Barracuda: Final Bearing mp-4

by Michael Dimercurio

  “Now, sir, let me strap you in. This is a five point harness. The release mechanism is here. Now, see this lever here?” A red ribbon attached to a pin was attached to a yellow and black striped lever set deep into the bulkhead opposite Shearson. “I’m pulling the pin out of it. It’s armed now, sir, so be careful not to touch it. That’s the manual canopy release, just in case we need to eject and the automatic sequence doesn’t blow off the canopy. There are two ways to eject, Admiral. The first way, the better way, is to pull that cord above your head. See it?” A yellow and black bungee cord was wrapped into the ejection seat headrest, two loops of it extending out on either side of Pacino’s helmet. “Can you grab that for me? Good sir. If we need to punch out, you pull that cord down to your crotch, all the way down, and the curtain in the headrest will come down over your head. The curtain protects your face and head while it keeps your elbows in tight.”

  “What’s the other way?”

  “See the D-shaped ring by your crotch? You can pull that up, but it’s not as good. Your oxygen mask and helmet would be ripped off in the slipstream, and there’s no guarantee for your face.”

  “Why is it here then?”

  “If we’re in a high-g spin, even Hercules might not be able to lift his arms up to the curtain cord, so the second one is down low.”

  “Comforting thought.”

  “Yes, sir. Now, if you pull the curtain down, count to fifty by thousands and you’ll be out of the plane. It only takes three seconds, which is how long it would take you to count to fifty when you’re pumped up with adrenaline.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, if I want you to punch out, I’ll call ‘eject, eject, eject,’ and out we go. If you’re unconscious, you’re going anyway.”

  “Great.”

  “Water bottle is here, snack pack is over here, and this is the urine bag. You put this tube around your thing and let go, then seal it like this. It goes into this pouch when you’re done. Just make sure the velcro holds it in the outer pouch, sir. Spilled urine can mess up the avionics.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “Last piece of advice, sir. If you have gas, there’s no such thing as being polite aloft. I recommend you try to fart out anything you feel, as hard as you can. Otherwise the altitude will give you one hell of a bellyache.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “Vomit bags are in this pouch. Whatever happens, do not throw up in your oxygen mask. The rule is, you have to clean up your own, even flag officers, sir. Sorry.”

  Pacino laughed. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m arming your eject mechanisms, so be careful.”

  Shearson pulled two more ribbons attached to pins and stowed them, then donned his helmet and climbed in. The canopy came down over their heads, and Shearson waved down to the technician standing on the concrete below. Pacino could hear the whining sound of the port turbine coming up to speed. It took some time for it to spool up, until it caught, the noise and vibration less than he’d expected. A minute later the starboard turbine came up. The jet started to move, inching along the taxiway. Shearson’s voice chattered brief bursts of numbers to the tower. Soon they were at the end of the runway, and the turbines came up to full power. The noise of it was deafening. Shearson released the brakes and the jet surged forward.

  Soon the ground below, the line marking the runway’s edge, and the hangars and buildings of the air station were streaking by impossibly fast. The world outside was a blur, the vibrations from the plane indicating that they must be going at least 150 miles per, maybe faster. The jet stayed on the runway for a long time, far past the speed when it should be able to fly, Shearson keeping it tight to the pavement. Pacino felt a moment of alarm when he saw the lights at the runway’s far end approaching, but then Shearson pulled up, and the aircraft, with its extra velocity, rocketed upward, hurling Pacino far back into his seat, his head feeling four times as heavy as usual. He tried to turn his head, and it was an effort, and when he looked out the canopy, all he could see was blue sky, turning darker and darker.

  “You okay. Admiral?”

  “Fine.”

  Pacino reached into his flight kit for his Writepad. He turned it on and removed his nomex gloves.

  “Okay if I talk to my Writepad?” Pacino asked Shearson.

  “There’s a switch on the port console under intercom. Select it to receive only.”

  “What’s next?”

