Phoenix Sub Zero

by Michael Dimercurio

  “If I refuse to shoot the missile, he will convince the crew … which is afraid of him and some even awed by him … to kill me. I may be in command of the ship but I will not be if I defy Sihoud. You will be my replacement, and if you refuse he will arrange the same for you. And then Quzwini, down to the most junior officer, if necessary. When we are gone the Second Captain will accept the order to launch.”

  Ahmed appeared suddenly in the doorway. “You will both be lucky to live after I tell General Sihoud what I have just heard.”

  The door closed. Tawkidi stared at it. “You think he’s bluffing?”

  “About telling Sihoud? No, but Sihoud will do nothing.

  He still needs us after the launch. He knows we can drive this ship far better than the Second Captain can. He needs us if he expects to reemerge on the African continent.” Sharef’s voice was remarkably calm, a man resigned to his fate, Tawkidi thought.

  “I wish I had your … courage. Commodore.”

  “It is not courage, Omar. Remember, I have already died once. Now get back to the control room.”

  Tawkidi came to attention. “Yes, sir. Good evening. Commodore.”

  Saturday, 4 January labrador sea, west OF godthaab, greenland USS seawolf The left clock of the side-by-side chronometers read 0405, the one set for zulu time, GMT. The right clock read five minutes after midnight, the local time at the ship’s present position. Friday had turned to Saturday. In another four hours Pacino expected to be somewhere in sensor range of the Destiny submarine, assuming the Phoenix had gotten its position right and the UIF sub continued north at its present speed.

  Pacino knew he should be asleep, getting his rest before he stationed battle watches throughout the ship, but sleep had eluded him.

  He shook his head and got back in his rack to try again.

  The officer of the deck would be buzzing him in three hours to man battle stations … CNFS hegira Comdr. Ibn Quzwini crawled the last two meters up to the hatch to the command module, the cold of the ballast tank making his hands fail to grasp the handholds. A man in the hatchway above pulled him up and into the warmth of the pressure hull. Quzwini had been the last man in the tank.

  He didn’t look back. He crawled away from the hatch while Lieutenant Ishak and Sublieutenant Rhazes began the work of positioning the heavy steel plate over the hatchway and tack-welding it in place, preparing it for the multiple root passes that would reweld it into the pressure hull. In the cold and exhaustion, time seemed to slip by. The hatch moved into place with the jerkiness of a silent movie, the tack welding done in what seemed a few minutes, the circular passes of the root welding zipping around the circumference of what had been a gaping hole. For the next four hours Quzwini slept where he had collapsed near a stall of the head at the forward end of the command-module middle level.

  One deck above, in the control room. Commodore Sharef made his first appearance since the torpedo explosion that had incapacitated him. Two of the rolling seats at the weapon-control consoles were occupied by Sihoud and Ahmed. Sharef leaned on his makeshift cane, made from the piece of pipe, and looked hard with his good eye at the two who presumed

  to set up camp in his control room.

  “The missile is finished, Commodore,” Ahmed said. “I suggest you bring the ship around to the south and clear some of these drifting icebergs.”

  “Very well. Deck officer, turn the ship to the south. How long till we are ready to launch?”

  “We are still checking the Scorpion-warhead electronic modules. So far all is in order. The Hiroshima missile airframe, engine and guidance system has already checked out satisfactorily. The Scorpion checks should be done in another thirty minutes.”

  Sharef leaned over the remains of the plot table, but its glass was caved in, the tube shattered, some of its glass now embedded in his eye. The navigation plot was now displayed on one of the smaller screens of the sensor-control consoles, the sea of the Davis Strait and the Labrador Basin a wide corridor of ocean, its left bank extending from the southeast point of Canada to its furthest northward tip near the pole, the right bank formed by the nearly northward running west coast of Greenland. A touch of a function key, and a mist appeared to represent the ice cover, the mist light at the southern mouth, denser halfway up, and solid ice north of the arctic circle. The flashing indicator of their present position showed them in a thick ice cover, perhaps a coverage of eighty percent. That seemed borne out by the

  slight creaking noises heard outside the hull, so faint that they were barely discernible. The creaking and moaning sounds were ice floes colliding and rubbing against each other, even the complete ice cover composed of separate cells of ice that constantly shouldered each other aside. There was something foreign to this sea, this cold, this ice that made Sharef long for open water, for the warmth of the Mediterranean. He wondered if he would ever see Kassab again, but pushed the thought aside while leaning over Ahmed’s console to see how the Scorpion-warhead checks were progressing.

