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PROLOGUE
ONE Later that day Bachelor Officers Quarters, Naval Submarine Base, New London, Connecticut OUTSIDE THE WINDOW, in the post-midnight pitch-blackness, the freezing wind howled and moaned. The wind slashed at the leafless trees on the slope that led down to the river. Now and then, sleet pattered the pane, the tail end of a strong nor’easter that had dumped a foot of snow. Inside the room, a candle glowed in one corner. The ancient steam-heat radiator hissed and dripped. Ilse Reebeck looked down at Jeffrey Fuller. “Do you want me to get off now?” He met her gaze, with that slightly out-of-focus look in his eyes he always got right after making love. Jeffrey nodded, too sated to speak. Ilse felt him watch her intently as she left the bed. He stayed fully under the covers—she’d noticed since they’d first become intimate on New Year’s Eve that he was strangely shy with her about his body, well endowed as he was with muscles and dark curly hair and the scars of an honorable war wound. Ilse
TWO THE MOURNFUL HOWL of the sirens pierced the wind. As Jeffrey watched from the observation deck, streetlights switched off borough by borough. Down below, vehicles stopped and their headlight glows vanished. From upwind, Jeffrey heard a deafening roar. On the runways of Newark Airport, bright blue-violet flames lit off. They moved, faster and faster and up into the sky—the afterburners of scrambling interceptor jets. A whole squadron, a dozen planes, took to the air and headed out to sea. The yeoman stuck his head out of the door. “It’s real! Get down to shelter!” “What is it?” Jeffrey shouted back. “Cruise missiles inbound! Submarine launched! Coming this way! Mach eight!” “Mach eight?” Ilse yelled. “Come on!” the yeoman shouted. “We’re staying,” Jeffrey declared. The yeoman shook his head and disappeared. “Mach eight, Jeffrey,” Ilse said. “I thought—” “They had a handful left, in the supply pipeline.” “Shouldn’t we go to the basement? They’ll get here very soon.” “And be buried al
THREE Next morning, at the Pentagon EVENTUALLY, PASSENGER RAILROAD service was restored. Jeffrey and Ilse spent an uncomfortable night on the train as it crept toward Washington. They carefully folded Jeffrey’s dress uniform jacket, and the jacket of Ilse’s pantsuit, and put them neatly on the overhead rack. Then they used their coats as improvised blankets—the crowded train was chilly, to save energy, since it took power to heat the cars. Jeffrey slept fitfully; sometimes he heard Ilse moan in her sleep. He was tempted to squeeze her hand to try to comfort her, but held back; he remembered her comment in the Empire State Building cocktail lounge, that this was strictly a business trip. At the Pentagon, at least, Jeffrey and Ilse were able to freshen up and eat breakfast: bacon, actual bacon, and omelets made from real—not powdered—eggs. Now they sat in a waiting area, on a plush leather couch outside the big floor-to-ceiling double doors of a meeting room. The door was guarded by two
FOUR JEFFREY’S DAD TURNED and noticed him, and did a double take. “It is you,” Michael Fuller said to his son. Jeffrey felt his chest tighten. The man began to wash his hands, half ignoring Jeffrey. Testing me. Challenging me. Jeffrey knew too well he and his father both had their egos, especially with each other. “I, um,” Jeffrey stammered. He blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “How come you’re here?” Michael Fuller used his reflection in the mirror to look at Jeffrey. “That’s the best you can manage? ‘How come I’m here?’ Not ‘Good to see you, Pop’? Not ‘How are the nieces and nephews’?” Jeffrey had two older sisters, both married and with kids. “Sorry. It’s been a rough couple of days.” “Yeah.” His dad was sour. “For all of us.” He turned to face Jeffrey, and grudgingly made conversation. “You stationed in the Pentagon now?” “No. Just came from out of town, for a meeting. You?” Conflicting emotions flooded through Jeffrey as his father grabbed some paper towels. Part of J
FIVE Simultaneously, on Voortrekker, well south of Diego Garcia VAN GELDER FELT his armpits grow moist as Voortrekker’s electronic-support-measures mast picked up more and more enemy search radars. Around him in the control room, his technicians called out each sweep. Though he’d drilled them often to always speak calmly and clearly in battle, he heard the men’s voices grow higher pitched and start to get slurred from excitement or stress. Each radar sweep Van Gelder’s people reported was windowed on his screen, as a strobing flash in livid yellow, on a digital compass rose that showed the source’s direction. With each pulsing strobe, Van Gelder’s console also emitted a warning beep, a ragged, ugly, deep-toned sound. The strobes and beeps were growing brighter and louder, and more numerous. Soon the enemy radars would become a lethal threat, as the aircraft from USS Reagan drew close. Ter Horst didn’t seem to even care. Both periscopes busily scanned the ocean and the sky. Their imager
