Paradox Hour (34 page)

What happens when the Führer hears about this? He will make Raeder’s fits seem like a poetry recital. The man has already canceled the other two H Class battleships, which means
Hindenburg
is an only child, the first and last of its kind. I stand here upon this Goliath, and yet, out there somewhere, David waits with his sling. These rockets have upset the entire balance of naval warfare. The only thing we have that can escape them are the U-Boats, and something tells me that is where we should have put our entire naval construction effort. It will come down to the U-boats in the years ahead. By the time we get these naval rockets, we may have very little else afloat to use them.

“Adler,” he said gruffly. “What is Topp doing now?”

“He has put on speed and is moving to intercept
Rodney
, as ordered.”

“Yes, but ordered by who? Have you seen this message from Wilhelmshaven?” He handed off the signal, a restrained fury simmering within him now.

“Repeat order needing confirmation,” Adler read aloud. “Objective is as per original orders in
Fall Rheinübung
.” He looked at Lütjens, a bemused expression on his face.

“But sir, we had a very clear order to the contrary. You read it yourself.”

“Yes? Well who sent it, that is what I would like to know?” said Lütjens. “Alright, the British certainly know we are here, so I see no point in observing radio silence. I want immediate confirmation from Wilhelmshaven. Are we to engage
Rodney
or turn west again for the convoy lanes?”

“That question may be moot,” said Adler. “Topp is closing on the battleship now. His task group will be more than enough to finish it off.”

“Perhaps, but do not forget that ship has 16-inch guns, and the British know how to use them. And what about
Graf Zeppelin
?”

“Most regrettable,” said Adler. “Yet all the more reason to seek our revenge. An eye for an eye.”

Lütjens fumed. This could be the final sortie of the Kriegsmarine, he thought, our last hurrah.

“We cannot trade ships with the British and hope to survive this war,” he said with a harried look. “Here we have already lost the most important ship in the fleet with the death of
Graf Zeppelin
, and sent
Kaiser Wilhelm
to the docks at Brest for good measure.”

“And we have sunk an enemy cruiser and destroyer,” Adler reminded him.

“Oh?” Lütjens batted that aside. “Tell me, which side of that apple cart would you buy, Adler?”

The Kapitan had nothing more to say, his eyes shifting out to sea, a tense edge to his movements. He was like a bow pulled tight, an arrow waiting to strike, but held in breathless stillness, the quiver of the Admiral’s hand restraining him at every turn. His quest for vengeance was now even more important in his mind. The loss of
Graf Zeppelin
could not go unanswered, and here Lütjens was juggling two contradictory orders, one pulling them east, the other west. He feared the Admiral would take the easy road, and turn about yet again, cowed by the rocket attack that had put
Graf Zeppelin
under the sea. Then the next blow fell, like a cold fist striking his face when the runner came in from the signals room.

* * *

No
one saw it coming. The big 650mm torpedo had been coursing through the waters at a shallow depth of just 20 meters, seeking the German battleships. A second torpedo followed in its wake, and their keen senses had detected the churning thrum of the enemy formation long ago. They surged in, about 400 meters off the port bow of
Gneisenau
, and then began a wide arcing turn, sweeping inexorably around and boring in on the ship. The first would strike aft, about ten meters forward of the main propulsion shaft and steering gear, the second would run right under the ship and explode amidships, the fierce upwelling and shock bubble literally lifting the ship’s gut above sea level when it exploded. It was to be a very bad day for Kapitan Otto Fein and his crew.

Aboard
Scharnhorst
, cruising behind, Kapitan Kurt Hoffman rushed out onto the weather bridge, his eyes wide with shock when he saw his brother ship stricken. He had seen the rockets come earlier, tearing the pre-dawn sky to shreds, and immolating
Graf Zeppelin
—now this! How could the British have a submarine capable of scoring two hits like that, when we were running at 30 knots? It would take a miracle to line up that shot. He had to be just waiting out there, and we must have run right across his sights. Yet a hit like this was almost unprecedented!

