Cold Choices

by Larry Bond

  And they had that big escape capsule. Every modern Russian attack sub had a built-in escape chamber, large enough to hold the entire crew. It included emergency radios as well. Had they been prevented from using even that last resort?

  He listened to others list and then dismiss the same possibilities, and others besides. It wasn’t impossible that another sub had gone down, but with so few Russian attack boats in operational service, the chances of two of them operating together, with one being lost and the other not sounding the alarm, were nil.

  Rudel listened to the discussion silently, letting it run its course. “The only reasonable explanation is that the Russian boat is severely damaged, probably crippled. It’s down, and we know where it was, where it may still be.” Jerry couldn’t disagree. If it had gone down, it was going to be near where they had run into each other.

  “We’re turning around. Immediately. Mr. Mitchell, give me the quickest course back to the location of our collision. Plan for a UUV search of the area when we arrive. We need to find the sub, if it’s there.”

  Jerry automatically responded “Aye, aye, sir” even as his mind raced ahead. What would they do when they got there? What could they do?

  “As of right now, this is a rescue mission. I’ll inform the crew in a few minutes. Dismissed.”

  Stan Lavoie and Jerry headed back to control. Jerry was still on automatic pilot, only half his attention on his task as he checked the chart. He laid a straightedge along their path, then waited until Lavoie had taken over as OOD. “First cut, new course is zero eight zero.”

  Everyone in control heard Jerry’s recommendation, but nobody reacted until Lieutenant Commander Lavoie ordered the course change, turning Seawolf away from Scotland and back into the Barents Sea.

  QM3 Gosnell was the quartermaster of the watch, and he leaned across the chart table. “Mr. Mitchell, sir. What the . . .” He paused, then asked, “Sir, why are we changing course?”

  Jerry could see other watchstanders looking at each other, and at the officers. They had question marks for faces.

  “We’re going back to look for the Russian,” Jerry explained to Gosnell. “Northern Fleet’s . . .”

  “This is the Captain.” Jerry gratefully let Rudel do the talking.

  “The Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet has broadcast an emergency alert for a lost submarine. This is no secret—someone on a submarine rescue ship sent it in the clear to the entire Northern Fleet. The sub they are looking for is almost certainly the boat we collided with. It hasn’t come back to port, and they can’t reach it by radio.

  “It’s likely that the Russian boat was damaged more severely than we thought, and it’s probably down. We’re going back to find them if they’re there, and then guide rescue forces to the correct location.”

  Rudel paused for a moment, letting the crew absorb the news, then continued. “We could continue on to Faslane and home, but I would never get a good night’s sleep again knowing I’d left those men to their fate. We will stay long enough to make sure that Russians have found their sub, then we leave.”

  After the captain finished, nobody spoke. Gosnell watched as Jerry worked out the course back east and passed a small correction to Lavoie.

  Jerry straightened up from the chart table to see the XO talking to Lavoie. “Have your engineers double-check the patch work on the hull in the electronics equipment space.”

  He saw Lavoie’s expression and raised his hands, defending himself. The XO cut him off: “I’m not saying they did a sloppy job, but they were in a hurry. Now it’s got to last for a while. And tell me if you can brace it further—no, wait. Just find a way to strengthen the bracing.”

  Shimko walked over to the chart table and inspected the new track. Jerry showed him the course and the time to reach the collision site.

  “As soon as Stan’s men have reinforced the shoring, the skipper wants to increase speed. He wants us up to at least seven knots by midnight, preferably ten if we can swing it.”

  Jerry suppressed his immediate response, but his worried expression said it for him. Shimko didn’t have any sympathy. “The Captain’s going to move heaven and earth to find that boat. Remember what he said. This is now a rescue mission.”

  A dozen thoughts were running loose in Jerry’s mind. He snagged one in passing. “The storm. The Russians won’t be able to get any units in there until it clears.”

