“Approach Officer, lockout trunk hatch indicates shut,” Dankleff reported from the ship control console.
“Very well, Pilot,” Pacino acknowledged.
“Take us slowly deeper to one hundred feet,” Seagraves ordered. “Underhull maneuver, but maintain station relative to Master One. When you clear seventy feet, raise both scopes.”
“One hundred, scopes at seventy, maintain station, aye, sir,” Pacino said, then barked to Dankleff, “Pilot, make your depth one hundred feet, shallow angle, report depths.”
“One hundred feet, aye, and passing six five feet, down two degree bubble, sir.”
“V’well, Pilot.”
“Seven zero feet, sir.”
“Raising scopes,” Pacino said to Quinnivan. He pulled up both yellow-and-black striped hydraulic control levers for the number one and two periscope. The chart view on his command console blacked out, then displayed the view out the periscope, which was automatically trained toward the bow when he’d retracted it before. He pushed the “train” lever on the periscope controller, a unit that startlingly resembled a computer game console controller, to the right to change the bearing to the target, beside them on the starboard side and slightly behind.
“Eight zero feet, sir.”
The waves were getting farther away up above. Pacino trained the view downward from the waves to try to see the hull of the target submarine. Blurry in the blue haze, he could barely make out a black shape. It was bigger than he expected. He could see the bow and the conning tower, but the sub extended into the haze farther aft.
“Nine zero feet, sir.”
“Very well.” Pacino could see other shapes. The commandos who’d locked out and left the Vermont were visible, two of them forward of Bigfoot’s conning tower, no sign of the other two.
“One hundred feet, sir.”
“Approach officer, energize the sail’s under-ice lights,” Seagraves ordered, staring at the display for the number one scope.
“Pilot, turn on the sail’s under-ice lights,” Pacino called.
“Sail’s under-ice lights coming on,” Dankleff said. “Under-ice lamps are lit, sir.”
“Very well.”
The view out the periscope sharpened slightly as the sail’s lights came on, the units designed to allow approach to the underside of the polar ice if they were in the arctic maneuvering under a pressure ridge or preparing to vertical surface.
“Let’s fade back, Approach Officer,” Seagraves ordered. “See if we can get a better look at the screw-fouling effort, and be positioned if one of the SEALs falls off the target’s hull.”
“Pilot, drop two turns,” Pacino ordered.
“Drop two turns, aye, and Maneuvering answers, dropping two turns, present RPM two eight turns.”
“Very well.”
The target slowly rolled past them, now crystal clear in the periscope view in low power. Pacino could make out the detail of the conning tower, saw the two SEALs forward, then the black hull passed slowly by until Pacino could see two SEALs near the aft rudder, with a package—no, two packages—that slowly started expanding. Unfurling. Almost like an underwater parachute, a blooming surface, silk or canvas or some modern polymer with nano-fibers, expanded, flapped slowly in the water flow, then spiraled downward aft of the rudder, the motion of the target submarine and the vortex of the screw pulling the packages downward and inward, until the strange objects were no longer visible. No doubt, they were wrapped hard around the Bigfoot’s screw.
“Master One’s screw is fouled,” Pacino said to Seagraves.
“Get ready to slow and stop,” Romanov said. “You may need momentary reverse turns, but stay close to him.”
“Coordinator, Sonar,” Albanese said, his voice unmistakably happy, “Master One turn count dropping, and Master One’s screw is stopped, turn count zero.”
“Pilot, all stop, prepare to hover,” Pacino ordered.
“All stop, prepare to hover, Pilot, aye, and Maneuvering answers, all stop.”
Quinnivan turned and grinned over at Pacino, Romanov and Seagraves. “We got the fooker,” he said quietly.
The target was slowing too fast. Vermont was starting to pass him, still too fast.
“Pilot, all back one third.” Pacino took a breath. “Mark speed one knot.”
“All back one third, Maneuvering answers, mark speed one knot.”
Pacino waited tensely as the target came back toward them. Being submerged with a backing bell ordered was not a comfortable situation, he knew.
“Speed, one knot,” Dankleff called.
“Pilot, all stop. Commence hovering at present depth.”
