Cold Choices

10. EXIT

While the storm raged above them, Seawolf crept westward at the stately speed of four knots. With the bow ripped apart, they really couldn’t go faster without something loose banging away. If they were going to leave quietly, this was the best they could do. Unfortunately, at this rate it would take them nearly five days just to get out of the Barents Sea. It was going to be a very long trip to Faslane.

Anxious to reestablish a routine underway schedule, Shimko encouraged his department heads to gently push a sense of normalcy. Jerry wholeheartedly agreed with the XO’s plan, but he had reservations. Without the skipper, it wasn’t going to fly with the rest of the crew.

Like a symphony conductor, a commanding officer sets the tone and tempo for his command. A good one can meld the various personalities of his crew into a cohesive group that works together in harmony. Without proper direction, the well-meaning efforts of individuals can work at cross-purposes with each other, generating a fair number of sour notes.

Commander Thomas Rudel was a master conductor. He had shaped the crew of Seawolf into such a well-oiled machine that they believed there was nothing they couldn’t do. He was the quiet motivating force behind the scenes. Without his direct personal involvement, it would be nearly impossible to reestablish anything close to normal on board the boat.

Jerry usually ate dinner at the first sitting, along with the rest of the senior officers. It wasn’t so much a class prerogative as a chance for Seawolf’s leadership to sit down together. It was amazing how hard it could be to find time for a simple meeting on such a small vessel.

He had heard the supply officer tell the cooks to put on a really good dinner. Constantino knew how important food was to the crew’s morale, and he was playing that card for all it was worth. Besides, Seawolf would be going into the yards as soon as they returned home. Anything they didn’t eat would have to be offloaded. Knowing it was a way they could help, the cooks had worked flat-out, creating a meal that was memorable without being celebratory: fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, greens, fresh biscuits, and three kinds of pie for dessert, including Dutch apple pie, the skipper’s favorite.

But Captain Rudel wasn’t there. The XO sat in his place, and diverted any questions about the captain by asking his own questions — about the crew or the boat. After a few exchanges of question and counterquestion, they figured out that Shimko wasn’t going to budge. The officers shifted their thoughts toward sharing their experiences during the collision. Stories almost bubbled out of the diners, but the discussion quickly turned to the most important topic: the Russian’s identity and purpose.

Shimko didn’t have to tell the others about Senior Chief Carpenter’s information. It’s very hard to keep a secret on a submarine, and the identity of the Russian attack sub had spread like wildfire throughout the crew. Seawolf’s own sonar techs had come to the same conclusion on the sub’s identity. It was a Russian nuclear attack boat, but one that didn’t match anything in the database — Q.E.D. Severodvinsk. The name Severodvinsk now echoed off the bulkheads in discussions all over Seawolf, as if it were some mystical creature.

“But what was he doing?” Greg Wolfe was the third to ask the question, but nobody had an answer. Lieutenant Commander Stan Lavoie described the Russian’s movements, and the XO confirmed his account. Lieutenant (j.g.) McClelland told the others what the sonar gang knew about the Russian’s sonar lashing, and there was general consensus that the Russian was “certifiable.”

But the Russians didn’t put lunatics in command of nuclear submarines. He’d certainly disrupted their survey. “Could he have been trying to ram the UUV?” asked Wolfe.

Shimko quickly shook his head, chewing. He swallowed and said, “His aim couldn’t have been that bad. His mine-hunting sonar would see it. That’s a precision set, accurate to within a couple of yards. He was a lot closer to us than to LaVerne.”

Everyone at the table agreed that the Russian had “conclusively won” the encounter by disrupting their survey. “But he disrupted our operations the instant he announced his presence,” Jerry said. “He didn’t need to run circles around us.”

“Is that what you call it?” Lavoie grumbled.” ‘Announcing his presence,’ he says. Might as well have used a torpedo.”

“He was trying to herd us,” Constantino observed. “He cut across our path as we headed northwest.”

“That was on his third run,” Jerry countered. “On the first two, he passed down our port side, west of us. Was he telling us to sail east, toward the Russian coast?” Even as he said it, Jerry knew that was wrong. Russia was a hundred-plus miles away. Way too far.

