Barracuda- Final Bearing

by Michael Dimercurio

  Back in Kane’s stateroom Pacino paced the deck.

  “What now?”

  “Maybe we should request a videolink with Warner,” Kane said.

  The time that Warner had wanted an update was over twenty hours away.

  “And ask what? What we should do? Captain Kane, we’ve just sent seven subs into the Oparea. Seven subs sank. Or if they didn’t, all seven of them mysteriously failed to come to periscope depth when called.”

  A knock at Kane’s door, the radioman again. Pacino perked up, wondering if at least one of the 688class ships had come to PD and transmitted that they were okay. Pacino signed for the message and searched his Writepad for it, his heart sinking as he scanned it.

  He checked his watch, the time nearing midnight Christmas Day.

  “It’s from Wadsworth. He wants us to set up a videolink,” Pacino said, handing the message to Kane.

  “When?” Paully asked.

  “Now,” Pacino said.

  Pacino took a deep breath and let it out. He knew what Wadsworth would say, and he also knew what he would do. He spoke for a few minutes, and Paully took off to the control room and picked up a phone to Pacino in Kane’s stateroom.

  Kane and Pacino sat at the conference table as the radioman set up the videolink. There was no seal of the president this time, just Tony Wadsworth’s big face on the screen, his frown deeper than usual.

  “Gentlemen,” Wadsworth said, “President Warner asked for a status report. We have heard exactly nothing from you. Admiral Pacino. Should I take that as good news?”

  “I wouldn’t assume that. Admiral,” Pacino said, staring hard at Wadsworth, the phone to the conn in his hand under the table.

  Forward in the control room, Paully White approached the officer of the deck, Lt. Chris Porter, the sonar officer, who was dancing with the fat lady, spinning the periscope through an endless surface search while the ship stayed at periscope depth to monitor the communications with the other submarines.

  “The captain said he wanted you in on the videolink,” White said to Porter.

  “I can’t do that,” Porter said. “I’ve got the watch.” “Skipper asked me to relieve you,” White said. “I’m qualified on the Seawolf class.”

  “You haven’t stood any watches since you’ve been aboard,” Porter said.

  “That’s because the admiral’s been running me like a plebe.”

  “Yeah, that’s true.”

  “Anyway, you’d better give me a turnover and get in there.”

  “How do I know the skipper wanted this? He didn’t call me.”

  “He’s in a videolink with the fuckin’ Chief of Naval Operations. He sent me out here. Okay?”

  “All right, all right. Ship’s at all ahead one-third, turns for five, depth eight zero feet, no contacts, low power on the horizon.”

  “I relieve you. Now go on.”

  “I stand relieved. Helm, Quartermaster,” Porter announced, “Commander White has the deck and the conn.”

  “This is Commander White, I have the deck and the conn,” Paully said loudly, taking the periscope, pressing his face toward it. Porter moved through the aft door of control, the front of his uniform dark with sweat from the periscope watch. As he entered Kane’s stateroom Kane waved him to a seat, intent on the video monitor. “We called all seven ships to periscope depth,” Pacino was saying. “None of them replied.”

  “And what do you make of that. Admiral Pacino?” Wadsworth’s expression was even colder, more hostile, if that were possible. “Well, sir, I think it’s bad news.”

  “You’re god damned right, it’s bad news!” Wadsworth swallowed, glaring. “Pacino, we sent you there to do a job and you botched it. You were to send in your boats to try to make a difference.

  All you did was lose your entire force. I’ll be calling Warner now to tell her the news.” Pacino had been waiting for Wadsworth to take a breath; interrupting on the videolink was nearly impossible because of the lag in reception. Finally he had his chance. “Maybe we should talk to President Warner right now, Admiral Wadsworth. I think she’ll see this for what it is. We knowingly committed a small number of subs to the Oparea when we knew it would be best to mass force against the enemy. We failed to do that, and I mean we as in you and President Warner and me. Are you reading me. Admiral Wadsworth? What’s indicated here is a commitment of the entire submarine force to the task, not sending them in piecemeal.”

  “Admiral Pacino, are you finished?”

  “Yes.”

