Scimitar SL-2

evacuation of all Naval and Military command posts on the East Coast of the U.S.A., as the October 9 deadline approached.

Adm. Alan Dickson very briefly discussed the deployment of the surface fleet, recommending that another eighty ships would be required for the offshore vigil that might save the East Coast. “We’re looking at a force of maybe forty frigates — modern missile ships with towed arrays — listening in the water throughout that central area between the two submarine forces.

“We’re talking maybe a 200,000-square-mile patrol area with eighty ships — that’s 2,500 square miles each, a 50-mile-square box — and they’ll search it end to end, night and day, waiting for the intruder. If he’s good, we may never hear him. If he’s careless, just once, near any of our ships, he’s rubble.

“If the meeting agrees, we’ll begin work on the defensive layout right away, and we better start moving ships into the area from the Middle and Far East.”

“I agree with that,” said Arnold Morgan. “But I remain concerned about the time frame, and I remain concerned about Hamas watching our activities at the bases around the Gulf over the next couple of weeks.

“If they see we are doing absolutely nothing in response to their evacuation demand, they might just get frustrated and whack the cliff, or somehow up the ante. I’d like to try and avoid that.”

“You mean, start moving stuff as if we’re obeying them?”

“So far as I can see,” said Arnold, “that’s the only chance we have of buying time. If they see we’re reacting to their threats, they may be happy to give us more time. And we need time. A defensive operation like this needs all the time it can get.”

“Sir,” said Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe. “I wonder if I may ask a question?”

“Sure, Jimmy, go right ahead.”

“Do you think these jokers will attempt to bang some high ordnance straight into the cliff and knock it into the sea, or do you think they’ll try to bang a couple of big nuclear warheads straight into the Cumbre Vieja volcano, blow it wide open, and let nature take its course with the steam blast?”

“Good question,” replied the Admiral. “In the normal way, I’d say any terrorist in that situation would want to fire in a missile, hit the cliff, and bolt for freedom, from maybe 300 miles offshore.

“But this bastard’s different. We believe he’s an expert on volcanoes. Option two — hitting the crater — will take much longer to develop, and it is more difficult to execute, but it’s also more deadly. Altogether a more awesome and terrifying project. I think he’ll go for Option Two. He’s not afraid of difficulty, and he’ll try for maximum effect.”

“Just like he did at Mount St. Helens,” replied the Lieutenant Commander, thoughtfully.

“Exactly so,” said Admiral Morgan.

“Which brings us back to the business of time,” said General Scannell. “Does everyone think we should stage some kind of an unobtrusive departure from the bases in the Gulf?”

“I don’t think we can, not so long as President McBride thinks we’re all crazy.” General Boyce, the Supreme NATO Allied Commander, was visibly unhappy. He shook his head and said twice, “I just don’t know.”

General Tim Scannell was braver. “Bart,” he said, “I think I mentioned it before. On this one, we may just have to go without him.”

And the eight men sitting around the big table in the CJC’s conference room felt the chill of a potential mutiny, led, unthinkably, by the Highest Command of the United States Military.

7

0800, Friday, September

456.18S 67.00W, Speed 15, Depth 300.

Adm. Ben Badr held the Barracuda steady on course, two-seven-zero, 25 miles south of Cape Horn, beneath rough, turbulent seas swept by a force-eight gale out of the Antarctic. They were moving through the Drake Passage in 2,500 fathoms of water, having finally concluded their southward journey down past the hundreds of islands and fiords that guard mainland Chile from the thundering Pacific breakers.

They had made good speed across the southeast Pacific Basin, and the Mornington Abyssal Plain, and were now headed east, running north of the South Shetland Islands in the cold, treacherous waters where the Antarctic Peninsula comes lancing out of the southern ice floes.

Ben Badr was making for the near end of the awesome underwater cliffs of the Scotia Ridge. At the same time, he was staying in the eastern flows of the powerful Falkland Islands current. His next course adjustment would take him past the notoriously shallow Burdwood Bank, and well east of the Falkland Islands themselves.

These were lonely waters, scarcely patrolled by the Argentinian Navy, and even more rarely by the Royal Navy, which was still obliged to guard the approaches to the islands for which 253 British servicemen had fought and died in 1982.

It was midwinter this far south, and despite not having seen daylight for almost two months, Ben Badr assured the crew that they did not want to break the habit right now. Not with an Antarctic blizzard raging above them, and a mighty southern ocean demonstrating once more that Cape Horn’s murderous reputation was well earned.

Submarines dislike the surface of the water under almost any conditions. They are not built to roll around with the ocean’s swells. But 300 feet below the waves, the Barracuda was in its correct element, moving swiftly and easily through the depths, a smooth, malevolent jet-black tube of pending destruction, but the soul of comfort for all who sailed with her.

That 47,500 hp nuclear system had been running sweetly for eight weeks now, which was not massively demanding for a power source that would run, if necessary, for eight years. The Russian-built VM-5 Pressurized Water Reactor would provide every vestige of the submarine’s propulsion, heat, fresh water, and electronics on an indefinite basis. Barring accident, the only factor that could drive the Barracuda to the surface was if they ran out of food.

Their VM-5 reactor was identical to the one the Russians used on their gigantic Typhoon-class ballistic missile boats. The world’s biggest underwater warships, which displace 26,000 tons of water submerged, required two of them, but the reactors were the same state-of-the-art nuclear pressurized water systems.

The Barracuda, with its titanium hull, was a submariner’s dream. It could strike with missiles unexpectedly, from an unknown position. It was incredibly quiet — as quiet as the U.S. Navy’s latest Los Angeles — class boats, silent under seven knots, undetectable, barring a mistake by her commanding officer. A true phantom of deep water.

General Rashood and Ben Badr stared at the charts that marked the long northward journey ahead of them. It was more than 4,000 miles up to the equator, and they knocked off three parts of that with a brisk, constant 15 knots through the cold, lonely southern seas, devoid of U.S. underwater surveillance and largely devoid of the warships of any nation.

They remained 1,000 miles offshore, running 500 feet below the surface up the long Argentinian coast, across the great South American Basin until they were level with the vast 140-mile-wide estuary of the River Plate.

This is the confluence of the Rivers Parana and Uruguay, and the enormous estuary contains some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, steaming along the merchant ship roads, into the ports of Buenos Aires on the Argentinian side and Montevideo on the Uruguayan.

Ben Badr stayed well offshore here, keeping right of the shallow Rio Grande Rise, and pushing on north, up towards Ascension Island. And long before they arrived in those waters, he cut the speed of his submarine, running through the confused seas above the craggy cliffs of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge on his starboard side, as he made his way silently past the U.S. military base on this British-owned moonscape of an island.

This was probably the only spot in the entire Mid-and South Atlantic they might be detected. And they ran past with the utmost care, slowly, slowly, only six knots, deeper than usual, at 700 feet. The Barracuda was deathly quiet on all decks. Lieutenant Commander Shakira huddled in the navigation room; Admiral Badr and the Hamas General were in the control room, listening to the regular pings of the passive sonar.

On Friday, September 18, the Barracuda crossed the equator, the unseen divider of