Pacino looked out the starboard windows at the horizon, the sea calm now that the storm had ceased. The sky was overcast, but the glare from the brightness was giving Pacino a headache. The other ships of the battle group steamed in formation, the beauty of it breathtaking, the precision, the guns and missiles and radars of the sleek surface ships a powerful display of naval might.
Looking at them, Pacino for the first time felt that the blockade might work out. He turned away from the starboard window and looked at flag plot, a room the size of the bridge on the deck above. The room’s windows were as panoramic as the bridge’s, the floor space taken up with plot tables and conference tables. Now that charts and papers were replaced by Writepads, the room’s broad tables were somewhat out of use. In Pacino’s experience on submarines, which were so cramped for space and volume that the eye never focused on a distance more than fifteen feet away, the openness and wide view from flag plot seemed luxurious, almost sinful.
Finally Admiral Donner came in, dressed in fresh working khakis with no decorations on his uniform other than his surface warfare pin and his three silver stars.
“Morning. I see you’re still with us. How do you feel?”
“Better. After last night anything is better.”
“Good. Listen, you’d better take a look at this. Seems things are picking up steam.”
Pacino squinted in the glare to see the writing on Admiral Donner’s Writepad.
“Warner wants to start the blockade tonight,” Donner said.
“But we’re not in position yet. We’ve got another twelve hours of steaming to get us within fifty miles of Honshu, and that’s just the east side of the islands. We have to get the Sea of Japan task group on the other side of the islands to interdict shipping from the west. That’ll take at least another day—”
“President Warner has maps, she knows where we are and the timing of getting in close. Admiral Wadsworth is working on it with her.”
Wadsworth strikes again, Pacino thought.
“Mac, what the hell is this? We can’t set up a blockade that fast. What kind of a blockade would that be? By this evening the Sea of Japan will still be wide open.”
“I thought something like this might happen, Patch. I sent your submarines on ahead a few hours before you landed, if that crash on the deck can be called a landing. I should have told you when you were up on the bridge last night but I figured once you talked to Paully White, the sub-operations officer, you’d come back up here to the bridge to scream about it. But you were down until now.”
Pacino realized he should have checked in and met the submarine-operations officer, the man aboard the carrier who was responsible for the tasking of the two submarines traveling with the battle group. But he had been too exhausted and sick to go below and had left it for today. Once again Pacino cursed the fact that he wasn’t in command of a submarine anymore. On the sub, his information network surrounded him. Now here he was, his information screened by Donner, who kept him in the dark to avoid his anger, hiding behind an operations officer when he was supposed to be as heavy in planning the operation as Donner was. He would have to work on Donner, Pacino thought, deciding to get in touch with Sean Murphy as soon as he left the bridge.
The Hawaii subs, the Pacific Fleet submarine force, should be well on its way by now, he thought.
“You detached my submarines without informing me, Admiral. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep me in the god damned loop. Sir.”
“Sorry, Patch, but don’t forget, technically those submarines are under the operational control of the battle group, and since I’m the force commander they report in to me.”
“No, Admiral, those ships were to out-chop to my command. I’m the USUBCOM force commander, and as of last night those ships are under my op-comm.” The jargon meant the ships left the battle group and got a new boss, Pacino, the evening he arrived on the carrier.
“Okay, Patch, fine. They’re your boats and under your command. Okay? It’s just that you had a hell of a night with the accident and the sedative, and the doc thought you might be down for a while, which you were, and we were steaming as before.”
“Where are my ships?”
“The Pasadena and Cheyenne have been running at flank all night. They’ll be in the western Oparea, in the Sea of Japan, by the time the blockade starts.”
“Mac, we may be in a hurry to play this ball game, but why would we agree to kick off with only two players on the god damned field? The whole point of a blockade is to be visible. That takes surface ships. No blockade is credible with subs alone. And the Japan Oparea is crawling with their Destiny-class ships. With our boats running in there at flank speed, they’ll be eaten alive.”
