Deep Sound Channel (3 page)

"Frankly no."

Ilse pointed to his uniform blouse again, below the gold twin dolphins. She jabbed two of his ribbons. "Silver Star, Purple Heart. Somewhere in Iraq, the captain said. . . . Did it hurt much?"

"Yeah." Jeffrey wondered what this woman was all about. "It was months till I could walk again." "Feeling all right now?"

"Yes," Jeffrey said too quickly. Times when he went short on sleep, his left thigh ached badly.

"Good," Ilse said. She looked him up and down. Jeffrey met her gaze. She responded with the coldest sneer he'd ever gotten from a woman.

Ilse walked to the hatch, then glanced back at Jeffrey as she started climbing inside. "I suppose nobody's told you yet," she said. "You're coming with me on the raid." Jeffrey asked the junior officer of the deck, the JOOD, to stay with him up in the tiny cockpit on top of the sail, the conning tower, to watch and learn—maneuvering on the surface wasn't like underwater. Jeffrey glanced at the sky. The sun was noticeably higher. Today would be hot, in more ways than one.

"First question should always be, where's the wind?" Jeffrey said.

"Still light from off the stern, sir," the lieutenant (j.g.) said.

"Not that that matters much," Jeffrey said. "Subs ride so low in the water, and these days have such tiny,

stealthy sails, wind's usually the last thing you have to worry about when getting under way."

"Just like I read, sir. Just like in the simulator."

"What's the latest fallout report?" Jeffrey gestured to the intercom. Of course, he already knew the answer.

The young man cleared his throat and pressed the button. "Control, Bridge. Radiology, how's the air?"

"Milliroentgens per hour and counts per minute well inside normal tolerances, sir."

"Very well," the JOOD said.

"Good," Jeffrey said. "Frank Cable's met staff predicted that, but you should always check. Weather forecasts are still just weather forecasts."

"Understood, sir."

"Meltzer, you ever been to Diego Garcia before?" A rhetorical question, since Jeffrey had the night before reread young David's file.

"No, sir. This is my first time overseas, not counting summer cruises at Annapolis." Jeffrey looked down from his vantage point atop the sail. He'd done Naval ROTC

instead, at Purdue. "The tide's running out, from right to left. See the way that buoy's listing with the set?"

"Two knots maybe, sir. Not strong."

"The lagoon here's huge, but the opening at the north end's pretty wide. There's lots of room to ebb and flow without making nasty currents."

"Should we use our auxiliary propulsors, sir?"

"Nah. That makes things too easy." Jeffrey smiled. "We hardly ever get to ship drive on the surface, right? Besides, it's fun."

With his bullhorn Jeffrey had the deck hands take in two and three: the forward and aft breast lines that were crossed to keep the boat from sliding back and forth. Then lines one and four, the bow and stern mooring lines, were singled up. Jeffrey ordered four brought to the little capstan on the deck, the after capstan.

Ile asked for lots of slack on one and had four take a Strain.

"From here it's mostly feel," Jeffrey said. "You get the hang of it with practice. We have all these extra visual cues on the surface, but the sea state has much more effect, sonar doesn't work as well, and there are only two degrees of freedom." Gradually Challenger's bow began to lever from the tender as she rotated against the aftmost deep draft separator. Before her stern parts could make contact Jeffrey ordered all lines taken in, then had the deck gang go below.

"Control, Bridge, rudder amidships," Jeffrey commanded into the intercom. "Ahead one third, make turns for six knots." He used the bridge horn toggle to sound a lengthy blast. He checked again that all the bridge instruments were working.

Water began to surge from Challenger's shrouded pump-jet main propulsor, a design innovation first used by the Royal Navy. The turbine churned up a wake and the boat moved forward, quickly gaining steerageway.

"Subs are notorious for squishy directional control at dead-slow speeds. Know why?"

"Their rounded bows, sir, and rudders forward of the propulsor wash."

"Yup. We're moving now, so that's one less thing to worry about." Jeffrey leaned to the intercom again. "Control, Bridge. Rig for dive." He turned back to Meltzer. "That won't take them long."

"No, sir. We've been at material conditions ZEBRA and CIRCLE WILLIAM since we surfaced yesterday." "And these signify . . . ?"