“Fifteen points to starboard!” he shouted back to his helmsman, determined to make sure his own ship did not suffer a similar fate. He would begin a zig-zag course at once, though it would not matter. Gromyko’s torpedoes could not be fooled. They were not dumb weapons, running true as aimed. They needed no human eye puckered in the eyecups of a periscope to find their target for them, and no evasive maneuver
Scharnhorst
was capable of could elude them. Hoffmann had just witnessed the fate of the entire German surface fleet. Given time, and as long as he still had torpedoes, Gromyko and
Kazan
could destroy the entire German Navy, just as
Kirov
might have destroyed it, single handedly, with the mailed fist of those plunging
Moskit-IIs
. Hoffmann did not know that, but it was something he secretly feared since the first moment he saw these new British weapons. For now, his eyes were still riveted on
Gneisenau
.

“Get a message to Fein and find out how bad it is. Then signal
Tirpitz
and
Hindenburg
and see that they are informed—
Gneisenau
hit by torpedoes, amidships and aft. Speed falling off and damage appears significant.”

* * *

“Two
hits on lead ship sir,” said Chernov. “That had to hurt.”

“Two 65s would do the job on most any ship we hit,” said Gromyko. “Even a big supercarrier could not shrug off a pair of those lovelies. Very well—load tubes one and three. More of the same. Make your target the number two ship—birds on a wire.” He smiled.

But no one’s plans were to be left intact that day. The unexpected kernel of chaos at the heart of all battles was again to wreak havoc. Chernov was suddenly very still, his eyes on a module to his left where a red light began to flutter. He inclined his head, flipping a switch there, and listening, eyes closed.

“Con…. Undersea contact. Possible submarine…”

Gromyko turned, a question in his eyes. “An uninvited guest,” he said. “German U-boat?”

There was a moment’s hesitation as Chernov continued to toggle switches on the module he had been using to process the signal. “Sir… This sounds like a British sub.” His voice carried a note of alarm that surprised Gromyko, and he never liked surprises, particularly when he had his bulls lined up one after another, two lances in the first, and was ready to skewer the second.

“British? We were not informed they had anything out here.”

“Sir! This is crazy. It’s reading as
Astute
Class!” He gave Gromyko a shocked expression. “We got lucky and recorded one boat after learning its deployment date. It’s the only profile we’ve ever managed to get, but my readings are above a 90% match for this signal.”

“Impossible,” said Gromyko, but then a deeper instinct asserted itself, reptilian, a reflex born of many hours beneath the sea. “All stop!” he said. “Launch noisemaker sled number one. Then right rudder fifteen, down bubble fifteen! Rig for emergency silent running!”

Kazan
maneuvered like a shadow, its engines suddenly stilled, a great dark whale rolling over and slowly diving into the depths of the sea. At the same time, a special port on the nose of the ship launched a screw-driven sled, which trundled forward on the sub’s original course, leaving a trail of sound behind it designed to imitate
Kazan’s
normal operating acoustic signature. The Matador twirled his cape, and now spun deftly away from a threat he presumed was imminent. If Chernov was correct, and he was hearing a British
Astute
Class sub, then they most certainly heard
Kazan
as well. The boat had been very shallow, and Gromyko’s instinct was to get down below the thermocline as quickly and quietly as possible. Any adversary stalking him would likely be above it if they had a fix on him, but he needed to move whisper soft… descend… descend… Hoping his noise sled would cover his escape as planned.

Even as he finished his steering order, Chernov’s eyes widened again, and he heard the one thing every submariner feared, yet the one thing he might expect if the contact report was solid.

“Torpedos in the water!”

God almighty, thought Gromyko. Which damn war are we fighting here?

Chapter 30

Only
one man saw it when it came through—saw it with the dead eyes of a cadaver, bound in the weighted polyurethane of a body bag, and wrapped in the red, white, and blue stripes of the Russian flag. If any part of Lenkov could have seen, he would have borne witness when a hole seemed to open in the sea around him, shimmering green phosphors lighting up the murky depths above Peake’s Deep.

