Seawolf Class

7

Garrett drove his battered, secondhand Toyota down Nimitz Avenue, then turned at the bustle of the Alliance Club — a sprawling structure billed as the largest enlisted men's club in the world, three floors of discos, bars, and restaurants. It was lunchtime, and he knew he ought to be hungry, but the briefing he'd just attended had jolted him hard, leaving him weak, a bit shaken, and not at all interested in food. He wanted to make it down to the dockside area.

He wanted, no, he needed to see the Seawolf.

He was going to be assigned to a submarine again… and such a submarine! Seawolf…

It was the stuff dreams were made of. The problem was, nightmares were dreams, too. Could he do this?

His career track had definitely taken a negative turn since '99. He hadn't fallen off the straight and narrow yet, but things were definitely closing in on him. According to the charts, his expected professional development path would have seen him commanding a submarine like the Pittsburgh until he had eighteen years or a bit more in-service, then had him rotate ashore for a postcommand stretch at a SUBRON HQ or other sub-related shore facility. He might also find himself selected for a senior service college or a major command, once he hit his twenty-year mark… and all of it would be aimed at grooming him for selection as captain and a posting to a major command.

He'd now been in the Navy for twenty years. At twenty-one he would have been able to make captain, but that was such a distant dream now it wasn't even worth considering. Once you hit O-5 in this man's Navy — the rank of commander — you'd pretty much risen as far as it was possible to go without some pretty serious politicking and good friends within the infamous Old Boys' Network.

And where was he? His first command had been aborted halfway in. After leaving the Pittsburgh, he'd ended up shuffling papers at the Naval Supply Center Command in Pearl Harbor. Hawaii was a true paradise, but it had been exile nonetheless. They might as well have posted him to Adak, Alaska. Submarine skippers had their share of paper shuffling and bureaucracy, sure, but Supply had been an absolute horror of boredom with its endless paperwork, forms, and requisitions.

And after a year at Pearl he'd been transferred again, this time across the Pacific to Atsugi. That was after the divorce with Claire became final, and at least he didn't have to worry about finding housing for her in Japan, where long waiting lists made good housing on- or off-base hard to come by.

Fortune had smiled in another way, too. He'd been assigned to the Foreign Technologies Department at Atsugi, where the DIA and ONI kept a close watch on such developments as quieter Russian submarines out of the Komsomolsk shipyards, or the acquisition of Kilo sub exports by Beijing. Since he'd actually encountered one of those Kilos, Garrett had arrived at Atsugi as a minor celebrity and was assigned to an office processing all incoming data on Chinese Kilos.

He'd become the Navy's Far East expert on Kilos; in fact, he'd been summoned to the meeting this morning in order to brief the assembled admirals and captains on the Kilo and its current capabilities. He'd done so after Frank Gordon had finished his presentation, and managed to get through the material despite the spinning clutter of thoughts in his skull.

He found himself wondering if Gordon had had a hand in putting him at Atsugi in the first place. Damn the man, it wouldn't be beyond his powers. Garrett didn't know whether to be happy about that or furious at the meddling in his career. His career might be going nowhere right now, thanks to the Operation Buster incident, but damn it all, it was his career, and he wanted to make it or go belly up on his merits, talents, and sweat, not his friendship with a senior submariner.

He reached the dockside and found a parking place for his car. He had to stroll a few hundred yards to reach a good vantage point. The air was cool and quite wet; a storm was moving in from the Pacific, and clouds were gathering above the base, promising rain. Shafts of bright sunlight, however, were slashing down out of the cloud-mountains, sparkling on the dark water and illuminating the ranks of submarines moored to the piers.

There she is…

A security perimeter had been established to keep the curious well away from her moorings, but it was possible to get a good view from where he stood. She was long, low, and dark gray, a beautiful, elegant lady. White, magnetic numerals reading 21 clung to the side of her sail. They would be removed when the vessel put out to sea, but for now they identified her as SSN 21, the first attack submarine of the twenty-first century, arguably the most modern attack boat in the world. Forget what the experts thought about the Akula; Sea-wolf was the Queen of Deep Water.

