“No way. What’s his name?”
“Phillips, Bruce Phillips.”
“I know him. Or at least his family. He could buy and sell us. Guy’s got tons of money, old family money. And he gives it up to drive a sewer pipe.”
“I’m about to put him under a couple tons per square inch in my attack trainer. And I’m going to simulate that he’s up against a Japanese Destiny II class sub. I’m taking wagers that he’ll come out on top.”
“Well, I hope he’s as good as you say he is. I wouldn’t want my sub’s namesake going to a paper-pushing type. So many of Wells’s skippers couldn’t shoot the broadside of a barn. You’d better clean up that force.”
They were at the ornate entrance to the building. The black Lincoln waited, tailpipe vapors wafting over the car in the light winter wind.
The two men began the checkout process at the security desk. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Michael.” Pacino stared. Donchez had never called him that. “That Vortex missile’s bad news.”
“You know, Uncle Dick, I really miss going to sea,” Pacino said, changing the subject.
“Fleet command is nothing compared to conning a sub in combat.”
“With all the tension in Japan, Scenario Orange may not be so far off.”
“I have to doubt it, sir. But if the balloon went up and we got into a hot war at sea, I’d still be cooling my heels at USUBCOM headquarters.”
“Not necessarily. Get your deputy to run the show landside and then go to sea with one of the boats. If you’re going to command in a war, Mikey, you can’t do it from the rear.”
“I’m tempted to do as you say, but it wouldn’t work, not with Wadsworth in charge.”
“Watch out for Tony Wadsworth. He doesn’t like you. Just another reason to take your show to sea. Sometimes submarines don’t have time to come to periscope depth to communicate. It could give you the independence you’d need.”
“I’ll consider it, sir.”
“Admiral Donchez, sir,” one of the security guards called. “Urgent call coming in from the White House switchboard.”
“Looks like you’ll have to find your own way out, Mikey. Good luck.”
Pacino shook the admiral’s hand and forced a smile, ducking quickly into the staff car. The older Donchez got the harder it became to say goodbye to him, Pacino thought. He never knew if it was to be the last time he’d see the old man.
The new headquarters building faded behind in darkness and the trees. Pacino was so lost in thought about commanding a fleet from a submarine that he barely noticed when the helicopter took off and Fort Meade shrank below him.
CHAPTER 2
Adm. Michael Pacino looked up from the briefing table, the chart computer display on it showing Tokyo Bay.
Comdr. Bruce Phillips, the commanding officer of the 688-class submarine Greeneville walked in, looking tense.
“Commander Phillips,” Pacino said, rising to his feet and shaking the younger man’s hand. “Good to meet you. I know you’re anxious to get on with it. I just want to let you know I want to see you succeed here. This isn’t a test to remove you from command, as the rumors have it. I just want to see how you fight your ship. Are you ready?”
“Yes sir.”
“The scenario we’ll be running is you against a Destiny II-class Japanese attack submarine outbound from Tokyo Bay. The Destiny is on the way to the deep Pacific to try and sink a US surface-action group. Your mission is to sink him before he can get by you and, obviously, to survive. Which won’t be easy, because the Destiny II is one of the best there is. Your USS Greeneville is an older 688-class ship, but I’m convinced you can beat this guy.”
“I’ll try, sir.”
“I’ll be there only to observe. It’s your deal. Good luck.”
The announcement came over the loudspeaker.
“OWN SHIP IS USS GREENVILLE, SUBMERGED OPERATIONS, EIGHTY NAUTICAL MILES SOUTHWEST OF TOKYO BAY. IN THIS SCENARIO, HOSTILITIES HAVE BROKEN OUT BETWEEN THE U.S. AND JAPAN. OWN SHIP’S MISSION IS TO SINK OUTBOUND DESTINY NUCLEAR ATTACK SUBMARINE COMING OUT OF TOKYO BAY ENROUTE TO THE PACIFIC. BEGIN SIMULATION.”
Admiral Pacino looked around. Something seemed wrong.
He sensed it the moment he walked into the darkened control room. He tried to identify the source of his uneasiness but his thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the officer of the deck announcing, “The admiral is in the control room.”
“Carry on,” Pacino said, looking up to the periscope stand where Comdr. Bruce Phillips presided over his battlestations crew. “Captain Phillips, please go ahead.”
“Aye, Admiral,” Phillips said, turning away from Pacino to look at the control-room displays below him.
The room was completely dark, rigged for black, lit only by the backwash of light from the firecontrol console screens and the instrument faces mounted on the ship-control console, the periscope stand and at various points in the overhead. As Pacino’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could make out the watchstanders crammed into a room the size of a small den. Three were in the ship-control station up forward, the seats and console arrangement looking like it had been transplanted from a 747 cockpit, except that instead of windows there were rows of instruments monitoring the nuclear submarine’s course, speed, depth, angle, engine speed and control surface positions. Two men sat in leather seats on either side of a central console crammed with rows of switches and knobs, each man holding a control yoke exactly like that of an airplane. Behind the console an older heavier man leaned forward, supervising the first two. To the left was a large wraparound panel where another crewman sat facing rows of dials and switches, two large monitor screens set in the panel dimly flashing system-status displays with diagrams of pipes and tanks.
Behind the cockpit setup was the elevated periscope stand, the platform rising eighteen inches off the surrounding deck with polished stainless-steel railing enclosing it. The stand was called “the conn,” since the officer of the deck controlled the ship from the platform.
The two stainless steel poles penetrating the stand were the periscopes, both useless since the sub was too deep to see anything but darkness. On the conn Captain Phillips and his officer of the deck, a young lieutenant, stood side by side, the lieutenant unconsciously mimicking the older captain’s stance and square-jawed squint at the room below.
On the starboard side of the conn was a long row of consoles, each with a television monitor screen. The row was the attack center, where the machines figured out where the enemy submarine was and programmed weapons to take him out. When Pacino had commanded a submarine the consoles were called the firecontrol system, before the separate ship’s computers were linked and integrated, the row now part of a combat-control suite.
Pacino looked at the displays on the console screens, surprisingly empty.
Aft of the periscope pedestal were two plotting tables, one used for navigation, the chart showing Tokyo Roads, the small islands and the main traffic approach channel into Tokyo Bay. The ship’s position was marked with a glowing dot off the island of Inamba-Jima, barely over the hundred-fathom curve, very shallow water for a deepdraft submarine. The second table was crowded with two officers and an enlisted plotter, staring at a blank white sheet of tracing paper since there was no enemy to track.
On the port side of the periscope stand were rows of navigation equipment. Set into the overhead were radio control panels, television screens, chronometer indicators, cables and valves. One of the television monitors between the ship control area and the attack center was dark, since it played the view out of the periscope. The second was above the middle firecontrol console display and was lit in red and lined with what looked like vertical scratches — the sonar display repeater. Pacino looked at the screen, which showed that the sea around them was empty.