The Trident Deception

24

Transformed from a screened-in porch into a sunroom by First Lady Grace Coolidge in the 1920s, the Solarium sitting atop the White House Promenade offers a breathtaking view of the White House Ellipse, the Washington Monument, and the Jefferson Memorial. However, the spectacular weather, inspiring view, and sunlight streaming into the room this afternoon failed to dispel the dark, strained mood within. Standing in front of the Solarium windows, the president, framed by a clear blue sky, awaited news on the search for the Kentucky.

Christine and Hardison had arrived with an update, standing with the usual four-foot separation between them, as if they were polarized magnets. On Christine’s other side stood Brackman, almost close enough for their hands to touch. As she prepared to brief their failed attempt to locate the Kentucky, the president spoke first.

“What now?”

Christine hesitated. The look on their faces must have conveyed their first attempt to sink the Kentucky had failed. She turned to Brackman, who answered the president’s question at her cue.

“The Navy is setting up a three-layer picket line near the border of the Kentucky’s patrol area. We’ve sortied every ship and submarine available in the Pacific, and assigned every P-3C squadron to PAC Fleet. But we also need to prepare in case the Kentucky reaches her patrol area and launches. We have a few missile defense capabilities we could deploy to the Middle East.”

“And they are?”

“There’s THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, a kinetic energy hit-to-kill system. We have three batteries, and we can position the launchers anywhere we need them.”

“Good. Anything else?”

“We have the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, which uses an SM-3 missile fired from our Aegis-class cruisers and destroyers. The destroyers have been assigned to the picket line near Emerald, but we have several cruisers in the Western Pacific right now.”

“What about the Patriot missile batteries?” the president asked. “Can we use those?”

“Unfortunately not,” Brackman replied. “They’re designed for short- and medium-range missiles. The Kentucky carries intercontinental missiles, which almost reach a low orbit before returning to earth. They’ll be traveling so fast during their descent that Patriot missiles will be ineffective.”

The president frowned. “Get the cruisers and THAAD batteries into position.”

“Yes, Mr. President. But I have to advise you, it’s an impossible task to destroy all twenty-four missiles. Our BMD systems operate well until the first intercept. Once the first missile is destroyed and breaks into fragments, the following interceptors will have difficulty differentiating between the debris and the remaining missiles. And as more missiles are destroyed, the problem becomes exponentially more complex. We simply don’t have enough interceptors or time to eliminate all twenty-four missiles and their warheads.”

“So, to paraphrase your assessment,” the president replied, “if the Kentucky launches, we’re screwed.”

Brackman nodded. “Screwed is an understatement.”

25

Midafternoon in southwest Texas, home to Fort Bliss and the Army’s 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade. Off to the east, a brief thunderstorm that had brought so much promise and so little rain had moved on, letting the hot sun shine down again through broken clouds. The warm rain had evaporated as quickly as it fell, steam rising from the baked ground, creating the kind of oppressive humidity and stifling heat that knocks down even the Texas-size bugs. Just off Jeb Stuart Road, hanging from the windows of a single-story, cinder-block building, air conditioners stripped moisture from the heavy air, water dripping onto the ground below. Inside the plain white building, Sergeant Alan Kent leaned back in his chair under one of the air-conditioner vents, feet propped up on his desk, newspaper in hand, counting down the minutes until the workday ended and liberty commenced.

It’d been a quiet morning and an even slower afternoon. As Kent flipped from the sports section to the entertainment pages, Corporal Bruce Cherry, seated nearby at the message terminal, looked up from his boredom as a solitary radio message appeared in his queue. Not bothering to read more than the header, Cherry hit Print, grabbing the message as it was pushed from the printer.

“Sarge, movement orders coming in.”

Cherry handed the message to Kent, who, after reading the first paragraph, dropped his feet to the floor. Placing the orders on his desk, he continued reading the directive, hunched over the piece of paper.

Kent looked up. “What’s the status of Alpha Battery, 4th Regiment?”

“The THAAD battery?”

“Yep.”

“Fully operational.”

“Get Major Dewire on the phone. Tell him to get Alpha Battery packing. They’re headed to the Middle East.”

