Ohio Class

9

"Ship's comp'ny… attention to port!"

Long, low, black, and sleek, the SSGN Ohio slipped through the waters of Pearl Harbor, slowly making the broad turn to starboard that would take them into Merry Loch and the submarine base. North, beyond the gray loom of the USS Missouri, lay the monument dedicated to the USS Arizona, whose skeletal remains still lay in the waters along the eastern shore of Ford Island. Sixty-seven years before, that stretch of shoreline had been Battleship Row, and early on a certain December morning, sky and sea had burned as Japanese aircraft launched their surprise attack.

Now, sky and sea burned again, but in the more peaceful, silent glow of a dazzling red-orange tropical sunset.

Ohio's deck party stood in a silent row, facing the memorial as the submarine completed her turn.

"Salute!"

The men in ranks did not salute, but the chief in charge of the deck party did. High atop Ohio's weather bridge, Stewart and his XO both faced the memorial and rendered crisp, tight salutes. As Ohio entered the submarine loch and the memorial was lost to view, Stewart dropped his hand.

"I guess some things don't change, Captain," Shea said.

"What's that?"

"Oh… well, it's just the Japanese launched their sneak attack against us, and then sixty years later al-Qaeda launched theirs. Both strikes started a war. And submarines took a major part in World War Two in the Pacific, and, if we're lucky, they'll play a major part in the war against terror."

"Ah." Stewart nodded. Wayne Shea, he was learning, was something of an armchair historian, and at times had an interesting perspective on current events. Sometimes, though, his thinking was a bit obscure and hard to follow. "Subs have already played their part in this war. Lots of long-range deployment of commando forces. And some of the cruise-missile attacks launched by SSNs on Iraq and on Afghanistan, of course."

"Yes, sir. But the Ohio, now… she's something special. We could make a real difference out there."

Stewart nodded. "We could. If we can find the right target. That's the problem with the War on Terror. It's tough to sort the bad guys out from the good guys, and there's always that unpleasant possibility of collateral damage."

The dock that had been designated for Ohio was just ahead, inside the submarine facility. The light was fast failing, but there appeared to be a welcoming committee… Marine guards and a tight little coterie of high-ranking brass waiting on the dock.

Stewart picked up the intercom handset. "Helm, Bridge. Come right five degrees."

"Helm, come right five degrees, aye aye."

"Maneuvering, Bridge. All back one-third."

"Maneuvering, engines all back one-third, aye aye."

He felt the tug as Ohio slowed, her single screw reversing against her forward drift. Her bow swung gently away from the pier. The deck party that had been rendering honors to the Arizona was dividing now into three line-handling parties, one moving past the sail forward to the bow, one moving astern, and one spreading out amidships near the ASDS canister aft of the sail.

"Whatcha think, XO?" he asked. "How many points if we take out the brass gallery?"

Shea shot him a nervous look, and Stewart cracked a grin and winked at him. It was pure showmanship, to hide his nervousness. He'd had the Ohio out for trials earlier, out of Bremerton, and knew he had a good crew… but it always made you a bit nervous when someone was watching.

And from the look of things, this someone watching was a rear admiral, complete with entourage. A miscalculation in docking at this point, especially one that damaged either submarine or dock, would not be a career-enhancing move.

"Helm, Bridge. Come right two degrees."

"Helm, come right, two degrees."

Docking an Ohio-class took a light touch and a good sense of balance. Ohio was long—unwieldy and precariously balanced on the revolutions of her single screw mounted all the way at the aft end of her 560-foot length. Her surfaced displacement of over seventeen thousand metric tons did not stop on the proverbial dime, either.

He had to time this just right….

"Maneuvering, Bridge! All back full."

"Maneuvering, all back full, aye aye, sir!"

The fresh surge of power rumbled through the deck plating at his feet. Ohio had been barely making way before. Going all back brought her nearly to a dead stop, while putting the rudder over helped swing the boat's stern gently toward the pier.

"Handsomely there!" Boatswain's Chief Griswold yelled from the forward deck, as a monkey's fist came sailing across from the pier — a thick, heavy knot of two-inch hawser connected to a light line, which in turn was connected to the forward mooring line. "Now haul!"

The line handling party hauled in on the line, dragging the heavier cable across and above the water. They secured the eye to the bowline cleat, which had been exposed within its recessed chamber on the forward deck.

