Proximity: A Novel of the Navy's Elite Bomb Squad

by Stephen Phillips

  “Check, standby!”

  “Fins!”

  “Check, primary!”

  “Check, standby!”

  “Depth gauge and timer!”

  A salt water activated, combination depth gage and timer was attached to the secondary display. The divers had to monitor their depth and time throughout the dive to ensure they did not exceed their prescribed table. To remain too deep for too long would mean decompression in the water, or a trip to a recompression chamber to treat or ward off the bends.

  “Check, primary!”

  “Check, standby!”

  “Okay, one more thing before you on-gas—are both divers hooked up? T-Ball to the witness buoy, LT to the standby line?”

  Both divers had a “tag line” tied around their waist with a carabineer affixed to the end that would be locked into a loop at the end of their respective lines. T-Ball’s went to a float that would bob on the surface above him giving them an idea of his location, a witness buoy. Jazz was tied into a much longer line that would be tended by Sinclair if he had to deploy to aid T-Ball. Sinclair and Jazz could communicate via line pull signals if needed.

  “Any questions? Okay, on-gas.”

  The men pulled the black facemask up and strapped it on. Only their eyes were visible now. Each bit down on the mouthpiece in the bottom of the mask assembly and opened the barrel valve there to allow gas to enter their lungs from the hose going over their right shoulder into the rig. When they exhaled the first time a hiss and a crinkle could be heard as the diaphragm on their back filled completely.

  “Squeeze right hose, breathe in. Squeeze left hose breathe out. Give me a ‘thumbs up’ if you feel resistance in both.”

  There were two “thumbs up,” indicating that the check valves in each rig were working.

  “Give me ‘thumbs up’ when primary indicator is green and O2 readings on the secondary are all point six to point nine. Dee!”

  “Chief!”

  “Get us there!”

  “Aye, Chief, comin’ around!”

  Delgado turned the boat again. The RHIB rolled violently a few times. Jazz wondered if he would puke into his mouthpiece. The high O2 he was breathing seemed to help a little.

  “Okay, put on T-Ball’s skull cap. Hand ‘em the two-alpha.”

  “Forty feet!” Delgado called out.

  “Alright, T-Ball, time to do some of that Navy diver shit!” said Quinn.

  “Get some, T-Ball!” exclaimed Sinclair.

  “Twenty feet! Going to neutral!”

  Keating looked to Jazz.

  “LT, off-gas.”

  Jazz closed his barrel valve and removed the facemask. Keating gave him the binder. “Keep the logs.”

  “Ten feet!”

  “Splash ‘em!” Keating called out.

  Quinn helped T-Ball splash over the side. He descended immediately.

  “Diver left surface time one six one four!” yelled Keating.

  Jazz wrote the time in the diving logbook. Quinn fed the tending line, paying attention to keep his teammate from becoming entangled as T-Ball dove deeper and deeper. At the end he set the buoy gently in the water.

  Delgado looked over his shoulder, his hands still on the wheel and throttles.

  “We good?”

  “Yeah buoy’s clear aft,” said Sinclair.

  “Coming up!”

  Delgado goosed the throttles and opened their distance from T-Ball’s float.

  FOURTEEN

  Open water

  With the sonar gripped tightly in his right hand, T-Ball used his left to help pull himself toward the bottom. He made long wide strokes with his fins. Only once did he stop, pinch his nose, and blow air into his sinuses, equalizing the pressure in his ears. Within a minute he was on the bottom. T-Ball’s primary display was green. He checked the O2 sensor readings on his secondary gauge but could barely read the numbers, the silt in the water did not allow much sunlight to penetrate this deep. Finally, he was able to discern that they were all within specifications.

  Next T-Ball looked at his depth gauge.

  “:02 60FT.”

  He reminded himself that if he dropped to sixty-one feet he would be on a seventy-foot table.

  He took a moment to square himself away. On his knees in the mud he tightened his shoulder straps and ensured his line was not fouled. He yanked on it hard, once, causing the float to visibly bob on the surface.

  One. On the bottom.

  He moved the switch on the back of the two-alpha, bringing it to life. He closed his eyes and began searching with his ears.

