Arctic Gambit_A Jerry Mitchell Novel

by Larry Bond

  “Pity,” replied Weiss with a disappointed tone. Jerry chuckled.

  “Request permission to come up?” The voice sounded a little uncertain, but Weiss replied “Granted” and Daniel Cavanaugh clambered up. The bridge watch hadn’t been set yet, so there was space for Weiss, Jerry, and Cavanaugh, along with the enlisted phone talker.

  “Not a lot of room up here,” Cavanaugh commented. He tried to find a corner that would give the others as much space as possible.

  Weiss was responding to another report, so Jerry answered, “At sea, it’s just the OOD and a lookout in here, what we call the cockpit. The extras, like you and me, ride up on the flying bridge.” He gestured to a small platform with railings up behind the bridge. “But subs really don’t spend much time on the surface, usually just while leaving port and coming back in.”

  “I wanted to watch us get underway, but that won’t be for a while, will it?”

  “It will take about two hours to flood the dock and lift Jimmy off the blocks. That tug”—he pointed to a cluster of running lights in the river—“will actually tow us clear. That’s when it will be safe for the pumpjet to turn and she can move under her own power.”

  Jerry was content to answer Cavanaugh’s questions, all very basic, about submarines while Carter’s captain oversaw the undocking. The civilian had questions about the UUVs, about submarine training, the inevitable question about how deep the sub could go, and how long they could stay submerged.

  Lou Weiss chimed in occasionally, and the conversation even included a few sea stories, designed to edify and warn the civilian about the importance of staying on the crew’s good side. Submariners had tools, access to really sticky duct tape, and a wicked sense of humor. It passed the time, and Jerry felt the ice was beginning to thaw between him and Lou Weiss. He also learned a little more about their civilian guest—completely ignorant of submarine operations, but curious and intelligent.

  They’d all been marking the water’s progress as it rose, slower than the minute hand of a clock, but steadily creeping up the sub’s flanks. “Right now our ballast tank vents are open, so it’s filling them as well as the dock,” Jerry explained. “When the water gets high enough, we’ll close the vents, and soon after that we’ll be afloat.”

  * * *

  Cavanaugh watched the tug approach and hook up a towline as Weiss communicated with it over the secure walkie-talkie. The water had risen high enough in the dock to cover the openings in the gate, eliminating the waterfall noise and leaving the tug’s diesels the loudest sound. Commodore Mitchell stood silently in his corner, watching the action, evaluating the performance of Carter’s CO and crew. Cavanaugh could understand some of the reports Captain Weiss received, but most were a complete mystery to him.

  Weiss received yet another report and immediately ordered, “Close all main ballast tank vents.” Jerry leaned over and told Cavanaugh, “That’s our cue. We should go below now, to make room for the bridge crew.”

  So the sub was close to actually moving. Things were just going to get more interesting. Hesitantly, the army engineer asked, “Can’t I stay topside?” like a kid wanting to watch the late, late movie.

  Mitchell shrugged, and looked to Weiss, who nodded. “Just stay where you are for right now,” Carter’s captain ordered. Cavanaugh nodded happily.

  Jerry disappeared down the hatch, to be replaced almost instantly by a lieutenant commander and two petty officers. One petty officer, wearing a harness, climbed up to the flying bridge and clipped a safety strap to a fitting behind him. It hadn’t occurred to Cavanaugh until that moment that once the sub began moving, the platform might not be all that steady.

  The officer introduced himself. “I’m Tom Norris, the chief engineer. We met below. I’ll be the OOD—officer of the deck—once we’re underway.”

  Cavanaugh felt the deck shift a little underneath them. It was so small it could have been dismissed as a vibration, but a second shift, and then a sliding movement followed it.

  “And we’re off the blocks,” Norris announced. Pushing the intercom switch, he reported, “This is Mr. Norris. I have the deck and the conn.”

  While the EB workers disconnected the auxiliary cooling water connection, two lines on the submarine’s bow came taut. The slack also disappeared from the mooring lines that held Carter in the center of the dock. Cavanaugh noticed that line handlers had appeared on the hull in front of and behind the sail.

