referenced each and every volcano that might interest him. It was a precious project, representing the very bedrock of his plan to drive the Great Satan out of the Middle East forever.
Every aspect, every detail, was gleaned from the personal knowledge and research of the world’s foremost authority on geophysical hazards — Professor Paul Landon. Ravi Rashood regretted that their friendship in London had been so very brief.
4
The
Here, despite the colossal depths of more than two miles, the ocean steadily grew shallower, angling up towards the coastal islands of mainland Alaska. In this, the more friendly U.S. end, enemies are just about unknown, unlike its other side, out towards the western Aleutians towards Russia and China, where American submarine COs stay on top of the game at all times.
Ravi and Ben considered their slow expedition into the quiet section of the Trench not much of a risk; it was simply not a place where the U.S. Navy would be looking for trouble, mainly because of the serious difficulties of getting there…either straight through the patrolled waters of the Trench (
Both Ravi and Ben considered the
At first, it had seemed logical to cross the 1,000-mile-wide Gulf of Alaska, straight through the middle, in water never much less than two and half miles deep. But Ben Badr was nerve-wracked, thinking about the U.S. Navy’s deadly Sound Surveillance System, and in answer to every one of General Rashood’s questions weighing the possibilities of the much shorter straight-line route, he just said, “Forget it, Ravi. They’ll hear us.”
And then he added the inevitable: “We have to stay inshore, along the coast, in noisy water, where there’s massive shoals of fish, rough ocean, island surf, changing depths, and that north-running current. That’s where we’re safe, out there with the commercial traffic — freighters, tankers, and fishing boats, all kicking up a hell of a racket while we creep along 500 feet below the surface.”
Ravi had been staring at the chart. “You mean right up here, through this Shelikof Strait between Kodiak Island and the mainland coast?”
“I wish,” said Ben. “And I expect you’ve noticed we’d have 600 feet almost all the way along that island for about 130 miles. However, you’ll see that the Strait ends right at the gateway to the Cook Inlet, which leads up to Anchorage. Afraid that’s not for us. Shakira says it’s bristling with radar, busier traffic than Tehran, and only a couple of hundred feet deep.”
“That’s not for us,” agreed Ravi. “What do we do? Go outside Kodiak?”
“Absolutely,” said Ben, staring at the chart. “Even wider than that. We need to get outside the 200-meter line…See? Right here…we’ll get in the Alaska Current and head zero-seven-zero.”
Ravi looked at the chart. “We stay 50 to 60 miles offshore all the way up that coast, we’ll be in water that’s two miles deep. As far as Prince William Sound. What does Shakira say about U.S. surveillance up there?”
“She thinks they will have plenty of shore-based radar, which won’t affect us because we’ll be deep. And she thinks there’ll be surface patrols in that big bay beyond the Sound, which also won’t affect us. But she has seen no sign of increased submarine patrols up there.
“And knowing the huge expense of mobile underwater surveillance, I’d be surprised if they put a couple of nuclear boats in there to protect essentially foreign tankers. Submarines operating in defensive mode in a nonwar area like Alaska really only protect against other submarines. And let’s face it, the chances of a foreign strike submarine getting into those waters with intent to attack are zero.”
Ravi smiled. “Not even us?” he said.
“Not even us,” answered Admiral Badr. “We’re just passing through, very quietly, very unobtrusively. There’s no U.S. submarine patrols and a lot of noise. We’ll be fine.”
And so they set off up the Gulf, steering a northeasterly course, deep. It took them four days to reach the old Russian colony of Kodiak, and they left it 50 miles to port. They moved slowly past the rugged, mountainous island that held more than 2,000 three-quarter-ton Kodiak brown bears — the largest bear on earth, on the largest island in Alaska.
The frigid waters that surged around Kodiak were home not only to a 2,000-strong fishing fleet, but also to the giant king crab. Vast legions of these iron-shelled 15-pound monsters, which sometimes have a leg-span measuring four feet across, occasionally made the city of Kodiak the top commercial fishing port in the United States.
And the Alaskans guard their precious stocks assiduously. The biggest U.S. Coast Guard station in the state operates four large cutters, with fully armed crews, out of the old U.S. Naval Base on Kodiak. They patrol these waters night and day, ruthlessly seizing any unauthorized fishing boat. As Shakira Rashood warned her Commanding Officers, “
By midnight on Tuesday, July 28, way below the bears, but several hundred feet above the clunking armor of the King Crabs, the
Three hours before dawn, Lieutenant Commander Shakira came into the control room and brought Ben and Ravi hot coffee and toast, announcing they were 90 miles southeast of the port of Kodiak, steaming with the Alaskan Current in 550 fathoms, staying west of the shallow Kodiak Seamount.
She also brought with her a snippet of knowledge to dazzle the two senior officers on board. “Did either of you know that the port of Kodiak was practically leveled as recently as 1964?”
“Not me,” confessed Ravi.
“Nor me,” said Ben.
“The whole downtown area,” she confirmed, “the entire fishing fleet, the processing plants, and 160 houses. The Good Friday Earthquake, they called it, shook the entire island from end to end.”
“How come an earthquake wrecked the fishing fleet?” asked the ever-probing, practical General Rashood. “Why didn’t they just head out into the bay like every other ship does when an earthquake starts?”
“Because it wasn’t the earthquake that got them,” said Shakira. “It was the tsunami, the huge tidal wave that developed when half a mountain fell hundreds of feet into the sea…There you are, darling, your very favorite subject, delivered personally.”
Ravi grinned. “I’m telling you,” he said, “those tidal waves, when they get going, they’re a real killer—”
“According to my notes on this area,” said Shakira, “this tsunami developed with great speed. When the wave surged into the port of Kodiak, it just picked up all the ships and dumped them from a great height into the streets, flattened every building…turned everything — ships, boat sheds, and shops — into match-wood. Most people luckily had just enough time to get out and drive to high ground. Anyone who didn’t was never heard of again.”
“Allah,” said Ben Badr. “I suppose that’s the only good thing about a tsunami. It takes just that little bit longer to get organized. There’s warning. And the wave inshore is making only 30 or 40 knots. Probably gives everyone a half hour to get out.”
“In some cases, much longer,” said Ravi, thoughtfully. “Some of those Pacific surges that started with
