The Trident Deception (20 page)

Captain Santos frowned. “I’m afraid the news gets worse…”

29

PEARL HARBOR

At the western end of Waikiki, the early morning shadows of tall beachfront hotels retreated slowly across Ala Moana Boulevard as suburbanites flowed into the city; the traffic backups, which would eventually extend all the way to Ewa, were already ten miles long. Halfway down the ten-mile backup, cars flowed steadily into Pearl Harbor, the gate sentries checking IDs and waving drivers on. After a right on North Road and a left on Nimitz Street, traffic entering the submarine base was light, as the nineteen submarines and their crews were at sea this morning. On the second floor of COMSUBPAC headquarters, overlooking the usually bustling Morton Street and submarine piers, the silence was especially noticeable as Murray Wilson braced for Admiral Stanbury’s reaction to the startling information he had just received.

Stanbury was standing behind his desk, his face turning redder by the second, until finally he spat out the words. “Our entire fast-attack fleet is blind?”

“Technically, they’re deaf, but yes, sir,” Wilson replied. “None of them can see the
Kentucky
on their sonar screens. They all have the latest sonar upgrade.”

“Can they revert to the previous version?”

“No, sir. The upgrade involved not only new algorithms but also new hardware. We can’t reload the old algorithms onto the new hardware because the middleware hasn’t been developed.”

The admiral’s hands clenched into fists. Glancing down at Stanbury’s desk, Wilson checked for the presence of a replacement ceramic coffee cup. It seemed another one might fly across the office. Luckily, only Styrofoam cups littered the admiral’s desk.

Stanbury unclenched his fists, exhaling slowly. “Is NAVSEA working on a fix?”

“Yes, sir. But it’ll take time, and they’re not sure if they’ll be able to download the new software over the submarine broadcast. Loading new middleware is a bit tricky, apparently.”

“What do we do in the meantime?”

“I recommend we pull our fast attacks back into the third tier of the layered defense, behind the P-3Cs and Surface Fleet, instead of up front. That will buy us some time in case NAVSEA can develop a fix we can download over the broadcast.”

“Fine. Coordinate with PAC Fleet.”

Wilson looked down at the chart of the Pacific Ocean on the admiral’s conference table, annotated with the three-layer ASW barrier across the entrance to Emerald. They had surged the entire submarine fleet to sea in a single day, for all the good that had done them; their whole fast-attack fleet was impotent. However, there was one option remaining. As he assessed the risk, Stanbury apparently noticed the concern on his face.

“What?” Stanbury asked. “What else has gone wrong?”

“Nothing else has gone wrong, Admiral.”

“Then what is it?”

“Not all of our fast attacks are blind. The
North Carolina
hasn’t received the sonar upgrade yet.”

Stanbury’s eyes brightened. “Where is she now?”

“She’s in the local operating areas, on sea trials following her extended maintenance period. But the crew’s not certified to deploy.”

“Certified or not,” the admiral replied, “she’s the only submarine with a chance to find the
Kentucky
.”

“There’s one more thing, Admiral. The
North Carolina
has only two torpedoes aboard, and we don’t have time to pull her in and load more.”

Stanbury stared at Wilson for a moment, no doubt evaluating the prospect of sending a submarine into battle with only two torpedoes. But the
North Carolina
was their only hope. It didn’t take long for the admiral to decide. “If they do things right, two torpedoes are all they’ll need. Send her after the
Kentucky
.”

30

KAUAI, HAWAII

Eight miles off the southern shore of Kauai, Cindy Corey spread her arms out along the transom of her husband’s twenty-five-foot Sea Hunt center console. Randy was busy in the bow, checking their position on the Garmin GPS marine navigator, verifying they had reached the spot their friend Scott had recommended, where the ono—nice twenty to twenty-five pounders—would practically jump into the boat. While Randy’s pastime didn’t interest Cindy at all—her idea of fishing was trolling her finger down the seafood restaurant’s menu—she couldn’t pass on a day off with her husband, relaxing in her two-piece fluorescent orange bikini, soaking up the rays. She leaned back, closing her eyes as she lifted her face up toward the sun, and … got the weird feeling she was being watched.

