“Yes sir.” Kane dialed. Becky’s voice came on. “I’m putting you on the speaker phone,” Rickover said. He punched a button and Becky’s silky voice came over the speaker.
“David? What’s going on?”
“Honey? I’m here with Admiral Rickover right now, and you’re on the speaker phone.”
Kane waited, Rickover glared. “Becky?”
“Yes?”
“How are the wedding plans going?”
“Great, David. You know that. Why?”
Rickover hit the mute button, and whispered, “Go ahead, tell her.”
He punched the button again. The connection was back. Kane could hear Becky breathing. “Oh, nothing, sweetheart,” Kane had said. “Listen, Becky, I was just calling you up to tell you that I’m going Navy air. I decided to be a pilot after all. Nuclear subs are for the birds. That’s all, honey. Bye.” Kane hung up the phone and stood up, assuming the interview was over. The decision had not been that difficult. A choice between Becky and his career was not a choice. He’d take Becky any day.
He’d swab the decks of an aircraft carrier’s heads if it meant marrying Becky. Rickover could shove it. He walked to the door. Admiral Rickover didn’t say a word until Kane had put his hand on the knob.
“Oh, Midshipman Kane?”
“Yes, Admiral?”
“You’re hired. I expect you’ll prove yourself to be one of the best nuclear officers who’s ever been in the program. Good luck to you, sir.” Rickover’s tone was almost fatherly.
Kane was stunned. He just stood there, looking at Rickover as if he’d been frozen to the spot. Suddenly Rickover looked up from his work, surprised to see Kane still standing there. “Get out! Get the fuck out of here!” Kane opened the door and ran all the way to the debriefing room.
Kane had gone on to be the youngest submarine captain in Squadron Seven in Norfolk, commanding the Phoenix, which had been torpedoed in the Labrador Sea during Operation Early Retirement in the Muslim War. With the help of an unmatched crew, Kane had managed to get Phoenix back with most of the men still alive. For his acts during the war he had been awarded the Navy Cross and offered the new ship Barracuda, the second Seawolf-class ship to roll out of the building yards at Electric Boat. After nursing Phoenix back to where she could be towed out of the northern waters, Kane was ready to quit the Navy. The admiral who had offered him command of Barracuda had looked stunned when Kane had said! “I don’t think so. Admiral. It’s over. I’m done going to sea.” But the sea was not yet done with him. Maybe it had been Phoenix’s outstanding luck. Or maybe it was Admiral Rickover’s blessing. I expect you’ll prove yourself to be one of the best nuclear officers who’s ever been in the program. Or perhaps it was Admiral Steinman’s request that he take command of Barracuda. But for whatever reason, Kane missed the sea, missed submarine duty, and found his life had less weight, less meaning without a ship under his feet. In spite of the separation from Becky, the element of risk, there was just something about it he couldn’t live without. He couldn’t stand the idea that he’d never again hug a periscope module as the ship swam out of the deep and approached the silvery bottom sides of the waves, the view out the scope foaming and clearing, the horizon coming into focus after hours of living in darkness. He even missed the smell, the lack of sleep, the dirty sheets.
It was crazy, but finally even Becky couldn’t stand it any more, insisting that Kane’s mooning over the lack of a submarine command was driving her crazy. She had given him a phone and said, “Call Admiral Steinman, right now, and tell him you’re taking command of that submarine, or else you’re out of my program. You got that, mister?”
Steinman had laughed so hard he could barely breathe. When he recovered, he told Kane it had only been a matter of time, that he had kept the commanding officer slot open for him. Kane had hung up, feeling the tiny bites of wetness at the corners of his eyes. Becky had jumped right on it. “David! You’re crying!”
“I am not,” he’d insisted. “There’s dirt in my eyes.”
“Yeah, just like there was dirt in your eyes when Vicky was born. Come here and give me a hug. Captain Kane. What’s the name of the ship?”
“The Barracuda. Nice name, huh?”
“Only the best for you,” she had said, holding him.
Kane stood now in front of the gathered men in the wardroom, his crew, aboard his submarine. They were the best crew at sea, even better than he had had aboard the Phoenix. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, his favorite opening for a briefing.
