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“We’ll torch it open, then reweld it shut when we’re done. The ship will remain submerged with the ballast tank full. We’ll be putting the Hiroshima missiles in tubes one and six. Number one is in the center of the tank, giving us the most fore-and-aft room to pull out the missile. Number six is in the first ring. Only one and three have cruise missiles loaded. Six is the best choice, it is higher up, which gives us a larger margin of error should the ballast tank flood during the operation.”

“What speed will we need for depth control with a ballast tank full of air?”

“We’ll need to be shallow to keep the pressure down, but speed will probably need to be fifty or sixty clicks so that the X-tail can compensate for the buoyancy using hydrodynamic forces. Unfortunately we could have a wake from shallow speeds near the surface, so I believe a compromise will put us at a depth of 100 meters.”

“That means you will be working in ten atmospheres of pressure,” Sharef said. “Your time is limited and you’ll need to depressurize slowly to avoid the bends.”

“We’ve thought of that, sir. Time to perform this op will be about ten hours. Ballast-tank entry will last for another two to depressure by coming shallower. The two-hour depressurization will be timed to be at night so our surface wake will not be noticed by casual shipping or observation satellites. And even if it is, it’s a big ocean and no one knows where we went after we left Gibraltar, so a surface disturbance won’t be tied to us.”

“And how will you get to the warheads?”

“We thought about torching the after-part of the tube and pulling the missile out one module at a time to get to the warhead, then reassembling. That would take several days of disassembly and reassembly in a half-flooded ballast tank with poor lighting. It would not work.” “I know that,” Sharef said. It was the obstacle he’d tried to overcome since he’d been told about the mission. Short of opening a tube bow cap and withdrawing the weapon from in front of the ship, there seemed no way to get the warheads in.

“We’ll torch-cut the forward top ends of the tubes, right at the ring joint from missile to warhead. The metal will be re moved, the old warhead disassembled and the new one inserted. The main struggle will be handling the warheads and the metal pieces from the tubes. More lifting lugs and chainfalls.”

“Have you thought of what happens when you cut into a tube with a torch directly above a live warhead?” Sharef asked. “You’ll blow a twenty-meter hole in the nose cone.”

“No,” Ahmed said, “We’ll get the high explosive out first.

We’ll drill a hole in the top of the tube with a titanium drill bit, continuing into the Hiroshima warhead. A second hole will be drilled on the side of the tube for insertion of a heating element to melt the explosive, which will be sucked out the top hole. We think we can evacuate ninety percent of the explosive mass this way. The rest will be neutralized with a nitrogen-bottle purge from the side hole through the top hole. The nitrogen won’t prevent burning the remaining explosive but it will keep a sustained fire from burning in the tube and lighting off the solid rocket-booster fuel.”

“Commodore, to save time and accomplish the mission,” Sihoud said, standing, “Colonel Ahmed requests permission to load the warheads.”

“Permission granted, Ahmed. Please go blow your head off.”

Tawkidi helped him back to his stateroom, where he collapsed into his bed, his face gray with pain and fatigue.

“Commander, bring in the doctor and ask him to bring his damn drugs.”

“Yes, sir. Try to rest.”

The injection took him away from the hard surface of pain and delivered him to sleep, but not before he imagined a hundred thousand faces of innocent children imploring him not to launch the missiles.

WESTERN ATLANTIC

POINT BRAVO HOLD POSITION, 500 NAUTICAL MILES EAST OF LONG ISLAND

USS SEAWOLF

Pacino didn’t know which would be worse … have the technician wire in the new circuit and the whole crew would know what his idea was, or wire it in himself and have the crew wonder why the ship’s captain would be wiring up his own work. Either way it would seem unusual, unprecedented.

Captains didn’t usually get their hands dirty, nor did they even authorize the kind of changes Pacino wanted much less think of those changes themselves. But this was not something he wanted shared with the crew. It would be a disservice to them for him to wear his doubts and fears on his face … a crew stood on the foundation of their captain’s confidence. And anyone who knew about this circuit, Vaughn on down, would see that his confidence had come close to running out … No, that wasn’t really true. The circuit was a contingency.

Just in case. His Seawolf would take the Destiny because it was quieter, faster, and more capable than the 688s that had been put on the bottom. He was trying to reassure himself, but a voice said your weapons are the same as the 688’s.