Authors: Patrick Robinson
The sight of Arnold Morgan’s tsunami maps was a chilling reminder of the reality of this wave of destruction. The Cumbre Vieja represented a rare geological time bomb, able to ravage countries on the other side of the world. Recent research into the last known mega-tsunami caused scientists to look carefully at the seabed around Hawaii, and they were astounded at what they discovered—the gigantic remains of ancient landslides, millions of years old. The tsunami’s first landfall to the west would be the northern coastline of Brazil, six hours after impact, waves 120 feet high. One hour later, the tsunami would swamp the Bahamas and the outer islands of the Caribbean.
Two hours after that, the gigantic wave would roll straight up Massachusetts Bay, and Boston would be hit by a 150-foot-high wave that would probably sweep away the entire city. The tsunami would then thunder onto the U.S. coast, hitting New York next, then Philadelphia, followed by Washington, and onto the mainly flat coastline of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, all the way to Miami and the Keys.
Arnold Morgan’s dossier of recent studies estimated that the first wave could be 2,000 feet high a half-mile west of La Palma, following the mammoth splash caused by maybe a half-trillion tons of rock crashing into the water at 200 mph. Traveling at high speed, 160 miles in the first ten minutes, the wave would weaken as it crossed the ocean, but it would definitely still be 150 feet high when it hit the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the shores of the western Sahara would receive waves of 300 feet, from crest to trough, although there would be shelter in the eastern lee of the bigger Canary Islands, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, depending on where you found yourself as the tidal wave developed.
The scientists were also unanimous that a mega-tsunami off the Canaries, caused by a sudden volcanic eruption, would be the highest wave in recorded history. Even the south coast of Great Britain, though not in its direct path, would still be subject to serious flooding.
In world geohazard opinion, right there, laid out on Arnold Morgan’s reclaimed office table, the Cumbre Vieja was an absolute certainty to be next. Everything was ideal for mass destruction—the towering peaks of the mountain range, the colossal height, the depth of the ocean, the sonorous rumbling of the volcanoes. The last explosion, some sixty years ago in the South Crater, proved it was all still active, and that the molten lava was not so very far below the surface. The underground lakes were ready to boil over at the instant of eruption. And of course there was the enormous fracture-line crack in the cliff, which had already caused a 10-foot shift in the rock face high above the ocean.
The newest report pointed out, thoughtfully, that the last time a volcano erupted with anything like the tsunami potential of Cumbre Vieja was 4,000 years ago on Reunion Island, a French territory since 1643, situated 420 miles east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
A report from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, which had high-tech facilities to re-create model waves created by landslides, stated flatly, “If the Cumbre Vieja were to collapse as one single block, it would lead to a mega-tsunami.”
So far as the scientists understood, the volcanoes on the southwest flank of La Palma erupted about every two hundred years. And there was no evidence that one single eruption would cause the landslide. In fact, it might take five eruptions. There was, of course, no section in the report that dealt with the probable effects of a couple of 200,000-ton nuclear warheads blowing up in the middle of the Cumbre Vieja crater.
Admiral Morgan had another fearsome little aid to his presentation—a two-foot-square, 18-inch-high scale model of the volcanoes on the southwest corner of La Palma. It came from the University of California and had been flown in to Andrews by the U.S. Air Force, arriving at the White House by helicopter.
The model showed the seabed to the top of the peaks, the steeply sloping volcanic cliffs falling away from the mountains,
way down below the surface of the water. The shoreline was marked, highlighting the sudden sweep of the land into the depths. It showed the probable zones of the landslide on the seabed, and it starkly illustrated the tremendous impact such an avalanche would create upon the water.
On the top of the model were the great peaks of Caldera de Taburiente, Cumbre Nueva, and just below them, Cumbre Vieja, sitting atop a massive craggy rock wall 2,000 feet above the ocean, which, the model showed, shelved down to a 4,000-foot depth.
“Jesus Christ,” said Admiral Doran. “That puts a pretty sharp light on it, eh?”
“Just look at the position of the Cumbre Vieja, perched up there on top of the wall,” said Arnold. “Just imagine what a nuclear bomb could do…Holy Shit! We gotta find this bastard!”
