Torpedo!

CHAPTER 7

The U.S.S. Orca, sister ship of the U.S.S. Devilfish, raced southward at 500 feet, her nuclear reactor plant turning out 75 percent of its rated capacity. There was an air of quiet satisfaction, of competence proved, aboard the Orca. The chase of a Soviet missile submarine that had been detected by the sensor network as it left the Atlantic and headed northeast between the British Isles and Greenland had been successful.

The Orca had taken up the chase, traveling at high speed until the computer charting of the Soviet submarine’s course and position indicated that Orca was within extreme sonar range. The Orca’s crew went to Battle Stations and Captain Dick Reinauer began the delicate process of closing on the Soviet submarine without being detected. Periodically, the Orca turned to port or starboard to allow the lateral sensors along its hull to focus on the noise made by the other submarine as it moved through the sea. Gradually, steadily, the Orca closed the range.

The Soviet submarine, apparently unaware it was being followed, continued steadily on course. The Orca crept closer, running silent with all unnecessary machinery shut down to avoid detection. The crew talked in whispers. Captain Reinauer spoke softly into a telephone to the Battle Stations sonar operator.

“How do you read him?”

“He’s noisy as hell,” the sonar operator answered in a whisper. “He’s got a cooling water pump that must have worn out its bearings. He’s got a chip on one blade of his screw or else the screw is warped a little, he’s making a hell of a lot of screw noise.”

“Start computer constant ranging,” Reinauer ordered. He watched the video screen in front of him in the Attack Center as white figures began to appear on the screen.

“Twenty-one hundred yards,” Reinauer whispered to Arnold Eckert, his Executive Officer. “I think this is close enough. We’ll take him now.” He picked up the telephone.

“Sonar, stand by for a transmission.” He turned to Eckert. “Come left to course three three five. Sonar, send the following message. ‘Tag, you’re it. Sorry we can’t invite you aboard for a cup of coffee.’ End of message. I want you to hit him with every decibel we’ve got in the transmitters. XO, come to all ahead full as soon as the transmission starts. Sonar, transmit!”

The sonar operator on the Soviet submarine screamed in agony and tore his earphones off as the Orca’s powerful sonar transmitters blasted their sound into the Russian submarine’s sonar ears. There was silence for a few moments and then the Soviet submarine’s answer came back.

“We would prefer tea, thank you. You are very good at this game, my friend. I may send my sonar crew for a long walk on the ice the next time we go to the Pole. End transmission.”

The Orca swung away in a long curving arc, slowing to her usual twenty-knot cruising speed. “We can chalk up a solid hit on that one,” Reinauer said with a grin, his white teeth gleaming in his curly black beard. “We nailed that rascal fair and square. He never heard us at all. That’s the third one of those bastards we’ve sneaked up on without them knowing it. Let’s go home, Arnie. Set a course for Holy Loch.” He turned to the Officer of the Deck.

“Take her up to periscope depth and send an exercise concluded message. Tell them the score is three to nothing, our favor. We’ll advise ETA at Holy Loch later.”

The Orca’s radioman sent the transmission and then punched a button on a tape cassette as a light showed on his console. He picked up the telephone and dialed the Attack Center.

“Incoming radio traffic, sir. Routine message indicated.”

Sitting in his small cabin Captain Reinauer read through the message. Lieutenant Eckert, who functioned as the ship’s Navigator as well as Executive Officer, came into the cabin.

“You wanted me, sir?”

“We aren’t going home,” Reinauer said. “We’re ordered to rendezvous with the Devilfish down off the Strait of Gibraltar. ComSubLant’s orders. He’ll advise us further.”

“I wondered where the Devilfish was going when she left Holy Loch in such a hurry,” Eckert said. “Gibraltar? I’d guess some of the Sixth Fleet is going home and we’re going to make dummy attacks. When it’s over maybe we’ll get liberty in some good port in Portugal or Spain.”

“Lay down a course and advise me of our ETA on station,” Reinauer said. “We’re supposed to make all possible speed. Put that in the log book.”

“Will do,” Eckert said. “Bet you a beer that Iron Mike has got something planned to shake up the surface ship boys. And we can do that, provided the Devilfish doesn’t foul things up.

“Bob Miller doesn’t make mistakes,” Reinauer said. “He’s a damned good submariner and the Devilfish is a good ship.”

“Nobody’s as good as we are, Skipper. Oh, almost forgot, sir. Turk Raynor wants to see you on personal business. You want me to notify him he can see you now?”

Reinauer nodded. “Better notify the crew we’re not going back to Holy Loch, that we’re on a special training exercise with Devilfish. I want everyone on their toes. I don’t want Devilfish to outdo us, no matter what the exercise is.”