“Was he herding us away from something else, then?” Wolfe asked.

“What’s out here?” Constantino asked. But they all knew the answer. Nothing but them.

“The UUV. He was trying to herd us away from LaVerne,” Wolfe said.

“So he could capture it?” Lavoie asked. “We had it under control the whole time. We could have kept it away from him.”

“He didn’t know that,” Jerry realized. “He must have assumed we had a wire to it. Break the wire, and it goes dead. Then he sits on it until someone arrives to salvage it.”

“And the Russians have an intelligence coup,” Shimko concluded. “It might have worked, if LaVerne had a tether.” He looked around the table. “Anybody see any holes in his theory?”

Jerry couldn’t. The Russian captain didn’t know that LaVerne was controlled by an acoustic modem. It explained a lot, and Jerry kicked himself mentally. He should have thought of that. It would have been simple to deceive them.

“I’ll take it to the Captain,” Shimko concluded, and stood. Everyone else turned to finishing dinner. There was still a second seating, and the discussion seemed to be finished.

It was Will Hayes who finally asked the one question that had eluded everyone. “What about the Russian? What do you think happened to him?”

Jerry’s first thought was reflexive: He didn’t want to know about him, and he didn’t want to think about him. But the question demanded an answer. He’d been damaged, certainly, but Russian subs were double-hulled, with internal compartmentalization that U.S. boats lacked. Their design philosophy had a significant emphasis on survivability, while U.S. designers focused predominantly on stealth. All other things being equal, the Russian sub was probably in better shape than they were.

“He wasn’t waiting for us when we submerged,” Lavoie reported. “If he headed south, toward home, while we were headed west, then we’ll never see him again.”

“Fine with me. He’ll be back in his home port before we get to Faslane,” Wolfe concluded.

“He found us easily enough out here,” Jerry remarked pessimistically. “I hope none of his friends know how to do that trick.”

“Which is why we’re headed westward at our best speed,” Shimko remarked, standing at the door to the wardroom. “Mr. Mitchell, the Captain has some questions for you.” He didn’t ask whether Jerry was finished with his meal.

Jerry followed the XO back up to the captain’s cabin. The door was closed, and Shimko knocked, but hardly waited before opening it.

For a moment, Jerry thought the XO was waking Rudel, because the only light was from the lamp over his desk. But that didn’t make sense. The captain had just asked to see him.

Rudel was sitting in his chair, tipped back against the bulkhead, a pad of paper in his lap. Jerry could see a few lines scrawled at the top, but the pen lay on the table next to him. He didn’t speak, or even look up when Shimko opened the door.

“Sir, here’s Mr. Mitchell. You wanted to ask him about tethered vehicles,” Shimko prompted.

Rudel raised his head without moving the chair. It was hard to see in the dark, but from what Jerry could tell, Captain Rudel looked terrible. His face was drawn, and there were dark areas under his eyes. He saw Jerry and the XO, then straightened up in the chair but didn’t stand. “Mr. Mitchell, do you think the Russian sub was trying to cut a line between the UUV and Seawolf?”

“Yes, sir, I do.” Admitting it made Jerry feel more guilty. Understanding that one fact could have changed everything. Rountree might still be alive.

The captain leaned back, seemingly satisfied, but the XO spoke up. “You’ve been to school on these ROVs, haven’t you?”

“Yessir, before I reported to Memphis”

“Do most of our vehicles use a tether?”

“Many do, sir. Only the LMRS and our UUVs are untethered.”

“What about the Russians? Did you learn anything about their ROVs?”

“We spent some time reviewing their technology in class.”

“Is their stuff tethered?”

“Yes, sir. What little they have.”

The XO’s questions occupied Rudel’s attention but the captain didn’t ask or say anything else until the XO said, “That’s all, then.”

As jerry started to turn, Rudel called him by name. “Jerry. I was sorry to hear about Dennis Rountree.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want to have a short service when we pull into Faslane. They’ll take the body off then, and it will give the crew a chance to say good-bye. Please set it up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll make a few remarks, and some of his friends may want to say goodbye. But keep it short. This isn’t a funeral. That will come later, after we’re back.”