  Pacino would be damned if he’d call Wadsworth “sir.”

  “This is a direct order. You’re relieved as commander Pacific forces. You are to withdraw your forces immediately, return to base and stand by for—” Pacino clicked twice on the phone handset to the control room. In control, Paully White heard the double click in his headset, snapped the periscope grips up, lowered the periscope and shouted, “Emergency deep!”

  “Emergency deep, aye, sir!” from the diving officer. The helmsman took the bowplanes to full dive and put a ten-degree down-bubble on the ship, rang up all ahead standard while the stern planesman put his planes on full dive. The chief of the watch at the ballastcontrol panel flooded depth-control one, making the ship hundreds of tons heavier in a half-second. He stabbed a toggle switch, lowering the BIGMOUTH radio antenna and at the same time reached up to the circuit-one microphone.

  “EMERGENCY DEEP! EMERGENCY DEEP!” The depth indicator unwound. The speed increase, taking the down angle and flooding depth control to make the ship heavier had all combined to take the ship from periscope depth to deep at 200 feet in a few seconds, the maneuver intended to save the ship in the event the conning officer saw a close surface ship bearing down on them when they were at periscope depth.

  “All ahead full,” White ordered. “Dive, make your depth six hundred fifty feet. Helm, right two degrees rudder, steady course zero three zero.”

  Soon Porter came back to the conn, looking shaken.

  In Kane’s stateroom Wadsworth had been talking so fast his mouth was a blur on the screen when the sound of the circuit one rang throughout the ship sounding EMERGENCY DEEP and Wadsworth’s eyes grew large just before his image winked out for good. They had left the surface, where their periscope and radio antenna had them plugged into the world of the Pentagon and the Oval Office, and now Barracuda was deep, the radio waves gone, on her own. For the moment, anyway.

  “Maybe we should call President Warner,” Kane said as Paully White came back in.

  “You can bet that Wadsworth has already taken care of that,” White said.

  “So we can assume we’re on our own now,” Kane said.

  “I think that’s safe to say,” Pacino muttered.

  “So what now. Admiral?”

  “Now we put Barracuda on the case. We’ll go north into the Oparea here and see what luck we have against the Destiny class, using a Seawolf class and some Mark 50 torpedoes.”

  “Admiral, those were the same weapons used by the 688s we lost.”

  “We don’t know if they bagged any Destinys though.”

  “What about Piranha? She could be a big help to us.”

  “She’ll be coming in from the northern tip of the Oparea. We’re here just to the east of Tokyo Bay. I say we sweep north until we link up with Piranha. She’ll come south and shoot her way toward us.”

  “Maybe we should radio the Piranha so Brucey Phillips knows what to do,” Paully put in.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Kane said. “After the collision with that fishing boat at periscope depth the antennae are out of commission.”

  “What collision?” Paully was mystified until Pacino spoke up.

  “The one that made you do the emergency deep, of course. Paully here has had so little sleep that he forgets colliding with that fishing boat. .

  .”

  Paully smiled, catching on.

  “So how will Piranha know what the deal is?”

  “Bruce Philli
ps will know,” Pacino said. “Believe me, he’ll know.” “Sir,” Kane said, doubt in his voice, “I’m not so sure I’m okay with disobeying an order, even one from the Wadsworthless.”

  “Kane, listen to me. Wadsworth knows me. He knows I’ll disregard that order. If we can put some Japanese subs on the bottom, between us and Bruce Phillips, two Seawolfclass ships, Wadsworth will forget about this order.” Kane said nothing. What the hell could you say to an admiral willing to cut his own throat?

  “Okay,” Pacino said, clapping his hands. “Now, let’s get this bucket of bolts positioned in the Oparea and go to work.” m m BARRACUDA wm northwest pacific japanese oparea, twenty miles east OF point nojimazaki USS Barracuda

  “Any activity?” Pacino asked Kane in the control room.

  Kane was looking up at the sonar display above the postwo console.

  “Nothing.”

  “They’ll turn up.”

  “Hope so.”

  “How are the weapons?”

  “I’ve got all eight loaded with Mark 50s. All eight tubes have outer doors open, and the upper four have torpedo power applied. I can get four out within thirty seconds of contact.”

