Scorpion in the Sea

by P. T. Deutermann

  “I still can’t feature it, XO. Why would a submarine, any kind, ours, theirs, or a perfect stranger’s, be skulking around the Jax opareas? What’s the point? What’s the likelihood of it? There’s no intel, there’re no out of area reports, there’s really no hard sighting data, just one perpetually drunk fisherman’s report, and one coincidental accident—and now our guys have talked themselves into ‘finding’ something, which I’m convinced appeared because we’ve been looking hard for three days … Can you imagine what the Group Chief of Staff would say if I report that we have a sonar contact out here?”

  “You seem to be arguing with yourself, Cap’n,” reflected the XO, being careful to look into the distance. “If you really think this is a buncha shit, then we call it off, log the thing as a good drill, and wait for the come-back-in message.”

  The Exec’s voice was neutral. Mike had heard that tone before, every time the XO went into his “You Chief, me injun” mode. It usually meant the Exec disagreed.

  “OK, XO,” Mike said with a sigh. “Let’s hear it. What do you think’s going on here?”

  The Exec pulled out the clasp knife he carried in a leather sheath on the back of his belt, and began cleaning his fingernails with the narrow blade. He wedged himself into a corner of the bridgewing bulwark, hooking one foot back up on the pelorus pedestal.

  “I think we’re not being entirely objective with all this,” he began.

  Mike noted the use of the “we” term; XO was being polite.

  “I think, if we put aside the waterfront politics for a minute, we have a chain of events that bears investigation. We have the initial report, which came up with a fairly precise description—guy called it a U-boat. Not a submarine, not a periscope, but a U-boat. Now, Maxie’s been out at sea for the whole time, and nobody’s been able to ask him any questions about this sighting, but he called it a U-boat, and Maxie’s old enough to have actually seen or at least remember what a U-boat looked like.

  “Then, we have Chris Mayfield getting into some kind of scrape that gets his boat sunk, without a scratch on it, mind you, and in weather that, at max, would have been classified as a heavy rain, and we retrieve his nameboard with a bullet hole in it. No sign of any people—no bodies, no life-rings, maydays, no reports, no nothing. Just the boat on the bottom, with its nets out but closed, and the nameboard with a bullet hole.”

  The Exec shifted from one leg to the other, still not looking directly at Mike.

  “Now, we search out here for three days, learn a lot about the opareas, the bottom, map some wrecks and pinnacles, get the ASW team oiled up pretty good, and then at the last minute we get a contact that’s different from all the false alarms we’ve had all week. What is it? We don’t know, except that it’s different. And while we’re screwing around with it, with the first team on the sonar stack, by the way, we lose the first contact and then get another contact, and this one exhibits the classic technical signal of a transponder decoy, just like the mini mobile targets we throw over the side to train with.”

  The Exec had turned to look at him now. “So,” he continued, “that’s two contacts out of the ordinary, and they could be related—a decoy’s gotta come from somewhere. There’s nobody else around throwing transponders over the side—nearest Navy unit is fifteen miles away—so how come this thing pops up when we’re working the only unique contact we’ve seen all week? I gotta tell ya, Cap’n, if this were a homicide investigation, your famous detective’s elbow would be tingling right about now—too damn much coincidence here. I realize it’ll sound squirrely to the shore establishment, but this detective’s elbow is tingling.”

  Mike took a deep breath and let it out. The XO was a devoted reader of mystery novels, and often spoke in the metaphor of police procedurals. Mike stared out over the serene seascape as the ship plowed south through the entirely familiar and ordinary looking fleet operating area on this sunny, Thursday afternoon. There were men out on deck below working on touching up the paintwork, the buzzing of their deck sanders and casual banter reinforcing the normalcy of the scene around him. He looked sideways at the Exec.

  “You think this thing is real, don’t you.”

