Paradox Hour (38 page)

The message went out, but MacRae knew that if torpedoes were already in the water it may be too late to pull the leash on them. Some bloody sub Captain out there was going to be as confused as he was in another minute.

“Sir,” came the next report from sonar. “I have a Type 65 in the water now! The Russians are firing back!”

The entire situation had suddenly disintegrated into a Mad Hatter’s dance of teacups on the sea. The Russian battlecruiser was suddenly missing from their radar screens, and in its place an undetected
Astute
Class submarine appears, and immediately goes to war with the Russian submarine! All the while, the Germans are still licking their wounds from that missile attack put in by
Kirov
, and by now they will be right on
Rodney’s
western horizon, mad as hornets.

“The ship will come to general quarters,” said MacRae stolidly. He looked at Mack Morgan. “Is this a private fight? Or can anybody get in on it…. Now then. Get her ladyship up here please. This whole situation is twisted on its head! I’d like to know which bloody side of this bar fight we’re on!”

Chapter 33

Kurt
Hoffmann was angry, mad as the hornet Gordon MacRae made him out to be. He had seen his brother ship
Gneisenau
stricken by those torpedoes, and now that ship was dead in the water. Though his instinct had been to stop and render assistance, Karl Topp on the
Tirpitz
would hear none of that. He signaled all ahead full, and the formation was to begin an evasive zig-zag approach. The
Gneisenau
would be left to
Prinz Eugen
and
Thor
, their decks already crowded with survivors pulled from the water off
Graf Zeppelin
.

Hoffmann had that same feeling of rising alarm that he had in the North Atlantic the previous year. When he saw the morning sky alight with those golden yellow rocket tails, he knew they had the devil to pay. Somewhere out there, hidden just beyond that glowing horizon, a shadow plied the sea, dangerous, mysterious, and at war. It was here, he thought, the same ship that had bedeviled them in the North Atlantic. Could these rockets be coming off the decks of HMS
Invincible
, as Wilhelmshaven believed? He knew that a small flotilla of at least three ships had been reported running the straits of Gibraltar, and one of those was said to be a battlecruiser.

But we have the positions of all the British known battlecruisers pegged out here in the Atlantic, he thought. So what was that other big ship that blew through the Pillars of Hercules? Yes… it was here. Whatever that ship was, it was firing those rockets again—firing blind from beyond the horizon, unless that submarine that stuck it to
Gneisenau
was reporting our position. It was uncanny how the missiles sought out the carrier, the second time the British had targeted
Graf Zeppelin
. This time the ship did not survive.

And from all reports
Gneisenau
is in very bad shape as well, he thought. So they have a submarine out there calling the shots now, and taking a few for good measure.
Loki
is already gone.
Thor
is busy fishing men out of the sea. Now that we are at full battle speed that sub will not be so lucky again. But in one hot hour, half our battlegroup is simply wiped off the sea! Lütjens must be having fits!

“Ship sighted!” came the call from the high mainmast. “I think it’s the
Rodney!
”

“Guns Ready! Now they pay the butcher’s bill.” Kurt “Caesar” Hoffmann was hopping mad, and the “Praetorian,” as he was called, was going to war. The ship’s chief gunnery officer, Schubert, was now at the Kapitan’s side.

“We’re ready, Kapitan. Waiting for orders from
Tirpitz
.”

“To hell with that! Open fire the moment you have the range. This is personal now, Schubert. We’re out for our pound of flesh here.”

Schubert nodded, Getting the range from Lowisch on the upper gun director. “Target at 22,000 meters.”

“Fire!” Hoffman’s voice was hard in the cold morning air, and the guns of
Scharnhorst
soon followed, their barrels elevated, and bright orange fire blazoning from the forward turret. Shubert fired Anton to gauge the range, with Bruno loaded and ready to fire after his first rounds were spotted. Nearly a minute later they saw the shellfall through binoculars, leading the British battleship and slightly short. Then Hoffman saw the distant flash of gunfire, hearing the loud boom some seconds later, a low, rumbling thunder on the horizon.
Rodney
was not unarmed.