"Maneuvering, Bridge," Stewart called. "All stop."

"Maneuvering, all stop, aye aye!"

Another line came across the stern, and the aft line handlers grabbed it and made the cable fast. Sailors ashore were taking up the strain, gently easing the behemoth in snug against the pier. Another detail stood ready with the brow — a gangplank extended from pier to quarterdeck, which by submariner tradition was just aft of the sail.

"Let's get below and welcome our guest," Stewart said.

Any time a flag officer paid a call on a mere ship captain, he reflected, it almost certainly meant trouble. As required by protocol and ancient tradition, Stewart met the admiral on the quarterdeck as he came aboard. There'd been no time — or advance warning — to prepare a formal reception, with sideboys and dress uniforms, but Chief Griswold let loose a skirling, wavering blast from his boson's pipe and gave the formal announcement: "Central Command, Fifth Fleet, arriving!"

Rear Admiral Chester R. Brady gave the customary salute to the ensign — raised moments before on the fan-tail — then turned to face Stewart. "Permission to come aboard, Captain."

"Granted, Admiral," Stewart said, saluting. "Welcome aboard."

"Captain Stewart? We need to talk."

"I figured as much, sir. If you'll follow me?"

Though he'd been announced as Central Command, Fifth Fleet, Brady was in fact the Deputy Commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command, which made him the number-two man in the hierarchy of naval forces in the Middle East. As the senior officer in the Fifth Fleet present at Pearl, however, he rated the reception as the

Fifth Fleet's CO.

The question was what the man wanted. Fifth Fleet was currently deployed out of Dhahran, in the Gulf, naval linchpin of U.S. Central Command. As such, Ohio would be transferring to Fifth Fleet operational command… and taking orders from Admiral Brady's boss.

Ohio's wardroom would serve as a briefing room. There wasn't space in Stewart's office to accommodate the entourage Brady had brought on board: a captain and three commanders. Several more officers remained on the pier, where Marine sentries had set up a perimeter cordon in depth.

What Stewart was most concerned about was why an admiral would be sent out here to talk with him.

This definitely was not business as usual.

"What's the word, Cassie?" Sommersby asked. "You look like you just got torpedoed clean out of the water."

"I dunno," Caswell said, slipping into his seat. "I think I did."

"She wouldn't talk to you?"

Caswell sighed, slumping forward and folding his arms on the table. Moone was at his side with a mug of coffee.

"Drink this, man," Moone said. "Perk ya right up."

"Keep him up all night, is what you mean," Jak said. "S'all right," Caswell told them. "I got the ten-to-two watch."

"So what happened?" Sommersby demanded. "Did they patch you through?"

Sommersby and the COB had arranged for Caswell to get priority on the ship-to-shore telephone line, as soon as it was patched in. Caswell had been increasingly frantic with worry ever since they'd left Bremerton and he was forced to miss his own wedding. He'd transmitted a familygram to Nina while en route, a brief message saying only that he was sorry and that he loved her, but Ohio had been out of telephone contact for the entire week. Tonight, when they hooked up at the pier in Oahu, was the first chance he'd had to call her.

"Yeah, they patched me through," Caswell said. "But it was her mother who answered."

"Shit."

"Yeah. She didn't much like me before, I think. Now she hates me. The fact that her mom was at Nina's place, though, tells me Nina was there, too. Her mom said she didn't want to talk to me."

"Well, you don't know the old bag was telling the truth, do you?" Jak said. "I mean, your mother-in-law-elect might have just picked up the phone and told you that, without asking Nina. Right?"

"Maybe. Maybe. Damn it, I don't know." He looked at Sommersby. "Chief? What's the straight dope, anyway? They're saying this cruise could be two months long. Is there any chance we'll be home sooner than that?"

"That, my friend," Sommersby said, "depends on what the brass is telling the Old Man right now." He glanced up at the overhead, indicating the conference still going on in the officers' wardroom one deck up. "Your first duty is to this boat, her mission, and your shipmates. You know that, right?"

"Yeah. I know. Damn it, it doesn't make it easy. It sucks…. "

"I know, son. But it's like our SEAL friends always like to say, 'The only easy day was yesterday.' "

"Your orders, Captain," Brady said, as one of the officers opened a briefcase and handed him a string-tied manila envelope.

