Barracuda- Final Bearing

by Michael Dimercurio

  “No, god damnit!” Pacino yelled. “Take this bitch in now!”

  Shearson didn’t answer, just kept on the glide slope, the plane swaying as he tried to keep it on the descent with just one engine. Almost there. Pacino could see the lights dancing in the shimmering rain, until he noticed the numbers on the island were wrong, all wrong. He glanced down at the instrument panel and saw the artificial horizon and nearly choked. He shouted into the intercom, “Brad, we’re upside down! You’re coming in upside down!” Shearson pulled the plane through a two-g maneuver, as much as he could do with a single engine. Pacino’s head spun. It took almost fifteen minutes for Shearson to set up and approach again, this time the artificial horizon showing them right side up.

  “Admiral, we’re showing zero fuel. I’ve only got one engine. If we lose it on the glide slope we’re going down. Okay. Here we go.” The deck of the carrier floated toward them, ghostly in the rain, the lights dancing around them as they approached in the storm. Shearson goosed the starboard engine, it screamed for a moment, then died. Pacino didn’t need to be told. They were out of fuel on the final approach to the deck, the plane now one big glider. At least, he thought, they wouldn’t catch fire. Shearson had come in high, with the thought of the low fuel situation in mind. Pacino saw the deck of the carrier flying toward them. The right wing dived for the deck, caught on the surface and disintegrated. The remainder of the jet rolled, the deck coming toward the cockpit. By the time the canopy smashed into the steel of the deck,

  Pacino had already lost consciousness.

  USS Ronald Reagan

  “Admiral Donner, sir, the news isn’t good.”

  “Go ahead.”

  MacK Donner, vice admiral, USN, was the commander of the carrier action group and the Japan operational theater. His official title was Pacific Force Commander, but in the acronyms and abbreviations that the Navy lived by, he had become merely the Pacforcecom. He was of medium height, balding, with remarkably smooth skin for a fifty-five-year-old. His round baby face always wore a pleasant, open expression.

  He was a capable mariner, an empathetic leader, a decent tactician and a better than average politician.

  Most importantly, Mac Donner knew his weaknesses, both in relation to dealing with his people and to deploying his equipment. With a decent team surrounding him, Mac Donner was a winner. With an average team, the odds were not so good. But Donner listened and his sailors and officers loved him, which was more than most leaders could say. As the ship’s captain spoke, Donner watched his eyes. The ship’s commanding officer, Capt. Robert Petrill, was low key and professional, with an underlying toughness.

  Donner was in his stateroom, a cavernous room with three portholes on the 0-4 level, a large head with a shower and a conference table. The room was almost spartan in its neatness, not a single paper or disk on any horizontal surface. The lights were on low, as it was just after midnight local time. The ship was taking twentydegree rolls and twenty-five degree pitches, the waves outside mountainous. Donner wore khakis, his three stars gleaming on the collars, the only neat thing about the uniform after a long day.

  “The pilot is dead. His name was Brad Shearson.

  Know him?”

  “No. What about Admiral Pacino?”

  “Out cold in sick bay. Doc thinks he’ll pull out of it.

  A concussion and some scrapes and lacerations.”

  “I want to be notified as soon as he comes to.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Four decks below, Pacino opened his eyes and grabbed the sleeve of a corpsman.

  “Get me Donner. Now.” dynacorp international, electric boat division groton, connecticut

  “Even the boss used a limo to get to EB from the airport,” McDonne said. “This chopper is going to raise eyebrows. Congress will accuse the Navy of joyriding.”

  “Ask me if I give a goddamn.” The admiral had given orders, Murphy had commandeered the supersonic SS12 and several jet helicopters, and he had used them to follow those orders.

  The chopper made the approach to the Electric Boat helipad, the pad lit with bright lights. The sun wasn’t due to come up for another forty-five minutes. Murphy intended to see what the place was like during the slowest part of the day, immediately before the dayshift started.