“I understand, sir. I’ll take care of everything.”

“Very good. Dismissed.”

Jerry left the captain’s cabin confused. Rudel had been more interested in Rountree’s memorial service than the UUV issue, and he hadn’t asked one question about the down equipment, which was his responsibility. And he looked like hell.

Jerry had watched Rudel in control during the encounter. Shoot, everybody had watched the skipper for orders, for guidance. He’d been in control, and he’d asked all the right questions, done all the right things. At least, Jerry thought so. But Seawolf was hurt and someone was dead.

Jerry made his rounds, visiting all his department’s spaces. He always did this before the eight o’clock reports. Chief Hudson was overseeing the work in the electronics equipment space. Electronics modules and test equipment were stacked against the bulkhead, almost blocking movement.

And there was a lot of movement. Jerry saw his ETs and ITs, and one of his off-watch quartermasters, but also sonar techs and even auxiliarymen. “Everybody’s helping,” Hudson explained. “We’ll work through the night, and with this many people, we can take it in shifts.”

Hudson’s cheerful attitude drove out some of Jerry’s gloom. He was able to give Shimko an upbeat report at eight that evening. It looked very good for one HF receiver to be up by early tomorrow morning. They weren’t sure about any of the transmitters yet. They were in worse condition, but Hudson and Morrison hadn’t given up.

The XO wasn’t as cheerful. “So we can get a weather report. Wonderful.” Then he remembered himself and added, “Tell your guys that they’re doing a great job. Keep me apprised. And I need the encounter timeline.”

“Yessir. I’ll start on it tonight.”

“Good, but don’t pull an all-nighter. Nobody’s life is at stake anymore. We’re on our way home. And this needs to be done right.”

“Understood.”

Jerry headed for control. That was where all the data was — logs, navigation and geo plots, fire-control chits, sonar tapes. It took some time just to gather it all. It was the quartermasters’ responsibility to maintain the logs, and Jerry called QM1 Peters to properly label all the documents. At this point, they were legal records. Evidence to be used in an investigation.

By the time he’d assembled everything, it was late, and Jerry decided to make a fresh start in the morning. He made one more visit to the electronics space, then headed for his stateroom. Lieutenant Chandler was working at his desk, but they ignored each other as Jerry set his alarm for five and gratefully hit the rack.

It was bright, the sunlight from a clear sky doubled as it reflected off a concrete runway. His helmet visor was down, reducing the glare. Jerry watched the instruments as he advanced the throttle. He felt the engines pushing hard, fighting the brakes, but he counted carefully, waiting. The engine temperatures stayed in the green, and he released the brakes.

Jerry recognized the dream. He’d been here many times before. He watched the speed on the heads-up display shoot up, the numbers quickly passing one hundred knots, then one-twenty, one-forty, changing as quickly as he could read them. The runway became a white blur in front of the nose. He’d have takeoff speed any second.

There he felt the whole airframe shudder, and the nose swerved right. He’d blown a tire. Used to making feather-light corrections, he was slow correcting, but even full left on the controller didn’t stop the swerve. He’d chopped the throttles, but that didn’t help either. He was almost crossways on the runway, still moving, and he felt the right wing lift up. He was going to roll.

He reached for the loops at the top of the ejection seat, but they weren’t there, and instead of sitting in the cockpit of his Hornet, he was standing now, in the bridge cockpit of Seawolf, but they were submerged, and he could see the Russian sub. It was to his right, bow-on.

It was huge, and he could see every detail of the boat — the pattern of the anechoic tiles on the hull, the silver patch of the bow sonar window, the intake scoops back by engineering. In spite of the props furiously churning the water, it was almost motionless, pointing straight at him. Jerry frantically tried to avoid the oncoming vessel, but no matter which way he turned Seawolf, the Russian’s bearing never changed.

