Carrier - Joint Operation Book 16

by Keith Douglass

  right now?"

  "No one's certain, but the intelligence folks seem to think not. I take it you're in contact with Murdock?"

  "That's affirmative, sir. He's just updated us on the probable location on the special weapon and we've dispatched the USS Chief to assist in recovery operations."

  "Good. I suspect it won't be hard to find. The question is how do we defuse it at that depth?"

  "We've got other problems here right now, Admiral," Batman chimed in. "I know we've got orders not to provoke the situation over land, but we've got to stop the incoming infantry deployment. Once they're ashore, it's going to be hard as hell to dislodge them."

  "Agreed. We've got less than twelve hours, gentlemen. Let's make this work,"

  As the CNO clicked off, Batman switched over to the

  SEAL circuit. "You're current on the deadline requirements?" he asked Murdock.

  "We are now, sir." There was a new, grim note in Murdock's voice. "We'll make it happen, sir."

  Viking 701

  1535 local (GMT-IO)

  "Madman, Madman," the TACCO called from the backseat. "Smoke now!"

  In the forward righthand seat, the copilot blasted out a smoke flare. This would mark the spot where the Viking had had its first detection of an underwater metallic mass. Later passes over the same area would serve to triangulate the exact location of the suspected target.

  Rabies toggled his ICS switch on. "You sure about that?"

  "It's a hard data point," the TACCO said, his voice excited. "Let's get some sonobuoys in the water, see if we can locate this bastard."

  "I dunno," Rabies muttered. He glanced over at the copilot. "You know what I'm thinking, don't you?"

  The copilot nodded glumly. "It's right below us."

  And that, Rabies reflected, was the essential problem with Madman detections. The Magnetic Anomaly Detector, or Madman, could locate a large metallic mass a significant depth under the water, based on the distortions such a mass would cause in the earth's magnetic field. It was fairly precise, with the main inaccuracies induced by the aircraft's motion over the target and local variances in the earth's magnetic field.

  For all its precision, however, it couldn't tell you what the mass below you was. Shipwrecks, ore deposits, and

  underwater pipelines could all lead to false results. Most of the known ones were well charted, and ASW experts always double-checked a chart before putting weapons

  on target.

  "I know what we're over," the TACCO broke in. "Believe me, I've been over her a thousand times, maybe. This is different."

  Rabies and the copilot exchanged a disgusted look. "Yeah, yeah," Rabies said. Still, he put the S-3 Viking into a hard righthand turn, glancing down to check the location of the smoke, and brought the S-3 in low over k at right angles to his previous course.

  "Madman, Madman," the TACCO sang out again. Another smoke flare was punched out of the underbelly of the potent little torpedo bomber.

  "You're sure about this?" Rabies asked. "Because I gotta tell ya, I've got this gut feeling that tells me we're about to look awful silly."

  "No way." The TACCO's voice was confident. "I've got a live one. The sonobuoys will confirm it."

  "Unless he's lying dog-o on batteries," the AW pointed out. "We might not get any acoustic signals at all."

  "All right, all right," the TACCO said. "I know that. And believe me, I also know where the Arizona memorial

  is."

  The Arizona, sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor by a Japanese kamikaze pilot, was one of the most well explored shipwrecks in this part of the world. Every inch of her noble carcass had been thoroughly plotted on charts.

  "Whatever this is, it's about fifty feet to the north of where the Arizona should be," the TACCO said. "Come on, how many times have we briefed this? The best place for a submarine to hide is right next to a well-known MAD anomaly on the ocean floor."

  "You sure he would get that close?" Rabies asked.

  "He could, if he's got a good skipper. And all indications are that this is a smaller submersible. Sure, that would be too close for comfort for any of the big boomers, or even one of the larger attack submarines. But for a little fella like this, no problem. So do I get my sonobuoys or what?"

  With a sigh, the copilot punched out the fir st of a series of barrier and localization sonobuoys. The TACCO recommended positions for them or in front of them on his own tactical display console, and indeed the aircraft could have ejected the sonobuoys completely on its own at the appropriate locations without any human intervention.