26

Captain Mary Cordeiro stood on the Bridge of her ship, hands clasped behind her back, feet planted wide. While other members of the Bridge watch held on to equipment consoles to steady themselves, Cordeiro refused. After twenty-four years in the Navy, two-thirds of that at sea, she knew when to flex her knees and shift her weight as the storm battered her five-hundred-foot-long cruiser, a small gray speck on the stormy seas.

As Cordeiro peered through the Bridge windows into the darkness, another forty-foot wave broke over the fo’c’sle, crashing against the Bridge with enough force to send tremors through the ship. The wave swept by the Lake Erie, the current tugging at the ship’s rudder. Seaman Brian McKeon, on watch at the Helm, struggled to keep the ship headed into the monstrous waves. Sweeping rapidly back and forth, the window wipers worked furiously in a futile attempt to clear the sheets of water deluging the Bridge windows. Just as the water thinned enough to see the bow, faintly illuminated by the ship’s mast headlight, the ship plunged down again into the dark seas.

Abandoned in the Indian Ocean, the Lake Erie loitered on station, awaiting orders. The rest of the Erie’s carrier strike group had headed east a few days ago at flank speed, but 5th Fleet seemed to have forgotten about the cruiser, and the Lake Erie had been riding out the storm, just shy of typhoon strength, for the better part of the night. Another three hours and they’d be through the worst of it.

As the ship plunged through the heavy seas, Cordeiro’s thoughts were disrupted by her Communications Officer, appearing next to her with a message in hand. “Ma’am. This in from 5th Fleet.”

Cordeiro read the message.

Finally.

But her orders sent them northwest, into the Strait of Hormuz, instead of east with the rest of her carrier strike group.

Prepare for ballistic missile defense of the Persian Gulf region.

The SM-3 missile system carried aboard the Lake Erie had performed well during its operational testing, but those had been canned scenarios. Would the ship be able to maintain its vigilance twenty-four hours a day, detect and then intercept an incoming missile with no notice? A much more difficult scenario.

Cordeiro walked over to the navigation chart, mentally laying out a course to the Persian Gulf. They needed to turn west, but had to continue north until the worst of the storm passed. She looked up at Seaman McKeon. Another wave broke across the fo’c’sle, smashing against the Bridge windows. McKeon struggled to keep the ship on course, his hands turning white as he maintained the rudder amidships. But the waves approached from just off the port bow, and the ship drifted to starboard as it rode up the waves, twisting back to port as it dropped into the deep trough.

Cordeiro approached McKeon, and she couldn’t help but notice the expression on the young man’s face. The mere presence of the ship’s Captain in the same compartment as a newly reported seaman was enough to cause queasiness in a young sailor’s stomach. A direct conversation would strike fear, and a reprimand — sheer terror.

She stopped beside McKeon. “Don’t fight the waves. The goal is to keep the ship straight, not the rudder.” Placing her hand on the helm next to McKeon’s, she continued, “Relax your grip. I’ve got it. Now feel what I’m doing.”

Cordeiro eased off the helm as the next wave approached, allowing the rudder to move in the direction the seas pushed it, then she shifted the rudder across midships as the Lake Erie crested the wave and began her dive down the steep swell. The ship’s bow slowed its swaying with each passing wave, finally steadying on course, in contradiction to the rudder that shifted beneath them.

“Understand?”

McKeon replied affirmative, and Cordeiro released the helm, returning it to the seaman’s control. She stepped back, watching him adjust the rudder, his actions becoming more fluid with each passing wave.

“Steady as you go, McKeon. You’re doing just fine.”

27

On the second floor of the COMSUBPAC N7 building, Captain Murray Wilson sat behind his desk, chewing a mouthful of a ham and cheese sandwich as he studied the three-by-four-foot sheet of trace paper on his desk. He was exhausted, having been up thirty hours since his phone call from Stanbury the previous morning, and his eyelids were becoming heavier by the minute. Not for the first time, he wished his office had windows, so he could look across the submarine wharves, the bright midday sun reflecting off the blue surface of Southeast Loch. But due to the classification of the information the N7 organization routinely dealt with, the entire building had not a single window, to prevent satellite or local recon from obtaining photos of the material within.

