Threat vector

by Michael Dimercurio

  grabbing his officer's cap as it almost flew off his head, running for the airplane.

  The three men inside, all wearing crash helmets, waved salutes at him and pulled him in.

  "Good morning, Admiral!" one called.

  It sounded strange to Patton's ears, that it was morning—after 2 a.m.—and that the crewman had called him 'Admiral' when he was a mere captain, the four gold braid stripes on the shoulderboards of his service dress khaki uniform jacket proof that he was far short of being an admiral. He nodded to the men and took a seat as the aircraft lifted off vertically, then trembled violently as the wings tilted level, then climbed to the southwest. As the Connecticut coastline faded behind them, Patton's WritePad's annunciator alarm beeped. He opened up the software and paged his way in.

  240658ZJUL2018

  IMMEDIATE

  FM COM NAV PERS COM, WASHINGTON,

  DC TO J.G.S. PATTON IV, CAPTAIN, U.S. NAVY

  SUBJ OFFICIAL ORDERS

  UNCLASS IIB1II

  1. (U) REPORT IMMEDIATELY FOR DUTY USUB-COM HEADQUARTERS NORFOLK VA AND ASSUME PERMANENT COMMAND OF UNIFIED SUBMARINE COMMAND.

  2. (U) YOU ARE HEREBY FROCKED TO THE RANK OF 0-8 REAR ADMIRAL PERMANENT RANK TO FOLLOW PENDING CONGRESSIONAL CONFIRMATION.

  3. (U) CONGRATULATIONS. FAIR WINDS AND FOLLOWING SEAS.

  4. (U) CAPTAIN C.B. MCDONNE, USNR, SENDS. //BT//

  So, Patton thought, the V-44 crew knew.

  "Sir," the pilot called from the cockpit. "Admiral Murphy sent this." He handed back a brown interoffice envelope.

  When Patton opened it, an envelope fell out along with two shoulderboards, both of them gold overlaid with gold braid anchors and two stars. Inside the envelope were two collar emblems—silver double stars—and a note, which read, John, sorry you made flag rank without the party or the photographer or the brass band, but never has our nation been so in need of your talent and especially your courage. I'm deeply honored to have you as my commander of the Unified Submarine Command. And now we have work to do. I will meet you at your new headquarters. Sean Murphy, CNO.

  So that's how it happens, he thought glumly. The goal of a lifetime, the position he'd wanted since he was a midshipman at the Academy, and when it came, he got it by default, by the death of literally everyone who outranked him.

  But if the way he had attained the rank and station of ComUSubCom was depressing, his feelings about it were drowned out by his grief at the disaster at sea yesterday afternoon. The entire brass, all of them gone, including his mentor, Michael Pa-cino, and his rival, Bruce Phillips, his friends, and comrades of the battles of the past five years.

  Patton had been made famous in the Japanese blockade as captain of the submarine USS Tucson when he had counterattacked the Japanese submarine wolfpack that had just torpedoed the USS Lincoln carrier battle group. Two of the enemy subs sank and the third popped to the surface, quiet and inert. Patton's sudden idea to board the surfaced Japanese Destiny nuclear submarine had led to his fame as his officer of the deck filmed him boarding from the periscope camera, his acetylene torch cutting into the hatch, his face a mask of anger as he stepped into the enemy sub with a MAC-11 automatic machine pistol in one hand. That film clip had played worldwide, the Navy's logo practically changing to Patton in his at-sea coveralls with the American flag patches on the sleeves as he forced his way into the Destiny. A photo landed on the cover of Time Newsfile with the title dag-

  GER-IN-THE-TEETH COURAGE: CDR. JOHN PATTON.

  He'd gone from Tucson to the USS Annapolis, one of the newest and most recently modernized 6881 submarines, screening the armada invasion force heading to the coast of White China on the day after Red China jumped across the line in a full-scale war. The Annapolis had taken a near hit from a plasma torpedo, and he should have been consigned to a watery grave with the rest of his crew, but Senior Chief Byron DeMeers had found him and pulled him out of the vessel, and he and DeMeers had floated in a life raft. Again, the press had made him an icon for courage incarnate after he took command of the USS Devilfish and pressed the assault against the Red Chinese subs.

