Arctic Gambit

by Larry Bond

  “True, but is the military willing to work, on an interim basis,” Hardy emphasized, “with an NSA who is also the first lady?”

  Schiller nodded sagely. “Absolutely. And woe betide anyone who says otherwise,” he promised.

  Hardy smiled. “And by the time we announce Bill’s resignation ‘for health reasons,’ in all likelihood, Overcharge will be public. By the way, when you all write about this in your memoirs, please be kind to Bill. He’s right that this could spiral out of control.”

  In response to their surprised looks, Hardy explained. “The Russians are still getting ready. If they’d already started moving, if Fedorin and his generals had committed themselves, I believe the risks of escalation would be much greater. But we have a narrow window that Carter is doing her best to sneak through. Bill couldn’t see the difference between now and what’s to come.”

  The president tapped Carter’s report on his desk. “The good news in this message is that the Russians have not finished construction. Sun Tzu said that if you aren’t trying to wipe out an enemy, leave him a line of retreat, and he won’t fight as desperately. Unless they are going to try something in Europe in the next twelve hours, without their nuclear trump card, they’ll be able to pretend it really was an exercise, back out and save face.”

  4 August 2021

  1530 Local Time

  USS Jimmy Carter

  Off Cape Baranova, Russia

  * * *

  The UCC crew had just started recovering José when Walter reached the part of the mine belt nearest Toledo’s grave. It had taken some careful figuring to find the best combination of depth and distance from the minefield to avoid triggering either the acoustic sensors or the mines. Luckily, the mines were easy to see on Walter’s imaging sonar.

  While Jimmy Carter’s crew had mapped much of the minefield during her first visit to the area, they had not plotted the position of every mine. They’d established the extent of the field, its shape, confirmed that it was composed of a single mine type, and then kept as far from the area as circumstance allowed.

  Walter actually began its search over a mile short of where they believed there would be a gap. The UUV crept parallel to the barrier at two knots, twenty feet off the seabed, using the long-range mode on its navigation sonar.

  José was docked and recharging by the time Walter saw the first mine, but after that it became easier. They had been placed about eleven hundred yards apart. Once the precise location of the first mine was known, Walter’s operators brought him a little farther out, increased the speed, and motored over to where the next one should be. It was exactly where they expected. The next mine was also in its proper place, and the next one. They were now a little over a mile and a half from their starting point, and all they could do was keep looking and hope they didn’t find one.

  Carter remained close enough to maintain good communications with Walter, but as far away from the minefield as that allowed. Cavanaugh knew that eventually they’d be getting much closer to the minefield, and hoped he could hide his nervousness.

  The fifth mine was in place, but the sixth one was not. After Walter had gone several hundred yards past where the next mine should have been, Ford ordered the operator to circle the remote back and switch to high-res mode.

  They were so close that as soon as Walter had finished his turn, they saw it. A long tube lay on the seabed. One end was connected by a cable to a large round disc close by—the anchor. “Tallyho,” Jerry cried. “Finally!”

  The empty canister that had held the torpedo had flooded with seawater and was no longer buoyant. In high-res mode, the sonar image was so clear they could see the open end of the cylinder. Jerry knew that everyone in the control room could see the image on their own displays, but he hit the intercom switch and reported, “Control, UCC, we just found the center of our path through the minefield. We will begin looking for the acoustic sensors.”

  That took longer. Under Ford’s direction, Petty Officer Frederick had Walter look straight toward the mine barrier at dead slow, with the imaging sonar reset to its longest range. Cavanaugh stared at the screen along with the rest, watching for something that would look like a squat oil drum. Each time Walter approached one hundred yards from the line without seeing anything, Ford backed the UUV out and then moved it along the barrier to a new spot.

  It was boring to watch, but nobody complained. Control could see what was being done, and did not hurry them. Cavanaugh knew that Jimmy Carter’s sonar watch was keeping an ear tuned for the sound of a Lamb Tail sonar, or any other kind, for that matter. He tried to calculate if they could avoid being found again, and wondered what Mitchell and Weiss would do if that happened.

