Voyages of the Seventh Carrier

by Peter Albano

  “But they’re still searching, Brent,” Pamela said.

  “Yes. Of course. But Pam, there’s no hope. He’s gone — they’re all gone.”

  Her eyes moistened as she said gently, “Brent, you have some time off coming.”

  “Bereavement,” he said flatly. “What is there to mourn? When Mother died, there was something-something empty of her, but something to see, to grieve.”

  “You do have something to mourn, though — a memory.”

  “I know, and this morning Commander Bell told me to take off the rest of the week. But I have no one here — could only sit in my apartment or haunt my friends. I have no family except an aunt, uncle, and two cousins in the East. I’ve already sent them a telegram. And there’s something else.” He leaned forward. “Commander Bell needs me and I’m close to the action in this office.” His voice was suddenly harsh. “Sparta was murdered and new intelligence must come through this office. I’ll mourn my father by helping catch his killers.” He sank back with a sigh. “You’ll help me mourn.” She arched an eyebrow. “When you help catch the killers.” His voice softened. “Then, maybe, when this is over — ” he waved a hand — “maybe skiing at Snahomish — just you and I.” His eyes narrowed in confusion. “You know, Pam, I’ve never asked you. Do you ski?”

  She smiled, leaned forward, trapped his eyes. “Oh, yes, Brent. I love it. Yes. That would be nice. I’ve never tried it up there. I hear it’s great.”

  “I went once in November. Better than Aspen — not as many people. Acres and acres — all mine.”

  She laughed, obviously pleased by his changing mood. “We could dance at Bert Dahlgren’s Hall. I hear they do nothing but polkas and schottische.”

  “Yes. It’s at Bothel. We’ll try it.” He smiled for the first time, glanced at his watch. ‘‘Commander Bell wants me at 1000, fifteen minutes from now.” He began to rise, reaching for his brief case.

  “Don’t leave yet, Brent.” He sank back. “You know we have a new problem up there.”

  “Or the Russians do.”

  “It’s that reconnaissance plane.”

  “The one Norad reported as probably down this morning, Pam?”

  “That’s right. South of the Aleutians.”

  “Serves them right. They’re always snooping. Buzzing our ships — even fishing boats.”

  “He was transmitting on two frequencies: computer-scrambled voice and code.”

  “The usual. I heard, Pam. Are you having any luck?”

  She gestured at the equipment room where two cryptologic technicians sat before consoles. “They have a new code so there’s no plaintext comparison.” She stared out the window thoughtfully. “He descended, apparently circled, sending a steady stream of voice and ungrouped alpha-numerical characters. We got 720 characters in four minutes.”

  “We’re not even sure he went in. Norad’s range was so great, they lost him when he dropped below two thousand feet. He could have ceased transmitting and left at a low altitude.”

  “I know, but that would be highly unusual.” He scratched his chin. “The Russians are tricky. But, yes, I think he went in. Probably came down, buzzed a whaler or, those Russians pilots are so incompetent, buzzed one of his own surfaced subs.”

  “Ignored the sub’s IFF?”

  “That stuff breaks down all the time. You know that, Pam.”

  She nodded. “Well, this has come down from Comthirteen himself. We usually don’t get such a massive transmission. We have unlimited access to CNO’s Fourteen Hundred.”

  The phone buzzed. “Yes, Commander Bell,” the lieutenant said, instrument cradled to her right ear. “Yes, sir. Aye, aye, sir.” She placed the instrument back in its cradle and looked up. “He wants me at the meeting. Captain Mason Avery will be there.”

  “Oh,” Brent said, flushing. “Must be a flap over that Russian plane.”

  “And we’re going to meet a new officer. Banks. Ensign Dennis Banks.”

  “He’ll be at the meeting? I remember him from the briefing. He’s a flyer. I assumed he was there because he flew in the Alaska, Bering Sea area.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Commander Bell said to show him around the computer room and then to report to his office at 1000.”

  At that moment, the door to the computer room opened, and a tall, lean, sandy-haired young ensign with quick, gray eyes entered. Walking through the cluttered room, he glanced about with awe as he approached the glass-enclosed office and the officers awaiting him. Smiling, the young man picked his way through the cluttered room and opened the door. “I’m Dennis Banks,” he said, closing the door behind him.

