Tomcat

by David E. Meadows

  “We have already seen the results in our own boat of what to expect from the new government. We saw the results carried to the extreme and enforced on Al Solomon as religious inquisitions by layman leaders decided the life or death of a crew member.”

  His eyes moved from sailor to sailor as he attempted to read the reaction of those standing below him. Some looked away when their eyes met, while others met his stare. Some of those staring nodded; others looked angry.

  He had little idea of the effect of his words, but he knew each individual sailor was forming his own opinion.

  He cleared his throat and continued. “We have been ordered to attack the American fleet again. To attack the new amphibious carrier that has entered the Mediterranean Sea and force them to withdraw their Marines from Algiers.”

  That got a reaction.

  Like the crew, he abhorred the fact that the Americans had occupied their capitol. It was a disgraceful act by what the French continued to call the mighty “hyper power,” but one that could be put in proper context when they considered that their own leaders continued to hold fifty Americans hostage, Americans whom they had guaranteed free passage from their shores.

  “If we had allowed those Americans to depart, we would not have the Marines in Algiers or the American fleet off our shores. We would be home with our families and not here, sailing off to what may well be our deaths.”

  So, where was he going with this speech? Some of the sailors shifted from foot to foot, as they tired of standing in place. He had their attention but would lose it soon. It was time to reach his objective and tell them his proposal.

  He keyed the microphone beneath the curve of the bulkhead on the conning tower, pressing the button five times, warning the XO that the moment had come.

  He told the crew members how proud he was of them, but after much soul-searching and praying to Allah, he had reached the decision that what they had done in siding with the rebels had been wrong. He could not in good conscience lead them in another attack against the Americans.

  He could not continue to support the new government.

  The words of Islam and the guidance of Allah had little in common with the tyranny of the rebel leadership.

  Maybe the great Satan, America, had the right idea in keeping religion and government separate. He was sorry, and he said so, for failing to realize this sooner and allowing his desire to further his religion to lead his country to where it was today: in chaos and civil war.

  The sailors standing in front of him on the bow of the submarine exchanged glances, and a couple of groups whispered among themselves.

  Ibn Al Jamal intended to take Al Nasser to Malaga and join the other Algerian Navy units that had fled to that Spanish port city. There, he would turn the submarine back over to the government forces of President Hawaii Alneuf. A sailor in the back screamed an obscenity at him and, before the sailor could finish, two others on each side slammed the angry man upside the head, knocking him out. They left the sailor collapsed on the deck.

  “Many of you remain loyal to the new government,” he continued. “I do not want to stand in your way to choose your own path in this time of testing in Algeria. Therefore, those who wish to return to Algeria should get on the tugboat.

  The tug will take you back to shore and back to the rebel leadership. You can tell them I made this decision, and you fought honorably but were overwhelmed. Maybe they will believe you.”

  A couple of sailors near the front shoved their way through the crowd topside and picked up the rebel supporter who had been attacked. They glared at Ibn Al Jamal as they helped their fellow supporter to the side of the submarine and onto the tug.

  From below, others emerged and worked their way to the tug. Some of the sailors remaining with Ibn Al Jamal hugged those leaving. A couple of the older sailors who he had hoped would stay stopped for a moment at the coning tower and looked up at him. He wished them luck ashore. The taller of the two said that it was only because their families were back there that they returned to Algeria; otherwise, they would gladly go with the captain.

  He blessed their choice and wished them the best. He knew some of those returning did so because of fears for their families. Many who stayed did so out of loyalty to him, and he believed most agreed with his assessment.

  It took nearly an hour to transfer the rebel faction from the Al Nasser. He gave them time to gather their belongings.

  Even as the tug cast off its lines to return to the naval base, Ibn Al Jamal was wondering if any rebel supporters remained on board. Just as he worried about sabotage by loyalists, now he would have to be concerned about a misguided rebel supporter believing he could earn Allah’s blessings by ensuring the submarine never reached Malaga. He didn’t know, but they would have to stay alert and be ready.

