The Trident Deception

by Campbell, Rick

  You get what you pay for.

  But saving money, the admiral learned, was what D.C. was all about these days. Congress was tightening its wallet after a decade-long post-9/11 defense spending binge, and with sequestration kicking in, every program was feeling the pinch. And it was concerning one of those programs that the phone on his desk rang late this afternoon.

  It was the call he’d been expecting.

  “Murray, how have you been?” Caseria spoke into the speakerphone on his desk, so that the captain sitting in a chair opposite his desk could hear.

  Wilson’s voice cackled through the speaker, the long-distance connection breaking up periodically. “Good, Admiral. Staying busy training the youngsters. And you?”

  “Been busy too, Murray. We’ve got some excellent upgrades coming to the fleet soon. But I miss command. There’s nothing like the excitement of being on station.”

  “I’m with you, Admiral. Not to mention the port calls.”

  Caseria grinned. “Too bad I’m not around to haul your ass back to the boat anymore.”

  Wilson laughed. “No need to, sir. I’ve learned my lesson. A couple of times.”

  “So what’s this about, Murray? Sonar, I hear. My sonar program manager, Captain Jay Santos, is here with me. What have you got?”

  “I’d like you to take a look at a set of sonar recordings from the Houston. She passed within one thousand yards of the Kentucky and her sonar systems didn’t pick up a thing. I know our Tridents are quiet, but they can’t be that quiet.”

  “Where are the sonar tapes?”

  “The only data pipe we have big enough goes to Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Newport division. We’re uploading the recordings now.”

  Caseria looked at Captain Santos. “Can you get to the data there?”

  “No problem, Admiral. Most of our expertise resides there anyway. That’d be perfect.”

  “Anything else, Murray?” Caseria asked.

  “That’s it, Admiral. But we need the analysis done fast.”

  “We’ll get right on it. Take care, Murray.”

  As Admiral Caseria pressed the End button on the speakerphone, he looked at Captain Santos. “Undetectable at one thousand yards? Not a chance. Pull the data from the Kentucky’s last sound trials. I want to see how quiet she really is and what tonals she has. Then tear apart the latest sonar upgrade we sent to the fleet. We need to figure out what’s going on.”

  * * *

  Seventeen hours later, standing in his third-floor office, Captain Jay Santos rolled up the last set of sonar printouts. Checking his watch to see if there would be time for lunch after his meeting with Admiral Caseria, Santos wondered why he bothered; considering what he was about to tell the admiral, he had lost his appetite. Tucking the sonar printouts under one arm, Santos left his office, descended one floor, and passed into Admiral Caseria’s atrium. The admiral’s aide looked up as Santos approached, motioning for him to enter Caseria’s office.

  Santos spread out two rolls of sonar printouts, side by side, on the Admiral’s conference table. “Admiral, we have a problem.”

  Caseria joined Santos at his side, examining the printouts as the captain explained. “Here are samples of what the sonar operators on the Houston saw. The one on the left is the broadband screen, and the one on the right is narrowband. We’ve confirmed the Houston passed within one thousand yards of the Kentucky, yet you can see here there’s no sign of the Kentucky whatsoever.”

  “What did the sound trials data show?” Caseria asked. “Is she really that quiet?”

  Santos unrolled another set of printouts, laying them on top of the first two. “These are the recordings from the Kentucky’s sound trials a year ago. As you can see, she has a characteristic Trident broadband signature and most of the typical narrowband tonals plus a few unique ones. These recordings were taken at four thousand yards. So, no, the Kentucky is no quieter than your standard Trident.”

  Santos rolled out a third set of printouts. “That had a lot of my folks scratching their heads, so we ported the raw sonar data into the previous version of our fast-attack sonar systems, and you can see here that the Kentucky is now clearly visible on both the broadband and narrowband displays. Bottom line, Admiral—there’s a flaw in our latest sonar upgrade.”

  “Have you tracked down the problem?”

