Sea Devil

by Richard P. Henrick

  “I guess that I should have spotted that right off,” returned the pilot.

  “Though I’m currently just a transport operator, eventually I’d like to get into ASW.

  From what I hear, that’s where all the action is.”

  Mac would have liked to tell her how right she was, but held his tongue. With his gaze centered on the frothing white turbulence that the sub was leaving behind in its wake, he couldn’t help but wonder if the tracked mini-sub had yet to pay these waters a visit.

  Surely there could be no denying the Firth’s strategic importance. Both the United States and the United Kingdom had major submarine bases here. The estuary also was fairly narrow, had plenty of commercial traffic, and had ready access to the open sea. AU of these ingredients would act in the mini-sub’s favor.

  As it turned out, the possibility of such a clandestine operation was no longer Mac’s primary concern.

  This had all come to pass a little more than eight hours ago, when he arrived in the Pentagon office of Admiral Alien Long. With a minimum of small talk, the admiral explained to Mac his new assignment. And when this intensive briefing was over, Mac clearly understood the reasoning behind this abrupt switch in duty.

  Sure, he had given the search for the mysterious mini-sub a whole year of his life, and as events off the coast of southern California had proved, his tireless efforts were bound to pay off soon. Yet when the

  B-52 went crashing into the Irish Sea with a payload of four nuclear weapons on board, his continued search for the tracked vessel no longer had the vital priority that it once held.

  In all of American history, never before had the country permanently lost one of its nuclear weapons.

  Such devices of mass destruction were among the most closely monitored elements of the U.S. military arsenal.

  To ensure that such a nightmarish scenario didn’t come to pass off the coast of Ireland, the President was demanding that the Navy give the recovery effort its total attention.

  Admiral Long explained that Mac’s reassignment was only one small piece of this effort. All over the world, ships were being diverted and specialists recruited to assist in this all-important task. Certainly the search for the mysterious tracked mini-sub could be temporarily put on hold while Mac applied his expertise in a new direction.

  “There’s Holy Loch,” remarked the pilot as she swung the Seahawk over the town of Dunoon and pointed its blunt nose to the north.

  “That place is sure busy these days. Why, I’ve been bringing up passengers almost non-stop for the last thirty-six hours. We sure never got a workout like this back in Norfolk.”

  Mac peered out the plexiglass cockpit window and viewed the rect angularly shaped inlet of water where the U.S. naval installation was located. Barely two miles long and a mile wide, the loch had received its distinctive name several centuries before when a ship ran aground carrying a load of earth from Jerusalem that was destined for the foundation of a Glasgow cathedral.

  The marine salvage expert had always thought this name ironic, for today the loch’s use was far more hellish than holy.

  As they initiated their descent on the helipad, Mac got a glimpse of the conglomeration of vessels currently docked at the base’s pier. He spotted a massive tender, approximately eight submarines, a fleet oiler, and several large oceangoing tugs. The docks themselves seemed to be unusually active, with both men and equipment visible in great number.

  The Seahawk landed with a jolt, and as the rotors whined to a halt the pilot commented.

  “I hope you enjoy your stay, Commander. Maybe I’ll have you on the way back.”

  Mac released his harness and replied, “I’d enjoy that, Lieutenant. Thanks for the lift. And don’t be afraid to pick up a set of pipes and give them a try. It’s not as hard as it looks.”

  The soulful strains of “My Home in the Green Hills” accompanied him as he exited the cockpit and climbed out the fuselage door. Waiting for him on the tarmac was a short, wiry individual dressed in officer’s whites.

  He wore aviator-type sunglasses and had an unlit corn cob pipe in his mouth. Mac was somewhat surprised to find him wearing the rank of admiral.

  “Commander Mackenzie, I presume,” greeted the senior officer with a slight Southern drawl.

  “I’m Admiral Connors, the base CO. Welcome to Holy Loch.”

  Mac accepted his handshake.

