Donchez handed back the intelligence-update message to the radioman and stepped back to look at the plots. One thousand miles northeast of Norfolk, one blue X was all alone. Black block letters beside the X read USS DEVILFISH SSN-666 SUBMERGED TRANSIT. Donchez tried to visualize Pacino and the Devilfish. Would it be better to tell Pacino the OMEGA was surfaced now and later tell him about the major deployment? No doubt there was enough turmoil in Mikey’s mind with the implicit and explicit mandates. It would be best to wait at least until evening for further developments before giving the Devilfish a mission update. Soon, though, he would have to tell Pacino that the OMEGA might be expecting him, even gunning for him.
* * *
Three hours later Donchez was joined in Flag Plot by Admiral Casper “Bobby” McGee. Donchez pointed his cigar at the advancing blinking red X’s on the chart, now approaching the middle of the Atlantic.
“The red X’s are the Russian attack submarines,” he said. “The blue ones off the U.S. continental shelf are mine.”
McGee stared at the wall chart. As Commander in Chief U.S. Atlantic Fleet, CINCLANTFLEET, he was Donchez’s boss. He was slightly shorter than Donchez, heavyset with bushy gray eyebrows and jowls. He looked like a caricature of an authoritarian southern traffic-court judge, and hailing from Waycross, Georgia, even sounded the part. Appearances were deceiving; anyone who mistook his folksiness for ignorance could find themselves up against a ruthless intelligence. Still, he was not a submariner.
“Why them red ones flashin’?” he asked Donchez.
“The flashing means their position is only approximate. We have a position within five hundred square miles from SOSUS, sometimes within one hundred square miles. The position is good enough for you and me to see the progress but not good enough for us to… shoot at him. I know those red ones are there, plus or minus an inch or two on that chart, but I can’t sink them—”
“Who’s talkin’ about sinkin’ ‘em? Maybe I missed something but a couple of red X’s on a chart… it’s still an exercise.”
“Looks kind of threatening for an exercise. Admiral. This isn’t like the surface navy. We can’t see these guys. Sending them out like this in an instant and sending them south can’t exactly be interpreted as a peaceful gesture. Sir, the track projections take them right to our east coast. Their ETA is two days from now—”
“So they come. What are they gonna do, shoot red flares at us? Their guns ain’t loaded anymore, they destroyed the cruise missiles this very week. We got confirmation—”
Donchez frowned. “I didn’t expect this sort of reaction from you, sir.” It wasn’t like McGee, who had once been an avid hawk. Sign of the times…
“I was also surprised,” McGee said, “when the White House called to say they had information that this was happening. Which means the White House knew about it before we did. The Russians, it seems, gave the President a call and told him not to sweat this, that it’s just an exercise.”
“But, sir, why did it take so long for word of this so-called exercise-notification to get down to my level?” Translation: Why, Admiral, didn’t you tell me this before?
“Sorry about that, Dick. After the missiles were destroyed it just didn’t seem like such a big deal. Pentagon figures they got bored with the Arctic Ocean and headed for some tropical weather. Who can blame’em?”
“Sir, we should brief the White House on what’s happening. This could still be some kind of… trick.” Donchez knew it sounded paranoid but what else could he say?
“We can’t brief the top brass until you can prove some hostile intent, here, Dick,” McGee said quietly. “Besides, the White House staff ain’t the only people I got phone calls from. Got one from General Tyler at the Pentagon, too. He even mentioned you by name, Dick. Said he didn’t want to hear any damned doomsday talk from you about this here exercise. You know how the of’ boy feels about this kind of thing. He made it sound like the Russians practically asked White House permission to do this submarine deployment. So I’m telling you, Dick, you rattle your sabre about this Russian thing. General Tyler’ll break it off in your ass.”
“Sir, all due respect, but General Tyler couldn’t find his ass with both hands.”
“Careful, Dick, this is the Air Force Chief of Staff you’re talking about. Also, the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Our future boss.”
“Until he’s my boss he’s a horse’s ass.”
