Undetected

by Dee Henderson

  “It at least works for me.”

  She let the conversation drop, and he didn’t try to follow up with another comment. She returned to the book she’d selected and read until they were back on the ferry heading across the Sound. When she joined him on the top deck to watch the sunset over the water, she dropped one of the shells he’d given her into his hand. “You’ll need one, when you’re going to tell me it’s another test. Just give it back to me.”

  “Okay.” He put the shell in his pocket, tried not to read into it anything more than she intended.

  She brushed her hair back as the wind blew it across her face. “This was an ideal day, Bishop. I love bookstores. And I appreciate the conversation. Thank you. I needed the break.”

  “I know you did.” He would have liked to intertwine his hand with hers, but instead he put his hands in his pockets. “I enjoyed myself too, Gina. You’re good company. And a pretty good sport.”

  “I’m really not that adaptable.”

  He lifted one eyebrow.

  “You just haven’t hit anything I care that critically about yet.”

  “You’re known to dig in your heels?”

  “Jeff says I’m obstinate. I like to think I’m simply right.”

  He smiled and nodded. “Good to know.”

  12

  Bishop skirted around those getting off work and headed up the stairs of the acoustical research building. He glanced in lab three, saw it was empty, and moved on down the hall to Gina’s office. She looked totally absorbed in the data she was studying, and two Big Gulp cups were stationed near her elbow. She’d discarded her shoes. Bishop smiled as he tapped on the office door. She glanced over, and her frown of concentration at the screen eased as she offered him a brief smile back. “Hi, Mark.”

  That intensity had been there too often this last week. “Can I talk you into a coffee break?”

  “If you make it a Diet Coke, sure.” She slipped on her shoes, then closed down her work, and the screens went back to their spiraling log-in prompt. She opened the wall safe and placed her notebooks inside. “Were you down this way for a reason?”

  “I came to find you.”

  It looked like she didn’t know what to do with that statement, and she finally just nodded.

  He led her downstairs and stopped at the vending machine to buy them each sodas. “It’s a beautiful day. Let’s take a walk.” He held the back door for her so the suggestion wouldn’t require a decision.

  Outside, she paused and lifted her face toward the sun, her eyes closed. “Nice. It’s been too many hours at the screen lately.”

  He gave her a moment to enjoy the outdoors, then opened his soda and she did the same. He nodded toward the path that followed the river to the picnic area. “What has you worried, Gina?” he asked as they fell into stride.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re back at the terminals, working on the sonar data, putting in as many hours or more as you did when you first arrived in Bangor. You’re working on your second sonar idea. And I’m beginning to know you . . . something has you worried.”

  They reached the picnic area, and she sat down on one of the picnic tables, pulled her knee up on the bench and draped an arm around it. “I thought it was a far-fetched idea and I wasn’t expecting it to work. I just wanted to check the data to confirm it. I’ve realized I made a mistake. I’m having to write a lot of software to put the idea into more than just a conceptual form—to make it tangible—but the idea is turning out to be rather robust.”

  “Tell me.”

  She bit her lip.

  He took a perch on the table beside her. “That bad, huh?”

  “I wish there were times I could unfold my life differently. The security guys assigned to me are warranted, Mark.”

  The admission told him a lot. He reached over and put his hand atop hers. “Straight out, and as concise as you can explain it,” he recommended.

  “What if you could find a submarine, not by listening for the noise it makes but by listening for the silence created by its presence?”

  She let him think about that statement for a moment before she continued. “The ocean is noisy. Every direction has a slightly different sound, depending on what is going on in that part of the sea. But no matter which way I turn to listen, there is ocean noise . . . unless something significant is in the way, blocking the sound.” She paused again, and bit her lip.

  “I listen for the silence where there should not be silence,” she told him, “and I can tell something is there. Submarines are big, and they block the ocean sounds I should be hearing. With cross-sonar running, I can pinpoint where the sub is. It’s the silence that gives the sub away. You only need cross-sonar running and a different way of listening.”

