“At ease,” McCallum called out as he squeezed into the officers’ wardroom. The captain sat at the end of table, placing a file folder with a Top Secret cover in front of him.
“Gentlemen, we’re currently operating under direct orders from the National Command Authority. You can read into that the President himself has authorized this mission. Our mission is to proceed with all speed to designated grid coordinates north of Puerto Rico and remain on-station until further orders. Our task is to destroy the USS Wyoming, which is currently missing, if it reappears with hostile intentions, before it can launch any of its ballistic missiles.”
“Sir-” his executive officer, Commander Barrington began to protest but McCallum cut him off.
“Before disappearing, the Wyoming’s crew received a fatal dose of radiation. If it reappears, you can be assured that it would not be manned by our fellow sailors.”
McCallum could see the shock on his officers’ faces. He knew it was best to hammer home the situation and let them sort it out afterwards.
“Gentlemen, there is a strong possibility that the Wyoming might reappear with people other than the crew on board. In the 70’s a Russian submarine that disappeared into the Devil’s Sea gate reappeared a week later. The Russians sunk it. When our people tried to recover the wreckage they pulled up a section that had bodies of men who were not part of the crew on board. The nuclear warheads had been worked on and some are still missing as far as we know. No one knows how these non-crew members got on the ship, but the fact is they were there.
“And, as you all know, a Trident- which had to have come from the Wyoming- was fired out of the Bermuda Triangle gate yesterday and nuclear warheads were detonated in the Atlantic Ocean. That leaves twenty-three Tridents unaccounted for.
“And something else tells us subs can come back out of this gate, sometimes long after they’ve disappeared.”
McCallum reached to his side and opened the door. Another officer wearing the same rank stepped in- the only difference was that this officer’s uniform was outdated, not worn since the Navy upgraded in 1975.
“Gentlemen, this is Captain Bateman of the USS Scorpion.”
Given that the Scorpion had disappeared in 1968 the appearance of the ship’s captain- and his relatively youthful appearance belying thirty years- the officers of the Seawolf forgot even military formality for a few seconds, before belatedly springing to their feet, as required when the captain of a ship entered the room.
“At ease, gentlemen,” Bateman said.
As the officers retook their seats, Captain McCallum opened the file folder and pulled out some pictures. He passed them around the table. “This is the Scorpion. It is currently being held under cover in the pens at Groton. As you can see, it appears as it did on the day it disappeared over thirty years ago.” McCallum pointed to his right. “As you can also see, so does Captain Bateman. Gentlemen, he doesn’t know why any of this happened or even how, but because he is sitting here in front of you, we have to accept it has happened. Captain Bateman is here to assist in whatever way he can as we patrol near the anomaly known as the Bermuda Triangle gate.
“We know little about this area- which you can see on the satellite imagery defined by the black triangle. Captain Bateman’s ship was part of an experiment in 1968 to learn more about it. While a SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance plane entered a similar area over Cambodia called the Angkor gate, the Scorpion entered the Bermuda Triangle gate to attempt to make radio communications with the Blackbird. This would prove that there was a link between the two sites. I’ll let Captain Bateman tell you what happened.”
Bateman was a short, balding man, his face pale. His eyes held a distance to them and as he spoke he kept them on the table, not making contact with anyone. His left hand had a tremor to it and he gripped the edge of his chair to keep it still.
“We entered the area. We didn’t have much information about what we were doing, other than crossing into a certain area and attempting to make communications via a surface buoy. We were on a heading of nine-zero degrees at a depth of two hundred feet. Our location was about sixty miles north of the northwest end of Puerto Rico.
“We began transmitting on high frequency radio. We made contact with the Blackbird, even though it was over Cambodia- which was not possibly unless the signal was traveling through the anomaly we were in directly to the anomaly the aircraft was in.
“The Blackbird began reporting system’s trouble,” Bateman’s voice was almost a monotone. “We were ordered to abort. I told the helm to come hard about. Then we got pinged.”
“Sonar?” McCallum asked.
“It was like someone was using sonar on us, but the tone was slightly different. I didn’t have much time to dwell on that because we then had a problem in the reactor. Instruments indicated a coolant line failure. I ordered the reactor off-line.
“Then we picked up something very big coming in our direction on radar. Very big.” Bateman looked up from the table for the first time. “I’d never seen anything other than a land mass that large on the radar screen except this object was moving. I ordered us to emergency surface.”
Bateman fell silent.
“And then?” McCallum prompted.
“And then nothing,” Bateman said. “I blacked out. Everyone on the crew did. When we came to, we were cruising at two hundred feet in the same general area we had been in before. Except it was over thirty years later, the reactor was fine, and we had people on board who had come through what you call the Angkor gate. That’s all I know.”
“Our concern is to stop anything coming out of the gate,” McCallum said. “There are no plans to go into it. We are to stand off at a safe distance and be ready to engage targets.”
“What if the large contact my ship picked up comes out?” Bateman asked.
“We will engage and destroy it,” McCallum said.
“I think you need to be prepared for system failures,” Bateman said. “I didn’t have time to even think about combat when we were attacked. This boat is very nice and you have very sophisticated devices, but I recommend you come up with a plan to fight if you lose all your sensors and targeting equipment.”
“Our master computer has a back-up,” McCallum said to Bateman. “It’s also shielded to survive the electro-magnetic pulse generated by a nuclear explosion.”
The captain turned to his officer. “You have your orders,” McCallum said, ending the meeting. The officers filed out of the stateroom.
McCallum went to his stateroom. Built into the wall, next to his small desk, was a safe. It held the key that allowed the captain of the Seawolf to launch nuclear weapons. It also held sealed orders McCallum had been handed by a CIA man just prior to sailing.
McCallum opened the safe and retrieved the envelope holding the orders. He cut through the seal and slid the piece of paper out. He read through twice then ran the paper through his shredder. He picked up the phone on his desk and ordered the officer in charge of navigation to make a slight change to their course and destination.
Chapter 6
Ragnarok turned the rudder over to Bjarni, and sat down on the rearmost bench. He peeled back his tunic to check the wound on his shoulder.
“You must clean it out,” Tam Nok said. “The wounds of these creatures can be poisonous.”
Her comment irritated Ragnarok, as if he had never been wounded before. Every weapon could cause poison to grow in the body. The skin had been sliced smoothly. Ragnarok squeezed around the edges, forcing more blood to flow out. He called out for Askell the Healer. The old man, bent from years behind an oar, made his way down the ship and peered at the wound with sad gray eyes.