by Joe Buff
“We can’t have things both ways at once, Director.” Hodgkiss stared very hard at the globe. “If we guessed wrong, ladies and gentlemen, I think we just lost the war, and the Allies will have to offer the Axis an armistice…. But if we guessed right, and Captain Fuller fails and Ernst Beck sinks him off South America, we’re looking at Armageddon itself.”
CHAPTER 25
Two days later, off the east coast of Brazil, Jeffrey Fuller sat in his control room, tense and exhausted. The lighting was rigged for red. He’d set the main menus on his console to feed his screens each status page in turn, changing every ten seconds. The constant updating, and the simple stimulation of such movement on his console, helped him stay awake.
Jeffrey had been awake for over forty-eight hours continuously — since before his two-way conversation with Norfolk, when Admiral Hodgkiss issued him new orders at the Rocks, and the subsequent recovery of the minisub with Felix and a handful of SEALs.
Jeffrey was still pissed off at himself. Ernst Beck had gotten him completely confused and left him looking like a fool, tagged as the weakest link in a complex and vital strategic situation.
This Beck is better than I thought.
Jeffrey turned and glanced at Bell sitting next to him. The younger man looked fresh, rested, and recently shaved.
At least he’s had the common sense to grab some sleep and take a shower. I’m falling into old bad habits, trying to keep an eye on everything every minute during a hunt for our adversary….
“I hope we’re doing the right thing, XO,” he said quietly. As he spoke he could tell how much his whole body and mind dragged from fatigue. His arms seemed much too heavy. His head felt as if it was stuffed with cotton.
“Captain?” Bell’s voice was deep and confident, and the whole set of his face was different than it had been in the past. He seemed more mature but not worn down internally, more centered within himself, more evenly balanced as a person, than on previous deployments with Jeffrey on the ship.
“I tried to be unpredictable at the Rocks. Unpredictable for me. Look where it got us.”
“Sir, it made the most sense at the time. Beck outthought us both. It’s my job to backstop you, but instead I led you straight down the path Beck wanted you to take. Seventy-knot sprint speeds. What a bunch of hooey! It was all just mental smoke and mirrors. I fell for it too, Skipper.”
Instead of answering, Jeffrey looked once more at the picture of Ernst Beck that he kept windowed on his console.
Then he studied the status screens. Eight nuclear fish were armed and ready in Challenger’s torpedo tubes. Her new towed sonar array, installed in New London dry dock, was deployed. Instead of electric hydrophones along a lengthy cable, this array had three separate parallel cables. And the acoustic sensors were thousands of tiny fiber-optic coils in line, each with its own built-in laser. The subtlest low-frequency signals hitting the cables distorted the coils by the slightest amount, and this altered the laser-light wavefronts’ behavior by just enough to be recorded. The whole system was a quantum leap in performance ahead of even the most advanced conventional electric-based towed arrays. Kathy Milgrom and her staff were using it well.
Challenger was in the deep sound channel, listening for whiffs of the von Scheer that even the quietest submarine had to give off. Infrasonic noises, disturbances with a frequency as low as only one cycle per minute — a sixtieth of a hertz — were caused by any sub’s motion through the water, and by resonances of internal heavy machinery with the hull, and by slow and rhythmic flexing of the hull itself, all of which no known quieting mechanism could suppress.
Challenger was moving at top quiet speed, twenty-six knots. The ship’s course was generally southwest. Though the shortest route from the Rocks to Buenos Aires ran straight down the long east coast of Brazil, Jeffrey had decided to swing wide into very deep water. The ship was between the landmass of South America and the rugged terrain of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, over the vast abyssal plain that separated the two. Here, the bottom was at or below von Scheer’s and Challenger’s crush depths. Here, it would be much harder for Ernst Beck to hide. And here, so long as he stayed more than two hundred nautical miles from the neutral coast, the Joint Chiefs of Staff global rules of engagement let Jeffrey go atomic against an enemy target.