  "Okay, I'll call it in," the TACCO said, sheer satisfaction in his voice. "I got you, you little bastard. I got you now."

  USS Centurion 1537 local (GMT-IO)

  Petty Officer Pencehaven arched his back and pressed his shoulder blades hard against the plastic chair. Even er-gonomically built, even padded in thick plastic and cotton batting, there was no way the chair was anything but a device of torture after a couple of hours. Especially when it was so deadly quiet outside. If he'd had some more contacts to track, had the possibility of a hostile submarine contact on his screen, or anything even remotely resembling something interesting to do instead of listening to the soft* hiss of biological noises and water in his earphones, staring at the green waterfall display until his eyes ached, anything at all, the chair wouldn't be quite so uncomfortable.

  It wasn't particularly fair, either. Pencehaven glanced up at the clock and swore quietly. Another two hours until Renny Jacobs came down to relieve him. And that asshole was always early, thank God. Sliding his way into Sonar, smirking like somebody was going to give him a gold star for showing up fifteen minutes early. Well, if he wanted to be a suckup like that, let him. Watches were scheduled for a four-hour stretch, and you didn't gain any brownie points by being early every night.

  Still, even a random visit from Jacobs would be good for a distraction about now. Oh, sure, there were plenty of possibilities. They all knew that there was a submarine in the area, and they all knew that it would be one that wouldn't look like anything else on the sonar screen. That alone was enough to keep Pencehaven from settling into a complete stupor, the possibility that he might miss first contact on a new class of boat. Still, after the first hour, even that possibility wore thin.

  He shifted from side to side, trying to loosen a stiff muscle that ran along his spine. Overdid it in the gym last night, working out on the weight bench. You had to make an effort to stay in shape on board a submarine, and Pencehaven made it a point to be the most buffed out submariner on the boat. Jacobs might have a sharp set of ears on him, there was no doubt about that, but Pencehaven was absolutely certain that he could kick the skinny young man's ass anytime he wanted.

  He spent a few minutes musing over the possibilities of beating the crap out of Jacobs just for the hell of it, and then became aware of a faint.. . well, it wasn't exactly a sound, it was too soft for that. It was more like a rub, the sound of silk gliding over rough skin, just the way it had been when he'd last been on liberty-wait, there it was again. He shut his eyes, suddenly oblivious

  to the ache in his back, the uncomfortable chair, and the possible outcomes of his long-standing feud with Jacobs.

  There it was again. Rub, whish, rub-what the hell was it? He glanced over to make sure the tape recorder was running, then studied the green waterfall display in front of him. He zoomed in on one particular object, and studied the inverted V's piling up on each other, and tried to extract some signal from the random noise generating spikes there. Sure, the computer was good at it, better than he was most of the time, but there were always times when the computer missed something. Especially when it was an intermittent noise, and one that sounded... well, the only way to put it was fuzzy around the edges.

  He tapped the screen with his pencil. There. Maybe just-yes, that was it. But the spikes of green signal were barely sticking out of the surrounding noise. He watched, correlating the rising signal amplitude wit
h what he was hearing through his headphones.

  Suddenly, irrevocably, he knew for certain that he had it. There was no way to exactly quantify what it was that convinced him that it was so, but he was certain nonetheless. Without hesitating, he toggled his microphone on. "Conn, Sonar, submarine contact, bearing one-three-five, range-well, around five thousand to ten thousand. I need you to maneuver to clarify the bearing for me."

  "Sonar, are you certain?" Pencehaven recognized the voice of the commanding officer.

  "Yes, sir," he replied confidently. "I'm certain."

  "Because the bearing you're indicating along with the range latitude you're giving me correlates very closely to the Arizona memorial. You knew that, right?"

  Pencehaven swore silently. Yes, now that he thought about it, it did correlate to the Arizona. It could be a current washing through a portion of the old wreck. Why didn't they clean it up? There was no sense in leaving

  rusting metal down on the ocean floor just to clutter up the sonar and navigation picture for the rest of them.