Under normal circumstances I would never tangle with a ship like this, he thought. That ship may be old and slow, limping from that torpedo hit, but those are 16-inch guns out there…

“Sir,
Tirpitz
signals for a turn to port!”

“Come left fifteen!” Hoffmann knew that Topp was making his turn to get all their gun turrets into action now. It would be the eight 15-inch guns on
Tirpitz
, and the nine 11-inch guns on
Scharnhorst
against those nine 16-inchers on
Rodney
. On paper the Germans had the clear edge, and they also had a considerable speed advantage, making them much harder targets to train on and hit. By contrast, once they found the range on
Rodney
, it would be as if that ship was a sitting duck.

Tirpitz
fired, a salvo of four rounds, two from each of the forward turrets.
Scharnhorst
was soon ready for her second salvo, and Schulte decided to fire only his B turret this time, wanting to fine tune his sighting.

“Two degrees down elevation,” he called. “Ready… Shoot!”

Even as he shouted, the first big rounds from
Rodney
came arcing in well out in front of the German formation, four tall water splashes marking their fall. The battle might now decide far more than the fate of the three ships engaged had finally begun.

* * *

Marco
Ritter was out on the flight deck of
Goeben
, raging at a deck crewman to clear some equipment so he could take off. He had heard the news that shook the fleet.
Graf Zeppelin
had been badly hit, the damage severe, and it looked as though the ship would not survive. Word soon came that their brother carrier had managed to get six
Stukas
into the sky before the ship endured that last fatal hit from the British rocket attack.

Damn those rockets! There goes the bulk of our air defense here, and most of our
Stukas
. Only six made it off, and there are three fighters still up on top cover. That makes nine planes off
Graf Zeppelin
now in the air, and that’s all the eggs we can put in this basket. I need to get up there, and with a full tank to loiter as long as possible.

“Rudel!” he had shouted. “Get your
Stukas
up. I’m making you the new Squadron leader—your planes and six more off the
Graf Zeppelin
. Let’s get moving!

The chocks were pulled away, and Ritter gunned the powerful engine on his Me-109T, rolling down the short flight deck and into the amber sky. He was on the radio coordinating with the pilots off
Graf Zeppelin
at once, and they were now circling about the
Goeben
, a swarm of angry bees gathering for the attack.

“The target is
Rodney
,” he shouted. “All other fighters remain here on fleet defense. The crows follow me!” He put his plane in to a shallow bank, peeled off and led the way, off to the northeast where the action had just been joined by Topp and Hoffmann. They were coming with the six
Stukas
off
Graf Zeppelin,
and Hans Rudel had only just arrived with the three strike planes off the
Goeben
. They all had a bone to pick now, and they put all thoughts of how they might land on the crowded little escort carrier aside.

That would not matter, for the sky was soon to be alight with the hot contrails of Aster 15 rockets. There would be plenty of room on the flight deck of the
Goeben
in due course…

* * *

Now
the wild scene in the red-orange dawn would suddenly take yet another unexpected turn. Captains on every ship involved were set on battle, their eyes behind field glasses, faces grim, the boom of the guns loud on the morning air. Thick black smoke erupted from the German battleships, the rolling char of cordite so thick that the men could taste it with each mighty salvo fired. The Germans were finally finding the range on the hapless
Rodney
. There had already been two near misses, when the Anton turret of
Scharnhorst
straddled the British ship, sending shrapnel into the stacked crates of boiler tubes on her decks.

Rodney
thundered in reply, her third salvo very nearly scoring a hit on the
Tirpitz
. Now on the bridge, Lieutenant Commander Wellings was in a quandary. He had been unable to retrieve the precious key from
Rodney
’s hold, and in spite of every effort to steer the ship away from harm, the tall splash of seawater riddled with shrapnel was now the hard reality at the end of all his plans.

