“Weapon ready, sir,” the weapons officer shouted over the latest ping.
“Fire,” Pastor ordered. He realized that he hadn’t heard a ping in the last few seconds, only the sound of the torpedo’s screw noise. He watched as the weapons officer rotated the trigger to the standby position.
Still no ping from the torpedo. A moment of hope. It would be too good to be true, he thought, getting to counterfire at the Destiny and having the Destiny’s torpedo be a dud.
As the weapons officer pulled the trigger to the fire position. Pastor abruptly realized it was Christmas Day and his children on the other side of the world would be awake, opening their presents. The sound of the torpedo-ejection mechanism blasted into his eardrums as the torpedo in tube one was launched, the Birmingham’s answer to the Destiny’s Nagasaki weapon.
“Merry Christmas, Destiny,” Pastor said, as another booming crash hit his eardrums.
The second noise was the sound of the first Nagasaki torpedo detonating on the top surface of the hull, the explosion ripping down from aft of the sail, blowing a hole in the hull big enough to drive an eighteen-wheel truck into the ship. The hull rupture was located just aft of control, and the ripping metal and wave of water, the pressure of it enough to cut a man in half at that depth, slammed into Pastor and sent his body hurtling forward to the bulkhead at the ship-control panel, ripping his flesh and bone. The force of the water blasting into the hull at a thousand feet beneath the surface was enough to bend the hull to a thirty-degree angle, not quite enough to break it in half.
The second, redundant Nagasaki hit them, and this explosion did fracture the hull already weakened by the first detonation, the aft end of the ship separating, both hull fragments drifting to the ocean bottom 2000 feet farther down. The hulls hit the rocky bottom, groaning and creaking and breaking apart still further, littering the bottom with broken pipes and tanks and pieces of equipment. There were no recognizable bodies.
Seven miles to the northeast another hull hit the rocky bottom and disintegrated, two of its weapons detonating as it hit the bottom. The USS Jacksonville had arrived at its final resting place.
Three thousand feet above the remains of the Birmingham, the SLOT buoy reached the surface, extended a whip antenna and transmitted Birmingham’s last message to the US Navy Comstar satellite, then flooded and sank, coming to rest near the screw of the ship. Several hours later, when the bubbles had died down and the reactor metal had cooled, the ocean bottom was, once again, quiet.
NORTHWEST PACIFIC
120 KILOMETERS SOUTHEAST OF POINT MUROTO-ZAKI, SHIKOKU ISLAND
SS-810 WINGED SERPENT
The buzz of the phone rang in Tanaka’s stateroom. It was Mazdai in the control room.
“Sir, the torpedo fired from the first target went far off course and just shut down. It seems to be sinking and imploding now. The threat is gone.”
There never had been a real threat, Tanaka thought, concentrating on his sonar screen, looking for the next contact.
He had put the phone down and continued looking at the display, his aggression seeming to fuel him. He wasn’t hungry or thirsty. He wanted blood, the Americans’ blood. He stared at the console a full five hours before the next contacts came, another two American ships, both of them 688-class ships as the first two had been.
An hour after that Tanaka had made a second quick trip to the control room, four more Nagasakis had been launched and two more hulls were wreckage at the bottom of the sea. Tanaka then called one of his officers to paint small American flags on the bulkhead in the control room to show the sinkings they had made. With the sinking of the first ship in the Sea of Japan, this now made five flags for the officer to paint. Five ships. Perhaps another two dozen to go before Tanaka could rest.
The ship carried only twenty-one weapons. He had launched ten. It was time to stop doubling up. He had been launching two weapons at each target to insure that if one failed, the other would score a kill. But now with the success rate this high, and the use of torpedoes this swift, he would only launch one per target. Which gave him eleven more targets.
The Winged Serpent continued northwest, hunting.
CHAPTER 33
NORTHWEST PACIFIC
USS BARRACUDA
The afternoon watch on Christmas Day passed without incident. The ship had been at periscope depth for most of the day. The men were happy; they had received their familygrams, transmitted by USUBCOM headquarters, each man aboard allowed one short transmission from his wife or kids or girlfriend or parents.
