Los Angeles Class

10

After a day and a half of stress and, at times, idiot terror, the Gestapogruppe, as the men aboard had begun calling the intelligence unit — the GG for short — had vanished ashore, taking their voluminously stuffed folders and notebooks with them. Quiet conversations among the crewmen interviewed had established no obvious pattern to their questions, save the injunction not to talk about their interviews with other members of the crew.

The guess was that the three MIBs, as Big-C Scobey persisted in calling them, were definitely from some branch of U.S. Intelligence community, quite possibly from the CIA, and that they were on nothing more significant — or amusing — than a fishing expedition.

"Sure, the way I figure it," Big C had said at noon chow, "is that the 'Burgh is about to go out on another intel op like the last one, and they want to know they can trust us."

"Yeah," Douglas added, "or scare us all enough that we'll keep quiet about whatever it is!"

"Intimidation," Master Chief Warren said. "Sheer intimidation. I think the whole thing was a setup from the start. Get us all scared, or at least damned wide-awake. Then, when we come back from the next mission, all they have to do is step in and say, 'sign here.' Ten thousand dollar fine and ten years in Portsmouth Naval Prison for even breathing a word about what we've seen."

"Yeah?" O'Brien had said. "So… where are we going that's gonna be so all-fired secret?"

"Well, our last op was if-I-tell-ya-I-gotta-shoot-ya secret," Scobey said reflectively. "Hate to think what could be worse than that!"

"Uh-huh. And where'd you guys go last time, anyway?" O'Brien persisted.

"If we told you, nub," Scobey said, grinning, "then we'd have to shoot you…. "

Three hours later, Benson, Kellerman, O'Brien, Boyce, and Scobey were topside, working on garbage detail. At sea, garbage was carried topside and put over the side aft in special, weighted containers. If the boat was running sub-merged — her usual venue — the weighted containers were released from inside through a miniature and highly specialized version of a torpedo tube.

When in port, however, garbage was hauled topside and lugged ashore, where it was deposited in large, mobile Dumpsters brought to the pier and then hauled away again by garbage trucks. One hundred twenty men living together in closet-space proximity produced a lot of garbage, which had to be processed every day. If it went over the side while the boat was in port, it would — besides generating the active hostility of watch groups like Greenpeace — very swiftly beach the submarine on an artificial island of her own making.

The working party had been bringing plastic bags filled with garbage topside for the past ten minutes, handing it up the ladder of the forward escape trunk and bucket-brigading it aft to a growing pile astern. The next step would be to start hauling it down the boat's brow and tossing it into the Dumpster, waiting on the pier.

"How does it feel to be in the working classes again, Boyce?" Scobey asked with a laugh. As head of the working party, he was out of the line of actual labor, leaning against the aft corner of the sail with folded arms.

"Fuck you, Big C," was the equally cheerful reply. EM3 John Boyce was back aboard again, the obvious target now of the crew's barbed comments about goldbricking and the layabout life of ease. Diagnosed with concussion and possible skull injuries after the fight in the biker bar, Boyce had spent several days in a civilian hospital ashore, before being transferred to the Mare Island Naval Dispensary and his eventual release back to full duty.

"I wish," Scobey replied. "Not all of us have Benson's luck with women!"

"Yeah, I've been hearing about that," Dave Kellerman said, hauling another bag up through the gaping mouth of the escape trunk hatch and passing it on to Benson. "How about it, Benson? I hear you've managed to swing liberty tonight… again!"

"You should talk, Squee. You should talk!"

"Loni and I are engaged," Kellerman said. "But I hear you've been striking up a whirlwind romance ashore!"

"The waitress at the Tup 'n' Baa," Scobey said with a knowing wink. "I hear she was real grateful to Benson here after he stepped in to save the lady's honor that evening!"

"How grateful?" Boyce called up from the bottom of the escape trunk.

"Well, he came back aboard last night smelling of perfume and pussy. I'd say she was pretty damned grateful!"

"Lay off, guys," Benson said. He tossed the bagged garbage onto the pile on the deck. "Carol's a nice girl."

"Oh, a nice girl is it?" Scobey said. "I don't think I'm interested, then!"

Benson was about to respond when movement caught his eye to the south, past the pier close aboard on Pittsburgh's port side.

