Blackmail

65 USS MICHIGAN

Captain Murray Wilson turned slowly on the periscope in the darkness, monitoring the surface traffic. Michigan was in the Aegean Sea at the mouth of the Dardanelles, preparing for its journey through the Turkish Straits. It would be a long, tense transit, with the thirty-eight-mile-long Dardanelles narrowing to just over a thousand yards in some spots. Once into the Sea of Marmara, Michigan would complete its journey by transiting the Bosphorus, a seventeen-mile-long channel only half as wide as the Dardanelles.

When Wilson received his new orders a few days earlier, he hadn’t been surprised. The Turkish Straits, connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, have been of strategic importance for millennia, dating back to the Trojan War, fought near the Aegean entrance. During the twenty-first century, it served as a crucial international waterway for countries bordering the Black Sea.

Michigan’s trip wouldn’t be easy. Russian submarines transiting the straits did so on the surface, but that was a luxury Michigan couldn’t afford. At the northern end of the Bosphorus, four Russian frigates patrolled. That meant Michigan would transit submerged. However, even at periscope depth, there were several spots along the way that were too shallow, and Michigan would have to alter course into the southbound channel while passing Kadıköy İnciburnu and Aşiyan Point.

Compounding the potential for discovery were the one-thousand-plus east — west crossings each day, transporting 1.5 million inhabitants across the Bosphorus on intercity ferries and shuttle boats. The nighttime transit up the straits would minimize the risk of discovery, but not eliminate it.

Wilson turned slowly on the periscope, looking for a merchant that would suit his needs. With so many waterborne contacts nearby, Sonar was overwhelmed sorting things out, and Wilson’s eyeball was a better sensor at times like this. Finally, he spotted the desired contact: a two-hundred-thousand-ton Suezmax class tanker. Michigan would travel closely behind, its periscope hopefully obscured by the ship’s wake.

“Helm, right twenty degrees rudder, ahead two-thirds.”

Michigan turned slowly to the right, falling in behind the northbound tanker.