  There was still no sensation of movement, but rather one of not being part of the earth anymore. Eddies and currents pushed the hull in different directions, and while the lines kept the sub in one place, she was definitely ready to move.

  The radio crackled again, and Weiss confirmed, “Understood, removing the gate.” That was clear enough, and Cavanaugh saw a crack at the end of the dock grow wider as the dock’s interior connected with the Thames River. He could see no sudden rush of water in either direction. The two levels were exactly the same. Just outside the dock was a tug’s stern, loitering smartly in place. Another line was expertly transferred from the submarine’s bow to the tug.

  The radio crackled again. Weiss smiled broadly and clapped Norris on the shoulder. “And that’s it!” he announced happily. “Take us out, Eng.”

  Norris accepted the secure radio from Weiss and told the phone talker, “On deck, take in all lines.” Carter’s captain disappeared below, followed by the phone talker, making more room, but Norris took it all in as he moved from side to side, watching the line handlers and the distance between Carter’s hull and the dock, now that she was free to move.

  “Tug Paul, dead slow ahead,” Norris ordered, and the tug’s rumbling increased. Cavanaugh felt the gentlest of jerks as the towline went taut, and they were moving.

  He had half a dozen question he wanted to ask, but knew better than to distract Norris. Even a gentle scrape on the sides of the dock could mean a delay of hours, but more likely days or possibly even weeks. Carter wasn’t going fast enough for her rudder to work, not yet, and was at the mercy of whatever currents the river sent them.

  Norris’s head was on a swivel as he tried to judge not only Carter’s current position, but where she’d need to be in the next few minutes. The only good direction was straight ahead; anything else was trouble.

  Cavanaugh marked their progress by watching the dock slide past. They were moving slightly faster than a walk. He spotted the floodlit opening ahead, and was encouraged, but Norris checked aft, and the civilian was reminded that three-quarters of the sub’s length was behind them.

  Norris turned and spoke to him, the first time since he’d taken over. “The tricky part is coming up. The river’s current will hit us from the side, and the tug will have to compensate.”

  Cavanaugh nodded his understanding, thinking to himself, now comes the tricky part?

  Norris ordered, “Tug Paul, slow ahead,” and waited only a moment for the acknowledgement before resuming his bouncing back and forth motion in the cockpit.

  Marking their progress along the dockside, it suddenly changed up from a fast walk to a jog, and the end of the dock seemed to fly past them. He turned to look aft, and knew Norris was doing the same thing on the other side of the sail. Cavanaugh heard Norris give a few orders to the tug, but they were always in a calm voice.

  And they were out, as if they’d been launched. In the island of illumination behind them, he could already see the dock gate being closed. If he understood the plan properly, they’d de-ballast the dock, and extend the canvas cover over the end again, so that it would be impossible to tell that USS Jimmy Carter was not there anymore.

  Norris was now telling the tug what course to take up as they headed south down the river. Then he received word that the sub’s pumpjet had been unlocked and the EPM was ready to answer bells. Soon the tug was detached and fell in line astern as Carter proceeded down the Thames River’s southbound channel at a stately three knots. “The tug will stand by until the reactor’s on line, just in case th
e diesel craps out,” Norris explained.

  The action seemed to be over, and Cavanaugh asked, “When will we reach the ocean?”

  “At three knots, we’ll reach the mouth of the Thames River in about forty-five minutes. It will be another hour before we reach Block Island Sound. By that time we should be able to commence a normal reactor startup. An hour later the main propulsion plant will be ready to answer all bells and we’ll get to go a lot faster.”

  Cavanaugh looked around them. Out from under the canvas, there was a quarter moon and clear sky. There was no wind to speak of, just a cool breeze from the sub’s movement. The water on either side of the submarine was black as ink, rippled by the sub’s passage. He could see lights on shore to either side, but it was hard to tell exactly where the water ended and the shore began.

  He looked at his watch, realized it was too dark to read it, then he saw the time readout on the navigational display: 0000—midnight. He should be exhausted. Truitt had said reveille at sea was at 0600, but there was too much to see and Cavanaugh, filled with excitement, was wide-awake. Besides, he’d had that nap.