  “And when it does, they’ll need to make up lost time.” Shimko’s intensity impressed Jerry. He’d taken the captain’s decision and made it his own. “We may be the only chance those guys have.”

  “What if we can’t find them?”

  “I already asked the Skipper how hard he wants to look. We can cover a lot of ground with the UUVs and do a thorough job of it. Here’s a rough search plan.”

  He showed Jerry a sheet of graph paper with a rounded fan shape. It narrowed near the site of the collision, with the wide end pointing toward the Russian coast. “Get together with Wolfe and Palmer. Refine the search pattern and figure out when we can launch two UUVs, how long it will take them to double-cover this area. When they’re done looking, and if we haven’t found the Russian, we go home.”

  Shimko handed him the search plan. “And while you’re doing that, I’ll figure out what to do when we do find him.”

  In the torpedo room, some of the torpedomen were servicing the UUVs. Wolfe and Palmer were having a quiet conversation in another corner, but Wolfe seemed eager to involve Jerry when he saw him.

  Lieutenant (j.g.) Palmer asked, “Did the Skipper say anything more about what we’d do once we found the Russian?”

  “You sound worried, Jeff.”

  “You’d better believe I’m worried. The last Russian we met wasn’t too stable, and I’m wondering how the next batch will react. Imagine their situation: They’ve lost one of their subs, and when they go looking, they find us instead, camped out right over their lost boat. And how did we know where it was? We sank it.”

  “We didn’t sink it, we collided,” Jerry stated flatly.

  “I don’t think they’ll see it that way. We’re still afloat.”

  Wolfe shrugged helplessly. Jerry understood why the weapons officer had been so eager to have him join the conversation.

  “With a leaky pressure hull and half our sensors gone,” Jerry countered. Impatiently, he cut off Palmer’s response. “Hand-waving isn’t going to help anything. Let’s focus on the job the Skipper gave us. First things first, we need to find the Russian boat. Here’s the area we need to cover and the XO’s first cut at a search plan.”

  It took them time to build an efficient search plan. They would use Patty and Maxine in the search, holding LaVerne in reserve. Seawolf would also cover part of the search area. The trick lay in making sure that every area was swept twice, each time by a different unit, and as quickly as possible.

  It was after midnight when they finished, and they finished without Wolfe, who left at 2330 to relieve Lavoie as the OOD. While they worked, Palmer tried twice more to raise the issue of the Russians’ reaction, but Jerry kept them focused on their task.

  Finally, when they finished, as Jerry turned to leave, Palmer tried again. “I don’t see how the Captain’s going to make contact with the Russians and get us out of there safely.”

  “You don’t have to, Jeff. That’s the Captain’s job.” Jerry paused, then asked flatly, “Do you trust the Skipper?”

  “Of course I do,” Palmer answered automatically.

  “Then trust him to do the right thing when the time comes.”

  Jerry left before Palmer could raise any more objections; share more of his fears. The problem was, Jerry understood Palmer’s concerns. He shared them, and more that Palmer hadn’t even considered yet. Every so often, another one would pop up, distracting him, threatening to take over his thoughts. This time, just after midnight, was especially bad, with the boat quiet and his own mind tired and stressed after a long day.

  Palmer was letting
those worries take over his ability to think clearly. With fear in the driver’s seat, one’s thoughts would only take dark turns.

  Jerry fought his fear with reason and faith. Palmer’s concerns about the Russians? They’d be in international waters. Jerry’s own guilt about Rountree’s death because he didn’t recognize the Russian’s misconception about the UUV’s lack of a tether? Turns out it wouldn’t have made any difference.

  And when he looked over the edge, into the darkness, there were other demons lying in wait, watching for weakness—his lack of confidence, his apparent helplessness whenever disaster struck. There were facts countering these demoralizing feelings as well, good ones.

  But fear and guilt are emotions, and emotions don’t need reasons to exist or even thrive. Jerry had found he needed other emotions to hold his own fear in check. His confidence in Seawolf’s crew, his own competitive nature, and now his desire to help the Russian submariners replaced the negative feelings. They gave him reasons to work, something worth taking risks for.

