USS Stonewall Jackson BoxSet
Page 24
“Kilo, range two point three miles,” said Nosey.
“Firing solution laid in, good lock,” said Nathan.
“Tube two, weapon ready in all respect sir. Range to target two point four miles.”
“Hold your fire, Weaps. Let’s pull him in. He’ll be overconfident. COB?”
“Yes sir.”
“Go back aft, find an A-ganger. Get the greasy mother of a Fresh Air Snipe to bang on something with a baby beater, but stay on the intercom. When I ask you to stop, I want it stopped.”
“Right sir.” The COB disappeared.
“Weaps, bring the Pointer in a bit closer to us.”
“Sir. The dog’s coming back to mom.”
“Range to Kilo two miles, one point nine miles,” said Nosey.
The Kilo drew ever closer to its quarry. Nathan looked at Franks. “What the hell are we do...”
“Fish in the water. Soviet Type 53. We have a fish coming for us.”
“Weaps, get Muttley out there to start pinging.”
“Pointer is pinging sir.”
“Sonar?” asked Franks.
“Fish still heading our way. Fish is turning, turning, it's going for the Pointer.”
“All ahead full,” said Franks. “COB, get that fucking Bilge Rat to start banging.”
The A ganger engineer started banging on the bare hull as if he was trying to get to seawater.
“Fish is coming back, heading for us sir,” said Nosey.
“Range to Tango one?”
“Point seven miles, sir.”
“Weaps, launch tube two. Get that Pointer into him.”
Nathan steered the Pointer at the Kilo.
“The enemy fish is turning, turning. It’s back on the Pointer, sir,” said Nosey.
“Our fish is pinging. Wire cut.”
“Sir, no countermeasures from the Kilo. Fish running in, pinging.” Nosey stood up and punched the air. “Hot datum, hot datum on Tango one. Gas just belched out, hull tearing. She’s going down, props not turning. She’s going down, I think stern first. More gas bubbles leaving her. Tango one’s going to the bottom. Explosion Sir, explosion; enemy fish has closed on the Pointer.”
“Turn west Planesman, let’s get out of here,” said Franks.
Twenty minutes later Captain Franks addressed the crew.
“All hands. We got into Sevastopol, the Bear’s Den, and took down information. Ivan didn’t want us there, but NYC wasn’t playing at it. We meant business. The Kilo launched on us. She wanted to kill us, but instead seaman Muttley, our Pointer, swallowed her fish for you.
Seaman Muttley is no longer a non-qual-puke, he gave his life for you and is now on his eternal patrol. Black Sea Fleet nil, USS NYC two. Score one, we have naked shots of Ivan’s ass; and score two, we sunk a Kilo. Well done, all of you.”
WASHINGTON DC.
THE SUNLIGHT STREAMED in from the east, calls from outside around the green were the shouts of a bunch of local kids playing basketball. She typed in the magazine article on her laptop for a New York publication. The new information had come from her contacts back home. She’d been out that morning and gone into Saul’s Stamps, but her contact had been with a customer. Open on the desk was a folder of Chinese stamps.
“Yes, I would like one I have customers for such things. Just a moment please.”
“Yes Miss?”
“Hi, I’d like to look at your Brazilian portfolio please.”
“OK, just over there, under the painting of the woodworker. I’ll be with you soon.”
She looked at the stamps, pretending to be interested.
“You have pre-1915 samples?”
“Yes Miss, I’ll be with you.”
She opened a slide drawer and reached to the rear; there was the RAM stick. She took it and replaced it with an identical one of her own. After several minutes, she looked to the proprietor.
“I like these. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“Thank you, Miss.”
She left with the encrypted RAM stick from Ukraine.
Yana Borisova typed away; the article was almost complete. Her cell phone rang. She knew the number and recognised the voice, it was the plain bespectacled man.
“Hello, a mutual acquaintance would like a meeting.”
“Ok.”
“Right now please. Make your way to the area just East of Union station, it’s not far. F Street and 3rd Street North East. I’ll pick you up on F Street heading east.”
“How will I know which car?”
“You won’t have any trouble there.”
