Kilo Class (1998)

by Patrick Robinson

  “Yessir.”

  “Now as far as we are concerned, the clock started on the day they began sea trials off Murmansk, in May. We’ve watched them ever since, going out every Monday morning and returning every Friday night. As far as we can tell, their safety trials concluded without a major hitch. Those subs ain’t going to sink without us.

  “We watched them complete their torpedo trials. They fired quite enough to make sure their guys knew their stuff, much as we expected. They were very thorough.”

  Admiral Dixon’s voice softened, and he said, quietly, “Boomer, they must know we’re coming for them. There is no way Admiral Rankov has not blown a very loud whistle. The whole Russian Navy has got to be on full alert…there are more guards around those two Kilos than we’ve ever seen before.”

  Arnold Morgan, who had been sitting thoughtfully, suddenly added, “The loss of K-9 and K-10 would represent a financial catastrophe for Moscow. Never forget that. The Chinese would demand all of their money back, every nickel they have paid out. And with justification. If they didn’t get it, they’d bag the order for the aircraft carrier. That’s a five-billion-dollar problem for the Kremlin…I am only mentioning this to highlight the level of sensitivity this entire operation will engender.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Boomer.

  “You’re most welcome, Commander,” added the NSA, grinning. “You want me to come with you…make sure it gets done right?”

  Boomer shuddered at the thought but sensibly kept quiet, and all three men laughed. It was Admiral Dixon who spoke next. “Boomer, I’d like to send another boat with you, but all of my instincts are saying no, except as a backup, perhaps. You get two of your own in the same patch, where the quickest on the draw wins, you’re liable to end up killing your friends.”

  And a sudden silence enveloped the room as each of these vastly experienced US Navy Commanders contemplated the truth—Boomer Dunning would shoulder his huge burden all alone. Except that in a sense, Admiral Dixon and Admiral Morgan, linked by the miracle of the satellites, would go with him.

  “When do you estimate they will leave Pol’arnyj?” asked Boomer.

  “We’ve got it as the third week in August.”

  “So my August seventh departure stands?”

  “Correct. You’ll head straight up to the Faeroes, as before, and wait on station there until we see the Kilos move.”

  “What if they don’t?”

  “You’ll hang around for six weeks and then we’ll send another submarine up to relieve you in early October. I won’t start briefing another boat until the last possible moment, because we want this kept as tight as possible. For obvious reasons. Right now you can count the people who know about it on the fingers of two hands, which is one too many, right?”

  “Right,” said Boomer. “Presumably the procedures up in the GIUK Gap will be as before?”

  “Absolutely. If there’s no escort. You’ll be briefed every step of the way, and I expect you to pick the two submarines up when they snorkel, as before, IF they’re alone.”

  “What happens if there is an escort?”

  “We’ll have to leave that to you,” said Admiral Morgan. “But don’t, for Christ’s sake, risk hitting a surface ship…not even in self-defense. And if you can’t get in close, just keep tracking them until the escort starts to peel off, or until some other opportunity presents itself. There should be one sometime, somewhere…maybe far down the Atlantic, maybe even in the southern Indian Ocean—that’s when you’ll strike, in deep water. Remember the rules of this ball game—hit ’em low, and hit ’em hard. No mistakes. Like always. You have our complete confidence.”

  “Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.”

  Just then the door opened and the rangy figure of Admiral Joe Mulligan was escorted into the room by two Navy guards. Boomer stood to pour him some coffee.

  “No, no, Boomer. I’ll get it…you’re our guest of honor today,” he said, smiling. Which was precisely the moment when the submarine commander from Cape Cod knew exactly how thunderously dangerous this next mission was going to be.

  The Admiral sat down and helped himself to the cookies, which had been placed strategically to his right. And he looked very preoccupied as he munched. “I expect you have been pretty well briefed already,” he told Boomer. “Same basic program as before. We’ll track ’em, up around the GIUK. And you’ll get rid of them at the earliest opportunity.”

