“If PACOM don’t know where they are and if they are undetectable below the surface, then the enemy can’t know where they are, not even if they have a mole inside Pacific Command or any of the other navy command areas,” Turner continued.
“There must be another way,” said Preston. “We haven’t used nuclear weapons since 1945 and there’s a good reason for that.”
“Satellite communications are still patchy since Pine Gap got hit. We have no military to speak of anywhere near the Antarctic. The whole Antarctic continent was declared a military free zone since the 1960’s for God’s sake. McMurdo Station, even if we could even reach them, is full of meteorologists, glaciologists, geologists, oceanologists and about every other ‘ologist’ you could think of, but no military and no weapons. Besides, they’d never be able to fly to the Ronne Ice Shelf with the weather as it is.”
“But a nuclear strike? Seriously?” Preston pressed the point that he wasn’t on board with the nuclear weapon launch.
Finally Preston’s boss chimed in, “Henry, there’s no other way. We had a research sub down there — they went dark. We’ve had confirmation that the covert ops guy and one other we deployed from Pine Gap were dropped over the area, but they’ve gone dark, too. We have to assume we have no assets in the region.”
“But are we even sure this… this thing is even on board the U-Boat?” implored Preston.
“Son, we’re not sure of anything but the fact remains that this device can never fall into enemy hands, it can’t even fall into our hands. It’s just too dangerous and the consequences are beyond horrific. We’ve even had unconfirmed chatter regarding a neo Nazi organization that have been looking for it for decades. Can you imagine what would happen if they found it? My God, if that happened then you’d be begging me to send in the nukes.” Turner jabbed a finger at Preston, his cheeks flushed with anger.
“It’s a done deal,” Turner commanded. “As soon as a sub with nuclear warheads on board makes contact, they will be given the coordinates and nuclear strike orders.” He continued, “You’re only job is to manage the communications and see that everyone else stays the hell out of that hot zone. Have I made myself clear, Preston?”
With a barely perceptible nod, Preston capitulated. But that didn’t mean he had to like the idea.
Chapter 29
The crew mess aboard the Barracuda was more spacious than Jack was expecting. Suited up in the pair of borrowed engineer’s coveralls, he’d made his way to the mess with Leah in tow to find out what had everyone excited. Loudly animated voices could be heard all the way to the sick bay.
As they entered the mess, Leah maneuvered her way past Jack to introduce her team, Dave and Juan and the two submarine officers, Captain Frank Jameson and the Executive Office, Peter Durand. All four men leaned forward and shook hands with Coulson before taking their seats and scooching over to make way for Leah in the booth.
Sam sat alone in his own booth. He’d managed to dry his clothes. Jack suspected they didn’t have anything to spare that would fit him, anyway.
“Leah, this is Sam Krupsky, my U-Boat expert.” After Jack made introductions he sat next to Sam. “I suppose you’ve told them the story of how we came to be here, not that I’d expect anyone to believe it.”
Sam nodded.
Jack sensed something was off. Sam wasn’t himself.
“What’s all the excitement about? Tell me you didn’t find a hoard of Nazi gold on the U-Boat, Sam?”
An awkward silence fell over the small group.
“I wish I did,” said Sam. His expression was grave. “I found the U-Boat commanders log book on one of the bunks and there’s a non-standard compartment on the boat that’s been welded shut.”
“That’s not unusual, is it?” asked Jack.
“From the inside.” Sam’s face darkened further.
“And then there’s this.” Jameson held up the leather bound log, its dog eared pages filled with a neat and very precise script and passed it to Jack.
“I speak enough Arabic and Farsi to get by in the Middle East, but my training didn’t include any German, I’m afraid. They’re on our side, after all.” Jack flipped through the log, regardless.
“That’s alright, I took enough German in college to make out most of what’s in there,” Durand offered. “Up until a few days before the log finishes abruptly,” he went on, “it’s a boring narration of life aboard a U-Boat. Navigational data, weather, crew issues, damage reports. Boring as bat shit. Until…”
Jack waited for him to continue. The man clearly had a sense for the dramatic.
“Until?”
“Until some kind of experiment with what they refer to as a Wunderwaffe… that’s Wonder Weapon,” he explained.
“Yeah, I kind of worked that out.” Jack didn’t really care for Durand. His instincts were rarely wrong and they were on full alert with this guy.
“Anyway,” Durand continued, unfazed, “it seems the captain, Helmut Sohler wasn’t too happy with having the weapon on his boat or he had some other beef with the guy that built it Kam—”
“Kammler,” Juan broke in, “the guy who built the weapon was Dr. Hans Kammler, a real nasty piece of work, even by SS standards…”
All eyes were now on Juan who realized that he’d interrupted the XO.
“Don’t stop now,” Leah encouraged, “you’ve got us hooked.”
“The name didn’t mean anything when you first said it,” Juan acknowledged Durand, “but it came to me just now. He was a top ranking Nazi General, reporting directly to Hitler. Those gas chambers disguised as showers in the concentration camps… they were Kammler’s brainchild. He did a bunch of other stuff, too, like the V2 rockets. He was supposed to be a hot shot engineer.”
“And he came here? On the U-Boat?” asked Sam.
“That’s the thing, he disappeared after the war. The Russians claimed the Americans had him as part of Operation Paperclip and the Americans thought the Russians had captured him and were using him to develop their own nuclear weapons program.”
“Operation Paperclip?” Leah raised her palms, not having a clue what Juan was talking about.
“That’s what the U.S. government called it. They scooped up a couple of thousand super smart Nazi scientists brought them to America and gave them and their families new identities and jobs in our own top secret military programs.”
“No way,” Leah objected.
“Yeah, way,” Dave cut in. “When I was studying the history of sonar technology, we learned a lot from research done by some of those guys. Their work was way ahead of anything we’d come up with during the war.”
“And who do you think put us on the moon?” asked Juan.
“Kennedy?” Leah suggested.
“Werner Von Braun. The same Nazi rocket scientist who developed the V2 rocket to destroy entire cities came over to our side and became the designer of the Saturn V rocket that put the first man on the moon.”
“Is this another one of your tinfoil hat conspiracies?” Leah arched a skeptical brow at Juan.