It moved like a great whale, silent, sullen, a dark thing in the sea, deathly quiet as it climbed for the wan light above. Its sides were coated with a special series of tiles that muted sound. Two thin fins protruded from either side of its upper body, above the massive, bulbous nose. Behind them the thin metal sail was bristling with strange spikes, the sensory suite of one of the most advanced submarines ever designed.

Chernov had lived up to his reputation as one of the best Sonarmen in the fleet, and the single lucky profile the Russian Navy had obtained on an
Astute
Class British submarine had been just enough of the sound puzzle to let him make the call, and give his incredulous warning. After that Gromyko was all reflex, for there would be time for thought and reason only if he survived to ever think again.

His Sonarman had called it right, and Lenkov would have said as much, for only he had seen it come. And he had also seen one other thing, twinkling with light in spite of the murky gloom as the water deepened—The Devil’s Teardrop. It had gone over one gunwale even as Lenkov had gone over the other, and together they slipped silently into the depths, until another moment of pure happenstance came into play, eighty years on…

 The sea was no less dangerous there, with the scourge of war imminent as HMS
Ambush
drifted in the vanguard of a small flotilla of ships. The hastily assembled convoy was a motley combination of Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships, and a few civilian transports that had been press-ganged into service. There had been only one surface warship available for escort duty, and Captain James “Sandy” Vann aboard the
Ambush
was tapped to lend a hand. He was commander of S120, boat number two in the class, her keel laid on the 22nd of October, 2003, built out in Britain’s premier sub den, the isolated coast near Barrow-in-Furness near Lancaster on Morcambe Bay. The place had been famous for building ships for many generations. Ships for Cunard and the Orient Lines had been built there since 1873, and at one time, Sir Barnes Neville Wallis used it to design and build airships for the British during the First World War. So the people there were long used to strange vessels taking shape in the shipyards, and the sound of engineering and secret works were often underway into the wee hours of the night.

The subs were spawned from within the massive enclosed structure of Devonshire Dock Hall, big enough to house the old airships that had once been built in that place in an earlier time. Now it saw the slow, precision building of the whale-like subs, with technicians creeping over the flukes and flanks of the beast, emerging from its innards on long metal ladders. Using a pressurized water reactor and pump jet propulsor system, the boat was said to be the quietest in the world.

In more modern times, destroyers and even the carrier
Invincible
were built there, and it was also a principle base for the design and secret construction of Britain’s most stealthy new submarine, the
Astute
class, which first launched in the year 2010.

Ambush
was also strangely entangled with the fate lines of the Russian battlecruiser
Kirov
. The sub had been lurking in the waters of the Norwegian Sea, skulking so stealthily that not  even Tasarov had noticed it at first. And it had been witness to a very strange event that day, an undersea explosion that seemed to take both the Russian battlecruiser, and the sub accompanying it, to their doom. It had returned to port, where a change of command took place, and many questions were asked about the mission it had been on, and whether or not it had succeeded or failed.

Now the new commander, Captain Sandy Vann,  was out to sea in those dark hours in late 2021. Yet instead of prowling the depths as the hunter-killer the sub actually was,
Ambush
had been posted as a stealthy sheepdog for a most important convoy bound for Mersa Matruh. Seven ships were scheduled to rendezvous there to receive the troops, vehicles, and materiel of the British 7th Armored Brigade, which had been on station in the deep deserts of Egypt ever since the incident at Sultan Apache oil fields.

The little fleet was composed of RoRo units, the ‘Roll on—Roll off’ ships that could accommodate the heavy vehicles of the Brigade. There sailed
Hurst, Hartland, Anvil Point
and
Eddystone
, and a civilian ferry sailing under an Irish registry was also along, the
Ulysses
. Capable of lifting 2000 personnel and over 1300 vehicles, the multi-deck ferry was the odd-fellow in the group, with three of its twelve decks styled to cater to civilian tourists, and all on a theme dedicated to the author of the great book by T.S. Eliot the ship was named after,
Ulysses
.