"Hey! Guys!" he called. "Look there."

A submarine was coming into port.

She was a Sturgeon class, dark slate gray in color, her sail well forward on her long hull. She'd come around the southern point of the island out of San Pablo Bay, and was sliding gently up the channel now between Mare Island and Vallejo.

She wasn't wearing her hull number yet; American submarines did not carry the magnetic numerals mounted on either side of their sails above the dive planes unless they were in port or engaged in what was jokingly known as a photo op. Still, each boat had its own telltale characteristics, signs of wear or hull scratches, fingerprints enough that other crews familiar with her could usually tell which one she was.

"Parche," Scobey said. "She must just be coming back after the op."

Boyce and O'Brien had come up the ladder and on to the after deck to see. "What op?" O'Brien wanted to know.

"Our last op," Kellerman said. "We were working… someplace with the Parche."

"Yeah," Boyce said. "We went in and made noise, got the whole bad guy fleet coming after us. And the ol' Parche over there just snuck into where she was supposed to go as quiet and as sneaky as you please."

"You see the broom?" Scobey added.

"Sure do."

Since World War II, a broom secured to the forward periscope housing or the weather bridge atop a submarine's sail during the return to port had meant the boat had successfully carried out her mission… effecting a "clean sweep" of enemy targets. Submarines still raised the emblem today, even though their missions no longer included the torpedoing of enemy targets.

The heads and shoulders of two men were visible in the weather cockpit, atop the forward edge of the Parche's sail, just ahead of the periscopes and the broom, raised bristle-end high. One of them saw the working party watching from Pittsburgh's stern, and waved. As working party supervisor, Scobey came to attention and saluted, holding until one of the tiny figures atop Parche's sail returned it.

"Well, well," Benson said, nodding at the pier. "Someone else is interested in Parche's return."

A gray government vehicle had just driven up to the beginning of Pier Two, and a quartet of MIBs was clambering out, adjusting jackets, straightening ties, donning hats and sunglasses. While one took up a position at the shore side of the pier, the other three trotted down the pier's length, obviously hurrying to be in position by the time the Parche pulled in and put her mooring lines over. A handful of Navy personnel in dungarees were already waiting as the shore-side line-handling party. They watched with evident amusement as the suits hurried into position.

Parche, meantime, was backing down in the main waterway, rudder hard to port as she swung her tail out into the Napa River Channel, bringing her blunt prow in toward the other side of Pier Two, just opposite from Pittsburgh's berthing space. Sailors stood on her deck, lines ready. A tugboat stood out in the channel, having guided Parche in to the dock area, and standing ready should she need an assist, but it was clear that Captain Perrigrino was an old hand at these maneuvers, and could carry them out unassisted.

"C'mon," Scobey said. "Let's start hauling this garbage ashore." His grin and his manner demonstrated clearly that he was interested in other things than filling the pierside Dumpster just now. Though he was in charge of the working party, he reached down and picked up a couple of the big, plastic bags and started for the Pittsburgh's brow, trooping down the gangway with a metallic clatter as the rest of the work detail picked up bags and followed in his wake.

They were met at the pier end of the brow, however, by one of the suits. Benson wasn't sure, but he was pretty certain that it was one of the men who'd interviewed him the day before … the one with the fancy laptop computer. "You can't come down here," the man told Scobey.

"Why not?" Scobey replied. He hefted the garbage bags. "Working party. Besides, they're down here." He nodded at the line handlers.

"Don't give me crap, sailor," the suit said. "Get back aboard your ship and go below!"

"I'll need authorization from my commanding officer to abandon my work detail," Scobey said. "Here." Casually, he tossed one of the garbage bags at the man, who instinctively reached up and caught it. "If I can't come onto the pier, maybe you could take care of this?" He tossed the second bag, making the man drop the first.

"Yeah," Benson said, coming up behind Scobey and tossing both of his own bags. "Make yourself useful, why don'tcha?"

Scobey turned and squeezed past the line of sailors on Pittsburgh's brow, heading back for the ceremonial guard shack for the OOD. The rest of the men kept filing down the brow and tossing garbage at the suit, who by this time had dropped the one bag he was holding with a disgusted look and refused to catch any more. He planted himself at the pier end of the brow and stood there, arms crossed, as though daring any of Pittsburgh's sailors to come ashore.

