The admiral fumbled for words for a moment, then said, "Evidently your colleagues onboard the USS Jefferson have kept some matters from you.
Earlier this evening, your fighters attacked six of our aircraft on a routine maritime patrol of our northern shore."
"Attacked? What exactly happened?" It is always better to ask for more information than give immediate explanations when the situation is unclear. I could think of a large number of actions that would constitute an "attack" on the part of Jefferson, ranging from simply launching alert aircraft or lighting off fire-control radar, to maneuvering too close to another aircraft, to missiles off the rails. Until I knew more, I didn't want to speculate.
The admiral was not about to clear up the ambiguities for me.
"Fortunately, there were no casualties," he continued smoothly. "But, under the circumstances, I've been instructed to terminate the contest.
You understand, we must take precautions."
"Well, then, first thing in the morning we shall prepare to-"
The admiral cut me off with a gesture. "Not then. Now."
Now, that stumped me. As a fellow aviator, the admiral surely knew that it was not a good idea to fly combat aircraft without adequate rest and preflight briefing. Yet here he was, apparently suggesting that I fly north, roust my boys and girls, and that we get in our aircraft and just get the hell out of Dodge. Well, we could do that if we had to ― God knows I've flown tired and hungry more times than I care to think about. But given a chance, I choose safety over macho gestures now. "Tonight?
Surely, Admiral, you're not suggesting that."
He nodded once, then rapped out a series of orders in Russian. "I've instructed your other aviators to be awoken and told to pack. They will be waiting for you. You will be provided all assistance in your preflight briefings and in any service requirements for your aircraft."
"But what about our maintenance crews?"
"Your COD transport is waiting on the airfield with your people. All in all, I think we have taken everything into account."
"Almost everything. What about my father?" I asked.
He sighed heavily. "You understand, he was not a well man. In the last few days, we'd had hopes ― knowing that he would see you seemed to give him new life. But this afternoon, I am sorry to say that he passed away quietly in his sleep." His face made a pass at sympathy, but his eyes were hard and cold. "I am sorry."
His words chilled me. If I'd needed confirmation of what I'd already known to be true, this was it. I mentally assessed my own readiness to fly. Sure, I thought I was good to go, but it wasn't a good idea.
Nevertheless, it appeared that we were being offered no choice in the matter. I drew myself up to my full height. "Then, if you would be so kind as to grant me some privacy, I shall make my preparations."
The admiral considered this a moment, then nodded abruptly. He made a gesture, and the aides marched out of my room. The admiral followed them, pausing at the doorway to say, "I would give very much to know exactly where you were this evening, Admiral Magruder."
12
There was a knock on my door, then the chief of staff barged into my cabin. He's got the privilege, one of the few who take advantage of it, of surprising me in my bedroom area when I'm only half-dressed.
"You're going to have to make the call on this one," he said, handing me the message. I finished poking my arms into the shirt and then took it from him. The chief of staff doesn't abuse his privileges lightly ― if he thought it was important enough to interrupt one of my few chances to escape for a workout, it was. And it wasn't like he hadn't seen me in my skivvies a number of times before.
I scanned the message, then looked back up at him. "He sounds OK to me. So what's the problem?"
The chief of staff shook his head gravely. "You have to read between the lines as an engineer, Admiral," he said. He wasn't arguing, just bringing his peculiar talent as a surface warfare officer and superb engineer to put the whole thing in context for me. "You know how those sub skippers are. He'd rather go to the bottom than quit, I think."
I read the message again, then looked up at him. "It's that bad?"
The chief of staff nodded. "Worse, probably. I'm only speculating, mind you. And it's not like he's not telling us the truth, sir," he added, seeing the look on my face. "Everything he says is true. But he's a smart man, they don't let the dumb ones go into submarines. He knows you're not going to understand all the context."
I sat down on the bed and sighed. It looked like my workout was going to get pushed further away than I wanted, for the second day in a row.
The message had been brief but to the point. It was short, as most submarine messages are, transmitted through the ELF network. Someone in CVIC has broken the code already, giving me a plain text translation beneath the sequence of apparently random letters.
The sub's skipper said that they had gotten control of their engineering problems, had made the repairs required. The remaining damage was, to use his words, "within allowable limits for these mission perameters."
Like a fat, dumb, and happy aviator, I'd taken that to mean there was no problem. Evidently, the chief of staff read it otherwise.
"So translate for me, damn it," I said, handing him back the message.
"Tell me all these details you're reading between the lines."
"He's OK as long as we don't ask him to do anything fancy," the chief of staff said bluntly. "Remember, his mission was to accompany us and remain in a silent patrol observer role. For that, he's fine, which means he's not making a lot of noise." He hesitated for a moment, then added, "And I think that means that some of the damage is beyond repair. Quiet equipment ― that's been damaged ― is equipment that's off line, not in standby. So, say he has two out of four main coolant pumps left. He can do what we brought him here for ― but if we need a few days of full-power reactor runs, he's got a problem. That's what I think."
"Shit. So what do I do? Send him home?" I asked. "That will go over real well, won't it? Here the guy is, trying his damnedest to finish the deployment, and I pull the rug out from under him. Either way, his career is dead when he gets home."
"I think there are more problems, as well," the chief of staff continued, not answering my question but not exactly evading it either.
"You know about SUBSAFE procedures, right?"
I nodded. "As much as I need to, I guess. Which parts do you have in mind?"
The SUBSAFE Program was a conglomeration of safety procedures that really began with the loss of the USS Thresher on the east coast. Since that time, procedures had been revamped to require a number of inspections on the repair of any critical component, submarine certification for repair of most components, and dramatic changes in emergency procedures in keeping the men on a submarine alive. Preserving the capacity to surface, or at least come shallow enough to let the men escape through the escape trunks, was a primary goal in any disaster onboard a submarine.
"I think he's probably running on the margin of acceptability for SUBSAFE," the chief of staff continued. "Look at paragraph three ― he's talking about intending to maintain a constant depth, asking us not to order depth changes unless it's absolutely necessary to mission accomplishment. And we know, one of the casualties was to a high-pressure air compressor. You add it up ― like I said, reading between the lines ― and he might be just a teensy, weensy bit worried about his ability to do an emergency blow and get back on the roof if he has to."