Fox shook his head. He'd taken Doctor Swamphen to the right place and they'd dived all over the area. Their high-frequency mine avoidance sonar was mapping the seabed around them and it showed the valley and river banks that had been the course of the Rhine before the North Sea had come in and flooded the plain. Once he'd even caught sight of what may have been the remains of a riverside village. Perhaps not though, the mine sonar wasn't designed for mapping and its readings were ambiguous to say the least. He'd marked the spot on the charts nevertheless, perhaps one day people with better equipment could come back and have another look.
“So, where does this leave us Swampy?”
“Well, with an opportunity of course. People don't win Nobel prizes by proving theories right, they get them for proving them wrong and coming up with better ones. That's science, we're always checking theories and discarding one's that don't fit the evidence. In (his case, it comes back to what I was saying before we left, the whole undersea world is unimaginably complex and we're just getting a handle on how complex it is. We've been trying to predict the weather for how many years now? And we've got it right how often? Then SAC take their bombers up higher than anybody has ever done before and they've started to find a whole group of things up there that we didn't even suspect. Same with us down here. We haven't reached the point yet when we know how little we know.”
“Very good, that's all very interesting, but what about this contamination we've been sampling. Now there isn't an undersea river down here, is that good or bad?”
Swamphen looked thoughtful for a few moments. LLA bit of both I'd say. We were hoping that the river running under the sea would sweep the contamination out to the Atlantic where it would be so dispersed it wouldn't matter. Now, unless there is something else down here we don't know about - and there almost certainly is - that's gone out the window. The good news is that the spread of contamination is going to be much more limited; I'd guess this finger here” he tapped the chart on the table “'has reached about as far as it's going to go. The bad news is that the degree of contamination in the affected areas is going to get a lot worse than we thought before it starts to subside. The really bad news is that, without that river, the North Sea is a closed system. What goes in, doesn't come out. The undersea Rhine we all thought was down here would have acted like a sewer, it would have spread contamination around a bit but flushed it out of the system as well. Without it, nothing's going to leave until it decays.”
“And how long will that be?”
Swamphen looked thoughtful again. “Based on the figures we have so far, I'd say the degree of contamination is going to increase for at least ten years. Then, it'll start to fade. Fifty years perhaps before the centers of the contaminated areas are safe? Even during mat time, sailing over them will be safe enough. Sailing through them, well, don't do it too often. Do you like Herring Robert?”
“Not particularly, no. Too oily, gives me the runs.”
“That's OK then. You won't miss the North Sea and Baltic herring fisheries. They're gone. And the fishing industry they supported. The fishermen will have to convert to deep sea or find other employment. And speaking of the Baltic, that's a whole other question. When the Americans took out the Baltic ports and shipyards, they exploded their atom bombs in contact with the ground.”
“I thought that's what all bombs did.”
“Not these new ones. When it comes to most targets, apparently its more effective to explode them, initiate them in Nuke-talk, over the targets. High enough so the fireball doesn't touch the ground. However, where the target has a lot of really strong structures, like graving docks and U-boat pens, then they drop the atom bomb so it lands on the target before it explodes.
“The problem is that creates a huge plume of really vicious radioactivity, fallout it’s called, and that's been spreading along the coast. Contaminating the water like there's no tomorrow, Which, for the fishing industry tip there, there isn't. The whole Baltic is seriously contaminated, the Swedes and Norwegians are creating hell about it. The Finns would, only they appear to believe that if they make noises, the entire Russian Army will occupy the country and rape it clean. A not unrealistic assessment by the way. The Danes have just abandoned their Baltic coast although I think they are being pessimistic. As far as we know, the main water movement is west to east. Unfortunately as we7ve just proved, we know virtually nothing. Robert, what are your orders?”
“Basically, to take you where you want to go and do what you want to do as long as I don’t hazard the boat or her crew in the process. To do as much training as I can and get this boat properly worked-up in the process.”
“Can we go to the Baltic?”
“From what you've said, that comes under the heading of hazarding the crew.”
Swamphen nodded. Faced with the knowledge of what the Americans had done to the Baltic and how little they knew about the movements of water, Fox's fears were reasonable. “How about this. We make course for the Skagerrak, taking readings all the way up. If my guess is right, contamination should drop quickly as we head north and then pick up again. When it gets to the same levels we have here, we turn around and give it up. Sound fair?”
“Fair enough.” Fox's voice betrayed his reservations. He'd already decided that he would be looking at rate of increase as well as absolute levels, and if he didn't like what he was seeing, they would get out of the area. Then he had an ugly thought, if they were both this worried about contamination while still in the North Sea, just what were the levels in the Baltic like?
The Oval Office, the White House, Washington D.C.
“Senator Joseph Kennedy to see you Sir.”
President Dewey cursed beneath his breath. The election was only months away and, according to the polls and the commentators, it was too close to call. Although Harry Truman was the face of the Democrats in this campaign, the reality was that Kennedy and his clique was taking over behind the scenes. One of the issues that Kennedy's clique of Democrats was driving hard was PoW/MIA. Prisoners of War and Missing in Action. The problem was that there were all too many of the second group and all too few of the first were being found. Kennedy and his supporters were spending their time attacking the administration for ''not bringing the boys home” and “forgetting the prisoners”.
Those accusations made Dewey's stomach knot with anger. How dare this bombastic SoB throw accusations like that around. When he'd been the Ambassador in the U.K., Kennedy had been in deep with Halifax and his Cliveden set. It was a level bet he knew what Halifax had been planning. Dammit, back then Kennedy had been close to being a Nazi supporter himself. That had only changed when.....
“Joe, it’s good to see you again. What can I do for you?” Dewey's welcoming voice echoed in the expanse of the office.
“You can find my boy.” Dewey's words had been friendly if insincere. Kennedy's were loaded with hate and totally sincere. Dewey was old-school politician, and whatever the differences in position, politicians kept their opposition professional, not personal. Participants in the give and take of politics didn't allow political differences to interfere with personal relationships. Truman was old school as well, he and Dewey were friends beneath their rivalry.
Kennedy and his clique were different. For them it was politics was personal and political differences were best solved by destroying everybody who did not agree with them. There was no give or take and solution by compromise for them. If they won, they took everything, if they lost they destroyed as much as they could to make their opponent's victory as barren as possible.