Glass’s cramped stateroom on the Improved Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine Toledo was literally on the other side of the world from his home and family back there near Norfolk. That brief instance of homesick nostalgia was swept away by reality as the submarine skipper hurriedly finished smearing on the cream, making sure to cover his ears and the back of his neck. Glass knew from painful experience that the tropical Indian Ocean sun could be unrelentingly brutal.
As Glass wiped his hands on a towel and began looking for his sunglasses, Lieutenant Commander Billy Ray Jones stuck his head in the stateroom door. The ship’s executive officer gave a contemptuous snort.
“Boy, this place sure smells like a piña colada, Skipper. Y’all opening up a tiki bar in here?” When Jones kidded, his thick Alabama accent and good-ole-boy mannerisms added to the effect. “Reckon you could pour your good old exec a big, frosty glass full, yo’ know with an umbrella and all?”
“It was the only SPF 50 I could find in our rush to get the hell out of Norfolk,” Glass responded with a chuckle. “You remember all the fuss in that work-up before the underway, like they were pushing us out the door. Lucky I had time to hit the Exchange at all.” Glass sniffed his hands. “But you’re right. I don’t know whether to slather this stuff on or eat it.”
Prior to leaving Norfolk for this deployment, Toledo, which had been much modified from her sister 688Is, had spent considerable down time getting still more new gear installed. It seemed the Navy wanted to bolt or weld onto the submarine every gizmo they had in development. Then, once installed, there was all the testing of the “experimental” equipment to see if it came close to doing what it was designed to do. This extra work and confusion added many unexpected hours and immeasurable frustration to what were already hectic pre-deployment work-ups. And, as usual, the NUWC eggheads always seemed to want to give the “must have” black boxes one more tweak before the boat could finally get underway. Which required still more testing and verifications.
But when it came time to go, the urgency and secrecy were apparent. Out of port and best speed all the way around Cape Horn just so no one would have any idea where they were going. Now they were on the other side of the world, first mission completed and pulling in to port for a little rest and to finish up on some of that testing and verification. And it would be hard to find a port more hidden and out of the way than the tiny island of Diego Garcia.
“Look, XO, after seventy days enjoying the fluorescent sunshine, I figure we’re all pretty pasty white,” Glass added. “I ain’t taking any chances. Did you get the mission-report message off?”
“It went out in the first message traffic when we surfaced. We got a reply a few minutes ago,” Jones answered, now all business to match his skipper’s sudden mood switch. “The intel weenies are supposed to be meeting us when we tie up so they can take our sonar tapes. Kinda funny how they are suddenly so very interested in our latest catch.”
“Not surprised,” Glass grunted. “It’s not every day we catch a Chinese sub trying to sneak up on our little tropical paradise here. They’ll have plenty to study. A week in trail as she snooped around here, pretty complete acoustic mapping on her, then a good turnover to IUSS as she headed north. And no indication that our Chinese friend was any the wiser. I would say we did pretty well.”
“Gotta agree,” Jones answered proudly. The crew of Toledo had, indeed, done an admirable job. “But the reason I stepped in was to tell you that I’ve got Bob Ronson on the bridge as UI for his first landing. He may need some coaching to keep him from finding the reef the hard and destructive way.”
Joe Glass nodded his approval as he pulled his ballcap down snugly onto his head. So many new faces on this deployment. Sometimes it seemed to Glass that the entire crew had changed out without his knowing it. The fact was most of the crew actually had changed out, and for quite a few reasons. One was Glass’s own successful pleading that he be able to make one more run. That meant he had already been Toledo’s skipper for a good bit longer than was typical.
“Roger. Ronson seems like a good kid, bright and eager,” Glass responded. “And this should be a pretty straightforward maneuvering watch. No wind to amount to anything. No current.” The skipper pulled an index card from his breast pocket. “Entrance channel course one-one-nine, turn bearing on Observatory Point zero-five-five, Anchorage Channel course one-seven-one. Then port side to the tender.”
Jones shook his head and grinned. “You really are a bona fide Luddite, Skipper. You know there’s an electronic chart right up there on the bridge box, right?”
