Straits of Power

by Joe Buff

  “Helm, slow to ahead one third, make turns for four knots.”

  Meltzer acknowledged.

  Jeffrey waited for Challenger to slow. As her speed came off, the steady vibrations of her own movement diminished, then grew still.

  “Helm, right ten degrees rudder, make your course zero-nine-zero.” Due east, to bring Ohio into the field of view of the starboard wide-aperture arrays, and into the effective coverage of the secure acoustic link. The turn would also avoid a potential collision, until the fast-moving Ohio realized that Jeffrey had slowed and was talking to them.

  “Fire Control. Signal Ohio: ‘What is your status, and what is status of prosecuting Master One?’ ”

  Bell typed. It took a few moments for the response from Parcelli to come back and be decoded.

  “ ‘Master One destroyed while you were sinking the class 212s.’ ” Parcelli had sunk the 214. “ ‘Status my ship is outstanding. Why? Were you really concerned about the outcome?’ ”

  Jeffrey forced himself not to curse. He was drenched in sweat, and starting to shake as the overdose of adrenaline wore off. He felt horribly thirsty and drowsy. Looking around in the red-lit control room, his crew seemed in no better shape. They all knew they had barely survived, and only because Jeffrey’s split-second decisions had changed all the terms of the battle more than once. They also knew that they’d saved Ohio’s backside from a lethal bushwhacking just in the nick of time.

  And then I get this message from Parcelli. That snide son of a bitch.

  Chapter 13

  Jeffrey sat in his stateroom, the closest thing he had to a private office on Challenger. He listened as people talked to him while he thought about something else—and felt torn in more ways than just that.

  Bell and Lieutenant Willey, the engineer, were giving Jeffrey reports on the progress of repairs on the damage sustained in the battle. Jeffrey nodded absentmindedly. Through long practice at this sort of thing, he took in their key points even though mentally preoccupied and emotionally drained. His stateroom, with its fold-down desk to one side and a filing cabinet bolted to the deck in the opposite corner, didn’t leave Willey and Bell much space in which to stand and speak; there was only one guest chair—as a courtesy to each other, neither man used it. Both of them looked exhausted.

  Willey finished. The shipwide damage was minor, repairs should be easy over the next few hours and days, and he obviously wanted to get back to the work. Jeffrey thanked him, and dismissed him.

  Once Willey was gone and the stateroom door was closed again for privacy, Jeffrey studied Bell, standing there in front of his desk.

  “How’s morale?”

  “Terrific, Skipper. We just scored another two kills. Nothing lifts the crew’s mood faster than that, sir. And you know how quickly word gets around. Everyone’s very impressed by the tactics you ordered. The guys who understood it all explained it to the guys who didn’t. How you went with our strengths. Used our superior sonars and quieting to do that disappearing act, then used our sustained hitting power with a flank-speed charge and those multiple salvos.”

  Jeffrey smiled, and felt some renewed energy. “Good. I want you to do double duty as my chief of staff for the task group, XO.”

  Bell stood up straight. “Sir?”

  “You can start by drafting an after-action report.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “A de facto step upward in authority, so you outrank Ohio’s XO.” Which might come in handy soon. “Good experience for you too, which I’ll make sure is appreciated later.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And, of course, the ulterior motive.”

  “Captain?”

  “Takes more of the paperwork load off me, and dumps it in your lap.”

  Bell grinned. “All good things come at a price.”

  Jeffrey grew more sober. He glanced at his navigation console. Challenger, with Ohio in company, was beyond the Eastern Seaboard continental shelf now, out in much deeper water. “Have me informed when Captain Parcelli’s minisub is docked. You and I will meet him at the lock-in trunk.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll need maybe twenty minutes with him alone in here. Then we’ll have a classified briefing in the wardroom. Him and me, you, Sonar, Nav, and Weps. Plus our three main guests, Mr. Parker of the CIA, Mr. Salih our Turko-German friend, and Lieutenant Estabo, CO of our embarked SEAL team. . . . Have COB arrange for a couple of off-watch chiefs to stand guard outside the doors to the wardroom. Everything is compartmented, strictly need to know.”