  The det got comfortable again while T-Ball hunted for Scout’s mine. Jazz shifted and sat low in the RHIB again. Quinn and Sinclair stripped to shorts and sunglasses. They lay on the deck next to him to resume sunning.

  Keating and Delgado both watched T-Ball’s witness float. Delgado put the RHIB into the seas, which were now even angrier. The waves grew in size and frequency. About every fifth one would slam into the RHIB jostling the men and all their gear.

  Keating sat astride the pontoon, one foot on the deck, one in the water.

  “Still okay, LT?”

  “I’m still sick, Chief, but I got nothing more in me.”

  “Okay, then it’s quiz time. What are our lost diver procedures?”

  “Uh, we won’t lose him, Chief, he’s got a witness float.”

  “Come on, LT. We briefed this, this morning. It is obviously a harsh environment out there; it ain’t the pool in Indian Head. Do you think the line could be cut?”

  “I guess so.”

  “What is the lost diver procedure?”

  “Um, we put the lost diver buoy in with a search line attached to the anchor. Standby diver follows the line down and performs a circle search.”

  “What do we do first?”

  “First?”

  “The line may part, but there are at least two other things we can do to locate him before we splash standby. Know what they are?”

  Jazz thought for a moment. He had difficulty concentrating.

  “No, Chief.”

  “Look it up and report back to me.”

  “Aye, aye, Chief.”

  “What’s a caustic cocktail?”

  “That’s when excess water gets into the sodasorb canister. The diver will receive a chemical burning sensation in his mouth.”

  “What does the diver do?”

  “Surface.”

  “Like a bat outta hell. Ever had one?”

  “No.”

  “I have, burns like a motherfucker. Most guys shoot to the surface so you gotta watch ‘em for AGE. What’s the treatment?”

  “Rinse the mouth with fresh water.”

  “Correct.”

  The return was getting louder in T-Ball’s ears. He was close now. He opened his eyes so that he would not run into the mine. From four feet away he could make out a white shape. Now he turned the sonar off, he found the mine.

  He quickly recognized the bottom mine. It was a Mark-52. This one was painted white with orange stripes identifying it as an exercise mine. Stenciled on the side was RONEX 99-6-15-EOD. The “EOD” meant this mine was designated for demolition or exploitation if found by an EOD team.

  T-Ball reached into his vest pocket and removed a small battery operated noisemaker called a “pinger.” It sent a metallic clicking sound into the water at a specific frequency. The chirping reminded T-Ball of a fathometer. He held it up to his jaw. “Click, click.”

  He felt the pinger’s vibration indicating that it was working. T-Ball attached it to a lug nut on the top of the mine with two zip ties. Now the mine could be found again easily with the two-alpha in the passive mode. The diver who returned would dial in the frequency of the pinger. He would hear it when pointing the sonar in its direction.

  T-Ball looked at his depth/timer again.

  “:10 60FT.”

  “What if T-Ball goes tits up and I send you down after him? When you find him on the bottom, he’s not moving.�
��

  “I’d check his primary and secondary.”

  “Primary is flashing red. Secondary readings aren’t displayed.”

  “Okay, I’d have to go with the gauges I got. O2 level probably dropped because of an electronics failure. I’d bump up his O2 with the manual bypass valve, get him squared away and bring him to the surface.”

  “Okay, good. Gotta know that shit cold. You’re going to supervisor school soon, right?”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “Study the dive manual. I’m gonna keep quizzing ya.”

  The tone in Keating’s voice told Jazz that he was done for now. Jazz closed his eyes and leaned back. He tried to concentrate on not being ill. After a few moments the OIC actually began to doze.

  He woke when the engines revved up.

  “LT, get ready to splash!” shouted the chief.

  Delgado was heading for the witness float. Quinn was on the bow now and Sinclair helped Jazz up onto the pontoon. The lieutenant was very confused, he sensed tension in the boat.

  “What’s happening!”

  “Nothin.’ Maybe nothing. But, there haven’t been any signals from T-Ball on the witness float. It’s been twelve minutes now.”

