USS Towers Box Set

by Jeff Edwards

  “I agree, sir,” Chief McPherson said. “We may just have to settle for cueing. Send the Mouse unit under the ice to do the job in full auto mode, with no external comms. If it finds anything, it comes back out, drives to the surface, and calls us on low-power UHF.”

  “That’s detectable too,” one of the officers pointed out.

  “True,” the chief said. “But only at short range line-of-sight, and not by the sub. The UHF signal might get intercepted by an aircraft, but a submerged submarine will never pick it up. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s probably the best we can do.”

  “You’re probably right,” the captain said. “Can anyone suggest an alternative?”

  No one spoke up.

  “Alright,” he said. “We go with the UHF, and stay away from underwater comms. If Mouse gets a hit, it comes to the surface and calls us on low-power UHF.”

  He looked at Chief McPherson. “Continue, please.”

  The chief leaned over the chart and the red symbol with her fingertip. “This is ‘datum.’ It’s the last known position of the submarine.”

  She waved a hand in a big loop over the chart. “The maximum submerged speed of a Delta III is about 25 knots. If the sub is running pedal-to-the-metal, it could be 900 nautical miles from datum by now. In other words, it could be anywhere in the Sea of Okhotsk.”

  Sheldon craned his neck to get a better view of the chart. “Why are you assuming that the sub is going to stay in the Sea of …” He paused. “How do you pronounce it again?”

  The chief smiled. “The Sea of Okhotsk. We call it the Sea of O, for short.”

  “Thanks,” Sheldon said. “So why are you assuming that the submarine is going to keep to the Sea of O? If it can run 900 miles in 36 hours, it could be through those islands and out into the Pacific right now.”

  “We don’t think he’s going to come out,” Captain Bowie said. “As long as that sub skipper stays in there, he’s got the tactical advantage.”

  “How so?” Sheldon asked.

  “The Sea of Okhotsk is covered by the Siberian ice pack,” said Chief McPherson. “Ships can only get into the very southern end of the sea, because of the ice. As long as it stays in there, the sub can hide under the ice, where it’s protected. If he comes out into the open ocean, we’re going to eat his lunch, and he knows it.”

  Ann set her coffee cup on the table. “Where do we fit into this? I assume you dragged us out here for a reason.”

  “That submarine still has forty-five nuclear weapons on board,” Captain Bowie said. “We’ve been assigned to engage it before it launches another nuclear attack. Unfortunately, our options are extremely limited. Guns and missiles are no good against a submerged target, and we can’t use ASROC missiles because of the ice cover. That leaves torpedoes.”

  “Okay,” Ann said. “I’m still not seeing the connection. We don’t know anything about missiles, or torpedoes, or any of that stuff.”

  “Our Mk-54 torpedoes weren’t designed for under-ice operations,” Chief McPherson said. “We’re concerned that acoustic reflections under the ice could prevent the torpedoes from finding their target. Specifically, we’re worried that the Mk-54’s active sonar will lock on to the ice keels that protrude from the underside of the ice pack, and attack them instead of the submarine.”

  “I hope you don’t think we can answer that question,” Ann said.

  “Not at all,” the chief said. “At the moment, no one can answer it. I’ve spent about three hours on the satellite phone with the torpedo engineers at Raytheon. They designed the Mk-54, and they don’t know the answer either. They’ll have to conduct extensive field tests to be certain, but they ran some quick and dirty computer simulations for me, and the results don’t look good. Our torpedoes will probably not be able to locate the submarine in the under-ice environment.”

  “That’s where your Mouse unit comes in,” the captain said. “We need it to go after the submarine under the ice pack.”

  Ann was tired, and her weariness made her a little slower on the uptake than usual. So it took a few seconds for the meanings of the captain’s words to sink in.

  She frowned, almost certain that she’d misunderstood him. “You’re saying you want to use Mouse … as a weapon?”

  Captain Bowie shook his head. “Not exactly. What we need …”

  Ann held up a hand. “Mouse isn’t configured for combat. He wasn’t designed to fight.”

