The USS Colorado neared the U.S. Naval Base at Yokosuka, Japan. It was midmorning. Thick billowing clouds dotted the skies. Winds were minimal. Four-foot-high ocean swells paced the nuclear-powered submarine as it sailed northward in the Uraga Channel.
SSN 788’s commanding officer, Commander Tom Bowman, and his executive officer, Commander Jenae Mauk, were in the bridge cockpit atop the Virginia class submarine’s two story tall sail, each adorned in regulation parkas. Both wore communication headsets that connected with Colorado’s control room two decks below the sail. A pair of binoculars hung from leather straps around their necks. Two additional binocular equipped watch standers were behind Bowman and Mauk on top of the fairwater.
“It’ll be good for the crew to get a little shore leave,” Bowman said. Although he had turned thirty-nine about a month earlier, he retained the same youthful looks he’d had when he’d graduated from the Naval Academy seventeen years earlier—close-cropped black hair without a speck of gray, square jawed, and a muscular five-foot nine frame.
“Definitely,” Mauk said. “It’s been a while.” A petite brunette, the thirty-six-year-old mother of two was also a product of Annapolis. She’d graduated near the top of her class. When the Navy opened up subs to women, she transferred from the surface warfare program to the submarine service. After completing nuclear power school, she served on a boomer for three years before transferring to the Colorado. It was her dream job.
Since departing its homeport at Naval Submarine Base New London, Groton, Connecticut, the Colorado had been on continuous sea duty for over three months. While on its initial patrol in the Arctic, the submarine was temporarily reassigned to the Pacific Fleet. After entering the North Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait, its first mission was to track Russian ballistic missile submarines deployed from the Rybachiy sub base at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy. Follow up missions occurred in Chinese waters and elsewhere in the Pacific. And now, with food supplies running low and just about everyone aboard suffering from “cabin fever,” the forthcoming visit to Yokosuka was long overdue.
“Any new thoughts on what they have planned for us?” Mauk asked.
Several days earlier, the commander of Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet (COMSUBPAC) ordered Colorado to Yokosuka for replenishment. Four days of leave for the crew was promised.
“My gut tells me we’re headed back to the South China Sea for more recon work.”
“I think you’re right, skipper. It’s getting dicey down there.”
Bowman and Mauk remained apprehensive from the Colorado’s earlier encounter with a PLAN attack sub.
Captain Bowman pulled up his binocs to eye a southward bound fishing boat. Confirming the approaching vessel would pass safely to the port he lowered the glasses. “XO, you want to bring her into the harbor?”
“By all means.”
Bowman keyed the mike on his headset. “Control, Captain. XO has the conn.”
* * * *
“How long will you be gone?” asked Laura Newman.
“I don’t know but it could be a couple of weeks.”
Yuri called from his Honolulu hotel room using Facetime. It was midafternoon in his time zone. The sun was low on the western horizon in Washington State.
Yuri noted that Laura was in the living room of the Bellevue condo, sitting on a sofa; Maddy napped nearby in her playpen. Laura wore a sleeveless blouse and a pair of jeans.
“Yuri, that’s what you said last time and you were gone for over six weeks!”
Yuri never tired at viewing Laura. “I know, honey.”
“I suppose you can’t tell me anything about where you’re going and what you’ll be doing.”
“Sorry.”
Laura massaged her temple. “What you’re asking me to do is not workable. I need to be here. Too much is going on for me to leave.”
Yuri had asked Laura to visit her adoptive mother in Santa Barbara while he was away. His fear that Russia or China might seek revenge against his family had not dimmed.
“I’d just feel better if you and Maddy were not in the northwest while I’m gone.”
“We’ll be fine in the apartment. Besides, the FBI is watching over us—right?”
“Yes.”
Before committing to the mission, Yuri confirmed that FBI protection for Laura and Maddy would remain in place while he was away. Operating under a secret federal court order, FBI cyber techs hacked into the condominium tower’s camera surveillance system, allowing around the clock access to every video camera in the building. FBI surveillance equipment was already in the security center of the building serving as Cognition Consultants headquarters. Digital data from both sources streamed to a fifth floor unit the FBI rented in the same building as Laura’s apartment. The one bedroom flat was manned twenty-four seven by two agents.
Laura said, “I know you’re not happy about this but I just can’t be away right now.”
“The merger?”
“Yes, we’re getting close. We’re hammering away on the draft agreement…countless details need to be handled.”
“I get it.”
“Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” Yuri said, deciding it was time to drop the issue. He prayed that the FBI would live up to its commitments.
They caught up for another ten minutes; it was time to end the video call.
“Please be careful,” Laura pleaded.
“I will. And please give Maddy a kiss for me.”
“Of course.”
“I love you.
“I love you too.”