  "Yes, sir, I know that. But it... it..." Suddenly, Pencehaven wasn't exactly sure as to how to explain it. "It sounds weird, sir. Not like anything else we've heard

  down here."

  There was a long pause on the circuit, then, "Okay, we'll slip on over there and take a look. What's the

  source of the signal?"

  "It's mechanical and hydraulic, sir. I'm not exactly certain what. Intermittent. And I can't put a name to the exact equipment." Pencehaven was aware that a note of desperation was creeping into his voice.

  Why didn't the skipper believe him? They knew that there was a submarine in the area, one that wasn't in the acoustic library. This was just the sort of thing that you would expect to hear.

  "Maybe a bilge pump of some sort, sir," he said, grasping at straws. "All I know is it doesn't belong there."

  "Okay. Like I said, we'll get a little closer." Pencehaven could hear the doubt in the commanding officer's

  voice.

  He stared in frustration at the screen, resisting the urge to tap his fingers on the console. Why wouldn't it give up one sharp, clear transient, some electrical signal that he could clearly peg as being foreign. Was that so much to ask? Who the hell could run so silent except for a U.S. submarine? But it wasn't one of theirs, of that he was certain. He knew the acoustic signature of every piece of equipment on every U.S. boat. No, this was something different, his earlier certainty returned.

  The question was, how was he going to convince the captain? Acid flooded into his stomach as he realized what the answer had to be. He turned to the junior sonarman sitting next to him. "Send a messenger down to

  wake up Petty Officer Jacobs. Tell him I need him up here."

  TFCC

  1540 local (GMT-IO)

  "That's got to be it, Admiral!" Lab Rat shouted. "By God, we've got him now!"

  Batman studied the interlocking areas of probability generated by the S-3 Viking and the submarine. Not a lot to go on, but it was all they had at this point.

  "It's only one submarine," Batman said. He pounded on the plotting table with frustration. "And a little one, at that. Why the hell is one submarine driving the whole course of this battle?"

  Lieutenant Green spoke up. "Submarines always have, sir. Ever since their widespread use in naval warfare. A recent example, in the battle of the Falklands, the mere rumor of a British Swiftsure class attack submarine was enough to force the Argentineans into some rather desperate ploys. And when the Brits thought that an Argentinean diesel was deployed, they expended darn near half of the world's sonobuoy resources trying to find it. Killed a lot of whales along the way, too."

  Batman shook his head in frustration. "I know that. It's just not fair, dammit! I'm sitting here on the most powerful aircraft carrier in the world, and there's a little bit of metal cobbled together in the water, keeping me out of the action." He looked up at the two of them, rage in his eyes. "How certain are you of this?"

  Lab Rat fielded the ball. "I won't say it's a certainty, Admiral," he said slowly, tracing the two areas of probability with his finger lightly. "And the position report

  from the submarine is none too certain. Both of them are holding contact on something that they think-just think, mind you-might be a submarine. The problem for both of them is that their contacts are located in the immediate vicinity of the Arizona, which could account for both detections. It could be a submarine-or it could be a lot of jittery aircrew desperate to find a contact."

  "Any shot they took, Admiral," Green chimed in, "would probably result in substantial damage to the memorial itself. And if it's not a submarine, all that will do is blast pieces of the Arizona all over the seabed floor, thus further complicating the ASW problem." She shook her head, not discouragingly, just figuring the odds. "If we were having a tough time telling known anomalies. from submarines before, we'll have an impossible time after that, not to mention the difficulty of doing any minesweeping without a clean chart."

  "Goddammit," Batman said. "At some point, you gotta go with your gut. Both that submarine crew and that S-3 crew know about the Arizona, and they still think that they're holding a submarine. But you're right about one thing-even if we do kill this one, you'll have a hell of a mine problem after that. So what do we do?"

  The three fell silent for a moment, then Green spoke, her voice hesitant. "I have an idea, sir. But I'm not sure how practical it is."

  "Flight quarters, flight quarters, all hands to flight quarters," the IMC blared.

  "Spit it out, Lieutenant. I've got an air strike launching in about two minutes, and this aircraft carrier isn't going to have time to worry about one submarine. I want it dead, and I want it dead now."

