Phoenix Sub Zero

He wished he could test it, but he’d need another body to hit the switch while he watched the R 141 relay, and the relay output would have to be jumped so it wouldn’t feed the circuit further downstream. Testing the circuit would be more risky than its installation. It would have to do as it was. Pacino hoped no one would be going into the panel. He screwed the panel closure devices shut, tucked the bag into his grease-covered poopysuit and hurried back to his stateroom.

Remarkably, no one had seen him.

Now all he could hope for was that he’d never need to use the switch, but that if he did, it would work.

Chapter 28 Thursday, 2 January

NORTH ATLANTIC

Sharef needed Tawkidi’s help getting from bed to his conference table.

“I seem to be getting weaker,” Sharef said.

“The doctor said the broken rib was infected and so was your eye. Hasn’t the medicine been working?”

Sharef didn’t want to answer the question. He felt like his body wanted to shut down and die. Awkward timing.

Rakish Ahmed and General Sihoud entered without knocking.

“Knock before you come into the captain’s stateroom,” Tawkidi snapped at Ahmed, and by implication at Sihoud.

“We’ve come to brief the commodore on the ballast-tank work,” Ahmed said. “We can skip that if you have trouble with our protocol.” “Continue, Colonel,” Sharef said, wanting to get the briefing over with.

“What we estimated to be a ten-hour job in the tanks is becoming more a sixty-hour job. With rest periods and time for the body to recover from the pressurization we would need six days.”

“We don’t have six—”

“I know. Commodore. That is why I have cut the missile work down to installation of only one Scorpion warhead into tube number one.”

“That leaves only one missile,” Tawkidi pointed out. “Is there enough radiation from a single missile?”

“More than enough,” Ahmed said.

“But there will be no redundancy. If something goes wrong with missile number one there is no backup.”

Ahmed looked at him. “Nothing will go wrong.”

“Where are you now. Colonel?” Sharef said.

“The Scorpion warhead has been rigged into the forward head on the middle level, just outside the door to the ballast tank. The door is cut open but for now is sealed with putty. We entered the tank and drilled into tube one. The high explosive is removed. We are ready to cut the section of tube in the next ballast-tank entry. The cut-out should take the entire ten hours. The third entry will be devoted to insertion of the Scorpion warhead and rewelding on the patch. The missile will be fully tested with the warhead in place, including electronic readbacks from the missile to the weapon-control processor and back.”

Sharef nodded. “Yes, I can see you’ve got a good idea how to finish. But finishing is three-quarters of the work, Colonel. Meanwhile the ship has to proceed at sixty-five clicks to maintain depth control because of the ballast tank.

Let me show you what that rate of speed has done for us.”

Tawkidi, on cue, rolled out a polar projection chart showing their great circle route, originally taking them into the North Atlantic. Their position was marked with a heavy dot.

A range circle was drawn around Washington, D.C. The dot looked very close to the range radius.

“As you can see, we are only 200 kilometers from the range circle around Washington, D.C. If we continue at this speed for the thirty hours you’ve said it will take to do your work, that is almost another 2,000 kilometers, putting us into the middle of the Labrador Sea. We will be unable to continue, we will run out of ocean. I have planned this track to keep this mission stealthy, so do not suggest turning south along the U.S. east coast. Such a track would take us into heavy shipping lanes and highly patrolled operational areas, and the range of the Hiroshima missile does not need us to get closer. In addition, Colonel, mission success is based on the Hiroshima coming out of the arctic north, from a bearing the Americans would not suspect as being a threat axis. It will look like a Concorde or supersonic private jet coming over the pole from Europe, if it shows up on radar at all, and we have to assume that the radar cloaking may not be perfect.”

“Commodore, I agree. Do not turn south. You cannot slow down until we can reflood the ballast tank. Turn to the north as you have always intended and proceed up the Davis Strait between Greenland and Canada’s Baffin Island.”

“We will be out of range 1,200 kilometers after the turn to the north. Moreover, the marginal ice zone begins here, north of the Greenland tip. The permanent ice pack is here, well before the range mark. I would say we have a thousand kilometers from the base of the Davis Strait before we run out of open water.”

“We will not need the additional time at speed. Commo dore. Thirty hours, 2,000 kilometers, with 1,000 more to use if we need it going north. If we get to the permanent ice pack line at—where is that?—the Baffin Bay, we’ll reverse course and turn back to the south.”