The Honorable Knight

by Patrick John Donahoe

  “To the galley?”

  “I’ve got my tea and cup. Let’s go.” Jacques followed Dave to the galley and went straight to the hot water, filled his cup, dropped in a tea bag, screwed on the cover, and sat across from Dave with his ever present cup of almond flavored coffee.

  “There’s sugar in that jar on the condiment table,” Dave offered. “By the way, there’s a box of chamomile tea bags in the cupboard above the coffeemaker for when you run out of your personal stash. So, what can you me about our ‘training’ mission?”

  Reaching for the sugar jar, Jacques said, “We just wait for a large storm to start in the Caribbean and head toward the East Coast. Our team member in Cuba will be watching for our target to leave port, and then we go into action.”

  “Hurry up and wait.”

  “It’s the Navy way. Be ahead of the problem.” Jacques unscrewed the lid on his cup, dropped one sugar cube into his tea and screwed the lid back on.

  Increasingly anxious to start the operations, Serena paced her hotel room like a caged tigress. She stepped out onto her balcony and scanned the piers with her binoculars. The weather report from the National Hurricane Center indicated that Melissa, a Category 1 Hurricane, had formed northeast of the Virgin Islands and was headed west. Melissa was expected to pass by Puerto Rico and Hispaniola and move northwest towards Florida.

  Serena kept in close contact with Alicia at NSA. Alicia told Serena that US satellite coverage can find the Kilo on the surface in cloudless weather, but as the storm gets closer to Cuba the cloud cover would hide the sub. Serena, in her role as ground observer, planned to notify Ian and Jacques when the sub left the pier.

  With a best guess of approximately 300 miles from Mariel to an intercept point in the eye of the storm, Serena estimated the Kilo to require about thirty hours of transit time at a nominal speed of ten knots over the ground. For the US submarine to get into position and intercept the Kilo it needed an early estimate of Kilo position, speed and heading. Jacques’ responsibility was to use the sonar system to vector the US submarine to the Kilo once the Kilo submerges. With about thirty hours to accomplish the encounter, this mission was not anti-missile-missile time critical, but considering the speeds and trajectories of the USS Montpelier, the Kilo submarine, and the storm, their interactions were still time critical.

  Serena checked on the Kilo’s pier status every couple of hours. She couldn’t afford to become suspicious to the dock personnel, since Cuba was a communist country with brutal secret police who arrested with minimum justification.

  Jacques enjoyed operating the sonar control and display consoles. The three sonar techs, or STs, First Class Higgins, First Class Reese, and the supervisor, Chief Grimes, used recorded data from an earlier mission to provide Jacques with some on-the-job training. Normally, one operator monitored the passive sonar, the second operator monitored the active sonar, and the third operator slash supervisor generated the geo plot and reported out to the ASW commander.

  The ST’s taught Jacques how to operate the passive and active systems, and the geographic plotter, without actually transmitting signals. They also taught him how to transfer the geo-position information; the position in Latitude/Longitude, and the speed and direction of motion of the target into the Underwater Comms suite.

  The STs were amazed at how quickly Jacques picked up the ability to operate the system.

  CWO Cantrell said to Jacques, “We’d hire you, if you’d be interested in joining the crew.”

  Jacques laughed and said, “I’m honored by the invitation, but no, I can’t.”

  An MH-60R helicopter carried Ian and Senior Chiefs McLeod and Colby and their weapons and duffle bags out to the USS Montpelier, or ‘Mighty Monty,’ which was patrolling the area between Andros Island and Cuba. The helicopter crew lowered Ian’s team’s gear in a basket to a couple of feet from the deck of the Monty where a Monty crew member shorted the static electrical charge with a grounding cable, retrieved the gear from the basket, and handed the gear over to two crewmen to bring aboard. Then Ian, McLeod, and Colby took turns climbing down the ladder onto the Monty.

  Ian enjoyed the fresh smell of the sea air as he climbed down. They were on the verge of a grand battle. He and his team had trained for several contingencies, and were eager to engage. Ian always enjoyed conducting special ops with his team, the most qualified, trained, and professional Seals ever to serve in the US Navy, or anyway in Ian’s opinion.

