Sea of Death

by Richard P. Henrick

  “None of that fancy stuff for me,” observed Old Dog.

  “I’ll stick with my good ole’ M-16A2, that’s got the added punch of a breech-loaded, pump action M203 40mm grenade launcher. She might not have the range of Cajun’s H&K, but she can sure kick ass with a variety of antipersonnel, armor-piercing, buckshot, and riot-control rounds.”

  Pete Frystak couldn’t help but be impressed.

  “I sure wouldn’t want to tangle with you guys in a dark alley. Now what’s this sixty-second drill all about?”

  Traveler replied while handing the veteran a palmsized, digital stopwatch.

  “At your discretion, just give us the word and hit the top button. We’ll take it from there.”

  Frystak briefly looked over at Adie before returning his gaze to the SEALs.

  “Go for it!” he shouted ashe activated the watch’s digital counter with a single push of his right index finger.

  There was the immediate clash of metal upon metal as the SEALs began reassembling their weapons.

  They did so with incredible swiftness, demonstrating an amazing degree of dexterity along the way. In a matter of seconds, the dozens of disjointed parts that had been spread out before them began to take on amore familiar shape, as the commandoes expertly snapped them together.

  The first one to complete the assembly of his rifle was Warlock, who clipped in the last piece of his Colt Commando in an astonishing forty-three seconds. Traveler’s M-16A2 assault rifle was completed five seconds later, with Old Dog snapping on the grenade launcher of his fully assembled M-16 three seconds later. The uniquely shaped, long-barreled sniper rifle was proving to bethe greatest challenge.

  Yet Cajun took it all in stride, and coolly nodded toward their timekeeper as the last piece snapped into place.

  Pete Frystak hit the timer button and held up the digital stopwatch for all to see.

  “Now I see why you call it the sixty-second drill,” observed the veteran, who shook his head in amazement at realizing that it had taken them exactly one minute to complete the exercise.

  Ashe returned the watch to Traveler, the good-looking commando offhandedly remarked, “I’ve been on a lot of pigboats in my time, but this one is the strangest of all. Even the torpedoes look weird.”

  “That’s because they were designed and produced by the Soviets,” replied Frystak.

  “And you’re going to be able to shoot the suckers?”

  countered Traveler.

  “You’d better hope so, mister,” returned the veteran.

  “Especially if we’ve got an unfriendly reception committee waiting for us in Takara Bay.”

  “Hey, Pops, is the scuttlebutt really true about you old-timers snatchin’ one of these Romeos right out of Ivan’s hands back in the fifties?” asked Cajun.

  Before answering this question, Frystak agilely lifted himself up onto the pallet. Here he directly faced the SEALs, sitting crosslegged on one of the mattresses.

  “The incident you’re referring took place in nineteen-fifty-eight.

  I was the weapons officer aboard the USS Cubera, a post-World War II GUPPY-2class diesel-electric attack sub that was the nuke of its day. Bill Brown was the skipper. Henry Walker our XO, and Stanley Roth was the senior machinist.”

  Adie Avila remained perched on the pallet’s edge, and joined the SEALs as a rapt audience while the veteran continued.

  “It was summer in the Arctic, and we were patrolling the Barents Sea, at the very edge of the pack ice, when we first spotted her. Assuming we’d caught Ivan napping, the skipper ordered us in to take a closer look. I was OOD at the time, and was on the periscope, just waiting for the Russians to pull the plug and dive. Yet as we continued to close in, I caught sight of a wisp of smoke rising from the bridge and knew they were in trouble. Yet never in my wildest dreams did I realize the extent of their difficulties. For a boarding party found evidence of an intense fire and the sub had been totally abandoned.

  Needless to say, we didn’t waste anytime securing aline and towing her back to Norway.”

  “Why didn’t the Reds scuttle her before they abandoned ship?” interrupted Warlock.