Tilting her head forward and opening her eyes, she checked on Randy, but he was busy with the fish finder now, oblivious of her concern. The feeling passed as quickly as it had arrived, and Cindy shrugged off her uneasiness after she scanned the horizon for other boats. While they had passed a dozen or so on their way out, there were currently none within eyesight, just the distant shore of Kauai behind her. After retrieving a Diet Coke from the cooler near her feet and sliding it into a koozie, she got that feeling again, that nagging sixth sense of hers that was rarely wrong.

The feeling she was being watched passed again, and Cindy began to think it was just her guilty conscience. Both she and Randy had called in sick this morning; the day was too beautiful to spend indoors cooped up in their office cubes. But as she took a sip of her Coke, she got that feeling yet again; it seemed to be arriving at regular intervals, like clockwork.

*   *   *

Seven hundred yards to the south of Cindy and her husband, the USS
North Carolina
cruised at periscope depth, the top of its port periscope sticking just above the ocean’s surface, pausing momentarily from its clockwise rotation to examine Master seven-nine again, a pleasure craft drifting just off the submarine’s starboard beam. Standing behind the Officer of the Deck at his Tactical Workstation, a weary Commander Dennis Gallagher monitored the performance of his crew as they waited to download the latest radio broadcast through the receiver on top of the scope. After endless months in the shipyard, this week had been the first opportunity to knock off the rust that had collected on the crew’s proficiency. Over the last seven days, Gallagher had put the ship and his crew through its paces, and it hadn’t been pretty.

Gallagher had rarely left Control during the last week, watching warily as the crew conducted routine operations and responded to emergency ship control drills. But even a simple trip to periscope depth was not an easy evolution for a rusty crew. Each watch section had broached the submarine three times the first few days while going to PD, going all the way to the surface instead of leveling off four feet below as ordered. And if the crew’s lack of proficiency executing routine evolutions was any indication of their present skills, it was no surprise the emergency drills had gone even worse.

But after a week under way, the crew had recovered its skills in basic seamanship and tactics. Sonar was coming up to speed, easily scrolling through the numerous contacts in the local waters off the Hawaiian Islands, sending data to fire control technicians, who quickly generated target solutions. This approach to periscope depth had gone smoothly, the ship rising steadily, leveling off without even a foot of overshoot. The eight-thousand-ton submarine glided at periscope depth, the top of her sail four feet below the surface of the water.

Gallagher watched the periscope display as the Officer of the Deck rotated the periscope steadily, searching for contacts headed their way. Unlike other submarine classes, the
Virginia
-class fast attacks were built with new photonics periscopes that didn’t penetrate the ship’s pressure hull. Instead of manually rotating the scope, walking round and round on the Conn, the OOD turned the scope with a twist of his wrist, his hand on a joystick, switching the scope between low and high power periodically with a flick of the toggle on the joystick controller. The Officer of the Deck was a split-tour junior officer from one of the 688s and his experience showed, the periscope rotating at just the right speed, pausing to monitor the unsuspecting pleasure craft off their starboard beam at regular intervals, like clockwork.

The crew had begun to ease into their routine, and the tense orders and curt reports that punctuated the ship’s first few days at sea had been replaced with bland formality. And now, Gallagher heard what he’d been waiting for.

“Conn, Sonar. Have a new contact, bearing zero-seven-zero, triangulation range eight hundred yards, classified biologics. Looks like a whale has fallen in love with us.”

Some of the watchstanders in Control chuckled, and Gallagher relaxed for the first time since he’d cast off the last mooring line. The crew was comfortable at sea again, at ease with their ship and the rigorous demands of their duties on watch. His men had a lot of potential, and after a few months working up for their deployment, he was sure they’d be the best submarine crew in Pearl Harbor.

Before Gallagher headed deep to continue the morning’s training evolutions, he ordered Radio to download the latest message traffic. “Radio, Captain. Download the broadcast.”

Radio acknowledged, and a few minutes later, the radioman’s voice came across the 27-MC. “Conn, Radio. Download complete.”

Gallagher turned to his Officer of the Deck. “Bring her down to two hundred feet.”

The OOD acknowledged, and with a twist of the joystick, he swung the periscope around toward the bow. “Pilot, ahead two-thirds. Make your depth two hundred feet.”

