"More torpedoes in the water!" the operator called out. "They are actively seeking and are bearing right on us!"

"Distance?" Xian shouted.

"Three hundred yards--closing fast!"

"Impossible. Nothing could have gotten that close without being detected."

"Sir, nonetheless, we are under attack. The weapons went active as soon as they hit the water--torpedoes have acquired!"

"All-ahead flank, hard left rudder! Weapons Officer, match bearing on the attack line and fire! Countermeasures, launch a full spread!"

The Chinese Akula class attack boat swayed and dipped violently as she maneuvered her heavy bulk to the left of the attacking torpedoes. Arrayed along the aft quarter of the submarine, a line of canisters popped free and began to release a burst of sound cocooned in bubbles into the surrounding water that was a mimicked recording of her own electric power plant noises, including the cavitations print of her bronze propeller. As the massive vessel turned, the two strange missile-shaped torpedoes turned with her. The Red Banner'spropeller finally grasped the water and shot down and to the left, but she could not shake the oncoming weapons that had doubled the boat's speed--both weapons shot cleanly through the countermeasures without hesitation.

The captain froze as men started shouting orders. He knew they had but three seconds of life left to them.

The torpedoes struck almost simultaneously at the stern and under her keel amidships. The immense pressure wave cracked the Chinese hull like an eggshell and crushed all aboard in a microsecond.

Petersen finally caught sight of the two fast-approaching torpedoes that had suddenly popped toward the surface. In absolute horror he saw, in surreal slow motion, the Greenpeace vessel Atlantic Avengerinnocently and unknowingly swing her razor-sharp bow into the oncoming path of the outside weapon. The torpedo struck, blowing her beautifully painted bow off in a violent explosion that shook the giant oil tanker.

Petersen now had a slim hope that the remaining weapon would not be enough to hurt his massive ship. As he grasped on to that lone shred of hope, a sudden explosion to the south sent water upward into a plume of white foam and violence that announced that two subsurface-to-surface missiles were launched, just as the errant torpedo had been sent into the wrong ship. First one, then the other missile arched into the blue sky. As one missile kept climbing, the other turned down, and to the north as it streaked far ahead of the waterbound torpedo. The missile slammed into Goliathat her stern, ripping free her rudder and sending men sprawling to her elongated deck.

"We're hit!" someone called from the bridge.

Petersen wanted to scream in frustration for the officer to tell him something he did not know. However, before he could he saw that the second missile had turned toward the advancing Venezuelan missile frigate. Just as he saw the naval vessel start a slow turn to the west, the first torpedo slammed violently into Goliath's side, sending a giant mushroom cloud of steel and vaporized oil into the sky. Petersen tried to pick himself up off the deck as the ship was rocked again, this time from a distance as the second missile found its mark and slammed into the afterdeck of the guided missile frigate General Santiago, two miles away.

Who could be doing this?His mind raged as he reached for the sill lining the front windows of the bridge. Could it be the Americans, the Russians?They were the only two nations capable of such stealth and weaponry. The captain finally managed to gain his feet and look out onto the expanding horror that was Goliath's foredeck. Fires were raging, and he could see the giant ship was starting to list severely to starboard.

"Mr. Jansen, counterflood! Goddamn it, counterflood the port bunkers!"

"More missiles in the air!" someone screamed.

As Petersen looked on in shock, six separate trails of fire exited the sea. Four streaked to the west, gaining altitude, and two came directly at them. He managed a quick glance down at Atlantic Avengerjust as she started to slide bow first into the green sea, and crew and protesters were sliding and jumping from her decks. He closed his eyes in a silent prayer for them as the next two missiles found their mark, driving deep into the superstructure of the tanker.

The detonations shook the ocean for thirty-five miles in all directions as the old ship came apart and evaporated in her final, violent, split-second death. The expanding fireball that incinerated all who struggled to remain on the surface swallowed the surviving crew along with the remaining detritus of the Atlantic Avenger. Those who fought for survival beneath the water were torn to pieces by the pressure wave that slammed into them at over a thousand feet per second, sending their flesh into a billion microscopic additions to the raging sea, and also into the gathering mushroom cloud that was expanding like the rising sun over the green ocean.

CARACAS, VENEZUELA

The newly constructed crude-oil facility owned and operated by the Citgo Oil concern was a monstrosity that had displaced seventy-five thousand impoverished inhabitants in the suburbs of Caracas. Outside of her main gates, six hundred of these citizens stood side by side with five hundred union workers, protesting both their recent treatment by Venezuelan government and the nationalization of the oil industry, thus tossing the unions into oblivion.

Security was not only there for the protesters. Word had come down that there had been some sort of threat passed on by the American government concerning the opening of the world's most controversial oil facility.

Two miles inside the main gates, officials from China, Cuba, and Venezuela were on hand for the dedication ceremony. The concern was a joint financial venture between the three nations in an effort to thwart the United States and her allies--mainly Saudi Arabia--in what they considered unfair manipulation of the world's oil supplies.

The CEO of CITGO Petroleum and the interior minister of Venezuela shook hands, smiling broadly. The latter was there in place of president for life Hugo Chavez, a sworn enemy of the very democracies that had helped them in their national oil exploration treaties a decade before. Even after the threat that had been passed on by the president of the United States, Chavez still held firm that nothing and no one would stand in the way of his achieving an international power base and a strategic partner in China for his oil products. He even had announced plans for expanding into the Gulf of Mexico--an area that was quickly becoming a hot spot for environmentalists.

The interior minister was about to take the microphone to denounce the unpatriotic actions of the protesters outside the gates when air raid sirens began to blare loudly around the new facility. The Venezuelan minister looked around in confusion, the smile still stretched across his dark features, when three security men jumped upon the stage, took him by the arms, and moved him off the raised platform. The Chinese representative looked on in confusion, as did his Cuban counterpart. Then another set of military police appeared and harshly pulled the two diplomats to their feet.

"What is the meaning of this?" the Cuban minister cried out in Spanish as he was pulled unceremoniously from the dais.

"We have an air force warning of incoming cruise missiles. Please come with us, we have to--"