by Larry Bond
Even after all of these fixes, the ASDS continued to experience equipment failures that made the minisub a maintenance nightmare. Michigan’s techs and the SEALs had to spend several hours maintaining and tweaking the ASDS’s systems for every hour it spent underway.
After twenty minutes, jerry stifled an urge to yawn. Absolutely nothing was happening. The autopilot was faithfully executing its orders and all systems were operating within spec. This was the part of the mission where one person could handle both jobs, largely because there wasn’t all that much to handle.
“Any sonar contacts, Mr. Higgs?” Jerry asked. He knew his copilot would have said something if there were, but he needed some interaction to help stay alert.
“Negative, XO, but then we don’t have the same ‘Dumbo’ ears that Michigan has.” Higgs grinned as he dissed Michigan’s high-tech sonar suite.
“Oh, ho, ho, you might want to consider your words a little more carefully, Mr. Higgs. Woody wouldn’t take it kindly you talking trash about his gear.
“I can handle Buckley, XO,” Higgs replied confidently.
“True. Of that I have no doubt, but it’s not Woody I’d be worried about. All he has to do is mention that you’re doing an under-hull survey and somehow one of his guys will not only forget to red tag the fathometer out, but they’ll forget to turn it off! Not that I would condone such negligence, mind you.” Jerry fought hard to maintain a dispassionate expression.
Higgs winced at the thought of being underneath a fathometer when it transmitted. He’d suffered that unpleasant experience once in his career. A diver has little warning that a fathometer is actively pinging since the beam points directly downward. If you can hear it, you’re too close. Unfortunately, the acoustic pressure wave has an impact similar to that of a fast moving baseball bat, and it hurts, a lot. There were procedures in place to prevent this, but it depended on people doing what they were supposed to.
Undaunted, Higgs returned fire. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to be busy when it comes time to do the next under-hull security sweep. Besides, you wouldn’t rat on me now would you, sir?”
“Absolutely not!” said Jerry with feigned sincerity, but then after a slight pause, he added, “Well, maybe. But my silence can be bought, and at a reasonable price.”
“How magnanimous of you,” grunted Higgs. Both men laughed.
It grew quiet again as Jerry and Higgs went through their monitoring routine, looking at the status of all the systems on board. Nothing was amiss.
After several minutes, Higgs broke the silence with a loud yawn, stretching. “Yea-uh-ahh. This is the part I hate, XO. The destination promises to be exciting and sexy, but the trip there is boring and a pain in the ass. I feel like one of my kids, Are we there yet?’ “
“Please don’t go there,” Jerry groaned, as unpleasant memories of his childhood flashed into his head.
“Hey, XO, we’ve still got a long way to go. Do you want me to take the conn, while you get up and stretch a bit? Not that you can do a whole lot of that in this overgrown sardine can.”
Jerry immediately took Higgs up on his suggestion. “Yeah, I think I will take a little break. Thanks, Vernon.” He unbuckled himself and vacated the pilot’s position. Higgs was seated before he had a chance to turn around. Arching his back, Jerry stretched while at the same time carefully avoided hitting one of the internal frames with his head. Looking aft, he caught a glimpse of the other SEALs through the windows in the watertight doors. He hadn’t seen them when he’d climbed aboard, and dropping by to say “hi” seemed like a good idea. Besides, he was curious to see how they were going to lug all the equipment that had been talked about during the mission planning.
“Mr. Higgs, I’m going aft to the transport compartment. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Understood, sir.”
Jerry stepped into the lockout compartment and closed the watertight door behind him. The compartment was a great big ball in the middle of the ASDS and had a hatch in both the overhead and the deck. Separated from the operator and transport compartments by hull-strength watertight doors, it could be flooded to permit the SEALs to leave or return while the ASDS remained fully submerged. Entering into the transport compartment, Jerry saw Ramey, Lapointe, Fazel, and Phillips going over the operation plan yet again.
All were in the same Type II desert camouflage uniform that Jerry was wearing, but there the similarities ended. Each SEAL was completely covered in gear from head to toe. There were literally encased in wires, tubing, electronics, scuba tanks, respirators, ammo magazines, weapons, and numerous bulging pockets on their uniforms and chest harnesses. With their black wet-suit hoods and gloves they looked a lot like Borg drones from Star Trek. Jerry could easily see the SEAL community adopting the Collective’s favorite expression, “Resistance is futile.”
Each member of the team had a variant of the Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle as his primary weapon. Known by its quaint acronym, SCAR, it had replaced the older M16A2 and M4A1 as the weapon of choice for U.S. Navy SEALs and other Special Forces personnel. During the mission-planning stage, Ramey had taken Jerry to the armory in missile tube five and gave him a quick introduction on how a SEAL unit selects its weapons for a particular mission. Ramey also made sure Jerry was familiar enough with the SCAR to use it if he needed to.