  Ian stored their RPG29s and M107 sniper rifle in two bunks normally occupied by one crew member away on leave and another in sonar A school. The Monty had its full complement of 10Mk48 ADCAP torpedoes and Tomahawk land attack missiles. Ian hoped they wouldn’t be needed.

  The submarine crew didn’t question Ian, McLeod, or Colby. Seal operatives had served on board many times before, and the crew knew it was best to be accommodating to their guests, who always seemed to be on ‘training missions,’ which of course were seldom training missions.

  Ian and his teammates ‘hot bunked’ with the three sonar men, each standing a four- hour watch and sleeping as best as they could. The Seals were used to getting by on four hours of sleep per day and were restless in the ‘sewer pipe,’ as they called the submarine between themselves. The claustrophobic nature of the submarine environment differed greatly from their jungle, mountain, and desert fighting. The one area of comparison was the mini-subs that Ian enjoyed operating, but those operations typically were only hours at a time, not days at a time, and the mini-subs were open to the sea and not claustrophobic.

  The Seals tried to keep out of the CO’s and his crew’s way while the CO maneuvered the Monty in various training modes, but kept in the general area Ian had circled on their navigational chart, centered at the mid-point between Key West and Havana in deep water. The sonar techs had been instructed by the installation contractor on how to use the Underwater Comms suite designed for decoding information provided by the Valiant’s sonar system.

  The submarine’s active sonar system was seldom used due to the ‘run silent, run deep’ attitude of submariners, but the active system would probably have to be used in the last hours of the chase.

  The XO kept in hourly contact with the Hurricane Specialist Unit of the National Hurricane Center in Florida to stay current on the latest storm, Melissa, a Category 1 hurricane heading toward the Florida coast.

  The Monty came to periscope depth every hour on the half hour so Ian could contact Serena via satellite phone. Serena’s responsibility was to notify them when cloud cover would obscure the satellite overview of the Kilo pier. She had predicted the Kilo would sail when satellite coverage was blocked by cloud cover. The storm was expected to pass over Andros Island with landfall expected to occur between Miami and West Palm Beach if it continued on the same northwestern track.

  Ian discussed the attack plan with Colby and McLeod one more time. Ian had the Monty surface for enough time to practice their plan. They carried their weapons up the ladder to the conning tower and situated themselves in preparation for the at-sea battle.

  With a practice call from navigation, “Surfaced.” They exited the Monty with their weapons, and fastened heavy duty carabiners with attached safety lines to conning tower and deck locations. In case the storm tried to toss them about they fastened their safety lines to the special web vests they wore. They worked out the best positions and stances for firing their weapons at the Kilo. The weather topside became rougher by the hour. The XO was tasked to operate the sound power phone, to carry the RPG rockets, and whatever support was required when the time came.

  Once Ian was satisfied with their ‘dry run,’ he told the XO, “We should probably submerge again.” Being prepared was the key to every operation, and being ready to adapt to whatever happened was Ian’s Team’s specialty, when Plan A, or B, or even C became unviable.

  Serena rode her battered Schwinn bicycle down the road paralleling the piers. She paused to take a quick scan of the pier activity and noted that the K
ilo crew was hauling up the gangplank. The southwestern edge of Hurricane Melissa’s cloud cover had blocked out the satellites’ optical view of the pier, and the IR view wouldn’t be able to capture the movement of the small footprint submarine at periscope depth.

  It was time for Serena to notify Ian that the Kilo was about to sail. Each move on the part of the Kilo merely confirmed Serena’s suspicions that she, Ian, and Jacques were doing the right thing. If Ian had to sink the submarine with all aboard, she felt he would be justified. Biological weapons of mass destruction, or in this case mass illness and hundreds, maybe thousands of deaths, was evil incarnate. Whoever the madmen behind this scheme were, they needed to be dealt with, and as soon as this attack was blocked, they would be. Serena wished she could either be on the USS Montpelier with Ian or on the USNS Valiant with Jacques. She wanted to be a part of the action.

