Straits of Power (3 page)

The Seahawk jinked, and he caught a glimpse of an Apache unloading a rippling salvo of rockets at the spot where a missile plume still lingered, rising from its launch point on the ground. The rockets streaked like meteors and pulverized an area of trees in a series of flashes and spouts of dirt. But Jeffrey saw no secondary explosions—he was sure the attackers would have more missiles, and they’d relocate themselves quickly after making that initial telltale launch. They probably even had all-terrain trucks, disguised with freshly cut greenery so they’d be mobile and harder to see.

The other Apache emitted a different-looking solid red rod from its chin. This, Jeffrey knew, was a burst of cannon tracer rounds from its multibarreled Gatling gun. The thing could fire three thousand rounds per minute. The gunner and pilot were after something. The Gatling gun fired again, and this time there was a brilliant, heaving eruption on the ground. Flames and debris shot high into the air.

Scratch one group of bad guys.

But how many other groups are there?

Jeffrey heard the siren alarm again. More missile launches had been detected by the Seahawk’s warning radar.

The view outside was confusing. Missile trails and rocket trails and laser beams intertwined in the sky, and fires burned in several places on the ground—including ones from the infrared flares. Jeffrey knew now why the shuttle’s flight path was set to avoid populated areas. Every piece of ordnance fired had to land somewhere or other, and civilians on the ground could be injured or killed.

There was another hard blast from outside, much closer. The Seahawk shuddered, but continued to fly.

The whole thing started to seem unreal. Jeffrey knew this sensation: It was panic taking hold. There was nothing he could do but stay imprisoned in his flight harness, and everyone in the passenger compartment exchanged increasingly desperate looks. Jeffrey felt like he was in some battle simulator gone wild, or immersed in a demonic video game. The Seahawk pulled hard up and went for more altitude. Jeffrey saw an antiaircraft missile coming at them from the side, rising fast enough to stay aimed at the helo.

At the last possible second, the pilot rolled the Seahawk so that its bottom faced the missile. The sickening roll continued, until the helo was upside down. The helo dropped like a stone, the heat of its engines shielded from the missile by the bulk of the fuselage. The missile streaked by harmlessly above them, through the spot where the helo had flown moments before.

The falling helo finished the other half of the barrel roll. Jeffrey was completely disoriented. He looked out the window to try to regain situational awareness. At first he was looking straight down at the ground—more treetops, very close—and then the Seahawk leveled off, regaining speed.

There was another large explosion on the ground. The air was an even more confusing tangle of tracer rounds and laser beams and heat decoys and smoke trails coming up and going down. The ground now had the beginnings of a serious forest fire.

Another missile was coming right at the Seahawk. The Apaches did what they could to divert it with their spoofing lasers. The Seahawk popped two more heat flares, but then ran out. It had lost too much altitude to maneuver aggressively now, and the enemy missile still bore in.

The missile warhead detonated. Jeffrey felt its radiant heat through the windows a split second before the shrapnel from the warhead battered the helo. He was sprayed by a liquid, and was terrified that it was high-octane fuel or flammable hydraulic fluid. But the color made him recognize it as arterial blood. The crew chief’s head had been nearly severed by something that punched through the fuselage wall. Jeffrey watched the assistant crew chief look on, horrified, as his boss died quickly; the young and inexperienced kid went into a trance from mental trauma. Some of the other passengers were bleeding from wounds—Jeffrey wasn’t sure how bad. Pieces of smashed window Plexiglas covered everyone and everything. The Seahawk kept on flying, but the vibrations were much rougher and more ragged. Jeffrey had to do something.

He unbuckled and grabbed fittings to steady himself. He worked hand over hand the few feet toward the rear of the aircraft. He pulled off the assistant crew chief’s helmet, with its intercom headset, placing his own on the kid’s head as best he could. He put on the better-equipped one and spoke into the intercom mike.

“Pilot, your senior passenger. Crew chief dead, and wounded men back here. What are your intentions?”

