Authors: Patrick Robinson
SOSUS is the U.S. Navy’s fixed undersea acoustic network of passive hydrophone arrays, sensitive listening equipment connected to operational shore sites which collect, analyze, display, and report acoustic data, relayed back from the strings of hydrophones laid in the deep sound channels.
They are installed in all of the key areas of the Pacific and North Atlantic, crisscrossed over the seabed. They are hot and heavy in the GRIUK Gap. Sailors say if a whale farts in the GRIUK, seventeen shore-based American technicians die happily of sheer excitement.
You can imagine what happens when SOSUS picks up the steady engine lines of a possibly hostile submarine.
Captain Mohtaj was treading on eggshells.
He cut the speed of the
Barracuda
as they came deep, through the icy waters of coastal Norway, a country that claims the entire northern swathe of the continent of Europe—right around Finland, Sweden, and Lapland, up to the Russian border. Those Norsemen of old were the masters of these Arctic waters. They owned and controlled the Atlantic coastline from the city of Stavanger in the south, to Russia’s Kola Peninsula, more than 1,100 miles away, 500 miles up to the Arctic Circle, 600 beyond.
In summer, the steep fjords and bays of western Norway and the Islands represent some of the most spectacular cruising waters in the world. Bright, lonely, devastatingly beautiful seascapes, where the summer sun never sets, and the waters are blue, and the people friendly.
Even in late January, the great tidal ocean still flows freely because of the Gulf Stream, and the
Barracuda
moved slowly past, following the contours of the legendary Lofoten Isles. This windswept 100-mile-long group of islands juts out from the mainland, forcing passing submarines into the 4,000-feet-deep waters of the Voring Plateau.
From here it took Captain Mohtaj another ten hours to reach the Arctic Circle, running southwest. The
Barracuda
’s sonar room thought they heard another submarine here, but the acoustics were too distant, too faint.
It was just as well they were, as the 8,000-ton Los Angeles Class patrol submarine USS
Cheyenne
would doubtless have been fascinated at an unscheduled Russian nuclear boat from right off the charts creeping down the North Atlantic. The Americans might have sunk it, and in any event they would have blown a very loud whistle, summoning ships of the Royal Navy, maybe even an air search, to find out precisely what was going on.
But neither submarine was close enough to make a firm classification. It was judged by both ships to be just another noise in the ocean, probably a passing trawler.
The
Cheyenne
continued its patrol, running north. Captain Mohtaj slowed down some more, to seven knots, and continued southwest. It took him two and a half days to make the next 400
miles, creeping along, still 400 feet beneath truly violent, gale-tossed seas. At 4:30, on the afternoon of February 6, they crossed the unseen line in the ocean, which told them they were in the GRIUK Gap, moving over the Iceland–Faeroe Rise in a little over 850 feet of water; speed: five. Ten degrees west, 61.20’ N.
They stayed well west of the notorious Bill Bailey Banks, two underwater mountains that rise up to only 250 feet below the surface, and they barely increased speed for another 150 miles until they reached the great abyss of the Iceland Basin, where the Atlantic suddenly shelves down to a depth of nearly two miles.
Captain Mohtaj knew this was time he must go slower, because SOSUS is always watching in deep water. He felt vulnerable in these cavernous depths, but he risked a little more speed, asking the
Barracuda
’s turbines for nine knots, and making a course change…
come left
…
steer one-eight-zero.
The
Barracuda
maintained speed for the next four hours, then made a swing toward the Rockall Trough, 100 miles west of the Irish coast, bang over the tremblingly sensitive American hydrophones. SOSUS picked them up, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Cocooned inside the brutishly classified U.S. listening station on the windswept granite shores of Pembrokeshire in South Wales, staring out across the gray and choppy Irish Sea, two U.S. operators had picked up the
Barracuda
simultaneously and had been listening for twenty minutes.
“Submarine, sir. It’s Russian. I’m checking, but right here I’ve got initial classification, a Russian nuclear. Probability area large.”
“Degree of certainty on that classification?”
“Thirty percent, sir. Still checking
…
”
Back in the Russian ship, there had been a problem. The Chief Engineer was in the process of having a heart attack, having just found a toolbox carelessly leaned against the side of one of the turbo alternators and left there for the biggest part of three hours. It was rattling quite sufficiently to cause a serious noise-shout, and the Chief was raging around the engine room deck trying to find the culprit.
“Allah be praised!” he ranted, siezing the toolbox, “This is
fucking unbelievable.” He stopped the rattle instantly, and he was very quick, but not quite quick enough. The Americans had not only picked up the shout of the toolbox, but SOSUS had already given the heads-up.
Back in Pembrokeshire, the operator knew his quarry had suddenly gone quiet, but he did not know why.
“Contact disappeared, sir. Still checking. It looks like a Russian turbo alternator at fifty-hertz, not sixty like ours.”
“How big’s the probability area?”
“We’re looking at a square, ten-miles-by-ten-miles.”
“Nearest U.S. submarine?”
“
The
Cheyenne
’s last known eighty miles east of Iceland, about six hundred fifty miles north of the datum. Almost twenty-four hours away.
”
“Contact regained?”
“No, sir. Nothing. I guess she must have shut it down.”
Both men knew that was much, much worse than simply hearing her again. Because it meant the Russian crew was being deliberately clandestine, evasive. And there was no reason for that. The Cold War was long over. Russia was not normally perceived as a threat. She had every right to be running a patrol down the middle of the North Atlantic, as did the Americans.
She could have been training crew, testing systems on a long-distance run. She could even have turned around and headed home. Maybe SOSUS had just picked up acceleration noise as she made her turn. But, if she had been going home, why was she not making proper speed north? And how come
Cheyenne
had not heard anything as she came south?