She looked huge. Her sail appeared small compared to the bulk of her hull, and the wedge at the forward foot of the sail, which gave it a sweeping, smoothly curved look instead of the usual right angle between deck and conning tower, made the boat look a bit alien to Garrett's eye. At just over 106 meters in length overall, she was actually three meters shorter than the lean and slender Pittsburgh, but her lines were heavier, bulkier, and her submerged displacement was almost a third again greater than a Los Angeles boat. Despite that, she could manage thirty-five-plus knots underwater and had been built to travel at twenty knots in almost complete silence. Everything about her had been designed with quiet in mind. She was to the dark and quiet world of submarines what the F-117 Stealth Fighter was to the skies. In fact, it was said of the Sea-wolf that she was quieter moving at tactical speed than a Los Angeles-class boat was tied up to the pier.

Unlike Pittsburgh and the earlier L.A. boats — but like all of the newer L.A. boats numbered 751 and later — she had her planes mounted on her bow rather than on her sail. The public explanation was that this allowed her to surface through the ice with fewer problems during operations beneath the Pole. In fact, sail-mounted planes had been discovered to be a serious source of unwanted sound at higher submerged speeds, and moving them to the bow was yet another effort to achieve perfect undersea silence.

Her complement would be something like 115 men and twelve officers, about the same as on board an L.A.-class. But there were only two Seawolf-class submarines afloat now, with one more, the Jimmy Carter, due to launch in another year. Quite a noisy battle had been fought in the corridors of the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill as to whether there would ever be any more, and eventually the Seawolf program had been killed in favor of the smaller, cheaper Virginia-class New Attack Submarines. Competition for a berth on board Seawolf, or on her sister boat Connecticut, was fierce and unrelenting, especially among officers who saw the prestigious assignment as a big leap up the career ladder.

And now he was going to be the Seawolf's executive officer.

"She's a real beauty, isn't she?"

Garrett didn't need to turn around to see the speaker. He knew the voice well. "Yes, sir," he said. "And I'm standing here wondering just how much you had to do with getting me this billet." He turned then and saluted Captain Gordon, stiff and rigidly precise. He needed to keep a tight-fisted control on his emotions just now.

Dream come true? Or nightmare?

Gordon returned the salute with a perfunctory snap of his arm. "You can't think I'm responsible for Commander Joslin's heart condition."

"Hm. I guess not. But every time my career goes anywhere, up or down, you seem to be somewhere in the wings."

"At this point, Tom, I'm more worried about my career than yours. This Chinese Kilo thing caught us all napping… and that Akula up at Canton makes it much, much worse. Intelligence is going to take it in the neck if Taiwan falls to the PLA."

"That's the usual way of it, isn't it?" Garrett said with a rare grin. "Shoot the messengers."

"Especially if the messengers didn't bring the message in time. Or if the message was… unpalatable. Right now there's a lynch mob forming up at the Pentagon. ONI isn't in real good odor at the moment."

Garrett chuckled. As usual, Gordon had a way of disarming him with easy wit and a comfortable change of topic.

"So… can Seawolf bail out the ONI?"

"If it's possible, she can," Gordon replied. "We need intel, and we need it badly. Seawolf is the best platform in the world for this kind of work."

"That's what they say. Last I heard, the Seawolf was still a boat in search of a mission."

Work on Seawolf had begun in 1989, with a design intended to counter the newer, quieter Soviet boats like Akula and the Sierra, but when the Soviet empire had died, Seawolf lost her major projected opponents.

So Seawolf had gone to sea in the mid-1990s with a broad range of capabilities, with mission and growth potential that far exceeded the L.A.-class boats. She was designed to carry out a variety of crucial operations anywhere from under the Arctic ice to littoral regions anywhere in the world, with missions including surveillance, intelligence collection, special warfare, covert cruise-missile strike ops, mine warfare, and both conventional antisubmarine and antisurface ship operations. The question was whether this extremely expensive submarine was even necessary anymore in a world where the Soviet Union no longer existed.

The Navy had pushed hard to keep the Seawolf program in place despite the cost-cutting efforts of the post-Cold War Congress. They'd managed to save a fragment of the original program, but unfortunately, cost overruns had kicked the price tag for Seawolf up to over a billion dollars per boat — ten billion for the first five, and thirty billion more for the next twenty-five— and the original planned complement of thirty Seawolf-class submarines had long ago been scaled back to three.

