John Avery - Black Cobra

Byrd stepped over and put one of the phones to his ear, but as quickly as it had appeared, the strange sound was gone.

“Sorry, sir,” the operator said. “False alarm. Something must have come loose on one of the bait barges.”

“Stay on it, Chief,” Byrd said. “Considering who we have on board tonight, I’d rather have a hundred false alarms than no alarms at all.”

“Yes, sir,” the operator said.

Pankov watched through Cobra's attack periscope. “Where the hell’s Uri?” he said to Jason. “We’ll be ready to fire soon!”

Jason had spent years in the Navy perfecting his submarine warfare skills, and he didn’t need Uri’s help.

“We can do it without him, Captain,” he said. “The torpedo is armed and loaded in tube five. I just need to open the outer hatch, flood the tube, and prime the high pressure air system.”

“Make it happen,” Pankov said. “Go!”

Jason sprinted down the corridor to the Forward Torpedo Room leaving all of the hatches open behind him.

He was shocked to find Uri Ruden’s body floating in the rising water, and that Aaron and the girls were gone, but he quickly gathered himself and prepared tube 5 for firing. “Fire when ready, sir!” he shouted down the corridor.

Pankov checked the scope. The Hampton was dead ahead.

“ FIRE! ” he shouted back.

“Firing, sir!” Jason shouted back.

Jason pulled the chrome firing lever and there was a low shudder as a blast of compressed air forced the torpedo out of tube 5 just as the weapon’s self-propulsion system kicked on.

Pankov braced himself for a nuclear explosion and certain death, using a stop watch to count it down. Based upon the range, he was expecting the rocket propelled nuke to impact the Hampton in under four seconds.

Three…

Two…

One…

Nothing!

Pankov was horrified. Had they missed?

He waited a few more seconds, but he knew it was true: Through one evil stroke of incomprehensibly bad luck, the shot had been a colossal dud.

The USS Hampton’s chief sonar operator’s eyes went wide again. But before he could react, his eardrums were split by a huge metallic BANG! as the massive nuclear submarine was impacted by a heavy foreign object. The brutal hit shook the entire ship, knocking dozens of seamen off their feet and echoing on for several seconds.

“ All stop! ” Commander Byrd shouted from the bridge. He remained steady and calm, not wanting to cause a panic. He grabbed hold of the periscope’s training handles and took a quick scan around the area.

The President and his agents were off somewhere touring the sub and he wasn’t hooked up to his safety line yet. He grabbed hold of an overhead pipe to keep from hitting the deck, looking around nervously as his Secret Service team jumped into high alert.

Commander Byrd took his Executive Officer aside. “What the hell was that?” he said in a near whisper. “Did we hit something?”

“I think something hit us ,” the XO replied. “And it struck our port side, Captain, from inside the bay. Perhaps it was a shark or a dolphin, sir.”

Byrd gave him a look that said, Please tell me my XO’s not that stupid…

“Damage report!”

“No damage to report, sir!” was the reply.

“The President?”

“The President is unharmed, sir!”

“Sonar! What was that?”

“I-I don’t know, Captain,” the operator replied, still shaking, his ears ringing. “It came out of nowhere. It sounded like — a torpedo .”

“If someone is firing at us they’re shooting blanks,” Byrd said.

“By the sound of it, it had to weigh close to a ton, sir,” the operator said.

Byrd paused for a moment, looking at the sonar operator. “Let’s say it was a torpedo, Chief. Where would it have come from?”

“From under the bait barges, sir,” the operator said.

“Is there even enough room under there for a submarine?” Byrd asked.

“That's on the bay side of us, Captain,” the XO said, stepping in confidently. “Anyone hiding there would never have gotten past us in the first place.”

“You’re probably right, Commander,” Byrd said. “But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that they did. Could they hide something as big as submarine under the bait barges? ”

“It’s highly unlikely, Captain,” the XO said. “An older diesel, maybe. But we haven’t seen one of those in these waters for several years. And we would certainly have detected them as they entered the bay.“

Byrd pictured the old Russian submarine, b-39, moored at the MMSD at the east end of the harbor, but he quickly filed the thought away with all of his other ridiculous ideas. It did, however, make him wonder: “What if it was a diesel-electric,” he said. “Our enemies are buying them up like they’re going out of style. I’ve heard the Iranians have seventeen of the damn things.”

“But don’t you think we would have heard them, Captain?” the XO said, stressing his earlier point.

“There’s no doubt that the U.S. Navy’s anti-submarine warfare capabilities are the best in the business, Commander,” Byrd said. “However, as you know, with variations in the underwater topography, ambient noise generated by marine life and merchant shipping, and changing salinity and temperatures, all of which alter how sounds propagate, it is still very difficult for us to combat diesel-electric submarines running silently on battery power. Hell, with all the other noise in the bay, it’s like trying to detect a single taxi cab in downtown Manhattan .”

Captain Byrd knew he had made his point, but he also knew how important it was to him and the rest of his crew that this VIP cruise come off without a hitch. His sub appeared to have sustained no significant damage, and the minute they returned to port he would have the exterior of the hull inspected to confirm. As for the enemy sub? He chose not to believe there ever was one. And he knew they needed to get moving again soon, if they were to have any chance of completing this all important drill.

He took his Executive Officer aside again, speaking in a low voice. “I think under the circumstances we should just file this incident in the ghost file.”

“I have to agree, Captain,” the XO said. “What else can we do, with the goddamn President on board and all?”

“Easy, Commander,” Byrd said. “He is our Commander-in-chief, don’t forget.”

“Sorry, Captain,” the XO said. “I guess the stress is taking its toll. It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t, Commander,” Byrd said.

Suddenly the agent with the carnation appeared on the bridge, frantic for information. “What was that horrendous sound?” he demanded, looking at Commander Byrd as if he had been personally responsible. “I was with the President, and we were very close to the source. It was deafening .”

“Nothing unusual, Agent,” Byrd replied calmly, sharing Fagan’s disdain for Secret Service agents. “Just the hull shifting under pressure. It’s very common at sea. Nothing to worry about.”

The agent’s eyes narrowed. That was pretty damn loud to be a hull shift, he thought. But he knew he had no choice but to pass Captain Byrd’s explanation on to the President. He turned and headed off to give his report.

Byrd picked up a mic and his entire crew heard the following over the intercom: “This your Captain speaking. I know that what just occurred onboard the USS Hampton may seem strange or even frightening to some of you. However, I can assure you that everything is under control. We are professional submariners, and we shall act accordingly. Proceed with the Emergency Nighttime Surface Drill. Captain out.”