Los Angeles Class

12

Commander Frank Gordon, captain of the USS Pittsburgh, looked over the forward deck, watching as the line handlers stood at their posts. Damn it, what was holding up the show? He'd intended to be under way by 0630 hours.

Fog blanketed the strait and Mare Island; astern and to the north, Vallejo was almost lost in the gray soup, though Gordon could make out the wet shapes of the nearer buildings, and see a few car headlights moving up and down Sonoma Boulevard.

A sea lion barked mournfully in the water to starboard, as though nursing hurt feelings. Gordon had sent the sailor on deck watch forward an hour ago to shoo a pod of the big animals off of Pittsburgh's bow, and they'd lumbered off into the water in ill-tempered slow motion. Sorry, fellow, Gordon thought with a wry grin. We've all got to get up and get moving early today.

Damn it, where were they?

The past week had been a fury of activity. Torpedoes had been reloaded back aboard, and then the tedious process of bringing food and other stores aboard the boat had begun. No one could say how long Pittsburgh would be gone on this mission, so stores for two months had been piled high on the pier, then fed a can or a cardboard box or a jug at a time down through the forward weapons loading hatch to be stowed somewhere aboard. The 'Burghs pantry spaces were filled first, and after that, stores began stacking up in every corner and stretch of unused space, including some of the heads and low-traffic passageways. Submarines taking supplies aboard for a six-month voyage looked anything but military when they first set out. Their crews had literally to eat their way through some of the supplies to get to deck metal and bare linoleum.

He looked at his watch. Was this the way the Agency ran things on ops in the field? Did they have so many electronic gadgets they couldn't look at their wristwatches from time to time?

He saw two sets of headlights flare on the dock and heard the multiple slam of car doors. A moment later, a small group of men hurried down the pier.

Four had the look that Gordon long ago had come to recognize as that of men well trained and practiced in the military arts. They wore black combat utilities, vests, and gear, and carried black-nylon satchels. Two of the men were bearded, which suggested that these were not SEALs or other U.S. Special Forces commandos, but something else.

Accompanying them were two other men — the tall and saturnine Mr. Cabot, and another civilian who had the look of an aide. These last two stopped at the end of Pittsburgh's brow as the other four clattered their way up to the boat's after deck, where the OOD took them in hand and sent them down the forward escape trunk hatch.

Cabot's "special package," the agents Pittsburgh would be putting ashore on the Siberian coast.

On the pier, Cabot raised a hand in farewell. Gordon gravely saluted him, then picked up the handset that linked him with the control room. "Mr. Latham? Has the package arrived?"

"They're being taken for'rard to the torpedo room now, Captain."

"Very well. Let's make all preparations to get under way."

"Make all preparations to get under way, aye, sir."

He flipped a switch on his comm console, connecting him to Torpedoman's Mate Chief Bart Allison on the deck. "Chief? We're ready to roll. Secure the brow."

"Secure the brow, aye, sir!" crackled from the speaker. Allison was wearing a radio headset, which removed the need for shouting orders back and forth.

The deck crew, their orange life jackets bright in the murk, moved swiftly to unfasten the shipboard end of the brow. Ashore, the dock gang hauled on the brow and swung it clear of the boat.

"Brow is cleared away."

"Single up lines, fore and aft. Stand by to cast off."

"Single up, fore and aft, aye."

The deck crews on the sub and on the pier worked together, casting off lines until only a single mooring line forward and another one aft secured the Pittsburgh to the dock.

Gordon took a last look around. If anything, the fog was a bit thicker now than it had been moments ago, but he could make out the shapes and lights of two harbor tugs aft, one almost dead astern, the other upriver a bit. The two sail lookouts stood in their own sail-top openings aft of the weather bridge, looking to port and starboard. His best eyes, though, would be fog-penetrating radar. Someday, perhaps, satellite navigational aids would be good enough that a sub could be gentled up to the dock even when the dock was completely invisible in fog or rain. For now, though, they had to rely on the old and time-tested methods, radar, sound, and basic Mark I Mod 0 eyeballs.

In most other tight docking areas around the world, harbor tugs actually brought submarines all the way in and out. It wasn't that boat captains weren't trusted as such… but each submarine represented a not-so-small fortune in delicate sonar gear and electronics, and an accidental bump against a bollard could send a good many hundreds of thousands or millions of tax dollars into dry dock, and deprive the United States of a valuable defense asset.

