Ohio Class

8

This is nuts, Hawking told himself. Submarines don't want to be found!

During his tenure as a naval aviator, he'd joked often enough about "postage stamp landings"… about what it was like dropping out of rain clouds or darkness in an F/A-18 to trap on a carrier deck, and about how tiny that deck looked from the air. A super carrier was a floating colossus, over a thousand feet long and displacing in the neighborhood of eighty thousand tons, but it looked like a freaking postage stamp from the air, and a moving postage stamp at that.

But the aviator had access to a whole array of navigational data — radio beacons and radar and GPS fixes beamed to him by satellite. He might not be able to see the carrier until the last moment before he came in over the fantail, but he knew exactly where it was.

Not so with submarines. Even something as large as an Ohio SSGN was a tiny, tiny sliver in a very large and opaque emptiness. No radio beacons. No satellite signals unless you had an antenna extended above the surface. Blue-green lasers penetrated seawater to a degree, allowing communications over limited distances, but you pretty much had to be on top of the other guy before that became practical.

As always, as it had been for decades, sound was the best way to spot a target. The trouble was, submarines went out of their way to eliminate sound so the enemy couldn't track them. Both Ohio and the Manta had sonar, of course, and by going active, either vessel could pinpoint the other in a matter of seconds.

This was an exercise, however, intended to simulate possible submerged operations in potentially hostile waters. Ohio wasn't broadcasting. She was listening.

And so Hawking was doing the broadcasting, and he was doing it on a very narrow frequency, at very low power. It was, he'd been told, the same sort of low-power sonar pulse used by Ohio's diving officer to determine the depth beneath the keel, a signal so weak that other submarines wouldn't pick it up unless they were quite close — within a few thousand yards, say.

To Hawking, who was used to a distant horizon in a fighter — CAVU, or Ceiling Absolute, Visibility Unlimited — this felt like a blind man feeling his way through a dark cellar at night, using a stick to try to identify that one postage stamp that had to be in here somewhere….

At eighty-five meters the water was as dark as it had been at ten times that depth, without even a trace of illumination from the surface. The one difference was that this far from the bottom there was less particulate matter, no drifting flecks of muck imitating stars.

And no fish, either. Hawking had wondered about that during his various training dives and test runs with the Manta. Only rarely had he actually seen signs of sea life, and then only in the upper few tens of meters of sea. The ocean — out here away from the shoreline, at any rate — appeared to be a barren and empty desert.

A warning light flickered on his control screen, accompanied by a tone over his headset. Contact! Weak as his sonar emanations were, they'd reflected off something large somewhere up ahead. He banked the Manta to the right, bringing his heading onto a direct line with the contact, and increased his speed.

If it was the Ohio, they would hear him coming, of course. Unlike conventional submarines, the Manta was not specifically designed as a quiet submersible. It wasn't that noisy, either, but at speeds of more than about twenty knots, he'd been told the Manta sounded like one of those bicycle noisemakers he'd employed as a kid, a piece of cardboard attached to the wheel in such a way that it made a motorcyclelike clacking as it turned. This was due to the Manta's aquafoil design, which, like an aircraft wing, was shaped to create greater pressure below the vessel than above it, providing lift. When the two unequal streams of water met and mixed aft of his wing, they created turbulence, and that announced his presence as clearly as if he'd come in with horns blaring. The water jet used for propulsion was noisy as well. There were no moving parts, but the rush of water through the aft venturi created a kind of freight-train rumble in the headphones of submarine sonar techs in the area.

So at the moment, not only was the Ohio pinpointing his position by sonar, but every other submarine and undersea sound sensor from here to Midway Island must be picking him up as well. The trick was for him to pick up the echoes from the very quiet submarine somewhere up ahead.