Laughing, the ' Burgh sailors went back aboard and sat down on the aft deck, watching Parche's arrival.

"You men go below!" the suit called up at them, pointing.

"Hey, we're under orders!" Benson called back. "We can't just up and leave without orders to do so!"

"Ja!" Jablonski called. "Und ve are chust following orders! Verstehen?"

The suit glowered, but had no way to enforce his edict. The ' Burgh men kept their seats as the Parche gracefully nosed up to the pier, then walked her stern in. With only a single screw, the maneuver took some fancy boat-handling skills. She had thrusters for fine-tuned station-keeping and movement, but it was a mark of considerable pride and seamanship to edge up to the dock on screw alone. They could see her skipper, Commander Perrigrino, watching from the weather bridge and calling down orders to the control room through a headset phone.

With a final churn and backwash as the Parche killed her maneuvering way, the submarine drifted the last few feet toward the dock as line handlers in Parche's deck crew tossed mooring lines to their counterparts ashore, who caught them and began pulling the vessel home. Lines were made fast to bollards on the pier, while deck cleats were uncovered on the Parche's deck and shipboard lines secured. The entire evolution took only a few moments, and was performed with an effortless and casual ease born of long experience, training, and practice.

"Welcome home, Parche!" Boyce yelled through cupped hands.

"Damn it, that's a breach of security!" one of the suits ashore yelled. "Get me that man's name!"

"Uh-oh," Benson said. "You'd better get below."

"Yeah," Kellerman agreed. "We never knew you, never saw you before in our lives!"

"And we will disavow all knowledge of your actions," Jablonski added.

"Right." Boyce vanished down the hatch.

It was amusing, really. The intelligence officers, if that's what they were, obviously wanted to keep a lid on the fact that it was the Parche coming in to port … and yet it was likely that half of the military personnel on Mare Island, and a fair-sized percentage of the civilians over in Vallejo, not only knew her name but had known for some time already that she was coming in. The intelligence network that Navy wives alone commanded was as impressive as anything ever fielded by Naval Intelligence.

Scobey, meanwhile, had returned from below. "Don't let 'em rattle you, guys," he said. "Mr. Walberg says they can't tell us what to do on Captain Chase's boat!"

"Hey, yeah," Benson said. "That's right. The skipper is king on his own boat. They can't tell us what to do!"

"Not with Fightin' Mike Chase, anyway," Scobey said, laughing. "The Old Man'd have 'em all for breakfast, sunglasses and all!"

Together, the two submarines loomed above the pier, the dark, whale-shape forms of their hulls motionless beneath the upward stab of their sails. The Sturgeons had been the standard U.S. Navy attack sub from the late 1960s through the seventies. Three hundred two feet long, with a beam of 31 feet, they were fifty-eight feet shorter overall than their Los Angeles class successors, and two feet narrower, and had a submerged displacement of almost 2000 tons less. Though they carried only about twenty-five fewer men than an LA boat—107 as opposed to 132—Sturgeons were actually considered much more comfortable to serve aboard than their later, bigger replacements. More of a Los Angeles boat's interior space, compared to a Sturgeon's, was taken up by electronics and a bigger sonar suite, the BQQ-5 which replaced the older BQQ-2. The simple fact that you had to hot bunk in an LA boat, and that that was rarely necessary, if ever, aboard a Sturgeon, was proof enough of the available crew space on board.

A few moments after tying up at the dock, a brow was rigged between the Parche and the pier. Two of the suits went aboard almost as soon as the brow was secured, and could be seen engaged in some fast and furious conversation with several of Parche's officers.

"I wonder if they're going to have GG show-and-tell aboard the Parche, now?" Benson wondered.

"Sure. Before any of her people can go ashore and get laid by Russian spies," was Scobey's reply.

"I wonder if we should warn them?" Jablonski said.

"Ahh, they'll find out soon enough," Kellerman said.

"No, it's the principle of the thing," Benson said. "They're brother submariners, right? It would be fun just to tweak the bastards, just for the hell of it."

"Sounds good to me," Scobey said. "How?"