Wilbur “Turk” Raynor, TM 1/c, rapped softly on the bulkhead of the Captain’s cabin and entered when he heard the command to do so. He stood at attention in the center of the small cabin.

“At ease, Turk,” Captain Reinauer said. “Sit down in that chair. What’s on your mind?”

“I want off, Captain,” Raynor said. His large, seamed face was set and hard.

“Off? What do you mean?”

“I want a transfer back to the diesel boats when we get back to port, sir.”

Captain Reinauer took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered one to the torpedoman, who shook his head. “Now wait a minute, Turk. You know what you’re asking for? You’re asking for the worst mark that could ever be put in your record, you realize that?”

“Yes, sir, I know that. I still want off, sir.”

“Let’s make it man to man,” Reinauer said quietly. “Word of honor, Turk. What you say to me is like saying it to one of your gang. What’s wrong? This is a happy ship, isn’t it?”

“It’s a good ship, Captain, and you’re a good skipper. The best. But I’m just tired of being a second class citizen in this submarine Navy. I want back on the diesel boats where I don’t have those damned nuke people to contend with.”

“Second class citizen is a pretty harsh phrase,” Reinauer said slowly. “You’re the leading torpedoman aboard. I’ve given you as high a quarterly marks as I could give, four-oh on deportment and everything else except three nine on proficiency in rate and no one is four-oh in proficiency. Not even the captain of a submarine.”

“That’s one of the things I want away from, sir. All the nuke people get an automatic four-oh on everything, direct order from Captain Steel. It isn’t fair, sir.”

“That’s something I can’t change,” Reinauer said. “Okay, we’re talking man to man, what I say stays with you. What you say stays with me. Let me tell you a few things you might not know.

“I’ve given you the quarterly marks you deserve and those marks are damned high. That makes you a good man in the Navy’s eyes. If you ask for a transfer out of nuclear submarines that’s a black eye for Captain Steel, if you see what I mean. He doesn’t want good men asking to get out of nuclear submarines

“What they’ll do when we get back to port and I submit your request is haul you up in front of a special board. The only way that board can justify the transfer of a good man is to find him unreliable to serve in any area where there is nuclear power or nuclear weapons.

“You know what that means? It means the end of your career. You’ll never make Chief. I doubt you’ll get diesel submarine duty. They’ll put you on some yard tug or as a Master at Arms in some recruit training camp until you get your twenty years in. How long will that be, three more years? Or they could send you to a weather station up on the deep frost line in Alaska. You’ll never make Chief, never.”

“I’m never going to make Chief anyway,” Raynor said stubbornly. “I’ve taken the Chief’s exam every six months for the past four years, sir. Never scored less than three nine. They don’t make very many Chief Torpedomen, you know that. Those they do make are all nuke dudes, that four-oh across the board on their quarterly marks gives them the edge they need to beat the non-nuke types. It’s a losing game, Captain.”

“It might change, you know that. A lot of things have changed since Vice Admiral Brannon took over as ComSubLant. The word I’ve been given is that he isn’t through making changes in some of Captain Steel’s directives.”

“That won’t change things much, Captain. This whole submarine Navy has to be changed, sir. We’re talking man to man, okay, let me lay it on you.

“I’ve been in the Navy for seventeen years. I’ve got a clean record, never been in trouble, always did my job. I’ve been First Class for nine years, sir. You’ve got Chiefs in this nuclear Navy who’ve only been in the Navy for five, six years! They ship in for nukes under that damned Ninety-Nine Zero One program, they go to school for two, three years, and they come out of school as Second Class Petty Officers. A year later they’re made First Class. A year after that they’re Chiefs.

“I know that Admiral Brannon has made changes. He’s a good man, I had him as a Squadron Commander when I first went to diesel submarines, when I got out of boot camp and sub school. When I went into the nukes the damned nuke sailors didn’t even have to carry stores and that was Captain Steel’s direct order. His nuke people didn’t even have to keep their living spaces clean! We guys, the second class citizens who hadn’t qualified for his nuclear schools had to do the dirty work aboard submarines. Sure, I know Admiral Brannon has changed a lot of that stuff but I’m still a second class citizen in this Navy, Captain.

“Look at this ship. It’s a damned good submarine and you’re a damned good Captain. But when we’re in port, which isn’t very damned much, we have two Officers of the Watch, one senior officer in charge of the reactor end of the ship, one junior officer in charge of the rest of us. We have two Chiefs of the Watch, two Watch sections. Last time we were in port I was Acting Chief of the Watch and the Senior Chief of the Watch was a nuke Chief Electronics Technician who’s been in the Navy six years and he never smelled salt water until he came aboard here six months ago. And he’s giving me orders! I’ve had it up to here, Captain. I want off, sir. And if they don’t like it they can give me my discharge.”

“You feel that strongly, Raynor? You’d throw away seventeen years of good service?”