However, if someone had been able to photograph the material on Wilson’s desk, he would have been as perplexed as he was. The Prospective Commanding and Executive Officers had reconstructed the twenty engagements between the Kentucky and Houston during last week’s Submarine Command Course, and the information, if correct, was even more disturbing than Wilson initially thought. Each reconstruction depicted the paths traveled by the two submarines, showing where each ship was detected and the launching of torpedoes and decoys. The reconstruction of the most perplexing encounter of all, the third engagement on the first day, was on top of the stack, one corner held down by an empty coffee cup, another by the second half of Wilson’s sandwich.

The Kentucky had defeated the Houston all three times that first day, and the fast-attack submarine, convinced there was an acoustic deficiency giving away its position — a bearing gone bad on one of their pumps or perhaps a sound short between their machinery and hull — had retreated to the far corner of its operating area that night for sound-monitoring runs. After adjusting their towed array to the appropriate length, the Houston’s crew had driven in circles, first turning to port and then to starboard, their towed array lining up opposite them in the large underwater racetrack. Like a dog chasing its tail, the Houston had circled for hours analyzing its acoustic signature, looking for whatever had been giving away its position.

But there was nothing. The Houston was quiet, even stealthier than the standard 688 class submarine. With renewed confidence, the crew engaged the Kentucky the following day, convinced they had been defeated the first three times by sheer coincidence, lucky detections by the surprisingly capable ballistic missile submarine. But the next six days delivered the same discouraging results. The Kentucky detected and shot first every time, while the Houston picked up the Trident submarine only when it launched its torpedoes or after it increased speed while evading the Houston’s counterfire. It was as if the Kentucky were invisible, emitting not a single frequency of sufficient strength for the Houston’s sonar system to track.

It just didn’t make sense. The Kentucky’s crew was skilled, but the odds of detecting the Houston first on every encounter were staggering. In the heat of battle, Wilson had focused his attention on the Houston’s Sonar division, convinced the recent influx of new personnel had diluted the fast attack’s capability. But now, looking over the third reconstruction and the stack of sonar printouts on his desk, it seemed impossible the Kentucky had passed within one thousand yards and not been detected.

Lieutenant Jarred Crum stopped beside Wilson, dropping off a fresh cup of coffee. He could see the dark circles forming under Wilson’s eyes, and had watched the Captain’s head droop occasionally as he studied the reconstructions and sonar recordings. But this time the lieutenant delivered more than just hot coffee. “Sir, the electronic recordings from the range just arrived. I have them loaded on the computer.”

“Thanks, Jarred.” Wilson took a sip of the steaming coffee. “Put the third run on-screen.”

Crum fired up the monitor on the far wall with the remote. Two submarines appeared on the bird’s-eye view of the encounter, one blue, the other red, closing in on each other as they searched the ocean for their adversary. The Houston had luckily been pointed directly at the Kentucky, presenting the ballistic missile submarine with a nose-on profile, making the fast attack even harder to detect than usual, its Engine Room and propeller masked by the quiet bow. The Kentucky, unaware of the rapidly closing fast attack, continued its search until she finally detected the inbound submarine, evidenced by the Kentucky’s course reversal. Moments later, a MK 48 Exercise torpedo sped toward the Houston.

The Kentucky’s launch preparations had taken time, and the Houston had blindly plowed on, closing to within one thousand yards before the Kentucky’s torpedo launch transients lit up the Houston’s sonar screens. Wilson glanced down at the trace paper on his desk, shocked at how accurately his students had reconstructed the engagement.

“Something’s not right here.” Wilson turned to Crum. “At first I thought we had a Helen Keller sonar shack on the Houston, but look at these printouts.” He picked up the top folder from the stack on his desk. “There’s nothing here. Not a single tonal from the Kentucky.”

Crum reviewed the Houston’s sonar recordings as Wilson flipped through the printouts, then shrugged. “This is the first time we’ve had a Trident participate in Command Course ops for a few years. They’re quieter than our 688s and get periodic upgrades. Maybe she really is that quiet now.”

Wilson looked up at the monitor again. It showed the Houston passing one thousand yards abeam of the Kentucky before the ballistic missile submarine sped away. “It’s like the Kentucky is a black hole. Like she doesn’t exist.” Wilson shook his head as he folded up the track reconstruction. “Get me Admiral Caseria at NAVSEA. Someone needs to take a look at this.”