  Jacques received the go-ahead from Serena and informed the CWO that it was time to pursue the Kilo. The CWO directed his contractor system maintenance team to deploy the active sources to depth, and the ship’s captain, a Military Sealift Command civilian, to maintain course at a speed of three knots into the seas while the sonar sources were being deployed. The long passive horizontal receive array was already deployed and the STs were monitoring the ocean for ambient noise and noise anomalies.

  The USNS Valiant was at the southwestern edge of the storm paralleling its track toward the east coast of Florida. Hopefully the Kilo would pass between the Valiant and the eye of the storm. The Hurricane Specialist Unit had provided the crew with its best estimate of direction and speed of the eye of the storm.

  Jacques watched the system maintenance team lower the sources into the water. He then walked back through the ship to the Operations Center door, tapped in the digital code, and entered.

  Jacques approached the STs manning the consoles and asked the ST supervisor, Don Grimes, “Have you detected either of the two submarines yet?”

  The ST pointed to the geo plot and said, “Not yet. My best information indicates the Blue Unit is between Mariel, Cuba, and the eye of the storm. She’s not making any noise that we could detect passively given her operating parameters and the noise from the storm. The other unit, the Red Unit, if it passes between us and the eye of the storm and is making good headway, may reveal her blade cavitation. Otherwise she seems to be super quiet, like a diesel-electric?” the ST stated in a quizzical, searching for additional information, kind of way.

  Jacques brushed off the ST’s question posed as a statement.

  ST Reese, the ST on the console set up for passive operations said, “The hurricane is stirring up a lot of noise in our band, but once the active system goes on line our ability to detect should improve dramatically.”

  ST Higgins, the ST on the active monitor console, suggested, “Pull up a chair behind us and you can observe what we observe in real time if you’d like.”

  “I would, but I don’t want to disturb your work.”

  “We’ll let you know if you’re bothering us, “added the supervisor.

  “One more thing,” Jacques said. “Both units will probably go into the eye of the storm and surface. You’ll probably lose them when they surface, won’t you?”

  The supervisor gave Jacques a questioning look, but kept his comment to, “Why would they do something as crazy as that?”

  Jacques shrugged, kept his eye on the geo-plot, and said, “Beats me. It’s a training exercise.”

  CWO Cantrell, looking over Jacques shoulder, smiled without adding anything to the conversation.

  Ian joined the Monty’s sonar gang as they studied their monitors looking for target detections. Colby and McLeod were content to wait impatiently in the galley, drink cups of coffee, and read the paperback novels they brought along for boredom relief. The ST listening to the audio output turned up the volume of the WLR-9 passive receiver, switched it to loudspeaker, turned to Ian, and said, “Valiant is transmitting loud and clear from the west of our location.”

  Ian heard the first ‘ping’ out of the loudspeaker and replied, “Good, let the show begin.” He looked for the first plot point on the active operator’s geographical display.

  Anticipating Jacques’ curiosity, the active operator, ST Higgins, turned slightly toward Jacques and said, “It will take a few transmissions to build up confidence in our detections and form a solid track. Be patient. I already have a high confidence hit on one unit, the one to the east of us, probably our Blue. You realize that both units will probably hear our pings and know something is up.”

  “I doubt that either will alter their actions even if they do hear our pings,” Jacques stated in a dismissive manner. “Look toward Cuba. The Red Unit should be coming north from Mariel.”

  All three operators turned at this and quietly stared for a moment, then went back to their monitors.

  After a half a dozen transmissions, the supervisor turned to Jacques and said, “Take a look at my geo display. The blue dots represent a preliminary medium confidence track of the Blue Unit to the east of us. These two red dots are the start of a low confidence track of the Red Unit based on passive detections of her propeller cavitation. As we progress we’ll build confidence in our tracks. The Red Unit appears to be running at high speed. It’s too soon to report, but it appears that the Red Unit is headed toward the eye of the hurricane and the Blue Unit is still waiting for our track data.”

  “The sooner, the better,” Jacques replied.

