Ian Slater: Choke Point

“Eighteen miles,” came the response. It was four miles short of the torpedo’s maximum range.

“Sonar,” Rorke called. “Acoustic signature still hostile?”

“Signature still hostile by nature of sound.”

“Very well.” The automatic sonar modules on Virginia-class subs didn’t need operators, but Rorke liked to have a hands-on sonarman on his watch.

“Solution ready,” announced the weapons officer.

“Ship ready,” added the assistant WO.

“Ship ready, aye,” acknowledged Rorke. “Match sonar bearings and shoot.”

The firing officer now took over. “Shoot four and three.”

Every man in the Utah heard the rush of compressed air blasting the two Mark 48 torpedoes out of their tubes, their propulsor jets quickly taking over. Each fish trailed guidance wire from the first of its two compact ten-mile-capacity spools. The existence of guidance wires, Alicia Mayne knew, was a surprise for visiting VIPs, who expected wireless torpedoes in the twenty-first century.

“Four and three running,” announced the WO.

“Very well,” acknowledged Rorke, having already started the stopwatch that hung about his neck. “TTI?” Time to impact?

“Nineteen minutes, twelve seconds.”

As per standard procedure, no one aboard, except the captain and his navigating officer, knew where their sub was, let alone the target. All the Utah ’s crew knew was that they had left Bangor base over a day before, passing through the retracting section of the Hood Canal Bridge. By now they could be off the Alaskan panhandle, or heading for Hawaii. The pressing question on the minds of most of the young crew was whether a crazy Ivan or third world hostile had come to test their potential adversary’s state of readiness or to land “illegals”—agents. That was standard procedure for all blue water navies, including that of the U.S. Or, as was part of every U.S. submariner’s lore, was it readying to launch a surprise attack, as the Japanese sub I-17 had when it suddenly surfaced off the California coast on the night of February 23–24, 1942, and shelled the strategic oil installations at Santa Barbara? Plus, every U.S. submariner, like the U.S. Navy at large, like America itself, carried the memory of having been taken utterly unawares on December 7, 1941, and on September 11, 2001, the Navy in particular vowing that neither its surface nor submarine fleet would ever be taken by surprise again.

Bangor Submarine Base, Washington State

“Are you ready?” Admiral Jensen’s wife asked him playfully as she slipped into bed beside him. Her plumeria perfume washed over him, her diaphanous peach-colored nightie catching the light teasingly before she switched off the lamp. It was 3:00 A.M., and the fifty-three-year-old admiral, Walter Jensen, Commander of U.S. Submarine Group 9, and his wife Margaret were tired but relaxed. They had returned from a successful if long Navy-hosted reception for over two hundred northwest VIPs, including everyone from Bill Gates to the Greenpeace representatives. With Margaret in tow, the admiral had reassured the movers and shakers of the Northwest, and Seattle in particular, that the U.S. Navy was conscious of its environmental responsibility in the pristine waters of Puget Sound, especially the fifty-three-mile-long, 2.5-mile-wide Hood Canal waterway through which the admiral’s nuclear-armed subs egressed into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the open Pacific. Among the guests were several Canadian politicians from the nearby province of British Columbia, where the southern tip of Vancouver Island formed the northern flank of the vitally strategic strait, Washington State’s ruggedly beautiful Olympic peninsula forming the southern flank. Even the “environuts,” as they were deridingly called by some in the Navy, seemed satisfied that the admiral was doing everything in his power to assure the environmental integrity of the clear, cold cobalt-blue waters whose emerald islands had attracted urban refugees from throughout America.

The admiral switched off the light. “In all, a good night’s work, Chief,” he told Margaret.

“We’re not finished yet,” she replied, reaching lustily for him, squeezing hard, her perfume even stronger now.

“Permission to come alongside?” he joshed eagerly.

“I’d rather you came aboard,” she said.

“Very well. Permission to come aboard?”

“Permission granted.”

He’d begun his roll to port when the phone jangled in the darkness, its red light showing it was from the base. Damn . “Jensen.”

“Admiral, sorry to disturb you, sir. This is Duty Officer Morgan.”

“Yes?”

“Sir. Star has spotted an anomaly.” The duty officer’s voice was even, unhurried, thoroughly professional. But the admiral knew that at three in the morning it had to be important. “Star” was base shorthand for “Darkstar,” the resurrected unmanned aerial vehicle which, along with the Navy’s undersea hydrophone Sound Surveillance System, or SOSUS, was used for COMSUBPAC-GRU 9’s real-time security surveillance of Puget Sound and environs. This had been particularly important since the terrorist “Ressam” had been caught at Port Angeles in 2000 crossing over from Canada with a truckload of explosives, intending to blow up Los Angeles Airport.

“Anomaly on land or water?” the admiral inquired, sitting up.

“Water, sir.”

“Vessel wake or sub venting?” the admiral pressed.

“None reported in the area, sir. We have the Utah out but she’s much farther west.”

Which meant the anomaly could be a patch of upwelling, a common occurrence on the West Coast, where fresh water leaked upward from seabed springs through fissures in Juan de Fuca’s ever-shifting tectonic plate. Because of the fresh water’s different salinity, and thus slightly different color, it often showed up as an anomaly, like a slick of oil, readily visible by Darkstar’s God’s-eye view. Or the anomaly could be the first sign of an environmental disaster. An oil spill.

“You check with Coast Guard Air at Port Angeles?” asked the admiral. With that, his wife turned on her bedside lamp, resignedly sliding over a copy of Time from her nightstand.

“All right,” she heard her husband tell the duty officer, “keep me posted…. No, no, you did the right thing. When the Coast Guard gets back to you, let me know what they say. Perhaps it’s just some weird local phenomenon … Yes, absolutely, call me either way.”

Margaret Jensen, scanning the Time interview, knew that her husband’s “either way” meant he wouldn’t be able to relax enough to have sex, at least not the kind she wanted. He was in line for CNO — Chief of Naval Operations, the U.S.’s highest naval rank — and the smallest “screw-up,” as he’d so often reminded her, could scuttle the promotion. He looked apologetically at Margaret. “Sorry about this kafuffle.”

She shrugged, trying not to look annoyed but knowing there’d be no orgasmic relief until Walt knew exactly what the damned anomaly was.

“Morgan’ll get back to me soon,” he assured her.

“Don’t think so,” she said, still reading.

“Why?”

She turned the page. “Weather channel said there’s a low closing in from the Pacific. Fog. Coast Guard planes won’t see anything.”

“Damn! You’re right.” He lifted the phone, about to punch the preprogrammed button for the base, then decided against it. Best to wait for the Coast Guard report. Don’t overreact. A potential CNO never panics. Pray God it was a simple case of upwelling, and not the first trace of an oil spill from some Liberian-registered vessel having illegally discharged its bilges under cover of darkness to save a few bucks having it pumped off in port.