Authors: Joe Buff
“Are they sure your ship is nearby? We took great precautions bringing you here.”
“They have to at least make allowances for the possibility.”
Da Gama nodded. “They too must look at different scenarios.”
“When transporting anything, time interchanges with distance, and distance with time.”
“Of course.”
“The Germans knew from the beginning that they wouldn’t have forever, or even very long…. Their target needs to be some where on this map, I think. Somewhere within easy range of Mar del Plata, which stands out as the closest port or naval base to wherever the
von Scheer
might be.”
“Easy range by what means?”
“If the target isn’t either Mar del Plata or Buenos Aires themselves—for all the various reasons we discussed and agreed on before—it has to be someplace inland to make any sense.”
“Transport by truck, or plane, or helicopter,” da Gama stated.
“Yes. All of which can be tracked by one of our airborne reconnaissance platforms.”
“So, Captain?”
“Our mistake before was fixating on the map of Argentina alone, thinking of Argentina in isolation. I think the target’s going to be somewhere on the
border,
close to the
border.
”
“There’s nothing there but jungle and swamps. We already moved the civilians out of Foz, with great difficulty.”
“Foz. That’s near the Triple Border, where Brazil and Argentina touch and both also meet Paraguay?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Scratch that, then. But there are troop concentrations
all
along the border, right? All the way south from Paraguay to Uruguay?”
“Yes. On both sides, ours and Argentina’s. We’re running low on artillery shells already…. So are the Argentines, from what our intelligence sources indicate.”
“Then
that’s
it,” Jeffrey said decisively. “They’ll set off the American bomb somewhere just on the Argentine side of the border. Kill some of their own troops, but not damage any primary fascist assets. Make it look like Brazil brought the bomb to the border from
your
side, Mr. President, and snuck it across, and
you
set it off as prelude to a breakthrough assault through the hole you punch in Argentina’s shaken defensive front lines.”
Da Gama stared at the map for a very long time. Finally, he nodded. “Our paradigm, our perspective, was wrong. They don’t intend to use the stolen device as a weapon of terror. They plan to use it as tactical nuclear arms were designed to be used, on a military battlefield…. It makes their scheme to implicate Brazil and the U.S. wholly plausible to world opinion this way…. What do you want us to do?”
“When the hovercraft change shifts at Paranaguá, while they escort my submarine south, I want my SEAL team to sneak off
Challenger
and come ashore at Paranaguá. That’ll put them in better striking distance of anywhere on the border, hours sooner than otherwise.”
“Why SEALs, Captain?” da Gama said.
“The border is mostly defined by major rivers in full flood.”
“Yes. The Iguazú. The Uruguai. The bridges were blown and the ferries burned, days ago now.”
“That makes the warhead recovery a riverine operation, sir. That’s one thing SEAL teams do. It’s our warhead; let it be our people who fight to get it back or disarm it.”
“I’m not sure.”
“If there must be a border incursion, Mr. President, it should be by Americans. Later you can deny you’d ever approved—in order to defend Brazil’s neutrality.”
“We have our own troops on the border. The core battalions are very well trained. Professionals. I’m hardly the only one who studied with your U.S. Army.”
“Sir, no slight on your men is intended, or implied. But my team have recent live experience on an actual nuclear battlefield. They’ve gone up against kampfschwimmer hand to hand and they did well.”
“Yes?” Da Gama sat thoughtfully. “It does make sense the Germans would use kampfschwimmer to plant the bomb…. Very well, I give you my permission.”
Jeffrey wondered how much da Gama knew about the Rocks.
“I’ll get on that for you, Captain,” Colonel Stewart said. “I’ll help get the commo links set up, here and in the States, and we’ll get your orders to
Challenger
by low-frequency radio.”
“And Mr. President?” Jeffrey said.
“Captain?”
“Can you have a long-range transport helicopter put on alert at Paranaguá, please, for use by my SEALs? Their lieutenant’s name is Felix Estabo. He and his men are all Latino, fluent in Portuguese or Spanish or both. They won’t arouse suspicion. They’ll blend in.”
“And then what?”
