Seawolf Mask of Command

by Cliff Happy

  The weapons were brought aboard through the weapon’s loading hatch. Underneath the hatch, sections of decking were removed and used to create a ramp of sorts from the weapons hatch all the way down to the cavernous torpedo handling room deep within the submarine. One by one the weapons were hoisted by the crane on the pier, lowered through the loading hatch, and then winched down into the boat. As soon as the first flatbed was emptied, a second appeared, and then a third, followed by a fourth.

  “I hope you didn’t have any plans for Christmas,” Weps whispered to her after she read off the latest serial number.

  “Not anymore,” she replied, wondering what was going on.

  They’d been loading torpedo after torpedo for nearly six hours when over her radio she heard the captain order a halt to the loading operation. No explanation was given, except Kristen saw that on the pier, the flatbed truck with the training torpedoes drove away along with the latest empty flatbed. Stahl checked his watch. “We have about twenty minutes,” he confided. “If you want to go below and get something to eat, now’s the time.”

  Kristen shook her head, not wanting to go below despite the brutal cold. The wind had picked up, and the combination of wind and bitter cold had dropped the temperature to below zero. The result was ice forming along the hull where waves had pushed water up onto the sleek black deck.

  “What are you doing up here, Lieutenant?”

  She recognized Brodie’s voice and turned toward him. He was wearing his usual coveralls, a ball cap with the Seawolf logo on it, and an unzipped parka.

  “Good evening, Captain,” she and Stahl said in greeting. She then added in reply to his question, “I was just learning the ropes, sir.”

  The XO joined them from the docks where he’d been monitoring the operation. “Who ordered this weather?” Graves asked, his parka zipped up tight and his hands beating feeling back into his arms.

  “Don’t you care for the brisk night air, XO?” Brodie teased his friend.

  “We never had anything like this back in Memphis,” Graves admitted.

  Brodie smiled, apparently unaffected by the brutal wind hitting them. “You’re the safety officer for the deck crew, right Lieutenant?” Brodie asked Kristen.

  “I am, sir.”

  “The temperature is expected to drop to nearly ten below before dawn. At that temperature, and with this wind, these decks are gonna ice over as soon as we get underway. What’s worse is in the dark you and your men won’t be able to spot the icy patches. So make certain everyone has been briefed to keep their lifelines on at all times.”

  “Absolutely, Captain,” she replied automatically.

  But Brodie persisted, reiterating his point. “If someone goes in the drink tonight, we’ll be unable to get them out before hypothermia sets in, so we can’t afford any accidents. Got it?”

  “Got it, Captain,” Kristen replied but was now even more curious than she’d been. According to the training schedule, they weren’t supposed to leave Indian Island until the morning. “So, I guess we’re in a bit of a hurry, sir?”

  “A bit,” he admitted but offered no other insight.

  Exactly twenty minutes later, another flatbed appeared with more weapons. But, in addition to ADCAP torpedoes, she now saw a device she’d only read classified reports about. The Navy had been testing a new decoy meant to mimic the sounds of a submarine in all respects. Shaped generally like a torpedo, the decoys were codenamed “Aseslan.” The Seawolf loaded eight of these experimental submarine decoys.

  Beside her, Kristen could almost feel Andrew Stahl’s tension growing as each new weapon came aboard. She’d already counted twenty-five ADCAP torpedoes, and with the eight decoys they were beginning to run out of room in the torpedo room.

  “Looks like we’re going to fill her up, Weps,” she commented, having to nearly shout to be heard over the howling wind.

  “And then some,” he admitted.

  She didn’t know what this meant. The Seawolf had a maximum capacity of fifty weapons. This was by far the largest weapons capacity of any US submarine, but still more weapons arrived. The next flatbed was loaded with Tomahawk cruise missiles, including several of the anti-ship version of the reliable weapon.

