Submerged after offering Israeli early warning aircraft a blatant opportunity to detect it, the Goliath made eight knots towards Israel. Jake dialed up an eight-knot speed for the Crocodile, and the line between the Israeli submarine and the Goliath shifted to bring both vessels to the same place at the same time.
“This only works if the Crocodile’s crew knows where the Goliath is heading,” the Aman officer said.
“Leave that to Terry,” Jake said. “He’ll pop up every hour or so to track Israeli assets on his radar, and if he finds something within range of his cannons, he’ll show off his itchy trigger finger. The Crocodile’s crew will have plenty of knowledge of where he’s going.”
“They won’t suspect the trap?”
“They’ll assume that Terry’s zig-zagging at his maximum submerged speed of thirteen knots, which makes eight knots in his baseline direction believable. I expect he’ll throw a little variance into his path so that it’s not an exact straight line, but the Crocodile’s crew will know where to intercept him.”
“And if you stick at your present speed of four knots in a straight line, you’ll set up an ambush roughly here.”
The Aman officer pointed at the chart.
“Good guess,” Jake said. “I’ll head in that direction at four knots and deploy two drones a few hours before we get within reach of the Crocodile. I’ll probably do some zigging of my own, but four knots average over ground. Slow, methodical, easy. The Crocodile is being handed to me on a silver platter.”
“Yet you appear anything but confident,” the officer said.
Jake snorted.
“That’s because I’ve never had any battle set up so easily in my favor. So that means something has to go wrong.”
“Merde!” Henri said.
The French mechanic turned and walked to his station.
“What’d I say?” Jake asked.
“You just jinxed us,” Henri said.
“I didn’t know you were superstitious.”
“I’m not. I just know when I need to start praying, and when you jinxed us, I felt the urgent need to pray.”
Jake glanced at the chart.
“Before you tune in with Jesus, can you get us on course one-three-five?”
“Coming to course one-three-five.”
“Very well,” Jake said. “We’ve still got eight hours until we’re near the Crocodile. I’m going to take a nap. Have someone make sure I’m awake in five hours. Get your replacement at the ship’s control panel up here to relieve you, Henri. You have the bridge while I’m gone.”
In his stateroom, Jake added an entry in the ongoing journal he kept for his wife. He wrote it on waterproof paper under an unproven belief that the writing would last for her as a final salvageable gift if his mission ended on the bottom of the sea.
After affirming his love and adoration for her with annotations of his mindset about the mission, he slid under his sheets and slept for the first time in a day and a half.
The thumping at his stateroom door felt early, and he glanced at his watch. He’d slept for two hours.
“Enter,” he said.
A young sailor opened the door and spoke English with a heavy French accent.
“Henri requests your presence on the bridge. He has news from Pierre Renard.”
After shaking his head to swish mouthwash between his cheeks, Jake stopped at a scuttlebutt, spat, and washed the green ooze down the drain.
He continued to the control room and joined the French mechanic beside the central chart.
“I received an update from Pierre over the low-bandwidth feed,” Henri said. “He wanted to call your attention to two Israeli Sa'ar 5 corvettes moving together in formation with two Sa’ar 4 missile boats and three patrol craft that have formed a task force. The task force also is on course to intercept the Crocodile before it can reach the Goliath.”
“Interesting,” Jake said. “They only have three Sa’ar 5 corvettes in their entire fleet. This is a serious response for their limited surface combatant firepower.”
“Quite interesting. Pierre thinks it’s positive evidence that the Crocodile is seeking the Goliath with anti-ship missile support from the corvettes.”
Jake did quick addition.
“That’s thirty-two Harpoon anti-ship missiles if my math is right. So I’m thinking the Israelis are going to try the squeeze play to put Terry in a bind between running from a torpedo and diving under missiles.”
“I’m sure Pierre has warned him,” Henri said.
“But he hasn’t changed our plans, which means Terry’s still the bait for the trap I’m going to spring. And now I’m springing our trap while facing two extra bow-mounted sonar systems, two extra towed sonar systems, and four helicopter decks.”
The Aman officer folded his arms.
“And remember the unmanned vehicles,” he said. “The corvettes can carry unmanned helicopters and Seagull robotic undersea hunters.”
Jake recalled having daydreamed during the briefings the Aman officer had given him about the vast array of domestic techno-gadgets. The tiny nation behaved like a leading developer of everything automated and deadly, but Jake thought only a fraction of the ideas would reach mass production.
“Would the helicopters carry weapons?” he asked.
“No, they’d be just scouts. Miniatures, really. But the Seagulls would be armed with small torpedoes.”
“How small?”
“About the same size as an air-dropped weapon.”
“That’s big enough to sink us,” Jake said.
“Yes, it is. Each Seagull carries two of them, and each corvette can carry two Seagulls, which hunt as a pair and can make thirty-four knots.”
Jake realized he needed to respect the automated hunters.
“How good’s the Seagulls’ sonar?” he asked.
“They’re high-frequency, as you’d expect on a small craft,” the Aman officer said. “Terrible at long distance, excellent if close. The Seagulls are optimized for minesweeping. Anti-submarine warfare is their secondary function, but they are dangerous. If a Seagull gets within a few miles, we’d be in a dire situation.”
“Got it,” Jake said. “I’ll try to avoid them.”
“At least there’s a benefit from this,” Henri said. “We now can use the surface ships as a guide for the location of the Crocodile.”
“Somewhat,” Jake said. “We have at least five and half hours until we tangle with this new Israeli task force. Henri, let’s hash this out a bit.”
The Frenchman leaned into Jake’s ear and spoke in his native tongue. Jake shifted his brain into the thought and speech patterns of the Romance language.
“Something seems wrong,” Henri said.
“Like they’re trying to gift us the bulk of their fleet all at once?” Jake asked.
“Exactly. The Israelis are too smart to sacrifice so many ships to an ambush.”
“But that’s the point of an ambush. They’re not supposed to know it’s coming. They’re supposed to be only thinking about Terry.”
“But they know we’re out here somewhere after sinking the patrol vessel in the blockade.”
Jake scoffed.
“We could be on the other side of the Mediterranean by now as far as they know.”