The Trident Deception (19 page)

27

PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII

On the second floor of the COMSUBPAC N7 building, Captain Murray Wilson sat behind his desk, chewing a mouthful of a ham and cheese sandwich as he studied the three-by-four-foot sheet of trace paper on his desk. He was exhausted, having been up thirty hours since his phone call from Stanbury the previous morning, and his eyelids were becoming heavier by the minute. Not for the first time, he wished his office had windows, so he could look across the submarine wharves, the bright midday sun reflecting off the blue surface of Southeast Loch. But due to the classification of the information the N7 organization routinely dealt with, the entire building had not a single window, to prevent satellite or local recon from obtaining photos of the material within.

However, if someone had been able to photograph the material on Wilson’s desk, he would have been as perplexed as he was. The Prospective Commanding and Executive Officers had reconstructed the twenty engagements between the
Kentucky
and
Houston
during last week’s Submarine Command Course, and the information, if correct, was even more disturbing than Wilson initially thought. Each reconstruction depicted the paths traveled by the two submarines, showing where each ship was detected and the launching of torpedoes and decoys. The reconstruction of the most perplexing encounter of all, the third engagement on the first day, was on top of the stack, one corner held down by an empty coffee cup, another by the second half of Wilson’s sandwich.

The
Kentucky
had defeated the
Houston
all three times that first day, and the fast-attack submarine, convinced there was an acoustic deficiency giving away its position—a bearing gone bad on one of their pumps or perhaps a sound short between their machinery and hull—had retreated to the far corner of its operating area that night for sound-monitoring runs. After adjusting their towed array to the appropriate length, the
Houston
’s crew had driven in circles, first turning to port and then to starboard, their towed array lining up opposite them in the large underwater racetrack. Like a dog chasing its tail, the
Houston
had circled for hours analyzing its acoustic signature, looking for whatever had been giving away its position.

But there was nothing. The
Houston
was quiet, even stealthier than the standard 688 class submarine. With renewed confidence, the crew engaged the
Kentucky
the following day, convinced they had been defeated the first three times by sheer coincidence, lucky detections by the surprisingly capable ballistic missile submarine. But the next six days delivered the same discouraging results. The
Kentucky
detected and shot first every time, while the
Houston
picked up the Trident submarine only when it launched its torpedoes or after it increased speed while evading the
Houston
’s counterfire. It was as if the
Kentucky
were invisible, emitting not a single frequency of sufficient strength for the
Houston
’s sonar system to track.

It just didn’t make sense. The
Kentucky
’s crew was skilled, but the odds of detecting the
Houston
first on every encounter were staggering. In the heat of battle, Wilson had focused his attention on the
Houston
’s Sonar division, convinced the recent influx of new personnel had diluted the fast attack’s capability. But now, looking over the third reconstruction and the stack of sonar printouts on his desk, it seemed impossible the
Kentucky
had passed within one thousand yards and not been detected.

Lieutenant Jarred Crum stopped beside Wilson, dropping off a fresh cup of coffee. He could see the dark circles forming under Wilson’s eyes, and had watched the Captain’s head droop occasionally as he studied the reconstructions and sonar recordings. But this time the lieutenant delivered more than just hot coffee. “Sir, the electronic recordings from the range just arrived. I have them loaded on the computer.”

“Thanks, Jarred.” Wilson took a sip of the steaming coffee. “Put the third run on-screen.”

Crum fired up the monitor on the far wall with the remote. Two submarines appeared on the bird’s-eye view of the encounter, one blue, the other red, closing in on each other as they searched the ocean for their adversary. The
Houston
had luckily been pointed directly at the
Kentucky,
presenting the ballistic missile submarine with a nose-on profile, making the fast attack even harder to detect than usual, its Engine Room and propeller masked by the quiet bow. The
Kentucky,
unaware of the rapidly closing fast attack, continued its search until she finally detected the inbound submarine, evidenced by the
Kentucky
’s course reversal. Moments later, a MK 48 Exercise torpedo sped toward the
Houston
.

The
Kentucky
’s launch preparations had taken time, and the
Houston
had blindly plowed on, closing to within one thousand yards before the
Kentucky
’s torpedo launch transients lit up the
Houston
’s sonar screens. Wilson glanced down at the trace paper on his desk, shocked at how accurately his students had reconstructed the engagement.

“Something’s not right here.” Wilson turned to Crum. “At first I thought we had a Helen Keller sonar shack on the
Houston,
but look at these printouts.” He picked up the top folder from the stack on his desk. “There’s nothing here. Not a single tonal from the
Kentucky
.”

Crum reviewed the
Houston
’s sonar recordings as Wilson flipped through the printouts, then shrugged. “This is the first time we’ve had a Trident participate in Command Course ops for a few years. They’re quieter than our 688s and get periodic upgrades. Maybe she really is that quiet now.”

Wilson looked up at the monitor again. It showed the
Houston
passing one thousand yards abeam of the
Kentucky
before the ballistic missile submarine sped away. “It’s like the
Kentucky
is a black hole. Like she doesn’t exist.” Wilson shook his head as he folded up the track reconstruction. “Get me Admiral Caseria at NAVSEA. Someone needs to take a look at this.”

28

WASHINGTON NAVY YARD

In the southeast corner of Washington, D.C, on the northern bank of the Anacostia River, lies the oldest naval base in the country. Established in 1799, the Washington Navy Yard became the nation’s most important shipyard, building the majority of the nascent country’s first navy. Although new ships no longer slide down the slipways into the river, the Navy Yard is now home to Naval Sea Systems Command, responsible for the design of every U.S. warship and the equipment and weapons they carry.

