Thunder In The Deep (02) (31 page)

"I need not remind you, this entire matter is top secret and is not to leave this installation." He paused.

"And now I want to reassure you. Continue your work, with pride and confidence. Leave worries about internal security to me, and to my staff. They've proven their effectiveness. The last thing we need now is a self-destructive mole hunt." He asked for questions from the audience, but there were none. Then someone brought him a note from backstage.

The fat man—the head of Internal Security, Ilse realized—turned to the audience and cleared his throat.

"Some of you may have heard that a guard was found brutally murdered this evening." The audience stirred, alarmed.

The man raised his hands. "No, no. It's all right. A terrible tragedy for his wife and two young children, but the culprits have been found." The audience sat raptly. Ilse dreaded what she'd hear.

"You're aware of the stepped-up security because of the latest partisan attack, near the bay."

People nodded.

"It seems some of the Gastarbeiter became aware of the attack also. Two of them, in the most senseless copycat crime, decided to get in the act. They knifed a guard, repeatedly in the neck, using sharpened pipe-hanger brackets as makeshift daggers. Death was instantaneous. When we rounded up the Gastarbeiter, these two confessed at What the hell is going on?

"They have already been punished," the fat man said. "Hanged while the others were made to watch. A search is being conducted for additional concealed weapons. . . . Now you see why we use them as forced labor. . . .

"I apologize for having to share with you these gory details. You deserve to know what's going on. Again, let me emphasize, things have been taken care of. Leave worries of security to Internal Security, and to the local Naval Infantry detachment." The man paused again, drew a breath, and smiled. A screen came down in front of the curtain.

"On a much more positive note, this imagery has just come in from our front lines. You'

re very privileged to see it before the general public. As you watch, bear in mind that these missiles, of foreign—Russian—manufacture, only do Mach two point five." The lights began to dim, and martial music blared. Jeffrey realized it would be a wartime newsreel. Some things never change.

He glanced around. Diagonally across the auditorium, he made eye contact with Ilse, surprised to see her standing by one wall. He saw her briefcase. He realized she still had the other bomb—in the wrong half of the installation.

Now the lights were off. A picture came on the screen, a huge formation of merchant ships and escorts. It cut to one cargo vessel, flying an American flag. It cut to a frigate. It cut to a mushroom cloud blooming over the convoy.

Images from an unmanned aerial vehicle. No, more than one, judging by the angles and timing.

Fireballs burst from underwater. A makeshift troopship vaporized. Warships broke in half. More mushroom clouds rose skyward.

More undersea nuclear blasts. A liquid natural gas ship detonated. The picture panned the horizon. Three dozen mushroom clouds? The convoy and escorts were decimated.

The picture cut to a container ship, no, a troopship, sinking in a spreading inferno of flaming fuel. Black heads in the water, struggling amid the flames, without lips or fingers. A soldier, burned beyond recognition, being lifted into a helo. A woman soldier .

. .

The picture cut to a nuclear submarine, pulling into a dock at an underground hardened base. A brass band played on the pier. On the sound track, the martial music continued. Jeffrey studied every detail, desperate for clues on the sub's location. The camera zoomed to a man in dress blues on her bridge. A voice-over kept saying Deutschland. Deutschland. Germany. Germany.

The camera zoomed in more. No. Not "Germany." Deutschland, the nuclear submarine. Jeffrey's heart raced. Him.

The naval officer waved, self-satisfied and smug. He puffed a cigarette. Jeffrey knew that face, that arrogant

look. He seemed a little older, and even more sure of himself—as if that were possible. It was three years now, but Jeffrey still felt the hate. The man who had tried to ruin Jeffrey's career at the Pentagon, through deceitful office politics, and trumped-up charges of sexual misconduct. The man who thought himself, even then, the best natural submariner in the world.

A man with an evil secret, even then. One of the main long-term conspirators behind the Double Putsch. Now Freggatenkapitan, full commander, Kurt Eberhard. Ilse had to wipe her eyes. She blinked as the lights came on. Good, let people think it's eyestrain, not grief and horror.

The fat man stepped to the lectern again.

"Naval Intelligence estimates the Allied losses at between fifteen and twenty thousand killed, and thousands seriously wounded or burned, along with the sinking of nine escort warships and over three hundred thousand tons of merchant shipping." The audience grew even more excited. Several people cheered.