SIX Three hours later JEFFREY AND ILSE sat on the couch again, in the anteroom of the meeting chamber at the Pentagon. The vice chief of naval operations was still inside with some of his key people, holding a crisis meeting on the Indian Ocean attack. Word had reached Washington quickly, cutting short Jeffrey’s presentation. Now, aides, messengers, senior officers came and went through the double doors, all of them in a hurry. Their faces betrayed their emotions, ranging from grim determination to anger to grief. Jeffrey and Ilse were ignored. Jeffrey’s inner turmoil rolled around inside him. He didn’t mention to Ilse seeing his father, or the news about his mom. He tried not to think about this latest bad news either: the destruction of Diego Garcia, the obvious fact Voortrekker was on the loose, Jan ter Horst on the warpath. He wondered what Ilse would be thinking, being reminded of Jan. “How much longer till someone tells us what’s going on?” Ilse said. “I don’t know.” “Will they w
SEVEN On Voortrekker, in the Indian Ocean “SCHNAPPS, GUNTHER?” Jan ter Horst poured Van Gelder a glass before he could refuse. Van Gelder didn’t feel like drinking. He was exhausted from hours of supervising damage-control repairs throughout the ship. The air was breathable now without respirator masks, but it smelled bad. Van Gelder heard men go by outside ter Horst’s closed cabin door, carrying tools and spare parts. Van Gelder knew the crew was still recovering, mentally and physically, from their thorough atomic depth charging by planes from the USS Reagan. Ter Horst had said it would take a lucky shot to sink Voortrekker. But Van Gelder thought it was only luck that let Voortrekker survive. On second thought, maybe I could use a drink. This was the first time in a great while that ter Horst had summoned Van Gelder to a special private meeting, and Van Gelder was nervous. They sat with ter Horst’s fold-down desk between them. Did he see my hesitation, my qualms, during the attack o
EIGHT Simultaneously, at Dulles International Airport, Washington, D.C. STRAPPED INTO THE rear of the cockpit, Ilse heard the purring of the fighter jet’s twin engines rise to a steady, insistent whine. The crew chief and Rachel Barrows saluted. Ilse waved, and the crew chief waved back. Barrows must know she can trust the crew chief. I’d hate it if he were a spy, and sabotaged us. Barrows closed and sealed the cockpit canopy. Ilse breathed deeply, slightly frightened yet almost giddy in anticipation of what was to come. Her oxygen mask smelled rubbery. The oxygen tasted metallic and felt cool and dry. It helped Ilse feel more alert. Barrows’s voice came over Ilse’s headphones. “I’ll leave the intercom mikes on so we can talk. We’ll maintain strict radio and radar silence, for obvious reasons.” The plane taxied some distance in the pitch-dark. The plane’s suspension was stiff; Ilse felt every bump and crack and seam in the taxiway. “How can you see? I thought the Axis was distorting th
NINE Same evening, New London, Connecticut JEFFREY’S TRAIN ARRIVED on time in New London, and he did get a seat, but that was the best he could say for the ride. His mood—his morale about life in general—was at a low. It was just one thing after another the past forty-eight hours: the New York raid; him and Ilse fighting, and then her being sent God knows where; running into his father, and arguing, and separating again; the slaughter on Diego Garcia. The worst thing for Jeffrey personally was his mother. He’d taken it for granted that she’d be around forever. He’d always just assumed that one day he would patch things up with his folks, like maybe when he got married and had kids and gave his mom and dad some grandchildren. Now Jeffrey might be running out of time, fast, to even say good-bye to his mom. The whole trip from Washington to New London, as the sun set outside the windows and people got on and off the train at different stops, all this had swirled in Jeffrey’s mind, eating
