“No problems, sir. If we get a contact deep in the box, it’s gotta be a Kilo, right?”
“Right. And we’ll set a depth ceiling at forty feet on each weapon. That way they cannot attack a surface target. They will go for any submarine, dived in the box, but they will leave the escorts alone. If there are no submarines in the box, they’ll just run out of gas and sink to the bottom without exploding. Judging by the amount of noise the destroyers and frigates are making, they’ll never detect a torpedo transmission…not with all that other junk to confuse ’em. They may just hear a hit I guess, but even the sound of that might get lost in there…by which time we’ll be outta there.”
0505. “Captain…sonar…seven miles, sir…the Russians now bear 025…”
Commander Dunning ordered Columbia to PD, and as the great black hull swept toward the surface, he raised the special search periscope. Staring now at the dark skies in the north, he swung the periscope round to 025, and waited for the infrared picture to come up. For the second time in a week, the submarine CO from Cape Cod saw the great angled radar antennae of the nine-thousand-ton Russian destroyer Admiral Chabanenko. Just to the left he could see the identical aerials of one of the Udaloy Type Ones, now positioned about two miles off the Chabanenko’s starboard beam.
“Looks like they could have formed a two-mile square,” he said to Mike Krause, standing beside him. The periscope was lowered after its five-second look, and the recording of its picture now showed on a screen. “Here, Mike. Take a look.”
The Executive Officer stared at the picture. Then he said slowly, “Yessir. That’s exactly what it is…should be able to see the aerials of the quarter escorts in fifteen minutes.”
He predicted correctly. “That must be the other Udaloy nearest us, sir,” he said. “With the Nepristupny holding position on the northwest corner of the square…right now the Chabanenko is six miles from us…it’s just beginning to get light over there.”
Columbia, with no masts up now, remained at PD. Boomer and Mike Krause assessed the Russians would pass to the west, but Boomer wanted to be at least eight miles off track, and he ordered the submarine to change course. “Come right 090…I’m opening the range a bit…then I’m turning back to attack.”
Sixteen minutes later, at 0527, Columbia was in position and the Russian convoy was still fifteen minutes away from the Americans’ target area. The southeastern escort was bearing 300, putting up the best sound barrier she could, with the other escorts’ screws thrashing away, their active sonars blasting loudly. The towed decoys, those stubby little bombs trailing behind the escorts, added their little bit to the general racket and the truly hopeless underwater picture. From the sonar traces in Columbia, even the lowest frequencies appeared to be blanked out by the acoustic jammers.
In the opinion of the Russian commanders they were on the pig’s back. Because in addition to the acoustic barrier, they also had the radars of the three destroyers and the frigate sweeping over the empty seas. Two of their helicopters were up and patrolling the waters that surrounded the little convoy. Does any US submarine possibly have a chance against these massive defensive measures? Niet, was the plain and obvious answer to that, not unless the attacker was prepared to take on the escorts first.
What the Russians did not know was that Boomer Dunning, hidden just below the surface, did not require an underwater picture. He could see the two-mile square formed by the four escorts. He was sure the Kilos were located right in that square if they were there at all. He would try to find them with his controlled search-and-kill wire-guided torpedoes, and then leave the weapons to finish the job. If the Kilos were not there, no harm would be done.
Jerry Curran had briefed the team. The torpedomen were ready. The weapons controllers were ready. Columbia’s firing systems were go as the Admiral Chabanenko led the Russian convoy forward.
“Captain…sonar…Track 4063 bearing 295.”
The Weapons Control Officer added, “That puts the southeastern escort bearing 297…range 10,600…course 225…speed eight…good firing solution.”
“STAND BY ONE.”
“One ready, sir.”
“Stand by…check bearing and fire.”
“UP PERISCOPE…bearing…MARK!..range…MARK!..down periscope.”
“Last bearing check.”
“Two-nine-six…SET.”
“SHOOT!..STAND BY TWO.”
“Track 4063 bears 293…SET.”
“SHOOT!”
In the sonar room they heard the metallic thuds of the weapons leaving the tubes, then near silence as the engines of the big, stealthy torpedoes powered them forward. Only the faintest tremor disturbed the smooth slow movement of Columbia.