  Brent rose, grasped the young man’s hand. “Brent Ross. I saw you at the briefing.”

  “Right. You proposed, ah … aircraft.”

  “Zeros,” Brent said, dropping the hand, wondering if Banks considered him an idiot, too.

  Suddenly, Banks stiffened, turning to Pamela. “Sorry Lieutenant. I was to report to you.”

  “At ease, Ensign,” she said, smiling. “We’re very informal here. Have a seat.” She gestured at a chair next to Brent’s. Both men seated themselves.

  “What can NIS do for a flyer, Ensign?” Pamela asked.

  “I’m a chopper jockey, Lieutenant. But I’ve requested assignment to Naval Intelligence.” He stabbed a finger at the equipment. “I majored in math, and computers were my hobby when I was a kid. Never got it out of my system. I even built my own terminal.”

  “But you’re a flyer,” Brent said.

  “Yes, but I have requested a transfer. I have one more tour and then I report to CNO.”

  Pamela nodded. “Good. Duty in Washington would be better. That’s really the heart of NIS and the best experience for anyone who wants to be a Sixteen-Ten.”

  “What are you doing in Seattle?” Brent asked.

  “My home is here. I’m on liberty.”

  Pamela and Brent exchanged a glance. “You mean you’ve been spending your liberty here at Naval Intelligence?” Brent said incredulously.

  Banks laughed. “Some of it. There’s a lot to learn.” He waved a hand. “I got snowed a couple times at the briefing. A lot of your equipment and terminology is new to me, Mister Ross.”

  “Brent!”

  “And it’s Dennis,” Banks said. “My parents live on Ninetieth Street in the Crown Hill area. It’s only minutes from Terminal Ninety-one.” Pam and Brent nodded.

  “You mentioned another tour,” Pam said.

  “Yes. The Tarawa.”

  “She’s a LHA,” Brent said. “Amphibious assault.”

  “Right. LH-Three. I fly a Bell AH-One-T, Sea Cobra. I fly to Oahu tonight. My squadron’s at Wheeler Field. We go aboard the Tarawa Wednesday.”

  “Seven December,” Pam said.

  “I thought Tarawa was at sea?” Brent said.

  “Yes. She’s returning from the Indian Ocean. She’s due at Pearl on six December. We’ll fly aboard while she’s docked at the naval shipyard the next day.”

  “The Tarawa’s a new type,” Brent said, implying ignorance, knowing Pamela was too proud to inquire.

  “Right, Brent. She’s mainly a chopper carrier for transporting troops. Like a LPH. She carries about two thousand marines. She operates nine CH-Fifty-Three Sea Stallions and twelve CH-Forty-Six Sea Knights. Our four Sea Cobras give fire support.”

  “That’s a lot of aircraft,” Pam said.

  Banks smiled. “Do you want to hear the rest?” The two officers nodded expectantly.

  “She’s just under eight hundred feet long and tips the scales at about forty thousand tons.” The young pilot tapped his finger tips together. “She also has a floodable docking well big enough for four landing craft.”

  “Then you’ve already had duty on her,” Pamela said.

  “Oh yes. I trained on her last year.”

  “These ships don’t have the firepower of say a World War II carrier,” Pamela said, hunching forward.

  Banks raised his eyebrows. “No, Lieutena
nt. Keep in mind, our carriers must depend on support vessels or aircraft to intercept incoming missiles or planes.” Pamela nodded. “But Tarawa isn’t defenseless. She has three, fully automatic five-inch guns, two Basic Point Defense Missile System Launchers which fire Sea Sparrow missiles.” Pride crept into his voice. “And we have our computers, too, Lieutenant.” Pamela’s laugh encouraged Dennis. “We have a Tactical Amphibious Warfare Data System geared to SPS-Ten surface search and SPS-Forty air search radars.”

  “All right,” Pamela said, throwing up her hands — a simple gesture filled with grace. “Enough. I’m convinced.” She smiled at Brent who leaned forward, almost overwhelmed by an urge to reach out and touch her. “Now, Ensign,” Pamela continued. “I’m to give you a quick tour and we report to Commander Bell. Right?”

  “Right, Lieutenant,” Dennis said, rising.

