AK 239: The Enemy Is Already Here

TK-20

On the conn Captain Vasili, Jennifer and I chit chat when a bizarre looking helicopter with no windows, flies near us.

Vasili sees this and says, “Should I be worried?”

I say, “I’ve seen pictures of an MQ-8 but never one up close. It’s unmanned. It likely has radiation detection equipment on it.”

Vasili, looking worried, “Is it armed?”

Now I’m worried, “I sure hope not.” I hesitate then say, “However some of these things have the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS), that system is above my pay grade to know what it does. Doesn’t look like any weapons are on those sponsons.”

I can see I’ve really worried the captain. But that was nothing compared with what we saw next:

U.S. Navy’s newest class of destroyers, USS Zumwalt, (DDG-1000) steams around the southern-most corner of Prince of Wales Island.

Our escort, Skull, in his small rubber boat puts up the “All stop” signal.

Vasili understands.

He picks up his phone and says, “Conn to engine room, all stop.”

“Engine to conn, aye, captain, all stop,” is heard over the conn speaker.

I yell down to Skull,

“You getting any radioactive readings here?”

Skull shakes his head no. Then yells,

“Negative.”

Vasili looks at the Zumwalt and her two 155mm guns aimed at us and says,

“I’ve read about the Zumwalt. Now I get to see her in person. I’ll bet no other Russian can say that!”

I smile at this guy’s excitement for all things American.

I ask, “All right, here’s a question for you: How many nautical miles can those 155s shoot?

“Accurately?”

I nod affirmative.

Vasili then says, “I think it’s fifty-nine nautical miles but Russian propaganda says that’s just American propaganda.”

I smile, “Impressive. You know your propaganda or as I’d call that: Facts!”

“Here’s a few other facts for you: Someone can control that ship from thousands of miles away. It’s here to make sure we don’t have hostile intent.”

Vasili says, “What’s the skill in killing someone from an armchair, thousands of miles away?”

I answer, “Oh the Navy kills up close and personal too. That’s when they send me. At least that’s the way they used to do it.”

I’m now thinking about those weird ghosts I saw.

Vasili could not believe all of these strange and surreal new weapons of war.

“I think she looks beautiful,” says Jen.

I am thinking the same of her. Uh oh, she seemed to catch that ’cause she smiles at me.

I quickly change the subject back to my prior thought,

“As a SEAL I killed up, very close and very personal. Personally, I’m jealous of Navy kids. More and more are out of the danger zone.”

Then I thought of those ghosts again.

Are Navy SEALs like me: Obsolete?

(From my next diary: Projekt 252: Californium I would say: Definitely not!)

Vasili says, “Count me out of that war.”

The sleek looking USS Zumwalt is now alongside us. A wide variety of sensors, intelligence inputs, cameras and radiation devices are focusing on TK-20.

Both ships are at all stop and crews are tying together.

A side door opens on the Zumwalt and a sailor gives me a hand signal.

I say to Vasili, “We’ve just been invited aboard.”

Vasili climbs down the conn, “All right, then.”

Jen and I follow.

The three of us pop open the side conning tower door and head for the Zumwalt. U.S. sailors check us for weapons.

A man in dress blues then appears at the side door on the USS Zumwalt. I quickly recognize the admiral bars.

“Admiral Kenneth Baker, United States Navy, welcome to: The Gulf of Alaska Yacht Club.”

That’s funny, but no one, including me reacts.

“You must be Captain Vasili. Welcome to America. And on behalf of the President of the United States he says, thank you.”

Vasili’s not impressed.

However, he is impressed by the commander’s opening joke.

“So that was a joke then? Yacht Club?”

The admiral smiles, “Yes, that was a joke, captain.”

Vasili smiles.

The admiral teasingly then says, So, how long do you intend to visit the United States, captain?”

“Visit? I intend to stay!” says Vasili. He continues, “You think any of us can go back to Russia after giving you a billion-dollar secret sub? Every Russian sub is probably on its way here, right now.

This concerns me as I know there is at least one other Typhoon lurking out there somewhere.

Admiral Baker seems totally unconcerned. “We now know what your unique caterpillar signature looks like and we know the closest Typhoon has just turned around under the Arctic and is headed back to Russia.”

Vasili looks a bit sad.