  Kristen counted a total of forty-five weapons already loaded and more still on the pier, when a new twist to the strange series of events was added. A second crane, a much larger one, powered up. In addition, she saw, appearing out of the darkness, two small patrol boats. The Coast Guard routinely patrolled these waters, but these two craft weren’t Coast Guard boats. Instead, they were haze grey Navy patrol boats, and Kristen saw a host of fully armed marines on each. Spotlights from these two craft began sweeping the waters around the Seawolf looking for any other vessel or possible danger.

  “What’s going on, Weps?” Kristen asked, becoming suspicious.

  He responded by pointing toward shore. “Trust me, you really don’t want to know,” he confided.

  Kristen looked shoreward and saw, approaching the pier, was a convoy of vehicles. It was too dark to tell just what they were carrying, but she noticed blue and red flashing lights in the convoy. After the next Tomahawk cruise missile went below, Kristen took another look at the approaching convoy. As it came closer she identified a single flatbed truck in the middle of a five-vehicle convoy. The lead vehicle was a police cruiser with the lights flashing. It was followed by an armored car with a marine manning a machine gun in a turret. Then came the flatbed, with marines walking along each side of the slow moving vehicle. Then there was another armored car with a second police cruiser in the rear.

  “Is that flatbed carrying what I think it is?” Kristen asked, feeling suddenly very uncomfortable about what lay ahead of them.

  “I’m afraid so,” Weps admitted.

  Kristen watched as the slow moving convoy reached the pier. The marines escorting the flatbed were armed to the teeth and dressed in body armor. The flatbed had a long tarp draped over what looked like two shipping crates. Kristen didn’t have to guess what they were. Marines were at Naval Weapons Stations for one reason, and it wasn’t to wear their dress blues and look nice for the visitors. The marines’ sole function on any naval facility was to guard nuclear weapons.

  The last conventional cruise missile went below, and then there was a brief pause while some security coordination was made. Meanwhile, the larger shore crane moved into position. Kristen saw a pair of marines, one armed with a scoped rifle, climb up to the control booth of the crane. She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up at the thought of a sniper sighting in on her. Guns had always made her nervous. She’d fired an M-16 and a service pistol at the Naval Academy once and had managed not to shoot herself.

  Four marines came aboard and positioned themselves on the deck as the first nuclear-tipped cruise missile was freed from its armored storage case and hoisted aboard.

  Kristen stood out of the way as the menacing looking weapon was carefully lowered onto the cradle over the loading hatch. She then stepped forward and with a flashlight found the identifying serial number. “One Tomahawk Land Attack Missile-Nuclear with one W-80 variable-yield nuclear warhead. Serial number 783561,” Kristen read off the serial number feeling a sick sense of foreboding. With the exception of ballistic missile submarines, there weren’t supposed to be nuclear weapons on naval vessels any more.

  What the hell have you gotten yourself into?

  Weps verified the serial number against his paperwork. Once signed for, it was lowered down through the weapons hatch and into the bowels of the submarine. Twenty minutes later the second TLAM-N was lowered beneath the deck. As soon as it disappeared, the marines left the submarine and the convoy moved away.

  The Seawolf was supposed to leave with the late-morning tide. But no longer surprising anyone, the captain ordered the line handlers back on deck as a pair of tugboats appeared in the darkness. They were leaving, and they weren’t waiting for the dawn.

  Kristen made certain each man understoo
d the new conditions on the decks. Ice had already formed in many places, and the deck was treacherous. She personally made certain each man was secured to the topside runner before allowing them to get to work. Almost immediately this proved wise when one of her men lost his footing on a patch of ice and fell. Only the lifeline prevented him from sliding into the frigid water. Spotting Gameroz from the flying squad, and knowing she could count on him, she beckoned him over.

  “Yes, ma’am?” the quick-fisted petty officer asked.

  “I need your help keeping an eye on the boys tonight. Let someone else handle the lines. If anyone goes overboard in these conditions, they won’t last five minutes,” she explained knowing that if someone did fall overboard, there would be no chance the Seawolf could affect a rescue before severe hypothermia set in.

  “You got it, ma’am,” Gameroz replied and went forward.

  They cast off all lines without incident and after the tugboats helped them enter the channel, a Coast Guard cutter appeared and took up a position ahead of the Seawolf to escort her out and make certain no fishing boats or other civilian traffic interfered with the submarine’s safe transit.