  But he paused, and then said, “Gentlemen, this operation, as you are each aware, could scarcely be more unlike K-4 and K-5. Because right here we have one major difference. The Kilos will not only be on their guard, they will be looking for you, as you will be looking for them. And if they find you first—one heavily armed US nuclear boat too close for comfort—they will not hesitate to open fire on you, on the basis that they’re already five to zero down in this particular contest.”

  All four of the men were silent for a few moments.

  Then Admiral Mulligan added, “It’s quite a long time since any American CNO sent any warship into such clear and obvious danger…and I do so with great reluctance. But for the enormous importance of this project to this nation, and indeed to the world’s freedom of sea trade, I would not—could not—be persuaded to ask any single commander to take on such an onerous task.

  “Boomer, I know what the United States Navy means to you, and I believe that if you felt this could not be done, you would tell us so, and we would certainly return to the drawing board. But you have never said anything to that effect, so I presume I am correct in assuming you believe the mission is possible?”

  “Yessir. I do believe that…I would also like to say that since I was about ten years old, my main ambition in this life was to become a United States Navy Captain. It’s an ambition I still have and hope one day to attain. Getting killed at the hands of some half-assed Chinaman does not figure in my immediate itinerary.”

  All three Admirals laughed. But it was Joe Mulligan, the former Trident Captain, who stood up and walked over to the commanding officer of USS Columbia and without a word shook him by the hand.

  “It’s a pain in the ass,” said Arnold Morgan. “But you cannot let those sneaky pricks get the first shot in. Then we’ll be in the same spot they’ve already been in. Loss of a serious warship, her crew and commanding officer…and unable to admit anything to anyone.”

  “I understand that fully, sir,” replied Boomer. “But they’re not gonna get the first shot in. We are, for one simple reason—we’ll know where they are, and where they’re going. And we’ll be lying in wait. They may think we’re out there somewhere…but they won’t know where. And as long as I’m in command, that’s something they’ll never know—not till it’s too late.”

  “That’s exactly the way to look at it, Boomer,” said Admiral Mulligan. “You have a superior ship, a superior crew, superior weapons, superior reconnaissance, and superior speed. You also have our complete confidence. Anything you need, just shout.”

  “Yessir.”

  “But for Christ’s sake don’t hit a Russian warship, especially if it’s on the surface. Because that would start World War III. And we cannot do that. We just have to take out the two Kilos. Is that too much to ask?” He smiled.

  “I very much hope not, sir,” said Boomer, who was beginning to appreciate how difficult his task would be under such stringent injunctions from these highly placed people.

  At this point the CNO and Admiral Morgan took their leave, heading out to the helicopters that would return them to Washington. Boomer and Admiral Dixon remained in conference for the rest of the afternoon, poring over the details of the plan that would rid the USA of the menace of the Russian Kilos. They dined together that evening, and the following morning Boomer and the entire Black Ops team went over the communications system one more time. Right after lunch, he took off for New London.

  Boomer arrived in the late afternoon, went to his office, and called Jo at the Cape. He told her that everything w
as fine, that his mission was very routine, and that she should not worry. He expected to be back in four or five weeks, and would be taking leave right through Christmas, which would give them the best Christmas together they had ever had, up at the Cotuit house.

  Before the call was over, Jo sensed the tension in his voice and impulsively blurted out, “Boomer, you have to tell me, is this dangerous, what you’re doing?”

  “I don’t want you to worry about me, Jo. You know I’ll take care of myself, and that I’ll hurry back to you and the girls as soon as I can,” he said evasively.

  “Please promise me you’ll be careful,” she pleaded before he rang off.

  “That’s the one thing you really don’t have to worry about,” he said. “I’m gonna be damned careful…make sure I get back on time.”

  But he didn’t fool Jo. She might not have been that good at it herself, but she knew an actor when she heard one. Especially a bad one. And she had never heard her husband quite so taut and uptight. When she put down the telephone, her hand was shaking, and as she walked back to the big waterfront kitchen, she found herself saying, over and over, “Oh my God…oh my God…please let him come home.”