  If one of the checks failed it would mean going back into the ballast tank and opening the tube again to get to the warhead.

  Sharef doubted the tube could stand up to the stress of a missile launch after two tube cuts. Perhaps even the initial cut into the tube had weakened it beyond the ability to sustain the missile launch. And a tube reentry would mean more than just tube problems, it would mean added time, time for Coalition naval forces to find them. Sharef tried to feel the urgency of the matter but with his conflicted feelings couldn’t muster it. If Coalition navy ships and aircraft came, he would fight for the ship to the best of his ability. That, after all, was his true mission.

  USS seawolf The phone next to Pacino’s rack had buzzed an hour before the planned battle stations time at 0300 local time. He climbed from the

  rack, trying to shake the bone-deep fatigue.

  The shower water was still ice-cold when he stepped in. He turned the spray to hot, then back to cold, then turned it off to conserve water while he soaped up, rinsing in cold.

  A few moments later, clad in a black poopysuit and cross-training sneakers, he made his way to the galley on the deck above for a cup of coffee. The crew’s mess was deserted.

  One of the mess cooks had put a CD on the stereo. The Doors pouring out of the subdued speakers.

  Pacino sat in one of the dinettes and drank the coffee. He was alert when he put the cup in the wash bin and walked aft to the ladder to the middle level. He lingered a moment on the stairway landing, long enough to see that the new switch he had installed now had an out-of-commission yellow tag on it. He smiled—someone had noticed it and found that it did nothing. He flipped the switch to “off’ and continued around the dogleg of the passageway to the radio room, hit the buttons for the door combination lock and went in. The room was empty. On the clipboard hanging from a handhold was his last outgoing message to Admiral Steinman telling him to get the Phoenix out of the area of the Destiny submarine by 0500 local time. There was a good chance that Phoenix would not get the message and would continue trailing the Destiny, an event

  that would likely spell disaster for her. In other circumstances Pacino would never fire a volley of torpedoes with Phoenix in the line of fire, but with Donchez’s theory that the Destiny had a doomsday-missile aboard, he would have no choice. The Mark 50 torpedoes would be launched regardless of Phoenix’s position.

  Pacino knew he might have only one chance, one shot. He intended that it be a good one.

  He opened a locker in the wall and pulled out four oblong boxes, each slightly larger than a baseball bat, a small case resembling a notebook computer, then shut the locker and walked down the passageway to his stateroom. He put the boxes and the case on the conference table and opened them.

  Inside the boxes were four slot buoys, submarine-launched one-way transmitters. The case held a small keyboard and viewing screen used for typing in messages to the slot buoys. Pacino spent ten minutes coding messages into the buoys, then with masking tape and a m
arker designated them numbers one through four. He carried them to the aft compartment upper level, the heat of the engineroom oppressive.

  He put the buoys in a locker beside the aft signal-ejector and walked forward, back to his stateroom. Once there he found himself drumming his fingers on the table feeling like an athlete an hour before the game.

  On impulse he wandered into the control room. Henry Vale’s section tracking team was stationed, waiting for contact on the Destiny, the BSY-2 sonar/firecontrol suite straining for signs of the UIF vessel.

  “Anything yet, Nav?” Pacino asked Vale.

  “Nothing but icebergs and the occasional whale, Captain.”

  “Man silent battle stations at zero four hundred. Are we rigged for ultraquiet?”

  “Modified only by the coffeemakers, sir. Everyone not on watch should be fast asleep.”

  “I’ll be in sonar.”

  Pacino stepped through the forward door to sonar, but just as Vale had said, the sonar screens were empty of all but the ocean’s vast amount of random noise. Pacino returned to his stateroom, stared at the chronometer, waiting for 0400.