  In a moment, the trio was filing through the equipment room, the cryptographer in the lead, gesturing. It was her turn to show pride. “Look at the floor, see those vents?” Dennis nodded. “The temperature is maintained between sixty-six degrees and seventy-four degrees. Humidity, forty-four percent.” They stopped in the middle of the room, surrounded by a dozen humming and clattering machines.

  “My God, that printer’s fast,” Banks said, gesturing to a large, white machine the size of a home freezer.

  “That’s our Micro Five-Two-Five Laser Printer. It has a print speed of three hundred lines per second. And over there,” she said, pointing to a corner where a technician sat before a terminal, fingers on keyboard, eyes on a screen, “a CBC Sixteen.”

  “It’s smart?” the pilot asked.

  “Oh, yes. It’s programmable. But at this moment, it’s online to the Fourteen Hundred.”

  “Oh, yes. At the Pentagon.”

  Pam nodded. “The transmission between Fourteen Hundred and CBC Sixteen is bit-serial, transmitted synchronously at speeds up to ninety-six hundred bits per second.”

  Banks whistled. ‘‘Beats the Pony Express.” Brent and Pamela chuckled. The cryptographer continued, “The operator has a language selection of English, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, French, Spanish, Danish, Italian and Norwegian.”

  “How many Sixteens do you have?”

  “We have eight.”

  “Then they’re accessed to a central terminal.” Brent’s eyes widened, moving from Pamela to Banks, and back. He remained silent.

  The lieutenant continued. “The term is ‘cascaded,’ Mister Banks.” Dennis nodded. The cryptographer pointed to a small, black box on a shelf. “That’s the unit, our Terminal Multiplexer. It can handle up to eighteen terminals.” And then, gesturing about the room, “Two other printers there, four ‘modems,’ and four double sided diskette subsystems.” The young pilot pursed his lips, sighed noisily. Pamela glanced at a clock, high on the wall above the door. “It’s time.” The threesome moved to the door.

  *

  When the three officers entered Commander Bell’s office, Brent felt his face flush when he saw Capt. Mason Avery seated next to the commander’s desk.

  “Ah, here they are,” Bell said. “Please be seated.” He gestured to three chairs, facing the desk. “Oh, Captain, you remember Ensign Dennis Banks?”

  “Yes. The briefing,” the captain said. “Pirates out of the Kamchatka Peninsula.”

  “No, Captain,” the young flyer said. “That was Lieutenant McHugh. I suggested a high-speed vessel or, perhaps, long range Russian aircraft.” Avery dismissed the ensign with a nod, turned to Brent. “I’m sorry about your father. He was a good man.” There was a strange coldness — a tone devoid of compassion or even sincerity.

  Brent’s jaw hardened as he gazed at the captain, unable to understand this strange man. “Thank you, Captain. You’re right, he was a good man.”

  “Captain,” Bell injected hastily, “Ensign Banks has been assigned to NIS.”

  Avery eyed the flyer from head to toe. “Long range aircraft or high-speed vessels,” he snorted. Banks stiffened. Pamela and Brent exchanged a glance.

  Bell cleared his throat noisily. “We’re here because of that Russian LRA that disappeared in the North Pacific.”

  “Then it went in,” Brent said casually, not waiting for a response from Avery. Typical of intelligence units of any service or nation, Naval Intelligence encouraged spontaneous, wide open discussions of stubborn problems. Ideas were proposed, explored and either accepted or rejected with complete disregard for rank.

  “It looks like it, Brent,” Bell said. “It was probably one of those old TU Sixteens or Twenty-Twos. Some of them are as old as our B-Fifty-Twos.”

  “Quarter of a century, Commander.”

  “Right, Brent. It’s not a dependable aircraft. Of course, the Russians have made no announcements. All of you know how slow they are.”

  “They don’t trust their own personnel,” Brent said.

  “Right,” Craig answered. "Sometimes it takes them two days to just confirm the loss of one of their own civilian transports.”

  “But they should have transmissions from the lost LRA,” Banks said.

  “Makes no difference,” the commander said. “They’re suspicious, methodical, and very, very cautious — especially with things military. How much do we know of their operations in Afghanistan? How much do the Russian people know?”

  “They know it produces corpses,” Pamela said. Bell nodded. “That’s about all. Thus far, we strongly suspect one of their aircraft has vanished from their scopes, too. They’ve sent out two LRAs from Vladivostok and radio traffic has increased. We can assume it went in.”

