Shortly after 0800 O’Brien and Ames hit their first snag — an electronics fault in the automatic reactor shutdown control. It was not a serious problem in itself, but the repair would involve shutting down the reactor, replacing the defective board, testing it, then reinitiating the whole reactor start-up process. Columbia’s sailing time of 1400 was shot.
Lee O’Brien looked calm, but those who knew him well were aware that the big Boston Irishman was on edge. He hated an equipment failure near the plant, even when it represented only the tiniest crack in their Columbia’s safety defenses. He hated telling the CO that his equipment had failed. In his eyes that was the same as admitting he had failed. It was this near-fanatical attention to detail and zealous sense of responsibility that made him one of the most trusted men in the ship.
Lee O’Brien told the CO he recommended they delay departure for four hours, and clear New London at 1830. Boomer agreed, left the engine room, and headed to the wardroom for a cup of coffee. Except for the engineers the delay left the crew with little to do but wait. They would write letters home, but since this operation was Black, they would not be mailed by the Navy until the mission was completed, aborted, or failed.
After lunch Boomer retired to his cabin for half an hour. The room was small and Spartan, containing just his bunk, a few drawers, a small wardrobe, a desk and chair, and washing facilities, which folded into the bulkhead. It was the only private place in the entire ship — a miniature office with a bed. The commanding officer was not a man for undue sentiment as his wife knew all too well, and he had never before written a last-minute message to Jo. He had always considered that to be an action which might tempt providence, and he did not understand sailors who drafted out their wills in the hours before departure, but he knew many did. Nonetheless he took a piece of writing paper and an envelope from his attaché case and with the utmost sadness sat down and wrote in the brief terse sentences of his trade the language of which he knew no other.
My darling Jo. If you are reading this, it means that our great love has ended the only way it ever could. We have always understood the realities of my career, and as you know I have always been prepared to die in the service of our country. I go to meet my Maker with a clear conscience, and my courage high.
I am not very good with words, but I want you to know that I spoke to Dad’s lawyers today and that everything is in order for you and the girls. You have no worries. The house in Cotuit is yours, and the Trust is in place.
Just to say again, I love you. Think of me often, darling Jo. You were always on my mind. Boomer.
He sealed the note in an envelope, and addressed it in block capitals, TO BE DELIVERED TO MRS. JO DUNNING IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH. He carefully signed it, Commander Cale Dunning, USS COLUMBIA.
He then left the ship and walked across to the executive offices and deposited the letter. The Navy clerk nodded and filed it. Boomer did not see the nineteen-year-old salute him as he walked out of the door and strode out to take command of the US Navy’s Black Ops submarine. It was just 1600.
Back on board he decided to address the crew on the internal broadcast system at 1730, one hour before departure. He made a few notes, then briefly visited Lee O’Brien. The reactor was back on line and the secondary systems were in the final stages of warming through. There were no further problems.
At 1710, Lieutenant Commander Krause alerted the crew that the Captain wished to speak to everyone before departure. At 1730 the deep baritone voice of Boomer Dunning ran through the ship’s intercom system.
“This is the Captain. We are heading out on an important mission today. It begins now, and it will take us across the Atlantic into the GIUK Gap. I know that most of you were with me earlier this year when we carried out an operation against two submarines that had been judged by the President and the Pentagon to be potential enemies of the United States. As you know we prefer to kill the archer rather than the arrow, which is why we struck hard and fast, before our opponents knew what had happened.
“This mission, which begins one hour from now, is going to be more difficult, and not without danger. You have been briefed as thoroughly as possible by your department chiefs, and you know how seriously our journey is regarded by those in the highest authority.
“I have supreme confidence in the abilities of every one of you. You are the best crew I have ever sailed with. We have a difficult job ahead, and I want every one of you to perform at one hundred and ten percent of your capacity. Stay alert every second of your watch. This ship is not operated just by its officers, it is operated by you. Everyone has a critical role to play, and our lives are in our own hands. Let’s make sure we are at our best. God bless you all.”
