“There you go, XO,” laughed Mike. “Knew you could handle it.”
But then his face grew serious.
“You know, the missing element in all this is still the motive, if that’s the right word. If there is a foreign sub loitering in the Jax opareas, why is he there?”
The Exec sat back in his chair, staring blankly at the bulkhead.
“Maybe,” he mused, “maybe it’s a test. Maybe the higher ups have plunked a guy down here to see how long, or even if, all these tin cans will stumble across it. You remember the Soviet tape incident.”
Mike nodded. The Fleet Commander, a dynamic Flag officer with many pet projects, had positioned a Navy electronic warfare training van in the State park across the river and had it transmit the simulated radar signal of a Soviet missile cruiser into the base across the river. It had taken three days before one of the ships there, the Barry, had detected it, and another two for that ship to make a report. There had followed several homilies from Norfolk on improving electronic warfare readiness.
“Yeah, I suppose, but we don’t own any conventional subs; ours are all nukes. Which would mean he would have had to get one of the Allies’ boats, like a Brit or a Canadian. That’s stretching it a bit, I think. But maybe … shit, I don’t know. This whole thing has me baffled. And I hate to be the guy who raises the issue—you remember how Barry got shit on for delaying his report, even though he was the only ship in the harbor that picked up the signal.”
The Exec nodded slowly.
“Yes, Sir, on the other hand, you remember what the Commodore said—it’s not up to us to sort out the political impact. We get a contact, we report it.”
Mike snorted. “Right, and hang the consequences. Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead! Easy for you to say, XO, but not so easy for me to do. I get the distinct impression that some of we commanding officers are tolerated, but only just so. You light enough fuzes, one of ’em will get you a bang.”
“Yes, Sir, I realize that,” said Farmer. “But when you first took over, you lit fuzes all the time. I would kind of think they’d be used to it.”
“Not when you have somebody like Martinson in the backfield. I have it on pretty good authority that he would love to find a way to yank me offa here. I’ve been advised that if I want to complete my command tour, I have to be, what was the word, more circumspect, yes, that’s it. Circumspect.”
Like when screwing the Chief of Staffs wife, he thought. That’s really being circumspect. The Exec saw Mike’s expression change, and decided to drop it.
“Figure out the motive, XO,” Mike said. “If Deyo comes up with something, and we can think of a motive, I’ll pursue it. With whom, I don’t know, but I will pursue it, at least until they fire my young ass. OK?”
“Yes, Sir. We’ll think of something.”
Mike went back up to his cabin and called Commander Barstowe. He waited for the yeoman to find the CSO. The late afternoon sunlight streaming through the single porthole cast peculiar patterns on the wall of his cabin. The noise level in the ship had diminished now that two hundred forty of his crew had gone ashore with the 1630 liberty call, settling into the occasional noises of the duty section sweeping down the passageways and getting ready to put her to bed for the night.
The CSO came on the line and Mike reported the gist of the word from Norfolk about the tapes. Barstowe gave no sign that he knew what Mike was talking about, but he promised to relay the message, and no, he had not yet talked to the Commodore. Mike asked when the Commodore was coming back to Mayport, and was told late Wednesday afternoon; the Commodore would return with the rest of the Mayport contingent on a Navy transport aircraft that would land at the Mayport naval air strip adjacent to the base.
Wednesday afternoon, Mike reflected, after hanging up. So we have tonight and tomorrow night. And after that? Whatever we can get, he told himself. The submarine thing seemed to be fading back into the shadows again, he thought, with some relief. Now that Diane was in his life, he would be only too happy to step back out of any limelight at Group headquarters and leave the face time to the more ambitious of his peers at Mayport. He suddenly realized that what he really wanted was to finish the command tour and then get out of Dodge and the Navy and all the bullshit with his twenty intact and a retirement check for life. And after that? He would probably follow the old adage and put Hooker on one shoulder and an oar on the other and walk inland. When someone finally asked what the oar was, he would be far enough from the sea to stick it in the ground and call it home.
