“Wait a minute,” Willa said, “you’re telling me there has never been a storm like this off Oregon or Washington before?”
“Nope,” Gladys replied. “Not in our recorded history.”
“Then why do we have one now?”
“Climate change?”
Jason, she thought. He said the pattern of the earthquakes was un-natural. This hurricane has to be as un-natural as the earthquakes. Could they be related? She pulled her cell phone out and punched in her sister’s number. “This is Willa McBride. Is she available?” She waited. “Liz, this storm in the Pacific Northwest. What’s going on?”
She heard her sister breathe out quickly. “Sis, it’s going to get bigger. You need to take every precaution to protect the people of Dolphin Beach.”
“How much bigger?”
“A lot. We’re looking at tens of billions of dollars in damages. Do whatever you have to do to protect your people.”
“How soon?” Willa asked.
Her sister paused. “Five days, eight, max.”
Willa felt like her head was spinning. “What can we do?”
Another pause. “Listen, Willa, you’re going to have to evacuate Dolphin Beach. There isn’t going to be any other option. Prepare your people. When the evacuation order comes, get everybody out — fast.”
“Okay, thanks.” She looked up.
Gladys had a worried expression on her face. “Bad?”
Willa’s heart was crying inside her chest. She didn’t think it could be any worse. “We’re going to have to abandon Dolphin Beach.”
CHAPTER 39
Guang Xi was in the torpedo room reviewing his maps of the Cascadia Subduction Zone that had been recorded by a Chinese spy ship the year before. Captain Hu Xiao entered and Guang Xi approached him.
“We need to place these mines exactly on the fault line. How will we know exactly where we are in relation to this map?” Guang Xi asked.
“We have modified the side sonar and placed three new sonar nests on the bottom of the sub,” the Captain replied. “We will use a single very weak sonar pulse in the ultrasonic range aimed at the bottom of the ocean. The new sonar array will give us a three dimensional image of the ocean floor, very similar to the map you have. The targeting computer in the sonar room will give you our exact position. When the mine lands on the bottom of the ocean floor we will hear it and the computer will give us its precise location.”
“Okay, that will work,” Guang Xi replied. “The first mine is the least critical, so that will allow me to make corrections for how long the mine will drop for all of the others.”
“We have reduced speed to eight knots for silent operation. We will reach your first target in twenty eight minutes.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Guang Xi said. “I will be ready.” Then he thought of something. “Captain, can we go any deeper? The bottom of the Subduction Zone is still more than 6,400 feet down. That’s a long way for the mine to fall.”
The Captain paused. “This is the deepest we tested for in the sea trials. Theoretically we can go down another 500 feet, but the sub is old, and if something happens at that depth, we all die and the mission is lost. There would be no way to recover from a mistake.”
“Given the risk of losing the mission,” Guang Xi said, “the potential loss of accuracy isn’t worth the risk of losing the entire sub. Besides, as we had said, the first mine will give me an exact fall time so I can adjust for all of the other mines.” The only thing he could do now was take a guess. He tried to estimate the weight of the mine, the surface area and resistance of the mine and probable terminal velocity which depended on the density of the water, which, of course, increased with depth. He ran through some trial calculations. The variations were just too great.
“Captain,” Guang Xi asked, “how slow can we go over the target area?”
“Technically, as slow as you want, but the speed becomes irregular below one knot.”
“No, we need a speed where we can exactly duplicate the conditions every time,” Guang Xi replied.
“Then one knot is it,” the Captain replied.
“That would reduce our margin of error by a factor of eight. It will increase our time from target to target slightly, but it’s still within workable limits.” Guang Xi ran through his calculations again. “Yes, as we approach the target, reduce speed to one knot. Once the mine is released we can resume speed.”
“As you wish,” the Captain replied.
As they approached the Mendocino Triple Junction, the Captain slowed to one knot. Guang Xi decided to set the timer on the first mine to exactly 72 hours. That would give them time to deploy each mine and move away at high speed once the last mine was deployed. They would be a hundred miles away when the mines went off. He made his best guess at the fall time. The sailor in the sonar room pulsed the sonar transponder and three seconds later an image of the ocean floor appeared on the screen in the torpedo room. Guang Xi made his final calculations and activated the mine. The sailor in the torpedo room closed the door to the torpedo tube, flooded the tube and opened the outer door. He told Guang Xi he was ready. Guang Xi looked at his watch and counted down the seconds. At the calculated time he pushed the large button that launched the mine into the sea. The sailor notified the Captain that the mine had been launched and the sub increased speed to eight knots. Five minutes and forty two seconds later the mine hit the bottom of the ocean floor. The sound of the impact, registered by the hydrophones mounted on the sub, created an image on the computer screen showing the exact location of the mine. Guang Xi compared his calculations to the actual fall time. He was off by thirty-three seconds, which put the mine fifty feet off target; close enough for the first mine.
Just under two hours later the sub slowed again to one knot. The mine was again placed in the torpedo tube with the timer facing the opening. The soft sonar pulse gave them the surface contour of the ocean bottom. Guang Xi compared the contour to his map, made his calculations, and set the timer. The sailor closed the torpedo door, flooded the tube and opened the outer door. Guang Xi counted down the seconds and pushed the button that launched the second mine. When the mine hit the bottom, Guang Xi examined the image and smiled. The mine landed exactly on target. Guang Xi’s punishment of America had begun.
CHAPTER 40
After six hours running at flank speed the Massachusetts was 260 miles north of San Francisco and still not a whisper from the ghost sub. Lieutenant Tiffany Grimes was the Officer of the Deck, which meant she was running the control center. Silverton motioned Tiffany over to the tactical display.
“We’re directly off Cape Mendocino, California,” Tiffany said. “In order to keep our distance from the coast, we need to change course fairly soon, don’t we?”
“We do,” Silverton replied. “Your recommendation?”
“True north from here,” she said.
“Go ahead, Lieutenant. Make it so.”
She smiled at the Star Trek reference. “Helm, ten degrees right rudder, come to course 000,” she ordered.
“Ten degrees right rudder, change course to 000, aye-aye, ma’am,” the helmsman answered. After forty five-seconds came the new course confirmation, “Heading true north, ma’am.”
She wandered forward to the sonar room and peered in. “Anything?”
“Nothing yet, ma’am; just the usual stuff; whales chattin’ up a storm, if you could call it that.”