“There it is. If CINCLANT and the president want that ship boarded, there’s the only place it will be possible. I estimate five hours until the hurricane’s eye if the phantom’s drift remains the same. If not, we’ll have to have one of the heavy cruisers attempt to take her in tow.”
Devers leaned over and silently concurred with the estimate. “Captain, maybe those in power have thought this through, but what if the Russians find out we’re attempting to board that derelict?”
Thorne laughed but immediately regretted it when he saw the anxious young faces of his control room crew.
“I guess at that time we’ll find out just how important this hunk of junk is to someone, won’t we?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Okay, let’s take one more look. Up scope,” he said as the chrome-and-plastic scope rose from the deck. “Damn, that thing is riding pretty low in the water. Either she’s taking on water and foundering or she’s far heavier than her listed displacement tonnage. If that’s the case, we need to—”
The flash in the eyepiece of the periscope sent the captain back hard enough that he almost lost his footing. It was as if the sun had exploded in the advanced optics of the scope.
“Captain, what—”
A pressure wave slammed into Houston, swinging her bow around fifteen degrees before her thrusters corrected her programmed position. She rolled hard to starboard and then to port as she finally started to settle. The captain gained his composure, and then, rubbing his eyes, which felt like they had been burned from his skull, he grasped the handles of the scope again and looked. He closed his eyes once more and rubbed them. He peered through the eyepiece again, expecting to see nothing but flaming wreckage on the surface of the rolling seas. Again, a bright flash and the Russian ship vanished. Before he could say or do anything, another bright flash that lit up the dark skies again wreaked havoc with his vision and the optics. The lens cleared, and then the vessel was back, rolling and pitching and sinking into a deep depression.
Houston suddenly went dark. Not even her emergency lighting came on. All her boards went out along with the overheads. Then, just as quickly, electrical power sprang back to life.
“Electromagnetic pulse?” the first officer asked, concerned when the captain started moving the periscope to the left, right, and then settling once more.
“I don’t have a clue, but that damn ship is still there. Chief of the Boat, I want a damage assessment and diagnostics run on everything.”
“Aye.”
The captain again slammed the handles of the scope to the up position and then lowered it. He looked around the control room at the anxious faces staring at him. He took a deep breath and then nodded at his first officer.
“Okay, take her to five hundred feet and hold station. Use thrusters to keep us even with the Simbirsk. Sonar, conn, I want shifts rotated every thirty minutes. I want fresh ears listening for any untoward intruders to our little drama.”
“Conn, sonar, aye. No contacts at this time other than our three sisters a hundred miles off. We did have a spike in the infrared band ten seconds before power shut down and another spike in radiation output at the same time.”
“From Houston?”
“Negative, conn. It came from our phantom.”
Throughout the boat, the rumors were really starting to fly. It seemed the USS Houston and her surface cronies were about to attempt the boarding of Russian state property, and they knew those same Russians wouldn’t be too fond of that little development. Now, they realized that whatever that ship was, it could possibly have the potential to send Houston and her crew to the bottom of the Atlantic.
The USS Houston went deep with her crew’s knowledge that there was something out there that rattled one of the most experienced submarine skippers in the world.
4
Rear Admiral Harley Dickerson — Scooter to the men and women who knew him best — was waiting outside the national security advisor’s office with none of his staff present. General Maxwell Caulfield, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had been talked into taking the advisor’s job after the Overlord incident the previous year. He saw his old friend as he strolled into his outer office. After greeting his assistants and getting his missed calls, he turned with a curious look toward the man waiting patiently. He read the messages as he smiled toward his visitor.
“Scooter, what in the hell brings you out of that dungeon at the Pentagon? You spooks haven’t had enough after our little alien encounter?”
Harley Dickerson stood and shook his friend’s hand. They had worked together closely during the past three years of dealing with the Overlord incident. Dickerson was a liaison between DARPA, the US Navy, and several other darker entities inside defense circles.
“Max, we need to talk,” was all Dickerson said as he leaned in with Caulfield’s hand still clutched in his own.
The general raised his brow and then glanced at his two assistants. “I’ve got a briefing with the president in”—he looked at his watch—“fifteen minutes, Scooter. Can it wait? We have a developing situation at sea regarding the Operation Reforger IV exercise. We had to cancel the damn thing last night, a little coup for our friends the Russians, but if—”
“Max, make the time — now.”
Caulfield saw the anxiety in the younger man’s face and then simply gestured to his open door. “Liz, no calls for the next few minutes.”
Once inside the small office, Caulfield offered Dickerson coffee, and he refused, opting to open his briefcase instead. Caulfield sat behind his desk. He looked at the pictures of his family and the uniform he once wore. The old marine corps blues were a part of his past life now. Today and forever afterward, Maxwell Caulfield would be wearing what it was he was wearing today, civilian suits from varying Men’s Discount Warehouse stores. And as his assistants both quipped, he had absolutely zero taste in civilian clothing. Yes, he missed the far simpler life of a marine.
Dickerson tossed a small stack of photos and typed pages onto Caulfield’s desk and then sat back down. Max saw the man he knew as unflappable bite on a thumbnail as he picked up a photograph and scanned it. The black-and-white image depicted a very grainy view of a large ship. It was low in a depression inside a deep trough of water, something Caulfield had experienced many times in his career aboard ships. The vessel was in heavy seas.
“One of ours?” he asked, looking up at Dickerson.
“No. This was taken through the periscope of a tailing submerged asset in the North Atlantic last night. This was transmitted this morning to our offices and those of the chief of naval operations.”
“Why isn’t Jim Hardy bringing this to me, then?” Max asked as his eyes bored in at Dickerson. This was a breach of military etiquette. His boss at the Pentagon should have been briefing him personally on anything having to do with Operation Reforger IV.
“The admiral isn’t in this loop, only my department at intel. Besides, by the time I started explaining things to him, this thing could blow up in our faces.”
“What could blow up?” Caulfield asked.
“Max, we have a seventy-five-year-old ship of war out there that was reported sunk before the end of World War II. The name of the vessel is the Simbirsk, a Russian battle cruiser verified as being sunk by the German navy in 1944.”