Cold Choices

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Cold Choices Page 35

by Larry Bond


  Palmer nodded slowly. “We are ‘landing’ the UUV,” he agreed.

  Shimko said, “We don’t know the speed of the cross-current.”

  Palmer answered that. “Maxine can provide ranges, and we can measure the current from her data.”

  “Then get back down there and get set for another pass. We’ll figure the current’s vector and pass it to you.” Shimko pointed to the screen. Even though the sonar display was dark, the readouts still showed their numbers. “Even if the sonar can survive another hard bounce, we’re running low on juice. The single battery is having trouble meeting all the power demands and we’re depleting it faster than expected. We’re on borrowed time already.”

  “Mr. Palmer,” spoke Rudel, more as a coach than a commanding officer. “I know you can do this. Stay calm and follow your training. Now go.”

  Palmer quickly disappeared, and Rudel went back to the Gertrude to update Petrov and tell him they were getting ready to make yet another attempt. By the time Jerry and Shimko finished the math, Palmer was already pointed toward Severodvinsk. “It’s just a small correction,” Shimko explained over the handset. “Add two degrees of azimuth to the left at three and a half knots.”

  Johnson acknowledged for Palmer, and Jerry added, “It will look like you’re off to the left, but it keeps Patty aligned with the tube. You’ll know the angle’s right if the bearing to the tubes doesn’t change.”

  The chief acknowledged for Palmer again, and Jerry hung up the handset. “This all assumes Jeff’s hand is steady,” Shimko remarked softly. He was silent for moment, then asked, “Shouldn’t you be down there? This is your idea.”

  Jerry wasn’t sure whether the XO meant the crabbed approach or the UUV transfer itself. He wanted to be close to the action, and he wanted to provide moral support. But the skipper told Jeff Palmer that he could do this. Showing up at a critical moment might say the opposite and distract him.

  “Jeff’s on top of this, XO. He knows what to do. He’ll make it this time.”

  “Lives are at stake.” The XO’s eyes were fixed on the display, and Jerry realized how wrong it must look to him. But to Jerry’s aviator’s eyes, imagining himself landing a jet, Palmer was right in the groove.

  Jerry didn’t say anything more, but watched the bearing and bearing rate numbers on the display. They held almost rock steady, and Jerry saw the approach from Maxine’s point of view; the UUV was just a few yards away from the Russian’s hull.

  The image flashed bright yellow again, and Jerry tried to guess when Jeff would straighten out his approach. In an aircraft, the friction of the wheels on the runway helped straighten out a plane. The temptation was to do it too early, or overcontrol and make too large a correction. And then there was the time delay. Don’t do it too late . . .

  Jerry thought Palmer had waited too long, then he saw the image shift and realized Palmer must have sent the signal a few moments ago. The tube opening moved toward the center of the screen and suddenly a bright, sustained flash of yellow filled the display. Then it went dark.

  “Control, torpedo room. I’m revving the motor,” Palmer nearly shouted over the intercom. “Full rpm!”

  “Seawolf, this is Petrov. We can hear something in the tube! There is the whine of a motor.”

  Rudel answered. “Severodvinsk, we think it’s in.”

  “Control, torpedo room.” Palmer’s excited voice blared over the loudspeaker. “Executing command shut down!”

  A long moment passed as the sound traveled to Severodvinsk and Petrov’s reply came back. “Seawolf, the whining has stopped. We are closing the outer door.”

  “Control, torpedo room. I’ve lost all contact with Patty.” Palmer’s hopeful tone contrasted with what would normally be very bad news. Moments later, he was in control, waiting for word from the Russians.

  Once the outer door was closed, the water would have to be removed from the tube. Normally it would be blown down with air, but with most of the high-pressure air already spent, the Russians could afford to use only the slightest burst to get the tube to start draining into the water round the torpedo tank. If Patty was filling most of the tube, there wouldn’t be much seawater to drain. Then the inner door would have to be opened. Again, that normally used hydraulics. But it could be done manually, by cold, exhausted men breathing poor air. Finally, the vehicle would have to be pulled from the tube on a boat with a significant list, and it weighed nearly twenty-eight hundred pounds.