Since he was using active sonar, sending out pulses of sound like a bat or a dolphin, rather than simply listening for the noise the Ohio wasn't making, he could employ Doppler ranging to pick up an accurate distance to the target. Manta's on-board computer was quite sophisticated, and could give him range readouts to the meter… if the target's relative bearing and velocity were known. Since he didn't know how fast the Ohio was traveling, or what her aspect was relative to his approach— bow-on, stern-to, or somewhere in between — her motion relative to his caused some uncertainty in the ranging data. According to the console readout, however, the target was now between nine hundred and eleven hundred meters away — less than half a mile.

His lights were on. There was nothing to see, however, save for a greenish haze about his vessel, backscatter from the external lamps. Nothing… nothing…

And then there she was, looming out of the night, a vast and dark shadow imperfectly illuminated by the Manta's forward light. She'd already turned away from him, stern-to, and was moving ahead through the depths at ten knots. Between the shrouded screw and cruciform tail, and the erect rectangle of the sail, he could see the long double row of hatches down her afterdeck. The two hatches closest to the sail were covered by the blunt, stubby cylinder of the ASDS — the dry-deck shelter used by the sub's complement of SEALs or other Special Forces. Halfway down the row, however, the twelfth hatch to port had been opened and the capture gantry deployed.

The gantry, actually, was little more than a single, slender pole, deployed straight up out of the missile launch tube, then lowered forward on a hydraulically operated hinge until it rested flat on the deck. Magnetic grapples extended to either side, and a red strobe light pulsed in the water, marking the top end of the gantry.

A contact light went on at the top of the Manta's touch-screen console. He was close enough now that he could communicate directly with Ohio's command center, either via high frequency sonar pulses or through blue-green laser.

"Ohio, this is XSSF-1 on capture approach, coming up on your six, range two-two-five meters, speed one-five knots."

"XSSF-1, Ohio. We heard you coming a mile away. You are clear for final approach and lockdown. The fishing pole is deployed."

"Fishing pole" was slang for the capture gantry. In early days of prototype testing, capture had actually involved firing a powerful magnetic grapple connected to a tow line to the fighter, hooking on, and dragging the craft in. Operational techniques had improved a lot during the past year, however.

"Roger that, Ohio. XSSF-1 on final."

Hawking accelerated the Manta slightly, pushing through the turbulence of the Ohio's wake. As soon as the slight buffeting subsided and he emerged above Ohio's stern, he cut back on the throttle and brought the fighter's nose up, matching speed with the much larger submarine beneath him and settling in toward the gantry. This part took a delicate touch and skillful coordination between fighter pilot and sub driver; during the last few seconds of the approach, he couldn't see the gantry directly, but had to rely on a small monitor on his console that relayed the view from a camera mounted on the keel. Although a flashing green light assured him his approach was nominal, it didn't have the same feel as judging the final few meters by eye.

The flashing green light went yellow as he drifted a bit too far to port. "XSSF-1, Control. Adjust right one meter."

"Yeah, yeah… "

It was much like calling the ball on a carrier deck approach, but in slow motion compared with the highspeed slam-down onto a carrier's fantail. He adjusted his course slightly, and the flashing green light came back… then switched to steady green as the magnetic grapples caught him. There was a gentle thump, a jar transmitted through the cockpit's deck.

"XSSF-1, we have capture. Kill your power and enjoy the ride."

"Roger that, Ohio." He switched off the Manta's power systems. "All systems powered down."

His external lights switched off; all was blackness again save for the intermittent red flare of the docking light. After a moment he felt another jerk, and the sensation of being tipped back in his seat. The fishing pole was being elevated once more, brought back into its upright position. In a few more moments Hawking was on his back, his head lower than the rest of his body due to the angle of his seat. Gently, the fishing pole and its catch were lowered down into the launch tube.

Another solid thump, a long pause, and the clank and thud of the external tube hatch closing and locking above him. Hawking waited there, head-down in the darkness, feeling more than a little claustrophobic. In a way, the darkness helped, since he couldn't see the walls of the missile tube just outside the cockpit. He didn't like admitting it — and he for damn sure hadn't admitted it to the headshrinkers during his selection process for this gig — but he was slightly claustrophobic, had never cared for being cooped up in a coffin-sized box.

