Cookie Dotson knocked at the door and stepped in at Ward’s invitation. He carried a tray that contained a pot of coffee, two cups, and something that smelled wonderfully good.
"Excuse me Skipper, XO. I've got some fresh coffee." He carefully set the pot and cups on the little table then put down a napkin-covered plate between the two men. "Thought you two would like some of these before those chow-hounds in the Wardroom ate them all."
Pulling off the napkin with a theatrical flourish, he revealed a plate heaped high with chocolate chip cookies, still warm and gooey from the oven.
"Cookie, you read minds! If I didn't know better, I would say you’re trying to boost your ranking in the Chiefs' Evals," Ward kidded good-naturedly as he reached for one of the cookies.
Glass nodded in agreement, unable to say anything above a grunt around one of the cookies was already disappearing into his mouth.
Dotson smiled appreciatively and wiped his hands on the always-present, greasy apron.
"Now, Skipper, you know I would never stoop to bribery or anything like that. Wouldn't be fair. I got too many weapons."
He winked and turned to head back to his galley.
Pouring himself a cup of the coffee, Ward idly chewed for a moment before he continued. He had shifted back into “skipper mode,” and Glass doubted he even tasted the cookie he was munching.
"Joe, what really worries me is the reactor core. This high speed run we’re making means we're getting really near a max-peak xenon-precluded start-up. We're going to have to be very careful or we’re going to be in a fix."
Spadefish's S3G nuclear reactor core contained a little over two hundred pounds of enriched uranium U235. Over the long life of the core, about half of that had been burned up, used to drive the boat. Most of the uranium that was left was needed to maintain a critical mass. This would be simple to do if the core only needed to supply enough neutrons to make up for those that escaped. But it was more complicated than that because the fission process got in the way.
When a U235 atom fissioned, the result was energy, several neutrons, some assorted beta and gamma particles, and the nuclei of two new atoms. These new atoms had atomic weights distributed roughly around 88 and 134 atomic mass units.
One of the most common fission products was xenon. Its decay product, kyrpton, was a ravenous neutron absorber. When the reactor was critical, this was not a problem since the kyrpton burned up as rapidly as it was produced. The problem came when the reactor had been operated at high powers for a long time then was suddenly shut down. The xenon continued to decay to kyrpton for several hours afterward, and since the reactor was not producing neutrons anymore to burn the excess kyrpton, it built up to a high level.
If the reactor had to be restarted before the kyrpton decayed away, the core had to come up with enough neutrons to do both, to supply the fission process for energy and to burn away the poison. Through most of the life of the reactor, there was enough U235 to supply the needed neutrons. This late in Spadefish's life, though, there wasn't enough left even with the control rods all the way out of the core. The only choices were either to wait several hours while the xenon decayed away, or, if there was a chance the sub might need to be re-started soon after shutdown, simply not run at high power levels for several hours before shutting down.
The real problem came if the reactor was shut down at sea, either intentionally or through a fault. If the crew could not find the cause, fix it, and restart it within about fifteen minutes, they would be stuck, wallowing helplessly on the surface without the reactor for hours.
Glass grabbed another cookie as he pondered the skipper’s words.
"Won't be a problem once we are in area. I don't see any need to run around much then. We’ll just have to stay up at full power until we get there." Another cookie disappeared. "These are great. Better grab one before I eat them all, Skipper."
Ward looked over his reading glasses at the few remaining cookies.
"XO, if you reach for another one, you'll pull away a stump."
Ward tried to manage a grin but he was already considering what the next possible anomaly he might have to consider would be. The oxygen generator. The load of missiles. The reactor core.
That seemed to be the list for now.
Jonathan Ward couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that almost anything could happen next on this old boat.
Anything.
Juan de Santiago was raving like a madman. Guzman had not seen him like this since the day they had watched the American helicopters destroy the coca field over the mountains from the rebel headquarters. This fit seemed to be taking on even greater proportions. The man had been ranting for hours, his face contorted and purple, the veins in his neck bulging.