  But, as if the evening couldn’t become more bizarre, she saw, appearing out of the night and gliding across the dark water, the USS Connecticut. The Seawolf’s sister boat was supposed to be in dry dock, but was now moving toward the arming wharf where the Seawolf had previously been. Tugboats maneuvered the huge vessel, and, as they passed, Kristen saw that the Connecticut’s hull number had been changed to “21”, the Seawolf’s hull number. The Navy was clearly pulling out all stops to make certain no one realized the Seawolf was at sea.

  As soon as they were clear, Kristen sent most of her crew below, keeping just those she needed to clean up the deck. The Seawolf’s steel hull was covered with anechoic tiles that were like hard rubber and designed to prevent enemy sonar picking up the submarine when underwater. But, along the hull, there were several reversible tiles where deck cleats were. Kristen and her crew now had to turn these reversible cleats back into the hull and then use rubber mallets to hammer the tiles back down in place to create a nice smooth surface. That way, once underwater, there would be no unnecessary projections on the hull to interfere with the water moving over the hull undisturbed.

  This task was made significantly harder by the treacherous conditions on deck. These conditions grew exponentially worse once the submarine got underway. Water and sea spray washed over the bow and sent ice shards flying into the exposed skin of the deck crew. Ice instantly formed on any surface, including their parkas, gloves, and mallets, and Kristen heard the ice cracking on the exterior of her parka every time she moved. But, as she moved along the deck, another danger became apparent.

  The Seawolf was at home in the ocean depths, lurking in the deep, dark waters in search of her prey. But in making her perfectly shaped for the deep, her designers had been forced to sacrifice her handling capabilities on the surface. So, as they entered Puget Sound, Kristen felt the deck pitch as the first wave hit.

  Realizing the conditions were rapidly becoming intolerable, she sent all but three men below. She kept Gameroz and another man from the flying squad named Darby with her, plus the safety swimmer Hodges who’d positioned himself near the sail to get out of the wind. Kristen would have liked to send Hodges below too, but he was required to be on deck as long as she and her team were there. At least as a safety swimmer, he was dressed in a drysuit and could survive for a short time in these waters, but he also couldn’t wear a safety harness, which worried her.

  “Hodges!” she shouted at him to be heard over the wind and the waves.

  “Yeah?” he called back from where he was huddled for warmth in a parka.

  “You stay right there!” she shouted. “I want to be able to see you at all times!”

  He nodded his head and gave her a thumbs-up sign as he ducked back under the leeward side of the sail to get out of the wind. Kristen then moved with Darby and Gameroz. They’d managed to secure all the cleats and deck tiles, and now had to break down the runner. This was dangerous because as they broke it down they were without a lifeline for a brief period of time. Kristen ordered both men to get down on their hands and knees, wanting as much deck contact as possible.

  But even with this added precaution, she soon had to send Darby below when he got so cold he could no longer hold a mallet. With just Gameroz left, the two of them removed the last pole securing the topside runner. They were now both working without the safety line, and she kept a firm grip on Gameroz’s harness and a second hand hold onto the forward hatch.

  This proved fortuitous when Gameroz, struggling to hammer a tile in place, shifted and slipped on some black ice. A combination of his flailing and her firm grip were the only things preventing him from going for a swim.

  “Thanks,” he shouted to be heard over the whipping wind.

  “Forget it,” she answered, her teeth chattering. “Let’s just get this last tile in place and get below.”

  “I heard that,” he answered with a strained grin.

  The Seawolf had already passed through Admiralty Inlet and entered the Juan de Fuca Strait, running directly into the wind and heading for open water. Kristen glanced up as Gameroz struggled with the final deck fitting. She saw the Coast Guard cutter still out ahead of the Seawolf and then she saw Hodges. Anxious to get below, he’d left the relative safety of the sail and had moved aft toward the open forward escape hatch.

  “Dammit Hodges,” she cursed. She cupped a hand to her mouth and shouted, “Stay right there!”