  It took over an hour of careful probing to find one of the Sever nodes on the seabed. Its location was not helpful. “I should have guessed,” said Ford, frustrated.

  “I made the same assumption,” Jerry admitted. “At least we know where the one on this side of gap is located. We’ll just have to look a little longer.”

  Forty-five minutes later, they’d found the second acoustic sensor and entered everything on the geoplot. While the UCC team prepared to recover Walter, Jerry, Ford, and Cavanaugh joined Weiss in control and tried to decide what could be done.

  It was clearer on the paper plot, and Cavanaugh immediately understood their dilemma. The gap in the minefield was covered not by one acoustic sensor, but two, one to either side.

  “It makes sense that the mines and sensors wouldn’t line up,” Weiss remarked. “They have different detection ranges, after all.”

  Now we have to muffle two sensors,” Ford muttered. “The Russians are not playing fair.”

  “They don’t even know we’re playing,” Jerry reminded him.

  They’d added in circles that represented the detection range of the acoustic sensor on the geoplot, along with the diamonds that marked their actual positions on the sea bottom, and the two mines on either side of what everyone now called the “The Toledo gap.” Cavanaugh was visualizing them as goal posts.

  The two acoustic detection circles overlapped in the gap, a little to the left of center. Weiss asked, “What if we use the UUVs to mask this one on the right?”

  Ford tapped a few keys, and measured the distance. “Four hundred yards,” he reported. “Maybe four twenty-five.”

  “Compared to a thousand before,” Jerry observed. “I’m sure we could get through that, carefully, on the way in. It’s the way out I’m worried about. We can’t expect to have the UUVs navigating for us.”

  “And we might be in a hurry,” Weiss added, smiling.

  Jerry asked, “How long to ‘bomb’ one sensor, come back to the sub, reload ballast, and then do it again?”

  “Assuming we can do it at all?” Weiss asked. “Too long. I feel like the clock is ticking.”

  Other heads nodded, and Jerry suggested, “Then let’s see first how well the UUVs can imitate a glider.”

  1900 Local Time

  USS Jimmy Carter

  Near October Revolution Island, Russia

  * * *

  With both UUVs back aboard, Carter proceeded five miles northwest for “flight tests.” To Cavanaugh, it seemed they should have moved farther away from Russian territory, but Captain Weiss reassured him. “We can’t hear the Russians this far away, and I guarantee we have a much better sonar suite than they do.”

  While Jerry and the UUV team tested Walter, Captain Weiss had the sonar crew keep a close watch. Although she wasn’t particularly vulnerable with a UUV deployed, it would be highly inconvenient if a Russian stumbled across Carter while they were occupied experimenting with the remotes.

  They launched José with as much ballast as the UUV could hold, almost a hundred pounds of lead shot. The UUVs normally carried some ballast to maintain neutral buoyancy, but the UCC crew had filled the ballast compartment, so the UUV was “max heavy” when it left the sub.

  Lieutenant Ford, worried about the extra weight, watched the batte
ry charge and speed carefully as LTJG Lawson moved the UUV a few hundred yards off Carter’s port beam. While Carter hovered above the bottom, José rose, or more accurately, “clawed for altitude” like a heavily loaded airplane. The UUV needed full power and a nose-up angle to slowly rise. It took longer than normal for the vehicle to reach a depth of twenty-five feet below the ocean surface, but once leveled out, it proved to be only two knots slower than its normal eight-knot maximum speed. It still needed a little up angle, and of course maximum power.

  After taking copious notes during the UUV’s ascent, LT Ford reported, “I’ve got the numbers I need, Commodore. Ready for the first test.”

  Cavanaugh watched Mitchell glance at the recorded values, and at the display, before reporting on the intercom to control. “Ready for glide test.”

  Weiss immediately replied, “Proceed.” The displays in control would let them see everything that they saw in UCC.

  Jerry nodded, and told Lawson, “All stop, five degrees down angle.”

