Straits of Power

firefight hit the module?

“Captain, powder burns show the round was fired at point-blank range.”

Parker’s jaw set. Mohr and Felix didn’t say anything; instead they peered expectantly at Jeffrey.

“That dead German was trying to destroy your modules, Herr Mohr.”

“Yes.”

“Lieutenant, he was stopped from going further by you and your team.”

“Concur, sir.”

“That’s all I need to know. Chief, where’s the module now?”

“Azavedo should have it here in a minute.” Paulo Azavedo was one of Felix’s enlisted SEALs.

Someone knocked. “Let him in,” Jeffrey said. Everybody scrunched together to make room. Parker showed distaste at having Felix and Costa press against him, defiling what he considered to be his innermost personal space. Jeffrey had no sympathy whatsoever for Parker’s discomfort.

Azavedo came in with the module. He held the heavy box high for Mohr to examine, causing his ample muscles to bulge. Azavedo had a broad, open face. He peeked through the exit hole while Mohr sighted through the bullet entry point. Jeffrey watched them make eye contact this way; neither man was smiling.

“Herr Mohr,” Jeffrey asked, “can the damage be fixed in twenty-four hours?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. It depends on what spare parts and materials you have, and on how much help you can give me.”

“We’ve got quite a lot of things in inventory, and some of the finest engineering and electronics people in the world…. Can you also dovetail the repairs with training Lieutenant Estabo’s team in how to use your gear?”

“In the next twenty-four hours?” Mohr was aghast.

“Well, twenty-seven, actually. That’s all the time our mandatory egress schedule allows, before the German offensive begins and we’re badly stuck. The rest of that is classified.”

“Twenty-seven hours for what you ask is impossible.”

“You’re positive? Even by staying awake the whole time, throwing as many of my crew into the job as you might need?”

“Captain, I understand what it means to make heroic efforts under time pressures. I know the American expressions about achieving the impossible, about the word ‘impossible’ not being in your dictionary. But when I say impossible, I am not using an expression. To accomplish what you ask is impossible.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“Concentrate on repairing the module. Instead of trying to train your SEALs, I then go with them.”

Parker gave a harrumph of total disgust. But squashed against the bulkhead, with two other men’s bodies in very close contact, he’d lost his fragile dignity. Now, to Jeffrey, his latest objection came across as almost comical.

“Herr Mohr,” Jeffrey asked, “if you don’t train and you go with the team, is the module repairable in twenty- seven hours?”

“We can only know by trying. Is there any choice?”

“No. Okay, Lieutenant, stay, but your men can leave now.”

Once the door was closed, Jeffrey was again with Felix, Mohr, and Parker. “I want to ask you another question, Herr Mohr. Could your equipment, in Allied hands, be used to do to the Axis what they’re trying to do to Israel?”

“Eventually, potentially. There would have to be much research on reducing quantum decoherence with range. Israel from north to south, and Jerusalem to Cairo, are each two hundred and fifty miles. German-occupied Europe alone measures five times that in any direction, which means twenty-five times the total target area. Decoherence worsens exponentially. That makes the problem much more than twenty-five times as hard to solve.”

“And we’d need a whole new worm, wouldn’t we, one the Axis won’t have a patch for? Plus, from your work and then your disappearance, the Axis will be forewarned.”

Jeffrey called the control room and told Bell to join him; Bell arrived in seconds. Jeffrey filled him in. Bell’s eyebrows rose higher and higher. He kept glancing between Felix and Parker and Mohr, and Jeffrey could sense him straining to catch up and digest everything. “We have our hands full, Captain,” Bell said when Jeffrey was finished.

“And then some. XO, take Herr Mohr and use your stateroom and ask Lieutenant Willey and COB to join you. Start getting everything and everyone you need freed up to focus on repairing that damaged quantum module.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And have a messenger find out when the wardroom will be clean after surgery’s finished. We’re tight for working and planning spaces as it is.”

Mohr paused in mid-stride as he and Bell began to leave, and Mohr’s head jerked to one side. He frowned darkly, not just with his mouth but with his entire face. “Captain, I’ve thought of something. No, two problems I must mention. They interrelate.”

“You better tell us, fast.”

“The worm is designed to not become active immediately when inserted, but at a specific future moment, to coordinate with the Afrika Korps attack.”

Jeffrey pondered this. “So Israel isn’t warned of the worm too soon? When it reveals itself in action as regular program code? To keep Israel from writing their own patch, and recovering before the real shooting starts?”

“Setting the activation clock in the quantum worm is one thing Berlin insisted that I automate in the module sets. A Kampfschwimmer can enter the start time easily. I showed them all how.”

Shit. “So their high command isn’t locked into Tuesday. They could move up the whole offensive.”

“After Friday night’s events, it seems likely they will.”

“There’s more time pressure than we thought.”

“Yes. There will also be no way for us to be sure the patch got into their systems ahead of the worm, until the scheduled start time arrives.”

“You mean, even if our intrusion goes off without a hitch, tactically and technically, we can’t tell if we beat every Kampfschwimmer team till the main battle starts?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Jeffrey was deeply disturbed. “We do all this work and take all these risks, and we won’t know if it paid off until it’s too late for us to do anything but watch for unfolding disaster?”

“That is an accurate way to put it, Captain. I’m sorry if I caused you to think the result would be more definite sooner.”

“XO, you and Herr Mohr better get to work.” They left.

Jeffrey focused on Felix. “Lieutenant, you have five fit men including yourself?”

“Correct, sir.”

“We need to start planning where and how to make a covert landing on the coast of Israel tomorrow afternoon. You’ll have a maximum of six hours to depart Challenger, get to the beach, do your thing from there, and return to the ship. That’s not negotiable. Six hours. Challenger has a fixed appointment elsewhere, later. Beyond that you don’t want to know, because you don’t need to know and you’ll be on hostile turf. Yes, we have to view Israel as hostile. For security, they were never told we’re in this theater. If they detect us they won’t know who we are, and they might attack. If they detect us and their naval command was infiltrated by Germans, then German antisubmarine forces from Greece or Crete will attack. Mohr’s disappearance cancels any advantage we gained from the loss of Ohio. The Axis will have seen through the cover story for your Istanbul raid by now, even if Turkey hasn’t. They’ll know an extraction could have been done via water. That’s the score. If you’re not back by 2000 Sunday evening, I leave without you.”

“Understood, sir.” Felix sounded grim.

“Talk to Bell and COB. See if we’ve got anybody who speaks some Hebrew. Try Meltzer on that, he’s a qualified ship’s diver. Have Bell pick two of my crew to pilot and copilot the minisub. You arrange scuba lessons for Mohr in a partly flooded lock-out trunk. Compressed-air diving in shallow water isn’t all that hard. And keep a careful eye on Mohr during this mission. At the least sign he’s pro-Axis, kill him. That’s an order.”