  “Why thank you, sir.

  Admiral Long sends his regards.”

  A fond look flashed in the admiral’s eyes as he responded.

  “We go back a long way, Commander. They don’t come any finer than Alien Long, who, incidentally, speaks most highly of your abilities, young man.”

  As Mac nodded humbly, the CO added, “I don’t want you to think that I come out and personally greet everyone arriving at Holy Loch this way. In this instance, time is of the essence, and I want to start tapping your expertise as soon as possible. That’s why I thought I’d present my initial briefing to you right here at the airfield in the officers’ ready room. If you’ll just follow me, we’ll head on over to that hangar and get things rolling.

  “Now what’s this I hear about you coming into Scotland by way of Kwajalein Atoll? I had duty in the Marshalls during the initial A-bomb tests, and no one has to tell me how damned remote those islands are.”

  As Mac filled his host in on the roundabout route that had taken him almost halfway around the world in the last forty-eight hours, they entered the hangar. It was a cavernous structure filled with seven dark-blue Sikorsky Sea Stallions and dozens of scurrying mechanics.

  To the din of pounding sheet metal and the machine-gun-like report of a riveter, they headed to a stairwell and climbed up a single flight. This put them in a carpeted hallway, far removed from the racket of the machine shop. They proceeded down this corridor, whose left side was lined with huge plate glass windows that allowed one a clear view of the hurried activity going on in the hangar bay below.

  “Those Sikorskys down there are being fitted with towed sonar sleds,” commented the admiral without breaking his crisp stride.

  “They’ve been brought in from all over the U.K. where their primary mission has been search-and-rescue. As we learned in the Persian Gulf during minesweeping operations there, the Sea Stallion is one hell of a versatile whirlybird. It’s one of the toughest vehicles in the air, and we’re planning to utilize them day and night until we get the job done.”

  They entered a doorway marked “Wardroom,” and found themselves in the private confines of the pilots.

  The room was currently empty and contained several comfortable-looking leather couches, a buffet snack bar, and a big-screen television.

  “Would you like a sandwich or a cup of coffee?” asked the CO.

  Shaking his head that he was fine, Mac followed the Admiral into an adjoining room. This one looked as if it belonged in a school. Several rows of desks faced a wall-length blackboard on which a detailed map of the northern part of the United Kingdom had been taped.

  Standing beside this map, in the process of inserting a small, red, pennant-shaped stickpin into it, was a man in a green flight suit. He appeared to be a bit younger than Mac and sported a bruised face and a cast on his right arm.

  “Commander Mackenzie, I’d like you to meet Captain Lawrence Stockton, the pilot of the B-52 that we lost the other night.”

  Mac had trouble hiding his amazement as he politely nodded towards the airman.

  “What’s the matter. Commander, haven’t you ever seen a ghost before?” asked the pilot bitterly.

  Admiral Connors was quick to interject.

  “Actually, four other members of Captain Stockton’s crew managed to escape from the Stratofortress. Unfortunately, the crew of the KC-135 tanker wasn’t so lucky.”

  The two newcomers joined the pilot beside the map.

  Mac could see in a glance that all the red stickpins were confined to the Irish Sea, at a point halfway between the eastern coast of Irelan
d and the Isle of Man.

  Quick to note Mac’s interest in this map, the pilot voiced himself.

  “Those red flags show the known extent of the debris field. As you can see, most of the wreckage seems to be confined to a single, rect angularly-shaped grid approximately forty-five miles long and twenty miles wide.”

  “What’s the meaning of those two black stickpins and the one in yellow?” asked Mac.

  Captain Stockton looked up to catch the Admiral’s glance. Only when the CO gave him his nod of approval did the pilot answer Mac.

  “The two black pins show the original locations of the pair of bombs that have already been recovered.

  The yellow pin indicates the finding of a floatation collar device only.”

  “Floatation collar device?” questioned Mac.

  The pilot’s previously aggressive tone softened.

