didn't really matter. The “boomers” all had two crews, and in every case one of the two commanding officers assigned to each boat was within thirty minutes of his command. All carried beepers, which went off almost simultaneously. The duty crews aboard each submarine began preparations for immediate sortie. The Command Duty Officer on each boomer was an officer who had passed the stringent test required before a submariner could be “qualified for command.” Their operational orders were clear: when this sort of alert came, they had to get to sea just as fast as possible. Most thought it a drill, but drills for strategic forces were a serious business. Already, tugboats were lighting up their diesels to help the slate-gray hulls away from the tenders. Deck crews were removing safety lines and stanchions, as men who'd been aboard the tenders scrambled down the ladders to their various ships. Aboard, division officers and assistants checked their rosters to see who was aboard and who was not. The fact of the matter was that these warships, like all warships, were overmanned. They could easily sail and operate with half a crew if they had to. DEFCON-TWO meant that they had to.
Captain Rosselli and the NMCC staff handled the conventional forces. Pre-set recordings went directly to the individual units. In the Army, that meant division level. In the Air Force, it was at the wing level, and in the Navy, it was at the squadron level. The conventional forces were going to DEFCON-THREE. Captain Rosselli and Colonel Barnes handled voice lines to higher command levels. Even when talking to three-star officers with no less than twenty-five years of service each, it was necessary to tell every single one that: No, sir, this is not repeat not a drill.
American military units all over the world went instantly on alert. As was to be expected, those units which ordinarily maintained high alert levels responded the most quickly. One of these was the Berlin Brigade.
37
HUMAN EFFECTS
“Captain, we have an Emergency Action Message on the ELF.”
“What?” Ricks asked, turning away from the chart table.
“Emergency Action Message, Captain.” The communications officer handed over the brief code group.
“Great time for a drill.” Ricks shook his head and said, “Battle Stations. Alert-One.”
A petty officer immediately activated the 1-MC and made the announcement. “General Quarters, General Quarters, all hands man your battle stations.” Next came an electronic alarm sure to end the most captivating of dreams.
“Mr. Pitney,” Ricks said over the noise. “Antenna depth.”
“Aye, Captain. Diving officer, make your depth six-zero feet.”
“Make my depth six-zero feet, aye. Helm, ten degrees up on the fairwater planes.”
“Ten degrees up on the fairwater planes, aye.” The young crewman — helm duty is typically given to very junior men — pulled back on the aircraft-like wheel. “Sir, my planes are up ten degrees.”
“Very well.”
Barely had that been done when people flooded into the control room. The Chief of the Boat— Maine 's senior enlisted man — took his battle station at the air-manifold panel. He was the submarine's senior Diving Officer. Lieutenant Commander Claggett entered the conn to back the captain up. Pitney, the boat's navigator, was already at his post, which was conning officer. Various enlisted men took their seats at weapons consoles. Aft, officers and men assumed their positions as different as the Missile Control Center — MCC — which monitored the status of Maine's twenty-four Trident missiles, and the auxiliary equipment room, which was mainly concerned with the ship's backup diesel engine.
In the control room, the 1C — internal communications — man of the watch called off the compartments as they reported in as manned and ready.
“What gives?” Claggett asked Ricks. The captain merely handed over the brief EAM slip.
“Drill?”
“I suppose. Why not?” Ricks asked. “It's a Sunday, right?”
“Still bumpy up on the roof?”
As though on cue, Maine started taking rolls. The depth gauge showed 290 feet, and the massive submarine suddenly rocked ten degrees to starboard. Throughout the vessel, men rolled their eyes and grumbled. There was scarcely a man aboard who hadn't lost it at least once. This was the perfect environment for motion sickness. With no outside references — submarines are conspicuously short of windows and portholes — the eyes saw something that clearly was not moving while the inner ears reported that movement was definitely taking place. The same thing that had affected nearly all of the Apollo astronauts began to affect these sailors. Unconsciously, men shook their heads sharply, as though to repel a bothersome insect. They uniformly hoped that whatever the hell they were up to — no one from Ricks on down knew as yet what was happening — they'd soon be able to get back where they belonged — four hundred feet, where the ship's motion was imperceptible.
“Level at six-zero feet, sir.”
“Very well,” Pitney replied.
“ Conn, sonar, contact lost on Sierra-16. Surface noise is screwing us all up.”
“What's the last position?” Ricks asked.
“Last bearing was two-seven-zero, estimated range four-nine thousand yards,” Ensign Shaw replied.
“Okay. Run up the UHF antenna. Up scope,” he also ordered the quartermaster of the watch. Maine was taking 20-degree rolls now, and Ricks wanted to see why. The quartermaster rotated the red-and-white control wheel, and the oiled cylinder hissed up on hydraulic power.
“Wow,” the captain said as he put his hands on the handles. He could feel the power of the sea slapping the exposed top of the instrument. He bent down to look.
“We have a UHF signal coming in now, sir,” the communications officer reported.
“That's nice,” Ricks said. “I'd call that thirty-foot seas, people, mostly rollers, some are breaking over. Well, we can shoot through that if we have to,” he added almost as a joke. After all, this had to be a drill.
“How's the sky?” Claggett asked.
“Overcast — no stars.” Ricks stood back and slapped the handles up. “Down 'scope.” He turned to Claggett. “X, we want to get back tracking our friend just as soon as we can.”
“Aye, Cap'n.”
Ricks was about to lift the phone to MCC. He wanted to tell the missile-control crew that he wanted this drill over just as fast as they could arrange it. The communications officer was in the compartment before he could push the proper button.
“Captain, this isn't a drill.”
“What do you mean?” Ricks noticed that the lieutenant didn't look very happy.
“DEFCON-TWO, sir.” He handed over the message.
“What?” Ricks scanned the message, which was brief and chillingly to the point. “What the hell's going on?” He handed it off to Dutch Claggett.
“DEFCON-TWO? We've never been at DEFCON-TWO, not as long as I've been in… I remember a DEFCON- THREE once, but I was a plebe then… ”
Around the compartment, men traded glances. The American military has five alert levels, numbered five through one. DEFCON-FIVE was denoted normal peacetime operations. FOUR was slightly higher, calling for increased manning of certain posts, keeping more people — mainly meaning pilots and soldiers — close to their airplanes or tanks, as the case might be. DEFCON-THREE was far more serious. At that point units were fully manned for operational deployment. At DEFCON-TWO units began to deploy, and this level was saved for the imminent threat of war. DEFCON-ONE was a level to which American forces had never been called. At that point, war was to be considered something more than a threat. Weapons were loaded and aimed in anticipation of orders to shoot.
But the entire DEFCON system was more haphazard than one might imagine. Submarines generally kept a higher-than-normal state of alert as a part of routine operations. Missile submarines, always ready to launch their birds in a matter of minutes, were effectively at DEFCON-TWO all the time. The notice from the F LT S AT C OM