  “I’d think about warming up at least two more,” Pacino said. “If the gyro temps get too high you can always shut them down, but—” He realized he was interfering, doing what he swore to Paully he wouldn’t do. “I’ll be in my stateroom,” he said. Kane watched him leave, then looked over at the officer of the deck, Lt. David Voorheese.

  “Warm up the fish in five and six,” Kane ordered quietly, looking aft toward Pacino’s commandeered stateroom. northwest pacific japanese oparea, off point erimomisaki, hokkaido island USS Piranha Comdr. Bruce Phillips walked into control wearing a multicolored cotton poncho, a dusty Hat-brimmed leather cowboy hat, faded tight jeans, cracked and dirty cowhide cowboy boots and a leather gunbelt with two pearl-handled Smith & Wesson revolvers protruding from the poncho. A hand-rolled cigar was clamped between his teeth, the dirt of a week smeared on his hands and unshaved face.

  “Sir,” Peter Meritson said, looking up at Phillips as he mounted the periscope stand, “your boots are violating the rig for ultraquiet. They’re clumping all over the place.”

  Phillips stopped his pacing and glared down at Meritson, the sonar officer crisply turned out in his pressed blue coveralls, flag patches on the sleeves, his hair perfect, his face a pleasant triangle that the girls went crazy for, his silver double bars and gold dolphin pin gleaming in the light of the control room, his shoes new black cross-trainers.

  For a full thirty seconds Phillips stared down hard at the younger man, then blew a smoke ring in Meritson’s face. He looked around the control room, the displays humming, the fans muted, the section-tracking team members murmuring to each other softly. He clumped into the sonar room, the sonar chief set up in the second control seat of the four-console row. He leaned over the chiefs shoulder. Master Chief Salvatore Gambini sat at the display, his full headset on, his bifocals poised on the end of his nose.

  Phillips clapped his hands on Gambini’s shoulder. Gambini was an older Sicilian, a full head of gray hair combed back on his scalp, his face open and fatherly, wrinkling into smile lines, his dark eyes the kind that penetrated. If he liked what he saw, his smile lines crinkled. If he didn’t, his face might as well have been embalmed. “How you doin’ today, Sal?” Phillips asked. He was not one to call a chief, or an officer for that matter, by his first name, but he had made a connection with Gambini that went beyond any professional relationship. Gambini’s file had been rich with detail, perhaps too rich, much of it entered by Admiral Donchez himself. Gambini was too old for the submarine business, having served in attack submarines for a long and distinguished career.

  He was now fifty-one and technically not physically qualified in submarines. He had had a bad heart attack during shore duty while teaching the kids out of high school the science of sound propagation and the BSY-2 combatcontrol system’s sonar suite. The result had been an emergency quadruple bypass, more than enough to cashier him from the service, except Gambini’s mind had been too valuable to lose. He had been assigned to the old Pacific Fleet Submarine Command HQ before the submarine force reorganization, before the Muslim war, serving as the command master chief to Comsubpac, the commander of the Pacific Fleet’s submarines. Admiral Donchez. He and Donchez had hit it off, talking over beers in a back street bar away from the base. Gambini and his wife Maureen were prominent at Subpac, giving frequent parties at their seaside home. It had been evident that the two of them were one of those rare married couples who were inseparable, two halves of one soul. At one of the Gambini parties Maureen had buttonholed the admiral and whispered in his ear about how much Gambini missed the submarines.

  Donchez had used his powers, being the bureaucracy’s equivalent to a 500-pound gorilla, to reinstate Gambini’s submarine qualification.