  “Yes, sir. But there’s more. We ported data from other submarines, both Trident and fast attack, into the latest version of our sonar upgrade to determine the extent of the problem, and the new sonar system operated perfectly.”

  “I’m not following you,” Caseria said. “You just convinced me the sonar upgrade is defective, that it missed the Kentucky when it should have picked her up. Now you’re saying it works fine. Which is it?”

  “Both, sir. The issue is that the sonar upgrade malfunctions only when you run the Kentucky’s signature through the system. We broke apart the new algorithms, and there’s a special code that nulls the Kentucky’s frequencies so they don’t appear on the display.”

  “Why would the algorithms do that?”

  Santos raised an eyebrow. “This code was inserted maliciously. These new sonar algorithms were engineered specifically so the Kentucky could not be detected. Someone didn’t want us to find her.”

  Anger spread across Caseria’s features as he stared at the sonar printouts. “I want this tracked down to the company and individuals responsible.”

  “We’re already on it, sir. Landover Engineering Systems developed these new algorithms, and I notified NCIS a few minutes ago.”

  “Good. Now how much of the fleet is affected?”

  Captain Santos frowned. “I’m afraid the news gets worse…”

  29

  PEARL HARBOR

  At the western end of Waikiki, the early morning shadows of tall beachfront hotels retreated slowly across Ala Moana Boulevard as suburbanites flowed into the city; the traffic backups, which would eventually extend all the way to Ewa, were already ten miles long. Halfway down the ten-mile backup, cars flowed steadily into Pearl Harbor, the gate sentries checking IDs and waving drivers on. After a right on North Road and a left on Nimitz Street, traffic entering the submarine base was light, as the nineteen submarines and their crews were at sea this morning. On the second floor of COMSUBPAC headquarters, overlooking the usually bustling Morton Street and submarine piers, the silence was especially noticeable as Murray Wilson braced for Admiral Stanbury’s reaction to the startling information he had just received.

  Stanbury was standing behind his desk, his face turning redder by the second, until finally he spat out the words. “Our entire fast-attack fleet is blind?”

  “Technically, they’re deaf, but yes, sir,” Wilson replied. “None of them can see the Kentucky on their sonar screens. They all have the latest sonar upgrade.”

  “Can they revert to the previous version?”

  “No, sir. The upgrade involved not only new algorithms but also new hardware. We can’t reload the old algorithms onto the new hardware because the middleware hasn’t been developed.”

  The admiral’s hands clenched into fists. Glancing down at Stanbury’s desk, Wilson checked for the presence of a replacement ceramic coffee cup. It seemed another one might fly across the office. Luckily, only Styrofoam cups littered the admiral’s desk.

  Stanbury unclenched his fists, exhaling slowly. “Is NAVSEA working on a fix?”

  “Yes, sir. But it’ll take time, and they’re not sure if they’ll be able to download the new software over the submarine broadcast. Loading new middleware is a bit tricky, apparently.”

  “What do we do in the meantime?”

  “I recommend we pull our fast attacks back into the third tier of the layered defense, behind the P-3Cs and Surface Fleet, instead of up front. That will buy us some time in case NAVSEA can develop a fix we can download over the broadcast.”

  “Fine. Coordinate with PAC Fleet.”

  Wilson looked down at the chart of the Pac
ific Ocean on the admiral’s conference table, annotated with the three-layer ASW barrier across the entrance to Emerald. They had surged the entire submarine fleet to sea in a single day, for all the good that had done them; their whole fast-attack fleet was impotent. However, there was one option remaining. As he assessed the risk, Stanbury apparently noticed the concern on his face.

  “What?” Stanbury asked. “What else has gone wrong?”

  “Nothing else has gone wrong, Admiral.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Not all of our fast attacks are blind. The North Carolina hasn’t received the sonar upgrade yet.”

  Stanbury’s eyes brightened. “Where is she now?”

  “She’s in the local operating areas, on sea trials following her extended maintenance period. But the crew’s not certified to deploy.”

