Authors: Patrick Robinson
“Don’t remind me, Frank. And how about the shipyards, Newport News and Norship, all in the same darned complex. Christ! We got two aircraft carriers half finished in there…Couldn’t hardly move them if we tried—except with tugs…not to mention the West Coast of Florida.”
Frank Doran shook his head. “And we have to get Kings Bay, Georgia, evacuated. We got four Ohio boats in there, and God knows how many of those Trident C4 missiles. Probably enough to blow up most of the goddamned universe, and we’re prancing around trying to find a bunch of guys dressed in fucking sheets underwater.”
Admiral Morgan chuckled. He really liked Frank Doran and his unexpected humor. The task that faced them both was truly overwhelming, and they had to fight against letting it take over. They had a chance to nail the
Barracuda
—both men knew that—if it came to periscope depth. And if it didn’t, and just fired straight at the volcano, they had a chance to nail its missiles, surface to air. Failing that, there was one final line of defense—the steel ring of Patriot Missiles around the rim of the Cumbre Vieja, which would hit back. If they had time.
Failing those three options, life would not be the same on the East Coast of the U.S.A. for a very long time.
“Okay, sir, I’m out of here. I’ll put the evacuation plan for the Gulf of Mexico into operation right away. If it floats and it steams, that’s where every ship is going. I think we better get those ICBMs to sea and headed south as quickly as possible. But we might
have to commandeer a few commercial freighters to vacate the submarine support station. There’s a million tons of missiles and other material in there. And it’s absolutely vulnerable—right on the Atlantic coast, protected by nothing more than a couple of sandbanks.”
“Don’t tell me, Frank. I used to work there,” said Arnold, shaking his head. “Is this a goddamned nightmare or what?”
Admiral Doran walked to the door of the Oval Office. “You coming back tomorrow?” asked Arnold.
“Uh-uh. In the morning. We might have some better news by then.”
1930 (Local), Friday, October 2
Damascus, Syria.
Ravi and Shakira were back in their home on Sharia Bab Touma. Adm. Mohammed Badr had decided that satellite signals between the Iranian Naval Base at Bandar Abbas and the
Barracuda
were too vulnerable to American interception, so their expertise and advice wasn’t needed right now. All they could do was wait.
The Americans could intercept anything, with the National Security Agency’s Olympian ability to eavesdrop on anything, anywhere, anytime, and very little was transmitted from the Navy bases of potentially troublesome countries without Fort Meade knowing about it, chapter and verse.
So General and Mrs. Rashood had evacuated their lush guest quarters in Bandar Abbas and flown home to Damascus. And there, high up in the rambling house they had lived in when they first were married, was a state-of-the-art satellite transmitter, and a state-of-the-art receiver. But the path of the signals was Damascus-satellite-Tehran-satellite-Zhanjiang-satellite-
Barracuda
.
On the way back, it was precisely the same in reverse, all coded. Ravi made his way back down the stairs holding the latest message from Ben Badr, which simply read:
72.30N 76.00E.
The
Hamas General quickly decoded the true position and marked the spot on his map of the Atlantic.
Ben had made almost 10 knots since Tuesday morning, covering 700 miles across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The
Barracuda
was now almost on the line of the Tropic of Cancer, creeping at only five knots over the SOSUS wires. They were roughly 775 miles short of their ops area, which at this speed—120 miles a day—was six and a half days away. Ravi’s fingers whipped over the buttons on his calculator. It was now around midday on Friday where the
Barracuda
steamed, and they should arrive at the Canaries firing zone around midnight next Thursday, October 8.
“Right on time for the hit,” said Ravi to himself. “Just pray to Allah the Scimitars work again.”
“I’m hearing a certain amount of mumbling here,” said Shakira, who had just appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “Would you like some tea, to calm your nerves?”
“Thank you. That would be perfect,” said Ravi. “By the way, I’ve just received a signal from the
Barracuda
, and it’s good news. They report no illness or casualties, they’re right on time, right on course, in mid-Atlantic, 775 miles short of La Palma.”