Admiral Baker tries to cheer him up: “Looks like the three people I’m standing in front of right now single handedly avoided a nuclear war. I salute you lady and gentlemen.”

Jennifer looks to have some sense of satisfaction. She said she never, ever received that when she was in the Navy.

Suddenly there is a commotion coming from the front hatch. Armed sailors on the Zumwalt train their weapons on TK-20.

A Russian sailor is trying to pull Stone out of the front hatch.

“Damn it, I’m too fat to get out of this one too!”

The armed U.S. sailors still have their weapons trained on Stone as the rest of us laugh.

I say, “That is one large target.”

Admiral Baker says to his men,

“Stand down, sailors. That may be a threat but not to us!”

Jen and I smile at each other again for a long time before we realize the admiral may be on to us too.

Vasili clearly didn’t see or get much of that, saying,

“I’m concerned about my three missing officers, they’re real fighters, especially my second in command. He will fight to the death.

The admiral starts to say, “I deeply regret the actions…”

Vasili interrupts, “Try to take him alive. His father and the president of Russia are close friends.”

“We will do everything to take him and your other two officers alive but they have already wounded several FBI agents.

I have my wounded arm covered up with a shirt Vasili gave me.

Behind us, many of TK-20’s crew are being taken off the boat.

The admiral notices Vasili is seeing this and again looks very sad.

Admiral Baker tries to cheer him up again saying, “Can we not talk any more shop? I’ll bet you haven’t had breakfast. What would you like to eat, captain?”

“Ham and eggs?” quickly replies Vasili.

“Ham and eggs it is!” just as quickly replies the admiral.

A short time later the admiral, Jen and I, along with Captain Vasili, two Russian officers, Stone and Tony sit together in one long table in the officers’ mess eating breakfast.

Considering the situation, the mood seems light and airy among the Americans.

However, the two Russian officers look long faced and quiet.

The Admiral directs his fire to Jennifer,

“So commander, I’m glad you returned to commanding submarines but you did you really have to defect to a Russian sub to do it?”

The Americans laugh but the Russians don’t.

Vasili translates this into Russian for them.

Now the Russians laugh.

Jennifer is still not laughing.

“Do you miss it?” asks the admiral.

After pondering the question Jennifer answers,

“I do.”

She pauses thinking about this and the admiral sees he’s hit a painful subject and goes back to eating. Everyone goes back to eating, following the admiral’s lead.

Stone chimes in, “I’m just glad you didn’t drop a bomb on my fucking head!”

All silence in the room as Admiral Baker looks at this guy up and down.

“So you’re the foul mouth Pinnacle has been cussing and swearing about?”

“Damn straight!”

Admiral stands.

Everybody freaks out, standing, not knowing what will happen next.

Admiral Baker says,

“On behalf of the President of the United States thank you for putting that foul-mouth at NORAD in his place!”

Everyone laughs!

Even the Russians laugh.

(Which still puzzles me to this day!)

Stone stands and returns the salute.

“Thank you, general.”

Everyone in the room looks at the admiral realizing Stone has likely never served a day in the military, as he can’t tell the difference between an admiral and a general.

Jennifer looks over at me and, after making sure no one else is looking, she smiles again.

I’m afraid all may have caught on to these romantic signals so I try to change the subject.

“So why is the 7^th Fleet so nearby?” I ask.

“As you know, that information is classified, son. However, since our cover has already been blown, I’ll just say a friend of the commander here, Tom Watson, tipped us off to the unique signature of these new Russian Typhoons.”

“We haven’t focused on anti-submarine operations lately. I guess we really shouldn’t have let that skill deteriorate,” jokes the Admiral. He continues, “Our challenges are increasing while, thanks to Congress, our funding has been decreasing.”

Captain Vasili’s thoughts are a million miles from talking shop as he stares at his ham and eggs.

Vasili says, “I haven’t had any fresh meat since I left port.”

Now everyone else is staring at Vasili who snaps back to reality.

Vasili says, “Is anyone monitoring the radiation levels here?”

“Yes we are captain. We have many devices actively scanning the area.”

The admiral looks around the table and says, “Does anyone have a question?”

After a brief pause, I speak up,

“I have one. Captain Vasili, how was Russia able to sneak in heavy equipment, a full uranium mining operation and a nuclear power plant into the United States?”

Vasili hesitates, “First, let me just say on behalf of the Russian people neither I nor the Russian people had any idea of what was going on here. I am truly sorry and ashamed of what has been unleashed on America.”