  . . .

  Jerry’s dreams that night were vivid and frightening. He was back in the Hornet’s cockpit, skimming an ice-covered sea. The canopy was folded back, like a convertible, and icy rain stung his face. He flew over Seawolf on the surface, damaged and listing, smoke coming from her sail. A moment later, the Russian boat flashed by underneath. It was badly damaged as well, the ice-covered steel hull somehow on fire under the water.

  He realized that instead of bombs or missiles, he was loaded with life rafts. Jerry tried to turn and make a pass over the crippled vessels, but every time he put the stick over, he turned sharply, but still ended up pointing directly away from the two subs. He tried an Immelman, pulling the nose back and watching the horizon fall away below him, but when he spun level and looked for the subs, they were still dead aft.

  The subs were sinking, men jumping from the open hatches, when the alarm saved him.

  Jerry was still washing up when the door popped open. The XO said quickly, “The Captain’s cabin, as soon as you dry off.” He left without waiting for a reply.

  Hurrying, Jerry ran a towel over his face and grabbed his coveralls. He was still fastening his belt when he reached Rudel’s cabin. A small crowd was gathered outside, including Lieutenant Commander Lavoie and an embarrassed-looking second-class, one of the engineers.

  They made a hole for Jerry, who saw the XO and the captain examining what looked like an oversized cell phone.

  The XO spoke the moment he saw Jerry. “Jerry, get an OPREP-3 Pinnacle message written. I need it five minutes ago.”

  Jerry answered “Yes, sir,” automatically, but didn’t understand why the XO wanted it. An OPREP-3 Pinnacle message was a special incident report that was sent to inform a senior authority that an incident of high national interest had occurred involving a U.S. Navy ship. Instead of being sent to just its immediate superior, in this case commander, Submarine Development Squadron Twelve, it was sent to the entire chain of command at once, to the chief of naval operations and all the steps in between. It was almost always bad news, but it was designed to get that news to everyone as quickly as possible.

  By rights, Seawolf should have sent out a Pinnacle within minutes after she’d collided with the Russian sub, but with all her transmitters down, it had been impossible.

  Trying to grasp the XO’s reasoning, Jerry asked, “Did we get one of the transmitters on line?” He should have heard the news from Chandler, though, before the XO and the skipper.

  Shimko pointed to the enlisted man, Petty Officer Moreau. “Thanks to Moreau here, we don’t need to get a transmitter back on line. He’s loaned us his personal satellite phone.”

  “And it will work out here.” Jerry didn’t state it as a question. He was just working through the implications. “I’ll have it for you ASAP, sir.”

  Jerry didn’t run back to his stateroom, but he didn’t waste any time pulling out a message blank and the manual from his bookshelf. The manual had instructions for each part of the message. It even included an example report, a hypothetical collision. Jerry marched through the fields quickly.

  Date and time of the message, sender and addressees.

  “Except that he’ll just dial someone,” Jerry thought. “Probably the squadron commander.”

  He felt the deck angle up slightly. They weren’t all that deep, and he realized they were going to surface. To use the phone, the caller would have to stand in the bridge cockpit.

  Precedence.

  “Flash, never mind the fact that it’s overdue by about two days.”

  Classification.

  “Secret, which is kind of silly because we’re going to tell the Russians about it.”

  The deck was moving now, side to side. His stomach began moving in time with the deck, and Jerry was glad he hadn’t had breakfast yet. Huddled in his cabin writing a message was not the best way to ward off seasickness. Focus, Jerry.

  Subject.

  “Collision. No,” he corrected himself. “Submerged collision.”

  Narrative. The instruction said to “include all salient facts.”

  “Right,” Jerry muttered. He started with the facts, the date and time, latitude and longitude, depth course, and speed and what they were doing when the unknown submarine appeared and . . .