  USS phoenix Mike Jensen squinted at the Pos-One display console of the firecontrol system, the dots neatly stacked on the sonar contact ahead. Target One, the Destiny submarine. The range readout on the sidebar

  indicated a range of 8,400 yards, the target speed steady at thirteen knots, course three five five.

  The target had proceeded at the same course and speed through the entire midwatch.

  Jensen felt the headache bloom behind his eyes as the first dot deviated from the neat lineup, the sonar system telling the firecontrol computer that the expected bearing to the contact was different than the actual bearing. The contact was turning.

  “Conn, sonar, possible zig Target One,” rang into Jensen’s ears from his headset.

  “All stop,” he ordered the helmsman. The order would screw up the determination of Target One’s new course, but with the Destiny just ahead Jensen was unwilling to drive into him if he turned around in a course reversal. “Mark speed two knots.”

  Phoenix drifted under the partial ice cover overhead, waiting to see what Target One was doing.

  “Chief, send the messenger to get the XO,” Jensen barked at the chief of the watch. Mcdonne was stationed during the midwatch as command duty officer to allow Captain Kane to get some sleep. Mcdonne had spent most

  of the watch in control with Jensen, but had gone down to find a snack.

  “Sonar, conn, any change in Target One’s speed?”

  “Tough to call, sir. Our guess is no. But we suspect contact is turning to his starboard.”

  “Conn, aye.”

  Jensen leaned over Pos One and watched the dot stack as the bearings to the Destiny drifted from their bow around the starboard beam. The contact was turning to his right, coming around back to the south. Jensen held his breath, as if it would keep the Destiny from hearing them.

  “Speed two knots, sir,” the helmsman announced.

  “Chief, prepare to hover,” Jensen ordered.

  “What the hell are you doing, O.O.D?” XO Mcdonne’s tone was caustic.

  “XO, Target One is reversing course I’m trying to remain undetected.” There was no trace of sarcasm in Jensen’s voice, but Mcdonne glared at the navigator nonetheless.

  Mcdonne leaned over Pos One and dialed in a new course for the Destiny, 180 degrees true, due south. Other than a small wrinkle in the middle of the dot stack, the new course caused the stack to realign itself perfectly vertical.

  “He’s coming around to the south. Better put some turns on and follow him in his baffles,” Mcdonne said. Then, mostly to himself: “Sucker comes north toward the Baffin Bay for 900 god damned miles and suddenly turns south.

  Why the hell would he do that?”

  “Helm, all ahead one third, right ten degrees rudder, steady course south.”

  “Conn, sonar, we’re getting transients from Target One.

  Sounds like he’s flooding something. A tank or a tube.”

  The dots in the stack started to angle over from Mcdonne’s neat dot stack. The target was maneuvering again.

  “Conn, sonar. Target One is slowing.” “Conn, aye,” Mcdonne said into his headset. “Jensen, get the captain in here.”

  “Conn, sonar. Target One is opening a hull door. Could be a weapon tube.” “Dammit,” the XO said. What he would have given for just one Mark 50 torpedo. He glanced up at the chronometer, which read 0350 local time. In a little over an hour they were ordered to clear the area and leave the Destiny to someone else. He couldn’t help but think he should report this last incident, but what was the Destiny doing? Preparing to shoot a torpedo at them? There had been no sign that they were being tracked, no indication that the Destiny had counterdetected.

  Kane appeared, still zipping up his poopysuit, his hair slicking straight up, bags under his bloodshot eyes. It took less than thirty seconds to brief him on the new development.

  “Jensen, take her up to PD, fast,” Kane said. “Get Binghamton to radio, ASAP.”

  “Sonar, conn, proceeding to periscope depth,” Jensen said into the intercom. “Helm, all ahead two thirds. Dive, make your depth six six feet, steep angle.”

  As the watchstanders moved to the officer of the deck’s orders, 5,000 yards away the Destiny submarine slowed to walking speed, the Scorpion warhead’s gyro starting to spin, all circuits now energized.

