The Passage

by David Poyer

Only this jail was 278 feet long and very training-conscious. The crew had made him qualify on everything from emergency airbreathing masks to submersible pumps, not to mention the goddamn toilets.

  He clenched his fists suddenly, checking his watch for the hundredth time since the divers had locked out. Christ, he thought. Let’s get the fucking pod aboard and get out of here.

  The pod was a tap, just like the one he’d put on the embassy phones years ago. Two months back, Threadfin had attached it to the undersea telecommunications cable linking the Kamchatka Peninsula to Moscow. This cable carried all the traffic between the command, administrative, and technical authorities in Moscow and the Pacific Coast submarine and missile bases. The Sovs knew that NSA monitored all their radio communications. So they used land lines for the stuff they didn’t want intercepted. They buried them deep, put armed guards on them, one every mile, and bingo: They were secure from tapping.

  So secure, in fact, that most of what went over the cable wasn’t even coded.

  The kicker, though, was that for 120 miles, the cable ran underwater.

  The civilian grinned, then stopped, looking at the thick curved ribs of the overhead. He shivered, feeling suddenly cold, and looked anxiously, for the hundred and first time, at his watch.

  THE number two diver grunted as his spade hit something hard. He reversed the trenching tool and probed. The buddy line fouled the handle and he had to stop to untangle it, by feel in the dark, his hands numb now, freezing cold. Goddamn it … . Goddamn this silt … . He dropped the tool and dug with his hands, furiously, like a crazed beaver. Then reached for the Ping-Pong paddle jammed under his weight belt.

  The pod emerged from the silt under their lights, the muck melting in slow-mo as the divers fanned it away. It was three feet long, black, and shaped like one of those oval pieces of foam that are supposed to keep your keys from sinking if they fall overboard. Down its center ran a groove about eight inches wide.

  In this groove, free to lift out of it without hindrance or binding if it was hoisted from the surface, ran the cable. It was black, too, new-looking and smooth. There were no barnacles or coral. Not this deep, this cold.

  The number two diver knelt. Like an acolyte performing a sacred rite, he hesitated, then worked his gloves under the cable.

  The lead diver was ready with his tool. Levering the handle under the cable, he pried its deadweight out of the groove. The pod remained, still half-buried. The ooze had crept back a little, almost like a live thing, though it was the essence of lifelessness—of death, black and cold, every trace of sun energy sucked out, till the empty atoms were useless to even the humblest life.

  Suddenly, he lifted his head. He snapped his light off, and the other diver, startled, did, too. For a long minute, they stared into the mighty dark.

  Did I imagine it? thought the number one diver. I didn’t hear anything. But I thought I felt something. Something … watching us?

  Finally, he decided he was getting spooked. There was nothing else down here. His light clicked back into life, fainter now as the cold leached chemical activity from the batteries. Got to hurry, he thought, and anxiety made his hands clumsy as he inserted the butt of the tool into a slot, turned it, and caught the puck-shaped module as it came free. The number two slapped a new one into place. The lead diver replaced the sealing cap, turned it twice, and bore down till it clicked.

  Done. The spades clanked and scraped as they dug silt back over the pod. Gloved hands passed over it, smoothing the cold, furrowed bottom. The lead diver caught the number two’s eyes. He nodded and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  “MANEUVERING reports divers locked back aboard, sir,” said the chief of the watch, letting go of the switch on the muted intercom. “Pumping the trunk down now.”

  The captain straightened instantly from his too-careless slouch against the ballast-control panel. He crossed the control room with four long strides, slid down the port ladder, turned in a two-foot landing at the bottom, went down another ladder, turned, and headed forward. Crewmen flattened themselves against the sides of the passageway as he slid by, turning, too, so their chests brushed lightly as they passed. Grabbing a handhold above a massive door, he levered through and ducked under a hoist arm just as a torpedoman swung back a heavy machined-brass inner door. A little seawater ran out, dark with suspended silt. At the far end of the empty torpedo tube, circles of reflected light cupped a black object. The torpedoman reached for a battered pool bridge someone had racked on glue-on plastic brackets above the tube face. Its worn handle read: SONNY D’S, IMPERIAL BEACH. He slid it into the tube, then followed it, crawling in till only his feet stuck out into the torpedo room.