The quarters were just too tight between the Mare Island slips to admit tugboat and sub. But they were waiting in the main shipping channel to catch him should something go wrong.

And that would be the ultimate embarrassment for an ambitious young nuke skipper, not to mention a serious speed bump for his career. He glanced down at the pier again. Cabot and his shadow were still there… along with another figure, wearing khakis. Mike Chase. It looked like the Pittsburgh's old skipper had turned out to see her off. And there was another officer as well, with a lot of gold braid. Admiral Hartwell, then, had come to see them off as well.

No, it wouldn't be good at all to fumble this one….

"Cast off aft."

"Aye aye, sir. Cast off aft."

Gordon heard the chief's voice raised. "Aft line handlers! Cast off!" The line arced gracefully through the wet air, to be caught by handlers ashore.

He looked across at the Parche, on the other side of Pier 2. He could see his opposite number there atop Parche's sail. Perrigrino tossed a jaunty salute, and Gordon returned it. A number of Parche's sailors had come up on deck to watch. Damn, was the whole world going to be looking over his shoulder?

"Lookouts, check astern."

"Clear astern, sir."

"Maneuvering, bridge," he said. "Rudder to starboard. Come aft, dead slow."

"Rudder starboard, aye! Come aft, dead slow, aye!"

With the rudder over and the screw turning, Pittsburgh's stern began walking out away from the pier. He watched the line handlers aft brace themselves against the gentle motion. All of the safety railings had been stricken and stowed below, so it was somewhat dangerous to be on the boat's open and rounded deck. A diver in full wet suit and swim gear stood on the deck just in case he was needed for a rescue, and a Coast Guard cutter waited farther upriver to follow Pittsburgh out into the bay, just in case someone fell overboard.

When Pittsburgh had swung out at a nearly forty-five degree angle from the pier, her rounded bow almost touching the dock, Gordon said, "Forward line handlers! Cast off forward!"

"Casting off forward, aye, sir!"

"Conn, give me three blasts of the horn."

"Three blasts, aye aye, sir." The shrill blast of Pittsburgh's horn cut through the fog, two short hoots signaling that she was backing down.

"Maneuvering, rudder amidships. Continue aft, dead slow."

"Rudder amidships, aye aye, sir. Maintain aft revs, dead slow, aye."

Gently, gently, the submarine's 360-foot length backed away from the pier, sliding backward into the Napa River Channel between Mare Island and Vallejo. The river was only about a quarter mile wide at this point, just enough room to get into trouble.

"Captain," the port lookout called. "The John Andrew Keith is coming close abeam to port."

Gordon turned. One of the harbor tugs was maneuvering in close to pass the Pittsburgh a line. "I see him. Maneuvering, Bridge. Reverse engine. Bring us to ahead slow."

"Reverse engine, ahead slow, aye aye, sir."

With a slight shudder through her hull, Pittsburgh slowed her backward crawl, stopped, then began sliding forward. A line was tossed across the submarine's forward deck by a linesman aboard the Keith and made secure to a recessed cleat alongside Pittsburgh's sail.

"Maneuvering, Bridge. Bring the rudder two points to port. Engine, all stop. We get to ride for a way, here."

"Bridge, Maneuvering. Rudder two points to port, aye. Engine at all stop, aye aye, sir."

The powerful little harbor tug, basically little more than a pair of powerful diesel engines with a red-painted superstructure around them, began picking up speed, hauling the Pittsburgh like a barge slowly downstream. The second tug and the Coast Guard cutter followed astern.

He heard the thud-thud-thud of the tugboat's engines alongside, the brooding low of a foghorn, the shrill clang of a buoy. He tasted salt on the air, felt the shiver of Pittsburgh's hull as she made way through the water, fast enough that her bow wake was curling up over her prow and wetting the forward deck. It was, for Gordon, a jubilant moment.

It wasn't until frozen instants like this one that he realized how much he missed the sea when he was apart from her. For two years he'd been locked away in the Five-Sided Squirrel Cage, trapped in the D-Ring labyrinth.