28

In the southeast corner of Washington, D.C, on the northern bank of the Anacostia River, lies the oldest naval base in the country. Established in 1799, the Washington Navy Yard became the nation’s most important shipyard, building the majority of the nascent country’s first navy. Although new ships no longer slide down the slipways into the river, the Navy Yard is now home to Naval Sea Systems Command, responsible for the design of every U.S. warship and the equipment and weapons they carry.

On the second floor of a four-story redbrick building is the office of Program Executive Officer (Submarines), responsible for all things submerged — new submarines, sonar, combat control, and electronic surveillance systems, as well as new torpedoes and torpedo decoys. As Rear Admiral Steve Caseria looked out his window at the Anacostia River flowing lazily toward the Potomac, he had a simple thought for a complex problem.

You get what you pay for.

Like a molting snake shedding its skin, several of the new Virginia-class submarines had lost portions of their anechoic coating, a rubberlike material covering the hull that helps isolate machinery sounds inside the submarine from the surrounding ocean. After an extended deployment, the USS Virginia returned to port with several sections of its hull missing their sound-silencing coating. The following two Virginia-class submarines were also affected, and an investigation determined the new bonding technique, implemented to save money, was not as effective as required. The process was changed for the fourth and following submarines, returning to the more expensive, but better, adhesion formula. Admiral Caseria realized he had learned the painful lesson many before him had learned.

You get what you pay for.

But saving money, the admiral learned, was what D.C. was all about these days. Congress was tightening its wallet after a decade-long post-9/11 defense spending binge, and with sequestration kicking in, every program was feeling the pinch. And it was concerning one of those programs that the phone on his desk rang late this afternoon.

It was the call he’d been expecting.

“Murray, how have you been?” Caseria spoke into the speakerphone on his desk, so that the captain sitting in a chair opposite his desk could hear.

Wilson’s voice cackled through the speaker, the long-distance connection breaking up periodically. “Good, Admiral. Staying busy training the youngsters. And you?”

“Been busy too, Murray. We’ve got some excellent upgrades coming to the fleet soon. But I miss command. There’s nothing like the excitement of being on station.”

“I’m with you, Admiral. Not to mention the port calls.”

Caseria grinned. “Too bad I’m not around to haul your ass back to the boat anymore.”

Wilson laughed. “No need to, sir. I’ve learned my lesson. A couple of times.”

“So what’s this about, Murray? Sonar, I hear. My sonar program manager, Captain Jay Santos, is here with me. What have you got?”

“I’d like you to take a look at a set of sonar recordings from the Houston. She passed within one thousand yards of the Kentucky and her sonar systems didn’t pick up a thing. I know our Tridents are quiet, but they can’t be that quiet.”

“Where are the sonar tapes?”

“The only data pipe we have big enough goes to Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Newport division. We’re uploading the recordings now.”

Caseria looked at Captain Santos. “Can you get to the data there?”

“No problem, Admiral. Most of our expertise resides there anyway. That’d be perfect.”

“Anything else, Murray?” Caseria asked.

“That’s it, Admiral. But we need the analysis done fast.”

“We’ll get right on it. Take care, Murray.”

As Admiral Caseria pressed the End button on the speakerphone, he looked at Captain Santos. “Undetectable at one thousand yards? Not a chance. Pull the data from the Kentucky’s last sound trials. I want to see how quiet she really is and what tonals she has. Then tear apart the latest sonar upgrade we sent to the fleet. We need to figure out what’s going on.”

Seventeen hours later, standing in his third-floor office, Captain Jay Santos rolled up the last set of sonar printouts. Checking his watch to see if there would be time for lunch after his meeting with Admiral Caseria, Santos wondered why he bothered; considering what he was about to tell the admiral, he had lost his appetite. Tucking the sonar printouts under one arm, Santos left his office, descended one floor, and passed into Admiral Caseria’s atrium. The admiral’s aide looked up as Santos approached, motioning for him to enter Caseria’s office.

Santos spread out two rolls of sonar printouts, side by side, on the Admiral’s conference table. “Admiral, we have a problem.”

Caseria joined Santos at his side, examining the printouts as the captain explained. “Here are samples of what the sonar operators on the Houston saw. The one on the left is the broadband screen, and the one on the right is narrowband. We’ve confirmed the Houston passed within one thousand yards of the Kentucky, yet you can see here there’s no sign of the Kentucky whatsoever.”

