Arsenal c-10

by Keith Douglass

  It had been dark when she had left port, the sky obscured by the perpetual mist and fog. Later, as the sun had burned it away, the sailors had peeled off their shirts and donned hats, weathered brown backs giving evidence of their experience with this climate.

  This mission was more important than fishing for tuna, or pursuing any of the myriad activities that they used to supplement the income generated by their legitimate occupation. Jaime Rivera, the master of the vessel, stood in the pilot house, staring aft at the small contingent of Cuban navy officers on board. So like them, the arrogance with which they’d commandeered his vessel. The drug running, the smuggling, or even the normal routines of trolling for fish were merely memories now. The officers had arrived at 0500, in a battered, rusted jeep. Two deuce-and a-half trucks, on their last set of brakes and their suspension springs merely a distant memory, had followed.

  Their cargo had been quickly loaded onto the aft of the fishing boat and then covered with canvas. What had been a surprisingly precise arrangement of mines was now a massive, dirty tan lump occupying most of the fantail.

  “Now,” the officer in the pilothouse ordered. “We are at the first position.”

  Rivera nodded. It would do him no harm to make friends with the naval officers, people who might one day in the future look the other way at just the most opportune moments. No, despite the loss of immediate profits, it was worth complying with these requests.

  As though he had any choice.

  He stepped outside of the pilot house to the aft weather deck and shouted down at his men. A Cuban military officer accompanied each one of them and carefully supervised the operation.

  It should be more difficult than this, he thought, watching the massively muscled sailors wrestle a mine out of its wooden crate and onto the deck. From there it was a short heft, two grunts, and a groan to heave it off the back of the ship. He watched the first one throw up a gout of seawater, drenching the men near the fantail.

  “Five hundred meters, then another.” The officer’s voice was curt.

  Rivera nodded, smiled pleasantly. “Coffee?” he asked politely, gesturing toward the large thermos sitting next to the chart table.

  “My wife made it this morning. Very strong.”

  The officer seemed to unbend slightly, and a flick of annoyance was replaced by a more neutral expression.

  “Thank you. It would be appreciated.”

  As he poured two mugs, one for each of them, Rivera thought that getting along with people was not so difficult after all. They were the same almost anywhere you went.

  And after a cold, damp morning on the water, anyone would welcome a hot cup of coffee, especially the dark and bitter brew his wife made.

  “Five minutes,” the officer said. “Perhaps if you perform this mission satisfactorily, we will give you others in the future.

  Ones that are much more lucrative. I have an uncle …”

  Rivera sighed as the officer launched into a tale of the excellent cigars produced by his uncle that could not be marketed in the United States. An enterprising man, one who was willing to take a few risks, one who knew the waterswell, there were always possibilities. The master smiled, nodded, and began counting his profits. Smuggling cigars and other illegal cargo into the United States was much more profitable than laying mines this close to an aircraft carrier.

  1300 Local (+5 GMT)

  USS Jefferson

  Lieutenant Commander Charles Dunway, company operations officer on board Jefferson and senior surface warfare officer on board the ship, glanced nervously over at the glassed-in bridge way on the starboard side of the ship. The captain and the XO, along with the most senior aviation officer on the ship, were gathered there discussing the intricacies of underway replenishment. Aside from flight operations, it was perhaps the most dangerous evolution the ship engaged in. Making the approach on the oiler, easing up on her from behind seen parallel, exactly matching course and speed with the smaller ship with only 180 feet separating the two vessels was never a routine operation.

  At least not to the surface ship sailors. He snorted in disgust. The aviators, though that was a different matter.

  Aviation captains followed two career paths in their quest to accumulate stars on their collars. After a tour as a squadron commanding officer, they shifted their focus to being assigned as either the commanding officer of an aircraft carrier or as carrier air wing commander, both senior captain billets. Of the two, command of an aircraft carrier was the preferred track to the stars. But that meant completing the Navy’s grueling Nuclear Power School, as well as prototype reactor training in Idaho. Along the way, the aviator was expected to become at least minimally proficient in ship handling, and that meant taking the conn of an aircraft carrier during underway replenishment.