  “We know that,” Bowie said. “We don’t expect the Mouse unit to attack the submarine. That wouldn’t work. Your machine can’t carry a heavy enough explosive charge to guarantee a kill.”

  “So what do you have in mind for Mouse?” Sheldon asked.

  Bowie crooked a finger toward Chief McPherson, who laid an odd-looking device on the table top.

  It was shaped roughly like a double-decker hamburger—round, with a domed top and a slightly concave bottom. It appeared to be constructed of metal and plastic. Several circuits and mechanical fixtures had been strapped to the outside using the red waterproof adhesive cloth that the Navy called ordinance tape.

  “This is the acoustic transducer from a Mark-63 expendable mobile target,” the chief said. “The 63s are training tools. We toss them in the water, and let our Sonar Operators track them for practice. But in this case, we’re only going to use the acoustic section, so we pulled that part out and modified it.”

  She pointed to the hodge-podge of add-on circuits. “It’s not pretty, but we’ve got it configured to respond to a coded external pulse. If we ping this thing with the right frequency, it kicks into beacon mode, and begins transmitting a loud acoustic signal that our torpedoes can track.”

  “I’m totally lost,” Ann said. “Where does Mouse figure into this?”

  Bowie spoke up. “The beacon has a magnetic base. We want Mouse to locate the submarine, and attach the beacon to its hull. Then, we need Mouse to come back out from under the ice and report back to us, so we know that the beacon is in place.”

  “Okay,” Ann said slowly. “Then what?”

  “Then Mouse keeps an eye on the sub for us,” the captain said, “and lets us know if it comes within weapons range of the ship. When the sub gets close enough, we trigger the beacon so our torpedoes can lock on.”

  “You want Mouse to be the finger man,” Ann said. “He doesn’t do the killing; he just points the finger, and you guys take care of the dirty work.”

  “Well,” the captain said. “I suppose …”

  “Just a second!” Ann’s voice came out much louder than she’d intended. Her words seemed to reverberate in the suddenly-quiet wardroom. “How many people are on that submarine?” she asked. Her voice was softer now.

  “We don’t know exactly,” Chief McPherson said. “The crew compliment of a Delta III is 130, but we’re not sure if the sub got underway with full manning. Fighting had already broken out in Petropavlosk when the K-506 put out to sea, so they may not have a complete crew.”

  “But it’s around 130 men?” Ann asked.

  The chief nodded. “That’s about right.”

  “What are their names?”

  The question seemed to puzzle everyone in the room.

  Captain Bowie studied Ann, a slight frown on his blandly handsome face. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand.”

  “The men on the submarine,” Ann said. “What are their names?”

  No one spoke. Every pair of eyes in the wardroom stared at her.

  “You tell me that there are 130 people on that submarine,” Ann said. “And you want me to help you kill them.”

  She locked eyes with the captain. “I’ve never killed anyone in my life,” she said. She snapped her fingers. “Now, just like that, I’m supposed to help you murder 130 people I’ve never even met?”

  She slumped back in her chair, letting her weight sag onto the base of her spine. “If I’m going to see the faces of more than a hundred strangers in my dreams every night for the rest of my life, I want to kn
ow their freaking names. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

  The silence held for nearly ten seconds, before Sheldon broke it. “Ann, we should at least listen …”

  “No!” Ann snapped. She looked around the table, meeting each pair of eyes in-turn. “I’m through listening.”

  “Mouse does not kill people,” she said. “I do not kill people. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

  She stood up. “If that’s what you brought us here to do, you’ve wasted your money and my time.”

  Before anyone could respond, she walked out the door.

  CHAPTER 37

  U.S. NAVAL HOSPITAL

  YOKOSUKA, JAPAN

  MONDAY; 04 MARCH

  2129 hours (9:29 PM)

  TIME ZONE +9 ‘INDIA’

  The stocky old Russian lay in the hospital bed, the slow rise and fall of his chest the only movement in his body. The heart monitor mounted to the wall near his bed beeped in a soft continuous rhythm.

  Agent Ross watched the unconscious man for several long seconds before turning back to Dr. Hogan. “How much longer is he going to be like this?”