In the last two days, Challenger had left the convoy and its escorts and air support over a thousand nautical miles behind. Now no sonobuoys pinged anywhere near — they were being saved to guard the convoy, or for later, and their pinging might by accident give Challenger away. Now Challenger’s on-watch communications officer in the secure radio room listened for another ELF order telling Jeffrey to come up to two-way radio depth. If such a message did arrive, it could mean news of an Orpheus contact on von Scheer. By now the new listening station on Ascension Island might be up and running.
And now Challenger’s active sonar was secured. The foundations of Jeffrey’s new tactics were stealth and surprise. The South Atlantic was huge — almost five thousand miles from Buenos Aires to the Congo-basin coast. Von Scheer could already be almost anywhere inside an arc with a total area of millions of square miles. Every hour, as Ernst Beck steamed at thirty knots — or whatever his maximum quiet speed actually was — that arc of possible locations expanded more.
Jeffrey’s main advantage, he hoped, was that Beck didn’t realize he was on his tail again — this was why Hodgkiss was holding back on surface warfare and air support: in order not to tip Jeffrey’s hand, to make Beck think Challenger still searched for him near Africa. Another advantage, Jeffrey hoped, was that he himself could stay closer to Brazil, and hence take a shorter route to Argentina, because the von Scheer had more to conceal from Brazil — and thus more reason to hide — than Challenger did. Brazil’s navy was not insignificant, and her coastal defenses were strong. And a third advantage, Jeffrey hoped, was that whatever devious route Ernst Beck might take, his ultimate destination was known: the pro-Axis, prowar faction waiting a few more days to the south. The geography was fixed, and for once worked in the Allies’ favor: the coast of Argentina started south of the coast of Brazil.
“New passive sonar contact,” Lieutenant Milgrom announced. “Transient contact.” Jeffrey looked up, eager for news.
“Contact bearing zero five zero, range extremely distant, identified as underwater nuclear detonation, near the North African coast.”
“Very well, Sonar,” Jeffrey said. “Any trace of von Scheer? Hole-in-ocean contact?” The von Scheer backlighted by acoustic illumination from that nuclear blast. “Ambient sonar contact?” The echo of the blast off von Scheer’s hull.
“Wait please.” It could take minutes for a quiet spot or echo far away to be detectable, and minutes more for Challenger’s signal processors to verify a genuine detection.
The wait seemed to drain the last of Jeffrey’s energy. The Battle of the South Atlantic just started with that nuclear shot. The battle started, and I’m not there to help.
“Negative contact, Captain.”
Jeffrey felt terribly disappointed.
“New passive sonar contact,” Milgrom called. “Contact held on towed array.”
Jeffrey’s adrenaline surged.
“Contact bearing two eight two.” West. “Contact is submerged.” Jeffrey’s heart leaped into his throat. “Contact distant, uncertain range… Correction, contact is over the Brazilian continental shelf…. Contact now held on starboard wide-aperture array. Contact classified as a snorkeling diesel submarine.”
“Axis?” Please, God, give me a target, any target so I can score a kill.
“Infrasonic tonals indicate engines of British manufacture…. Contact tentatively identified as Brazilian Navydiesel submarine recharging its batteries.”
“Very well, Sonar.”
There was still no sign of the Admiral von Scheer, and no message from Norfolk.
Two hours later, Jeffrey almost nodded off as Bell stepped aft to use the head; Lieutenant Sessions came over fr
om the navigation console to fill in for Bell.
Jeffrey watched and listened as COB, sitting at the ship-control station, spoke to the control-room phone talker. COB asked the phone talker to contact the maneuvering room and request Lieutenant Willey to come forward to discuss some engineering details. Jeffrey thought the details seemed minor, but he trusted COB implicitly — and he knew he needed to delegate, not interfere.
Jeffrey decided that his tight, aching stomach might be ready to handle more caffeine and asked the teenage messenger of the watch to get him a mug of hot coffee from the wardroom, loaded with milk and sugar. COB heard this and asked the messenger to wait. He said he’d go aft soon himself and he’d take care of it.
Jeffrey went back to staring at his screens.