“Those are the orders.”
“Admiral, my subs need release to sink the Destiny subs in the Oparea. You’ve given that order, I assume, sir.” Pacino braced for the worst.
“Those aren’t the rules of engagement. Patch, and you know it. The blockade setup is that, first, Tokyo and the world is notified that as of nineteen hundred hours today, no merchant shipping is to cross the boundary of the Oparea, or as Warner’s calling it in public, the Exclusion Zone. Then, as of seven o’clock tonight local time, we sink anything crossing the boundary, going in or out. There’s nothing authorizing us to attack the military of Japan.”
“Let’s ask, Admiral. We’ve got to get that request on the wire now. If my boats are out there, they could be targeted by Destiny subs. And since you sent them in at maximum speed, they made a hell of a racket getting there. The whole Japanese Fleet knows exactly where they are. They won’t last after the first torpedo.”
“What do you want this to say?”
“That we want to be released to strike at any Destiny submarine the minute we detect it, and that Tokyo should be told to withdraw their submarines or we’ll attack.”
Donner scribbled on the Writepad, and Pacino read.
“Fine.”
“I’ll send it as a joint message from Pacforcecom and USUBCOM/Pacforce. How’s that?”
“Great.” Pacino was still angry but he tried to keep it from showing.
NORTHWEST PACIFIC
USS BARRACUDA
The phone buzzed by the side of the rack. Capt. David Kane lifted a mucous-encrusted eyelid, found the phone, pulled it out of its cradle and dragged it to his ear.
“Captain,” he croaked. He felt older than his forty-five years, the forty-fifth birthday hitting him much harder than he had anticipated. He had been having another nightmare about it, the room filled with black balloons labeled “over the hill” while he looked in a mirror and saw deep wrinkles, bald head, gray mustache, himself bent over a cane. He was glad that the phone had interrupted the dream. He glanced at his watch, the face reading 3:15, trying to remember if it was set for Hawaii time, local time, Greenwich Mean or Tokyo time. He managed to recall ordering the ship’s clocks set to Tokyo time so that when they got to the Japan Oparea their bodies would be adjusted to the light cycles outside.
There was nothing worse than coming to periscope depth in a dark submarine with your body thinking it was two in the morning only to find that when the scope cleared the sun was shining from high in the sky.
“Captain,” he said again, wondering if he’d dreamt the phone had buzzed.
“Yes sir, Captain, Officer of the Deck. It’s zero three fifteen, sir. I’m calling to request to come up to periscope depth.”
Kane had trained his junior officers, on night wakeup calls like this, to make him dig for information. If the officer of the deck did a data dump on him, he’d be back asleep by the end of the O.O.D’s report.
“Okay. Any contacts?”
“No contacts, sir.”
“Present status?”
“Depth one five zero feet, speed six knots, course west, sir.”
“Reason for PD?”
“Broadcast, Captain. Also we need to check the inertial nav against the GPS signal.”
“Last
broadcast was when?”
The ship was required to come up to periscope depth at least once every eight hours to get radio messages from the Comstar satellite that orbited in a geostationary orbit over the Pacific. The satellite would transmit messages in a ten-second burst every fifteen minutes, whether anyone was there to hear them or not. Usually while they were up, the periscope antenna would pull down the signal from the navigation satellite, the global-positioning system.
“We were up at twenty-thirty last night, sir. It’s time.”
“Very well, Offsa’deck,” Kane said, slurring the title, “take her up to PD and get the broadcast and a nav fix. Then get us back down and speed back up to flank. We’re late.”
“Aye, sir, periscope depth, broadcast, nav fix, deep and flank.”
Kane recradled the phone and shut his eyes again, sleep washing comfortably up over him, the dreams coming slowly, but then he was in his backyard dressed in a clown suit at his daughter’s birthday party, his wife Becky handing him a beer, the kids squealing in delight.