McGee sighed. “It’s not all his fault, Dick. He’s Air Force. Hell, it’s all I can do to understand this submarine crap. I’m a pilot, not a sewer-pipe sailor.” McGee had been COMAIRLANT, chief of the aviators, and before that captain of an aircraft carrier, and before that commander of an F-14 fighter squadron. “Look, I’ve gotta run, Dick. Keep me posted. But remember, I need something more than just god damned ship movements if we’re going to ask for modified Rules of Engagement. You can trail’em, but don’t mess with’em.”
* * *
Donchez stood in his office and stared out the plate-glass window at the Stingray monument construction site across the street. A cement mixer was pouring a foundation. He pressed his intercom and summoned Captain Rummel to his office.
“Yes sir,” Rummel said as he entered.
“Those SSN-X-27 missiles, the cruise missiles…”
“Yes sir?”
“There was a U.N. team that witnessed their destruction?”
“Yes sir.”
“What are the chances that they saw exercise units destroyed?”
“Zero, sir. First, they broke open the weapons to inspect the warheads. No mistaking plutonium with a Geiger counter. Alpha radiation, the works. Every weapon, sir. Those units were the real thing. And they’re history now.”
“What’s the possibility that the Russians had some cruise missiles that we didn’t know about before?”
“Slim. Maybe one or two escaped us. Maybe a dozen on the outside. But if you’re thinking that attack sub fleet is armed with’em, no chance. We’d know if there were a hundred and twenty of them out there.”
“What if only ten were on the boats and the rest were exercise units, units that flew like the real thing but had dud warheads. That could cause enough confusion to screw us up, couldn’t it?”
“Well — they would all fly in at treetop level so if exercise units were launched with an attack, they’d be stealthy as the real thing.”
Donchez thought a moment. “Any chance that only a few Russian boats have nuke cruise missiles and the others are protecting the boats with the nukes?”
Rummel shook his head. “All the boats are separated.They all have different approach vectors. Different destinations. They aren’t in some kind of escort formation.”
“They’re asking me to just sit here and wait for the worst to happen. I can’t do it.”
“Sir?”
“Never mind. Captain. Let’s go. It’s time to tell our boys what’s going on.”
Back in Flag Plot, the Duty Officer stood at attention.
“Duty Officer, two messages to go out FLASH priority. You ready?” Donchez said. The Duty Officer’s pen was poised over his notebook.
“Go, sir.”
“First message. Addressee, USS Devilfish, currently enroute the polar icepack for rendezvous with Russian OMEGA-class submarine Unit One. Mark the message Personal for Commanding Officer. Message classification: TOP SECRET — THUNDERBOLT. Message subject: Mission redefinition.” Donchez read the body of the message.
“You got all that? Read it back.” Donchez listened as the Duty Officer read back the message.
“Good. Get it on the wire, then come back for the second.”
As Donchez waited for the Duty Officer to hand the message to the Senior Chief Radioman, he and Rummel looked at the Arctic Ocean plot, seeing the flashing X that symbolized the unknown position of the OMEGA Unit One. When the Duty Officer returned, Donchez started in on the second FLASH message.
“The boat that got damaged the other day. Lieutenant
, the 688-class boat, who was that?”
“That would be the Allentown, sir.”
Donchez glanced at the Atlantic Ocean plot to find the Allentown. She was several hundred miles off Norfolk, in line with the other Atlantic Fleet submarines forming the zone defense of the coastline. Donchez frowned. He had never liked zone defenses, much preferring man-to-man or sub-to-sub. But the Russians had him outnumbered two to one.
“Did she get her sail fixed?” Donchez asked.
“No, sir,” the Duty Officer said, as if it was his fault the Los Angeles-class submarine had remained damaged. “The shipyard was too-blocked with work, sir, and they didn’t get to the Allentown.”
“What’s Allentown got as far as Javelin cruise missiles?”
The Duty Officer scanned a computer printout on his clipboard.
“Sir, she’s one of the VLS equipped Los Angeles boats. Fully loaded out.”
“Okay,” Donchez said.
The Vertical Launch System used on the most recent attack submarines meant that in the forward main ballast tanks twelve vertical torpedo tubes had been installed in a space that would otherwise be wasted. The tubes were loaded with Javelin cruise missiles, freeing up the torpedo room for more torpedoes. Allentown would be loud and rattling with her sail damage, too noisy to trail one of the Russian boats heading for the coastline. That made her a perfect candidate for Donchez’s next idea.
