And there was another possibility to consider. Palestinian terrorists had used such boats for years in suicide bombing attempts against Israeli naval vessels, and there was the small boat packed with explosives that had put a hole in the hull of the USS Cole.
It didn't seem likely that al Qaeda would have a suicide boat waiting for a U.S. attack sub less than a mile off the coast of Connecticut… but then, before it happened, no one would have believed bin Laden's terrorists capable of taking out the World Trade Center and a chunk of the Pentagon with three hijacked airliners. The Navy in general, and ship captains in particular, took such possibilities very seriously indeed.
Garrett wasn't going to let that speedboat anywhere near his vessel if he could help it.
"Bridge, Radar," a voice called over the intercom headset. "Target designated Romeo One, bearing two-zero-five, range five-five-zero. Estimate speed at fifty knots. Probable intercept course. Time to impact… approximately two minutes."
"This is the Captain. Sound general quarters."
"Now general quarters, general quarters" blared from every 1MC speaker on the boat. "All hands, man your battle stations." As the vessel's crew came to a state of full alert, Garrett grappled with the variables of speed, range, and direction. He could extend the time to collision by turning away from the oncoming speedboat and increasing speed. Or he could order an emergency dive.
The trouble was, Virginia was still moving through dangerously restricted waters. Dead ahead was the shoal water of the New London Ledge, marked by another lighthouse. To the right of that lay the shoals of Black Ledge and Vixen Ledge, marked by warning buoys, while to the right were Long Rock, Shoal and Middle Rocks, and the Sarah Ledge. There was damned little room in here for maneuver.
"Diving Officer!" he snapped. "This is the Captain. Give me DBK!"
"Captain, Dive Officer. Depth beneath keel… thirty-eight feet."
Shallow. Very shallow. Virginia had a draft of thirty-four feet, meaning the actual depth here was seventy-two feet. From keel to the top of her sail she measured just under fifty-five feet, which gave her almost no leeway at all if she submerged totally. The slightest miscalculation in trim or angle of descent could slam the Virginia into the bottom. The charts listed the bottom hereabouts as mud; probably nothing would be damaged but pride… probably. Garrett wasn't willing to risk it, however.
"Helm, Bridge. Come left twenty degrees."
"Bridge, Helm. Come left two-zero degrees, aye aye!"
"Maneuvering! Bridge! Increase revolutions to three-zero knots."
"Bridge, Maneuvering. Increase revs to make three-zero knots, aye aye!"
"Comm, signal our intentions to our escort." It wouldn't do for Virginia to avoid the oncoming civilian boat, only to run down a Coast Guard security craft in the process.
Virginia seemed to hunker down as her speed increased. The wash coming up and over her rounded bow and breaking up and across the slanted foot at the forward edge of her sail turned to a white cascade lashing at the cockpit. In seconds, Garrett was soaking wet, and the windshield was practically opaque with driving salt spray. Turning in the cockpit, he tried to spot the Cigarette boat, almost lost against the clutter of small boats and houses along the shore. There it was… almost bow-on now to starboard, high on a plane as it raced to catch up with the speeding submarine. The Coast Guard boats were both turning to intercept him.
Garrett continued to study the boat through his binoculars, trying somehow to read the mind of its pilot. An idiot rich kid out for a joyride in Daddy's expensive racing boat? That stretch of the Connecticut coast behind the New London skyline was definitely the high-rent district, home to plenty of rich doctors, lawyers, and New York City stockbrokers.
Or could it be a terrorist, an AQ fanatic trying to go out in a blaze of martyr's glory by taking out America's latest nuclear attack submarine with a speedboat full of explosives?
If it was a terrorist, Garrett thought, the guy wouldn't be alone. He would know his chances of catching the Virginia were slender, even within the maze of rocks and shoal waters south of New London. He might well be out there as a highly visible diversion, attracting attention with a bright red speedboat throwing a towering rooster tail of spray, while other suicide bombers moved into position in the south or east. Turning, he carefully swept the horizon ahead and to port. Fishers Island was four miles to the southeast, beyond the New London Ledge Light. That was the only piece of high ground that would afford much in the way of concealment for other attackers.
Garrett needed to make a navigational decision quickly. On his new heading, he would scrape past the New London Ledge and run smack aground on Fishers Island in another eight minutes or so. He could come back to starboard onto his original heading, taking the main channel south into Block Island Sound before turning southeast again and moving into the open vastness of the Atlantic. Or he could swing further to port, with the intention of threading the Virginia past the Dumplings and through narrow Lord's Passage between Wicopesset Island and East Point on the far tip of Fishers Island.
He would be in deep and open water faster with the first choice. Virginia needed maneuvering room, and fast. He took another look at the Cigarette boat, now almost directly to starboard. Yeah… to his eye, Virginia was definitely winning the race.
"Helm, Bridge. Come right three-zero degrees."
"Bridge, Helm. Come right three-zero degrees, aye aye!"
Back on a southerly heading, the New London Ledge Light now lay five hundred yards off the port bow. The Cigarette boat, now off Virginia's stern quarter, continued to make a valiant attempt to catch the fast-moving sub, but the two Coast Guard vessels were moving to block it. Swerving wildly, he avoided one of the Coasties, but the second expertly slid into his path.
By this time, the alert Garrett had flashed to the shore authorities had begun to produce results. A pair of Navy Sea Cobra helicopters was approaching low across the water from the airfield to the northeast, like small, deadly gray insects. Along the shoreline to the northeast, a small flotilla of Navy and Coast Guard patrol boats was scrambling. They'd be bearing down on the scene of the unfolding drama in another few minutes.
The Cigarette boat driver evidently saw that he wasn't going to get closer. At a distance range from the Virginia of just 150 yards, he turned broadside and cut his power. Through his binoculars, Garrett could see two people on board beside the pilot, a man and a woman, struggling to unfurl a large green and white banner along the craft's side.
The banner read Greenpeace.
Greenpeace! So they weren't terrorists and they weren't joyriders after all. Damn it all!
That organization, he knew, had a number of agendas worldwide, and they'd done a lot of good for conservation and for the raising of an ecological consciousness, both in the U.S. and abroad. Garrett approved, in general, of such goals. But Greenpeace was also dedicated to blocking the deployment of naval vessels with nuclear power plants, or that might be carrying nuclear weapons.
Garrett had encountered them before more than once. They'd tried a similar ploy a few years ago in San Francisco Bay as he'd captained the Pittsburgh from Mare's Island to the Golden Gate. They were nuisances, nothing more. He supported their right to protest, even if he thought some of their political goals were misguided.