On the second floor of a four-story redbrick building is the office of Program Executive Officer (Submarines), responsible for all things submerged—new submarines, sonar, combat control, and electronic surveillance systems, as well as new torpedoes and torpedo decoys. As Rear Admiral Steve Caseria looked out his window at the Anacostia River flowing lazily toward the Potomac, he had a simple thought for a complex problem.

You get what you pay for
.

Like a molting snake shedding its skin, several of the new
Virginia
-class submarines had lost portions of their anechoic coating, a rubberlike material covering the hull that helps isolate machinery sounds inside the submarine from the surrounding ocean. After an extended deployment, the USS
Virginia
returned to port with several sections of its hull missing their sound-silencing coating. The following two
Virginia
-class submarines were also affected, and an investigation determined the new bonding technique, implemented to save money, was not as effective as required. The process was changed for the fourth and following submarines, returning to the more expensive, but better, adhesion formula. Admiral Caseria realized he had learned the painful lesson many before him had learned.

You get what you pay for
.

But saving money, the admiral learned, was what D.C. was all about these days. Congress was tightening its wallet after a decade-long post-9/11 defense spending binge, and with sequestration kicking in, every program was feeling the pinch. And it was concerning one of those programs that the phone on his desk rang late this afternoon.

It was the call he’d been expecting.

“Murray, how have you been?” Caseria spoke into the speakerphone on his desk, so that the captain sitting in a chair opposite his desk could hear.

Wilson’s voice cackled through the speaker, the long-distance connection breaking up periodically. “Good, Admiral. Staying busy training the youngsters. And you?”

“Been busy too, Murray. We’ve got some excellent upgrades coming to the fleet soon. But I miss command. There’s nothing like the excitement of being on station.”

“I’m with you, Admiral. Not to mention the port calls.”

Caseria grinned. “Too bad I’m not around to haul your ass back to the boat anymore.”

Wilson laughed. “No need to, sir. I’ve learned my lesson. A couple of times.”

“So what’s this about, Murray? Sonar, I hear. My sonar program manager, Captain Jay Santos, is here with me. What have you got?”

“I’d like you to take a look at a set of sonar recordings from the
Houston
. She passed within one thousand yards of the
Kentucky
and her sonar systems didn’t pick up a thing. I know our Tridents are quiet, but they can’t be that quiet.”

“Where are the sonar tapes?”

“The only data pipe we have big enough goes to Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Newport division. We’re uploading the recordings now.”

Caseria looked at Captain Santos. “Can you get to the data there?”

“No problem, Admiral. Most of our expertise resides there anyway. That’d be perfect.”

“Anything else, Murray?” Caseria asked.

“That’s it, Admiral. But we need the analysis done fast.”

“We’ll get right on it. Take care, Murray.”

As Admiral Caseria pressed the End button on the speakerphone, he looked at Captain Santos. “Undetectable at one thousand yards? Not a chance. Pull the data from the
Kentucky
’s last sound trials. I want to see how quiet she really is and what tonals she has. Then tear apart the latest sonar upgrade we sent to the fleet. We need to figure out what’s going on.”

*   *   *

Seventeen hours later, standing in his third-floor office, Captain Jay Santos rolled up the last set of sonar printouts. Checking his watch to see if there would be time for lunch after his meeting with Admiral Caseria, Santos wondered why he bothered; considering what he was about to tell the admiral, he had lost his appetite. Tucking the sonar printouts under one arm, Santos left his office, descended one floor, and passed into Admiral Caseria’s atrium. The admiral’s aide looked up as Santos approached, motioning for him to enter Caseria’s office.

Santos spread out two rolls of sonar printouts, side by side, on the Admiral’s conference table. “Admiral, we have a problem.”

Caseria joined Santos at his side, examining the printouts as the captain explained. “Here are samples of what the sonar operators on the
Houston
saw. The one on the left is the broadband screen, and the one on the right is narrowband. We’ve confirmed the
Houston
passed within one thousand yards of the
Kentucky,
yet you can see here there’s no sign of the
Kentucky
whatsoever.”

“What did the sound trials data show?” Caseria asked. “Is she really that quiet?”

Santos unrolled another set of printouts, laying them on top of the first two. “These are the recordings from the
Kentucky
’s sound trials a year ago. As you can see, she has a characteristic Trident broadband signature and most of the typical narrowband tonals plus a few unique ones. These recordings were taken at four thousand yards. So, no, the
Kentucky
is no quieter than your standard Trident.”

Santos rolled out a third set of printouts. “That had a lot of my folks scratching their heads, so we ported the raw sonar data into the previous version of our fast-attack sonar systems, and you can see here that the
Kentucky
is now clearly visible on both the broadband and narrowband displays. Bottom line, Admiral—there’s a flaw in our latest sonar upgrade.”

“Have you tracked down the problem?”

“Yes, sir. But there’s more. We ported data from other submarines, both Trident and fast attack, into the latest version of our sonar upgrade to determine the extent of the problem, and the new sonar system operated perfectly.”

“I’m not following you,” Caseria said. “You just convinced me the sonar upgrade is defective, that it missed the
Kentucky
when it should have picked her up. Now you’re saying it works fine. Which is it?”

“Both, sir. The issue is that the sonar upgrade malfunctions
only
when you run the
Kentucky
’s signature through the system. We broke apart the new algorithms, and there’s a special code that nulls the
Kentucky
’s frequencies so they don’t appear on the display.”

“Why would the algorithms do that?”

Santos raised an eyebrow. “This code was inserted maliciously. These new sonar algorithms were engineered specifically so the
Kentucky
could not be detected. Someone didn’t want us to find her.”

Anger spread across Caseria’s features as he stared at the sonar printouts. “I want this tracked down to the company and individuals responsible.”

“We’re already on it, sir. Landover Engineering Systems developed these new algorithms, and I notified NCIS a few minutes ago.”

“Good. Now how much of the fleet is affected?”