Galvin climbed to 8000 feet in slow spirals, catching up with his flight of F14s, then falling into formation as the flight leader, taking the jets to the northwest, diving down low as they approached the Japanese coastline. The mission profile called for them to fly in the grass, taking the shortcut over the island itself to get to the Sea of Japan on the other side. Galvin wondered if they would be met by Firestar fighters. The land came closer, the F-14s now at MacH 1.8, the wings swept back, altitude eighty feet, the supersonic jets kicking up a huge rooster tail wake. The Japanese were about to see the US Navy in action, Galvin thought.
Soon they were feet-dry over Japanese soil, the ridges and valleys flying at him as they sailed in at treetop level, the occasional rice paddy and collection of houses flashing by, their inhabitants standing outside, children pointing up at them. Now the coastline approached, the west coast of Honshu Island, and again they were feet-wet over the Sea of Japan.
Another twenty minutes of flying low over the sea and the ship, the target, was in sight. The supertanker was huge, as long as the Reagan, so full of oil that its waterline was almost all the way up to the gunwales, its bow wave plying back far into the twilight. There was just enough light to make out the name on the bow — the block letters spelling PETERSBURG. For the first time during the mission Galvin broke radio silence and spoke into the microphone, his radio selected to the bridge-to-bridge VHF frequency.
“VLCC Petersburg, this is the flight leader of the US Navy aircraft formation circling your bridge. I say again, this is the flight leader of the US Navy aircraft formation circling your bridge. Do you read me, over?”
SEA OF JAPAN
USS CHEYENNE
Comdr. Gregory Keebes wore a blue poopysuit that was faded and old, the pants legs too high over his black socks and faded canvas loafers. He had a crewcut and sported horn-rimmed black glasses. He stood now leaning on the railing of the periscope stand and replaced the phone in its cradle. The radio chief had just told him the orders that had come in.
“Officer of the Deck,” Keebes called, “man battlestations.”
“Man battlestations, aye, sir.”
The O.O.D was Lt. Frank Becker, former right tackle for Navy’s varsity squad, a hulking youth with a good head, though in Keebes’s opinion something of a whiner. “Chief of the Watch, man battlestations.”
“Man battlestations, aye, sir.” The COW, a young slick-haired, wire-rimmed-glasses-wearing youth in a blue poopysuit, reached for a coiled microphone and clicked it on. His voice poured from the circuit-one speakers throughout the ship. “MAN BATTLESTATIONS.”
He unclicked the mike and partially stood to get to the general alarm, a small lever in a panel in the overhead, found it and rotated it clockwise. The blaring BONG BONG BONG of the alarm rang throughout the ship.
He clicked the circuit-one microphone one more time.
“MAN … BATTLESTATIONS.”
Keebes clicked a stopwatch on his neck and waited for the crowd to arrive in the control room. He leaned over the chart table and saw the flashing dot where they were presently located, the ship channel pulsing in yellow, the position of the target, a VLCC supertanker called the Petersburg, there in the shipping channel some twenty miles to the northwest, approaching the boundary of the exclusion zone, the edge of the Japan Oparea.
“Off’sa’deck, take her deep and flank it at heading three one zero. Once you’re down lay out a course to the target.”
“Aye, sir. Dive,” Becker called to the diving officer, “make your depth five three zero feet. Helm, all ahead standard.”
“Five three zero feet, aye, sir.”
“All ahead standard. Helm aye, maneuvering answers all ahead standard, sir.”
“Five degrees dive on the sternplanes,” the diving officer ordered, his seat set up between the control seats of the flight-deck arrangement, the man in the left seat the sternplanesman, the man in the right seat controlling the rudder and the bowplanes and responsible for the ship’s angle. “Five degrees down bubble, bowplanes down ten degrees.”