  But the wind was too strong, and he couldn’t hear her. She tried again as he kept coming. Kristen and Gameroz had been working where Hodges was currently walking, and the deck there was completely iced over. But before she could stop the unsuspecting crewman, he slipped.

  It seemed to happen in slow motion, even as she was shouting for him to stop. He lost his footing, tried to catch his balance, and then his feet came out from under him. Hodges’ head whipped back hard onto the rubber deck tiles. Then, like in a nightmare, she watched his limp form slip on the icy deck over the side and into the frigid water.

  “Man overboard!” she shouted to be heard over the howling wind.

  The only person with any chance of hearing her was Gameroz, and he reacted by looking up. But there was nothing he could do. Kristen glanced toward the bridge, not knowing if they’d seen Hodges go in. She briefly thought of her handheld radio and grabbed the microphone. But ice had completely encrusted it, and she couldn’t depress the talk switch.

  Without realizing she’d moved, she was on her feet. In less time than it took her to stand, her analytical mind considered the multiple courses of action open to her, and she decided on the best option before she took her next step. She took three quick steps and, using the towed array housing for leverage, leapt forward and dove headfirst into the frigid water.

  Chapter Nineteen

  USS Seawolf, The Juan de Fuca Strait

  On the bridge, Brodie stood on the starboard side where he had the best view of the crewmen working on the deck. A railing was set up around the bridge to protect those men working aloft with him. But as the weather grew worse, so did his level of discomfort. The Coast Guard cutter had taken up a position less than a mile ahead of them, and if anything went wrong with the cutter and she lost power, Brodie would have a hard time stopping the Seawolf before they collided. Not to mention his lookouts were grating on his nerves. He’d hoped to inspire a sense of purpose in Ensign Martin by assigning him to the bridge crew along with Brodie’s chosen communications team. But twice that evening Brodie had been forced to correct Martin, who kept ducking his head down to avoid the wind instead of keeping his eyes on the surrounding waters as well as the hands working on the icy deck below.

  Because of the deteriorating conditions, Brodie had brought COB up to the bridge to act as another pair of eyes he could count on besides his own. COB was leaning over the port side of the brid
ge, his parka hood down so his vision wouldn’t be obstructed. Brodie, despite the cold, had been going without a hood all night simply so he could see and hear better.

  He’d just finished scanning the area to the front of the Seawolf and was turning his head to starboard when he caught a brief flash of movement to the rear of the submarine. He snapped his head around in time to see something floating in the water along the starboard side of the boat, moving along the hull. No sooner had he spotted this than he saw an orange clad shape leap into the water.

  “Man overboard! All stop! Emergency!” he barked the orders without a moment’s thought.

  In front of him, positioned in the bridge itself, were two handpicked communications men. Brodie had selected them from the ship’s radio room for one simple reason: they wouldn’t think. No sooner had he shouted the man overboard alert, he heard both men speaking into their sound-powered phones, repeating his commands without asking for clarification. Without thinking, they’d simply repeated his emergency stop command.

  “Who is it?” COB asked as he appeared beside him, looking ready to dive in himself.

  Brodie ignored him. “Away the small boat team!” Brodie barked to the two communications men.

  Each dutifully passed the order along.

  “Con reports, all stop, sir!” the radioman named Reynolds reported after sending the latest command.

  The icy water hit Kristen like an electric jolt. Instantly, she felt a thousand tiny knives pricking her skin. There was no slow decrease in temperature. Instead, it was as if she’d been suddenly struck naked and hit by bone-stabbing cold at the same time. But she breached the surface swimming. Hodges had hit hard. She’d seen the way his head had struck the deck. He’d been unconscious when he slipped into the water, and if she didn’t get to him fast, he could very well drown in seconds.

  The realization she would likely die from hypothermia was secondary to reaching Hodges and pulling him clear of the Seawolf before either of them were sucked into the churning pump-jet driving the nine-thousand-ton submarine through the water. Hopefully someone on the bridge was alert and able to get an all-stop order down to the engine room before they were sucked in and turned into chopped meat.