Charles Taylor - Boomer

Florida had been quiet as a mouse … quiet as a boomer gone dead silent, Nelson mused. Ten knots was still goddamn quiet. If the nearest submarine had a firing solution, he had to be a little nervous now because his target was closing. Maybe preparing to fire? Imagine that — a boomer squaring off against an attack boat! “Range?”

“We haven’t maneuvered ourselves enough to provide the best target motion on him. Maybe twelve thousand yards, give or take.…”

“Captain!” It was Dan Mundy. “Chief Delaney says.…” Muffled voices in the background interrupted the sonar officer momentarily. “No … he’s not positive. But Burns says he’s worked exercises with Pasadena before and there’s something about her signature at this range that just hit him — can’t say what it is, just that it suddenly came to him. Delaney says Billy’s never been wrong before about something like that.…” His voice drifted off as he comprehended exactly what he’d said … and his captain was preparing to shoot….

Nelson smoothed his mustache unconsciously. “He could have fired at us by now if he was comfortable with his solution. What do you think now, XO?” he asked Cross thoughtfully. Who, he wondered, is going to be the first to tell me to hold my fire?

“Captain.…” The expression on the XO’s face was one of pure astonishment. My God, we’re ready to fire! Every procedure had been carried out. “That’s Pasadena out there. Dan Mundy just said so.” The southern accent was almost nonexistent. The idea of protecting oneself was completely different from being the first one to shoot — especially on one of your own. “We can’t fire on her without.…” He was at a loss for words.

“Without what, XO? They just think that’s Pasadena. ”

“Some sort of warning … or inquiry … or … hell, I don’t know, Captain. But she’s one of ours and—”

Nelson’s voice cracked like a whip through the control room. “The computer’s only as good as its operators, Mr. Cross.” No familiar “XO” this time. He wanted each man to understand. His words were for everyone. “Maybe there’s a mistake. Pasadena has no business here. We don’t have a clue why an enemy submarine could sound like her. That’s the chance we have to take now. Only one man is positive, and I mean absolutely positive, that’s Pasadena. The odds are just as good that could be a Soviet sub with warm torpedoes and someone’s finger on the button ready to fire a couple right now, whether or not they have a perfect solution.” His hands gradually had fallen to his sides as he spoke. Now he folded his arms again and glared about the control room. “We are a capital ship carrying American strategy back aft. We could make the difference between home or no home at all. Anyone else have a bright idea about this contact? Don’t you think one of our own would have identified by now?”

He was met with a stunned silence.

“Sonar, any change on our nearest contact?”

“Negative. Still closing.”

“And the other?”

“Coming on like a freight train, Captain.”

“You must have ID on that one if she’s making all that noise.”

“It’s a 688, Captain,” Mundy answered. “That’s all I hear out here, 688’s everywhere.”

Nelson’s right hand moved from his mustache to his forehead, where his fingers beat a drum roll. “Two targets,” he murmured to himself, “both friendly … both acting aggressive….” He plumbed his memory for anything like this from war games. They could develop fire-control solutions on both. “Do you have a solution on the second one?”

“Not yet, sir. You didn’t—”

“Then goddamn it, do it.” No friendly submarines would act in this manner. “Danny,” Nelson called through the entrance to sonar, “I need help here. There must be something different about these boats coming at us.…”

“No change, Captain,” the sonar officer answered. “They’re ours.”

“But no signal?” Let everybody hear it.

“Nothing, Captain.”

“I didn’t hear you, Danny.”

“Nothing, Captain. No signal.”

Nelson turned back to Jimmy Cross, to the OOD, the weapons-control coordinator, to each of the men in the control room. Every man who stared back at him was relieved beyond belief he wasn’t in the captain’s shoes. Those who didn’t catch his eye were ashamed they had nothing to contribute.

“Open the muzzle doors on tubes one and two.” The closest contact would certainly hear that. Then they would have to respond.

“The doors are open, Captain.”

“The solution is ready,” Jimmy Cross stated flatly.

“Very well.” Nelson waited tentatively for an identifying signal … anything that would keep him from shooting.

Nothing.

For a man whose red-rimmed eyes were now set off by deep, dark half-moons underneath, an exhausted Ray Larsen was still overjoyed. Once again he’d proven himself right — or at least that was the way he preferred to look at the matter from his own perspective. Clarifying information had begun to come back to SUBPAC to substantiate what had been ideas, most of them farfetched. Admiral Larsen might even have taken credit for each of those theories if he’d been working alone.

Bart Bockman had called from Bangor, Washington, half an hour before. He explained that his intelligence people had detained one of the Spetznaz operatives outside the Trident base. Neither civilian authorities nor the White House were aware of it, nor would they be for the time being. Chemicals were much more effective, he related, than past interrogation methods — they expected to know much more about Spetznaz activities shortly. But there was no doubt that the Soviets were deeply involved in the loss of the boomers.

The Kremlin reaction to the American rescue offer of SSV-516 had been quick and to the point. Any approach to the ship by any foreign power would be considered a provocative act and would be answered with force. Stay away from SSV-516.

In addition, scientists at the Smithsonian had confirmed that a few days before, an experimental Soviet laser-communications satellite had been maneuvered above the Pacific to a position that appeared to coincide with SSV-516’s position. Nothing could be substantiated. There were no absolutes, just suspicions. But as far as Ray Larsen was concerned, that tied in perfectly with the loss of Nevada and Alaska, though he didn’t bother to explain why.

Now he had just hung up the phone after a direct call with the White House. “I can read him, Mark,” Larsen said confidently. “When he’s hedging, I know. He’s got SecDef there with him, and our Secretary, Bob Kerner. That means they’re going along with us. He said he thinks the strategy of the phone conversation with the Kremlin went well, very well. Apparently, the National Security Agency insisted some satellite appeared to violate some sort of treaty, and the President didn’t get an argument about it. When he indicated to the General Secretary that we’re calling Pasadena to the surface, there was dead silence on the other end. Now the President knows it’s Pasadena .”

“Did he say that, Ray?” Bennett asked. “After all, we don’t know if something’s happened for sure aboard Pasadena. She could just as easily be at the bottom.”

Larsen shrugged off the second comment. His mind was made up. “Not exactly. That’s what I mean about him hedging.” The CNO held up a thumb and forefinger about half an inch apart. “But he was this close to saying I was right about Pasadena. When he asked the General Secretary about any problems with submarines in the Pacific, he got a runaround. Said he couldn’t comment without running it past his people. Sounds like confirmation to me.”