She wandered down F Street, walking by tall but old office buildings. By their appearance and the names on the plaques, they’d be occupied mostly by lawyers and lobbyists. She saw it sixty yards away. It was a dark grey Limo with black tinted windows. As she approached the car, a door opened.
“Get in please.” The man she’d spoken to on the phone held the door. She climbed in and the car pulled away. They soon crossed the Potomac via the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge and cruised northwest along the George Washington Memorial Parkway, then took a left turn onto route 123 to Langley. They then pulled off the road to the right and into the Central Intelligence Agency. She followed the man in and filled in her ID information, pausing at reception for a photograph for her pass and fingerprints. He led the way.
“Impressed, Yana?”
“I didn’t expect it would be a rundown place. It’s what I expected.” They passed down a long corridor then turned into a side corridor. The man called an elevator. They walked in and he swiped his card across a reader. The elevator ascended. It opened onto a long corridor lined with broad-leaved plants. He finally turned into an office. A woman sat there. She wore a bolo style Arizona tie.
“Hi Elle, a visitor.”
The woman gave her a weak smile, took Yana’s pass and ran it through a scanner. Yana held her fingers over fingerprint scanners.
The woman smiled at her.
“Ok Miss Borisova, in you go.”
Yana had read the brass plaque on the desk. Elle Portesque. Department of Europe, East sector. They walked into the office, it was spacious and looked like an old English drawing room, all dark woods with wrought iron and brass fittings.
The middle-aged man she knew as Owen stepped forward and shook her hand.
“Hi, Yana. Tea, coffee?”
“Thanks, I’ll have coffee please.” The bespectacled man poured the coffees. Owen gestured to a large leather couch.
The man set the coffees down on a low dark wood table. “I’ll be outside Sir.”
“Thanks, Bruce.” He turned back to Yana. “Oh, I forgot. Oreos? Have we corrupted you yet?”
Yana smiled. “Yes, I’ll have one.”
Owen returned to his desk and pulled out a packet. “Can’t be bothered with the fancy plates. Here, help yourself. I can’t be all fencing around, taking time to get to the point. We’re not here to shoot the shit, so let’s get right down to it. Ok?”
She nodded and sipped her coffee.
“We have a mutual foe I think?”
She nodded. At least that bit she didn’t have to lie about.
“Yes Owen; Russia.”
“I believe you have contacts in the Eastern Donbass region. People who oppose the DRP and LPR pro Russian separatist movements?”
“I do, yes.”
“Then we may be able to help you,” he smiled, “but first Yana, we have a task for you.”
“I am big all ears, Owen.”
He grinned. “The expression is ‘all ears’. We’d like you to go to Eastern Ukraine on a mission for us. Can you do that? Are you known to their security people?”
“We both know I am not. I’m with The Kievan Unit.”
Owen nodded. “From the American perspective what we don’t want is the region to descend into war. If it does, it’ll probably spread. Also, this would feed into the hands of Russian expansionists. They want a new Greater Russia; a return to the Soviet Union by
another name. I don’t think you want to see that?”
“No, we don’t.”
Owen didn’t tell her about the nuclear aspect. As a former part of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine was a virtual nuclear power, and that was a genie he didn’t want to climb out of its bottle. Many Ukrainian scientists and engineers had worked on the Soviet nuclear arsenal. The Russians would see that as a potentially hostile nuclear power on their border. All hell could come from that one.
“Yana. Here’s what we’d like you to do. Make contact with Pro Western, Ukraine groups in the east of the country; open some channels for us.”
“I can do that, but I can’t just drive across the border, and access through Russia is dangerous for me.”
Owen smiled. “Don’t worry about that Yana, we’ll get you in there quietly.”
She helped herself to another Oreo as he reached over and pressed a button on his desk phone. The door opened and Owen’s assistant walked in.
“Bruce will take you to the Field Operations section. They’ll help you with the infil.”
“Infil?” she frowned.
“Infiltration. Good luck, Yana.” She left with Bruce. Owen sat back and sighed. “She’ll need a shit load of luck.”
Chapter 4
THE BLACK SEA.