But right now he had a warm woman on the near horizon and steam up. He got up, and went into the tiny head at the forward end of his cabin to change out of his uniform. As he stuffed the wrinkled wash khakis in his laundry bag, he looked at himself in the mirror mounted on the back of the door by one his predecessors. He was still in pretty good shape, all things considered. It suddenly occurred to him that Diane might already be at the boat. He had given her a key to the main lounge hatchway door. If she was, he did not want to appear in a five o’clock shadow and khakis that smelled of that unique Navy destroyer aroma of fuel oil, ozone, steam, galley grease, disinfectant, and metal.
He stripped down and took a quick shower, shaved, and then put on slacks, a sport shirt, and some loafers. He splashed a touch of cologne around his jaw, and grinned at himself in the mirror. Now I look and smell like most of my troops who are headed for the liberty trail. He wondered if the quarterdeck watch would notice the difference. He suddenly didn’t care if they did.
As he walked aft to leave the ship, he thought about what might be going on up in Norfolk. It was up to the Commodore now to decide what to do next. He might wait for the Deyo to do its thing, but he also might tell the Group Commander what we’ve got so far. Maybe take the sting out if they get to think about it for a few days. Hell, he might even get the Admiral to go over to the Center to see for himself. But he doubted it.
The Exec was waiting on the quarterdeck.
“I told the CSO I’d be home in a half hour, in case the Commodore wants to talk.”
“Aye, aye, Sir. If he calls here we’ll forward the call.”
“Thanks, XO,” said Mike.
He was aware that the Exec thought he should not be going home until the loop had been closed with the Commodore. Barstowe would call Captain Aronson, and then Aronson would probably want to talk to him, and might even expect him to be aboard and not at home. But there was Diane.
Five minutes after he arrived onboard the Lucky Bag, Diane arrived, slipping into the lounge and giving him a breathtaking kiss. He promptly forgot about the submarine, the ship, the Commodore, and the rest of the world, until it intruded abruptly one hour later when the Commodore called.
“OK, Mike, CSO gave me the word,” said Aronson, starting right in as if he and Mike had been talking for the past half hour.
“I’m gonna have to see the Admiral and fill him in; I’ll try to do it without Martinson getting into it, at least initially, because he’ll want to focus on you and not the submarine. Man’s in a foul mood, anyway—says his wife took off for Lauderdale to go shopping again; last time she did that it set them back a coupla grand.”
“Yes, Sir,” said Mike, swallowing.
He was sitting at his desk in the lounge, looking at said wife on the couch ten feet away. He thought he felt the first faint tugs of the web of deception he was weaving. She was watching the evening news on television, apparently ignoring Mike and his phone conversation.
“I want you to send a message to the CO of Deyo—personal for, OK? And ask him to send you a sitrep on their passive search as of Wednesday at 0800; that’ll give ’em two nights of search and analysis. You relay the dope to me at 1000 Wednesday through Barstowe; he knows how to reach me. If I can catch the Admiral for a few minutes tomorrow during the conference, I’ll brief him on what we know so far, and what we’re doing. If Deyo comes up empty, I think the Admiral will just drop it—the Center’s evaluation isn’t all that str
ong. But just to be sure, I’m going to talk to them tomorrow, too, in between these goddamn scheduling meetings. How’s the engineering work going?”
Mike related the events of the day, and the prognosis for the pump repairs. It would probably take two weeks, not one.
“Yeah, well, that figures, Mike,” agreed the Commodore. “You just push ’em to do a good job, and let’s hope there are no more mysterious incidents out in the opareas for a while. The Navy’s got enough trouble trying to work up a fleet operating schedule against all these budget cuts.”
“Yes, Sir, we’ll do it. Thank you for calling, Sir.”
But the Commodore had already hung up. Mike then called the Command Duty Officer on the Goldsborough and dictated a Personal message for the CO message to Deyo, telling the CDO to release it as a priority. He then joined Diane on the couch.
“Sounds interesting,” she said, snuggling in under his arm.