“AWACS has vectored us north to a well-patrolled area. Ground-attack fast movers inbound.” Fighter-bomber jets, for extra support. “ETA fast movers fifteen minutes.” An eternity. “Apaches both still with us, sir.”

“Can your ship make it to Washington?”

“I might need to put down in the next field we come to.”

“That would make us sitting ducks if there are more bad guys out there.”

The pilot hesitated. “Er, understood, sir. . . . How bad are the wounded?”

The wounded were another good reason to not land in the middle of nowhere. “Wait one. Where’s the first-aid kit?”

The pilot told him, and Jeffrey spotted the big white box with the red cross on the cover.
What’s left of it,
he thought. The first-aid kit had taken a direct hit from behind from a fragment of shrapnel, which went straight through and embedded itself in the opposite fuselage wall. The visible edge of the shrapnel was shiny metal, razor sharp. The first-aid kit was useless, with most of its contents either broken or torn to shreds.

The deck of the helo was becoming slippery, with blood. The wounded sat in pools of it. “We need a hospital, fast,” Jeffrey said into the intercom. “It’s a disaster back here.” He took off his life vest; it would just get in the way as he worked.

Three of the other passengers looked very pale and sweaty, and their unfocused gazes kept flitting around, definite signs that they were going into deep shock from their wounds. One suffered ever-worsening respiratory distress. A chief, unharmed like Jeffrey, also got up to help the other passengers. Together, he and Jeffrey searched for sites of bleeding. They bandaged limbs, abdomens, punctured chests as best they could. The overhead was so low they had to move around stooped over. Pieces of loose bandage, and shreds of fuselage insulation, flapped and blew in the wind coming through the open or smashed windows. Sunlight shone through holes that hadn’t been there before the attack. The coppery smell of blood was growing thicker.

Up close, Jeffrey caught the stench of other men’s raw fear. Even though they were strangers, his being so close to them—watching their faces while he worked, offering words of comfort—created a bond. Pleading, agony, stoic resignation, despair and then renewed hope roller-coastered through the passenger compartment, dragging Jeffrey each inch of the way.

When will the next missile finish us? How long until the transmission quits, or a big rotor piece comes off, or one of the engines catches fire?

He stumbled as the helo tilted.

“Uh,” the copilot’s voice came over the intercom, “we’ve been vectored to a hospital with a helipad. Local fire department is rolling to meet us. Our ETA is six minutes.”

Jeffrey glanced forward into the cockpit. Many panel lights glowed yellow or red, which couldn’t be good news. Jeffrey had visions again of the helo crashing.

“Can you stay in the air for another six minutes?”

“Keep your fingers crossed, sir.”

As he bandaged serious shrapnel wounds, Jeffrey tried to think only positive thoughts. He noticed that his uniform ribbons were thoroughly soaked in other peoples’ blood.

Chapter 2

T
hanks to some heroic and desperate flying, Jeffrey’s helicopter barely landed safely at the hospital in Virginia. He helped off-load the wounded onto gurneys already waiting. While the Apaches circled overhead to stand guard, the casualties were rushed into the emergency room. Firefighters foamed down the damaged Seahawk, just in case. The dead crew chief was put into a body bag; his assistant, still dazed from the whole ordeal and barely coherent, was walked inside the hospital by two nurses. Jeffrey was vaguely aware of someone holding a video camera.

Inside, at the nuclear-biological-chemical decontamination point federal law required all hospitals to have, Jeffrey stripped and took a thorough shower. Blood had soaked through to his skin, and only as he scrubbed himself did he realize that some was his own. His cuts and scrapes were minor, but needed attention nonetheless. Then a doctor made sure Jeffrey rehydrated; the energy drink was exactly what he needed.

The next problem was clothing. Jeffrey’s uniform was useless, stiff from caked and drying gore. Even his shoes and socks were ruined. Someone thought to get him a hospital janitor’s clean beige coveralls; beige was close enough to khaki to look military, and the jumpsuit was much like the one-piece outfits submariners wore on patrol. The repeatedly laundered cotton was comfortable, considering that Jeffrey lacked underwear. The local fire chief gave him a spare pair of boots.

