Leah, Dave, Durand and Captain Jameson all rolled their eyes at Juan’s crackpot theory.
“What about the German U-Boat full of enriched uranium we captured after Germany fell. What do you think happened to that? I’ll tell you — it ended up in the ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ bombs they dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that’s what happened to it. Enriched uranium was as rare as rocking horse shit back in those days. Mock me if you want, but I’m telling you—”
“You’re telling us what you’ve been reading in those stupid conspiracy theory blogs you’re so addicted to,” Dave broke in.
“Well, let’s see what Herr Sohler has to say about it, shall we?” Juan turned to Durand and signaled for him to continue.
“In his final entries, it looks like they made it here to this base and that’s where he starts not making much sense. Sohler claims The Bell is in a lead lined compartment on board our U-Boat over there. He’s positive it’s an atomic bomb and he doesn’t want German, or anyone else, by the sound of his ramblings, to have atomic weapons. He keeps mentioning his wife and child and how he doesn’t want them involved in an atomic war.
Then he goes off the rails and documents his plan to seal up the compartment containing this ‘atomic weapon’ and scuttle the boat so it never gets found.”
“He clearly didn’t get around to doing that did he?” Juan suggested.
“The only way we’re ever going to know for sure is if we get a look inside that compartment,” Captain Jameson spoke up, having stayed out of the conspiracy theory argument.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea. What if there’s a dead U-Boat captain in there? Eeew!” Leah screwed up her nose and shivered.
“From a tactical point of view, I think we need to take a look. It’s becoming obvious that there’s a lot going on here we don’t understand and that U-Boat and its cargo, whatever it is, seems to be the center of attention. The more we can find out about what’s going on here, the better our chances of making it through this debacle.”
“The Captain’s right,” Durand agreed.
Juan rubbed his hands together. Finding the answer to one of the greatest mysteries of the Second World War might almost be worth getting shot at. Almost.
Chapter 41
“Man battle stations missile.”
“Man battle stations missile.”
A raucous alarm whoop whooped throughout the boat causing a frenzy of organized chaos from aft to stern.
‘This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill.”
Following an unspoken convention that could only ever be understood by experienced submariners who had earned their ‘Dolphins’, sailors hugged bulkheads to let others pass in both directions, men slid down companionways, others climbed up. The whole boat moved to a hectic choreography of men moving in all directions at once without ever colliding or causing bottlenecks and it was all performed to a blaring cacophony of alarm bells.
“This is the Executive Officer. The launch of nuclear weapons has been authorized and verified. This is not a drill.” The XO cradled the mic solemnly and turned to the commander.
“Thank you Mr. Merrill. You have the Conn — take us to launch depth and enter the target package for tube one.”
“Aye, sir. I have the Conn.”
The commander made his way to his stateroom where the missile keys were housed in a locked safe. Only he knew the combination.
“Take us to launch depth,” the XO ordered as he punched the target package into the missile control system console. Beads of sweat crowded his brow.
What felt like an hour later, but in reality had only been a few minutes, Commander Ryan returned with a launch key swinging from his neck by a red lanyard.
Merrill had seen the launch keys a hundred times before during missile drills but only now in this grim scenario did he note, ironically, that the keys that fired a missile bearing a nuclear payload was almost indistinguishable from his own gym locker key. He wondered why they made them look so bland and innocent.
The Launch Control Officer had retrieved his key from his own safe the minute the XO had called battle stations missile. Only he had the combination. Manning his station at the Attack Center, he verified the target package and waited for the commander to give the order to initiate the firing sequence. Both the Launch Control Officer and the commander had to insert and turn their keys at the same time before the missile could be launched.
As soon as the target package had been entered by the XO and confirmed by the Launch Control Officer, the missile in Vertical Launch Tube one began to spin up its gyro and initialize its onboard GPS to lock in its exact launch position. With that information and the target package successfully uploaded, the nuclear tipped Tomahawk would fly undeterred to the target area and deliver its warhead to devastating effect.
The ready light on the indicator screen turned green.
The Commander and the Launch Control Officer inserted their keys and on the Commander’s count of three, turned them clockwise a quarter turn.
The LCO flipped up the bright red safety cover guard exposing the missile launch switch.
Commander Ryan gave the command, “Fire missile one.”
The LCO pushed the fire control, his nerves strong and his fingers steady. This is what he’d been trained to do.
The missile, one of six clustered in the latest Virginia Payload Module, was propelled from the submarine. Initially launched with a fiery and spectacular solid-fuel rocket booster, once airborne and clear of the water it appeared to hover in space for a moment, then it deployed its stubby wings, whirred up a powerful turbo-fan engine and accelerated toward its cruising speed.
This particular missile was programmed to use its jam resistant GPS to navigate to target in sea-skim mode at subsonic speed just above the waves until it hit its target with pinpoint accuracy.
The 2,000 mile, 4 hour countdown had begun.
The men aboard the USS Indiana didn’t see the spectacular launch of the missile or hear the boom as its solid booster lit up and spewed flames and white smoke from its tail. They remained in the silent, dark depths of the South Pacific and would do so until ordered to stand down or launch another missile. In the meantime, they would have time to reflect on being the first submarine to launch a nuclear missile with hostile intent.
Chapter 42
“Peterson, SITREP,” Muller said quietly into his throat mic. He’d heard a hell of a lot of shooting from the docks and needed a situation report ASAP.
No response.
“Peterson. Respond.”
Still no response. Losing his second in command wasn’t something he’d factored into his action plan. Muller needed to check the status out in the bunker first hand.