“SIR,” SAID COMMANDER Krupa, the Communications Officer. He handed Franks a communications slip. “This just came in from CINCUSNAVEUR, sir.”
PRIORITY RED
B 86563571Z JUN 48 ZY87
CINCUSNAVEUR NAVAL FORCES EUROPE. NAPLES ITALY//E1//
TO NEW YORK CITY
EURFLT// ID E947QV54//
NAVAL OPS/31
MSGID/EUROPS 6722/CINCUSNAVEUR ACTUAL//
MSG BEGINS://
PROCEED TO W78.53.67.6.23 E96.51.46.7.49. FLEET ORDER CD 483. 21.30 ZULU. ACKNOWLEDGE.
MSG END//
Franks read it, the location was sixth fleet area code, but he knew the system. He turned to the Planesman.
“Come to 130 degrees. Speed fifteen knots.”
“One three zero at 30, aye sir.” He handed the slip to the XO Cortez. CD 483 was ‘surface the boat to take personnel on board’.
“Who, sir?”
“I’ve no idea, Gabriel. We’ll find out when we get there.”
YANA SAT ON THE BOUNCING rubber tube of the rigid hull inflatable boat, watching the outboard motor create a wake in their path. The sky was dark and cloud covered. Astern were the receding lights of the port city of Trabzon, Turkey. The two Turks had met her at the airport and waited with her until dark. About 9pm they had cast off and left the jetty. The two spoke English, but she’d got little from them.
Around eight miles offshore, they cut the engine, switched on a light and waited. After ten minutes, one of the men spoke and pointed.
Yana looked puzzled. Something arose from the sea. Something big and black, and water cascaded from it. She soon realised what it was: a submarine. The two men started the outboard and headed towards it, then came alongside and slowed. Two men from on board the long deck threw a rope; one of the Turks tied it around her and she was pulled unceremoniously aboard.
“Welcome aboard Ma’am. This way.” She was led away to the sail, she climbed it and descended down the ladder into the boat. An Officer in a blue coverall met her.
“Welcome aboard the USS New York City, Miss Borisova. I’m Captain Franks. This is the Chief of the Boat. You’ll know him as Chief. He’ll show you to your bunk.”
The Chief led her away.
Franks watched the young woman as she left. He knew she need to be infiled ashore in potentially hostile territory. Why? She resembled his nice, why her? What did she know? Franks knew the basics of the environment she’s be going to. She could be dead in two weeks. He felt responsible for her. It was odd he knew, it was above his pay grade. Nothing to do with me. Yet it was, he knew he was a part of it. Live or die Yana was his now. He shook his head. Franks returned to the control room.
“Pigeon, get me a course for the Kerch Strait. If she needs to be put ashore in eastern Ukraine, then we’ll need to be in the Sea of Azov.”
“Bearing three three zero Sir.”
“Flood forward. Open and trim vents fore and aft. Make for depth. Planesman, down bubble 15, make your depth 270. Speed 18 knots. Bearing three, three zero.” The boat vented air and pushed forward against a gathering wave. The foredeck and sail slipped down into the black waves and below the cool dark depths.
The boat approached the Kerch Strait.
“It’s nearly dawn XO, we’ll go through now. It’s shallow, but deep enough. Take her through Cortez.”
“Aye sir. Come to three five, five degrees. Up bubble ten. Trim for bow up. Make your depth 100.”
“Three five five, up ten for 100, aye.” The boat rounded Tuzla Island and headed through the Kerch strait towards the Sea of Azov. The boat made its way northeast.
“SIR, IT LOOKS LIKE we have a contact,” said Nosey.
Franks looked up from his Conn table where he wrote up his log.
Nosey listened for some time. “Request a coast, Sir.”
“All engines stop, bring her to a stop,” said the XO.
“Let me, Cortez,” said Franks.
“Sir.” The boat came slowly to a halt and hung drifting silently. Waiting, listening. Franks let Nosey do his thing. He closed his eyes and listened; Nosey now lived in a different world. Sounds, distant cargo ships, fishing boats, biologics. That would be sea life, fish, whales. Even seabirds up close. Sound, sound. The sound of the sea.