  Hogan glanced at the heart monitor, and then down at the medical chart in his hand. “There’s no way to know,” he said.

  “Doctor, that’s not good enough,” Ross said. “We’ve got a madman holding three countries hostage with nuclear weapons. And some of those weapons are pointed right here, toward Japan.”

  Ross exhaled through his nostrils. “This is a good sized naval base. Chances are, we’re standing at ground-zero for one of those nukes.”

  He looked back toward the unconscious form of Oleg Grigoriev. “I’ve got to find out what that man knows. I need to know how much longer he’s going to be out.”

  “I can’t tell you that,” Dr. Hogan said. “Because I don’t know.” He sighed. “The patient suffered a major pulmonary embolism, secondary to the gunshot wound in his chest. He coded on us, and we nearly lost him. Your partner was here when it happened. Ask him.”

  “Agent DuBrul has given me his report,” Ross said. “But he’s not a doctor. He can’t tell me when the patient will be ready to talk again.”

  “Neither can I,” Hogan said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to explain to you, Agent Ross. I know how important it is that you talk to this man. But I don’t know when he’s going to be conscious again. His vitals are fairly steady at the moment, but he’s not in good shape. We could lose him at any second.”

  Hogan studied the patient. His voice was solemn. “This patient could open his eyes ten minutes from now, or ten days from now. Or he may never open them again. Even if he does, there’s no guarantee that he’ll be coherent. A pulmonary embolism restricts blood flow to the brain. The patient may have significant mental deterioration. There’s no way to know until he comes around.”

  “If he comes around,” Ross said

  Dr. Hogan nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “If.”

  CHAPTER 38

  USS TOWERS (DDG-103)

  WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN

  TUESDAY; 05 MARCH

  0609 hours (6:09 AM)

  TIME ZONE +11 ‘LIMA’

  When Ann opened the door to her stateroom, she found Sheldon standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall, or the bulkhead, or whatever the damned thing was called.

  She shot him a quizzical look. “Are you waiting for me?”

  Sheldon nodded. “Come on. I’ll buy you breakfast.”

  “How long have you been standing there?”

  “A while,” Sheldon said.

  “Why didn’t you knock?”

  He shrugged. “I figured you needed your sleep. Anyway, it’s not like I’ve got anything to do today.”

  He gave Ann a patented Sheldon smile. “You want some breakfast, or not?”

  Ann looked one way down the hall, and then the other. “Lead the way. I can never find anything in this metal maze.”

  “Follow me, Madam,” Sheldon said. “One guaranteed five-star military breakfast coming up.”

  Ann followed. “Right. I’ll settle for not getting food poisoning.”

  As usual, Ann was totally lost. Every door, valve, and electrical junction box was stamped or stenciled with a number. She knew the numbers were all part of some kind of coordinate system for locating equipment, and for finding your way around the maze. But she didn’t like ships enough to invest the effort required to learn the numbering scheme. So she was stuck with trying to recognize landmarks in a world where everything had the same utilitarian blandness about it.

  She spotted the door to the wardroom, and was surprised when Sheldon walked past it without stopping. “I think you just missed our exit,” she said.

  Sheldon started down one of the steep metal staircases. “I thought we’d go down to the crew’s mess, and eat with the enlisted personnel this morning.”

  “Why? Have our wardroom privileges been revoked?”

  “Not as far as I know,” Sheldon said. “But the Combat Systems Officer told me they’re holding a tactical planning meeting in the wardroom this morning. And we’ve sort of cut ourselves out of the tactical loop.”

  “You mean I cut us out of the loop,” Ann said.

  Sheldon stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned back toward Ann. “We’re a team,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who threw the penalty flag. We’re both out of the game. So I figure we should stay clear of the wardroom until they’re finished with the planning meeting.”

  “What do you think they’ll do?” Ann asked.

  Sheldon started walking again. “I’m sure they’ll try to helo us out of here as soon as possible,” he said over his shoulder.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Ann said. “I mean what will they do without Mouse? What’s their Plan-B?”