  Parcelli was sitting in Jeffrey’s guest chair. He came alone, except for his minisub’s crew; he’d left his XO in charge back on Ohio. He wore unwrinkled formal dress blues—compared with Jeffrey’s rumpled short-sleeve khakis—suggesting that he expected an argument and meant to win it. His expression was hard and his body language confrontational.

  Jeffrey felt reservations about what he needed to do, because this was a first for him. He had to firmly discipline a man who until barely a day ago was his definite senior. And he had to do it in such a way as to not compromise the mission success of Task Group 47.2.

  Jeffrey loathed face-to-face hostile confrontations. As commanding officer of USS Challenger, discipline within the ship’s hierarchy was handled mainly by Bell and COB as a standard part of their roles. Challenger had a good crew, so Jeffrey’s need for direct involvement was minimal. In his brief stint as XO of the ship himself, in the middle of a war that had galvanized everyone to do their best, he’d encountered few occasions when a junior officer or enlisted man needed any tough talking to.

  Commander Parcelli, CO of USS Ohio, was something else. Jeffrey had no clear precedent to go by. Ohio had almost twice the number of people aboard as Challenger, and also weighed twice as much—which by the navy’s long-standing culture gave Parcelli major clout, and both men knew it. Crew size and ship’s displacement mass defined a standard pecking order, imprinted deep in Jeffrey’s instincts throughout his years of being in uniform.

  Jeffrey had to keep all this completely to himself while he dealt with Parcelli. Nothing had ever prepared him for such a trial, and he knew he would have only this single chance to get it right. Despite all the tension and fear involved in combat, Jeffrey found it easier to do battle with enemy submarine captains. An Axis captain doesn’t watch my every physical move, my expression or how I sit in a chair, or how I set my eyes or how I breathe. It’s a clear win-lose situation, enemy action, and the end of the battle provides decisive closure. Everything now is so different from that, and brand new to me.

  “Your accusing me of disobeying orders has no basis in fact,” Parcelli stated crisply. “Since the rendezvous had not been made, the task group was not yet constituted. I had full freedom of action, and chose to take the initiative while in independent command.”

  “The task group was constituted when the president ordered it activated, and I was made its commander in a meeting both you and I were at. Your rushing off on your own endangered everything. It endangered your ship, it compromised our stealth, it risked failure of our primary mission. Your orders of where to rendezvous, and when, were very explicit. A pair of class Two-twelves pale, utterly pale, in comparison with our main assignment.”

  “Nope,” Parcelli said, irritatingly nonchalant. “Every U-boat sunk is one step closer to victory. We need to destroy them faster than the Germans can build more, and you know that perfectly well. The very fact of my stealth, which I chose to compromise, gave me the element of surprise. And the acoustic modems I left for you assured Challenger would come in my support. That’s your job while in the Atlantic, Captain Fuller, to provide me with support.”

  “Suppose the modems had malfunctioned? Suppose acoustic conditions had been poorer than they were, and I never heard any modems? What then?”

  “I’m perfectly able to take care of myself.”

  “That entire point of view, that attitude, violates the letter and the intent of our orders. You’
re supposed to provide my ship with support in the Med, if we make it that far. And it’s not about your ship or mine, it’s about a task group our ships form together, and a mission, something essential we both need to do in the Med. . . . You didn’t even realize that a class Two-fourteen was out there.”

  Parcelli’s eyes darted about, as if he’d been caught off guard. Good. I can play his game too. But Jeffrey cautioned himself because he had to suppress a smirk. I must keep this from getting personal, no matter how hard Parcelli tries to reduce it to that level.

  “Undetected opponents are always a risk,” Parcelli shot back, as dismissively as he could.

  “There’s undetected, and then there’s unsuspected. How clearly do I have to spell this out for you to hear the message?”

  “What message?”

  “That I was put in charge of this task group for a reason. . . . How many U-boats have you sunk?”

  “Counting one off Central Africa a few weeks ago, and giving my ship full credit for the Two-fourteen this time, two. Had you taken on the Two-fourteen, as I expected once contact was made, I’d’ve sunk the pair of Two-twelves, as I intended all along, and my score would now be three.” Parcelli made it sound like an accusation, that Jeffrey had grabbed the best kills for himself. He decided to ignore Parcelli’s latest jab.

