Barracuda: Final Bearing mp-4

by Michael Dimercurio

  Pacino had a stranglehold on the skippers of the fleet. No one came to command without being put through a test with him watching in the submarine control-room simulator in Norfolk. The simulator tests were renowned for their realistic, harsh battle scenarios. One captain, who had passed the attack-simulator test, had walked from the room and collapsed in exhaustion, waking up in a hospital. Pacino’s setup was absolute — flunk that test and either lose command or say goodbye to the possibility of ever having it in the first place. Up to then Kane was the only commander grandfathered, excused from Pacino’s combat test, having served honorably aboard Phoenix and then appointed to command the Barracuda, but since he had taken over, several incumbent captains at neighboring piers had been fired by Pacino for lack of aggressiveness in the attack simulators. Kane felt Pacino was building a force of submarines commanded by men who were loyal to him, who had his stamp of approval, men he had made. Well, he had been one of the few holdouts from the fleets before the reorganization.

  Finally, three weeks ago, Pacino had sent him the message to report with his officers for an evaluation in the control-room simulator, the trial that would determine whether he would keep his job commanding the Barracuda, but before he could show up for the trial, the emergency orders had come in to put to sea for Operation Enlightened Curtain. And the fact that Pacino had decided to give him the trial in the attack simulator meant that his position was not as secure as he’d thought. All his effort in the Muslim war had been for nothing, because Pacino had called him to the evaluation and would replace him if he didn’t perform against whatever computer game Pacino programmed into the simulator. It was almost as if he would have to go to another Admiral Rickover interview.

  He tried to remember Rickover’s words to him — I expect you’ll prove yourself to be one of the best nuclear officers who’s ever been in the program. But where Rickover was near-neurotic about reactor safety, Pacino was off the deep end for blood-and-guts aggressiveness. Rickover wanted brains, Pacino wanted balls. Kane had passed Rickover’s test but a doubt had developed whether he would pass Pacino’s. And Pacino’s test was, he felt, one that he shouldn’t have to take — he’d been in command for almost five years now, on the verge of selection to flag rank himself, and now a man his own age who had lost two submarines, would pass judgment on whether he was good enough to keep his command. At least that’s the way he saw it, and he’d built resentment against Pacino ever since that message ordering him to the test. Well, now the admiral would get a chance to see him perform for real, that is, if the admiral allowed him to enter the Oparea in an offensive capacity. He worried that Pacino would want to remain outside the Oparea and watch the sea battle, turning the Barracuda into a flagship no more offensive than the Mount Whitney.

  Well, Pacino was here now. The waiting was over. The periscope view had stopped turning circles viewing the horizon and was centered on a section of the sky, the crosshairs of the reticle framed on the clouds above the horizon. Nothing was visible until the officer of the deck changed the optical power from low to medium. A small dot could be made out floating above the horizon. The screen jumped a second time as the power was switched to high, the dot growing into a small image of a helicopter, the image bouncing in the view. Again the image jumped as the O.O.D clicked in the power doubler, and the chopper could be seen approaching, the block letters above the cockpit barely readable as us navy.

  Kane walked out to the control room, where Lt. David Voorheese was hugging the periscope monitor. “Status, O.O.D?”

  “Hovering at periscope depth at the rendezvous point, Captain. I finally have visual on the helicopter.”

  “Flood the forward escape trunk.”

  “Aye, sir, flood the forward escape trunk,” Voorheese repeated back. “Chief of the Watch. Flood the forward escape trunk.”

  Kane looked up at the control room’s periscope-view monitor, the screen set up in the overhead of the room above the attack center. The helicopter now filled the high-power view.

  “Do a horizon scan, Officer of the Deck,” Kane ordered Voorheese. Fixating on the helicopter could make him miss an oncoming merchant ship appearing on the horizon.

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Offsa’deck, sir, forward escape trunk flooded,” the chief of the watch reported from the forward port wraparound ballast-control panel.

  “Open the upper hatch,” Kane commanded. “And find the helicopter again.”

