"They're surging," said the XO. "There's a lot of activity on the coast, in the ports, but mostly it's still inland, at least for now, as they're moving into position for the jump-off."
"Thank you, Mr. McTeale. Are we feeding this back to Admiralty?"
"Live and in color, without commercial breaks, ma'am."
"Whom do we have there interpreting for them?"
"Lieutenant Williams, Captain. He just got into London this morning, but he's had a few sessions up there already. They'll listen to him."
"Of course they will," she said. "He took a blue in beer drinking at Eton. Speaking of which, best ping Major Windsor and get him up here. I suspect his little jaunt is about to go wobbly."
"Aye, ma'am," said McTeale. "About that, there's this business of the data burst. I suggest you have a shufti in your ready room, Captain. It might be hot."
Halabi knew better than to second-guess her exec. "Okay. I'll make it quick.
"Mr. Howard," she called out to her intel chief. "You're with me. McTeale, I'll leave you here to keep an eye on all this. Ping me if any more nasty surprises develop. Have Major Windsor join me in the ready room."
"Aye, ma'am."
She spun out of the CIC with Lieutenant Howard in tow. They found the SAS officer waiting at her door with Lieutenant Poulsson, the Norwegian commando.
"What is happening, Captain?" asked Poulsson. "Has the invasion begun?"
"Pretty much so, Lieutenant. You'd best join us, too, I suppose. Is that all right, Mr. Howard?"
"Actually, I think Lieutenant Poulsson needs to see this, ma'am. It partly concerns his mission."
They squeezed into the small space, where a flat screen was already displaying some of the data burst that had arrived without warning. Halabi closed the sliding door behind them.
"So what am I looking at, Marc?"
"A rare bounty or a giant con, Skipper. It's a file dump. A big one. There are hundreds of subpackets I still haven't decompressed and decoded. Mostly they're in German, but there was one attachment in English. Here."
The intel boss brought up a simple text message:
Attention Trident. Attached you will find information detailing accelerated weapons programs of the Reich Armaments Ministry. Also, some details of Operation Sea Dragon, the early phases of which you will have now detected. Do not contact me. I shall contact you when possible.
"I see," said Halabi. "What's your first reaction Marc? Is it for real?"
Lieutenant Howard chewed his lip. "My gut feeling is yes, it's real. It's come in via a secure Fleetnet channel the Germans probably wouldn't know about. I haven't had time to check, but I think it's one of the subroutines we authorized for the Sutanto."
"Which the Japanese got."
"Right. And they stripped her. This guy has access to a pad, too. He's figured out how to use the secure links, or somebody's told him. There's no indication of who he is or why he'd do this, but anything's possible. Maybe he was a Rommel fan."
"They're all dead," said Harry.
"I am sorry," Poulsson interjected, "but where do we come in? You said there was something of relevance to our mission."
"My German isn't up to much beyond getting into trouble at Oktoberfest," said Howard, "but one of the highlighted files was this."
A new window jumped to the front of the screen.
"Holy shit," said Harry.
They all turned to him.
"My German is fine," he said, "And that's a document about the heavy water plant. Do you mind?"
He took a seat in front of the flatscreen and began to read, and then to scroll down.
"Oh, dear," he said after a minute.
"Major, would you like to share with the other children?" asked Halabi.
Harry turned around on the swivel chair. "If this is good," he said. "Telemark is a no-show. It's sitting there to distract us from a fast-fission program they've set up with the Japs."
"What does that mean?" asked Poulsson.
"Nothing good," said Captain Halabi.
A chime sounded from the monitor, and McTeale appeared in a pop-up window.
"We've got incoming, Captain. Jets again. About twelve of them, this time."
"Sound to general quarters," she ordered before turning to Harry and Poulsson. "Gentlemen, you should continue with your preparation, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to talk to London. I think everything just turned to shit."
Alarms began to blare throughout the ship.
23
None of them could be trusted. Hidaka was as sure of that as he was of anything.
The helmsman was probably the most reliable. He seemed a brute, and had become fast friends with some of the Nazis on board. The boy, Danton, looked like he would piss himself to death at the first fall of shot in the water. And Le Roux…
Hidaka sighed quietly. It was a difficult thing to accept, that the fate of the empire should rest in the greasy hands of such an ill-bred cretin.
As the magnificent warship known as the Dessaix sliced through the long, rolling swell of the Pacific, Hidaka did his best to contain the resentment that was burning in his gut as the slovenly chief petty officer lounged in the commander's chair and held forth about the glories of France.
Hidaka had come across a phrase in an English language journal that he thought better encapsulated the current position of France. Cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
"Do you find something funny, Commander?"
"I was just thinking of the look that will appear on Kolhammer's face in about half an hour," he lied.
"Uh-huh," grunted Le Roux, before barking something at Sublieutenant Danton in their native tongue. The boy flinched under the lash of harsh words.
Hidaka was long past being shocked by the lack of respect this oaf showed for his superior. Even though Le Roux was older and vastly more experienced than Danton, Hidaka thought him foolish for taunting the boy in such a fashion. The young man was far and away the most proficient officer on board.
Indeed, he had wondered what had motivated Danton to throw in his lot with Le Roux and the Germans, especially after hearing about the other crewmembers who had offered false allegiances, only to attempt to scuttle the ship at the first opportunity. But Le Roux had vouched for the boy, saying that he had a personal motivation of unquestioned validity. Two American marines had raped and murdered his sister.
The ship burst through the crest of a roller that was significantly bigger than the general run of the swell. Hidaka felt the floor tilt forward as they tipped over the summit and raced down the other side. The blue trough between the waves rushed up to fill the bridge's strip of blast windows. The Dessaix handled beautifully in these heavy conditions, steered by her Combat Intelligence, cryptically referred to as Melanie by the Frenchmen. Hidaka still remembered the embarrassment he had felt the first time he heard the ship "speak." He had nearly jumped out of his shoes, unleashing great mirth amongst the Europeans, and even some of the Indonesian sailors.