“All stop, aye, sir, Maneuvering answers all stop, commencing hovering, depth one hundred feet.”
“Coordinator, Sonar, transients from Master One. Sounds like blowing noises. Believe he’s surfacing.”
“Take us up to PD,” Seagraves ordered Pacino, “and adjust position to be abreast of Master One.”
“Pilot, make your depth six four feet,” Pacino called.
“Rising to six four feet, Pilot aye, depth nine zero. Eight five.”
“Belay reports,” Pacino said, staring at the periscope display. The view was getting too distant.
“Pilot, all ahead one third, turns for two.”
“Ahead one third, turns for two knots, aye, and Maneuvering answers, all ahead one third, turns for two. Depth seven five.”
Pacino waited until the hull of the target was drawing nearer. If he called it right, he could slow Vermont to coast to a halt right beside the Bigfoot. “All stop,” he said, guessing this would be enough thrust to get them beside the target. “Hover at present depth.”
The periscope view grew foamy and blurry as the optics penetrated the waves, then slowly cleared, the bright blue sky above, the deep blue of the ocean below, the waves rolling by slowly, the crests perhaps a foot or a foot-and-a-half tall.
“Six five feet. Six four. Hovering at six four feet, sir,” Dankleff reported.
Pacino trained the scope slightly aft. The target submarine, its hull a dark, glossy black, had stopped, its conning tower moving slightly as the ship rolled in the slight swells. He could make out two figures, hugging tight to the conning tower. The tower was smooth, with no handholds or ladder rungs or openings. The SEALs had wrapped cable around the conning tower to use to be able to hold on to the submarine. Pacino could see two of their thruster units hanging suspended from the cable, and one small equipment bag. The SEALs waited, crouched down low.
Pacino trained his view upward to the top of the conning tower, wondering if the sub’s access hatch was at the top. The snorkel mast and periscope were still extended. Pacino zoomed in to look at the target’s periscope mast. As he’d expected, the sloping glass of the optic opening was pointed right at him.
“He can see us,” Pacino said to Seagraves and Romanov. “There’s nothing happening.”
For two long minutes, the control room crew froze, all of them except the pilot and copilot staring at the periscope displays, waiting for a hatch to open on the sub’s deck or conning tower, waiting for a crewman or multiple crewmen to emerge to troubleshoot the fouled screw, but nothing happened.
“That’s odd,” Quinnivan said.
“Glitch number two,” Romanov said, staring at the command console’s display.
“We have a contingency for this?” Pacino asked Romanov.
She shrugged. “SEALs do. They’ll try to break in. Either an external hatch-opening mechanism or a salvage connection. If that doesn’t look possible, we’ll have to pass over a diamond-plasma cutting rig so they can torch their way in.”
Seagraves frowned. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he said. “They may have a plan in case of being caught or detained.”
Romanov shot the captain a look. “Like the North Korean sub a few years ago,” she said slowly.
“Exactly. Approach Officer, surface the ship.”
“Surface, aye, sir. Pilot, vertical surface!”
“Vertical surface, Pilot, aye.” A blasting alarm boomed through control, the OOOO-GAAAH of the diving alarm. The 1MC shipwide announcing circuit blasted out Dankleff’s voice. “Surface! Surface! Surface!” The diving alarm sounded again, but by that time Dankleff had blown forward and aft main ballast and the periscope view rose higher. Pacino looked downward as their own hull emerged from the waves.
“Prepare to place the low-pressure blower on all main ballast tanks,” Dankleff’s voice crackled again on the 1MC. “Approach Officer, raising the snorkel mast.”
“Very well, Pilot.”
Another 1MC announcement, Dankleff saying, “Placing the low-pressure blower on all main ballast tanks!”
A dim roaring sound vibrated the deck from below and aft. The LP blower was a positive displacement unit, much like the supercharger on Pacino’s hotrod, moving air into the ballast tanks. Slowly the hull came fully out of the water.
“Securing the LP blow,” Dankleff said, and the blower’s noise quieted and stopped.
On the hull of the target, the SEALs continued to wait in their crouch, hugging the conning tower. Pacino glanced at the chronometer. It had been a full twelve minutes since he’d surfaced, and still no sign of anyone emerging topside.