  Jerry had been torpedo officer on Memphis. He knew how he would have done it on that boat, or even Seawolf. How did the Russian mechanisms differ? Whatever the difference, he was going to have to wait a few minutes to find out if they were successful. Considering how long the Russians had waited, he couldn’t complain.

  Severodvinsk

  * * *

  Petrov leaned heavily against the bulkhead, the microphone in his hand temporarily forgotten in relief and sudden fatigue. They’d done it, he told himself. The Americans had just saved their lives. He hoped.

  Rodionov’s excited voice came over the intercom. “Request permission to open the breech door.”

  “Granted,” Petrov replied.

  “Door’s open and the vehicle is inside the tube. My men are rigging a block and tackle. Without power and with this pitch and list, we’ll be hauling the damn thing uphill, the wrong way out.”

  “Understood. I’ll have the Starpom send down more men to help with the work.” With all of them tired and cold, hauling out the heavy vehicle would be exhausting work.

  Kalinin overheard the conversation, and barked orders, sending a half-dozen uninjured men to the starboard torpedo bay. They almost hurried, and he saw several smiling. It was understandable, Petrov realized. There was now a chance they would not die.

  He remembered the microphone, and knew Rudel was still waiting for word from him. There was nothing to say until he got word from the torpedo officer. If Rodionov and his people couldn’t get that thing out of the tube, they were still dead men. But the American had done his part. Petrov owed him an update. He picked up the microphone and reported, “Seawolf, this is Petrov. We have the vehicle. My men are working to remove it from the torpedo tube. This will take a few minutes.”

  Rudel’s voice answered. “Seawolf is standing by.”

  Petrov stood by as well, for about twenty seconds. He’d planned to wait for word from Rodionov. There was nothing he could contribute, and he didn’t want to jiggle Rodionov’s elbow, but he had to see.

  It seemed like more than half a dozen men had arrived to help the torpedomen retrieve the American device, but they made a passage for Petrov as soon as he entered. The senior torpedo michman was organizing the detail around a block and tackle while another examined the front of the American device.

  There was no clearance between the American remote and the sides of the tube. It had never been designed to be hauled out nose-first. The smooth, flat nose was slightly rounded near the edges, but there were no attachment points or access panels. They hadn’t expected any.

  The michman looked at Rodionov, then Petrov, and shrugged. Petrov nodded wordlessy, then added, “Go ahead.”

  Using a wrench, the torpedoman tapped different parts of the nose. “There’s a sonar transducer here, but the metal below it might be part of the frame.” He picked up a drill and made several exploratory holes. Two seemed to mark a bar that supported the transducer. The michman widened the holes, then tapped them for a pair of lifting eyes.

  Petrov watched the surgery with mixed feelings. It offended him to have to ruin this expensive device, but it would keep his men alive. For all their complexity and cost, all machines—his submarine, the American remote—served men’s purposes.

  Rodionov had them pull gently at first, but it moved smoothly, and they took a strain, pulling uphill against the port list and bow-down pitch. With only a few more pulls it was almost halfway out.

  Now a loading tray was jury-rigged under it, manually, and by the time that
was done, some of the men were clearly winded and had to be replaced. Eager volunteers stepped in and picked up the lines, but when they pulled, it only moved a few inches.

  They shrugged, then tried again. It would not move. At Rodionov’s direction, they pushed it back, then pulled again. It stuck at the same place.

  There was no way to see where the thing was stuck. Ten feet of the vehicle was hidden, and the clearance was too narrow for flashlights to reveal the obstruction.

  The inside of the tube was not completely smooth. Low rails held and guided a weapon, ports let water and air in or helped them escape. Others locked a weapon in place in case of sudden maneuvers by the boat . . .

  “Rotate the thing,” Petrov ordered. “The obstruction is probably small, and the only things it can catch on are a centimeter across. Turn it and it might not get hung up.”