“What did the sound trials data show?” Caseria asked. “Is she really that quiet?”

Santos unrolled another set of printouts, laying them on top of the first two. “These are the recordings from the Kentucky’s sound trials a year ago. As you can see, she has a characteristic Trident broadband signature and most of the typical narrowband tonals plus a few unique ones. These recordings were taken at four thousand yards. So, no, the Kentucky is no quieter than your standard Trident.”

Santos rolled out a third set of printouts. “That had a lot of my folks scratching their heads, so we ported the raw sonar data into the previous version of our fast-attack sonar systems, and you can see here that the Kentucky is now clearly visible on both the broadband and narrowband displays. Bottom line, Admiral — there’s a flaw in our latest sonar upgrade.”

“Have you tracked down the problem?”

“Yes, sir. But there’s more. We ported data from other submarines, both Trident and fast attack, into the latest version of our sonar upgrade to determine the extent of the problem, and the new sonar system operated perfectly.”

“I’m not following you,” Caseria said. “You just convinced me the sonar upgrade is defective, that it missed the Kentucky when it should have picked her up. Now you’re saying it works fine. Which is it?”

“Both, sir. The issue is that the sonar upgrade malfunctions only when you run the Kentucky’s signature through the system. We broke apart the new algorithms, and there’s a special code that nulls the Kentucky’s frequencies so they don’t appear on the display.”

“Why would the algorithms do that?”

Santos raised an eyebrow. “This code was inserted maliciously. These new sonar algorithms were engineered specifically so the Kentucky could not be detected. Someone didn’t want us to find her.”

Anger spread across Caseria’s features as he stared at the sonar printouts. “I want this tracked down to the company and individuals responsible.”

“We’re already on it, sir. Landover Engineering Systems developed these new algorithms, and I notified NCIS a few minutes ago.”

“Good. Now how much of the fleet is affected?”

Captain Santos frowned. “I’m afraid the news gets worse…”

29

At the western end of Waikiki, the early morning shadows of tall beachfront hotels retreated slowly across Ala Moana Boulevard as suburbanites flowed into the city; the traffic backups, which would eventually extend all the way to Ewa, were already ten miles long. Halfway down the ten-mile backup, cars flowed steadily into Pearl Harbor, the gate sentries checking IDs and waving drivers on. After a right on North Road and a left on Nimitz Street, traffic entering the submarine base was light, as the nineteen submarines and their crews were at sea this morning. On the second floor of COMSUBPAC headquarters, overlooking the usually bustling Morton Street and submarine piers, the silence was especially noticeable as Murray Wilson braced for Admiral Stanbury’s reaction to the startling information he had just received.

Stanbury was standing behind his desk, his face turning redder by the second, until finally he spat out the words. “Our entire fast-attack fleet is blind?”

“Technically, they’re deaf, but yes, sir,” Wilson replied. “None of them can see the Kentucky on their sonar screens. They all have the latest sonar upgrade.”

“Can they revert to the previous version?”

“No, sir. The upgrade involved not only new algorithms but also new hardware. We can’t reload the old algorithms onto the new hardware because the middleware hasn’t been developed.”

The admiral’s hands clenched into fists. Glancing down at Stanbury’s desk, Wilson checked for the presence of a replacement ceramic coffee cup. It seemed another one might fly across the office. Luckily, only Styrofoam cups littered the admiral’s desk.

Stanbury unclenched his fists, exhaling slowly. “Is NAVSEA working on a fix?”

“Yes, sir. But it’ll take time, and they’re not sure if they’ll be able to download the new software over the submarine broadcast. Loading new middleware is a bit tricky, apparently.”

“What do we do in the meantime?”

“I recommend we pull our fast attacks back into the third tier of the layered defense, behind the P-3Cs and Surface Fleet, instead of up front. That will buy us some time in case NAVSEA can develop a fix we can download over the broadcast.”

“Fine. Coordinate with PAC Fleet.”

Wilson looked down at the chart of the Pacific Ocean on the admiral’s conference table, annotated with the three-layer ASW barrier across the entrance to Emerald. They had surged the entire submarine fleet to sea in a single day, for all the good that had done them; their whole fast-attack fleet was impotent. However, there was one option remaining. As he assessed the risk, Stanbury apparently noticed the concern on his face.

