Authors: Rich Goldhaber
Captain Stewart set the plane down on the
very long MacDill runway, and then taxied over to
where Blaine and I had parked our plane the day
before. By the time she had turned off the engines,
Major Connors and a group of soldiers and civilians had gathered around our plane. Ami opened
the door to the 737 and saluted Major Connors. He
returned the salute. As a truck with an attached
stairway moved up to the airplane, Captain Stewart said, “Major, we come bearing gifts.”
The MacDill survivor’s eyes lit up as the
campus crew began unloading the solar arrays and
fresh produce. As the plane was being unloaded, I
introduced Bill and his team to the major and Sergeant Gomez.
Blaine’s aircraft was the next to arrive, and
after it parked near our plane, I introduced Manny
Garcia. I could hear the thumping of the chopper’s
blades as it flew in from the east and set down on
the tarmac near the other two planes. I introduced
Jessie Bolden to the MacDill people, and then our
entire team followed the major into the war planning building we had been using the day before.
Back in the general’s conference room we
were treated to coffee and some Oreo Cookies. Bill
asked, “Is this the building we need to power up?”
The major answered, “Yes, this is our
Threat Assessment Center. If we can power this
place up, then we can access our military spy satellites.”
Sergeant Gomez answered, “We’ve got a
cherry picker at the motor pool. We can use it to
lift all of your supplies up onto the roof.”
Major Connors said, “Sergeant Gomez, I
want you and your men to give the Naples crew all
the help they need in setting up the solar array.”
The meeting ended quickly, and everyone
walked outside to assist Bill and his team. On the
way out, Major Connors stopped me and asked,
“You said Jessie is one of your governors. Isn’t she
a little young to be one of your leaders?”
I looked at the major and smiled. “Major
you will learn she has this rare skill to be able to
see the future, not like a psychic, just like an excellent long-term strategic planner, and she’s a
great people person. My advice is if she says something, then listen up, because it’s likely to make a
lot of sense.”
The cherry picker arrived along with a pallet truck to move the fresh produce and other
equipment. It was almost noon before Bill’s crew
began assembling the solar array on top of the
building’s roof. I watched them work and realized
how good these men and women were at their newly acquired skill.
Jessie was leading the crew working on
mounting the inverter control system and arranging two dozen batteries in a room on the top floor
of the building just above the electrical utility service box located on a concrete pad at ground level.
A retired electrician from Cape Coral was wiring up
the system.
We stopped for lunch, quick box lunches
prepared by Beth and her staff. The major said,
“My God, fresh baked bread. It seems like forever
since I had fresh bread. Where does it come from?”
As we were finishing our lunch, a convoy of
military vehicles approached the group. Major
Connors said, “This will be Lieutenant Monroe and
his team.”
The electrical part of the project was completed and Jessie, the Major and I walked over to
Lieutenant Monroe and his men. I introduced Jessie, and Vince Monroe made the introductions of
his team. We looked in the back of the first truck,
and I was shocked to see pallets of weapons, ammunition, and special equipment. Two other trucks
were filled with more of the same.
After receiving his final orders from Major
Connors, the three trucks left for Naples in a convoy of three trucks and two Hummers.
It was a little after four o’clock when Bill’s
team was ready to test the solar array. He flipped a
circuit breaker on the inverter control panel and
the lights came on in the Threat Assessment Center. A cheer went up from everyone on the tarmac.
Major Connors walked to Bill and gave him a hug;
very unmilitary I thought.
I followed the Major and some of his people
into a large room located on the building’s second
floor. The Major turned to a young soldier who was
probably in his mid-twenties. “Private Duncan, it’s
time for you to do your thing.”
The skinny young soldier began flipping
switches, and a variety of systems came to life. He
sat down at a console surrounded by large computer monitors and began typing into a computer.
“Sir, I have established communications with one
of our military satellites in low orbit over the United States.”
Major Connors said, “Private Duncan, you
have the GPS coordinates of the Tampa area.
Please task all the satellites to maintain tracking of
the area.”
The major indicated the satellite would
need an hour to begin monitoring the Tampa area.
“This particular satellite is in a low earth orbit and
will circle the planet every ninety-three minutes.
We’ll have a couple dozen birds keeping a constant
watch over the Tampa area. Lieutenant Monroe is
bringing telecommunications equipment with him.
Other military satellites will allow him to communicate with us and also his people.”
Connors said, “No, they operate differently.
When you use a commercial satellite phone, you
uplink your call to a commercial satellite. It, in
turn, downloads your voice to one of only a few
base stations in the United States and Europe, and
then it goes by normal landlines to the eventual
person you’re calling.
“Military communication satellites are different. Our phone system is managed entirely by a
group of global satellites. We can’t afford to be tied
down to landlines. One well-placed nuclear weapon
would bring the whole system down.”
Jessie asked again, “But if we have military
satellite phones, can we call anyone in the country
that has a military satellite phone?”
Connors answered, “We’ve got maybe a
couple thousand on the base. We pass them out to
our troops that are being deployed into a combat
zone.”
Captain Stewart, who had been standing
nearby observing the startup of the military’s hightech communication system, said, “Major, we need
to head back to Naples soon. I want to land while
it’s still daylight.”
Major Connors said, “Sergeant Gomez,
please gather the residents who wanted to transfer
to the university. They need to be on the tarmac in
half an hour.”
The sergeant left to find the residents.
Luckily, they had already packed their belongings
and many were already waiting near the 737, ready
to be transported to a better life. Jessie carried a
couple dozen military satellite phones into the helicopter, and we took off for Naples about an hour
before sundown.
