Текст книги "Leviathan"

Автор книги: David Lynn Golemon

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PRC (PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA)

SUBMARINE RED BANNER

"What do you mean, torpedoes?" Captain Xian Jiang asked loudly as he picked up a set of headphones at the sonar station and listened.

The high-pitched sound was nothing like the turning propellers of any high-speed torpedo he had ever heard. His sonar man was saying something about the new quieter air-jet powered weapons the Americans had been working on instead of listening; he slammed his fist down on the operator's shoulder to quiet him. He heard the sound of the approaching weapons when a loud pop sounded in the headphones.

"More torpedoes in the water!" the operator called out. "They are actively seeking and are bearing right on us!"

"Distance?" Xian shouted.

"Three hundred yards–closing fast!"

"Impossible. Nothing could have gotten that close without being detected."

"Sir, nonetheless, we are under attack. The weapons went active as soon as they hit the water–torpedoes have acquired!"

"All-ahead flank, hard left rudder! Weapons Officer, match bearing on the attack line and fire! Countermeasures, launch a full spread!"

The Chinese Akula class attack boat swayed and dipped violently as she maneuvered her heavy bulk to the left of the attacking torpedoes. Arrayed along the aft quarter of the submarine, a line of canisters popped free and began to release a burst of sound cocooned in bubbles into the surrounding water that was a mimicked recording of her own electric power plant noises, including the cavitations print of her bronze propeller. As the massive vessel turned, the two strange missile-shaped torpedoes turned with her. The Red Banner'spropeller finally grasped the water and shot down and to the left, but she could not shake the oncoming weapons that had doubled the boat's speed–both weapons shot cleanly through the countermeasures without hesitation.

The captain froze as men started shouting orders. He knew they had but three seconds of life left to them.

The torpedoes struck almost simultaneously at the stern and under her keel amidships. The immense pressure wave cracked the Chinese hull like an eggshell and crushed all aboard in a microsecond.

Petersen finally caught sight of the two fast-approaching torpedoes that had suddenly popped toward the surface. In absolute horror he saw, in surreal slow motion, the Greenpeace vessel Atlantic Avengerinnocently and unknowingly swing her razor-sharp bow into the oncoming path of the outside weapon. The torpedo struck, blowing her beautifully painted bow off in a violent explosion that shook the giant oil tanker.

Petersen now had a slim hope that the remaining weapon would not be enough to hurt his massive ship. As he grasped on to that lone shred of hope, a sudden explosion to the south sent water upward into a plume of white foam and violence that announced that two subsurface-to-surface missiles were launched, just as the errant torpedo had been sent into the wrong ship. First one, then the other missile arched into the blue sky. As one missile kept climbing, the other turned down, and to the north as it streaked far ahead of the waterbound torpedo. The missile slammed into Goliathat her stern, ripping free her rudder and sending men sprawling to her elongated deck.

"We're hit!" someone called from the bridge.

Petersen wanted to scream in frustration for the officer to tell him something he did not know. However, before he could he saw that the second missile had turned toward the advancing Venezuelan missile frigate. Just as he saw the naval vessel start a slow turn to the west, the first torpedo slammed violently into Goliath's side, sending a giant mushroom cloud of steel and vaporized oil into the sky. Petersen tried to pick himself up off the deck as the ship was rocked again, this time from a distance as the second missile found its mark and slammed into the afterdeck of the guided missile frigate General Santiago, two miles away.

Who could be doing this?His mind raged as he reached for the sill lining the front windows of the bridge. Could it be the Americans, the Russians?They were the only two nations capable of such stealth and weaponry. The captain finally managed to gain his feet and look out onto the expanding horror that was Goliath's foredeck. Fires were raging, and he could see the giant ship was starting to list severely to starboard.

"Mr. Jansen, counterflood! Goddamn it, counterflood the port bunkers!"

"More missiles in the air!" someone screamed.

