Straits of Power

pretending he’d been sunk. Jeffrey’s throat and lungs felt as if they were being seared by the flames of Hell as he issued more orders. “Firing-point procedures, nuclear Mark Eighty-eights in tubes one and two, target is Snow Tiger. Fire Control, enter your arming code.” Bell and Jeffrey typed their special-weapon passwords.

“Passwords accepted,” Bell shouted. “Warheads preenabled!”

“Make tubes one and two ready in all respects, including opening outer doors.”

“Inbound Series Sixty-fives approaching lethal range if set at maximum yield of one kiloton!” Four thousand yards.

Jeffrey knew he needed to launch defensive nukes very soon.

But what if Bell was wrong? What if those real direct hits by high-explosive Mark 88s in a one-two punch had burst through the Snow Tiger’s pressure hull after all? How could Jeffrey tell for sure? His probe was too far away to give him more data in time, even if he sent it on another high-speed dash. Was the Snow Tiger — sitting on the bottom now with no pumps or ballast-blow noises — lying doggo, or was it dead? We’re only fifty miles from neutral Saudi Arabia.

But what if Bell was right? What if the Snow Tiger was still very much operational or her inbound weapons were nukes?

Jeffrey saw a way to buy his ship a few precious seconds. It meant the end of his career no matter what happened, either death, or court-martial for sure, but other factors vastly outweighed his career. “Tube one, shoot. Tube two, shoot.”

His nuclear fish were on their way to the Snow Tiger. He carefully watched the data on the inbound 65s. Their lethal circles at a kiloton were drawing awfully close. Were they nuclear? Were the weapons technicians on the other end of their wires alive, or drowned? Would they explode them the moment the 65s were in range, or would they let them get closer to Challenger to guarantee a score? Were they set on a dead man’s switch, with decision rules already programmed in?

The 65s kept coming, as Jeffrey’s Mark 88s charged at the Snow Tiger. The off-board probe showed that the German wasn’t reacting. That Jeffrey had fired only two fish, not seven, would imply that they might well be nuclear. Time passed, an eternity.

Still the German didn’t react. The 65s were now in lethal range of Challenger if their warhead yields were only one-tenth kiloton. Was this a clever trick to get Jeffrey to not set off his Mark 88 nukes?… Jeffrey’s fish were in lethal range of the German at their preset yields of one kiloton. He ordered his warheads to be preset to explode at half their remaining range to the target. Bell acknowledged; from here, if their wires broke for any reason, the weapons would have a mind of their own. Jeffrey was taking a monumental gamble, but at least if both sides used nukes it would be a double kill. Jeffrey intended to absorb the first blow, because the Saudis would know the truth by the relative position and timing of the blasts, and by analyzing the fallout. Challenger would be obliterated, but so would the German: a military draw — an even exchange — and a slight diplomatic advantage for Allied relations with the Saudis.

The 65s rushed up the Shadwan Channel, homed on terrain, and detonated; they weren’t nuclear. The Snow Tiger sat there, inert.

“Safe the units, tubes one and two! Shut down their engines!”

The ocean outside grew much quieter. Now and then, above his racing heart, Jeffrey heard a pop or a bang as some item inside the Snow Tiger’s hulk succumbed to the merciless squashing by the sea more than a kilometer beneath the surface. There could be no remaining doubt: The German sub was destroyed.

“Overflight!” Milgrom shouted. “Low-flying helos, Israeli!”

The aircraft might not grasp what was happening. This meant serious danger of friendly fire — and it was ten minutes at flank speed to water deeper than a Mark 54’s crush depth.

“Fire Control, launch a radio buoy with Allied recognition code, smartly.” Bell’s face showed he understood the stakes. Challenger had to get their nationality into the data net, ASAP.

“Aircraft noises receding,” Milgrom said a minute later.

“Nav, relay fire-control position of Snow Tiger wreck, and location of our shut-down nuclear Mark Eighty- eights for recovery. They’re in international waters, just barely.” Jeffrey told Bell to launch a buoy with this data, encrypted by a deeper code. A U.S. decontamination and intell salvage group was sure to be mobilizing already. “And you realize, XO? This is our first combat mission where not one nuclear weapon went off.”

Epilogue

Two Weeks Later

USS Challenger was staying stealthy, submerged well outside the major naval base at Perth, in southwest Australia. Minisubs, diving from covered piers at the base, shuttled spare parts and provisions to the ship, and brought her crew ashore in batches for liberty.

Jeffrey was pleased by the state of his crew’s morale, and the condition of his ship. In this, his fifth combat mission, Challenger had taken no significant battle damage. She needed little maintenance because her propulsion plant had almost never gone anywhere near flank speed.

Jeffrey himself had been enjoying some leave on dry land, in a beautiful country where even during wartime the people were very friendly. He’d been able to briefly hold a private chat-room talk with his parents, using U.S. Navy infrastructure, including encryption and decryption at both ends, so they could have a nice typed conversation without fear of enemy eavesdropping. But Michael Fuller had said there were rumors in Washington that Ilse Reebeck had been arrested as a spy. Jeffrey was dismayed, but wasn’t sure what to do about it yet.

Klaus Mohr and his equipment, and Gamal Salih and Gerald Parker, were already on their way back to the United States by the safest possible transport: an American nuclear submarine. Felix and his men, including the wounded and the bodies of the dead, flew to the U.S. soon after Challenger arrived at Perth.

Now, after a satisfying dinner, Jeffrey was unwinding in the bachelor officers’ quarters on the Royal Australian Navy’s base at Perth. Much had happened during his covert transit of the Indian Ocean. He was sitting in the lounge of the mess, having beers with some newly made pals in the Royal Australian Navy, and the television was on. Jeffrey was watching a video recording, for the third time in a row.

The broadcast had been copied off Al Jazeera TV. The speaker was the president of Egypt. He’d held a press conference in Cairo over a week ago, while Jeffrey had been busy running silent and deep.

The president spoke in Arabic. The tape had English subtitles added by Allied translators, but Jeffrey just listened to the man’s voice.

He said that the Egyptian-Israeli counteroffensive against the Afrika Korps had taken two German generals prisoner, with their headquarter vehicles intact. Analysis of computer files and documents found in those vehicles made it clear that the original German offensive had been intended to roll right through Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and keep going and take the Persian Gulf oil fields by force. Paratroopers and other commando units were tasked to prevent the nations who owned those fields from setting fire to the wells, and death squads would brutally discourage insurgents from trying to damage pipelines or refineries.

The two German generals were paraded before the cameras. Both looked weary, frightened, and humiliated, but not mistreated. The president of Egypt then held up a captured map of the Middle East. The camera zoomed in. The words were all in German, but the intended lines of advance were clearly marked and unmistakable: Germany’s goal was to occupy not just Egypt and Israel, but Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran.

The president put down the map, and grew more impassioned. He accused the Germans of being modern Crusaders. He said their botched offensive, and their grandiose goals of conquest, proved that they were the true mortal enemies of the Muslim world, not the U.S. or Israel. He called on the leaders and the people, of all the countries marked down as planned German prizes, to join in what Egypt had already done months before — declare war on the Axis, to drive these new Crusaders back where they came from, and wipe out the hostile regime that reigned from Berlin in the name of a trumped-up puppet kaiser.

The video recording ended. “Enough gloating,” Jeffrey said. “I think watching that three times in a row is plenty for today.”