  Voorheese gave the order to open the escape-trunk upper hatch, then turned his attention back to the periscope, the view in low power showing the approaching helicopter, the image shift to high power revealing the markings on the chopper’s sides, the door open, the feet of two men sticking out. The admiral and his aide, done up in scuba gear. Typical, Kane thought. It seemed overly flashy, intended to wow the crew. An admiral swimming aboard in scuba gear was as radical as the queen of England wearing a thong bikini.

  * * *

  Pacino moved up to the chopper’s open door, dangling his flippers over the sea, some fifteen feet down. White moved up next to him.

  “The periscope is in sight. Admiral. We’re setting up now.”

  Pacino checked Paully, who looked pale behind his mask. White had told Pacino it had been years since he had been diving. Pacino had been away from it for ten years, but how hard could it be?

  The chopper slowed and hovered, the sea below deep blue with whitecaps from the stiff breeze. Pacino looked out at the sea and the sky, his habit to enjoy his last air before going into a sub still compelling. He took a breath, aware that he’d be breathing canned air for the next weeks. He exhaled, clamped the regulator into his mouth, tested the air and nodded at Paully. He pulled the mask onto his face, careful not to disturb the black eyepatch over his left eye. Going into the water with full scuba gear could be tricky, he remembered. The idea was to make water entry without losing equipment.

  “Ready when you are. Admiral,” the copilot shouted.

  Pacino waved at the pilots, put his left hand on his mask and regulator, his right on the strap for his canister, looked down at the water, bent low at the waist and leaned out over the water until he fell out of the chopper.

  The freefall into the sea was busy with sensations, the violent wind from the rotors of the gray-and-black Sea King machine floating above him, the sea careening toward him, his flippers breaking the surface, the sea coming up to splash into his face, threatening to knock off his mask. Pacino’s instinct took over as he went underwater, the brainstem telling him not to breathe. He had to force himself to take the first breath from the tanks. He looked for Paully, swimming back to the surface to find him. When his mask broke the surface he could see the helicopter flying away, its noise gone ever since he’d hit the water.

  Paully was on the surface. Pacino looked for the periscope, finding it silhouetted against the sun. He nodded to Paully and they swam on the surface until they got to the periscope. Pacino then jackknifed his body so that his head went down, the mast of the periscope extending into the darker depths. He kicked his fins, swimming downward, the air flowing naturally now. The feeling of incredible freedom flooded him, the sea around him now welcoming instead of nightmarish. The water was pleasantly warm against his skin inside the wet suit.

  Pacino’s ears were now compressing in the pressure, the pain coming slowly, then urgently. He grabbed his nose through the rubber of the mask, clamped his nostrils shut and blew against his sinuses until his eardrums blew back out, equalizing through his Eustachian tubes, the pain gone.

  Pacino’s fingers traced the cold metal of the sail trailing edge and he swam deeper into the sea until the sail ended on the surface of the deck. Again he checked for Paully, who was behind him, then put his hands on the surface of the deck. The ship felt mushy, foamy, the rubbery tiles of the acoustic absorption material making the surface less able to reflect the sound waves of an active sonar pulse from a surface ship. He made his way aft, beginning to wonder if he had missed the hatch opening
in the hull. He could see some ten feet in any direction but the surface above was not visible. There was plenty of light, but he couldn’t see distant objects, the world ending ten feet away in a blue haze. The odd visual effect combined with the floating feeling of neutral buoyancy sometimes made divers experience the same sensations of vertigo that pilots suffered. Pacino remembered the disastrous flight to the Reagan. He watched the stream of his exhaled breath, the bubbles floating upward in the same direction he had assumed it to be.

  He looked back toward the sail, the structure beginning to vanish in the visual haze. Had the crew failed to open the hatch? Then he looked ahead and saw it in the haze.

  He swam toward it, the hatch larger than he’d recalled, the circle of it perpendicular to the hull surface, the steel ring of the hatch some three feet in diameter. In the surface of the hull the hatch opening was a gaping maw of darkness. Pacino reached the hatch and grabbed it, motioning Paully into the interior.

