Barracuda 945 (2003)

by Patrick Robinson

  "To which country, though?" she persisted.

  "If I knew that, life would be a great deal easier," rasped the Admiral.

  In fact, it did not get any easier at all. Arnold and Kathy retired to bed at around ten o'clock, since he had to be up and on his way by half past five. And while they slept, an appalling catastrophe happened on the eastern shores of the Gulf of Alaska.

  At precisely 11:35 p.m. (2:35 a.m. Eastern time), two simultaneous, muffled underwater explosions breached the biggest oil pipeline in the United States. Right inside the entrance to the Hecate Strait. In the pitch dark, crude oil began to pump out into the ocean, millions of gallons, and no one could see it. And it pumped for seven hours, until someone did see it, a Canadian fishing boat at first light.

  A breach in any oil pipeline is bad. Back in 2001, a disenchanted and very drunk Alaskan fired a .338 caliber hunting rifle into the overland pipeline at point-blank range, punctured it with one bullet, and caused a spillage of 300,000 gallons of crude over a two-acre area.

  Several fathoms below the surface of the ocean, out near the Overfall Shoal, the situation was one hundred times worse. The fires in Valdez had caused thousands of barrels to be diverted down the new pipeline, causing a marked increase in the pressure.

  All through the night the massive pumping station in Yakutat Bay was driving tons and tons of oil into the pipe and it was all thundering out into the ocean, over 500 miles away, causing an ecological disaster of satanic proportions. It was also the beginning of a stark and terrifying shortage at the new refinery in Grays Harbor.

  By dawn, the Coast Guard had alerted everyone, and the slick was ten miles long, already washing on the rocky shores of Graham Island. The Canadian Government, always skeptical and knee-jerk jumpy toward any environmental problem, was beside itself with indignation.

  CNN was on the air in Washington by 10 A.M., but the radio news bulletins were earlier. Meantime, there were tugs, frogmen, oil pipeline emergency crews, support vessels, cranes, and divers hurtling toward the shallows north of the Overfall Shoal from where the pumping oil seemed to emanate.

  From the Gulf coast of Texas, crews of disaster specialists were preparing to fly north. Many of them were veterans from the 1991 Gulf War, men who had worked on the massive grid of oil fires in the Kuwaiti desert, ignited by Saddam Hussein once he realized all was lost. These repair crews would bring with them the cutting edge of modern disaster technology. Anything to stop the flow.

  Obviously, valves would be turned off, but in an undersea pipeline, these are far apart, and several miles of oil could just go right on leaking into the ocean.

  By the time Admirals Morgan and Morris and Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe were briefed on the scale of the disaster, the media already had experts on the airwaves explaining what had happened.

  It was Professor Jethro Hint, a mining and energy expert from the University of Colorado, who was the most lucid. Answering questions from a CNN news reporter he stated:

  "The fires in the Valdez terminus have plainly shut down the entire Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. Nothing is currently flowing south through the line from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez. But, back in the north, the oil is still flowing into the pumping station from the deep wells, which are active in a very wide area up there."

  The professor paused. "What to do with the extra capacity?" he said. "Since the crude can't go where it always goes, down the TAPS route, and it's gotta go somewhere."

  Where, sir? Where will it go?

  "That oil," replied Professor Hint, "will be diverted down the new south-running oil freeway, the Alaska Bi-Coastal Energy Transfer, direct to Yakutat. And there they will increase the traffic flow, pumping much more crude into the underwater system."

  Will that matter, sir?

  "It will matter to the extent they will never have tested that pipeline with those kind of real-life pressures. And when you subject something to stresses it's never undergone before, it can rupture. And in my view, that's what this has done. They've overloaded the pipeline, somewhat thoughtlessly, and it's come unraveled."

  That was sufficient to send afternoon newspaper editors and media newsmen into a collective dance of death, preparing headlines such as OIL EXECS BLAMED FOR ALASKA PIPELINE DISASTER . . . ALASKA PIPELINE— ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN . . . PIPELINE TESTING SNAFU—ACCIDENT PREDICTABLE . . .PIPELINE ACCIDENT CAUSED BY OVERLOAD.

  Admirals Morgan and Morris watched the drama unfold with Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe. The three of them had lunch together in the White House, poring over the charts, studying the distances, trying to work out from where a rogue submarine might have unleashed a salvo of missiles at Valdez, and then blown up the pipeline.

  "I'll say one thing," said Vice Admiral Morgan. "The media, for once in their miserable fucking lives, are being helpful. They keep saying 'accident' and that's what we want. Not just to calm the populace, but so no word gets out we're suspicious.

  "Once someone realizes we're on the case, our chances of finding out what the hell's going on get diminished by fifty percent."

  "You're not yet ready to start ordering a search?" asked George Morris.

  "No. Not without some evidence there is a definite submarine out there. Right now we're chasing our tails, but I hope not for long."

  "Do you think there's any possibility, this is all just a huge accident?" said George.

  "Not a chance," snapped Arnie. "How about you, Jimmy?"

  "Not a chance," replied Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe.