  “Think he forgot?” asked Sinclair.

  “Maybe, he is a new MCM diver. Maybe he’s sending us signals and they’re not making it to the surface because he’s fouled.”

  “Yeah, or maybe T-Ball’s giving us limp-wristed line-pull signals.”

  Delgado slowed the RHIB as thy came alongside the float. Quinn reached in and grabbed it.

  “Give ‘em a one!” Keating yelled.

  Quinn pulled on the line violently. The dive side stood in silence a moment.

  “Sent a one! Nothing received!”

  “Again!”

  “One sent!”

  Quinn looked at Keating and shook his head. Keating’s voice changed.

  “Okay, LT, you gotta bring T-Ball back. Follow his line down. He may be fouled, unsnag him. If he has an O2 hit, turn off his O2, don’t bring him up if he is convulsing until it subsides. If his O2 is low, bump it up like we just said. Push in on his diaphragm on the way up so he don’t embolize, got it?”

  “Hooya, Chief.”

  “GO!”

  “SAVE HIS LIFE LIEUTENANT!” Delgado yelled as Jazz rolled into the sea.

  For the first few feet Jazz held onto T-Ball’s line with both hands. He needed the line to find his shipmate, but he did not want to pull the diver off the bottom. T-Ball could embolize with only a two foot differential in pressure.

  One second the line was taut, threatening to part under the force of the cresting waves, the next it was like spaghetti, threatening to entangle Jazz. He grabbed it hand over hand and kicked hard to get down.

  As the depth increased Jazz had to equalize the pressure in his ears. He pinched his nose through his facemask and blew air into his sinuses. He could still hear the waves sloshing overhead, but it was calming with depth. At thirty feet he thought he began to see some of the bottom and the water temperature dropped significantly.

  A thermocline, he thought.

  A silt layer was in the last ten feet from the bottom. He was able to see T-Ball from only three feet away. The green light on his primary was flashing.

  High O2, registered in his adrenaline-filled brain.

  Jazz grabbed his teammate by the shoulder and turned him over. His eyes were closed. Jazz reached for his secondary. He found it, but it was too dark to see the readout. He closed T-Ball’s O2 bottle valve.

  He was not convulsing, so Jazz yanked on his tending line four times, hard then two more times, followed by four more.

  Four–two, rig malfunction. Four, diver leaving bottom.

  Jazz grabbed T-Ball by the vest and held him chest to chest. He kicked to the surface, harder than he ever had before. Jazz remembered from dive school, it was no joke pulling another man with you through sixty feet of water column. He kept kicking into T-Ball’s legs, restricting his motion.

  Now Jazz was aware that lines were in water, around him everywhere. He felt one snagging his left leg. Jazz stopped and looked down. It was not the line, it was the two –alpha sonar. He reached down with one hand to untangle it. As he did, both he and T-Ball sank deeper. Jazz knew time was running out.

  Again Jazz kicked for the surface. When he broke free the situation seemed worse. One moment he and T-Ball were in the trough of a wave, rising up with it. The next they dipped under while it passed over them. He thought the two of them would be lost before they could ever be recovered onboard the RHIB. They were saved by the fact that their teammates had their lines.

  “Grab the diver!” Keating yelled.

  Jazz reached up with his right hand. Sinclair grabbed it with both arms.

  Someone called out, “Dee, get those lines in!”

  Delgado picked up where Quinn left off on T-Ball’s line and began pulling in the slack.

  “LT, off gas!” commanded the chief.

  Jazz closed his barrel valve and ripped the mask from his face.

  “Whatcha got?”

  “O2 hit. Primary flashing green....”

  Jazz got a mouth full of seawater as he and T-Ball disappeared in the rising sea. When they emerged he spit and continued.

  “Couldn’t read secondary. I closed O2 valve and brought him up.”

  “Okay, okay, get ‘em...”

  Keating’s next words were lost again in the ocean. Suddenly Jazz felt T-Ball being wrestled from his grip. A second after T-Ball was retrieved, Jazz felt Sinclair trying to pull him in. Jazz kicked hard helping his tender and struggled into the boat.