  A shout from the lookout above him drew his attention to the starboard side. He shaded his eyes from the glare of the clouds and the sea. A faint motion in the air caught his attention as an aircraft dropped below the overcast ceiling.

  It was heading directly for the Al Nasser.

  He grabbed the radio and ordered the tug to cast off the remaining, line and break away — cut it if he had to! A civilian crew member on the tugboat threw the last line overboard. A sailor below the conning tower quickly drew the line on board, hand over hand, almost a blur as the sounds of the approaching aircraft gave added encouragement.

  Ibn Al Jamal looked upward and watched the approaching aircraft grow larger until he could identify four propeller engines. Other than that, he had no idea what type it was, but he knew it was not Algerian.

  He pressed the Dive switch, sending crew members topside scrambling for the hatches. As the last watchstander slid through the conning tower hatch, Ibn Al Jamal followed him. He pulled the hatch down and spun the wheel, sealing off the outside from the interior of the Algerian Kilo submarine.

  The XO had the conn and was taking the boat down to periscope depth in the shallow coastal waters. They needed another ten miles before they would have sufficient depth under them to disappear into the sanctuary of the deep sea. commander still well eased off the throttle of the EP-3E reconnaissance aircraft and began a slow descent. The reducing engine noise made conversation tolerable. The constant engine vibration through the last remaining class of Navy reconnaissance aircraft was augmented by erratic shaking as it passed through the cloud layers in its descent. Stillwell glanced out the portside window and watched the two accompanying FA-18 Hornets break off. They would orbit overhead the cloud cover with the other two Marine Corps FA-18 Hornets while the aging EP-3E penetrated to take photographs and video of the Algerian Oran Naval Base. Stillwell estimated they would come out twelve miles off the coast, but the high resolution of the Big Eyes optical system should provide evidence as to the presence or absence of the Algerian Kilo submarine Al Nasser. He hoped the gyroscope on the system was operable. The aviation technicians assured him before they lifted off from Sigonella, Sicily, that it had been repaired. Without the gyroscope on the Big Eyes to compensate for aircraft movement, the resulting video would bounce up and down like an amateur film.

  “How’s the temperature on number two, Jasbo?”

  The copilot leaned over and glanced at the gauge. “Still running hotter than normal, Skipper, but still below the red. Should be all right if we don’t push it.”

  “Keep an eye on it. The engine for the other EP-3E didn’t make it on the Air Force flight today. Higher priority war materials, they said, for the Korean theater,” he sneered. “Not as if we don’t have our own war here.”

  Rachel “Jasbo” Smith reached over and tapped the gauge. She shook her head. “Amazing,” she said, smiling.

  “That always works in the movies.” The deployed squadron had three more copilots than they had qualified pilots, so Commander Stillwell, the officer in charge of the unit, found himself with a different copilot every day.

  Jasbo was a welcome choice. She was a short woman who barely met the minimum
height requirement for a pilot.

  Jasbo walked everywhere as if she was going to be late and always in short, fast steps, with her head tilted upward as if to add a couple of inches to her height. It was the bounce of her short, brown hair when she walked that first caught everyone’s attention. The sparkling brown eyes and quick wit made everyone love Jasbo as you would a sister. She brought out the better qualities in those around her who, through no fault of her own. felt they owed her protection. She had learned to accept this masculine fault, as her liberated sisters would have called it, with grace and aplomb.

  The flight engineer reached above the flight team’s head and twisted the air-conditioning switch to maximum.

  The EP-3E reconnaissance aircraft still had the best air conditioner in the shore-based aviation inventory of the Navy. In fact, most times, it was too good, and for the crisis along the North African Coast, this overpowered air conditioning capability had come in handy.

  Stillwell. picked up The inferior communication systemICS — handset. “John,”’ he said, contacting the mission commander, Lieutenant Commander John Andrews, in the aft section of the aircraft. “Everything ready to go back there?”