  “Is it all right if I stay up here for a while longer?”

  14

  APPROACH

  4 August 2021

  1100 Local Time

  USS Jimmy Carter

  Arctic Ocean

  * * *

  Jerry kept his eyes glued to the large flat-screen display. The three icons representing Carter and the two UUVs moved slowly along the digital chart as they crept in from the north. They were cautious, watchful.

  A day earlier, they’d picked up the sounds of an Akula-class attack submarine. The acoustic traces were faint, but discernable. The low bearing rate suggested she was some distance away. Nonetheless, Weiss adjusted Carter’s course to give the Russian boat a wide berth.

  The presence of a front line SSN that far west suggested, at best, that the Russians were extending the defensive barrier around the Dragon launcher facility. At worst, they believed an attempt would be made to prevent the covert launcher from becoming operational. Paranoid, these Russians, but with good reason; their entire plan hinged on this facility.

  The UUV control center on Carter was spacious by submarine standards, with plenty of room for the two control consoles, a command workstation linked to control, and two vertical large-screen displays similar to the ones Jerry had on North Dakota. Each control console had two positions, one for the pilot and the other for the sensor operator. In keeping with the UUVs’ nicknames, the first console had a photo of the Jeff Dunham character, Walter, and the words “Holy Crap!” taped on the support frame. The other console had a picture of José Jalapeño along with the predictable phrase, “… on a Stick,” embellishing its framework.

  The trio was in a loose inverted V formation, with the UUVs four thousand yards ahead of Carter—Walter to the left, José to the right. Jerry glanced at the secure Fathometer readout; the ocean floor was a scant twenty feet beneath the keel. This was a little closer to Mother Earth than he was accustomed to in a submarine, but Weiss and his crew didn’t seem too concerned. The plan they’d hashed through on the way up emphasized a low and slow approach.

  * * *

  Five days after departing New London, Jerry held the last of his preliminary planning sessions with Weiss, Dr. Cavanaugh, and Carter’s senior leadership. The boat had just passed Iceland to the west, through the Denmark Strait, cutting across the Arctic Circle. So far, there hadn’t been any sign of Russian naval or air activity … so far. And while this suggested the navy’s ruse was still working, neither Jerry nor Weiss were willing to push their luck. Carter would randomly slow to fifteen knots every now and then to allow the sonar shack to conduct a thorough sweep before the boat cranked back up to their twenty-five-knot transit speed.

  Jerry was in the wardroom enjoying a cup of coffee before the meeting when Cavanaugh walked through the door—his nose still a stark shade of Prussian blue. Jerry quickly looked down at his notes, struggling to suppress his laughter. Poor Dr. Dan was the only “warm body” on board during this trip and the crew had fallen upon him like hungry sharks during a feeding frenzy. Jerry recalled his own Bluenose ceremony on Memphis, and shuddered to think how much worse it would have been if he were the sole victim. Unexpected, a memory of Lenny Berg, his shipmate on that patrol, flashed to the front of Jerry’s thoughts, and his smile vanished. It was with a feeling of vengeance that he focused his thoughts back on the attack plan. There was a score he intended to settle with the Russians.

  Others began to arrive for the session, and soon the wardroom was filled to capacity. Jerry started going over the issues one by one. The biggest problem was, of course, the minefield. Carter’s initial survey was incomplete, but what they had collected showed the mines were rather close to each other. Spacing was at most one thousand three hundred yards, usually a little less. The intelligence estimated the mine’s passive sonar had a detection range of five to six hundred yards, leaving them almost no room to maneuver between the mines. That is, until Jerry looked closely at the weapon’s physical characteristics.

  “The PMK-2 is an interesting mine,” Jerry began explaining. “Like our old Mark 60 CAPTOR, it’s a propelled warhead mine that uses a lightweight torpedo as the payload. In fact, the Russian MPT-1UM Kolibri torpedo is a copy of our old Mark 46. But while these two mines are very similar, there are some differences. First, the Russian mine can be laid in much deeper water, but more importantly for us is that it’s over twice as long as a CAPTOR. This is key, as the acoustic sensor is located on top of the mine.”

