Terminal Run

by Michael Dimercurio

  “Please hang up the phone, Admiral,” Judison said urgently.

  McKee stared up at him and put the phone down.

  “We lost the Snare. She’s outside of Mark 58 and Vortex range.”

  “So she goes around the Cape of Good Hope. We’ll redirect the submarines we had in the Indian Ocean to intercept her as she enters—”

  “No, you won’t. Here’s our position.” He stabbed the globe with the grease pencil north of the equator off the African

  Senegal coast. “Here’s the position of the Snare.” He put another dot down, several millimeters from the first dot, the new one to the northeast. “Here’s the Snare’s course—heading two nine zero. Let me just draw a great circle route on that course.” Judison put a piece of paper on the globe and used it as a straight edge, drawing a line with the grease pencil. He handed the globe across the table to McKee.

  The admiral grabbed it and saw where the line ended. “Oh, God. It’s heading to the East Coast.”

  “He’s headed toward missile range of the Atlantic seaboard, and there’s nothing we can do to stop him. Every single warship and submarine we own is in the Indian Ocean or the East China Sea. There’s nothing left to protect the coast except some Coast Guard cutters, and Snare will probably launch from far at sea anyway.”

  McKee thought for a moment.

  “Not every submarine is at sea,” he said. “We have one on the East Coast.”

  “What boat is that, sir?” Petri asked.

  “The SSNX,” McKee said.

  “But, Admiral, even if the SSNX can get waterborne, there are no war shot torpedoes or Vortex missiles in the weapons depots,” Petri said. “They were all loaded on the submarines or the tender vessels to be taken into the Op Area.”

  “And there are no commanding officers,” Judison said. “We’re so thin on senior officers since last summer’s attack that anyone with a warm body is already submerged. There’s not one man on the East Coast who could command the SSNX even if there were torpedoes.”

  “Oh, yes, there is, Kiethan. There’s one man you’d want in a submerged fight. He’s just what you might call—overqualified.” Judison stared at McKee with a stupid expression.

  “We’ll use the SSNX to vector in air support. We can supplement her with P-5 Pegasus ASW aircraft—I know the front line units are overseas, but we have at least two in the

  hangars under repair. The SSNX and the P-5s can detect the Snare and call in plasma bombs from Air Force bombers.”

  “Or the SSNX can use the Tigersharks, Admiral,” Judison said.

  McKee waved him off. “Damned things don’t work and turn against the launching ship. I’ll order the SSNX loaded with Tigersharks as a last resort for ship safety, but we’ll plan to use the SSNX in a joint op with the Air Force. I’ll call for some Mark 12 remote acoustic daylight pods to be dropped in the path of the Snare by cargo jets. We’ll be able to monitor her progress toward the East Coast. If she deviates from course we’ll lose her, but if she is heading in for a missile launch, we’ll have her locked in. Now give me some privacy so I can raise Patton on this thing.”

  Michael Pacino, former admiral and current executive vice president of Cyclops Carbon Systems and project director of Project Mark 98 Tigershark, put the USS Tampa ball cap on his head and leashed the black Lab, then took the dog out and began running on the hard flat sand of Sandbridge Beach, Virginia. He started at the house and began jogging south. It was half past four, and when the sun climbed above the Atlantic, he would turn back north and shower before he went into the shipyard. He started slowly, the dog looking up at him and smiling, then increased the pace, the dark forms of the houses on his right marching by as he pounded out the miles.

  His eyes were half-shut as he ran, his mind empty, when the dog’s barking startled him. Three houses ahead on the wide spread of sand, spotlights suddenly shone in his face. He could hear idling engines, and realized the spotlights were mounted on trucks parked on the sand. Above him he could hear the rotors of a helicopter, its blinking beacons coming closer as it landed on the beach behind the trucks. The dog growled, its back up, as he walked slowly to the trucks. The silhouette of a man in a wide-brimmed hat walked toward him, his face and clothes indistinct in the glare of the floodlights.

  “Virginia State Police, sir. Please identify yourself,” a deep voice commanded. Pacino tried to see the man’s eyes.

  “Pacino, Michael Pacino. I live up the road a few miles. What is this?”