The party melted into a beach where he and Becky were alone in the moonlight and she was reaching for him, a devilish look in her blue eyes. He could feel her long fingernails as she drew them across his flat stomach to his waistband, her playful laughter mixing in with the sounds of the waves on the sand. He felt her fingers plunge into his bathing suit and gently stroke him, then pull him out. She began to kiss him. His eyes rolled back in his head, Becky’s mouth working until sweat poured down from his temples and— BOOM BOOM BOOM.
“Radioman, sir, messages for you.”
“Goddamnit.” Kane sat up in the rumpled bed. The radioman came in with the metal clipboard with the official Writepad. Kane glanced at the messages, the ones classified with codeword Enlightened Curtain first in the queue. It looked like the blockade would proceed ahead of schedule. Kane initialed the messages, drawing his finger over the surface of the Writepad as if using it for a pencil, the computer drawing lines as his finger sketched his initials over the pad.
The radioman left and Kane sank back into the rack, feeling the deck take on a down angle as the officer of the deck drove the ship deep again and increased speed to get back on their planned track to the Japan Oparea.
He shut his eyes and felt sleep overtake him again, but this time lovely Becky was gone, the dreams dominated by the ocean, its depth and darkness, storms at sea, dark rain. He tossed and turned all the way to the next phone call from the control room.
SEA OF JAPAN
SS-810 WINGED SERPENT
Comdr. Toshumi Tanaka was still awake in his stateroom, reading the message traffic about the coming of the American Navy’s carrier battle groups. One of the messages was from his father, addressed to the entire Destiny force at sea in the waters near the Home Islands.
The message read that the approaching battle groups might attempt to set up a blockade, but no matter what happened, no submarine was to attack or molest any incoming American unit — even if there were American submarines approaching in close. Admiral Tanaka allowed the Destiny force to shadow the Americans, but even at that he was being cautious, ordering the Japanese submarines to remain outside a half-kilometer distance from any American ship.
It was ridiculous, the younger Tanaka thought. He was in the middle of thinking about how he would change those orders when a knock came from the door to the head Tanaka shared with his first officer, Lt. Comdr. Hiro Mazdai.
“Come,” Tanaka said.
“Evening, Captain. Is everything satisfactory?”
“Fine, Mr. First, why?”
“I was in the head and saw your light on, sir.”
“Anything on your mind. First?”
“The crew is uneasy, sir.”
“About the American battle groups?”
“No, Captain. I think it’s just the situation.”
“Explain.”
“Sir, our Two-class manned ships are in the waters of the Home Islands. Our Three-class ships have set sail for the deep Pacific — and for the near Pacific, where the closest incoming aircraft carrier group is approaching. Only two things can happen. Either our fleets engage or they don’t. Either the Americans shoot at us and we shoot at them, or we return to our separate ports with all of our weapons still aboard.”
“First, is there a point to this?”
“Just that, one could say if we go down the path of shooting, both sides may lose. At first we should prevail. The Americans will be sunk. But they will send more ships. We will return to port to get more torpedoes. One can only hope the Americans run out of ships before we run out of torpedoes. Our own ships will take losses, some of us will die. The American fleets will be hurt worse, but America has an air force too. Will they not fight back, bomb our country, maybe shoot their missiles at us, drop paratroopers onto our soil? How long can we fight? How long will we watch our children and women dying? Some, sir, say we were wrong to attack Greater Manchuria, that we should say so now. They say it is a new century, that it seems wrong to fight the same fight we did in the last.”
“Are you speaking for yourself or others?”
“Sir, I am an officer of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force. I will do my duty to the day I die. I will follow my orders. I will shoot torpedoes at hospital ships if ordered. I will blow up this submarine before allowing it to be captured, if ordered. I am an officer, but I am also a man. The time for Samurai warriors is over. Our leaders have not realized that.”
“That’s quite a speech. First. I had no idea you felt this way. I order you to keep these opinions to yourself. Failing that, I will shoot you myself. Now get out.”