  “Like I said before, I think this thing is possible. I can’t prove it, and I can’t explain it. But I think the facts point to the possibility that there might be a submarine out here, messing around in the Jax opareas, and that, somehow, is important. And there’s something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I think some of our officers and troops feel the same way. Linc is going to come up to CIC armed for bear. He’s gonna try to persuade you that they had something, and he’s gonna be pissed off that we broke it off. We both know how dumb this would look if we filed a contact report, but have you figured out what you’re gonna say to Linc and his sonar team?”

  Mike squinted at the Exec in the sunlight.

  “I didn’t think so,” continued the Exec. “I don’t know what to say either, other than it’s your best judgement that there was nothing there, and you’re the Old Man. But you’ve always been pretty straight with them up to now, and that’s going to sound phony.”

  Mike was stung; the Exec was right, as usual. Any superficial excuses he offered for breaking off the search would be phony. He would be violating yet another old Army maxim: you don’t shit the troops you march with. And yet he knew that his superiors ashore would hit the overhead if he came in now with anything resembling a contact report. They had not been sent out to find a submarine, only to go through the motions of looking. But then an idea began to take shape in his mind.

  “OK, suppose I punch the I-believe button, which I haven’t done yet, by the way, and accept the existence of an unidentified submarine lurking in the Jax opareas. You know and I know that we’d be laughed out of the harbor if we took this notion back in with us. Martinson would probably be able finally to convince the Admiral that Goldsborough needs a new CO. But let me run this by you: suppose I believe it—what’s the next move? The smart move? Nobody else will believe it until we can bring back some hard evidence, some proof, and some reason for a sub to be here. Right?”

  He began to pace back and forth on the narrow bridge wing, while the Exec listened, and the watch team tried to.

  “When we lost contact back there, he could’ve gone in any direction, and we’re close enough to the Stream that our chances of regaining contact are lower than whaleshit. So: doesn’t it make sense not to let the guy know we know he’s there? If he thinks we’re on to him, he’ll really hide, but if he thinks he fooled us, maybe we can find him again. I don’t know, I’m wingin’ it here, but we do know what the reaction to this would be if we report it. So, this is what I tell Linc and his guys: I broke it off because I want to study the tapes, and I want to kick this thing around here in the family, so to speak, and then figure out what to do next and who to tell, all the while not revealing to the potential bad guy that we know his ass is out there. How’s that sound?”

  The Exec slowly grinned at him. “Not bad, for wingin’ it. I suppose you want me to tell ’em.”

  Mike grinned back. “Yeah, I do. I want them to build a case—tapes, plots, contact characteristics: as much hard evidence as they can, and come convince me why they think it’s real. If they convince me, I’ll take it up the line.”

  The Exec nodded. Mike felt better. He still did not believe there was a sub out here, but now he had a way of facing his ASW team, at least for the moment. Then they both noticed the radio messenger standing just inside the pilothouse door.

  “Cap’n,” he said, “I got an Oboe from Group Twelve.”

  Mike took the message and scanned it. The message directed Goldsborough to break off the ASW search and return to port that afternoon.

  “Goldy-come-home?” asked the Exec.

  “Yeah. Get together with the ASW team and tell ’em what I said, and to keep this under wraps. Under tight wraps. Tell their people not to yap about it. Impress on the officers and Chief
s in CIC and Sonar that it’s not over, but if this gets out we’ll look like turkeys, and that the only way we’ll get to pursue it is to keep it quiet. They’ll take care of the troops. I’ve got to decide whether or not to tell the Commodore—I think he would be an ally, as long as it’s not out in public.”

  The Exec nodded his understanding. “I’ll get ’em together in CIC right now.”

  He looked at his watch.

  “It’ll take us about four hours to get back into Mayport. Next week we’re in for maintenance, and the week after that we’re slated for sea trials after the engineering plant work. So we have a week to figure this thing out.”