He was at his best when he was at sea, whether he was commanding a nuke or a diesel, or simply an officer of the watch. He gave a wry grin, realizing how sentimental he was getting about sea duty… and he wasn't even out into San Pablo Bay yet!

For just a moment, the fog lifted a bit, and Gordon's eyes were drawn to the dock below the piers, where a concrete abutment with a safety rail extended a short ways out into the water. A small crowd of people was there, women and children, mostly, watching the Pittsburgh go to sea. Some waved, while others simply… watched.

Families and loved ones of the men aboard. His jubilation ebbed, still there, but subdued now by the realization of the awesome responsibility he commanded.

Damn. How did the Navy wives always know? They had an intelligence network that would make the CIA hang its collective head in shame, if it knew. The announced sailing time for the Pittsburgh had been noon; as sailors had come back aboard from liberty through the night, they'd been quietly told that sailing had been moved up to 0630 hours, partly as a security concession to Cabot, partly, too, because Gordon wanted to avoid a confrontation with Greenpeace. The militant environmentalist group liked to picket the sailings of nuclear subs, and had been known to do some pretty pin-headed stuff, like steering Zodiacs into a submarine's path.

It looked like they'd managed to fool Greenpeace… but not the wives of the sailors on board. They watched silently as the Pittsburgh, tucked in close alongside her escorting tug, slipped quietly through fog-misted waters toward the southeastern tip of Mare Island. Gordon could almost feel the force of their prayers.

He turned, looking aft, trying to see if Mike Chase was still visible. He wasn't. Pier 2 was already hidden by the bulk of the Parche, and, as he watched, even her dark, square-sailed mass faded away into the mist.

He had now the command he'd always wanted. True, the mission was an exceptionally tough one; the possibility for failure, disgrace, even death was high. But he knew he had an edge … the men who sailed with him.

Gordon looked down at the civilian crew of the tug, a casual and relaxed lot who looked like they had more in common with the salty and sometimes raggedly turned-out submarine crews of World War II than with the sailors aboard his own command. Some were trading friendly insults with the life-jacketed sailors of the 'Burgh's line-handling party. There was unspoken camaraderie there. Men who lived, worked, fought, and died on the sea shared a common brotherhood, whether they were Navy or civilian, submariner or surface.

The sea had an uncanny way of leveling the men who served on her.

Past the point, they swung to starboard, steering southwest, and the tug cast off her tow. Pittsburgh's deck crew secured the last of the lines and deck fittings. The sub's hull numbers had already been taken down, and her flag transferred from the jack staff aft to a mast alongside the periscope housings atop the sail, age-old indicator that the vessel was now at sea.

The crew filed below, and Gordon had the comm watch signal to the Coast Guard cutter that their lifesaving services were no longer needed. With a last, friendly honk of its horn, the John Andrew Keith parted from the Pittsburgh, veering off to port and fading away into the fog. The other tug and the escorting cutter were already headed about and moving back toward the Mare Island Channel and Vallejo.

Half an hour at eight knots brought them all the way across San Pablo Bay, beneath the span of the bridge bearing Highway 580 near San Quentin, and into the northern reaches of San Francisco Bay proper. Twenty minutes more took them past the monument of Alcatraz and on out through the glorious red-orange arch of the Golden Gate Bridge.

"Lookouts, secure the colors and go below," he said. The two lookouts gathered in the flag, then dropped through the hatch at their feet and clambered down the ladder through the sail and into the control room. Gordon took a last look around. As Pittsburgh picked up speed, the bow wake lashed up and over the prow in great, rolling arcs, kicking up a bit of white foam around the foot of the sail. It was nearly 0800 hours now, and the fog was lifting, with broad slashes of early-morning light cutting through the tattered remnants of overcast from a crystal blue canopy above.

Through his binoculars, Gordon could see a pair of tiny Zodiacs flying Greenpeace colors, racing toward the Pittsburgh from the direction of Sausalito. Evidently the word had been passed, and they were still trying to catch the boat for a symbolic protest… but the sub already had far too great a lead.

He grinned at the distant rubber boats. "Better luck next time, guys." Slinging the binoculars around his neck, he dropped down the hatch, sealing it above him. Emerging in the control room, he nodded at Latham, who crisply announced, "Captain on deck!"