  When he wriggled back out, pulling out the pool bridge, the module came with it. The civilian pushed past the captain, saying, “Excuse me, gentlemen.” He wiped the black disc with a bandanna from his back pocket and laid it on the head of a torpedo. An electric screwdriver whirred, and the cover came off with a pop.

  They stared down at an empty reel and a small, complex tape drive and recording head mechanism. Under it was a second reel. The second reel was full of two-inch-wide magnetic data-storage tape.

  “It’s good?” said the captain.

  “It’s all here.” The civilian closed his eyes. “It worked. The son of a bitch worked.”

  The captain grabbed a pair of phones hanging near the tube. He clicked the circuit selector. “Woody? Skipper here. Let’s get the fuck out of Dodge.”

  BACK in the control room, the chief watched a gauge column drop as pumps drove water from the fore and aft trim tanks, replacing it with air. The bubble of the fore-and-aft clinometer tumbled slowly forward as the bow lifted. The helmsman eased his aircraftstyle wheel back into his lap, and the lee helm rang up ahead two-thirds. Two hundred feet aft, one of the enginemen released a locking gear; with a faint hiss and sigh, the shining shaft began to rotate. The prop eased into motion again, slowly, slowly.

  Threadfin began to move. Her rudder swung ponderously on its pintles, and she curved left, continuing her swing till the blunt bullet of her bow pointed south by southwest, back toward international waters, over a thousand miles away.

  Within her hull, the word ran from mouth to mouth: The mission was over; they were headed home. In the sonar room, two enlisted men were talking about the surfing on Oahu when one caught sight of the screen.

  “Conn, Sonar: new DIMUS trace, Sierra four-eight bearing two-seven-zero. Sierra four-eight classified warship, making two hundred turns on two fours.”

  The OOD frowned. Two screws with four blades each meant a Soviet destroyer. He called the torpedo room. When the commanding officer got to the control room, Sonar was reporting another contact, this time from dead ahead.

  The captain stood by the periscope stand, rubbing his chin as he did relative-motion solutions in his head. “Left fifteen degrees rudder,” he said.

  “Captain has the conn.”

  “Steady one-zero-zero. Slow to fifteen turns. Rig ship for ultraquiet.”

  “Conn, Sonar: gain Sierra five-zero, bearing zero-nine-five. Sierra five-zero is a warship.”

  “Shee-it,” whispered the captain.

  “Conn, Sonar: Sierra four-eight and four-nine are active on eight kilohertz.”

  “They’re warships all right.”

  “I knew that,” said the captain. “What I want to know is, why are they pinging?” He crossed to the intercom, but before he touched it, it spoke. “Conn, Sonar: suppressed cavitation in the baffles.”

  The captain’s nostrils widened and his face went tense. Suppressed cavitation meant another submarine. “Bearing?” he asked quietly.

  “Can’t get an exact bearing, sir. Too much background noise. Somewhere on the port quarter.”

  He took a deep breath. “Okay, man battle stations. Make tubes one through four fully ready with the exception of opening the outer doors.”

  For twenty minutes, they twisted and turned in a narrowing circle. Sonar reporte
d more active sonars, then helicopter flybys and sonobuoy drops. Sweating, the skipper ordered turn after turn, changed depth and speed, tried to keep his bow to whichever pursuer seemed closest. The beat of the screws, the pings hemmed them in closer and closer. At one point, something hissed along the side of the hull, making the deck sway beneath their feet. “Submarine screw noise, close aboard,” reported Sonar. “Opening now, bearing one-one-five.”

  The diving officer muttered, “The son of a bitch almost hit us.”

  “They’ve got us boxed, sir.”

  The captain looked around. It was the boat’s exec, a stocky lieutenant commander from Gibson, Louisiana. “It’s a box,” he said again. “They’re trying to force us to surface.”