  Bishop felt something shift in his understanding of her. “It’s another conceptually simple idea,” he said softly, “but profoundly powerful.” Her genius was being displayed by the very simplicity of her ideas. A submarine blocked ocean sounds she should be hearing. The ramifications of that simple idea were breathtaking. “Okay, Gina.” The implications began to take shape and he absently squeezed her hand. “Okay.”

  “The range is massive, Mark. The Connecticut and the Ohio, running cross-sonar, were easily able to locate the all-quiet Nebraska when they were 100 miles away. They did it in every ocean noise condition. During the fourth test, the glacier ice, there was also something else in the data. I found the USS Kentucky. It was 213 miles away. It wasn’t even in the sea trial plan; it simply happened to be on patrol the next grid over.

  “And the kicker?” she added. “This works best where other sonar techniques struggle and break down. The more noisy the environment, the better and faster it works.”

  Bishop absorbed that fact, shook his head in wonder. “This will solve the problem of how to conduct search operations inside the littoral zone—the roughly 50 miles from the continental shelf to the shore, where the water depth is less than 500 feet and the ocean ambient noise is so loud that conventional sonar struggles. The sound of the surf crashing against the shoreline, currents running fast in shallow waters, and boats of all types is too much noise for conventional sonar to overcome.”

  “This algorithm, listening for silence, loves that noisy environment,” Gina confirmed. “The more diverse the noise is, the louder it is, the better this technique works.”

  “All it needs is cross-sonar to be running?”

  “Yes. It takes at least four hydrophone sets a distance apart to isolate the noise that should be there and where the object blocking the sound is located.”

  He closed his eyes and tilted his face toward the sun, letting his mind see the pieces of what this was going to mean. “Could it work with cross-sonar running between two ships on the surface?”

  “There has to be a noise source on the other side of the object you’re trying to find. In shallow water, surface ships would have better success simply running cross-sonar with an active ping. But in deep water, this should work with some blind spots. Surface ships would see a submarine 30 miles away at a depth of a thousand feet, but they might miss a submarine that was near the surface 10 miles away.”

  “A battle group will be able to locate submarine threats approaching at much longer distances.”

  She nodded. Quiet stretched between them, and he didn’t try to fill it.

  “Sometimes, Mark, I’m so very tired of thinking. Sometimes I just want a break from all the ideas, a chance to be normal for a while.”

  He tightened his hand on hers. “I imagine you do. It will be okay, Gina.”

  She sighed. “I get to go through it all again, don’t I? The presentation to Rear Admiral Hardman, the commanders’ meeting, the hand-off to the Undersea Warfare Group.”

  He could hear the stress she was feeling as her voice faded. “Are you wanting to walk away from this right now? Let others step in and take what you’ve created and figure out the rest of it? Because they could, you know. You’ve go
t enough of it mapped out, it could be left right now in the hands of others.”

  “It would be a sloppy exit. I don’t do sloppy, Mark. I have too much pride in my work and too much of myself invested. Thanks, but I’ll get it done myself.” She pushed a hand through her hair. “I’m tired. I need a break from this. I needed a break after I proved a cross-sonar ping worked. Instead I fell into a second idea that turns out to be larger, and the pressure I’m feeling is even heavier.”

  “Slow it down for the next month, Gina. Take the time you need putting this together. I’ll help you get through. You’ve got my word on that.”

  She nodded. “Something I appreciate a great deal. I thought about not telling anyone this idea, but that would be putting my head in the sand. Would you tell Rear Admiral Hardman, but push it back time-wise? I’ll get the Navy what it needs; I’d just rather not be answering a lot of questions until I’m ready to make the presentation.”

  “I can do that.” He thought through what was on his schedule for the next few weeks. “How about Daniel—would he be able to help?”

