Barracuda 945 am-6

by Patrick Robinson

  Tanker fleets from the Midwest were already on the roads, barreling through the night, laden with gasoline from the big Chicago terminals, across Iowa, Nebraska, southern Wyoming, and Nevada, on what was virtually a mercy mission to the American west. Hundreds of fuel trucks were thundering out of Texas, west across the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona toward the stricken city of Los Angeles. Every one of them was laden with refined gasoline, which Los Angeles needed a lot more than it needed Oklahoma sweet crude.

  All the while, the East Coast media wanted to know what the hell the President was doing about "this unprecedented crisis in the history of our country." How was he proposing to solve it, find the culprits, and restore the power and dignity of the United States of America? Generally speaking, it looked a lot easier from the offices of the Washington Post than it did from the Oval Office.

  Through it all, the U.S. Navy racked its brains, listening for the lonely bleep in the vast Pacific ocean, which would betray the presence of the murderous Barracuda Type 945, which Arnold Morgan swore was there.

  The President had three times addressed the section of the nation that had working television sets, stressing the speed at which the emergency services were working to reconnect the blacked-out cities. He admitted the likelihood of sabotage, even attack by terrorists, and swore U.S. revenge on the perpetrators of these "wicked and destructive crimes against our nation."

  He did not, however, point out the likelihood of a bunch of maniacs in a modern nuclear submarine creeping up and down the West Coast, bombarding the most important oil installations with heavy Russian-built cruise missiles.

  Nor could he envisage doing so, not before the U.S. Navy had detected and either captured or destroyed the enemy, whoever he might be.

  The U.S. Diplomatic Corps was working at an unprecedented speed, demanding cooperation from every one of their international trading partners. They threatened the Russians and the Chinese, opened the lines to Tehran, Damascus, Cairo, and Amman, demanding to know if there was any connection to the West Coast atrocities from any Arab Fundamentalist group.

  The CIA called in favors, and bribed, blackmailed, and badgered agents all over the world. But no one knew anything. Especially the Russians, who would only say they had sold the Barracuda to the Chinese and knew nothing else.

  The Chinese Navy merely asserted the only Barracuda they knew anything about was currently visiting the Southern Fleet Headquarters in Zhanjiang. Had been since before the Lompoc attack, and so far as they knew, was still there in a covered dock. No other Barracuda had ever docked in a Chinese Naval Base. All true. Nearly.

  Meanwhile, the U.S. satellites were adjusted to range along the West Coast of the United States and Canada, from the Gulf of Alaska all the way to the 780-mile-long Mexican peninsula of Baja California. That was a total sea-and-air patrol distance of 3,000 miles, all of it essential, just in case the submarine turned north again, just in case it continued to head south.

  CINCPAC reasoned the marauder was surely traveling slowly, otherwise it must surely have been heard, either by a patrolling submarine, which could have picked it up at 100 miles, or by SOSUS, which is deadly sensitive all the way along the West Coast. Only the lowest speed ensures near-total silence.

  Which meant, five knots maximum, and at that speed it would take more than eight days to cover 1,000 miles. Thus, in the first week of the hunt, the Pacific branch of the U.S. Navy was faced with a search area of 3,000 miles by 1,000 miles… 3 million square miles, an area roughly the size of Australia, with nothing even resembling a submarine choke point.

  All U.S. satellites were adjusted to photograph the immense tract of ocean. The most modern observation systems of surface disturbance were activated, all of them peering down through space, seeking the swirling patterns on the water that would betray the presence of a deep-running nuclear ship, unless it was moving at the pace of a basking Pacific turtle.

  Everyone knew the task was probably impossible. But the Navy had to keep going, just in case the submarine made a mistake, and to prevent further embarrassment to the Presidency of the United States.

  "The main trouble is," Arnold Morgan privately raged, "no one has the slightest idea which direction the goddamned ship is moving."

  He still believed it must be making some kind of a southerly course, but that only reduced the search area to 1.5 million square miles, half the size of Brazil.

