Overlord (22 page)

Captain Miles Von Muller took the report from the sonar officer, examined it, and handed it back.

“I see old Arnaud worked out the station-keeping problem they had with their thrusters.”

“Yes, sir,” Von Muller’s first officer, or number one, said as he folded the report. “It looks as though the Marine Nationale have a keeper on their hands.”

Von Muller nodded his head. “For now we’ll await them to egress from the North Sea. Then we’ll come shallow and report to the admiralty that the
Suffren
is now a viable asset for our friends across the channel.”

“Aye, Captain,” the first officer answered.

Von Muller started to rise from his chair. “Until then, match speed and course and let’s follow
Suffren
a while, and collect what we can from her power plant noises. Keep her at fifteen knots and three hundred in depth. Let’s stay above the thermal cline for the moment.” He smiled, “No sense in letting our friends know we’re near and interested.”

“Very good, Captain.”

“I think I’ll take some tea and settle in for a while. You have the conn, Number One.”

“Number One has the conn.”

Von Muller started to move aft, patting men on their shoulder and nodding his head in thanks at their performance.

“Conn, sonar, we have a light contact bearing two-three-seven. Contact is intermittent at this time.”

The captain immediately stopped and looked back at his first officer. He watched the man take the 1MC mic from its stanchion.

“What do you mean intermittent?” The first officer thought a moment and then clicked the mic to life once more. “Either the
Suffren
is there or it’s not.”

“Sir, this is not the
Suffren
. The Frenchies are slowing to five knots. I think they see and hear the same thing we are.”

The captain strode quickly back into the control room and nodded his head, indicating that he would take it from there—his tea would wait.

“Captain has the conn,” his first officer said as he turned and sped for the sonar shack.

“All stop, quick quiet,” came Von Muller’s order.

“Captain, sonar,” his first officer called from the aft compartment, where the Thales Underwater Systems Sonar 2076 was located. The Thales system was the newest and latest in British technology and the men were well aware of its sensibilities. If she said there was something out there you could bet your mother’s pension check that there was indeed something in the tree line. They all felt the massive submarine decelerate as she came to a full stop. “I believe we have a contact two kilometers to the south. It comes shallow and then goes deep. We have a hard time tracking her below the layer. Captain, there
is
something out there.”

“Americans?” the chief of the boat asked the captain in a low tone.

“No, the Americans know the way the game is played. They bloody well invented shakedown tracking. They have other things to concern themselves with in the South China Sea, with the Koreans. This is something else. What is the
Suffren
doing?”

SSN
SUFFREN

Arnaud had ordered all stop as his sonar was below the thermal cline and thus had much better information than their British counterpart. They could see the object at one half mile away holding perfect zero-bubble station—as if it were waiting. Arnaud noticed that the target was sitting right in the middle of the swiftest current in the North Sea and she refused to budge one inch in any direction, up, down, sideways, or backward—the object was anchored like a rock at six hundred feet.

“What are the dimensions?” Arnaud asked as he leaned over the operator’s shoulder to see the multicolored waterfall display on the screen.

“We may be having an issue here, sir. We think it may be as much as six hundred feet…” The young operator paused. “In diameter, Captain.”

“Diameter? You mean this thing is—”

“It’s round Captain. That is not a submarine. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a normal submersible.”

Captain Arnaud turned to face his second-in-command and leaned toward him, as he looked like a man wanting to say something. “What are you thinking?”

“The alert we received from Fleet before leaving on our first shakedown last month. Any abnormal contacts beneath the surface are to be reported immediately when contact has been confirmed not to be a submarine.”

“We don’t even know that yet. We cannot report a partial contact no matter what mysterious orders we have from Fleet. We need—”

“Captain, contact is now active and it’s moving straight toward us at high speed,” the operator said.

“What is their speed?”

“No speed estimate at this time; the computer is having a hard time keeping up.”

“Bring the crew to battle stations, submerged.” Arnaud hurried back to the control room. “Weapons,” he called back to his first officer. “Load tubes one through four with war shots.”