  The bottom lay some three hundred feet below José. They’d calculated the sink rate using the standard formulas in the UUV manual. That much was easy. What they couldn’t calculate was how far forward José would move as it descended. The UUV had no wings, just small control fins at the back.

  Everyone’s attention was focused on the readouts: battery charge, depth, and especially speed. Even though everyone could see the displays, Lawson still read them out loud. “Showing six knots.” Normally, at that speed, the vehicle would coast to a stop within a minute of the motors stopping. It had a smooth exterior, but nobody who saw one would describe it as “streamlined.”

  “Still showing six knots,” Lawson reported hopefully. Up in control, they were plotting the UUV’s position, as well as its depth. They needed to know exactly how long the “bomb run” would have to be.

  Cavanaugh watched the display along with everyone else. It actually showed the UUV’s speed to a tenth of a knot. When Lawson had nosed over, it read 6.2 knots. Then it went up, to 6.4.

  After another moment, the lieutenant announced, “Speed is up to seven knots,” a little surprised.

  “Sink rate matches what we expected, more or less,” Ford commented.

  Cavanaugh watched the speed go up again, to 7.5 knots. Well, most things go downhill faster than they do over level ground.

  “Eight knots!” Ford announced proudly, as if José were in a race. “Sink rate is increasing as well.”

  “End the test,” Jerry ordered suddenly. “Engage the propulsion motor and bring it level. Be ready to bring the nose up. Steve, watch the sink rate and depth carefully.”

  Puzzled, Ford gazed at the commodore, who looked genuinely concerned. The vehicle had only gone down about a hundred feet, and Cavanaugh knew the plan had been to let the UUV drop until it was much closer to the bottom, and maybe even find a feature on the seabed to practice their aim.

  Jerry repeated, “Watch the depth carefully. Be ready to angle up if I say so,” he ordered. Lawson acknowledged the order, but both he and Ford looked confused. Jerry explained to the two lieutenants, while keeping his eyes on the display, “We’ve determined that the UUV will gain sufficient speed as it sinks, in fact, a little better than expected. But it’s translating some of that speed into downward motion. We know it will dive like an airplane. The question is, can it pull out of a dive like one?”

  Cavanaugh imagined one of their priceless UUVs plowing into the bottom at ten-plus knots.

  “Speed’s not dropping a whole lot. Sink rate is slowing…”

  “Raise the nose ten degrees,” Jerry ordered.

  Ford, making notes, announced, “That’s the trick! Look at the speed drop. And the descent rate is decreasing.” After a long pause, he reported, “Sink rate is zero.”

  “That’s called a ‘flare,’” Mitchell explained. “Pull the nose up just a little, and the bottom of the plane—the vehicle—turns into one giant speed brake. The trick is going to be flaring close enough to the bottom to kill the sink rate, but leaving the UUVs at the right depth to drop the lead shot on the sensor.”

  “A steeper up angle—a flare—would do that quicker,” Ford suggested hopefully.

  “But we don’t want the UUV to rise,” Mitchell cautioned. “We want to slow the vehicle down just a bit as we’re approaching the sensor node. In aviation, they call that ‘dumping speed.’ But the borderline between losing a little speed and losing a lot is very fine.”

  “We need to do some more tests,” Ford realized. “Maybe a lot more.”

  Jerry reached for the intercom. “I’ll inform Control. You figure out exactly how much longer this is going to take, and then how to do it faster.”

  “Some more time will be required.” Jerry passed on to control what had happened. He could hear the frustration in Weiss’s voice over the intercom. “But I concur. It has to be done. Besides, my sonar gang just came up with a way to solve the problem of the buoys not lining up with the Toledo gap.”

  “Oh! Do tell, please,” Jerry asked.

  “We mask the left hydrophone set on one module and the right hydrophone set on the other. If we cover the sides facing the gap, we should have about an eight-hundred-yard passage through both the minefield and the sensors.”

  2030 Local Time

  USS Jimmy Carter

  * * *

  In the wardroom, dinner had turned into an extended planning session as they discussed the results of the “glide bombing” trials and worked out a detailed timeline for the complex attack. To Jerry, tracking and engaging a submarine in open water was simple, compared to the precise interlocking steps that would lead to the destruction of the Russian launch facility. Any one of them failing could throw the entire operation off the rails.

