And like all officers, he’d been itching for a chance to fight a real fight ever since the day he threw his midshipmen’s hat in the air.
Not that Dex could blame him. Whoever these guys were, they deserved to be hammered for killing everyone on the Sea Dog. All those years in the Navy had taught him there was only one way to handle the death of your brothers, and that was keep a lid on it until the distraction couldn’t make you just as dead.
“Forward SSM battery,” said Captain Danvers. “Confirm target coordinates lock.”
“Target locked.”
“You may fire, gentlemen.”
Everyone on the bridge, including Dex, had turned to look through the glass at the forward missile battery as it rotated slowly into optimum position. There was a loud whoosh! as two SeaHawk surface-to-surface missiles leapt in tandem into the cold gray sky. For an instant, they seemed to hang as if suspended by unseen wires before the thrust of their rockets reached full throttle and they disappeared in a burst of eyeblinking speed.
“Birds away. ETA three minutes four seconds.”
Despite his experience with weaponry and how quickly it evolved and changed, Dex was still knocked out by the SeaHawks’ capabilities. Homing in on the target at four times the speed of sound, the two missiles would chew up the hundred-plus miles so fast, the enemy would never see it coming. And even if they did, they wouldn’t have the time or technology to do anything about it — except explode.
Which is exactly what they did.
“Impact,” said the ensign as Dex watched the digitized target on one of the LCDs blink red several times before vanishing from the screen. The Isabel Marie was gone.
The usual round of cheering filled the bridge, and Dex knew what would be next. Time was running out for him, especially since Whitehurst had taken no notice of him whatsoever.
The loudspeaker interrupted his thoughts. “Seal Unit ready for launch in five.”
Whitehurst smiled as he heard the update, then spoke into his mic. “Get in there and get them, gentlemen.”
That was his last chance, thought Dex. Now or not at all.
Moving away from the bulkhead, advancing to the group of men by the array of command consoles, Dex moved to face Admiral Parker Whitehurst.
“Sir.” Dex tried to look resolute and somehow nonchalant. “I need a favor.”
Chapter Fifty
He had no idea how long he stood, watching the soldier and the scientist. The two men had been down on all fours, kneeling, half-sinking into the muck, peeling away layers of grit and glacial mud like mini geologic strata.
The silence held them like a vacuum chamber, pierced only by an occasional whisper of caution or instruction. Erich slipped into a brief flash of memory when Manny and Kress had originally placed this demon device on this spot. How quickly and with such cavalier confidence they had worked. Of course, back then, none of them could have ever imagined the power of such utter destruction which slept beneath their fingers.
Sinclair touched Erich’s elbow, and he ignored it.
He almost felt giddy, as if he might start laughing — at something not at all funny, which increased his feeling of inappropriate levity.
He was actually standing here one more time. In a place he’d vowed he’d never see again. In a place he had found so… so disturbing, and believed it best to destroy it. And not surprisingly, he still felt exactly the same way.
The oppressive weight of the giant cavern, its ruins, and the air itself began to press down on him. He blinked his eyes, and there he stood. Right behind Hawthorne as he unearthed the final strands of wire and the remains of Kress’s impromptu detonator-timer — which had sat there in total refusal to do its job for seventy years.
“There it is,” said the nuclear tech. “That little bastard.”
Hawthorne swallowed hard, wiped beads of sweat from his forehead, then produced a railroad kerchief which he used to clean the lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses.
Sinclair exhaled very slowly, softly. In a low voice, he continued. “Okay, we got the last piece. How’s it work?”
The apparatus was standard equipment in all U-boats to ensure an event catastrophic enough to send a submarine to the bottom. Admiral Doenitz had proclaimed it far better to destroy an entire submarine then allow the Allies a chance to get their hands on the Enigma Device — the heartspring of the German code.
Other than the sandy grit, everything looked unscathed by time, as free of corrosion as the day it had been placed in position. Slowly, Erich pointed out each component, explaining all to the best of his memory. When he finished, he exhaled slowly.
“Is that timer mechanical,” said Hawthorne. “Spring-driven?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Erich. “I would say yes.”
Entwhistle leaned close. “Still looks pretty good, like it could still work.”
“Stainless steel,” said Erich. “Nothing was spared on something so important. Only the best materials.”
Hawthorne leaned closer, squinted. “So we’d better be thinking it’s still able to function.”
“Yes,” said Erich. “But, remember — it did not work as my engineer had planned it.”
Hawthorne nodded. “Well, I’d sure like to know why… before I started messing with it, don’t you think?”
Nobody answered him for a moment, then Entwhistle cleared his throat before speaking. “Does that mean you think this piece of flapdoodle could pop off?”
“Original configuration looks intact. If the timer had worked, it would definitely have ignited the dynamite.”
“Is that enough?” said Sinclair. “For the actual detonation of the nuke?”
Hawthorne shook his head slowly, licked his lips. “It looks elegantly simple and direct. The concussion and heat from the explosive round… well, that fires the plate-piercing shell into the nose of bomb, which compresses the fissionable material. The result is an atomic reaction.”
“Sounds like a lot of things have to go right,” said Sinclair “Are you sure about that?”
“The only reason it didn’t happen is the timer — it never worked.” Hawthorne looked pensive, tilted his head a bit as he shrugged. “The problem is that timer. Everything else had a built-in inevitability to it. Once the chain of events kicks in, there’s no stopping it. In fact, it’s essentially instantaneous.”
“So what went wrong with the timer?” said Sinclair.
“Good question,” said the scientist. “It could be as simple as a piece of dirt or other foreign material stuck in the spring’s trigger. If that’s the case, even the slightest movement could fire it.”
One of the crewman shook his head. “If it was that delicate, the ballgame would be over by now. We already moved it some — just by digging it out.”
“Was there any gross movement when the dinghy sank into the sand?” Sinclair looked at the technician.
“Not necessarily,” he said. “I think this change in state was very, very gradual. The rot and the water and the shifting sand. All so slow as to be imperceptible.”
“So where do we bloody stand?” said Entwhistle.
Hawthorne paused to consider this question. The moment of silence was ominous, overwhelming. As they all huddled around the device, enclosed by the immense underground cavern, Erich could feel a heavy pallor descending over them.