“Aye, Captain, tubes one, two, three, and four with Sharks.”

The Black Shark, as the Italian-made torpedo was known, was a heavyweight in the world of submerged warfare. The fiber-optic-controlled weapon could speed out of the tubes at over fifty-five knots. She could punch a hole in most anything even without her powerful warhead detonating.

Arnaud entered the control room to face the uneasy faces around him.

“Range to target?” he asked as he studied the sea and its surroundings.

“Target aspect change, it’s now slowing, slowing … It’s stopped dead in the water again, Captain.”

“Stopped where, sonar?”

“One moment, conn … Conn, contact is at one hundred meters to our bow. Target is holding station.”

Arnaud looked to his first officer. “The goddamn thing is nose to nose with us. What in the hell are we dealing with here?”

“Captain, we are close enough to use the camera in the sail. Bring the exterior tower floodlights up and see if we can get a look at this thing.”

Arnaud nodded his head. “Weapons, standby, we may have to shoot from the hip.” He smiled in false levity for the benefit of his young crew. “As our American gunslinging friends might say.”

The lightness the captain displayed brought some uneasy smiles to the men manning their stations, but no real relief.

“Lights are up 100 percent, camera coming online.”

Most submarines of modern navies are equipped with cameras hidden behind high-pressured glass located in the tall sail structure. It was used for driving boats under the ice and close-in situations where radar and sonar could only give you numbers, while high definition and ambient light cameras gave you real-life viewing.

Captain Arnaud took a few steps toward the twenty-seven-inch monitor as the picture started to clear. The bright floodlights illuminated the bow of the new submarine, and through the bubbles rising from her steel, sound-absorbing skin Arnaud saw the object. His eyes widened and he looked at his first officer.

“Jesus Christ, what in the hell have we here?” Arnaud asked as curious eyes tried to get a glimpse of the thing blocking their way home. “Maneuvering, back us off to five hundred feet—dead slow.”

“Dead slow astern, aye.” And a few seconds later: “She’s answering two knots astern, Captain.”

They all felt the slight movement as the
Suffren
slowly eased back from the saucer-shaped object. Arnaud watched as the distance grew between the two very different vessels.

“Conn, sonar, target shows no aspect changes at this time. It’s not following.”

“Orders, Captain?”

“We already have our orders, Number One.” His eyes met those of his younger first officer. “Directly from Fleet at L’Ile Longue. I’m beginning to believe someone knows something very peculiar that they’re not telling us. Well, I guess that’s beside the point now, our orders are to report immediately so that’s just what we’ll do.”

“I assume those orders don’t include not defending ourselves if we have to?”

“Orders sometimes can be very ambiguous.” He smiled at his first officer. “Weapons officer, if that thing so much as blinks put four Sharks down its throat—I don’t care how close it is. Set your safeties on the fish accordingly.”

“Aye, Captain, fish are warmed and ready, safeties set to three hundred feet,” came the call over the overhead speaker.

Every sailor who heard the command knew that the distance was not far enough to avoid blasting open the hull of their own boat if the warheads detonated that close.

“Give me ten degrees up bubble—bring her up slow like she was made of glass, Number One. Periscope depth, please,” he said.

The hull pops and creaks meant the boat was slowly coming shallow.

“Standby radio room for flash traffic to fleet.”

“We can—”

The cannon fire from the saucer flashed three times and the bolts of blue-green light smashed into the sonar dome of the
Suffren
’s rounded bow. The heavy submarine rocked as its nose was blown free of the boat. Water cascaded into the forward spaces faster than anyone could react to close all hatches. The nose of
Suffren
went down and the French navy’s newest sub started heading for the bottom of the sea two miles below.