He never saw the collision, but suddenly he was hanging in the air from his chute over the twisted wreckage of Seawolf and the Russian submarine, lying together across the runway. Rescuers and emergency vehicles crowded around the two crushed hulls, reminding him of a train wreck.

Then he was standing next to an ambulance, and they were loading Dennis Rountree into it. He was looking at Jerry, and Jerry kept saying, “I’m sorry,” louder and louder, but Rountree kept shaking his head, as if he couldn’t hear. Then they started loading the rest of the crew into the ambulance, first Rudel, then Shimko, and then some of the chiefs, then.

The alarm woke him, shivering and disoriented. He lay in his bunk for several minutes, reaching out to touch the bulkheads and familiar objects around him. Jerry read and reread the time on the alarm clock. He recited the name of his boat, his billet, where they were. The images from the dream lingered, and he had to work to shake them off.

Jerry got up and silently dressed and washed. Chandler was asleep, but the red light in the stateroom was enough for his purposes.

His first stop was control. They were on course, on track for Faslane. QM2 Dunn seemed barely awake, but he’d tended the chart properly.

The electronics equipment space looked cleaner, but red danger tags hung from a lot of the gear, and two ratings were at work. He didn’t bother them. He’d get a report from Chief Hudson before breakfast. Instead, he headed back to control.

It was quiet at that hour, and he took over one of the plotting tables, used only when they were tracking a target. Will Hayes was the OOD, and after making sure that he couldn’t be of any help, left Jerry to his work.

He started building a timeline on his laptop, first working with the deck log. That recorded all the course and speed changes along with all the reports from other stations. The sonar logs told him when the other boat was detected, its bearing, and gave hints about its speed and direction.

Breakfast time came and went, but Jerry was on a roll. It felt good, satisfying, to patiently piece together the scraps of data into a coherent picture. Order from chaos, reason from insanity. And it drove out the unpleasant images from his dream.

He wasn’t looking for patterns or meaning, not yet. He didn’t have a lot of good information on the Russian’s position, only his bearing and range from Seawolf when the wide aperture array had a good lock on him. He didn’t know exactly when the Russian had changed course. That took time to compute, given the sparse range data to work with, and the Russian had maneuvered often and quickly.

STSC Carpenter showed up in control after breakfast. He brought Jerry coffee and one of the cook’s sweet rolls, and more data. Carpenter’s report was clearly an extract of their analysis, and Jerry wondered what they’d found out but couldn’t share with him. He noticed that their Russian was described as probably a new “first line nuclear attack sub.”

But what they’d shared with him was very helpful. Because they could see the narrowband tonals from the Russian’s propulsion train, they’d been able to figure out when his speed had changed, and calculated what his speed was as he passed by them. Like an ambulance with its siren blaring, the sound changes as the ambulance approaches you and then drives by. At the closest point of approach, the noise from the Russian submarine was what he really sounded like. With this data, the sonar techs were able to map his propulsion train and thus, determine his speed.

Hudson came by with a progress report, and Jerry asked him to brief the XO as well.

Jerry was adding in speed changes from the engineering log when he realized that the XO was standing behind him.

“Good morning, sir.”

“You’ve made a lot of progress, Jerry.”

“It’s incomplete, XO.”

“And it will be, unless the Russian’s deck log is in that pile somewhere,” remarked Shimko with a broad grin. Then more seriously, “Still, it will be very useful.”

He leaned closer, as if to examine the plot, and spoke softly. “I’m hoping it will convince the captain that the collision was not his fault.”

Jerry had to fight to control his reaction. The encounter had been hashed over last night, and he heard it rehashed in the control room this morning. Most of the crew thought they were lucky to be alive, and that Rudel had been the only thing keeping them from an icy, wet end.

When Jerry didn’t immediately reply, Shimko explained. “You know how much the Skipper cares about this crew and this boat. They’re a part of him. He’s hurting because Seawolf is hurting. I checked on him a couple times during the night, and he didn’t sleep at all. He just sat there, writing draft after draft of a letter to Rountree’s parents.”

Jerry felt another pang of responsibility himself. In the back of his mind he’d been trying to see if he’d missed a chance to grasp the Russian’s purpose. It was hard to second-guess a “failure of the imagination,” but he kept thinking that he should have realized what was happening.