  Mike nodded. “Yeah, and like your famous detective, we still have to come up with a motive, XO: why is this guy out here? Who is he, and why’s he sneakin’ around the opareas? And will he still be here in a week? I’m not going to talk to anybody off the ship until we come up with that.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir. We’ll get on it. I’ll tell the crew we’re going back in.”

  Mike remained out on the bridge wing after the Exec left the bridge. The bosun brought him a paper cup of particularly evil looking black coffee, and Mike dutifully thanked him. He would hold it in his hands for five minutes and then drop it quietly over the side.

  He thought about this submarine problem. He would of course have to talk to the Commodore after they got in, but he would have to hear his people’s case first. Maybe Monday afternoon, or Tuesday. He’d get on the Commodore’s calendar when he got in. The main focus next week would be work on the engineering plant—the parts ought to be waiting for them on the pier this evening. Three days to cool the plant down, and then a week’s worth of repair efforts, followed by a weekend light-off—another good deal for the engineers—and back out the following week to see if the stuff worked.

  He and the Exec had had an argument earlier on a message Mike had drafted about the steam admission valves. Mike had wanted to excoriate the Mayport repair superintendent, and the Exec had argued against it. Mike had been forced to admit the Exec had a point: it did not make sense to blast the guy whom you were then going to ask to help fix the problem. He had given in to the Exec’s counsel, but with the mental reservation that he would blast them all when they finally fixed the valves. It was because of their sloppy work that the snipes would have to light off over the weekend, thus losing what little time they had with their families.

  And, in between, they had to thrash this sub thing out. He thought about the weekend. It would be pleasant as always to get back to the Lucky Bag, kick back, maybe hit the beach clubs. Then the vision of Diane Martinson materialized in his mind. He had been half keeping her memory at bay, half saving it for last, ready to savor the thought of being with her, and yet conscious of that inner voice that told him in no uncertain terms that his seeing Diane was trouble.

  How could they meet? Where? Under what pretext? He couldn’t call her, and she might not call him. He felt a moment of panic at the thought that she might not call. Christ, like being a teenager again. He could go back out to the hospital to visit Quigley. But she said she normally didn’t volunteer on weekends—that Saturday had been a fluke. He needed a way to make it happen.

  Squirming in his bridge chair, Mike let out a deep breath. He couldn’t keep his mind off her: she was firmly embedded in his psyche, and unless his instincts betrayed him badly, available. No. Wrong word: available implied something superficial, a one night stand, some kind of temporary indiscretion. Diane represented something of value, a woman of substance, a human edifice that was moving off its foundations. He was beginning to recognize that his involvement with this woman might have consequences beyond the difficulties arising from the fact that she was already married, and married to his boss’ boss. But thinking about the possibilities gave him a thrill, not unlike the first time he had given a conning order on a destroyer, and felt 4000 tons of steel begin to move in response to something he had said. The Chief Engineer came out on the bridge wing, a sheaf of work requests under his arm. Thoughts of Diane vanished as Mike went back to work.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Al Akrab, Jacksonville Operating Areas; Friday; 25 April; 1330 The sudden silence was almost deafening. The enemy’s sonar had gone quiet. The creaking and cracking noises were audible again. The Captain turned to the sonar operator.

  “Report.”

  “Sir: the enemy destroyer is audible on the starboard quarter. He has stopped directional pinging. He is barely cavitating. I—wait! He’s gone back to omni!”

  The distant ringing sound permeated the control room, distinctly different from the long and much louder directional ping.

  “The ping has down doppler; he’s moving away from us, Captain.”

  The Captain nodded silently. He found his hands were gripping the railing around the periscope rail tight enough to hurt. He forced himself to relax.

  “I will have some tea,” he announced. His statement had the desired effect of breaking the tension. The Captain would not call for tea if the action were not over.

  “Recommend we come up in depth to 80 meters,” called the Musaid.

  “Permission granted. Make your depth eighty meters. Proceed to the east for one hour at five knots, and then turn south.”

