“Ford, this is Farragut. Affirm, sir. I understand that it would be several days until you are within range of us. The MARSOC team and the intelligence officer with them have a very time-sensitive mission. Their cargo will expire and become useless if it doesn’t reach the shore as soon as possible. This cargo is crucial to bringing an end to this conflict.” She paused, letting that information sink in.
“Farragut, this is Ford. Understood, over.”
“Ford, this is Farragut. We’ve done the math, sir. We can’t wait, over.”
“Farragut, this is Ford. You have four Chinese surface ships and one submarine bearing down on you. We are still several thousand miles away, but are working on plans to provide air support. The odds are against you. I don’t like the risk level, over.”
“Ford, this is Farragut, sir. Respectfully, sir, I understand the risks involved. But this is the only way to accomplish the mission. I request that you allow us to proceed to Panama at best speed. We will take proper precautions and use the P-8 for air cover, over. Request CSG assistance in setting up air support.”
Admiral Manning stood silent for a full twenty seconds, mulling it over in his mind. What would he do if his daughter were not on that ship? He sighed, knowing the answer, and hating it.
“Farragut, this is Ford. Proceed as requested. Will work on air support plan, over.”
“Farragut, Wilco, out.”
As the admiral hung up the phone, he looked up at the tactical display, showing red units surrounding the single blue icon that represented the USS Farragut. He hoped he had made the right choice.
Victoria and OPS reentered the wardroom and sat back down in their chairs. She got everyone up to speed.
Chase said, “So you’re saying that you’ve got a bunch of Chinese ships and one submarine out there, all looking for us, with orders to blow us out of the water?”
Victoria said, “Unfortunately, that about sums it up, yes.”
Chase looked at the ceiling and whistled. “Can you fly me back to shore?”
“I’ll do it,” Plug volunteered.
A few smiles from the group. Everyone knew the two were trying to make a somber situation more light-hearted with the attempted joke.
Victoria said, “While I appreciate your noble gestures, we need to head northeast. Getting close enough for a helo transport to shore is the only realistic option of getting the cargo to Panama City fast enough. I’ve instructed the TAO to start heading to Panama City at twenty knots.”
She looked at her watch. “What I want to do with the next twenty minutes or so is brainstorm on what tactics we can use to get through unscathed. Thoughts?”
OPS said, “We could turn off all our radars and go completely dark. Try and hide from the Chinese surface ships. As long as they don’t have some other way of getting our location, like satellite or something, then that should be good enough for them. But it won’t hide us from the submarine. If we’re traveling at twenty knots, and the submarine is in between us and Panama, we’re going to stick out like a sore thumb.”
The ASW officer said, “Ma’am, OPS is right. We need a way to find the submarine.”
“Well, we’re calling in maritime air support. There is a P-8 deployed to El Salvador that should be out here as soon as possible. That should give us protection against the submarine.”
Plug said, “I don’t think they’ll have enough buoys to protect us for five hundred miles.”
“Well, have you got a better idea?”
Plug sat on the couch in the corner of the wardroom. There was a small TV and a bookshelf filled with DVDs. One of the DVDs was a 1996 film starring Kelsey Grammer.
He said, “What if we hid from the submarine?”
The group turned and looked at him. Lots of skeptical eyes. OPS said, “How the hell are we gonna do that?”
Victoria said, “Plug, say more, please.”
“Well, at the risk of admitting that I’m the village idiot… I mean, no one else has any ideas, so…”
OPS said, “Spit it out, man.”
“You guys ever seen the movie Down Periscope? You know that scene where the submarine goes right up under the merchant ship and uses it to hide and slip through undetected?”
The group’s skeptical looks got even worse.
Plug persisted, “Look, I mean… I fly over merchant ships all the time out here. This part of the world, about half of ’em are headed east… and if they are, they’re going to the same place we are. Panama City. So, well… what if we just, what if we just ‘encouraged them’ to travel really close to our ship? At the same course and speed. Like, really close to us. Maybe we could hide from the Chinese then?”
Victoria frowned. She probably had the most ASW experience in the room. She thought it sounded nutty. Her impression was that submariners were like trained K-9 units. They could pick out a million different scents and wouldn’t get thrown off just because two ships got real close together. But she had to admit that she wasn’t totally sure that it wouldn’t work…
Victoria said, “Can someone call our sonar tech senior chief in for a moment? If I remember correctly, he started off as a submariner, right? Let’s ask him what he thinks.” One of the junior officers close to the wardroom phone picked it up and dialed a number to get the senior chief.
OPS said, “We’d have to run it by the Ford Strike Group. They have tactical control of us now.”
Victoria said, “For the sake of argument, let’s say for a second that this plan would work. How would we execute?”
The Chief Engineer said, “We could fly prize crews to each of the merchants, and have them make sure that they’re doing what we want.”
Victoria said, “We don’t exactly have a lot of people to spare to become prize crews. And what about the legality of it? Hell, this might be construed as piracy.”
Chase said, “I think we’ve got a bunch of Marines who would love to participate. Right, Captain?”
“Ma’am, I believe the terminology you’re looking for is ‘safety inspection,’” the Marine Special Forces officer said. “It just so happens that the Marine Raiders on board have been trained in these safety inspection procedures. I think that with the right encouragement, we could get a few merchants to happily comply with our navigational recommendations while conducting these safety inspections. Now, some of my men are wounded. But anyone who is up to it would be able to go. Now, our navigational recommendations will be identical to your ship’s course and speed, offset by… well, by whatever spacing you give us.” The Marine gave a charming smile.
She felt like a substitute teacher who was getting taken advantage of by an unruly group of students. “Alright, let’s keep this as a hypothetical for now. But… Chase, Plug, and Captain Calhoun, please make your way up to Combat and start looking into potential merchants that might be good candidates.”
The three men got up and left the room — a little too quick for her taste. Like they’d succeeded in getting away with something and didn’t want her to change her mind. But while there was humor in their excitement, there was nothing funny about a potential Chinese submarine waiting in their path.
Juan said, “I still can’t believe we’re doing this.”
Plug was flying the aircraft. Juan manipulated the FLIR — the infrared camera in front of the helicopter — so that they could see the merchant ship that they were approaching.