  * * *

  On the screen the helicopter hovered overhead, the scuba-equipped inhabitants of the chopper dropping into the water, the chopper immediately turning and flying off, leaning far into the direction of flight, the aircraft’s bottom side and rotor circle all that was visible as it accelerated away. Voorheese did a surface search near them, the divers already underwater or too close.

  “The XO at the hatch?” Kane asked.

  “Yes sir, with the Chief of the Boat.”

  “Very well. I’m going to upper level. Put the chief of the watch on the phones, and when I give him a double click have him announce the admiral onboard.”

  Voorheese acknowledged and Kane left the room, climbed the forward ladder to the upper level and walked aft along the paneled passageway to the hatch to the escape trunk.

  “They in yet, XO?” Kane asked his executive officer, Comdr. Leo Dobrowski, an older and more senior officer than many captains. Leo had had an extended shore tour at the War College finishing a doctorate in international relations, which had set him back, but he would be in command of his own submarine within a few months — that is, if he passed Pacino’s simulator test. Dobrowski was of medium height, in good shape, a full head of hair cut into a flattop, making him look somewhat tough. He was a serious man. In fact, the only time Kane could remember Dobrowski smiling had been at the ship’s softball and football games. Off the ship, the XO was actually funny and full of laughter. Aboard, he wore his serious expression. Kane was grateful to have him.

  * * *

  Paully disappeared into the darkness, his fins trailing.

  Pacino followed him, lowering himself in feet first, watching the light above as he came down into the chamber of the ship’s escape trunk, a large airlock that could hold ten men. Finally Pacino’s flippers touched the deck of the bottom of the escape trunk, the circle of light seeming far above him. He looked down at shoulder-level and found the diver-control panel, put his hand on the T-lever and pushed it horizontally to the end of a track, then pulled it upward to the stop. The lever was built into the hydraulic-control valve for the hatch operating hydraulics.

  The hatch came down, the circle of light being eclipsed by the dark circle of the inside of the hatch.

  Pacino watched as the light vanished, the hatch clunking down on the steel of the hatch ring of the hull. As the trunk plunged into darkness, Pacino could hear the control ring rotating until the hatch was completely secured.

  They were now inside the USS Barracuda, although a dark and flooded part of it.

  * * *

  “They’re in, sir,” Dobrowski said, looking at the status panel, the red circle labeled as the upper hatch changed to a green bar, indicating the hatch was now shut.

  “Draining down now.”

  Kane waited for the lower hatch to open, turned and instructed the crew to form up behind him. He’d be damned if an admiral would come aboard without a regulation greeting. He picked up the phone to control.

  “Chief of the Watch? Get ready to make the announcement. I’ll click when he steps into the upper level.”

  * * *

  With no further action, a blasting noise sounded in the trunk and a light came on high up in the overhead. Pacino could see the surface of the water coming down until the surface of it came to his chin, his mask clearing like a periscope breaking the surface, the trunk looking different through an atmosphere of air than it had under water. The water drained quickly, the air in the chamber foggy, until the water was gone, puddles remaining near Pacino’s fins. He pulled his mask off, adjusted his eyepatch, dropped his regulator, then pulled off the fins, glancing at Paully to see that he too was removing equipment.

  Pacino dropped his lead weight-belt, his tanks and his equipment canister, now wearing only his wet suit. In the dim light of the trunk he could see the hatch to the ship set into the side of the huge trunk, dogged mechanisms that slowly began to rotate, the air between the trunk and the interior of the hull equalizing in a short hiss of air. The mechanism stopped and the hatch came open to the exterior of the trunk. The light of the hull was bright compared to the interior of the trunk. Pacino stepped down two steps to the deck to find himself in the wide upper passageway of the forward compartment.

  Standing in front of him were a group of poopysuit-clad men — one of them Capt. David Kane. As Pacino extended his hand to Kane, the ship’s announcing circuit blasted throughout the ship.

  “COMMANDER, PACIFIC FORCE COMMAND, ARRIVING!”

