Dangerous Grounds

by Don Keith

  The old general shook his head. He knew the highway airbases and the countless other military installations were all useless defense efforts. No one would be attacking the DPRK. The world outside, the enemy, had no reason to send their armies against these stone-and-concrete fortifications. No, they were content to merely sit back and allow the beleaguered little nation to slowly starve itself into oblivion.

  But his nation had one thing going for it. Patience. General Kim pondered the luxury of time. Schooled in the Oriental sense of strategy, he thought of time as a powerful weapon. Time measured in terms of generations. Enemies could be defeated in the same way as water erodes granite, inexorably, a tiny bit at a time.

  But at this moment, time had become his enemy as well. If he couldn't bring all the pieces of his intricate plan together soon, the grand strategy would fail. He would never rise to rule his homeland. The DPRK would never take its rightful place as the dominant nation of East Asia.

  His country’s leader, Kim Jae-uk, and his idiot father before him, had succeeded in squandering the nation's meager resources building a huge army. It was their plan to sweep down to the south, across the rest of Korea, and regain their rightful lands, re-unite the severed countries. It would never happen, of course. It was too late for that now. The southern enemy and his American master had grown far too powerful.

  There was a need for a better strategy if the goal was to be met. Better to use the knowledge of Sun Tzu and defeat the enemy before he was met on the field of battle. Better to use an adversary's own strength to render him powerless.

  General Kim smiled. The key to his plan was riding inside the black car that was now just outside the high chain link fence that surrounded his small, decrepit compound. He watched as the car swung through the open gate and flashed past the guards standing there.

  The general made no move to conceal himself from the approaching vehicle. Its tires crunched as it rolled through the gravel parade ground and eased to a stop in front of the headquarters building. A pair of guards scurried toward it, their AK-47s held at attention as they ran. The quicker of the two guards swung the door open and stood at attention as the lone occupant of the ominous black automobile unfolded himself out of the rear seat and stood.

  Colonel Kuang il Chung took a deep breath of the cold, damp air then turned and walked stiffly toward the command building. He glanced up at the second floor window. He could see General Kim's unmistakable silhouette standing there, watching him.

  So, the old man was impatient enough to let his anxiety show. Kuang filed away that tidbit of information. It might prove useful later. General Kim liked to play a convoluted game within a game. No one was ever quite sure where he stood in the old soldier’s plans. That gamesmanship, along with his absolute ruthlessness, was how he had risen to head the Special Weapons Agency. Some said he was the most powerful man in all of the DPRK. After the exalted leader, of course.

  Kuang knew he would have to watch his every step and use every bit of intelligence he could gather if he hoped to come out on top in any match of wits with the general.

  He knew he came at the game from a position of strength. At this point in the scheme he was certainly an important piece in General Kim's strategy. After all, it had been Kuang alone who had engineered the theft and subsequent sale of the Russian nuclear torpedoes to Sabul u Nurizam. Granted, it was Kim who ordered the switch of fake warheads for the real ones. Kuang still wasn't quite sure why, but he had done his duty, he had made it happen. Then he had supervised the weapons' difficult transit over the mountains so they would remain hidden from the American spy satellites. Now he would report his mission successfully completed. The grateful general would finally name him his chief assistant. Maybe even his chief of staff.

  Kuang straightened the hang of his uniform as he stepped inside the building and bounced up the broad stairs to Kim's second floor office. The attendant waved him through the crowded, functional outer office, toward the inner sanctum. He stopped just outside the heavy oak door and once again carefully adjusted his tie and belt before knocking and strutting triumphantly in.

  Colonel Kuang stopped just a meter from where the general stood, still gazing out the window at the colorless sky. The colonel saluted crisply and reported, his voice just below a shout.

  "General, I report the mission has been completed successfully. The fake weapons are in Najin. The real warheads are in a railcar that will arrive here within the hour."

  Kim slowly turned and looked up at him. The younger man towered over him but the general seemed not to notice.

  "And no one knows of the real weapons?"

