Attack of the Seawolf

CHAPTER 8

Captain Michael Pacino sat in the deep upholstery of the Gulfstream’s wide seat staring out the window at the clouds below, thinking back to the scene at the house when he had told Hillary he was going back to sea. He had expected anger or tears from her, but she had looked at him with deep understanding. Her words still rang in his ears … “I’m scared to death of losing you, Michael, but I’ve seen what happens to you when you’re not at sea. You haven’t really been the same, not since—” Not since Devilfish sank, he had thought—”—and there’s something you need to finish out there, isn’t there?” She had seen right into him, past his eyes to the rusting wreck of his last submarine.

She had held their son Tony as Donchez’s staff car had pulled away, young Tony still crying, trembling in his mother’s arms. The only thing that had kept Pacino from turning the car around was the thought of Sean Junior crying in Katrina Murphy’s arms at the word of his father’s death, just as Pacino had when told that his father had gone down in the Stingray so many years ago.

Pacino’s jaw clenched. Suddenly he couldn’t wait to get to Yokosuka and take command of Seawolf. His hands seemed to itch for the feel of periscope grips, his ears for the sounds of torpedo launches. He stared out the jet’s window, not seeing the rolling countryside outside, but the blue waves of the endless stretches of the Pacific. It had been too damned long.

In front of him was a table with a half-dozen large three-ring notebooks scattered on top of nautical charts of the Go Hai Bay. The interior of the new jet was cold, the air conditioning system improperly adjusted. The cool air had raised goosebumps on Pacino’s exposed arms. He scarcely noticed.

As promised. Admiral Donchez had provided the new khaki uniforms in Pacino’s size. Pacino had ransacked a steamer trunk full of old uniforms in the basement of the house, but the old garments still stank of the Devilfish. He had found the velvet display case holding his Navy Cross earned “in classified action under the polar icecap onboard the USS Devilfish.” He had tossed the case back to the bottom of the trunk in disgust … over one hundred and thirty men had died in the Devilfish incident, he had gotten a damned medal … He had salvaged his old submariner’s dolphin pin, the brass emblem solid and heavy in his hands, the scaly fish facing toward the center where an oldfashioned diesel boat plowed through the waves. The pin had once belonged to his father, “Patch” Pacino.

Donchez had given it to him years before when he had first qualified in submarines. After the Devilfish incident, the dolphins were practically all that he had left from his old submarine. Everything else had gone down with her to the bottom.

Donchez’s voice brought Pacino back from his thoughts.

“Mikey, this trip is the only chance I’ll have to brief you. After that you’re on your own. The first thing we’ve got to get through is the weapons load out. The base is standing by to load the Seawolf with weapons and it’ll take at least five, six hours to get that done. I don’t want the mission delayed to load weapons. So let’s go over the mission, commit to the load out and I’ll radio the request to Yokosuka. When we’re done with that we’ll go over the capabilities of the Seawolf and brief you on the crew.”

“Fine,” Pacino said, his voice wooden, suddenly wondering if he was really up to taking over command of the world’s most advanced submarine and, within an hour, submerging it to sail into hostile waters to rescue another submarine.

“Okay, the mission first. Of course, you can tailor this to suit yourself. First you’ll get into the Go Hai as quietly as possible. At Point Hotel, off Tianjin’s Xingang harbor, you’ll come up to periscope depth and take a look at the situation. If nothing has changed since the last KH-17 fly over the plan goes forward. Seawolf will hover at periscope depth and put the three platoons of the SEAL team out the escape trunk. When the SEALs are locked out they’ll swim over to the Tampa, taking with them Kurt Lennox—”

“Who’s he?”

“Murphy’s exec. He was on leave in Japan when Tampa got the word to insert into the Go Hai. He’s integral to the plan. He’ll be the one who will know the details of how we plan to get Tampa out, and he’ll coordinate your escape plan with Murphy. He’s also our insurance in case they’ve removed the officers and crew from the ship. In which case he’ll be the only one who will be able to drive the ship out — the SEAL team sure as hell won’t know the first thing about conning a nuke sub out of the bay. Then we at least get the ship back, and we’ll try to figure out something else to get the crew back.”

“The SEAL team’s job will be to knock out the pier guards and get aboard the Tampa, overpower the Chinese inside and get the crew onstation for the underway, then lay topside to cut the lines to the Chinese ships. Here’s where you may need to improvise. Somehow the Chinese destroyers will need to be distracted so Tampa has time to warm up her engines and get underway.”