“All back full, blow ballast, blow everything! Weapons, match bearings and fire!” Arnaud called out as loudly as he could. Even with the noise of the fast-sinking warship the captain could feel the four successive jolts as the high-pressure air sent the four Shark torpedoes flying from their tubes. One of the fish caught on the wreckage of the bow and snagged but the other three raced to the target. The flying saucer moved down and the resulting wash of the sea broke the fiber-optic cables guiding the Shark torpedoes. The weapons spun off into three differing directions as the guidance to the
Suffren
was severed.

“Put the reactor into the red, we’re going down stern first. Full power!” Arnaud shouted. “We need—”

Another salvo of green-blue light struck the
Suffren
amidships as she spun counterclockwise in her race to the bottom. The cutting beams smashed into the sound-reducing hull and penetrated into the pressure vessel itself. Before anyone could scream, the
Suffren
came apart.

The fall of the French navy’s newest boat would take a full two hours to reach the bottom of the sea two point seven miles beneath the surface.

HMS
AMBUSH

Captain Von Muller’s eyes widened as he listened to the recording of the attack. At least he was assuming it was an attack.

“Target is moving off at high speed, Captain.” The sonar operator looked up with an uneasiness he wasn’t accustomed to. “One hundred and twelve knots’ speed. Target is now off the scope.” They saw the sonar rating’s face go white.

The first officer looked from the operator and then leaned over to a switch on his console just as the sonar technician removed his headphones and lowered his head as the sounds of men dying came across the speakers. On the acoustic display and on the sound system inside the sonar room they heard the most horrible noises any submariner could ever hear while submerged. It was the bursting sound of twisting steel and clanging metal.

“
Suffren
’s bulkheads are collapsing. She’s breaking up.” The operator slowly shook his head as the sound of the French navy’s pride and joy died only a mile and a half away.

“My God, Number One,” Von Muller said as he hurriedly reached out and shut off the echoes from the audio separation mode. “What is the complement of their new boats?” he asked, fearful of the answer. Every man inside the control room could see it in his eyes.

“Forty-seven enlisted personnel and twelve officers.”

Von Muller felt his stomach lurch. He shook his head.

“Do we have a course bearing on the target?” He lowered his head and then nodded at his first officer to get to the radio room.

“Last aspect change had target heading north toward the ice pack.”

“Maneuvering, all ahead flank, take us shallow to fifty feet. Make ready to raise radio mast.”

The HMS
Ambush
was about to pass along a message the military forces of the world had been waiting to hear—the first shots in a new kind of war had been offered up. A war some had been planning for since 1947—people who knew exactly who the fight was against.

The Grays had arrived.

TOKYO AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL CENTER

EIGHT MILES NORTH OF TOKYO, JAPAN

The semi-darkened room seemed far quieter on the midnight-to-eight shift than third-year controller Oshi Yamamura was used to. The number of flights into Japan was virtually cut by a third in the early morning hours. He noticed some of the more experienced controllers actually had time enough on their hands to share conversations about their experiences, unlike the overtaxed men and women on the day and evening shifts. The atmosphere was light and easygoing and that was just what the young controller wanted.

Oshi’s shift supervisor stopped by his station and momentarily looked over the young man’s shoulder to examine the flights on his scope and their numbers.

“Ito is going to go on his break. Think you can handle a Continental heavy out of Honolulu?”

Yamamura smiled and nodded his head. The supervisor slid the flight and its info card into the slot just above his board. He patted the young man on the back and then made his way to the next controller to further divide the breaking man’s flight responsibilities.

“Korean Air 2786 to Tokyo Center, over,” the voice in his headphones said.

“Korean Air 2786, this is Tokyo Center, good evening.” The young dark-haired man answered confidently, making sure to speak loud enough that his supervisor could hear.

“Tokyo Center, we have traffic off our starboard wing, about two miles out and below our six. What do you have in that area? Over.”

Yamamura examined his scope and saw Korean Air at twenty-nine thousand feet on an easterly heading. The only other flights in the immediate area were a Nippon Air thirty-five miles south of the Korean flight and the Continental 747 he was just handed at twenty-six miles north of Korean Air.