  There was a collective if discreet sigh of relief in the control room; no one liked to be at 400 feet of depth unless they had to; there was little margin of safety if something went wrong, with as much danger from a collision with the bottom as there was from a sea water leak at depth. It was much easier to get back to the surface from 260 feet if something gave way than from 400 feet. The Captain ignored their concerns; by the book, the Al Akrab was capable of withstanding the pressure of 200 meters, or more than 600 feet. If the water had been that deep, he would not have hesitated to go down to 200 meters just to show the crew that the boat could take it. He accepted the mug of tea, and went over to look at the plot. The control room personnel were changing the watch, and talking quietly among themselves about the encounter with the destroyer. The Deputy was clearly concerned. The Captain glanced over at him.

  “Yes?”

  “Sir,” the words tumbled out. “Sir, the decoy: now they will surely know—”

  “Lower your voice! They will know nothing,” said the Captain harshly. “If they thought that was a decoy, they would not just turn away and resume their aimless searching. They would have gone into lost contact procedures, initiated a close area search, continued directional pinging, called for a helicopter—anything but turn away. They are not hunting. They are not hunters. They are not even warriors. I will predict that they will go back into port for their long sabbath.”

  The Deputy wanted to believe, but his years as a political officer had given him a more suspicious mind. He leaned forward.

  “Sir,” he said, his voice an urgent whisper. “They were doing nothing, and then they turned towards us. Changed their sonar’s pulse. Came directly down the bearing towards us. We evaded and released a transponding decoy. They pinged on it for a minute and a half, and then went silent. And then they turned away. The ending of this sequence is not what we would expect, but the sequence itself is significant!”

  The Captain shook his head impatiently. “I tell you it is not. No destroyer searching for a submarine would break off an action if he even thought that a decoy had been fired: it would confirm the existence of the submarine. This ship is not even searching, I tell you. He gained contact, classified it as possible, lost contact, gained another contact, and classified it as nothing, and broke off. That is all. We remain undetected, and we remain free to operate where we want and when we want. Our next operational objective is to plan for the seeding of the mines in the river’s mouth. We will receive a signal soon telling us the attack date. We will plant the mines one or two nights before the attack day. Your primary duty now is to plan the approach and the maneuvers to lay the field. Is that understood?”

  The Deputy stood back. “Sir. As you command,” he said, f
ormally.

  “Very well.”

  The Captain dismissed the Deputy with a jerk of his head. The Deputy went forward to find the operations officer. The Musaid approached. The Captain saw that the older man was very tired. He felt a wave of guilt over the fact that the Musaid was taking his request to supervise the control room watch too literally. He had forgotten his own mental note.

  “You must get some rest, Musaid,” said the Captain.

  “My place is here, as you commanded.”

  The Captain waved his hand, dismissing his previous command, and the dire threats about shooting people who made mistakes.

  “I command that you go to sleep for eight hours. Rest. The crew is tight again; the officers are reacting.”

  His eyes narrowed momentarily, as he remembered the watch officer’s maneuver of forty-five minutes ago.

  “Except that Achmed should have called me first, and then increased speed. He created doppler where there was none. He should have dived first.”

  The Musaid gave the Captain a wry look.

  “But he acted, Captain. He did not just sit there, and by moving away he maintained the range when the enemy closed us. If you chastise him now, none of them will act with initiative again.”

  The Captain gave the Musaid a hard look, but then nodded.

  “What you say is true. I will hold a debriefing of the incident, and we will discuss it. I have instructed the Deputy to plan the mining operation. I will want your views when the plan is laid.”

  “As you command.”

  “Go then; get some rest. I need your brain alive when we plan the next move. I feel that the attack day is approaching. Do you think the decoy was a mistake?”

  The Musaid stared down at the plotting table. The question had come suddenly.

  “It was a calculated risk,” he replied. “The enemy did not react as if he had detected a decoy, but only another contact. One among many, and one on the edge of the great Gulf Stream. It was a risk, but it appears to have worked.”