Undetected

by Dee Henderson

  Bishop accepted another set of dolphins from the Chief of the Boat and pinned them on Quail. “Congratulations, Ensign. You’ve earned the right to be called a submariner.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Bishop didn’t immediately move away. “Good job stumping your captain with the last question of the patrol,” he said in a low voice. “You had that one saved up for the final day?”

  Ensign Quail smiled slightly. “Yes, sir.”

  Bishop smiled back. “You do the Nevada proud.”

  He walked the stage pinning 14 of his men with dolphins as their families and crewmates looked on.

  Rear Admiral Hardman took the podium to congratulate the men and welcome the crew home.

  Before the rear admiral could return to his seat, the chief engineer for Nevada gold came forward. He presented Hardman with the Seaweed Trophy—in commemoration of all the clinging tangles work related to the sea always caused—the award received in good humor by the rear admiral and the crew.

  Bishop let his Chief of the Boat conduct the final business of the day. “Crew of the Nevada, you are dismissed,” the man announced.

  Cheers erupted across the ballroom.

  Bishop moved through the crowd, speaking with gold crew family members, stood for pictures with crewmen, made a point to greet the four mothers of infants born while the fathers were at sea.

  The ombudsman for the gold crew joined him. Amy Delheart, his chief engineer’s wife, was a volunteer and the only civilian on his small staff. He depended on her for an in-depth knowledge of the crew’s families and what happened onshore while they were out on patrol. “A very nice ceremony, Mrs. Delheart. Thanks for your help getting it organized.”

  “My pleasure, Commander.”

  The 104 wives of gold crew personnel looked to her as their lifeline while their husbands were away. Mark had read her shore summary as soon as they docked. Four births, three car accidents, one burglary. The events weren’t as serious as they sometimes were. He would talk more with her about the marriages that were shaky, the ones having financial difficulties, and similar topics, when she sat down with him later for a full debrief.

  “Have a date for me?” she asked.

  “Announce the commander’s backyard barbecue for Saturday, April 29th,” he confirmed. “Gold crew and families, significant others are all welcome. We’ll go nine a.m. to nine p.m. again this year.”

  “It’s a wonderful tradition. Families are looking forward to it.”

  “So am I.” Bishop signaled his chief engineering officer. “Your husband is now on R and R. Take him home,” he ordered with a laugh. “I’m going to go find civilian clothes and somewhere with a pizza. I’ll call you in a couple of days to set up a time for a full debrief.”

  Bishop made a decision as he drove away from the Pizza Hut. He turned not toward his home but toward Jeff’s condo. Gina Gray was now a concern on both a professional and personal level. Jeff wasn’t here yet to watch out for her. Bishop nodded to security as he made his way up the walk, carrying the remainder of an order in a pizza box. Jeff’s car was in the driveway. Mark assumed she was driving it while Jeff was at sea. He rang the doorbell.

  It was three minutes before the door opened and Gina appeared. “I woke you up,” Mark said, apologizing. It was just after three. He’d figured she would have slept and been up by now. She was in jeans, T-shirt, bare feet, her eyes still looking sleepy as she brushed her hair back with her hands.

  “One of the hazards of working nights. It’s no problem. I would have been up soon anyway.” She lifted a hand to cover a yawn, contradicting her words.

  “I stopped by to offer a quarter of a leftover pizza, ask if you needed anything, and to pass on some news.”

  “The pizza’s welcome.” She lifted the lid, nodded her thanks. “I’ll have a good meal to take along tonight. I’m good, Mark. It’s comfortable here.”

  “I’ve confirmed Jeff will tentatively be home on April 25th.”

  “Thanks for that good news.”

  “I also spoke with Rear Admiral Hardman. We’d like you to keep news of what you’re working on to the small group who already knows, plus Jeff. There will be a sea trial as soon as you’re ready for one. I can plan it for you or you can have Jeff plan it after he gets back—whatever you’re comfortable with. Just let us know what data you need collected, and we’ll map out the maneuvers.”

  “Seriously?” Her surprise sounded genuine.

