Straits of Power

“Generically? The last place the Allies would look.”

“And where is that place, specifically, today?” Jeffrey’s role as CO was to teach his subordinates constantly. Making them answer probing questions was an effective way to do that.

The teaching and learning don’t stop just because there’s a war — they become more indispensable than ever.

“Can I close Ohio’s message and bring up a chart?”

“Go ahead.” Jeffrey and Bell often worked like this, elbow to elbow, sharing one or the other’s console. Such brainstorming had always been vital in the Silent Service, and Jeffrey prided himself on being especially good at it — when the other party played ball.

Bell tapped keys. A nautical chart appeared on the screen. “I’d have to say, sir, if I were them, rendezvous close to the bottom, to hide in folds in the seafloor terrain.”

“That still covers a lot of ground,” Jeffrey said. “Now that you have the map, where would you pick the place?”

“If I was some devious admiral in my office in Berlin, I’d tell the Two-twelve attack subs and their Two- fourteen meal ticket back to the fatherland to get it on closer to Norfolk than the point where they launched the cruise missiles.”

Jeffrey stared at the chart. “XO, I concur.” Then he frowned. “This means we have a problem.”

“There’s a third Axis sub in the area, and Parcelli doesn’t know it. And the Two-fourteen has her own torpedoes, ready to fire.”

“Our task group companion allows us no choice, XO. We’ll have to run interference for Ohio, and take some risks ourselves.” Jeffrey cursed to himself all over again. None of this had been part of the plan. Now anything could happen thanks to Parcelli… including Zeno being stranded, and Pandora running wild. “What do we have in the tubes?”

“Weps?” Bell asked Torelli; Weps was the nickname for weapons officer.

“Six high-explosive ADCAPs, tubes one through six. Two brilliant decoys, sir, tubes seven and eight.” Torelli spoke with a thick southern accent; he’d grown up near Memphis.

“Perfect,” Jeffrey said. Navy practice demanded that a captain always state his intentions. “We’ll use snap shots from tubes one and two if something sudden and bad happens. Be ready on the antitorpedo rockets…. Sonar? Nav? Fire Control?” Milgrom and Sessions turned; Bell and Torelli remained attentive.

I’ve got to think fast with my people, and make up a search-and-attack scheme on the fly.

“Ohio is heading northeast at her flank speed to engage the pair of class Two- twelves that launched those missiles. We will proceed in Ohio’s support. There might also be a class Two-fourteen in the area, and if so, I need to know it, and I need them to know I know it before they draw a bead on Ohio. Sonar, I want to go active on maximum power.”

“Sir,” Sessions added, “we also need to watch for uncharted wrecks or hummocks on the bottom as we move.” As navigator, Sessions always had direct access to Jeffrey; part of his job was keeping the ship from running aground — especially underwater — or colliding with something.

“Concur, Nav. Clearance here is narrower than a shoe box.”

“Understood,” Bell and Milgrom said together.

“Chief of the Watch, Helmsman, rig for nap-of-seafloor cruising mode. Activate chin-mounted obstacle- avoidance sonar.”

COB and Meltzer acknowledged and worked a few switches. A false-color image of the seafloor contours, in an arc ahead of the ship, popped onto their vertical console screens. The high-frequency obstacle-avoidance sonar had sharp resolution, to identify mines, but could see on direct paths only.

The muddy bottom was rolling and rutted, a fact that was emphasized visually by the shadowed areas on the display.

Any one of those shadows could hide a Two-fourteen. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t…. But what else is new?

“Very well. Sonar, one ping.”

An undulating siren noise sounded, rising and falling in pitch. It would stop for a second, then resume, interspersed with sharp clicks and deep foghorn tones. It made loose things in the control room vibrate, and the fillings in Jeffrey’s teeth hurt. This mix of noises was used to get the most amount of information possible, while making it unlikely that a target could mask the return echo with active out-of-phase emissions of their own. Intentional bounces off the surface and bottom would even probe the places masked from the chin-mounted sonar; data on local water temperature and salinity gradients were used to interpret the complicated paths that sounds at different frequencies took.

The speed of sound in water was five times as fast as in air, but the signal still had to make the whole round-trip to a target and back for Challenger to hear any echo. It would take a full minute to search out to twenty-four miles. Longer for the complex returns off terrain and sea life to be sifted through by the signal processors and Milgrom’s sonar men, to find traces of an Axis U-boat.

Jeffrey fidgeted. He might have just tipped off the 214, and drawn incoming fire.

“No new submerged contacts, Captain,” Milgrom said.

Which means no Axis torpedoes in the water, either…. Yet.

“Nothing on Ohio?”

“Negative, sir. She must be too far ahead of us. Sound propagation conditions in these shallows are rather poor. My assessment is that she’s stern on to Challenger, not trailing a towed array because of terrain proximity, and due to her self-noise at flank speed her acoustic intercept might not have heard our ping.”

Parcelli doesn’t know I’m covering his ass…. But he might assume I am, because he forced me to. Cripes, his recklessness makes me be extra cautious, which really isn’t my style.

“Very well, Sonar,” Jeffrey said, formally acknowledging Milgrom’s report. “Fire Control, prepare a laser buoy.”

Bell looked surprised.

“We need to protect against a blue-on-blue.” “Blue-on-blue” meant a friendly fire accident.

“Wouldn’t our coastal hydrophone nets detect us and Ohio?”

And, by implication, warn off American antisubmarine platforms.

“They should. The captain of Ohio seems to be counting on that.” To be fair, Parcelli couldn’t launch a laser buoy himself, it would compromise his stealth; no one’s supposed to know he’s even here. And I can’t ask that orders be sent to him to break off his chase, because if our comms are penetrated, I could get him killed.

“Things malfunction, XO, and people make mistakes, and news might not get where it needs to go soon enough.”

“Understood. Buoy-transmission time delay, sir?”

“To the enemy our stealth is gone, so… short. Make it one minute.”

“Message?”

Jeffrey thought hard. He dared not name Ohio in his message, but he needed to work in clues so Hodgkiss could figure out what was happening and issue the proper commands, pronto.

This should do it. Subtle, but Hodgkiss, a submariner, is very smart…. I won’t identify myself in the message either, just in case some clerk in the loop is an Axis agent, but the admiral will know it’s from Challenger because of this location.

Gamal Salih had said it well: spies and lies. Jeffrey had never thought he’d need to be so paranoid. He cleared his throat — the dust he’d breathed in still bothered him.

“Flash, personal for ComLanFlt. Am in necessary pursuit U-boats that launched missiles. Base course zero- four-five.” I say necessary pursuit, and say base course, not my base course, suggesting that someone else’s course is involved. “Prob Two-fourteen in area.” That’s the zinger. “Urge friendly coastal-defense units weapons tight.” No