TEN Thirty-six hours later JEFFREY WOKE UP early, after barely four hours’ sleep. The cot in the dormitory zone of the underground pens was uncomfortable. But with all the noise inside Challenger, from the contractors working frantically there, sleep on the ship was impossible. Jeffrey put both feet on the floor, stretched to get the kinks out of his back, and it hit him. The handshakes and smiles, the flashbulbs, all the grand but hurried ceremonies of change of command and the medals, counted for little compared to the sense of loss that assaulted Jeffrey’s mind as he stood up. Ilse Reebeck was dead. All their shared experiences during battle, all their passionate times in more recent nights, were as nothing now, wiped away. Where could the captain of a U.S. Navy warship find the time or privacy to mourn? His cabin on Challenger was being used as a blueprint room by repair crews. He slept instead on a cot in a big room full of cots, hearing other people snore. Jeffrey dressed as quie
ELEVEN Very early the next morning, on the Thames River, New London, Connecticut JEFFREY STOOD IN the open bridge cockpit atop Challenger’s sail—the conning tower. He was crammed between the phone talker and the officer of the deck. In spite of his parka, Jeffrey shivered in the heavy, freezing sleet and freakish wintertime hail. At least the wind was from behind him and the ship, from upriver. It was in the wee hours of the night. The total dark and terrible visibility were exactly what he and Commodore Wilson wanted. They were already five hours behind schedule, just now getting out of the pens. Fortunately this unexpected squall, with the perfect concealment it gave, took some of the edge off Wilson’s displeasure at Jeffrey’s delay. Challenger’s reactor was shut down, to suppress her infrared signature. As a consequence, the ship had no propulsion power. She was being pulled behind a big oil barge, itself pulled by a powerful civilian tugboat. The lash-up began to hurry down the riv
TWELVE A few hours later, on Challenger, under way at sea CHALLENGER WAS PAST the edge of the continental shelf, submerged in very deep water. The crew had been sent to a hearty breakfast of nourishing hot food, with several choices of entrées, and now was settling in to the watch-keeping routines of being under way at sea. Jeffrey sat alone at the desk in his stateroom. As usual, he kept the door open while he worked. In the control room, only a few feet up the corridor, a talented junior officer from engineering had the conn. Bell, in Jeffrey’s absence, was command duty officer, Jeffrey’s surrogate there. In a few more minutes Bell would turn in for badly needed sleep. Jeffrey was a bit exhausted himself. His eyes burned. He knew they were bloodshot. His whole body felt wired, from lack of rest combined with too much adrenaline now growing stale. Jeffrey was finishing paperwork, since the basic engineering tests were mostly complete. The ship had held up well enough as they gradually
THIRTEEN Night of the first day at sea, one hundred miles east of the mouth of Chesapeake Bay “COMMODORE IN CONTROL,” the messenger of the watch announced. “As you were.” Wilson came over and stood next to Jeffrey. Jeffrey, after a pleasant catnap, was expecting him. Challenger made flank speed, as ordered, vibrating steadily as the propulsion plant worked hard. Consoles squeaked gently in their shock-absorbing mounts, and mike cords near the overhead swayed back and forth. A boyish part of Jeffrey really enjoyed seeing and hearing these little signs of how fast his ship was going. “Status, Captain?” Wilson asked. “We’ve been following the edge of the continental shelf, sir. The north side of the Gulf Stream throws off meanders and eddies here. Horizontally, vertically, they form temperature and salinity cells that distort and attenuate sound.” “Why did you pick eleven hundred feet as your depth?” “In case someone does get a whiff of us, they’ll think we’re a steel-hulled sub.” “Bring
FOURTEEN Simultaneously, on Voortrekker, in the eastern Indian Ocean GUNTHER VAN GELDER felt relaxation and inner joy, as much as this was possible for a sailor at sea in a war. He had the conn in Voortrekker’s control room, and Jan ter Horst was asleep. Voortrekker was doing what she did best, moving quietly near the ocean floor in water three kilometers deep—snaking through the massifs and fissures of the Mid–Indian Ocean Ridge. These endless undersea volcanic mountains and valleys formed the ideal landscape in which Voortrekker could hide. To Van Gelder, watching the stark, razor-sharp faults and escarpments go by on the ship’s gravimeter display, it was the ideal place for him to sightsee. The ship made only seven knots, for safety as well as for stealth. A remote-controlled off-board probe was deployed well ahead of Voortrekker, scouting for enemy mines and hydrophone grids. The probe used special cameras to study the bottom in Voortrekker’s path, and Van Gelder watched the images