Submarines traditionally pose a lot of questions. But the U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander in Pembrokeshire did not like his information so far, and he drafted an immediate signal to Fort Meade:
Pembroke Facility picked up a twenty-minute contact on very quiet vessel 071935FEB08. Insufficient data for certain classification—50-hertz line, indicating Soviet turbo-alternator. Abrupt stop. Possibly submarine. Nothing on Russian networks correlates
…
100-square-mile probability area, checking
longitude 15.00
’
W, south end of Rockall Trough, off Irish coast.
The Navy’s Atlantic desk in the National Surveillance Office drafted a request to Moscow to clarify the situation. But two days later, there had been no reply, neither had anyone heard a squeak from the
Barracuda,
which was creeping south at low speeds, tiptoeing over the SOSUS undersea wires. Not quite undetected, but almost.
It was February 8, a Friday afternoon, when Lieutenant Ramshawe took an hour off and scrolled through the pages on the NSA Internet system. He’d been looking and reading absentmindedly for more than forty-five minutes when he caught the word “submarine” in a transmitted message.
His brief acquaintance with Admirals Morgan and Morris had taught him one thing, if nothing else.
You see the word “submarine,” you drop everything and find out what the hell’s going on—to quote Admiral Arnie, as Jimmy was prone to call him in unguarded moments—these are sneaky, dangerous little sons of bitches. Anytime, anywhere, you discover one of
’
em skulking around, without an excuse the size of the Grand Canyon, you will check, check, and then check some more.
Right now Jimmy was checking some more. He understood the signal. A couple of days ago, Wednesday evening, one of the guys in a SOSUS listening station on the other side of the ocean had picked up a Russian nuclear submarine running quietly down the Atlantic west of Ireland.
He downloaded the signal immediately, then logged into his Classified Intelligence CD-ROM and turned to the section on Russia. He pressed
SEARCH
and scanned for the 50-hertz line, which, in turn, revealed the Sierra I list. It seemed these old Soviet warhorses had at last been phased out with the old ALFA class. But the American did find a couple of Sierra II’s, Kondor Class Type 945A’s based in the Northern Fleet at Araguba. There were no Sierra I’s.
So he hit
SEARCH
again, looking for any and all Sierras still floating. And he came up with just one, a ship called the
Tula,
stationed in Araguba, Hull K-239, a Sierra I,
Barracuda Class Type945.
“
It’s fucking Razormouth! H-o-o-o-o-l-y shit!
” he yelled to his empty office.
And then, “No. Wait a minute. It can’t be. Razormouth’s in Petropavlovsk. I checked it in myself, straight into a covered dock, beginning of last September…lemme see…hold hard…yeah…here we go…sighted it eight times since then, making short patrols. Probably Sea Trials. It’s always back in the evening, because we always catch it at the same time. Last sighting…February 3.”
Lieutenant Ramshawe knew beyond any doubt that whatever the guys in Pembrokeshire heard, it was NOT, repeat NOT, the
Barracuda,
Hull K-239. Because there was no way that ship could have got within ten thousand miles of the west coast of Ireland in three days.
“Mind you,” he told himself, “they never said it did. They just said they picked up some lines. I suppose they could have hauled a second
Barracuda
out of mothballs, if they’ve got one. But Jesus…the west coast of Ireland is a bloody long way from home, for an old ship that’s been out of service for several years. Beats the shit out of me.”
Nonetheless, Jimmy Ramshawe was left with a puzzle. If Admiral Arnie found out there was a rogue Russian submarine running loose in the Atlantic and no one knew anything about it, there’d be hell to pay. He requested a copy of the last signal asking the Russians for an explanation, found it, and noted Moscow still had not replied.
Then he sent a message to Rear Adm. George Morris suggesting they send another, this time personally to the Commander-in-Chief, the Admiral of the Fleet, Vitaly Rankov.
George Morris knew this ex-Soviet battle cruiser Commander was a former Intelligence officer and a friend of Arnold Morgan. He also knew that if Rankov did not reply to a communiqué from Washington, Admiral Morgan would be on the telephone to him. He expected that Admiral Rankov would not view that possibility with much enthusiasm, and would probably reply soonest. He told Ramshawe to resend the signal to Moscow. It took two more days for the giant ex-Soviet Olympic oarsman
to send an answer, personal to Admiral Morris, who sensed it was carefully worded, in the extreme:
“111200FEB08. The Russian Navy currently has no patrols in that part of the Atlantic. We have only the two Kondors moored alongside in the Northern Fleet. And one
Barracuda
Class conducting trials out of Petropavlovsk. Your operators could be mistaken. I am told there is sometimes a similarity between our boats and the new French nuclear SSN, which is replacing their old Rubis Class. It’s not yet named, but it is working in the Atlantic out of Toulon. The French refer to that program as Project Barracuda. Sorry can be no more help. Rankov (Commander-in-Chief).”
Admiral Morris called Lieutenant Ramshawe into his office to examine the reply. They both came to the same conclusion. It did not state flatly there was no Russian-built submarine there. Only that they were not patroling that part of the Atlantic. Which was slightly different. But the reply had been sufficiently friendly, and sufficiently helpful to make another communiqué seem rude, unnecessary, and undiplomatic. Admiral Morris would have to let the matter rest. As Vitaly Rankov knew he would. He was, of course, keenly aware of the 600 million reasons he had for remaining very discreet about Chinese activities.
Jimmy Ramshawe left the Director’s office muttering, “From what I can see, there’s bloody
Barracuda
s all over the place—but at least the French have warm water.” He returned to his own office, concerned that there was no further information they could present to the President’s National Security Adviser, no hard copy whatsoever on the identity of the disappearing submarine. Jimmy was frowning when he entered Admiral Rankov’s message into his mystery file. Right next to Old Razormouth.