Hunter smiled and said, “Send back, ‘ ETA drop off zero-four-thirty. No new intelligence on targets. Will advise if received. Do you want pepperoni and sausage? We deliver’.”
Petty Officer Buell grinned as he lifted the infrared equipped Aldis lantern to the periscope eyepiece and flashed the signal.
On the surface, Boats, using IR goggles, could just make out the narrow beam of red light emanating from the scope head window.
“Message understood. Order is for two large pepperoni and mushrooms, one large anchovy with extra cheese,” he flashed with his IR light, carefully aimed at the scope head window.
With a mischievous glint in his eye, Hunter said, “XO, time to practice that special tactic for passing ‘small time-critical logistic components and sensitive intelligence’ to the SEAL Team that we discussed.”
“Yes, sir,” Fagan replied and hurried off to supervise the operation.
At some time in the misty past, the traditional Saturday midrats on all US submarines at sea had evolved into pizza night. Each crew claimed their cook made the best pizzas in the Navy. A submariner didn’t miss pizza night unless there was a very serious reason.
A cheer erupted from the gathered crew as the first large pie emerged from the galley to the awaiting throng on the mess decks. That is, until the XO requisitioned it and had the slices, along with an infrared Chem-lite, placed in zip-lock plastic bags. The crew watched with increasing curiosity as the bags were loaded in the signal ejectors.
Fagan picked up the MJ phone handset, spun the growler handle and reported to Hunter, “Captain, signal ejectors loaded. Looks like one whole pizza per load. You can tell the SEALs that this is one of the cook’s special pepperoni and sausage pizzas.”
Hunter picked up his MJ handset and said, “Thanks XO. Quartermaster, signal the SEALs that first delivery is on its way.”
Turning to the Chief of the Watch, he ordered the forward signal ejector fired.
The signal ejector cylinder cycled and the baggies containing the pizza slices floated to the surface, emerging alongside the waiting SEALs. A brief scurry and scuffle was visible as the SEALs vied to retrieve their piece of this unconventionally delivered pizza.
A flashing light signal came from the Boats, “Compliments to the chef, but you screwed up the order. Should have been mushroom.”
“Captain sends his apologies. No charge for the order,” Buell flashed back.
21 Jun 2000, 0020LT (20 Jun, 1720Z)
The strange convoy traveled on through the night. Barely a ripple marked their passage toward the dark, ominous island.
The ESM sensors on the sub still detected the powerful low frequency surface search radar and the chirp of the giga-hertz band search-while-track air search radar. Neither was capable of detecting them and had not changed in any way from what they had been monitoring for days. There was no sign that their arrival was discovered.
“XO, send a message to the Intel weenies at SUBPAC and give them the latest parameters on the radars. Also tell them that we are still not receiving any comms intercepts. Nothing unusual at all. Looks like all is quiet for our reception. Ask them where the hell the latest satellite imagery is and the latest assessment of mission locations. Don’t those idiots realize that we have the SEALs in the water already? They will be on the beach in a couple of hours.”
The lack of intelligence support was grating on Hunter’s nerves. They were supposed to have the highest priority possible for this information. It should be flooding in, but nary a trickle came out of radio. Hunter was anxious to get the information that his team needed to successfully complete this mission.
“Yes, sir. We’ll have that out on SSIXS in a minute. Nice to have Spec-Op priority so we have our own channel and direct routing from the Comms Center over to SUBPAC’s basement. The weenies should have the message within minutes.”
Both were well aware of the glut of radio traffic, a large percentage of it routine administration and reports, clogging the limited capacity of the submarine communications system. To allow very high priority missions, SPECial OPerations, to bypass the traffic snarl, they were allocated their own channel. This made immediate delivery from the SUBPAC comm center, located adjacent to the intel center but through a different set of double cypher-locked doors, possible. The use of the code-word priority on the message would jar the on-watch communications officer into action to deliver it as soon as it came off the secure high-speed printer.
20 Jun 2000, 0700LT (1800Z)
Unbeknownst to the submariners on SAN FRANCISCO, Rear Admiral O’Flanagan was standing in the emergency command center and closely observing the operation from there. Within seconds of the message arriving, it was in the admiral’s hand.
“Sounds like Jonathan is getting a little antsy. Can’t say that I blame him,” he said to his aide, Lieutenant Pyler. “Get Admiral Pequot at NSA on the STU for me.”
The young Lieutenant picked up the red encrypted phone and dialed a series of numbers. After listening to the high pitched whine of the two encryption devices syncing up, he spoke briefly into the handset and then handed it to COMSUBPAC.
“Admiral, I have Admiral Pequot on the line. He is at NSA’s Command Center,” LT Pyler reported. “He has the JCS Command Center on line as well. He says that all the Joint Chiefs will be listening in.”
“Damn, just what I wanted! An audience of thousands when I have to yell at a senior admiral,” COMSUBPAC muttered under his breath as he picked up the bright red phone.
LT Pyler and the rest of the staff backed discreetly away from the admiral’s centrally located command chair.
“Jack, this is
