by Tom Clancy
Whoever had run the night watch at CIA was intelligent enough, Ryan thought. Intelligent enough to know that information received at three in the morning could wait until six, which bespoke a degree of judgment rare in the intelligence community, and one for which he was grateful. The Russians had transmitted the dispatch to the Washington rezidentura, and from there it had been hand-carried to CIA. Jack wondered what the uniformed guards at CIA had thought when they had let the Russian spooks through the gate. From there the report had been driven to the White House, and the courier had been waiting for Ryan in his anteroom when he came in.
“Sources report a total of nine (9) ‘H-11’ rockets at Yoshinobu. Another missile is at the assembly plant, being used as an engineering test-bed for a proposed structural upgrade. That leaves ten (10) or eleven (11) rockets unaccounted for, more probably the former, location as yet unknown. Good news, Ivan Emmetovich. I presume your satellite people are quite busy. Ours are as well. Golovko.”
“Yes, they are, Sergey Nikolay’ch,” Ryan whispered, flipping open the second folder the courier had brought down. “Yes, they are.”
Here goes nothing, thought Sanchez.
AirPac was a vice admiral, and in as foul a mood as every other officer at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base. Responsible for every naval aircraft and flight deck from Nevada west, his ought to have been the point command for the war that had begun only a few days earlier, but not only could he not tell his two active carriers in the Indian Ocean what he wanted, he could see his other two carriers, sitting side by side in dry docks. And likely to remain there for months, as a CNN camera crew was now making clear to viewers across the entire world.
“So what is it?” he asked his visitors.
“Do we have plans for visiting WestPac?” Sanchez asked.
“Not anytime soon.”
“I can be ready to move in less than ten days,” Johnnie Reb’s CO announced.
“Is that a fact?” AirPac inquired acidly.
“Number-one shaft’s okay. If we fix number four, I can do twenty-nine, maybe thirty knots. Probably more. The trials on two shafts had the wheels attached. Eliminate the drag from those, maybe thirty-two.”
“Keep going,” the Admiral said.
“Okay, the first mission has to be to eliminate their airplanes, right?” Sanchez said. “For that I don’t need Hoovers and ’Truders. Johnnie Reb can handle four squadrons of Toms and four more of Plastic Bugs, Robber’s det of Queers to do the jamming, plus an extra det of Hummers. And guess what?”
AirPac nodded. “That almost equals their fighter strength on the islands.” It was dicey. One carrier deck against two major island bases wasn’t exactly ... but the islands were pretty far apart, weren’t they? Japan had other ships out there, and submarines, which is what he feared in particular. “It’s a start, maybe.”
“We need some other elements,” Sanchez agreed. “Anybody going to say no when we ask?”
“Not at this end,” the Admiral said after a moment’s thought.
The CNN reporter had made her first live feed from atop the edge of the dry dock, and it showed the two nuclear-powered carriers sitting on their blocks, not unlike twin babies in side-by-side cradles. Somebody in CINCPAC’s office must have paid a price for letting her in, Ryan thought, because the second feed was from much farther away, the flattops across the harbor but still clearly visible behind her back, as she said much the same things, adding that she had learned from informed sources that it could be as much as six months before Stennis and Enterprise could again put to sea.
Isn’t that just great, Jack grumbled to himself. Her estimate was as good as the one sitting on his desk with Top Secret written on the folder in red lettering. Maybe it was even better, since her source was probably a yard worker with real experience in that largest of body and fender shops. She was followed by a learned commentator—this one a retired admiral working at a Washington think-tank-who said that taking the Marianas back would be extremely difficult at best.
The problem with a free press was that it gave out information to everyone, and over the past two decades it had become so good a source of information that his country’s own intelligence services used it for all manner of time-critical data. For its part, the public had grown more sophisticated in its demands for news, and the networks had responded by improving both its collection and analysis. Of course, the press had its weaknesses. For real insider information it depended too much on leaks and not enough on shoeleather, especially in Washington, and for analysis it often selected people motivated less by facts than by an agenda. But for things that one could see, the press often worked better than trained intelligence officers on the government payroll.