  He walked swiftly into the manufacturing building, the security captain alongside them. Murphy came through the main door in the manufacturing bay and walked swiftly along the length of the hull until he came to the working crew. In the center of the men was Capt. Emmitt Stephens in oil-stained blue coveralls and a hardhat.

  The man was shouting orders at the controller of the bridge crane high above, the team standing on the scaffolding at the hull where the next Vortex missile tube was about to be lifted and set. The atmosphere was tense, the bay coiled like a spring. McDonne and Murphy stood in the chill of the bay watching Stephens work. Fifteen minutes slipped into a half-hour, then forty-five minutes. Finally, the missile launcher had been lifted up to its position on the flank of the hull and welded into place. Murphy counted.

  There were five launchers on the starboard side. He walked under the Piranha hull to the port side until he was hemmed in by equipment and looked up. There were five launchers done on the port side. When he returned to McDonne he found a commander standing next to McDonne, his khakis bulging with arms of a stripjoint bouncer. The commander and McDonne saluted, Murphy returning it. “Commander Phillips, sir. Bruce Phillips.”

  “So this is your ship. When’s she going to sea?”

  “Dayshift will be putting her back in the water. My crew is ready to go now. Ship systems will take a day to line up—”

  “Line them up at sea,” Murphy said. “Sir, the precritical checklist alone would normally take a week.

  This reactor’s only been in the power range twice.”

  “Phillips, get Piranha to sea this evening.”

  “I can’t start the plant that fast. It’ll take fifty to sixty hours. Anything faster could make the reactor run away.”

  “Take the ship to sea shutdown. I’ll get a tug to take you into the sound. Your core will be cold iron. Go ahead and do your pull and wait startup in the river and the sound until you get to the fifty-fathom curve.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “It’ll keep your infrared signature cold. We’ll put some cellular phone calls out in the local area that your ship is a target for a live torpedo-firing exercise.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “If we can convince the Japanese satellites that the tug is towing your hull to sea so you can be a target, they won’t know you’re coming.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “It might keep you from being targeted before you can get to the Japan Oparea. And maybe they won’t do a lot of thinking about what those bulges are on your hull.”

  “And how am I supposed to get out to the Oparea with a dearl reactor?”

  “I recommend you submerge the ship when it’s dark, with the diesel on the AC buses using the snorkel mast. That way your infrared signature will be minimal and the Galaxy satellite that’s orbiting directly overhead won’t see a hot reactor submarine going to sea, one with a lot of suspicious bulges on the hull, one that is definitely a Seawolf class. If they don’t know you’re coming, they can’t get to you early.”

  “If I’m going into combat in the Oparea, why should I worry about what’s out there?”

  “Because Admiral Pacino wants all ten Vortex missiles in the Oparea, not three, not one, ten. Get there quietly.

  Undetected.”

  “Is this your idea or Admiral Pacino’s?” Murphy looked at Phillips and lied. “Pacino’s. I don’t have it in writing but he gave it to me on a secure VOX transmission on the way to the forward deployed carrier air group.” Phillips looked up at the Piranha. “Okay, we’re getting underway tonight. Anything else?”

  “I’ll check back with you this evening.”

  “If you ca
ll after sundown you won’t get me. I’m not transmitting anything to anyone once I toss off the lines. You want me, send me a message on the broadcast but don’t expect an answer.”

  “How will you be going to the Japan Oparea?”

  “Under the polar icecap.” Murphy was impressed. “Good luck. Come on, McDonne.‘1 They walked away. Murphy stealing a last glance at Emmitt Stephens, now joined by Commander Phillips, as they worked the crew loading the Vortex missile into the tube they had just erected onto the hull.

  northwest pacific USS Ronald Reagan

  “Well, Admiral, welcome aboard the USS Ronald Reagan. We don’t have many VIPS who crash-land to get here.”

  “Mac, how long has it been?”

  “About five years. Patch.”

  Pacino was set up in his visiting admiral’s stateroom, certainly not as glorious as Donner’s, but with two portholes, a civilian-sized bed, a small round four-piece conference table and a head that was more impressive than anything ever built into a US submarine. It would be damned hard to leave it to go to one of the battle group’s submarines. Particularly given the comfort of the stateroom’s bed, where Pacino had been ordered to stay until the doctor gave him a follow-up examination.