"Thank you, sir. Isn't this… a little unusual?"

"What… having a rear admiral as messenger boy?"

"I guess so, sir."

"CENTCOM wanted me to talk with you in person, before you enter the AO. They want to be sure you understand the, ah, sensitivity of this operation."

"I see."

"These orders," Brady said, tapping the envelope, "put you under the command of Fifth Fleet. Admiral Costigan."

"Yes, sir… "

"However, the situation is, shall we say… politically deadly."

Stewart folded his arms and remained silent. He was picking up some unpleasant undercurrents here. Politics…

"I gather you've heard about JOINTFOR and Millennium Challenge."

Stewart nodded. "Yes, sir. Unofficially."

"That was six years ago. Ought to be old news. But the issue resurfaced recently. The Washington Post dredged up the story and ran with it. An article highly critical of the President and his foreign policy.

"Admiral Costigan duly trotted out the reports on Millennium Challenge, shined them up to put Fifth Fleet in the best possible light, and essentially told the press to shove it. Fifth Fleet is ready for any attempt by any aggressor to control the Straits of Hormuz."

"I… see." Stewart kept his voice carefully neutral. An enlisted rating appeared, carrying a tray with mugs of coffee, sugar, and creamer. He took one of the mugs— emblazoned with Ohio's logo — and waited for the admiral to continue.

"Inevitably, Admiral Costigan started taking some heat. CENTCOM is furious right now, as are the Joint Chiefs. JOINTFOR's decision to override the outcome of the war games puts the U.S. military in a bad light.

However… the White House and SecDef both are supporting the admiral in announcing the success of Millennium Challenge."

"Wait a second, sir," Stewart said, alarmed. "You're saying there's some sort of power struggle going on with the Joint Chiefs on one side and the President on the other?"

"Well… no. I wouldn't call it a 'power struggle,' exactly. But there's some nasty political infighting going on between the various departments concerned. General Taylor wanted to sack Admiral Costigan… but SecDef intervened and reversed the decision."

"Sir, just how does this involve the Ohio?" He didn't add that, as a naval officer, his oath was to the Constitution, and his loyalty to the President, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

"Ohio is sailing into a trap, Captain."

"Come again?"

"The Iranians know what really happened during Millennium Challenge. They know about the controversy right now between CENTCOM, the Joint Chiefs, and the White House. And they know Admiral Costigan's career is on the line right now. They may think we're in enough disarray that we'll back down if we're confronted."

"Are we?"

"No. But this, ah, disagreement at high levels makes us look pretty bad. It could lead to a… miscalculation. You're going to have to watch your step over there."

"I'm not about to issue any press releases, if that's what you mean."

"That's not what we're concerned about. Captain Stewart, this is off the record… but right now the United States and Iran are very close to open war. Technically, the first shots have already been fired."

"The SEAL op near Bandar Abbas."

"Yes… and also the attack on the Ohio."

Stewart was raising his mug to his lips, but that stopped him. Careful, he set the mug down again. "I had assumed," he said carefully, "that that attack was carried out by al-Qaeda, or by a domestic group supporting them."

"That's what the FBI report says. Have you seen it?"

Stewart shook his head. "No, sir."

"There's a copy in with your orders. Classified 'secret.' There were five men on that boat that attacked you. Four were KIA. The Coasties were… a bit zealous, let's say.

"The fifth man was wounded, but we took him alive. Under questioning, he admitted to being Savama."

"Iranian Intelligence?"

"Yes. We've known for a long time that there're a number of Iranian sleeper agents in the United States. There's no way we can deport them all."

"Of course not." It was the single major disadvantage the United States faced in domestic terrorism. Attempts to identify possible terrorists on the basis of nationality or ethnicity constituted profiling, and were both illegal and futile. Most Iranians living in the United States were peaceful, law-abiding, and — insofar as many had fled the theocracy of their homeland — even enthusiastically pro-American.

All U.S. law enforcement could do was watch… and wait for the next attack.

"Three of the men on that boat were al-Qaeda fighters," Brady went on, "two Saudis and a Pakistani. The other two, including the prisoner, were Iranian. Entered the U.S. six months ago, seeking asylum. We think they're part of a cell operating out of Seattle. We also think that Tehran may know Ohio's mission, which is why they targeted her. If they don't know, they've taken a damned good guess."