  “Whatever you need, Gina, the admiral wants you to have. I’ll make sure you get it.”

  “He doesn’t want to see data, probabilities, and risk assessments first?”

  Bishop smiled. “He wants to know if it works. It will be my job to design a sea trial that minimizes the risks.”

  The phone rang behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. “Come in a minute, Mark. I’ve been taking messages since Jeff’s machine long ago filled up.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen with the pizza box. Mark stepped into the entryway, closed the door behind him, and stayed put rather than trail after her.

  Gina rejoined him a few moments later. “Sorry.”

  “You need to shut off the ringer if you hope to get some decent sleep.”

  “True.” She pushed a hand through her hair again. “You went out on a limb with Rear Admiral Hardman for an idea that might not work.”

  “Not much of a limb. If it does work, the cost of putting the boats to sea and the time spent for the sea trial will look in hindsight like the obvious decision. If it fails, you’ll be able to tell us why, and we’ll know what to watch for if someone else tries to develop the technique. But the more I think about it, I believe it’s going to work, Gina.”

  She looked at him, uncertain. “Why would you think that?”

  “Cross-sonar is a brilliant combination of simple ideas elegantly put together. You’ve got the ability to make the leaps of imagination necessary to create ways of doing something out of whole new cloth. If I had to guess, I’d say what you’re working on right now is probably deceptively simple.”

  She didn’t answer him for a long moment. She sat down on the carpeted steps to the second floor and wrapped her arms around her knees. She finally nodded, more to herself than him, and glanced up. “Define a ping for me.”

  He tilted his head, realized he was about to get schooled, and leaned back against the doorjamb with a smile. “A ping is a sound generated by a submarine, which will echo off of other objects. By listening to those echoes, software can identify where another sub is located.”

  She nodded. “The concept was developed decades ago and has been done essentially the same way ever since.”

  “It works well at finding objects in the water, in particular other submarines,” Bishop agreed. “But it gets the guy who pinged killed. It’s a basic tenant of submarine warfare that to ping is to get yourself a torpedo in reply since the sound gives away your own position.”

  He pushed his hands into his pockets. She looked so young sitting there, and yet this was the lady who had come up with cross-sonar. “What’s your idea, Gina?” he asked softly.

  “Acoustical hardware today can hear very faint echoes. I don’t need to use a loud sound for the ping. I can use something just above a whisper and still hear the echoes. My idea is so simple, Mark, I’ve hesitated to say it.” She bit her lip. “I simply removed generating a man-made sound for the ping. I’m recording ocean noise and replaying a brief clip of it, whatever was the loudest moment in the last couple of minutes.”

  He blinked at her comment, felt himself miss a breath.

  She went on, “I record ocean noise, replay a fraction of it as my active ping, create an echo template based on the precise sound I’m sending out, listen for that echo, and declare if another submarine is out there. It’s the traditional active ping that’s always been done, just a different sound source.

  “The algorithm requires a very precise echo template, six digits less than a minute of a degree, an
d that template has to be generated in real time for the sound being sent out. It requires cross-sonar running and four hydrophone sets in sync. It takes massive computing power and exquisite acoustical hardware—both of which the U.S. submarine fleet now has deployed on its fast-attacks and boomers.”

  She spread her hands. “To someone listening, the ping sounds like ocean noise because that’s what it is. Oh, and the idea has built-in security. That realization was an added surprise—a pleasant one—for me. Every ping I generate is different. Even if you suspect one faint sound might have been something odd, you never hear it again. I don’t know how you’d tell you’re being actively pinged by this algorithm. I have a difficult time picking out an audio file with pings from one without pings, even when I know what I should be trying to find.”

  She looked up at him. “It’s not that I’m brilliant, Mark. It’s that technology lets me do more than was possible a decade ago. I’ve got very good acoustical hardware and massive computing power at my disposal. A trick, really—using the ocean noise, doing a ping that’s just above a whisper. I removed the man-made ping. That’s the idea. That’s all it is.”