  “How’s Brad Shearson?”

  “They left that news for me to tell you, Patch. I’m real sorry. Shearson didn’t make it.”

  Pacino looked up at Donner. Another life lost from his orders. He said something to Donner but couldn’t remember it. He was dimly aware of the doctor coming in and injecting him with a syringe, and darkness closing in on him despite his fighting it USS Piranha, SSN-23 electric boat division, groton, connecticut

  “Any questions?” Phillips asked the assembled crew in the ship’s mess, all of them dressed for December weather, the heat in the room making their parkas that much more uncomfortable.

  “Sir,” a chief asked, “how long to get to the Japan Oparea?”

  “Going under ice, maybe two weeks, maybe less.”

  “I’ve been stuck under the ice before. Captain, back on the Chicago. It wasn’t great.”

  “Well, it’s not gonna happen to us. Next.” “Yes sir,” Lt. Pete Meritson said. Meritson was the sonar boss and the most senior of the junior officers.

  Phillips said that Meritson had the sweetest disposition and the most pleasant face, that it was a shame that he wasn’t selling used cars—he’d have made millions.

  Meritson was more than a pleasant presence on board the Piranha. His intellect was penetrating. With the modern sonar systems now being installed on the Seawolf class, it was more common that the “bull” lieutenant, the most senior and trusted of the junior officers, be a sonar officer than the main propulsion assistant to the chief engineer. In this case Meritson was the man for the job. He had been an electrical engineer at Cornell with a specialty in electronic communications, the major that was sailing so many graduates into the highest paid engineering jobs as the Writepads and cellular phones became as common as telephones had been in the previous century. But he had chosen to join the Navy, without the service paying a nickel of his education, just up and sauntered into a Navy recruiting office one day, spent three months in an officer-training program and a year in nuclear-power training and sub school, and scarcely a year after graduation was a submarine officer. The enlisted men joked that he was possibly the only one aboard who had paid for his own schooling, and was still doing “hard time” on board the submarine when he could be out making money.

  “Go ahead, Meritson.”

  “Sir, what exactly are we going to do when we get there?”

  Phillips looked around the room as if wondering if it were secure enough to say what he needed to say.

  “Gentlemen, the only reason I’m going to answer that question is that when we’re done here we’re going to sea.” Phillips called the chief of the boat over, the COB, Chief Hanson, a torpedoman, a country boy. “COB,” Phillips said, “collect all the cellular phones, every god damned one of them.” Cellular phones were controlled more carefully than anything else aboard, the submarine force becoming security crazed after several SEAL operations had proved that the subs’ cellular phones were giving away too much. Only official ship’s phones were allowed aboard. Anyone caught with their own cellular unit lost it to the COB until the ship made port again.

  “Okay, here’s the deal. Just before the executive officer and I reported aboard we ran a special simulation against a Destiny II-class submarine, trying to sneak up on the SOB. Guess what? No matter what we did, we lost.” Phillips let that sink in for a moment. “Now, that was with an improved-688 class, but Seawolf ships are only marginally better against the Destiny. Let’s face a fact, gents—if we could buy Destiny II submarines we’d fill our piers with them and sell off these 688s and Seawolfs to the highest bidder. They’re that good. But we’ve got something that can neutralize even a Destiny.” Phillips paused for effect. “The Vortex missiles we’re carrying like a bandoleer are the ultimate antisubmarine weapon.” As long as they didn’t blast their rocket exhaust through the hull, he thought. “Which means we’re the cavalry. If the sub force goes up against the Destiny ships in combat, and I hope to hell they don’t, we’ll be there to put them down.” “Skipper,” said Roger Whatney, the Royal Navy executive officer in RN sweater with its soft epaulets and lieutenant commander’s stripes, the star missing, a loop of braiding replacing it, “if there are more than ten Destiny subs we could be in for trouble.”