CHAPTER 20
NORTHWEST PACIFIC
USS RONALD REAGAN
“Well, Patch, it’s time,” Donner said, staring out to sea with his binoculars.
The sun had set an hour before, the last traces of twilight fading now. The carrier was closer to Japan, but there had been no time to coordinate or set up the blockade.
“The interdiction effort begins in the Sea of Japan,” Donner said. “There’s a Russian supertanker coming in from South Korea loaded with oil and heading for the oil terminal at Niigata on the western coast of Japan. We’re scrambling four F-14s to fly out to her and keep her from crossing into the Japan Oparea.”
“Mac, you really think that supertanker’s going to pull back because of some F14s?”
“If he doesn’t he’s going to get a hull full of torpedoes. And Japan is going to get a very nasty oil slick.”
“You’d better tell the captain of the supertanker that. What about the men aboard?”
“Don’t worry about that. Patch. There’s no way that supertanker is going to run that blockade. No way.”
“Admiral, I’ve told you this before, but we need surface ships. We need a cruiser to fire shots over the guy’s bow and pull up alongside with deck guns pointed at the bridge and board the ship, physically take the helm if you have to and turn that ship around. Otherwise the whole crew is going to buy it.”
“Patch, he’ll turn around.”
“Admiral, god damnit, you’re not listening to me.”
Mac Donner’s tone was icy as he stared at Pacino.
“I’m listening, Admiral. Now what the hell do you want to say?”
“If that supertanker doesn’t turn around, we have to shoot him. If we let him through the blockade fails. So you put my men in the position of firing torpedoes at a civilian ship. My men will want to surface and rescue survivors.”
“No. That would give away their position. The satellites will see that and lead the Japanese submarines there.”
“First, Admiral, we should have blown those god damned satellites away days ago. Second, if that supertanker gets torpedoed, every ship in the Pacific will know where at least one submarine is, it’s where the supertanker went down. Third, I don’t want my men killing civilians.”
“Get off it. Patch. They have lifeboats. The Japanese can rescue them. Now quit being an old lady and—”
“I still say a destroyer or cruiser with guns is the way to do this. Let this god damned tanker in. Admiral. When we have some surface ships over there, we’ll stop the next merchant ship.”
“No. My orders are specific. The blockade begins now. Don’t make me request to relieve you. Admiral Pacino.”
Pacino took a breath and let it out. “Aye, aye, sir. I’ll send the order. On your command, if the tanker doesn’t turn around, we’ll shoot it. And no rescue of the survivors.”
“Very well.”
“I don’t think so. Sir.”
ATLANTIC OCEAN
USS PIRANHA
Bruce Phillips stood smoking his cigar while standing on the conn looking down on the diving-control station. The control room was rigged for black, all lights out, only the glow of the instruments at the ship-control panel illuminated. The screens of the firecontrol consoles of the attack center were dark, the rig for reduced electrical not allowing them to be powered up. The ship rolled gently in the waves, still at periscope depth at the mouth of Block Island Sound, now legitimately in the Atla
ntic, the sea beneath them still perilously shallow. Behind him Peter Meritson was dancing with the fat lady, rotating the periscope through endless circles, searching for the lights of close surface ships, fishing boats, anything that could collide with them.
The ship had no power to get deep if something came by, some ferry ship or misdirected container ship, and not only was there no power, there was nowhere to go; there was barely enough water beneath their keel to allow them to be submerged. They were in sixty fathoms of water, and if Phillips had gone by the book he would not have submerged until he had a minimum of 600 fathoms.
But then, submerging without a reactor up and running, snorkeling on the diesel, with only bare steerage way for power, was in gross violation of the standard operating procedures as well.
“Offsa’deck, you hear anything from the Eng?”
“Sir,” Meritson said, his voice muffled by the periscope module, “his last report was four minutes ago. He had turbines warmed and was shifting the electric plant.”
“CONN, MANEUVERING,” Walt Hornick’s voice blasted from a speaker in the overhead, “ELECTRIC PLANT IS IN A NORMAL FULL POWER LINEUP. RECOMMEND COOLING THE DIESEL.”
“Maneuvering, Conn,” Meritson said into his boom microphone, still rotating the periscope through his surface search, “cool the diesel.”