  She gave him a half smile. “I appreciate you finding reasons to put us together. Maybe the last few days to help with the presentation again. Right now it’s simply studying the data and trying to get the algorithms refined. The idea works, but to be useful it also has to be fast. That takes finessing.”

  “Okay. What do you need from me today?”

  “Let me go back to work for a couple more hours, then it would be nice if you’d take me home. I really don’t want to have to ride with security right now. They remind me of how much I wish for the days before I had either one of these ideas.”

  “I can do that for you. Want to stop for dinner somewhere on the way?”

  “Sure. Jeff’s out with Tiffany tonight, and I’d rather not cook for one.”

  Bishop walked Gina to the door of Jeff’s place. She idly spun the daffodil he’d picked for her when he stopped to get a copy of the Kitsap Sun to see what local restaurant coupons were being advertised. Dinner had been a quiet meal at an Italian place new to both of them.

  “Good night, Gina. I hope you sleep well.”

  She nodded as she unlocked the door. “Thanks for dinner,” she offered before stepping inside. He walked back to his car.

  “Mark.”

  Bishop turned. Jeff had parked on the street since his car was in the driveway. “Hey, Jeff.” It looked like Jeff’s evening with Tiffany had ended early.

  “Mind coming in for a minute?” Jeff asked, walking up the drive. “I need to talk with you.”

  “Sure.” Mark followed Jeff inside. He heard the water shut off upstairs as Gina no doubt was getting ready to turn in.

  “What’s going on with you and Gina?” Jeff asked, slipping off his suit jacket. “I called her to check in and found out she was at dinner with you. That’s three meals together—that I know of—recently. That’s not like you, not if it’s only work-related.” They had walked into the kitchen, and Jeff pulled out a chair and tugged at his tie.

  Bishop thought about it for a moment. “What if I told you I might regret saying no to your original suggestion that I ask her out?”

  Jeff paused. “Does she know that?”

  “I’m not asking her to make a decision between Daniel and me, Jeff. I’m simply laying the groundwork so she knows she has options. Daniel will be back from Groton in a few weeks. Then we’ll see what makes sense. She’s rather busy at the moment.”

  Jeff frowned, and Bishop realized she hadn’t told her brother yet. “She’s made another sonar discovery,” Mark said.

  “No. She does not need this,” Jeff protested, shaking his head. “Tell me it’s small, just a little nugget.”

  “It’s a whale,” Bishop replied, shaking his own head with a rueful smile. “She’s solved the littoral problem.”

  “How?”

  “What if you could find a submarine, not by listening for the noise it makes, but by listening for the silence created by its presence?”

  Jeff went still. “She figured out a way,” he finally said, “to show when a sub is standing in front of a noise source?”

  Bishop nodded. “And the noisier the environment, the better it works.”

  “Even I understand this one.” Jeff rubbed his face with both hands. “What are we going to do with her?”

  “Protect her,” Bishop replied, going to the heart of the matter.

  Jeff sighed. “What’s the plan?”

  “Tell Rear Admiral Hardman. I’ve got the first half hour with him when he arrives back from D.C. Gina’s already got all the data she needs to confirm that this works.”

  “That all-quiet with the cross-sonar search test we ran during the sea trial,” Jeff said, guessing at the data source.

  “Yes. She’s working on the algorithms for what she calls a cross-sonar quiet search.”

  “It’s going to totally change coastal water intelligence work,” Jeff said. “Fast-attacks routinely move into the shallow waters to deploy or recover SEAL teams or tap into communication networks to gather intelligence. Stealth will be meaningless if our enemies learn how to do this. They’ll see us coming just because we’re there.”

  “Actually it’s worse than that,” Mark said. “Two surface boats running cross-sonar could do a quiet search and locate a boomer 30 miles away and a thousand feet below them.”

  “Do you ever wish she would stop having these sonar ideas?”

  Bishop smiled. “I wish life could be so simple. We need to hear them, Jeff. But she would concur with you—she would like to never have a sonar idea again. She’s really stressed out right now. She’d like everything Navy to go away for a while.”

