Straits of Power

he was wearing combat fatigues. With practiced military eyes, he looked around, taking in ranks and subtly scanning shirts and jackets for ribbons. He saw Felix’s Medal of Honor and said hello and shook hands.

Then he recognized Jeffrey’s face. “Captain Fuller, this is a privilege. Commander Kwan, Naval Special Mobile Construction Battalion Sixty-six.” Kwan was a Seabee — though strictly speaking, as an officer he belonged to the navy’s Civil Engineer Corps.

“Where you in from?” Jeffrey asked.

“I move around a lot.” Kwan seemed evasive, and Jeffrey guessed that his unit’s real purpose was something hush-hush.

Hodgkiss did a head count. “Let’s get down to business. This is a final informational briefing. Certain details will be withheld, to compartmentalize for security reasons. But you need the big picture of what’s going on. Commander Kwan, thank you for attending.”

“Of course, Admiral. Any way we can help.”

“I’ll have to ask you to leave fairly soon.”

“Good, sir. My men have a lot to do.” Kwan did look rather harried, but Jeffrey could tell he enjoyed his work and took satisfaction in what his Seabee battalion could do — whatever exactly that was.

People took seats, except for Hodgkiss, who remained standing at the head of the table. Behind him was a large flat-screen display. His senior aide — whom Jeffrey hadn’t even noticed until now, so good was Captain Johansen at staying invisible within a group — connected a laptop to the screen.

Since not everyone had been at the Pentagon conference yesterday, Hodgkiss first quickly brought them up to speed on things they all were cleared for.

“New material,” he said. “Step one is getting Challenger to sea. The Axis are expecting this pretty soon; they’re keeping as careful an eye on her as we are on the von Scheer. Their own and Russian spy satellites, signals intercepts, pseudo-neutral observer informants, the works. Seawolf and Connecticut, our fastest and quietest steel-hulled fast attacks, have been pulled off other duty to sanitize the area well outside the Chesapeake Bay. Surface ships and seafloor hydrophones are helping too, and divers and robotic probes have checked the James River and Hampton Roads for mines or other enemy weapons and sensors. All this, however, still gives no guarantee that a class 212 U-boat might not sneak in range, and sacrifice itself to destroy Challenger. It would be a very good tradeoff from the enemy’s perspective.”

Everyone nodded.

“As some of you know, the 212s can launch subsonic cruise missiles with a range of a thousand miles. As many as a dozen missiles per U-boat, if they leave all torpedoes behind. The farther out they launch, the safer they are. To our disadvantage there’s an unavoidable flip side: Challenger is most vulnerable while in dry dock and as she gets under way. She’ll need several hours to reach water deep enough to submerge.”

“Sir,” Jeffrey said, “just out of curiosity, why haven’t the Axis taken a shot at my ship already?”

“We suspect they’re saving their worst for when they’re sure your reactor is critical and well into the power range. And under that infrared-proof shelter, they won’t know it until you come out. Or, until they get word from a mole inside, if there is a mole. They can always rationalize that you’re a legitimate military target. Our problem is, you’d also be one giant floating dirty bomb, if they could seriously breach your reactor compartment using high-explosive warheads while Challenger is still near land. At the rate they’ve been escalating, nothing would surprise me. Their propaganda machine is already poised, we expect, to blame the U.S. for basing nuclear subs in a populated area.” Hodgkiss turned to Parker. “Isn’t that right?”

“That’s our assessment, Admiral. They know it’s been a hot button with some Americans for years.”

Jeffrey pressed. “Then why haven’t they gone after one of our nuclear carriers when she’s been in port? You can’t possibly hide a carrier, sir, and at the pier they’re sitting ducks.”

“Because they’re too big. Their reactors are too well protected.”

“Then what about the steel-hulled subs based here?”

“We have been taking careful precautions, Captain,” Hodgkiss said. “Some of that you’ve seen yourself, in New London.”

“Understood.”

“However,” Hodgkiss went on, “we do believe that this time it’s different. The Axis very badly want to disable Challenger once and for all.” Hodgkiss gave Jeffrey a wry smile. “You’re just too big a thorn in their side. Sink you, Captain, and von Scheer has a much easier job breaking out.”

“Understood.” So that’s the next layer of cover story! I’m supposedly heading southeast, toward South Africa, to mix it up with von Scheer.… And one reason Peapod-Zeno sent Beck’s reports was so we’d all make a fuss over Beck, and distract pro-Axis spies in Norfolk or Washington from considering any other place as my target — like Istanbul. Klaus Mohr, you’re one clever bastard.

“Unfortunately, the Axis have had a month to anticipate and get ready for Captain Fuller’s next sortie. We need to thoroughly spoof and decoy any cruise missiles that come in at Challenger tonight. A number of technical means will be used, just like when Challenger left from New London in the past. But because the terrain is so different here, flat and with no bedrock bluffs, Norfolk presents special problems. This is where the Seabees come in.”

Kwan was very determined now to get his job done well. Apparently he wasn’t briefed on all this stuff before, Jeffrey thought.

“All right,” Hodgkiss said, “let’s keep going.” He nodded at Johansen, and an image came on the screen showing dramatized pictures of how different warhead homing sensors worked. “The warhead terminal-guidance modes we need to worry about the most tonight are twofold. First, look-down radar that maps the terrain directly beneath the incoming missile, and compares it to prestored topographical contour data in the warhead’s computer memory. Such radar is difficult to jam reliably, since it has such a narrowly focused beam and receiver…. The other method is visual and/or infrared-target picture matching. The missile is preprogrammed to know what the precision target looks like. Software uses key appearance and shape parameters to be able to spot the target from any angle or altitude of approach, even if the target is moving…. The missiles may also loiter in midair, watching a particular spot for a target to emerge or pass by, if they can get themselves oriented on recognizable landmarks…. The local streams and riverbanks we can’t hide much, though we’ll try, but that’s where our ack-ack batteries are most concentrated. The Axis know this, so it’s the landward final approaches they’re more likely to use that most concern me. Commander Kwan, I think you can see now what your men and their equipment need to do.”

Kwan gave a toothy grin. “Our excavators and bulldozers reshape the earth contours between the shipyard and the sea. We keep making changes till we get the all clear, to keep the Germans guessing constantly. Make hills and hollows where there didn’t used to be any, move existing rises and dips by a hundred yards, pile up huge sand berms and dunes on the beaches…. And the fleet of heavy dump trucks full of gravel and coal off the hopper cars in the rail yards, we unload those to make instant ridges where there aren’t ridges now. It’s fiendishly clever, Admiral.”

“The bridges across the James River will be closed to traffic, just in case. They’ll be draped from above with radar-absorbing blanket material, unrolled from the cranes on the Seabees’ barges, again to prevent a missile getting a navigational fix that way. The blankets will have dazzle patterns already painted on, to further confuse any visual homing sensors…. Which leads to my last point here. Challenger herself will have to be thoroughly camouflaged. Details on that await the Seabees assigned to the dry dock itself. Plans and supplies will arrive there for them soon. And, Captain Fuller, I warn you, be prepared for anything in that respect. You’ll see other strange sights too, quaint or bizarre, before this is over. Mental flexibility is crucial.”

“Er, yes, sir.”

Hodgkiss raised a finger for emphasis. “None of this visible work begins until my say-so. Right now, those earth movers could simply be parked, awaiting transshipment by rail or truck to anywhere. The crane barges could be there to do routine bridge maintenance. The essential thing is to catch the enemy by complete surprise, start our