“Both weapons under guidance, sir.”
“Arm the weapons.”
“Weapons armed, sir.”
The Torpedo Guidance Officer, standing next to the CO in the attack area, watched on their screens as the torpedoes moved menacingly through the water, their speed setting slow, quiet and deep, sonars passive. Streaming out behind were the thin, supertough electronic wires, along which would flow the commands into the computer brains behind the warhead.
The four-mile journey took nine minutes and thirty-six seconds, at which point the first torpedo got passive contact to port — it was ready to attack.
Boomer snapped instantly, “IGNORE THAT! It’s Chabanenko’s decoy — do NOT release the weapon. Switch to active search.”
The guidance officer hesitated for a fraction of a second, then he steered the torpedo past the lead destroyer, watching it cruise on, into the “box”…searching…searching…searching for a submerged target across a long thousand-yard swath.
One minute later, it reported firm active contact close to port, and now it transmitted its lethal short, sharp “pings.”
“Weapon One release to auto-home,” ordered Boomer.
Columbia’s Mk 48 swiftly adjusted course, accelerated to forty-five knots, and locked on, with chilling indifference, to the black hull of K-9, which was moving southwest two hundred feet below the surface at nine knots, oblivious to the mortal danger that now threatened. The acoustic barrier, which had made Boomer’s task so difficult, now made detection of the telltale active “pings” impossible for the Russian Captain. Neither he, nor the Chinese Commander who accompanied him, knew what hit them.
Boomer Dunning’s torpedo smashed into the Kilo 120 feet from the bow and exploded with deadly force. It blasted a four-foot hole in the pressure hull, a gaping wound — no one on board survived for more than a minute as the cruel waters of the North Pacific surged through the submarine, forcing her to the bottom.
Back in Columbia Boomer Dunning heard the unmistakable sharp bang as the Mk 48 hit home. But that was all, the roaring acoustic barrier of the Russian warships blotted out the loneliest sound any sonar operator ever hears — the endless tinkling noise of broken glass and metal that echoes back as a warship sinks to the bottom of the ocean. It was 0555, on the morning of September 3, just as the sun was beginning to cast the rose-colored fingers of dawn along the eastern horizon of the Pacific.
“That’ll do,” said the CO of USS Columbia.
He now turned his attention back to the second torpedo, also under tight control, and now well on its way across the “box,” almost one mile astern of the Admiral Chabanenko. It too ran at a slow and deliberate pace, deep and quiet, crossing into the box almost halfway along the line between the two easterly escorts.
Boomer watched the Guidance Officer drive the torpedo toward the target area. He saw it pick up the frigate Nepristupny’s threshing screws to starboard, but did not have to warn against letting it loose this time. He ordered the torpedo switched to active search, and fifteen seconds later it reported a new contact to port, which could only be a submarine.
“There he is,” rasped Boomer. “Release to auto-home.”
“Contact six hundred yards…closing.”
“MALFUNCTION, SIR — TORPEDO MALFUNCTION
. LOST ACTIVE CONTACT.”
“TRY PASSIVE.”
“MALFUNCTION, SIR. Nothing coming back up the wire…it must have broken, sir.”
“Stand by three.”
“Captain…sonar…I have underwater telephone on the bearing.”
“Jesus, he must be talking to his fucking self.”
“Nossir. He’s talking to someone else.”
“You got the interpreter down there?”
“Yessir. He’s saying it’s between two submarines…we’re checking the call signs in the book right now, sir…they seem to be calling a third boat.”
“JESUS CHRIST!!”
“Captain…sonar. The third boat is not answering. Call signs work out…from an export hull…and a Russian boat…trying to reach another export hull.”
A chill shot through Boomer Dunning’s churning stomach. There could be but one answer. The Typhoon is still there. Unbelievably. Grotesquely, still there. And he, Commander Cale Dunning, had come within about thirty seconds of starting World War III by accident. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” said the CO of Columbia. “STAND DOWN THREE TUBE…we will not, repeat not, be firing.”