  Jerry looked up to find Shimko watching him work. If the XO wanted to read over your shoulder, you just nodded and kept writing.

  The second paragraph was harder. He turned eleven minutes of confused maneuvers into an understandable narrative by stating only the broadest generalities. He looked back at the XO for approval, who nodded but also tapped his watch.

  Jerry sighed. The next paragraph listed damage to the originating unit, including casualties. Jerry finally had to look up a fact: Denny Rountree’s Social Security number and date of birth. The rest of it, the details of the collision, personally experienced and then hashed over for two days, might as well be encoded in his DNA.

  The final paragraph was damage to the other unit. He paused only for a moment, but it was no time to mince words. “Heavily damaged, may be down.”

  “Add this at the end,” Shimko dictated. “Performing search at location of collision, will coordinate with rescue forces when they arrive.”

  As Jerry wrote, he muttered, “Yeah, Russian rescue forces.”

  Shimko shrugged. “Wise man says, ‘Man with burning mustache happy whoever shaves him.’ ”

  Jerry handed him the message form. “Is the Captain going to send this?”

  “Hell, no. He’s on the horn with the squadron commander right now. As soon as he’s finished, I’ll show this to him and get his approval. Have one of your ITs standing by to go topside and read it over the phone.”

  “Aye, sir.” Shimko disappeared, heading for ops first level. Jerry made a quick call to radio, then followed him.

  Rudel was coming down the ladder from the bridge access trunk. His foul weather gear was dripping wet, and a blast of cold air swirled down with him.

  The XO handed the skipper a towel, meanwhile yelling up the ladder for “you knuckleheads” to “shut the damn hatch.” He was rewarded with a heavy clunk.

  Rudel stripped off the wet gear and handed it to the watch, then accepted the message from the XO. He read it quickly, ignoring the sailor mopping the water around him.

  Lieutenant Chandler showed up with IT2 Solomon, one of the radiomen, in tow. “I heard about the sat phone,” Chandler told Jerry. “We’ll send Solomon up whenever you’re ready.”

  “The Skipper’s reviewing the OPREP-3 message right now. I know we’ve got a pile of outgoing messages that haven’t been sent, to include a detailed casualty report. Pull out any important ones and get them to Solomon.”

  “You mean like the list of repair parts for the SATCOM transmitters?” Chandler asked.

  “That’s the second message to go out.” Shimko had listened to their conversation. “We’ll keep the boat surfaced for ten minutes. Then we’re pulli
ng the plug.”

  Rudel had heard them as well. “And send another man up there with Solomon to keep the rain off, or he’ll never be able to work.”

  Chandler and Jerry both said, “Understood,” and Chandler disappeared. The captain, XO and Jerry waddled down to control; the rough seas made even walking an exercise. Jerry checked his watch and reassured his digestive system that it only had to hang on for another ten minutes.

  Once in control, he braced himself against the chart table and listened as the XO asked Rudel about his conversation with the squadron commander. He wasn’t eavesdropping. As one of the more senior officers on the boat, he was being included.

  Shimko prompted Rudel by asking, “Did Captain Jackson have any orders for us?”

  Rudel almost laughed, but he didn’t sound happy. “Orders? By the time I’d finished briefing him, he could barely speak.” He stopped briefly, then said, “Imagine your kid calls and tells you that he’s been in an accident, that he’s wrecked the car and hurt someone, and that it was his fault.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Skipper,” Shimko stated softly.

  Chandler and another radioman showed up with a plastic binder. Both enlisted men hurriedly pulled on their foul-weather gear, and armed with the phone number of the Atlantic Fleet Message Center, proceeded up to the first deck to the bridge access trunk.

  “Jackson says he’ll arrange to get us transmitter parts and anything else we need, possibly through the Russians.”

  “So they’ll tell the Russians we’re here?” Jerry spoke without thinking, out of habit. It felt weird, like the Navy was betraying their presence, but then they weren’t covert now.