Black puffs of smoke shot up from the stacks of two red tugs as they pushed and prodded Jimmy Carter into the dry dock. Ballasted down, USS Shippingport looked like two short gray walls projecting out of the water alongside Pier 15. The tugs held Carter steady as the submarine was slowly pulled into the flooded pontoon. The local newspapers had a small article in the business section announcing a contract had been awarded to General Dynamics to effect repairs on USS Jimmy Carter’s propulsion shaft bearings. The submarine was expected to be in dry dock for about a week.
Across the Thames River, a man stood on a small boat pier watching the docking proceed with great interest. While he had an unobstructed view of Pier 15, he was still over seven hundred meters away and it was difficult to watch for long periods of time through binoculars without getting noticed. He would have preferred being closer, but it wasn’t easy to get out on Mamacoke Hill without getting wet or seen. Silently, he hoped the American spy submarine would finally do something; it had been four days since he drove up from the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C., and those days had been filled with boredom. He’d wait until Carter was in the dry dock, then he’d head back to his hotel room and report before finding a place to eat that had decent vodka.
9
CONNECTING THE DOTS
The drone of the four turboprops had a hypnotic effect. The rhythmic beating of the engines, combined with staring at sonobuoy displays filled with background noise for hours, weighed heavily on the eyelids. The Tu-142MZ antisubmarine aircraft had been in the air for over eleven hours, and the crew was nearing its limit, and they still had another two hours of flying before they got back to base. Known as a Bear F Mod 4 by NATO, this large patrol aircraft was a variant on the Tu-95 Bear strategic bomber, and had incredible endurance. Patrolling just off the Russian coast didn’t even come close to testing the aircraft’s combat radius.
The Bear F had sortied from the Kipelovo naval air base deep inside Russia to conduct an antisubmarine patrol near the Norwegian border, and to loosely follow three Gazprom seismic survey vessels as they made their way to Murmansk. The survey ships had operated out of the former Olavsvern submarine base, near Tromsø, under lease to Gazprom. That was until early July, when the Russian government suddenly terminated the contract. President Fedorin announced the end of the lease personally, claiming that he didn’t want the ships and their crews vulnerable to being held hostage by an aggressive NATO nation.
The aircraft had watched as the three ships chugged along, and once they were far enough away, dropped a standard twenty-four-sonobuoy search pattern. The fifty-by-fifty-nautical-mile search box ran parallel to the coast, from just inside the twelve-mile limit to well out into the Barents Sea. The two sonar operators struggled to stay alert as they monitored the RGB-16 sonobuoys drifting on the waves below them. Each man was responsible for twelve sonobuoys and rotated through his set at five-minute intervals. With the brief exception of two false alarms, there was little to break the monotony.
A drawn-out yawn distracted one of the operators, causing him to miss the weak line that had started to form. Two minutes later, the automatic detection function lit up on one of the buoys in the first line. Selecting the sonobuoy’s output, he saw a distinct, stable, but very faint line in one of the lower frequency bands. The lack of a signal in any of the other bands suggested a submarine. Sighing, he activated his mike and reported.
“Sonobuoy Operator One to Combat Navigator, I have a possible submarine contact, buoy three, band five.” A collective groan from the other crewmembers erupted on the internal communications net. The major at the command console rubbed his face in frustration. “Not again,” he mumbled. Still, he had to acknowledge the contact report. “Sonobuoy Operator One, verify contact on buoy three. This had better not be another false alarm, Oleg.” The major’s tone was one of irritation.
“Combat Navigator, contact verified. Sonobuoy in position three has a weak narrowband signature in one band only, band five.”
“Sonobuoy Operator Two, confirm contact on buoy three,” demanded the major.
“Confirm contact, yes, sir. Stand by.” The other sonar operator had already begun switching his display over to receive the sonobuoy’s data, but he had to wait until the signal started showing up on his screen. It took but a minute for the waterfall display to reveal the thin line; there was definitely something there. “Sonobuoy Operator Two to Combat Navigator, confirm contact buoy three, band five.”
The major lifted his face from his hands; his eyes were now wide open. He briefly paused to look at the radar display — nothing was even close to the sonobuoy field. With the two operators reporting a detection on the same sonobuoy, and given the lack of a corresponding radar contact, the object, whatever it was, had to be submerged. Any fatigue was forgotten. The hunt was on.
“Sonobuoy Operator One, prepare to drop a circular localization pattern; use four RGB-26 buoys.” Before the man could answer, the major announced over the circuit, “Combat Navigator to Pilot, I have control of the aircraft.”
“You have control,” the pilot replied.
“Circular localization pattern set,” called out the sonar operator.
“Executing maneuver!” the major called, while simultaneously pushing a button on the command console. The combat computer immediately began sending instructions to the autopilot and the large, clumsy-looking aircraft dipped down as it commenced a graceful turn to port. Lining up, it flew along the east-to-west axis, dropping two RGB-26 sonobuoys on either side of the alerting buoy. The aircraft then banked to starboard, circling around before running down from north to south, again dropping two more buoys. But before the last buoy could even deploy its hydrophone, two of the other buoys had already transmitted contact data.
“Sonobuoy Operator One to Combat Navigator, buoys twenty-five and twenty-seven have positive contact. Position uploaded for MAD run.”
The major stared at the command display. The contact had to be a submarine, and it was operating eight miles outside of Russian territorial water. Ordinarily, they’d issue a contact report and track the boat for as long as they could. But these weren’t ordinary times.
“Combat Navigator to crew, stand by for attack run with depth bombs.”
The sonar operators turned toward one another; both were surprised and a little concerned by the announcement, but they had heard their orders as well as everyone else before they took off from Kipelovo. Any contact closer than twenty-five nautical miles was to be prosecuted and driven away. To that end, depth bombs were to be employed. No homing torpedoes.
The autopilot reduced the Bear F’s altitude as it lined up for the initial MAD run. They had to get the position just right as the magnetic anomaly detector had a very short range, even against a larger nuclear submarine. The major doubted they were dealing with a U.S. or UK attack boat; far more likely the contact was a Norwegian diesel sub.