  “Certified or not,” the admiral replied, “she’s the only submarine with a chance to find the Kentucky.”

  “There’s one more thing, Admiral. The North Carolina has only two torpedoes aboard, and we don’t have time to pull her in and load more.”

  Stanbury stared at Wilson for a moment, no doubt evaluating the prospect of sending a submarine into battle with only two torpedoes. But the North Carolina was their only hope. It didn’t take long for the admiral to decide. “If they do things right, two torpedoes are all they’ll need. Send her after the Kentucky.”

  30

  KAUAI, HAWAII

  Eight miles off the southern shore of Kauai, Cindy Corey spread her arms out along the transom of her husband’s twenty-five-foot Sea Hunt center console. Randy was busy in the bow, checking their position on the Garmin GPS marine navigator, verifying they had reached the spot their friend Scott had recommended, where the ono—nice twenty to twenty-five pounders—would practically jump into the boat. While Randy’s pastime didn’t interest Cindy at all—her idea of fishing was trolling her finger down the seafood restaurant’s menu—she couldn’t pass on a day off with her husband, relaxing in her two-piece fluorescent orange bikini, soaking up the rays. She leaned back, closing her eyes as she lifted her face up toward the sun, and … got the weird feeling she was being watched.

  Tilting her head forward and opening her eyes, she checked on Randy, but he was busy with the fish finder now, oblivious of her concern. The feeling passed as quickly as it had arrived, and Cindy shrugged off her uneasiness after she scanned the horizon for other boats. While they had passed a dozen or so on their way out, there were currently none within eyesight, just the distant shore of Kauai behind her. After retrieving a Diet Coke from the cooler near her feet and sliding it into a koozie, she got that feeling again, that nagging sixth sense of hers that was rarely wrong.

  The feeling she was being watched passed again, and Cindy began to think it was just her guilty conscience. Both she and Randy had called in sick this morning; the day was too beautiful to spend indoors cooped up in their office cubes. But as she took a sip of her Coke, she got that feeling yet again; it seemed to be arriving at regular intervals, like clockwork.

  * * *

  Seven hundred yards to the south of Cindy and her husband, the USS North Carolina cruised at periscope depth, the top of its port periscope sticking just above the ocean’s surface, pausing momentarily from its clockwise rotation to examine Master seven-nine again, a pleasure craft drifting just off the submarine’s starboard beam. Standing behind the Officer of the Deck at his Tactical Workstation, a weary Commander Dennis Gallagher monitored the performance of his crew as they waited to download the latest radio broadcast through the receiver on top of the scope. After endless months in the shipyard, this week had been the first opportunity to knock off the rust that had collected on the crew’s proficiency. Over the last seven days, Gallagher had put the ship and his crew through its paces, and it hadn’t been pretty.

  Gallagher had rarely left Control during the last week, watching warily as the crew conducted routine operations and responded to emergency ship control drills. But even a simple trip to periscope depth was not an easy evolution for a rusty crew. Each watch section had broached the submarine three times the first few days while going to PD, going all the way to the surface instead of leveling off four feet below as ordered. And if the crew’s lack of proficiency executing routine evolutions was any indication of their present skills, it was no surprise the emergency drills had gone even worse.

  But after a week under way, the crew had recovered its skills in basic seamanship and tactics. Sonar was coming up to speed, easily scrolling through the numerous contacts in the local waters off the Hawaiian Islands, sending data to fire control technicians, who quickly generated target solutions. This approach to periscope depth had gone smoothly, the ship rising steadily, leveling off without even a foot of overshoot. The eight-thousand-ton submarine glided at periscope depth, the top of her sail four feet below the surface of the water.