  He pulled up a brochure photo of the PMK-2, and with a laser pointer emphasized the mine’s size. “The length of the mine is 7.9 meters, nearly twenty-six feet.” Jerry then shifted to the next slide with a diagram of a deployed mine.

  “Your earlier survey, Captain Weiss, showed the mines are tethered about thirty-three feet off the bottom. When you add in the length of the mine, the passive sensor, way up here, is fifty-nine feet above the ocean floor. Furthermore, the passive sensor only looks upward. Therefore, I believe we can creep in under the mine’s acquisition cone if we hug the bottom—a nap of the earth approach, if you will. We’ll also come in slow and at ultra quiet, to keep our radiated noise to a minimum. Just in case.”

  Weiss looked intrigued and gestured toward the screen. “That cone looks like it covers about sixty degrees off the vertical, one hundred twenty degrees overall. If that diagram is even close to accurate, Commodore, then we won’t have to take out any of the mines. That would be preferable, as we would remain covert.” Then looking over at LT Owens, said, “Sorry, Weps, but I don’t think we’ll be blowing up a mine on this trip.”

  Owens visibly pouted while the crowd laughed. Jerry chuckled at the junior officer’s feigned disappointment, but he quickly moved on. “Agreed, Captain. But I’d like your sonar techs to go over a number of detection simulations with historic sound velocity profiles and varying acquisition cone size just to make sure we’re not missing something obvious. Once we get closer to the minefield, we can do a final check with the actual acoustic conditions.”

  “You’ve got that one for action, Mario,” chimed in Segerson, pointing to Lieutenant Junior Grade Phil DiMauro, Carter’s sonar division officer.

  “Yes, sir, we’ll get started ASAP. Commodore, I’d like to borrow this material when I brief my division. I’m afraid my artistic skills leave something to be desired,” DiMauro replied.

  “Not a problem, Lieutenant. Your XO already printed out a copy for you and your people. Get with him after we’re done.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Jerry nodded and moved on to his next slide. “Now, getting past the defenses is just the first phase of this operation. Next we need to look at how we’re going to destroy the launchers. Dr. Dan, that’s your cue.”

  Cavanaugh stood up and squirmed his way around the tightly packed bodies to move up next to the flat-screen. A number of stifled chortles could be
heard bubbling up from around the room.

  “Have you finally managed to warm up, Dr. Dan?” teased Segerson.

  “Despite your best efforts, Your Majesty, yes,” Cavanaugh shot back at his main tormentor. Still, his tone was amiable and there was a wide grin on his face.

  “I have no idea of what you’re talking about, Doctor,” protested the XO. “I thought King Boreas was quite lenient in the trials he demanded of you.”

  “I’m sure you do. But all of this has convinced me that the rumors I’ve heard about submariners are absolutely true. You people are certifiably crazy and should be locked up in a padded cell!”

  “Nah, that’s why they send us to sea,” Segerson scoffed. The wardroom erupted again in laughter.

  “All right, people, let’s move along,” chided Weiss. “Please begin, Dr. Cavanaugh.”

  “Yes, Captain, um, could you bring up the next slide, please.” Cavanaugh picked up the laser pointer and drew the crowd’s attention to a series of crude diagrams. “Since we left New London, I’ve analyzed about two dozen possible launcher configurations. The seven shown here are the most likely possibilities. The number of launch tubes considered ranged from four to eight, and each scenario assumes an open, rigid steel frame with columns embedded in concrete slabs. Next slide please.

  “Commodore Mitchell and I have studied the estimated timeline provided by the intelligence community, and this construction technique not only provides the necessary load-bearing structure for these very large torpedoes, but it also has the advantage of being easier and faster, since the major components can be manufactured on land and then trucked to the construction site and lowered into place.

  “The disadvantages of this are that the Russians have to use human divers to do much of the final construction work. This will be a critical factor in how fast they can build this beast. For us, it means that placing the beacons on the structure will be somewhat problematic. My hope is that the large warhead of the Mark 48 torpedo will compensate for a less than optimum placement.”