Jeffrey retrieved his wallet, with his smart identification cards; he took his rank insignia from the collars of his uniform, washed the silver oak leaves, and pinned them to the collars of his coveralls.
Much better.
He heard the noise of an arriving helicopter and went outside. He’d been told this replacement aircraft would take him the rest of the way. With the damaged Seahawk sitting on the helipad, the new one landed in the parking lot.

The ride to Washington was routine. Jeffrey saw all the usual sights. They put down at the Pentagon. Federal Protective Service agents, brandishing submachine guns, hustled Jeffrey into one of the gigantic building’s entrances.

Jeffrey was surprised to see his squadron commander standing in the lobby, waiting for him.
Challenger
was home-ported at the New London Naval Submarine Base, on the Thames River in Groton, Connecticut. The ship belonged to Submarine Development Squadron TWELVE. Captain Wilson—a full captain by rank, not by job description like Jeffrey—as the squadron’s commander was addressed as “Commodore.”

Wilson watched Jeffrey approach, and frowned. “You’re one hell of a sight, as usual.”

Jeffrey winced. Wilson, a tall and muscular black man, was a tough and demanding leader, especially when dealing with Jeffrey one-on-one. Last autumn, when Lieutenant Commander Jeffrey Fuller had joined
Challenger
as her exec, Wilson—a full commander then—had been her skipper. Both men were promoted in February, to their present ranks and jobs, as part of a wider shake-up of military personnel because the war wasn’t going well.

“Did you fly down today, sir?” Jeffrey asked. Wilson’s regular office was on the base in Groton.

Wilson gave Jeffrey a sidelong glance. “Unlike you, I managed to not get shot at.”

Jeffrey recovered from the gibe much faster this time. Wilson was always doing this to him, because he’d spotted Jeffrey’s impetuous, rebellious streak practically the moment Jeffrey had reported aboard
Challenger.
Wilson beat him up about it, hard. The dynamic worked for both of them: Jeffrey knew he needed such mentoring, and felt tremendous respect for Wilson.

“Do they know yet if my trip was compromised, sir?”

“So far, the FBI thinks not. None was taken alive. Search dogs found their field latrines. The aggressors had been hiding in that area for several days.”

“I suppose there’s some comfort in knowing we’re secure, Commodore.”

Wilson made a face. “Captain, you don’t know the least of it. Come with me.”

The two of them walked down a long hallway and passed increasingly stringent security checkpoints. At one, Jeffrey was made to hand over his briefcase, to be retrieved later. Both men were scanned carefully for recording or camera devices. They were clean, and allowed to move on. Jeffrey’s borrowed firefighter boots were a size too large. They clumped as he walked. The boots were heavy, and hot.

They approached an anteroom, and Jeffrey saw another senior officer waiting. This was Admiral Hodgkiss, the four-star admiral who was Commander, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. A former submariner himself, Hodgkiss now was in charge of all American naval assets in the North and South Atlantic. Hodgkiss was short and wiry, with an almost birdlike build, but he was the smartest man Jeffrey had ever met. He possessed a nasty temper that kept his subordinates sharp—or got them transferred.

Hodgkiss liked results, and Jeffrey produced results, so Hodgkiss liked Jeffrey.

Hodgkiss shook Jeffrey’s hand warmly, then squeezed so hard it hurt and didn’t let go. He looked Jeffrey right in the eye with a piercing glare.

“You started the day off with a bang, didn’t you, Captain?”

“Yes, sir,” Jeffrey said politely; Hodgkiss released his grip. Hodgkiss had a reputation for being able to read peoples’ minds. Jeffrey kept his mind studiously blank. He wondered what was going on. Hodgkiss’s headquarters was in Norfolk. If he was here, with Wilson and Jeffrey, something big was happening.