  Rodionov nodded and they paid out the lines slightly, letting it fall back into the tube a few inches. Then, with three or four men on a side, they embraced the vehicle, twenty-one inches in diameter, and tried to roll it in place. It weighed hundreds of kilograms. It was wet, and cold, and didn’t want to turn.

  “Try the other way,” Rodionov ordered, and the exhausted men shifted their stance. Coughing, trying to find strength in the stale air, they gripped and pulled. This time it moved, a little, and Rodionov urged them on until they’d turned the vehicle almost ninety degrees.

  Rodionov stopped them, and exhausted, they dropped to their knees. Panting, gasping, they waited while the other team took a strain on the line and began pulling.

  It moved, and they all cheered when it came out farther, almost three-quarters of the way. Then it stopped, hung up on another protrusion. “Switch the groups,” Petrov ordered, and the pullers changed places with the turners. Now they knew what was needed, and moved the vehicle back a fraction and began twisting it in the tube.

  They repeated the process twice more before the American vehicle finally slid clear. More men had to be brought down to help with the work, and others had to take over the job of actually opening the thing up. What had started with just the torpedo crew turned into an all-hands evolution.

  Rudel had told them how to quickly open the vehicle, and the men set to work. Petrov watched them, more than aware of the irony. He’d done his best to take this thing away from the Americans. Its later recovery would have been a minor win for the Russian Navy and personal triumph for his new command.

  Now, at great effort, the Americans had deliberately given him one of the remotes, and it would mean a different kind of victory. It wasn’t lost on him, either, that the vehicle had no tether. He could have done loops around the damn thing for a week, and it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference.

  His mistake, his false assumption, had been a factor in this tragedy—possibly the primary factor. Every commanding officer has to live with the consequences of his mistakes. What grieved Petrov was that others were paying for them as well.

  The side panel opened, and like everyone else, Petrov crowded in to see. Unlike everyone else, the men gave him plenty of room. Rodionov turned as the captain approached. “It’s all here, sir. The air chemicals, medicines, even some food.” He held up a candy bar with a bite missing. The captain-lieutenant’s grin was infectious, and Petrov could hear the men talking excitedly, almost shouting. It was time to get organized.

  Petrov’s voice cut through the hubbub. “All right, the vehicle has been recovered. Anyone who is not part of the torpedo crew, return to your posts.” He pointed to one of the michman. “You. Collect all the medicine and all the food. Turn it over to Dr. Balanov.” He took in the entire group with a stern look. “We’re going to give the food to the injured first.”

  There were several audible sighs as candy bars and other items were turned over. Petrov told the michman, “Pick men for a detail.”

  Fonarin, in charge of life support, was already present to take charge of the air chemicals. With great curiosity, he examined the six-foot-by-three-foot plastic curtains littered with small pockets. He then picked up a can of lithium hydroxide granules and started to understand. Beneath the first curtain, he found an envelope with the Russian word “Instructions.”

  “How considerate of them,” Fonarin remarked gratefully. “They’ve even provided instructions on their equipment in Russian. I will get these curtains distributed and hung immediately, sir.”

  “Excellent, Igor.”

  “Captain,” spoke the torpedomen michman. “This says it is for you.” He came over to Petrov with a plastic-wrapped package. Lettering on the front in Cyrillic and English said it was intended for the Captain of Severodvinsk.

  That made him think of Rudel, and he turned to the intercom. “Central post, this is Petrov. Pass to Seawolf, ‘Thank you. We have the supplies.’ ”

  The reply came back a minute later. “Captain, your message was passed. We heard cheering over their microphone.” Petrov felt almost like cheering himself as he cracked the seal. They had more time for the fleet to arrive, food, badly needed medicine, and now what had to be information. Curiosity filled him.

  Then he saw the first photo. Although in false colors, the image showed his wonderful Severodvinsk, listing on the seabed, bow and aft sections scarred. Grief and anger brought tears to his eyes, and he quickly shoved the picture back into the envelope. He hurried out of the compartment, barely noticing the men that quickly jumped out of his way.