“Okay, Duty Officer. FLASH priority, addressee USS Allentown, currently orbiting in the VACAPES OPAREA. Mark this one Personal for Commanding Officer. Message classification: TOP SECRET — THUNDERBOLT. Message subject: New mission directive. Message body to read: Paragraph one will be the same as for Devilfish, telling Duckett the current situation. Paragraph two: Allentown to transit north to Barents Sea off Russian northern coastline. Use wartime submarine safety lanes to transit north as set forth in the CINCLANTFLEET SIOP WARPLAN. Use maximum speed of advance consistent with ship safety and take a position off of Severomorsk as dictated by the Warplan’s Station Number One—”
Rummel looked up sharply. Station One was a hold position for U.S. nuclear submarines directly off Severomorsk Naval Complex, intentionally inside Russia’s territorial waters, a dangerous place for an American sub.
“—Paragraph two: Allentown to maintain passive radio communication on VLF and ELF frequencies, on maximum wartime cruise-missile alert. Paragraph three: Javelin cruise-missile targeting shall be in accordance with the SIOP WARPLAN, Military and Naval Base Facilities Priority section. Paragraph four: Continuous alert to be maintained as a precaution against Russian aggression. Allentown shall be within three minutes of Javelin launch at all times. Paragraph five: Vital Allentown remain undetected. Paragraph six: Destroy this message immediately…”
It would not do to get captured by the Russians with a message onboard ordering them to violate Russia’s territorial waters. The contingency plan for capture included the immediate destruction of sensitive documents and war plans, but the most sensitive document contained orders to sail covertly inside the 12-mile territorial limit of another country.
“Paragraph seven: Our hope is that you will not be needed. Good luck. Hank. Paragraph eight: Admiral R. Donchez sends.”
The Duty Officer read it back. Donchez nodded and the Duty Officer hurried to the radio consoles. Rummel looked at Donchez, speechless. Donchez stared back at him for a moment.
“The best defense is a good offense. Captain.”
MID-ATLANTIC
USS DEVILFISH
Pacino moved through the narrow aisle between the Ship’s Inertial Navigation System binnacle and the NAVSAT receiver cabinet to the navigation alcove in the aftport corner of the control room. The chart was taped to a table below a moveable fluorescent light. Pacino leaned over the table and toyed with a pencil, looking at their track-line heading northeast. Where was the OMEGA? Where exactly was Devilfish? He focused on the last fix, obtained by bottom-contour sonar. The BE sonar set pinged and listened to the return on the ocean bottom. Its computer matched the contour under them to a memory of the ocean bottom taken by survey vessels and other submarines. If the sea floor had rocks and valleys and peaks, the fix quality was excellent, putting the ship’s estimated position within a few yards of where it actually was. If the floor was sandy, the ship being tracked could be anywhere.
“We’re the Fuggawee Indians,” the navigator lan Christman said behind him. Which was to say. Where the fugg are we? An old joke. Pacino didn’t laugh.
“We need a decent fix. Captain,” Christman said. “The bottom’s been flat as a pancake for twelve hours.” The navigator drew a circle around the dot on the track corresponding to the Devilfish’s assumed present position. The circle was three inches in diameter. “That’s the fixerror circle. We could be anywhere within that. Right now it’s only forty miles across. But it’s getting bigger every minute without a fix. And going flank speed makes the circle get bigger that much faster. We need to come to periscope depth and get a GPS fix off the NAVSAT.”
The Global Positioning System satellite network gave any owner of a receiver his position to within tens of feet, but going to periscope depth, Pacino was thinking, required going dead slow to avoid ripping off a delicate periscope mast or radio antenna. But since there were no submerged mountains in the area, the risk of a navigation error was acceptable given the overwhelming need to get north and rendezvous with the OMEGA — and Novskoyy — before it headed back to Severomorsk.