FIFTEEN The next day, midafternoon, in the Caribbean Sea CHALLENGER HOVERED NEAR the bottom in four thousand feet of water. The ship was at battle stations, rigged for ultraquiet. Around Jeffrey in the control room, his people talked in hushed tones, conveying information on shipping and aircraft contacts overhead or in the distance. The general feeling was tense, with Commodore Wilson grimly leaning over crewmen’s shoulders, peering at various console screens. Wilson stood up straight and turned to Jeffrey. “They’re late.” “I thought we were running late,” Jeffrey said. “We are. Hold your position, and hope they catch up. If they don’t appear we’re in a lot of trouble.” “Sir, with respect, would you please inform me whom they are?” “I’ll know it when they get here.” Jeffrey was exasperated. How was his crew supposed to watch for something with which to rendezvous, when none of them knew what that something was? “Is this secrecy really needed, Commodore?” “We can’t afford to ruin their
SIXTEEN WILSON, SATISFIED BY the periscope photo, ordered Jeffrey to continue with the rendezvous. As shown by live periscope imagery, Challenger was directly under the Prima Latina now. Jeffrey watched in amazement and then horror as the merchant ship split apart at the keel. A mine? Kathy reported new sonar transients—machinery noise, not breaking-up sounds. Jeffrey saw that this was supposed to happen: the ship’s bottom was a giant double door. “Here’s your ride through the canal, Captain,” Wilson said. “This wasn’t my idea. It goes way above a mere commodore’s pay grade, I assure you. I’m just following orders, as well as giving them.” “Understood.” “Surface your ship into the covert hold.” I was afraid he was going to say that. “Can’t we have her go any slower?” “No. If she slows or stops it’ll look suspicious. She’s being painted by dozens of radars we know about, and watched by God knows how many spy satellites we don’t know about.” Jeffrey thought hard how to do this. Challenge
SEVENTEEN On Voortrekker, inside the Trincomalee Tiger GUNTHER VAN GELDER sweated and his heart was pounding, both from exertion and from fear. He was truly caught between a rock and a hard place. Hurry up. But be quiet. Work faster. Not so loud. Van Gelder and his men needed to maintain absolute silence, because the enemy was so near. But they also had to work quickly. The cruise missile vertical launch array was already reloaded, but there was so much still to be done. Van Gelder stood on Voortrekker’s hull behind the sail, next to the open weapons-loading hatch which led down to the torpedo room. He paused for just a moment, to wipe his dripping brow. He eyed his wristwatch and frowned. He glanced up from his labors and looked about the secret hold to take stock of the situation. The feeling of being on tenterhooks wouldn’t subside. The Trincomalee Tiger was well equipped—with the special cranes needed to transfer weapons to a nuclear submarine, and with the nuclear weapons themselv
EIGHTEEN On Voortrekker “HOW MANY MORE torpedoes still to be loaded, Number One?” “Six, Captain, not counting the one on the loading chute.” “Make it quick,” ter Horst said. “The enemy’s so close I can almost smell that destroyer through Tiger’s hull.” “I know, sir.” Van Gelder glanced again to the rear of the hold, where there’d just been more Australian clanking and hammering. On Voortrekker’s deck, someone shouted. Van Gelder turned to censure the man. Instead he watched his worst nightmare of all unfold. The Tiger’s overworked loading crane failed. A big two-metric-ton nuclear torpedo, a German Sea Lion, teetered on a single length of fraying metal cable. The cable snapped and the Sea Lion landed nosefirst on Voortrekker’s deck, then fell over. It instantly crushed one crewman to bloody pulp, maimed another, and knocked two more off the deck and into the water. The torpedo rolled into the water with a heavy splash. It began to hit Voortrekker in the side, as the Tiger rolled and th
NINETEEN On Challenger IN PRIVATE, IN THE commodore’s office, Wilson looked at Jeffrey harshly. “That’s exactly what I intended you to do all along. Did you really think I’d let one of your crewmen lose an arm or die?” “Sorry, Commodore,” Jeffrey said. “It is an obvious thing to do, now that I know that you knew we’d be going through Panama.” Challenger, inside the Prima Latina, was nearing the entrance to the canal. Challenger was just a huge passenger for now—a strange kind of cargo, as unusual as the sunken Russian Golf-class sub that Howard Hughes’s Glomar Explorer had tried to salvage from the ocean floor back in the 1960s. Jeffrey had ordered Challenger’s reactor be shut down, partly for stealth and partly because there was no supply of cooling water. Challenger was therefore rigged for reduced electrical, and also for a modified form of ultraquiet. “So talk to your CIA liaison,” Wilson said. “This Rodrigo person. Work up some kind of story, that the injured man was part of the P