“Sonar,” Seagraves called to Albanese. “Any transients from Master One?”
Albanese turned from his console, his hand pressing his right headphone to his ear, as if that would help him detect transients better. He shook his head. “Master One is dead quiet, Skipper.”
Suddenly a speaker crackled in the overhead above the command console. “Victor Three Papa, this is Sierra Four Alpha, over.” Fishman’s voice.
Romanov grabbed a microphone from an overhead cradle, the coiled cord of it extending into a small red unit the size of a shoebox, the VHF Nestor secure voice circuit. She glanced at Seagraves. “Request to answer, Captain?”
Seagraves put out his hand and Romanov handed him the mike.
“Sierra Four Alpha, Victor Three Papa, go ahead.” Seagraves voice echoed back in a strange bubbly burbling tone as his voice was encrypted for transmission.
“Stand by to recover the team.”
The SEALs wanted to come back in, Pacino thought. Something must be very wrong.
“Prepare to return, Victor Three Papa, out,” Seagraves said, handing the mike back to Romanov. “XO, get to the lockout trunk and find out what the hell is going on,” Seagraves ordered. Quinnivan handed his headset to Varney and half-ran out the room.
Romanov nudged Pacino. “Get the upper lockout trunk door open, now.”
“Captain, request to open the lockout trunk hatch?”
“Open the lockout trunk hatch,” Seagraves said, his face a scowl.
“Pilot, open the lockout trunk hatch and drain the lockout trunk.”
Dankleff acknowledged.
Below, on the deck, one of the SEALs had climbed up on the hull, then a second. They’d taken off their gear but for weapons and left the equipment on the target’s deck. Soon all four had vanished down the hatch and the hatch started shutting behind them.
“Lockout trunk hatch indicates shut,” Dankleff said.
It seemed to take another ten minutes before Fishman and Aquatong came into the control room, Quinnivan behind them, the commandos holding white towels around their necks, their wetsuits glistening wet, dripping slightly.
Fishman addressed Seagraves. “We think there may be a self-destruct protocol going on. There could be a big bang coming from that thing.” Fishman crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the deck. Lieutenant junior grade Elias Aquatong stood beside Fishman, running his fingers through his soaked hair.
Pacino kept his eyes on the periscope display, wondering if the target submarine would scuttle itself, or worse, explode with a self-destruct charge. It came to him that they might be too close to his hull.
“What do you want to do?” Seagraves asked Fishman.
“We’re going to break in, Captain, but before we do, you’d better get Vermont to a safe distance. And submerge it. At this point, anything is possible.”
Fifteen minutes later, the SEALs had locked out again and climbed up on the deck of the Bigfoot with several tool bags. Pacino watched them on the periscope display of the command console, having submerged Vermont and driven her out a thousand yards, now hovering half a mile from the narco-sub, his view trained on the conning tower of the target. Two of the commandos were on the foredeck and two were atop the conning tower, attaching the equipment bags to lines tossed down by the crew up high, who lifted them up and stowed them in the conning tower’s cockpit.
The Nestor satellite secure voice radio circuit crackled with static and blooped with the distorted, decrypted voice of Fishman. “Victor Three Papa, odd situation up here. There’s no hatch opening mechanism on the upper hatch and no ISO salvage connection, just smooth steel. As I stepped close to it to try it with a crowbar, the hatch came open by itself. The hatch is fully open now.”
Captain Seagraves took the red microphone from the overhead. “Sierra Four Alpha, were there lights on inside the submarine when the hatch opened?”
What was he getting at, Pacino wondered.
“It’s bright out here, so it would look dark even if it were lit by floodlights in there, but I’m fairly sure it was dark and some lights flashed on when the hatch came fully open.”
“This day just keeps getting better and better,” Romanov muttered.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Pacino replied, still staring at his display.
“You can say that again,” Romanov said to him.
“You mentioned a North Korean submarine to the captain,” Pacino said. Romanov looked at him blankly. “Well. What did you mean?”