"Well, we could get Johanson in on this." PO2 Johanson was one of Pittsburgh's divers. "Or one of us could swim over there. Like after dark. With a message."

"I'm liking this better and better," Scobey said.

"Thank you for coming, Commander," Admiral Hartwell said.

Frank Gordon stepped into the air-conditioned coolness of the briefing room, a secure, windowless, concrete-walled chamber beneath the modest three-story facility that housed the headquarters of most of the various Mare Island commands.

It sure wasn't like I had a choice, Gordon thought, but he smiled and nodded. "Not a problem, sir. May I introduce my Executive Officer, Lieutenant Frederick Latham."

Mike Chase was already there, seated at the conference table next to Admiral Hartwell, the CO of Submarine Squadron 5. On the other side of the table were several men whose suits suggested intelligence officers. One was a tall, almost gaunt man with silver hair and a patrician manner. He was impeccably dressed in a Savile Row suit, and would have looked more at home in a gentleman's club in London or Boston than in a Navy briefing room with its Spartan furnishings and pale green cinder-block walls.

As Gordon was taking a seat at the long briefing table, two more men entered, both Navy commanders. One was wearing dolphins above the rows of brightly colored ribbons on his whites.

"Good," Admiral Hartwell said, rising. "We can begin."

"Perhaps, Jules," the older man said, "we should start with introductions."

"Of course… sir." The admiral began making introductions for those who needed them. Mike Chase, Pittsburgh's former CO, and Gordon, her next. Commander Richard Perrigrino, the skipper of the Parche. Commander James Edward Travers, of Naval Intelligence, who'd been aboard Parche as a passenger during her last deployment. Jules Hartwell himself, commander of SUBRON 5.

The only one of the other intelligence officers given a name was the older man in expensive clothes — John Wesley Cabot, introduced as "a senior intelligence officer from Langley, Virginia."

Langley meant the Agency, of course, the CIA.

"Thank you, Jules," Cabot said. "Before we begin the briefing proper, I'd like to speak briefly with Commander Chase, if I may."

"By all means."

Gordon studied the man carefully, since he seemed to be — or seemed to think he was — in charge of the proceedings here. Gordon was reminded of an old, old saying extant in the Boston-New England area, a land where legions of Cabots and Lodges had ruled for generations, where the Cabots, especially, had a history of serving in the church as ministers. Lodges, the old saying went, spoke only to Cabots, and Cabots spoke only to God.

"First of all I have to ask you, Commander Chase," Cabot said in a whispery voice with a strong Harvard accent that changed first to fust, and ask to awsk, "if you are aware of covert and possibly illegal efforts by men of your crew to communicate with the crew members of the Parche?" He pronounced the vessel's name "Patch," and Gordon was reminded of the Harvardese line about "pahking your cah in the cah-pahk."

"Illegal? No, sir. I'm not aware of anything like that."

"It was our hope to completely cordon Parche and her crew off from, um, outside influences. It appears we have been unsuccessful."

"Unsuccessful in what way?"

"Intelligence agents went aboard the Parche early this morning to conduct interviews, much as they conducted interviews of your men, Captain Chase. But each and every one of the men interviewed stubbornly refused to answer all questions, even so far as confirming their identity. They claimed, each and every one of them, that they were not allowed to talk to any unauthorized personnel, and that if my people insisted, then they would do so only with an attorney present… at government expense."

Gordon held back a chuckle, and he could tell Mike was suppressing a barely controllable grin. "And what makes you think one of my men was involved, sir?"

"It's the only theory that makes sense! Your crew knew what had happened aboard this ship. It only seems reasonable that they would try to let Parche's men in on the secret."

"That strikes me as excessively circumstantial, Mr. Cabot," Chase said. "Unless you can prove such an allegation—"

"Of course we can't prove it! But I suggest that you let your people know, Commander Chase, that this sort of behavior constitutes a serious breach of security regulations. It is not impossible that we could have the entire crew of the Pittsburgh up on charges."

"What charges, sir?"

"Suborning authority! Conduct prejudicial to national security! Violation of security oaths!"

"Frankly, I doubt that you could get blanket charges of that nature to stick," Chase said calmly. "And I doubt your willingness to prosecute them in what would quickly become an open forum."