Deep in the ship a few fists clenched. Right now Commander Dunning had 112 men who would have followed him into hell, if necessary.
At 1829, there was just one remaining line holding Columbia to the pier. High on the bridge, in a light sou’westerly breeze, Commander Dunning stood with his navigator, Lieutenant Wingate, and the officer of the deck, Lieutenant Abe Dickson. A few of the base staff were alongside on the jetty to watch her go. The Squadron Commander was there, as usual when one of his boats was leaving harbor. All submarine voyages exude a somewhat heightened pressure because of the sheer nature of the beast, but the taut atmosphere surrounding Columbia was infectious. None of the onlookers knew anything about her mission, and there was an unspoken sense of secrecy as Commander Dunning ordered the colors shifted. Lieutenant Dickson then called out, “TAKE IN NUMBER ONE…”
It was more than ninety minutes to sunset and the Stars and Stripes bloomed suddenly above the bridge. The Captain nodded to the deck officer, who leaned forward and spoke calmly to the control center over the intercom. “All back one-third…”
Deep in the engine room the giant turbines turned, and a quiet wash of turbulent water surged over the after part of the hull, which now swung outward in reverse. The submarine slowed, stopped in the water, and then moved forward as Boomer Dunning called, “Ahead one-third…” And Columbia moved through the first few yards of her long journey to the GIUK Gap.
A group of workmen, out on the piers of the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics, where Columbia had been built in 1994, waved cheerfully as the seven-thousand-tonner stood down the sunlit Thames River on her way out to Long Island Sound, running fair down the channel, on her way to put more than a hundred foreign sailors in their graves. Nothing personal. A matter of duty.
“Ahead standard,” ordered Abe Dickson.
“Course 079,” the navigator advised. Straight up to the Nantucket Shoals. At the thirty-fathom curve, they’d dive — east of the islands, out of the weather.
All three officers remained on the bridge as Columbia made sixteen knots into the shallow waters that surround Block Island. The first part of the journey would be in broad daylight, on the surface. By dark, they would be off Martha’s Vineyard, well east and submerged, running at twenty knots dived and using less power than if they were making fifteen on the surface.
Boomer watched the water sliding up and over the blunt, curved bow. It flowed aft with a strange flatness, only to be parted by the sail, and then to cascade into the roaring, swirling vortex of sea foam that formed on either side of the hull. The Commanding Officer stared as he often did at the silent waters, which fed the raging hellholes right behind him where the bow wave of the submarine begins.
They pushed on into the gentle swells of the northern reaches of Long Island Sound. No submarines like these very much, because they are designed to operate under the water, avoiding the surface. They are designed to hide…and to do their awesome business in stealth and seclusion.
As such, the submariner’s idea of first-class travel is to be three hundred feet under the surface, in a nuclear boat, cruising silently and smoothly through the deep, oblivious to gales and rough water — the only disturbance being the soft hum of the domestic ventilation. Down there the temperature is constant, the food ex
cellent. There is little chance of collision, even less of attack. Their ability to see beyond the hull is limited to what they can hear. But their range is immense, and their ears are exquisitely tuned to the strange acoustic caverns of the oceans — far distant sounds, echoing and repeating, rising and falling, betraying and confirming.
The ship’s company were pleased when the CO ordered Columbia to submerge and increase speed twenty miles southeast of Nantucket Island. For the crew, this was when the journey really began, when they set course to the east, for the southern slopes of the Grand Banks where the shattered hull of the Titanic rests, two and a half miles below the surface.
The journey to the Faeroe Islands would take a week, with the American submarine running fast northeast across the deep underwater mountains of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Boomer had her steaming up the long deep plain in ten thousand feet of water above the Icelandic Basin on August 13. At 1700 local on the afternoon of August 14, they came to periscope depth at eight degrees west, just north of the sixtieth parallel, southwest of the windswept little cluster of Danish islands. Boomer Dunning knew these cold, heartless North Atlantic waters well, and he accessed the satellite to report his arrival on station and confirm he would stay right here, patrolling until he received further orders.