That was one of the hardest things to get used to. The four watchstanders on previous submarines—the Helm and the Outboard, who manipulated the submarine’s rudder and control surfaces, as well as the Diving Officer and the Chief of the Watch—had been replaced by two watchstanders: the Pilot and Co-pilot, who sat at the Ship Control Panel. The Pilot controlled the submarine’s course and depth while the Co-pilot adjusted the submarine’s buoyancy and raised and lowered the masts and antennas. Why aircraft terminology had been chosen to identify the two watchstanders instead of the traditional Helm and Outboard confounded Gallagher; it was a horrendous break in tradition. However, no one had called him in the middle of the night to ask his opinion, and the decision had been made.

Pilot and Co-pilot they were.

Then there was the newfangled design of the
Virginia
-class Control Room, with Sonar in Control instead of a separate room, the sonar consoles lining the port side of the ship with the combat control consoles on starboard. Even though the Sonar Supervisor stood only a few feet away from the Officer of the Deck, reports were still made over an announcing circuit, the supervisor speaking into a microphone. Finally, even the periscopes weren’t called periscopes. They were referred to as photonics masts on the
Virginia
-class submarines. Gallagher shook his head.

The Pilot entered the ahead two-thirds command, and the ship slowly picked up speed, the bow tilting downward as the ship descended to two hundred feet.

A few seconds later, as the OOD lowered the photonics mast, the quiet in Control was broken by Radio’s announcement over the 27-MC.

“Conn, Radio. Request the Captain in Radio. We have a Commanding Officer’s Eyes Only message.”

Gallagher headed into Radio, wondering about the message. Had someone’s mother or father died? Had one of the crew popped positive for drugs on his last urinalysis? A half dozen other potential reasons for receiving a CO’s Eyes Only message while the ship was operating in local waters ran through his mind.

Stopping by the printer, Gallagher announced, “Ready.”

The radioman on watch tapped a few buttons, initiating the printout. A few seconds later, the message slid out from the printer. The header was standard for a CO’s Eyes Only message, but the content was unlike any he’d read, and not one he’d expected to get on the
North Carolina
’s sea trials. He read the message again, slowly this time, then a third time. Finally, he folded the message and slid it into the breast pocket of his uniform, trying hard not to let the radioman see his reaction.

Taking a deep breath, he returned to Control and stopped by the nav display, reviewing the navigation hazards and water depth to the west. After verifying the last GPS satellite fix was properly entered, Gallagher turned to the Officer of the Deck.

“Bring her around to course two-seven-zero. Increase speed to ahead flank.”

6 DAYS REMAINING

31

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Dark gray clouds were rolling in from the west as a black Lincoln Town Car turned left on E Street, passing between the White House on the right and the President’s Park South on the left. In the backseat of the sedan, Christine gazed through tinted windows at the Colorado blue spruce that dominated the Ellipse, as the park was commonly called. The forty-foot-tall spruce, transformed each winter into the National Christmas Tree, marked the end of the Pathway of Peace, a trail lined by fifty-six smaller trees, also decorated during the Christmas season, representing the fifty states, five American territories, and the District of Columbia.

As the car slowed for a right-hand turn onto West Executive Avenue, returning Christine to the White House for her meeting with the president, her thoughts dwelt on the lunchtime discussion she and Captain Brackman had just concluded with the secretary of defense. The private meeting had not gone well. It wasn’t that she didn’t get along with Nick Williams. Compared with her relationship with Hardison, she and the SecDef were the best of friends. However, the news Williams had relayed concerning their submarine sonar systems was disconcerting. It was obvious that the plan to launch the
Kentuck
y’s missiles was multifaceted and meticulously prepared.

Brackman had remained at the Pentagon for additional discussions and would return shortly for their meeting with the president. As Christine wondered what additional issues required his attention, her car pulled to a stop under the West Wing’s North Portico and she stepped from the sedan, passing between two Marines in dress blues guarding the formal entrance to the West Wing. Christine stopped in her office for a half hour, reading e-mail and attempting to catch up on the more critical issues she’d been neglecting. After checking her watch, she headed down the hallway toward the Oval Office. She was exactly on time, and Hardison and Brackman were already seated across from the president. She took her seat between them.