'Come in!'
Not for the first time lately, Ike thought Jeffrey looked tired.
'You look tired,' Jeffrey said.
It's like we just read each other's minds. 'I think everybody's tired, sir.' Ilse made sure to use the 'sir,' but she noticed Jeffrey's attitude was softer now between the two of them in private, more personal, confiding. His shoulders were less stiff, his whole posture more relaxed — she liked his strong, broad shoulders and the well- toned muscles of his forearms and his neck.
'Take a seat. I have bad news.'
'What is it?' Ilse said.
'Running so shallow, we picked up a VLF radio message. It took a lot of work to clean up the signal for decryption. ARBOR has been arrested.'
Ilse exhaled. 'We all saw this coming, didn't we?' 'Yeah,' Jeffrey said.
'Do we turn back?'
'No. Her last dead-drop signal said the jigs and dies for mass-producing the missiles are ready at the lab…. The mission goes forward. We invoke the contingency plan.'
'I thought you'd said there wasn't one.'
'I lied…. No, I withheld information. For security.' 'Oh, God.' Everything fell into place. 'Don't tell me—'
'Yes. You have to go.' “Why?”
'This isn't my idea. It's in the written orders. We need someone to break cover inside, and find their way around. You're it.'
'What about the SEALs? Chief Montgomery.'
'Look,' Jeffrey said. 'Navy SpecWar language skills emphasize just talking to the locals. Not blending in as one of them.'
'But my German isn't perfect, either. I could never pass.'
'You won't have to, Ilse. You go as who you are, a genuine South African Boer person.'
'Like a visiting technician?'
Jeffrey nodded. 'There's plenty of that going on. It's one more thing this German regime learned from World War Two mistakes: close cooperation with their allies from the getgo. With Japan, the cargo U-boats they sent over were too little too late. Crated jet fighters, V-two rocket parts, uranium oxide…'
'Um, I didn't know that.' Ilse shifted in her seat, and crossed her legs. 'But won't the Germans be expecting us, now ARBOR's caught?'
'Not necessarily, though for sure they'll be on heightened alert. We just have to take the chance she was able to plant that computer worm. Otherwise… They've arrested a number of Mossad moles the last few months. There's no reason they'd think ARBOR at Greifswald was special, not right away.'
'What if they make her talk?'
'The moles were conditioned against that. The Israelis are state-of-the-art in counterinterrogation techniques.' Ilse shivered. 'Short of suicide, you mean.'
'You'll have to start hard workouts, and refresher training on the Draeger and the weaponry, at once. Sit in on Clayton's briefings from now on, rehearsals, all of that. You know the drill.'
There was a knock on the door. Jeffrey looked annoyed.
'Come in!'
It was the messenger of the watch.
'Sir, the XO's compliments. He reports the shocks from our battle with the two-twelve and two-fourteen, and running repairs since then, appear to have freed the jammed foreplanes. He requests permission to deploy them, for enhanced maneuverability.'
'Tell him negative. I'm afraid they may jam again while deployed. Keep them retracted.' The messenger, for confirmation, repeated the response. He left.
Jeffrey turned to Ilse. 'The foreplanes deployed could make us unstable at very high speed.'
'Oh.' Ilse liked it when Jeffrey explained things to her. 'Sorry,' Jeffrey said. For the interruption, or for getting irritated by it?
'There's something else, Ilse. Your Governmentin-Exile talked with the Pentagon…. I know it's small compensation for having to risk your neck. You've been granted the assimilated rank of lieutenant in the Free South African Navy.' Ilse smiled. 'What's that mean, exactly?'
'Pay and privileges equal to a naval officer of said rank.'
'Have I been drafted?'
'No. Technically you're still a civilian.'
'Can I eat in the wardroom again?'
'You need to ask the XO. I can't overrule him. I mean, I could but I won't.'
'Um, okay.'
Jeffrey laughed. 'I'm sure it'll be just fine. Bell knew the contingency plan all along.' Aha. 'That's why he was hard on me, wasn't it? To harden, condition me.'
'Bell's in charge of training, and I sure know he likes to seize the initiative there.' Jeffrey grew distant for a moment, and Ilse sensed things between him and Bell she didn't understand — things in the recent past that were resolved now. But then, she realized, some of the things between her and Jeffrey were resolved now too, the censure for her bloopers, his stand-offishness before.
'Look at it this way,' Jeffrey said. 'If we make it back from Greifswald, you can even have unlimited seconds on dessert.'
The two of them made eye contact, and held it. Ilse fought down a grin. Jeffrey fought down a grin. Finally Jeffrey glanced at the bulkhead, then shuffled papers on his desk. Ilse sensed the meeting was over. She stood up.
Jeffrey hesitated. He grew serious. 'Please don't go, Ilse…. There's something else I want to talk to you about.'
'What?' He seemed almost… needful?
'The message said Deutschland's been spotted in the North Atlantic.' Ilse had to sit down again. 'I thought she was headed for Canada. The briefing papers you got at Cape Verde, they said so.' That courier package.
'That's what I was told…. And to think I felt relieved that Deutschland was so far away, after worrying about meeting her any moment when we stalked those U-boats.' Jeffrey shook his head, annoyed with himself.
'Deutschland's supposed attack on Canada was a ruse, which our side fell for. By now she could be almost anywhere. Including through the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. gap, into the Norwegian Sea. She may be damaged, heading home for repairs. Maybe.'
'You seem worried,' Ilse said. Jeffrey clearly wanted to share his concern with her; Ilse was worried enough herself. She came to better understand the awful pressure Jeffrey must be under constantly.
'I know Deutschland's captain. Kurt Eberhard.' Jeffrey said the name with disgust.
'He's good?' In spite of the tension, she could see another barrier between her and Jeffrey was being lowered; he was speaking to her now as Jeffrey, not as Captain Fuller. And soon they'd be off the ship together, on another SEAL raid….
'Yeah, he's good. It seems he trained on Russian SSNs for several years before the war. Up under the ice cap, off of U.S. naval bases, trailing our boomers, you name it…. We worked together, three or four years back.' Ilse listened, letting Jeffrey talk, unburden himself. 'He was an up-and-corner in the Bundesmarine, the peacetime German Navy. A real charmer when he wants to be. This combined assignment in Washington, he had free rein in our group…. He hates my guts.'
'Sounds like it's mutual.'
'Well…' Jeffrey looked right at her. 'Let's just say, we both had our egos, and in the case of him and me, opposites did not attract.'
After lunch, Ilse sat at her console with sonar headphones on. Kathy and her techs were busy. The active wide arrays were working hard to cloak Challenger, suppressing ambient echoes and plugging holes in the ocean to whichever flank seemed most threatening. Challenger hid along the chaotic boundary between two major currents: the warm vestiges of the Gulf Stream, flowing east through the Dover Straits, and the frigid Nordic Current coming south from the Arctic Circle. In the confused sonar conditions where the currents met and fought, a sub-on-sub
