Gator snorted. “About time you started believing me on radar contacts, Bird Dog. A biologic doesn’t give that solid of a return, if you see it at all. After the Spratly Islands, I would think you’d be a little bit more cautious about sea ghosts.”
“Just because you were right that time doesn’t mean you’re right every time.”
During the Spratly Islands, the first clue that China was behind the aggressions had come from Gator’s sighting of two intermittent contacts on radar. At the time, Bird Dog had voiced his opinion loudly that Gator had been drinking too much coffee, and was making radar contacts out of sea clutter. When an island five thousand feet below them had disintegrated into a massive cloud of tank fragments, bodies, and bamboo building materials, Bird Dog had been forced to admit that his RIO was right.
“Let’s circle this area for a while, see if we pick anything else up,” Gator said, his voice holding no trace of animosity. “I know what you think about sea ghosts, but this wasn’t one of them.”
“Okay, let me call Mother and tell her what we’re up to. Damnit, Gator, we’re going to end up tanking again if we stay out here much longer.”
“You might want to consider doing it earlier than you need to,” Gator said, tension creeping into his voice.
“Why? You holding out on me?”
“No. It’s just that I don’t want to be running short on fuel if something unexpected comes up. You know the old saying — better safe than sorry?”
“Okay, okay, you don’t have to rub it in.”
Bird Dog made the call to the carrier and told the operations specialist on the other end what they’d seen. Or rather, what they’d not seen. The OS sounded dubious, and dropped off-line for a moment to confer with the tactical action officer (TAO).
While Bird Dog was waiting for an answer, Gator gave off a sharp yelp from the backseat. “Look! And you talk about sea clutter!”
Bird Dog put the Tomcat into a tight left-hand turn and studied the ocean below. A glossy black shape was lurking just below the surface, a huge man-made leviathan. “Holy shit,” he said softly. “Jesus, Gator, what is it with you and submarines? There are probably no more than two or three Russian submarines deployed in this whole ocean, and you get me marking on top of the only one within two thousand miles.”
He could hear the smugness in Gator’s voice as the RIO replied, “Guess I’m just good.”
“Or lucky.”
The tactical channel was now chattering with demands for information, directions to maintain contact, and anxious queries about their fuel status from the OS. Finally, a familiar voice cut through the chatter.
“Tomcat Two-oh-one, say identity and classification of submarine.” The slight Texas twang was all Bird Dog needed to hear.
“I don’t know, Admiral — wait, let me drop down a little.” Bird Dog shoved the control yoke forward, and started down toward the surface of the ocean. He arrested their descent at two thousand feet above the ocean, continuing to circle over the contact to get a better look at it.
“An Oscar,” Gator said softly. “That’s the only thing of that size that would be out here.”
“You sure? It could be a Typhoon at that size.”
“No.” Gator’s voice held a note of finality. “I can see enough of the sail structure from here to make the call. That’s an Oscar, no doubt about it.”
Bird Dog relayed the information back to Mother, and then felt a slight chill as the implications started to settle in.
The Oscar was the latest cruise missile ship in the Russian inventory. It had one, and only one, primary mission in life — killing American aircraft carriers. The building program had begun at Shipyard Number 402, located at Severodyinsk, in 1982, during the height of the Cold War. The Oscar I and the later Oscar II were the largest submarines to be built by any nation, except for the Soviet Typhoon ballistic missile boat and the U.S. Trident SSBN.
The Oscar carried the SS-N-19 Shipwreck antiship missile, with either a conventional or nuclear warhead. With a range of greater than three hundred nautical miles and a speed of Mach 2.5, the five-thousand-kilogram missile was a deadly threat to any surface ship. The Oscar could receive targeting information from most Soviet tactical aircraft, as well as satellite downlink positioning. Both of those assets permitted it to fire at surface ships well outside its own sensor range. In addition to the Shipwreck, the Oscar carried the SS-N-15 and S-16 torpedoes. Although hard data was scarce, her 533mm torpedoes were reputed to be capable of speeds up to forty-five knots, transporting a high-explosive or nuclear warhead of 1,250 pounds on a straight run, or in acoustic homing mode. Supposedly, one of those torpedoes exploding under the keel of a carrier would be sufficient to break the carrier’s back.
“How far away from the carrier is she?” Bird Dog asked. He winced, hearing the slight tremor in his voice.
Gator’s voice was dark and somber. “Four hundred miles, right now. But with her speeds, there’s nothing to say she couldn’t close that to within Shipwreck range within one day.”
“You’d better tell the Admiral. I think he’s going to be real interested in this.”
Rear Admiral Edward Everett Wayne, “Batman” to his fellow aviators, swore quietly as he listened to the RIO’s report. An Oscar. Great. Just when every asset in the United States Navy had been lulled into a peaceful sense of security because of the demise of the Soviet Union, an Oscar turns up. What the hell were the Intelligence people thinking? And why hadn’t he had any warning at all about this possibility?
He stared at the large blue video screen that dominated the forward bulkhead of Tactical Flag Command Center (TFCC). Judging from the relative geometry, the carrier battle group would be safe from the Oscar for at least another day, maybe more, depending on what course she followed.
“Get some Vikings in the air. Now,” he snapped. “It’s time we got some work out of them.”
“I imagine they’ll be happy about that,” his chief of staff, Captain Jim Craig, remarked. “Their CO was telling me he’s getting damned tired of ferrying mail back and forth for us. To have a real submarine problem, as nasty as it may be, that’s meat and potatoes for the S-3 Viking ASW aircraft.”
Batman nodded sharply. “It’s the kind of opportunity I don’t want to have on this cruise. I told Tombstone I’d keep his people safe.”
The TAO, seated at his console two feet in front of Batman, swiveled his chair around and looked at the admiral. “Sir, we need to get that Tomcat some more gas if she’s going to mark on top while we prep the S-3s. He’s got enough gas to stay on station for another hour and still make it back safely, but-“
Batman cut him off. “Good thinking. Better to have too much gas than too little. The first situation you can fix — the second you can’t. Make it happen.”
The TAO turned back to his console and talked with his counterpart located in the Combat Direction Center (CDC), fifty feet forward on the ship. After a hurried conversation, he toggled the circuit off and turned to the OS manning the plastic status board located on the right side of the TFCC. “Put down Seven-oh-one and Seven-oh-two for the next two events. Seven-oh-three and Seven-eleven will be in Alert Fifteen. And we’re launching another tanker now, now, now.” Without waiting to see if the OS had caught it all, he turned back to his console.
“An Oscar. What does that suggest to you?” Batman asked his COS.
Captain Craig looked thoughtful. With thirty years as surface ship officer in the Navy, four at-sea commands under his belt, and an advanced degree in ASW systems from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, he had forgotten more about submarines than Batman had ever known. “Nothing good. She could make us real unhappy characters by just staying within weapons release range.”