“Improvise?” Pacino said. “Distract the destroyers? My ideas on distracting the Chinese will involve some large-bore weapons, Admiral. I hope you’re ready for that.”

“Up to you. Once Tampa is underway you’ll have to escort her out. I’m guessing she’ll still be able to start up, get underway and submerge. If she can’t, the backup plan is to get as many men out of the hull as possible and get them aboard Seawolf, then get out of there. I’m hoping that won’t be the case — the mission has almost zero chance of success if that happens, plus we’ll probably lose you and Seawolf too. I’m tempted to order you to get the hell out of there without Murphy and his crew if the Tampa is disabled. I won’t order you to do anything specific. You’ll be the guy up-close. You’ve got a free hand. Your only requirements are to get Tampa away from the Chinese with minimal loss of American lives and American equipment.”

“Okay, so let’s say Tampa gets down and I’m escorting her out. The Chinese will be waiting for us at the entrance to the bay …”

“Yes. I expect the entire Chinese Northern Fleet to be waiting for you at Lushun. Including their new aircraft carrier, the Shaoguan, the Kiev-class carrier they bought from the Russians. Anyway, Tampa’ll be a lot louder underwater than you are, so once again you’ll have to create another diversion to allow Tampa to get out of the Lushun/Penglai Gap. I’m assuming Tampa won’t be able to shoot any weapons, that her systems are disabled. If she can fire, so much the better, but worst-case, you’ll be the only one with firepower.”

“This will be like stealing the crown jewels while they’re under heavy guard.”

“So, what weapons do you want?” Donchez pushed one of the thick binders in front of Pacino. Inside, each page had a laminated photo of a weapon with its capabilities summarized beneath. Pacino thumbed through the volume as Donchez went on.

“I can’t give you nukes, Mikey. We don’t have any, and the President wouldn’t authorize it even if we did. But you’ve got your choice of conventional Javelin cruise missiles, ship attack or land attack, the new ASWSOW standoff missiles, and Mark 50 torpedoes. You can carry up to fifty weapons. You’ll also be outfitted with fifteen Mark 80 SLAAMs.”

Pacino was looking at the photograph of one of the Javelin cruise missiles. Beneath the title were the words BLOCK III JAVELIN — DELAYED ENCAPSULATION.

“What’s this, Admiral?”

“The Block III Javelin … They came up with the idea of having the waterproof capsule of the cruise missile float just beneath the water’s surface for a certain time-delay before the missile launches itself out of the capsule.”

Pacino liked that.

“Before, when you’d launch a cruise missile, a plume of smoke would point to your launching position. With this weapon you could eject it and get out of the area by the time the missile launched, all without giving away your position.”

“In theory, yes, Mikey. In practice, it’s a piece of meat. The test units all flooded and sank just before liftoff. Plus, the capsule needs a ballasting system to keep it submerged and then to broach the unit when it’s time to light off the solid rocket motor. The ballast system takes up room that could be better used for the fuel and warhead. Like they say, you don’t get something for nothing. They had to reduce the fuel load and warhead size on those missiles. I’d advise against using them.”

Pacino’s enthusiasm ebbed.

“So what’s an ASWSOW?” he asked, turning the page.

“Antisubmarine Warfare Standoff Weapon, built by DynaCorp. Brand new. Nice unit. A solid rocket booster fires the warhead away from you, with a range of about forty miles. Its name says ASW, but it can be used for surface targets too. Very powerful warhead, enough to sink a cruiser with one shot.”

“What about the Mark 80 SLAAM?”

“Beautiful, and only the Seawolfhas it… Have you ever been detected by a P-3 Orion patrol aircraft?”

“I played rabbit for one a few times.”

“You never got snapped up by one in the VA CAPES OP AREA? Never once been surprised?”

“Not that I’ll admit to.”

“Well, I have,” Donchez said, “and I always thought, goddamn, why can’t the sub force have something to launch at those damned ASW patrol planes? Those things are too damned good. In fact, the evidence suggests that’s how Sean Murphy got detected. An old Nimrod aircraft picked up on his periscope.”

“You were telling me about the Mark 80.”

“Mark 80 SLAAM, Submarine Launched Anti-Air Missile. The Seawolf has fifteen units tucked into the top of the sail. If you see an aircraft or helicopter, anything that flies, and it’s within ten thousand yards, you push a button on the periscope grip and one of those babies pops out of the water and flies right up the airplane’s tailpipe.”