"I'll kill them all!” he threatened. “They'll learn to deal with me!"
His voice had grown strained and scratchy from the threats, the oaths, the groans. Guzman remained out of reach, certain at times during the tirade that El Jefe would strangle any living thing he could get his hands on.
Guzman glanced at the innocent looking note on de Santiago's desk. This little slip of paper was the offending instrument, the catalyst that had set off the reaction that had resulted in several broken lamps and fractured furniture.
The note was from Antonio de Fuka. It informed de Santiago that the trucks had stopped departing from the vast coca fields in the hidden, high valley. His scouts there reported that a massive rockslide wiped out almost a kilometer of the roadway into and out of the valley. An explosion had set off the slide.
Those fields in Peru were de Santiago's most secret and highly prized project. Nothing else in his glorious plan would work unless the product could be grown and processed. No one except de Fuka, Guzman, and he, along with the handful of workers and drivers even knew where they were. The few peasants who worked there and those who drove and guarded the trucks were forbidden to associate with anyone else in his organization. They didn't even know they worked for de Santiago's rebels. Most of them assumed they were part of the Shining Path group. They were all too frightened, for their own lives as well as those of their wives and children, to ever speak of the fields to anyone.
“That road was built by our ancestors, Guzman,” De Santiago said. “It has stood for a thousand years. Now, the damned Americans have destroyed it. They will die a horrible death.”
Someone had broken the secret and the fields had been taken away from him in less than a minute. The road would take months to repair, if it could be repaired at all. He needed the coca now. The crop was ready. It would all rot before a new way out of the valley could be readied. All was waiting for delivery to his factory then for shipment north. There was only enough processed and stockpiled now for one lone shipment.
"Guzman, double the guard on the new processing plant. We must protect it at all costs and there is a good chance this rat in our midst may have told them where to locate it also. And Guzman, find the traitor. Bring him to me. I will kill him slowly with my own hands while his children watch."
“You are satisfied you did not end the regime of El Falcone on the party boat then?”
“The bastard still defies me, Guzman. Find him!”
De Santiago’s voice wheezed as he spoke. The bodyguard nodded glumly and left the room. The rebel leader angrily grabbed his cell phone and punched in a number so forcefully he twice dropped the instrument.
Philippe Zurko answered the incessant buzzing on the nightstand next to his bed. Who in hell would call at a time like this? It was siesta! Only an uncivilized lout would disturb someone at this hour of the afternoon. He rolled over and reached across the sleeping form of his newest mistress to grab the phone from the bedside table. She moaned sleepily and obligingly reached to hold him, to allow him to take her once again if he so wished, but he roughly pushed her away.
"Zurko," he barked.
De Santiago started right in.
"Phillipe, have the Zibrus ready in one week. We must now move quickly.
"
"But El Jefe, we have not yet tested the systems,” Zurko protested, trying to shake the spider webs from his head. He slept best after sex, and this latest woman had the ability to put him under deeply. “The boat has not even been in the water yet. We need time to check everything out and one week will not…"
De Santiago didn't appear to be hearing the arguments.
"One week, Phillipe. The shipments will be ready and so must be the means to transport it. There is no room for error. You understand? No room for error!"
Zurko heard the connection break and he was listening to a humming, dismissing dial tone. That and the faint snore his mistress had resumed.
El Falcone was confused, frustrated. The leader’s side of the conversation had been clear enough on the sensitive listening device, but its meaning was as clouded as an Andean peak.
What was this Zibrus? It was some means of transporting the cocaine, but how was it any different from the usual methods adopted by de Santiago and his smugglers?
There was a strong urge to report this bit of information to the contact at JDIA, but there was so little to go on, so many pieces missing from the puzzle. It was not worth the risk until there was more to tell.
