Tidal Rip

taller than he, but that didn’t make the man any less of a potent authority figure.

Ilse thought hard. She glanced up and down, between the big status plot on the wall and the small-scale nautical chart on her workstation screen, which showed the Rocks and that local part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, with an overlay of the surface water temperature and salinity.

“He’ll go right for the von Scheer. He’ll do everything he can to keep her from launching her missiles.”

“How?”

“I think he enjoys risking death, sir. He’ll push himself right to the edge.”

“I told him he was expendable in a one-for-one trade with von Scheer.”

“He’ll definitely use that. He’ll act suicidal on purpose, to bend the enemy captain’s mind.” Ilse felt acid stomach hit as the full implications sank in. Expendable.

“How does that apply right now?” Hodgkiss prodded.

“The von Scheer needs to go shallow to launch her antiship missiles?”

“Yes. The missiles aren’t very pressure-proof. We don’t think she can do it from below one hundred fifty feet.”

Ilse glanced at her console; satellite radar and microwave sensors told her a surprising amount about the upper part of the ocean. Self-propelled oceanographic probes, programmed to skim the surface periodically and transmit data dumps, told her even more — though reception from them was deteriorating. “One hundred fifty feet’s above the sonar layer near the Rocks.”

“Are you telling me Captain Fuller would take Challenger above the layer now that he’s made Orpheus contact?”

“I think he might.”

“He wouldn’t hide in the bottom terrain?”

“Not if hiding won’t help him to sink the von Scheer. Captain Fuller is extremely aggressive, sir. He’s also very inventive on tactics. Going shallow, he might make the von Scheer think he’s a steel-hulled sub, and lull the von Scheer by disguising his true capabilities. And going shallow gives his sonar arrays a much better field of view…. He might evenuse active sonar and reveal himself if that lets him draw a good bead on his target.”

“Invite incoming fire on purpose?”

“That could be part of it, yes.”

“Kampfschwimmer on the Rocks. The one thing I didn’t plan for. Now we’re deaf and blind at the absolutely worst imaginable time.” Hodgkiss sounded disgusted. “If von Scheer gets away from Challenger, or sinks her, we’re back to square one and the entire convoy’s at very grave risk. Especially with my altered escort dispositions. They’d make an even better group target for von Scheer than before.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Would he abandon the SEALs on the Rocks, or try to help them?”

“If his priority is the von Scheer, he’ll know that the SEALs are expendable…. I’ve seen him order people to their deaths before. He won’t like it one bit, but he’ll do it.”

Admiral Hodgkiss looked Ilse right in the eyes. “How sure are you of any of this?” He kept looking right at her without blinking.

Ilse returned the stare as bravely as she could. Admiral Hodgkiss had such a strong persona he could be frightening. “I’m as sure as I can be, sir.”

“I read all of Captain Fuller’s patrol reports. It may please you to know that I concur with your assessment of him, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir.”

The admiral looked up at the main screen. He seemed to make a decision, then spoke half to himself. “I’m taking one huge gamble. I may as well take two.”

Hodgkiss turned and shouted for his aide again.

CHAPTER 22

Felix fired another short burst from his MP-5, then ducked behind the scattered man-made stones of the ruined lighthouse. He was sweating profusely inside his hot protective suit. He’d already used up the built-in drinking bottle, and he knew he was in danger of becoming dehydrated. If that or a German bullet didn’t get him, heatstroke soon would.

Then his team of reinforcements from the minisub came out of the water on Northwest Rock. Felix and the headquarters chief hand-signaled to their men along the spines of Southeast Rock; the men increased their rate of fire. The SEALs on Northwest Rock took up positions and started to shoot. The kampfschwimmer were forced to withdraw back toward the water.

Felix ordered his men to charge. While the other team made the kampfschwimmer scatter and keep their heads down, he and the surviving SEALs began to dash down the slope, using fire and movement to protect one another.

Then he and his men took enemy fire from behind. Felix realized the kampfschwimmer had sent reinforcements too. They were trying to do to him exactly what he was doing to them: catch him in enfilade — kill him using fire from two directions at once.

Felix and his men had no choice but to take cover and shoot back the way they’d just come. The kampfschwimmer who’d been withdrawing saw this and got emboldened. They waded across to Northeast Rock, shooting at the SEALs on Northwest Rock, Felix’s reinforcement team. The seesaw struggle of evenly matched Allied and Axis elites grew brutal and vicious.

Hot lead continued to fly, and ricochets continued screeching. Silenced muzzles smoked and spent brass flew. The supply of full magazines steadily dwindled. Felix sweated and panted; his mouth was terribly dry. The stale taste from his Draeger told him he was hyperventilating — breathing faster than the chemicals in the rebreather could absorb his carbon dioxide and give him fresh new air.

Felix fired in one direction and then the other. Clumps of men advanced a handful of yards, then were driven back.

Then Felix had a horrible realization. He hyperventilated harder. We had the proper tactics but we picked the wrong location.

“Chief!” he shouted to get the man’s attention.

“Sir!”

“The high ground! This spot isn’t the high ground!”

The chief shook his head, then ducked as a well-aimed bullet almost took him in the face. “I don’t follow you, LT.”

“Challenger and von Scheer. They’ll use nuclear torpedoes.” Felix pointed out at the ocean.

The chief’s eyes widened; his face grew pale.

“The waves they kick up will wash right over the Rocks!” Felix had to pause to draw a breath. “When the fireballs break the surface, the heat and shock front and gamma rays, they’ll cook us alive!”

“Retreat to the minisub?”

“We can’t! Orders! We can’t abandon the Rocks!” Felix drew another breath. “If we go in the water at all, the undersea warhead concussion power will force our livers out our assholes and make shit spray from our mouths!”

“What do we do?”

Felix looked north. It had been there the entire time, staring him in the face, and he hadn’t been thinking.

That was the whole point. This wasn’t Iwo Jima. It wasn’t anything like Iwo Jima.