“If nothing more happens, then nothing, and your country is blameless. Or at least subjected to no more possible blame beyond right now.”
“Yes.”
“If the American warhead does come ashore in Argentina, sir, we need to lock on by aerial recon and track it and the kampfschwimmer carefully. Send my SEALs in your helo on an interception course, on the Brazilian side of the frontier.”
“A race to meet, and fight at close quarters?…It doesn’t sound like very much to go on.”
“I know, Mr. President…. We need a way to harass and distract the bad guys. Something that intimidates, confuses, but nonlethal and without a premature border violation…If I understand the mind-set of the Argentine rebels, sir, their leaders are rash, incautious.”
Da Gama nodded.
“I want us to put more pressure on the Argentines and Germans. Breathe down their necks and let them know it, bad. If they start to worry that we’re catching on to them, it might force our opponents to rush and make hasty decisions, maybe even commit some revealing mistakes…. Less time to work with also heightens the dangers for our side. It’s a risk we’ll have to accept…. Mr. Jones, how far up the Riode la Plata estuary do international waters go?”
“The twelve-mile limit? Pretty far up. It’s a hundred miles wide at its mouth.”
“And what platforms monitor your gamma-ray detectors?”
“I’m guessing we have operatives in Argentina, or across the estuary in Uruguay, with proper equipment. Out on the water in boats, on top of mountains, I don’t know.”
“Okay…Colonel Stewart, invoke the code name Mercury, and use that to make some drones available, fast. Predators, Global Hawks, whatever. And a U.S. Air Force B-One-B bomber based from Venezuela, something really conspicuous but well able to defend itself. It can follow a dogleg course out over the ocean, we don’t need to think about overflight rights. It’s supersonic, it can be at the estuary very quick. Have it fitted with a recon sensor pod. Visual and infrared especially…And have the bomber loaded with active sonobuoys; don’t worry about the receivers, this part is just for effect, to slow
von Scheer
and her minisub.”
“I’ll make the request Flash Immediate, route it through Atlantic Fleet so Admiral Hodgkiss can press his support.”
Jeffrey nodded. “Can the B-One break the sound barrier at sea level?”
“I think it can manage a thousand knots or so.”
“Have it do that a few times in the estuary. Make big noises at Mar del Plata, rattle windows in Buenos Aires, get on the enemy’s nerves and keep them wondering why it’s there.”
Jeffrey turned to da Gama. “Is this acceptable to you, Mr. President?”
“Yes.”
“And Colonel Stewart, if you don’t mind acting as my executive assistant for the duration of this, add a summary of our intentions for Atlantic Fleet, with informational copies to whoever you think makes sense. Do it in my name, and say up front ‘Unless otherwise directed.’ Then we go into motion and hope nobody upstairs screams.”
Stewart nodded, his wounds forgotten now.
“And Mr. Jones. I don’t want to take any chances your local people might be compromised or neutralized. Call Langley
now
. Get technical specs to the air force, pronto. Make sure that B-One’s avionics include a black box that can listen for those bottle-cap things to go off. The magic word is
Mercury
.”
B
eck was startled out of his sleep when a messenger knocked on his cabin door. He pulled on a robe and answered.
“Sir, the communications officer sends his respects, and he has received this over our floating wire.” The messenger handed Beck a sealed envelope.
“Did the Einzvo see this?”
“Yes, sir. I gave him a copy at the conn. He awaits your further instructions.”
“Very well.”
Beck sat at his desk and read.
Berlin—with help from Moscow—was seeing a suspicious pattern to Allied radio communications and aircraft flights to and from Brazil and near Argentina. Axis High Command believed that the enemy might be aware of
von Scheer
’s plans. The timetable was therefore being moved up aggressively, with support by added information-warfare attacks and jamming.
That’s easy for them to say, but my ship even at flank speed can’t work miracles. We’ve a very long way to go to reach Mar del Plata.