At least the information about the coca fields had paid dividends. The JDIA had certainly struck a blow to de Santiago’s plans. At the same time, the destruction of the road to the fields had apparently hastened whatever the next move was to be, a move that involved something called “Zibrus.”
Maybe El Jefe would call someone else, say something to reveal what this mystery might be. Despite the straining, the hush-breathed listening, all El Falcone could hear now on the earpiece was the pounding of the leader’s boots as he paced rhythmically from one end of his study to the other.
Bill Ralston stood at the hydraulic control station. From here at the aft end of the torpedo room, he could, with the flip a few levers, send the long green torpedoes or silver missile canisters scooting across the room. This had been his kingdom for fifteen years on three different subs, and nothing, but nothing, happened in his room without Bill Ralston knowing about it. He had trained every one of these boys himself, including the Weps, and he trusted them implicitly. When you were throwing around high explosives inside a sub eight hundred feet below the surface of the ocean, that faith was critical.
The brightly-lit room hummed with activity now as they followed the XO’s orders to reconfigure the weapons. A four-man team worked on each side of the room, unloading ADCAPs and re-loading the torpedo tubes with Tomahawk missiles.
Stan Guhl sat at the torpedo launch control console, lodged between the two banks of huge bronze torpedo tubes at the forward end of the room. He quietly, proudly watched his team at work. Like Ralston, he knew enough about these men and how well they did their jobs that he would trust his life with them. As he observed, the silver-gray TLAM-D canister slid silently into the number-four torpedo tube. Number four was the lower tube on the port side.
Sam Benitez shut the tube door and rolled the huge bronze locking ring. That was the last one to load.
"All done, Chief," he sang and slapped the locking ring. “Can I go outside and play now?”
“Not hardly, you slacker! We got one more little square dance for you goof-offs.”
Benitez began an energetic dance routine around the cramped torpedo room, singing some song in loud, off-key Spanish. He grabbed Ralston on the way past and swept him up into the waltz. The Chief broke away, trying not to laugh. Guhl and the other torpedo men cackled and clapped along.
“You dance divinely, Chief!” Benitez yelped, and pranced away, now without his rather rotund partner.
“You don’t quit that foolishness, you’ll be chipping paint for a year once we get home,” Ralston growled.
Now they had the job of moving the weapons around so there was a TLAM-D behind each tube, ready to load in a hurry. With a full torpedo room, it was a shuffle. To get one weapon in the necessary position might mean moving three or four others in the right sequence. Just like those pocket number games, only on a grand scale.
Benitez waved off the Chief’s admonition. At least the tension in the room had been broken and they could move to the next job at hand. He bent low to line the skid-tray dogs on the ADCAP torpedo that they had just back-hauled. It had to be moved to the outboard stowage position. Each weapon was cradled on four heavy metal supports, called “trucks,” which were mated to grooves in the deck with special dogs. Metal bands reached around and clutched the weapons firmly to the trucks. The dogs could be aligned to move the weapon sideways across the room or locked firmly in place to prevent any movement with the rocking and changing attitude of the sub.
Benitez carefully checked each dog on the ADCAP. He had to make sure they were rolled to the transverse position. He disappeared from view as he leaned across the torpedo so he could get a look at the outboard dogs.
Meanwhile, Bill Ralston pushed the lever for the lower travelers. Hydraulic oil flowed to move the chain drive. The dogs for the ADCAP, engaged with the chain, smoothly moved the dark green behemoth.
Benitez, lying over the torpedo, out of sight, didn't even have a chance to scurry out of the way. Three-thousand-pound-per-square-inch hydraulic oil moving a four-thousand-pound torpedo was far stronger than any man’s ribcage.
The quiet hum of the room was rent by an agonized scream.
Ralston jerked the lever back to reverse the move. Stan Guhl leapt from his seat. Benitez lay sprawled over the ADCAP, moaning awfully, a steady stream of blood dripping from his chin.
"Injured man in the torpedo room! Corpsman, lay to the torpedo room!"