“Contact, to the north, refining.”
Franks waited, he knew you couldn’t push him.
“Contact, bearing three six zero, range seven miles. Depth 120, speed 16 knots.”
“ID?” asked Franks.
Nosey held his hand up. A few minutes later he looked up. “Sir, we have an Akula class heading for the Kerch Strait.”
Franks shook his head. The Akula class was a formidable SSN, the enemies’ most feared nuclear hunter killer.
Nosey knew the Russian boat’s reputation. “Sir, our warshot status is tubes one to three Mk 48 CBASS, tube four Harpoon.”
Franks looked to his XO. “He’ll have heard of the action south of here. No doubt he’s heading south to get into the fight.” Franks sighed. “I’d like to take him on, but I know that getting Miss Sports Illustrated ashore will be the Pentagon’s goal. We’ll have to play hide to his seek.”
“Sir, the Akula’s slowed, eight knots now. It’s heading down the center of the channel.”
Franks folded his arms and looked down at the deck. What the hell should they do with this one? “XO. We need to get out of his way. Pigeon. Get a chart up of the area.”
“Sir, we have this on the display.” She brought up an image on screen.
“XO, let’s take a look.” To the west was the port of Kerch deep in a bay. To the east was a long thin peninsula leading from the Sea of Azov towards the southwest.
“So. Cortez, he’s heading down the channel parallel to this peninsula.” He read the name. “The Chushka Bar. You can hardly call it a peninsula, it’s 100 yards across for most of its length. That’s what, five miles? The Kerch channel is maximum two miles wide.”
“He’s going to stay in the centre of the channel Sir.”
“I agree. We’ve one chance; stay close to this Chushka bar and make our way slowly northeast. Hopefully, he’ll stay centre channel and pass us by.” Franks looked at Cortez.
“You know what I don’t like?”
Cortez shook his head.
“He’ll be less than a mile from us. Less than one goddamn mile away. One mile in a shallow channel. In there, every noise will be like a rattle in a sound box. We’d better be quiet, very goddamn quiet. We’ll be like a mouse sneaking by a sleeping cat. If it wakes, we’re in a world of shit.”
The NYC’s gamble was keeping as close to the bar as possible, she’d have to keep the bar close to her right beam, and hope the hell
she didn’t run aground.
“Planesman, come starboard, nice and slow, four knots. Nosey listen to the flow out there; feel your way as best you can. Follow a line to fifty degrees, it’s your boat now.” USS NYC inched her way east and north, her pump jet propulsor driving her quietly northeast.
They heard and felt a scrape against the hull.
“Planesman, come port ten degrees,” said Nosey.
He guessed the distance travelled.
“Port ten aye.”
“Shut up Planes, just do it.”
“Aye Nosey.”
“Come to 52 degrees.”
The boat headed as far to the east as Nosey dare.
“SIR. WE HAVE A TRANSIENT to port. Low frequency,” said Sonar. “It sounded like a scrape.”
Captain Orlov of the nuclear hunter killer Leopard frowned.
“A scrape, what do you mean a scrape?”
“That’s what it sounded like sir, I’ve not heard anything like that.”
“Helm, keep southwest. Hold your course, center channel.” Orlov couldn’t waste time on that. There was a damn fight going on in the centre of the Black Sea, NATO must have deployed forces in there, as the rumours had said they would. It’d be the Americans. It had to be.
Somebody, an Admiral, had been recalled to Fleet HQ in St Petersburg, over something sneaking into Sevastopol. Then there was a rumour of an action in the middle of the Black Sea; Leopard had to get in there. Orlov had pulled away from the quayside before his orders had officially come through. He wanted in on the action. You don’t fuck with the Akula class. Two minutes later the Sonar operator called out again.
“Sir, contact on the port beam, another scrape I think. Then an odd noise, I ran it several times through the computer, it’s no idea. Myself, I think that it may be one of those new pump jet drives. The Virginia class has them. The French Barracuda class SSNs are getting them too, but it’s too early for one of those, unless we’ve underestimated them.”