He slowed, pulled back on the controller, and rose to a position above and behind the damaged MakoShark. Looking down on it, he saw that a fifteen-foot-wide slice of skin had peeled away from the upper wing, taking the radio antennas with it. The ribs, spars, and fuel tanks were fully exposed.
“Goddamn,” Munoz said. “I don’t know how he’s making the speed he is.”
“Has to, to maintain lift, I expect. This is going to be one high-speed landing.”
McKenna touched the throttles, and Delta Blue advanced on her sister ship. He banked slightly outward to give Conover some room, then flashed his wing tip lights.
Delta Yellow jiggled a little at the shock of seeing them. Abrams turned on the cockpit lights so McKenna and Munoz could see that they were all right.
They waved, and Munoz switched on his own cockpit light and waved back.
With a flashlight, Abrams Morse-coded their damage estimate, which included a malfunctioning navigation computer. The backup wasn’t working, either.
The fuel supply was adequate for recovery in Chad. Conover wanted his aerospace craft repaired immediately, top goddamned priority. He had an appointment in the Greenland Sea.
McKenna depressed the Tac-2 button. “Alpha One, Delta Blue.”
“Go ahead, Delta Blue.”
“We’ve got them.”
“Son of a bitch!” Overton said.
“That’s pretty mild,” McKenna said, “compared to what I’m reading in Morse code.”
Fourteen
Kapitän Ernst Blofeld accepted his mug of coffee, then sat on the single sofa in the admiral’s quarters, next to Werner Niels, the admiral’s aide. It was a spartan room without even a picture of the admiral’s family present, but Schmidt suspected it was spacious and homey to a submarine commander. He thought that men who were amenable to life under the sea had to be somewhat crazy, but he respected their courage.
The steward backed out of the compartment and pulled the door shut behind him.
Schmidt was in his swivel chair at his desk, the top of which was exceptionally neat, and he turned toward the submarine commander. “Well, Captain?”
“There has been no damage to the cables, Herr Admiral. We traversed the area three times, utilizing remote video cameras, and found everything intact.”
“Were they even close?”
“It is difficult to tell, but we located several possible points of impact. None were closer than twenty meters. The torpedo guidance mechanism must target on electromagnetic generation sources, but the cables are well armored, and the presence of other sources in the region, such as the ships, must confuse the torpedoes.”
Schmidt nodded his understanding. “What else, Captain Blofeld?”
“We have discovered three sonobuoys in the last couple of days, and we have destroyed them.”
“So. They are listening to us?”
“Yes. Generally along the line of the cables. They were American sonobuoys.”
“I do not doubt it. Undersea traffic?”
Blofeld sipped his coffee. “The Ohio was snooping around the fringes of the platforms two days ago. Yesterday, the signature of the Soviet submarine Typhoon was heard to the east of Svalbard by the Bohemian. They run when we approach, Admiral. They are not even interested in games of tag.”
The Bohemian was the second of the submarines assigned to the Dritte Marinekraft.
“But for how long will they run, Ernst? We are, I think, testing the patience of people in high places in Washington and Moscow.”
Werner Niels said, “General Eisenach and the High Command seem to think they will eventually go away.”
“Among the three of us,” Schmidt said, “General Eisenach and the High Command are fools. They rely on the introduction of their magical Ghost missile to establish instant military and political parity. It will not happen. I think it is up to us to defend the GUARDIAN PROJECT.”
“The Stuttgart claims a MakoShark kill,” Niels said. “Perhaps we will prevail simply by attrition? The Americans have only four or five of the machines.”
Blofeld looked at Niels, then the admiral, and proceeded cautiously. “The commander of the Stuttgart may be mistaken. We detected no aircraft crash on sonar, and we could find no debris.”
Schmidt had been skeptical, himself. He had been on the bridge during the battle, had seen the MakoShark for only moments at the time it dropped its torpedoes, and had marveled at its slippery image and acceleration. “You are very likely correct, Ernst. The stealth craft have proven to be close to invincible. However, we also have some invincibility. I believe that, short of using tactical nuclear devices, which they will not do, the Americans will be unable to breach the cables. We are going to leave the fifth battle group to patrol this region.”
Niels got up, retrieved the insulated pot the steward had left behind, and poured more coffee for everyone.
“And I believe that the Americans and Soviets know, or think they know, the true nature of the wells. They will not attack them for fear of creating a fury they cannot quell. Tell me, Ernst, if you were seeking a way to destroy the system, how would you go about it?”
“Without attacking the wells, and knowing that I could not reach the undersea cables, Admiral?”
“Exactly.”
“I would infiltrate frogmen under Platforms One and Eleven and attach limpet mines to the cables collected there. All twenty-four cables from the platforms congregate at Platform One and, I think, Platform Eleven, as the alternate distribution center, now has nine cables in place.”
“You think that way because you are a submariner, Ernst.”
“Of course, Admiral.”
“But I happen to agree with you. Niels, we want a message to the Twentieth Special Air Group, requesting that sonobuoys be sown around the perimeter of the offshore wells and along the ice. We will listen for intruders, as well as position our battle groups around the platforms.”
“As you wish, Admiral,” Niels said, jotting the note on his pad.
“And, Ernst, I think that the Black Forest and the Bohemian will give up their patrols of the cables. You will concentrate your efforts around the wells.”
Delta Blue slipped into her bay, then came to a stop with a whoosh! of the forward thrusters. As the hangar doors folded shut behind him, McKenna and Munoz began shutting the operational systems down.
Polly Tang waved at them from the window overlooking the bay. McKenna waved back, then contacted Beta One and dumped the maintenance files.
“Got it,” Mitchell said.
“And, Brad, I want full service on Blue immediately. What’s the status on Green?”
“Lube and oil coming right up, Kevin. Green arrived two hours ago. All systems checked out, and she’s being refueled right now.”
“Good. Great.”
“Tell me, please,” Mitchell said, “what Con Man did to my bird.”
Among maintenance people, ground crews, and pilots, there was an unresolved dispute over ownership of an aircraft or, in this case, an aerospace craft. It didn’t matter that the taxpayer had put up the cash or that the air force held the title.
“When I left Hot Country, Brad, they were still running checks. So far, the primary navigation computer has to be replaced — it took a chunk of shrapnel, four solid fuel containers are cracked, two wing ribs and one wing tip spar need to be replaced, she needs a new right rudder and two thruster nozzles, and we’ve got to replace two hundred square feet of wing skin that disappeared. He burned up a couple tires getting it on the ground at two-eight knots.”