"Thank you, XO. Diving Officer, let's take her down. What's the depth beneath keel?" The channel through the Golden Gate was deep… fifty-nine fathoms, if he remembered the charts correctly.

"Depth beneath keel now … three-one-zero feet, sir," Lieutenant Francis J. Carver reported. He was seated port-side forward, between and behind the two enlisted men manning the boat's helm and dive plane station.

"Very well. Flood main ballast, Mr. Carver."

"Flood main ballast, aye, sir."

"Down bubble fifteen degrees. Make depth one hundred feet."

"Down bubble fifteen degrees. Make depth one hundred feet, aye."

The faint, restless shuddering of water sliced by steel gradually faded as the deck tilted gently beneath their feet. Moments later, there was no sensation of movement at all, as the Pittsburgh entered her accustomed environment… and hunting ground.

"Depth six-zero feet," Carver reported. "Depth eight-zero feet. Leveling off at one hundred feet." The deck came back level, as the Pittsburgh slid invisibly from the Bay and out into the open ocean.

He picked up the microphone at the periscope walk.

"Sonar, Conn."

"Sonar, aye, sir."

"Keep a sharp ear out, boys. I would be very surprised if Ivan didn't have a shadow waiting for us out here. I'd just as soon he not know where we're going."

"We're listening, sir. Nothing so far but transients, surface traffic, and biologicals."

"Very well. Call me if you hear anything."

"Aye aye, sir."

"Mr. Latham."

"Sir."

"We'll take her out fifty miles or so. I want a full run of angles and dangles before we set course for the first way point."

"Very good, Captain." Gordon took a deep breath. Yes. This felt right….

This was wrong, damn it. Badly wrong.

O'Brien had had the duty last night, standing watch on deck with a rifle from 0400 hours to 0600 hours. Having to walk along the Pittsburgh's forward deck toward those monstrous, bulky marine mammals, their snouts half hidden by rolls of fat, had been one of the oddest moments of his life. "Shoof Shoo!" he'd shouted, and wondered if he was going to have to get authorization to fire a couple of shots, to scare the beasts off.

Damn it, they didn't have monsters like that in Rockford, Illinois, none with such intelligent eyes, anyway, or such arrogance. The most difficult animal O'Brien had yet had to manage were the cows on his uncle's farm.

They rolled away from him at his approach, however, sliding into the water. It was amazing how ungainly sea lions were on a solid deck… and how graceful in the sea.

In any case, his watch had ended before the guests they were expecting had arrived. He now had twelve hours of downtime when he could relax, study, catch a shower, and hit the rack when Seaman Montgomery, the guy he was hot bunking with, got up for his stretch of duty at 0930 hours, so his rack was free. He was standing in the enlisted head shower stall, water streaming from his body, a bottle of shampoo in one hand, a handful of hair in the other.

No, there was definitely something wrong. His hair was Navy-haircut short, of course, but he had a full head of it. As a civilian, he'd worn it quite long. But it seemed to be coming out in clumps as he lathered up his scalp.

My hair is falling out. My hair is falling out. And what makes hair do that?

I'm aboard a nuclear submarine at sea, sleeping a few feet from an atomic reactor, and I'm wondering what might make my hair fall out. My God….

It couldn't be radiation poisoning. It couldn't be. There would be alarm bells… people yelling and screaming… They'd be sealing off the aft spaces, evacuating the crew.

They had instruments monitoring that sort of thing, didn't they?

O'Brien was so scared, his knees were starting to tremble and feel weak, and his stomach was twisting.

Nausea!.. Didn't radiation poisoning also give you nausea too? God, what if he started barfing up blood?

Sick call. I gotta go to sick call and have a doc check this out.

He couldn't remember. Did Los Angeles boats rate a full medical doctor? Or did they just have an independent duty corpsman? He wanted a real doctor to look at him, not a damned pecker checker.

"Hey, Navy shower in there!" someone yelled from outside. "Take it easy on the water supply!"

"Uh… sure! Sorry!" Reaching up, he turned off the water. Submarines manufactured their own fresh water — as well as generating their own oxygen — from seawater, but with so many men crowded into such a small space, only so much water could be generated per hour, and the people aboard still had to ration it. Showers aboard submarines consisted of a brief spray to wet down, followed by lathering with the water turned off, followed at last by a rinse. You did not stand in the stream and soak.