Give me the wide open sky anytime, he thought. A cockpit was tight-fitting, but with the sky around him, he'd never felt cooped up. Even when "flying" the Manta, the view of the surrounding ocean held the unpleasant twist in his stomach at bay.

It was just when he was locked up inside the missile tube, at the start or at the conclusion of a run, that he began to want to scream….

He heard the hiss and roar of water being forced out of the missile tube, and a moment later light came on. When the pressures equalized, a hatch cracked open opposite the Manta's canopy, the canopy slid back and out of the way, and hands reached in to help him.

"Welcome aboard, sir," a Navy chief said. Two other enlisted men crowded in close, helping him remove and secure his headset. "Let's get you out of that harness…. "

With the harness released, he slid down and back into the sailors' waiting arms, a decidedly undignified way to come on board.

He was a bit unsteady as he rose to his feet. The compartment he was standing in was huge, dominated by the massive paired pillars of the launch tubes extending into the distance in both directions.

The chief seemed to guess what he was staring at. "Yeah, it's something, all right," he said. "Welcome to Sherwood Forest, Commander. I'm Chief Connolly, and I've been assigned to the Manta as crew chief."

"Sherwood Forest?"

A shrug. "Sorta like the deep woods in here, with the giant trees, y'know? C'mon, sir. The skipper'll want to see you."

Bemused, Hawking followed the chief forward, past the ranks of enormous, green-painted "trees," while the other enlisted men continued to work on the Manta, securing it from operational status, rendering the weapons safe, and removing the swim recorder and other instrumentation.

The deck, he noted, was actually a metal grating that surrounded the ranks of launch tubes. It was difficult to see through to the next level below… but it looked as though a number of dark, head-sized shapes were hanging there, just beneath his feet.

Connolly noticed his curious stare and grinned. "Fresh produce," he said. "When a submarine puts out to sea, every available space is pretty much crammed with food — enough for a hundred forty-some men for anywhere from two to six months, depending on the mission. Down there, in the keel below Sherwood Forest, that's the coolest part of the boat, and there's a lot of air circulation, too. The galley crew stores string bags full of heads of lettuce and potatoes there, hanging up from the deck grating."

Hawking looked around. "Doesn't look to me like every available space is packed with food."

"Not this time, sir. We got caught short at Bremerton, with only three days to load supplies. Normally takes a good six days to get all of the food stowed on board before a long mission.

"But Ohio boats are big. Lots more room to store stuff than on an L.A. SSN. And, well, this probably won't be a long deployment."

"How long?"

"Do I look like the skipper?" He shrugged. "They're saying six weeks at most. In any case, we'll have a big, well-stocked friendly port close by our patrol area— Bahrain. We'll be able to resupply there any time we need to."

"Well, I've heard that submarine chow is the best in the Navy."

Connolly grinned. "Oh, it's better than best, sir! Surf and turf once a week? Of course, on a long patrol the fresh fruit and produce goes pretty fast, and things can be a bit monotonous on the homeward leg."

As they kept walking, a sharp voice cried out, "Gangway!" Hawking turned, startled, to see a line of sailors wearing shorts and sweat-stained T-shirts jogging up the narrow passageway behind them. He and the chief stepped aside as the party ran past; one of them must have glimpsed the rank insignia on the collar of Hawking's poopie suit, for he called out "By your leave, sir!" as he passed them.

"This compartment is the biggest on the boat," Connolly explained. "Twenty or so times around equals one mile. These boomers are the only submarines large enough to really let a man get any exercise."

"I'll remember that." Hawking tended to go with the minimum exercise required. He was young and in good shape, with little interest in renewing the physical regimen he'd endured at flight school in Pensacola.

Exercise on a submarine? They had to be kidding.

Shaking his head, he followed Connolly forward and out of the compartment.

The Navy C-130 Hercules thundered down out of the tropical sky, its tires hitting the tarmac once with a squeal, bouncing, then hitting again and taking hold.