"Watertight doors and fittings shut, ventilation subsystems sealed or making overpressure, except when needed for reprovisioning and maintenance." Jeffrey nodded. "The torpedomen'll be starting final assembly of the special weapons warheads now, and

they'll insert the exploders in our conventional ADCAPs too. . . . Now I'm gonna check for conflicting ship traffic again. You have to let the lookouts know you're relying on them, but you also need to make sure for yourself."

"I understand, sir."

"If anything goes wrong, anything at all, it's the OOD's responsibility. Get that in your blood for when you qualify."

"Yes, Commander."

"Since we're at EMCON, we can't use the Sperry BPS-16." That was Challenger's surface surveillance radar, shut down for electronic silence. "But visibility's good. Just remember we're very hard to see, 'cause of our low profile. Defensive driving counts." Jeffrey watched Meltzer take a thorough look around, practicing for when his time came.

"Frank Cable's in anchorage area A-3," Jeffrey said, "about as close to the exit channel as you can get." He leaned to the intercom. "Left standard rudder." He looked at Meltzer. "I'

m judging by eye the advance in yards and lateral transfer you'd expect for our present speed and rudder setting. The assistant navigator has all the tables."

"I've studied them very carefully, sir. In training they said we shouldn't just rely on the computer."

Jeffrey watched as Challenger turned into the channel. "Observe the wake. See the way we rotate round our pivot point? It's about a fourth of the way back along the hull, so part of the boat always swings out as we turn. That happens underwater too, but you don't get to see it."

Meltzer's lips moved silently, as if repeating what he'd heard. "Quite so, sir."

"You have to make allowances for that yaw around our track. More than one promising young naval officer has come to grief against a pier or shoal."

"I understand, sir," Meltzer said.

"The worst is if you hit another vessel in tight quarters." Meltzer swallowed.

Good, Jeffrey told himself, the kid takes this stuff seriously. "And . . . just about now." Jeffrey hit the intercom again. "Rudder amidships." The sub steadied up on heading three one five. Jeffrey smiled. "I think I timed that well."

"Very nice, sir."

"Good shiphandling," Jeffrey said, "that's the key. Nothing impresses your seniors more, or disappoints them faster."

Soon Jeffrey eyed the bridge gyrocompass again. "See, you want to keep your eyes moving constantly, take in everything, assume nothing. What's our course?" Meltzer looked at the instrument. "Still three one five, sir." Jeffrey glanced forward. "Straight down the outbound lane. Any nearby traffic?" A pause. "Negative, sir."

"Very well. . . . Ahead one third," Jeffrey said into the mike, "make normal turns." The control room acknowledged.

Jeffrey watched with satisfaction as Challenger's bow thrust the seas up on her foredeck. The water cascaded smoothly into standing wave depressions on both sides of the round black hull amidships. Some creamed up and around the curved juncture between sail forefoot and the foredeck. "That bit of streamlining's from the mid-nineties," Jeffrey said, "before your time."

"I know, sir. It reduces flow noise and helps our quieting submerged."

"I'd argue the Russians thought of it before we did." "The Akula and Typhoon classes, sir."

Now and then Jeffrey and Meltzer caught some spray. "That is one disadvantage," Jeffrey said, wiping his eyes

and laughing, "especially when you're in a heavy sea. Today's okay, though."

"It's refreshing, sir. . . . Think they'll ever come in on our side? Russia/Belarus, I mean."

"Doubtful," Jeffrey said, no humor in his voice now. "The Germans sent a message it would be hard not to hear, those two A-bombs in the Pripet Marshes on the Ukraine border. Then they backed that up with bribery, buying arms galore from Moscow."

"But what if things between us and the Axis escalate?"

"Let's just hope they don't. The Putsch leaders are coldly calculating, not insane." Jeffrey cleared his throat. "There's Eclipse Point." He gestured with his left arm.

"Downtown Diego Garcia," Meltzer said. "Such as it is." Jeffrey gazed at the water tower and big antennas and all the low white buildings. For a moment he watched Challenger's wake spread out behind, foaming steadily, also white.

"We're in the Main Pass now," Jeffrey said. "That's little West Island there to port, and Middle and East islands both to starboard. Notice how they're thickly wooded, and the big coral reefs."

"I see them, sir. We're clear."

"No swimming on the ocean side, by the way. Sharks." Jeffrey chuckled again. The submarine passed the last pair of channel buoys and entered open water. Two aircraft overtook the boat, passing low on either beam, air combat missiles on their hard points. "F-14D Tomcats," Jeffrey said. He turned to Meltzer. "A-models flew before you were born."