After a moment of wondering what to do next, he turned the water on and stepped into the cold, hard stream. Soap lather spilled from his hair and stung his eyes. He tried to wash the lather out… and succeeded in pulling out more of his own hair.

Radiation poisoning! It had to be!

He had to tell someone… but… shouldn't they already know? He didn't want to appear to be panicky.

But his hair was falling out, damn it!

Somehow, he completed his shower and toweled off. He was going to have to see the boat's doctor, and fast. He would know what to do.

Stepping from the shower head, he grabbed his towel and flip-flopped his way back toward the enlisted berthing spaces. Doershner, Scobey, and Douglas were standing together in the narrow passageway talking, and he had to squeeze past them.

"Hey! O'Brien!" Doershner said. "What's the matter with you? You look terrible!"

"Uh, nothing," he mumbled. " 'Scuze me."

He lifted the lid to his personal compartment, which, of course, he now shared with Montgomery. He was stowing his sandals, soap case, and shampoo when the captain's voice came on over the loudspeakers. "Now hear this, now hear this. All hands prepare for angles and dangles. Secure all loose gear, and keep movement about the deck to a minimum. That is all."

Angles and dangles? He'd heard the term before, at Sub School, but he couldn't quite place what—

And then the deck tilted sharply beneath his feet, and O'Brien knew he was going to die.

Roger Benson leaned against a rack support and grinned at the four passengers. "You boys never been on a submarine before, huh?" he asked, not exactly helpfully.

The four passengers, "packages," as they'd heard the skipper refer to them, were seated on the bunks set up in the torpedo room, alternately clutching at the black-nylon bags containing their gear and the rack supports for their bunks, as the submarine deck dipped, rolled, and tilted beneath their feet.

TMC Bart Allison stepped through the watertight doorway into the compartment, cheerfully standing upright against the list of the deck, which at the moment must have been close to thirty degrees. He held a large mug of steaming coffee in his hand. "Our guests getting settled in all right, Benson?" he asked.

"I guess so, Chief. They still don't have their gear stowed, though."

The Pittsburgh's bow began coming up. Both Benson and Allison adjusted their stance naturally and easily, flexing their knees a bit to take the attitude change. Several other sailors in the torpedo compartment grinned knowingly at each other.

One of the bearded guests clutched his bag and goggled at Allison. "Sir," he said in a thick, Slavic accent, "is this happening on submarine… always?… "

"First of all," Allison said, "I'm not 'sir.' " He tapped his crow with two fingers. "I'm a chief. That means I work for a living. Secondly… "He paused, and then his leathery face split in an unpleasant grin as the boat's deck continued to tilt, bow-high, until the deck was again at a thirty-degree angle from the horizontal. "Secondly, what do you mean 'happening'? Is something wrong, fellas?"

"It's the damned boat," one of the Americans said, grimacing. His face had a distinctive green cast to it. "Is it gonna be like this all the way to fucking Siberia?"

"Well, that's hard to say," Allison said. He paused reflectively and took another sip of coffee. "Depends on the weather, partly. Stormy seas topside can make for a rough passage, you know."

"But… but… " the other American said. "I thought it was always calm at the depths where submarines operated!"

The torpedo-room deck dropped back to level again, but now they could feel the gentle throb as her engine brought her up to speed. A moment later, the boat heeled to port as her rudder went hard over in a sharp turn.

"Normally that's true," the chief agreed, taking the maneuver without any outward sign at all. "Still, sometimes it can be pretty rough. I remember one time aboard the old Seawolf, back in '70, must've been, when we—"

"Please, sir, Chief," the Russian said, "not to tell us colorful sea stories at this minute. Your captain is carrying out highspeed maneuvers. I feel this… the sharp turn just now. Is it… is it that we are engaged with Russian submarine, da?"

"Well, sometimes we have to make some pretty hard maneuvers," Allison said, sneaking a wink at Benson.