O.O.D Becker’s view out the periscope grew closer to the waves. Keebes looked up into the overhead at the television repeater, wondered if the approach of nightfall would make the blockade that much more difficult. How hard would it be to shoot the target at night, with darken-ship rules, he wondered. Still, it was hard to believe the tanker would really try to run the blockade, though the threat of submarine attack might or might not work. The view from the scope, displayed on the repeater monitor in the control room overhead grew so close to the waves that the sea splashed up on the view, the white foam obscuring vision, then the crosshaired reticle focused up on the underside of the waves, bits of seaweed floating by the view.
“Lowering number-two scope,” Becker called, aligning the view directly forward and retracting the instrument with a rotation of the hydraulic control ring set into the overhead. The module vanished into the scope well, the smooth stainless-steel pole coming down afterward, riding all the way down into the well until the scope was fully retracted.
Keebes looked up from the chart as Becker leaned over the table with him, the two men calculating the course and speed while the ship dived for the depths.
The deck leveled out.
“Sir, ship’s depth five three zero feet.”
Becker called to the helmsman, still looking down on the chart table.
“Helm, all ahead flank, right two degrees rudder, steady three one zero.”
The deck began to tremble. The room began to fill up with watchstanders, the lone firecontrol tech manning the four consoles of the attack center replaced with four officers. The executive officer Mike Jensen arrived.
Lt. Comdr. Mike Jensen was a Stanford grad, a thickly muscled black man with an open face, a coathanger grin and an easy Southern California manner. His laugh kept ship’s morale high, as did Jensen’s girlfriends when he threw a wardroom party. He drove a Porsche, owned an airplane and gave glider lessons. A shark jaw graced the bulkhead of his XO stateroom, but the shark had its own trophy, a piece of Jensen’s leg from one of his scuba dives.
Keebes and Jensen were as different as two men could be. Keebes was raised on a Pennsylvania farm. He had gone to the Naval Academy without the slightest idea of what he would be getting into. For him the Navy had been a vehicle for a college education. He found that he neither loved it nor hated it. He was a loner, quiet, enjoyed engineering and his weekends studying at the library.
The librarian and he had become friends, and after knowing Louise for four years, on the eve of graduation, he had asked her if she wanted to go with him to the Smithsonian in D.C. One thing slowly led to another.
Keebes had then passed his Rickover interview and gone nuclear, leaving Louise for the sea. She had moved to Virginia Beach on her own, showing up on his pier one day when the Buffalo was coming into port. Fifteen years and two kids later, and Keebes had never looked at another woman. He had wondered, though, if he would ever command a sub, since on his executive-officer tour the captain decided to take a disliking to him.
That captain had been a drinker, a partier, with a mistress in every port. He had tried to deice Keebes, but Keebes wanted no part of it.
Fortunately for Keebes the new admiral in command of the reorganized Unified Submarine Command, Admiral Pacino, had interviewed him after reading through his record and taken him to a battle simulator. After a sweaty eight hours of simulated approaches with an unfamiliar control-room crew, Pacino had offered him command of the Cheyenne.
“Captain, battlestations are manned,” Jensen now reported.
“Very well,” Keebes said. He stepped up on the conn and addressed the control-room crew.
“Attention in the firecontrol team. We’ve just received orders to intercept a supertanker that may try to run the blockade. We’re setting up to position ourselves on the north of the supertanker’s track as it crosses the exclusion zone boundary. We’ll be at periscope depth with a solution to the su
pertanker. A flight of F-14 jets is on its way to intercept the supertanker and turn him around. If he turns around we’ll go deep and wait for the next violator of the blockade. If he’s stupid and doesn’t believe we’re here, we’ll get orders to put some torpedoes in him.”
Keebes looked around at the watchstanders.
“Chances are that he’ll turn around, but we’ll be doing an approach on him anyway. Carry on.”
The watchstanders turned to their tasks. Keebes glanced up at the sonar display, waiting for the supertanker to become visible on the screen.