“I would like to show him, and anyone else, Jerry, that given the circumstances we were in, and the data we had on hand, Tom Rudel made the right calls.”

Shimko straightened up and Jerry saw that he didn’t look like he had slept much either. As if on cue, the XO stretched and stifled a deep yawn.

“Keep at it, Jerry. I need a logical, cogent analysis of the events leading up to the collision if I’m going to get through to the Skipper. Stay objective. I need an honest assessment based on facts, not sympathy. The Captain isn’t about to let us blow sunshine up his skirt.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”

The XO nodded appreciatively. Then, reaching down and putting his hand on Jerry’s shoulder, he said, “A wise man once said, ‘The difficulties in life are intended to make us better, not bitter.’ Well, right now, our Captain is slowly gnawing away at his stomach lining based on a belief that he made a mistake. We need to show him, if we can, that it wasn’t his fault. We owe him that much, at least.”

By lunchtime, Jerry had a draft master plot with all the data mixed together. He looked at the plot he’d been working on for hours. Seawolf’s track was a solid line; gently curving except for the hard turns Rudel had made to avoid the Russian. Lines radiated out from different points along the track, showing the bearing and range information to the Russian sub. Data tables along the margins listed other information. Unfortunately, no matter how neatly he arranged it, he still had squat.

Even with the data he had, the likely errors in the information made it difficult to make the conclusive case the XO wanted. This wasn’t going to be enough to convince the captain. A gurgling sound from his stomach made it clear that the sticky bun he had early just wasn’t enough. Jerry needed a break, and he needed some more eyes on the problem.

He took the plot and a printout of his timeline to lunch and showed it to the rest of the wardroom. They passed the diagram around, chewing over the dry facts, reviewing the collision again. The most concrete data that had come out of Jerry’s work had been that their relative speed at the time of contact was eighteen knots, and that the angle between the two boats’ bows at impact was about sixty-four degrees. Useful but unsatisfying.

Jeff Palmer traced the UUV’s movements, looking for any relationship between them and the Russian. He didn’t see any, but he did find a problem. “This track isn’t right,” he told Jerry. “Our data show a lot more maneuvers.”

“The deck log shows all the commands we sent to LaVerne,” Jerry said, a little defensively.

“And they were all brilliantly executed,” Palmer agreed, “but she also maneuvered on her own. When the Russian showed up, all big and noisy and closing fast, her collision-avoidance routines kicked in. If the UUV senses a potential collision risk, it locates the offending unit and moves to open the range.”

“And she found out where the sub was. ” Jerry started.

“. by using her active sonar,” Palmer completed. “We can get range and bearing readouts for both Seawolf and the Russian from LaVerne for most of the Russian’s maneuvers.”

Jerry kicked himself. The UUV’s sonars were high-definition imaging sets, with wonderful resolution but very short range. They were not designed for general search, so he hadn’t thought of using La Verne’s sensor logs.

Jerry and Palmer stood up from their seats at almost the same moment. “It’ll take some time to print out the logs from LaVerne’s memory,” Palmer reminded him.

“Then I’ll work off the console until you have them,” Jerry answered. He left his lunch unfinished.

He reported to Shimko’s cabin three hours later, beaming, with Palmer in tow. “It was better than we thought, sir,” Jerry explained. “Not only did LaVerne track the Russian with her active sonar, but her imaging sonars also intercepted the Russian’s mine-hunting set. They overlapped frequency bands.”

Armed with this new data, Jerry had completely redrawn the plot. The fan of passive bearing lines with a range dot here and there was gone, and two dark lines ran across the paper. The black line, Seawolf’s, was curved in places, but was the straighter of the two by far. The red line spiraled and danced across Seawolf’s track. LaVerne’s line was a dark green, like an innocent bystander. Her track now showed two arcing turns as she avoided the advancing Russian, before finally heading northwest.