Pacino’s familygram had come in from Tony on the Writepad. The youngster was almost a teenager, twelve years old, missing his father, but then, Pacino being away had been almost normal. All the sea duty had kept him away from the boy for too long. And now, nearing the end of his naval career, Janice had left him and taken Tony with her. The familygram from Tony was brief and gut-wrenching. Pacino put it down on the fold-out desk, staring off into space, missing his son, missing his old life, wanting to toss the football with Tony, race against him in the Go Karts, hang out with him at the amusement park, cruise the beach with him in the sports car.
All the things they’d done in the past, but hadn’t realized would vanish into the past. It had seemed that Tony would always be there, and now he was living somewhere in New Jersey, over 300 miles away from Virginia Beach, which was over 13,000 miles from this Japan Oparea.
The Writepad’s annunciator alarm went off, beeping into the quiet of the stateroom. Pacino silenced it before it could wake up Paully, who was asleep in the upper rack, having been awake for more than twenty hours and only agreeing to go to bed when Pacino had ordered him. Pacino knew he should hit the rack himself but couldn’t seem to slow down his mind. He stroked the software keys of the Writepad, going deeper into the software until it displayed the E-mail he’d just been beeped for, and realized it was a second familygram, this one from Eileen Constance—
MICHAEL, JUST WANTED TO WISH YOU LUCK. I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU AGAIN. MERRY CHRISTMAS.
LOVE, EILEEN.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. It seemed like Eileen was going too fast. But so was he. He’d found himself thinking about her, missing her, then trying to dismiss it. It was, he told himself, a physical attraction that had pretended to more in the thick of impending combat. And even if it did build into a relationship, she was so much younger and would be going to medical school in Florida while his HQ was in Norfolk. And what if she wanted children? Wasn’t he too old for that?
And then he had to laugh at himself for crossing so many bridges before the road was even built.
A knock at the door, a radioman offering Pacino the ship’s secure Writepad. He signed for the messages, which were then automatically transferred to his own Writepad. He punched the surface of the notepad’s display, read through the first four messages, and his heart sank. From the Birmingham in the southwest Oparea, code 3 — I’m under attack. From the Jacksonville, also in the southwest Oparea, code 3. From Charleston and Atlanta, both farther north in the southwest Oparea, code 3. The southern forces, all four boats, had been attacked. And in all probability were down.
Another knock at the door. The radioman again. Again Pacino signed for the messages, transferred the electronic messages to his own Writepad, then waited for the radioman to leave. The three messages were from the northern task force, the Buffalo, Boston and the Albany. All code 3s.
Pacino rubbed his eyes, knowing what he needed to do, at least in the short term.
* * *
A half-hour later he and Paully White were in David Kane’s stateroom.
“We need to get the Pearl Harbor ELF facility to call all the Oparea submarines to periscope depth,” Pacino said. “I’ll write the subs a message for their broadcast, ask them to transmit that they’re okay. I’ll need your permission to transmit, Captain.”
Kane nodded. “Absolutely, Admiral. Need any help with the messages?”
“No. It’ll only ta
ke a few moments, I’ll take them to radio when I’m ready.”
A half-hour later the Pearl low-frequency radio facility had transmitted each of the seven submarines’ ELF call signs, the powerful but slow radio waves penetrating deep into the Pacific, calling the subs to periscope depth, where Pacino’s message waited for them.
Pacino waited an unbearable hour. He had gotten one message back, from the Piranha, which was almost at the boundary of the northern Oparea. Pacino stared at that, wondering how the hell Bruce Phillips had gotten south that fast. He reread the latitude and longitude, which correlated with the alphanumeric grid coordinate Phillips transmitted. Phillips said he was definitely close to the northern Oparea. But looking gift horses in the mouth was not Pacino’s style.
