Kilo Class

“What do you think, Jicai? Two ACINT trawlers right here at the entrance to the Strait? Would that pick them up? We’d know its direction, and we’d be a lot wiser than we are now.”

“Two would do it. Three would be better. And then we would finally know if the Hai Lung was indeed three weeks away from its ultimate destination, sir, heading south.”

“Yes, Jicai. Yes we would. Perhaps three weeks away from some nuclear factory…which we must find.”

“The ACINTs are at twenty-four hours’ notice for sea, sir. We have three of them based well south at Hainandao. We have enough time to brief them before sailing, and we’ll have them on station well ahead of the Hai Lung.”

“We’ll do that right now, Jicai. We’ll go together. I’ll get your signal orders out later.”

The last weekend in July was a Cape Cod masterpiece. The warm, damp sea mists that had obscured the sun for so many days throughout the month had drifted away at last, and the gleaming bright light of midsummer lit up the waters of Nantucket Sound.

Not a cloud littered the pink evening sky as the sun went down behind the white steeple of the Church in Cotuit — at least it did if you happened to be drifting home across the bay on the evening tide, as Commander Boomer Dunning and his two daughters were doing at this moment.

His wife had a different view from the big family house, which faced southeast. She could see the surreal light of the setting sun along the sandy beach of Deadneck Island, which made it look floodlit.

From any direction Cotuit Bay was a beautiful sight on this warm summer evening. Secure in her earthly paradise Jo Dunning waved at her crew as thirteen-year-old Kathy ran the family skiff, Sneaker, expertly into the beach. Boomer jumped off the bow and dragged the boat up on the sand. Then they all pulled it a bit farther, and Kathy and her younger sister took down the big gaff-rigged sail. Of course it would have been more orthodox to put the boat on a mooring like most everyone else, but Boomer said he’d been running little sailboats up the beach all his life on calm summer evenings, and as the senior officer that was the way it was going to be.

For Jo, this Sunday evening and the barbecue they were about to light represented one of the rare bonuses she had received all summer. Boomer had arrived unexpectedly on Friday night and announced that he was not due back in New London until Monday morning. Her in-laws were away for three weeks in Maine, and the white clapboard house on the bay was theirs alone. Their real vacation here was not due to begin until August 5, when Boomer had a ten-day furlough, and right now Jo Dunning was at least as happy as she ever remembered being.

On the previous day, she and Kathy had won the weekly Cotuit skiffs race during the long, sunny afternoon, while Boomer and Jane had walked up the road to watch the village baseball team. The fabled Cotuit Kettleers had wiped out the Hyannis Mets 9–0 at Lowell Park.

As he cheered his men on, Boomer did not know that Frederick J. Goodwin, the Cape Cod Times feature writer, was sitting in the visitors’ area of the bleachers, glumly watching his team make four errors and walk seven Kettleer batters. It was an unfortunate omission, because the US Naval officer and the journalist had something in common, they being the only two people in the ballpark who had once journeyed to the island of Kerguelen. And each of them had a deep and personal involvement with that remote and terrible place.

The second omission in Boomer’s life this weekend was more serious. He had not yet plucked up courage to tell Jo their vacation together was off — when he left for the submarine base on Monday morning, it would be for several weeks. Maybe months. And the operation was Black. Jo would never know where he was, or when he was coming home again. Boomer was not wildly looking forward to that particular conversation.

To prepare himself for the ordeal he busied himself with the barbecue. While it reached its optimum heat to cook the big New York sirloins, he wandered inside to pour a couple of Navy-size drinks for himself and Jo — two tall rum and cranberry juice cocktails, on the rocks, in frosted glasses. Then he strolled outside and gave his beautiful wife a kiss and a drink and told her that no hour ever passed by, no matter where he was, or where he was headed, when he did not think of her, and all that she had always meant to him.

“Boomer,” she said suspiciously while looking at him as if at a naughty schoolboy. “You must have something you are waiting to tell me…something lousy, I’d guess.”

Realizing that he had seriously overplayed his hand, the commanding officer of Columbia elected to seize the moment rather than prolong the agony until after supper. “Jo,” he said, slowly. “I have to go away…for several weeks.”

She stared at him for a moment, a sudden sadness sweeping across her face. Whatever he said, it would make no difference. It was not his fault, she knew. She was a Navy wife. This was not unique. But it happened so often.

“When?” she asked simply.

“I won’t be back after tomorrow morning.”

“How long?”

“I can’t tell you. A while.”

“Can I know where?”

“No.”

“Is it Black?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh…oh my God. Not months?”

“Probably weeks.”

The endless nightmare of all commanding officers’ wives stood before her. The weeks stretched out to infinity. There would be, she knew, no one to whom she could turn for information. His loneliness out there in command of the great hunter-killer submarine would, in the end, be hers. In the face of danger too great to contemplate, they would both be alone.

She willed herself not to cry, but another summer was shot to pieces, another year really. She turned away toward the grill and just told him, defenselessly, “I love you, Boomer.” And then she felt his great sailor’s arms around her, and she fell apart without shame against his massive chest. In front of the glowing fire. In front of their daughters.

In the far distance, the almost-full moon began to rise over the boat sheds by the Osterville town bridge. And very soon, on this clear night, there would also rise out over the Atlantic one of the brightest constellations in the galaxy…that of Orion himself. The other hunter.

Commander Dunning arrived at the gates of the New London submarine base at 0845. It had taken him two hours to travel down I-95 from the Cape. And he swiftly made his way to the jetty where Columbia awaited, her crew making final preparations for a long patrol.

There was a huge sense of purpose right now as they loaded the hardware — torpedoes, missiles, spare parts, welding kit, acetylene, extra computers, seals, hydraulics, rubber and plastic pipes, valves, tubs of grease, paint, and polish, and carbon dioxide for the Coke machine.

Supplies such as steaks, pork roasts, ham, bacon, eggs, potatoes, fruit, salad, vegetables, fish, coffee, tea and soda, would be taken on board closer to the time of departure. The cooks baked their own bread during the voyage.

The nuclear reactor would go critical two days from now in readiness for the final sea trials. The submarine’s ETD was 1400 on August 7.

Boomer went below immediately and found his XO, Lieutenant Commander Mike Krause, who apologized for not meeting him at the gangway. Then the CO called a brief meeting of the senior executives: the XO; the combat systems officer, Lieutenant Commander Jerry Curran; the Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Commander Lee O’Brien; and the navigator, Lieutenant David Wingate. Boomer told them what he could but explained he was leaving immediately by helicopter for SUBLANT in Norfolk, Virginia, and would be back in two days. Until then he would leave Columbia in their capable hands.

No one had time to watch the chopper, bearing their leader, clatter off the pad and rocket away toward the hot south, to the Black Ops Cell where the keenest brains in the US Navy were planning the demise of the last two Chinese Kilos, K-9 and K-10.

Boomer Dunning was pensive during the 390-mile flight to Virginia. The Navy pilot crossed Montauk Point and