Rodney
shuddered with the firing of her own guns, four barrel salvoes that shook loose the deck planks and rattled every loose object on the ship. It was the second time Wellings had heard those monstrous guns fire, and the last time he had found himself flung overboard into a wild sea, witness to one of the greatest naval duels ever fought. This time it was not
Bismarck
out there, but her brother ship, the
Tirpitz
, and this time the odds were different too. That was a
Scharnhorst
class ship out in front!

The history here was still twisted and bent back upon itself, and he could see no way this intervention had any chance of succeeding. The only thing now was to get to his designated retrieval point, a position amidships where the project team would be looking to pull him out.

No sooner had he turned to look for the aft hatch and ladder down, when the first telling blow struck
Rodney,
just forward of her tall coning tower, and right on the number three gun turret there. It was an 11-inch shell flung at them by Kurt Hoffmann, and though the heavy armor at nearly 16 inches was enough to protect the turret from penetration, the shock and concussion was severe. Several packing crates that had been set atop the turret were blown to pieces, and black smoke billowed up, obscuring the bridge with choking cinder.

Wellings heard the drone of aircraft overhead, the scream of the Jericho trumpets, the wild hiss of rockets in the sky. When the smoke cleared he could see the twisting contrails of agile missiles snaking through the thin clouds overhead, seeking out the squadron of German
Stukas
. Then something happened that no one expected, except Gromyko.

He had fired his Type 65 torpedo, back along the axis of the undersea enemy attack. His two supercavitating
Shkvals
had helped clear the way, lancing out in their bubble jet spheres and blistering in to find one of the two
Spearfish
that were slowly closing the range on
Kazan.
The Russian sub had been running at its best speed of nearly 36 knots, heedless of the sound they were making now. Soon, thought Gromyko, the sea will erupt with Neptune’s wrath.

It sounded like a great kettle being struck when it happened. Nearly a hundred meters deep, the 20 kiloton warhead went off with a resonant boom, the immense sphere of expanding gas and vaporized seawater creating a tremendous shock wave in all directions. The second
Spearfish
careened wildly off course, its sensitive sonar pummeled with the wrenching sound, dumbstruck.

Gromyko knew his torpedo would take too long to reach the enemy sub, but he only needed to get close. The shock of the warhead would expand out several kilometers, and all he needed was to get some of that awful explosive force close to his enemy to hurt this sub.

And he did.

The
Ambush
shuddered with the blow, emergency signals going off all over the boat, an outer stabilizing fin wrenched by the shock, and the tremendous pressure forcing a hull leak in the sail that sent torrents of seawater down into the compartments below, as men scrambled to seal off the hatches. No one could see what was really happening, the searing green fire at the outer edge of the nuclear bubble in the sea. There came a rending sound, so deep and terrible that every man on the boat covered their ears, their faces taut with pain. It was a sound from another place, the moaning agony of eternity, long and distended, the meridians of infinity being wrenched and twisted until they broke.

The fissure opened, and
Ambush
plowed right into the expanding wave of shimmering phosphorescent plasma. It was as if the edge of that fire was the maw of some great wrathful sea demon, opening to consume the submarine.
Ambush’s
rounded nose vanished at the glimmering edge, soon followed by the long, bulbous body of the vessel, which plunged right on through a deep rupture in time, rent open by the violence of the explosion. It was the first instance of atomic fire scorching the lines of fate that shaped these altered states, pre-empting the angry blow that Vladimir Karpov might have flung at his enemies in August of that very year… but it would not be the last.

* * *

The
chaos of war swirling above the embattled British battleship was suddenly upstaged by the massive upwelling of seawater on the horizon. All eyes were riveted on the scene, and watchmen on every ship, pilots in their headlong dives, and crewmen at the gunwales of perdition gripped the hard steel there and held on for dear life.

A cold wind swept over the battle, just as Anton turret on the
Tirpitz
sent not one, but two more 15-inch rounds plunging down on
Rodney
. One struck the conning tower, the second smashing into the hull very near the damaged compartment where the battleship hid its secret cargo. The magazine for the forward torpedoes was there and, one by one, the long sleek weapons blew up in a series of shuddering explosions.