Bell returned from the head; he resumed as fire control and general keeper-of-eyes-on-things. Willey arrived from aft, looking a bit puzzled.
COB stood up and stretched, glancing at his commander. “Captain, I think I want to go over this with you first, in private.”
Since Willey was right there, and Willey was senior to Sessions, Jeffrey told Willey to take the conn in his place while Sessions retained the deck. The watchstanders acknowledged, and Jeffrey led COB aft the few paces to the captain’s stateroom.
COB closed the door behind them.
“What’s up?” Jeffrey asked. He caught a glimpse of himself in his dressing mirror. His face was haggard and drawn, and his beard stubble was heavy. As if to emphasize the point, his stomach picked that particular moment to growl, loudly.
“Skipper,” COB said firmly, “there are times when I just gotta say what I gotta say.”
“COB?”
“You need to eat and you need to sleep just like the rest of us.”
Jeffrey opened his mouth to object but COB cut him off.
“Let’s leave aside the question of who really outranks whom, a commander or a master chief. Someone needs to tell you this. Whatcha gonna do, fire me for it? Bust me to seaman second class?”
“COB, you know you always have my attention. You don’t need to rub it in like that.”
“See? You’re even touchy now, and you’re supposed to be the meanest sumbitch in town in any nasty fight…. Go tothe wardroom immediately. Eat a decent meal and skip the coffee. Then come back here and lie down for a solid six hours at least.”
“But—”
“Sir, we’ll all be right outside! If something happens we’ll get you!”
Jeffrey stood up straighter. COB had made his point. “Aye aye, Master Chief. Tell Lieutenant Willey he retains the conn. He knows the plan. He knows where to find me.” Jeffrey looked at COB and smiled — with relief and gratitude. “You clever old sea dog you. Now I see why you brought the engineer forward.”
Alone in his cabin, Ernst Beck prepared for bed. He welcomed the chance to escape, from his workload and from his overbearing passenger, Baron von Loringhoven.
Beck’s sleep was troubled. He kept waking from vague but disturbing nightmares. He would roll over and fall asleep again, but only for a short while.
Then Ernst Beck had a different sort of dream. He was age ten, and home with his mother and father on their prosperous dairy farm in Bavaria, in the scenic rolling foothills of the mighty snowcapped Alps, near historic and cosmopolitan Munich. In the dream they were finishing dinner, time for dessert, and Beck’s mother had baked a pie that looked and smelled delicious.
Ernst Beck woke in a cold sweat after this dream, soon enough to remember it very vividly. He felt homesick, nostalgic, almost heartbroken for that simple, innocent, and happy time forever lost in the past.
Throwing off the soggy covers, he began to get up; he knew that sleeping now was useless.
As his right foot hit the floor, Beck realized something and almost gasped. To make doubly sure, he rushed to open his laptop and called up a nautical chart. The SEAL setup on the Rocks that Shedler had described in some detail after the battle — the satellite dish and the cables running down into the water — was there for a reason. It couldn’t be coincidence. It had to be cause and effect.
Beck now understood how the Allies, how Challenger, had located his ship near the Rocks in the Atlantic Narrows so easily and precisely. And he recognized what he had to do to keep them from finding him and his ship the same way again.
My unconscious mind took facts and processed them and made connections while I slept.
On the chart on his laptop screen he saw the St. Peter and St. Paul Rocks and the east-west ridge on which they lay. The chart also showed the undersea phone cables, as nautical charts usually did.
Through the LAN, Beck downloaded from stored data the exact pattern of the enemy SSQ-75 sonobuoys dropped north of the Rocks during the battle. He overlaid this on the nautical chart.
The fit was too perfect for there to be any other explanation. They were trying to get me cornered between two cables, to force me to flee over one or the other.
It was the cables. It was somehow all about the cables.
Beck knew the countermeasure was simple, now that he understood the danger. Whenever his ship neared another such old cable on a chart, he’d have to go shallow or go very slow…. Annoying, but a minor inconvencience to beat the Allies’ high-tech trick.
