Operation Barracuda (2005)

"You'll need to select the option that says 'Course' or 'Direction,' something like that."

AFFIRMATIVE. I find the one that translates to 'Heading,' and select that. This takes me to a screen displaying the current course in common submariner terminology.

Then something odd happens. A red light illuminates within the compartment and starts to flash slowly and repeatedly. I tell Grimsdottir this and she says, "Oh, no. If it's what I think it means, then they've activated the nuke. Sam, do you see any kind of digital readout inside there? Something that looks like a clock counting down?"

I hate clocks that count DOWN!Yes, I see it. It must have started at 10:00, for now it's at 9:52 and decreasing a second at a time.

"Okay, Sam, you've got a little time but you have to work fast. The MRUUV is equipped with an automatic diagnostics program that checks the entire system to make sure the bomb goes off properly. It takes roughly ten minutes to go through all the tests and as soon as it's done, the bomb will explode. Try to ignore the countdown and go back to the laptop. I want you to type in these new course headings." She gives them to me and I try to enter the data, but I keep punching the wrong keys. Damned gloves. I finally pull them off so my fingers can be a little more accurate. The water is cold but not unbearable. I'm sure, though, that if I'm in the water for too long my hands will stiffen from the low temperature.

I finally get the new course heading entered but it suddenly changes back to the original!

What the hell?

I tell Grimsdottir this and she says, "Damn, it's the control on the submarine. They see what you see on their monitor and realize someone's tampering with the guidance system. I have to figure out a way to cut them out. Stand by."

Stand by?The fucking nuclear bomb is ticking and the clock now reads 8:43! The Barracuda is on a steady course right for Santa Monica Pier and I'm sitting on the goddamned thing.

I type into my OPSAT: IS THERE A WAY TO DEFUSE THE BOMB?

Grimsdottir replies, "Not in this amount of time, Sam. Hush, let me think."

All right, now I'm considering what kind of damage a nuclear bomb will do if it explodes out here in Santa Monica Bay. I'm just guessing, but I would say half of Los Angeles would be gone in an instant. Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Venice-- poof!Millions dead. The nation's economy in chaos, which of course dominoes into the world's economy being in turmoil. World War III with China.

I can't let this happen.

"Sam! I want you to type in exactly what I tell you to," Grimsdottir says. "Make sure it's correct before you press Enter." It's long and it's complicated but I do it. It seems like it takes forever. I indicate that I'm done and she reads it again slowly so I can proof what I've typed. I hit Enter and a bunch of code appears on the monitor at a high rate of speed. After ten seconds of this, the screen goes blank.

No! Is it dead? What happened?

I begin to type on the OPSAT and tell her what's going on but Grimsdottir beats me to it and says, "You should have a blank screen when it's done processing."

Fuck, I wish she'd told me that before.

AFFIRMATIVE.

"Good. Now let's go back to the course settings menu and retype the new coordinates." I follow her instructions and repeat what I did earlier. This time the new settings stay on the screen. We've successfully shut out the Chinese sub's control.

The MRUUV suddenly begins to turn in a wide arc. I ride along with it as the device makes a U-turn and heads away from shore. But it's going too damn slow and I tell Grimsdottir this.

"Then we'll have to increase its speed. Go back to the main menu, can you do that?"

The clock reads 4:35. Now I'm getting nervous. I bungle the first try and end up back at the course settings menu. A second attempt gets me to the main menu and I'm ready. This time I'm way ahead of Grimsdottir. I see the option for "Speed" and begin to raise the scroll bar.

"Find the option for speed. When you do that . . . oh, I see you're already there. Good work, Sam."

The MRUUV accelerates and becomes much more difficult to hold on to. I glance upward and see the dark shapes of my CHARC's pontoons following along on the surface. The homer beacon is working beautifully.

"See if you can get it up to at least sixty knots. That's what it's going to take to get the thing out of range of the city. You can also direct the nose downward at a twenty-degree angle. That way it'll go deeper, which is what we want."

I use the touch-pad cursor and manage to steer the Barracuda into a dive but the damned thing is moving too slowly. Something's hanging up the computer.

The clock reads 3:20.

"You've got it to forty knots, Sam. You're almost there."

The speed is doing a number on me now. My legs are begi

"Fifty knots, Sam."

The clock is at 2:48.

Damn, I'm going fast. I'm not sure I can hold on much longer. And what the hell am I going to do when it's at sixty knots? Just jump off? Where am I go

The clock is at 2:29.

"Sixty! Get off, Sam! Surface and get in your CHARC! Go! Go! Go!"

I release the MRUUV and it cuts through the water ahead of me. Floating stationary for a few seconds, I watch it until it disappears into the murky blue-green darkness.

"Go, Sam, go!"

Her words jolt me out of the temporary haze. I immediately turn and start ascending as hard and fast as I can. Shit, how far am I from the goddamned coastline? I want to ask Grimsdottir if she has a fix on me but I can't afford to stop and type the question. If ever I needed to rely on my Navy SEAL training to save my life, this could be the prize event.

I move closer to the surface where the CHARC's pontoons are resting. As soon as my head is above water I look to see if the coastline is even visible. It appears to be a couple of miles away. But I know distances are deceiving when you're in the water. I grab hold of the CHARC's struts, climb aboard, buckle myself in, and close the canopy. It takes five seconds to turn the thing around and open her up to a high speed. Lambert was right, this baby is fast! Before long it's going eighty miles an hour.

The shoreline is closer . . . closer . . . I grip the controls and concentrate solely on putting as much distance between that damned bomb and me as possible. The CHARC reaches its limit, practically flying along the surface at eighty-five. The Santa Monica Pier's Ferris wheel looms larger in front of me. I'm almost there . . .

Then it's as if the world collapses around me. A deafening sonic boom literally pushesthe CHARC forward at what feels like an impossible rate of speed. I'm spi

39

THEso-called Battle for Taiwan lasted just under four hours. The first two hours belonged to General Lan Tun and his small but superbly equipped army and navy. While he had sufficient firepower from his destroyers and frigates, the air support he had counted on from the Chinese base in Quanzhou never came. The effects of his ships' bombardment of Taipei were greatly exaggerated in the world media. At first the reports indicated that tens of thousands of people had been killed and the city had been destroyed. In fact, the loss of life numbered in the low hundreds and only 20 percent of the metropolis was hit. By the time all the general's landing craft had brought his army to Taiwan's shores, the island's own forces had gathered en masse to repel the invasion. Tun, aboard one of the Luda-class destroyers in the strait, watched with horror as his plans to conquer the island and become a national hero in the People's Republic diminished with each passing minute.