  For surface sailors, conning the ship through an underway replenishment operation meant careful coaching from their own commanding officer and close scrutiny every moment the ship was tied up alongside the oiler.

  The evolution was intricately orchestrated, and the surface warrior’s tendency to sweat the details was profoundly in evidence.

  Not so with aviators. They figured that if they’d managed to live that long during formation flights at Mach 1, they damned well sure could coach an aircraft carrier through an underway replenishment op at fifteen knots.

  No memorizing the standard commands, turning radiuses, and knots per turn of the shaft. No, not for them. All of the important details were written down on a three-by-five card and passed from one to the other as each took his turn at the conn.

  Generally, senior surface officers aboard the ship casually turned up on the bridge, keeping a close eye on the evolutions that their seniors in rank but not in experience strived to master. It was never an overt thing, no. The touchy ego of a jet jock would hardly tolerate supervision by a surface warfare officer, but Dunway damned well knew he felt better being below decks when his colleagues were keeping a careful eye on the Airedales.

  At least it wouldn’t happen on his watch. The underway replenishment was scheduled for 2100 that night, long after he would have gone off duty. This was merely a briefing session to make sure all of the jet jocks could find their way to the bridge and successfully locate the glassed-in area from which they would supervise the evolution. He sighed.

  Life just wasn’t fair.

  He looked forward and stared at the ocean in front of the carrier. The seas were running light today, maybe a sea state of two or so, he estimated. Just a few whitecaps, enough to make every detail of the swells visible. Not that heavy seas would have bothered Jefferson.

  she was capable of launching aircraft and fulfilling her missions in all but hurricane force winds and seas. Even then, the ship would be in no danger, unlike her smaller brethren.

  “Sir! Ready to commence flight operations.” Dunway turned toward the conning officer, who had just received that notification from the air boss.

  “Very well. Any contacts in the area?”

  The conning officer shook his head. “A few small pop up contacts to the south, that’s about it. Our current course puts us with thirty knots of wind across the deck at zero-zerozero relative.”

  Ideal winds for flight operations. The extra wind across the deck would give all aircraft the additional lift they needed to get airborne off the cat shot. Any more, and they might have control problems immediately after the shot; any less, and the heavier aircraft such as the Tomcats wouldn’t be happy.

  “Very well,” he repeated, and turned back to the SPA250 radar repeater located in the middle of the bridge. He was certain the conning officer had checked with Combat, but it never hurt to verify the tactical situation oneself.

  It was as the conning officer had said. There were two intermittent contacts to the south, carefully annotated and being tracked by the junior officer of the deck, who was standing nervously at his side, white grease pencil clutched in his sweaty palm.

  Up ahead, the sea looked clear. Excellen
t. While a fine ship, even if under the command of aviators, Jefferson was hardly as nimble and maneuverable as her battle group escorts. The 120,000 tons of steel took more than a few minutes to veer from her course. While she would be flying the Foxtrot pennant to indicate she was conducting flight operations, thus giving her the right-of-way over other ships on the ocean, it was common for smaller foreign vessels to ignore the danger signs. He wondered sometimes at the sanity of the other ships and boats, tracking nonchalantly and brazenly across her path. Didn’t they realize that this ship could no more avoid them than a train could stop in time to miss a car parked on the tracks directly ahead?

  Something caught his attention on the screen, and he looked back down at it. What was it there. A small fleck of green flickered dead ahead.

  He frowned and motioned to the JOOD-Junior Officer of the Deck.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s not very solid for a contact, is it?” the ensign said, nervousness in his voice. “Combat’s not reporting anything.”

  “Don’t rely on Combat,” Dunway said sharply. “That’s why we have a repeater here two sets of eyes are always better than one. Get on the horn and ask them what they’re seeing on raw video.”