TWENTY On Challenger JEFFREY’S INJURED TORPEDOMAN was gone to a hospital. The Prima Latina was slowly being towed through the entry locks, at the beginning of the Panama Canal, by electric locomotives running on tracks along the bank. Sitting at his console in the control room, Jeffrey had to take this mostly on faith. He couldn’t exactly go up on the freighter’s bridge to greet the canal pilot and customs officials at Cristobal. All Challenger’s periscope showed him was the inside of the submarine hold. He had to take Rodrigo’s word for what was going on. The feeling in the control room was stuffy and tense. There was nowhere to go, trapped inside the tramp steamer, herself imprisoned inside the shallow canal locks. Jeffrey had set Challenger at battle stations hours ago, as a precaution, but the crew had no real way to defend themselves—except for last-ditch small arms. Silence was their best, their only protection. Even though the decks all rode on sound-isolation gear, Jeffrey’s cr
TWENTY-ONE On Voortrekker VAN GELDER HAD the conn. Voortrekker was back in the all-concealing bottom terrain of the Mid–Indian Ocean Ridge. She continued on her journey toward the Australia–New Zealand–Antarctic Gap and the wide Pacific beyond. As before, Voortrekker moved slowly, scouting ahead with an off-board probe. Van Gelder looked up from the imagery feed when a messenger came to his console. “The captain’s compliments, sir, and he requests your presence in his cabin.” “Very well…Navigator, take the conn.” Van Gelder stepped aft to ter Horst’s cabin. “Come in, Gunther, come in.” Ter Horst switched from Afrikaans—the Boer tongue—to German. “I believe you already know Commander Bauer.” Van Gelder nodded. Bauer was the head of the Kampfschwimmer team. He was tall and blond and handsome, slim-waisted, and seemed like a real tight-ass. Van Gelder disliked him on sight. “I enjoyed our little swim together, First Officer,” Bauer said. “It is good we rescued your crewman from the water,
TWENTY-TWO On Challenger THE PRIMA LATINA was supposed to stop in Balboa harbor, at the Pacific Ocean end of the Panama Canal, to let the canal pilot off. By strange coincidence, just then, the Prima Latina’s throttles jammed at full power. Rodrigo, sent below by the master to shut the main fuel-cutoff valves, took forever as he pretended to fumble all around the engine room in search of the proper controls. While harbor-traffic authorities warned other shipping by radio to stay clear, Prima Latina ran at full speed the whole length of the Gulf of Panama. The launch meant to pick up the harbor pilot had no choice but to chase in the freighter’s wake. At last, at the very outlet of the gulf, the throttles were forced shut. The Prima Latina came to a halt. The pilot departed, cursing, swearing he would have the ship’s canal toll doubled for wasting so much of his valuable time. All this Jeffrey knew because Rodrigo told him about it with a chuckle once the canal pilot was gone. The mecha
TWENTY-THREE WILSON GLARED AT Jeffrey. “How dare you come in here and speak to me like this?” “Sir, you lied to me. You told me someone whom you knew I cared about was dead. You let me suffer for days, and you knew all along that Ilse Reebeck was alive.” “Yes, I knew. And no, I didn’t tell you. Your behavior right now is perfect proof of why.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “See that dressing mirror? Look at yourself.” Jeffrey’s face was red and his fists were balled and his posture was antagonistic. “What do you see?” “I’m angry. I have every right to be. You violated the code of honor between naval officers, sir. You lied to me.” Wilson took off his reading glasses. “Do you want to know what I see when I look at you right now, Captain Fuller? I see someone who can’t control his emotions when he needs to. I see someone who cannot grasp the larger picture. I see a commander who if he keeps this up is going to stay in that rank for however much longer he survives.” Jeffrey balled his f