  The skipper thought this over. “Get the spook up here,” he said.

  “I’m here.”

  The civilian’s head appeared at the top of the ladder. The captain beckoned him to where he stood by the scope.

  “They’re trying to force us to surface,” he said.

  The man in chinos went white. He shook his head slowly. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”

  “It’s not a decision I’d want to make. But the op order’s clear about who’s in command.”

  “I didn’t mean to say you couldn’t. But this program’s too important to compromise.”

  “It’s compromised already. They obviously know we’re here.”

  “They don’t know what we’re doing. What we did.”

  “It’s that important?”

  “It’s that important. Yeah.”

  “I think I understand what you’re saying,” said the captain. “But do you understand what I’m saying? Let’s make real sure. Tell me what you think I’m saying.”

  “You’re asking me if it’s all right for you to surface, to give up.”

  “No. I’m saying I may have to shoot my way out of this one.” The civilian licked his lips; his eyes darted around the control room.

  “Captain, here’s an opening,” said the OOD.

  The captain swung instantly back to the plot. The exec put his finger silently between the green and the blue traces.

  “Seems to be a gap developing between four-eight and four-nine. Back to the northeast.”

  “We’re not going to get out of this jam going northeast, Paulie.”

  “No, but an end run—if we can shake them—”

  “You’re right; it’s worth a try. Let’s go for it. Shit a decoy. Soon as you hear it trigger, kick her up to flank and we’ll try to drive between them.”

  The Permit class were the fastest U.S. submarines ever to go to sea. As the reactor coolant pumps went to full power, Threadfin began accelerating with incredible smoothness, smoother than a train on welded rails, but so rapidly that the planesman felt himself pressed back into his seat. The glowing numerals of the rpm indicators flickered upward. A faint vibration grew over their heads, a fluttering roar like wind tearing by at great speed. It was the sound of 15,000 horsepower converting itself second by second into velocity.

  As they passed twenty knots, Sonar reported losing all contacts due to self-noise. The acceleration continued. The captain leaned on the plotting table, looking down at the moving spot of light and the penciled tracks that hemmed it in. The paper was blistered. He wondered why, then saw another drop of sweat hit it.

  “Answering ahead flank, sir, thirty-five knots.”

  “Very well. We’ll run for fifteen minutes at high speed, then cut the go juice and slew right, coast out to listen.”

  Seconds ticked by. The diving officer and the exec and the plotting team members stood around the table, watching the lighted rosette creep across the paper. After five minutes, the captain said, “You know, a few more minutes here and we just might make it out of this catfight with our shorts intact.”

  “We’re making a hell of a racket.”

  “I know that. The question is, now they know we’re not going to surface, if they’re willing to—”

  The sonarman’s voice crackled through the room. “Water impact! Multiple water impacts, three-sixty degrees, all around us!”

  Every man in the compartment strained his ears, listening for the whine that meant an incoming torpedo. But complete silence succeeded the warning.

  “Hard left rudder!” shouted the captain suddenly. “Now!”

  But the helmsman never had time to acknowledge the command.

  THE first salvo of RBU-25 rocket-thrown depth charges fell in a four-hundred-yard diameter circle imperfectly centered on Threadfin. Sinking through the sea, set to explode on impact, the closest one passed her madly milling screw fifty yards astern. The second salvo fell two hundred yards ahead of the first.

  The first hit landed on the sonar dome. The molten jet of its shaped charge penetrated the inch-thick fiberglass. The seawater inside changed instantly to steam and exploded. The ruptured dome caught the high-speed laminar flow along the hull and peeled outward like a tulip blown apart by a jet of compressed air. The curved shards clattered and banged along the length of the speeding submarine.

  The second hit detonated on the port stern plane, blowing half of it off the boat and bending the rest downward. A fifteen-foot chunk of steel spun aft into the prop, which was still driving at full speed.

  The crew heard both explosions as muffled thuds, less than a third of a second apart. Then they felt themselves grow light as the boat nosed over, still at thirty-five knots, and headed for the bottom, two hundred feet down.