  Where did Carter have to be when the UUVs started their run? How close should she actually get to the facility? The closer they were, the shorter the time lag between the UCC crew giving a command and the vehicle executing it. What should they do if Belgorod detected them during the approach and reacted aggressively? She had a decent sonar suite, and torpedoes.

  One interesting fact came from the sonar officer, LTJG DiMauro. “I’ve had my operators listening to the noise coming from the construction site, to see if they can determine exactly what’s going on. There’s a lot of clanking as metal bangs up against metal, and they are sure they’ve heard pounding, as if a stubborn piece is being shifted into place. That won’t help us, but we’ve found a pattern,” he announced proudly.

  By now, most of the sub’s chief petty officers were also present, and the remains of dinner cleared away. He paused dramatically, enjoying the moment, but didn’t push his luck.

  “It appears that every eight hours, the transients stop and the broadband noise levels go way down for about fifteen to twenty minutes. It’s been very regular.”

  “A shift change for the divers,” Weiss concluded.

  Jerry nodded agreement, along with many others.

  “It makes sense. They will have as many divers down there as possible to speed the work. At that depth, they have to be in atmospheric diving suits with long air hoses, so they can’t send the next batch down until the other set comes up.”

  Weiss smiled. “It’s pitch black down there except for any lights they’ve set up, which will be concentrated wherever they’re working. I’d been wondering about the chance of a diver spotting Walter or José, even if the UUVs are dark-colored. When is the next shift change?”

  “There should be one at midnight, 0000 hours, give or take a few minutes,” the sonar officer answered.

  “Then that’s where we’ll anchor our timeline. We want the UUVs in position to start surveying a little before then, and as soon as the transients stop, we send them in, followed by torpedoes soon after.”

  It had already been a long day. The UUV operators had been constantly busy, and the rest of the crew had been operating at modified general quarters for over twelve hours. Cavanaugh had done nothing more th
an listen and watch, and he felt worn out.

  But he could feel the energy in the room as Weiss gave orders for the final preparations. They’d have to move quickly to take advantage of the window, but there was enough time. And time was against them. Not only did they not know when the Russians would finish their work, but as long as they stayed in Russian waters and close to the island, there was the constant risk of being detected. Better to be done and gone.

  2130 Local Time

  USS Jimmy Carter

  * * *

  USS Jimmy Carter was at general quarters, two nautical miles away from the Toledo gap, pointed south. Six of her tubes were loaded with the modified torpedoes, the other two held standard warshots … just in case. The UCC crew had launched the now fully charged and heavily loaded José and Walter, one right after the other. Both UUVs were now climbing to carefully calculated locations, defined not just in range and bearing, but depth as well. Once they were in position, Carter would slowly accelerate to creep speed, just three knots, and head straight for the center of the passage.

  As before, Jerry was in UCC, along with Cavanaugh. If the engineer needed to change the preplanned survey, the commodore wanted the army engineer to be right there.

  “In position,” Ford reported to Mitchell. The two UUVs were as stationary as their weight allowed, holding just fifty feet above the bottom and three hundred yards out. Tests had shown that they’d have to start “flaring” at twenty-five feet above the seabed, and would slow to two or three knots as they passed over the hydrophones in a gentle glide. Ford looked over at Jerry, who nodded and gave him thumbs up.

  “Commence the UUV run,” Weiss ordered over the circuit.

  Lieutenant Ford ordered, “Half speed to the motor.”

  “Five knots at level pitch,” Lawson reported a moment later.

  The glide bombing approach itself started with a dogleg maneuver. First they had to locate the cable, then start running along it until the imaging sonar saw the hydrophones. Then they’d start the dive. The UUVs detected the cable as expected, and Jerry issued the command to secure the propulsion motors and begin the turn. Watching the nav plot on the display carefully, Jerry waited, counting quietly to himself, then said, “Five degrees down bubble, mark!”