“I never did trust them newfangled thingamajigs,” Glass shot back with an exaggerated hillbilly drawl of his own. “Fancy gizmos always on the fritz just when you need ’em most.” Glass waved the three-by-five card. “But these never go haywire or need batteries.”
Looking past the XO, Glass noticed Doc Halliday, Toledo’s corpsman, slipping by, heading toward the control room.
“Doc!” Glass called out. “Make sure that the bridge party and line handlers all use sunblock. We certainly don’t need anyone on the binnacle list with a damn sunburn.”
“It’s in the bridge bag, Skipper,” Halliday answered. “Put it in there myself. I remember that time off Colombia when you…”
Joe Glass stepped out of his stateroom and waved Doc on his way. The corpsman was one of the few who had been with Toledo for more than a few deployments. Then the skipper grabbed the ladder up to the bridge and called around the ship’s control station to the chief of the watch, “Captain to the bridge!”
With that, Glass began the long climb up the trunk to the bridge, some twenty-five feet above the deck. As he ascended, he could plainly hear Chief Dooley announce over the 7MC, “Captain to the bridge,” and then Bob Ronson’s higher-pitched response on the communicator, “Captain to the bridge, aye.”
Glass pulled himself through the upper bridge hatch and around the ship’s whistle, then emerged into blinding sunlight on the crowded bridge. In addition to LTjg Ronson, the officer of the deck under instruction, there was Lieutenant Commander Walt Smith, Toledo’s new engineer, standing the officer of the deck watch. With a lookout and a phone-talker as well, there was not enough room to stand. The phone-talker was relegated to sitting on the step, staring at a black steel wall. Glass squeezed past the team and slipped up to the “skipper’s playpen,” a small space on top of the submarine’s sail cordoned off by stanchions so that it was relatively safe for him to stand there.
After having spent more than two months submerged, the blazingly bright sunshine took a little getting used to. Diego Garcia’s low green growth was easily visible on the southeastern horizon. Glass estimated they were about six miles out. Simpson Point was easy to make out. Somewhere off to the east was West Island and then Middle Island beyond. The port guide said that they were low-lying, so Glass was not surprised that he could not see them. The entrance passage was located between the two spits of land, but so was the dangerous Spur Reef. The barely submerged coral ridge spanned most of the harbor’s entrance, standing by to ground anyone foolish enough to venture out of the narrow entrance channel.
“Bridge, XO,” the 7MC blared. “Hold a harbor tug, bearing one-six-two, range seven-five hundred yards. He’s waiting by buoy One Delta Golf to lead us down the channel. Tug is up on channel sixteen.”
“Bridge, aye,” Ronson answered.
Joe Glass trained his binoculars over to where he could see the tug bobbing easily in the gentle swell, waiting for them. He grabbed the bridge-to-bridge radio that was looped to the forward stanchion and keyed the microphone.
“Navy tug, Navy tug, this is inbound Navy unit.”
The reply was immediate. “Inbound Navy unit, this is tug Shawnee. Welcome to the tropical paradise of Diego Garcia. Understand it’s your first visit here. We’ll lead you down channel. You’ll be tying up to the Simon Lake, port side to.”
“Shawnee, inbound Navy unit, aye,” Glass answered. “Lead the way.�
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Turning to his officer of the deck UI, Glass said, “Mr. Ronson, I suggest that you come around to the heading for the harbor buoy and kick the speed up a little bit or we’ll be out here getting sunburned all day.”
Flustered, the young officer turned to LCDR Smith, his mentor, who simply pointed to the chart display on the bridge box. Ronson nodded and swung the cursor on the screen around until it pointed at the buoy. Reading the text box, he ordered over the 7MC, “Helm, bridge, right full rudder. Steady course one-one-three. Ahead standard.”
As the big submarine swung around to the new course and picked up speed, Glass chuckled.
“You know you could have just sighted down that compass repeater right there in front of your face. Real simple and you don’t look down and lose the mental picture.” Glass squatted down so that it was easier to speak with Ronson. “Okay, Mr. Ronson, what’s your plan from here on? We’ve got a few minutes until we get to the channel and everything will get big-time busy there.”