Shimko took it eagerly, praising both of them. Then his face fell as he comprehended their maneuvers. “My God.” He paused and looked up at the two officers. “I’m assuming you’ve double-checked these tracks — scales, bearings. That I’m reading these distances correctly.”

Jerry quickly nodded. “Yes sir, the data from LaVerne is of better fidelity, but it closely matches our own. The distances are correct.”

On the first pass, the Russian had approached to 372 yards, not a lot compared to Seawolf’s length of 360 feet. The second pass had been at only 186 yards, frighteningly close when combined with the Russians’ speed of nearly thirty knots.

“Wise man says ‘If dancing with crazy person, listen to crazy music.’ There’s no way we could have dodged this guy.” He stood up abruptly, rolling up the plot, and began marching toward the door. Jerry and Palmer stepped back so Shimko could walk into the passageway. “Let’s go brief the Skipper.”

The lights were on in the captain’s cabin this time, and Rudel was at his desk. He was pale, almost white, and his face was deeply lined. Jerry remembered a friend who looked that way after he’d broken an arm. He knew the captain hadn’t slept.

Shimko handed Rudel the plot. “Please, look at this, sir.”

The captain cleared a spot on his desk and laid the plot out carefully. All three officers watched as he studied the chart piece by piece. First the label and legend, then the supplementary tables, and then, finally, the tracks of the two submarines and the UUV.

“This is where I turned right to open the range on the first pass?” Rudel pointed to a mark on Seawolf’s track.

“Yes, sir,” Jerry answered.

“And this is the second turn,” Rudel observed, but this time he said it as a statement, not a question. He picked up a straightedge and laid it along Seawolf’s track. “If I hadn’t opened the range, the closest point of approach would have been 250 yards the first time.”

He moved the straightedge. “The second time it would have been”—he checked the scale—”less than a hundred yards.”

“It reminds me of when I visited Naples. The Italians all drove like that.” Jerry regretted the joke as soon as he’d said it, but even Rudel laughed.

“Maybe the Russians have been studying Italian submarine tactics,” Rudel observed. Jerry knew Rudel had a good sense of humor. It was one of the reasons, and one of the ways, he’d connected so well with his crew.

Rudel looked at the three officers, then slowly paced in the small space allowed to a sub’s commanding officer. “Seawolf was a dream assignment for me. A top-notch crew and a first-line sub in its prime. I’ve worked my whole life to be here.

“I realize why you wanted me to see this plot, and what you wanted me to know. I understand now that the collision was not my fault, or more properly, not the result of a bad decision by me. But Denny Rountree is still dead, and there could have been more, possibly many more. It has to make you stop and think. Question your choices, and your motives.”

Jerry listened to the captain carefully, absorbing and trying to understand. He too had been walking down that same road of self-pity.

Nobody said anything for a moment. Then the XO said, “Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power.”

“More fortune cookie philosophy, Marcus?” responded Rudel with a weary smile. “I hear what you’re saying, but it’s hard for me to admit that I couldn’t get us out of that situation. That I had so little control.”

Shimko shrugged his shoulders, “We like to think we are in control, but the truth is, we can’t eliminate every risk.”

Even as he nodded, Rudel said, “This was a stupid risk, one nobody should have had to take. Part of me wants to throttle the idiot Russian captain. He endangered his boat as well as ours, and he’s back home, getting a pat on the back from the Commander of the Northern Fleet for chasing us off.

“Meanwhile, we go home with a crippled boat, a man dead, and many more injured, on what was supposed to have been a cakewalk. And we failed to complete our mission.”

Jerry was almost glad the captain hadn’t slept last night. He didn’t even want to try and imagine the kind of dreams he would have had.

Jerry finally spoke. “Sir, we took those risks with you, and we’d do it again, the same way, if you asked us to. We’re all behind you.”

Rudel gave another small, tired smile. “That means a lot, Jerry. Thank you.” He straightening up, and Jerry saw his “old” CO emerge from the ghost he had seen moments earlier. “So we go home, bury our dead, and heal. Simple enough.”

Lieutenant Chandler appeared in the passageway, coming aft from control. Chiefs Hudson and Morrison were both with him, and all three were smiling.