  “Mr. Pacino, please come with us.” The officer took the leash out of his hand, the dog lodging a loud protest, but letting the cop pet him.

  “It’s okay, Bear. It’s okay,” Pacino said soothingly.

  Two other policemen took Pacino to the waiting state police helicopter, which throttled up and lifted off, the sand flying, the dog barking, the chopper rotating to the north and dipping its nose as it sped up, the houses of Sandbridge flashing by, close at first, then becoming distant.

  “What’s going on?” Pacino asked.

  The copilot turned and glanced at him. “Sir, I have no idea. The watch commander told us to load you up and take you to Newport News shipyard.”

  The chopper flew over Virginia Beach and eventually over the Elizabeth and James Rivers to the Hampton peninsula. The Newport News helipad came into view. The pilots hit the concrete and cut the engines in the dawn overcast. Pacino climbed out of the helicopter, feeling ridiculous in his sweat-soaked running gear. He clamped his hat on and walked to where two men waited for him in front of a shipyard truck. He asked what was going on. but neither man said a word. He sat in the back until the truck arrived at drydock two’s administration building. He climbed out of the truck and began walking to the building, but heard an odd noise. He left his escorts and jogged to the drydock edge and stared in astonishment at the scene below.

  The noise had been the diesels of a tugboat pulling the caisson, the massive gate of the drydock, away into the river. The drydock was fully flooded, and the SSNX was waterborne, which was a miracle, since she’d had twenty “closeouts” that needed to be done before she could even become watertight. Even more alarming were the cranes and the activity forward, where the weapons shipping hatch was open, and a Mark 98

  Tigershark torpedo slowly vanished into the ship tail first. On the opposite side of the dock, a flatbed with three more torpedoes waited. There had been twenty prototypes of the Tiger shark completed to date, and Pacino wondered where the rest of the prototypes were—onboard or back at the Tigershark facility?

  The escorts took him by the arm and led him inside, taking him to a locker room on the first floor. Good, he thought. He could change there. He showered and toweled off at his locker, then pulled on the spare set of chinos and a Polo shirt when the door crashed open and a dozen naval officers walked in, Admiral John Patton at the rear of the phalanx. He walked up to Pacino and nodded grimly.

  “John,” Pacino said, even more surprised by the appearance of the Chief of Naval Operations than by the goings-on in the drydock. “Admiral Patton. What’s going on? What’s important enough to bring you here?”

  Patton shook his head, still not smiling. He turned to his aides and the shipyard escorts, who all vanished outside the door.

  “Patch, we have a grave situation,” Patton began. “I need you to prepare yourself for some bad news. The Piranha went down. Your son was onboard.”

  Ten minutes later Pacino rubbed his reddening eyes. “So, let me get this straight. You’retelling me there is a hope of rescue.”

  “I have to tell you, Patch, it’s a low probability, but yes. If the Brits get there in time, they can get the Piranha survivors to the surface.”

  “In less than a week? I don’t think so, John. Give it to me straight. This fucking Snare you people lost control of killed my son. Or it’s just a matter of time until he’s gone.” Pacino stood and smashed his hand into his locker, then gripped his hand, the pain not a fraction of what he was feeling about Anthony Mi
chael. “I should get out there. Can you get me to the Explorer 77?”

  “I can, Patch. But I’m not going to. I have other plans for you.”

  “John, no offense, but what could possibly be more important than seeing to my boy?”

  “Sit down,” Patton said, pointing to the bench, and telling the story.

  “This is crazy, John. I can’t take the SSNX to sea. It’s been years since I commanded a submarine, and the last one I commanded I lost in the Labrador Sea. Jesus, John, I’m not even in the Navy anymore.”

  “With a stroke of the pen I reactivated you to the rank of captain as of zero four hundred this morning. Sorry I couldn’t get your stars back for you, not on this short notice.”

  “I don’t give a damn. This plan is ridiculous. Besides, the SSNX already has a crew and a captain.”

  “Her captain has never taken a ship to sea as commanding officer. He’s fresh out of prospective commanding officer school, and he’s spent his career in the shipyards. He would have driven the SSNX through sea trials, then transferred her to a combat captain. He’s been told he’s taking a bump down to XO, and he’s fine with it.”