As Petersen looked on in shock, six separate trails of fire exited the sea. Four streaked to the west, gaining altitude, and two came directly at them. He managed a quick glance down at Atlantic Avengerjust as she started to slide bow first into the green sea, and crew and protesters were sliding and jumping from her decks. He closed his eyes in a silent prayer for them as the next two missiles found their mark, driving deep into the superstructure of the tanker.

The detonations shook the ocean for thirty-five miles in all directions as the old ship came apart and evaporated in her final, violent, split-second death. The expanding fireball that incinerated all who struggled to remain on the surface swallowed the surviving crew along with the remaining detritus of the Atlantic Avenger. Those who fought for survival beneath the water were torn to pieces by the pressure wave that slammed into them at over a thousand feet per second, sending their flesh into a billion microscopic additions to the raging sea, and also into the gathering mushroom cloud that was expanding like the rising sun over the green ocean.

CARACAS, VENEZUELA

The newly constructed crude-oil facility owned and operated by the Citgo Oil concern was a monstrosity that had displaced seventy-five thousand impoverished inhabitants in the suburbs of Caracas. Outside of her main gates, six hundred of these citizens stood side by side with five hundred union workers, protesting both their recent treatment by Venezuelan government and the nationalization of the oil industry, thus tossing the unions into oblivion.

Security was not only there for the protesters. Word had come down that there had been some sort of threat passed on by the American government concerning the opening of the world's most controversial oil facility.

Two miles inside the main gates, officials from China, Cuba, and Venezuela were on hand for the dedication ceremony. The concern was a joint financial venture between the three nations in an effort to thwart the United States and her allies–mainly Saudi Arabia–in what they considered unfair manipulation of the world's oil supplies.

The CEO of CITGO Petroleum and the interior minister of Venezuela shook hands, smiling broadly. The latter was there in place of president for life Hugo Chavez, a sworn enemy of the very democracies that had helped them in their national oil exploration treaties a decade before. Even after the threat that had been passed on by the president of the United States, Chavez still held firm that nothing and no one would stand in the way of his achieving an international power base and a strategic partner in China for his oil products. He even had announced plans for expanding into the Gulf of Mexico–an area that was quickly becoming a hot spot for environmentalists.

The interior minister was about to take the microphone to denounce the unpatriotic actions of the protesters outside the gates when air raid sirens began to blare loudly around the new facility. The Venezuelan minister looked around in confusion, the smile still stretched across his dark features, when three security men jumped upon the stage, took him by the arms, and moved him off the raised platform. The Chinese representative looked on in confusion, as did his Cuban counterpart. Then another set of military police appeared and harshly pulled the two diplomats to their feet.

"What is the meaning of this?" the Cuban minister cried out in Spanish as he was pulled unceremoniously from the dais.

"We have an air force warning of incoming cruise missiles. Please come with us, we have to–"

That was as far as the military security guard's explanation got, as the sound of four shrieking missiles froze everyone inside and outside the oil facility.

"Look!" the Chinese minister shouted as he pointed skyward.

As they turned, they saw the distinctive vapor trails of four missiles as they crossed over dry ground from their trek inland from the sea. The first missile dipped and came apart just over the crude-oil loading facility. A nuclear airburst set to detonate at three hundred feet vaporized both the docks and the pipeline that carried crude from the plant to the oceanside loading facility. The next three missiles traveled one, two, and three miles inland, then detonated over the two-mile-wide plant itself. The fireball created by the simultaneous detonations was in the yield range of 5.5 megatons each, a relatively light package by military standards, melting steel and flash-frying human flesh as the brand-new controversial facility, along with everyone present, ceased to exist in the blink of an eye. The weapons did not differentiate protester from government lackey, as all were instantly vaporized in a microsecond of heat and wind.

