Sea of Shadows

minutes. Therefore, every three minutes, the radius of the farthest-on circle increases by two thousand yards, or one nautical mile. The piece of ocean that we have to search grows by a corresponding amount. Our top speed is limited to eighteen and a half knots. So, if the sub is running away at top speed, we’ll never catch him. If he’s headed northwest toward Siraj at a dead run, every three minutes he gets a hundred and fifty yards farther ahead of us. The longer we chase him, the farther ahead he’s going to get.”

Lieutenant (jg) Sherman shook his head. “In theory that’s true, Chief. But your own calculations show that these 212s have only been covering an average distance of 13.5 nautical miles per hour. No doubt this guy can outrun us, but — based on the performance they’ve shown so far — I don’t think he will.”

“We were his last roadblock,” the chief said. “If I were him, I’d forget about sneaking around. I’d be hauling ass toward the Siraji coastline.

There’s nothing between him and Zubayr but open water.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know that,” Ensign Cooper said.

Chief McPherson gave her boss an uncertain look. “German intel on our positioning has been pretty damned good. Which probably means that sub is getting downloads from reconnaissance satellites. If he is, he already knows there aren’t any more ships in his way.”

“That could be,” Captain Bowie said. “But he can’t possibly know whether or not we’re planning to send P-3s after him.”

“That raises an excellent question,” Commander Vargas said. “Why aren’t we trying to get some P-3s? Captain Whiley is out of the game; why are we still trying to fight this thing with one foot in a bucket?”

Around the group, heads nodded in silent agreement.

“I don’t know,” Captain Bowie said. “I asked Admiral Rogers that same question. He told me that the answer was classified at a need-to-know level way above his head. He hinted that the CNO had told him that it was a matter of the highest national security.”

Commander Vargas ran her fingers through her hair. “They won’t give us backup, and the reason why they won’t give it to us is a matter of national security. What kind of sense does that make?”

Captain Bowie’s eyebrows went up. “I don’t know, Rachel. But think about this: Three nations, all of whom are members of NATO and the United Nations, have been in direct military conflict for the past few days.

A lot of political and military alliances are on the chopping block. There’s no telling what kind of bizarre diplomatic maneuvers are going on right now, or what might upset the apple cart.”

Lieutenant (jg) Sherman said, “Maybe the Saudis have clamped down on their airspace until this thing blows over. The French did that when Reagan ordered the bombing of Libya, back in the 1980s.”

“That’s possible,” Captain Bowie said. “But for right now, the brass hats don’t want us to know the reason. So we move on, and we work with what we’ve got.”

Commander Vargas said, “What we’ve got is a big piece of water and damn few assets to search it with. Anybody got any ideas on where to start?”

“I think we should sprint up to the north end of the pond,” Lieutenant (jg) Sherman said with a weak smile, “or maybe I should say ‘hobble’ … and set up a blockade off the coast of Siraj. Then we nail them when they think they’re on the home stretch.”

“Not a bad idea,” Captain Bowie said. “We may use that as our fall-back plan, but I hate to let the sub get that close to Siraj. If he slips by us then, we’ve lost him. We need to catch him down at this end of the pond, if we can.”

Commander Vargas nodded. “I agree with you, in theory. But there aren’t any choke points between here and Siraj. If we sweep the western side of the gulf, the sub can run up the eastern side. If we sweep the middle, he can slip past us on either side. We just don’t have enough assets to string a barrier all the way across the gulf.”

“Maybe we don’t have to,” Ensign Cooper said thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s not as big a pond as we think it is.”

Captain Bowie looked at him. “What have you got, Pat?”

Ensign Cooper stared at the chart. “I have to wonder where those subs have been refueling.”

“The intel weenies say they topped off in Port Suez,” Chief McPherson said. “Just after they transited the canal.”

“That would get them down the Red Sea and through the Gulf of Aden,” Ensign Cooper said. “But they wouldn’t have made it across the Arabian Sea, and certainly not all the way up to the Straits of Hormuz.”

Captain Bowie nodded. “Good call, Pat. They must have fueled up again some time after they mixed it up with the Kitty Hawk strike group. If we can figure out where, we can make a decent guess at where that last sub is going to run out of gas.”

Ensign Cooper ran a fingertip across the chart and brought it to a stop on an island at the southwest end of the Arabian Sea. “I’m betting it was here, Captain. The island of Socotra.”

The captain scratched his chin. “How did you come up with that?”

“Look at this entire operation, sir. The Germans put a lot of work into planning this. They didn’t leave a lot to chance.”

“I can’t argue with that. But how does it tell us where they stopped for fuel?”

“They had to plan for the possibility that word would be out by now,” the ensign said. “In which case ports that are friendly to the United States would be closed to them.”

“Makes sense to me,” the XO said.

Ensign Cooper nodded. “They would have mapped out their fueling stops ahead of time, and I’ll bet you they stuck to ports that don’t have close ties to the U.S.” He used his finger to trace a rough arc on the chart.

“They would have been running low on fuel somewhere in here.” Only two countries fell within the arc he was tracing on the chart: Oman and Yemen. “That gives us two likely candidates, and Oman — if you’ve been following the news — has been kissing up to our government for months now. They’re trying to wheedle their way into ‘favored nation’ status, so we’ll lift the technical embargo that’s keeping their communications and computer infrastructure in the dark ages. I figure they don’t want to risk screwing that up, so they’ll probably steer clear of anything that even smells like conflict with the U.S. That leaves our buddies down in Yemen, and they have been known to play footsie with enemies of the United States. Remember when the USS Cole was bombed back in 2000? That happened in a port called Aden, and guess what country Aden is in?”

“Yemen,” Chief McPherson said.

Ensign Cooper nodded. “Bingo.”

“Okay,” Commander Vargas said, “admittedly, Yemen is not at the top of our national Christmas card list. But how did you happen to pick this island? Scotroa, was it?”

“Socotra, ma’am. And it’s mostly a hunch. It’s owned by Yemen, but it’s far enough away from their coastline that the Yemeni government can deny involvement if anything goes wrong. Plus, it’s on an almost direct line from the point where the Kitty Hawk encountered the subs, to where the subs entered the Straits of Hormuz.”

Captain Bowie’s eyebrows went up.

Chief McPherson smiled. “That’s pretty heady stuff, sir. Have you been eating your Wheaties?”

Ensign Cooper frowned. “Why, Chief? Did I say something wrong?”

The chief shook her head. “Not as far as I can see, sir. I think you nailed it.”

Commander Vargas tilted her head to one side. “It’s still just a guess, but I have to admit, it looks like a pretty damned good one.”

“Looks good to me,” Lieutenant (jg) Sherman said.

“Okay,” Captain Bowie said. “We go with Pat’s hunch until something better comes along.”

Ensign Cooper’s eyes widened.

Captain Bowie laughed. “Don’t look so shocked, Pat. We’re not so hidebound that we can’t recognize good thinking when we see it, even if it does come from the new kid on the block. Now, reach into your hunch generator