As Kelly McKee looked at Karen Petri, a comfortable feeling came to him that things were under control, a feeling he always had when she walked into a room. She was the most competent executive officer he had ever known. She was two inches taller than he was, her figure slim in the sexless submarine coveralls, but the fabric unable to conceal the swelling of her chest. She had the cheek-
bones of a Cherokee, with the jet-black hair to go with it. Her eyes were large, almond-shaped, their darkness impenetrable. While each of her features would be considered pretty, the overall effect of her face was one of hardness. In a word, she looked tough. It was not a look that appealed to McKee as a man—he preferred soft femininity in a woman—but it was one he appreciated in his second-in-command.
Behind him the men who had brought him down to the deck were climbing down the ladder into the ship. The last of them looked at McKee and said, "Last man down, sir." The smell of the submarine filled McKee's nostrils, a complex brew of cooking grease, cigar smoke, various lubrication oils from the machinery aft, ozone generated by the electrical equipment, chemicals from the atmosphere control machinery. In all the smell was pleasant, a reminder of a place where he was comfortable, akin to the smell of the log fire at the cabin. With that thought, a momentary memory of Diana invaded his mind, but he quickly choked the thought and returned to the present.
Petri turned to the hatch operation panel and moved a hydraulic control lever, dropping the upper hatch into position with a solid thump. The sunlight from above vanished. A hydraulic control ring in the hatch rotated, locking the massive steel of it against sea pressure; then the lower hatch directly above them shut. Petri muttered into the phone that both hatches were shut, then nodded to McKee.
"Let's go to control, XO," McKee said, leading
the way down the dark wood-paneled passageway. The passageway led past the door to the VIP stateroom, Petri's cabin, and the captain's stateroom, opening into the control room. It took up the entire width of the vessel, the elevated periscope stand in the center, the battlecontrol virtual-reality stations on the starboard side, the electronic sensor stations on the port side, the ship-control station forward. The door to sonar, radio, and computer rooms was at the forward exit of the room. While the room was large, every single cubic inch was used. Crammed in were cables, valves, widescreen flat-panel displays, consoles, handrails, phones, gas mask hose stations, navigation tables. At battlesta-tions, when some two dozen watchstanders further crowded the room, it could become claustrophobic. No matter how big a submarine was, the control room would always seem this way, McKee mused, and perhaps that wasn't a bad thing.
No other place in the world did to him what the control room of his nuclear submarine did. He imagined that this was the feeling a pilot had for his cockpit, a cruise ship captain for his wheelhouse, a parson for his pulpit, a president for his podium. This was where McKee realized the most of his human potential, he thought, and with a pang of regret he wondered how he could ever give up his command.
McKee frowned up at the officer of the deck, the man in tactical control of the ship for this six-hour watch. The ship's chief engineer was a young lieutenant commander named Todd Hendrickson. The lanky, blond-haired engineer was an odd case, an
individual so introspective that from the outside he had no discernible emotions. When he turned to face McKee, his eyes were clear and alert. He came to attention, snapping in a crisp voice, "Good morning, Captain, welcome home."
"Report," McKee said, his hand out. The chief of the watch at the port sensor panels handed him a Cohiba cigar like a nurse slapping a scalpel into a surgeon's hand. A second pass transferred McKee's lighter with the Devilfish logo. The cigar erupted into a cloud of mellow smoke as he listened to the engineer.
"Ship's rigged for dive, Captain, checked by Mr. Evans. We have message traffic onboard, with a flash transmission marked Tersonal for CO.' Plant's in a normal full-power lineup, propulsion is on the main engines. Artificial intelligence network is nominal. Battle-control system has a class II discrepancy, being worked by Mr. Van Dyne. We're ready to dive and return to PIM, depth six hundred, course one one zero, speed forty knots. We've been flanking it, sir—I've never seen PIM go so fast."