  His cabin was in the first compartment, flooded and inaccessible. He wanted to examine the contents of the package alone, but that was impossible. Instead, he stood in the tilted passageway, out of the way of the men already bringing up vital supplies, and gathered himself.

  In the central post, he called over Kalinin, Lyachin, and the other battle department commanders. They would share the first viewing with him. Several of the officers almost wept when he passed around the first image. The next was a detailed photo of the ragged bow, then worse, the bladeless stub of the propeller shaft. Those three images signed Severodvinsk’s death certificate.

  “Oh my God,” rasped Kalinin as he picked up the next photo. Everyone present either gasped or groaned. The picture showed Severodvinsk’s V-600 emergency buoy lying on the ocean floor, a huge puncture in its tiny metal hull. It had never made it to the surface.

  “No wonder we haven’t heard from the fleet,” Lyachin stated in awe. “They had no idea where to look!”

  “Our debt to this Rudel fellow continues to grow,” responded Kalinin. There was no disagreement from those present.

  After that came a detailed bow-to-stern series of photographs, both port and starboard, and annotated maps of the area, large and small-scale. One was marked with the location of debris from Severodvinsk and Seawolf, torn or broken off during the collision. Petrov was impressed with both the Americans’ thoroughness and the capabilities of their underwater vehicles. But it was a lot to take in. It was almost an hour later when he finally gave the package to Kalinin.

  He tried to focus on the basics. Some of his crew had been lost, but the rest were alive, and thanks to the Americans, he didn’t have to pretend they had a chance of survival. But it was time to accept the bitter fact that Severodvinsk was lost. Horribly crippled, in deep water, she would never leave this place. A great sadness came upon him. He didn’t think it would ever go away.

  19

  HEAVY TRAFFIC

  8 October 2008

  1300/1:00 PM

  USS Winston S. Churchill

  * * *

  Patterson found Captain Baker on the bridge. “I just got a message from SUBGRU Two. They did it.” Patterson handed him the hard copy.

  Baker smiled as he read the news. “Three days’ worth of breathable air, medical supplies—Rudel’s done it.” Churchill’s captain sounded like a proud sibling. “The Russians ought to give him a medal for this.”

  “I don’t know about the Russians, but we might,” Patterson agreed. “It gives them time.”

  “Not much
,” Baker countered. “If the Russian ships arrive on scene tomorrow morning, they’ve got forty-eight hours to come up with and execute a rescue plan.”

  “I asked them for their ETA,” Patterson said.

  Baker was surprised. “The Russians?”

  She nodded. “Through the State Department. I thought it was time to say hello, especially since we’re supposed to be supporting the on-scene search-and-rescue commander.” She shrugged. “Actually, I’ve been trying since we came on board. State says they’re passing the requests on to the Russian embassy, as well as our ambassador in Moscow, but so far there’s been no response.”

  “We can try ship-to-ship when they get closer,” Baker suggested. “They haven’t come up on the search-and-rescue radio net. There’s a UN agency called the International Maritime Organization. They have established procedures and radio frequencies everyone’s supposed to use for rescue coordination, but so far Churchill is the only ship using them.” Baker shrugged. “Of course Seawolf can’t, but the Russians should be all over the net.”

  Patterson frowned. “Please be careful about communicating with the Russians by radio. As long as it’s coordination, ship movements and such, that’s fine. Anything else is supposed to go through the State Department.”

  “Don’t you have a State Department rep on board?”

  “Yes, but State wants all our communications to go through the Washington-based staff.”

  “Which sounds very clumsy and slow.”

  “You’re right. It is,” conceded Patterson.

  Baker walked over to the chart table. Both Churchill’s projected course and their best guess at the Russians’ path converged on the collision site. “I’ve scheduled a helicopter launch for 0715 hours tomorrow morning.” He saw her expression and the unasked question. He reassured her, “It is the earliest possible minute we can launch. Lieutenant Ross is a good pilot, but he’s never done a personnel transfer with a submarine before and I want him doing this in daylight. The helicopter will also be carrying a lot of cargo, and we’ll be bringing back several of Seawolf’s injured, which means Doc Spiegel has to ride as well.”

 

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