“Well, sir,” the trainee answered nervously. “I’m going to head over to buoy One DG then swing in right behind the tug. Then I’ll follow him right on down to where the tender is tied up.” Ronson glanced down at the bridge box chart display. “First leg course is one-one-nine, then second leg is one-seven-one.”
Glass nodded approvingly. “Sounds good so far. But when did you plan to get line handlers topside? They need some time to get everything rigged and be ship-shape to enter port. You don’t want to wait too long, make the ship look bad and piss off the COB. Not on your first watch.”
Ronson frowned and thought for a bit. “Well, sir, I guess we could get them topside now.”
The engineer chimed in. “Let’s hold off just a bit on that. Wait until we steady up on the first leg and slow to two-thirds. The other thing you absolutely don’t want to do is get the COB wet. The bow wave at a standard bell is almost certainly going to do that. By the way, what are you going to do with the anchor?”
Ronson now looked very confused. “The anchor? I thought we were tying up to the tender. Nobody said anything about using the anchor.”
“Stop and think for a minute,” Smith told him. “Let’s say we get into the channel and the main engines trip off for some reason. Or the rudder fails. What you going to do to keep us from piling up high and dry on Spur Reef? That would be bad. Mess up the bottom of Captain Glass’s boat and all.”
A light seemingly went on in the young submariner’s head. “The anchor. We could drop the anchor to stop us and hold there until we can fix the problem.”
“Just so,” Smith agreed. “Make the anchor ready for letting go.” The engineer glanced at the harbor chart. “Set the snubbing scope for forty fathoms. That’s an old trick the skipper taught me. The snubbing scope is where you set the brake to allow some but not too much chain out. It’s the chain that really stops you, not so much the anchor. The trick is you set the scope for the same number of fathoms as the harbor bottom is in feet. The harbor is dredged to forty feet, so forty fathoms of chain.”
“A trick I learned first time I navigated into a harbor under instruction,” Glass added, his mind now on a time and place in his distant past as he quietly watched the island growing larger.
“Captain, Buoy One DG is abeam to starboard,” Ronson called out. “Coming around to channel course one-one-nine, slowing to ahead two-thirds. Shawnee is heading down channel. Permission for line handlers to lay topside.”
Glass shook himself out of his reverie. Daydreaming was out of character for him. He must be more fatigued than he thought.
“Very well,” he acknowledged. “Have line handlers lay topside.” He turned to Smith. “Eng, let’s test an astern bell before we enter the channel.”
One of the major differences between Toledo and her sisters was that her two main engines, massive reduction gear, propulsion shaft, and screw had been replaced by a pair of turbine generators and a huge axial flow pump. In essence, the submarine was now a massive jet boat. As quiet and effective as the system proved to be going ahead, the major drawback was in going astern, backing up. The design engineers had gotten around this issue by installing a pair of much smaller pumps that exhausted out of pop-out ports on either side of the stern tube. While looking good on paper, the complexity of the system had proven tricky.
“Yes, sir,” the Eng answered, “but suggest we rig out the outboard first. That port side door has been a pain in the rectal region. I’d like to have the outboard ready to control ship’s swing just in case.”
They would employ an outboard engine as a backup just in case the sophisticated methods developed by dozens of engineers and years of development work should somehow fail.
“Good idea. Rig out the outboard, test, and then shift to remote. Then we can test a stern bell.”
Glass was once again struck by his crew’s intelligence and skill, even if he barely knew their names yet. He smiled as he listened to the flurry of orders and responses and watched the island glide silently by. Just the slightest sea breeze now relieved the heat from the tropical sun. The deep cobalt-blue waters abruptly changed beneath the sub to a pale turquoise as the bottom abruptly rose from the abyssal deep to the coral-encrusted mountaintop that was the island of Diego Garcia.
Glass could see, over on the port side, that the pale turquoise water turned an even paler almost white color as Spur Reef poked up to within a couple feet of the surface. A twin line of buoys—red ones on the right and green ones on the left—stretched out before them, pointing out the path into the inner harbor. He could make out several ships swinging easily at anchor around the large lagoon.