“I’ve just been reading a damn good book by Simon Winchester about Krakatoa,” said Admiral Dickson. “Been meaning to read it for years. That was one hell of an explosion…goddamned mountain blew itself to pieces, punched a damn great hole in the ocean, wrecked three hundred towns and villages, and killed 36,000 people. And you know what? Almost all the destruction, and absolutely all of the death, was caused by the tsunami. And the son of a bitch was nothing like the size of the one we’re looking at.”
“Jesus, Alan. You’re making me nervous,” said Arnold. “But I guess we have to face the reality, otherwise we’ll
all
end up under medical supervision at Camp David.”
“Okay,” said Alan Dickson. “We’ve dealt with the President. We’ve taken care of the French. Nearly. Now we’re about ready to sort out the ships. Maybe Frank could give us a rundown on the Atlantic Fleet as it stands.”
“Perfect,” said Arnold. “Lemme just call the President. He’d better sit in on this. Since he has been C in C of the armed forces for all of four hours.”
He called upstairs to the private residence, and within five
minutes, Paul Bedford was back in the Oval Office, listening to the rundown of the Navy situation. He had never forgotten his days as a frigate Lieutenant, and he often recalled the excitement of being a young officer, racing through the night at the helm of a U.S. warship.
And predictably, he asked questions no civilian would ever dream of. “Frank, these Oliver Hazard Perry frigates. They were brand-new when I was serving, and I haven’t kept up…good ships?”
“Excellent, sir…3,600 tons, 41,000 hp…couple of big gas turbines, single shaft, 4,500-mile range at 28 knots, need refueling when they reach the ops area. But that’s no problem. They pack a pretty good wallop too…four McDonnell Douglas Harpoon guided missiles, homing to 70 nautical miles at Mach zero-point-nine…plus ASW torpedoes.”
“Beautiful,” said President Bedford. And he really meant it. “That little son of a bitch comes to the surface, he’s history, right?”
“Just so long as we can see him,” replied Admiral Doran. “And we are putting a lot of faith in the helicopters…You know, each frigate carries two of those excellent Sikorsky SH-60R Seahawks…They got state-of-the-art LAMPS Mark III weapons systems. They’re just great machines, 100 knots, no sweat, up to 10,000 feet.
“They’re exactly what we need…airborne platforms for antisubmarine warfare. That
Barracuda
shows up where we think he’ll be, we got him. Those helos have outstanding dipping sonar, Hughes AQS-22 low frequency.
“They all have USY-2 acoustic processors, upgraded ESM and Integrated Self-defense. Plus APS-124 search radar…and twenty-four sonobuoys. Those helos carry three Mk-50 torpedoes, an AGM-114R/K Hellfire Missile, and one Penguin Mark-2.”
“I just hope the French cooperate,” said the President.
“They will ultimately not be a problem,” said Arnold Morgan. “If they won’t shut the damn thing off, we’ll shut it off for them. I was not joking when I first said that. We’ll shoot it down, because we don’t have any choice.”
“This means,” said the President, “you have entirely abandoned the idea of a wide search out in the Atlantic, west of the islands?”
“Again, no choice,” replied Arnold. “With a hundred ships out there in deep water, we could still miss him easily. It’s too vast an area, hundreds of thousands of square miles of water.
“So we’re sticking to a small force of just twelve frigates, plus the carrier group. Perhaps, Frank, you could let the President know where we are with the fleet right now?”
“Sure,” said Admiral Doran, flicking the pages of his notebook. “We just diverted two ships from the Gulf of Maine on a southwest course to the Canaries, that’s USS
Elrod
, under the command of Captain CJ Smith, and USS
Taylor
, under the command of Captain Brad Willett.
“The
Kauffman
and the
Nicholas
were both in the North Atlantic, and have been heading south for the past three days. Comdr. Joe Wickman’s
Simpson
was off North Carolina, and we sent him east two days ago. Tonight, seven more frigates are due to clear Norfolk by midnight.
“That’s the old
Samuel B. Roberts,
commanded by Capt. Clay Timpner—rebuilt, of course, since she hit a mine in the first Gulf War; USS
Hawes
under Comdr. Derek DeCarlo, the
Robert G. Bradley
, under a newly promoted young Commander, John Hardy, from Arizona. Then there’s USS
De Wert
, commanded by Capt. Jeff Baisley.