  By Thursday morning, March 27, four days after a hectic nonexistent Easter break, the Navy still reported nothing. By now the Barracuda was more than 1,300 miles down the coast of Mexico, beyond the designated search area for the U.S. warships and aircraft, but not beyond the range of the satellites. It still had more than 1,800 miles to go before the Gulf of Panama, but with every turn of its fifteen-foot-high bronze screw, it pushed further away from danger.

  In the White House, the President was at a level of frustration that he regarded as intolerable. He remained without comprehension where the Navy was concerned, muttering constantly about the billions of dollars he authorized every year for research and development in military surveillance, only to be told there was an 8,000-ton missile-hurling Russian submarine, fucking around somewhere off Laguna Beach, and no one could find it, never mind zap it.

  The situation was somewhat eased when the lights went on again in Los Angeles. On the Saturday afternoon of March 29, three-quarters of the city's electric power was restored, and though this would mean two-hour brownouts in other parts of Southern California, it was sensationally good news for the residents of the City of Angels.

  The San Francisco hookup took a day longer. But by Monday morning, March 31, both the big metropolitan areas were up and running again, despite chronic fuel shortages and long lines at the gas pumps.

  The President again went on television to explain that for the moment the United States was reliant on foreign oil, and that it would be several months before the Alaskan oil began to flow again. Work to rebuild the refinery at Grays Harbor was already under way, and the two breaches in the south-running undersea pipeline had been repaired. Right now the Energy Department was concentrating on refinery capacity, and routes were being established to run more and more crude oil into America's existing facilities.

  "We should," he told an expectant nation, "be on top of the situation inside another two weeks. This will be a huge strain on our tanker facilities, but you have my word we're gonna be seeing the price of oil per barrel dropping firmly within a very few days.

  "I have requested American tankers from all over the globe to bring crude oil into the Texas facilities on the Gulf of Mexico. No matter the cost, no matter the effect on profits, now is the time for this nation to rally round, and get the fuel oil to the places where we need it."

  Again he took the greatest care to insure no mention was made of the submarine the Pentagon believed had opened fire on the United States.

  Meanwhile, deep in the lower-level Situation Room in the West Wing, Admiral Morgan continued to preside over meeting after meeting with Security and Service Chiefs, probing every last inch of the incoming data that might throw some light on the submarine.

  Right now the Navy had two more Los Angeles Class submarines, the Boise and the Montpelier, crossing the Caribbean toward the Panama Canal. Once clear of the pilots on the Pacific side, they would head north toward San Diego, at first 200 miles off the coast of Central America, and then as part of the Navy's search line making sweep after sweep along the Mexico/California coast.

  But nothing was shaking loose in this baffling jigsaw puzzle, and morale was suffering everywhere, especially in the Pentagon. All day and most of the night, the surveillance officers checked the systems, checked to see whether the Barracuda had left Zhanjiang, checked on every submarine movement in the world, checked satellite pictures from Bandar Abbas to Beijing, and pored over the prints from the eastern reaches of the Pacific.

  There was nothing until the morning of April 11, when the Boise, on the surface now and cle
ar of Panama's Chinese pilots, dived and headed for the deeper waters of the Pacific beyond the confines of the Gulf of Panama. At 11:43 her Sonar Room picked up a Russian nuclear boat heading slowly north at twelve knots, periscope depth, eight miles south of the main channel, in the Pacific Extension of the merchant ship Anchorage.

  The Boise's CO had received no change to his standard COMSUBPAC rules of engagement — fire only in self-defense. And he knew the consequences of torpedoing a Russian nuclear submarine in Panamanian territorial waters: dire, especially if it turned out to be the wrong one. And, anyway, it was headed direct to the Canal where everyone would see it.

  In accordance with his orders, he immediately put a signal on the satellite, which relayed it to Pacific Fleet Headquarters, Pearl Harbor, and to the Base at San Diego simultaneously. From there it was beamed into the Ops Room of the 9,000-ton guided-missile destroyer USS Roosevelt, Arleigh Burke Class, one of the most lethal fighting ships in the world. Heavily gunned, bristling with missiles and torpedoes, she carried on her stern two Lamps-Ill combat helicopters, both equipped with Penguin and Hellfire missiles.

