Tidal Rip (30 page)

Felix gripped his mouthpiece firmly in his teeth. He held his dive mask in place with his left hand, through the soft clear plastic of his protective suit faceplate. He sat on the coaming of the bottom hatch, then slipped into the water.

“Captain,” Werner Haffner reported from the sonar consoles, “the minisub is calling on the acoustic link. Lieutenant Shedler is asking for you.”

A very troubled Ernst Beck got up from his command console and grabbed a microphone from the overhead. He asked Haffner to put the conversation on the sonar speakers. Rudiger von Loringhoven stood in the aisle, smug now, almost gloating about his victory in the latest mental game with Beck.

Damn him. He knew about those orders even before we departed from Norway.
But Ernst Beck had a job to do, a duty to follow. And he knew he needed a very clear head to do his job and survive.

The
von Scheer
was hovering close to the bottom, northeast of a long and narrow undersea rise that was topped at its farthest end by the jutting St. Peter and St. Paul Rocks. The
von Scheer
hid in the eastern foothills, tucked tight inside a huge L-shaped bend of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge—behind the ship, farther east toward Africa, sprawled the Guinea Plain, five thousand meters deep or more.

“Go ahead,” Beck said into the mike, keeping his voice as even as possible, forcing down his moral revulsion.

“Sir…” Shedler’s voice came over the speakers, scratchy and distorted. “Nearing the Rocks. At periscope depth. I see human activity.”

Von Loringhoven tried to grab the mike, but Beck stepped away from him. “Clarify,” he said to Shedler.

“People on Rocks.”

“Who?”
the diplomat demanded. “What are they doing?”

Beck repeated the questions into the mike.

“Not sure,” Shedler said. “Topography on Rocks all up and down. Much of view blocked, far side of steep slopes, from my current position. Heavy shadowing with sun so low in east. People seen wear protective suits.”

“Military? Enemy?”

“Unknown. Not close enough to see weapons or not, or nationality. Risk of them spotting my periscope head.”

“The Rocks do belong to Brazil,” von Loringhoven said. “A weather station, perhaps?”

“Weather outpost, Lieutenant?”

“Possible. Do appear establishing some technical installation. Could be study radiation on Rocks, effect on environment. I’m guessing.”

“We can’t abort the mission,” Beck told Shedler.
Duty, always duty. The source of pride has become instead an inescapable prison.

“Understood, sir,” came back over the sonar speakers. Shedler knew Beck required the targeting data.

Von Loringhoven caught Beck’s attention. “How long do they actually need to have their land station up and running for us to get what we want from Berlin?”

“Wait one, Shedler,” Beck said into the mike, and turned to von Loringhoven. “The download should be quick once they get a good lock on the satellite…. It’ll take them longer to transmit the numbers to us down here from the minisub.”

“Why?”

“The undersea acoustic-link baud rate is much slower than their big SHF antenna’s data rate.”
SHF
meant “super-high frequency,” the band used by naval satellite downlinks.

“I have an idea,” the diplomat said. “May I please join in the direct conversation?”

“Sonar, patch the baron in.” Beck reached and handed von Loringhoven a mike.

“Lieutenant,” von Loringhoven said, “can you hear me?”

“Yes, Baron.”

“I suggest a cover story. Granted, Brazil is neutral, but we can use that, assuming the intruders are in fact Brazilian. Some of your men speak Portuguese?”

“Two. Enough to get by.”

“If you claim you’re submariners in distress when you swim ashore, by international law you’re entitled to seventy-two hours’ safe harbor to make repairs and transmit messages asking for help from your higher command. Tell the Brazilians that if they give you an argument.”

“Repeat, please, more slowly.”

Von Loringhoven spoke more slowly, with fewer words.

“Understood, Baron,” Shedler said.

So did Beck. “Tell Brazilians a half-truth, Shedler. You swam from the escape trunk of a damaged German diesel U-boat. Ship unable to blow main ballast tanks to surface, and diving planes jammed, so unable to maneuver to shallow depth.”

“That’s good,” von Loringhoven said. “But keep it simple, Lieutenant. The key to a good lie is not to volunteer too much. Tell your men to stay low-key, resist the urge to blurt out things, if they aren’t good natural liars. And be careful. Some of the Brazilians might understand German and not let on.”

