Choke Point

submariner, like the U.S. Navy at large, like America itself, carried the memory of having been taken utterly unawares on December 7, 1941, and on September 11, 2001, the Navy in particular vowing that neither its surface nor submarine fleet would ever be taken by surprise again.

Bangor Submarine Base, Washington State

“Are you ready?” Admiral Jensen’s wife asked him playfully as she slipped into bed beside him. Her plumeria perfume washed over him, her diaphanous peach-colored nightie catching the light teasingly before she switched off the lamp. It was 3:00 A.M., and the fifty-three-year-old admiral, Walter Jensen, Commander of U.S. Submarine Group 9, and his wife Margaret were tired but relaxed. They had returned from a successful if long Navy-hosted reception for over two hundred northwest VIPs, including everyone from Bill Gates to the Greenpeace representatives. With Margaret in tow, the admiral had reassured the movers and shakers of the Northwest, and Seattle in particular, that the U.S. Navy was conscious of its environmental responsibility in the pristine waters of Puget Sound, especially the fifty-three-mile-long, 2.5-mile-wide Hood Canal waterway through which the admiral’s nuclear-armed subs egressed into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the open Pacific. Among the guests were several Canadian politicians from the nearby province of British Columbia, where the southern tip of Vancouver Island formed the northern flank of the vitally strategic strait, Washington State’s ruggedly beautiful Olympic peninsula forming the southern flank. Even the “environuts,” as they were deridingly called by some in the Navy, seemed satisfied that the admiral was doing everything in his power to assure the environmental integrity of the clear, cold cobalt-blue waters whose emerald islands had attracted urban refugees from throughout America.

The admiral switched off the light. “In all, a good night’s work, Chief,” he told Margaret.

“We’re not finished yet,” she replied, reaching lustily for him, squeezing hard, her perfume even stronger now.

“Permission to come alongside?” he joshed eagerly.

“I’d rather you came aboard,” she said.

“Very well. Permission to come aboard?”

“Permission granted.”

He’d begun his roll to port when the phone jangled in the darkness, its red light showing it was from the base. Damn. “Jensen.”

“Admiral, sorry to disturb you, sir. This is Duty Officer Morgan.”

“Yes?”

“Sir. Star has spotted an anomaly.” The duty officer’s voice was even, unhurried, thoroughly professional. But the admiral knew that at three in the morning it had to be important. “Star” was base shorthand for “Darkstar,” the resurrected unmanned aerial vehicle which, along with the Navy’s undersea hydrophone Sound Surveillance System, or SOSUS, was used for COMSUBPAC-GRU 9’s real-time security surveillance of Puget Sound and environs. This had been particularly important since the terrorist “Ressam” had been caught at Port Angeles in 2000 crossing over from Canada with a truckload of explosives, intending to blow up Los Angeles Airport.

“Anomaly on land or water?” the admiral inquired, sitting up.

“Water, sir.”

“Vessel wake or sub venting?” the admiral pressed.

“None reported in the area, sir. We have the Utah out but she’s much farther west.”

Which meant the anomaly could be a patch of upwelling, a common occurrence on the West Coast, where fresh water leaked upward from seabed springs through fissures in Juan de Fuca’s ever-shifting tectonic plate. Because of the fresh water’s different salinity, and thus slightly different color, it often showed up as an anomaly, like a slick of oil, readily visible by Darkstar’s God’s-eye view. Or the anomaly could be the first sign of an environmental disaster. An oil spill.

“You check with Coast Guard Air at Port Angeles?” asked the admiral. With that, his wife turned on her bedside lamp, resignedly sliding over a copy of Time from her nightstand.

“All right,” she heard her husband tell the duty officer, “keep me posted…. No, no, you did the right thing. When the Coast Guard gets back to you, let me know what they say. Perhaps it’s just some weird local phenomenon … Yes, absolutely, call me either way.”

Margaret Jensen, scanning the Time interview, knew that her husband’s “either way” meant he wouldn’t be able to relax enough to have sex, at least not the kind she wanted. He was in line for CNO — Chief of Naval Operations, the U.S.’s highest naval rank — and the smallest “screw-up,” as he’d so often reminded her, could scuttle the promotion. He looked apologetically at Margaret. “Sorry about this kafuffle.”

She shrugged, trying not to look annoyed but knowing there’d be no orgasmic relief until Walt knew exactly what the damned anomaly was.

“Morgan’ll get back to me soon,” he assured her.

“Don’t think so,” she said, still reading.

“Why?”

She turned the page. “Weather channel said there’s a low closing in from the Pacific. Fog. Coast Guard planes won’t see anything.”

“Damn! You’re right.” He lifted the phone, about to punch the preprogrammed button for the base, then decided against it. Best to wait for the Coast Guard report. Don’t overreact. A potential CNO never panics. Pray God it was a simple case of upwelling, and not the first trace of an oil spill from some Liberian-registered vessel having illegally discharged its bilges under cover of darkness to save a few bucks having it pumped off in port.

Fifteen minutes later the phone jangled again. The admiral let it ring twice. “Jensen here.”

“Admiral, Duty Officer Morgan. No reports from Coast Guard Air, and their vessels report nothing but the usual run of boater accidents, general assistance calls, et cetera. But they’re sending a cutter out to have a look- see. It’s dark as sin out in the strait — they’ll use infrared.”

“Infrared wouldn’t show a spill in this weather,” the admiral pointed out. “If it is a spill.”

“No, sir,” agreed Morgan. “But they can take water samples.” Then the DO posited an entirely different but quite plausible explanation for the anomaly Darkstar had spotted: “It could be a NAWID.” He meant a natural air- water interface disturbance caused by a hard rain shower or a school of fish in a frenzy of feeding on plankton near the surface.

The admiral was nodding, thinking about requesting a “side-scan” sonar profile of the sea bottom rather than settling for the ordinary sonar depth reading that as a matter of standard procedure would be taken by the Coast Guard cutter. But to request a side-scan radar profile that would reveal any venting or other anomaly on the sea bed was a costly proposition for the Navy, ergo the taxpayers. And he could be accused of making a mountain out of a molehill. He decided to wait.

“All right,” he told Morgan. “Let me know if you hear any more. Request another Darkstar run tomorrow.”

“Aye aye, sir. Good night.”

The admiral replaced the phone. Maybe the anomaly had been nothing more than a sudden squall of wind. He’d seen that often enough — anybody who’d been on any kind of boat had seen it, an area of water disturbed by a phantom gust ruffling the water, causing it to momentarily take on a different shade of blue, green, or gray, depending on the color of the sky. But Margaret saw that he was worried.

“Go to sleep,” she urged, pulling the bedspread playfully up over his head.

“You think I’m overreacting?” came the muffled voice beneath the cover.

She put the magazine aside and switched off her bedside lamp. “Well, you have made a bit of a meal out of it.”

He cast off the cover. “A meal out of it? I’ve never heard you use that before.”

There was silence.

“You’ve never used that phrase before,” he repeated.

“I don’t know,” she said in the penumbra of his bedside light. “I must have read it somewhere.”

“I’ve heard it before,” the admiral said accusingly. “It’s a limey expression. That limey admiral, the Brit liaison guy at the base. He’s always using it.”

“Maybe,” she said tiredly.