“I forget the specifics,” she said. “It was a while ago. A North Korean submarine got snarled in a trawler net inside the territorial waters of South Korea and the sub surfaced. The fishermen alerted the South Korean Navy. A South Korean destroyer grabbed the sub and started towing it to a South Korean naval base, but it sank on the way. So the South Koreans salvage it, and inside? Entire crew was dead, some with a bullet in the forehead, a few with throats slit. There were four cases of suspected suicide, the senior officers in command. The rest of the crew were executed by the senior guys. The conclusion being, none of the officers wanted it known they were captured submerged by their blood enemies, and you know, death before dishonor. They were also probably terrified of what an interrogation would be like. In any case, suicide made more tactical sense to them than surrender.”
“You think that could be happening here?”
Romanov shrugged. “Maybe, but it’s hard to imagine smugglers turning to murder and suicide when caught. Every other narco-sub detained, they took the crews for questioning. At first, they had to let them go, because there were no laws on the books prohibiting sailing a submarine full of coke on the no-man’s land of the high seas. So a year later, there were brand new international laws making smuggling coke in the open ocean a felony, and the crews apprehended after that, well, they won’t be seeing the outside of a high security prison for a long time. They were all hired guns, though, making ten or twenty grand to move the product. A pittance, really, considering the street value of the cargo. And the risks of the trip.”
“Victor, this is Sierra,” the Nestor radio speaker blared with Fishman’s voice. “My XO and I are going inside the hull. I’m leaving a relay unit on top of the conning tower to relay my helmet cam to your displays. Testing it now.”
“Select the tactical freq for your console display,” Romanov said.
“I don’t know how to do that,” Pacino admitted. Romanov moved him over with her hip and showed him how to manipulate the software to change the display readout to receive and display the SEAL commander’s helmet camera. For just a tenth of a second he became aware of the feeling of the touch of the attractive older woman, and he had to blink back his hardwired male response.
The display winked out, then showed the view of Fishman’s head-mounted tactical camera as he looked down at the open hatch. “Am I patched into the Nestor circuit?” he asked someone out of the camera view, his voice coming out of the Nestor speaker in the overhead.
“You’re coming through five by five,” Seagraves said into the red mike.
“Grip and I are going in now. I’ll go first.”
The view out the helmet camera showed Fishman’s view as he looked down in the maw of the hatchway. He stepped down to the first ladder rung inside, climbed down several rungs, then his hands reached out for the ladder. The rungs of the ladder moved by the view until Fishman’s boots landed on the deck, some twenty feet down from the conning tower cockpit.
He did a slow turn through a full circle to show the inside of the boat.
There was almost nothing there.
He looked up at the ladder and ordered Aquatong to wait on the conning tower. “I’m inside the sub,” he said, “and there’s only room for one person in here. I’m standing in a rectangular space barely a meter square and two-and-a-half meters high. The forward wall is a server rack, nothing but computers. In the forward starboard corner there is a video display that seems to be showing the view out of a camera mounted on the forward server rack. To starboard there’s a bulkhead completely taken up with cables and piping. Aft is another server rack. And the port side is like the starboard side, all cables, wires, junction boxes and piping, with a few valves. That’s it.”
Seagraves grabbed his microphone, ready to say something or ask a question, when Fishman’s voice came back, louder this time.
“Oh, that’s not good,” he said. The video screen mounted in the forward starboard corner suddenly came to life, its display showing Fishman’s face, then rewinding slowly to view his face when the camera had seen him best. The screen froze with his face in the video, but with straight lines superimposed on his face, tracing the shape of his face, measuring his cheekbones, nose and eye spacing. “That’s facial recognition for sure,” he said as he vaulted back to the ladder and took the rungs as fast as he could.
“Fuck, hatch is coming shut!” The camera view showed the world spinning as Fishman threw himself out of the upper hatchway onto the deck of the cockpit. He turned his head and the video view showed the hatch almost half shut. Pacino watched as the hatch slowly and smoothly shut all the way.
“Evacuate!” Fishman ordered. “Victor, stay where you are. We’re getting out of here. Sierra, out.”