"She has a mission, Tom," Gordon said after a long moment. "Operation Red Dragon. Surveillance, intelligence-gathering… and ASW support for the Stennis CBG."

"You realize, of course, that she's going to be pretty badly outnumbered… hunting for ten Kilos, plus that Akula if she's part of the PLA Navy."

"Well, that's what keeps the Navy life interesting. Think of it as a challenge."

"Will we have backup?"

"There will be other subs deploying to the Chinese littoral, sure," Gordon admitted. "But they'll have their own patrol areas and their own missions. And there are two L.A.-class boats with the Stennis CBG— the Salt Lake City and the Jefferson City. If things really heat up, the Kitty Hawk CBG will be operating north of Taiwan."

"If things heat up. Is it going to be war, do you think?"

"Up till yesterday I didn't think so. The Chinese have been rattling sabers at Taiwan since 1949. But after this morning and the attack on Chiang Kai-shek International… I just don't know. It doesn't look good. A lot is going to be riding on the Seawolf, on what she can learn, and on what she can do to persuade Beijing that a war right now is just not in their best interests."

A gray sedan with official government markings pulled up in the pier-side parking lot a few yards away, and a tall, slightly stooped man in khakis climbed out of the back seat. Garrett recognized him — Commander George Lawless, the Seawolf's CO.

"Captain," Lawless said, saluting Gordon. "Commander Garrett." He sounded preoccupied.

"Good afternoon, Skipper," Garrett replied. The protocol of the moment was fuzzy. Both men carried the rank of commander, O-5, but Lawless was captain of the Seawolf and Garrett's commanding officer… or he would be when Garrett reported aboard with his orders, which wouldn't be ready until tomorrow morning. Garrett wanted to establish a friendly footing with the man he would soon be working for, and calling him "Commander Lawless" seemed a bit too formal for the occasion. The informal "Skipper" seemed to fit the moment.

"I am not your commanding officer yet, Commander," Lawless said with a voice like ice. "When I am, I expect you to address me with proper respect."

"Aye aye, Commander Lawless," Garrett said stiffly, his voice held carefully neutral.

"I'm not exactly pleased at this intrusion on board my command," Lawless added. "A Seawolf rates an O-4 for the XO billet."

"Commander Garrett has specialized knowledge, Commander," Gordon said, "as I told you on the phone the other day."

"So you said. So you said. I still don't have to like it. Sir." He paused, as if considering something. "I'll tell you this, gentlemen. Jos Joslin is one of the best officers in this fleet. My men respect him. My crew is a well-oiled, smoothly operating, highly efficient machine. I will not tolerate any disruption to that machinery. Am I clear?"

"Quite clear, Commander," Garrett replied.

"I don't care what sort of sneaky-Pete shenanigans you're engaged in. On my boat you will serve as my XO, and you will maintain the high efficiency and standards of my crew. What boat were you exec aboard?"

"Cheyenne, SSN-773, from 'ninety-eight to 'ninety-nine."

That got a grudging nod from Lawless. "A good boat. Do as well on the Seawolf and we'll get on okay. Just one thing."

"Yes, Commander?"

"When you stand the OOD watch, you will not run my submarine into any other submarine or surface vessel. Am I understood?"

"Yes, Commander."

"Good." The man stalked off, passing through Seawolf's security checkpoint with a wave at the sentries standing guard there.

"Was that supposed to be a joke?" Garrett asked.

"If it wasn't, pretend that it was, Tom. Don't let them get to you."

"Shit. I'm never going to live the Kuei Mei down, am I?"

"Maybe not. Or maybe you'll do something positive, something so positive that it erases that memory."

"I suppose. I'm beginning to wonder if my career is worth this."

"It is," Gordon said. "Trust me. C'mon. I'm starved. Let's find someplace to eat."

"I'm not very hungry."

"Cut the crap, Commander. This base has everything. KFC. The Mammy Shack. Shakey's Pizza. McDonald's. Or we can go off-base for McSushi at the local Japanese McD."

"You do know how to cheer a man up." Garrett held his stomach. "Gah!"