“COOL THE DIESEL, CONN, MANEUVERING, AYE. ESTIMATE MAIN PROPULSION CAPABILITY IN TWO MINUTES.”
“Maneuvering, Conn, aye.”
“Let’s go, Eng,” Phillips said. “Hey, O.O.D, let’s pull the plug on cooling the diesel. I don’t want that damned satellite upstairs seeing the exhaust.”
“Aye, Captain. Maneuvering, Conn, from the Captain, we are going to secure snorkeling.”
Meritson turned the periscope so he could shout at the chief of the watch, up at the ballast-control panel in the forward port side of the room. “Chief of the Watch, secure snorkeling!”
“Secure snorkeling, aye, sir.” The COW picked up a microphone to the circuit-one public address system, his voice booming throughout the ship.
“SECURE SNORKELING! RECIRCULATE.”
Walt Hornick’s voice replied on his speaker: “SECURE SNORKELING, RECIRCULATE, CONN, MANUEVERING AYE.”
Phillips waited impatiently, walking to the aft rail of the conn and peering down on the navigation display, a horizontal widescreen display that projected the chart where they were on a glass surface. The depth beneath them would stay shallow for some time. Usually a sub departing from Groton would be steaming at twenty knots on the surface for twelve hours before reaching the continental shelf, where the water depth fell to thousands of feet beneath the keel. Phillips would be steaming at twenty knots with less water under his keel than a full hull diameter. But that was nothing compared to what would happen when they got under ice.
Hornick’s voice squawked on the speaker again, this time his voice sounding almost cocky.
“CONN, MANEUVERING, MAIN ENGINES ARE WARM, READY TO SHIFT PROPULSION TO THE MAIN ENGINES.”
Meritson did not wait for further orders — Phillips had already made his orders for this moment.
“Helm, all stop,” Meritson called. “Maneuvering, Conn, shift propulsion to the main engines.”
The orders were acknowledged and for a moment a lull came in the room.
“CONN, MANEUVERING, PROPULSION SHIFTED TO THE MAIN ENGINES, READY TO ANSWER ALL BELLS, ANSWERING ALL STOP.”
“Conn, aye. Helm, all ahead standard.”
“Ahead standard, Helm aye,” the kid at the diving station’s helmsman’s wheel called. “Maneuvering answers all ahead standard, sir.”
“Lowering number two scope,” Meritson said, retracting the instrument. “Mark sounding!”
“Nine zero fathoms, sir.”
“Dive, make your depth one five zero feet.”
Even with several hundred feet beneath the keel, the bottom was uneven, rising up to ten fathoms in places, many of the humps uncharted. Phillips continued looking at the chart, then glanced at his watch. Within a few hours they would be steaming in the open deep Atlantic.
Then all he had to worry about was the polar icecap and the Japanese.
NORTHWEST PACIFIC
USS RONALD REAGAN
Pacino left the bridge and headed for ASW Operations.
Comdr. Paully White looked up from the intelligence plot on a large area Writepad, startled to see Pacino.
“Boss,” White said in his Kensington and Allegheny accent. “What brings you here? I thought you were up with Admiral Donuts up there.”
Paully White was in his late forties, his hair dark and thick, his frame trim. He was something of a comic, a frustrated stand-up comedian, in a place that had no humor, at least none directed toward him. Paully White got very little respect aboard the Ronald Reagan. Neither the surface sailors nor the pilots had good words for the submarine officer. They were happy that the battle group had two escort 688-class submarines there, and they knew that someone had to coordinate them, but the surface-group officers, when they saw Paully, had to face the fact that there were enemy submarines out there, that the battle group was vulnerable to them, and that only Paully’s submarines could keep them clean, in spite of the billions spent on surface ship antisubmarine warfare — the destroyers and frigates with their multiple sonars, their ASW standoff weapons, their Mark 51 torpedoes, the S-2 twin-jet Vikings that patrolled the sea for submarines with their blue-laser detectors, magnetic anomaly detectors, sonar buoy detectors and Mark 52 torpedoes, the LAMPS III Sea-hawk helicopters with their dipping sonars and their Mark 52 Mod Alpha torpedoes — all of it was an attempt to combat enemy submarines from above, and it was an attempt that fell short. Because in the end the only thing that could counter a quiet and stealthy hostile submarine was a quiet and stealthy friendly submarine. So many men in the surface battle group had devoted their lives and their careers to trying to prove otherwise and had failed, that when Paully White walked their passageways with his gold dolphin pins gleaming over his left breast pocket he was silenced, ignored. At the wardroom table he could tell a joke, a good one, and he would hear nothing but the clink of silverware on china. Paully, in fact, was the most unpopular man aboard, and desperately looked forward to going back to sea on board a fast attack submarine.
