Captain Ibn Al Jamal walked to the plotting table, trying to appear more confident than he felt. On top, an outlined scheme of where their passive analyses and periscope sightings positioned the American warships was displayed. A penciled arrow shooting out from each symbol had the course and speed written along it for the American warship it represented.
He had selected the arsenal ship as the primary target, with the USS Nassau as number two. Without the arsenal ship. USS King, American firepower against Algeria would be limited to aircraft and the limited number of cruise missiles on the other ships.
The arsenal ship was an Admiral Boorda initiative, before his untimely death, to carry a reduced United States Navy into the twenty-first century. The USS King was unique; one of a kind. The arsenal program was canceled before the USS King was ever built, but Boorda supporters on the Hill voted funds for one to show the utility and tactical value of the concept. USS King was that one — kind of a memorial to Boorda.
Captain Jamal picked up a photograph taken earlier in the day through the Kilo’s periscope. The arsenal ship was a modern-day monitor that looked similar to the historic Confederate warship CSS Virginia. A long, dark menace with a low waterline complemented topside by a triangular-shaped Aegis forecastle that ran from near the bow to about a third of the length of the ship. The rear two thirds was a flat deck covered with metal hatches, hiding the vertical-launched weapons ranging from Tomahawk cruise missiles to surface to-air missiles. The ship could mix its missiles to fight an air, shore, and antisubmarine battle simultaneously, but it only provided the weapons. Other ships in the battle group did the targeting and the firing. The arsenal ship was a weapons platform for the battle group — surrounded by a half-inch-thick aluminum hull capable of stopping anything with less power than a.22 rifle. One good torpedo, properly placed, would sink her. He intended to put four into her.
Ibn Al Jamal checked his watch before he ran his finger down the navigational checklist taped to the plotting table. Sun set in thirty minutes. Add another thirty minutes for darkness, and then he would launch his attack. He looked at his watch. He would attack at twenty-two hundred hours, ten o’clock, when the Americans were announcing taps for the crew and their attention was distracted.
He gave orders to descend to one hundred meters. He’d wait fifty meters above the shallow sound layer until it was time.
Captain Jamal changed the course of the Al Nasser to parallel the heading of the Nassau battle group. He told the officer of the deck to maintain eight thousand meters distance from the Americans, and make appropriate course changes as necessary to maintain that separation. He wanted no accidental detection by the Americans. He’d close the battle group prior to firing.
Satisfied, Captain Jamal informed the officer of the deck that he was going to his cabin. He asked him to notify the steward to bring him tea. The captain strolled shakily out of the control room, turning sharply at the hatch as he remembered to tell the OOD to switch to red lighting. The next time the periscope went up it would be dark.
Crew members respectfully moved aside as he wormed his way down the narrow passageway. Each and every one murmured a greeting to the captain — none met his eyes.
He knew their reaction was to yesterday’s execution of the three traitors who had attempted to sabotage the Al Nasser’s reduction gears.
An unpleasant task, but a wartime necessity. The bodies joined six others in the galley’s freezer, keeping the frozen food company on Al Nasser’s journey to greatness. He prayed that it wasn’t to oblivion.
He wondered how the rebel zealot was doing on the Al Solomon, waiting at the mouth of the Strait of Gibraltar. An involuntary shiver shook him as he thought of his counterpart on the other Kilo submarine.
The saboteurs had been seized quickly. A rapid inspection by the chief engineer had failed to find any obvious damage. But unknown to them, tiny flakes of hard metal had fallen into the gears. Millimeter by millimeter they had worked their way deeper into the gearbox, until hours later the spinning gears began to make a continuous clicking noise, which vibrated along the shaft and into the water. A soft noise anomaly, joining the myriad of sea sounds echoing through the water, inaudible to those inside the Al Nasser.
The sonar operator on the Spruance-class destroyer USS Hayler twisted the knob on the SQR as he fine tuned the waterfall pattern. There was that blip again. He’d tried everything he knew to determine its source, with no luck. As much as he hated to do it, because of the ribbing he would take, he had no choice. He pressed the button on the ship’s intercom for the chief.
“Chief, can you come up here a minute?” Sonar Technician Second Class Calhoun asked, and then grimaced as he waited for the snide comment.
Herbert J. Calhoun was the son of a career deputy sheriff from a northern county in South Carolina. Career policemen seldom earned enough to pay for their children to go to college; deputy sheriffs earned even less. Herbert J. Calhoun knew his parents would have scratched, fought, and suffered to send him to college, but with two younger brothers and two even younger sisters, he knew they couldn’t afford it. They couldn’t even afford a community college. So he joined the Navy for the G.I. Bill, to discover, after four years, he was enjoying himself. He reenlisted. He had six more months to go on this second tour, and Calhoun intended to get out. His father’s untimely death a year ago had a lot to do with the decision. The other was he had been accepted for the University of South Carolina to start in the spring quarter.
“What is it, Calhoun? I’m busy right now,” Chief Boyce yelled back on the ship’s intercom, leaning back as he threw his feet on the desk.
With one shoe he pushed the enlisted fitness reports to one side. “Not doing anything I enjoy, but still busy,” he mumbled to himself.
“Chief, I got a sound event on the SQR that I don’t understand.”
“So? Why should I be surprised about that?”
“Ah, come on, Chief. This is a real new one. I’ve never heard anything like it before and I really need you to look at it.”
“Like the whale with the cold in the Atlantic?”
“Ah. Chief. You can’t expect us to be as good as you. I mean, look — you’re a chief.” Sonar Technician Second Class Calhoun said, patronizing the asshole. Of course, I could always get my degree and come back in the Navy as an officer and fire your ass, Herbert J. Calhoun thought.
“Okay, okay, okay. You win, I’m coming. Keep your shirt on, Calhoun, but if it’s another whale I’m gonna be pissed,” Boyce replied, clicking the intercom off. He shoved himself upright in the chair and tied his shoes. Chief Boyce leisurely shuffled the paperwork into a haphazard stack, and shoved it into his top desk drawer. Murmuring to himself about never having the time to do everything they expected him to do, he stood and stretched.
“Probably marine life,” he grumbled as he walked out of the office, pulling the door shut behind him. A few minutes later he dashed through Combat to the ASW module, earning the lanky chief the attention of the watch-standers. His thin smoke-wrinkled face intentionally twisted into what he hoped showed a mask of professional concern. His brown eyes searched the compartment, pleased that Lieutenant Frank, the CICWO, noticed. Chief Boyce wiped his hook nose as he slowed near the ASW module. He knew he impressed everyone when they first met him.
What he didn’t know was that it didn’t take long for most to realize that Chief Boyce could “talk the talk” but couldn’t “walk the walk.” “What is it, Calhoun?” Chief Boyce asked.