  He had gone on from the victory in the East China Sea to be put in charge of the Navy's NSSN program, the new attack submarine transitioning from the prototype SSNX to the production run of the class, beginning with SSN-780, the USS Virginia.

  And now here he was, on the way to his new headquarters, his first duty to avenge the deaths of his comrades. So be it, he thought.

  The pilot turned around and looked at him snapping on his new shoulderboards.

  "Looks good, Admiral. Looks like you've always worn them." He smiled. "We got you something for the occasion, sir. After the Princess Dragon went down, we were going to use this at our memorial service, but I think it would be better luck if I gave it to you to celebrate your stars."

  He handed back a bottle of Jack Daniel's. Patton stared at it for a moment, the obvious coming to him.

  "Hand me back some cups—paper, plastic, thermos cups, whatever," Patton said. The copilot handed back a stack of conical paper cups from the bulkhead-mounted water cooler, looking at Patton as if he'd gone mad.

  "Drink up, everybody," Patton said, his voice clipped and harsh as he poured four generous measures of the bourbon for the flight crew and himself. "A toast, gentlemen. To our operation to find the bastards who sank Princess Dragon. May they burn in hell for eternity."

  The flight crew took the cups but looked at him sheepishly.

  "Urn, sir, we can't drink this in flight. You know that."

  "Why not?" Patton demanded, an odd confidence blowing into his soul.

  "Well, for starters, Navy Regs."

  "Fuck Navy Regs," Patton said. "Admiral's orders. Bottoms up."

  "Aye aye, sir," the copilot said. "To the sinking of the bastards who sank Princess Dragon."

  "Hear, hear." The copilot and flight engineer tipped their cups, then, shaking his head, the pilot.

  Patton downed the bourbon, balling the cup up and tossing it in the corner, then dropping the bottle next to his briefcase. He leaned against the window and shut his eyes, knowing he needed to sleep, even if it was for just an hour. As he began to feel himself drift off, he thought he heard the pilot say something to the copilot.

  "Can you believe that? Drinking in flight?"

  The copilot answered immediately.

  "You heard the admiral. Fuck the Regs. That's why they call him Blood and Guts Patton. Ballsiest fucking naval officer since Nelson himself walked the earth. I feel sorry for those bastards who plugged the cruise ship. They don't know who the hell they're dealing with. But they will soon."

  "I think you're right," the pilot said. "Washington Center, this is Navy Foxtrot Zero Two at flight level three three zero," he continued, official business returning to the cockpit.

  And John Patton, Rear Admiral, United States Navy, Commander Unified Submarine Command, smiled for the first time in a month as he fell into a deep sleep.

  the loss of the Princess Dragon and the accompanying task force. The flag of the Unified Submarine Command joined the Stars and Stripes at half-mast. The USubCom emblem was a Jolly Roger pirate flag, its skull leering dangerously above crossed bones, the Gothic script above reading "Deep Silent Fast Deadly" and below that "Unified Submarine Command," the flag rumored to have been designed personally by former CNO and past Com-USubCom, Michael Pacino, the man who'd been transferred to Portsmouth Naval Hospital from the deck of the Devilfish yesterday afternoon.

  When the bugle stopped, Petri dropped her salute, wondering if this would be the last time she'd salute the American flag in the uniform of a naval officer. This morning's session was likely to take away her submarine dolphins and her sword for dismally failing at her duty to protect the surface ships from a subsurface threat. Odds were she would walk out of the headquarters building a civilian.

  Finally she arrived at the massive oak door of conference room one on the zero deck of the HQ building. A quick check of her watch showed it to b
e 0807, July 24, almost thirteen minutes late. Her orders had required her to be here before eight so that the new admirals could arrive after her. For some reason, even though she knew her career was already over, her lateness distressed her, making her feel that she lacked competence even in these small details. Last night, after Devilfish had come in and tossed over the fines, the investigation crew from HQ had arrived, demanding computer records

  of the attack, downloading the files from the Cyclops battlecontrol computer, taking her officers into rooms and interviewing them under video cameras as if they were police suspects.

  She had left the ship at one in the morning, arriving home to her empty suburban two-story house. Taped to her front door was a note in Kelly McKee's handwriting, reading, Karen, Please call me as soon as you get home, Kelly, but she was too exhausted and figured that the note had been there for hours and McKee was probably long asleep by now. She had sat watching the news forlornly, the coverage of the Princess Dragon's sinking captured by a news helicopter. Finally she stopped torturing herself and went to sleep, alternately too hot and too cold, the sheets twisting over her sweat-soaked body.

