Scimitar SL-2 (24 page)

“If the meeting agrees, we’ll begin work on the defensive layout right away, and we better start moving ships into the area from the Middle and Far East.”

“I agree with that,” said Arnold Morgan. “But I remain concerned about the time frame, and I remain concerned about Hamas watching our activities at the bases around the Gulf over the next couple of weeks.

“If they see we are doing absolutely nothing in response to their evacuation demand, they might just get frustrated and whack the cliff, or somehow up the ante. I’d like to try and avoid that.”

“You mean, start moving stuff as if we’re obeying them?”

“So far as I can see,” said Arnold, “that’s the only chance we have of buying time. If they see we’re reacting to their threats, they may be happy to give us more time. And we need time. A defensive operation like this needs all the time it can get.”

“Sir,” said Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe. “I wonder if I may ask a question?”

“Sure, Jimmy, go right ahead.”

“Do you think these jokers will attempt to bang some high ordnance straight into the cliff and knock it into the sea, or do you think they’ll try to bang a couple of big nuclear warheads straight into the Cumbre Vieja volcano, blow it wide open, and let nature take its course with the steam blast?”

“Good question,” replied the Admiral. “In the normal way, I’d say any terrorist in that situation would want to fire in a missile, hit the cliff, and bolt for freedom, from maybe 300 miles offshore.

“But this bastard’s different. We believe he’s an expert on volcanoes. Option two—hitting the crater—will take much longer to develop, and it is more difficult to execute, but it’s also more deadly. Altogether a more awesome and terrifying project. I think
he’ll go for Option Two. He’s not afraid of difficulty, and he’ll try for maximum effect.”

“Just like he did at Mount St. Helens,” replied the Lieutenant Commander, thoughtfully.

“Exactly so,” said Admiral Morgan.

“Which brings us back to the business of time,” said General Scannell. “Does everyone think we should stage some kind of an unobtrusive departure from the bases in the Gulf?”

“I don’t think we can, not so long as President McBride thinks we’re all crazy.” General Boyce, the Supreme NATO Allied Commander, was visibly unhappy. He shook his head and said twice, “I just don’t know.”

General Tim Scannell was braver. “Bart,” he said, “I think I mentioned it before. On this one, we may just have to go without him.”

And the eight men sitting around the big table in the CJC’s conference room felt the chill of a potential mutiny, led, unthinkably, by the Highest Command of the United States Military.

0800, Friday, September

456.18S 67.00W, Speed 15, Depth 300.

A
DM. BEN BADR
held the
Barracuda
steady on course, two-seven-zero, 25 miles south of Cape Horn, beneath rough, turbulent seas swept by a force-eight gale out of the Antarctic. They were moving through the Drake Passage in 2,500 fathoms of water, having finally concluded their southward journey down past the hundreds of islands and fiords that guard mainland Chile from the thundering Pacific breakers.

They had made good speed across the southeast Pacific Basin, and the Mornington Abyssal Plain, and were now headed east, running north of the South Shetland Islands in the cold, treacherous waters where the Antarctic Peninsula comes lancing out of the southern ice floes.

Ben Badr was making for the near end of the awesome underwater cliffs of the Scotia Ridge. At the same time, he was staying in the eastern flows of the powerful Falkland Islands current. His next course adjustment would take him past the notoriously
shallow Burdwood Bank, and well east of the Falkland Islands themselves.

These were lonely waters, scarcely patrolled by the Argentinian Navy, and even more rarely by the Royal Navy, which was still obliged to guard the approaches to the islands for which 253 British servicemen had fought and died in 1982.

It was midwinter this far south, and despite not having seen daylight for almost two months, Ben Badr assured the crew that they did not want to break the habit right now. Not with an Antarctic blizzard raging above them, and a mighty southern ocean demonstrating once more that Cape Horn’s murderous reputation was well earned.

Submarines dislike the surface of the water under almost any conditions. They are not built to roll around with the ocean’s swells. But 300 feet below the waves, the
Barracuda
was in its correct element, moving swiftly and easily through the depths, a smooth, malevolent jet-black tube of pending destruction, but the soul of comfort for all who sailed with her.

That 47,500 hp nuclear system had been running sweetly for eight weeks now, which was not massively demanding for a power source that would run, if necessary, for eight years. The Russian-built VM-5 Pressurized Water Reactor would provide every vestige of the submarine’s propulsion, heat, fresh water, and electronics on an indefinite basis. Barring accident, the only factor that could drive the
Barracuda
to the surface was if they ran out of food.

Their VM-5 reactor was identical to the one the Russians used on their gigantic Typhoon-class ballistic missile boats. The world’s biggest underwater warships, which displace 26,000 tons of water submerged, required two of them, but the reactors were the same state-of-the-art nuclear pressurized water systems.