  “Well, we’ll be over the wilds of Canada in a few hours. We’ll go supersonic then to make up some time. Up over the pole is the shortest route. We’ll intercept an A-6 tanker over Alaska and get some gas. By the time we’re over the Reagan task force it’ll be dark. We’ll be making our approach at night. And the weather is closing in. We’ve got a tropical storm brewing in the Pacific. Pearl weather says it’s going to develop into a typhoon but it should miss the Japan seas.”

  “Okay, I’m killing the intercom.”

  Pacino turned the Writepad on, intending to write his memo to Warner, when his E-mail indicator flashed. He double-clicked into the electronic mail and saw the message to him from Wadsworth, the admiral ordering that he take full initiative in the pursuit of the Japanese operation, that he would be of equal operational status to Adm. MacK Donner, the Reagan task force commander and overall commander of the Japanese theater blockade operation. How could he be subordinate to Admiral Donner yet on an equal operational status to him?

  Pacino scanned the message again and noted that it was copied to President Warner and Admiral Donner. Very strange.

  A second message was from Admiral Donchez, wishing him luck, commending him for getting to sea. Nowhere did Donchez mention the meeting in the Oval Office. Several other E-mails were addressed to him, one from his son Tony, one from his attorney in the case of his coming divorce. The one from Tony he read and savored, the one from the attorney he stashed for later.

  Pacino brought up the voice processor and spoke to the Writepad. The oxygen mask muffled his voice, the computer display printing question marks. He unlatched a hook of the mask and began to mutter into his display, his words appearing on the screen, the context-sensitive software distinguishing between alternate spellings, Pacino occasionally correcting it. He reread what he had written, edited it and sent it as an E-mail to President Warner, copying it to Wadsworth, his own staff and Donchez, with a forwarding message to Donner including his arrival time. He also took Wadsworth’s message about his “equal operational status” and sent it to Donner, thinking that maybe MacK Donner could better interpret it.

  Pacino next turned to the battle plan. From the Writepad’s tactical section he pulled up the chart of the Japan Oparea and the Scenario Orange Warplan, Annex A, the plan for a naval blockade of the islands.

  He began marking where each Pacific submarine would take station, most off major Japanese ports, some along the shipping lanes, others patrolling sectors unconnected with shore infrastructure. The Atlantic fleet boats would arrive later by at least a week, so the Pacific boats would have to hold the islands down. When the Atlantic ships arrived there was more depth, but nothing changed fundamentally, at least not until the Piranha arrived.

  Pacino looked at the chart and the plan, trying to find the flaw, and determined that if there were one, it was the failure of the president to order a preemptive strike against the Japanese air forces, submarines and satellites.

  But that was the shape of Warner’s comfort level. Pacino just hoped that her comfort zone would be big enough to allow his force to prevail.

  CHAPTER 13

  MM 13 YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, YOKOSUKA, JAPAN

  JAPANESE MARITIME SELF DEFENSE FORCE SUBMARINE WINGED SERPENT, SS-810

  Adm. Akagi Tanaka was led down the length of pier 23 by the senior rating, past the ships of the Destiny II class tied up along either side of the concrete path, to berth 5. The Winged Serpent was tied fast to pier 23 by eight-doubled-up lines. A gangway extended from the concrete pier to the top surface of its hull
.

  The ship was stubby and broad, its fin reaching high into the sky its hull vanishing astern into the waters of the slip, the X-tail of its rudder protruding above the stagnant water. Akagi Tanaka looked up at the towering fin, the windows set into its surface from the interior control space. He tried to suppress his feelings of awe, the ones he invariably felt on entering his son’s submarine. It was important not to reveal feelings of awe or deference when dealing with Toshumi. Not that a father should withhold these emotions, and for a different son or his own son at a different time Akagi would have been effusive in his praise and enjoyment of his son’s command, but Toshumi was not one who could accept praise from his father. It was as if his son needed harshness and confrontation from his father.