SEA OF JAPAN
SS-810 WINGED SERPENT
Comdr. Toshumi Tanaka stood in the center of the control room of the Winged Serpent, the square room’s center dominated by the periscope control center. The starboard forward corner was the electronic section devoted to ship control, the starboard aft quarter the reactor controls, the port forward section laid out for navigation. The most crowded was the port aft corner, weapons and sensors control. The control room was electronically connected to a control system, the “Second Captain,” a neural network-layered control system that was only one development-generation behind the computers that controlled the Destiny III-class ships.
The Second Captain was able to control the ship and function without a crew — not very well but with adequate programming it could fight its way out of a battle.
Tanaka preferred that it just take orders and leave ship command to the people.
On the Second Captain’s sensor display now were several jumping, undulating curves, a second display showing the curves to be a Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine lurking in the shipping channels. Probably sent to enforce the blockade.
“Program the two Nagasakis in tubes one and two for the enemy submarine and open the outer doors on tubes one and two.”
ATLANTIC OCEAN
USS PIRANHA
Bruce Phillips lay on his rack with his arm over his eyes.
The phone from the conn buzzed.
“Captain.”
“Off’sa’deck, sir. Sounding is 600 fathoms. We’re legal, Captain.”
“How long to the Labrador Sea?”
“By the morning, sir. Are you going down?”
“I think I will.”
“Good night, sir.”
Phillips put the phone back, and without opening his eyes peeled off the poopysuit and got under the covers.
He yawned and fell asleep before he shut his mouth again. In his dreams he wore a sombrero and carried a machine gun, a bandoleer of bullets hanging off each shoulder.
SEA OF JAPAN
“VLCC Petersburg, this is US Navy flight leader. Do you copy?”
Finally the captain of the Petersburg spoke up, his speech clear and understandable through his Russian accent. “This is the captain of the Petersburg. What do you want?”
“Sir, you are standing into danger. You are two miles from the exclusion boundary set up by the United States of America. Japan is now under blockade by forces of the US Navy. You are ordered to reverse course and turn away from Japan. Do you read me, sir?”
Silence on the radio.
“I say again, you are standing into danger,” Galvin repeated. Still no answer.
“VLCC Petersburg, I am warning you that you are now one point five miles from the exclusion boundary. You are running the blockade set up by forces of the US Navy. You are ordered to turn back now. If you fail to turn around and reverse course our nuclear submarines will be forced to fire on you. Do you read me?”
“This is the captain of the Petersburg. I am within my rights under international law. I am turning off this radio.”
Galvin continued to try to radio the Petersburg for several minutes, but finally the supertanker crossed the line of demarcation of the exclusion zone.
Galvin switched his radio to the tactical-control frequency. “Uncle Joe, this is Aunt Sue, over.”
“Go ahead. Sue.”
“We’re unable to win the game. Over.”
“Roger, Sue, we’ll clean up. You can leave for backstage now. Out.”
Galvin dipped his wings and turned to the right, flying his formation away from the supertanker, far enough away to see it clearly as the twilight got darker.
USS CHEYENNE
The scrambled satellite UHF secure-voice circuit, the NESTOR, was piped into the conn on a red phone handset.
Commander Keebes had the red phone on his ear, the conversation playing on the overhead speakers for the crew to hear.
“Cousin George, this is Uncle Joe, over,” the speakers crackled.
“This is George, over.”
“Cousin George, Uncle Joe, authorization bravo six delta reading victor, mike, tango, five, four, mike, I say again, authorization bravo six delta reading victor, mike, tango, five, four, mike. Break. Commands from Grandfather Pete as follows. Immediate execute — Cousin George to clean up the garage, I say again. Cousin George to clean up the garage. Break. Over.”
Keebes read back the transmission to the phone from the notes taken by Jensen. The transmission ended after the other end confirmed that the message was correct.
Keebes looked up at Jensen. Two officers walked in with the sealed authenticator packet and opened it on Keebes’s orders. The B6D packet had a piece of paper inside reading VMT54M, the authentication on the radio transmission.