  The Roosevelt was headed north, having taken a swing along the northern coast of Colombia, to keep the local drug barons on their mettle. She was now some three hours from the Anchorage, clipping along at thirty knots. Her satellite orders from CINCPAC were clear: Locate Russian nuclear boat Sierra I Barracuda Class Type 945, detected by the submarine USS Boise… believed to be headed into the Panama Canal… track through Canal to Atlantic Anchorage… rendezvous with two escorts… both Los Angeles Class ships, the San Juan and the Key West patrolling six miles northwest of Cristobal Harbor West Breakwater…

  The Roosevelt adjusted course to nor'nor'west and headed for the Gulf of Panama. Her commanding officer, Capt. Butch Howarth, ordered flank speed. Meanwhile, Capt. Ben Badr kept moving north toward his rendezvous with the Chinese fast patrol boat, the seventy-eight-foot twin-gunned Gong Bian 4405 (Chinese Border Security Force — Maritime Command). The ships were, loosely, on a collision course.

  By one o'clock, the Barracuda was on the surface, with the Roosevelt still making all speed sixty miles to the southeast. Up ahead, silhouetted against the bright blue water, Ben Badr could see the buoy that marked the start of the dead-straight, six-mile dredged channel up to Balboa Harbor, and the gateway to the canal. The Chinese gateway.

  There was often a small holding area 1,000 yards northeast of the buoy where ships, mostly merchantmen and tankers, lined up to make the journey through to the Atlantic. Today, there appeared to be no traffic, though Captain Badr could see three stationary tankers a mile away on the edge of the Anchorage.

  The Gong Bian was waiting, and her captain pulled her alongside the Barracuda, offered a greeting and a welcome, then instructed the submarine to track the Chinese patrol slowly down the channel, red buoys to the right, and then to follow them into the harbor where the Chinese pilot would come on board to see her safely through the narrow waterway.

  Captain Badr, joined now by General Rashood and Lieutenant Commander Shakira, issued commands to his helmsman and navigator from the bridge. And together, the three most wanted terrorists in the world stood and breathed their first fresh air, in the first warm sunlight, any of them had seen for sixty-two days, since they left the freezing Russian Naval Base of Petropavlovsk. The Barracuda had almost 7,000 miles under its keel since then, and its commanders had not yet made a mistake.

  Behind a light bow wave, and before a mild headwind, the jet black 8,000-ton outlaw of the eastern Pacific moved gently northwest, steering three-two-two, in the wake of the Gong Bian, leaving the treacherous San Jose rock to starboard. Four hundred yards further, at the end of a two-mile-long causeway from Balboa, they passed the cluster of islands — Flamenco, Perico, Paos, and Culebra — where the Panama Canal Railway, all the way through the jungle from the Atlantic coast, finally ends.

  The Americans constructed that as well, back in the mid-nineteenth century. The causeway itself was also American built, in 1912, when the United States established the fabled Fort Grant complex on all four islands. It was the most powerful military defensive fortress in the world, guarding the Pacific entrance to the Canal, and once housing two massive fourteen-inch guns with a thirty-mile range, which could be swiftly transported through the jungle on their own railroad cars, in case of trouble at the Atlantic end.

  All this crumbled history, has today come under the control of the Chinese, with the historic old railroad joining China's two great Panamanian dockyards at either end of the Canal. All because of a President who never much cared for America's achievements, especially the military ones, or indeed for what America ought to stand for, in an often inferior world.

  Two miles beyond the island railhead, the imposing span of the Thatcher Ferry Bridge sweeps the Inter-American Highway straight over the Canal from Panama City and on to Mexico. The Barracuda chugged slowly beneath the bridge and on to the Balboa pilot station, where Ravi and Ben would hand over command of the submarine to the elite corps of Chinese canal navigators.

  The Panama Canal is the only place in the world where military Commanders are required to hand over navigational control of warships to a foreign operator.

  The Chinese pilot came on board and took over, issuing instructions in English to the Islamic terrorists. Three and a half miles later, they arrived at the towering Miraflores Locks, the first of the three on the Pacific side.