A disturbing, dangerous thought. "That's why all the security on the pier outside?"

"Security levels on all military bases worldwide have been elevated," Brady said, "but, yes. In part."

"I also find it interesting that there were Iranians, Saudis, and Pakistanis all working together."

Brady nodded. "We've been seeing a lot of that in al-Qaeda. The common fight against America overrides the factionalism, Shi'ite versus Sunni. That's what Tehran is counting on, of course."

Iran was predominantly Shi'ite Muslim. Both Saudi Arabia — the birthplace of bin Laden and al-Qaeda— and, to a lesser extent, Pakistan, were Sunni, a particularly vicious and fundamentalist brand of Wahabi Sunni belief. Since Shi'ite and Sunni tended to consider one another heretics, getting them to work together could be a problem.

But al-Qaeda appeared to be pulling it off.

"Now, we're not going to go to war because these creeps took a shot at you, Captain," Brady went on. "For one thing, we don't want Tehran to know we captured one of their people. For another, Tehran would just deny the connection, and the media — especially Al Jazeera and the rest of the Islamic news media — would accuse us of using or even staging a minor terrorist incident as an excuse to invade Iran.

"And so we want you to use extreme caution when you enter the Gulf, Captain. Tehran is going to be looking for an excuse to provoke an incident… something like the Sirocco sinking, but bigger."

"Why, sir? What's it going to buy them?"

"A victory. A propaganda victory if they can't beat us in a face-to-face showdown. They're trying to maneuver themselves into a win-win situation. If they provoke a confrontation, and we back down because we can't get our own act together, they look like heroes to the whole damned Islamic world. If they provoke us into attacking them, into an overt act of war, they don't have to win. Not if the whole Islamic world turns against us because we were clearly the aggressors."

Stewart shook his head. "Admiral, this is way outside my area of expertise. I'm a ship captain, a submariner. I do not set policy."

"Of course not. But you'll still be the sharp end of the stick out there, Captain. The sinking of the Sirocco has people dancing in the streets in Tehran right now, burning American flags and daring us to fight them. So far as they're concerned, they just won their biggest victory since Desert One."

"Okay… I follow that, sir. They want to provoke us into hitting them first, so they look like the good guys to the rest of the world." Stewart shrugged. "So… why should we give them the ammunition? Why not just sit back and let them stew? We don't have to give them what they want."

"Because we don't know what those excavations outside of Bandar Abbas are. We don't know if it's some sort of NBC facility… or a long-range missile battery that would command the straits. We think they're about to try something big, but we don't have a clue what that might be.

"And so Ohio is going to do what she was designed to do. She's going to slip inside Iranian territorial waters without being detected and put a SEAL team ashore. And if you get caught, Captain Stewart, you could be providing them with the excuse they're looking for. Ohio could be the trigger for the world's next big war."

Stewart made a face. "Pleasant thought."

"Indeed. And here's another one. Our best intelligence analysis of Iranian intentions suggests two possible options for them. One… they arrange a confrontation, we back down, and the Fifth Fleet leaves the Gulf voluntarily. If that happens, Iran becomes the naval power in the region, and would immediately gain control over the oil shipment routes through the straits."

"I can't see us giving that to them. And their other option?"

"They move to close the Straits of Hormuz, and trap the Fifth Fleet at Dhahran. If they can isolate Admiral Costigan, Millennium Challenge might become something other than a war-game simulation. The Fifth Fleet could be wiped out for real."

"Jesus! And they think they can actually pull that off?"

"After they smeared mud in our faces — running off the SEALs in Operation Black Stallion and sinking the Sirocco? Yeah, they think they can do it. And it's even possible they could."

"Sir… the Iranians don't have much of a navy. They couldn't hope to win against us, not in the long run."

"Here's a hot news flash, Captain. If they try to shut down the Straits of Hormuz, we will go to war. Our strategic imperative is to keep the international shipping lanes in and out of the Gulf open.

"But — and this is a very important 'but'—while they can't win a long war, they can hurt us, and badly. General Van Riper proved it could be done by sinking the Fifth Fleet — at least in simulation. The U.S. public has been ambivalent about our presence in the Gulf since Iraqi War Two. They don't like to hear about high casualties on the evening news. What do you think the reaction of the American people would be if we lost a supercarrier in there? Or even if we just lose the Ohio?"