The other side depended on it too, Jack thought. Just as he was watching his office TV, so were others, all over the world....
“You look busy,” Admiral Jackson said from the door.
“I’m waiting just as fast as I can.” Ryan waved him to a seat. “CNN just reported on the carriers.”
“Good,” Robby replied.
“Good?”
“We can have Stennis back to sea in seven to ten days. Old pal of mine, Bud Sanchez, is the CAG aboard her, and he has some ideas I like. So does AirPac.”
“A week? Wait a minute.” Yet another effect of TV news was that people often believed it over official data, even though in this case the classified report was identical with—
Three were still in Connecticut, and the other three were undergoing tests in Nevada. Everything about them was un-traditional. The fabrication plant, for example, was more like a tailor shop than an aircraft factory. The basic material for the airframes arrived in rolls, which were laid out on a long, thin table where computer-driven laser cutters sliced out the proper shapes. Those were then laminated and baked in an oven until the carbon-fiber fabric formed a sandwich stronger than steel, but far lighter—and, unlike steel, transparent to electromagnetic energy. Nearly twenty years of design work had gone into this, and the first pedestrian set of requirements had grown into a book as thick as a multivolume encyclopedia. A typical Pentagon program, it had taken too long and cost too much, but the final product, if not exactly worth the wait, was certainly worth having, even at twenty million dollars per copy, or, as the crews put it, ten million dollars per seat.
The three in Connecticut were sitting in an open-sided shed when the Sikorsky employees arrived. The onboard systems were fully functional, and they had each been flown only just enough by the company test pilots to make sure that they could fly. All the systems had been checked out properly through the onboard diagnostic computer which, of course, had also diagnosed itself. After fueling, the three were wheeled out onto the ramp and flown off just after dark, north to Westover Air Force Base, in western Massachusetts, where they would be loaded in a Galaxy transport of the 327th Military Airlift Squadron for a flight to a place northeast of Las Vegas that wasn’t on any official maps, though its existence wasn’t much of a secret. Back in Connecticut, three wooden mockups were wheeled into the shed, its open side visible from the residential area and highway three hundred yards uphill. People would even be seen to work on them all week.
Even if you didn’t really know the mission yet, the requirements were pretty much the same. Tennessee reduced speed to twenty knots, five hundred miles off the coast.
“Engine room answers all ahead two-thirds, sir.”
“Very well,” Commander Claggett acknowledged. “Left twenty-degrees rudder, come to new course zero-three-zero.” The helmsman repeated that order back, and Claggett’s next command was, “Rig ship for ultraquiet.”
He already knew the physics of what he was doing, but moved aft to the plotting table anyway, to recheck the ship’s turning circle. The Captain, too, had to check everything he did. The sharp course reversal was designed to effect a self-noise check. All over the submarine, unnecessary equipment was switched off, and crewmen not on duty got into their individual bunks as their ship turned. The c
rew, Claggett noted, was already getting into the swing.
Trailing behind Tennessee at the end of a thousand-yard cable was her towed sonar array, itself a thousand feet long. In another minute the submarine was like a dog chasing her own lengthy tail, a bare thousand yards abeam of it, and still doing twenty knots while sonarmen listened on their own systems for noise from their own ship. Claggett’s next stop was the sonar room, so that he could watch the displays himself. It was electronic incest of sorts, the best sonar systems ever made trying to locate the quietest ship ever made.
“There we are, sir.” The lead sonarman marked his screen with a grease pencil. The Captain tried not to be too disappointed. Tennessee was doing twenty knots, and the array was only a thousand yards off for the few seconds required for the pass to be made.
“Nobody’s that invisible, sir,” Lieutenant Shaw observed.
“Bring her back to base course. We’ll try it again at fifteen knots.” To the sonar chief: “Put a good man on the tapes. So let’s find that rattle aft, shall we?” Ten minutes later Tennessee commenced another self-noise check.