  Gallagher watched the periscope display as the Officer of the Deck rotated the periscope steadily, searching for contacts headed their way. Unlike other submarine classes, the Virginia-class fast attacks were built with new photonics periscopes that didn’t penetrate the ship’s pressure hull. Instead of manually rotating the scope, walking round and round on the Conn, the OOD turned the scope with a twist of his wrist, his hand on a joystick, switching the scope between low and high power periodically with a flick of the toggle on the joystick controller. The Officer of the Deck was a split-tour junior officer from one of the 688s and his experience showed, the periscope rotating at just the right speed, pausing to monitor the unsuspecting pleasure craft off their starboard beam at regular intervals, like clockwork.

  The crew had begun to ease into their routine, and the tense orders and curt reports that punctuated the ship’s first few days at sea had been replaced with bland formality. And now, Gallagher heard what he’d been waiting for.

  “Conn, Sonar. Have a new contact, bearing zero-seven-zero, triangulation range eight hundred yards, classified biologics. Looks like a whale has fallen in love with us.”

  Some of the watchstanders in Control chuckled, and Gallagher relaxed for the first time since he’d cast off the last mooring line. The crew was comfortable at sea again, at ease with their ship and the rigorous demands of their duties on watch. His men had a lot of potential, and after a few months working up for their deployment, he was sure they’d be the best submarine crew in Pearl Harbor.

  Before Gallagher headed deep to continue the morning’s training evolutions, he ordered Radio to download the latest message traffic. “Radio, Captain. Download the broadcast.”

  Radio acknowledged, and a few minutes later, the radioman’s voice came across the 27-MC. “Conn, Radio. Download complete.”

  Gallagher turned to his Officer of the Deck. “Bring her down to two hundred feet.”

  The OOD acknowledged, and with a twist of the joystick, he swung the periscope around toward the bow. “Pilot, ahead two-thirds. Make your depth two hundred feet.”

  That was one of the hardest things to get used to. The four watchstanders on previous submarines—the Helm and the Outboard, who manipulated the submarine’s rudder and control surfaces, as well as the Diving Officer and the Chief of the Watch—had been replaced by two watchstanders: the Pilot and Co-pilot, who sat at the Ship Control Panel. The Pilot controlled the submarine’s course and depth while the Co-pilot adjusted the submarine’s buoyancy and raised and lowered the masts and antennas. Why aircraft terminology had been chosen to identify the two watchstanders instead of the traditional Helm and Outboard confounded Gallagher; it was a horrendous break in tradition. However, no one had called him in the middle of the night to ask his opinion, and the decision had been made.

  Pilot and Co-pilot they were.

  Then there was the newfangled design of the Virginia-class Control Room, with Sonar in Control instead of a separate room, the sonar consoles lining the port side of the ship with the combat control consoles on starboard. Even though the Sonar Supervisor sto
od only a few feet away from the Officer of the Deck, reports were still made over an announcing circuit, the supervisor speaking into a microphone. Finally, even the periscopes weren’t called periscopes. They were referred to as photonics masts on the Virginia-class submarines. Gallagher shook his head.

  The Pilot entered the ahead two-thirds command, and the ship slowly picked up speed, the bow tilting downward as the ship descended to two hundred feet.

  A few seconds later, as the OOD lowered the photonics mast, the quiet in Control was broken by Radio’s announcement over the 27-MC.

  “Conn, Radio. Request the Captain in Radio. We have a Commanding Officer’s Eyes Only message.”

  Gallagher headed into Radio, wondering about the message. Had someone’s mother or father died? Had one of the crew popped positive for drugs on his last urinalysis? A half dozen other potential reasons for receiving a CO’s Eyes Only message while the ship was operating in local waters ran through his mind.

  Stopping by the printer, Gallagher announced, “Ready.”

  The radioman on watch tapped a few buttons, initiating the printout. A few seconds later, the message slid out from the printer. The header was standard for a CO’s Eyes Only message, but the content was unlike any he’d read, and not one he’d expected to get on the North Carolina’s sea trials. He read the message again, slowly this time, then a third time. Finally, he folded the message and slid it into the breast pocket of his uniform, trying hard not to let the radioman see his reaction.