“Hey Dad, check it out!” Gunther Schueller pointed at the video game room with excitement. Inside, incessant whirring, chiming bells and psychedelic lights surrounded a maze of electronic devices.
Hans van Schueller turned and chuckled. “Ah, yes. I can see where you’ll be spending your time!” Canard’s new cruise ship, the Princess, was a modern marvel. Schueller and his family looked forward to a well-deserved vacation on the liner’s maiden voyage.
What they didn’t know was that the gaudy cave-like video room would soon become young Gunther’s eternal tomb.
Schueller, the European Commissioner for the European Union, was returning to Brussels. The German statesman had just completed a landmark trade deal between top U.S. officials and the EU. In fact, many passengers were the world’s richest and most influential people, including the U.S. ambassador to the UK and European diplomats. A few hours earlier, the Princess had left New York with great fanfare; ports of call would be Britain, France and Italy. Measuring 1,130 feet in length, the huge ship towered twenty-one stories from keel to masthead. The manifest named 2,400 guests of its 2,800 capacity.
But the festive crowd on board the Princess was oblivious to the eminent danger lurking below. Some two hundred miles away, a Russian-made nuclear submarine prowled the ocean floor like a stealthy bull shark. The Foxchase U-486, an Antyey type Attack Submarine, was armed with twenty-four ballistic missiles. Banks of twelve were stored on each side, between twin layers of the boat’s thick hull skin. On this mission, the missile of choice was the 100-RU Veder, NATO code-named Stallion. The top-secret, rocket-boosted torpedo was especially designed to destroy American carriers and submarines.
The
Princess deftly sliced the moonlit sea at thirty knots. Inside, guests were
joyfully dining, dancing and socializing. Lively music echoed against the
ocean, then faded in the cool night air. “Yes!” screeched young Gunther. He had
scored another hit in a video game
entitled, Dead or
Alive.
In the dining area, Schueller and his
wife Elke sipped a glass of red wine–Brunello di Montalcino, 1993. They had
finished an elegant dinner comprised of chateaubriand, scalloped potatoes and
sautéed zucchini.
Wineglasses in hand and elbows propped on
the table, they interlocked their arms in a toast. His eyes fixed admiringly on
his wife, Schueller said, “Zur
Gesundheit und zum Glück,”
to health and
happiness. They drank
some wine, then kissed softly. Framing
her heart-shaped face, Elke’s short, golden blonde hair glistened in the
candlelight. The smile on her ruby lips quickly reached her dazzling hazel
eyes.
Meanwhile, on board Foxchase U-486, the
submarine commander, a short man, looked at the clock on the wall. A deep frown
etched his round, weathered face. He twitched his head to the left and shouted
into a snake-like microphone, “Prepare to launch!”
A launch technician wearing heavy
earphones lifted the cover on the number one missile switch. “Fire control
ready!” His unshaven, boyish face gleamed with beads of sweat.
On the Princess, Schueller tipped his
glass and savored the last drop of wine. “Ready to dance?”
“Yes!” Elke replied.
The couple rose to their feet in tandem.
Hand-in-hand, they proceeded to the crowded dance floor in front of the main
stage. A trumpet player in the sixteen-piece band was playing a soothing
arrangement of Moon River. They came together cheek-to-cheek and
began dancing.
In the depths of the ocean, Foxchase
U-486 had reached optimal firing range. His scrunched hat tilted up, the
stone-faced commander navigated the sinister iron whale. “Steady. Maintain
course,” he ordered. A red light on the
bulkhead cast a creepy glow upon a row of engineers seated on the starboard
side. They were motionless, eyes glued to multi-colored radar screens on an
instrument panel.
“Two minutes to launch!” declared the
navigator.
With a slight quiver, the launch
technician rested his hand on the panel and loosely gripped the red toggle
switch with his fingers. His bloodshot eyes were hollow.
“Minus sixty seconds!” said the
commander. Intently following the second hand, he arched his eyebrows and took
in a deep breath. “Three, two, one,
fire one!”
“Fire one!” the technician blurted, while
flipping the ignition switch.
The attack vessel shuddered, and recoiled
in a rumbling crescendo. The Stallion
had shot out of its twenty-six-inch diameter tube. Target: The Carnard
Princess.
After the nuclear warhead cleared the
submarine, its rocket boosters ignited underwater. The Stallion burst through
the surface spitting orange flames and puffy billows of gray and white smoke.
Guided by GPS driven radar, it reached altitude and darted through the air at
twice the speed of sound.
When the lightweight torpedo arrived at
the drop zone, it shut down its rockets and slowed in velocity. A small
parachute popped open with a sharp clap. The deadly warhead gently dropped into
the dark sea, just three miles ahead of the Princess. A few feet below the
surface, its propeller motor started with a surge.
Armed with the equivalent of 200,000 tons
of TNT, the projectile zoomed towards the innocent cruise ship for the final
kill. Like a serpent, it slithered quietly through the water with diabolical
intent.
Within minutes, the Stallion struck the
bow of the luxury ship precisely below the waterline. It blew a gaping hole in
the ship’s hull. The huge liner
momentarily wrenched.
On the dance floor, Schueller was thrown
backwards, but quickly regained his balance. Fear in her eyes, Elke fell into
his arms and they clutched each other tight. People stumbled to the floor,
furniture shifted, drinking glasses tumbled and shattered. The music
stopped. A classic Steinway piano slid
off the stage and crashed to the floor.
Alarms sounded. Screams of terror filled
the room.
In a matter of seconds the timed warhead
melted through the forward interior walls. When the secondary explosion
occurred, the Princess became a massive fireball. Shock waves traveled hundreds
of miles. The blast created a crater over 2,000 feet wide, and unleashed a
1,500 feet high waterspout. A colossal tidal wave followed.
The cruise liner had disintegrated.
There were no survivors.