There was hardly a sound in the vast naval complex, which in its way is just about landlocked, save for the narrow throughway out of the Hampton Roads, past Old Point Comfort and Fort Monroe to port and Fort Wool to starboard. But tonight the thin freezing air magnified the sounds. The very occasional helicopter landing echoed on the night air; mobilized guard patrols drove slowly to and from the long, frosty jetties. Footsteps sometimes accompanied the watch changes. But none of the forty warships in residence was moving.
At 0200, the incoming tide was rising all the way down the long “inland” coastline, which joins the naval station to the shipyard thirteen miles to the south. And out to the northeast, beyond the protective land, lies Chesapeake Bay, its waters ebbing and flowing with the tides of the Atlantic Ocean.
But the tide rises silently along the Navy piers, and the sudden throb of four powerful Caterpillar diesels driving a 4,200-hp ship north in the dark caught the attention of anyone who happened to be out in this cold night, either on deck or onshore.
There’s a bush telegraph in Norfolk, and most people knew when any warship was scheduled to clear the station in the small hours and make an exit to the open ocean. But right now, no one had the slightest idea what kind of vessel was steaming straight up the exit channel. Equally, no one much cared. It was just a bit unexpected, even though she was showing all the correct navigation lights and had plainly come up from the repair berths down in the shipyard.
The reason for her late, or early, departure was mainly due to an intense evening of painting that had eliminated every marking that showed this was a Navy vessel.
But now she was “clean,” the 2,880-ton Safeguard-class salvage ship USS Grabber, fully disguised as a civilian, smelling of fresh paint, and moving as fast as her engines would allow. That was twelve knots, and she was being closely followed in line astern by a couple of flatbed Navy barges, self-propelled and in a similar state of newly painted self-denial.
There was no insignia, and in the dawn there would be no Navy pennants flying. This had become, in a few hours, just a tiny fleet from a private salvage company, heading through the night, toward the hottest political hot potato in the entire country; orders of the commander in chief, acting personally on the advice of the Big Man, Admiral Morgan.
On board the lead ship was an extremely unusual cast. There was the normal team on the bridge: helmsman, navigator, watchkeepers, and in this case bosun. But they were all under the command of Bob Wallace, a newly promoted commander, ex-submariner, qualified Navy diver, who’d never been on a salvage ship in his life.
There were also sixteen more divers waiting below, led by Chief Petty Officer Mark Coulson, a U.S. Navy SEAL who had been flown to the Norfolk Shipyard from the SEAL base at Virginia Beach just before midnight. He brought with him an LPO, Ray Flamini, mini-submarine driver, SEAL underwater specialist. There was also a special team of Navy salvagemen and crane operators, men who would handle expertly the steel cables attached to the two big rigs, positioned fore and aft, each capable of a 65-ton dead lift.
Most of them were sleeping now, and would do so throughout the fourteen-hour, 160-mile run out into the Chesapeake and then onward up the dark and silent Potomac River toward Washington, D.C. There would not be much sleep after that. This was an urgent mission, and it needed to be accomplished fast and secretly. No mistakes.
Slowly they chugged across the west-facing naval station, coming eighteen degrees to starboard as they approached the gateway to Chesapeake Bay. The stark outline of Fort Monroe was dark in the moonlight to port as they began their left turn northward. The water was rougher here, and there was a slap-and-swish to the freighter’s bow wave as she cut through the incoming tide.
The big heavy barges directly astern rose up laboriously before wallowing back into the troughs as their helmsmen swung the wheels left, expertly allowing these cumbersome floating freight platforms to find their shallow lines.
Grabber led them out to the north-running channel, and within two hours they had crossed the bay and run past Cape Charles on Virginia’s eastern shore. A little over four hours later, they crossed the unseen frontier where all north-going ships steam into the waters of the state of Maryland. Eight bells chimed on the salvage ship’s bridge, signaling the start of the forenoon watch: 0800 on this bright midwinter morning. But the sun was still low off her starboard quarter as they swung forty-five degrees left, up through the wide tidal waters of the Potomac estuary.
Point Lookout was silhouetted clear in the morning light, lancing out from the long Maryland peninsula like a black snake on a silver carpet. The estuary was calmer here, and all along the portside of the three ships, the long, shallow, bay-strewn shore of Virginia stretched to the north, for forty miles, up toward the big S-bend where the river narrows and in places becomes deeper.
This is a mighty waterway. From its icy, gushing source way up in the Allegheny Mountains beyond the Shenandoah Valley, the Potomac runs 160 miles along the South Fork alone before reaching Harper’s Ferry and turning east toward Washington, on its final 160-mile journey to the sea.
Grabber and her consorts still had a hundred miles to run in broad daylight, and all along the route she kept strict radio silence. Occasionally they passed a freighter running south but made no signal of greeting, friendship, or recognition. The watch changed at noon. Lunch was served to all personnel on board the salvage ship, but the men on the barges settled for beef sandwiches and chocolate with mugs of hot coffee.
The afternoon wore on, and a deep chill set in long before the sun began to set. By 1500, they had cut their speed to eight knots and the navigator was studying the GPS intently, calling out the numbers. As they passed Quantico, Commander Bob Wallace made contact with the United States Marine Corps airbase at Turner Field.
They came slowly past Chicamuxen Creek on the starboard side and, almost drifting now, came alongside the low-lying peninsula of the Navy’s surface warfare center at Stump Neck. Right here, Commander Wallace ordered a course change, and USS Grabber came thirty-eight degrees left into the middle of the stream, onto a 360-degree bearing, due north.
Sonars active.
The navigation officer was calling the GPS numbers now, and he did so for three more miles. It was almost dark now, and in the failing light, with the sun disappearing behind the long, low shoreline of Charles County, Commander Wallace called for the helmsman to hold course, but for engines to reverse, and for the barges to do the same. The firm voice of the navigator could plainly be heard:
Thirty-eight spot thirty-eight north, seventy-seven spot zero-two west.
“Thank you, Tommy,” said Commander Wallace quietly. “All stop. Drop anchors fore and aft. Diving Team One prepare to go. Check marker buoys, load sea anchors, and lower the Zodiacs away. Ops area teams prepare to leave.”
Grabber was suddenly a fast-moving U.S. Navy warship. There was no enemy, of course, in the middle of the Potomac a few miles south of Washington, D.C. But there had been, and right now it was hard to tell the difference between battle stations and peacetime action stations. No one was standing still. Or sleeping. Or sipping coffee.
The shouts and commands of the petty officers, chiefs, and lieutenants crackled in the gloom of the early evening. Lines were made fast, anchor chains howled, heavy metal hit the riverbed sixty feet below, underwater lights were tested, scubas checked, ropes, lines, and marker buoys prepared. Away to starboard, four miles through the fast-encroaching darkness, the powerful night scopes of the watchmen at the U.S. Navy surface warfare center peered out from Indian Head. Tonight and until this mission was completed, they were watchdogs.