“What?” Stanbury asked. “What else has gone wrong?”

“Nothing else has gone wrong, Admiral.”

“Then what is it?”

“Not all of our fast attacks are blind. The North Carolina hasn’t received the sonar upgrade yet.”

Stanbury’s eyes brightened. “Where is she now?”

“She’s in the local operating areas, on sea trials following her extended maintenance period. But the crew’s not certified to deploy.”

“Certified or not,” the admiral replied, “she’s the only submarine with a chance to find the Kentucky.”

“There’s one more thing, Admiral. The North Carolina has only two torpedoes aboard, and we don’t have time to pull her in and load more.”

Stanbury stared at Wilson for a moment, no doubt evaluating the prospect of sending a submarine into battle with only two torpedoes. But the North Carolina was their only hope. It didn’t take long for the admiral to decide. “If they do things right, two torpedoes are all they’ll need. Send her after the Kentucky.”

30

Eight miles off the southern shore of Kauai, Cindy Corey spread her arms out along the transom of her husband’s twenty-five-foot Sea Hunt center console. Randy was busy in the bow, checking their position on the Garmin GPS marine navigator, verifying they had reached the spot their friend Scott had recommended, where the ono — nice twenty to twenty-five pounders — would practically jump into the boat. While Randy’s pastime didn’t interest Cindy at all — her idea of fishing was trolling her finger down the seafood restaurant’s menu — she couldn’t pass on a day off with her husband, relaxing in her two-piece fluorescent orange bikini, soaking up the rays. She leaned back, closing her eyes as she lifted her face up toward the sun, and … got the weird feeling she was being watched.

Tilting her head forward and opening her eyes, she checked on Randy, but he was busy with the fish finder now, oblivious of her concern. The feeling passed as quickly as it had arrived, and Cindy shrugged off her uneasiness after she scanned the horizon for other boats. While they had passed a dozen or so on their way out, there were currently none within eyesight, just the distant shore of Kauai behind her. After retrieving a Diet Coke from the cooler near her feet and sliding it into a koozie, she got that feeling again, that nagging sixth sense of hers that was rarely wrong.

The feeling she was being watched passed again, and Cindy began to think it was just her guilty conscience. Both she and Randy had called in sick this morning; the day was too beautiful to spend indoors cooped up in their office cubes. But as she took a sip of her Coke, she got that feeling yet again; it seemed to be arriving at regular intervals, like clockwork.

Seven hundred yards to the south of Cindy and her husband, the USS North Carolina cruised at periscope depth, the top of its port periscope sticking just above the ocean’s surface, pausing momentarily from its clockwise rotation to examine Master seven-nine again, a pleasure craft drifting just off the submarine’s starboard beam. Standing behind the Officer of the Deck at his Tactical Workstation, a weary Commander Dennis Gallagher monitored the performance of his crew as they waited to download the latest radio broadcast through the receiver on top of the scope. After endless months in the shipyard, this week had been the first opportunity to knock off the rust that had collected on the crew’s proficiency. Over the last seven days, Gallagher had put the ship and his crew through its paces, and it hadn’t been pretty.

Gallagher had rarely left Control during the last week, watching warily as the crew conducted routine operations and responded to emergency ship control drills. But even a simple trip to periscope depth was not an easy evolution for a rusty crew. Each watch section had broached the submarine three times the first few days while going to PD, going all the way to the surface instead of leveling off four feet below as ordered. And if the crew’s lack of proficiency executing routine evolutions was any indication of their present skills, it was no surprise the emergency drills had gone even worse.

But after a week under way, the crew had recovered its skills in basic seamanship and tactics. Sonar was coming up to speed, easily scrolling through the numerous contacts in the local waters off the Hawaiian Islands, sending data to fire control technicians, who quickly generated target solutions. This approach to periscope depth had gone smoothly, the ship rising steadily, leveling off without even a foot of overshoot. The eight-thousand-ton submarine glided at periscope depth, the top of her sail four feet below the surface of the water.