  “Right,” Pacino said, glancing at his watch, thinking of how fast a supersonic fighter could get him to the sinking site of the Piranha. “You should just replace him with someone qualified.”

  “There’s no one. No one who’s ready, and certainly no one who’s fired torpedoes in anger.”

  “Which reminds me—you have no torpedoes,” Pacino said. “Just Tigersharks that don’t work, which are all being loaded on a sub that barely works—”

  “The Tigersharks are a contingency, for ship safety in a desperate situation, but you can’t use them on the Snare, it’s too dangerous.”

  “—and you want the SSNX to do a joint operation with Navy P-5s and Air Force cargo planes to drop bombs on the Snare’s location. You know how stupid that sounds? SSNX would be at periscope depth, Snare would be below the thermal layer, SSNX would lose her, Snare gets away, bombs rain down on the seas in the wrong place, and the Snare, now alerted, shoots the SSNX. Not to mention that the Snare has an acoustic advantage over the Virginia-class and the Seawolf class, which means she’ll have the acoustic advantage over the SSNX. And add to that the fact that Snare has an unknown mission. And that no one knows where she is.”

  “Wrong on both counts, Patch. The Snare is coming with twelve plasma-tipped cruise missiles. She’s headed on a straight line path toward Washington. Meanwhile, we’re completely naked. There is no other submarine on the East Coast. There are no other warships on the East Coast. We’re vulnerable to a cruise missile assault, and all we have are the Hammerhead off Africa, chasing Snare in case she slows down, and the SSNX here. We need to do a squeeze play on the Snare, perhaps force her toward the Hammerhead with her waiting Mark 58s. But one thing is sure, Patch. If we don’t catch the Snare, she’ll take apart the East Coast.”

  Pacino stared hard at him, thinking. “Snare’s cruise missiles are just plasma units. Let her shoot them. Then have the Air Force and Navy interceptors stand by with an AWACS plane to see the missiles and chop them down when they get in. It’s no big deal.”

  Patton shook his head. “That’s twelve plasma warheads, Patch. One of them could bring down the Empire State Building. Or hit the New York Stock Exchange—you want to talk about a market plunge? Or how do you feel about the White House taking a Javelin Block IV missile? What would that do for the nation’s morale? And what do you think would happen politically if we miss four or five missiles? After we lost the cruise ship last summer to a plasma torpedo, do we really need another incident like that? The President would have to resign in disgrace. Patch, we designed these cruise missiles to be invisible —I’m not so sure our own forces can find them ourselves unless we know their launch point and time of liftoff. If you stood here in my shoes, would you risk it?”

  Pacino looked at the floor. “I guess I’d send in the SSNX and the best captain I had.”

  “Patch, send your wife to see to your son and take this mission. In sixty seconds I’m walking out that door and my aide will hand me a cell phone and I’ll be calling the President. When the President hangs up the phone, all the governmental leadership will be evacuating Washington, including me. I need an answer now. Either accept the mission or reject it. If you reject it, I’ll send the green skipper to sea and take my chances. But if you take it, the renaming of the SSNX falls on your shoulders. You can name it anything you want. Underway time is in one hour.”

  Pacino smiled, just slightly. “I get to name the SSNX?”

  “Anything you want. Just so you do it quick and get out of here.”

  “She’ll be called the Devilfish again, then. Bad luck be damned.”

  The locker room door opened, one of Patton’s aides poking his head in. “Sir, the President is on the phone.”

  “Can I say you’ll go?”

  “It’s done, John. Just one condition. As soon as it’s over, I turn command of Devilfish over to her prospective commanding officer and you helo lift me to something fast that can get me to the Explorer II. And the minute I turn over command, I’ma civilian again.”

  “You know, Patch, General MacArthur commanded armies after his chief of staff tour. I could get your stars back—we could use you.”

  “This is it for me, John. And there’s another condition. If my boy comes back from the grave of the Piranha, I want him discharged from the naval service. His mother’s right—he has no business going to sea.”