“I didn’t think you were paying any attention to all that,” he said.
“Navy wives learn to tune in to those kinds of conversations even when they’re talking to someone else, my love. Anything out of the routine usually means something’s coming or someone’s leaving.”
“Well it certainly won’t be Goldy-maru,” he said. “We’re in for the better part of the next two weeks changing our main feed pump steam seals.”
“But the mystery submarine hasn’t gone away, has it?” she asked. He turned to look down at her, to see how much she might really understand.
“No, actually, it hasn’t, although it might well have taken off by now. What the Center found is a possible contact that happened last week. Now the Commodore has Deyo out doing a real needle in the haystack search for any peculiar diesel engines, on the theory that, if he’s still there, he’ll snorkel at night to recharge his batteries.”
“What’s a snorkel?”
“It’s a pipe, basically, that a sub can stick up like a periscope and provide air to diesel engines without surfacing.”
“Oh. OK. But if there is a submarine out there, why?” she asked.
“That’s the million dollar question, Sweet Cheeks.”
“Sweet Cheeks?” She sat up, a mock severe expression in her face. “Did you call me Sweet Cheeks?”
Mike stared hard at her face and then tracked somewhat lower on her anatomy.
“Well,” he said, “that’s just my memory speaking; it has been a long time, you know. Might be wrong … you know what they say—memory is the second thing to go.”
“And the first, may I ask, is what?”
“Don’t remember,” he pronounced solemnly, and then he pulled her toward him to refresh his sadly failing memory.
“Remember, I get dinner,” she said, her voice muffled in his shoulder. “And for calling me Sweet Cheeks, I also get dessert.”
THIRTY-SIX
The Al Akrab, submerged, Jacksonville Operating Areas, Tuesday, 29 April; 0130
“Bearing One. Mark!” The Captain swung the attack scope around to the right, and stopped suddenly. “Bearing Two. Mark! Down scope.”
The glistening tube hissed out of sight into the periscope well below the attack center. The Captain straightened, and glanced over at the depth gauge. They were steady at 18 meters, despite the medium swells up above on the dark surface.
“Confirm the plot.”
“Sir, the plot confirms as follows: two fishing boats are trolling into the seas, speeds at between two and three knots. There are no other major shipping contacts in the area, except for the large car carrier which is opening to the east,” said the watch officer.
“Sound operator confirm.”
The sonar operator turned in his chair.
“Sir, passive sonar confirms two contacts, diesel engines, bearing west and northwest, drifting right. No other nearby engine sounds. No other contacts except for the large ship opening to the east.”
“Very well. Raise the snorkel mast. Make preparations to snorkel.”
The control room watch officer called the engineering watch officer and relayed the order to configure the propulsion systems for snorkeling. He nodded to the diving officer, who began raising the thick snorkel mast, carefully eyeing the reference mark as the mast came up to ensure that it was well clear of the sea surface, but not so high as to create a large radar contact for any watching eyes above. The planesmen hunched over their controls, keeping the submarine precisely at eighteen meters of keel depth.
The Captain reflected on the surface plot, sipping on a mug of hot tea. Two fishing boats, both underway, meant good diesel sound coverage. His uniform was sweaty, the back of his shirt sticking to his back. He stank. They all stank. They had again lost one of their two fresh water evaporators due to a pump failure, and it had cost them dearly in terms of available fresh water. There was enough to drink and cook meals, and to wash one’s hands, but no more. The crewmen, already strained by the mission, were growing short and ill tempered with each other due to the constant lack of water. The temperature of the Gulf Stream, hovering near 82 degrees, had slowly cooked the boat up to an ambient temperature in the low nineties, with effusive humidity. For men used to the dry heat of North Africa, this was real misery.
The sighting of a large destroyer, the USS Deyo by her hull pennant number, had added to the tension. Their intelligence books made it clear that Deyo was a first team ASW destroyer, equipped with all the latest technology that the older, unknown destroyer did not have. The one factor working in their favor was that Deyo was not using active sonar, and was also charging around the fleet operating areas at high speeds, apparently doing some kind of engineering trials. At those speeds, even her acutely sensitive passive arrays were useless. As long as the submarine remained very quiet, and as long as the Deyo remained occupied with other things, they were reasonably safe. It also helped that Deyo had disappeared up to the north a few hours ago.
