The president stepped back and looked at the map he’d drawn. He added a series of little Xs. “The U.S. East Coast ports and navy bases.” He drew a line from the U.S. diagonally across the map to the middle of the African west coast. “Our main line of supply, for the moment, to our forces holding out in Africa… At least until we can pick up the pieces in the Indian Ocean and get supplies to them that way. The loss of Diego Garcia was a very hard blow.”
“I understand.”
“The Congo basin and surrounding highlands are some of the best defensive terrain in the world. Steep mountain escarpments, massive river barriers to cross, pestilential jungles… That’s the main reason the pocket has survived this long.”
“The Sahara and Kalahari Deserts are owned by the Axis,” Jeffrey stated.
“Germans here.” The president pointed to the Sahara, in the northern part of Africa. “Boers here.” He pointed to the Kalahari, in the south. “Us in the middle, but most of our tanks in that theater ended up on the bottom of the sea.”
“I remember.” In the initial ambush that had started the war, three American aircraft carriers were also sunk or damaged beyond practical repair.
“Here’s the deal, Captain. The Axis is making a big buildup in both their parts of Africa. It’s evident they intend to launch a new offensive soon, out of the good tank country in the deserts and into the Congo basin. They intend to envelop the Allied pocket, cut it off from both coasts…. We’ve known for months we don’t have anything near the massive airlift capacity needed to keep the pocket open in the face of a major enemy offensive. It’s just too far to fly, planes spend too much time in the air compared to on the ground unloading. And it’s simply too vast an area, with huge numbers of soldiers and civilians needing sustenance, for the cargo tonnage to make it through by air.”
“It sounds pretty serious, sir.” Jeffrey knew Germany possessed a culture of war fighting on the Dark Continent that went well beyond General Rommel’s famous exploits: in World War I, they’d had a big troop contingent in southern Africa, jockeying with the British over colonies both countries held there. That German Army — including loyal native formations — performed brilliantly in the awful jungle. They had been undefeated in the field when German resistance in Europe collapsed in 1918…. And South Africa under old apartheid owned a strong and self-reliant defense force, well blooded repulsing incursions by then Communist-dominated neighboring states. The Boers thus could draw on a whole generation of white males, now in their late thirties and up, every one of whom had two years of hardening military service — before democracy was forced on them from the outside in ’94. These men and their sons now formed the core of the Boer Army; the many South Africans of English ancestry — and blacks faced with the choice between obedience and starving — further bulked up combat units or worked in logistics and admin support. Pro-apartheid South Africans also had a long track record of secret collaborations with foreign powers on nuclear arms — in the seventies and eighties it was Israel…. Later it was the schemers behind the new Imperial Germany.
“We intend to punch through the Atlantic with a major resupply convoy, to get food and medical supplies and weapons and ammo to the pocket. A really huge resupply convoy, Captain, escorted by the most powerful naval fleet ever assembled. I won’t say how many carrier battle groups, it’s classified and you don’t need to know. Their air wings and the weapons load-outs on all the cruisers and destroyers and frigates will be optimized for a balance of antisubmarine warfare and cruise-missile defense. Not to mention protection by a lot of our fast-attack subs… I won’t say the number, you do need to know, but this room might not be secure enough.”
“Yes, sir.” Gears began to turn in Jeffrey’s head.
“We expect the Axis is as aware of this resupply effort as we are of their upcoming offensive. So both sides are locked in a deadly race, our convoy versus their land attack. Who can get the jump on whom, which of us achieves our big goal first… We expect the bad guys to throw everything they have at sea at the convoy and escorts. And they’re rushing right now to get their land offensive ready and moving…. It’s very touch and go how much of the convoy will make it, and whether the remnants will even get there before the Axis land push opens and our pocket gets pinched off. The time pressure here is appalling.”
Jeffrey digested all this soberly. He knew from old wargames of the USSR assaulting NATO in Europe that the Pentagon expected 50 percent losses in Atlantic reinforcement convoys hounded by Soviet attack submarines. Now Germany had nuclear subs, including fast and quiet ones she’d grabbed from France. “The situation sounds very critical, Mr. President.”
“It is. Believe me, it is.”
“Just where does Challenger come in?”
The president drew a big question mark over Northern Europe on the briefing map. “You know the Germans with help from Russia have built a new ceramic-hulled nuclear submarine similar in basic concept to our steel-hulled SSGNs.”
Jeffrey nodded. SSGN was the designation for a handful of Ohio-class strategic-missile boomer subs whose missile tubes and related weapons-targeting equipment were modified. Each of the two dozen vertical tubes in the “Sherwood Forest” aft of the sail — “conning tower” in old-style parlance — was fitted with a sleeve. Within that sleeve the tube held seven Tactical Tomahawks or other cruise missiles instead of a single submarine-launched ICBM tipped with multiple hydrogen bombs. A single SSGN could carry about 150 Tomahawks, a very strong force for projecting power onto land.
“Until today we had no idea where the new German SSGN was being hidden, Captain. Now we’re pretty sure we do. Infrared and visual satellite surveillance data seem to jibe with a garbled report the Brits say they got from a Norwegian resistance group. A short-lived but odd heat signature out of ventilator shafts from under a mountain in northernmost Norway. Sabotage attempted but failed. Then suddenly increased signal traffic between Russian surface warships in the Norwegian Sea. All of this just within the last hour or two… The different pieces of the puzzle strongly suggest the German SSGN is putting to sea, if she hasn’t already.”
“Armed with a hundred fifty nuclear-tipped supersonic antiship cruise missiles.” Jeffrey made it a statement not a question. He was truly stimulated, and very worried, now.
“Yes. And we don’t know if they’ve got any of those scary Mach eight missiles left…. The Axis is under huge time pressure too, getting their SSGN into combat. One of the few things we do know about this monster is its name, by the way. The Admiral von Scheer.”
“Cute,” Jeffrey said sarcastically.
“Yes, the ironic historical reference has not been lost on our naval intelligence people.”
“The von Scheer is going after the convoy. Our convoy’s sailing is forcing their hand.”
“Roger that.” The president drew a dotted line on the map, from the question mark in Northern Europe diagonally down toward the mid-Atlantic. “And you, Captain Fuller, and your crew and your ship, are going to go after the von Scheer.”
“Sink the von Scheer, protect the convoy, relieve the African pocket.”
“Precisely. We’re playing a very high-stakes game of dominoes here. If the von Scheer sinks you, or gets past you and destroys the convoy, all the dominoes fall. If we lose our toehold in Africa, I don’t want to think how we’ll ever dislodge the Axis from there or continental Europe.”