Benson grinned. "You know, the captain doesn't tell us much down here," he said with matter-of-fact nonchalance. "We could be smack in the middle of the biggest submarine dogfight since the Battle of the Atlantic right now, and unless he orders us to launch a torpedo, we'd never know a thing about it." He jerked a thumb at the torpedo tubes, two set to either side of the compartment, angled out slightly, rather than set dead ahead in the forward bulkhead. The round hatches were closed and dogged, with ominous signs hanging from each:

"As you can see," Benson continued, "we're loaded for bear. All tubes loaded and ready to shoot!"

"We should really see about getting your bags stowed,"

Allison said. He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. "Hey! Martinez! Doershner! Willis! Give a hand here."

The second Russian clutched his bag a bit closer. "These contain… explosive material."

"Yeah?" Allison said, curious. "Like what?"

"Grenades. Ammunition. Plastic explosives. Tools of the trade, yes?"

"Well, you shouldn't have 'em all stowed together like that. Give them to our people, we'll check 'em, bag 'em, and stow 'em for you."

"But you do not understand. Explosives… very dangerous… "

"Which is why I want to see to it that they're properly stowed, okay, Ivan?"

"Name is Sergei Mikhailovich."

"Right. Anyway, Sergei, you don't need to worry. We know all about handling explosives."

"Da? But… "

Allison reached down and rapped sharply on the nose of one of the big Mark 48 torpedoes, carefully stowed in its cradle immediately beneath the bunk that Sergei was sitting on. "See? You boys are sleeping with six hundred fifty pounds of high explosives in each of these warheads!"

Sergei flinched as Allison rapped on the torpedo, but surrendered his bag to TM2 Doershner. The others did as well.

"Okay, boys. This is your bunkroom for the length of the voyage. Used t'be, in the old Navy, that enlisted men slept in the torpedo room all the time. Nowadays, though, we don't do it unless we absolutely have to."

"Because the men don't like sleeping surrounded by torpedo warheads?" the second American suggested.

"Nah. If one of these babies went, it would take us all out. The guys in the torpedo room would be the lucky ones, since they'd all get killed in the blast, and not have to worry about getting sealed in some after compartment, slowly sinking into the depths until the pressure imploded what was left of the hull. Nah, nowadays, it's the torpedoes that are sensitive.

You get people sleeping on and around them, leaning on them… "He reached out and struck the warhead again with the flat of his hand. "Bumping into them. These damned things are delicate, y'know? Not like the old steam torpedoes we used to have! So we try to keep people away from them unless it's absolutely necessary."

"So… why are we put here?" Sergei asked.

"Because the boat is crowded, and we don't have anyplace else to put you! Don't worry. Just stay the hell out of the way of the boys on duty in here, and jump when they say jump. Okay?"

"Da. We comply…."

"Good man." He looked up toward the overhead. "Well, feels like the skipper's done with angles and dangles."

"With angles… and what?" Sergei asked.

"Angles and dangles, son. See, the first thing the skipper does out of port is check the boat for watertight integrity. He has the Diving Officer pump water in and out of the trim tanks to give us perfect neutral buoyancy, make sure we're perfectly balanced. He also runs an inspection on every compartment, checking to make sure they're all watertight and that no machinery is making any unusual or abnormal noises. Then he takes us through a bunch of maneuvers called angles and dangles. If anything on this boat is improperly stowed, that'll find 'em out!" He pointed to a corner where cartons of food had been securely lashed to the deck behind a torpedo cradle. "If we got into a real turn-and-burn with a Russian sub, we wouldn't want that shit flying around the compartment, right?"

A few moments later, in the passageway aft of the torpedo room, Benson and Allison had a good chuckle. "They may be the Agency's best and brightest," Allison said, shaking his head, "but they wouldn't last out six months in the Silent Service!"

"Idiots, bringing bags of loose explosives aboard like that. Shouldn't they have checked it all at the pier for proper stowage?"

"Yeah, yeah. Some of their stuff already came aboard last night. But nobody told us they'd be bringing their own toys on board with 'em, and they came aboard so late there wasn't time. No harm done."

"Except to their peace of mind," Benson said. "They were getting pretty shook-up in there!"

"Ahh. A little messing with their minds won't hurt them, none. Why should they be treated any differently from everybody else on board, right? And it does wonders for me. C'mon. If you're not doing anything useful, I got work for you."

"Right, Chief."

He followed Allison up the ladder to the second deck.