  “‘Gina, the genius,’” he said softly, seeing something quite different. “How many have worked on sonar for decades yet never bothered to see what you just explained? It’s a gift, Gina. I appreciate that you see it all as simple. The idea may be simple, but the fact you brought it to light is not.”

  She offered a small smile. “It may not work. I don’t know if the computations can be run fast enough when the sub is also running normal sonar operations. I don’t know if the algorithms searching for the echo template will be overwhelmed in a noisy sea. And it’s possible I have entirely missed a crucial variable.”

  “What’s your biggest concern?”

  “The echo that comes back from the sub running cross-sonar with you may be so loud you essentially go deaf to the other echoes. You’re going to whisper a ping, and it’s going to be an echo back that sounds like a gong being struck—the companion sub is close to you and the hydrophones are in sync with each other. That first echo is going to be intense.”

  Bishop smiled. “I can’t wait to find out, Gina, what this is like at sea. The idea makes sense. When you’re ready for that sea trial, we’ll find out those answers. Just tell me the type of data you’d like collected. I’ll put a plan together that will give you what you need.”

  She got up from the step. “I appreciate the help. I’ll get you some notes—it’s likely going to be a few more weeks.”

  Mark moved away from the door. “When you tell Jeff, have him sit down first. Operationally, it’s going to be a fascinating set of tactical decisions for us to work out.”

  He pulled a card from his pocket. “Phone numbers for where to find me—office, home, and cell—and my XO, Seth Kingman, is on there as well. If you’ve left a message for me and haven’t heard back within the hour, Kingman will track me down for you. He knows you might call, so use the resource. Cell reception can be tricky around here, given the terrain, or if I’m down a couple of levels in a sub.”

  “Thanks.” She tucked it in her pocket. “Enjoy your R and R, Mark.”

  “I always do. Lock the door behind me, Gina.” He stepped outside and waited until he heard the dead bolt thrown before he walked down the steps.

  He got in his car, keys in his hand, but just sat and for a brief moment closed his eyes. “I removed the man-made ping.” It was like hearing Michelangelo say, “I removed the marble that wasn’t David.” Her idea would work. It was so conceptually simple, even first-year sonar students would grasp the concept and its implications.

  Espionage, though, was a real problem that could not be ignored. It took cross-sonar running and four sets of hydrophones listening to capture that echo template. This wouldn’t be easy for other countries to emulate. Knowing what was happening and being able to reproduce it were not the same thing. The U.S. protected cross-sonar, and until that fell, this new approach to detection would be somewhat safe. But this idea was so versatile it could be done with a network of sonar lines deployed on the seafloor or it could be run from surface ships.

  U.S. submarines would have to assume they’d been located from the moment they identified an enemy vessel within their threat radius. It would mean living with torpedoes hot, setting up shooting solutions against every submarine and boat within sonar range. If they couldn’t hear someone pinging them, they would have to operate as if they’d been seen.

  Mark glanced back at the condo. Gina Gray was coming up with ideas with far-reaching implications. He wished Jeff was home so she had someone to talk with. She was smart enough to make the discovery and also to understand many of its implications, and those would provide their own unique burdens.

  Mark headed home, ready for the sustained R and R and not being in charge for a few weeks. He’d done what could be done today and would occasionally check in on Gina while she was in Bangor, until Jeff got back.

  He wondered idly what her breakup in Boulder had really been about. Dating for two years suggested something serious, and Gina didn’t strike him as flighty. Something had happened. The Navy was reaping the benefit with her focus on sonar ideas. If there was one thing he did understand, it was burying strong emotions in work. It would help her to a point, but eventually she’d need to talk with someone about what happened if she was going to put it behind her and get on with her life. He hoped she would have those conversations with her brother as soon as Jeff returned.

  Mark Bishop pulled on rain gear before walking out onto the Marginal Wharf, maneuvering around forklifts with pallets of supplies and guys hauling personal gear. The USS Seawolf, now tight against the north side of the wharf, didn’t even rock as waves on Hood Canal splashed against the sides of the boat and washed over her deck.