  10

  Admiral George Morris left the White House right after lunch, without his personal assistant. Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe was required by the National Security Adviser for a brainstorming session, to think and, essentially, to play war games.

  On a large computer screen on the left-hand side of the office was a close-up chart of the entire area of southern Alaska, the coastline west to east, from the Aleutians all the way around to the Queen Charlotte Islands, passing the Cooke Inlet, Prince William Sound, and Yakutat Bay. The route of the Alaska Bi-Coastal Energy Transfer pipeline was marked in thick black against the light blue tone of the inshore ocean.

  Vice Admiral Morgan, however, was not quite ready to delve into the main thrust of his investigation. Right now he was grilling Jimmy Ramshawe for every last contact he may have had with any foreign submarine in the past two years.

  Jimmy was telling him about Old Razormouth, and how he took that to be a code name for a Russian Barracuda. He told Arnold about that message, OLD RAZORMOUTH 600 CONFIRMED. And he told him how the U.S. SOSUS men in South Wales had briefly picked up the transient engine lines of a similar Sierra I in the Atlantic, off the west coast of Ireland, on February 7.

  And he mentioned how Rear Admiral Morris had asked Moscow for an explanation. And how they had both judged the reply to be polite and helpful, but evasive.

  "Rankov?" growled the Admiral.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Lying Russian bastard," added Arnold.

  "Anyway, sir, I did check on the Barracuda program and we have no record of a second hull ever being operational. Hull K-239, the Tula, was always with the Northern Fleet, and we then tracked it, last summer, along the north coast of Siberia—an obvious transfer to the Pacific Fleet. Admiral Rankov confirmed that himself. Then we saw it leave Petropavlovsk and turn south."

  "Do we know they completed the second hull?"

  "No, sir. Not really. There is a slightly shaky report that it was launched. But we have no record of it ever going to sea. It was reported laid-up, in a covered dry dock, out of commission, in the Northern Fleet at Araguba back in the early 1990s. That's the last we heard."

  "Guess they couldn't afford to run 'em. They were expensive ships."

  "There was never much doubt about that, sir. The Russians canceled the class, and laid one hull up. They never made a secret about that. It was obvious."

  "But we still don't know what submarine the guys heard off the coast of Ireland?"

 
"No, sir. We never got a handle on that."

  "And neither do we know what submarine hit the trawl nets on the goddamned sushi ship off Petropavlovsk?"

  "Must have been the Barracuda. But no, sir. Nothing confirmed."

  "Well, well," said Vice Admiral Morgan. "Who plays games with us, Jimmy? Very big, very destructive games, eh?"

  "I'm not sure, sir. But I got a creepy feeling Old Razormouth is somehow right in the bloody thick of it."

  "I would not disagree with that, Jimmy. Not at all." And with that, the Admiral stood up and walked over to the chart, and with the touch of a couple of keys, he described a big seaward arc one thousand miles out from the port of Valdez. It was a long arc, extending southwest to southeast, starting way down, off the Alaskan Peninsula, and slicing across the Gulf to the southern half of Graham Island.

  "If he exists, Jimmy, he's somewhere in there," said Arnold. "At least he was in the very early hours of yesterday morning. Christ knows where he is now."

  "Why yesterday, sir? The pipeline ruptured early today."

  "Jimmy, if you and I were going to blow a big hole in an oil pipeline, or a ship, or any underwater target, and we were using modern high explosives, we certainly would not wish to be anywhere near when the charge detonated. In fact, we'd want to be as far away as possible. If we happened to be operating out of a submarine, I guess we'd give ourselves the maximum clearance time. And most of those limpet mines can be set for twenty-four hours.

  "So I guess we'd place our charges and allow almost a day to get the hell outta there, so we'd be—what—at ten knots, two hundred and forty miles away? At five knots we'd be one hundred and twenty miles away. And since no one knows our direction, that's an awful lot of ocean to search, like maybe fifty thousand-plus square miles."

  "So you think he's now been on his way home, for perhaps a day and a half?"

  "Without question. Except I'm not sure he's going home, Jimmy. I'm not sure he's finished his work. But come and look here at this chart."

  The young Lieutenant Commander with the Aussie accent stood and walked slowly across the room, deep in thought.

  "Bloody oath, this character has a set of balls, hasn't he? Sometimes, during these conversations I start thinking it's all a fantasy. I mean, we're talking about a guy who's taking on the U.S. Navy, and is marauding along our coast like some fucking pirate, raping and pillaging, and we have no idea who he is, where he's come from, or where he's bloody going.

  "In the last couple of days he's destroyed an entire oil industry, the biggest in the United States. Sir, if there really is someone on the loose, we'd better find him real quick. I mean, streuth! Bin Laden was a fanatic, followed by fanatics who knew they were committing suicide in their attacks on us, but this bastard is worse, because he's clever and appears to have equipment to match our own and he doesn't want to die. And so far, he's making a fucking good job of it."

  Arnold Morgan looked thoughtful. And he turned back to the big computer screen. "You see this point right here?" he said. "The place where the pipeline blew off Graham Island. I think we might assume he was very close to that point when he unleashed his missiles at Valdez."