The big turboprops began braking hard, and the transport slowed with a long, stomach-jolting shudder.

Hospitalman Chief David Tangretti turned in his narrow, cargo deck seat to peer through the round porthole at his side. He could see palm trees and endless blue ocean. "Welcome to Hawaii, gents," he said, to no one in particular.

"You see any hula girls out there, Doc?" BM1 Olivetti asked, shouting to be heard above the roar of the CH-130's four big turboprops. "I don't get off this here Herky Bird less'n there's hula girls out there to put flowers around my neck and give me a big kiss."

"Shee-it, Olive," EM1 Hutchinson shouted back, sneering. "Who the hell would kiss you?"

"Twenty says I get laid tonight, asshole."

"You're on!"

"I'll take a piece of that," Tangretti said, grinning. "Twenty says you don't get laid tonight."

"Done!" Olivetti laughed. "Ha! Easy money! Happens I know this little girl, works in a bar on Ala Moana Boulevard. She's gonna be so glad to see me and my six-inch gun, I'll be pounding her in the rack ten minutes after liberty call!"

"Haven't you heard, Olive?" EM2 Richardson laughed. "The Navy's gone metric! That's a six millimeter gun!"

"Fuck you, asshole!"

The Hercules thundered to a stop, and the ramp at the rear of the cargo bay began opening with a shrill whine.

"On your feet!" Commander Drake called, standing. "Muster on the tarmac with your gear!"

Tangretti hauled his sea bag out of the pile of olive-green strapped bags stored down the center of the aisle, shouldered it, and followed Richardson aft and down the ramp. Warm, humid air assaulted them, heavy with the smell of sea salt and avgas. The men, SEALs from SEAL Team Three, fell into ranks next to the ramp, in the shade of the Hercules's massive tail: four blocks of sixteen men each.

Detachment Delta was unusual in its design and makeup. SEAL units were built up in relatively small units — two eight-man squads to a sixteen-man platoon, four platoons to a sixty-four man SEAL company. The usual field deployment of a SEAL element was at platoon strength, with a lieutenant as CO or "Wheel," and a lieutenant j.g. as his XO. Detachment Delta, however, was an entire company, deployed under the command of Commander Charles G. Drake, and with Lieutenant Richard Mayhew as executive officer.

Tangretti wondered if he would ever get used to the larger formation, and to the additional problems of supply, logistics, and tactics it created. SEALs — the old SEALs he'd grown up with — were masters of small-unit operations, usually deploying teams of eight or sixteen, and often as few as two or four. Sixty-four men were a freaking army, and a guarantee of confusion once things went hot.

The last time JSOC had tried to put this large a unit of SEALs into action had been during Operation Just Cause, in Panama. There, forty-eight SEALs in Task Unit Papa had been tasked with moving into Paitilla Airfield and disabling President Noriega's private jet to prevent his escape.

The operation had been a cluster fuck from the git-go… not because of any lack on the part of the Navy SEALs on the op, but because of poor planning and mismanagement all the way up the chain of command. Those forty-eight SEALs had been employed as assault troops, for God's sake, and walked into a deadly cross fire on a brightly lit and exposed tarmac. Four SEALs had been killed, and eight seriously wounded, the highest casualty rate ever suffered by a SEAL unit. Task Unit Papa had carried out the mission. They'd also been stranded on that airfield surrounded by hostile forces for twenty-four hours before they could be relieved; the original op had called for a five-hour mission.

The story of what had happened at Paitilla was well-known within the Naval Special Warfare community, a kind of cautionary tale against poor or overambitious planning. Lately, though, it seemed that more and more of the higher-ranking planners — the ones in JSOC and at the Pentagon — were coming up with SEAL deployment concepts involving large numbers of operators. The Seawolf SSN was supposed to carry up to sixty Special Forces.

What the hell did you use that many SEALs for, anyway? Tangretti wondered.

Perhaps, with this upcoming op in Iran, he thought, they would find out.