  “Spoken like a gentleman, sir,” Phillips said, unconsciously imitating something Whatney was fond of saying.

  “Now, if we can get on with it, let’s get this pig to sea. We’ve got to make the best time ever made to the Bering Strait. I’ve got a feeling that our people in the Japan Oparea are going to need us.”

  northwest pacific USS Ronald Reagan

  “Admiral, I’m sorry I lost it last night,” Pacino said, standing on the bridge next to Donner’s admiral’s chair.

  The waves were still pounding the ship, the other ships of the surface action group invisible in the storm. The glass windows of the bridge were drenched with rain.

  Three Plexiglas wheels set into the front plate glass spun at high rpm, throwing off the rain, the only clear view of the sea ahead. The officer of the deck stood at the radar console, his visual sight nearly useless.

  “Patch, after nearly augering into the deck and totaling yourself, it’s very understandable. How are you feeling?”

  “Seasick, sir. I need to get out to one of the submarines, the Pasadena or the Cheyenne. As soon as possible, sir.”

  “Patch, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but have you seen it out there? We’re grounded. Ain’t no choppers going to be flying in this weather.”

  “When’s it going to calm down?”

  “We’ve got another day of this to go. But there’s more bad news. By the time this weather clears we’ll be in the Japan Oparea and there won’t be any helotransfers.

  You’d better read this.” Donner handed Pacino a message, classified top secret/special compartment/codeword Enlightened Curtain.

  Pacino read through the message, quickly at first, then read through it a second time. It was a confidential message from Warner and Wadsworth. Ambassador Pulcanson had met twice with Prime Minister Kurita. The first time Pulcanson had laid out the deal—that UN troops would take station on Japanese soil, that their initial actions would be to supervise the dismantlement of the radioactive weapons, the second the deactivation of the nuclear cores of the submarines of the Maritime Self Defense Force, the third the selling off of the Firestar fighters. Kurita had been noncommittal, Pulcanson had been firm and told him he had a day to provide an answer.

  Two days later Pulcanson had returned. Kurita’s answer was no better than before. He didn’t say no, he didn’t say yes.

  Warner had had a meeting with the National Security Council. She had ordered Donner’s force to set up the blockade. They were going in to stop the flow of all com
mercial traffic into Japan.

  “This will be the first act of war of the new century.

  And maybe the worst.”

  “Oh, hell, Patch, we did this a ways back with the Cubans and it prevented a war.”

  “That was the Cubans, and the Russians. These are the Japanese. Go back to your history books, Mac. The last time we cut off the oil to these people they used it as an excuse to sink our fleet. They’ll do it again, they’ll fight. We shouldn’t just put a ring of warships around Japan, we should hit them preemptively. If we sail off their coast they’ll nail us with everything they’ve got.”

  “I don’t think so. Patch. This will last a week, maybe a month. The other carrier groups will get here and then the Japanese will have to see reason. We’ll be home in a couple of months—”

  “Mac, I’m telling you. We should hit the Galaxy satellites now. We should sortie every god damned airplane we have to bomb the Firestar squadrons and the Destiny submarines. Then and only then, we should blockade the islands. It’s the only way.”

  “I think you’re forgetting the antisubmarine warfare capabilities of this surface force. Patch. Now let me give you a piece of advice.” Pacino stared out into the rain. “Why don’t you go below and meet with Commander White? He’s the submarine liaison officer. He could use a boost. You both must come from the same school, you sound like a broken record.” Pacino went below. It was going to be a long war, he thought. Or a very short one. The( 15 electric boat division, groton, connecticut USS Piranha, SSN23

  Comdr. Bruce Phillips dumped eight heaping teaspoonfills of instant coffee into the Big Gulp cup and poured an entire pot of boiling water into it. He filled a second Big Gulp cup with ice, stirred the instant coffee, then dumped the hot coffee into the iced cup. He pinched his nose, put the cup to his lips and drank the liquid down in one go, gagging as it went down. He looked over to find the XO, Lt. Comdr. Roger Whatney, staring at him, shaking his head.