  Green leaned over the chart table, the edge of the table butting up against the hard, flat expanse of her abdomen. She started to talk, slowly and quietly at fi rst, but gaining

  confidence as she spoke. When she finished, Lab Rat turned to Batman.

  "The sub skipper's going to hate you for this," he said.

  Batman nodded. "I know. But that old girl down there has been blasted too many times already. She deserves a chance to fight back. This time."

  USS Centurion 1546 local (GMT-10)

  "What you got?" Jacobs asked as he stumbled into the sonar shack. His eyes were still bleary around the edges, his face slack with exhaustion. "The messenger said you needed me."

  Pencehaven shook his head. "Need isn't exactly the right word. Oh, hell, it is." He jerked his thumb at the junior sonarman sitting next to him. "Take a hike, Jack." The sonarman slid out of his seat, and Jacobs took his place.

  Pencehaven took a deep breath. "We haven't always been on the best of terms, Renny. I know that. But let me show you what you've got. Your ears-your ears are better than mine on something like this. The skipper doesn't believe me because of what happened last time. But I've got something this time; I want you to take a look at it and back me up. They'll listen to you. And somebody's got to listen before this little bitch gets away."

  Pencehaven sketched in the last fifteen minutes, then passed his headset over to Jacobs. "Here-I can still hear it."

  Jacobs leaned back in his chair and his face assumed that oddly peaceful and serene expression that Pence-haven had come to associate with his nemesis. His eyes were shut, his mouth barely open, his breathing slow and regular. For all appearances, he might have been taking a nap in the sonar shack. Suddenly, Jacobs popped upright in the chair. He reached out for the communications switch, then hesitated. He turned to Pencehaven. "You're right on this, you know. You didn't need me to tell you that."

  Pencehaven heaved a sigh of relief. "You heard it?"

  "Of course I heard it," Jacobs said dismissively. "You'd have to be deaf not to hear it. And you're right, it's probably a bilge pump of some sort. The one thing we know is it isn't ours. So call the captain, tell him you know you have a contact. It's your contact, you lead the targeting on it. I'll back you up." />
  "They might take it better coming from you," Pencehaven said.

  Jacobs shook his head. "No. The captain will make his decision based on how confident you sound. That was the problem last time-you didn't trust your instincts. But you've nailed it hard and true this time. Now, go for it-do what you're supposed to do." Jacobs's eyes glittered with something that in someone else would be taken for fanaticism.

  Pencehaven took a deep breath, his gut suddenly shaky. The safety of the submarine-indeed, the entire battle group-rested on his shoulders, now. He had to do it right, had to make them believe. "Conn, sonar," he began, consciously forcing his voice to sound a little louder, a little surer. "Captain, I have a subsurface contact. Probability high." He reeled off the current range and bearing information, now refined from their own submarine's movement through the water and the angle to

  the anomaly. "He's hiding behind the memorial, sir. I'm sure of it."

  "Sure?" the captain came back. "Sure like you were last time?"

  "No, sir. That was a mistake. But this time I'm sure."

  "Get Petty Officer Jacobs in there," the skipper said. "Pencehaven, you have to learn that this isn't a solo game. We live and die by teamwork."

  Pencehaven glanced over at Jacobs, his eyes grateful. "He's here with me now, sir. And Petty Officer Jacobs concurs."

  "Then why the hell didn't you say so?" the captain snapped. "Good call, Pencehaven. Your aw shit status is rescinded effective this moment."

  "Thanks, Renny," Pencehaven said awkwardly. "I owe you one."

  Jacobs shook his head. "No. I owe you one. Because if you hadn't gone with your gut on this one, you would have ignored the contact. And the next sound I heard might've been a torpedo heading for my bunk."

  "Okay, let's run the targeting problem," Pencehaven said, and began punching in figures. "Snapshot protocol- you on it?"

  Jacobs's hands were flying over his keyboard. "Couldn't get rid of me now to save your life," he murmured. Finally, his targeting solution solid, he looked back up at Pencehaven. "This time, we do it right."