PIM was a submarine term for "plan of intended motion," the direction, depth, and speed the ship's operation order dictated she follow to arrive where she was scheduled to be, which in this case was the South Atlantic off Brazil.
McKee leaned over the starboard chart table aft of the elevated periscope stand. "Where are we?"
"Here, Captain, about eighty-three miles from Barbados. Course one one zero will lead us over the equator past Cape San Rogue, Brazil, where we make the turn to course two zero zero and fol-
low the contour of the continental shelf. Destination is Point Zulu, our hold position. That's part of a top secret operation order, by the way, Skipper. And that's all its says, follow this PIM and get there damned quick. I have no idea why that would be TS. Maybe the flash message has the answer. But one thing is for sure, Captain—we're ten miles behind PIM and we need to catch up. We'll need to be deep at flank for the next twenty-four hours if we are going to keep up with this. There won't be time to ascend to periscope depth until Tuesday at the earliest. That's another strange thing—that's perfectly okay with the op order. I've never seen that before. Something is very odd about this op."
McKee narrowed his eyes at the youth. The thought dawned on him that he would have to come up with a briefing for the crew on this mission, and he had no idea what of the Release Twelve code word Alpha information he could divulge.
"Very well," McKee said, his voice low and clipped, the feeling of authority coming to him automatically. "Submerge the ship to six hundred feet and return to base course, and all-ahead flank."
"Submerge to six hundred, base course, and flank it, aye sir," Hendrickson said so rapidly it was a single word. "Pilot, submerge the ship, depth six hundred, all ahead two thirds!"
The pilot, the watchstander who had replaced the older submarines' diving officer, helmsman, and planesman, either a senior chief or a commissioned officer, sat in the enclosed wraparound panel forward. The console resembled a fighter jet cockpit
simulator, engulfing the officer in a hemispherical array of computer screens and panels. The control stick between his knees and rudder pedals at his feet worked on the control surfaces of the ship exactly as they would for a fighter jet. He responded, repeating back his orders, then pushed a button on his stick, and an alarm sounded throughout the ship. The klaxon OOH-GAH of the diving alarm was followed by a computer-generated voice pronouncing the words "Dive, dive!" followed by a second OOH-GAH, the traditions of the 1930s remaining almost a century later, though now spoken by electronics rather than gongs, bells, and human voices. The officer pushed the throttle lever forward. The main engine turbines several hundred feet aft came up to revolutions for fifteen knots, all ahead standard. He pushed his control stick forward, causing the bowplanes to rotate to the dive position.
As the ship accelerated slowly, the officer of the deck raised, the type 20 periscope with a hydraulic control ring set in the crowded overhead. The optic module came smoothly out of the periscope well, and the officer of the deck pressed his face to the optics and rotated the instrument around in slow circles. The pilot hit a second button on the stick, opening the forward ballast tank vents. That released the air stored there and let seawater in through the vents at the bottom.
"Venting forward," the pilot announced.
Up in the overhead was a television wide-screen display showing the view out the periscope. The waves came faster toward the view as the ship sped
up. Then a geyser of water and air blasted out of the forward deck. As the ship inclined forward, the deck plates began to feel more like a ramp than a floor.
"Depth eight five," the pilot called. "Venting aft."
The deck continued to incline, trembling slightly as the ship accelerated. The view out the periscope grew
closer to the optics. The waves rushed toward the reticle until they washed up against the lens in a blast of white foam.
"Scope's under," Hendrickson announced.
The lens cleared, showing the underside of the waves, reflecting silvery light from above.
"Lowering number two scope," Henrickson announced. He clicked the scope grips upward, pulled on a large circular handle in the overhead, and stepped back as the large optic module sank into the deck. The stainless-steel pole followed it down into the periscope well. "Pilot, all ahead standard."
"Ahead standard, aye, sir. Depth one hundred, ship's angle down ten."