  “Each of the four weapons that we were carrying were fitted with a heavy plastic collar, designed to fill with compressed air in the event of a disaster like the one we were part of. Their purpose is to keep the bombs afloat long enough to get a rescue team to them.”

  “Two of the devices worked just perfectly,” added Admiral Connors “The first SAR choppers on the scene tagged their homing beacons immediately, and secured them with a more permanent collar until the recovery ship arrived on the scene.”

  “We’re still not certain what went wrong with the third device,” offered the pilot.

  “All we do know is that its collar properly inflated, and when the SAR chopper got to it, the bomb was nowhere to be seen.”

  “The consensus is that it somehow slipped out of its harness during impact,” explained the admiral.

  “If that’s the case, we have a pretty good idea where we’ll find it. All we have to do is to take into consideration the going current and the speed and direction of the wind, and we can approximate the point where the bomb originally hit the water. Now as to the location of the fourth weapon, that’s still up for grabs.”

  Mac’s attention was focused on the grid of stickpins.

  “What kind of bathymetrics are we talking about down there?”

  This time it was the admiral who provided the answer.

  “The average depth in that part of the Irish Sea is about seven hundred and fifty feet. The terrain of the seafloor is for the most part a gently sloping gradient, though some canyons up to one-thousand feet could be encountered. I’ve got a hydrographic ship presently coming in from the Norwegian Sea. It will be at the site early tomorrow morning, and then we’ll know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

  Mac seemed a bit uncomfortable with his next concern.

  “Is there any possibility that either of those two missing bombs could have split apart on impact with the sea? And if we do manage to locate them, could they detonate on us?”

  “The Air Force had already informed us that it’s highly unlikely that either device’s integrity has been compromised,” retorted the admiral firmly.

  “The bombs are welded together in a casing of solid steel, and not even a collision with the sea could wrench them apart.

  As to your second question, you can rest assured that when we do find the two bombs, you needn’t worry about an atomic explosion. There’s no way in hell that such a thing could happen.”

  “I beg to differ, Admiral,” countered Captain Stockton.

  “Though under normal circumstances we’d have absolutely nothing to worry about in that respect, I’m afraid that one of the missing bombs could be a problem.”

  “Don’t start that doomsday crap with me again,” spat the redfaced admiral angrily.

  “I’m warning you, Captain, I could have you thrown into the brig for this!”

  Lawrence Stockton seemed to ignore this outburst as he looked Mac in the eye and calmly continued.

  “You see, Commander Mackenzie, I was in the bomb bay at the time of the accident. We were experiencing difficulties in the arming circuitry of one our bombs. It happens from time to time, and the unofficial procedure to correct this condition is to open the trigger mechanism and bypass the permissive action links by shooting a full charge of electricity into the system. At this point the overload usually corrects itself and we can get on with our business. Yet it was just as my bombardier was about to fry the circuit that our whole world came apart. And that’s the last I saw of either my bombardier or that damned A-bomb.”

  Without giving the pilot a second to regain his composure, Mac retorted.

  “Exactly what are you trying to say, Captain?”

  “As I’ve been trying to tell them from the moment that they pulled me out of the drink, one of those bombs is cocked and ready to go!”

  Having heard enough of the pilot’s hysterical ranting, Admiral Connor’s interceded.

  “The Pentagon assures me that it’s impossible to arm an atomic device without receiving the proper PAL code from the National Command Authority, which in most instances is the President. With that said, I’ll have no more of your outbursts, Captain Stockton! Our job is going to be difficult enough without you going and putting such nonsense into my people’s ears. Now if you’ll excuse us, I’d like to talk to Commander Mackenzie alone.”

  Lawrence Stockton took this cue, and as he turned to leave the briefing room, his gaze momentarily locked onto Mac. No words were spoken; he seemed to silently implore Mac to remain objective. The marine salvage expert expressed his open-mindedness with a slight nod of his head, as the pilot pivoted and slowly limped back into the wardroom.