"What do you mean, 'open forum'?"

"Only that you can't lock sailors up forever, and sailors love to talk. The story would get out sooner or later. Newspapers. TV…. "

"TV!"

"It's possible. Especially if they thought they were being railroaded. Especially if their commanding officer thought they were being unjustly treated."

"That would be a violation of your oath as a naval officer,

Chase."

"My oath, Mr. Cabot, was to the Constitution of the United States."

"There are the Official Secrets Acts. And obedience to duly appointed authority in your chain of command."

"And I and my men will not do anything to jeopardize national security. But you people can lean on that horse only so long before its legs finally give way. I suggest that you not test it."

Cabot scowled. "I had hoped, Commander, that you would be more cooperative."

"What are you going to do to me, take away my boat?" He spread his hands and laughed. "Commanding a submarine was all I ever wanted out of life. I've done that, now, and I'm not going back. So beach me or drum me out of the Navy, but quit making empty threats and stop harassing my crew!"

"I… see,"Cabot said. He pursed his lips. "Well, at least you are honest with me, speak your true mind. But I fear that your loyalty to your country may be questionable."

"You take that back!"

"Mike, easy," Hartwell warned.

"I'm not going to take that kind of shit from anyone," Chase said.

"Mike—"

"Do you hear this crap? He sounds like a CIA recruiting poster out of the 1950s. I am a loyal American. I wouldn't be wearing this uniform if I was not."

"Mike, none of us question that…. "

"He does. And if he doesn't believe me, let him lay charges against me, right here, right now!"

"Commander Chase, I apologize," Cabot said, surprisingly. "Your loyalty is not in question here. I submit that this is not the time or place for airing this sort of unpleasantness. Commander, if you wish to discuss this with me further, in private, I will be happy to do so.

"However, time is short, and we need to proceed to the real purpose of this briefing." He raised his voice. "Commander Travers? If you please…. "

"Lights, please," Travers said, rising.

The room lights dimmed. A projector switched on behind the big screen, illuminating it. Visible now was a photograph shot through a periscope camera, obviously shot through a light-intensifier lens, with brights painted in yellows and whites, and darks in greens and blacks. Date and time stamps in the lower right-hand corner marked the photo as having been taken at 0447 hours local time, on the twenty-fifth of June.

Gordon's eyes narrowed as he peered at the image. That he was looking at a Soviet submarine was obvious. There was something about the look of a Soviet boat's hull that was unmistakable. The sail on this one, though, was longer and squatter than other Russian boats Gordon had seen.

"We are looking here at a Soviet attack submarine," Travers said. "We first ran into this boat when she was on sea trials two years ago. Following the NATO tradition of naming Soviet boats after the maritime alphabet, she was designated as 'Mike.' "

Of course. A Mike. Gordon had seen some blurry intelligence photos a year and a half ago, shortly after he'd come on board at the Office of Naval Special Operations Command. There'd only been one boat, though… at least until now.

"That first Mike was obviously a research prototype," Travers went on, as though reading Gordon's thoughts. "She sported some extremely sophisticated features… as fast, we think, as an Alfa, and possibly as deep a diver. What makes her a considerable advance over the older Alfa, however, is her extreme silence. Our people believe she may be at least as silent as a Flight I Los Angeles."

Gordon heard the collective intake of breath — from Mike, from Admiral Hartwell, from LCDR Latham. He felt the shock, too. The first twenty-four Los Angeles boats off the ways had been extremely silent by American standards. With the Atlanta, SSN-712, first of the uprated Los Angeles Flight II boats, the class had gotten even quieter. The Russians had had nothing to match American quieting technology. Their boats were noisy; the ugly little Alfas, especially, banged through the deeps like railway cars, the pumps on their liquid-sodium nuclear reactors pounding away like sound simply didn't matter.

Along with so much else, the Walker family betrayal had warned the Soviets as to just how much noise their boats were making, and given them hints in how to quiet future generations of submersibles. The result had been the quiet Typhoons and Sierras, and the ultra silent Akula, which Pittsburgh and the old Bluefin had stalked in the White Sea two years before.

And now there was the Mike….