The picture in his mind was one of absolute clarity. He had assumed two Kilos were in the box, and he had hit one of them, and apparently gotten active contact on the other, just before he lost his second torpedo. Now the remaining Kilo was talking to the Typhoon, which had been there all the time, both of them trying to figure out what had happened to K-9…the Kilo that was just about arriving at the bottom of the Pacific. With all hands.
There was little doubt as far as Boomer was concerned. If there was a Russian submarine in attendance, it was clearly the Typhoon. “Can I risk firing again? Answer: NO. I have just been goddamned lucky not to have started World War III, by blowing up a Typhoon Class Russian nuclear, which was built specifically to fire inter-continental ballistic missiles. I plainly cannot knowingly take that risk.
“I am already in the deepest possible crap. I had no POSIDENT of the Kilos. Acoustic or visual. Let’s face it, I fired on the off chance. Right here is where I back off, and throw myself on the mercy of SUBLANT.”
Boomer ordered Columbia deep and fast, to clear the datum and head east, away from the impending chaos. He handed the ship to Lieutenant Commander Krause and retired to his cabin to prepare a signal to the Black Ops Intelligence Cell. It was around 1300 in Norfolk.
He wrote his signal carefully: “Kilo Group attacked north of Onekotan. Unable to obtain fire control solution on any submarines. Fired two Mk 48’s into center of two-mile square box formed by remaining four escorts. Torpedoes set for active pattern search. One explosion heard. Subsequent telephone traffic, underwater call-signs, strongly suggest one export hull sunk. Intercept also strongly suggests continued presence of Typhoon Class submarine in the group. Do NOT intend further attack. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.”
Boomer ordered Columbia to periscope depth and accessed the satellite. He transmitted his signal at 0630, Eastern Daylight Time. At 0647 Admiral Arnold Morgan, the President’s National Security Adviser, almost had a heart attack. At the time he was having a cup of coffee and a roast beef sandwich with the CNO, Joe Mulligan, in the Pentagon, and the craggy ex-Trident driver had calmly read the message to the NSA.
“What the hell does he mean, mea maxima culpa? What kinda bullshit’s that?”
“You ever been an altar boy?” asked the staunchly Irish Catholic head of the US Navy.
“A WHAT?”
“An altar boy — you know, a kid who assists the priest during the mass, rings the bells, lights the candles…holds the water during the consecration.”
“Hell no. In my part of Texas we played baseball on Sunday mornings. Mea catcher.”
“Arnie, I accept that my great office requires that I fraternize with those of a heathen persuasion, such as yourself. However I think you should know the routine of a God-fearing family such as mine. Each Sunday at the foot of the altar, another boy and I placed our hands upon our breasts, and prayed: “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…I have sinned, I have sinned, I have greatly sinned.”
“You mean Boomer’s admitting he overstepped the mark?”
“He sure is. And that’s the mark of a fine officer. A man big enough for his rank. And not threatened by the admission of a mistake.”
“NOT THREATENED? I’LL FUCKING THREATEN HIM. THAT BOY’S NOTHING SHORT OF A DUMBASS SONOFABITCH. WHAT IF HE’D HIT THE FUCKING TYPHOON?…Good morning, Mr. President, we just had a bit of bad luck in the Pacific. One of our best submarine commanders blew up and sank a big Russian nuclear submarine in Russian waters by mistake. The nuclear cloud from its twenty inter-continental ballistic missiles is in the process of wiping out most of the Orient…ain’t that a gas?”
Joe Mulligan chuckled at the brutal irony of Arnold Morgan’s words. “Steady, Arnie. In an operation like this, there’s a ton of risk, every step of the way. Why don’t we just think ourselves lucky? Boomer has removed one of the goddamned Kilos on a thirty-three percent chance of starting World War III. And he seems to have gotten away with it. That makes him a very lucky commander. But you need luck in the game we’ve asked him to play.”
“Christ, I know that. But our signals to Columbia never stopped stressing the fact that he MUST HAVE POSIDENT. Therefore his actions were in direct contravention of his orders. He not only did not have POSIDENT, he had no fucking IDENT whatsoever…POS…NEAR-POS, OR FUCK-ALL POS.”