He showed the results to Paully and Kane, and it was Kane who suggested they call the deep-Pacific boats, still on the way in from Hawaii, to periscope depth and see how they were doing. It took an investment of another ninety minutes, but as midnight neared, Pacino’s electronic chart had plotted the positions of the Pacific submarines, the other twenty-one of them. The early wave would be there in another thirty hours. The later wave, the lagging ten boats, would take an additional twenty-five to thirty. Warner’s time constraints, however justified, had resulted in the loss of the ships Pacino had sent in as a stopgap.
Back in Kane’s stateroom Pacino paced the deck.
“What now?”
“Maybe we should request a videolink with Warner,” Kane said.
The time that Warner had wanted an update was over twenty hours away.
“And ask what? What we should do? Captain Kane, we’ve just sent seven subs into the Oparea. Seven subs sank. Or if they didn’t, all seven of them mysteriously failed to come to periscope depth when called.”
A knock at Kane’s door, the radioman again. Pacino perked up, wondering if at least one of the 688-class ships had come to PD and transmitted that they were okay. Pacino signed for the message and searched his Writepad for it, his heart sinking as he scanned it.
He checked his watch, the time nearing midnight Christmas Day.
“It’s from Wadsworth. He wants us to set up a videolink,” Pacino said, handing the message to Kane.
“When?” Paully asked.
“Now,” Pacino said.
Pacino took a deep breath and let it out. He knew what Wadsworth would say, and he also knew what he would do. He spoke for a few minutes, and Paully took off to the control room and picked up a phone to Pacino in Kane’s stateroom.
* * *
Kane and Pacino sat at the conference table as the radioman set up the videolink. There was no seal of the president this time, just Tony Wadsworth’s big face on the screen, his frown deeper than usual.
“Gentlemen,” Wadsworth said, “President Warner asked for a status report. We have heard exactly nothing from you. Admiral Pacino. Should I take that as good news?”
“I wouldn’t assume that. Admiral,” Pacino said, staring hard at Wadsworth, the phone to the conn in his hand under the table.
* * *
Forward in the control room, Paully White approached the officer of the deck, Lt. Chris Porter, the sonar officer, who was dancing with the fat lady, spinning the periscope through an endless surface search while the ship stayed at periscope depth to monitor the communications with the other submarines.
“The captain said he wanted you in on the videolink,” White said to Porter.
“I can’t do that,” Porter said. “I’ve got the watch.”
“Skipper asked me to relieve you,” White said. “I’m qualified on the Seawolf class.”
“You haven’t stood any watches since you’ve been aboard,” Porter said.
“That’s because the admiral’s been running me like a plebe.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“Anyway, you’d better give me a turnover and get in there.”
“How do I know the skipper wanted this? He didn’t call me.”
“He’s in a videolink with the fuckin’ Chief of Naval Operations. He sent me out here. Okay?”
“All right, all right. Ship’s at all ahead one-third, turns for five, depth eight zero feet, no contacts, low power on the horizon.”
“I relieve you. Now go on.”
“I stand relieved. Helm, Quartermaster,” Porter announced, “Commander White has the deck and the conn.”
“This is Commander White, I have the deck and the conn,” Paully said loudly, taking the periscope, pressing his face toward it. Porter moved through the aft door of control, the front of his uniform dark with sweat from the periscope watch. As he entered Kane’s stateroom Kane waved him to a seat, intent on the video monitor. “We called all seven ships to periscope depth,” Pacino was saying. “None of them replied.”
“And what do you make of that. Admiral Pacino?” Wadsworth’s expression was even colder, more hostile, if that were possible.
“Well, sir, I think it’s bad news.”
“You’re god damned right, it’s bad news!” Wadsworth swallowed, glaring. “Pacino, we sent you there to do a job and you botched it. You were to send in your boats to try to make a difference. All you did was lose your entire force. I’ll be calling Warner now to tell her the news.”