Twenty miles offshore the great monster rose from the sea to expose her conning tower and the large rudder fins at her stern–the tower so tall that if viewed it would have looked as if a mountain suddenly rose from the roiling sea. The great beast's interior electronics recorded wind conditions and temperature variants from the sea and outlying land coordinates, without a soul having to be exposed to the air. The gleaming black hull glistened in what remained of the morning sun and blue sky, which was quickly becoming cloud-laden and threatening rain. The darkening skies nearly matched the countenance of the giant vessel's captain, as the attack area was surveyed on monitors in the main control center and the conning tower overlooking the scene of devastation.

The captain stood, walked to the spiral staircase that wound its way upward through the skyscraper-sized conning tower, and then opened the hatch to the private observation suite. Once there the captain examined the waters outside the three-foot-thick, twenty-five-foot-diameter port viewing window sitting just above the waves that hit harmlessly against the vessel's sonar-absorbing hull.

As the captain scanned the now-calm sea, a body floated by, bobbing in the gentle swell. The captain's eyes closed as the body struck the hull and then continued, spinning and dipping in the sea. The dead had been a woman, dressed in civilian clothes, indicating she might have been one of the Greenpeace volunteers from the unintentionally destroyed Atlantic Avenger. The captain looked away just as orders were shouted below to get under way, and the burned and mangled body mercifully vanished from sight.

"Captain, we have a submerged contact at twenty kilometers and closing–possible submarine close-aboard. Computer says there is a ninety-three percent possibility it is a Los Angeles class attack boat. We will have her prop signature momentarily."

The captain continued to stare at the now-s till waters where three ships and a submarine had once been. Then the deep blue eyes closed as three mushroom shaped clouds slowly rose from the west, indicating their attack there had concluded.

The war those fools sought had begun in the violent way all wars start, and the winner upon this new battlefront would be no nation that currently held power in the world. The winner would be lifeitself.

"Take her down to two thousand feet. As we clear the continental shelf, bring her up to seventy-five knots, on a heading to our next objective. It is neither the time nor the place to confront the U.S. Navy. They'll have other concerns very soon."

"Aye, Captain."

With that, the giant vessel slipped under the waves and silently departed the attack zone specifically chosen two years before this dark day, just after the announcement of the day that oil operations were to commence at the damnable facility.

The captain moved away from the thick acrylic window, using a control on the chair behind to close the clamshell titanium cover, and then slowly made for the control room. "Please send the surgeon to my cabin."

"Aye, Captain," the first officer said as he snapped his fingers at the bridge security officer and pointed aft, sending him to collect the doctor.

Around the fully holographic control center of the giant beast, the crew looked upon their captain with admiration and dedication.

The most amazing machine in the history of the world was brought up to her cruising speed, and then silently started making her way south.

On the surface above, only smoldering debris marked the spot where the giant vessel had been only moments before. The captain of this strange submarine knew that soon the sea would heal itself, and the sea life there would return to normal, never to be placed in danger by humankind again.

USS COLUMBIA (SSN 771)

125 KILOMETERS EAST OF VENEZUELAN

COASTAL WATERS

The United States fast-attack nuclear submarine USS Columbiawas shallow as she attempted to gather readings from the air and water surrounding the boat. Then the large sub went back into deep water to evaluate their readings.

The Los Angeles class submarine had been on maneuvers with one of the newest Ohio-class missile boats, USS Maine(SSBN 741) while they conducted DSEM (Deep Submergence Evasive Maneuvering), a new drill thought up by COMSUBLANT (Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet).

The Columbia, normally based in Hawaii, had recently finished a scheduled refit at Newport News, Virginia, at the general dynamics facility. From there she was ordered to conduct operations with Maineon her return trip back around the Horn of South America. The drill suddenly halted when the waters fifty kilometers to the south erupted in sound. While the Mainewent deep and evacuated the area for security reasons, the Columbiawent south at flank speed to investigate the war noises emanating somewhere off the coastline of Venezuela.

Captain John Lofgren watched the readings on the infrared detectors and frowned. He turned to his first officer, Lt. Commander Richard Green, and shook his head.

