Jazani read the data and frowned. Then he replaced the downward corners of his mouth with a smirk. “You know that this means, don’t you?”
“Another decoy, but probably not a robot.”
“Meaning probably what?”
“A sonobuoy?”
“It was a trick question, XO. It could be a robot set to zero knots. It could be a submarine-launched self-decoy set to zero knots. Or it could be a sonobuoy set to broadcast Virginia-class noises while it drifts with the current.”
The short man shrugged. “So, we don’t know until we look.”
“And we will look. And we’ll look at the next, and then we’ll look at the next, and so on and so forth until there’s nothing left to examine.”
“When do you think that might be?”
“I have no idea, but I know these decoys will become troublesome.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“Decoys are intended to fool hunters, which means the Americans are protecting something. And that means we hit something. That wounded Virginia-class ship is out there, and I intend to find it.”
CHAPTER 6
Within the quiet engineering lab, Causey studied the Indiana’s movement history. The penciled trace showed the ship moving three knots in reverse during the first half hour of its backwards crawl. Thereafter, the speed showed a quieter two knots. “We’re not really making three knots.”
His face unreadable, the executive officer offered cautious agreement without independent thought. “No, sir.”
Causey qualified his assessment. “Since our bow’s on the bottom, we don’t move with the currents, but our speed sensors can’t account for that since they measure the water’s speed over our hull. So, we’re making three knots as measured, but only two knots over ground, if I believe the charted currents.”
“Agreed. Let’s say it’s really two knots, sir. That should get us into Pakistani waters in just under two hundred hours. That’s more than eight days, but we can’t go any faster without shaking. We can sustain the turns for all-back nine knots and hold the two knots over ground, but that’s it, captain.”
The Indiana’s commander accepted that the muddy bottom negated his nuclear-powered escape speed, but two knots beat zero. “We’ll hold two knots, at least while the divers work outside.”
In need of leadership, his second-in-command looked up.
Causey spurred him. “Not sure what to do next?”
“No, sir.”
“I’m going to check on the divers. I want you to have the Cob calculate rations for nine days and determine if we need to send the divers in to get more canned goods. Once you’ve got him started on that, I want you to review possible Iranian search plans with the department heads and any free officers. Think of ways they could find us.”
“Understood, sir. I’ll take care of it. Uh… captain?”
“Yes?”
“Do you want me to account for any visible trail we might be leaving on the seafloor?”
Causey had considered the exposure, but he’d crossed it off his list of risks due to the impossibility of its exploitation. Submarines and assets that hunted them ignored shallow tracks in mud. “Why would that concern you?”
“Well, sir, I’ve been racking my brains trying to figure out how we got targeted in the first place.”
Encouraged by his second-in-command’s unsolicited input, Causey wanted to learn more. “Go on.”
“The only way it was acoustically was if we crawled right by a submarine that was drifting dead in the water.”
“That’s plausible. Right now, it’s my top theory.”
“But what if it’s some unknown thing we haven’t considered, sir. Iran could be using robots, dolphins, or divers, just like us.”
Causey grunted. “I can’t say either way, but I’ll have our divers investigate our trail in the mud. It’s worth knowing how bad it is, now that you mention it. Good thinking.” He stepped from the enclosed engineering lab and found his way to the tunnel’s watertight door.
The burly diving officer turned at the sound of sneakers tapping the deck plates. “Good timing, sir. The guys are at the hull breach.”
“How’s the tunnel holding?”
“At this depth, it’s fine. We’ve got a wire jammed through the door to keep communications with the team, but that’s giving negligible leakage. Some water got in, of course, but I bet your reactor’s still dry enough.”
“That’s just about the least of my concerns.”
“Why not go in and take a look, just to be sure, sir?”
“We can see through windows, and it looks fine. I’d like to enter and check for a slow leak, but I’m not hungry enough to eat my own sailors. So, I won’t send them in to be cooked by a critical reactor.”
“Oh, yeah. Silly me.”
Wanting to give orders, Causey checked himself. The divers had become invaluable, and he made sure to demonstrate respect. “Don’t beat yourself up. I’d give all your men the bends if I supervised them.”
Despite the somber and anxious mood pervading the crippled submarine, the young officer chuckled. “Yeah. You’d probably put them in front of a seawater valve.”
Causey had made his engineer shut down intakes on the starboard side of the engine room to avoid proving the diver correct. “No, I’m not that clueless. Can you show me what’s going on? You said my timing was perfect.”
“Sure. Let me knock and give the signal. Then you can look.” Lieutenant Hansen wrapped his knuckle against the portal, and a diver’s face appeared. The officer pointed to his eye, and the pressurized man nodded.
A second later, a waterproofed display appeared showing a video feed of two flashlight beams dancing off the jagged shards outlining the hole in the torpedo room. Causey nudged aside the lieutenant and the silent senior chief to see better. He tried to hide his gasping. “That hole’s got to be ten feet across.”
Seemingly unimpressed, the lieutenant shrugged. “At least. A lightweight warhead is enough to put a submarine on the bottom. Lucky for us it was shallow water.”
“I’m not sure how much of it was luck. Something tells me they could’ve vaporized us if they wanted to, but there are too many unknowns to speculate.”
“All that matters is that it was only one weapon and it wasn’t any bigger.”
“What’s next, lieutenant?”
“I figured I’d see if we could take manual control of the torpedo tubes.”
Causey raised his eyebrow. “That’s good thinking, but we don’t have a way to generate targeting solutions. I think you’re looking at step four when we need to solve steps one and two.”
“If you’ve got a better priority, I’m all ears, sir.”
In a welcomed show of solidarity, Senior Chief Spencer supported his young officer. “Yeah, sir. I agreed with the lieutenant about checking out the torpedo tubes. You got something better in mind?”
The Indiana’s commander prioritized his thoughts. “My first concern’s for your guys. Make sure you get with the engineer and monitor your men’s radiation. The tunnel’s a high-exposure area. The engineer can tell you where they should stand and sit to minimize their exposure, and you’ll need to rotate your teams and have their dosimeters read often.”
Both divers nodded their agreement.
“My next concern’s a question. Have either of you guys thought about welding enough sheets of metal over the hole to pump the compartment dry?” He expected modest ridicule but needed to know their opinion, and he was impressed with the seriousness of the senior chief’s response.