Mazdai returned to his own stateroom. Tanaka stared at the door, amazed and angry. Did others in Japan really think this way? Mazdai’s argument had no attraction for him. Mazdai had not lost his mother, the one person who loved him on this earth, to the uncaring, incompetent and hurtful Americans. Mazdai had not spent his young years being spit at and taunted by Americans.
Mazdai had not been forced to live with them, with their disgusting food and arrogance about being the best country in the world, the one and only world power.
Mazdai had not had to suffer their vicious racist attitudes toward Japan, toward all people of color.
Toshumi Tanaka had, and even if his torpedoes didn’t make the world a more peaceful place for flower-loving Mazdai, they would at least even the balance sheet. The torpedoes were named Nagasakis for a reason. The cruise missiles were named Hiroshimas for a reason.
To hell with the Americans.
CHAPTER 18
BLOCK ISLAND SOUND
USS PIRANHA
Comdr. Bruce Phillips scanned the horizon with his binoculars, searching for the lights of merchant ships, fishing boats or pleasure craft, although there was no way a yacht would be out tonight. The blizzard was the worst Phillips could remember since he was a child, back in the storms of ‘93. The snowflakes were the size of nickels and quarters, fogging his binoculars, getting inside the collar of his parka. He dropped the binoculars and stared out at the fog, cursing the slowness of their journey. Somehow, though, it seemed fitting that a trip under the polar icecap would begin with a blizzard. The fog obscured vision, the horizon coming in, then receding again. The fog and the snow and the late hour made the Sound dead quiet. The only sounds were the dull rumble of the tugboat’s diesel engines, the thudding roar of Piranha’s own emergency diesel generator and the wash of the wake against the hull. The Piranha was moving at little more than five knots, her diesel running to provide power to start the reactor. As soon as the Sound was deep enough, he would order the ship to cast off the line to the tug and he’d submerge the ship. It would be a hairy operation taking it down on battery power alone.
“Control, Captain,” Phillips said into his boom microphone, “mark distance and time to the fifty-fathom curve.”
“Captain, Navigator,” Court’s voice replied in his single earpiece headset, “forty minutes to fifty-fathom curve
, distance three point three nautical miles.”
“Present sounding?”
“Forty-one fathoms.”
“Very well.” Phillips looked at the officer of the deck, Lt. Peter Meritson. “Well, Pete, what’s Deanna think of all this?”
“I told her it was no big deal.” Phillips looked over the lip of the sail to the port side, the Vortex missile canisters ruining the flow of water around the ship, the missiles half the length of the submarine. They were certainly ugly, he thought, wondering if the missiles would work. He looked back over at his sonar officer and officer of the deck.
“Yeah, but what does she think?”
“She thinks I’ll be wearing a flag at the bottom of the Sea of Japan.”
“She said that?”
“No, Deanna actually said, ‘Be careful, honey, I’ll worry about you,’ but her tone of voice said ‘You’re not coming back.’ It’s a bit much for her to take.”
“What’s Deanna do again?”
“She’s a nurse. Takes her show on the road, makes rounds of older folks’ homes.”
“Tough job. Hope she’s not going out in this weather.”
“No, she’s at her mothers’.” Phillips sighed. “Let’s get this bucket of bolts ready to submerge, Pete. I’m laying below. Rig the bridge for dive and shift control to the control room.”
“Aye, sir. I’ll see you in fifteen.”
Phillips took off the headset and handed it to Meritson, then took a long look around at the sea, shrouded in fog, the snow drifting heavily, densely down and vanishing as it hit the water. He consciously took a deep breath, tasting it, knowing that his air for the next days or weeks or months would be canned, flavored with ozone, sweat, sewage, oil and garbage, as well as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, amines and other chemicals used inside the ship. The breath exhaled, Phillips raised the deck grating and lowered himself into the rigged for-black tunnel, the vertical tunnel’s lights extinguished so they would not ruin the officer of the deck’s night vision. Blindly Phillips came down the long ladder, passed by feel through a smooth lip of a hatch and further down into darkness.
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