  “You can rest assured that Captain Stockton is talking hogwash, Commander. The Defense Department guarantees me that there’s not the slightest chance of either one of those missing A-bombs detonating. So that leaves us with one concern and one concern only, and that’s finding the cursed things before anyone else does.

  “Now in that respect we have several things going for us, not the least of which is that the crash happened late at night, in an isolated quadrant of the sea, far from any major population centers. There’s been no mention in the Irish news media of any peculiar sightings on the night of the tragedy, so it appears that they still don’t realize what’s occurred off their coast.

  This anonymity is most important, as this entire matter’s being handled on a need-to-know basis only. Only top Pentagon and government figures have been told the complete details of the crash. Because of logistics and security concerns, it was decided to inform the Brits of the incident. We’ve agreed to allow their First Sea Lord to share the news with a select handful of military officers with a ranking of Major or above, on a top-secret basis. The majority of these individuals have operational command duties in the northern portion of the U.K. and since this whole thing happened in their backyard, their cooperation is essential.

  “So I guess that brings us back to square one. How do we go about finding the frigging thing?”

  Admiral Connors used the scarred bit of his corncob pipe as a pointer as he directed Mac’s attention back to the map.

  “Though this entire operation is being run under the auspices of the U.S. Air Force, the Navy has been asked to lend a hand to our sister service. And that’s where you come in. Commander. Given what we know about the debris field, what do you think our chances are of finding those two bombs?”

  Mac took his time formulating an answer.

  “I’d say that with the technology available to us in this day and age, the chances are excellent. Admiral. The depth of the operation doesn’t sound excessive, and once we’ve got that detailed bathymetric chart of the quadrant to study, we’ll know precisely what we’re up against.

  What kind of salvage equipment do you have to draw upon?”

  “Just name it and it’s yours. Commander. We’ve got carte blanche on this one. All the Defense Department wants in return is results.”

  Mac thoughtfully stroked his chin.

  “That hydrographic ship that you mentioned was on the way is a great start. Those Sea Stallions o
ut in the hangar bay will be helpful too. They can initiate a preliminary sonar scan of the seafloor while we assemble a proper salvage flotilla. What other surface vessels are at our immediate disposal?”

  “We’ve got a pair of Avenger-class mine warfare ships coming in from the Bay of Biscay. Traveling with them is a Cimarron-class oiler and a Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate. Right here at Holy Loch are several oceangoing tugs and the sub rescue ship the Pigeon.”

  “Is a DSRV deployed aboard her?” asked Mac, hopefully.

  The Admiral nodded.

  “She’s carrying the Mystic. Though both vessels were undergoing minor overhauls when news of the crash arrived, I’ve got the dockyards working overtime getting them seaworthy once again.

  They’ll be ready to go in another twelve hours.”

  “Admiral, the Mystic is sure going to make our job a lot easier. Now if only we could get a hold of some ROV’s.”

  There was a devilish gleam in Admiral Bart Connor’s eyes as he responded to this.

  “I’ve taken the liberty of setting you up an office right down the hallway from this room. There’s a phone in it and an exact duplicate of this map. And by the way, when you’re ready to go to the site, I’d like you to use the USS Bowfm as your base of operations. She’s a nuclear-powered fast-attack sub that’s got one of the best crews in the Loch operating her.”

  Barely hearing this, Mac absentmindedly thought out loud.

  “I wonder if K-l is available from Woods Hole…. Then I’d better get on the horn with the guys at Nose and get CURV sent out here from San Diego on the double.”

  Admiral Connor noted his guest’s preoccupation and struggled to stifle a satisfied smirk. His old friend Alien Long had been so right when he called recommending Brad Mackenzie for the job. Now if only his luck held, and the young commander was able to help them locate the two missing A-bombs before the unyielding pressure that he continued getting from Washington drove him to an early retirement!

  Chapter Eight