  “We were asking ourselves the same question,” answered Frystak, “when the refit yard at Tromso provided the answer. In their haste to leave the burning sub, the Russians failed to fully engage the vessel’s scuttle cocks. As the crew drifted off in their life rafts, they apparently never knew of their shortcoming.

  And as far as we know, the Soviet Navy still believes Romeo 201 to be on the icy bottom of the Barents Sea.”

  At this point. Traveler broke in.

  “It sure sounds like Ivan gave us a hell of a gift. What did we ever do with it?”

  Frystak sat forward, and his eyes lit up with enthusiasm.

  “From Norway, Romeo 201 was transferred to Holy Loch, Scotland. Here we oversaw a complete refit of the sub, a job that entailed even more work than we put into the Bokken. Once 201 was seaworthy again, we sailed her to New London, where the brass had afield day studying what was then considered to be an example of state-of-the-art Soviet undersea technology.”

  “That’s quite asea tale. Pops,” observed Cajun.

  “Thanks for sharin’ it with us.”

  “Not at all, gentlemen,” returned Frystak. He intently scanned the faces of his audience ashe added, “Besides, if things work out on this mission, in thirty more years you’ll have an even more amazing story to tell.”

  For Miriam Kromer the dive was almost anticlimactic.

  She hadn’t anticipated it to go so quickly and smoothly. Except for the moderate tilt of the deck and the pressure on her cars during the initial descent, they could still be cruising on the surface for all she knew. This was especially so now that they had leveled out and reached snorkel depth.

  She was extremely proud of the crew. They had done a wonderful job. There had been some concern that the Bokken’s unfamiliar equipment would be unmanageable, but Miriam certainly didn’t see any evidence of this during her time in the control room.

  If anything, the men gathered there went about their work in an efficient, calm, and professional manner.

  Of course, much of the credit went to the men who’d trained them. They were fortunate to have the services of the three veterans. Together with a select group of officers brought over from the Hawkbill, these men had carried out an intensive training program that had so far resulted in an almost faultless voyage. Miriam could only pray that this would remain the case during the rest of the cruise.

  Soon after they had attained periscope depth, she excused herself from the control room and began to make her way aft. She suddenly felt exhausted, her fatigue no doubt brought on by the excitementpacked morning, and she just wanted to rest in her bunk for a few minutes. She had no trouble finding her quarters. Gratefully she removed her athletic shoes and lay down on the firm, single mattress.

  Now that they had reached snorkel depth, the diesels could be switched back on, and she clearly heard the steady throbbing hum of the dual engines.

  The air smelled of machine oil, ascent that had bothered her at first, though she was finally getting accustomed to it. When she’d mentioned her initial aversion to this scent to Bill Brown, the personable veteran had related a story concerning his wife. It seemed she couldn’t stand the smell of machine oil cither. Since it permeated his uniforms and skin, one of the first things she did whenever he returned from a cruise was to send him to the shower. Then she thoroughly washed his clothes in the strongest possible detergent.

  One of the luxuries that Miriam really missed was agood hot soak in areal bathtub. Her last bath had been taken while she was staying at the US ambassador’s residence in Bangkok. This seemed like a lifetime ago, though in reality it was only a little over a week since she had spent the night in Thailand. So much had happened to her since then, that she had trouble keeping up with the flow of time. Not only did she have no idea of the correct date, in her current environment she didn’t
even know if it was day or night.

  Her week spent with the SEALs had gone by in a virtual flash. Each day, there had been another physical challenge to meet. And her nights had passed too quickly, tending to sore muscles and doing her best to catchup on sleep.

  When Admiral Walker had called them in for their final briefing yesterday evening, she had hardly believed that the actual operation was about to begin.

  Reality had sunk in only after the distinguished Director of Naval Intelligence had said his goodbyes and returned to the USS Enterprise just before the team boarded the Bokken.

  Now that they were under way, Miriam was ready for whatever fate had in store for her. It was too late to back out, and besides, she was actually looking forward, in a perverse way, to experiencing the thrill of real combat.

  As she lay back on her pillow, the distinctive sounds and scents of the submarine all around her, she closed her eyes and issued a silent prayer for protection.

