“Like our dear friend, Gennady, who lies at the bottom of the Barents Sea?” The mention of Captain Lyachin and the Kursk disaster momentarily quiets Romanov’s XO.
“Patience is required, Ivan. The admiral will eventually assign us to one of the new Borey-class. For now, let us enjoy the honor of commanding the last Typhoon in the fleet.”
Kron blows snot from his nose. “I prefer the Tomsk, or even one of the older Victors. Overhauling this monster took twice as long as it should have. I’ve heard rumors—drunkenness among the workers, corners cut to save money. Only the newest boats are reliable these days. And these Arabs, they’re desert pigs who know nothing about being a submariner.”
Romanov turns to face his second-in-command. “We do what we must. Have our Iranian friends rig the ship for dive. We’ll give the Americans one last show.”
Barents Sea
22 nautical miles due north
The Los Angeles-class fast-attack sub, USS Scranton (SSN-756), rises silently from the deep, slowing to hover at periscope depth.
“Sixty feet,” the diving officer reports.
“No close contacts.” The OOD gives the “all clear” sign after three rapid sweeps of the horizon.
Captain Tom Cubit peers through the Type-18 search periscope, its low-light operating mode cutting through much of the darkness. “Radio, conn, anything on the VLF?”
“Conn, radio, transmission coming in now, sir.”
“On my way. Officer of the Deck, you have the conn.” Cubit turns the periscope over to his OOD, then makes his way aft down the portside passageway leading into the communications shack to receive the transmission he has been anticipating for the last seventy-two hours.
Thomas Mark Cubit was born and raised in south Philadelphia, a bluecollar section of the city not far from the Delaware River. As a boy he spent much of his free time staring at the rusting gray warships docked in rows of threes at the Philadelphia Naval Yard, occasionally sneaking aboard one to look around. An all-around athlete in high school, Cubit accepted a basketball scholarship to the University of Central Florida, where he met his future wife, Andrea, whose father was a prominent lawyer in Orlando. Upon graduating, Tom skipped law school, much to Andrea’s dismay, deciding instead to enroll in Officer Candidate School (OCS) to pursue a career in the Navy. Cubit’s boyish charm and his down-to-earth style of leadership quickly earned him high marks among his fellow officers and crew, as well as with the Director of Naval Reactors, who selected him for reactor prototype school. From there, Tom was sent to SOBC (Submarine Officers Basic Course) in Groton, Connecticut, then to his first assignment, a two-year stint aboard the USS Boise (SSN 764). The recent captain’s O-6 ranking had been earned after his last assignment aboard the USS Toledo (SSN-769). When the opportunity to take a second command aboard the Scranton had been offered, Cubit jumped on it.
The communications officer looks up as Cubit enters the radio room, handing his CO the message transmitted by the VLF (very low frequency wire).
TYPHOON TK-20 CONFIRMED LEAVING ZAPADNAYA LITSA SUBMARINE BASE AT 0400 HOURS. COMMANDING OFFICER: YURI ROMANOV.
Cubit smiles as he reads the Russian captain’s name. The Toledo had played a tense game of cat and mouse with Romanov two years earlier when he had commanded the Tomsk, an Oscar II-class nuclear submarine.
Cubit passes the message to his executive officer, Commander Bo Dennis. The former football star at the University of Delaware reads the transmission as he follows his CO back to the conn. “Romanov again? Better give him plenty of room. Remember how he nearly drove us insane with all those crazy counterdetection maneuvers.”
“Yeah, God bless ’em.” Cubit returns to the tight confines of the control room. “All right, gentlemen, time to play chase-the-Russian. Diving Officer of the Watch, make your depth six hundred feet, twenty-degree down angle.”
The planesman and helmsman operating the aircraft-style control wheels quickly buckle themselves in.
“Aye, sir, making my depth six hundred feet, twenty-degree down angle.”
Cubit holds on as his ship drops bow first, the interior compartment tilting too steeply for normal walking.
“Six hundred feet, Captain,” the diving officer reports.
“Helm, left fifteen-degree rudder, increase speed to two-thirds.”
Helmsman Kelsey Walker repeats Cubit’s orders, dialing up two-thirds speed using a small electronic order telegraph (EOT) located beside his left knee.
In the engine room, the shaft increases its revolutions to sixty turns, the propeller pushing the boat to twelve knots.
“XO, you have the conn.”
“Aye, sir, I have the conn.”
Cubit heads forward to the sonar room, where technicians stationed at four BSY-1 sonar stations are listening intently while watching television screens showing green waterfall-like patterns of noise. Sonar is the submariner’s window to the sea, the ocean’s sounds hitting exterior hydrophones, which convert them into electrical energy. This energy is then channeled through dedicated computers and displayed on video monitors.
The BSY-1 (pronounced busy-one) is the brains behind the attack sub’s combat system. The central computer is linked to all of the ship’s sensors, fire controls, and weapons systems. The BSY-1 uses this information to process assignments through a distribution system of smaller computers that enable quicker response times.
Cubit nods to his sonar watch supervisor. “How’re we doing, gentlemen? Anything on the TB-23?”
Senior sonar technician Michael Flynn is listening to the towed array sonar, designed to pick up very-low-frequency noise over great distances. “About a dozen fishing trawlers, Captain, nothing else.”
Cubit leans forward, squeezing the man’s shoulder. “There’s a Typhoon out there, Michael-Jack. Find it.”
“Aye, sir.” Flynn smiles. Michael-Jack is the nickname Cubit bestowed upon him years ago aboard the Toledo, when the CO learned his sonar operator was a fellow Phillies fan. Michael-Jack had been the favorite name hometown sportscasters Harry Kalas and the late Richie Ashburn had used when referring to Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt.
Flynn adjusts his headphones, intent on finding the TK-20 for his captain.
A Los Angeles-class attack sub resembles a 360-foot-long black pipe, thirty-three feet in diameter, with a dorsal-mounted, thin rectangular steel box for a sail. Comprising the most numerous class in the United States fleet, the Los Angeles-class is a silent predator, a stealthy power-projection delivery system carrying twelve Tomahawk cruise missiles in its vertical launch silos and a variety of Tomahawks in its torpedo room, along with harpoon and Mk-48 ADCAP torpedoes, the most lethal in the world.
Space on board the submarine is very limited—its tight passageways and compartments making for a claustrophobic environment. Sixty percent of the internal volume is dedicated to the ship’s engine room and nuclear reactor. Although the sub has the ability to circle the globe twenty times underwater before having to surface, its tight confines can only store enough food to last its crew about four months.
Submariners are considered the elite of the United States Navy. Only the top 1 percent of all candidates taking the entry exam are even eligible to train for duty on “shooters,” and all seamen who eventually qualify are considered volunteers.
Life on board an attack sub requires steady nerves and an ability to adapt to an almost prisonlike environment. Once the hatch is closed and the ship under weigh, submariners may not see the light of day again for months. Sealed inside a tube perpetually humming with machinery, the 140-man crew must live and work in a spatial environment equivalent to that of a three-bedroom house.