  “That’s new intelligence,” Avery said.

  “Right, Captain,” Bell said. The phone rang. The commander put it to his ear. After talking briefly, he ended the conversation with a crisp, “Very well.” He slammed the phone down, glanced about the room. “Final confirmation is just in from CNO. Our stations in Japan report no returning aircraft.”

  The captain grimaced, turned to the cryptographer. “Any luck with that last transmission?”

  “They’re using a new code,” Pamela said. “Simultaneous computer-scrambled voice and CW,” Bell said, turning to Mason Avery. “The CIA reports this as their new Fox Blue Able code. We’re working on the CW.”

  “They transmitted 720 alphanumerical characters in one four minute transmission and then never transmitted again,” Pamela said.

  “No groups?” Avery asked.

  “No groups,” the woman answered. “We obviously have no textual patterns. We’re at square one, grouping in random order, accessing known codes and ciphers in full-duplex with the Fourteen Hundred, which, of course, gives us brute force.”

  “I don’t understand,” Mason Avery said curtly. “If it’s encoded by computer, it should be decodable by computer.” Then he sneered, “What do you need, Lieutenant, a Rosetta stone?”

  The cryptographer looked directly at the captain and answered coldly, “We’re not faced with simple chain addition, Captain. We’re searching for priming keys, but you know this is an exponential function.”

  “But not impossible, Lieutenant.”

  “Captain,” she continued, “Fox Blue Able is polyalphabetic with nulls unknown.” She leaned forward. “They have developed exponential flexibility by computerizing their key generation system. In fact, a computer the size of a transistor radio on line with an ordinary teletype or frontline pulse code modulation scrambler could produce an exponential system of key generation.”

  Brent chuckled as he caught a stunned look on Banks’ face. Gazing at Pamela’s stone-like face, he said to himself, A mere girl, that’s all she is. A mere girl.

  Avery’s voice rumbled from deep in his chest. “Are you trying to tell me we’re defeated?”

  “No,” she said emphatically. “I’m saying it will take time, Captain. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “We don’t have time, Lieutenant,” Avery spat.

  Pamela’s eyes widened. “With your permission — ” she look
ed at Commander Bell, ignoring Captain Avery and protocol — “I’ll return to my section.” She rose.

  Bell coughed nervously and glanced at the captain’s impassive face. “Why, of course.” In a moment, the cryptographer was gone.

  Avery spoke. “We had no ships or aircraft near the last reported position of the Russian?”

  Bell shook his head. “That is correct, sir.” He stood, moved to a giant wall map of the Pacific, pointing a finger. “NORAD reports this as the last point of contact — approximately longitude 172 degrees east, latitude 50 degrees north.”

  “And no AW AC in the area,” Avery said.

  “Right, Captain.” The commander returned to his desk.

  “I understand there’s nothing new on Sparta. Still a complete mystery,” Avery noted.

  “Correct,” the commander answered. “There were two Japanese whalers in the Bering Sea when Sparta vanished. The Coast Guard boarded them both — found nothing.” Bell leaned forward. “This would be a Coast Guard matter completely, except for the ordnance. CNO wants Naval Intelligence to stay on top of this.”

  “And Washington is busy with Khadafy stirring up the Med, the Ayatollah squatting on the Persian Gulf, and the Russians upsetting the rest of the world,” Avery said. “They’re handing us the ball on this one. Right, Commander?”

  “Right, sir,” Bell said. “This is our baby and they want a report by seven December.”

  “Have we beefed up our Bering Sea patrols, Commander?” Banks asked.

  “The Coast Guard is fully extended, but the Navy has established two new P-Three-C Orion patrols and sent a ARS-Forty-Six to the scene of the sinking.”

  “Search and salvage,” Banks said.

  “Right, Ensign,” Bell said, nodding. “CNO — ” he caught himself, started again. “No! Not just the Chief of Naval Operations, but the State Department has contacted Moscow and is attempting to get permission to fly reconnaissance over Kamchatka and the Chukchi Peninsula.”

  “Fat chance,” Avery snorted.

  “What about satellite surveillance?” Banks asked.

  Bell shook his head. “A hidden, camouflaged base would not be detected. Washington threw that one out.”

  “Heat emission,” the young flyer said. “Satellites can pick it up. A base must radiate heat.”