The two-seat Tomcats both did barrel rolls in greeting, their engine noises deafening, little trails of vapor forming spirals off their airfoils. Jeffrey and Meltzer waved. The pilots pulled back on their sticks, their afterburners brilliant in the daylight. Each riding 56,000 pounds of thrust, the aviators swept back their wings and disappeared into the clouds.

Jeffrey glanced up at Challenger's American flag, now shifted to a gaff behind the cockpit. He listened to it snapping briskly, and had to smile. Then he gripped the edge of the cockpit with both hands, facing into the relative wind off the port bow. He was way too tired to feel much emotion, just a kind of numbness and a sense of purpose.

"Challenger's first war patrol," he said aloud. God knows when I'll get some sleep. God knows if I'll be alive this time tomorrow.

"It's exciting, sir," Meltzer said. "Now we get to do our part." Then Jeffrey thought about what Ilse Reebeck had said.

He had a flashback, not his first the last few weeks. The concussion of grenades, the crackle of small-arms fire. The screams, the smells, the blood mixing with seawater. He shook his head to clear his thoughts.

It didn't work. He saw his old fiancee in his mind, looking down at him in traction, pity and revulsion in her eyes. He remembered the final time, struggling in his walker, when she just gave up and left.

Jeffrey chided himself angrily. "Duty, Meltzer," he said by way of cover. "Keep your mind on duty." "Absolutely, sir."

"You can just make out the sea state reduction system," Jeffrey said, pointing southsouthwest. "Use your binoculars, you'll get a better view." The young man took a look.

"Disc-shaped barges," Jeffrey said, "anchored to the bottom. They knock down big waves caused by storms, or ones made artificially by the enemy."

"That's a euphemism, sir," Meltzer said.

"Damn straight," Jeffrey said. "What I really meant is the tsunami from a nuclear explosion. Diego Garcia's average elevation's just four feet over mean high water."

A few minutes later Jeffrey tapped the bridge fathometer. "You been watching soundings?"

"Yes, sir," Meltzer said. "We went from fifty feet to fifteen hundred pretty quick."

"The bottom drops off fast here. It's already twenty-five hundred plus." Jeffrey thought of Ranger, and of the airfield left behind him now. He thought of the 4, 000 people on the base. Targets, he told himself. They're all juicy, sitting targets for nuclear warheads.

That PROBSUB was getting closer by the minute. It was time for Challenger to dive.

"Clear the bridge!" Jeffrey ordered. The port lookout snapped the flag gaff off its mounting. The lookouts and bridge messenger went below, then the JOOD. Jeffrey inspected the hatch and followed last. He dogged the hatch, climbed down the ladder through the sail, and checked the next hatch. A petty officer sealed the second hatch after Jeffrey confirmed the bridge was clear.

Jeffrey took the ladder to the next deck down, walked past some computer banks, and strode into the Command and Control Center, the CACC. As was standard procedure when Challenger got ready to submerge, Jeffrey as officer of the deck became the diving officer now. Wilson had the conn.

Jeffrey sat down at the two-man desk-high Q-70 command workstation, to Wilson's right. In front of Jeffrey against the forward bulkhead was the ship control station, another part of Lockheed Martin's AN/UYQ-70 control room console suite. In its left position sat COB, as chief of the watch. To COB's right sat David Meltzer, still JOOD, now acting as the helmsman. Between them was the engine order telegraph, a four-inch dial. Jeffrey buckled his seat belt.

COB was busy with the ballast and the trim. His console had valve manifold and vent and pump and moisture trap controls, air and water pressure gauges, fill-level meters, and status enunciators. One of his screens showed a flow diagram of the entire pump and tankage system, and the ship's hydraulics.

On his own active matrix LCD Jeffrey called up a copy of the digitized ship status board. He studied it very carefully. Everything that was supposed to be open was open, and everything to be closed was closed. Reports from all compartments confirmed there were no leaks, fires, or critical equipment casualties, and all checklists for submerging were complete.

"Captain," Jeffrey said, "ship is ready for dive in all respects."

"Very well," Wilson said. "Make turns for eight knots." Jeffrey picked up the 7MC microphone, a dedicated line to the men in charge back behind the reactor. "Maneuvering, Control. Make turns for eight knots." Maneuvering acknowledged. "Maneuvering acknowledges turns for eight knots," Jeffrey said.