Tidal Rip

“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