"As I mentioned, this was accomplished with Mach two point five missiles, against which Allied defenses are paltry enough. That, and of course Deutschland's state-of-theart nuclear torpedoes. In your mind, ladies and gentlemen, picture what we shall accomplish once our Mach eight weapon system becomes operational in the field." He paused.

"I am very pleased to inform you that the latest wind tunnel test, just this evening, was a complete success." More people cheered.

"Your senior director, now at a meeting in Berlin, has been informed. The High Command, I am proud to announce, has made the decision to go to full-scale mass production at once. . . . Work will begin immediately to

ship the jigs and dies to our impenetrable factories dug into the Alps.

"With this big step, through all your efforts, we usher in a new age of warfare! Victory draws near! Long live the Fatherland! Long live our beloved Kaiser, Wilhelm the Fourth!

"

A new picture came on the screen, the post-Putsch national flag: a two-headed black Germanic eagle, clutching the Hohenzollern crown, on a background of blood red. The audience rose to attention as one, and sang the new national anthem. Ilse forced herself to mouth the words.

As the crowd dispersed, Montgomery and Jeffrey approached Ilse.

"Follow me," she said, in German. She led them toward a ladies' room. Jeffrey carried the welding gear. Montgomery carried Ilse's briefcase, whose weight he seemed to hardly feel.

"Wait here," Ilse said. "I need to use the bathroom." Ilse made sure no one else was in the restroom. Then she went into a stall, and bent over the toilet. To mental images of the burned woman soldier dangling on a stretcher in midair, her flesh all black and blistered, cracked and oozing blood, Ilse vomited. She thought of ARBOR—not a code word but a person, a pregnant woman with a name—

also dangling in midair, and the pair of Turks.

Eventually there was nothing left to cough up. Ilse felt a little better. Ilse opened the ladies' room door and waved Jeffrey and Montgomery in. Montgomery propped the door open with a spare welding rod, while Jeffrey searched nonchalantly for a security camera. Satisfied there wasn't one, Jeffrey plugged the welding transformer into a utility socket, where

it could be seen through the restroom door. He had to make this look good—and also test the rig.

Jeffrey powered up the rig. He clipped the heavy ground cable to the stainless steel side of a toilet stall. He pulled a pair of dark goggles out of the rig's side compartment. He put them on and turned his face away. He applied the welding tip for a split second. There was a blinding flash, a sizzling noise, and an acrid smell. Droplets of hot metal spattered and burned his forearms through his coveralls. He held his breath and prayed, but the smoke alarm didn't go off. The smell lingered enough to give the scene authenticity: maintenance guys at work.

Jeffrey knelt by the side of the stall, ready to do it again if someone tried to enter the restroom. He waved for Ilse to stand in a corner, out of sight from the door. Now they had a place where the three of them could speak safely in English, to plot strategy. For Jeffrey, Montgomery and Ilse summarized the head of security's speech.

"Someone in there knew me," Ilse added. "I don't think he remembered from where, not right away." "Who?" Jeffrey said.

"A South African naval officer."

"Great. One more time bomb ticking on our heads." "How'd you make out with Lieutenant Clayton and Salih?" Ilse said.

"We got separated. We don't know where they are." "You think they were arrested?"

"If they were, we have a major problem. You heard what Shajo said: One bomb isn't enough to make an end to this whole place. . . . If they're okay, they'll head for the emergency rally point."

"How do we get back there? Going through the interlock again tempts fate too much."

"Salih said there was an air duct," Jeffrey said, "but we couldn't find it. It's not on the floor plan."

"Are you satisfied with the ROEs?" Ilse said.

"What did you find so far?"

Ilse told him and Montgomery about the missile test. They listened raptly. She also mentioned what Gaubatz said, that key people worked on this side of the interlock, in a separate computer-aided-design lab.

"Okay," Jeffrey said. "The ROEs are met. We're all expendable."

"But—"

"We just heard of three people martyred here, and saw tons of thousands slaughtered in combat. We can't let them down, nor everyone else who's counting on us." Ilse hesitated only a moment. "I agree."

Jeffrey was surprised how determined she sounded. We were just starting to really know each other, our moods and dislikes and desires, and now we're going to die.

"Chief, you head upstairs. Find a guard. Ask them outright where's the air duct. Also, ask if they've seen a guy in a welding mask."