  He had seen the Seawolf captain come topside. Mark moved to the end of the walkway to meet him. “Good to have you back, Jeff.” He took the duffel bag from his friend, offered a coffee to take its place.

  Jeff Gray ignored the fact he was standing in the rain—he’d been on the bridge for the 16 hours of the transit and was already soaked. “A nice patrol, if rather hopping,” he said, sipping the coffee. “The shipping channel was as busy as the August rush of arriving Christmas orders. My sonar guys are still smarting at not seeing you coming.”

  Mark grinned. “Nevada runs nice and quiet when I ask it of her.”

  “So I found out—again.”

  “Need to stay?”

  “My XO has it handled for now. I’m taking the night watch. Want to run me over to Bremerton Hospital? I’ve got a crewman who needed a medevac who I need to check on.”

  “Sure. What happened?”

  “Gallbladder was our guess.”

  At the parking lot, Mark tossed Jeff’s duffel into the back of the truck. Inside the truck, doors slammed, Mark turned on the heat and handed over a towel. “Gina is here.”

  Jeff took that news with a pause of the towel. “I’ll love to see her, but since she hadn’t planned this visit months ago, I’m guessing it isn’t going to be good news.”

  “She broke up with Kevin. Made another breakthrough in sonar. She’s staying at your place and working nights at the new Undersea Warfare Center’s acoustical research lab.”

  Jeff closed his eyes and half laughed. “I hope she quits breaking up with guys. She has her best ideas when she’s trying not to think about her personal life.” Jeff sighed and dropped the towel around his shoulders. “It’s not funny, but it’s a pattern. Thanks for the heads-up. She was in love with the guy, or thought she was. You would think she would get a break at least occasionally with the guys she chooses. They keep turning out to be wrong for her.”

  “I’m sorry for her sake to hear that. She knows you’re coming in today. I was looking for her on the pier, figuring she would be here to greet you. She’s got clearance.”

  “She’s been in Bangor on arrival days in the past. She knows I need the
first six hours or so to settle the boat. She’ll likely have a meal waiting for me at the condo.” Jeff finished the coffee. “So, she’s made another breakthrough in sonar?”

  “What if you could actively ping, and the other guy couldn’t hear you?”

  Jeff pulled in a long breath, then groaned. “I don’t know whether to be proud of her or annoyed at her for making my job more difficult. That is one dangerous proposition.”

  “I’d rather know it’s possible than have it used on us before we knew it could be done,” Mark replied.

  “Very true,” Jeff agreed. He glanced over. “She told you.”

  “I think she wanted someone to tell, and you weren’t around.”

  “Appreciate you stepping in.”

  “You’d do the same if a sister of mine showed up while I was at sea.” Mark took Trident Avenue to the Bangor main gate and headed south on Highway 3 toward Bremerton. “I told Rear Admiral Hardman what she’s working on. It stays at four of us—Gina, you, me, and Hardman—while he figures out how to contain this. She’ll need a sea trial to put together the data, and you’re going to help me plan it.”

  “Fine by me. Shore time just makes me fidgety. I could use something to focus on. Never let it be said my sister made my life boring. I will be glad to see her. So what’s going on with you?”

  Mark wasn’t one to talk much about personal matters, but there were some issues where it helped to have Jeff’s reaction. “I figured I would ask Linda Masters out to dinner and a movie. Right now we’re playing phone tag—she’s at a teaching seminar in Colorado Springs, but it’s going on the calendar when she gets back.”

  “That’s bigger news than Gina. I’m proud of you, Mark. You’re showing a heartbeat again.”

  “I don’t remember dating being this intense.”

  “It’s not the dating. It’s the fact you don’t do casual, never have. I like the idea. Linda’s got . . . well, class if you want one word. She’s got a life, a good one, and would fit in nicely with you. I already know you enjoy her company—why else would you be showing up wearing an authentic cowboy hat and boots after going to auctions with her? She makes you laugh. It’s a good thing. Besides, Melinda would have liked Linda.”