  “I don’t think they’ve got a Plan-B,” Sheldon said. “Unless I’m mistaken, Mouse was something like their Plan-Z. I think they exhausted every tactical option they could come up with before they ever considered something as crazy as Mouse.”

  He stopped again, and turned to face Ann. “Mouse is prototype technology,” he said. “It’s full of bugs, and it’s undependable. They know that. And you and I, Princess Leia, are civilians. That makes us unpredictable, and difficult to manage. They can’t order us around. In other words, we’re undependable too. And they know that.”

  Sheldon tilted his head forward and looked out of the tops of his eyes. “Do you really think these Navy guys would be calling on undependable civilians with undependable equipment if they had another option?”

  Ann didn’t answer.

  Sheldon continued walking. Ann followed. About fifty feet later, they came to a long line of Sailors, all dressed in blue utility uniforms.

  “I believe this is what they call the chow line,” Sheldon said. He sniffed the air theatrically. “Mmm … Smell that? That’s good Navy chow.”

  Ann wrinkled her nose. “Yuck!”

  She sighed. “You think I’m wrong, don’t you?”

  “It’s a matter of taste,” Sheldon said. “Shipboard food isn’t for everybody.”

  “Not about that,” Ann said. “About Mouse. You think I’m wrong for not helping them, don’t you?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter,” Sheldon said. “You’re the only person you have to look at in the mirror. And I can certainly understand your position. You didn’t sign on to kill people. Not even indirectly.”

  “No,” Ann said. “I didn’t.”

  Sheldon said nothing.

  The line moved ahead a little, and Sheldon lifted two thick plastic cafeteria trays off of a spring-loaded metal rack. He passed one to Ann.

  “You’d help them, wouldn’t you?” Ann asked.

  The line moved another pace forward, and Sheldon pulled two sets of knives, forks, and spoons out of round metal holders.

  “Yeah. I would help them,” he said. He sorted out a set of utensils and passed it to Ann.

  She accepted the small bundle of flatware.
The metal was warm, and still a little damp. The utensils were obviously fresh from the dishwasher.

  “Why?” she asked. “I know you, Sheldon. You haven’t got a violent bone in your body. Why on earth would you participate in the killing of 130 human beings?”

  Sheldon started to say something, and then checked himself. “Let’s talk about this later. This is not a good conversation to have, just before we eat.”

  “Now,” Ann said. “Answer my question.”

  Sheldon exhaled sharply. “Did you ever study First Aid?” he asked. “Do you know what a tourniquet is?”

  Ann nodded.

  “I was a Boy Scout when I was a kid,” Sheldon said. “I had merit badges like you wouldn’t believe. I loved it. I was on my way to Eagle Scout. And one summer, I took my little brother camping on Dutch Island, in the Wilmington River. I was fifteen that year, and Charley was thirteen. We had to get there by boat. And man, it was the stuff of pure adventure.

  “Imagine it,” he said. “Two boys on an island by themselves. It was Huckleberry Finn and Treasure Island, all rolled into one. And on the third day of the camping trip—it was supposed to be the last day—the hatchet bounced off a knot when Charley was chopping firewood. The blade hit his left wrist, and it cut him bad.”

  The chow line had moved forward, but Sheldon made no attempt to follow it. He put his tray back on the rack, and returned his utensils to their holders. Then he turned toward Ann. “I couldn’t stop the bleeding,” he said. “I tried direct pressure, and pressure points, and all of the First Aid tricks in the Boy Scout handbook. But nothing would stop the bleeding.”

  Sheldon swallowed, and looked away from Ann. “And all I could think of was a tourniquet.”

  Someone tapped Ann on the shoulder and she turned to see a line of Sailors bunching up behind them. She tugged Sheldon to the side, and waved for the Sailors to go around.

  Sheldon’s voice was hoarse now. “I remembered my scout training,” he said. “They told us to never use a tourniquet unless there was no other choice. Don’t use one unless it’s a choice between the tourniquet and death. Because the limb begins to die the second you tighten down the tourniquet. It shuts off the blood flow to the wound, but it shuts off the blood flow to the entire limb as well. Most of the time, after a tourniquet has been used, the doctors have to amputate the arm or the leg.”