  When he lay on the deck Jazz immediately felt ill again. He had swallowed a lot of salty water. The motion was compounded in the boat. Jazz saw his shipmate lying prone on the deck.

  “Was he convulsing!” the chief asked.

  “No.”

  “Damnit, T-Ball, I wanted you to convulse!”

  Suddenly T-Ball was no longer limp.

  “Off-gas.”

  The primary diver closed his barrel valve and removed his mask.

  “Sorry, Chief. I didn’t seem him coming in time. I was glad just to get my light flashing.”

  Jazz knew he had been had.

  “SON OF A BITCH!”

  “No, no, sir. You did well. Didn’t he, T-Ball?”

  “I’ll dive with him as my standby any day.”

  “Me too. What was your depth and time?”

  T-Ball grabbed his secondary and read the timer/depth gauge.

  “Sixty feet for twenty minutes.”

  “Good. Find anything?”

  “Mark-52 bottom mine.”

  “Did you put a pinger on it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay gentlemen, time for a little boom-boom. LT, you are sick, sunburned, and tired. On top of it, the seas are definitely getting rough. You want to get unjocked? Or do you wanna blow shit up?”

  “I wanna blow shit up, Chief.”

  “Right answer.”

  FIFTEEN

  Demolition man

  Gabriel remembered that compartmentalization of information was one of Nasih’s pillars for success. Nasih taught them to develop cells of four or five members, ten at the most. Liaison with other cells or with outside entities could only be conducted through a single member.

  When the group needed explosives they considered breaking into a commercial magazine, perhaps at a mining operation or quarry. This blunt method, however, would likely draw some attention through subsequent police or ATF investigations. Therefore, the group decided to employ a more subtle means. Gabriel realized he knew a source of explosives that the ATF did not monitor. He recruited a supplier who seemed more motivated by ideology than cash. Nonetheless, Gabriel paid him well.

  Gabriel chose the rear parking lot of a San Antonio hotel as the meeting point. He recognized The Supplier’s vehicle and pulled into the spot next to it. The Supplier lifted two ice chests from his vehicle and
put them into Gabriel’s trunk.

  “How much is there?” Gabriel asked.

  “About two-hundred pounds,” The Supplier answered.

  Gabriel handed him a small backpack.

  “When you get the chance, look inside the smallest pocket.”

  The Supplier slung the bag over his shoulder.

  “This may be it for awhile,” The Supplier said nodding toward Gabriel’s car. “My situation has changed.”

  “I understand,” replied Gabriel. He did not want to lose this asset. “Still, we will keep you on the payroll as before. This has been a mutually beneficial situation and I’m sure that your services will be required in the future.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Keating leaned over and put a hand on Jazz’s shoulder.

  “Okay, LT, you are about to go under sixty feet of water with no visibility in a computerized diving rig built by the lowest bidder while carrying enough explosives to vaporize a skyscraper. And you’re going alone. Are you scared?” he laughed.

  Jazz shook his head in the affirmative.

  “Good. Don’t forget to follow the detonating cord to the surface to ensure it is not fouled and that you’re not tangled in it. That would be a bad thing in about four different ways.”

  Jazz nodded his head up and down again. Keating turned back to the coxswain.

  “Okay, Dee, talk to me.”

  “Forty feet!”

  Keating turned back to Jazz.

  “LT, try to find it with the sonar first. If you can’t, go to passive and find it with the pinger T-Ball put on it.”

  “Ten feet!”

  “Neutral!” Keating called. “Go, LT.”

  Jazz rolled backwards into the sea. He quickly surfaced again turned toward the boat. Keating handed him the demolition charge.

  “Go!” the chief yelled again.

  Jazz descended. Once on the bottom he sat on his knees. Grabbing the witness line, Jazz yanked on it like a bell ringer.

  “One. Diver on bottom.”

  He looped his left arm through the bungee cord woven into the charge the det constructed on Scout’s fantail the day before. With the demolition package resting on his arm, Jazz turned on the sonar.

  The return from the mine was loud. Jazz kept the sonar pointing toward it as he swam through the water. He strained to see the mine through three feet of visibility and listened for the return to get louder.