Gallagher watched the periscope display as the Officer of the Deck rotated the periscope steadily, searching for contacts headed their way. Unlike other submarine classes, the Virginia-class fast attacks were built with new photonics periscopes that didn’t penetrate the ship’s pressure hull. Instead of manually rotating the scope, walking round and round on the Conn, the OOD turned the scope with a twist of his wrist, his hand on a joystick, switching the scope between low and high power periodically with a flick of the toggle on the joystick controller. The Officer of the Deck was a split-tour junior officer from one of the 688s and his experience showed, the periscope rotating at just the right speed, pausing to monitor the unsuspecting pleasure craft off their starboard beam at regular intervals, like clockwork.

The crew had begun to ease into their routine, and the tense orders and curt reports that punctuated the ship’s first few days at sea had been replaced with bland formality. And now, Gallagher heard what he’d been waiting for.

“Conn, Sonar. Have a new contact, bearing zero-seven-zero, triangulation range eight hundred yards, classified biologics. Looks like a whale has fallen in love with us.”

Some of the watchstanders in Control chuckled, and Gallagher relaxed for the first time since he’d cast off the last mooring line. The crew was comfortable at sea again, at ease with their ship and the rigorous demands of their duties on watch. His men had a lot of potential, and after a few months working up for their deployment, he was sure they’d be the best submarine crew in Pearl Harbor.

Before Gallagher headed deep to continue the morning’s training evolutions, he ordered Radio to download the latest message traffic. “Radio, Captain. Download the broadcast.”

Radio acknowledged, and a few minutes later, the radioman’s voice came across the 27-MC. “Conn, Radio. Download complete.”

Gallagher turned to his Officer of the Deck. “Bring her down to two hundred feet.”

The OOD acknowledged, and with a twist of the joystick, he swung the periscope around toward the bow. “Pilot, ahead two-thirds. Make your depth two hundred feet.”

That was one of the hardest things to get used to. The four watchstanders on previous submarines — the Helm and the Outboard, who manipulated the submarine’s rudder and control surfaces, as well as the Diving Officer and the Chief of the Watch — had been replaced by two watchstanders: the Pilot and Co-pilot, who sat at the Ship Control Panel. The Pilot controlled the submarine’s course and depth while the Co-pilot adjusted the submarine’s buoyancy and raised and lowered the masts and antennas. Why aircraft terminology had been chosen to identify the two watchstanders instead of the traditional Helm and Outboard confounded Gallagher; it was a horrendous break in tradition. However, no one had called him in the middle of the night to ask his opinion, and the decision had been made.

Pilot and Co-pilot they were.

Then there was the newfangled design of the Virginia-class Control Room, with Sonar in Control instead of a separate room, the sonar consoles lining the port side of the ship with the combat control consoles on starboard. Even though the Sonar Supervisor stood only a few feet away from the Officer of the Deck, reports were still made over an announcing circuit, the supervisor speaking into a microphone. Finally, even the periscopes weren’t called periscopes. They were referred to as photonics masts on the Virginia-class submarines. Gallagher shook his head.

The Pilot entered the ahead two-thirds command, and the ship slowly picked up speed, the bow tilting downward as the ship descended to two hundred feet.

A few seconds later, as the OOD lowered the photonics mast, the quiet in Control was broken by Radio’s announcement over the 27-MC.

“Conn, Radio. Request the Captain in Radio. We have a Commanding Officer’s Eyes Only message.”

Gallagher headed into Radio, wondering about the message. Had someone’s mother or father died? Had one of the crew popped positive for drugs on his last urinalysis? A half dozen other potential reasons for receiving a CO’s Eyes Only message while the ship was operating in local waters ran through his mind.

Stopping by the printer, Gallagher announced, “Ready.”

The radioman on watch tapped a few buttons, initiating the printout. A few seconds later, the message slid out from the printer. The header was standard for a CO’s Eyes Only message, but the content was unlike any he’d read, and not one he’d expected to get on the North Carolina’s sea trials. He read the message again, slowly this time, then a third time. Finally, he folded the message and slid it into the breast pocket of his uniform, trying hard not to let the radioman see his reaction.

Taking a deep breath, he returned to Control and stopped by the nav display, reviewing the navigation hazards and water depth to the west. After verifying the last GPS satellite fix was properly entered, Gallagher turned to the Officer of the Deck.

“Bring her around to course two-seven-zero. Increase speed to ahead flank.”