  One hundred and twenty miles to the southwest, Lieutenant Commander Mike Krause was making every possible effort to ensure her prayers were not in vain. Columbia was ready. Her electronic combat systems had been checked and rechecked. On board she would carry her full complement of 14 Gould Mk 48 wire-guided torpedoes, ADCAPs (Advanced Capability). The Russians always claimed the Kilo could take a hit and survive, but not from one of these. Hopefully Columbia would bring twelve of them home with her. Plus her eight Tomahawk missiles, the 1,400-mile killers, and the four Harpoon missiles with their active radar-homing warheads. One way and another, the 362-foot-long Columbia was not an ideal candidate with which to pick a fight.

  Her defensive line was also formidable. She carried an arsenal of decoys, specifically designed to coax any incoming weapon away from the submarine. On station Columbia would use a low-frequency passive towed-array designed to pick up the very heartbeat of an oncoming enemy. Commander Dunning’s boat was one of the first of the Los Angeles Class to be fitted with the new WLY-1 acoustic intercept and counter-measures system. State-of-the-art EHF communications were already in place. Special acoustic tile cladding, designed to reduce her active-sonar target signature, made her one of the stealthiest submarines ever built.

  She could run underwater comfortably at more than thirty knots, and she could operate at depths of almost 1,500 feet below the surface. She was twice as fast as a Kilo, twice as big, and twice as lethal. The Russian outpointed her on only one count—the Kilo was silent under five knots on her electric motors. Columbia, the sleek hunter-killer, running indefinitely on her GE PWR S6G reactor, was quiet enough, but never totally silent. She had one other major asset the Russians didn’t—her superbly trained crew.

  Her final asset was perhaps the most priceless. Columbia had Boomer Dunning. And he was, by all known standards, the best of the breed, a scrupulously careful daredevil, if such a combination is possible. There was no part of that ship Boomer could not operate or repair. He was an expert in hydrology, engineering, electronics, weaponry, navigation, sonar, radar, communications, and nuclear physics. It was often said that if Columbia’s sail ever fell off, the best man to send out to weld the plates back on would be the Commanding Officer himself. The mere presence of the big ocean-racing yachtsman from Cape Cod in the control center of Columbia gave everyone confidence.

  “’Morning, Mike,” he said as he came aboard. “We got this beast ready to go?”

  Lieutenant Commander Krause, a fellow New Englander from Vermont, was pleased the commanding officer was back. “Hello, sir,” he said. “Everything cool at SUBLANT?”

  “Not too bad,” said Boomer. “I’m back a little before I expected…didn’t want to miss out on our trials tomorrow. We got a real big job ahead. I think we should have dinner together tonight, with Jerry Curran and Dave Wingate.”

  “On board, sir?”

  “I think so. As Black Operations go, this one’s on the dark side.”

  The Lieutenant Commander laughed, but he could see that the boss was concerned about their mission. Later that evening he would find out just how concerned as Boomer steered the senior officers through the stormy seas that lay ahead of them—they were not going out in search of a couple of armed, but still sitting, Peking ducks. This time they were going after a couple of well-trained, highly dangerous dragons who not only expected them, but would be searching for them night and day. And which would not hesitate to open fire on them at the first opportunity. “At five to zero down, you kinda got it all to play for,” murmured Jerry Curran.

  “And if we want to stay alive, we better make absolutely certain every member of this crew operates right at the top of his game,” said Boomer. “We got a great ship, the best there is. It’s a privilege to serve in her, for all of us. But this time, we’re gonna have to earn that privilege the hard way.”