“I only found out recently there are in fact five Typhoon class submarines like TK-20. They’ve all been retrofitted with a special nose cone to drive equipment right off our covered docks in Severodvinsk right into a Typhoon sub which then travels directly under the Arctic to Bokan Mountain’s reinforced steel dock.”

There is stunned silence as to the gravity of this.

The admiral then asks, “That’s impossible. So how can you fit twenty ICBMs in the front half of the ship and cargo?”

Vasili then says, “We have no ICBMs on board. None of the five Typhoons have any ICBMs on them. I recently found out that we were carrying parts to build something far more deadly than ICBMs:”

“Hundreds and hundreds of suitcase nuclear devices,” Vasili hesitates before continuing, “or perhaps something larger. I just don’t know. They never told me.”

The stunned silence continues.

The admiral breaks the silence,

“How long has this been going on?”

Vasili, “I’m not sure but at least five years. I’m sure your scientists will be most pleased to reverse engineer the caterpillar drive. Our water propulsion engine and screws are nearly silent.”

The admiral says, “We’ve already found a design flaw in your new sub. While it may be true that you’re nearly silent, you’re not completely silent.”

“We’ve tracked you with passive sonar by listening to the water pump for your spa.”[13]

Now before you laugh, the original Typhoon class submarines actually had an onboard Jacuzzi!

That’s right!

A heated spa is on all original Typhoon class submarines.

Last time I told this story, everyone laughed at me.

They laughed until they looked it up. So before you doubt my credibility, I challenge you:

Look it up!

Sound, any sound, however small, can travel for miles underwater.

So back to my story:

The admiral claims he is tracking the Typhoons by the signature of their Jacuzzi water pump!

So all the Russians, including Vasili are huddled, speaking feverishly in Russian to each other.

They look panicked until the admiral begins to laugh.

Vasili turns around hurt.

“That was joke?”

The admiral smiling, Yes, that was joke!”

Vasili laughs, “Good joke. Very good joke. Joke had us all going!”

The admiral then asks, specifically only looking at Vasili, “Any other questions, Captain?”

Vasili turns around and says, “Just one. What’s Nebraska look like this time of year?”

The admiral perks right up,

“I’m from Omaha and can assure you, captain, that it’s cold there right now. Maybe not Russia cold, but it’s cold.”

I see Vasili smiling. This guy will make a great American, I think to myself.

The commander stands and then so does everyone else except Vasili. He’s still looking at his ham.

“Was everybody finished?” asks the admiral looking at Captain Vasili.

No one will say anything even if they weren’t finished. Vasili stands out of respect.

“All right Mr. Denning, your people will transfer to an undisclosed location where we shall debrief you.”

“I don’t think so,” I say confidently.

The admiral, concerned says, “What do you mean?”

“I have a Christmas dinner date planned!”

I stand and walk down the long mess hall table to Jen.

Then I gently whisper something into her ear.

She grabs my hand, stands, whispers something back and we both walk down the mess hall and, in the doorway, I stop and look back at the admiral,

“But tomorrow we might be free.”

With that Jen and I leave the room.

The admiral says, “Lucky they’re ex-military or I’d say we have a UCMJ violation about to occur.”

All laugh.

Stone even thinks he got the joke and laughs.

Jen and I head up to the main deck, still holding hands.

We walk to the bow of this beautiful sleek ship.

The sun shines brightly over Mt. Lazaro on Duke Island.

It’s the perfect moment for a kiss.

Jen, nervously, looks around.

No one seems to be looking.

“I don’t care if anybody’s looking!” I say.

So I kiss her and she passionately kisses back.

My lonely life seems to have finally come to an end.

It seems my entire existence passes right past my lips to hers.

I’m so lost in her embrace that, for a moment, I forget where we are and what just happened over the past week.

After an eternity passes by Jen says,

“This could get us fired you know.”

“There’s no FBI policy against it,” I reply.

“Well then, kiss me, sailor boy!”[14]

We both resume kissing, as the mad, mad, mad, mad world seems to float by.

And as we say in show biz:

EXT. DUKE ISLAND, ALASKA — DAY

Helicopter CAMERA PULLS BACK on Jen and JD as they kiss on the bow of the USS Zumwalt.

ROLL CREDITS[15]