Thunder in the Deep cjf-2

by Joe Buff

  "It's just like our own modern hardened installations," Clayton said. "That much about the lab we know."

  Jeffrey touched Clayton's shoulder. "We suspect. As the rules-of-engagement guy, that's one thing I have to check."

  Ilse made eye contact with Jeffrey. "What if you decide the atomic demolition rules of engagement aren't satisfied?"

  "We do as much damage as we can by conventional means, then fight our way out."

  "What if we can't escape?"

  "We surrender."

  Ilse's, eyes widened. She shook her head hard. "I'd be hanged."

  "Everybody," Jeffrey said. "This installation must be destroyed. The orders say we have to go in. They don't say we have to come out."

  "But, but, but why doesn't the U.S. Air Force or the RAF just paralyze the place, by knocking out its power supply?"

  Clayton laughed. "Ilse, this isn't Iraq or Kosovo. For years, the Germans worked to protect their national power grid. A lot of trunk high-tension lines were buried underground, as part of the so-called Green movement, or at least that was the cover story. The open-air wires are heavily insulated against carbon-fiber weapons, and the power plants themselves are sealed. High-speed switches shunt power right past any point that's been disrupted, while crack emergency crews make quick repairs. Redundancy's built in."

  "At this point," Jeffrey said, "Germany's practically turned electricity into a cottage industry. Every key installation has its own backup generators, just in case, a lot of them natural-gas powered. They get the natural gas from Russia, via pipeline through Eastern Europe. Like everything Russian, it's strictly off-limits to attack, by the Joint Chiefs' global ROEs. And speaking of Green, the Axis is really into alternate energy sources now, like fuel-cells, and solar and wind power, and the tides. And conservation, of course."

  Ilse digested it all. "I have a different kind of question. What if ARBOR didn't get to plant the computer worm that's supposed to help us get in? What if the Germans found it and erased it? What if they're waiting for us?"

  Jeffrey leaned forward. "Then the team is tasked to fight our way inside best we can, and if I say so, set off the A-bombs under fire."

  CHAPTER 16

  PREDAWN, 0 DAY MINUS 1

  The messenger woke Jeffrey as ordered at 0320 local. Jeffrey showered and dressed, and stepped into the CACC at 0328. The messenger was waiting with a mug of hot black coffee. He guided Jeffrey's hand to the mug in the dark.

  After Jeffrey had taken a few sips, Lieutenant Willey said, "Good morning, Captain." Willey had the conn.

  Jeffrey took a deep gulp while his eyes adapted to the rig-for-black. As he thought about his task this morning, his drowsiness vanished, replaced by a tightness in his chest.

  "Morning, Engineer. How's the leg?" Willey sat sideways to the command console, since the cast kept him from bending his left knee.

  "Not slowing me down much, sir."

  "Good. Good."

  "I'm real glad I never got off the ship at Cape Verde, Captain. They'd've never let me come."

  Jeffrey chuckled. He took the right seat at the console.

  He studied the situation inside and outside the boat. On his backlit screen he read the digital log entries made since he'd turned in four hours ago. While he slept, it had begun to rain. This added some broadband noise, mostly across the 100-to-1000 hertz acoustic band, where detection ranges here were longest. This would help cloak Challenger on conventional passive sonar, but such cloaking cut both ways.

  Satisfied, Jeffrey turned to Willey.

  "I have the conn," Jeffrey said.

  "You have the conn."

  "This is the captain. I have the conn."

  "Aye, aye," the watchstanders said. Jeffrey heard Ilse's voice, too. Doesn't she ever sleep?

  He listened to Willey hobbling aft, and called up the nav chart and the gravimeter. Challenger lurked, almost touching the bottom, in one hundred ten feet of water, hidden from the nearby Denmark coast by Jutland Bank. The southern tip of Norway, at Kristiansand, lay sixty nautical miles due north. Halfway there, the seabed dropped off steeply, into an ancient geological feature, the Norwegian Trough, fifteen hundred feet deep or more. Jeffrey's night orders had been to make for the Bank, not the Trough, to stick to the unexpected.