Turk Raynor stood up. “Yes, sir, I do.”

“Think it over,” Captain Reinauer said. “We’re probably going to be on this exercise for a week or more. See me before we get back into port and let’s talk again.” He smiled. “And thanks for leveling with me, Turk. I appreciate it.”

Eckert knocked at the cabin bulkhead and came in and found Captain Reinauer sitting at his desk.

“Here’s our ETA on station, sir, and our course. What did the Turk want, Skipper, anything important?”

“He wants out of nukes,” Reinauer said.

“My God, another one? The Chief Quartermaster put the same request to me earlier today. Two people in the radio gang feel the same way. It’s almost like a disease.”

“Call it the ‘Captain Steel disease,’ ” Captain Reinauer said.

“What the hell can you do about it?”

“Not much except what I’m doing,” Reinauer said. “Write another confidential letter to Admiral Brannon and fill him in on the way things are.”

The buzzer on Mike Brannon’s telephone console sounded. “Commander Fencer of Operations on the line, sir,” Brannon’s Chief Yeoman said. Brannon picked up the phone and punched the lighted button on the console.

“Commander Fencer, sir. We have a SOSUS report on a surface ship that cleared the Strait of Gibraltar. That ship then proceeded on an identical course followed by the Sharkfin and held to that course until it passed out of sensor range, sir.”

“You wouldn’t have an ID on that ship, would you, John?”

“So happens we do, Admiral. We footprinted her a year or so ago off the Aleutians. She was working as a target for Soviet submarines and she got over the SOSUS network there. We got her footprint and an aircraft visual on her, sir. She’s a Soviet general cargo freighter, ten thousand tons, cargo booms fore and aft. She’s got some sonar gear aboard. We heard her working the Soviet submarines.”

“Thank you,” Brannon said. “Please keep me informed.” He turned to John Olsen who had walked in with a thick stack of papers.

“Manpower reports on re-enlistments, Mike.” Brannon filled Olsen in on the report from the Black Room.

“What the hell is she doing running down the Sharkfin’s course line?” Brannon said. “How many Soviet freighters clear the Med and head out on that course? She’d be on a more southerly heading if she was going to Cuba.”

“We could find out,” Olsen said. “If Fencer has her foot-printed then he knows her name and registry. We could check with Lloyds. Where’s the Medusa?”

“I moved her fifty miles to the north. Devilfish is near her. I didn’t want Medusa too close to the Sharkfin in case that rogue submarine came back. The captain of that damned submarine might be off his rocker. If he came back and saw Medusa there he might take a crack at her.

“Let me know what Lloyds says about that freighter’s next port of call,” Brannon walked to the chart on his wall and studied it as Olsen left.

Bob Wilson’s secretary stepped out of her office. “Marjorie just rang me. Admiral Benson is on his way down the hall to see you. Button your shirt collar and get your tie back up where it belongs. I’ll get some coffee. Do all sailors drink coffee all the time?”

“Yup,” Wilson said. He cinched up his tie and straightened up the mass of paper on his desk. Admiral Benson walked in the door as Wilson’s secretary put two cups of coffee on his desk. The Admiral smiled his thanks and sat down in a chair beside the desk.

“You hear anything from the Mossad as yet?”

“Just conversation,” Wilson said. “Dr. Saul calls every day. Their reports confirm what we’re hearing. A lot of in-fighting going on in the Politburo. We can make a good guess what it’s all about.”

“No indication of whether Brezhnev will call the President?”

“We’ll know the minute he does,” Wilson said. “We’ve got a tap on the hot line so we’ll know as soon as he calls.”

Admiral Benson’s face went white. “My God!” he said in a half whisper. “You can’t be serious! The Agency hasn’t tapped the President’s hot line to the Soviet Union!”

“We did that the day it was installed,” Wilson said. “It would surprise you to know how mealy-mouthed some of our big, bold Presidents really are. I think what this country needs is a President who knows all the four-letter words and who’d say them out loud to the Russians.” He grinned at Admiral Benson.

“I’d love to have a camera in place in the Kremlin if we had a President like that and watch the interpreter’s face when he had to tell Brezhnev that the President of the United States just told him to go fuck himself.”

Admiral Benson shook his head like a prize fighter who had just been hit with a hard left hook. “When is the deadline for that phone call?”

“Tomorrow evening, sir. But we shouldn’t be too rigid on that. You’ve got a seven hour time difference between Moscow and here. The Politburo likes to meet in the evening, which makes it early afternoon here, but sometimes they meet until late at night. Which means they might not take any action until the following day, Moscow time.”

“So we wait,” Benson said.

“Yup,” Wilson said. “And for your information, sir, Admiral Brannon has ordered another attack submarine to join up with that one he sent to where the Sharkfin was sunk.”