Again the baron, not used to the limitations of the acoustic link, needed to repeat himself.

“Yes, Baron. We’ll act shaken up, exhausted, worried, because parent submarine is in distress.”

“Say your satellite link is an emergency radio,” Beck said.

“Set it up under their noses,” von Loringhoven said. “Get the data download. Then say you have to swim back to your submarine.”

“Understood,” Shedler’s voice answered. “What about our weapons?”

“Take them with you,” Beck said. “Credible since you’re at war with Allied Powers. Also, we don’t
know
the people you see are neutral…. But for God’s sake don’t shoot a real Brazilian by mistake!”

Felix smoothly raised his head out of the tepid water and wiped smears of spilled fuel oil off his faceplate. He squinted in the sunlight and peeked around as a quick security check, then more carefully took stock of his position. He felt thankful for his airtight protective suit, and not just because of the lingering radiation. Everything he saw around him looked revolting, and he was sure the smell, should he be exposed to it, would be much worse.

The St. P and P Rocks had once been the home to a teeming colony of seabirds; a century before, sailing ships stopped here to harvest valuable cargoes of guano—built-up bird droppings, rich fertilizer in an age before modern chemicals raised crop yields.

But a convoy-versus-U-boat battle raged near here a few months back. Atomic weapons, detonated close to the Rocks, burned everything black. The guano, the thin scrub brush and moss, the seabirds—everything was charred. Dead fish of all sizes and species, discolored, bloated disgustingly, bobbed in the swell or washed against the base of the Rocks. Then there were the two dead whales, their sides split open from rotting, bones exposed through layers of blubber that had turned green or black in the relentless tropical sun.

Felix headed for the usable patch of more or less flat high ground, following the wires and fiber-optic cables leading out of the water. He paused to raise his dive mask onto his forehead, under his suit. Once out of the water, he felt much heavier, especially wearing a Draeger, but he was used to this, and it was good to be out in the open, after days in a sub or a minisub. Despite the eye exercises he’d done every day to maintain depth perception while cooped up, it took a little time to get used to focusing on objects at a distance.

Felix removed his swim fins and attached them to his external load-bearing harness. He donned his pistol holster, shouldering his submachine gun with its sling. He began to trudge inland—he had to laugh that anywhere here was really inland—and started to climb.

On what the map called Southeast Rock, on a saddle between two jagged volcanic formations, lay a jumble of man-made stones. This was the foundation and other remnants of a long-abandoned and toppled lighthouse. A more modern lighthouse, of less rugged construction, had been built fifteen years ago. That one had been hit by the heat and the shock waves from several atomic airbursts. All that was to be seen of it now were scattered bits of metal and melted glass.

Felix’s on-watch land-side team was busy setting up their satellite communications link on the saddle. Looking south, Felix could see the St. P and P Rocks’ highest point, a volcanic spire whose sides were almost vertical. In the other direction, in the shallows on the northeast side of the Rocks, lay the hulk of a cargo ship—one victim of the convoy-versus-U-boat fight. The hulk was some sort of old dry-cargo vessel, not a tanker or a modern container ship. It must have drifted here, ablaze, and run aground. Now the hulk was completely burned out, blackened like everything else, except for spots and streaks where sea salt had oxidized its tortured steel a matte red brown.

As Felix walked he heard a sickening crunch. He looked down and saw he’d stepped right onto the skeleton of something large, maybe an albatross. He had to shake his foot to dislodge the brittle rib cage.

Felix spoke with some of his men. This was a difficult chore. They had to use one hand, to grab and hold their Draeger mouthpieces through their protective suits or faceplates, and then shout to one another through the muffling effect of the suits.

Radiation detectors confirmed that contamination of the Rocks was still heavy. The alpha and beta rays wouldn’t penetrate a human body’s outer layer of dead skin, let alone get through the SEALs’ heavy suits. But the radioactive particulates lingering on the Rocks—the isotopes of plutonium and uranium and lighter fission by-products—would cause multiple cancers if inhaled and allowed to lodge in the living tissue of the lungs. If a suit seal were to be broken, and a man’s skin torn, carcinogens could also enter the body through even superficial wounds.