  "No, sir," Kuang replied. The slightest of smiles played at his lips, which were still chapped from the trip over the mountains with the weapons. "The peasants who carried them over the mountains met an unfortunate accident when their truck missed a turn on the way home. Those mountain roads really are unsafe in such bad weather. I regret to report that there were no survivors."

  The general turned away from Kuang and walked around behind his desk. He sat down, formed an inverted V with his index fingers, and placed its point against his chin. He paused a moment before asking his next question. Kuang heard his empty stomach growl in the silence of the room. He hoped the general had not heard it.

  "Then you are the only person who knows where the real warheads are, Colonel Kuang?"

  The colonel was not quite sure what to infer from this line of questioning. He had already assured his leader that their secret was safe between them.

  "Yes, sir,” he said. “Except for you, that is."

  "Good, good. You have done well. You must have your reward and very soon," Kim responded, his dark face suddenly lightening. "Go now and attend to the arrival of your toys. I will see that you are amply rewarded for your loyalty and attention to orders."

  Kuang finally allowed himself to smile easily. It was finally happening. The general was pleased with his work. He would raise his faithful understudy to the heights of power.

  Now he once again dutifully obeyed his leader’s order. He turned on his heel and bounded toward the door.

  The general pulled a Russian-made 9mm pistol from his desk drawer, sighted quickly, and shot Kuang twice, each deadly bullet landing neatly at the base of the taller man’s skull. The colonel was dead before he had time to react.

  "Good,” Kim muttered. “The final loose end is now tied."

  Midshipman Jim Ward squatted and braced himself as best he could so he was able to look over Chief Danny Suarez's shoulder. The pair faced a bank of panels that was packed full of lights, dials, meters and switches. The florescent lighting in the compartment gleamed off the waxed deck and the immaculate stainless steel fittings. Pipes and wiring filled the overhead and the space in front of the curving bulkhead across the narrow passageway behind them. The heat and humidity were near stifling.

  Ward could smell the pungent aroma of hot lube oil. For a moment he was a child again, back home in some Navy housing unit, reliving the smell of his father's uniforms when the elder Ward returned from another long deployment. Life was coming full circle. Now his uniforms would absorb the same pungent aroma.

  The men were in "engine room, upper level, forward" on the submarine City of Corpus Christi. Just a few feet forward of them, a thick steel and polyethylene bulkhead shielded them from the 150-megawatt nuclear reactor that drove the sub. The ten-inch diameter pipes that ran just over their heads carried high-pressure steam back to drive the huge turbines that roared away a few feet farther aft. Just on the other side of the curving bulkhead, two inches away, was the cold, deep, dark depths of the Pacific Ocean.

  Chief Suarez was the Leading Petty Officer for the Reactor Control Division onboard. He was also young Ward's current mentor. Learning to lead a division of a dozen or so sailors was a young officer's first step up the long ladder that eventually led to commanding a submarine.

  Suarez’s lips moved as he read from a technical manual and flipped a series of s
witches on the electronics panel in front of him.

  "Gettin' too old for this crap," the short, rotund chief grumbled. "I don't see why those fancy engineers at Electric Boat couldn't put these test panels up at sittin' level." He traced another sentence in the manual with his index finger and flipped a switch. A row of red lights energized immediately. Ward clearly heard a breaker pop open just above where he squatted, then there was a siren blast from inside Maneuvering, the enclosed space a few feet aft. The operators inside Maneuvering controlled the reactor plant.

  Ward pressed the sound-powered phone earpieces closer to his head to filter out some of the engine room noise. He needed to hear what the reactor operator was saying to him from inside Maneuvering.

  "Chief, reactor operator reports a locked-in scram alarm on channel D and a reactor protection alarm,” he relayed to Suarez, yelling to be heard over the noise. “Engineering Officer of the Watch is yelling and screaming because we didn’t warn him that we would trip an alarm. Guess we startled him. He spilled his coffee all over his uniform."

  The chief looked back at his young charge, his eyes twinkling. The beginnings of a mischievous grin creased his sweaty face.