  Then she fell instantly into a deep, dreamless slumber.

  She awoke ninety minutes later, aroused by the tempting aroma of freshly baked cookies. Her first impression was that this pleasing, familiar scent was but the byproduct of a dream. Yet when it persisted, she knew otherwise.

  She arose from the cot and crossed over to her quarters’ fold-down sink. Much like a train’s pullman car, the toilet, or head as it is known on a submarine, was located beneath this small metal fixture.

  These were the only private facilities on the entire vessel, and she was ever thankful that the captain had surrendered his quarters for her exclusive use.

  She freshened up and, with a terry-cloth towel still draped around her neck, walked out into the passageway that led directly into the nearby wardroom.

  Much as she’d expected, it was in this simulated wood-paneled compartment that she found the cookies whose scent had awakened her.

  Seated at the elongated table, a pile of charts and a heaping platter of chocolate chip cookies before them, were Captain Chris Slaughter and his navigator, Lieutenant Rich Laycob. The boat’s portly chef looked disappointed ashe stood beside them, and with Miriam’s entrance his face lit up.

  “Now I bet the Doc here will try one of my cookies,” said Howard Mallot, who picked up the platter and held it out toward her.

  Miriam needed no more prompting. She was a true chocolate chip cookie connoisseur, and on a scale from one to ten, the still-warm sample she bit into rated right at the top. It was moist, not too sweet, and filled with chunks of rich dark chocolate and crispy chopped-up pecans.

  “Chief Mallot, these are absolutely delicious!” raved the toxicologist.

  “You must share the recipe.”

  Mallot readily did so.

  “The secret’s in using half white sugar and half brown. Then I mix some vanilla with the eggs and stir in pure oat bran flour, salt, and baking soda, along with plenty of chocolate chips and chopped nuts. The oven’s got to be precisely at three hundred and seventy-five degrees, and if you cook them a second over ten minutes, you’ll blow the whole thing. If you’d like, I’ll scratch down the complete recipe and leave it in your cabin.”

  “Please do,” said Kromer, who took another cookie and sat down at the wardroom table.

  While Mallot left to brew some fresh coffee, Chris Slaughter politely addressed the cookie-munching newcomer.

  “I hope your quarters are sufficient. Doctor.”

  “Actually, they’re quite comfortable,” she replied.

  “It’s nice to get a moment’s privacy around here.

  Thanks again for giving them up.”

  “Not at all,” said Slaughter.

  “With a mission of this short duration, I wouldn’t have used them much anyway.”

  “How do you like working with the SEALs, Doc?” asked the navigator.

  Kromer answered as honestly as possible.

  “It was tough breaking the ice at first. But now that we’re getting to know each other, things are going just fine.”

  “I guess working with a SEAL team wasn’t part of the job description when you signed on at Fort Detrick,” observed Slaughter.

  Kromer carefully replied.

  “My position as an intelligence specialist has required that I become involved with some pretty strange assignments, but nothing quite like this one.”

  Slaughter rolled up the chart that had been spread out before him, then turned his full attention on the toxicologist.

  “I never realized we had that much of a problem with the proliferation of biological weapons.”

  “You’d be surprised. Captain,” countered Kromer.

  “They don’t call them the poor man’s atomic bomb for nothing. Almost every country on this planet currently has some sort of BW program. Besides being relatively cheap to create and disperse, biological weapons have quite a successful track record.”

  “I thought this was all hightech stuff,” offered Rich Laycob.

  Kromer shook her head to the contrary.

  “Think again. Lieutenant. Among the earliest users of biologicals were the ancient Greeks and Romans, who used to foul their enemy’s wells with diseased animal corpses. In thirteen-forty-six a.d.” the Tartars hurled their plague victims over the walls of the besieged Black Seaport city of Caffa. When the inhabitants subsequently fled, they helped spread the plague throughout Europe. BW even made it to the pristine shores of the New World, when the British handed out smallpox-tainted blankets to the American Indians, resulting in the deaths of untold thousands.”