  The North Sea oil slick was left behind. As Ilse predicted, though, a recent gale had stirred the local bottom muck, and water turbidity was high, shielding the boat from enemy airborne LIDAR. Wave action mixing, and the slow current out of the Skaggerak mouth gaping just ahead, helped obscure Challenger's minimal thermal signature. Ilse had explained last night at dinner, in that sexy way she talked shop, that the half-knot current from the Skaggerak was the net effect of rain and snow on land: River runoff from ten countries on the landlocked Baltic had nowhere else to go. Anyway, the current helped cool Challenger's reactor while the ship held position on autohover. As long as she didn't move, she made scant surface wake anomaly.

  The solar magnetic storm was stronger than forecast, already at G5, "extreme." No one would spot the ship's magnetic anomaly effects. Based on her success in shallow water so far, Jeffrey began to think Challenger could go anywhere, do anything.

  It was a good thing, too, because their next task seemed impossible: Penetrate the German defenses at the entrance to the Skaggerak.

  The deeper water to port was very thoroughly mined, with bottom-influence German CAPTORs. The mine field's extent was announced by the Germans, according to international law. The CAPTORs were known by U.S. Naval Intel to be switched on and off by encrypted acoustic signal and fiber-optic link, to constantly change the German submarine safety corridor. The corridor itself was patrolled by Class 212 diesel/AlPs, and Rubis SSNs. Not frontline boats against the best the U.S. and U.K. had, they were more of a submarine Home Guard, but dangerous.

  The shallow water directly ahead of Challenger was blocked by a long line of sunken merchant-ship hulks, put there by the Germans, backed by high-tensile-strength antisubmarine nets. The nets were laced with shaped-charge contact mines that could do Challenger terrible harm. Jeffrey knew all about them, because he could see them, through the link from the LMRS. The picture was virtual, built up by low probability of intercept, frequency agile, superhigh-frequency mine-hunting sonar. COB controlled the LMRS; he and Meltzer had the watch.

  There was one narrow lane left open into the Baltic, along the forty-meter curve, for German and neutral ships to pass in and out, safe from underwater mines. This lane was thoroughly protected, by German patrol craft, and by naval guns on concrete caissons in the water, backed by antiship cruise missiles and antisubmarine aircraft based on land in hardened revetments.

  Jeffrey knew there was no point in sinking the patrol craft, though it'd be easy. They were expendable to begin with, trip wires to give main forces warning of any intruder. The three-hundred-ton craft lacked sonar, but Jeffrey was sure the area was wired with sensitive hydro-phones, ones that would test Challenger's quieting to the hilt. There would be no way to know if Jeffrey's command had been detected and localized, till the ship came suddenly under attack; maybe they were being watched right now.

  No, Jeffrey wasn't happy. Challenger was already three hours behind schedule.

  Jeffrey ordered battle stations. Almost instantly, Bell arrived. Kathy Milgrom arrived, too, to supervise the sonar supervisor, a senior chief. Kathy looked chipper, but thinner, maybe from overwork.

  "Sir," Bell said, "all stations ready for action."

  "Very well, Fire Control. Helm, make your course zero four five." Northeast. "Ahead one third, make turns for four knots."

  "Make my course zero four five, aye, sir," Meltzer said. "Ahead one third, turns for four knots, aye."

  Jeffrey worked best under pressure. Aiming right at the Germans, something would come to him.

  "Captain," Kathy said, "new passive contact on the port wide-aperture array."

  "Classification?"

  "Appears to be a convoy of merchant ships. Estimat
e seven in number. Escorts too, sound like Goteborg-class Swedish guided-missile patrol craft. Two of them, sir."

  "They're small," Bell said, "three hundred eighty tons, but well armed, including four deck-mounted ASW torpedo tubes."

  "More military screw-counts," Kathy called out, "same bearing and range…. A pair of Landsort-class mine hunters, sweeping in front of the convoy."

  "Not a direct threat," Bell said, "but they can plant mines as well as sweep them."

  "Faint contacts on acoustic intercept," Kathy said. "Picking up scattered mine-hunting sonar now, five hundred twenty-five kilohertz, consistent with Landsort-class Thomson-CSF hull-mounted systems."

  "Very well, Sonar and Fire Control," Jeffrey said. "The Swedish Navy must have met their merchies in the Norwegian Sea, in international waters. Now they're making sure they get through unmolested. The Skagerrak's the only access Sweden has in and out of the Baltic."

  The minesweeping escort was needed. A German mine might break loose, or the Brits may have secretly planted their own.

  "Sir," Bell said, "recommend we try to follow the convoy through the Axis defenses."