"We thought she might be one-of-a-kind," Travers continued. "This Mike, however, showed up in an unexpected place. Her sound signature is different from Mike One, and we have named this one Mike Two. As you can see, she was photographed two weeks ago. The location, incidentally, is not in the Baltic or White Sea, where Mike One was launched. This is off the Siberian port of Magadan, in the Sea of Okhotsk."

He went on to discuss Operation Silent Dolphins, explaining how four Sturgeon class intel boats had parked off Magadan and Sakhalinskiy Zaliv, off of Petropavlovsk, and in the Zaliv Petra Velikogo close to Vladivostok, Nakhodka, and Vostochnyy. The Pittsburgh had entered the Sea of Okhotsk and deliberately exposed herself, in intelligence terms, allowing the encircling Soviet forces to spot her and give chase.

"We've run this kind of scam before," Travers said. "It's an excellent way to pick up electronic intelligence. At the same time our Sturgeons were watching and listening, putting up radio antennae to snag any excited, unguarded transmissions among the various Russian ports. We also had a couple of SIGINT aircraft circling in international waters east of Kamchatka, and NSA assets listening from Hokkaido, in Japan. By any definition, Silent Dolphins was an astonishing success. The Soviets, it seems, are not that good at following radio protocol for encoding sensitive transmissions. We had a lucky break along those lines four years ago, when KAL 007 accidentally strayed into Soviet airspace. We actually taped the voices of Russian MiG pilots scrambling to intercept."

And over two hundred civilians died, you son of a bitch, Gordon thought. Some lucky break! Damn it, he made it sound as though that tragedy had been a convenience.

"This time, though, we made our own luck by provoking a Soviet response in waters they consider to be their own. And, we got a bonus. We spotted this Mike. We had no idea she was there, or that she'd been launched."

"Thank you, Commander," Cabot said. "And now, gentlemen, it's time to follow upon our intelligence coup in the Sea of Okhotsk. With information provided from Operation Silent Dolphins, we are preparing to launch a new covert op in this same area — Operation Swift Deliverer. Next slide, please."

The image of the Mike was replaced on the screen by a full-color, topo-relief map of the circular embrace of the Sea of Okhotsk. Cabot rose and approached the screen, unfolding a whip-thin aluminum pointer with which he tapped the screen lightly. "In ten days, Pittsburgh will return to the Sea of Okhotsk, gentlemen. She will enter the region as before, by slipping through the Kurils, avoiding Soviet seabed sonar sensors and surface patrols. She shall proceed to this point, on the Siberian coast north of Sakhalin Island, where she will deliver a special package, a small team of agents in our employ… here, in the Sakhalinskiy Zaliv. This package will be brought aboard your vessel just before you sail. A small team of Navy SEALs will be taken aboard at Adak, Alaska, along your course due east, to facilitate the actual transfer of personnel.

"These agents are tasked with learning whether the Mike we have seen in these waters was manufactured at the submarine yards at Novolayevsk. The Pittsburgh will wait submerged offshore and monitor local communications traffic. The SEAL divers will take this opportunity to put seabed sensors in place in the narrow channel between Sakhalin and the mainland, and also to establish taps in seabed telephone cables. Since the phenomenal success of Operation Ivy Bells a decade ago, we've learned a few new wrinkles to this game.

"Finally, after our agents ashore have completed their mission, some will return to the Pittsburgh, while others remain to proceed with other intelligence operations within the Soviet Union. Pittsburgh will egress the Sea of Okhotsk at her commander's discretion, either through the Kurils or south into the Sea of Japan, and, from there, proceed home.

"Full details will be included in your written orders, which will be hand-delivered aboard the Pittsburgh by early next week. We have included you, Commander Chase, in this briefing so that you can personally brief Pittsburgh's new commanding officer on conditions and likely Soviet responses in the Okhotsk Operations Area.

"Is this clear?" It took Gordon a moment or two to realize that the silence was in the expectation that he might have something to say. His very first deployment in his long-dreamed-of command… and he was going to be taking her into a lion's den, and one that only last week had been set on its ear by American intruders.

It was not exactly the sort of mission that encouraged thoughts of promotion or an advancing career. For something like this, it would be an achievement simply to survive.

"I appreciate your confidence in me and my new command."

There was not a lot else he could honestly — or diplomatically — say.