The deck had become a steep downward ramp. A ship-control repeater panel in the overhead of the periscope stand featured a large digital depth meter. It rotated large numbers as depth increased, from 120 rapidly to 150, 170, 200, then 250.
"All ahead full," Hendrickson called.
"Full, aye, sir, speeding up to thirty-five knots."
The periscope stand, called the conn because it was where the officer of the deck controlled the ship's motion, was a platform rising eighteen
inches. McKee took the three steps up to the conn and slowly turned to examine the room. His gaze stopped on the ship-control repeater panel in the overhead, showing the vessel gliding through the water at thirty knots and still accelerating.
"Ahead flank," Hendrickson ordered.
"Flank aye, throttle advancing to forty-five knots," the pilot called.
"Very well."
The deck trembled slightly as the ship accelerated to her maximum speed, then quieted. There was no discernible vibration, but there was something different to the feel of the ship at flank. Somehow McKee could sense the ship was running full out.
"Depth five-five-zero, fifty feet from ordered depth, pulling out now, ship's angle down five, down two, depth five-nine-zero, depth six hundred feet, all-ahead flank, sir."
"Officer of the Deck," McKee said, "I'll be in my stateroom. XO, meet me there in twenty minutes."
McKee's cabin aft of control was spacious for a submarine. It featured a foldaway bed, a desk, a conference table, and a high-backed leather chair. Set into the soffit above the door was a row of wide-screen video displays that could be configured a thousand ways, showing video camera views of critical stations, the chart, the readout of his WritePad computer, or video conferences. He stripped off the sweaty Nomex flight suit and stepped into the bathroom, the head, he shared with Petri. The walls and overhead were done in
stainless-steel, the deck a troweled stone. After he showered and put on his customary at-sea submarine coveralls and running sneakers, he felt more himself than he had in the last week. He thought momentarily about Diana, and wondered if there were some message he could get out to UsubCom Headquarters that would get them to check on her. Would they tell her he was at sea? Probably not, he realized. And if not, what would be the point? It was a bad idea, yet he still wanted to do it.
He rubbed his hand on his neck, sank into his command chair, and pulled his personal WritePad computer from the slot in the wood surface. The officer of the deck had said there was a flash transmission message for him. Under normal circumstances he would have hopped to look at it—a flash message would need to be read within thirty seconds of receipt—but here, with no reply possible because of the depth, there could be very little that would be urgent. McKee clicked into the software and called for the message.
It was Release Twelve code word Alpha. Before the computer would let him see it, it demanded his password. He entered his midshipman number, and the message flashed on the display, another white field with black letters. McKee grimaced as he read the short and simple message. He could tell his crew exactly nothing. The charts and navigation equipment and control room were to be barricaded, with access only to officers with special compart-mented clearances, and only then to the ones with the need to know. When they were at the Point Zulu hold position, he would be sent an emergency
action message with orders to fire on the Black Sea Fleet.
An EAM would come in a coded format, requiring his officers to pull an authenticator package out of a dual safe. No one who knew the inner combination knew the outer combination, and inside the inner safe were silver-dollar-sized packets wrapped in foil with six alphanumeric symbols inside. The authenticator was required to be under two-person control from manufacture to destruction, and the little packets were able to make a meaningless group of symbols a nuclear release order. The EAM's title block would contain the name of the particular authenticator to use, and when it was checked as valid, the orders to fire on the fleet would be official.
Until then McKee could say absolutely nothing, not why the ship was flanking it south, not why the charts were barricaded from the crew, not the characteristics of the targets—the fleet order of battle, how many frigates and what type, how many cruisers and what they would look like and sound like, what type of helicopters the fleet carried, and above all, whether the Severodvinsk submarine had joined up with the flotilla, screening ahead for them.
McKee closed the message and pushed the computer aside, staring at nothing, running his hands through his hair. A knock came at the door. He looked up to see Karen Petri.
"Yes, XO?" he asked.
"You wanted to see me, sir?"
McKee remembered, realizing he was distracted.