  It would always be between them, this separation born of Orou’s, Akagi’s wife’s, death, for which Toshumi blamed his father.

  Akagi walked across the gangway, returned the salute of the sentry, and ducked into the door in the side of the fin. Inside was an area crowded with a ladder and cables and valves and pipes, smelling of lubrication oil. He put his foot down on the first rung of the ladder and began to lower himself into the hole in the ship. The enclosure of the hatch enveloped him, the light above receding as he came down the ladder until he landed on the deck four meters below. He looked at the passageway, trimmed in Indonesian tigerwood, which led aft to the control room and forward to the staterooms of the captain and first officer.

  On either side of the passageway was a door, one labeled computer room, the other radio. A steep stairway led below. The rating continued forward, knocked on the door labeled captain’s stateroom. A muffled voice called for them to enter. The rating opened the door and stood aside.

  Akagi found himself in his son’s stateroom, the walls bare, the room empty of papers or charts. It looked as if it had been emptied out so that one crew could turn the ship over to another. In fact, it reminded him of the staterooms on the Destiny I class just before they would be turned over to the purchasing crew. The rooms had been tidy but empty of personal effects.

  That his son’s room was so bare and cold was alarming to Akagi. It was as if young Tanaka’s stateroom was as cold as his heart.

  Toshumi gestured to a seat at the conference-sized table. He did not stand, but looked up from his handheld computer display.

  “It is good to see you again, father,” Toshumi said.

  “And you, son.”

  Toshumi’s expression remained neutral, his eyes focused on his father’s, the gray irises darker in the unnatural light of the stateroom’s fluorescent lights.

  “You said you had business with me, father.”

  Akagi found his briefcase and pulled out a computer the size of an envelope. He muttered to it, the displays flashing in response to his voice commands. He scanned the notes on the screen, then looked up at his son.

  “Yours is the first vessel in the flotilla to be briefed. You are the senior commander of this flotilla.”

  “Since the other flotilla is made of Destiny IIIs, will you be briefing them too, or is your computer doing that for you?”

  Akagi concentrated on the display before him, the steel in his son’s voice noted but unacknowledged.

  “Since last week the United States’ aircraft carrier battle group headed up by the Nimitz-class carrier Reagan has been on the way to the northwest Pacific. The day of the bombing of Greater Manchuria the Reagan task force turned westward to a course that is on the great circle route directly toward Japan. Since then they have steamed five hundred kilometers closer. Presently they are within a thousand kilometers of the Home Islands, close enough for their fighter planes to attack our fighters and submarine piers. And Tokyo. The Reagan task force, in effect, is in our front yard. Since then our Galaxy satellites have detected heat blooms aboard every warship in Pearl Harbor, with some ships starting to get underway. Even the foreign visiting ships are starting up their engine rooms.”

  Toshumi’s face showed only disgust. “Father, I told you we should station a Destiny III outside the northwest side of Hawaii. You rejected my advice. You relied on dumb satellites for your information. We could have intercepted unguarded communications and known the Westerners’ intentions by now.”

  “That still is not necessary. We have intercepted cellular telephone calls from Pearl Harbor and the vicinity. The fleets are getting underway. We believe that they intend to encircle Japan. The United Nations has voted sanctions that would choke us if they were enforced. Fortunately Russia will be supplying us through this crisis. However, the American ambassador to Japan held a conference with Prime Minister Kurita this morning. He threatened to construct a blockade around Japan.”

  “What were the terms?”

  “The ambassador called for UN troops on Japanese soil to supervise the disassembly of all radioactive weapons. In addition the Maritime Self Defense Force would be relieved of its submarines, the SDF would have its Firestar fighters removed, and Japan would never again have an offensive military.”

  “What did Kurita say?”

  “He stalled for time and sent the ambassador on his way.”

  “And we have orders?”

  “Yes. All submarines are to put to sea. If you stay in port, you could come under air attack. The Firestar squadrons will be scrambled to civilian airports scattered throughout the countryside. That will take away our immediate vulnerability to air attack.”