"Whatever happened up there, it was hot as hell. The water temperature is twenty degrees above normal. Moreover, what were those strange noises prior to all hell breaking loose? They weren't any torpedo sounds I've ever heard before."

"We have confirmation, Captain," the chief of the boat called out. "We have elevated but still low radiation readings on the surface. Computers still say nuclear detonation, probably light in yield."

"We're also picking up elevated levels of airborne contaminate coming in from the west," a second tech called from his station.

"What in the hell is going on?" Lofgren asked as he returned to control. "Dick, we have to get this off to COMSUBLANT–let's get Columbiaup to periscope depth."

TWO HOURS LATER

Captain Lofgren was holding the set of headphones to his ears as he listened inside of the BQQ-5E sonar suite.

"I still don't hear a thing," he said to his sonar team.

"It's there, Captain, five miles outside of the target area. Just as we were approaching station it passed right beneath us," Petty Officer John Cleary said as he adjusted the volume control to the captain's headset.

"Tell me again what in the hell it's supposed to be I'm listening for?"

The young petty officer seemed lost for words again as he looked from his captain to the first officer standing just inside the curtain of the sonar station.

"It's like ... like ... a pressure wave of some kind, and it's moving extremely fast. The only thing that can cause something like that is a large object moving through the sea. We hear the same thing with whales, only on a smaller scale."

"I just don't hear it."

"How fast did you say it was moving again?" the first officer asked.

This time the operator looked at his training partner, who had also failed to hear the strange noise. He swallowed, then looked at the two officers.

"About seventy-six knots. I measured the speed of the pressure wave against our static location."

Lofgren removed the headphones and looked at the operator, but Cleary kept his eyes straight ahead, not flinching away from his captain's questioning look.

"Captain, it went to almost eighty knots speed after I detected it, and at the moment it passed beneath us I felt the boat ..." He stopped, knowing the explanation would sound too amazing to believe.

"Felt the boat what?"

"I have the computer and depth track on paper to back me on this, Captain."

Lofgren didn't say anything as he waited.

"Columbiaactually rose in depth by eight feet as water under our keel was displaced by whatever it was that plowed beneath us when we came into the affected area." The sonar man pulled a graph and showed it to the two officers. "One minute we're at three hundred and three feet of depth, the next we went to two hundred and ninety-five–a difference of eight feet. Something monstrous passed beneath our keel at that exact time. What could move a Los Angeles class boat by that much depth from that far away?"

The first officer raised his eyebrows and looked at Lofgren.

"I guess it would have had to have been big to shove aside that much water. Are you sure the object was that deep?"

Again, the young man was hesitant to answer. "Captain, it was so deep that ..." He saw the impatience showing on both officers' faces. "About fifteen hundred feet at first contact."

"Fifteen hundred feet of depth and then it suddenly sprang like a cheetah up to seventy-five knots? I can't buy that, Cleary. Not even the Russians have anything remotely close to half that," the first officer said.

"Write it up, Cleary, and get it to me. We'll bait the hook and send it out and see if anyone at COMSUBLANT bites."

As Captain Lofgren returned to the conn, he half-turned to his first officer.

"Before you say anything, Dick, we know the attack on the surface happened, and we know Columbiadidn't do it. Therefore, someone else had to have done it. In addition, that someone did it in clear listening range of not only us, but also that Chinese sub they handled with ease. I'll bet my command that the attacker and Cleary's strange contact are one and the same."

The captain turned and saw the eyes of his crew looking at him. The unknowns being pondered frightened them, and he could see it.

Every man aboard knew they had something in the water that could outrun and outgun them, and nothing made an American submariner more concerned than an unseenand unknownenemy.

3

EVENT GROUP COMPLEX,

NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA

Director Niles Compton sat with the sixteen departmental heads of the Event Group, silently watching a briefing delivered to the President of the United States by his national security team from the White House. The council there did not know the Event Group was listening in.