“Can’t do it, nav,” Pacino said, shaking his head. “Going to PD means slowing down, clearing baffles to make sure there’s no surface vessels on top, going four knots until the fix is onboard. That’s forty minutes lost right there. And radio will want to catch the broadcast at the quarter-hour. And the Supply Officer will want to dump the trash out the TDU. The engineer’ll want to blowdown the steam generators. It’ll just take too god damned long. We’d be seventy miles behind track. No way. We’re due under the ice in a few days. We’ll come up to PD before we transit under the ice. Until then we’ll just have to live with an expanded fixerror circle. Any chance we can collapse the error circle with SINS?”
Christman shook his head. “The error curves on SINS are getting irregular. Northern latitude. We need an honest-to-God NAVSAT fix to settle out SINS.”
“Do the best you can, nav. This OP is urgent. We have to continue deep at flank. If we cut the hull open on a submerged mountain I’ll take the hit. You can put it in the ship’s log if it makes you feel better.”
As Pacino shouldered by Christman he could feel the navigator’s look. It wasn’t like Pacino to take risks like that on navigation — the navy was unforgiving when it came to navigation errors. But for Pacino, Devilfish was late for an appointment, an appointment overdue for more than twenty years.
The phone was buzzing as Pacino opened the door of his stateroom. It would be Stokes on the Conn. Instead of answering he turned around and walked back into the control room and stood next to the periscope stand. When he caught Stokes’ eye, Stokes put down the phone he’d been holding to his ear at the console aft of the periscopes.
“Cap’n, radio says we gotta come shallow. They’re getting an ELF call sign. Looks like ours. Request to slow and come up to 150 feet in preparation to go to PD.”
Pacino shook his head. “No, off sa’deck. Keep flanking it north. I’ll be in radio looking at the ELF message.”
Pacino walked out and aft down the centerline passageway past his stateroom and sonar. The door to radio had a combination lock. Pacino pushed the combination buttons and rotated the latch. The radio room was little more than an aisle between two tall rows of equipment racks. A small bench locker was the only seat. Beyond it a printer on a shelf rolled out from one of the racks, hummed, waiting for input. The radioman. Petty Officer Gerald, was older than Pacino, overweight, barely able to move in the space. Pacino had always liked him — he hustled and was a pro. He would have been a chief petty officer years before if not for a tendency t
o get drunk in port and throw the first punch.
Gerald looked up. “Afternoon, sir. We’re picking up a call sign on ELF I’ve got two letters on board already, BRAVO and DELTA. One more to go.”
Extremely-low-frequency radio waves were the only ones that could penetrate deep into the ocean. The cost was speed: It would take several minutes to receive a single letter with ELF. The transmitters out of Annapolis were mainly used to transmit a boat’s call sign as a signal for her to go shallow and get a burst communication from a satellite.
“What’s our call sign today?”
“BRAVO DELTA WHISKEY,” Gerald told him. “Here it comes now.” The printer spat out a row of W’s, the WHISKEY of the call sign.
“That’s us, sir. Someone sure wants to tell us something.”
CHAPTER 12
THURSDAY, 16 DECEMBER
ATLANTIC OCEAN
VIRGINIA CAPES SUBMARINE OPERATION AREA (VACAPES OPAREA)
The control room of the USS Allentown would look roomy to any Piranha-class sailor. Its layout was planned, not like Captain Henry Duckett’s last Piranha-class boat, the Spadefish. The control room had the elevated periscope stand by itself in the center, the navigation chart immediately aft so the OOD could see the ship’s position without walking off the Conn. The Chief of the Watch’s panel seemed impossibly far away to port, and similarly far off to starboard was the long line of fire-control consoles. To a submariner the roominess of the space was like a breath of topside fresh air. The sonar room, the ESM room and radio all opened directly from the control room, not from an aft passageway like on the Piranha class. And this allowed face-to-face discussions with minimal disruptions to the critical combat centers.
The Radioman of the Watch’s voice crackled from the overhead speaker: “CONN, RADIO, WE HAVE AN ELF TRANSMISSION COMING IN ON THE LOOP ANTENNA … WILL ADVISE.”
“OOD, you have the Conn,” Duckett said, moving into the radio room. He was gone for six minutes.
Voyage of the Devilfish mp-1 Page 12
