Straits of Power

people did final checks on the receivers and the decryption gear. They also tested the connections to the raft antenna, threading inside the winch cable on its drum in Ohio’s sail. All was in order. Every transmitter was cold, long switched off, and would stay switched off, to avoid the slightest chance of an accidental signal being sent out that would ruin the undersea task-group’s stealth.

“Raft on the surface,” a technician announced a few minutes later. “SHF mast deploying…. Good contact on the satellite.” Equipment in the small space came alive. Recorders began to run, digital signal-strength meters fluctuated, and red and green indicator lights flickered rapidly.

Parcelli addressed the radio-room phone talker as the download came in. “Chief of the watch is to prepare to retract the raft on my order.”

The phone talker spoke into his mike, then listened. “Chief of the watch acknowledges, retract raft on your order, aye.”

“Download complete!” the communications officer called out, sounding jumpy.

“Phone talker,” Parcelli snapped. “Retract the raft.”

“Chief o’ the watch acknowledges raft retracting, sir.”

“Very well… Radio, decrypt the download.”

“Header decoded, sir. Message is to Commander, Task Group 47.2, personal, copy to CO, Ohio, personal.”

“Sir,” the phone talker said, “XO reports no threats detected yet.”

“Very well,” Jeffrey said. Maybe we got away with it. Nobody noticed the raft. “Give me the disk when the decrypt is completed. Captain Parcelli, may we use your stateroom?”

Jeffrey waited while the decoding computers continued to run. The time they were taking suggested that either an extremely long text message had come in, or the message included a heavy amount of supporting numerical data. Or both.

“Decrypt complete, sir,” a senior chief said.

“Give the disk to Captain Fuller,” the lieutenant (j.g.) ordered.

Jeffrey took the disk in his hand, holding it by the edges so he wouldn’t get fingerprints on its surface. They left the radio room and went into Parcelli’s cabin. They used Parcelli’s laptop to read the disk.

The message began with a cover memo that referenced a number of attachments. Several were raw acoustic recordings from a Los Angeles submarine’s sonars. Those would be very data intensive, for sure.

There were also several reports and analyses attached, including — this caught Jeffrey’s attention — one that mentioned work performed by Ilse Reebeck.

But the cover memo itself was enough.

Jeffrey and Parcelli looked at each other.

“So the Russians have a new, extremely quiet fast-attack sub loose somewhere in the Atlantic.” Parcelli’s usually unflappable expression seemed worried. “Our paths might cross. This isn’t good. We know too little about her. She might detect us and we wouldn’t even be aware of it.”

“Concur,” Jeffrey said. “At least she won’t fire on us…. But she may pass a contact report to her base, and from there to Moscow, and from there to Berlin. If she sees us in the North Atlantic, steering east, our cover of heading south to Durban is ruined, totally blown. The Germans could deduce real easy from our latitude that we’re aimed for the Med. And the Texas sacrifice by Dreadnought right outside Gibraltar? Instead of a diversion, it becomes the circumstantial proof that we’re definitely there.”

“What are your orders?”

“Like Hodgkiss says, press on. Be doubly on our guard.”

“And pray.”

“Yeah,” Jeffrey said. “It’s a very big ocean around us. We might not come within a thousand miles of the 868U.”

“But what if the Axis or their Kremlin friends suspect our side will be doing something aggressive, given the German buildup on the eastern North Africa front? What if this Snow Tiger is abusing her neutrality to establish a barrier patrol outside Gibraltar? What if instead of a very big ocean, she’s been deployed specifically to hunt for something like our task group at the most obvious, the only choke point? She doesn’t need to fire at us. She just needs to warn the Axis defenses by radio or a laser buoy. The Germans in the Med can take care of themselves if they know what to look for. Once we’re caught inside there, it’d be like them shooting fish in a barrel.”

“Get me two copies of this disk to take back to Challenger. Your sonar people and mine can each go over the sound profile of the Snow Tiger, and I want to examine what’s on here myself alone in my stateroom.” Jeffrey exhaled, displeased by the ever-mounting complications. “I’ll leave Estabo and his SEALs with you and McCollough until our next rendezvous. They need the special-warfare planning and rehearsal facilities now more than ever. The simple existence of this Snow Tiger requires more caution, but caution would cost us time in the Atlantic and then in the Med, which could give the extraction team too little slack when they get to Istanbul.”

Parcelli nodded soberly. “The master schedule’s locked in. The Texas business and then the defector snatch, hopefully soon enough for Peapod to help us before Pandora is launched. Hodgkiss sees what we see. He knows that if there’s any delay, our entire effort might collapse on itself.”

“I’ll grab my officers and Parker and Salih and head back to Challenger at once. Recall your ASDS from visiting my ship.”

“And then?”

“We resume our tactical formation for steaming east. You high, me low, and I range ahead as the scout. You trail your towed array, I use terrain for concealment. The key to eluding this Snow Tiger lies in who detects whom first.”

Chapter 21

Late that same afternoon, alone at her private console, Ilse was deeply immersed in seemingly self- contradictory data about the new Snow Tiger. Studying on-line references about known and historical Russian submarine design approaches made her even more confused.

Johansen burst into the room. Ilse stood up and mentally pulled herself together. “Sir?”

“METOC won’t admit it, but it appears that they need you after all.”

“You want me back in the war room?”

“No. Continue here. Take this.”

Ilse reached out and palmed a disk. “What is it?”

“That’s what METOC wants to know. You tell me, and I’ll tell Admiral Hodgkiss.”

“But, I mean, what is it?”

“It’s a sound. Something strange. They’re not even sure it’s real. It might be an artifact of the signal- processing algorithms having a flaw, or electronic noise internal to the system and they just can’t pinpoint the defect.”

“Such things happen.”

“Don’t let what I say bias you. The admiral thinks it would be opportune if you could identify the sound for sure, and soon. Think outside the box. He said you’re supposed to be good at that…. I have a meeting. Good luck.”

Johansen left.

Ilse shrugged to herself. She inserted the disk from METOC into a reader on her console and went to work.

The disk had a text explanation. The data included a noise recording made a few hours ago, by a navy ocean rover patrolling over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge close to the equator. Ilse put on the headphones that came with the console. She tapped keys to replay the sound, then closed her eyes and listened.

A rushing, whooshing noise rose in strength and then fell. Ilse displayed its power spectrum over time — a