  "Guess Lieutenant Junior Grade Winslow wasn't paying real close attention when we briefed him." He put extra emphasis on "junior grade." Winslow was very proud of his new silver bar. He had also earned a reputation amongst the crew already for being a know-it-all and a bit of a pain-in-the-ass. "Hope we didn't interrupt his deep contemplation too bad," Suarez added with more than a hint of sarcasm. "Anyway, report that the reactor protection system checks are complete and satisfactory. Did you learn anything while you watched an old goat flip switches?"

  Ward nodded. He had learned more about Navy life in the week he had been onboard the sub than he had in his three years at the Academy. The pace was unbelievable. He fell asleep immediately every night, absolutely exhausted. His mind reeled with the mass of information he was absorbing. It was grueling, but he was loving every minute of it.

  Already they had shot exercise torpedoes, practiced more engineering drills and casualties than he thought were possible, and, just when he thought they were about done, the skipper made them do it all over again. Then there were the manuals to read and systems to learn. Just too much for one mind to sop up, but it was slowly starting to make sense to him.

  If it weren't for the friendly competition with Neil Campbell, Ward imagined he might have given up in frustration after the first day. Campbell was particularly adept at figuring out the complex systems on the City of Corpus Christi while Ward's Academy training proved useful in learning how to drive the boat. And fear of the XO and his "dink list" kept both midshipmen’s motivation high.

  Time had flown by at blinding speed. Two days in Guam after the torpedo exercise were used to load more warshots and food for the long run west. Neither midshipman had the opportunity to go topside there, much less leave the boat as the endless stream of boxes poured through the hatch. Besides, there would be plenty of time for liberty when they reached Singapore, and that would be a lot more exciting than the small mid-Pacific island.

  They were finally out on the grand adventure, two months of cruising the western Pacific and Indian Ocean before they would ultimately catch a flight home from Bahrain.

  The sound-powered phone squawked in his ears.

  "Mister Ward," the reactor operator said. "XO just called back. He wants you in Control, ASAP. You're going to take the boat to PD."

  Ward yanked off the phones and grunted to Suarez, "Gotta get forward, Chief. XO wants me. Time to learn how to go to periscope depth."

  Suarez chuckled.

  "First flying lesson, huh? Don't get us too far out of the water. These instruments aren't calibrated for high altitude operations."

  Ward ran forward. He used the almost-sideways, slightly bent over gait that submariners learn so they can quickly slip through the narrow, low passageways.

  His was finally about to get his first chance to guide the big boat up to periscope depth as the diving officer, to actually sit in the chair and feel the power under his control. Wow! What a trip! Could he do it? Or would he embarrass himself and broach the boat, leaving her wallowing on the surface like a fat black whale for all to see?

  Ward lifted his leg and ducked his head as he slipped through the hatch to the forward compartment and then jogged through the mess decks. The other crewmembers watched him as he ran past. It seemed that the whole crew was gathered there to watch the fun.

  He scrambled up the ladder to Ops Upper Level and stepped through the back door to Control. Lieutenant Commander Clancy Higgins looked up from the chart that he had been studying.

  "Where the hell have you been, Mister Ward?" he growled. The XO was hard to read. Sometimes he seemed friendly and helpful. Other times he was gruff and taciturn.

  "Ward! Get your ass over here,” snapped Bob Devlin, the boat’s captain.

  He wasn't the least bit difficult to read. Skippers like Devlin were called "screamers" at the Academy, men who led by intimidation. The sailors standing watch in control stared pointedly at the panels in front of them, carefully avoiding eye contact with young Ward and pretending not to hear Devlin's tirade.

  The captain had made himself very clear shortly after Ward stepped aboard.

  "Look, Ward. Don't expect your hotshot old man to get you anywhere out here. I don't care if you are Jon Ward's brat. On my boat, you'll not get any preferential treatment. When you fall on your ass, I'm not goin' to kiss it and make it all better. And Daddy’s a hell of a long way from here."