"I take it you've already enjoyed the experience."

"Occasionally. Up at Atsugi. It's actually not that bad, but I think I'll stick with American food for now."

"Gringo."

"No, here it's gaijin," Garrett said. "And proud of it. Let's go hit the O-Club. It's pretty good here."

"Affirmative."

Before they left, though, Garrett stopped and took a last, long look at the USS Seawolf. Lawless was striding up the gangplank now, as a boatswain piped him aboard and a voice over the 1MC called out, "Seawolf, arriving."

In the submarine service, a man had to earn the dolphins he wore on his uniform. Enlisted personnel served on board for up to a year, rotating through each department, before they were eligible to pin on that coveted badge. Garrett had put in his months as an apprentice back on board the Pittsburgh, under then-Commander Frank Gordon. The entire wardroom had lined up to pound the dolphin pin into his chest, one after another in time-honored, bruising tradition. Grinning malevolently, Gordon had been first in line.

Garrett wondered how long it would take to earn his dolphins all over again.

The C-17 transport dropped smoothly out of the fast-gathering darkness, touching down on the main runway with a howl of reversing jet engines. Taxiing past the main terminal, the cargo plane, bearing USAF markings, wound its way toward the Taiwanese military base at the far end of the facility, parking at last in front of a ready line of needle-nosed, Chinese Nationalist F-5E Tiger II interceptors.

The rear ramp came down and twenty-four dungaree-clad men trotted down and out onto the tarmac, falling into double ranks, each shouldering his own seabag. They wore blue ballcaps, rather than white hats, but otherwise looked like any other group of U.S. Navy sailors.

Six officers in khakis accompanied them. Lieutenant Commander John Calhoun Morton was the senior officer. As Lieutenant Reese took the roll call, he turned and saluted the small contingent of men in camouflage utilities who approached them.

"Commander Morton?" the senior Chinese officer said. "I am your counterpart, Commander Tse Chung On. Welcome to China."

Morton suppressed a smile. Alone in all the world, the Taiwanese continued to insist that their China was the real China, holdout legacy of their retreat in 1949 to this island stronghold. It was, he thought, evidence of Taiwan's ongoing siege mentality.

"Thank you, Commander," he replied. "It's good to be here again."

The last time Morton had been in Kaohsiung, it was in 1997, and he'd been 2IC of a SEAL platoon deployed to Taiwan to assist the Nationalist Chinese in a training program. Nationalist China maintained a special warfare group called the Parafrogman Assault Unit, a team similar to the Navy SEALs in training, equipment, and operational technique. Nationalist parafrogmen often operated deep inside Mainland China as the active arm of both the Military Intelligence Bureau and Taiwan's Special Operations Command. Together with the Long-Range Amphibious Reconnaissance Commandos, Taiwan's other premier covert ops force, the parafrogs had long been the West's primary source of intelligence on military capabilities and deployments within the PRC.

The SEALs and parafrogs frequently trained together, both in Taiwan and back in the States, at Coronado and elsewhere, but this time around the visit was not about training. "My orders," Morton said, handing Tse a packet of documents.

Tse gave a slight bow and gave them only a cursory examination. "We have been waiting for your arrival. You have heard the news?"

"About the missile attack at the Taipei airport? Yes."

"Beijing has issued an ultimatum. We are to send them a delegation to begin negotiations for formal reunification."

"What's the 'or else'?"

Tse's brow crinkled. "Pardon?"

"What happens if you don't comply?"

"Ah! That is not stated. However, it hardly needs to be, yes? Taipei has, of course, refused."

"Let's get my men to their quarters, Commander. Then we can talk."

"Of course. This way, if you please?"

Lieutenant Reese called the company to attention. They then reshouldered seabags and began walking single file toward a trio of trucks waiting in the twilight.

First Company, SEAL Team Three, was on its way to war.

Garrett walked up to the apartment foyer and pressed the three-button number on the telephone keypad. A moment later a woman's voice answered the phone. "Moshe-moshe!"

"Kazuko? It's me!"

"Tom? Let me buzz you in!"

The inner door lock buzzed as he hung up the phone. He pushed through and made his way to the elevator.

