely to
the dock.  A veritable army of sailors was waiting with truckloads of provisions,
ready to start loading the moment it was tied up.  Food and medical
supplies were brought aboard by hand, the Navy utilizing the tried and true
method of a bucket brigade.

While the men sweated in the hot and humid night, a full complement
of torpedoes and Tomahawks were loaded.  Along with them came crates full
of M4 rifles, 9mm pistols and thousands of rounds of ammunition.  An
American submarine typically only has a very limited armory with only a handful
of rifles and pistols.  Enough for the senior officers and NCOs to arm
themselves in extraordinary circumstances. 

But things had progressed well beyond extraordinary, and it
had been decided that every crewman should have a weapon available in case the
sub had to put to shore in a hostile environment.  Which was pretty much
anywhere other than Hawaii.

For the officers and crew who had family in Hawaii, their
loved ones had been gathered by the Navy and brought to the dock for a brief
visit while the submarine was in port.  Wives and children were still in
shock over what had happened but understood the necessity for them to put back
to sea as quickly as possible.

Not knowing how long they might be at sea, enough provisions
to feed the crew for eight months had been taken aboard.  There was so
much that berthing areas, passageways, and even the Captain’s cabin, were
stacked high with boxes of rations.  Emotions running high, the crew had
boarded as soon as the loading was complete, and lines had been thrown.  

The pilot took them back to open water, wished the Captain
well and departed on a small boat that had trailed behind to pick him up. 
Twenty minutes before sunrise, the North Carolina slid beneath the waves of the
Pacific and dove for the security of deep water.

Since that day, they hadn’t been back to port.  Hunting
and killing Russian ships and subs had been their mission, and the Captain and
crew had carried it out with deadly efficiency.  Then, they’d received a
new set of instructions over the ELF (Extreme Low Frequency) radio.  The
system, the only way to communicate with a submerged submarine, wasn’t impacted
by the worm the Russians had introduced into the Navy’s digital Battlespace
communications system.

But it was inherently inefficient, only able to transmit a
few bits of data per minute, and the sub is unable to respond as an ELF
transmitter is incredibly large.  So, the North Carolina had received a
message that took over an hour to download, instructing them to proceed to a
set of coordinates in the Solomon Sea and wait at periscope depth to pick up a
SEAL team.

Captain Talbot had received the message, but with no way to
reply, it was taken on faith that the North Carolina would be at the correct
location, on the proper day and time.  The SEALs had jumped into the
endless tracks of the south Pacific Ocean without any confirmation there was a
ride hanging around to pick them up.

But the sub had been there.  Now, they were racing
towards the southeastern Australian coast with the SEALs aboard, and Captain
Talbot had just finished reading the orders delivered to him by the Commander
in charge of the team.  The orders were directly from Admiral Packard himself
and had left no doubt that time was of the essence.  That was the reason
for the North Carolina currently running at flank speed.  And it was why
Captain Talbot was unhappy.

“So, what’s so damn important, Commander?”

He was addressing the SEAL officer, seated across from him
in his cramped cabin.  A stack of boxes containing creamed corn separated
the two men, like a tall, square table.

“We’re making more noise than my daughter’s stereo, running
this fast.  If there’s a Russian within fifty miles, they’re going to hear
us.  And, we’re deaf at this speed, too.  We won’t hear a Russian, or
Australian, until there’s already a torpedo in the water.”

“I understand, Captain.  And I can assure you that
Admiral Packard does as well.  But, here’s the situation.”

The SEAL talked for several minutes, providing details that
weren’t in Talbot’s orders.  He briefed him on the last ditch effort to
capture Russian president Barinov and force him to call off the invasion fleet
before they landed in Hawaii. 

Talbot listened carefully, a grim expression on his face as
he thought about what might happen to his daughters if the Russians succeeded
in defeating the defenders and capturing the islands.

“Are you planning to bring Barinov back aboard when you
capture him?”

“Yes, we are.  We need to be able to control the
environment, and will need to use your comm gear once we break him.”

“What if you can’t break him?”  Talbot asked.