One week later, on August 22, the tension inside the SUBLANT Black Ops Cell was palpable. Admiral Morgan was arriving from Fort Meade. Admiral George Morris had been checking a set of pictures just received from Big Bird. They indicated that the two Russian Kilos were clear of Murmansk and under way, escorted by one frigate and three destroyers, one of which was the 9,000-ton guided-missile destroyer Admiral Chabanenko. They were traveling on the surface and were attended by a giant 21,000-ton Typhoon Class strategic missile submarine and the massive 23,500-ton Arktika Class icebreaker Ural, a three-shafted, nuclear-powered monster, famed for its ability to smash through ice eight feet thick at three knots…riding up on it and crushing it beneath its weight, bearing down on the granite-hard floes with a prow reinforced by solid steel.
For good measure the Russians had fielded a huge 35,000-ton Verezina Class replenishment ship, presumably loaded with missiles, hardware, ammunition, stores, diesel fuel, and an operational crew of six hundred Russian seamen. It was a vast traveling Naval superstore, cruising the oceans with two or three billion dollars’ worth of merchandise on board. All of this was bad news, but there was also some particularly bad news…the satellite had picked up the nine-ship convoy making a steady eight knots a hundred miles due east of Pol’arnyj.
One hour earlier the Fort Meade Director had called Admiral Morgan informing him of the unexpected development. Morgan took in the carefully relayed information that the convoy had turned right instead of left and within seconds snapped, “Hold everything, I’m on my way,” then slammed down the phone.
And now he was here. One glance at the pictures told him everything he needed to know. He stood silently, berating himself for not having anticipated the problem in advance, unable to believe what he had missed. He paced up and down the Fort Meade office as he had so many times before, cursing loudly at what he called the “most crass and unforgivable mistake of my career.”
“I cannot believe this,” he said. “How could I have missed it?”
But miss it he had. Admiral Vitaly Rankov had sent the two Kilos to China, under substantial escort, the other way…to the right, along the easterly route, inside the Arctic Circle, following the northern Siberian coast, which is frozen in winter, but navigable in August with an icebreaker. They would not be going anywhere near the North Atlantic, they would steam south through the Bering Strait into the Pacific in two weeks.
Patrolling the Faeroes, 1,200 miles away, the Commanding Officer of Columbia would wait in vain, for K-9 and K-10 were not coming. What’s more there was no way Boomer could turn northeast and give chase. The shallowness of the water and the closeness of the ice edge would not allow him to proceed any faster than his target. And they were already a thousand miles ahead of him. He could never catch them. Not even in an entire month. Right now he had two weeks max.
“That bastard Rankov,” rumbled Admiral Morgan. “He’s fucking well behind this.”
12
Arnold Morgan left Fort Meade in a hurry, taking the satellite photographs with him. He headed straight to the helicopter pad and strapped himself into the big US Marines Super Cobra that had been sequestered for his own personal use. The pilot had been ordered into the air from the Marines Air Station at Quantico, Virginia, and told to fly twenty-five miles up the Potomac to the White House grounds to pick up the President’s National Security Adviser. The Quantico station chief, responding to the great man himself, had his Ready-Duty chopper up and flying inside nine minutes. The pilot was now on the move again, for the third time that morning, lifting off from Fort Meade while Admiral Morgan sat glowering behind him, alone in the sixteen-seat helicopter. “Step on it, willya,” Morgan muttered.
The chopper arrived at the Norfolk headquarters of the US Navy in less than twenty minutes. A staff car awaited its arrival. Arnold Morgan strode into the Black Ops Cell at SUBLANT at 1410 precisely. Admiral Dixon waited alone, attended by just his Flag Lieutenant. The CNO was expected any moment.
“We’re in the crap right here,” said the NSA.
“I guessed as much by your phone call. What’s happened?”