  "I was thinking that," Jeffrey said.

  Over the CACC speakers, Jeffrey listened to the sonar broadband in quadraphonic: throbbing, churning, pinging, plus creaking and clanking from sunken hulks. There was also a clattering, beating roar: helicopters.

  "Captain," COB said as he eyed the feeds from the LMRS. "Those helos are using dipping LIDAR to delouse the convoy."

  "That's what I was afraid of," Jeffrey responded. The mercury-bromide lasers, dunked to avoid the problem of sea-surface interference, were looking for a reflection off something big underwater, or a lack of ambient backscatter due to something big and painted black.

  "So much for the age-old trick," Bell said, "sneaking in under a merchant ship, sir."

  Jeffrey was too disappointed to speak. He grunted.

  "They must be on heightened alert," Bell said, "because of this magnetic storm."

  Or worse, Jeffrey wondered — because of ARBOR and Greifswald?

  "Sir," Bell said, "from the pattern on the tactical plot, I'm starting to think the Lynx aren't checking under the Swedish warships, just the merchies."

  "Interesting," Jeffrey said. "We know the Swedes are aggressively neutral, even though they sell the Axis iron ore and arms. Could be they don't want the Germans getting too close, snooping on their naval assets…. So, let's put ourselves under the trailing Goteborg-class instead."

  "We're twice as long as she is, Captain."

  "Oceanographer, what's water turbidity now?"

  Ilse typed on her keyboard. She cleared her throat. "On-hull sensors indicate a one-foot white Secchi reference disk will disappear at sixteen feet depth, Captain."

  "The murky water will hide us from prying eyes, XO. At slow speed our wake effects should blend in nicely." Jeffrey spoke to Sessions, then gave the helm orders to close in behind the patrol craft.

  "Blade-rate change," Kathy said, "on the Goteborgs and the Landsorts! Flank-speed blade rates! Rapid, repeated aspect changes!"

  "Crap," Jeffrey said.

  "They're one step ahead of us," Bell said. "They're much more nimble than we are, too." Jeffrey nodded. "Dancing a high-speed jig, to prevent a sub from using them to infiltrate. They mean it, preserving neutrality."

  Jeffrey helplessly watched the tactical plot and LMRS data. The sanitized merchant ships filed into the entrance lane, then the Swedish minesweepers and patrol craft all zipped through. The antisubmarine boom slid closed.

  "All right," Jeffrey said, "we'll have to go in the hard way, through the Norwegian Trough and the deep-water mines."

  "Captain," Bell said, "that'll take us fifty nautical miles out of our way, north and then back south again. It'll put us hours more behind."

  "I know," Jeffrey said.

  "New passive broadband contact on the bow sphere," Kathy reported. "Submerged contact! Designate Sierra thirty-four, bearing three five five, range eight thousand yards."

  Jeffrey's heart raced. What he'd dreaded most was happening: a sudden, close encounter with an Axis sub, in Axis waters not as deep as Challenger was long.

  "Mid-spectrum narrowband, harmonics of reduction gears and cooling pumps. Contact is nuclear powered!"

  "What class?" Jeffrey said.

  "Impossible to tell! It must be bows-on to us! Adverse range and aspect angle to pick up definitive tonals!"

  "Helm," Jeffrey snapped, "make your course two six five, then all stop." Meltzer acknowledged. The ship turned left, and slowed.

  "Anything on the starboard wide array now?"

  "Affirmative, redesignate contact Master thirty-four. Contact is closing, a noisy one, sir, conjecture it's a Rubis class. Still no good tonals below one hundred hertz."

  "We'll sit still to keep down our self-noise for you."

  "Captain," Bell said, "Master thirty-four's course appears to be one three zero. She's practically on a collision course with us."

  "Mechanical transient," Kathy said.

  "What was it?"

  "Possible weapon launch preparations."

  "Fire Control," Jeffrey barked, "make tube five ready in all respects." Tube five held a conventional Mark 48 ADCAP. "Firing point procedures, tube five, on Master thirtyfour. Open the outer—"

  "Captain, do not fire," Kathy shouted. "Master thirty-four is a Russian Delta-four!"

  "Are you sure?"

  "Confirmed! Contact aspect change. Clear near-infrasonic tonals now." Christ, Jeffrey told himself, I almost started World War III.

  "What's a Russian boomer doing here?" Bell wondered.