  The JOOD nodded and reached for the toggle switch to the bitch box. He posed the question to the senior officer in Combat and waited for a reply, tapping his fingers nervously on top of the gray box that housed the interior communications circuits. Finally, he looked back at Dunway. “Combat says it might be a contact.”

  A shrieking roar rose from the flight deck nine stories below them. An aircraft a Tomcat, by the sound of it turning on the catapult. With a green deck and permission to launch aircraft, the air boss had moved ahead smartly. Dunway had only seconds left to stop it. He lunged for the bitch box.

  It wasn’t enough time. Just as his hand touched the toggle switch, he heard the roar increase, then the sound of an aircraft accelerating down the catapult. It was followed four seconds later by the gentle thump of the steel piston ramming against the stops in the bow as the aircraft broke free of the shuttle and was hurled into the air. He looked over the small ledge that ran around the ship immediately under the windows and saw a Tomcat dip down out of view briefly, then rise up to grab altitude and speed.

  “Red deck!” He turned the toggle switch loose without explanation.

  That phrase alone would stop all flight operations until they had a chance to ascertain whether or not there was a contact immediately in their path.

  He turned to look for the JOOD. The young man had disappeared from beside the radar repeater and was standing in the port bridge wing, binoculars glued to his eyes.

  Dunway saw his face turn pale. The JOOD dropped the binoculars, turned, and shouted, “Small vessel dead ahead, sir!”

  “What’s her course?” He hoped against hope that it would clear their path by the time they got to it.

  “Bearing constant, range decreasing. She’s bow-on to us, sir.”

  “Hard right rudder.” Dunway whirled toward the conning officer. “Now, mister!”

  The conning officer repeated the order, uncertain as to exactly why it had been given but instantly knowing this was no time for discussion.

  Dunway stepped behind the helmsman, saw him spin the giant wheel quickly to the right to the stops.

  Dunway moved forward again, positioning himself immediately underneath the course repeater located in the center of the ship overhead. He watched the needle, praying for it to move faster, knowing it wouldn’t.

  Turning the ship, even at maximum rudder, was like maneuvering an office building.

  He looked back ahead again. There. Finally visible to the naked eye, the small, rickety craft came into view. It was no more than a dot, a black mark against the blue waves and whitecaps. Dunway reached for his binoculars and held them to his eyes. A rust bucket. She was riding low on the water, an open vessel with no powerhouse or other cover in her. Little more than a lake boat, he would have thought.

  But jam-packed with people, hanging all over each other and even spilling over the sides to hold on to the gunwales, their legs dangling in the water. Badly overloaded, hardly seaworthy, and directly in their path.

  He glanced back upward, saw the course repeater notch slowly to the right, gave another order. “Starboard engines, back full. Port engines, ahead full.” The combination of a backing bell on the starboard shaft and a full-ahead bell on the port shaft would steepen their turn. Not by much this early in the evolution, but perhaps by enough.

  But even engine orders aren’t instantaneous. They were given to the lee helmsman, who relayed the command down to his counterpart in main Engineering. Then, the steam valves were slowly rotated to adjust the speed of the turbine on that shaft, again introducing a delay.

  Furthermore, the giant turbines that drove the four shafts of the ship did not respond instantaneously either. It all took time. Too much time.

  “What the hell’s going on?” the CO of the ship snapped.

  When had he left the bridge wing, Dunway wondered.

  How long had he been standing there? The man’s face was now suffused with rage, his training session interrupted and emergency maneuvers taking place on his bridge without his having been informed.

  “Contact directly in our path. Captain,” Dunway said quickly. He ran through the normal litany of course and speed, pointing the contact out to the captain, his eyes still fixed on the course repeater as it clicked over one more notch. Maybe enough maybe not. If it weren’t, it didn’t matter what the captain of the ship thought of him. His career was dead.

  The captain snapped his gaze forward, finally spotting the small craft.