“We’ll get him to cooperate,” the SEAL growled.  “My
only concern is the tight schedule.   We’re going to reach point
Alpha off the Australian coast in just over 32 hours.  That leaves us
roughly eight hours to make it to shore, capture Barinov and bring him back to
the North Carolina.  Any longer than that and the Russians will be sipping
Mai Tais in the sand on Waikiki.”

Talbot leaned back in his chair in thought, then turned and picked
up a sound powered phone.  He ordered his XO, Executive Officer, to join
him in his quarters.  Less than a minute later there was a knock on the door,
and he called out permission to enter.

Lieutenant Commander Adrienne Cable stepped into the room
and softly closed the door behind her.  She was the first woman to ever
become the XO of an American nuclear submarine, and despite the doubts of the
crew, had managed to fit in very well.  Every bit as sharp and determined
as her skipper, she had been at the top of her class at Annapolis and continued
to impress him with her logical mind and nearly encyclopedic knowledge of every
system on the boat.

Talbot introduced her to the SEAL, then spent a couple of
minutes bringing her up to speed.  He didn’t fail to notice how the man
looked at her, but would deal with that outside her presence.  She was a
naval officer, the XO of the boat, and he was going to make damn sure that was
clear to the SEAL.  He wasn’t going to tolerate any lack of respect.

“So, XO, the Commander here is going to be on a very tight
clock once he and his team lockout.  Alpha Point is fifty miles from the
entrance to Sydney Harbour.  I was thinking that perhaps we could get him
a bit closer and cut down their transit time in the RIBs.  Thoughts?”

Adrienne opened the secure iPad that was her constant
companion and began tapping on the screen.  A few seconds later, she
leaned forward and laid it flat on Talbot’s desk.  On the screen was a
navigational chart, the broad opening to the harbor at the extreme edge.

“Point Alpha is here,” she said, tapping a spot in the ocean
directly east of Sydney.  “It’s the last deep water before the seabed
rises dramatically.  At Alpha, we’ve got 2,500 meters of water.  Move
closer by ten miles, and we lose half of that.  1,200 meters. 
Another 10 miles, 346 meters and it just keeps getting worse until we reach the
mouth of the harbor.”

She tapped on the point, and the iPad displayed the
depth.  30 meters. 

“If the Aussies, or Russians, are conducting any ASW sweeps,
they’ll find us.  And there’s nowhere to go deep if we need to run.”

She was referring to Anti-Submarine Warfare.

“So you’re saying you can’t get closer,” the SEAL grumbled,
leaning back.

“I didn’t say that at all,” Adrienne locked eyes with
him.  “I was just explaining the situation to the Captain.  We’ve
operated in shallower water than this in the… well, never mind where. 
Anyways, with the skipper’s permission, I’ll park this big bitch right here, in
the middle of Bate Bay.  And, unless they get really lucky, the Aussies
will never know we’re there.”

She touched a point on the map just to the south of the
harbor entrance.  A semi-circular bay cut into the coastline, and if the
SEALs disembarked there, it would take them less than ten minutes to sail the
RIBs around the headland and enter Sydney Harbour.

“That would save us at least three hours, maybe more,
depending on the sea state,” the SEAL said, leaning closer to the iPad.

“Agreed,” Adrienne said, smiling for the first time. 
“And if we get spotted, which we won’t, but if we do it’s a straight run to deep
water.”

She traced a path to the southeast with a perfectly
manicured nail.  Talbot followed her finger with his eyes, then looked up.

“Thank you, XO.  Have a plot ready for my review in
half an hour.”

“Aye, aye sir,” Adrienne snapped, picked up the iPad and
quickly departed.

“She’s something else,” the SEAL said when the door closed.

“What she is, is a naval officer and the XO of this
boat.  I would advise you to not lose sight of either of those facts,
Commander.”

“Captain?”

“Don’t play dumb, Commander.  I saw your expression
when she walked in.  You don’t like a woman in command.”

“Not at all, Captain,” the SEAL said, a surprised look on
his face.  “You’ve got me wrong.  I was simply wondering if she’s
married.”