  “You know how many Axis subs I’ve destroyed?”

  “No, frankly I don’t.”

  “Frankly, neither do I. I’ve lost count, which says something right there. But I can tell you I’ve been in over a dozen separate engagements, many of which went nuclear, and I’m still here to talk about it. I’ve got a lot more combat experience than you. In this context, in this war, experience leads.”

  Parcelli stared at Jeffrey hard. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  “You’ve got all this wonderful experience because you hog the ball. You don’t even know what’s being said behind your back.”

  Parcelli sat back triumphantly.

  What does he think he just won? And what the hell is he talking about?

  “Explain yourself, Commander.” Using his rank, rather than Parcelli’s title as captain of Ohio, was a rebuke that Jeffrey knew Parcelli wouldn’t miss.

  “Your one-of-a-kind ship cost a fortune, and is an absolute maintenance nightmare. The navy could’ve had three or four Virginia-class fast-attacks for what it cost to build Challenger. A lot of influential people think we’d’ve been better off. You spend so much time in dry dock between your different vaunted missions, you’re draining skills and materials that other ships badly need. . . . You had no idea of the resentment this is causing? Up to and including at flag rank in Undersea Warfare?” Parcelli meant some admirals at the Pentagon.

  “None of those decisions was mine to make. Challenger’s speed and diving depth, her number of tubes, the size of her torpedo room, all outweigh a Virginia’s, as fine as those ships are.”

  “It doesn’t outweigh four of ’em, and in this present conflict we need as many subs in service as we can get.”

  “It’s too late, and it’s irrelevant. I’m not the type to look over my shoulder. And I sure as hell do not intend to have to keep looking over my shoulder now, to make sure you’re where you’re supposed to be, doing exactly what I tell you to do, no more and no less.”

  “I’ll be full captain long before you, and I’ll be rear admiral and you’ll never be, from the way you behave.”

  “All that,” Jeffrey said as coldly as he could, “remains to be seen. You’ll never wear your fourth stripe if you don’t survive this mission. You’ll never don that first star if you get killed in the next week or two. So I strongly urge you to concentrate on the here and now, Captain Parcelli. As far as I’m concerned, as task-group commander, you led us both to expend a large amount of offensive and defensive ammunition to sink three lower-value targets that other of our forces could have, should have, and would have sunk on their own. And since unlike other units, you and I will not be able to replenish our now half-empty torpedo rooms until after our current mission, your behavior decreased our chances of success.”

  Parcelli hesitated. Jeffrey decided to throw his hardest punches.

  “This isn’t some game about whose dick is bigger. This whole mission is for real, and its success is by no means guaranteed. If it fails, we might all be dead in two weeks, and the whole world might be dead soon thereafter. The whole goddamned world might be dead. Thanks to your impetuous conduct, the Axis might know Challenger is in the company of another nuclear submarine, which was supposed to have been top secret. . . . Lower your sights and tone down your ego, Commander Parcelli. Understood?”

  “Er, yes.”

  “Unquestioning obedience or I won’t hesitate to relieve you of command.”

  “But—”

  “For the remainder of this mission, I have the authority. You can complain about it later, but I doubt the incident would do very much for your precious chances for further promotion. As for this whole discussion, I now consider the matter settled. If you want to complain about that, and you and I are both still alive in two weeks, I cordially invite you to do your worst. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now we have a briefing. There’s plenty you still don’t know. With my officers and my guests, you and I must present a united front. . . . There’s no reason for more animosity. Any hint of a schism between you and me could prove catastrophic.”

  “Concur.” Parcelli seemed to be pulling himself together.

  The man’s nothing if not practical, Jeffrey thought. If I play things right, he might even feel beholden to me afterward. Better someone like him as a supporter than an opponent down the road. . . . I have to plan ahead to the next wave of peacetime navy politics too, just in case the U.S. Navy and I both make it that far.