  "Well, I'd assumed he was out in the middle of the Gulf, sir. Down here somewhere, and then went over to the pipeline to place his explosive."

  "I don't think so, Jimmy. Because this character is as clever as us, and that's not what I would have done. I'd have positioned myself somewhere over here north of Graham Island, preprogrammed my missiles to swerve right around Valdez and then come in from the north. Then I'd have crept into the pipeline, done my business, and left, knowing I'd be miles and miles away when the explosive went bang.

  "So where is he, Jimmy? If he was right here somewhere near the pipeline at, say, midnight on Saturday, which way did he go?"

  "Well, I would have headed for shallow water, probably back around the Gulf, very quietly. Not straight over the middle where the ocean depth is two miles and SOSUS works."

  "Yeah, and then where?"

  "Back across the Pacific, either running around the Great Pacific Plain, or just south of the Aleutian Islands."

  "He didn't come that way."

  "How do you know, sir?"

  "Well, we have a permanent submarine patrol in the Aleutian Trench and they would have heard him, picked him up, and if the boat was Russian, probably sunk him."

  "Well, he could have come in across that big deep Plain."

  "Doubtful. That's one of the most heavily surveilled SOSUS areas in the world. I would rate it just about impossible to bring a submarine right across the middle of the Pacific Plain without the U.S. Navy picking you up."

  "Well, how did he get here?"

  "You tell me. I don't know."

  "Sir, could he have come north of the Aleutians? I don't think we have that patrolled, do we?"

  "No, we don't. And yes, he could have made passage along the north of the islands. But in order to get into his firing position, he'd have needed to come through the islands, back to the south. There's no other way into the Gulf of Alaska. Probably three places he might have done it. But the water's pretty shallow, and it's swept by U.S. Navy radar. If he did do it, I don't know how."

  "Well, if the bugger did get into the Gulf, he must have come through one of the three places. Otherwise, he'd still be outside the Gulf, or sunk, right, sir?"

  "Correct, Jimmy. But he did come through, didn't he? And he crept all the way over to Graham Island. And the little bastard's still creeping. And we have to find him."

  "Do you get the feeling, sir, we're dealing with a person, someone who has so far outwitted us? Or does it seem like an impersonal situation—just a military opponent?"

  "I feel it's a person, Jimmy. And I've had the feeling before. As if someone was taking me on."

  "You mean, like Admiral Rankov?"

  "Christ, no. Someone a lot cleverer than that."

  1:00 a.m., Tuesday, March 4, 2008

  48.00' N 128' W,

  The Gulf of Alaska

  The Barracuda was making only five knots through the water, 1,000 feet below the surface. There were still 8,000 feet below the keel, and their course had not changed since they pushed west out of the Dixon Entrance, and then swung south, seventy-two hours previously.

  No one aboard had any idea whether the bombs had detonated on the pipeline. And no one certainly realized that right now, at 9:00 a.m. Greenwich mean time, there was absolute pandemonium on the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) in the City of London. Only once since the Gulf War had there been anything remotely like the panic buying that now swept the London Exchange.

  The issue, as ever, was Brent Crude Futures. The IPE had first heard of the giant oil slick near the Alaskan pipeline at around 3:00 p.m. (London time) the previous afternoon. There was some disquiet, especially because the fires in Valdez were still burning and the price of crude rocketed to $35 a barrel by the close, up six dollars.

  However, on New York's NYMEX, operating five hours behind, the price of West Texas Intermediate climbed to $39 by late afternoon, and the oil business teetered on the brink of a major crisis. In the West, all-night service stations were starting to sell gas at $5 a gallon.

  Today, Tuesday, however, was an entirely different matter. The IPE in London, first of the major Western markets to open, saw Brent Crude explode to $50 a barrel within one hour of the opening bell.

  The traders had spent the night thinking, speculating, and finally going into near-meltdown when the news broke that the massive Alaska pipeline feeding the West Coast of the United States was incontrovertibly breached. It was clear even to the dimmest executives there would be no oil out of Alaska until the fires were out, new storage facilities were established, and they had mended the shattered undersea pipeline. One month minimum, maybe a lot more.

  The trading floor in London resembled a madhouse. Dealers yelled and screamed, as an avalanche of orders for futures came thundering in from the United States. This was beginning to
look like the seller's market to end them all. And it took the big oil corporations a matter of minutes to work out they could get what they asked for their product.

  The main supplier of crude oil to the entire West Coast of the United States, and beyond was effectively out of business. Other producers, refiners, shippers, distributors, and marketers were at the golden gates of hog heaven. And brokers for the power generators, airlines, truck fleet operators, and chemical companies were almost prostrate with worry.

  At 9:14 in London there was an unmistakable power surge. The trader for Morgan Stanley suddenly bellowed, "Plus five, plus five for 300,000." And the price of Brent Crude was suddenly pegged at $55 a barrel. Rumors swept the tiered trading pits that crude was going to $80, and the crowd seemed to sense the coming onslaught of California blackouts, dry-outs, and cutouts.