  “Yes. boss. We are set up, and the camera is running.

  Jus! keep our port side to the beach so Big Eyes can see the coast.”

  “I’d like to finish this as soon as possible. John. We have a lot of tired souls on board and another mission scheduled for tomorrow. The sooner we return, the sooner they can get some well-deserved shuteye.”

  The only things that could hold us up are visibility, technical problems, surface-to-air missiles, enemy aircraft —*

  “Bad joke, John. Tell our cryppie to keep an eye out for hostile aircraft. I don’t relish another ass-chewing flight of dodging fighters,” Stillwell said, referring to four weeks ago when they overflew the sinking USS Gearing. They had no sooner identified the sinking Gearing to Sixth Fleet before they had to hit the deck, fifty feet off the Mediterranean Sea, to avoid Libyan fighters flying north to attack Sigonella, Sicily.

  “Susan is right on top of it. Her sailors are turning and burning, Skipper. Amazing how a little self-preservation is such a great motivator.”

  “It is also amazing what a little fatigue will do. Let’s get the job done and get back to Sigonella. The chief and I are suffering up here. Jasbo needs to take a bath.”

  The copilot cut her eyes at Stillwell. “Commander!

  That’s a hell of thing to say to lady.” “What?” he asked, laughing.

  “That I need a bath,” she said, pretending to be offended.

  Stillwell grinned. “I have to admit I am becoming attached to the new perfume you are wearing. What is it?

  Fuel odor de jour mixed with a fine grain of week-old perspiration soaked permanently into the fabric of a Navy green flight suit? Something erotic about that, wouldn’t you say?”

  Rachel “Jasbo” Smith shook her head. “You’re a sick man, Commander. I bet your wife throws a little gasoline behind her ears before you go out, so you’ll feel at home.”

  “Nope. Just when she comes to bed.” Stillwell turned to the flight engineer. “Chief, you promised not to tell anyone.”

  “Moi?” Chief James Henckels answered with an exaggerated look of innocence, touching his chest.

  The cloud cover broke. Stillwell glanced at the altimeter.

  “Two thousand feet,” he said.

  Everyone in the cockpit looked out the left side of the aircraft. The yellow sands of the Algerian coast marked the horizon. About ten miles farther ahead was the Algerian naval base at Oran.

  He pressed the ICS switch. “John, we are approaching the target area. Estimate six minutes. You guys ready?”

  “Commander, for the fiftieth time, we’re ready. Been ready. Finger on the switch. Get us within sight, and Spielberg will be jealous of our film.”

  “John, 1 feel a lot of love in this aircraft. I’m sending the chief back to give you a hug.”

  John Andrews clicked the microphone twice in acknowledgment.

  “What’s that?” Jasbo asked, pointing out the front cockpit window on Stillwell’s left side.

  Stillwell glanced down at the controls, believing Jasbo referred to the exchange with John Andrews. “John? He’s being testy again. Doesn’t surprise me. He has flown about ten missions in a row—”

  “No, no; not that,” she interrupted. “There — ahead of us.” She pointed.

  He leaned forward and looked, trying to follow the direction of her finger. “What? I don’t see anything,” he asked. He looked up, searching the sky for aircraft.

  “On the seal Look on the seal” she said, emphasizing her words with exaggerated pointing.

  Stillwell looked again. Ahead and to their left, two ships appeared to be outside the harbor of the naval base.

  It took several seconds before he realized that one of them was a submarine.

  He grabbed the microphone. “John! John! The Algerian submarine is ahead of us on our left about six miles.

  We got her! By George, we’ve got her!”

  “Great! How far out is she? Can we circle her?”

  “No, I would say she is about six or seven miles from shore, still within their territorial, waters, but her wake shows she is heading out to sea. There appears to be a tugboat alongside her. Maybe she is doing at-sea trials following her dry dock?”

  “It’d be great if you could go closer.”

  “Can’t do it. We need commander, Joint Task Force, approval to violate the territorial waters, and we don’t have it.”