The helmet cam view winked out. Pacino tried to return the display to the periscope, managing to get it to work on the second try. The SEALs were tossing down equipment bags and rappelling down the conning tower to the sub’s deck. One of the SEALs on the foredeck had inflated a Zodiac rubber boat and outfitted it with a small motor. Within seconds, the equipment and SEALs were embarked and the boat was plowing through the small waves toward Vermont. Pacino kept his view trained to the submarine, noticing in 8x magnification he could see the sub’s periscope optical opening pointed straight at him. Was it possible the submarine had defensive weapons?
“Broach the sail, Mr. Pacino,” Seagraves ordered. “We’ll bring them in through the bridge hatch. XO, go up and meet them.” Quinnivan left the room in a haste.
“Aye, Captain. Pilot, make your depth five zero feet.”
“Five zero feet, Pilot aye. Depth six zero, five five, five zero feet, sir.”
“Very well.” The SEAL boat reached their sail, then became too close to see in the periscope view.
“Approach Officer, bridge trunk upper hatch indicates open.”
“Very well, Pilot,” Pacino said, his periscope view locked onto the narco-sub, which was floating motionless.
“Approach Officer, Sonar,” Albanese called. “I have transients from Master One. Sounds like thumping noises.”
Pacino watched the submarine. Was it getting lower in the water?
“Scuttling charges,” Romanov said. To Pacino, she whispered, “Get a sounding.”
“Nav-ET,” Pacino called, “Mark sounding.”
“Approach Officer,” a young voice said from the aft port corner of control, “Sounding one thousand seventy fathoms.”
“Six thousand feet plus,” Romanov said, her tablet out as she noted the exact latitude and longitude of the target submarine. “A bit too deep to salvage without military equipment.”
On Pacino’s console display, the decks of the sub vanished beneath the waves, only the conning tower still visible, until soon that too vanished.
“Approach Officer, upper bridge access hatch indicates shut.”
Seagraves tapped his gold Annapolis ring on the command console, impatient for word from the SEAL commander. As if on cue, Fishman stepped into the room, wrapped in towels. He looked over at Seagraves.
“Well?”
“You saw what I saw, Captain. Sub was run by some kind of artificial intelligence. With over a billion dollars in cargo, the AI was reluctant to self-destruct until it looked at my face and realized I wasn’t on its list of friendly faces. Then it decided to sink. I’m just lucky it gave me enough time to get out. I wonder if they programmed that as a safety feature in case one of their own guys didn’t get his face recognized properly. So, now, that sub is on its way to Davey Jones’ locker, never to be seen again.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Seagraves said. “I imagine we’ll salvage it to see what was up with its artificial intelligence setup. And to destroy those drugs, of course.”
Fishman shrugged. “In any case, Captain, the mission’s over. I’m going to take a shower.”
“You and your XO please join us in the wardroom once you’re squared away,” Seagraves said.
“Roger,” Fishman said, spinning on his wet heel and heading for his quarters.
Seagraves turned to Pacino. “Mr. Pacino, secure battlestations and station the normal watch section. Take us to patrol depth, course north, ten knots while you wait for the navigator to lay in a course for Andros Island, Bahamas. Once you’re relieved, convene a patrol report party.”
“Aye, Captain,” Pacino said. He picked up the 1MC microphone and clicked it, his voice blasting through the ship. “Secure battlestations, station underway watch section two.” He projected his voice toward the ship control station. “Pilot, make your depth five four six feet, all ahead two thirds, turns for ten knots, steer course north.”
Pacino looked at Romanov, who was leaning over the chart display and plotting a turning point on the approach to the Windward Passage. “What’s a patrol report party?” Pacino asked Romanov.
“We get the control room watchstanders together and get our story straight for the quick reaction situation report and then the top-secret patrol report to the National Security Council and ComSubCom. You’re the junior officer, so lucky you, you get to write the report for all of us to critique.”
Pacino smiled at her. “I am lucky,” he said. “Who else gets to be approach officer on a tactical mission at the tender age of twenty-three?”
Romanov winked at him and clapped his shoulder. “You did well, non-qual. But like the captain said, don’t get cocky.”
Romanov grabbed the 1MC microphone. “Convene the patrol report party in the wardroom,” she said.
What a difference a week made, Pacino thought. A week ago he was a bundle of anxiety and had zero confidence. Today, he was a veteran, swashbuckling pirate. Quite a week, indeed.