“At this speed it will be twenty-one hundred hours, sir.” Shipley turned to the XO. “XO, I want a quiet ship, and I want sonar extra alert. Any sign of warships, I want to be notified. Make sure it’s in the captain’s night orders.”
“Aye, sir.”
Lieutenant Logan and his two communications technicians crawled up the ladder into the conning tower.
“Captain, XO,” Logan acknowledged, “looks as if this is it,” he said with excitement in his voice. “This is going to be great.” Shipley nodded, thinking, I felt the same way on my first mission out of Pearl. It only took that one mission to change that excitement to mind-numbing fear. He pointed to the far end of the compartment. “Let’s step over here for a moment, Lieutenant.” Logan nodded at Brooks and Cross. “You two, wait here.”
The two sailors from Naval Intelligence set their gear on the deck while Shipley, Arneau, and Logan stepped away.
Shipley said quietly, “Lieutenant, I wouldn’t be too enthused over this. When we cross into the territorial waters of the Soviet Union, we are entering their territory. Anything that happens to us will be denied by our own Navy and our own government.”
A look of disbelief crossed Logan’s face as the smile faded. “But—”
Shipley held up his hand. “There are no ‘buts’ in the submarine service, Lieutenant. There are just ‘ah, shits’ and ‘thank Gods.’ The other thing is we have not heard from your Admiral Frost. We need to know how their submarines enter and leave the bay. It would be best if we are able to do the bulk of this mission submerged. Sailing into Kola Bay on the surface is not what I call conducive to a long life.” He stopped. Shipley looked at the faces of the two men. He wanted to say he was going to abandon the mission, but he knew he wouldn’t.
He had never failed to complete an assigned mission, and this late in his career he was not going to do it now. If the U.S. Navy thought it important enough to risk his life, the lives of his men, and the submarine in which they rode, then it was a mission he would complete. He took a deep breath. “If the Soviets do it surfaced, we will have to do it the same.”
“I would think we would want to go through the narrows during the night,” Logan offered.
“You’re probably right, and since our navigation plan has us arriving off the mouth of the bay at twenty-one hundred GMT, we should be off Severomorsk by dawn.” He looked at Arneau. “XO, have Cliff check the tides. It would be nice to pass through the narrows during high tide.” He turned back to Logan. “It would also be nice to have Naval Intelligence come through on time.” Then he said quietly, “And it would be nice to have some ‘Notice to Mariners’ charts of the area, but we don’t.”
“Notice to Mariners?” Logan asked.
Shipley nodded. “They’re charts that give you the depths, location of undersea obstacles, and updated information derived from other mariners. Unfortunately, we don’t. Your message to Naval Intelligence asked them for the soundings, so hopefully they’ll include any updates on this area.” He chuckled. “It’s not as if we can go to the C&G and ask them for updates.”
“If Suitland fails to answer before we reach Kola Bay, sir, will that mean we’ll wait until Suitland replies before entering?”
“Suitland?” Arneau asked.
“Yes, sir; the Office of Naval Intelligence is located there.”
“I thought it was in the Pentagon.”
“No, sir. The dni stays in the Pentagon most of the time, but the real nerve center of Naval Intelligence is in Suitland, Maryland, at ONI.”
“Do you two mind?” Shipley asked, a slight smile turning the left side of his mouth up.
“Yes, sir; I mean no, sir. The message did go out, sir,” Logan quickly replied. “I checked with Mr. Olsson earlier this morning when I was reading the daily intelligence report.”
“We get a daily intelligence report?” Arneau asked, one hand coming to rest on his hip. “When did that start?”
Logan blushed. “Sir, I had it started when I knew I was coming on board,” he stuttered.
“Why wasn’t I aware of it?” Arneau looked at Shipley. “Did you know, Skipper?”
Shipley shook his head.
“Captain, XO, you are welcome to read them. I had originally proposed a daily intelligence briefing when I came aboard.” Shipley nodded. “I remember, XO. I told him to just keep me informed when something came up. I figured a daily briefing might give me more information than I need, plus there is a propensity for Naval Intelligence to spend an exponential amount of time debriefing you when they think you might know something they want to know.” He paused for a moment, thinking back to the day-after-day debriefing the crew went through when they returned from Tokyo Bay. “Even you, or they, don’t know what it is they want to know.” It had been thrilling at first to be able to help Naval Intelligence, but the third and fourth trips back for the same set of questions made the process seem more confrontational than collegial. He already knew those strange fellows wearing Navy khakis would be waiting for them on the pier when they returned to Holy Loch. He dreaded it. The less the crew knew, the quicker they would be released. He had no illusions about how long the XO, operations officer, and he would be grilled— probably until the next mission of the Squallfish.
“I want to read them,” Arneau said, poking himself in the chest with his thumb. “I want to read everything that comes into this boat and everything that goes out.” He looked back at Shipley. “I will have a talk with Mr. Olsson.”
Shipley looked up at the overhead. “Lieutenant Logan, you and your men are kind of early this morning. What are you doing in the conning tower?”
“I asked the OOD if we could practice setting up the camera one last time before we enter the surveillance area, Captain.” Shipley looked at Arneau. “XO, make sure when they raise the periscope for Lieutenant Logan and his men that the OOD slows the boat to four knots. I want no cavitations from the screws, and I don’t want wave action noise from a raised periscope beneath the water.”
“Aye, sir,” Arneau answered. “Lieutenant Van Ness, you hear the skipper?”
“Yes, sir.”
Shipley shook his head and thought, There is no way on this submarine that we are going to keep this covert mission from the crew. Arneau was grinning when he looked at him. “Knock off that shit-eating grin, XO. Tell the OOD to do whatever is needed to help them, but don’t surface.”
Shipley let out a deep sigh, the fog of his breath rolling up in front of his eyes. He zipped up his foul-weather jacket. Why did he have the feeling that Tokyo Bay was a breeze compared to what was being asked now? Maybe it was because with Tokyo
Bay the ocean was just outside the harbor entrance. Here he was going to be miles from the Barents if they were detected.
“Permission to come to new course, Skipper?” Van Ness asked.
“Very well.”
Van Ness gave the order.
The helmsman reported, “Coming to course one seven five, speed eight knots.”
Shipley turned when he heard the helmsman respond to Van Ness’s command.
“XO, slow the boat to about six knots. Have Cliff do the navigational calculations for the slower speed. Additionally, I do not want to close the entrance to Kola Bay nearer than twenty nautical miles without my express permission.”
“Roger, sir.” Arneau stepped over to Van Ness, who gave the orders necessary to reduce speed to six knots.
“Let me know if sound detects any traffic in the area.” He glanced at the sailor wedged against the far port bulkhead. The man’s head was barely visible above the turned-up collar of the foul-weather jacket. A set of headphones pinned the wool watch cap down on the man’s head.