“K-9 and K-10 have sailed under a four-ship escort plus a big missile submarine, an icebreaker, and a replenishment ship. They’ve made a break for it along the northern Siberian coast. Right now they’re headed due east at eight knots. They are not going anywhere near the North Atlantic, and Columbia cannot catch them. We’re at least twelve hundred miles behind, and as you well know, pursuit would be impossible up there in shallow waters, close to the ice edge.”
“Damn,” said Admiral Dixon. “That puts us right behind the power curve.”
“Sure does. I checked out the possibility of sending Columbia the other way, via the Panama Canal and then north up the Pacific. But it would take three weeks minimum. I’m assessing the Kilos will be through the Bering Strait in thirteen or fourteen days…here…take a look at these photographs…satellite picked ’em up about a hundred miles east of Murmansk.”
“Hmmmm. There’s the two Kilos on the surface. What’s that? A goddamned Typhoon? Look at the size of that baby!”
“I’ve looked. It’s a Typhoon all right. Still the biggest submarine ever built, right?”
“Christ, Arnie, that’s no submarine escort. They’d’a used an Akula.”
“No. I agree. They must be making an interfleet transfer from the Northern to the Pacific, and just held up the journey for a few days, so it could travel with the convoy.”
“And how about these surface warships? They’re major escorts by any standard. What’s the name of the big guy out in front?”
“That’s the Admiral Chabanenko, a nine-thousand-ton guided missile destroyer.”
“How about these two? They look a lot the same?”
“Right. Two Udaloy Type Ones. We think the Admiral Levchenko, and the Admiral Kharlamov. Similar in size, both with a hot ASW capability. All based in the Northern Fleet, going on a very special long journey.”
“And this one here, in the rear?”
“Guided-missile frigate, the Nepristupny, a four-thousand-ton improved Krivak, probably their most effective small ASW ship class.”
“Jesus. And how about this fucking thing out in front?”
“Giant icebreaker, the Ural, can smash its way through just about anything.”
“Christ. They’re not joking, are they? They really want those Kilos to reach Shanghai, wouldn’t you say?”
“They sure do. But what really pisses me off is that I should have anticipated this. They often send convoys along the northeast passage at this time of year. And what a goddamned obvious ploy…and it never crossed my mind they would do anything except run down the Atlantic with a big escort. I think I mig
ht be going soft. That bastard Rankov.”
Admiral Dixon smiled despite the seriousness of the situation. He walked to the chart drawer and pulled up the big Royal Navy hydrographer’s four-foot-wide blue-yellow-and-gray map of the Arctic region. He spread it on his sloping chart desk and measured the distance from Murmansk to the Bering Strait — just less than three thousand miles. “If they make a couple of hundred miles a day at eight knots it’s going to take them exactly two weeks,” he said.
“And if Columbia set off now at flank speed she’d gain a lot of ground…” He paused and measured again. “But not enough,” he concluded. “He’d have to run north to lay up with them across the Bear Island Trough…then the Russians, with that damned great icebreaker, will angle even farther north, to the edge of the pack ice, passing the tip of this long island right here, what’s it called?…Novaya Zemlya…then there into the Kara Sea…and, Christ! It gets really shallow in there…then they’ll angle into Siberia to get into the easier shore ice. Right there Boomer’d be in deep shit, there’s no way he’d catch them…the goddamned water’s only a hundred and fifty feet deep up by the Severnayas, and if he was going fast he’d be leaving a big wake on the surface.”
“Looks damned narrow up there, too.”
“Sure does. And up toward the northern ice edge it will be very difficult. You can’t see the fucking stuff on sonar. And all the time the ice is grinding and snarling and fucking you about. If you put your periscope up, there’s a good chance it’ll get bent by a chunk of ice.
“See this, Arnie. Right after Severnay it gets even more lousy — more shallow, and covered by ice. Right there, Columbia would be well behind the eight ball, strapped for speed. More or less powerless, probably with no idea where the Kilos were, except from us, with the next choke point the far side of the Bering Strait.”
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