"With our losses in the sea of Japan five weeks ago, our weakened status dictates that we have to redeploy our forces even more thinly than they are," the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Kenneth Caulfield, said as he stood before the large situation board.

"Ken, we'll get back to that. What I want to know is what we have on the attacks in Venezuela."

Caulfield nodded toward Admiral Fuqua, the naval chief of staff, who opened a file folder and cleared his throat as if he were uncomfortable with what he was about to say.

"The detonations at sea against the oil tanker, the Greenpeace vessel, and the Chinese attack submarine were nuclear in nature. The yield of each weapon estimated at only five-point-six kilotons. As with the warheads detonated over Caracas, the radiation yield was almost nonexistent. These were the cleanest weapons we have ever come across. Dissipation occurred only hours after the attacks, and there are no lingering effects to air, ground, or sea."

"That's impossible," ventured the president's national security advisor. "No one has weapons that clean, we would have–"

"Andy, what have the boys across the river come up with on where this nuclear material originated?" the president asked CIA Director Andrew Cummings.

"Well, sir, the samples sent to us by courier from our naval asset in the area support no conclusions as to where this material was bred; they only raise more questions."

"Come on, Andy, I'm not going to hold you to it. Give me what your people are thinking."

"We have nothing on record as far as a nuclear fingerprint goes. This material may have been spawned by a breeder reactor that has not been identified."

"Again, that's impossible; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has–"

"Damn it." The president slammed his palm down on the tabletop, cutting his security advisor short once more. "I think everyone in this room better have learned by now that there are people out there we know nothing about. The Atlantis incident should have taught you that. Assume we have someone out there that can toss clean nukes around. Let's concentrate on finding out who and why, not the impossibility of it," the president said angrily.

In Nevada, Niles Compton glanced at several of his key people, including Captain Carl Everett of the security department and Virginia Pollock, the assistant director of the Event Group. They both saw Niles nod toward them, indicating they would be assigned the task of efforting the problem of clean nukes on their end, at least historically speaking, to see if any research conducted in the past historical record could be uncovered. Without being ordered to do so, Niles hoped to help his old friend in the White House with something the Event Group might have in their database. The Event Group had vast archives on the discovery, engineering, and manufacture of fissionable materials for their study.

"We mayhave a break as to the whypart of the equation, Mr. President," Cummings said in Washington as he opened another red-bordered file folder.

"Go ahead, Andy, something is better than nothing. I'm tired of finding things out at the last minute and playing catch-up; we've been bloodied the past six weeks by groups who have slipped by our intelligence services." He saw that his comment stung almost every man and woman in the room. Even his best friend in Nevada, Niles Compton, felt the rebuke.

"Sir, we do know that the supertanker that was hit was banned from every oil pumping station in the world, with the exception of Caracas, for environmental reasons. Venezuela had leased her, and China was the only nation that agreed to allow her to dock at their off-loading facilities in Shanghai."

"Okay, we have a starting point. Andy, get with the EPA and get me some exact numbers on the leakage. Knowing Chavez, he's going to start throwing around accusations, and we've been his popular target lately. I do not want another leader of a third world nation saying we did something we did not do. Steve, I want you to head up the relief for Caracas. Get as much food, medical, and other essential material down there as we can spare. Those people need help regardless of who their leader is."

Steve Haskins of Emergency Management nodded and made notes.

"Ken, Admiral Fuqua: best guess, who could have done this?"

"Ladies and gentlemen, with the exception of the Directors of CIA, FBI, NSA, the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Advisor and the Joint Chiefs, would you please excuse us. Mr. President, I don't know who's on the other end of that camera, but I advise shutting it down," General Caulfield said, suspecting that the answer lay in the strange little man who had assisted in the Atlantis operation a few weeks before, part of the president's private think tank.

"I'll leave it on for now, Ken. With the exception of those named, please excuse us."

The rest of the cabinet and council filed quickly from the room.

When the room cleared, Caulfield nodded toward Admiral Fuqua, who stood and pulled down a viewing screen as the lights dimmed.