  On August 6 Admiral Zhang Yushu picked up the secure internal telephone in his office at Xiamen. It was late afternoon, and Admiral Zu Jicai, on the line from the South Sea Fleet Headquarters in Zhanjiang, spoke slowly and deliberately. “We have them, sir. Picked them up at 1425…8.30 south 115.50 east, up at the north end of the Lombok Strait. Must be hull number seven nine four, departed Suao July twenty-third. The ACINT located her making seven and a half knots southwesterly, submerged. She was right on time, sir, two weeks out, with three weeks to run. That will put her in Heard Island, or the McDonalds, or Kerguelen, twenty-one days from now. We assess she must be heading for one of those three places. Nowhere else fits her sailing pattern so well.”

  “Thank you, Jicai. Leave it with me for a while, will you? I’d like to study the charts. I’ll call you back at around 1830.”

  The Chinese Commander in Chief walked across to his chart drawer and pulled out the big blue, white, and buff-colored ocean map, compiled by the Royal Australian Navy. On the lower right side it showed the sprawling West Coast of Australia itself. Six hundred miles northwest of the Great Sandy Desert it showed the Lombok Strait. Admiral Zhang traced his finger expertly southwest over the contours of the vast waters south of the Strait, muttering to himself all the while. “Right here…over the Java Trench in ten thousand feet of water…then over the Wharton Basin, where it’s close to eighteen thousand feet deep…on southwest…past the East Indiaman Ridge, where it’s still nine thousand feet deep…then just press on southwest all the way to the islands. The Hai Lung makes two hundred miles a day…the distance is…let’s see…forty-four hundred miles…that puts her off the McDonalds twenty-one days from now…as the good Jicai said, right on time.”

  And now the Admiral abandoned his charts and walked back to his desk, where there awaited him a new volume of the Antarctic Pilot, the Royal Navy publication that charts the entire coast of the Antarctic and “all islands southward of the usual route of vessels.”

  He turned first to the great sloping plateau of the main McDonald Island, located at 53.03N, 72.35E. It was an odd-looking rock, three-quarters of a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, rising from 30 meters above sea level to 120—a great slab of granite at an awkward angle. Tall, stark, frozen, with no hiding place. “If the Taiwanese are burrowed inside that rock making a hydrogen bomb, my name’s Chiang Kai-shek,” growled Admiral Zhang.

  He turned the page to the ten-mile-by-five-mile volcanic rock of Heard Island, with its huge circular mountain, Big Ben, located at 53.06S, 73.31E. The Admiral did not think much of that as a site for a secret nuclear facility either. For starters the place was covered in permanent ice throughout the year, but worse, there were frequent reports that the nine-thousand-foot cone of Mawson’s Peak was belching smoke. “If I was about to make an atomic bomb,” he muttered, “I would not do it in the foothills of a volcano threatening to erupt.”

  His sailor’s eye, skimming through the reports c
ompiled by the Royal Navy’s hydrographers, also noted that landing anywhere on the steep and unforgiving Heard Island would be a nightmare, except in the calmest of weather. “Forget about that place,” he concluded. “That leaves Kerguelen…and when I think about it, it has to be Kerguelen…the place is comparatively large, full of coves, fjords, landing sites, anchorages, steep-sided bays to lee of the worst weather, and a thousand places to hide. The Pilot even suggests German warships were in there during World War II.”

  Admiral Zhang pondered his problem for a while and then decided, “You could search for a hundred years all over that jagged Kerguelen coastline, and you might never find what you were looking for. Unless the factory you were after was being powered by the reactor of a nuclear submarine…our own submarine might find that…the new Kilo with the latest Russian sonar would be even more likely…I am certain of that.”

  They took Columbia’s nuclear reactor critical at 0800 on the morning of August 7. The big dock lights alongside had burned until the sun had risen out of the Atlantic. Deep in the engine room Lieutenant Commander Lee O’Brien was watching the power level of the reactor come up to self-sustaining as they gently bumped the rods out…until the nuclear power plant was ready to drive Columbia’s two mighty thirty-five-thousand-horsepower turbines. Lee O’Brien worked in the most threatening part of the ship. But he knew, like his number two, Chief Rick Ames, that outside the heavily shielded reactor room there was less radiation than Boomer Dunning would have encountered strolling along the beach in Cotuit.