"Well, I would like to believe that the American public would roll up their sleeves, pitch in, and do what has to be done."

Brady sighed. "Maybe they would. Maybe they'd be willing to try, at least. But their representatives in Washington may think differently."

Stewart considered this. Most Americans he knew were behind the War on Terror one hundred percent, but for many recent operations — Iraq and Afghanistan were two excellent examples — the emphasis had become tangled up with the idea of not losing lives. The notorious Rumsfeld Doctrine, applied in Afghanistan, had emphasized the need to keep American casualties to an absolute minimum by relying on high technology — smart bombs and UAVs — and on the efforts of local forces.

And yet, in war, lives were lost. Always. And in Afghanistan, it was more than possible that the reliance on unreliable local militias had let many in the al-Qaeda leadership, including bin Laden himself, escape.

One reason the second Iraqi war had become so unpopular at home was the high rate of casualties — not so much the losses suffered during the actual invasion, which were remarkably low, but in the insurrections and suicide bombings that followed.

Maybe Brady had a point. Maybe American will would fold in the face of a really nasty butcher's bill… especially if it came all at once. Part of the horror of 9/11 had been the deaths of three thousand people in the space of a handful of minutes. There were close to twice that many sailors on board a single supercarrier….

He also clearly heard Brady's warning.

The Ohio would be in truly tight straits, both in terms of physical geography and politics. The Straits of Hormuz were dangerously narrow and dangerously shallow, especially for a leviathan like the Ohio.

But worse than that were the political shoal waters. If Ohio was discovered, she might be sunk or run aground, and the propaganda triumph Tehran would enjoy in trumpeting the news — an American nuclear submarine destroyed or, worse, captured — might well unite the fractured Islamic world. Even if the Ohio wasn't sunk or captured, even if she were simply spotted and shown to be invading Iranian territory, Tehran might still get a political win out of it, and attack the Fifth Fleet under the guise of self-defense.

There weren't a lot of good options. The only one that worked would be to carry out the assigned mission in complete secrecy, without being discovered. That was the textbook outcome his superiors were expecting of him and his command, of course.

But Stewart knew just how likely it was that any mission of this size and scope could be carried out perfectly according to plan.

No plan of battle ever survives contact with the enemy. Who'd said that? The Prussian strategist van Moltke, he thought… or was it Napoleon? Shea would know. He'd ask the XO about it later.

"One more thing, Captain."

There's more? But he didn't voice the thought. "Yes, Admiral."

Brady extended a hand, and one of the aides produced another envelope from the briefcase. Brady opened it and handed the contents to Stewart.

Photographs. Several of them, all with digital imprints, and cropped in a fuzzy, dark circle, which indicated they'd been shot through a submarine's periscope. He recognized the legend — the SSN Pittsburgh. These had been shot ten days ago, on May 28.

Most of the shots were of the low, dark conning tower of a submarine. Two were underwater shots, looking up at a sub's keel from beneath, and so close you could see the individual hull plates, and see how clean the bottom was.

"Those were taken of the new Iranian diesel boat," Brady explained. "Jack Creighton's been tracking her in and out of Bandar Abbas. We think they're getting her ready for a long patrol."

"What would a 'long patrol' be for one of these?"

"Several weeks at least. What we're concerned about is the fact that the Iranians know Ohio is coming, and have guessed her mission."

"In other words, they're laying an ambush."

"It's a possibility. We think, we think, that they may try to intercept you while you're still in the Indian Ocean. Not to attack you. They'd rather catch you inside their territorial waters. But if they can pick you up with a sonar sweep coming in, they might trail you into the straits, then put a couple of torpedoes up your ass the moment you enter Iranian waters."

Brady seemed to be following his thoughts, watching his face. "If the job was going to be easy," he said, grinning, "we wouldn't be paying you the big bucks, right?"

"It's not the paycheck," Stewart replied absently. "It's the benefits and the retirement package."

An old joke, with just enough truth to it that Brady gave him a quizzical look, as though trying to decide whether he was serious.

He sighed. "Consider me duly warned, Admiral. We'll watch our ass."

He just wished he could promise that Ohio wouldn't get caught. Stewart, however, never made promises that he wasn't absolutely certain he could carry out.