  Jim Ward assumed there must be some bad blood between Devlin and his father, although he had never heard his dad mention it. He hadn't been able to talk to the elder Ward to find out, either. But that didn't really matter anyway. He was old enough to fight his own battles without help from home.

  Fortunately there was little opportunity for the captain and Ward to interact, aside from meals they took together in the wardroom. Now, though, he would be driving the sub to periscope depth under Devlin's relentless eye.

  Ward couldn’t help it. He felt his hands getting clammy already, just thinking about it.

  Even so, he stepped purposefully over to the diving officer's chair. Master Chief Charlie DiAnaggio, the Chief of the Boat and the sub’s most experienced diving officer, stood and motioned for him to have a seat.

  "Just listen to what I tell you,” the COB said in a whisper. “We'll get you up and back down okay." His voice was gruff, with just a hint of his Baltimore-Italian background, but Ward knew the man had a friendly, garrulous personality.

  The young officer-to-be plopped down in the chair and nodded gratefully.

  "Expecting a sea state three from the north,” DiAnaggio said, not loud enough for the skipper to hear him. “It should be easy enough if the captain brings you up abreast the seas. He'll give you a two-thirds bell, seven knots, to get you started up to PD. Then he'll slow to one third at about a hundred feet. That'll let you coast up nicely, and ship speed will be down so no one up there will see a feather behind the scope."

  Ward nodded. He had read it in the Standard Operating Procedures a hundred times. It all made sense. Come up with the seas abeam, so the waves didn't act on the fairwater planes to suck them to the surface. Use enough speed to drive the boat up quickly to limit the amount of treacherous time between when they were safely in the depths and when they could actually see any surface threats. And keep the speed slow while the periscope was sticking up. The periscope was very hard for anyone on a ship or plane to see, but a big white rooster tail of water behind it made it quite easy to spot.

  "Okay. Now, when the captain tells you to make your depth six-two feet, flood fifteen thousand pounds to depth control as you start up. Then order a seven-degree up angle and call out the depth changes. Got it?"

  Again Ward nodded. He was with the COB all the way. The extra seawater would make the boat heavy. That would counteract the surface suction that wo
uld try to broach the submarine, yanking her to the surface instead of allowing her to hover just below it.

  "Let's go then," DiAnaggio said with a wink.

  Ward could feel rather than see Devlin behind him.

  "Ward, I expect you to come on watch ready to work, not get hand fed everything." The skipper’s voice dripped sarcasm. "COB, stand back and let’s allow Mister Ward to show us what he can do."

  DiAnaggio started to protest but Devlin waved him silent.

  "Ready to proceed to periscope depth," Ward called out and hoped the captain couldn’t hear the tremor in his voice.

  "Men, we are going to practice a combat approach,” Devlin announced loudly. “There are hostile aircraft up there looking for us. If we broach the boat, that means Mister Ward will have killed us all." He paused for effect then ordered, "Right full rudder, steady course north."

  The helmsman swung the rudder over and the big sub obediently turned to the new heading.

  Ward called out, "Captain, sea state three from the north. Recommend course two-seven-zero."

  "What's the matter, Ward?” Devlin shot back. “Can't handle it?"

  "I can handle it. Just recommending," Ward answered quietly. His voice betrayed him with a nervous cracking.

  The control room was deathly quiet, even more so than usual for a trip to periscope depth. Tension held an icy grip on the tiny space.

  DiAnaggio started to say something. He thought better of it when Devlin fixed him with an icy glare.

  "Dive, make your depth six-two feet," the captain ordered.

  Ward chimed right in to order the Chief of the Watch to flood thirty thousand pounds of seawater into the depth control tanks. He then turned to his two planesmen and said, "Alright, full rise on the fairwaters. Full rise on the stern planes. Give me a seven degree up angle."

  The boat started to angle up noticeably, now moving toward the surface. Ward swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on the string of events he had just set in motion. Even with the unexpected heading, it wouldn't be too hard to control the sub as long as he had speed.