Tidal Rip

“So how do we find Beck and stop him in time? Play out the worst-case scenario, sir. Play it out. If he’s told to nuke Brazil it’ll come very soon. On their own, Brazil would be wide open. They’ve got no serious air defense, not to track and knock down supersonic cruise missiles. How do we stop Beck then?”

“XO, I honestly wish I knew.”

Ernst Beck sat alone in his cabin, brooding and waiting for further word from Berlin.

To him the original plot had made some sense. He knew from reading his earlier set of orders that the number of atom bombs to be supplied to the Argentines would be limited. To use a bomb required complex arming codes that applied only to that particular bomb — and the Axis would parcel these codes out to the Argentines in small doses. The purpose was to shock America into suing for peace, not start World War III, by using a decisively harsh and brutal act the Axis wouldn’t be blamed for: a full-scale demonstration of tactical nuclear warfare waged on land. The fault would appear to lie with America; even U.S. civilians might not believe their own government’s denials. Such a modern credibility gap was one major Axis goal.

But now, because he knew the plot had failed, the sheer hypocrisy of it all was the most appalling of many things that bothered Beck. He saw too late the naked truth: He’d been a willing player in this hypocrisy from the start. To sail around with kampfschwimmer and send them off for this or that was glamorous. To provoke some banana republic into open revolution was enjoyable in a voyeuristic way. To have these people killing one another unbidden by him, so eagerly, yielded a brief but almost sexual thrill. Beck began to understand von Loringhoven better. He now saw parts of von Loringhoven beginning to grow, or fester, inside himself.

Still he waited for word from Berlin. Should he deliver the crated atom bombs? Would he be told to fire the missiles from von Scheer?

Beck knew that if he was ordered to pretend to be an Argentine sub and launch a handful of missiles at Brazil, then, duty-bound, he’d obey. If he was imaginative enough of a naval officer to conceive the possibility, there could be people in High Command who would at least consider it too.

Step-by-step the moral stakes had risen, as the moral standards fell. At each step Beck resisted, then gave in. Every time, he went from horror at his orders — or possible orders — to keenly and cleverly planning how he and his crew would help carry them out.

The ugly truths of the larger situation began to manifest themselves more clearly in his mind. He knew his own complicity, and duplicity, could no longer be repressed or denied.

To sneakily set off a stolen American bomb as an outrageous lie, and then give more bombs to Argentina for them to use against Brazil, was supposed to be okay. But to shoot such bombs at Brazil directly from von Scheer is for me somehow less okay?

Beck shook his head. How could he have been so self-deluded as to believe that he held some special sort of ethical high ground? He waited and waited for a messenger to knock, or for his intercom light to blink, with news from headquarters.

Beck felt himself sinking deeper into gloom.

If God truly existed, and He really respected my trust in Him, then why has He allowed me to be caught in this situation? It’s certainly not to test my faith. That’s cruel theological nonsense. And it’s not to challenge my moral commitment, because cowardice and treason, mutiny or suicide, are the only exits now and these are the ultimate immoral acts.

For a warrior to kill in war is not immoral….

Hell is just a fantasy, a story to scare little children. I am a grown man, a blooded soldier fighting for my country, as other German soldiers have fought for generations past. They never questioned their duty or their destiny… and neither will I. They sought only to do their duty well and face their destiny with clear and confident eyes… and so shall I.

Beck opened his laptop and turned it on. He brought up a map of Brazil. To pass the time constructively, he began to pick what he thought would be high-value targets in the country, just in case the order came to launch his nuclear cruise missiles. Growing bored with that, he studied a chart of the South Atlantic, and planned his campaign against Challenger and the convoy.

Jeffrey let the Brazilian hovercraft rush on ahead alone, as a diversion, while Challenger changed course to leave the continental shelf. Challenger continued moving south at top quiet speed out in deep water, off southern Brazil. The local time was three A.M. in Buenos Aires and Rio. Jeffrey knew this was late, even for urban middle-to upper-class South Americans, who tended to stay up well past midnight every day of the week.

He and Bell sat in the captain’s stateroom again, struggling over tactics for their fight against the von Scheer. Nautical charts and diagrams were windowed on his laptop screen. The display looked impressive enough, but Jeffrey knew that in reality he and the XO were going in circles and getting nowhere. They decided to take a break and went to the wardroom for coffee — Jeffrey locked his door, for security. In a short while they returned.

Jeffrey’s laptop sat there, with the same busy mess on the screen.

“Let’s get back to work,” Jeffrey told Bell. “This is what they pay us the big money for.” He sat down heavily.

Bell joined him, and many minutes passed. The two men still got nowhere. Jeffrey felt himself becoming irritable. That strong black coffee, instead of perking him up, had left him with acid reflux and a bitter metallic aftertaste in his mouth. The caffeine, the adrenaline, the long day of hard work and harder travel, the late hour and all the tension, were giving him a weird sensation — as though his head were stuffed with wool or wasn’t quite attached to his body.

Someone knocked on the door. Jeffrey, startled, jumped in his seat.

Much more of this pulverizing wait for news and I’ll really lose it.

A messenger informed him that Sonar was picking up Brazilian airdropped signal sonobuoys in the acoustic- tone code Jeffrey prearranged with Rio.

“We’ll be right there,” he told the young man tiredly, then slid his door closed again for a moment and fought to regain some composure.

Bell, still sitting, looked up at him, obviously torn between hope and dread.

Lieutenant Willey, the engineer, had the conn; Sessions was acting as fire control; the ship had been at battle stations now for seven hours. This was grueling, draining, extreme, but Jeffrey deemed it necessary — von Scheer might appear from nowhere at very short range, and then every second would count.

Sessions had already decoded the sonobuoy signal relayed by Sonar. “Captain, message says, ‘Come up to on-hull ELF antenna depth.’”

“ELF depth?”

“Yes, sir. That’s what it says in the codebook from that diskette you brought from Brazil.”

“But Brazil doesn’t have an ELF transmitter.” Such installations were miles across and hugely expensive. “Sonar, are you sure about what you got from the sonobuoys?”

“Yes, Captain. Quite certain this is the tone sequence they sent us.”

“Somebody there made a clerical error?” Bell suggested.

Jeffrey frowned. “We’d better find out.” He took the conn and Bell took fire control. Jeffrey ordered Challenger shallower.

Soon the radio room called on the intercom.

“ELF message with our address says to come to floating-wire-antenna depth and trail the wire, Captain. Imperative, and do not radiate. Commander, Atlantic Fleet sends.”

“Hey,” Bell exclaimed. “Our comms are working again!”

Jeffrey, very exhausted, was more cautious. “Either our information warriors defeated the Axis viruses for now, or this is all a fake and we’ll be led into a trap.”

“What do we do?”