But what did it matter saying that? Everyone knew the odds. At least for another hour this portion of the line in Anaheim still held. It would give command time to reorganize. Maybe it would give the teenagers time to stop and catch their breath. Maybe it would even give the Militia enough time so their nerve returned and they went back to holding their part of the defense.
Like a deadly Great White Shark, the Virginia-class fast attack submarine glided through the deep. It was in the main shipping lane between Chinese-controlled Hawaii and the U.S. Pacific Coast.
It sped from its grisly handiwork, the sinking of a Chinese SI transport, with thousands of dead and dying Chinese soldiers in the water. With critical intelligence received twenty-eight hours ago, the South Dakota had moved into range, then crept into position and Captain Leroy Clay had proceeded to hunt.
Two modified Mark 48 torpedoes had left the tubes and demolished the large cargo vessel. Now the submarine glided away, heading deeper, sinking through a cold-water layer, called a thermocline.
The sonar men listened. The rest of the crew waited in terrible anticipation and Captain Clay stared into space. He was a six-foot-six black man, often having to hunch as he moved through the submarine.
There, the sounds of distant, underwater explosions told the story.
“They’re hunting us now,” Captain Clay said.
“They’re well out of range, Captain,” the chief sonar-man said.
“And we’re going to keep it that way,” Clay said. “Conn, take us deeper. I want the cold water layer hiding us.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
For the next thirty-seven minutes they played the old cat-and-mouse game first begun in World War I between the British and Germans. The submariners endured the hammering thuds against the skin of their vessel. None of the depth charges—giant grenades really—were near enough to cause concussion damage against the hull integrity of the fast attack submarine. This time the South Dakota was going to beat the Chinese, or they should have.
Forty-one minutes after the sinking of the SI transport, the rules changed in the deadly game at sea.
“I think they’re leaving, Captain,” the chief sonar-man said.
Clay nodded, and he continued to wait. It was perhaps his greatest virtues as a submarine captain.
Later, the sonar-man added, “I don’t hear any enemy ships, sir.”
“They can still use helicopters to drop the depth charges,” Clay said.
The South Dakota continued with silent running. Fifty-three minutes after the transport’s sinking, the sonar-man cocked his head. He might have heard—
A terrific and terrible underwater explosion occurred. This depth charge wasn’t any closer than the previous ones had been. The difference was in its explosive power, fueled by a nuclear warhead. Then came another enormous explosion.
The first concussion shock slammed against the South Dakota, tilting the submarine and throwing officers and crew out of their chairs or positions and onto the deck. Before they had time to right themselves, the second shockwave struck, breaching the integrity of the hull, ripping it open like a bear smashing a can of beans.
Cold ocean saltwater poured into the submarine. Captain Leroy Clay looked up from where he lay on the deck. Water boiled and rushed toward him. He would have won. He had won, but the Chinese were changing the rules.
The water picked up the six-foot-six captain and hurled him against a bulkhead. It knocked him unconscious and then ocean water flooded the South Dakota. The crumpled war vessel sank like a stone, beaten to death by nuclear detonations.
Ushered in by the secretary, Anna timidly stepped into the Oval Office. President Sims sat behind his desk, leaning back as he spoke to General Alan. The two of them seemed to be in an earnest conversation. Both men turned as the secretary and Anna entered.
“Ms. Chen,” Sims said. “Good, I’m glad you’re here. Perhaps you can help me convince the General I’m right.”
The secretary quietly took her leave, closing the door behind her.
“Help, sir?” Anna asked.
Sims scowled as he said, “The Chinese Navy has begun to use nuclear depth charges against our submarines.”
Anna closed her eyes as if she could shut out reality. If she couldn’t see it, it wasn’t real. Here it was—the escalation of nuclear weapons. This was exactly what she had feared. She opened her eyes, deciding to face fate head on.
“Using Levin’s spy-ring in Beijing, our commanders were able to target several SI transports, but at a terrible cost to our dwindling submarine fleet.” Sims shook his head. “We’re running out of options. If the Chinese have begun using nuclear weapons at sea, we have no course but to do the same.”
“Oh,” Anna said.
General Alan became stone-faced.
“First the attack in Donner Pass, now this,” Sims said. “It has to stop. We no longer have any choice.”
“Uh…if you’ll recall, sir,” Anna said, “we used nuclear weapons first.”
Sims’s face thundered and he banged a fist on the desk. “I need to speak with Director Levin.”
“Sir, if you would just—” Anna said.
“Not now,” Sims said. “The Chinese are raining nuclear weapons—”
“Mr. President!” Anna said, speaking louder than she ever had to him.
Sims raised an eyebrow, glanced at General Alan and sat farther back in his chair.
“Sir,” Anna said, speaking more softly and with greater deference. “You know surely that I understand the Chinese mindset.”
“Dr. Levin made that clear to me, yes.”
“I think if you take a step back a moment, you will see that they have carefully chosen how they use these nuclear weapons.”
“Explain that,” Sims said.
“The Chinese have not targeted cities and they have refrained from attacking land formations.”
“It’s simply a matter of time now before they do,” Sims said.
“Sir, I would like to point out that we used nuclear weapons first. In the Alaskan War, we used nuclear torpedoes on two different occasions. Not once did the Chinese do similarly.”
“Are you suggesting the Chinese are superior to us,” General Alan asked in a biting tone.
What’s wrong with him? Anna wondered. She and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs were on the same page regarding nuclear weapons. Now his racial bigotry was interfering with his better judgment.
“I’m simply pointing out that Jian Hong must have been under tremendous pressure to retaliate against us,” Anna said, “to allow his military to hurt us with nuclear weapons just as we’ve hurt them.”
“Then you are saying they are morally superior to us,” Alan said. “You’re suggesting we forced them to use nuclear weapons.”
“If that’s true,” Anna said, “then they forced us to use them. They attacked us. They’re invading our country, which makes them the aggressors. Men—and women, too, for that matter—aren’t always logical. In my opinion, we are not even rational beings, but rationalizing ones. We act on our emotions and then make up reasons—rational sounding reasons—for why we do X Y and Z.”
“What are you suggesting with this mumbo-jumbo?” Sims asked.
“That further nuclear weapon usage will escalate into a possible world-wide holocaust.”
“Our ABM stations will protect us from that,” Sims said.
“We’ve seen three different instances now where the nuclear attack came from everything but an ICBM,” Anna said. “Will the ABM stations protect us from other, imaginative nuclear weapon use?”