The last of the SEALs filed down the Hercules's ramp, dropped into ranks, and set their sea bags at their feet. There was a little chatter among them, but the company was disciplined and restrained. Several pulled chewing gum out of their mouths and deposited it on the tarmac — or, in one case, on the outside bottom of the lowered ramp on the aircraft.

SEALs could be a casual lot when it came to military formalities. Their officers went through the same BUD/ S training as the enlisted men, and camaraderie, experience, and professionalism were far more important in the measure of a man than mere rank. Drake was unusual, though, for being something of a stickler for the formal details. He stood off to one side, aloof, as Lieutenant Mayhew took his position in front of the waiting ranks. With clipboard in hand, he bellowed, "Atten… hut!" The SEALs came to attention, and he began calling the roll. "Alloway!"

"Here!"

"Anderson!"

"Yo!"

"Avery!"

"Present."

The roll call went down the list of names until May-hew checked off the last name — as if any of the men had somehow escaped from the C-130 during the flight from San Diego — then he turned to face Drake.

"All personnel present or accounted for, sir!"

"Very well, Lieutenant." Drake waited as Mayhew took his place with First Platoon. "Welcome to Hawaii," he told them. "Do not get comfortable, however. Transportation has been provided to Pearl Harbor, where the Ohio is docking as we speak. We will be boarding Ohio and getting squared away this evening. Needless to say, there will be no liberty on this stop."

A chorus of groans sounded from the ranks. Drake glared at the men, and Tangretti barked a sharp, "As you were!"

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Olivetti's start of surprise, followed by a scowl. Collecting on that bet would be amusing. One of the small perks of senior rank was occasionally having a bit of extra insight into what the hell was going on. The night before, back at Coronado, Mayhew had informed the detachment's senior NCOs that there would be no liberty when they got to Hawaii. The schedule was going to be way too tight.

"Tonight," Drake continued, as if nothing had happened, "we will load our munitions and supplies on board the Ohio and get settled in to our quarters. The Ohio will depart Pearl at zero-six-hundred hours tomorrow morning. We do not expect to see daylight until we reach our final destination, off the coast of Iran in the Straits of Hormuz."

Drake ran through a few more formalities, then turned the formation over to Mayhew. At his command, they shouldered their sea bags and walked across the tarmac to a line of waiting trucks.

At least Drake didn't order them to march to the trucks in formation.

Jesus, Tangretti thought. Next thing you know, the Teams are going to be wearing black shoes, just like the regular Navy.

But when you'd been in the Navy long enough to make chief, you'd learned to adopt a philosophical attitude. Commanding officers came and commanding officers went, some of them good, some bad. It was a fact of Navy life.

"You knew about liberty being cancelled tonight, Chief," Olivetti growled as they clambered onto the back of the truck. "Didn't you?"

"Oh, I might have heard something in a briefing last night," Tangretti admitted with a grin. "And you should know better than to count on liberty. Liberty is a—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Liberty is a right, not a privilege.' " He had his wallet out and was peeling off a couple of twenties, one for Hutchinson, one for Tangretti. "Been there. Done that. Caught the clap."

"There's shots for that."

"Yeah, you pecker checkers are all alike. Got a shot for everything."

"If you don't go on liberty, you won't need the shots, right?"

"So what's the word, Chief?" Hutchinson asked, leaning forward on the hard bench they were riding on. "What'd they tell you at the briefing about this op?"

Tangretti thought about the meeting, an informal session in Captain Jacobson's office. Was it all classified? Or just the bit about their target, and the operational aspects of the mission?

"Not a whole lot," he said, truthfully enough. "It's

Iran."

"Shit, everyone knows that," Olivetti said.

"Let's hope 'everyone' doesn't include the Iranians," Tangretti said. "I'd like this to be a picture-perfect op, right out of the textbook, know what I mean?"

Hutchinson nodded. "In, get the job done, and out, with no one even aware we were there."

"Fuckin' A," Olivetti agreed.

"Exactly." Tangretti leaned back against the railing, eyes closed. "The only trick is to get the bad guys to go along with the script…. "