  “What about the incoming fleets?”

  “This flotilla will take station off the Home Islands to wait for the arrival of the first battle group. The other will penetrate the deep Pacific and set their courses to intercept the battle groups coming from Hawaii.”

  “You are sending the machines to intercept the surface groups? Won’t they get lost? And even if they make it, how will they fight?”

  “Toshumi, the same men who trained you to fight a submarine programmed the Destiny III vessels. It is true that the manned vessels are considered more reliable, which is all the more reason to keep them here, the eventual destination of the deep Pacific aircraft carrier fleets. If the Destiny III flotilla fails, there still remain the manned vessels.”

  “Do we have orders to attack?”

  “No. Kurita will be kept informed, and he will issue any such order to me directly. I will then relay it to you.”

  “Dammit, father, the first thing the West will do is knock out our Galaxy satellites. Then how will you communicate? This is so typical of the thinking of the men who never had to go into combat with—”

  “Commander!” He got Toshumi’s attention, but his son’s face was a locked door. “We have contingency plans should that occur. We have a new Galaxy satellite ready for launch in the Guayanas. To back that up we have patrol aircraft with transmission gear loaded aboard. After that we have the third contingency, and that is the commanders of the Destiny II submarines. In the absence of orders, should the blockade be confirmed to stop the Russian traffic, you as senior commander will have the authority to order the other submarines to attack the surface forces.”

  “What about the American submarine force? They will come too. It will complicate the operation if we have to deal with threats from the surface and subsurface simultaneously.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Advance permission to sink any hostile submarine contact.”

  “No. Such orders will come from Kurita at the same time he orders commencement of hostilities against the Western surface forces.”

  “Typical.”

  “Commander, I find your attitude most irritating.”

  “And I find your obsequiousness to those in power most irritating.”

  “I can have you relieved of command.”

  “When you find a better submarine commander to run this ship, you won’t have to relieve me, I’ll leave.”

  It was times like these that Akagi missed Orou the most.

  “Son, there was something I wanted to tell you, but after our words, it seems sill
y and sentimental.”

  “What is it?”

  “It seems that once again, three generations later, we are headed for destruction. Once again, we Japanese have picked the wrong enemy.”

  “The Americans?”

  “No. Ourselves.”

  NORTHWEST PACIFIC

  During the F-14’s refueling with the A-6 tanker it had been up to Pacino to guide Shearson’s probe into the refueling hose receiver. He had called out instructions, as Shearson had taught him, until Shearson, blind, was able to put the probe into the receiver. It was almost comically sexual, but Pacino was too preoccupied to comment on it.

  After refueling they flew on into the darkness high above the dense clouds, the cockpit bathed in starlight.

  Pacino stared out of the canopy at nature’s beauty.

  Closer to the ground, the problems were more real. As if proving Pacino correct, Shearson’s voice clicked into the intercom.

  “Admiral, bad news. The tropical storm has turned north. By the time we’re on approach to the Reagan it’ll be only a few hundred miles away. They’re thinking of upgrading it to a typhoon. Fairbanks weather is showing some heavy stuff, they’re recommending we turn back. There’s nowhere to divert to if we go much farther. Admiral?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant?”

  “Did you copy that?”

  “Yeah. Lieutenant, they’re holding dinner for us aboard the Reagan. I think we should show up.”

  “Sir, you realize that if we can’t set down on the Reagan, we’re going to have to ditch the plane. We ditch in calm weather, it’s a swim date at Club Med. We ditch in the dark, it’s only fifty-fifty that we’ll get picked up until the next morning. A night in the water means it’s us against Jaws and his brethren. We ditch in a typhoon, you might as well break out your survival pistol and eat a bullet. The chances of survival are zero point zero. You copy that, sir?”

  “Yes, Brad. For what it’s worth, I’ve spent more time in a life raft waiting for a chopper than some folks have spent in the Navy.”