The 1MC announcement jerked Doc Marston from an extremely realistic dream he was having, one that included two girls, a fast, red sports car, and some rather interesting anatomical studies.
Rubbing sleep from his eyes and grumbling about the XO running drills while he was dreaming, he zipped up his poopie suit, grabbed his medical bag, and ran out of the Chiefs' Quarters. He would fuss later. Right now, he had to carry out the drill just like it was the real thing.
Doc dropped down the ladder to find Guhl and Ralston trying their best to help a badly injured Benitez.
"Outta my way! Comin’ through!" The corpsman shouted.
One glance at Benitez told Doc more than he wanted to know. There had to be massive internal injuries. And when Ralston described the accident, it removed all doubt. The man was barely breathing, each gasp an agony. Bright red blood still trickled from the corner of Benitez' lips and his face was ashen, his skin clammy. He was already in shock.
Marston was in way over his head and he knew it.
"Weps, I need a backboard to move Benitez to the wardroom. Help me keep his head lower than his feet. Tell the Skipper we need a Medevac right away!"
Guhl was on the horn before the corpsman finished the sentence.
When he heard the 1MC, Ward ran directly to the Control Room, Joe Glass on his heels. The room was dark, illuminated only by several red fluorescent tubes.
When Ward stepped up on the Conn, Steve Friedman, the Officer of the Deck for this watch, reported, "Skipper, Doc says Benitez is hurt bad. We need Medevac pronto. I've come up to one-five-zero feet and started a baffle clear. No contacts yet."
Spadefish was headed for the surface to get shallow enough that they could send a radio signal. They also had to make sure they weren’t coming up beneath a ship. So far, the ocean above them was clear.
"Okay. Let's get up to periscope depth. Have Radio ready to send an urgent priority message the instant we get there. XO, get down there and find out what is going on."
Glass turned and rushed out of the Control Room.
Ward stepped over to the Quartermaster's Stand, dodging Cortez who was rushing to man his own station. Earl Beasly had just arrived, zipping his poopie suit as he ran.
"Nav, what's the distance to the nearest port?" Ward asked, but he had a reasonable idea already.
"About five hund
red miles, Skipper. Puerto Vallarta, Mexico."
"Damn, that's twenty hours!"
"We wouldn't have to run all the way. Helicopter might save us a hundred miles. That buys us four hours."
Friedman, holding a black JA phone handset, yelled, "Skipper, XO needs to talk to you."
"Tell him I'll be right there." Turning back to Beasly, he asked, "Any ships around that could help? Either with a medical capability or a chopper?"
Beasly shook his head mournfully.
"No, sorry. Nothing tracking anywhere close. We’re too far out of the way for once."
All those drills in all that traffic, and now, when they needed help, not a tub in sight. Ward stepped back to the periscope stand.
"Steve, we about to get to PD?"
They could do nothing to summon help until they were at periscope depth.
"Yes, sir. Cleared baffles to port. No sonar contacts. Coming up on course zero-nine-zero, speed five knots. Request permission to come to periscope depth."
Ward looked at the BQQ-5 sonar display for a second, double checking what Friedman had just told him. The waterfall display was an incoherent mish-mash of dots, no cleanly drawn line of a ship contact. There was only the chaotic noise of an empty ocean above them.
"Officer of the deck, proceed to periscope depth."
Ward grabbed the JA handset then and started talking quietly to the XO.
"Aye, sir!” Friedman confirmed Ward’s order. “Diving Officer, make your depth six-two feet."
The deck angled upward as the planesmen pulled back on their control yokes. Friedman reached over his head, grabbing the red ring encircling the scope.
"Number two scope coming up."
Seaman Cortez opened his mouth to say something. MacNaughton kicked his shin.
"Shhh, we're coming to PD!" he whispered. Nobody talked now, unless it was either part of the procedure of coming to periscope depth or an emergency.
Final Bearing Page 21