Pacino had been waiting for Wadsworth to take a breath; interrupting on the videolink was nearly impossible because of the lag in reception. Finally he had his chance. “Maybe we should talk to President Warner right now, Admiral Wadsworth. I think she’ll see this for what it is. We knowingly committed a small number of subs to the Oparea when we knew it would be best to mass force against the enemy. We failed to do that, and I mean we as in you and President Warner and me. Are you reading me. Admiral Wadsworth? What’s indicated here is a commitment of the entire submarine force to the task, not sending them in piecemeal.”
“Admiral Pacino, are you finished?”
“Yes.”
Pacino would be damned if he’d call Wadsworth “sir.”
“This is a direct order. You’re relieved as commander Pacific forces. You are to withdraw your forces immediately, return to base and stand by for—”
Pacino clicked twice on the phone handset to the control room. In control, Paully White heard the double click in his headset, snapped the periscope grips up, lowered the periscope and shouted, “Emergency deep!”
“Emergency deep, aye, sir!” from the diving officer. The helmsman took the bowplanes to full dive and put a ten-degree down-bubble on the ship, rang up all ahead standard while the stern planesman put his planes on full dive. The chief of the watch at the ballast-control panel flooded depth-control one, making the ship hundreds of tons heavier in a half-second. He stabbed a toggle switch, lowering the BIGMOUTH radio antenna and at the same time reached up to the circuit-one microphone.
“EMERGENCY DEEP! EMERGENCY DEEP!” The depth indicator unwound. The speed increase, taking the down angle and flooding depth control to make the ship heavier had all combined to take the ship from periscope depth to deep at 200 feet in a few seconds, the maneuver intended to save the ship in the event the conning officer saw a close surface ship bearing down on them when they were at periscope depth.
“All ahead full,” White ordered. “Dive, make your depth six hundred fifty feet. Helm, right two degrees rudder, steady course zero three zero.”
Soon Porter came back to the conn, looking shaken.
* * *
In Kane’s stateroom Wadsworth had been talking so fast his mouth was a blur on the screen when the sound of the circuit one rang throughout the ship sounding EMERGENCY DEEP and Wadsworth’s eyes grew large just before his image winked out for good. They had left the surface, where their periscope and radio antenna had them plugged into the world of the Pentagon and the Oval Office, and now Barracuda was deep, the radio waves gone, on her own. For the moment, anyway.
“Maybe we should call President Warner,” Kane said as Paully White came back in.
“You can bet that Wadsworth
has already taken care of that,” White said.
“So we can assume we’re on our own now,” Kane said.
“I think that’s safe to say,” Pacino muttered.
“So what now. Admiral?”
“Now we put Barracuda on the case. We’ll go north into the Oparea here and see what luck we have against the Destiny class, using a Seawolf class and some Mark 50 torpedoes.”
“Admiral, those were the same weapons used by the 688s we lost.”
“We don’t know if they bagged any Destinys though.”
“What about Piranha? She could be a big help to us.”
“She’ll be coming in from the northern tip of the Oparea. We’re here just to the east of Tokyo Bay. I say we sweep north until we link up with Piranha. She’ll come south and shoot her way toward us.”
“Maybe we should radio the Piranha so Brucey Phillips knows what to do,” Paully put in.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Kane said. “After the collision with that fishing boat at periscope depth the antennae are out of commission.”
“What collision?” Paully was mystified until Pacino spoke up.
“The one that made you do the emergency deep, of course. Paully here has had so little sleep that he forgets colliding with that fishing boat…”
Paully smiled, catching on.
“So how will Piranha know what the deal is?”
“Bruce Phillips will know,” Pacino said. “Believe me, he’ll know.”
“Sir,” Kane said, doubt in his voice, “I’m not so sure I’m okay with disobeying an order, even one from the Wadsworthless.”
“Kane, listen to me. Wadsworth knows me. He knows I’ll disregard that order. If we can put some Japanese subs on the bottom, between us and Bruce Phillips, two Seawolf-class ships, Wadsworth will forget about this order.”
Barracuda: Final Bearing mp-4 Page 33