Admiral Mulligan blew coffee down his nose, trying to stop laughing at the infuriated NSA. “Come on, Arnie, if we send off a blast to Columbia, which others may see, humiliating their commanding officer, we will do nothing except hurt the morale of his ship.
“Just remember what Commander Dunning has done. He’s actually sunk three of those Kilos. He’s made a trans-polar run under the North Pole, and he’s still operational. Undetected.”
“Don’t gimme his fucking life story, for Christ’s sake, Joe. I’m not talking about what he’s done. Any good nuclear submarine officer could have done the same. Right here, I’m talking about what he could have done. Like started a goddamned world war. Nothing serious. Because he is, apparently, unable to obey a simple order. Like GET POSIDENT. Nothing earth shattering. Just routine sense. He’s a dumbass sonofabitch.”
“What would you have said if his signal had claimed he did have POSIDENT on the Kilos?”
Admiral Morgan grappled for words, but for once in his life found none.
“Commander Dunning could have said that. And we would have been none the wiser. And if, as you are now implying, we give him a severe reprimand, he might also remind us that we kept telling him the Typhoon was gone. Oh, I know we can look at the small print and say we did not quite say that. But we did, and we advised him so several times. Let’s face it…none of us knew the Typhoon was still there. Never even suspected it. In my view the Commander behaved in an exemplary way, and to tell the truth, I’d probably have done the same.”
“So would I, fuck it,” replied the NSA. “But I’m still not prepared to listen to reason.”
Joe Mulligan laughed. “Come on, old buddy. Fight the battle you’re in. We got clean away with it. Beautiful, right? What’ll we do now. Given that K-10 is still on the fucking loose.”
“Okay. I agree. You need not haul Boomer over the coals. But I do insist you make my thoughts clear to him. And I don’t want him promoted. You can’t have officers like that becoming Captains. He’s a fucking maniac.”
Admiral Mulligan grinned and said, “Yes, of course, Admiral. As much of a maniac as we were, in our youth. I wish to Christ we had a few more like him. But…down to business. Right here, we can’t do much. It’s no good hanging around and shadowing all the way to Shanghai. The Typhoon will now almost certainly stay as well.”
“Right. That bastard Rankov has been too clever for his own good. His stupid ships made too much noise. Boomer couldn’t get a classification, but the Typhoon turned out to be no det
errent, because they failed to make it obvious that the sonofabitch was there. But I’ll tell you one thing…it does show how determined they are to get the Kilos through to Shanghai.”
“As far as I’m concerned, the Kilo’s split,” replied Joe Mulligan. “That’s what I would have done. Which means that right now we haven’t got a chance of picking him up because the trail’s gone cold. He’s making a run for home. We’re not going to get him…and I think we may as well send Columbia to Pearl for maintenance. It’s only three thousand miles from where he is now. It’ll take him six days, and he can spend some time getting his ship into top shape. CINCPAC could use him to patrol with the new CVBG in the Arabian Sea in mid-October. But right now, I guess he and his crew could use a little R and R.”
“Okay, Joe. Let’s do that. We’ll just have to keep a weather eye out for K-10, as and when we can. Still, of the seven we went after, we got six, right? Not bad.”
The SUBLANT signal to Commander Dunning in Columbia was transmitted within the hour. Columbia sucked it off the satellite at 0900, local, the next day, September 11. It read: “Personal for Commander Dunning. Received your signal. Well done. Proceed to Pearl. Lack of POSIDENT: NSA assessment — D-A SOB…Mulligan.”
Three hours later, running deep now, due south down the Northern Pacific, Boomer read the signal ruefully. He had expected worse. They might even have relieved him of command. He had been instructed to get POSIDENT. But he was not the first front-line commanding officer to reflect upon how damned easy it is to sit in a Washington armchair, and how very much different things appear when you’re actually out there, trying to attack, trying to keep your ship safe, trying to do the business of your higher command.
How typical of the Navy, he thought, to accept cheerfully the demise of the Kilo, and to intimate guarded approval of the attack. And yet to leave a commanding officer in no doubt that he will be held to account, should they consider he exceeded his orders.
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