  Patton grinned. “You got it.” He snapped his fingers, the aide bringing in the phone and a service dress khaki uniform on a hanger. Pacino’s gold dolphins and his ribbons were attached, even a deep draft submarine command pin on the right pocket, the skull and crossbones of it gleaming and new. Pat ton grabbed Pacino’s hand and shook it hard. “Good luck. Patch. Kill the Snare and get out to your son.”

  Pacino felt like a fool as he put on the uniform. When he looked in the mirror, seeing the four stripes on his shoulders instead of stars seemed somehow comfortable. But when he glanced at his half-century-old face and his white hair, the reflection simply did not belong to a Navy captain. He’d just take care of this one thing, then go back to what he was supposed to be doing. Which made him think of something he should try on the Tigersharks, something he’d never considered. If he could make them work, the battle against Snare could be won.

  He walked out of the admin building and over the gangway to the submarine. Obviously Patton had passed the word, because when he walked aboard, the 1MC announcing system called out, “Devilfish, arriving!” Pacino tried to deny the feelings that the 1MC call stirred, pride and a feeling of deep belonging, a return to his true home. He was not successful until he reminded himself of Anthony Michael, imprisoned at the bottom of the Atlantic in a cold, stuffy deep submergence vehicle.

  Air Force One roared down runway two seven and climbed northwest, Andrews Air Force Base shrinking behind her, the eastern limb of the D.C. beltway passing underneath the airframe as the flaps came into the wings.

  President Warner clicked off the video display in her Air Force One office and looked up at Admiral John Patton.

  “Can Pacino do this thing, Admiral?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Madam President. But if he can’t, no one else can.”

  “General Everett,” Warner addressed the Air Force chief of staff, a giant of a man with a hooked nose and hair as red as a fire hydrant.

  “Ma’am,” he responded with a two-pack-a-day voice.

  “Are your radar surveillance planes and interceptor jets

  ready to shoot down any cruise missiles coming in from the sea?”

  “Madam President, as of right now, you couldn’t throw a football on the beach without an F-16 hitting you with a Mongoose heat-seeker. We’re ready, ma’am.”

  Patton glanced at the President to see if she knew the general was being overly optimistic.

  “What about the support op
eration for the Navy?”

  “We’reloading up their—what do you call them, Admiral?”

  “Mark 12s, General. Mark 12 PLD-AD-SSA, which stands for Passive Long Distance Acoustic Daylight Sonar Sensor Array. They weigh two tons and drop into the sea with a parachute, and deploy a sonar sensor all the way to five thousand feet depth. Anything coming closer than fifty to seventy miles is detected, and the unit sends out an update on a buoy antenna attached to a cable.”

  “Right. We’reloading up these Mark 12s now, and they’ll be plopping into the sea over the next twelve hours.”

  “Good. Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have a call to make to a certain British Prime Minister who’s a bit annoyed at me.”

  “What are we waiting for, XO?” Michael Pacino asked impatiently.

  “Propulsion and tugboats, sir,” Commander Jeff Vermeers said to Pacino on the bridge of the SSNX, recently christened the Devilfish. Vermeers was the prospective commanding officer whom Pacino had replaced as captain. An eager sort, he was a compact, absurdly young-looking officer with blond hair combed straight back over his scalp, narrow blue eyes, and a square jaw. He possessed an energy level that made him seem jumpy, almost flighty, with a forced cheerfulness that immediately got on Pacino’s nerves. His hands shook as he raised the binoculars to his eyes and stared down the channel.

  “Conn, Maneuvering,” the bridge speaker box rasped. “Propulsion is shifted to the main motor, ready to answer all bells.”

  “Officer of the Deck,” Pacino called down from the flying bridge on top of the sail to the junior-grade lieutenant, a woman named Chris Vickerson. If the former commander of the unit and now XO Vermeers looked young, Vickerson seemed like she should be in kindergarten, her short reddish blond hair tucked into her SSNX ball cap, her freckled complexion and button nose seeming out of place beneath her wire-rimmed submariner’s glasses. And she was female. When Pacino had left command in the old days, submarine crews were still all-male. He’d awakened with a defense contractor job and a healthy son, and as the sun set his son was in mortal peril and Pacino was back in the Navy, in command of the submarine with the same name as the one he’d lost under the polar icecap, a sub with a mixed-sex crew of children.