The uncomfortable suits contained a layer of Kevlar to prevent such deadly penetration. Even so, all the SEALs worked very carefully. No one wanted to slip on the oily mess that covered the Rocks—charred guano, convoy-ship waste that had condensed from the mushroom clouds and fallen as black rain, and worse. No one wanted to take a spill and go sliding down the rough stones into the water.

And then there were the penetrating neutrons and the gamma rays. The suits would help, but the REM count—a measure of accumulating radiation exposure—said no one would want to stay in the area more than a couple of days, tops.

Felix was therefore happy that things were just about ready to start. The huge, collapsible satellite dish was unfolded and erect. Using portable consoles with keyboards—all battery-powered and hardened against radiation—his men checked the acoustic link into the water to the minisub.
Challenger
had belatedly launched an off-board probe to serve as a communications relay, and the men were trying to verify that it also allowed them to speak and transmit basic data directly to Jeffrey Fuller on his ship.

The minisub positioned itself above the bottom anchor and cable relay point for the Orpheus gear. Divers left the minisub and made a hardwired hookup. Now signals from a spiderweb of distant telephone cables were flowing into the consoles in the mini. Those signals were also coming ashore and being transmitted via satellite to analysts with supercomputers in Norfolk.

Felix sat down to wait. He had eaten, and drunk, and used the tiny head on the minisub before coming ashore. For most of the next twelve hours, he’d be confined in his protective suit, as were his men. His major challenge was to stay alert and support his men’s morale and spirit—despite the depression the truly hideous moonscape inspired in him—as the SEALs stood watch on the land-based equipment and suffered inside their saunalike suits. He wished it hadn’t been such a warm and sunny day. He envied the men who’d be working the night shift.

Felix glanced up at the dazzling sky. The pure white clouds and very clear air were a stark contrast to the ruin on the Rocks. He peered toward the horizon. Except for the Rocks, microscopic in their isolation, the glistening ocean stretched as far as the eye could see, vast and empty and blue. The prevailing wind, and surface current, both came from the east—the surf was slightly heavier on the eastern side of the Rocks. The unbounded vistas, breathtaking under different circumstances, only added to Felix’s melancholy; the total lack of signs of any living wildlife anywhere—no soaring seabirds or dolphins playing—made him feel even worse.

“Sir,” one of his men yelled in Felix’s ear. “Something seems to be messed up.” The SEALs spoke to one another in Portuguese, acting as if they were Brazilian, just in case.

“What do you mean, ‘messed up’?”

“The moment we got everything up and running on Orpheus, the minisub consoles and Norfolk both came back with the same indication. It has to be a technical problem, bad data or a faulty hookup somewhere. It’s too soon to make any sense.”

“Crap,” Felix said. “Just what we need, having to recheck miles of wiring now of all times.”

“I know, LT. The minisub and Norfolk, they both say there’s a deep-running enemy sub right on top of us.” The man turned and pointed toward the northeastern horizon. “Just a few miles
that
way.”

“Lieutenant!” another SEAL shouted from down the far slope of the saddle. “Divers coming out of the water! One is yelling in bad Portuguese! They say they’re from a damaged German U-boat! Requesting official safe-harbor status!”

Felix turned to look through his binoculars.

His heart almost stopped. The Germans were hamming it up, but he wasn’t fooled for a minute. Their posture, their body movements in and around the water, and their equipment, including their weapons, all pointed to their true identities.

Waterproofed, silenced Heckler & Koch MP-5s, carried by crewmen from a sinking German submarine? And Draeger rebreathers inside rubberized black full-body suits, instead of escape lungs and orange life vests and open-water exposure suits?…

Kampfschwimmer
.

As casually as he could, Felix ducked behind a ledge of rock. He gestured for his men to take cover as well—subtly, not abruptly. He grabbed the microphone for the acoustic link to
Challenger
and the minisub in one hand, and the mike for the satellite voice link to Norfolk in the other.

“Enemy contact, contact, contact! Kampfschwimmer on the Rocks! Positive submarine contact on Orpheus, bearing northeast. Repeat, northeast!
At practically point-blank range!
”

Stone chips flew and ricochets whined—the kampfschwimmer weren’t fooled either. The battle for the Rocks was joined.