Right up front, the platoon leader stated that they were looking to go “light” on this mission. Since they weren’t looking for a fight, the emphasis was on self-protection and not a pitched battle; so heavier weapons with a longer reach weren’t as necessary. And because they had to swim in, weight was a key consideration. Grabbing a SCAR from one of the racks, he handed it to Jerry and explained that he and Phillips would carry a stock standard Mark 16 SCAR-Light, while Lapointe would have the same weapon fitted with a 40mm grenade launcher. Fazel, on the other hand, would be armed with the heavier, but longer ranged, Mark 20 SCAR-Heavy sniper rifle. By the end of their conversation, Jerry was convinced that a properly outfitted four-man SEAL element had the firepower of a small army. He also had to admit that their definition of “light” differed drastically from what he had in mind. In looking again at the four men, and seeing all the equipment they were carrying, he wasn’t certain that they wouldn’t just sink to the bottom after they left the ASDS.
“Hey, XO,” greeted Fazel. “What brings you to the economy section?”
“Just seeing how you guys are doing. We’re near Point X-ray, but you still have an hour and half before we get close to the beach.”
“Understood, sir,” Ramey responded. “We’ll be ready to go when you give the word.” His tone and mannerisms were all business.
You look more than ready to me right now, Jerry thought. He also got the feeling from Ramey’s body language that he was intruding. Paying attention to one’s gut intuition was something Jerry firmly believed in, and his gut told him to get out of the lieutenant’s hair. “I’ll have Vernon give you a thirty-minute warning. If you need anything else, you know where to find me.”
“Yes, sir.” Ramey spoke in an almost mechanical manner, with little or no facial expression. The hair on the back of Jerry’s neck stood straight up as he returned to the operator compartment. There was a stark difference between the man in the transport compartment and the platoon leader he had gotten to know on Michigan. This Ramey, the one he had just left, was far more intense, focused, and eerily menacing. The image of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde popped into his mind. He was still mentally chewing on this when he relieved Higgs at the pilot’s station. Seeing the perplexed look on Jerry’s face, the copilot asked, “Anything wrong, XO?”
“Huh? Ah, no, Vernon. It’s just that Mr. Ramey is acting rather . . . well. . .”
“Strange?”
“I was going to say different,” Jerry replied defensively.
Higgs chuckled. “Matt’s got his game head on now. From the moment he boarded the ASDS until after the debrief, it’s nothing but the mission for him.
”
As far as explanations go, this one wasn’t very helpful and Jerry’s confused expression showed it. “I don’t get it, Vernon. We’ve been working on mission preps for almost two days and he’s never been like this.”
“Planning a mission is one thing, XO, executing a mission is another. Matt is one of those guys who mentally has to throw a switch between going downrange and normal living. Others, like Lapointe or Fazel, can go back and forth without thinking about it. It’s not a deficiency on Matt’s part; we all have personality quirks of one kind or another. His methods are just different and more discernable than some of the other guys, that’s all. But in the end, he gets results. He has an excellent reputation among the SEAL teams for his tours in Afghanistan. I’m surprised you didn’t see this during the exercise?”
“I never went out with Ramey during the exercise. If you recall, I only went out with you and Alex once, and that was when Barrineau and the chief led the squad. I had to back out from the other event, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s right, I’d forgotten that you ditched us for some paperwork,” said Higgs with a grin. “So, XO, now you know what Matt is like in his über SEAL mode.”
“I don’t think I’d like to meet him in a dark ally when he’s like that,” commented Jerry, more as a joke than a factual statement.
“No, sir, you would not,” responded Higgs soberly. Jerry felt a chill when Higgs spoke those words. And for the first time, he wondered how many men the mild-mannered Ramey had killed in his career.
“Well, if Matt’s reputation is that good, then this mission should be relatively easy in comparison with Afghanistan,” Jerry concluded.
Higgs’s demeanor didn’t change, and his voice remained stern. “The only easy day was yesterday, sir.”
Jerry had heard the SEAL motto several times during the last couple of weeks, and every time it was spoken as if it were holy writ. The reason why yesterday was easy, he had been told, was because it was over and you couldn’t do anything about it. By definition the present was always harder. From his admittedly limited perspective, this philosophy sounded overly negative to Jerry and he said as much. “You SEALs really are a pessimistic bunch, aren’t you?”
A brief look of surprise flashed across Higgs’s face, or perhaps it was annoyance, but whatever it was, he recovered quickly and respectfully countered Jerry’s accusation.
“Absolutely not, XO. We are not a herd of Eeyores; nor are we blind optimists. We are realists. We do hope for the best, we truly hope everything goes according to plan, but we always train for the worst. Because usually something does go wrong, and we have to quickly adapt to the new situation if we are to win. And a SEAL has it ingrained in him from the very beginning that it pays to be a winner.”
As Higgs turned back toward his console, Jerry looked on in silence. The short, but cogent rebuttal shined new light on a number of misconceptions that Jerry had about this unique community within the U.S. Navy. He considered asking some more questions, when his concentration was broken by an annoying beeping sound.
“One thousand yards to the turn, Pilot,” reported Higgs.