“Skipper,” Lieutenant Commander Smith called out. “That damned port astern door refuses to open again. We don’t have any astern bell.”
Glass nodded, thought for a moment. “Well, I guess this little pit stop is going to be more than just us lying on the beach working on our suntans. Tell the XO to notify the tender. Then you two figure out how we are going to maneuver alongside the tender without a backing bell.”
Joe Glass suppressed a grin as he watched the men discuss how they might pull off the task with a malfunctioning propulsion system. Better these things happen surrounded by their own Navy and not ships of a foreign country. And best systems get vetted during practice than in the middle of the real thing.
The Real Thing.
Any hint of grin had left Joe Glass’s face now. He was savvy enough to know he and his boat were not way out here at the antipode of home port just to see how far and fast they could swim. And all this new equipment was not to find fish or monitor the sex lives of whales.
Besides that, the odd meanderings of the Chinese submarine they had tracked and the sudden intense interest of Naval Intelligence in their sonar tapes confirmed for him that something was up.
Now, he had to be damn sure his boat and crew were ready for whatever Real Thing might be waiting for them just over the shimmering horizon.
4
Jim Ward stared out over the bleak, empty desert. Nothing but rocks and sand for as far as he could see. And from where the SEAL lay, up there on the highest ridge around, that was a considerable distance. Somewhere far over there to the west, an actual paved road shot north past the tiny, dusty Sudanese village with some unpronounceable name. Ward and his team simply called it Toe Jam.
But from where Ward lay sprawled in the powdery dust, the nearest thing to a roadway—truthfully little more than a goat trail—wound a serpentine path through the broad wadi that spread out below the young SEAL lieutenant. A mile or so down the ravine, the trail crossed an even smaller, narrower path that disappeared over the next ridge to the northeast. And right this minute, both goat trails were deserted. Nothing stirred tonight, not even a scorpion or the slightest zephyr of gritty wind.
Ward looked around to make sure his small team was paying attention, considering the lack of anything to watch to help keep them alert. Even with his GPNVG-18 panoramic night vision goggles, he coul
d barely make out where his team had camouflaged themselves, becoming virtual features of the desert floor. Master Chief Johnston had done his usual expert job in dispersing and hiding the fire team.
Ward’s earbud suddenly crackled.
“Skipper, see anything yet?” Jason Hall, the team’s comms guy, had set up the miniature satcom station behind a boulder further down the backside of the slope, out of sight of any human, goat, or other varmint that might be out for an after-midnight stroll.
Ward glanced at his watch. Almost time to check in with home base.
“Jase, nothing here but us sand fleas. Tell Papa Bear that this opportunity for fame and glory is starting to look like a big-time bust.”
“Roger, Skipper. Sending burst now.”
Ward rolled over, flipped up his NVGs, and stared at the moonless night sky. He munched on an energy bar as he surveyed the canopy of the heavens above them. The Milky Way painted a million diamond points across the black velvet night. It always amazed Ward just how beautiful and undisturbed this place could be. But in the space of a heartbeat, it could just as easily become awesomely deadly.
“Skipper.” Hall’s voice broke into his reverie. “Papa Bear says to hold tight. Mission is still a go.”
Thanks for nothing, Ward thought. But most missions were this way. Not exactly the stuff of Hollywood action thrillers. Watching scrub brush grow. Getting sand into every orifice.
Ward rolled back over onto his stomach, chewing the last of the bar and the crunchy grit that inevitably got mixed in with the nourishment. The short break was over.
Still, nothing stirred down there. Yet another wild goose chase. There had been a frustrating string of them lately. Rush out to some godforsaken bit of dirt and gravel, sit around on their numb asses for a couple of days, only to get called back to base with nothing to show for their efforts but sore backs and socks full of sand. It simply was not like Admiral Tom Donnegan’s typical little “special trips” to keep coming up cold like this.
Arabian Storm (The Hunter Killer Series Book 5) Page 3
