And they were out, as if they’d been launched. In the island of illumination behind them, he could already see the dock gate being closed. If he understood the plan properly, they’d de-ballast the dock, and extend the canvas cover over the end again, so that it would be impossible to tell that USS Jimmy Carter was not there anymore.
Norris was now telling the tug what course to take up as they headed south down the river. Then he received word that the sub’s pumpjet had been unlocked and the EPM was ready to answer bells. Soon the tug was detached and fell in line astern as Carter proceeded down the Thames River’s southbound channel at a stately three knots. “The tug will stand by until the reactor’s on line, just in case the diesel craps out,” Norris explained.
The action seemed to be over, and Cavanaugh asked, “When will we reach the ocean?”
“At three knots, we’ll reach the mouth of the Thames River in about forty-five minutes. It will be another hour before we reach Block Island Sound. By that time we should be able to commence a normal reactor startup. An hour later the main propulsion plant will be ready to answer all bells and we’ll get to go a lot faster.”
Cavanaugh looked around them. Out from under the canvas, there was a quarter moon and clear sky. There was no wind to speak of, just a cool breeze from the sub’s movement. The water on either side of the submarine was black as ink, rippled by the sub’s passage. He could see lights on shore to either side, but it was hard to tell exactly where the water ended and the shore began.
He looked at his watch, realized it was too dark to read it, then he saw the time readout on the navigational display: 0000—midnight. He should be exhausted. Truitt had said reveille at sea was at 0600, but there was too much to see and Cavanaugh, filled with excitement, was wide-awake. Besides, he’d had that nap.
“Is it all right if I stay up here for a while longer?”
14
APPROACH
Jerry kept his eyes glued to the large flat-screen display. The three icons representing Carter and the two UUVs moved slowly along the digital chart as they crept in from the north. They were cautious, watchful.
A day earlier, they’d picked up the sounds of an Akula-class attack submarine. The acoustic traces were faint, but discernable. The low bearing rate suggested she was some distance away. Nonetheless, Weiss adjusted Carter’s course to give the Russian boat a wide berth.
The presence of a front line SSN that far west suggested, at best, that the Russians were extending the defensive barrier around the Dragon launcher facility. At worst, they believed an attempt would be made to prevent the covert launcher from becoming operational. Paranoid, these Russians, but with good reason; their entire plan hinged on this facility.
The UUV control center on Carter was spacious by submarine standards, with plenty of room for the two control consoles, a command workstation linked to control, and two vertical large-screen displays similar to the ones Jerry had on North Dakota. Each control console had two positions, one for the pilot and the other for the sensor operator. In keeping with the UUVs’ nicknames, the first console had a photo of the Jeff Dunham character, Walter, and the words “Holy Crap!” taped on the support frame. The other console had a picture of José Jalapeño along with the predictable phrase, “… on a Stick,” embellishing its framework.
The trio was in a loose inverted V formation, with the UUVs four thousand yards ahead of Carter—Walter to the left, José to the right. Jerry glanced at the secure Fathometer readout; the ocean floor was a scant twenty feet beneath the keel. This was a little closer to Mother Earth than he was accustomed to in a submarine, but Weiss and his crew didn’t seem too concerned. The plan they’d hashed through on the way up emphasized a low and slow approach.
Five days after departing New London, Jerry held the last of his preliminary planning sessions with Weiss, Dr. Cavanaugh, and Carter’s senior leadership. The boat had just passed Iceland to the west, through the Denmark Strait, cutting across the Arctic Circle. So far, there hadn’t been any sign of Russian naval or air activity… so far. And while this suggested the navy’s ruse was still working, neither Jerry nor Weiss were willing to push their luck. Carter would randomly slow to fifteen knots every now and then to allow the sonar shack to conduct a thorough sweep before the boat cranked back up to their twenty-five-knot transit speed.
Jerry was in the wardroom enjoying a cup of coffee before the meeting when Cavanaugh walked through the door — his nose still a stark shade of Prussian blue. Jerry quickly looked down at his notes, struggling to suppress his laughter. Poor Dr. Dan was the only “warm body” on board during this trip and the crew had fallen upon him like hungry sharks during a feeding frenzy. Jerry recalled his own Bluenose ceremony on Memphis, and shuddered to think how much worse it would have been if he were the sole victim. Unexpected, a memory of Lenny Berg, his shipmate on that patrol, flashed to the front of Jerry’s thoughts, and his smile vanished. It was with a feeling of vengeance that he focused his thoughts back on the attack plan. There was a score he intended to settle with the Russians.
Others began to arrive for the session, and soon the wardroom was filled to capacity. Jerry started going over the issues one by one. The biggest problem was, of course, the minefield. Carter’s initial survey was incomplete, but what they had collected showed the mines were rather close to each other. Spacing was at most one thousand three hundred yards, usually a little less. The intelligence estimated the mine’s passive sonar had a detection range of five to six hundred yards, leaving them almost no room to maneuver between the mines. That is, until Jerry looked closely at the weapon’s physical characteristics.
“The PMK-2 is an interesting mine,” Jerry began explaining. “Like our old Mark 60 CAPTOR, it’s a propelled warhead mine that uses a lightweight torpedo as the payload. In fact, the Russian MPT-1UM Kolibri torpedo is a copy of our old Mark 46. But while these two mines are very similar, there are some differences. First, the Russian mine can be laid in much deeper water, but more importantly for us is that it’s over twice as long as a CAPTOR. This is key, as the acoustic sensor is located on top of the mine.”
He pulled up a brochure photo of the PMK-2, and with a laser pointer emphasized the mine’s size. “The length of the mine is 7.9 meters, nearly twenty-six feet.” Jerry then shifted to the next slide with a diagram of a deployed mine.
“Your earlier survey, Captain Weiss, showed the mines are tethered about thirty-three feet off the bottom. When you add in the length of the mine, the passive sensor, way up here, is fifty-nine feet above the ocean floor. Furthermore, the passive sensor only looks upward. Therefore, I believe we can creep in under the mine’s acquisition cone if we hug the bottom — a nap of the earth approach, if you will. We’ll also come in slow and at ultra quiet, to keep our radiated noise to a minimum. Just in case.”
Weiss looked intrigued and gestured toward the screen. “That cone looks like it covers about sixty degrees off the vertical, one hundred twenty degrees overall. If that diagram is even close to accurate, Commodore, then we won’t have to take out any of the mines. That would be preferable, as we would remain covert.” Then looking over at LT Owens, said, “Sorry, Weps, but I don’t think we’ll be blowing up a mine on this trip.”