“My old ship, the
Klakring
, will be ready next. She’s now commanded by Capt. Clint Sammons, from Georgia, who’ll probably make Rear Admiral next year. The
Doyle
’s already on her way under Comdr. Jeff Florentino. And the USS
Underwood
, commanded by Capt. Gary Bakker, will be the last away. She only came in yesterday morning.”
“How about the helos for the carrier deck?”
“We’re sending the
Truman
out from Norfolk with fifty Seahawks on board—they’ll transfer to the
Ronald Reagan
flight deck as soon as possible, then bring the fixed wings home.”
“So that’ll give us over seventy Seahawks active over the datum?”
“Correct, sir. We’ll be flying a lot of patrols around the Islands, as from midnight on October 7. He sticks that mast up for more than a few seconds any time in the next two days, we’ll get him. If he doesn’t have any satellites, he’ll need time to get an accurate range.”
“How accurate does his damn missile have to be?”
“If it’s nuclear, which we’re sure it will be, he can hit within a half-mile of the Cumbre Vieja, and the impact would be terrific. But I think he’ll try to bury those babies right in the crater. Remember, he’s trying to blow the volcano wide open. He’s not trying to knock the cliff down…because that won’t be enough. He’s vowed to erupt the Cumbre Vieja, and he’ll need time to set up for an accurate fix. And that’s our chance…while his periscope’s jutting out of the water, and we’re sweeping the surface with radar.”
“There’s a lot riding on this, Frank,” said the President. “A whole lot riding on the skill and sharpness of your boys.”
“Yes, sir. But if it can be done, they’ll do it. Of that I’m in no doubt.”
President Bedford and Admiral Morgan refused all requests for interviews via the White House Press Office. There was a hot line established between the National Security Agency and the Oval Office. And Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe was constantly combing the myriad of U.S. intercepts for anything that might give a clue to the whereabouts of the phantom
Barracuda
.
At eleven o’clock on the first morning of Paul Bedford’s Presidency, he got one—vague, coded, and not much use to anyone. But the U.S. listening station in the Azores had picked up something that arrived from the satellite of the Chinese Navy’s Southern Fleet. A short signal transmitted at 0500 (DST) on Tuesday morning…
a cruel sea for the songbirds.
There was something about it that caught Ramshawe’s attention.
He stared at it, pondered its possible meaning.
Cruel sea…a cruel sea…the cruel sea…novel about the Navy…Nicholas Montserrat! Holy shit! On the day the island volcano blew.
Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe did not have the slightest idea of the different spelling. This may have been a message from anyone, to anyone. But it was in English, and it was on the Chinese Navy satellite. And it must have meant something to somebody.
So who’s the bloody songbirds?
He did not waste any more time thinking. He picked up the phone to his boss, Admiral George Morris, and recounted the signal. George thought slowly. Eventually he spoke. “Jimmy,” he said. “That’s very interesting. Especially if those songbirds turned out to be canaries.”
“Hey! That’s a beaut, sir. You got it. Can’t be sure what it means, but it surely suggests the bloody
Barracuda
is on its way to La Palma.”
Neither of them knew that a new signal had just hit the Chinese satellite. Again brief…
RAZORMOUTH 71.30N 96.00E
. General Rashood, operating from Bandar Abbas, did not yet think that the Americans had already cracked the
Barracuda/Razormouth
code many months previously. And in any case, the Americans, who picked up the new signal, would not understand the coded global positions. The code 71.30N 96.00E put the submarine somewhere in the landlocked foothills of the North Siberian Plain.
They should have read 21.30N (
minus 50 degrees
) 48.00W (
divided by 2
). Which put the
Barracuda
precisely where Admiral Badr had her…steaming at 15 knots hard above the eastern shoulders of the North Atlantic Ridge, right over the Kane Fracture Zone, more than 900 miles east nor’east of the island of Montserrat. She was making a beeline for the Canary Islands.
When he went deep again after his transmission, Ben Badr would order a reduction in speed down to nine knots in 600 feet, above the somewhat noisy waters of the Ridge. He would cut it further as they continued eastward, running softly over the quiveringly sensitive underwater wires of SOSUS.
“Well, Admiral,” he said, “At least we know where the little bugger is headed. You want to call the Big Man, or will I do it?”