It was a western-style apartment, but there were still two pairs of shoes by the mat outside the door. One of Kazuko's roommates must be home. He knocked.

The door opened and Kazuko's smile greeted him, warm radiance and sunshine. "Tom!"

"Konichi-wa, Kazuko-san! Nani yatteta-no?"

"Betsu-ni," she replied, then giggled. "Your accent is still atrocious, you know."

He sighed. "You'll just have to keep working on me, I guess. Are you going to invite me in?"

"Of course. Come in!"

Stooping, he untied his shoes and left them and his socks outside.

"You know we don't have the apartment to ourselves tonight," she told him as she shut the door at his back. "Yukio is in town."

Kazuko shared the apartment with three other women. All were flight attendants with JAL, and it was always a crapshoot as to how many of them would be home on a given evening or weekend.

"I know." He looked around the living room — tidy and minimally furnished. "Where is she?"

"In the bedroom, to give us a bit of privacy. Your phone call sounded urgent. What's the matter?"

"First, I need a hug."

She slipped into his arms, smelling of lavender and warmth. Kazuko Mitsui was the best thing that had happened to Garrett since his being stationed at Atsugi. Born on Okinawa, she'd moved with her parents to California when she was three, growing up in San Francisco and attending college at USC before moving back to Japan. She was a natural linguist, speaking perfect and colloquial English, as well as Cantonese, French, and a bit of Russian.

He'd met her one afternoon a year ago, while visiting the shrine at Kamakura with its huge, ancient, carved Buddha. A walk together had turned into coffee… then dinner. She'd done a lot since then to heal the wounds Claire had left in his soul, though finding privacy with so many roommates was sometimes a bit difficult. More than once he and Kazuko had settled for a hotel room, avoiding the so-called Japanese "love motels" that charged by the hour, for something a bit classier and more romantic… like the Kamiseya Holiday Inn.

"I…I got new orders today. Sea duty."

Her eyes widened and she drew back. "No! I thought you were going to be at Atsugi for at least another year!"

"I thought so, too. And I should be back at Atsugi afterward. They're sending me out just for the one mission, as a kind of expert, I guess."

"How long?"

"I don't know. At least a few weeks. There's no way to know."

"No, I mean how long before you go?"

"Tomorrow night."

She hugged him close again. "Well, we knew it would happen."

"It's not like this is the end for us. You know?"

"Of course not. But… well, it's been good having you so close." She held him for a long moment more. "Tom?"

"Yes?"

"Is this… does it have to do with what's happening in Taiwan?"

"You know I can't talk about it, one way or the other."

"I know. But if there's going to be shooting, I just… well, I want to know."

The need for tight security was an integral part of the way Garrett thought and acted, as much as the need for air or human companionship. Submariners never talked about their jobs with others, and his stint with the ONI had only reinforced that bedrock instinct. He'd been officially questioned several times about Kazuko; there were those within the intelligence community who got nervous about fraternization with non-Americans, especially since the War on Terrorism had begun. He trusted Kazuko absolutely, in a way he hadn't even with Claire…but he still kept the operational details to himself. Always.

"You know there's always a chance of shooting," he told her gently. "Especially these days. That's part of the territory with the service, to go in harm's way, right?"

"I guess so. I don't have to like it."

"I don't either, but it goes with the job."

"You'll be careful?"

"Hey. Submariners are nothing but careful. The idea is to stay so quiet no one even knows we're there."

She managed a sad smile. "I know. I'll be thinking about you."

He thought it best to change the subject. "Have you eaten?"

She nodded. "Before your call. But I wouldn't mind going someplace quiet where we can be together. When do you have to be back at the base?"

"Oh seven hundred tomorrow."

"Would you like… to get a room?"

"I already called the Holiday Inn."

"Let me get my overnight bag."

"You do that."

Much later he lay with her in bed, feeling her gentle breathing in the darkness, feeling her warmth, smelling the sweet musk of their lovemaking. He'd been unwilling to sacrifice his career for Claire. Kazuko, though… his need for her seemed deeper, sweeter, more powerful every time he was with her. Was it time to move on to another career, he wondered, something more settled that would allow him to enjoy what he had, what he could have with this woman?

He didn't know.

But he knew he'd never known such peace as when he was in her arms.