  USS seawolf As First Class Sonarman Jesse Holt took a last sip of the

  coffee in his Seawolf cup, the rattle of the transient came down the waterfall short-term display, the bearing from the north. In an ocean filled with transient noises it was nothing unusual. He glanced at his log, debating whether to log the rattle. On the captain’s orders, the time indication on his tube read 0351, the ship’s time set for local instead of the usual zulu time. He glanced back up at the transient, noticing it was gone before he had a chance to train the audio cursor to it and listen with his own ears. Well, the sea here was filled with more creaks and groans than a haunted house, most of them from the ice floes, some close, some distant. The ones directly overhead could sometimes be heard with the naked ear, the sudden spooky groan sending shivers down the spines of rookie and under-ice veteran alike.

  Holt had reported aboard during the shipyard period, a hot-running young petty officer from the USS Louisville, the submarine in the Pacific Fleet that had done the original sound surveillance of the Destiny as it came out of the Yokosuka yards. Holt was quiet for a sonarman, who were usually known as the ship’s prima donnas. When not on watch he would spend his time qualifying the younger sonarmen, working out aft or in the torpedo room or reading in the crew’s mess. Holt was, unlike most of his shipmates, deeply religious, conducting ship’s services on Sunday mornings.

  Not one crew member made fun of this, since after years spent quietly lifting weights Holt had a formidable presence.

  That he was searching for another warship with the intention of killing its crew was not a conflict. He had joined the service out of conviction and belief in a way of life. Perhaps the Destiny crew had done the same. Well, let the better submarine … its crew and their cause … prevail, he had thought when Pacino had first made the announcement over Circuit One.

  The odd rattling transient came down the waterfall display again, from the north but this time Holt was quick enough to move his audio cursor to the bearing of the rattle. It was a rapid popping sound, a string of firecrackers. Probably an iceberg. Or shrimp. Or a steel hull changing depth.

  “What have you got on the 150-hertz bucket?” he shot at the junior watchstander, a third-class sonarman named Phills.

  “Couple of spikes at 154, but they’re fuzzy. Lot of noise.”

  “Wait a minute,” Holt said, turning his seat toward the narrowband displays. More transients began pouring down the narrowband display, all from the north. The audio cursor was putting out a hum now, a faint hum that reminded him of the r
un on the Louisville. The hum and the rattles were growing louder. “Zero the freq bucket and narrow it to 153 to 155 hertz, max processing, short time integration,” he ordered Phills.

  Holt’s suspicion was confirmed ninety seconds later.

  “Conn, sonar,” he said calmly into his headset mike, “new contact bearing zero zero five on hull and spherical arrays, holding a one five four hertz tonal narrowband and several traces and transients broadband, suspect contact is submerged warship, Japanese construction. Destiny class.”

  “Conn, aye,” Vale’s voice replied, just as calm. “Turning east for a TMA leg now. Designate contact Target One.”

  On the conn, Lt. Comdr. Henry Vale, the officer of the deck, buzzed Pacino’s stateroom and called to the chief of the watch to man battle stations.

  “Captain,” Pacino answered Vale.

  “Time is 0355, sir. We have the Destiny.”

  Saturday, 4 January labrador sea, west OF godthaab, greenland USS phoenix “Norfolk Navcom, this is Echo Five November. Navcom, Navcom, Navcom, this is Echo Five November with a Navy Blue. Come in, over.”

  Static and whistling.

  “Navcom, this is Echo Five November, over.”

  Nothing.

  Kane looked at Binghamton, whose head was sweating furiously.

  Binghamton adjusted the gain and told Kane to try again. No answer but static. Binghamton tried a new frequency, listening first to see if there were any voices, and hearing none, waved to Kane. Kane called again. Silence, no response.

  “I guess there was something to the storm report I heard.”

  “What report? What storm?”

  “When the bigmouth dried out I cranked through a frequency and heard something about a massive blizzard over the Atlantic coast from the Carolinas to New York. Whole place socked in. It would explain the reception problem.”

  “Maybe we should try for a relay. Get somebody local who can keep calling.”

  “Somebody else couldn’t authenticate from the code book, plus I’m

  guessing this message is time-sensitive. Am I right, Skipper?”