Tidal Rip

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.

CHAPTER 20

Felix Estabo’s shouting came over the sonar speakers on Challenger. Everyone in the control room looked as if they’d suddenly been jolted by cattle prods, but Jeffrey never felt more alive in his life.

At last the waiting is over. The combat begins.

“Minisub, minisub,” Jeffrey shouted into his mike for the acoustic link. “Maintain your position! Maintain your position! Keep feeding me Orpheus data as long as you can!”

“Minisub, acknowledged,” came the reply over the sonar speakers.

“Ground station, ground station, hold your position! Hold the Rocks at all cost!”

Something garbled and breathless came back.

“Chief of the Watch,” Jeffrey ordered COB, “sound silent battle stations antisubmarine.”

COB acknowledged. Phone talkers spread the word throughout the ship — the general-quarters alarm, and the 1MC loudspeakers, made too much noise when stealth was vital. In seconds, more enlisted men and chiefs dashed into control from aft, some still pulling on clothing or shoes. They manned and powered up empty consoles or stood in the aisles to help or learn or supervise.

Next to Jeffrey, Bell quickly reconfigured their screen displays. At battle stations, as usual, Bell was fire- control coordinator.

“Sonar, threat status?” Jeffrey snapped.

“No new contacts,” Milgrom reported coolly.

She always is a cool one under fire. Milgrom’s even tone helped get the others settled and focused.

Jeffrey stared at the gravimeter, at the large-scale nautical chart: the saw-toothed peaks of the local part of the soaring Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the jutting and dwarfish Rocks with the mini nearby. Terrain all around them was jumbled and jagged…. South-southeast of the St. P and P Rocks, and just a few hours distant at flank speed, the Romanche Gap plunged twenty-five thousand feet deep — almost as deep as Mount Everest was high.

And the SMS Admiral von Scheer could be anywhere.

Except for Orpheus. Beautiful, beautiful Orpheus. I’m sorry I ever doubted you. Admiral Hodgkiss was right all along.

“Helm,” Jeffrey rapped out, “ahead two-thirds, make turns for twenty-six knots. Make your course zero four five. Napof-seafloor cruising mode.”

“Ahead two-thirds, turns for twenty-six knots, aye, sir,” Meltzer acknowledged at the helm. “Make my course zero four five, aye. Nap of seafloor, aye.” Meltzer turned his engine-order telegraph, a four-inch dial on his console. He worked his control wheel. “Maneuvering answers, ahead two-thirds twenty-six knots! My course is zero four five, sir!” The helmsman’s burly Bronx accent sounded tough and determined.

“Northeast, Captain?” Bell asked. His job was to play devil’s advocate as Jeffrey led the attack against what seemed the devil himself.

“It’s the last thing they’ll expect. They’re on the other side of the mountain. We know where they are, but they don’t know where we are, if they even know we’re here at all.”

“But going so shallow?”

“This way we’ll maintain contact with the mini and the Rocks as long as possible. And it’s the shortest route to the von Scheer’s position.”

“The kampfschwimmer must have reported resistance from the SEALs by now. Von Scheer will guess Estabo’s men got there by submarine.”

“Yes, but they won’t know which submarine. They’re supposed to think we’re in dry dock.”

“There are a dozen other passes we could take across the ridge, Captain. A straight line is too obvious.”

“We need to do the unexpected.”

Bell nodded reluctantly. “Understood, sir.”

“Cheer up, XO. We can’t be in two places at once, but neither can the von Scheer. Let Beck be the one to keep guessing.”

Challenger’s bow nosed up steeply as she began to climb the flank of the ridge by the Rocks. Her depth would go from eleven thousand feet to just a few hundred in less than ten miles.

“Sir,” Bell said, sounding worried all over again, “why are kampfschwimmer on the Rocks to begin with?”

“To keep the Rocks from us.”

“But they have to have planned this for days. How did they know our guys would be there?”

Jeffrey ignored Bell in favor of something more urgent. “Fire Control, arm and load nuclear Mark Eight-eight Mod Twos, torpedo tubes one through eight.”

Bell relayed commands to his weapons officer below. Jeffrey and Bell entered the warhead-arming passwords