“It’s valid. Okay, attention in the firecontrol team. We’ve just been ordered to shoot the supertanker. We’ll do this with a periscope approach. Horizontal salvo, tubes one and two. Carry on.” Keebes looked around at the crew. “Captain on the periscope.”
Frank Becker stepped away from the periscope. “Zero nine zero relative, sir, low power on the horizon.”
Keebes put his eyes on the periscope eyepiece, the rubber of it warm and slick with Becker’s sweat.
Through the crosshairs and range marks he could see the supertanker. Target One. He rotated the right grip, increasing the power to high. The bridge of the supertanker grew to giant size, the windows shining warm yellow light out, the navigation lights of the tanker still illuminated.
“Observation, Target One,” Keebes called.
“Ready.”
“Bearing, mark!” Keebes called, and punched a button on the periscope grip.
“Bearing one seven five,” Jensen called.
“Range mark, six divisions, high power. Angle on the bow port ninety.”
“Range, two thousand yards.”
“Firing point procedures. Target One,” Keebes called from the periscope. “Horizontal salvo, tubes one and two, one minute firing interval.”
“Ship ready,” Frank Becker reported.
“Solution ready,” Jensen said, bending over the consoles of the attack center.
“Weapon ready,” the weapons officer reported.
“Final bearing and shoot,” Keebes ordered, his periscope crosshairs on the supertanker’s midsection.
“Bearing… mark!”
“Bearing one seven six,” from Jensen.
“Range mark, six divisions, high power. Angle on the bow, port ninety five.”
“Two thousand yards and set,” Jensen called.
“Standby.” The weapons officer took the torpedo firing trigger to the nine o’clock standby position.
“Shoot!” Keebes ordered.
“Fire!” The weapons officer took the trigger to the three o’clock firing position.
The detonation slammed Keebes’s eardrums, the highpressure air venting inboard from the torpedo firing mechanism two decks below.
“Tube one fired electrically, sir.”
“Tube two, final bearing and shoot,” Keebes ordered.
The crew went through the same routine for the second torpedo, the air pressure pulse slamming Keebes’s ears as the torpedo left the ship.
“Tube two fired electrically. Captain. Both units are active and homing.”
“Very well, energizing periscope videotape.”
Keebes kept the sup
ertanker on the periscope, waiting for the torpedoes to impact.
SS-810 WINGED SERPENT
“Sir, the American submarine just launched a torpedo.”
“Confirm it’s not aimed at us.” Tanaka said.
“No, sir, it would appear he’s shooting at the merchant tanker.”
“Let’s take it up to mast-broach depth.”
“Sir, we have Nagasaki torpedoes one and two locked onto the American. Should we prepare to fire?”
“No. We’re not authorized, Mr. First.” Tanaka mounted the steps to the periscope-control stand, seated himself in the periscope-control chair. The assembly looked almost like a motorcycle, the front wheel replaced by the optics module and the pole of the unit.
“Ship control, mast-broach depth.”
“Sir.”
The Winged Serpent came up slowly, the deck inclining, the hull creaking as the ship came up shallow.
“Second torpedo launch from the American submarine, sir.”
“Periscope coming up.” Tanaka hit the control-function key and the stainless steel pole came out of the fin, the light piped into the hull by fiber optics and reassembled in the optic module. The actual mast did not penetrate the hull of the ship, yet with the fiber-optic transmission, the view looked good enough, as if he were looking out an old-fashioned optical periscope.
The view was dark, only a faint glow coming from the waves far above. Tanaka hit the fixed function key to rotate the control seat and the view above began to rotate just as his seat rotated on a circular track on the platform. The shimmering glow on the waves grew nearer, the moonlight coming down from above, until finally the glow got closer, individual waves now clear in the view. Tanaka rotated more quickly, needing to see the surface as soon as the periscope cleared.
Barracuda: Final Bearing mp-4 Page 23