“Hi, Paully,” Pacino said heavily. “Admiral Donner is kicking off the blockade. It looks like we’re carrying the ball on the first play.” Pacino described the basics of the operation and directed White to get some messages out to the Cheyenne and the Pasadena.
“Cheyenne’s here, Pasadena’s here. They’ve both been lurking off the major shipping channels. I’ll have to move Pasadena but that still puts her here when the operation goes down.”
Pacino tried to stay focused, but the way this blockade was happening was foreign to him. One thing that never showed up on a submariner’s report card was “works well with others.” In spite of all the exercises favoring joint-operations, there was something about the Silent Service that developed independence. Having the operation managed by someone who barely understood submarines was damn frustrating.
The room reverberated with the earsplitting roar of a catapult launch of an F-14, the engines of the fighter roaring in full afterburners as it cleared the deck. The sooner this operation was over, the better, Pacino thought.
* * *
There was still light left, the sun just going down into the sea, as Comdr. Joe Galvin waited on the deck of the Ronald Reagan.
He was the last of the four F-14 pilots to get to the catapult. The other three for this mission had just been launched. He had watched them sail down the cats, float uncertainly over the sea for a second before deciding to fly up and away from the carrier. That moment when the deck ended and the sky began was always the worst, with the exception of crashing back down on the carrier’s deck.
His turn was coming up. He went through the prelaunch checklist, rotating his control surfaces, checking his switch lineup, radio comm circ
uits, cabin oxygen, hydraulics, health of the engines. The deck officer put up the aft blast shield and signaled for Galvin to throttle up. Galvin applied his brakes and brought the throttle keys to the forward stops, hearing and feeling the turbines spool up to full thrust, the roaring power of them electric. He could never experience that sound and that feel without an excitement almost sexual. The turbines were steady at full thrust, temperatures and pressures normal, fuel flow in limits. Galvin took the keys to the right, passing the full thrust detents, and took the throttles all the way to the firewall. Aft, the diffusers at the jet engines’ exhaust were clamping down, the gas velocity out the nozzles increasing while raw jet fuel was injected into the hot exhaust, reigniting and doubling the engines’ thrust. Full afterburners. The roar of the jets grew louder, the engines now half-jet, half-rocket, the F-14 trembling on the deck of the windward-bound aircraft carrier, the carrier’s own speed at forty knots designed to help him keep flying once he cleared the deck. The deck officer and catapult officer were waiting on him. He looked up from his panel and gave the deck officer a salute.
In return, a gesture to the pilot and a signal to the cat operator, the deck officer leaned forward, his legs far apart, until he crouched forward, while taking his orange wand and swinging it through a giant overhead arc as if throwing a tomahawk in slow motion. His wand came all the way down to the deck, then came back up pointing forward, the gesture graceful and exhilarating, a combination statement of “good luck up there, sir,” and “hit the catapult, cat operator.” The catapult kicked in, the highpressure steam driving a trolley that pulled on Galvin’s nose-wheel. Galvin was thrown far back in his seat from the acceleration, the world around him dissolving into a blurred tunnel of gray and blue. In an instant the jet was shot like a bullet off the deck, the catapult trolley disconnecting, the acceleration gone, the jet hanging in space trying to fly but almost hesitating as if confused, the jets still shrieking on full afterburners, the ocean waiting below to swallow him up, but finally the aircraft won and the ocean lost, the jet accelerating again, Galvin swinging the wings to a port roll as he turned out of the carrier’s path. Beneath him the USS Reagan sailed on, majestically plowing through the sea, her stern kicking up a wake that trailed her for five miles.
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