  Pacino smiled at Kane, Kane’s hand dry and hard.

  Kane was one of the skippers Pacino had not screened in the training command but he was certifiably excellent. Pacino had decided to bring him into his training simulator to show some of the younger skippers how a torpedo approach was done — Kane would open some of the kids’ eyes.

  Kane’s face was deadpan.

  “Welcome aboard the Barracuda, Admiral Pacino.”

  CHAPTER 28

  NORTHWEST PACIFIC

  USS BARRACUDA

  Pacino looked at the greeting party formed up behind Captain Kane, the spotless deck, the shining bulkheads.

  He took a deep breath, the smell of the submarine what he’d expected, the scent a mixture of cooking odors, mostly grease, sewage from the sanitary tank vents, body odor, ozone from the electrical equipment, oil from the lube oil systems, amines from the carbon dioxide scrubbers. It was strong but faded into the background after a few minutes.

  Pacino looked into Kane’s eyes, thinking the man was a Hollywood Version of a nuclear-submarine commander— tall, tanned, high cheekboned, blue-eyed, trim, assured.

  “Finally I get to meet Capt. David Kane in person,” Pacino said, his smile genuine. He then turned to Paully White: “Captain Kane rescued the survivors of the Seawolf. If it weren’t for this man I’d be long dead. And, Captain, I don’t know that I ever properly thanked you for that. I wanted to present your Navy Cross but I couldn’t walk at the time. Captain Kane, this is Comdr. Paul White. Paully was the Reagan’s sub ops officer. He pulled me out when I was out cold on the deck and the carrier was going down. I think it’s damn good luck that I have two men who’ve saved my life on the same ship.”

  Kane’s expression was blank. “Well, sir, let’s get you to the officer’s head and out of the wet suit.”

  Pacino looked down at his feet, where a puddle of seawater had built up. Kane led him and Paully to officers’ country, where the stainless-steel room had two shower stalls and two commodes, amazingly roomy compared to the older 688-class layout, Pacino thought.

  “When you’re done here, sir, my messenger will take you to your stateroom.”

  Pacino peeled off the rubbery wet suit, dumped it on the deck and stepped into the shower. Soon the traces of the sea were gone, he dried off and opened his waterproof canister, pulling out his own black coveralls, a gift from the Royal Navy during a coordination meeting in London. His name was embroidered above the left breast pocket. American-style submarine dolphins were embroidered in a patch above the na
me, and Pacino’s two admiral’s stars were sewn onto the collars. The shoulders were graced with patches, the left an American flag, the right the emblem of the Unified Submarine Command, the symbols designed by Pacino and a commercial-artist friend. The USUBCOM patch featured a Jolly Roger flag flying above the sail of a submarine, the skull and crossbones standing out on the field of black, the banner reading unified submarine command across the top of the Jolly Roger.

  Pacino emerged into the passageway, and the messenger took him aft down the centerline passageway to a steep staircase to the middle level. Back along a dogleg to another centerline passageway, forward again to a door marked executive officer. Pacino knocked and entered. The stateroom, vacated by Dobrowski for them, was simple and small. Against the far bulkhead two racks were set into a curtained area, one rack above the other. The aft bulkhead was taken up by a fold-down desk and two chairs. The forward bulkhead had cabinets and drawers set into it, a small sink area and the door to the common head shared with the captain’s stateroom.

  Pacino unpacked his canister into one of the lockers, tossing his Writepad down on the desk. Paully was sitting at one of the chairs, looking up at Pacino expectantly.

  “Have we got a ship-control readout?” Pacino asked.

  Paully nodded. “It’s in the corner inside the lower rack.”

  Pacino craned his neck and squinted his good eye. A small panel with three dials glowed in the darkness of the rack interior. The readouts were course, speed and depth. The ship was heading 330 true, the direction of the Oparea, the depth was 654 feet, the speed 44.8 knots — flank speed. Pacino rolled out his chart electronic pad, wondering where they were.

  “We’ve got about twenty minutes before we have to talk to the president,” Paully said, looking at his watch.