Ocean water cools off at a significant rate, once the sunlight cannot penetrate deeper. Between the lower temperature and the increasing density created by the weight of the water above, the change creates a layer that modifies the sound-carrying characteristics of the ocean. That layer is known as a thermocline. It acts as a blanket to dampen and reflect sonar pulses, or pings as they are called, from surface ships. This makes finding a submarine much more difficult for a ship on the surface. The reverse also holds true. For a sub below the thermocline, it is more difficult to hear surface ships that might be looking it.
Ten minutes later the helmsman announced, “At 1500 feet, Sir.”
“Make your heading 210 degrees and stop to clear baffles,” Jacobs ordered. Clearing baffles was the practice of turning to the right or the left, coming to a complete stop, and using the sensitive side — or flank — mounted hydrophones to listen for anything that may be behind the sub.
“Heading 210 degrees, pulsejet stopped, Sir.”
“Sonar, con, anything?”
“Con, Sonar, nothing around us.”
“Helm, ahead at flank speed, heading 300 degrees.”
Where the hell are you? Jacobs wondered.
CHAPTER 35
Senator Bechtel met with Bob Schwartz in the coffee shop on H Street.
“You followed the money?”
“Yes, and I think I’ve found your smoking gun,” he said.
“So what is it?” she asked anxiously.
“First let me give you a little background so you have some context for what I’ve found. On the 10th of December, 1976, The U.N. General Assembly adopted the U.N. Weather Weapons Treaty, which prohibits modification of the environment for a hostile use in order to eliminate dangers to mankind. The treaty prohibits the use of techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction. Article two defines Environmental Modification Techniques as any technique for changing, through deliberate manipulation of natural processes, the dynamics, composition or structure of the earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space.”
“Okay,” Bechtel said. “Did we sign it?”
“Yep, May 18th, 1977.”
“So…”
“The HAARP facility in Gakona, Alaska was allowed as peaceful research.”
“That facility has been phased out. It’s no longer functional,” Bechtel replied. She looked at the expression on Bob’s face. “There’s a big ‘but’ coming, isn’t there?”
“There is,” he replied.
“How much money, and where?” she asked.
“Eighty-five billion over two years was spent for a new facility in Alaska. HAARP had 180 antennas. The new facility is 100 times the size. It’s called the Active Auroral Antenna Array, A4 for short, and it’s a joint operation by the Air Force and the Navy, just as HAARP was, only this time there’s no civilian component.”
She leaned back in her chair. “Your physics guy said the HAARP facility didn’t have enough power to generate an earthquake. Does the new facility have that level of power?”
“By several times over,” Bob replied.
“So the earthquake in China?”
Bob shrugged his shoulders. “No proof.”
But China’s response speaks for itself, she thought. They obviously believe we caused the earthquake, and if that’s the case, China’s reaction makes a lot more sense now. My only question is exactly when do they consider the score settled, and what is it going to cost us until it is?
Senator Elizabeth Bechtel paced an oval around her desk in her office. So we attacked China in a covert operation. The Chinese believe the earthquake was created by us. We will be attacked in return, but it will look like a natural disaster. But where, and when, and what form of disaster will it be? Someone in this country ordered that attack. Someone carried out that attack and used the A4 facility in Alaska to do it. Who would do that, and why. She stopped in front of her window and stared at the White House. Then it hit her. There was one person who had to be in the middle of all of it: Billingsly.
CHAPTER 36
Jacobs saw Silverton enter the control center of the Massachusetts. Eight hours had passed and they had covered 345 miles of ocean without a hint of the ghost sub. “Any luck?” Silverton asked.
Jacobs shook his head. “Maybe we’re not thinking this through right.”
“Like what?” Silverton asked.
“What if the ghost sub is just heading in close to the shore and dropping off a landing party? They could accomplish their mission and be gone long before we can cover the area, and we have no idea what their mission could be. We’re throwing guesses at this thing.”
“Well,” Silverton replied, “all we have is speculation at this point. What does your gut tell you?”
“It doesn’t feel like a hit and run operation. I think they are sneaking around out there, somewhere, doing something and trying not to get caught.”
“Chances are COMSUBPAC has other subs out there looking for the ghost sub, too. We can’t be the only one searching the area.”
“It’s just that it’s such a damn big area,” Jacobs said. “We’re looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, and at this point, we’re not even sure which field the haystack is in.”
Jacobs looked around the control center. Everything was operating smoothly.
“I can take over if you’d like to take a nap,” Silverton said. “We’ll be passing San Francisco in another hour.”
“I think I’ll do that,” Jacobs replied and then announced, “XO has the con.”
Jacobs retired to his cabin, removed his shoes, shirt and pants, hung them up in the small closet and picked up the report on the ghost sub. He settled back on his bed and read the report again. All of the Alfas were decommissioned and supposedly scrapped. Yet here is the screw signature, unique to this sub. Even the huge Typhoon Class Ballistic Missile submarines are mostly gone, only one is known to be even partially operational. And what is a Russian sub doing in American waters? This is a play right out of the Cold War era.
Jacobs knew that Russia had been facing hard economic times. Dozens of the older Russian submarines were sitting, tied to piers, rusting for lack of simple maintenance. Many of them were now for sale in the hope of receiving some hard currency, desperately needed by the struggling government. Buying an older sub was a lot cheaper than trying to build a new one. But with age, came problems and obsolete equipment, and reliability of the hull structure was of concern. But, it was a tradeoff that many countries were willing to make.
The old Alfa hulls were Titanium, light weight yet very strong, and they didn’t rust like the steel hulls did. The Alfas were worth more as scrap metal than they were as functioning submarines in most cases. The primary reason they were decommissioned and scrapped wasn’t because of their hulls, it was because of their liquid metal reactors, which couldn’t be easily shut down and which required an extraordinary amount of maintenance, making them very expensive to operate. The reactor had to be kept warm to keep the metal alloy in the primary loop from solidifying. In all, the huge maintenance expense was primarily why they were scrapped. But what if one of them was secretly sold? The screw signature was from the last Alfa to be decommissioned. This was certainly a mystery, and one that needed to be solved, soon.