"Call the department heads to my stateroom." He might as well brief them on nothing, he thought.
While he waited, he wrote a message into his WritePad computer, an instruction to UsubCom HQ to contact Naval Personnel and ask them to check up on Diana, both in Wyoming and in Virginia Beach. By now she'd be long gone from the cabin, but he might catch her at home. He called for a radioman to bring him a baseball-bat-sized slot buoy, a radio transmitter that could be ejected from a tiny torpedo tube, where it would float to the surface and transmit its message to the orbiting communications satellite overhead. Once the message was coded into the buoy, he called the engineer on the conn, told him to shoot it, and told him to get one of the junior officers to relieve him to come to the captain's briefing.
The briefing was an anticlimax. He told them their orders only said to hightail it south to a point off Brazil, where they would receive further word. The officers took the news stoically. McKee collected status reports on the ship, in the process beginning to feel more plugged into the vessel and the crew. After five minutes he dismissed the men and Petri. For the next hour he sat at his table, looking through the computer at the characteristics of the Ukrainian Black Sea Fleet, particularly what each ship looked like from the viewpoint of the periscope. That done, he sank into his bed and tried to shut his eyes. Where the day had started, in Wyoming, seemed a lifetime away.
in-command naked had happened before, perhaps three times, and she had come in on him at least twice. It was unavoidable, given the tight quarters of the ship and the round-the-clock schedule. He and Petri even had an unofficial routine when this happened—he wouldn't call her "XO" and she wouldn't call him "Captain." When one of them was naked, it was strictly a first-name event.
Sheepishly he looked away, saying, "Sorry, Karen." He caught her smile in the mirror as she replied, "It's okay, Kelly. Good morning, by the way. I'll be out in five." He had waved over his shoulder, leaving the room to her. In the privacy of his stateroom, the image of her body returned to him, all long tanned legs and upturned full breasts, downy fur between her legs, her eyes large and dark and unreadable.
When he had showered and donned a fresh pair of at-sea coveralls, he walked to the control room. Artificial Intelligence Officer Bryan Dietz had the officer of the deck watch. At thirty-four, the lieutenant commander was bald and wore thick glasses. Dietz was completely in his element as the computer officer, dealing more easily with machines and other computer operators than with laymen. He was a professional and he was good, but he needed some help with his people skills if he wanted command at sea, McKee thought.
McKee nodded as
Dietz made his terse report, just the way McKee had trained him. Ship's depth, course, and speed first, then position in the sea, position with respect to PIM—the moving dot in the sea that marked where the brass expected them
to be—status of the mission, status of the Cyclops computer, status of the reactor plant, status of the forward spaces, and status of the crew. He took it in while leaning over the manual navigation chart, watching their previous track laid out in pencil with times marked at each waypoint.
Point Zulu was just ahead, twenty minutes at flank. During the night they had passed the Black Sea Fleet's southern track, though the Ukrainians were far to the east still, outside sonar range. Once at Point Zulu, Devilfish would slow to five knots and pop up to periscope depth and wait to ambush them. McKee snapped his fingers for more coffee, and while drinking it a thought of his wife came to him.
Reluctantly he admitted to himself that thinking about her seemed an obligation. Here, in his control room, surrounded by a well-trained crew and a tightly run ship, in the middle of a vital mission for national security, he loved this life. The thought of giving it up seemed ludicrous. But if Diana made him choose, could he leave her for this? With a measure of guilt he realized the thought of her divorcing him, the very word "divorce," sounded amazingly like freedom.
"Point Zulu, Captain," Dietz said quietly, snapping McKee back to the present. He took a last pull of the steaming coffee and looked at the officer of the deck.
"Upstairs, OOD, and let's grab the zero-seven-fifteen broadcast." The radio messages would be burst-transmitted from the satellite every fifteen minutes. Any change in their orders and the latest
intelligence on the Ukrainian fleet would be on this broadcast.
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