  “Give us two more transmissions approximately ten minutes apart and we’ll send our first Red track data to the Blue Unit. We want to provide at least medium confidence data. The passive system doesn’t provide range, but given enough passive holding we can use the geo plotter and target bearing data to estimate a track, range, and speed. We expect to improve our track estimates with each active transmission.”

  Twenty minutes later, the active sonar operator turned to Jacques and said, “We got one more hit on the target, then she disappeared. She may have gone to the surface to avoid our pings.”

  Jacques, having made storm, Kilo, and Monty track estimates using a manual plotting board, suggested to the CWO, “There’s a P-3 squadron at NAS Key West that can provide air coverage until the weather becomes too dicey. Ask for air surveillance support to fly from Key West and the Bahamas every four hours and help us keep track of the Kilo if it’s on the surface avoiding our pings. He won’t be able to make the full run on the surface, or even at persicope depth, because the seas will get too rough as she gets closer to the storm. So, let’s continue to ping.”

  CWO Cantrell looked at Jacques with an expression approaching awe. “Sure, I’ll get on the horn right away, Mr. LeFriant.”

  “Let’s study your geo for a while, Mr. Grimes, and do some tracking calculations. First lay a line representing the National Hurricane Center’s prediction for the path of Melissa. Then lay a line representing a course from Mariel to an intersect point between Nassau and West Palm Beach. I’m going to make some tea. This is going to be a long day. Can I bring back some coffee for the three of you?”

  Grimes replied, “Three blacks please; no sugar, no cream, in our spill proof cups, thank you.”

  Jacques gave the other two operators, Reese and Higgins, a glance, and they nodded assent. Jacques gathered their three coffee cups from the cup holders at the side and below the levels of their keyboards and headed to the galley.

  The senior ST on board the Monty said, “We’re getting target data from Valiant. According to this position report the Red Unit is approximately forty nautical miles outbound from Mariel. The trajectory predicted for Hurricane Melissa will take her just south of Nassau with a predicted landfall around West Palm Beach, Florida. We can assume the Red crew is obtaining the same storm information that we are through the Internet, from our own weather services,” the senior ST said with a tone of irony in his voice.

  Ian considered the chain of events. The hurricane was progressing toward Florida at about ten knots
. We’re between the Kilo and its closest point of intersection with the storm. If the Kilo makes approximately ten knots until it reaches just west of Andros Island, she could wait for the eye of the storm to pass over her location, surface and fire her MANPADS rockets up into the eye of the storm and spread her pathogens along the coast of Florida. Transiting to a point just west of Nassau at 10 knots would take her about 30 hours.

  When he returned to the SOC, Jacques handed each operator in turn their hot cup of coffee. He had brought a month’s supply of the CWOs special blend of flavored coffee aboard, which filled the operating center with a pleasant almond aroma. Jacques knew the way to a sailor’s heart was a fresh hot delicious smelling and tasting cup of java. Jacques was tempted to have a cup, but he stuck to his favorite chamomile tea with a half teaspoon, or one cube, of sugar, a habit he’d developed over the centuries as he spent time with Desiree.

  Jacques sat behind the supervisor and looked at the geo screen. The track lines he’d asked for were displayed in dots connected by white lines. “Can you calculate the distance from Mariel to the intersection point between Nassau and West Palm Beach on the storm track line?”

  “Already done. It’s approximately 260 nautical miles. I also placed these symbols on the screen to represent our locations and the Blue and Red Unit’s last known positions.” The supervisor pointed to the Blue, the Monty, the Red, the Kilo, and the Green, the Valiant icons on the geo display.

  Jacques studied the screen and sipped his now lukewarm tea. Talking out loud, he said, “The Red Unit could arrive at the intersect point in about 26 hours if she makes ten knots on the surface. It’s not likely she would go straight there, and she wouldn’t stay on the surface for the last fifty to seventy miles where the storm has the strongest winds. So if they submerge fifty miles out it would take another seven hours at seven knots. Fifty miles off the surface distance is 210 nautical miles at ten knots, or 21 hours, plus seven hours submerged time is 28 hours. How far is the storm track?”