“It’s all going to be done in the saddle, Jack. As I read this, time works for them, not for us.” It wasn’t that Admiral Jackson liked it. There didn’t appear to be another way, and this war would be come-as-you-are and make up your own rules as you went along.
“You may be right on the political side. They want to stage the elections soon, and they seem awfully confident—”
“Haven’t you heard? They’re flying civilians in hand over fist,” Jackson told him. “Why do that? I think they’re all going to become instant residents, and they’re all going to vote Ja on the Anschluss. Our friends with the phone can see the airport. The inbound flights have slacked off some, but look at the numbers. Probably fifteen thousand troops on the island. They can all vote. Toss in the Japanese tourists already there, and those who’ve flown in, and that’s all she wrote, boy.”
The National Security Advisor winced. “That is simple, isn’t it?”
“I remember when the Voting Rights Act got passed. It made a big difference in Mississippi when 1 was a kid. Don’t you just love how people can use law to their benefit?”
“It sure is a civilized war, isn’t it?” Nobody ever said they were stupid, Jack told himself. The results of the election would be bogus, but all they really had to do was muddle things. The use of force required a clear cause. So negotiations were part of the strategy of delay. The other side was still determining the rules of the game. America did not yet have a strategy of action.
“That’s what we need to change.”
“How?”
Jackson handed over a folder. “Here’s the information I need.”
Mutsu had satellite communications, which included video that could be uplinked from fleet headquarters at Yokohama. It was a pretty sight, really, Admiral Sato thought, and so good of CNN to give it to him. Enterprise with three propellers wrecked, and the fourth visibly damaged. John Stennis with two already removed, a third clearly beyond repair; the fourth, unfortunately, seemed to be intact. What was not visible was internal damage. As he watched, one of the huge manganese-bronze propellers was removed from the latter ship, and another crane maneuvered in, probably, the destroyer’s engineering officer observed, to withdraw part of the starboard outboard shaft.
“Five months,” he said aloud, then heard the reporter’s estimate of six, pleasantly the opinion of some unnamed yard worker.
“That’s what headquarters thinks.”
“They can’t defeat us with destroyers and cruisers,” Mutsu’s captain observed. “But will they pull their two carriers out of the Indian Ocean?”
“Not if our friends continue to press them. Besides,” Sato went on quietly, “two carriers are not enough, not against a hundred fighters on Guam and Saipan—more if I request it, as I probably will. It’s really a political exercise now.”
“And their submarines?” the destroyer’s CO wondered, very nervous.
“So why can’t we?” Jones asked.
“Unrestricted warfare is out,” SubPac said.
“It worked before.”
“They didn’t have nuclear weapons before,” Captain Chambers said.
“Oh.” There was that, Jones admitted to himself. “Do we have a plan yet?”
“For the moment, keeping them away from us,” Mancuso said. It wasn’t exactly a mission to thrill Chester Nimitz, but you had to start somewhere. “What do you have for me?”
“I’ve gotten a couple of hits on snorting subs east of the islands. Nothing good enough to initiate a hunt, but I don’t suppose we’re sending P-3s in there anyway. The SOSUS troops are up to speed, though. Nothing’s going to slip past us.” He paused. “One other thing. I got one touch”—a touch was less firm than a hit—“on somebody off the Oregon coast.”
“Tennessee, ” Chambers said. “That’s Dutch Claggett. He’s due in here zero-two-hundred Friday.”
Jones was impressed with himself. “Damn, a hit on an Ohio. How many others?”
“Four more, the last one leaves the pier in about an hour.” Mancuso pointed at his wall chart. “I told each one to run over that SOSUS array for a noise check. I knew you’d be around to sniff after them. Don’t get too cocky about it. They’re doing a speed run into Pearl.”
Jones nodded and turned. “Good one, Skipper.”
“We haven’t completely lost it yet, Dr. Jones.”