We arrived back at the Fort Myers airport a
little before sunset. Stan had prepositioned several
U-Haul trucks, and a yellow school bus was waiting to receive our new residents.
It was after seven o’clock before everyone
had been checked in at Margaret’s desk and had
settled into their new accommodations. Beth,
knowing we would be hungry, arranged for an assortment of cold leftovers and fresh fruit for the
late arrivals.
The kids from MacDill, who we had brought
here yesterday, ran up to the new arrivals and
greeted them all. There were plenty of smiling faces
to go around, and our newest residents stared in
amazement at the spread Beth’s people had prepared.
Lieutenant Monroe and his team arrived as
we were having dinner. We invited them all to join
us, and they filled their plates with smiling faces.
After dinner, Monroe set up a satellite phone and
laptop computer just outside the dining tent. He
turned on the system and positioned the transmitting and receiving dish until the signal registered
maximum. He then called the Threat Assessment
Center. Private Duncan received the call. “Major
Connors, Lieutenant Monroe is on the phone.”
“We’ve arrived at the campus Sir; pretty
impressive digs; I think I’m going to put in for a
permanent transfer.”
“Well, not for a while Lieutenant. I’m going
to transmit the latest pictures of the area just east
of Tampa. As our scouts have been telling us there
appear to be a large group of thugs congregating
just west of Route 75.”
“Yes Sir, we’re getting the pictures right
now. I’ll store them in memory so we can look for
any changes in their deployment.”
I couldn’t believe the clarity of these pictures. As the lieutenant zoomed in on the group,
you could distinguish objects no more than a few
inches apart. To think, the government had this
capability to spy on Americans anytime they chose.
I wondered whether they ever did.”
The major asked the lieutenant to report in
again after his group had arrived at the dairy farm.
Lieutenant Monroe took out two military phones
and showed us how they worked. He added his
phone number and the major’s phone number to
the directories and then did the same for our two
new numbers in his phone. Now we were able to
contact each other as long as we were outdoors, a
minor inconvenience.
I checked in on Jasmine and Hunter. They
were both doing their homework. Each was filling
out a math worksheet. Hunter had simple addition
and subtraction, and Jasmine was working on
some geometry problems. They were both hard at
work, and I wondered whether all of the kids were
as equally motivated. I’d have to talk to Janet to
see how all our young scholars were doing.
Captain Sanchez was sitting in his cabin
reading a book for the third time when he heard
over the P.A. system, “Captain Sanchez, please
come to the Sonar center.”
Sanchez immediately walked quickly to the
ship’s sonar control center. The ship’s head sonar
technician was sitting at his station with his earphones on. Seaman First Class Freddie Boyle removed his headset and said, “Captain, we’re picking up a sonar signal from a submarine. I put the
sonar data in our computer, and the computer
thinks it’s the Akula, a Russian Typhoon Class
sub.”
“About thirty miles off our port bow. We’re
on intersecting paths. Our paths will cross in
about one hour.”
Sanchez considered the situation. Apparently they were not alone in the ocean. He assumed the captain of the Russian submarine
would have lost touch with his home port just like
the Jimmy Carter had. So the key questions were
why was the sub here, and what were their intentions?
Sanchez discounted any hostile action. This
wasn’t about the cold war, this was about survival.
Perhaps the Akula was on a reconnaissance mission just like the Jimmy Carter.
There were three options as Sanchez analyzed the problem. They could avoid any contact
and just let the Akula continue on its course. They
could follow the Akula to better understand the
ship’s intentions, or they could make contact with
the submarine and exchange information.
Captain Sanchez made up his mind. “Freddie, I’m going to meet with the other officers. Let
me know if the Akula changes course.”
Sanchez got on the P.A. system and asked
the officers to meet in the officer’s mess. Ten
minutes later they were all gathered in the officer’s
galley and Sanchez explained the situation. “Inputs
gentlemen?”
Gordy Phillips said, “The games of cat and
mouse are over sir. Unless the Captain of the Russian ship is crazy, they have no hostile intentions;
and the Russians don’t put crazies on their newest
class submarines. I think the highest probability is
that they’re just like us; trying to figure out what
the hell’s going on.”
Sanchez smiled. His Executive Officer was
the best. Unfortunately, given the circumstances,
the guy would never get a chance to command his
own ship. “Gordy, that’s also my take on the situation. I’m thinking we should risk making contact
and see if they want to exchange information.”
An hour later the officers and the crew were
at their battle stations and within a half-mile of the
Akula. Sanchez said, “Freddie, please send out one
loud ping on your active sonar. That should wake
them up.”
The Jimmy Carter’s crew could feel the loud
ping as the sound wave moved away from the ship.
The ping would be clearly felt by the Akula leaving
little doubt regarding the origin of the sound.
Sanchez glanced at his watch and waited
for the Russian ship’s response. How long would it
take the Russian Captain to analyze the situation
and make his decision?
The Russians responded in less than thirty
seconds with their own ping. Sanchez knew the
quick response meant the Akula had known they
were nearby. The Russian passive sonar must be
getting better. “Gordy, change course and bring us
on the same heading as the Akula and then take
us slowly up to periscope depth.”
The Jimmy Carter slowly turned onto a
heading of 310 degrees and pulled parallel to the
Akula. As the Jimmy Carter rose to periscope
depth, the Akula matched its move. Sanchez ordered, “Up scope, let’s see what we can see.”
After the periscope was fully extended, Captain Sanchez looked through the optics at the other
submarine. He zoomed in on the other sub’s periscope and decided to use the periscope’s light system to flash Morse code messages to contact the
Akula. He hoped the Russian Captain knew English because he knew no Russian.