  Jeffrey and Parcelli stood. Parcelli moved to open the door for Jeffrey—which Jeffrey took as a good sign, of conciliation, at least temporarily.

  More to the point, Jeffrey had succeeded after all, in the first truly no-holds-barred, head-to-head bureaucratic contest of his career. But he needed to get in one more thing for good measure. A final, seemingly casual and harmless afterthought—that was really meant to be a very rough stiffener.

  Jeffrey had learned this technique from commodores and admirals who’d used it on him. He leaned toward Parcelli, while the door was still closed, and whispered in his ear.

  “Forget for now about raising that flag with your first star. Cast your thoughts even higher, up at the sky, and picture global nuclear winter instead, in a month or less. I think you’ll find the image highly motivating.”

  Chapter 14

  Jeffrey’s key people were assembled in Challenger’s wardroom. Jeffrey, as captain of the ship and commander of the task group, sat in his usual sacrosanct place at the head of the table. To Jeffrey’s left sat Gerald Parker. To Jeffrey’s right, in what was considered the place of honor, he’d put Captain Parcelli. Jeffrey hoped this gesture wasn’t lost on the man.

  Farther down the table sat Bell, Gamal Salih, Felix Estabo, and Jeffrey’s officers who needed to be present. Lieutenants Kathy Milgrom as Sonar, Bud Torelli as Weps, and Richard Sessions as Navigator all had to know what was coming next.

  The foot of the table was empty, because beyond it, on the bulkhead, was a flat wide-screen display. Jeffrey’s laptop, already open and on, connected to the display by a fiber-optic cable. Bell got up and checked that chiefs were posted outside the door into the passageway, and also outside the door leading into Challenger’s galley, the kitchen and pantry area.

  Bell nodded to Jeffrey, and retook his seat.

  Jeffrey cleared his throat, and at once had everyone’s full attention.

  “First, ground rules. For security, all crew are to know as little as possible in advance at each stage of this operation. Just in case we get into trouble, and there are survivors whom the enemy can capture and interrogate.”

  J
effrey looked around the room meaningfully. Even though this was hardly the first time his people had had to cope with such a concern, his officers got more serious.

  “This map will give you an idea of our general route.” Jeffrey tapped some keys. The big display screen showed a chart of the Atlantic Ocean, extending through to the Mediterranean Sea and the start of the Black Sea, and also down to the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf at the doorstep to the Indian Ocean.

  Sessions, Torelli, and Milgrom immediately groaned.

  “I see it has not been lost on you that we face some difficult choke points to and from our destination. Steps are being taken by higher command to assist us. Whether or not these diversions work, we have to press on at each stage.”

  Jeffrey ran through the basics about radio silence, forbidden use of nukes in crucial areas, and other topics covered in briefings he’d attended earlier in Washington or Norfolk. He couldn’t tell them about the defector, Klaus Mohr, aka Peapod, aka Zeno, or about Plan Pandora—and this requirement to deny his key subordinates an understanding of what was truly involved weighed heavily on Jeffrey.

  “The enemy is meant to believe we’re going south, after von Scheer in South Africa. You who were present then I’m sure remember our last delightful encounter with that beast.” People nodded and murmured uncomfortably.

  “The first leg of our course will support the outward appearance of this incorrect conclusion. False signal traffic that the enemy may be able to read will further reinforce the impression that Challenger and Ohio are heading south. Farther out in the Atlantic, however, we will turn east. In the interests of time, we will then take the shortest route to the Strait of Gibraltar. Nav,” Jeffrey said to Sessions, “you can work out the details.” Sessions nodded, and Jeffrey could see gears were already turning in his mind. “Our course will take us north of Bermuda, and then north of the Azores. The steaming formation and routine I’ve chosen is this: Ohio will remain below the sonar layer, but otherwise Captain Parcelli and his crew will determine their depth along the way as they see fit. Ohio will periodically trail her floating wire antenna to provide updated tactical data for both ships. Challenger will stay as close to the seafloor as practicable, for stealth, keeping about ten thousand yards ahead of Ohio. Challenger will scan passively for threats, using the deep sound channel and various sonar modes as apply. That’s your division’s main task, Sonar, as usual.”