  “I recently read about an island off Scotland that’s still off limits because of a World War II biological weapons test,” remarked Slaughter.

  “You’re referring to Gruinard Island,” responded the well-read toxicologist.

  “Interestingly enough, that experiment involved anthrax, and proved that its spores can survive in the soil for over fifty years.”

  Chris Slaughter appeared amazed by this revelation, and worriedly voiced himself.

  “It sounds like we’d have all hell to pay if such a toxin was released on the Japanese or US mainlands.”

  Kromer nodded in agreement.

  “Just look at the death toll we’ve already encountered on Okinawa, then multiply it by tens of thousands, and you can start to get an idea of what would happen if a major population center was attacked in such a manner.”

  It was at this point in the conversation that Bill Brown entered the wardroom. The white-haired veteran looked tired and pale. Even his voice lacked its usual vibrance ashe addressed Chris Slaughter.

  “I’ve just completed a walk-through of the boat and can report that all systems are fully operational.

  Other than the usual handful of minor leaks, our watertight integrity shows no signs of compromise.”

  “That’s good news. Bill,” returned Slaughter.

  “How are the men holding up?”

  “As far as I can tell, morale remains excellent,” answered Brown, somewhat lackadaisically.

  Chris Slaughter sensed the old-timer’s weariness and directly confronted him with it.

  “Bill, you look beat. Why don’t you hit the rack for a couple of hours?”

  “I’ll be allright, Chris,” countered the veteran.

  “It’s nothing a strong mug of joe won’t cure.”

  Slaughter remained unconvinced.

  “No, Bill, I’m serious. You’ve done more than your fair share of work around here, and I’m going to need you fully rested once we reach Takara.”

  Brown looked at the young officer in protest, yet found himself with little strength left to argue.

  “I guess I have been pushing a bit.”

  “You’re more than welcome to use my quarters,” offered Miriam.

  “Thanks, Doc, but that won’t be necessary,” said Brown ashe stifled a yawn.

  “I’m bunking with Lieutenant Commander Kram, and since he’s got his hands full in the control room, I’ve got my peace and quiet.”

  He
was all set to leave, when he turned to say one more thing, “Now don’t forget to awaken me if the least bit of difficulty arises.”

  Slaughter couldn’t help but grin.

  “That’s a promise.

  Now get!”

  Bill Brown showed every one of his sixty-seven years ashe nodded and slumped off to his stateroom.

  “There goes one hell of a fine sailor,” observed Slaughter fondly.

  “Now I know why Admiral Walker speaks so highly of him.”

  “You should have seen him helping me chart our course,” added Rich Laycob.

  “He worked with me for three hours straight, and the old guy seemed guilty just to take the time out to go to the head. At his age, I don’t know how he can do it.”

  “At sixty-seven, he’s certainly not ready to be put out to pasture,” offered Miriam Kromer.

  “He’s got plenty of productive years left in him. Commander Brown has just got to be reminded now and then that he’s not a spring chicken anymore. My own father’s no different. Though he’s officially retired, he still sees his fair share of patients. And every once in awhile he bites off more than he can chew; then he’s got to be coerced to case up.”

  “I understand that the commander’s associate in our torpedo room is no different,” said Laycob.

  “The guys say he never lets up.”

  “They’re a special breed allright reflected Slaughter.

  “And we can thank our lucky stars they were willing to accompany us. Because when the going gets tough, it sure will be nice to have the benefit of their years of experience.”

  Slaughter looked at his watch and added, “Now, how about joining me forward and getting on with that navigational check, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir,” snapped Laycob ashe gathered his charts and stood.

  Chris Slaughter also rose, but before leaving, he looked down at Miriam Kromer.

  “Enjoy those cookies, Doc. At least you’ve got the SEALs to help you work them off your waistline.”

  “I admire your willpower. Captain,” replied the toxicologist, who was reaching for another cookie ashe made this comment.