  "Increased flow noise and cavitation," Kathy said. "The Delta-four has gone to periscope depth."

  "Whatever it is," Jeffrey said, "it can't be good."

  "Sir," Kathy continued, "Master thirty-four is doing a main ballast blow…. Master thirty-four is surfacing..

  Winch sounds. Master thirty-four retracting towed array."

  "Curiouser and curiouser," Jeffrey said.

  "She's going into the Baltic," Bell said. "It makes sense. Submarines are supposed to surface for the Skaggerak. She needs to, sir, she's huge, five hundred feet from stem to stern. On the surface she can safely make fifteen knots."

  "XO," Jeffrey said, "I just had a wild idea."

  "Uh, I think I know what you're going to say."

  "Chief of the Watch, extend the foreplanes." COB acknowledged.

  "People," Jeffrey said, "we've found our free ride in. With that Delta's heavy self-noise and her less-than-wonderful passive sonars, they'll never know we're there." Jeffrey smiled, Now this is using the element of surprise.

  CHAPTER 17

  FOURTEEN HOURS LATER

  Ilse grabbed a catnap in her rack, then had some pizza, and now was back at her console. She eyed the speed log — thirteen knots. The water depth was a harrowing 122 feet. Challenger still enjoyed her concealment right under the Delta, which Kathy's people hours ago identified as the K-117, commissioned in 1990. Fortunately, though much longer than Challenger, the Delta was slightly narrower — Jeffrey said it wore an ugly hunchback for its missiles, aft of the sail. This gave the Delta shallow draft for a boomer, providing Challenger a bit more headroom. Fortunately, the seas had calmed and came from astern; the Delta didn't roll and pitch much.

  The available headroom was badly needed by Challenger's ship-control station. The piggyback ride of the two submarines produced both suction and drift effects, some predictable, some not. COB and Meltzer, relieved for a head call and sleep and food, were back and had their hands full. Challenger shimmied and vibrated constantly. Even with the sonar speakers off, the machinery noise from the Delta with his two reactors, his thrusting through the seas and surface cavitation of twin screws, were noticeable through the hull.

  It gave Ilse the creeps to be so close to another vessel, especially one whose main weapons had a single purpose: to unleash dozens of megatons on some foreign country
, if deterrence failed. Ilse figured the yield of just one of those MIRVed ICBMs exceeded all the kilotons set off so far in the Berlin-Boer tactical nuclear war. The first half of this chilling journey took both subs northeast, the entire length of the Skagerrak, some one hundred twenty nautical miles. The Axis safe-shipping route skirted the Norwegian Trough, and Jeffrey had ordered COB to send the LMRS into it, to get a partial map of the German mine fields. K-117 bypassed the Swedish convoy in the wide part of the Skagerrak.

  Now, Challenger and K-117 headed south-southeast, beyond the bulk of German mines. The LMRS was retrieved, once more recharging its batteries. The ships were two thirds through the narrow Kattegat, itself a hundred twenty nautical miles from end to end, studded with islands and shoals. The two subs were six miles from the Swedish coast now, as the Delta exercised his right of peaceful passage in the navigable channel. Several times while in the Kattegat, Challenger had had to quickly sidestep, when the water got too shallow, and hide just to seaward of the Delta.

  Kathy's voice brought Ilse to the present.

  "I need another update of your projected salinity gradients."

  "Working now."

  Ilse knew just how important accurate data was, especially for predicting underwater sound speed and attenuation loss. Hiding under the Delta presented one big problem: The Russian sub's fathometer probed downward, and its mine-avoidance sonar — NATO code name Mouse Roar — searched constantly ahead.

  Challenger blocked the Delta's look-down fathometer whenever it tried to take soundings. The solution, easier said than done, was to detect its emissions using the acousticintercept hydrophones mounted on Challenger's sail. Then, Kathy's staff reprogrammed their under-ice look-up sonar transducers to suppress the real return using active out-ofphase. Instead they sent a bogus echo, at the correct frequency and with a perfect time delay and decibel reduction, to give the men in K-117 an accurate reading of depth, and the impression there was nothing between them and the bottom but water. Jeffrey had joked that this made it okay to exploit the Delta. The global ROEs forbade threatening a Russian vessel. Challenger was actually helping. Bell was very uncomfortable, and wanted to enter his formal objection in the log to cover his ass. But he quickly thought better of it, and got into the spirit of things.