“Goddamn it, Chief!” Commander Claggett swore.
“My fault, sir. Sure as hell.” He took it like a man. It was a toolbox. It had been found stuck between a seawater pipe and the hull, where minor vibrations off the spring-suspended deck had made the wrenches inside rattle, enough that the submarine-towed sonar had detected the noise. “It isn’t one of ours, probably a yard worker left it aboard.”
Three other chief petty officers were there to share the experience. It could have happened to anyone. They knew what was coming next, too. Their captain took a deep breath before going on. A good show of anger was required, even for his chiefs.
“Every inch of the hull from the collision bulkhead to the tailshaft. Every loose nut, every bolt, every screwdriver. If it’s layin’ on the deck, pick it up. If it’s loose, tighten it. No stoppin’ till it’s done. I want this ship so quiet I can hear the dirty jokes you’re thinking about me.”
“It’ll get done, sir,” the Chief of the Boat promised. Might as well get used to no sleep, he didn’t say, and sure enough—
“You got it, COB, no sleep until this boat makes a tomb look noisy.” On reflection, Claggett thought he could have picked a better metaphor.
The CO made his way back forward, reminding himself to thank his sonar chief for isolating the source of the noise. It was better to have found it the first day out, and he had to raise hell about it. Those were the rules. He had to command himself not to smile. The Captain, after all, was supposed to be a stern son of a bitch—when he found something wrong, that is, and in a few minutes the chiefs would relay all his wrath on to others and feel the same way about it.
Things had already changed, he saw, as he passed through the reactor spaces. Like doctors in an operating room, the reactor watch sat or stood as their assignments dictated, mainly watching, making a few notes at the proper times. At sea for less than a day, and already Xerox copies of Think Quiet were taped to both sides of every watertight door. Those few crewmen he encountered in the passageways made way for him, often with a curt, proud nod. Yeah, we’re pros, too, sir. Two men were jogging in the missile room, a long and now useless compartment, and Claggett, as service etiquette dictated, made way for them, almost smiling again as he did so.
“Toolbox, right?” the executive officer asked when the CO reentered the Attack Center. “I had that happen to me on Hampton after our first refit.”
“Yep.” Claggett nodded. “Turn of the next watch, we do a fore-and-aft walkdown.”
“Could be worse, sir. Once comi
ng out of a yard overhaul, a guy I know had to reenter the dry dock. They found a friggin’ extension ladder in the forward ballast tank.” Stories like that made submariners shiver.
“Toolbox, sir?” the sonar chief asked.
Now he could smile. Claggett leaned against the doorframe and nodded as he pulled out a five-dollar bill. “Good call, Chief.”
“Wasn’t all that much.” But the chief petty officer pocketed the five anyway. On Tennessee, as on a lot of submarines, every wrench aboard had its handle dipped in liquid vinyl, which both gave a slightly better grip, especially to a sweaty hand, and also cut way back on the chance of rattling. “Some yard puke, I bet,” he added with a wink.
“I only pay once,” Claggett observed. “Any new contacts?”
“Single-screw low-speed diesel surface ship bearing three-four-one, way out. It’s a CZ contact, designated Sierra-Thirty. They’re working a plot now, sir.” He paused for a moment, and his mood changed. “Cap’n?”
“What is it, Chief?”
“Asheville and Charlotte—is it true?”
Commander Claggett nodded again. “That’s what they told me.”
“We’ll even the score, sir.”
Roger Durling lifted the sheet of paper. It was handwritten, which was something the President rarely saw. “This is rather thin, Admiral.”
“Mr. President, you’re not going to authorize a systematic attack on their country, are you?” Jackson asked.
Durling shook his head. “No, that’s more than I want. The mission is to get the Marianas back and to prevent them from carrying through on the second part of their plan.”
Robby took a deep breath. This was what he’d been preparing for.
“There’s a third part, too,” Jackson announced.
The two men with him froze.
“What’s that, Rob?” Ryan asked after a moment.