  The third shaped charge punched through the pressure hull just aft of the sail. The two divers, still locked helplessly inside the escape trunk, heard it as a deafening slam, followed by the roar of pressurized water blasting into the engine room.

  The men forward of the engine room transverse bulkhead heard it, too. They knew what it meant when the overhead lights went out and failure alarms flashed from every indicator. In the two or three seconds before they plowed into the bottom, some of them wondered what the Soviets would do with their bodies. Others wondered what would become of their souls. The comm officer, in the radio/crypto room, spent the last seconds of his life pulling the red toggles that would detonate the destruction charges.

  The captain and the OOD, crouched in the hammering, slanting din, stared at each other in the weird red glow of emergency lighting. The younger man said, “Did we screw up, sir?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What I want to know is, how the fuck did they know? We were quiet! How did they know we were here?”

  “I don’t know, Woody,” said the captain. Turning to the rest of the men in the control room, he said the only thing he could think of to say. “Thanks for everything, guys. You all did a super job.”

  I

  THE COMMISSION

  1

  Pascagoula, Mississippi

  THE gull gray hull towered up suddenly a mile from the sea, its main deck rising two stories above the sluggish eddies of the East Pascagoula. The squared-off, high-volume superstructure went up another fifty feet, topped by two rectangular stacks with screened intakes and cooling baffles. An echelon of pelicans slanted past the forward mast tip, 140 feet above the river.

  It looked like a warship, but it wasn’t—not yet.

  Alone on the bridge, a thin, bearded man with gray eyes glanced at his watch, then at a walkie-talkie. He wore service dress whites, with choker collar, sword, and gloves.

  Propping a shoe on a cable run, Lieutenant Daniel V. Lenson, U.S. Navy, looked down at the paved area inboard of the quay.

  Half an hour to go, and the bunting-draped grandstands were filling. Above them, the flags of the United States, the U. S. Navy, the state of Mississippi, and Ingalls Shipbuilding stirred in a warm wind. On a raised dais, a technician chanted, “Testing, testing.” Below her, men in work clothes pushed brooms past TV vans, sending welding grit and paint chips sifting down into the muddy water.

  Aft of the stands, the white-hatted mass of USS Barrett’s prospective
crew was shuffling itself into order like a pack of new cards. Dan didn’t envy them, broiling down there on the asphalt. It would be a long ceremony. Politicians and flag officers loved commissionings. No better way to get your name in the papers.

  He stretched, rubbing his shoulder, and glanced at the radio again. Then he strolled forward and looked down at the ship.

  Barrett was at attention for her first day in the Navy, launchers and guns aligned fore and aft, brightwork polished to a jeweler’s glitter. Every flag she owned, a two-hundred-yard display of fluttering color, stretched from the bullnose aloft to the masts, then aft to the stern.

  With a teeth-rattling crash, the band swung into Sousa, selections from El Capitan. Dan picked up a set of binoculars and undogged the starboard door. The thud … thud … thud of the drums echoed back seconds later from across the river, out of joint, out of step, as if two bands were playing, one real and true and the other false, counterfeit, always somehow lacking or lagging behind.

  As he stepped out on the river side, the wind snatched his hat off. He lunged and caught it at the deck edge, just before the long drop to oily water, where anhingas bobbed like dirty bath toys. He jammed the cap viciously onto sandy brown hair, set the glasses to his eyes, and searched up and down the channel.

  The shipyard surrounded him, lining both sides of the torpid estuary with an industrial ghetto of docks and plate yards and construction sheds. On the east bank, steel towers rose like rusty castles: jack-up rigs being built for offshore drilling. They’d delivered one last week. Without much ceremony, Dan thought. Just flood the dock and off it went downriver behind a tug.

  The Navy did things differently.

  The channel was clear except for a barge anchored upriver, where the Pascagoula moseyed east before wheeling south, oozing past the yard and surrendering to the Gulf of Mexico. He swung the round magnified field of the glasses past welding generators, stacks of steel plate, coils of cable, and mobile test equipment and steadied on Port Road.