“I was just watching CNN on the television,” said Shakira. “The Americans are very concerned. The President has broadcast twice, and an evacuation of the East Coast is in full swing. They seem to have accepted the reality of our threat.”
“Are they saying anything specific about their defensive measures…You know, a deployment of ships around the islands?”
“Nothing much, only that they’ll be starting an extensive search for the
Barracuda
soon.”
“Hmm,” replied Ravi. “They’ll have a lot of search power out there, but I don’t think they’ll be able to catch Ben. He’s firing from 300 miles out, way to the southeast…and so far as I can see, there’s no way they’ll catch him in that deep water…not if he stays slow and deep, and launches from 200 or 300 feet below the surface.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever missed anything,” said Shakira, thoughtfully. “You think our luck will hold?”
“This isn’t luck. It’s planning,” said Ravi. “Planning over a long period of time.”
“You think they know it’s definitely a submarine, definitely launching missiles at the volcanoes from below the surface?”
“Hell, yes,” said General Rashood. “They know that.”
“Well, what would you do, if you were them?”
“Evacuate,” said Ravi. “As fast as I could.”
“Nothing Military or Naval—no aggressive action?”
“Well, I’d certainly send ships out to hunt for the submarine, but the Atlantic’s a big place. I would not hold my breath.”
Shakira was still thinking. “You know, my darling,” she said, “I spent a lot of time plotting and planning with the missile guidance systems. They do work from the satellites, you know.”
“Just on the regular Global Positioning System.”
“How about if the Americans somehow interfered with that. Made it nonoperational?”
“Well, I believe there’s nearly thirty satellites up there, and I’ve always thought they were involved in television, telecommunications, and all kinds of things. And every ship in the world is entirely dependent on them for navigation. I don’t think even the Americans could somehow turn off the entire communications and navigation system for the whole world. They’d be too afraid of the lawsuits that would probably amount to billions of dollars.”
“Let’s hope they are,” said Shakira, pouring tea into two glasses with little silver holders. “Otherwise, Ben will miss our target.”
Midday (Local), Friday, October 2
National Security Agency.
The Fort Meade code breakers had almost done their job. Admiral Morris had taken the first signal off the Chinese Navy’s satellite and drawn a large circle on a chart of the North Atlantic.
“That’s where we think the
Barracuda
is,” he said. “In there somewhere. We are nearly certain this signal with the numbers 71.30N 96.00W is reporting her precise position. Try to come up with something, will you?”
Shortly before noon on the previous day, the code room had come up with a close solution.
“On the first number, we think they just subtracted 50…or maybe 49 or 48. No more. On the second number, the
W
for West, means
E
for East. And we are nearly certain they just cut the number 96 in half. Which would give us 21.30N 48.00W, and that’s right about in the center of the circle.”
Admiral Morris and his assistant were delighted with that. And they were waiting anxiously for a new signal. At 12:30
P.M.
Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe located something on the Chinese satellite…
OLD RAZORMOUTH 72.30N 76.00E.
Jimmy whipped 50 off the first number, and divided the second one in half. He changed the
West
to
East
and came up with 22.30N38.00W. He checked on his detailed computerized chart of the Central Atlantic, and recorded the precise spot where he believed the
Barracuda
was steaming, probably three hours ago. He checked back with the previous numbers and plotted the submarine 700 miles farther east than they’d been on Tuesday morning.
He calculated the speed, and like the faraway General Rashood, he assessed it at just below 10 knots.
He keeps that up, he’ll spring one of those SOSUS wires for sure in the next few hours
. Jimmy Ramshawe’s confidence was rising by the minute. The submarine was slightly farther north, maybe 60 miles, but the overall difference was definitely 700 miles. That put her on a direct route to the Canary Islands.
He called Admiral Morris, who guessed it might take four hours to get surveillance ASW aircraft into the area, which would mean the
Barracuda
would be possibly 70 miles farther on. But they had no further guarantee of her course, which could change at any time. And that presented a large surface area—as much as 5,000 square miles to search.