"Mr. President, we have information we received from the attack boat USS Columbia, one of our newest Los Angeles class subs. She is the asset I spoke of earlier. She may have picked up a glimmer of something else, maybe the attacking force, we're not sure. As you see, this is a tape of her sonar."

On the screen was the waterfall display from the BQQ passive sonar display on Columbia. It was a series of lines running downward on the screen, and these lines represented the water around the sub. As they watched, there was nothing out of the ordinary on the display screen. Then a shadow of darkness presented itself for a split second and vanished.

"This object was thought at first to be a glitch in the sonar, but we have learned the object was solid, and we caught it only because of the burst of speed it displayed when it started diving away from the attack area. It's three and a half miles off Columbia's bow. The estimate of its size is close to a thousand feet in length, and it went from a static, or zero buoyancy, position to over seventy knots."

Several men started speaking at once while the president sat in his chair looking at the sonar display.

"This object was verified by a depth chart graph showing the keel of Columbiaraised eight feet in depth as whatever this thing is passed beneath her–and that is substantiated. So with this strange blip on sonar, coupled with the massive water displacement, there's little doubt we have one hell of a problem out there," Fuqua added.

Far beneath Nellis Air Force Base, the conference room was silent. The events the department heads had been witness to while attached to the department would never allow for surprise at any one thing they were shown. Unlike the military and intelligence people at the White House, they were at least accustomed to holding their opinions until all the details could be brought out into the open. As Niles watched the Group, he saw Virginia Pollock was deep in thought, biting her lower lip.

"I don't believe anything can travel that fast," the president said from the White House.

"Columbiais due home this afternoon, sir. We have a team on standby ready to board her and take that sonar system apart. But as it stands right now, we may have something in the sea that will prevent us from securing the sea lanes," Fuqua answered, returning to his seat as the lights came up.

"Okay, thank you. Get me the information as soon as you can. I have a phone meeting with the president of China in fifteen minutes, so excuse me for now, gentlemen."

After everyone had left, the president picked up the phone and hit a small button.

"So, Bookworm, what do you think of that?"

Niles Compton looked around, embarrassed at the use of the president's nickname for him. There were smiles all around as the department heads started gathering their notes to leave. Niles quickly snapped his fingers and got Everett's attention, gesturing him back down into his seat.

"What I think is irrelevant at this point. If the navy is worried, it doesn't do much to spark confidence in myself, especially as weak as we are at the moment."

"You have people out there that can outthink anyoneI have. Get someone on this and find out if history says we may have a problem here. Technology like this couldn't have sprung up overnight. The research for it may be somewhere in your vast files."

"Already on it," Niles answered.

"I hate using you as a crutch here, Niles, but–well, do your thing for me. Now, how's the Group doing?" the president asked with concern.

"Losing Jack and his people–well, we were never really geared for these kinds of losses, but we're moving on."

"Okay, Mr. Director, I have to go and speak with the Chinese about their destroyed sub."

"Yes, sir," Niles said as he terminated the call and turned toward Everett. "You seem to be someplace other than here, Captain."

"Is it that obvious?" he asked as he rubbed his tired eyes.

"Are you getting any sleep?" Alice Hamilton, the director's assistant since 1945, asked.

Virginia didn't say anything as she looked down at her notepad.

"Have you spoken with Sarah since she went home?" Alice asked.

Everett smiled at Alice's question. She always knew how to get directly to the point, and did it with a modicum of grandmotherly censure that didn't make you feel like a thief of her time.

"She'll heal. She is tougher than she thinks–hell, we all are."

Niles nodded his head, and then brought the team back to the business at hand.

"Virginia, get some expertise on naval functions from Captain Everett, and also start investigating these clean nukes. Somewhere in our files we have information on those who have come close to making such weapons. Not much, but that's where we'll start."

Niles saw Virginia nod her head once, but she remained silent as she took her notepad and left without acknowledging anyone.