The
Barracuda
, with its titanium hull, was a submariner’s dream. It could strike with missiles unexpectedly, from an unknown position. It was incredibly quiet—as quiet as the U.S. Navy’s latest Los Angeles–class boats, silent under seven knots,
undetectable, barring a mistake by her commanding officer. A true phantom of deep water.

General Rashood and Ben Badr stared at the charts that marked the long northward journey ahead of them. It was more than 4,000 miles up to the equator, and they knocked off three parts of that with a brisk, constant 15 knots through the cold, lonely southern seas, devoid of U.S. underwater surveillance and largely devoid of the warships of any nation.

They remained 1,000 miles offshore, running 500 feet below the surface up the long Argentinian coast, across the great South American Basin until they were level with the vast 140-mile-wide estuary of the River Plate.

This is the confluence of the Rivers Parana and Uruguay, and the enormous estuary contains some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, steaming along the merchant ship roads, into the ports of Buenos Aires on the Argentinian side and Montevideo on the Uruguayan.

Ben Badr stayed well offshore here, keeping right of the shallow Rio Grande Rise, and pushing on north, up towards Ascension Island. And long before they arrived in those waters, he cut the speed of his submarine, running through the confused seas above the craggy cliffs of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge on his starboard side, as he made his way silently past the U.S. military base on this British-owned moonscape of an island.

This was probably the only spot in the entire Mid-and South Atlantic they might be detected. And they ran past with the utmost care, slowly, slowly, only six knots, deeper than usual, at 700 feet. The
Barracuda
was deathly quiet on all decks. Lieutenant Commander Shakira huddled in the navigation room; Admiral Badr and the Hamas General were in the control room, listening to the regular pings of the passive sonar.

On Friday, September 18, the
Barracuda
crossed the equator, the unseen divider of north and south in the center of the earth’s navigational grid. This was the zero-degree line that slices in, off the Atlantic and through Brazil, a few miles north of the Amazon Delta.

Ahead of the Hamas warship was another 1,000 miles through which they made good speed, covering the distance in a little under three days. By midday on Monday, September 21, they were at their rendezvous point, running slowly at periscope depth, eight miles off the port of Dakar in the former French colony of Senegal, right on the outermost seaward bulge of northern Africa.

1100 (Local), Same Day

Monday, September 21

Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Arnold Morgan was entertaining an old friend, the new Israeli Ambassador to Washington, sixty-two-year-old General David Gavron, former head of the most feared international Intelligence agency in the world, the Mossad.

The two men had met and cooperated at the time David Gavron had served as military attaché at the Israeli Embassy seven years previously. They had, by necessity, stayed in touch during Admiral Morgan’s tenure in the White House, when the General had headed up the Mossad.

Today’s was an unorthodox meeting. David Gavron, like every other high-ranking military Intelligence officer in the world, knew the Admiral was no longer on the White House staff. But this certainly had not diminished his towering reputation, nor his encyclopedic knowledge of the ebb and flow of the world’s power struggles.

General Gavron guessed, correctly, that the U.S.A. had a serious problem. He had for years been a close friend and confidant not only of Ariel Sharon but also of the former Yom Kippur War tank-division commander Maj. Gen. Avraham “Bren” Adan. General Gavron was possibly the most trusted man in Israel.

He was a pure Israeli of the blood, a true Sabra, born a few miles southwest of the Sea of Galilee near Nazareth. On October 6,
1973, the first day of the Yom Kippur War, as a battalion tank commander, he had driven out into the Sinai right alongside “Bren” Adan himself. On that most terrible day, hundreds of young Israelis, stunned by the suddenness of the onslaught by Egypt’s Second Army, fought and died in the desert.

For two days and nights, David Gavron had served in the front line of the battlefield, as one of Bren Adan’s bloodstained young commanders who flung back wave after wave of the Egyptian tank division. Twice wounded, shot in the arm and then blown into the desert sand while trying to save a burning tank crew, David Gavron’s personal battle honor was presented to him by Mrs. Meir herself. It was inscribed with the same words as Great Britain’s coveted Victoria Cross…
FOR VALOR
.

This was precisely the kind of man Admiral Morgan now needed urgently because only someone like David Gavron, a man who had faced the onslaught of a merciless invading army, could ultimately decide whether his beleaguered little country could comply with America’s request to vacate the West Bank of the Jordan River.

So far, in unofficial but probing talks, the signs had not been good. From Tel Aviv, there had been zero enthusiasm. The big hitters in the Israeli military had almost shuddered at the prospect of a Palestinian State. Hard-eyed men from the Knesset, the Mossad, Shin Bet, the interior secret service, had intimated this was too big a favor to ask.

