Commander-in-Chief

63

The USS James Greer (DDG-102) wasn’t looking for attention; in fact, the captain of the guided missile destroyer, Commander Scott Hagen, would have given a month’s pay to be lurking silently anywhere else in the Baltic but dead solid center, surrounded by civilian vessels, the aircraft of half a dozen nations, and even the rented helicopters of a dozen of the world’s biggest news outlets.

But they were here, finishing their fourth day at the scene of the crash of Swedish Airlines Flight 44, and the big powerful destroyer retrieving wreckage in the center of a very crowded sea had made one hell of an impressive shot for the video crews.

This would have been bad enough for Hagen, a realization of his worst fear of losing the element of surprise in an ocean full of very real threats, but now the officers’ mess of his ship had been turned into an impromptu location to hold a press conference. Right now twenty reporters, photographers, and audio technicians were crammed tight, while three young sonar technicians, two male and one female, sat wide-eyed and uncomfortable at a table.

Three sailors — a petty officer 2nd class, a petty officer 1st class, and a senior STGC — had used a laptop computer and the ship’s towed array sonar to create a “Black Box Detector” to search the deep water for the flight data recorder of SA44. They did this by taking the acoustic signature created by the black box’s “ping” and sending it out to the towed array of the James Greer, telling it, in effect, to ignore every boat, fish, whale, and other sound in the sea, and to search for the telltale noise.

It had taken two days of running patterns in the area, but the box had been found. A research vessel that had been working at the site of a World War II plane wreck off the coast of Finland had joined the hunt, and they used their submersible to bring up the flight data recorder, allowing the other salvage equipment on station to concentrate on the recovery of larger pieces of wreckage.

And now the sailors involved in the successful search for the crucial equipment had their twenty-minute press conference to bask in their success to the world media, although all three of them looked like they’d rather be anywhere else in the world than here under the lights, carefully fielding questions without revealing one word of classified intelligence, all while their captain looked on from out in the passageway.

And if the three sonar technicians weren’t exactly enjoying the moment, Commander Hagen was even more uncomfortable. He’d had to close off sections of his ship and position guards at doors in the bulkheads and hatches on the deck where they needed to be extra careful some intrepid reporter didn’t try to leave the pack, and he had to watch his three young sailors to make sure they didn’t drift into the no-man’s-land of classified information; hard to do when they had zero experience giving briefings to the media.

But the Navy had ordered the event and the crew was doing their best to comply, while Commander Hagen just kept looking at his watch, wishing this day would end as soon as possible.

The worst part of all this wasn’t the exposure, or the risk of losing a reporter down a ladderway, or the effort that had gone into finding the black box, taking his men and women away from their main mission here in the Baltic.

No, it was the bodies that bothered Hagen the most now, and it was the bodies that would stay with him the longest. The Greer had recovered thirty-one intact bodies or body parts in the past week, even though that had not been their main task here. Time and time again, reports from lookouts indicated floating debris in the water that appeared to be human remains, and while many times they would send out launches to discover clothing, suitcases, or colorful seats from the aircraft, thirty-one times his sailors had to retrieve the dead. Men, women, children… unidentifiable human remains.

Hagen knew this mission was important, he knew his boat was the right tool for the job, but the truth was… he hated this shit.

A tap on his shoulder pulled him back to the moment, and he turned to find his XO standing with a blue folder in his hands and a serious look on his face. He leaned over to his captain. “Message from the CNO, sir.”

Hagen hadn’t expected anything from the chief of naval operations, so he followed Lieutenant Commander Kincaid back to his own stateroom. Here he quickly opened the folder and began reading.

After a full minute he looked up at his XO. “A Russian Kilo has hit a Maltese-flagged freighter, possibly traveling in Russian waters off Kaliningrad.”

“Hit it, sir?”

“Torpedoed. Sunk.”

“Holy shit! On purpose?”

Hagen stared back at his second-in-command without comment. The XO held his hands up.

“Sorry, sir. You don’t accidentally fire a torpedo. I just… Why?”

“Not a clue. We are to make best possible speed for Lithuanian waters. It’s a presence mission at the moment. Further orders to follow.”

The XO said, “They have two Kilos in their Baltic Fleet, sir. I recommend we get the UH-60 Romeos far out ahead of us looking for them, erring on the side of caution.”

“I agree. There is no reason for either of those Kilos to head as far north as Lithuania, but there was no reason for them to sink a Maltese oil-products tanker, either. Let’s find them before they find us.”

Hagen looked down the passageway at the media presence. “Phil, enough of the dog-and-pony show. I want those folks out of here, clear off the deck, within ten minutes. We’ve got work to do.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

Thirty minutes later the James Greer had begun its transit of the Baltic Sea, but no message had been given over the 1-MC public address system as to their new mission.

Lieutenant Damon Hart, a thirty-year-old undersea-warfare weapons officer, noticed the change in the ship’s engines, even down in his officers’ quarters, several decks below the bridge. It was almost noon, but Hart had just climbed out of his bunk.

He had been working “five and dimes” all week. Five hours on shift, then ten hours off. He’d been on duty throughout the nighttime hours; he ate alone in the mess before climbing into his bunk to catch a few hours.

Now he was rested, but still coming out of his sleep. As he rubbed his eyes and sat down at the tiny desk he shared with another lieutenant, Hart heard running out in the passageway. He looked up at his door as it flew open.

One of his roommates, a communications officer named Tim Matsui, all but shouted, “Weps, you are not going to believe this!”

Because Hart was a weapons officer, everyone on the boat called him Weps, even the captain.

Hart yawned. “Dude, I know. It’s Wednesday. Slider day. I can’t wait.” Wednesdays were especially big draws in the mess. The cook’s cheddar cheese sliders were legendary.

The communications officer shook his head, a look on his face Hart had never seen from the man.

“It’s not slider day?” Hart asked.

Matsui sat down on the bunk next to Hart. “A Kilo torpedoed an oil tanker off the coast of Kaliningrad at oh seven hundred. Left it just a smoking oil slick.”

Hart blinked hard in astonishment. “No shit? Are they sure?”

“A Polish corvette was close by, it picked up the torpedo signature before it even hit the ship. ID’d it as a Fifty-three, Sixty-five. Had to have been one of the Russian Kilos. It was in international waters, no question about it. We’re heading to Lithuania to protect shipping at the border with Kaliningrad, and we might be sent into international waters to hunt the Kilo.”

Hart had trained for this each and every day for the nine years he’d been in the Navy. But it occurred to him now that he never really expected it to happen.

Matsui said, “Did you hear what I just said? Looks like shit is about to get real.”

Hart still found it hard to believe for a second they were going to actually start hunting a Russian sub. He thought they’d probably just flex their muscle in the area. Almost to himself, he said, “I can kill a Kilo.”

It was an affirmation, but his roommate responded.

“You’re damn right you can, Weps! You didn’t get all those badges and shit for eating sliders.”

The captain came over the 1-MC moments later, relaying his orders to move his ship toward Lithuania. He ended his briefing to the crew with a warning about operational security.

“We are on commo lockdown as of right now. No information out to anyone about our location, our destination, or our mission. No one is to use social media at all for anything. Remember… Loose tweets sink fleets.”