  “She’ll shift to working nights again if necessary,” Jeff predicted, “just to keep down the number of people asking her questions.” He sighed and changed the subject. “If you’re interested in her, are you planning to tell her? It seems to me silence isn’t going to help you much.”

  “Eventually. Now’s not the right time.”

  “So what changed your mind?”

  Bishop paused, thought over his answer, for there was a line he wouldn’t cross regarding Gina that extended even to her brother. “I like her smile.” The answer was simple, but it summed up a lot of layers of who she was.

  Jeff considered him. “I’d suggest you change ‘eventually’ to be more like soon. If you’re serious, she needs to know.”

  “I’m serious,” Bishop replied with a nod.

  “She really likes Daniel,” Jeff added quietly.

  “I know she does. You chose a good man. It’s going to play out however it does, Jeff. I’m determined she won’t get hurt through this.”

  “I trust you, Bishop. I’d be steering you away if I didn’t. Don’t get me wrong. You were my first choice, but it’s going to be weird having you date my sister.”

  Bishop tugged out his car keys. “I don’t plan to say much about it with you, and I doubt she does either.”

  “I’ll gladly stay hands-off unless I’m asked a question. The last thing I want to be doing is giving her more dating advice. I did that when she was 14, and she’s remembered it,” Jeff said ruefully.

  Bishop laughed. “Good night, Jeff.”

  Commander Mark Bishop waited with the duty officer as the military jet touched down and taxied in toward a hangar. He moved to meet Rear Admiral Hardman when the jet stairway deployed. “Welcome back, sir.”

  “Good to see you, Bishop.” Hardman handed his bags to the driver and motioned to Mark. “Ride with me.”

  He climbed into the back seat on the passenger side as the rear admiral settled behind the driver.

  “We’re secure here. What’s the trouble?” Hardman asked.

  “Not trouble exactly, sir, more like another surprise. Gina Gray’s second idea is more powerful than the first. She’s cracked the littoral problem—how to find a sub in the noisy environments close in to shore.”

  The admiral looked at Bisho
p for a while. “She’s having an interesting summer, isn’t she?” he said. “We’ve been hoping someone would get their arms around that problem. What’s her solution?”

  “The ocean is noisy. A sub gives away its presence by blocking ocean sounds. She’s listening for silence where there shouldn’t be silence. The noisier the environment, the better this technique works.”

  “She’s not giving us easy operational moves.”

  “No, sir. Two surface ships running cross-sonar can use this technique, so it’s not limited to the sub fleet. It’s going to improve battle group visibility considerably.”

  “Submarines used to be hard to find. Put together the range cross-sonar gives us, an active ping that can’t be heard, and now this . . . she’s turning the lights on in the ocean. She’s done everything but take a photo.”

  “It sure feels that way, sir. We’re going to have unmatched visibility underwater—at least until allies and enemies figure this out and can do it as well.”

  “When is she going to be ready to provide details on this latest idea?”

  “I don’t have that answer yet, sir. I know she’s refining the algorithms at the moment.”

  “As soon as possible, Bishop. So if she needs anything, clear the path for her.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  “How are you managing juggling the Nevada and working with what she has going on?”

  “I’m managing fine, sir. My XO is staying with me for another patrol, so we’ve been able to coordinate when I haven’t been available.”

  “Good. I don’t want to make the call to take you off either one, Bishop. But unfortunately for you, if they come into a hard collision, I would be asking you to give up the Nevada. Gina Gray appears to be working well with you, and I don’t have to remind you that what she’s working on is high priority.”

  “I would understand the decision, sir. I hope I never have reason to say it’s become a concern, but I will inform you if it does. I won’t shortchange either the Nevada or this new possibility. ”

  “Good enough. Can you tell me one thing, Bishop? Is this the last of her sonar ideas for now?”