Arnold Morgan stared at the jagged scar on the left side of the Israeli’s face. He knew it was a legacy from a far-distant tank battle in the desert. And that scar ran deep. David Gavron’s reaction to a polite request for an end to hostilities with the Palestinians would have a major bearing on the next approach by the Americans.

Admiral Morgan did not know precisely how much General Gavron knew, but he suspected Hamas may have informed the Mossad directly of their threat to the United States, and their demand that Israel back up and give their Arabian enemy some living space.

It was a warm autumn day, and they sat outside on the patio surrounding the pool area. Arnold sipped his coffee and gazed into the cool blue eyes of the tall, fit-looking Israeli diplomat, with his close-cropped hair and tanned skin.

“David,” he said. “I want you to level with me.”

“As always,” smiled the General.

“Are you aware of the threat made upon my nation by the high command of Hamas?”

“We are.”

“Do you know of the twofold nature of the demands that we vacate the Middle East in its entirety, and that we compel you to agree to the formation of a Palestinian State inside the present borders of Israel?”

“Yes, we are aware of precisely what they threaten.”

“Okay. Now, you also know we have begun to make troop and armament movements in our Middle East bases.”

“We do.”

“And do you think Hamas now believes we intend to comply with their demands?”

“I doubt it.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are probably not doing nearly enough. Just playing for time, while you get ready to obliterate your enemy, in the time-honored American way.”

“It’s damn difficult to obliterate Hamas. Since we can’t see them.”

“I assure you, there is no need to tell us that. We can see them a lot better than you. And we can’t get rid of them either.”

“Well, David. We can certainly step up our evacuation plans sufficiently to make us look real. But we plainly need your cooperation, just to demonstrate we have persuaded you to make a lasting peace, with redrawn borders for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”

David Gavron, somewhat ominously, did not answer.

“So I have two questions to ask you,” said the Admiral. “The
first because of your known expertise dealing with terrorist enemies of your nation…Do you think we should take the Hamas threat seriously?”

“You mean, their assurance that they will cause this giant landslide and then a tidal wave to flood your East Coast?”

“That’s the one, David.”

“My answer is yes. Because the Hamas have become very dangerous in the past two or three years. You will have noticed several of their spectacular successes—some at our expense, others at yours…?”

“Of course. We have. And now they are threatening again. Goddamnit, David, they never used to be
that
dangerous.”

“Not until they found a new Sandhurst-trained military assault leader.”

“You mean the SAS officer who absconded from the Brits?”

“That’s the man, Arnold. And I’ve no doubt you realize he went over the wall in my own country during the battle of the Jerusalem Road in our holy city of Hebron.”

“Actually, David, my information was that he went around the wall, not over it.”

“Very precise of you,” replied General Gavron, smiling. “We do, of course, have the same sources. Anyway, he’s never been seen since, and Hamas has never been the same since.”

“Don’t I know that. But now we’re stuck with this volcano bullshit.”

“I wonder if you also heard,” replied the Israeli, “that he undoubtedly kidnapped and murdered that Professor in London earlier this year, the world authority on volcanoes and earthquakes?”

“We only surmised that very recently.”

“We were perhaps quicker in Tel Aviv. But we knew there was an active cell of the Hamas high command in London. Matter of fact, we just missed them. One day earlier might have saved everyone a lot of trouble.”

“Or, on the other hand, left you on the short side of a half-dozen assassins…”

“Yes, we are always aware of that possibility when dealing with such a man,” said General Gavron. “Nonetheless, I should definitely take his threats seriously if I were you…We can surmise by his London activities that he is now an expert on volcanoes. And I’m told by our Field Chief in Damascus that they definitely planned to erupt Mount St. Helens. We’ve never had confirmation of that, but the coincidence is a little fierce.”

“Which leaves our East Coast on the verge of extinction,” said Arnold. “I’ve read up on the subject, and the truth is obvious. He hits the Cumbre Vieja volcano, that mega-tsunami will happen. And that’s likely to be
sayonara
New York…”

“Of course I see your problem. You are obliged to buy a little time by making moves in the Middle East to look as if you are leaving. But what you are really doing is getting a great battle fleet into operation in the Atlantic in order to find and destroy the submarine, or intercept the missile as it flies into La Palma?”

“How the hell do you know they’re in a submarine?”

“Please, Arnold, give us some credit. We know about the missing
Barracuda
s. We know you found one of them, already scuttled. And we know the other one is on the loose. There is plainly no other way to hit the volcano except with a submarine-launched missile. An aircraft is out of the question, so is a surface ship, and a blast from the mainland of black North Africa would be to invite instant detection by the U.S. satellites.

“No, Arnold. They have informed you what they plan to do. And quite obviously, they are going to launch their missile attack from a submarine creeping around, deep, somewhere in the North Atlantic, somewhere off the coast of Africa. And since that
Barracuda
is the only suspect…the rest is academic.”