  She knocked three times on the door, and a peeved voice called, "Come." The voice sounded familiar. When she cracked the door open, she began to understand why. Inside the room was a green-felt-covered T-shaped table. Two men rose when she came in. The one on the left was a grizzled older blond-haired admiral she didn't know. A brass name plate in front of his seat read adm. s. murphy cno. The man on the right was the one whose voice was familiar, John Patton. Patton was no longer a commander, or even a four-striper, but now wore the two stars of flag rank, and his brass name plate read rear adm. j. patton comusub-com. Patton had obviously been put into Bruce Phillips' chair.

  The green table's end, covered with a felt table-

  cloth just as legend had it when an officer's sword was to be broken, had a single wood witness chair.

  "Board of Inquiry number two zero one eight tack zero one two is now in session, Admirals Murphy and Patton standing in judgment," the older admiral said as he banged a gavel. His voice was sickly, sounding much more gentle than Patton's had, which, she thought, might be an even worse sign than Patton's harshness.

  "Raise your right hand," Admiral Patton commanded, his voice a hammer blow. He continued, swearing her in. She repeated the oath, her stomach flooding with bile, her mouth tasting like battery acid.

  "Be seated, Commander," Murphy said. "Please state your name and position for the record."

  She took off her cap and unstrapped her sword, keeping it on her lap. She stared at the men and the lens of the video camera between them and said, "Karen Elizabeth Petri, lieutenant commander, United States Navy, acting commanding officer of the SSNX-class submarine USS Devilfish, hull number SSNX-1." She was amazed that her voice was level, with just a trace of a tremor that probably only she could hear.

  All hope vanished as Patton spat out a single question: "What happened out there?"

  Over the next twenty minutes she gave her statement, the words flowing as if she had rehearsed for days, even though she had scarcely devoted an instant's thought to what she'd say at this moment. Her story continued to the point she'd found Pa-

  cino alive, to his medevac and the docking of the Devilfish in port that night.

  When she finished, Murphy ordered them all to stand. "Board of Inquiry is hereby concluded," he said, banging his gavel.

  "Commander," Patton said, "please wait outside for a few minutes."

  Petri put her cap on, strapped on her sword, and saluted the admirals, stepping to the door and shutting it behind her.

  In the passageway there was an uncomfortable wood bench. Petri ignored it, pacing the hallway as the low voices inside the hearing room buzzed. Just get this over with, Petri thought, so I can get started with a new life and put this nightmare behind me.

  "Your recommendation, Admiral?" Murphy asked, leaning back in his chair.

  "There was nothing she could do, sir," Patton said, in his clipped habitual speech pattern. "You saw the display readouts yourself. There was nothing there. The Cyclops didn't detect anything above threshold. Neither did the operators, and they were all at max alertness—the audio tapes showed that— and the OOD and Petri were as on their game as we could ever expect. Sir, she runs the tightest ship I've ever seen, maybe too tight. Her crew love her, they'd walk through fire for her, and she and McKee trained them better than any captain I've ever known. I heard about Petri months ago, and it's all true. We can't trash her, Admiral. Other than Kelly McKee himself, she's the best there is."

  "What about that anomaly by the Bay Bridge-

  Tunnel? The spot on the acoustic daylight record? A possible submarine?"

  "I saw it, sir. Admiral, I've spent hours at the VR consoles of the Cyclops—that was my ship once—and I can tell you, a return like that could come from a rock or a piece of construction debris from the cofferdams the marine construction company left on the bottom. And there were no rotating machinery sounds, barely even a thermal trace. Could it have been a diesel boat hiding in the silt? Maybe. But the task force went down miles and miles away from the bridge. I'm guessing they were hit by mobile mines, which could have been laid days or weeks before and floated, just waiting for the task force. And you saw the Cyclops output at the sinking scene."

  Patton grimaced. The acoustic daylight showed the sinking broken hull of the cruise ship in extreme detail as it plunged to the bottom in three major pieces, the stack sheering off as the hull went deeper and became lost in the bottom.