Beck read on. The kampfschwimmer team and von Loringhoven were ordered to leave
von Scheer
immediately, using Beck’s minisub, along with the one working U.S. atom bomb. Once Beck and
von Scheer
proceeded farther south, the minisub was to ping on the frequency commonly used by Argentine diesel subs. Sonobuoys being dropped from an Argentine seaplane would thus locate the minisub by triangulation, a simple process. While a two-man crew stayed aboard the mini per standard procedures, everyone else would swim out and deploy a rubber raft to the surface. The seaplane would pick them up and return with them to Mar del Plata as if they were Argentine submariners or commandos on an exercise or an emergency personnel transfer. Then the mini would return to the
von Scheer
covertly, and Beck would wait beyond the continental shelf.
Beck grew concerned that the Allies might indeed be on to the plan. If so, with the enemy forewarned, able to take active countersteps or even just prepare a firm and persuasive-enough denial, the Axis scheme might begin to unravel. Beck appreciated now why Berlin saw the need to hurry. He dressed.
Beck left his cabin and knocked on von Loringhoven’s door.
President da Gama left the room to attend to other duties—Jeffrey reminded himself the man had an entire country to run.
Lunch was brought in. Jeffrey and Colonel Stewart made small talk with the two Brazilian generals. The admiral and Mr. Jones were working in another part of the underground bunker.
Jeffrey let Colonel Stewart set the tone, but the inconsequential chitchat was driving him crazy. Every neuron in his brain tingled for news of the stolen warhead, and every nerve in his body screamed for him to get back to his ship.
The Brazilians said they were having communications and mechanical difficulties making final arrangements for Jeffrey’s clandestine departure.
Jeffrey exerted tremendous self-control to master this latest lesson in command and diplomacy: patience.
But his self-control only went so far. He couldn’t help glancing often at the TV screen on the wall. Now it was set up to show a master status display. Estabo’s team had landed at Paranaguá and were airborne, heading west toward the inland border in a Brazilian helo; another Brazilian Navy hovercraft was dashing south, presumably with
Challenger
making forty knots right under it; the U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber launched from Venezuela was over the Rio de la Plata estuary now, its supersonic dogleg sprint out past the coast of Brazil complete.
Mr. Jones burst into the room. “The warhead’s come ashore!”
A
drenaline surged through Jeffrey’s body, and he fought hard not to ball his fists in frustration. The generals were very apologetic, but there were continuing snags getting Jeffrey away. They hinted darkly at message jamming, even sabotage, by Axis agents inside Brazil.
In the meantime, Jeffrey could do nothing but watch. He was stuck deep underground, yet ironically had a bird’s-eye view of the action.
The data from several of the CIA’s bottle-cap gamma-ray detectors was conclusive. According to other intelligence—of some undisclosed kind but probably visual recon—a group of men had carried the suspect package from a flying boat onto a small corporate transport jet at Mar del Plata. Now powerful radars on the B-1 and the AWACS were tracking that jet as it neared Buenos Aires at over four hundred knots. The B-1 and AWACS were also tracking Estabo’s helo, which was making for the border at barely half that speed.
The map showed that it was 720 nautical miles from Mar del Plata to the middle of the Brazil-Argentina border—with Buenos Aires as a way point a third of the distance along the route. It was half that far, coming from the opposite direction, to get to the border from Paranaguá.
Half as far, but barely half the speed.
It was a toss-up whether the bomb or the SEALs would reach the border first.
Jeffrey, Colonel Stewart, and the Brazilian admiral were getting all the information they could as to where that flying boat at Mar del Plata had come from. All that was known was that it first appeared on radar miles out at sea on a course due west. Jeffrey was sure the flying boat had somehow rendezvoused with the
von Scheer
or her minisub. This was his first datum of any kind on the German submarine since the encounter at the St. Peter and St. Paul Rocks days ago. Jeffrey was busy working backward from what he knew—using clues about the flying boat and time elapsed and the maximum range and speed of German minisubs—to pin down a circle on the nautical chart where the
von Scheer
had to be.
Everything’s coming to a head at once…. I need someway to warn Bell.
And Christ, I
must
get back to my ship.
An aide rushed into the conference room. In heavily accented English he told Jeffrey that Admiral Hodgkiss was calling. He handed Jeffrey a cordless phone, whose shielded signal was patched into the bunker’s main communications center.