The Bin Laden Plot

10 USS MICHIGAN

“Helm, ahead two-thirds. Sonar, Conn. Commence sonar search, all sectors.”

Captain Murray Wilson stood on the Conn as Lieutenant Brittany Kern, the submarine’s Officer of the Deck, standing beside him, slowed Michigan from ahead flank to ten knots, extending the sonar’s search range. After departing NSA Bahrain, Michigan had headed east at maximum speed for the last fifteen hours and was now entering the UUV’s operating area.

Wilson had put the transit time to good use. Using the UUV information Verbeck’s aide had provided, Michigan’s crew had developed a sonar search plan based on the acoustic tonals the vehicle emitted, along with the various speeds and depths at which the submersible was programmed to operate. However, it would be a challenge to detect the small vehicle.

The UUV was battery powered with a direct-drive motor propulsion — no engine, spinning steam turbine, or reduction gears — also lacking any oil, hydraulic, or water pumps that were the acoustic bane of larger, manned submarines. The submersible was quiet indeed. If it weren’t for the small size of the UUV’s operating area, Michigan’s chance of detecting the vehicle would have been almost nil.

Wilson looked up at the red digital display of the submarine’s course, speed, and depth above the Quartermaster’s stand. Traveling at ahead flank, Michigan’s acoustic sensors had been blunted by the flow noise past the sonar hydrophones at high speed. But the submarine had coasted down to ten knots several minutes earlier, long enough for Sonar to complete its initial long-range search.

Lieutenant Kern called out to the microphone in the overhead, “Sonar, Conn. Report all contacts.”

“Conn, Sonar. Hold no contacts of interest. All contacts correlate to merchants.”

Wilson examined the contact solutions being generated on the nearest combat control console. Every contact was traveling at a relatively high speed — twenty knots or more.

Merchant ships weren’t high-speed vessels, but they usually didn’t dawdle as they traveled from port to port, typically transiting at twenty knots. The UUV, on the other hand, usually traveled slowly, just fast enough to maintain steerage and depth control as it traveled near the surface with an antenna lifted above the water to collect electromagnetic signals.

Wilson settled into the Captain’s chair on the Conn, waiting while Sonar continued its search.

The small UUV was going to be a challenge to find, indeed.