  “Sounds kind of dumb to me, considering we are occupying Algiers and flying combat sorties all over the country.”

  “John, take the pictures. I don’t make the rules; I just follow them. I will take us as close as we can, but I am not going closer than fifteen miles to their coast. The submarine should be about nine or ten miles away when we pass her. That’s close enough for you to photograph the color of their eyes if you want.”

  In the aft section of the aircraft, John Andrews and his technicians adjusted the Big Eyes camera system for a closer pass. Ten minutes onstation around the submarine, and they could head for home. The Intel wienies would be happy; the crew would be happy; and the Rack God, the sailors’ denizen of the bed, calling from the BOQ at Sigonella, would be appeased even sooner than expected.

  John turned to see how Susan and her band of crypto logic technicians were doing. They were the keys to survival this close to hostile forces. The submarine was harmless unless they had a couple of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles topside. He doubted they did. Intel hadn’t said anything about submarines having surface-to air missiles. They had seen mobile SAMs only with the Algerian land forces.

  Susan walked back and forth along the bank of sensitive electronic warfare systems, listening through her own ICS channel to the banter between the CTs. Her role was management of the information, but the highly trained enlisted sailors who sat the positions were trained to collect and analyze electromagnetic raw data to determine threat potential. They had been the primary reason Ranger Two Niner survived the approaching Libyan aircraft four weeks ago.

  “Let’s take her down to a thousand feet, Jasbo,” Stillwell said, simultaneously pushing forward on the steering column.

  Jasbo looked at the altimeter. “We’re at six thousand now, Commander. Engine number two still wavering at the edge of the red.”

  “Keep an eye on the number-two engine, Chief,” Stillwell said. “I don’t like to feather an engine this close to the sea. Not much room to correct.” “Aye, aye, sir. I have it,” Chief Henckels said, leaning forward and tapping the glass a couple of times.

  “I keep telling you two, that doesn’t work.”

  “It gives us comfort when we do it,” Jasbo responded.

  “Kind of like lighting a candle at church or sacrificing a chicken at a pagan ritual. Passing three thousand.”

  “Look at that booger! Caught on the t
op. Nothing a submarine skipper likes better than to be caught with their pants down, sitting on the top.”

  “Looks to me like the bunch topside are running.”

  Stillwell stared at the Algerian submarine slightly to their left about ten miles.

  “I’ll be damned.” he said. He clicked on his ICS button.

  “John, looks as if the submarine is trying to submerge.

  Three minutes to target.”

  “Roger, Skipper.”

  “John, have you relayed this to CTF Sixty-seven?”

  “Me? It’s not like I haven’t been busy back here.”

  “Temper, temper. I’ll do it from up here, John. You just take good photos. I don’t want to have to do this again, and we don’t want Spielberg laughing at you.”

  “We always take good photos, Skipper. Remember the one of you with that blond at the Total Motel swimming pool?”

  “John, blackmail will not enhance your fitness report.

  You’re testy and being a pain in the ass, so quit trying to get back on my good side. It won’t work. In fact, I am thinking of not allowing you to land with us in Sigonella.

  When Jasbo and I get an opportunity, we will roll the dice up here to see whether you jump before we descend to land or while we are in the pattern.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Commander Stillwell directed Chief Henckels to connect him to the secure radio.

  Several seconds passed. They were now four miles from the Algerian submarine.

  “The tugboat has broken away, Skipper. It’s in a hard left turn toward the shore.”

  “I see it, Jasbo. Chief, you ready?”

  “Got it, sir. Go ahead.”

  “The wake is increasing. The submarine has increased its speed and remains on course toward the open sea, Commander. I see no one topside. Hatches are buttoned down!”

  Stillwell straightened his headset so the earphones covered his ears and called Command Task Force Sixty seven.

  “We’ve got him,” John Andrews said. “Tape is rolling, and we are zooming in on the boat. No one topside on the submarine. Skipper, I think he is preparing to submerge.