But now they were going to make noise; the battery was down to seventy-five percent, and they needed to pump a charge into the banks of lead acid storage cells nested beneath the control room for about four hours to get them back up to ninety-five percent. This meant that they had to light off the diesels, and, using the direct current electric propulsion motors as generators, activate the direct current charging circuits. The diesels required huge quantities of combustion air, which meant they either had to surface or ingest all that air through the thick snorkel mast now jutting four feet above the waves on the surface up above.
The Captain walked back over to the plotting table, and rubbed his eyes before looking down once more at the plot. The watch officer stood back to give him room. The planesman and the helmsman concentrated on keeping the boat straight and level, so as not to dunk the snorkel mast once the diesels started. If the mast went under a wave, the weight of the water would seat a steel float ball in the top of the snorkel tube, keeping water out of the engines, but also forcing the diesels to gulp combustion air momentarily from within the boat, clamping a painful vacuum on everyone’s ears, and then just as painfully reversing the pressure when the ball lifted off its seat as the wave went by. Snorkeling called for precise depth control, and it had to be maintained for hours on end.
The Captain verified the plot one more time. The tactical chart showed the track of the Deyo headed off the tactical plot to the north, with last contact being held three hours ago. The noise of just one fisherman should mask any sound of the submerged diesels in the submarine, but the Captain had made it a practice to find two boats, both with their engines running, before he would snorkel.
“Is the plant configured for snorkeling?” he asked. The watch officer nodded.
“Sir, main engineering control reports ready to snorkel. The main propulsion plant is split out. The switchboards are aligned to the battery. The battery compartment checks clear for hydrogen concentration. Hydrogen monitors have been purged. Request permission to open main induction.”
“Open main induction and commence snorkeling.”
/> Across the control room, the diving officer actuated a hydraulic control, and the twenty-four inch diameter main induction valve cycled open in the snorkel pipe. A glowing red warning light appeared on the valve console, indicating that the boat was now exposed to catastrophic flooding should something go wrong. The diving officer confirmed the valve open, and then spoke into sound powered phones to main engineering control. An instant later, the rumble of the mains shook the boat. The lights flickered momentarily as the boat’s electrical load was adjusted, and everyone instinctively winced in anticipation of the dreaded pull on their eardrums. But the boat remained steady as a rock on its northerly course. The Musaid entered the control room, nodded to the Captain, and fixed himself a mug of tea.
“Crack the ventilation augment valves,” the Captain ordered. A technician stood up and opened the large valve on the side of the snorkel pipe, which allowed fresh air from the sea surface above to blow into the control room for some temporary relief from the stagnant atmosphere of the boat. There was a similar valve back in the engineering spaces, which he knew the engineers had probably already opened to divert some of the precious fresh air.
“Raise the electronic warfare mast.”
Just forward of the thick snorkel mast, the pineapple shaped head of the electronic sensor mast broke the sea surface twenty feet above. The Captain watched the EW console as the EW Chief Petty Officer scanned the screens. The Musaid came over to stand next to him, watching the console.
“No military surveillance radars,” the Chief reported. “One commercial Decca bearing 290; correlates with the fishermen.”
“Very well. Maintain a watch on ESM.”
The Captain relaxed slightly and moved over to his chair. He would remain in the control room for the entire snorkeling cycle. His submarine was dangerously close to the surface, and, by tactical standards, had a large mast exposed and was also generating tons of acoustic noise into the water. They had to be alert to the sudden appearance of an airborne or surface search military radar signal on the EW console, which would be the signal to shut down the mains and bring down all the masts at once. Because an active radar could be detected at one and a half times its own detection range, an alert scanner should always be able to get under cover before the active radar would begin getting echoes. The key word was alert.
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