  Gambini was entirely too senior to go back to sea, especially in submarines, but the reinstatement meant he could at least ride submarines to help train their sonar crews. Donchez would move on from Subpac to become the Chief of Naval Operations, and Gambini left HQ to stay home with Maureen when she was diagnosed with brain cancer. The doctors gave her only a few months to live. Gambini’s face became hollow, his clothes hung on him. The cancer progressed. Gambini was beside her night and day as she slowly slipped away, finally becoming a different person, no longer able to recognize her husband or their three children. It was a Thursday night when she came out of the coma long enough to look at Gambini, this time with recognition. She had gripped his hands, hard, just before she shut her eyes for the last time. The moment of lucidity had been so brief, so startling and unexpected, and so close to the end, that Gambini had said he wasn’t sure if it had really happened, but a nurse in the doorway had also witnessed it. After her burial Gambini had been lost. He couldn’t eat, sleep or work. On the rare occasions when he showed up at HQ he stared into space or put his head on his desk. Donchez’s replacement. Admiral Carson, had convinced Gambini to retire. The same year Donchez—then the number one admiral in the navy, the Chief of naval operations—on a trip to Pearl Harbor stopped over to see Gambini. One dinner with the man was enough—Donchez pulled the strings, and Gambini was sent back to sea as a sonarman, a trial assignment to the Piranha since the Piranha was a new construction ship not expected to spend much time at sea the first year of its commissioning. At first Gambini had been slow to adjust to shipboard life, but it had been a key that unlocked a vital part of himself from his prison of grief. Within four months of the assignment Gambini was back, almost. Weekends and holidays remained black times for the master chief, typically finding him on the ship, but the worst day was the first anniversary of Maureen’s death. When the ship was bumped up in readiness condition by Admiral Pacino, Gambini was supposed to be separated from ship’s company and assigned back to Electric Boat.

  Official Navy orders remained paper, even in the era of electronic communication. They had arrived by courier the week before Piranha was to sail for the Oparea. Comdr. Bruce Phillips had signed for them and promptly fed them into the shredder. Piranha sailed with one unauthorized enlisted man, the best sonar tech in the US Navy, possibly in the world. “Captain, I’m doing better today that I guess I have a right to,” Gambini said. “Master Chief, don’t feel guilty for feeling good. And if you have to feel any guilt, feel it for not finding me a Destiny target.”

  “Don’t you worry, sir, we’ll get him.”

  “What’s that on the display?” Phillips was not one of the submarine captains who knew it all, nor was he one who didn’t but claimed he did. “I’ve got six frequencies I’m looking for. Captain. The graphs, they’re the frequency tones that Destiny should put out.”

  “How do we know what he’s going to put out?”

  “Good question. Skipper. We don’t know and we god damned well should.” Phillips bit his lip. Not good. Usually a submarine they were searching for was catalogued with
the tonals it put out and the transients it was known to put out. This data came from a sound surveillance done by a US sub that shadowed the new target submarine on its sea trials, listening and recording while the new sub went through its paces. Then, armed with the tonals the target emitted, later searches for that sub class could concentrate on just the tonals he put out, rather than guessing or looking at a whole range of frequencies. It was a paradox—to find a sub you had to know exactly what you were looking for. It was like walking through a dense forest and trying to identify a specific bird out of the noise of all the animals and insects and wind through the trees. If the bird’s song was known, finding it would be easy. “We had a sound surveillance of the old Destiny One class,” Phillips said. “Right. That’s what this is based on.”

  “So we never did one on the Two class.”

  “It was scheduled for the Barracuda to do this next month.”

  “That was crappy scheduling. Who left us with this bag of cow manure?”

  “Admiral Pacino, sir. He decided he wanted the surveillance done by a Seawolf class instead of one of the newer 688s.

  But Barracuda was the only Seawolf in the Pacific, and we were still unavailable at Electric Boat and in the wrong ocean.”

  “So what is this graph?” Phillips pointed to the screen. On the graph the trace of the incoming sound looked like a fat lopsided finger pointing upward. “This one is looking for fifty-eight to sixty-two cycles per second.”

  “There’s a spike there. That’s a tonal coming in. What is it? Is that him?”

  “No.

  That display is trying to catch Destiny’s electrical grid. If his sound signature is like the Destiny I class, he puts out a sixty-cycle tonal that comes from his grid frequency. Problem with that one is that we put the same tonal out there, so it’s hard to tell if that’s my ship or the bad guy’s ship. Every once in a while I pick up this phone and call the boys back in the teapot, and they shift our electrical grid’s frequencies around. If the spike moves, that’s not a Destiny, just the Piranha.”