“Very well, stand by to come right to zero three zero in three minutes forty-five seconds.” The navigation computer could have told him the time remaining, but Jerry preferred doing a little mental gym himself; it helped him to refocus on the job at hand. The discussion had definitely piqued his curiosity and he wanted to understand the SEAL mentality better, but he also had a feeling that now probably wasn’t the best time. There would be ample opportunities on the way back to hit Higgs and the others up with his questions. But one thing was certain, he had learned more about SEALs in the last ten minutes than he had during the last two weeks.
~ * ~
The next hour went by faster than Jerry expected: Partly because they were well inside Iranian territorial waters, and getting closer to the coast with each minute, and partly because Higgs had picked up two high-speed contacts on the ASDS’s passive sonar. One was heading northwest, the other southeast at thirty plus knots. Both had passed close by. “My guess is that they are IRGC Navy patrol boats on the prowl,” said Higgs.
“A safe bet,” Jerry observed. “It’s very unlikely they are fishing dhows.” The ubiquitous, boxy, wooden fishing vessels common to the Persian Gulf would be hard pressed to make ten knots.
“They could be smugglers,” Higgs suggested. Jerry detected a note of playful cynicism in the copilot’s voice. The earlier transgression, if there had been one, was forgotten.
With a look of feigned astonishment, and dripping with sarcasm Jerry replied, “Seriously!?! Smugglers? At sunset, silhouetted by the sun, whizzing by within range of numerous coastal radar sites? What are you thinking?”
“Okay. Maybe they’re dumb smugglers.”
“Mr. Higgs, let’s just stick with your initial call and move on.” Then motioning aft he said, “Please inform Mr. Ramey that we are thirty minutes out. I told him we’d give him a warning.”
“Aye, sir.”
While Higgs notified Ramey of their current position, Jerry noticed that the water depth was starting to decrease. At a depth of one hundred feet, they only had fifty feet beneath them now, and that was slowly being nibbled away. He’d have to start coming up to a shallower depth soon, as the navigation chart showed the water depth at Point Zulu was only about forty feet. They were getting very close to the Iranian coast; they were deep inside Indian country.
Exactly twenty minutes later, a heavily laden Ramey opened the watertight door and strode up to Jerry and Higgs. “Status, Pilot,” he demanded.
Normally, Jerry would have been a little irritated by the lieutenant’s lack of military etiquette, but thanks to Higgs’s counsel, he had a better understanding of the platoon leader’s mind-set.
“We are fifteen hundred yards from Point Yankee, Mr. Ramey. Current depth is thirty feet, with thirty-four feet beneath the keel. We’ll be coming to periscope depth soon to take the initial observation,” he answered.
“Understood, XO.”
“If you wish, you can look over Mr. Higgs’s shoulder during the observation and see the lay of the land for yourself,” offered Jerry.
“Thank you, sir. I intend to,” was Ramey’s response.
For the next ten minutes, Ramey stood rigidly over by the copilot’s console. Jerry snuck an occasional look at the determined young man; the only time he could recall experiencing such intensity was during air combat maneuvering training at Fallon. Ramey was mentally pulling nine Gs.
Jerry had just started maneuvering the ASDS to periscope depth when an alarm suddenly sounded. Looking down, he saw a flashing red light on the aft battery status display
“High temperature alarm,” shouted Higgs. “Battery pack number two, aft battery.”
“Reducing speed to three knots. Report temperature,” Jerry yelled back.
“Two hundred seventy degrees and rising.”
Without hesitation, Jerry turned to Ramey. “Lieutenant, get your men and all your gear out of the transport compartment ASAP.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied the SEAL as he bolted for the watertight door.
Jerry worked to stay calm. “Mr. Higgs, report temperature.”
“Two hundred eighty-five degrees, and rising. Battery packs one and three also show elevated temperatures.”
Not good, Jerry thought. He needed to get this under control quickly; if the temperature exceeded three hundred degrees the affected cells would become unstable and almost certainly start a fire. Worse yet, nearby battery packs could also be driven into thermal runaway. The resulting chain reaction would likely end in an explosion.
“Mr. Higgs, isolate the after battery,” he ordered. Isolating batteries would reduce their power reserve by half, but this battery wasn’t going to give them any more power today.
“Isolating the after battery.” The copilot reached over to the electrical control panel and rotated the selector switch on the after battery breaker
to open. Nothing happened. He tried again. No response.
“XO, remote breaker control failed. Battery temperature at two hundred ninety-eight degrees.”
“Open the breaker manually,” Jerry commanded.
Higgs launched himself from his chair and reached the breaker panel within a couple of seconds. He threw open the panel door, grabbed the breaker, and shoved it upward.
Jerry caught a bright flash out of the corner of his eye, followed immediately by a thundering noise. Momentarily stunned by the sound, Jerry tried to focus his eyes. The compartment was filled with gray smoke. The acrid smell assaulted his nose and lungs, forcing him to instinctively reach for his emergency breathing mask.