CHAPTER 26
Jeffrey awoke refreshed from his long nap and took a very hot shower. He decided to use his privilege as captain and let the steaming water run for two whole minutes continuously. No quick on-off conserve-the-water navy shower for me today.
Then he shaved, an unpleasant business, as the razor snagged on two-days-plus worth of stubble. He donned clean khakis and checked himself out in the dressing mirror: he was transformed, in appearance and mood.
Now this is how a warship’s commanding officer is supposed to look.
Jeffrey went into the control room with a much lighter step than when he’d left it eight hours before. Now, instead, the prospect of more cat and mouse with von Scheer, of more stalking and shooting with Korvettenkapitan Ernst Beck, excited him. A thrill of adrenaline rushed through his body.
The weapons officer, Lieutenant Torelli, had the deck and the conn. Jeffrey eyed a ship’s clock. It was before midnight, local time. The watch was about to change, as it did every six hours around the clock, day in, day out, whenever the ship was under way but not at actual battle stations.
In the control room, which was rigged for red, Jeffrey greeted Torelli. Weps was fairly new to the ship, having first come aboard for Challenger’s previous mission the month before. Jeffrey found out fast, then, that he was a good department head, knowledgeable and yet eager to delegate, crisp and attentive to duty under fire, and great fun to share a beer with while relaxing in home port. Torelli was single, in his late twenties, from a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee. He came across as arrogant until you got to know him. He also seemed like a hard-ass toward his men, until you heard how he mentored them so well as individuals in private.
Jeffrey told Torelli he intended to take the conn once he familiarized himself with the ship’s present status. He then wandered purposefully around the compartment, studying different men’s console displays: sonar, weapons, navigating, ship control.
“Very well,” he said to Torelli. “I have the conn.”
“You have the conn.” Torelli slid over and Jeffrey sat down.
“This is the captain. I have the conn.”
“Aye aye,” the watchstanders acknowledged. Soon the entire watch rotated. A talented lieutenant (j.g.) from Engineering came forward.
Jeffrey settled in at the command workstation conning officer’s console. The lieutenant (j.g.) from Engineering sat next to him, serving as officer of the deck. The OOD’s job was — among other important things — to oversee machinery operations and related procedures inside the ship. This left Jeffrey undistracted, free to monitor the larger picture and make the big decisions on how Challenger should fight.
Jeffrey scrolled through the digital log from the previous wa
tch for the sonar department. The sonarmen had detected a number of loud explosions in the distance, back toward North Africa. These were all identified as tactical nuclear detonations on and under the sea.
The battle between the relief convoy and Axis forces is definitely heating up…. Still no hint of a contact on the von Scheer.
Then Jeffrey had an awful thought. His feeling of being transcendently alive at the prospect of combat quickly wilted.
He turned to the messenger of the watch. He tried to keep his voice even. “Where’re the XO and Sonar?”
“XO’s sleeping, sir. Lieutenant Milgrom is using the enlisted mess to do a training drill for some of her people.”
“Get them, smartly.”
“Aye aye.” The messenger, a very young enlisted man still pimply-faced from acne, hurried aft.
Milgrom arrived in seconds. Bell showed up a minute later, stuffing his shirttails into his pants. He fast went from drowsy to alert when he read Jeffrey’s expression.
“People, we have a problem. I think it fell through a crack, all the way up the line.”
“Sir?” Bell and Milgrom said together.
“The von Scheer. She’s about the size and shape of one of our boomers?”
“So far as we know, Captain,” Bell said.
“Or one of our boomers converted to SSGNs?”
Bell and Milgrom nodded reluctantly. They saw where the captain was going with this.
“So on ambient or hole-in-ocean sonar alone, we really can’t tell the von Scheer from one of our own Ohio-class boats?”
“We’d need to get close enough to get good tonals, sir,” Milgrom said, “to rule out that possibility. Yes.”
“Not quite,” Bell said. “We’d have their depth and speed. The Ohio ships can’t go below about a thousand feet, and can’t go past something like twenty-five knots, max. Anything deeper or faster has to be the von Scheer.”
