the port side of
“Sir,” the phone talker reported, “Systems Administrator confirms good connection with the cable, handshake between supercomputers successful. Data feed from tap appears to be nominal.”
Jeffrey went below to visit the Systems Administrator. Bell remained in Control in case a threat was identified while the strike group was glued to the undersea cable like flypaper.
“How’s it going?” Jeffrey asked.
The Systems Administrator’s office was the size of a broom closet, just large enough to hold the equipment he needed to control the ship’s local area network performance and manage the status of different computers and software.
“Artificial intelligence routines are mapping out the contents of the cable strands right now, sir. Methods called expert systems and genetic algorithms. Pretty neat stuff.”
“What’s the map showing?”
“Well, the cables transmit a mixture of voice and data and video. Each strand handles several thousand separate message streams at once. But they all follow known formats and protocols, so step one is figuring out what’s where. The next step will be monitoring the information flow and finding which channels have the specific traffic we want to listen in on.”
Jeffrey nodded, and smiled. Supercomputers were very expensive, but they didn’t take up much space. What they did need was a very clean environment, a lot of electricity, and facilities to take away the immense waste heat they created. But with a reactor and turbogenerators — to drive air-conditioning and refrigeration equipment, which fed ventilation ducts and chilled-water pipes that already ran all over the ship to keep the combat-system electronics cool — a nuclear sub was the ideal place to install the most advanced available supercomputer. Rapid warnings to the CIA or the Pentagon could be sent with tight-beam laser or radio buoys, talking to dedicated submarine communication satellites.
And by the link between his ships, Jeffrey was using two supercomputers at once — massive parallel processing. Four NSA experts, who’d come from
“OK, sir,” the systems administrator said. “The uh, the channel maps are completed. The sifting through to locate the stuff we care about is starting.”
“How long should that take?”
“I’m guessing about two hours, sir.”
“I’ll be in my office. You can reach me there if you have any problems. Otherwise, call me when we’re ready to stir up the hornet’s nest.”
Chapter 17
Jeffrey was back in
As prearranged during the mission briefing days before,
The computers and analysts on
Jeffrey knew exactly how he would do this.
“Captain Bell, load a Mark Three brilliant decoy in tube eight.” The new Mark III design was a programmable decoy that, unlike the Mark IIs, could operate down to
Bell issued orders to Torelli.
Jeffrey leaned against the side of Bell’s console. “Call up the large-scale tactical plot and let’s look at the predicted track of
Jeffrey began to issue instructions. “I want you to have the Mark Three programmed to sound and act like
Jeffrey pointed with his index finger as he spoke. “Have the decoy proceed at stealth speed off of the continental shelf and on an intercept course with
Bell broke into a grin. “You’ll light up every radar from here to Anadyr, and every switchboard from here to Polyarny.”
“And, I hope, once the Akula’s laser-buoy report hits the Kremlin via Russian Navy headquarters in Moscow, we also trigger a higher alert by their ground-based Strategic Rocket Forces.”
“How does that last part help us, sir?” Sessions asked. “It sounds destabilizing.”
“They’ll un-destabilize, for a while, when they see they lost contact with
Bell’s people programmed and launched the Mark III decoy.
In ninety minutes, things did begin to happen. First, a higher-level naval antisubmarine alert was sounded. All sorts of radars and radios, on ships, on planes, at bases, and on satellites, that weren’t already radiating gave themselves and their technical specifications away. An invaluable charting of threats and spoofing strategies and gaps in Russian defensive coverage resulted. Several previously unidentified coastal supersonic antiship cruise missile installations were also plotted; these might have turned out to be fatal traps, given the way Harley intended to bring
Messages at the local Russian Navy level were caught and translated from the fiber-optic cable tap. The