  His jaw dropped. Dunway noted the look of horror on his face with sour satisfaction. It was time the aviators realized that life at twenty knots could be just as dangerous as life at Mach 1.

  Dunway could see the faces now, make out the details of clothing and expressions. The ship was still turning.

  Finally, as it drew closer, the small ship disappeared from view, the line of sight to it blocked by the massive flight deck. Had it been enough? Maybe, just barely. If it had been, the ship was just now scraping down the port side of Jefferson, a tiny gnat against the giant gray wall of the ship.

  He wheeled on the operations specialist maintaining the plot board at the aft of the bridge. “Reports from lookouts?”

  “Port lookout reports that oh, dear, sweet Jesus.” The man’s voice trailed off. “Sir, we hit them.”

  1500 Local (+5 GMT)

  Fuentes Naval Base

  “You’ll send the message now.”

  Santana glared at Pamela Drake, daring her to defy his order.

  “I won’t.” She remained seated, staring up at him. Even if she’d been standing, he would have towered over her, and she had no intention of allowing him to feel one iota of superiority. Best to stand her ground where she was. “You can’t force me to broadcast this report. Not while I’m being held hostage. Aguillar promised me that I could report the facts as I saw them. Quite frankly, I’m a bit fed up with being shuttled around under guard.”

  Santana slammed his hand down on the table. “You are not in the United States, Miss Drake. We agreed to allow you to come here, but you were informed there would be certain restrictions on your ability to pursue matters independently. You took advantage of our hospitality, yet refused to acknowledge those conditions. Is this your idea of integrity?” He turned angrily away from her, staring out the window.

  “I’ll report the story, but not some trumped-up fabrication you’ve prepared for me. And without access to witnesses, the ability to see the story developing myself, I have no way of judging the truth of what you’re telling me. You want your story told, fine. I’ll tell it. But my own way.”

  Santana muttered something to his aide in a quick, staccato voice, the Spanish too rapid for her to follow. The aide nodded, walked out of the room, and returned shortly bearing a videotape. He inserted
it into the VCR, turned the power on, then turned back toward Santana.

  Santana wheeled on her. He pointed at the television screen. “Perhaps this will be a sufficiently important story for you to reconsider.” He gestured at the aide, who punched the play button.

  The picture started out grainy, then gradually resolved into a clear pattern of light and dark. As the cameraman found his focal length, the dark shape in the middle of the screen became a small boat crammed with people. It plowed up and down the waves, rolling from side to side in the gentle swells and threatening to capsize even in the relatively calm seas. The camera panned to the right and refocused, and a large aircraft carrier came into view.

  The shot was taken from almost sea level, and the ship looked like a massive, towering gray cliff. The cameraman zoomed in, focusing on the number on the side of the steel superstructure jutting up from the flight deck, the island.

  Pamela recognized the number immediately. The USS Jefferson. Even if she hadn’t known that it was on presence patrols in the Caribbean, the hull number was indelibly ingrained in her memory.

  The camera panned back to the small boat. The people in it now were standing up, gesturing, and Pamela could see their mouths opening as they screamed. Panic and as the cameraman zoomed back to include both the aircraft carrier and the small boat in one frame, she understood the reason why. Jefferson was bearing down on the small boat with all the inevitability and imponderability of an avalanche. In a battle between two ships for right-of-way, tonnage always wins, and there was no doubt in her mind as to the outcome of this encounter.

  As she watched, the distance between the two ships gradually decreased.

  The Jefferson’s aspect changed, becoming slightly more bow-on to her, but still Pamela could see that there was no way it could miss the other ship. She imagined the panic that must be taking place on Jefferson, as frantic in its own style as the terror of the people in the small boat. To die, or to be responsible for others’ deaths?

  She knew which was worse.

  It was like watching the O. J. Simpson car chase, with the white Bronco rolling slowly down vacant interstates. Minutes passed, and if it had not been for the impending tragedy, it would have been almost as boring.