Straits of Power

Felix knew them well enough to see it in their faces.

“Okay,” Felix summarized. “We sneak ashore, we grab cars to get around a giant city infamous for its traffic jams. We pick up a defector right outside his consulate, and he picks up a tail. We take out the tail without anyone noticing, and then take out a safe house manned by German elite special forces. Except without blowing up computer equipment we don’t know how to recognize, and without hurting or killing innocent civilians or cops in a city of twelve million people. We elude armed Russians and Mossad types who won’t like us mucking around. Then we all scurry back to the minisub and sail merrily away, obeying a speed limit slower than a guy on a bicycle…. Did I leave anything out?”

“Yes, you did,” Parker said.

“What?”

“Think.”

Felix saw it. Oh shit. “Our cover, our legend, for who we were, after we leave a bunch of dead German bodyguards and Kampfschwimmer behind, and Peapod or his corpse can’t be found.”

“This has been discussed at the highest levels in the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon. We need to befuddle the Germans as long as possible as to what happened and who actually did it, to buy time for us to receive and debrief the defector and harness his help. We also need to assume that the Turks will conduct full investigations of their own, both law enforcement and counterespionage.”

“So what do we do?”

“Lead them away from suspecting the U.S. or Israel. Israel is most directly under threat from the impending Axis offensive, and our relations with her are strained. The last thing we can afford to do is have multiple shoot- outs on Turkish soil, and leave Israel holding the bag with the slightest inkling that Americans were responsible.”

“The Mossad are too good, and they probably have better relations with Turkey than we do.”

“Affirmative. Their outright diplomatic relations, and clandestine human intelligence contacts, far exceed ours.”

“So what’s the answer? We pretend we’re from some other Islamic country?”

“No. We need the Muslim nations staying neutral. We can’t try to stick them with a crime they’ll know they didn’t commit. If we want a prayer of getting them to join the Allies, ever, we have to leave them out of this.”

“Then what do we do?”

“You and your men are all Brazilian-Americans.”

Felix and his guys looked at each other and shrugged. “We know that.” Brazilians were a varied mix of white and black and native Indian blood; Brazil’s official language was Portuguese.

“You and your specific team are hearing this, assigned to this, not simply because you worked successfully with Captain Fuller on Challenger before, though that’s certainly a big part of why you were picked.”

“What’s the rest of it?”

“You’ll operate there as Portuguese expatriates. Stranded in Turkey by the war when your mother country was occupied…. Few Turks can tell apart Portuguese accents from Brazil versus Portugal, or notice any American tinge to the speech…. That was the plan all along, when the only issue was taking out Mohr’s bodyguards. Now you’ll be leaving a much bigger footprint, with a safe-house assault involved. So your motivation, your legend, has to be amplified. You’re a splinter faction of self-appointed partisans, incensed at the Germans for occupying Portugal, and you’re getting even. Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine guns are made under license in Turkey. That’s the reason you were issued the particular MP-5 versions you have, with Czech- manufactured shells, and thus appropriate shell-case markings, to add to the confusion.”

“Freedom fighters?” Captain Fuller asked. “A scratch resistance group that nobody heard of before?” He seemed to buy into the concept.

Parker nodded. “A savage hit-and-run raid, hurting Germans where they’re most exposed, at the edge of territory where they have any real control…. An e-mail will be sent to an Istanbul newspaper after you’re gone, taking the credit.”

“There’s just one problem with all that,” Felix said.

Parker hesitated. “I don’t follow you.”

“Probably because it’s so obvious you can’t see it…. How do you think this’ll look to the Turks?”

“I just told you how it’ll look. I’ll be providing you all with casual clothes made in Turkey, falsified Portuguese passports, phony Turkish ID cards, internee visas, and the rest.”

Felix knew the CIA had warehouses full of foreign goods for use on special ops, and extremely talented document forgers. The SEALs had all been given what Felix now realized — from glancing at Gamal Salih — were Turkish-style haircuts before joining Challenger.

“You left out one little detail,” Felix said.

“Lieutenant?”

“Mr. Parker, you can glorify the cover story by calling us freedom fighters if you want, but the Turkish authorities will think we’re terrorists. Their military is strong. The minute we start stabbing and shooting and blasting down doors in some house in some suburb, they’ll send their very best rapid-reaction teams. They’ll have helicopters, to look down and shoot down and fast-rope down and leapfrog over gridlock in the streets. They’ll do everything they can to wipe us out, and we’re not even allowed to shoot to kill to defend ourselves.”

Parker opened his mouth to continue just as someone knocked on the door. It was Ohio’s communications officer.

“Captain Fuller, Captain Parcelli, we’ve just gotten an ELF message. We’re ordered to use our periscope raft, raise the SHF mast, and copy a high-baud-rate data dump from the satellite.” SHF meant super-high-frequency radio.

This took Jeffrey by surprise, and made him uncomfortable. Even the stealthy raft could be noticed by an enemy on or above the surface.

“Who gave the order?”

“ComLantFlt, to Commander, Task Group 47.2, imperative, no recourse, and smartly.”

Admiral Hodgkiss had just told Jeffrey to use Ohio’s raft, and use it now.

“Very well,” Jeffrey said. “We’re coming.” He and Parcelli hurried into Ohio’s control room.

Parcelli was tight-lipped. He didn’t like having to break stealth, even by the slimmest margin. He made sure the sonar men and fire-control men held no contact on nearby subs or ships or planes. “You want to take the mini back to Challenger before I float the raft?”

Jeffrey almost said yes. But as task group commander he was supposed to be as cool as a cucumber, no matter what. The tactical uncertainties would only get worse as the mission progressed.

“No. Let’s both see what the good admiral has to say.”

Parcelli told his XO to take the conn and get ready to deploy the antenna raft. Jeffrey asked for a message to be sent to his own ship by the acoustic link, to inform Bell of what was going on; this was quickly done.

“Captain,” Parcelli said, “join me in the radio room?”

Ohio’s radio room was a compartment off of the control room. Its door was thick, and was equipped with two different mechanical combination locks and one electronic handprint scanner. A big red sign warned unauthorized personnel to never enter.

Parcelli turned the combinations and held his hand to the scanner. Jeffrey preceded him in, then Parcelli locked the door behind them.

Jeffrey felt it strange to see blue lighting instead of the red he was used to — red or blue were used to make staring for hours at console screens easier on watch-standers’ eyes. Otherwise, the radio room wasn’t much different from Challenger’s. The SSGN’s special communications gear for SEAL operations, and for connectivity with surface action groups, carrier battle groups, or amphibious strike groups, were in other spaces, aft.

This radio room was small, crowded with technicians and state-of-the-art equipment, and was warm from the heat that human bodies and racks of black boxes gave off.

The lieutenant (j.g.) who was Ohio’s communications officer oversaw things as his