George Morris called Admiral Morgan, who followed the conversation on his wall-sized computer chart, which was now in the Oval Office. He said to put the information on the wire immediately to Admiral Doran in Atlantic Fleet Headquarters, Norfolk, and to the CNO in the Pentagon.
“George,” said Arnold. “This comes down to the same thing, as always. A huge area to search, out in the middle of the Atlantic, and almost no chance of catching him if he’s deep and quiet. Also, we don’t know the timing of the signal from the
Barracuda
.
“I think Jimmy’s right. It was probably sent three hours before we picked it up. But it could have been yesterday. This bastard is very smart. Note that there was no time and date on the signal. I guess they know when he’s scheduled to transmit, and so long as he says nothing, they know he’s on schedule.
“But I continue to think any kind of wide search in the remotest areas of the Atlantic is hopeless. We’re not going to find this son of a bitch until we can drive him inshore. Then we have an excellent chance.”
Ten minutes later, Admiral Doran was on the line to the Oval Office. His view was the same as Arnold’s. “We could waste an enormous amount of time and effort out there. And it’s still only about a 5 percent chance we’d catch him,” he said. “The value of that signal is it confirms the existence of the
Barracuda.
And it confirms roughly where he is, or was, plus his course and obvious destination. We just have to force him inshore…Any luck with the French?”
“I’m speaking to their Foreign Minister in a half hour, Frank. At this stage I’m not hopeful. I think it’s going to come down to President-to-President. But I’ll be doing my best to scare this little son of a bitch in Paris.”
Admiral Doran replaced the receiver. He instructed someone to alert all Atlantic ships as to the perceived whereabouts of the
Barracuda.
And then he returned to the colossal task of evacuating the Norfolk shipyards.
One hour later, thirty minutes late, Kathy got the French Foreign Minister on the telephone. Arnold did not know the man, and decided that politeness was the sensible course to steer. They introduced themselves, formally. The Frenchman spoke good English and the Admiral decided to come straight to the point.
“Minister,” he said, “you probably already know why I’m calling. You must have read about the terrorist threat in the newspapers, right?”
The French minister confirmed and impressed his apprehension upon the Admiral.
His government had just received a report from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology about the likely effects of a tsunami caused by the explosion of the Cumbre Vieja, and were concerned with the apparent seriousness of the situation. However, his Government wasn’t yet fully convinced that the threat was actually real. Contrary to the States conviction, they had seen no hard evidence that it would take place.
Arnold asked him to simply accept, on trust, the opinion of the United States military on this matter. “Mind you, we intend to do everything in our power to stop them,” added Arnold. “And we’re not asking for assistance, though there will be damage to the cities and coastlines of many other nations.”
“Yes, the Swiss scientists confirm the damage would be widespread,” was the reply.
“And of course your own coast in Brittany may be on the receiving end of a very substantial tidal wave, possibly 80 feet high, straight into your Navy headquarters in Brest. That’s almost as much trouble as we’ll be in four hours later.”
“I understand,” said the Frenchman hesitantly. “The issue for us is, firstly, do we believe in the threat? Secondly, do we think it
is sufficiently serious for us to dismantle the entire European Global Positioning System? I’m sorry to say that the answer would be no.”
“Well, we are not asking for a complete dismantling,” said Arnold. “Just a forty-eight-hour shutdown, if we have not already located and destroyed the submarine. You do understand that we will black out our own satellites, which represents a total of 90 percent of all the Global Positioning Systems in space?”
“I imagine you will, Admiral. Given your history with the Middle Eastern nations, I’m afraid the French Government does not approve of anything you do east of the Suez Canal.”
“Then I am obliged to inform you of the consequences. First, you will lose your Navy on your west coast. The Atlantic peninsula of Brittany will be catastrophically flooded. Secondly, you will forfeit the goodwill of the United States for a very long time. And should the eruption take place on La Palma, with all that it entails, we will not hesitate to make public the fact that it was France who essentially caused it, refusing even a modicum of cooperation in the cause of preventing a world disaster.