TWENTY-FOUR Several days later, south of New Zealand, aboard Voortrekker’s minisub VAN GELDER WATCHED and listened, amazed that all this was happening and that he was here to see. “I repeat,” the Kampfschwimmer chief ordered into the mike with some impatience. “Confirm you are on the bottom.” The German chief, squashed in standing up, looked past Van Gelder’s shoulder as Van Gelder sat in the minisub’s copilot seat. Commander Bauer was the pilot, elbow to elbow on Van Gelder’s left. The chief read the display screens in the mini’s cramped and dimly lit control compartment. They showed the data feed from his divers now fully six kilometers deep under the mini. The fiber-optic data line and the strong lift cable to which it was braided were the only links to the pair of men in the unimaginable depths below. The mini itself hovered submerged at only fifty meters. It was Van Gelder’s job as copilot to hold it at that depth, rigged for ultraquiet. Van Gelder saw an acknowledgment appear fro
TWENTY-FIVE The next day JEFFREY SAT TENSE and worried at the command console in Challenger’s control room. Outwardly, in order to do his duty and show good leadership to his crew, he made sure he exuded nothing but calm and confidence. The cost of this internal-versus-external conflict was a tight knot in Jeffrey’s stomach, and gradually increasing fatigue. He hoped to grab another catnap soon. But not right now. Commodore Wilson stood sternly in the aisle, supervising as the diesel boats reported in. The Royal Australian Navy submarines Farncomb, Rankin, Sheean, and Waller were holding for now to the east of Chatham Island, arrayed in a line. Each vessel was thirty-five miles from the next. The four Collins-class subs created a scouting and search line a hundred miles across, under Wilson’s control. Orders and reports would be passed up and down the line using covert acoustic communication bursts. At least that was the plan. The Australians would listen on passive sonar, ping on acti
TWENTY-SIX Later, on Challenger’s minisub TO JEFFREY IT was refreshing and pleasantly different, almost a tourist junket, to be going somewhere in the minisub outside a combat zone. It would also be the first time Jeffrey stepped ashore in a foreign country since becoming commanding officer, and he was looking forward to this small but momentous event. Jeffrey manned the mini’s copilot seat and Harrison, sitting next to him, had the conn. The trip from Challenger’s hiding place to Chatham Island took a while; they shared the driving. Back in the transport compartment, one of Lieutenant Clayton’s logistics-support enlisted SEALs rested having a coffee—he alternated with Harrison as pilot every hour, so they all stayed sharp while cruising submerged to and from the island. The battery-powered mini’s control compartment, with its low headroom and red lighting and computer icons dancing on display screens, formed an intimate setting, and Jeffrey was feeling expansive. He’d taken a shining
TWENTY-SEVEN Owenga fishing station, Chatham Island JEFFREY GINGERLY OPENED the minisub’s top hatch. It rose partway and hit the planks of the pier the mini was hiding under. Jeffrey peeked outside. It was barely dawn. Jeffrey caught his first whiff of natural air in almost a week. What struck him at once were the smells. Dead fish, diesel fuel and lubricants, and tarry creosote—the odors of a working waterfront. The minisub bobbed in the swell, which was noticeable even here on the downwind side of the island. Jeffrey listened. The swell sloshed. Rope lines creaked. The minisub scraped gently against seaweed and barnacles growing on the pilings of the pier. Next to the pier, as Jeffrey expected, was an old fishing boat, large but wooden hulled, resting on the bottom mud, derelict. By the red light coming from down in the mini’s lockout chamber, Jeffrey spotted a stained and dirty canvas tarpaulin hanging over the side of the hulk, between the rotting fenders that still held the boat a
TWENTY-EIGHT JEFFREY LAY ON his back, bewildered, staring at the sky, in mental shock as his heart pounded. Around him he sensed a disordered swirl of frantic motion and raised voices. Montgomery was already some distance away. Everyone was scrambling for cover and grabbing their weapons. Jeffrey’s former SEAL training came back from his younger days. He rolled onto his stomach and belly-crawled to a better position. Where’s the sniper? And who the hell is shooting at us? There was a bang in the distance, and a tearing sound. “Incoming!” Clayton shouted. Everyone squashed flat. Jeffrey caressed the damp soil with urgent intimacy, and tried to become one with the moss. The initial surprise of it all was wearing off, and now stark terror sank in. Jeffrey badly wished he had a helmet. A glowing ball was tearing toward him low over the ground, leaving a trail of dirty smoke. The rocket slammed into Ilse’s tent and exploded inside. The canvas billowed outward and ripped, riddled with white-
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