  "They were alone. There wasn't a soul out there with them. Whatever took down that task force, it wasn't something the Devilfish could have stopped. Petri's clean, sir."

  "I agree." Murphy looked out the window for a moment. "What do you think of the FBI Count-erterrorist Group's theory?"

  "Haven't heard it."

  "I'll send you an e-mail. They suggested a bomb planted by terrorists."

  "Of course. They're the counterterrorist squad. Keeps them in business."

  "The case does seem compelling."

  "No, it doesn't," Patton said. "We sweep the un-derhulls of ships for bombs before they leave. All four of those ships were examined by divers within minutes of their departure, and to get a bomb under a hull while the ship is moving would take a diver-propelled vehicle that Devilfish would have seen."

  "So, maybe the bombs were placed in the bilges or voids in the frames from the inside."

  "Bullshit. The ships were tied up at the Navy base under the highest security. The cruise ship was swept for weapons, also immediately before departure. We need to remember the explosives were plasma. No way a terrorist got on four or five plasma warheads without leaving a wide swath."

  "So what was it? A torpedo attack?"

  "More likely mobile mines. Very tough to detect. They don't move, they linger on the bottom, a ship sails by, and they pop up and stick to the hull."

  "Well, wouldn't that be detected by the Devilfish!"

  "Maybe. Probably. Or maybe not. Hell, sir, I don't know. Obviously nothing showed up on the Cyclops system. But my best guess is still mobile mines."

  "So why didn't Devilfish go down?"

  "Two possible reasons. She's got a sharkskin an-echoic antisonar coating. Nothing sticks to it, not even barnacles. A mobile mine would fall back to the bottom, even an electromagnetic one."

  "True. What's the other reason?"

  "Devilfish would have seen a close mobile mine

  or the launch platform. These mines might even have been set before the SSNX rounded the bend into Thimble Shoals."

  Murphy considered Patton's statement. "Okay. I'll buy it. But will the President?"

  "There's only one man who's ever had her ear. Pacino."

  "I'll talk to her. But meanwhile, what happens now?"

  "If you accept my recommendation, I'm sending Petri and Devilfish back to sea, to the Virginia Capes Op Area to do a full Cyclops scan. I'll
leave her out there in VaCapes for a month if I have to, but I'll wager my dolphins she won't find anything."

  "Are you putting Devilfish to sea with Petri in command, or are you going to talk to McKee about coming back?"

  "I went to his house early this morning, sir, after we left the O-club." They'd parted at the front porch of the officers' club at five in the morning after drinking coffee and getting acquainted for a few hours, discussing their options for the actions they'd need to do in the upcoming days and weeks.

  "You did? What did he say?"

  "He said he's out of the Navy. Said Petri's Devilfish's skipper now, and he'll never go back to sea, not even on a sailboat. He's finished. He all but threw his sword at me when I left."

  "Poor bastard," Murphy said. "Did you read about what happened to him?"

  "Yessir. He looks pretty bad, Admiral, hadn't

  shaved or cut his hair in a month, eyes bloodshot. I think he was half drunk at four in the morning."

  "I'll stop by after I see Patch Pacino," Murphy said.

  "Leave him alone, Admiral. He needs time."

  Murphy nodded, then turned the conversation back to the VaCapes sanitation mission. "Any other assets we've got that can help Devilfish in the VaCapes?"

  "I took a look at that, sir. It comes down to acoustic daylight imaging, and short of the Virginia-class NSSN, the only ship in the fleet with the capability is Devilfish. If we supplement her with the Yo-Yo remote acoustic daylight sensors, she'll be able to cover the entire VaCapes by herself, limited only by her computer processing and the endurance of the crew."

  "What about the Virginia!" Murphy asked. "How close is she to being able to sail?"

  Patton lit up, as if he had been asked to talk about his child. "Her mechanicals are done with the exception of ship-alts on the port torpedo tube banks and a problem with the turbine rotor on the port main engine that's been repaired—so she's got two large hull cuts being sealed up. Her computer's in and tested with the old software, the latest SSNX version from the old Cyclops system aboard the Devilfish, but putting her to sea like that would be like making you wear your son's clothes—they keep you covered but they don't fit. And you'd look funny." Murphy snorted at that. "The Virginia's computer system is supposed to be miles ahead of SSNX's, a revolutionary approach to a three-