“Come into the chamber of dark secrets,” Hodgkiss said. “We’ll fill you in, believe me.”

They went through a heavy door, guarded by two marines in full battle dress, with pistol holsters. Jeffrey felt uneasy, in a different way from during his helo flight.

So far in this war, every time I’ve been ordered to a meeting with top officials like this, it ends up with me going out to sea and getting almost blown up by atom bombs.

The room they entered was completely empty, with another heavy door on its far side.

Hodgkiss stopped and turned to Jeffrey. “You know you’ll be on the news tonight.”

“Admiral?”

“A cameraman got footage of your Seahawk landing and the rest of it after that. The censors made them delete any views of the aircraft and the body bag, and told them to run it only in black and white. It seems that so much blood in full color would be bad for home-front morale.”

“Understood, Admiral.”

“But the point is, your helo made it, and the two badly wounded are stabilized now. That sort of thing’s good for morale. The regional chapter of the Red Cross wants to award you and that chief lifesaving medals. They say that without the first aid you did, both men would’ve died.” Hodgkiss gave Jeffrey a crooked grin. “I believe some folks down Virginia way know a good photo op when they see it.” Hodgkiss waited for Jeffrey to say something. The admiral was skilled at using silence as a tool in conversations.

He forces you to fill the awkward silence . . . and God help you if you respond with something awkward, in any sense of the word.

“I’ll do whatever I’m ordered to do, sir.”

As Wilson stood by and listened, Hodgkiss chuckled. He patted Jeffrey on the arm; six inches shorter than Jeffrey, Hodgkiss had such presence and charisma that the man seemed larger than life. Hodgkiss’s touch was electrifying. “After the war, you ought to go into politics. The media love you, Captain, but then they always love a winner while he’s still winning. . . . But right now you have more pressing business.”

As Hodgkiss reached to open the inner door, he glanced up at the ceiling and rolled his eyes. He said, mostly to himself, “If they only knew.”

Through the door was a windowless conference room, with very thick walls and a low ceiling. The furnishings were comfortable but spare. There was only one occupant, a trim man wearing a blue pin-striped business suit. He sat in the middle of the far side of the conference-room table, going through papers. A laptop lay on the table, unopened. The man looked up when he heard the door, then stood.

Hodgkiss made the introductions. “Gerald Parker, meet Captain Jeffrey Fuller. Captain, our friend Mr. Parker here is from Langley.” Jeffrey tried to hide his surprise and mounting concern, but a poker face wasn’t one of his strong points. Langley was Central Intelligence Agency headquarters.

“Good to meet you, Captain,” Parker said. “I recognize you from your pictures.” Jeffrey fought off a grimace that wasn’t Parker’s fault. As a submariner, Jeffrey craved stealth above all else. Being so well known made him uncomfortable. His job was to hide, silent and out of sight. The two men shook hands.

“Sit, everybody,” Hodgkiss said, taking the head of the table. Jeffrey and Wilson sat down facing Parker. No one had even told Jeffrey what the agenda was. A briefing?

Hodgkiss glanced at Parker. “It’s your show.”

Parker sighed. “Where to begin?” Jeffrey judged him to be in his late thirties—roughly Jeffrey’s age. He spoke with a polished, upper-class manner that made Jeffrey think of Harvard degrees, or cocktails at the Yale Club, or a leading investment bank. Parker came across as outgoing, yet reserved at the same time. Jeffrey sensed the man projected a well-honed persona. He kept an invisible wall around himself that held everyone, and everything, at a distance emotionally.

There’s a level at which this guy can’t be touched. . . . His eyes are very arrogant. . . . The curl of his lips is too unforgiving. . . . I really don’t like him at all.

“Captain,” Parker said, “since our success in reinforcing the Central African pocket, indications and warnings have intensified that the Axis plan a different aggressive move soon.”

“We’d have to expect that,” Jeffrey responded, trying to offer something noncommittal but informed. “They need to regain the initiative, militarily. And quickly, or the putsch leaders in charge in Berlin will be publicly undermined, their power weakened.”