  The waterway divides here, so the 1,000-foot-long lock chambers can operate independently to both incoming and outgoing traffic, quite often with one lock lowering and the other raising 80,000-ton ships only yards apart, with 50 million gallons of water emptying and flooding every time.

  The Miraflores Locks comprises two sets of chambers that raise or lower ships in two steps fifty-four feet to or from sea level. And as the Barracuda approached the first 800-ton lock gates, locomotives were attached to haul the submarine through. These engineering stalwarts represent another coup for the Orient. They cost $2 million each and are all made by Mitsubishi, and they help make millions and millions of dollars each year.

  It took Captain Badr's ship a half hour to make this first ascent up to the short mile-and-a-half-long Miraflores Lake, which runs to the final, Pacific-side lock, the Pedro Miguel. And as the submarine eased its way through the narrow, flat waters, the Roosevelt came thundering into the Merchant Ship Anchorage, almost ten miles in arrears and fifty-four feet lower.

  Captain Howarth was ordered to halt out alongside the three tankers that Ravi and Ben had seen and to wait in line for entry to the Canal. The U.S. Commanding Officer hit the radio immediately, and the Chinese Control Room in Balboa pretended not to understand.

  Captain Howarth, like all U.S. Commanding Officers working anywhere near the Canal, had the wording of the Treaty on the Ops Room computer. "EXPEDITIOUS PASSAGE!" he snapped. "We demand priority, under the terms of the 1977 Treaty, signed by the President of Panama and the President of the United States of America."

  The Chinese controller understood neither "expeditious," prompt, nor buzzing. "Control now run by us," he said. "Not President of United States. Panama give us rights. And right now canal is closed. For very big repair. May take all day, all night. Sorry. You wait now."

  "CLOSED!" yelled Captain Howarth. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, CLOSED!"

  "Canal closed," said the Chinese voice. "That what I mean. Closed. No entry for you. Lock gates shut."

  "But you let a Russian submarine through there in the last hour," said Captain Howarth, an edge to his voice.

  "Canal not closed then. Canal closed now. Different."

  "Now listen to me," said the American CO. "If I have to, I'll have the President of the United States call the President of Panama. But first I shall need you to tell me your name, rank, and number, since you appear unaware you may be causing an international incident right here."

  "No need for you to know name," said the Chinese voice blandly. "I'm a civilian. No ra
nk or number. Presidents of countries not run this canal. East China and Pacific Shipping run canal. And we say who goes through and who stays out. Right now canal closed. You stay out till we say you come in."

  Captain Howarth knew he was beaten. It requires the opening of six different sets of lock gates to make one complete transit of the canal. Three sets up. Three down. If these Chinese bastards elected to slam them shut and refuse to open them, there was not a whole lot anyone could do about it. At least not quickly, or expeditiously. He slammed down the telephone and dictated a satellite signal for immediate transmission to the San Diego Base.

  "Chinese gatekeepers closed Panama Canal at approximately 1435 (local) “for repairs." Barracuda entered 1345. Transit should take eight hours minimum. Stand by Atlantic exit 112230APR08. Roosevelt will stand guard Pacific End, Merchant Ship Anchorage, in case of Barracuda course change. Await further orders. Howarth."

  Inside the Canal, up on the two-thirds height level, leading to the Pedro Miguel Lock, Ravi and Ben stood with the pilots on the bridge, watching the shallow waters of the lake slip by on either side of the channel. Ahead they could see the great portals of the lock, and the huge gates that guard the entrance to the chamber, the one in which the water level would shortly rise and lift the Barracuda the final thirty-one feet to the uppermost reaches of the Canal.

  As they made their approach, the gates came slowly open.

  The pilots paused for the chains of the locomotives to be passed behind the sail, and then, engines cut, they were pulled into the chamber, for the ten-minute elevator ride to the heights. Captain Badr ordered the Barracuda's nuclear reactor shut down, the rods were dropped in, and for the first time since the Kamchatka Peninsula, the heat from the reactor began to die.