"That's risky, Skipper," Montgomery said.

"We'll have to chance it. Then come back here." Montgomery left.

"Ilse," Jeffrey said, "I'll stay put, and keep pretending to weld. I want you to go back out there with your device. Find the computer center. Arm the bomb, then hide it somewhere good."

"It's already armed."

Jeffrey's eyebrows raised.

"I had some trouble with the checkpoint guards." "Did you start the timer?"

"No. I almost had to use the instant-firing switch."

Jeffrey felt himself shiver. "Emplace it. Set the time delay for nine zero minutes, and start it running."

Ilse began to leave, then looked back. "Um, I, I want you to know, Jeffrey, it's been an honor working with you."

Jeffrey gave her a poignant smile. "It was good for me too, Ilse. I'm sorry if I seemed hard on you before, on the ship."

She came closer. "I, if only . . ."

"I know. In another life . . . I guess it just wasn't meant to be." She turned to go, then turned back again.

"What if we can't find Lieutenant Clayton?"

"Then your bomb's all we've got. Half a lab's better than none." The first A-bomb was ticking. On the upper level, hiding behind a row of roaring fan blowers, Jeffrey and Ilse and Montgomery looked up at the entrance to the air duct. It was two meters off the floor, protected by a grating.

"Salih said he needed his ID to get inside," Jeffrey said.

"Want me to see if I can force it open?"

"We have nothing to lose, Chief."

"Yeah, that's for sure. Give me a boost, please, sir."

Jeffrey knelt and put his hands against the wall; Montgomery climbed onto his shoulders. The chief reached for the grating.

"It's open. Held with shims."

"It might be a trap," Ilse whispered.

"We have to take the chance," Jeffrey managed to grunt. He was still supporting Montgomery's full weight.

Montgomery jumped down. "Ilse, you go first."

Ilse climbed on Jeffrey's shoulders, and Montgomery helped her reach the air duct. With the grate swung open now, she chinned herself up and climbed inside. Montgomery took the welding transformer and climbed on Jeffrey's shoulders again. Jeffrey almost collapsed from the weight. The chief pushed the transformer into the opening. They might need the welder to emplace the other bomb, and abandoned somewhere here it might warn guards there were intruders.

Montgomery let Jeffrey stand, then linked his hands to make a stirrup. He boosted Jeffrey up.

Jeffrey clambered inside, and pushed the transformer forward—it was too tall to roll upright in the ductway. The metal case scraped loudly along the concrete. Jeffrey saw Ilse crawl further in, on hands and knees. When there was room, Montgomery leaped and chinned himself into the ductway.

"I can't reach the grate to close it," Montgomery said. "Leave it," Jeffrey said. Soon enough, it wouldn't matter. Nothing would matter.

They crawled on. Eventually, past Ilse, Jeffrey could make out the -other end of the duct, with another grate. Right in front of him, partly blocking his progress, was a constriction in the ductway: the visible edges of a titanium frame for an automatic blast door.

--Jeffrey kicked himself; he wasn't thinking. Of course there'd be a blast shutter here. He tried to get the welder past the bottom edge of the frame. It was very awkward, in such confined space. Ilse couldn't possibly turn around, and Montgomery was behind him. Jeffrey had to do this by himself.

He levered the heavy transformer onto the lip of the frame, almost crushing a finger. He began to shove the rig forward. A little further . . . a little further .. . The transformer slid through.

Crap!

Jeffrey pulled back just in time. The transformer dropped off the frame with a heavy thud, and the edge of the thick blast door snapped down like a guillotine. An alarm began to sound. Trapped, on the same side of the lab as Ilse's bomb.

Jeffrey heard guards running to the air duct. There was noise as someone positioned a ladder. He heard rifle charging-handles pulled back and released. Rounds slid into chambers, and selectors clicked off safe to fire—six or seven men. A guard shouted something angry in German.

Montgomery shouted, too, then said something apologetic.

Jeffrey glanced back. Montgomery was holding his ID card over his shoulder so the guard on the ladder could see. Two other guards held assault rifles over their heads, aimed into the duct; Jeffrey just saw their forearms and their weapon muzzles-5.56mm caliber, the same as M 6's. Jeffrey displayed his own ID, though he was too far in for the guard to read it. Montgomery pointed to the blast door, and shouted something more. He pointed again for emphasis.