“The problem for them, the big question for us, is where they can most effectively engage the Allies next. Militarily.”

Parker said that last word with the slightest hint of a sneer, then waited. Jeffrey tried not to react. He decided to learn from Hodgkiss and didn’t say anything, to let someone else fill the void that Parker had created by his pause.

Parker filled it himself, assertively. “Signals intercepts and code breaking, thanks to our chums at the NSA, are giving us conflicting signs.” The NSA was the National Security Agency. “Human intelligence, what we have of it, isn’t helping to clarify things much.” He let that hang in the air, like bait, looking right at Jeffrey.

He’s playing my game back at me already. . . . Careful, this guy’s an old pro from the infamous “Company.” A corporate survivor when other heads rolled, or he wouldn’t be here now. A veteran of inside-the-Beltway battles, in an outfit that doesn’t take prisoners. . . . But he doesn’t come across like your typical intell analyst. Too worldly wise a manner, and traces of well-traveled earthiness.

A spy handler, then? That’s wicked, dirty, Byzantine stuff.

Jeffrey decided to go with his own strengths, and be entirely straightforward and simply take Parker’s bait. “What sort of conflicting signs?”

“Satellite photos show there’s a buildup of forces in occupied Norway. The threat there would be a move against the UK, or, more likely, Iceland, to outflank the UK.”

“I could see that that would be a priority,” Jeffrey conceded. “It’d give the Germans much better access to the North Atlantic. . . . And their not-so-neutral helpers, the Russian Federation, would probably love to see something precisely like that.”

The Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap was a well-placed nautical choke point, an accident of geography that during the Cold War had helped block Soviet subs from reaching the open ocean easily. Now, with the G-I-UK Gap under Allied control, it did the same to modern German U-boats.

This was why the coup leaders knew they had to conquer France. They gained hundreds of miles of coastline that let out on the ocean directly, with near-indestructible U-boat pens still standing from World War II.

“We can’t tell how many of the assets we’re seeing in Norway are genuine,” Parker went on. “We know the Swedish arms industry is working under contract with Berlin to mass-produce and export dummy replicas of the Germans’ Leopard III tanks. Perfect for using as decoys. A fiberglass-variant body that on radar looks like ceramic-composite armor. Natural-gas burners to mimic engine heat, the works.” Sweden was neutral, assertively so, and shared a long border with Norway. “That’s just FYI. . . . Then there’s the North African front.”

“North Africa? But our pocket’s too strong for another Axis offensive. . . . Strike east instead of south? A push through Egypt and Israel? I don’t think so. Not with those dozen nukes Israel planted in Germany.”

“So you think North Africa’s a diversion, a bluff?”

Jeffrey hesitated. “That makes the most sense.”

“How do you know the alleged Israeli nukes in German cities aren’t the bluff?”

“They told the Germans where they’d hidden one, and they found it and disarmed it. It was real. That’s public info.”

“So maybe there was only the one, not twelve.”

Jeffrey blushed.
Ouch. . . . This is frightening.
“Does anyone know the truth then, besides Israel? If the Germans even suspect they’re bluffing, the deterrent effect would be lost.”

Parker smiled, though it didn’t seem to Jeffrey like anything to smile about. “After a couple of months of, shall we say, rather extreme search efforts, the Germans found another bomb.”

Jesus.
“So it isn’t a bluff.”

“We do know the Germans are moving their tanks and dummy tanks all over the place like crazy. . . . And I want you all to see something.” Parker turned his laptop on. He activated a flat display screen mounted on the wall.

Wilson and Hodgkiss leaned closer.

An image appeared on the screen. Jeffrey could tell right away that it was a very-high-definition satellite photo. It showed two dozen airplanes, in formation, over water.

Jeffrey peered at the screen. With no visual cues in the picture, he couldn’t tell how big the planes were. “They look funny.” Their wings were too stubby compared to the fuselage bodies. “Where is that?”