“If the 688-class subs had these the Tampa wouldn’t be tied up at Xingang now,” Pacino said. “So, Mikey, what’ll it be?”

“I want some decoys. Admiral. You have any of the old Mark 36s?”

“Decoys? What the hell do you want with decoys? Those things just take up torpedo-room space. You’ll be too quiet for the things to do you any good anyway.”

“Admiral. I’m supposed to get a rattling, battle damaged submarine out of restricted waters, with a motivated enemy chasing her. At least with decoys I might confuse even a large surface force. Give me twenty Mark 36s and program them for the Los Angeles-class subs. And make them loud.”

“We don’t even have the Mark 36s anymore, Mikey. But the Mark 38 is an improvement. Longer range. Has tonals at the same frequencies as a real 688-class, plus it can be programmed to make transient noises, like weapon launches, slamming hatches, rattles. It can drive a set-pattern, even wiggle like it’s doing Target Motion Analysis. But like I said, every decoy you take is one less torpedo you can carry. Not one ship has ever been sunk by a decoy. I suggest you fill up with Ow-sows and Mark 50s, not wimpy decoys.”

“I don’t see it that way, Admiral,” Pacino said, shutting the binder. “You said it’s my ass, my call. Give me twenty Mark 38 decoys, fifteen Mark 50 torpedoes, fourteen Block III Javelins, all of them ship attack units, and one Ow-sow. And of course the fifteen Mark 80 SLAAMs.”

“It’s your mission. I’ll radio ahead.”

Donchez didn’t look pleased, Pacino thought, as he went forward to have the pilot radio Japan with the weapon load out Well, the OP was his, it would have to go by his plan. He was beginning to feel the selfconfidence of command returning to him. It felt damn good.

Lieutenant Commander Greg Keebes woke up with a start. The sound of the curtain of his coffin-sized bunk being opened never failed to bring him crashing back to the reality of the submarine. In his year aboard the Seawolf, Keebes had yet to sleep through an entire night aboard, whether in-port as duty officer or at sea.

“What is it?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. A petty officer in dungarees held out a radio-message board.

Behind the enlisted sailor Keebes could see the chief torpedoman, who was also the duty chief for the evening, standing in the dimly lit passageway.

Keebes pushed back the message board, climbed out of the coffin and put on his khaki pants and shirt, feeling desperately in need of a shower. As he buttoned his shirt he nodded at the petty officer to turn on the stateroom’s overhead lights. The bright white fluorescents flickered, then clicked to life. Keebes checked his watch — after three in the morning.

“What is it, Deitzler?” Keebes asked the chief, a salty hovering, forty-five plus, his hair already gray, his face lined. What was it that made men get old so fast in the sub force? Had to be the atmosphere, the nuclear radiation, the food, or the stress. Or maybe the months at sea without a woman. Whatever, the fleet was full of old youngsters.

“Sir, the base weapons officer is topside. He’s asking for you, and get this — there’s a crane and a lowboy loaded with cruise missiles and torpedoes waiting to be loaded. He wants to know why we’re not ready to load weapons. Did I miss something, sir?”

Keebes ran his hands through his hair, wondering if the Navy bureaucracy had failed them again. Sea trials had been interrupted by the emergency orders to get the CO and XO stateside. But even so, the weapons tests weren’t scheduled for another month.

And when the weapons tests did begin they were only to shoot dummies of torpedoes to test the torpedo tube ejection-mechanisms. The plan didn’t have them launching cruise missiles for months.

“A little early to be loading dummies, if you ask me. Chief,” Keebes said, taking the message board from the radioman.

“Sir, these are war shots not dummies. Not even exercise shots. What the hell’s up?”

Keebes held up a finger as he read the message on the board, which had the answer to the chiefs questions:

Keebes looked up at Deitzler, handed the message board over to the chief and waited for him to finish reading it. Then: “Get on the Circuit One, Chief, and get the crew up. Station the weapons loading detail. Muster the officers in the wardroom and the chiefs in the crew’s mess. Whatever’s going on, we’ll know soon enough. In the meantime you brief the chiefs and get working on the load out and the pre-underway checklist.”

Keebes hurried into the wardroom and called for one of the cooks to stoke up the coffee machine. A new captain, Keebes thought. An untested submarine. An emergency special operation. Terrific.