D. M. Ulmer 01 - Silent Battleground (11 page)

Brent pleaded, “Captain … for chrissake.  Permission to go active and get the sons of bitches.”

“Not granted, Brent.  It’s too late.  Let’s not give ’em another aim point and another scalp for their belt.”

“Let me shoot down the bearing line, then.”

“No.  They’re out of range and they can outrun anything we throw at them.  Secure the tubes and save the bullets.  We’re going to need them later.”

Anger surged through Brent’s chest but mostly
at himself.  He knew the captain had it
right.  They had blown their first mission, but better not to make matters worse by striking out in stupid anger. 

Get above the layer
, Brent thought then said, “Chief, five degrees up bubble, make your depth six-zero feet.”

No response from Chief Cunningham as he sobbed uncontrollably.  At that instant, sounds from a collapsing compartment in
Utah
rattled over the underwater telephone receiver speaker.  The sinking Titan yielded to the sea and gave up the lives of Cunningham’s former shipmates.

Calmly, Brent ordered, “Henri, relieve the chief of the watch.”

The authoritative voice of the black quartermaster responded, “Aye, sir,” and then ordered the helmsman, “Full rise on the fairwaters, five up on the angle, smartly
to six-zero.”

“Messenger of the watch, call the chief’s relief,” Brent said. Then he put his arm about Cunningham’s shoulder and guided him to the ladder leading to the crew’s quarters.

Doing what he could, Brent tried to comfort the COB.  “Chief, I can’t say I know how you feel.  I’ve never been there.  But I hurt for you, Chief, and for your buddies.  I hurt goddamn bad.”

Captain Bostwick hunched his shoulders and with no expression showing on his face, walked to his stateroom.

The 21MC crackled, “Conn, Sonar.  Distant suppressed cavitation bearing two-eight-five, range opening.”

The message described the distinct sound of an escaping submarine.  Her work done the victorious Soviet sped off into the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.

Chapter 6

      Eric Danis looked out his office window onto a magnificent view of the Mojave Desert.  Though a seaman, the expanse and serenity of this intriguing land overwhelmed him.  He made a mental note to find time to look into the many secrets that had attracted man to find an abode here over the past ten millenniums.  He held a phone to his ear and heard the ring at the other end, twice, three times.

“Hello, Dave Zane speaking,” came a distant voice.

“Hello, yourself.  Eric Danis, here.”

“I know that.  I’d recognize that sandpaper voice anywhere.  How are you, old buddy?” 

The relief in Dave’s voice said much.  His friend had survived.  A custom of their generation precluded emotional pronouncements.

“Figured I’d find you at the
Digs,
Dave.”

“You figured right.  If you believe the newsies, it’ll be five years before we can go back to Bainbridge.  The Soviets made a damn mess of it.  Too hot for at least the time being.”

Eric assured Dave.  “Eve’s here with me.  The last we heard Sean got arrested for laying down in front of visitors at a Trident submarine commissioning ceremony.  But he’s still with us and I’ll take having him alive any way I can get him.  How about Bea?  I trust she’s well.”

“Bloomin’, Eric, just bloomin’.  Since young Maddock showed up, things have gotten a lot better for her.  She’s a mite worried about him.  I keep tellin’ her a 688 at sea has a better chance of making it than us poor souls on terra firma.  She’s a woman, Eric, and needs assurances.”

“Tell her I’m certain he’s well and that’s more than just a gut feel.”

“Thanks, Eric.  She’ll be grateful for that, especially
since it came from you.”

“Least I can do for my favorite godchild.”

“How we doin’, Eric?  Papers say we’re gettin’ our butts kicked.”

Eric said with a grim voice, “We’ve lost just about all the hardware we needed to successfully carry out the Maritime Strategy.  Add to that some serious casualties ashore, both military and civilian.  Most of this is on the coasts.  We don’t know how they did it, but the areas attacked are dirty enough to keep us out for quite a while.  Apart from facilities ashore, submarines seem to be holding their own … just barely, but hanging in there.”

“Guess the Maritime Strategy turned ’round and bit us submariners square on the ass.  We went along ’cause it got us outta battle-group escort and freed us up for the forward areas where the good hunting is.  Just didn’t believe the Soviets would do what they did.”

“Hindsight is 20/20, Dave.”

“Well at least we saved something, Eric.  The damn
I told you so
flakes from the candy-ass peace crowd piss me off.  If we do get taken over, wait till they hear what the KGB has to say about their damn intellectual pontificating.” 

Dave regretted his words the instant they left his mouth since Eric’s son was an avid peace activist.

If Eric Danis noticed, he didn’t let it show.  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” 
Hmm.  What’s the best way to hit Dave with this?
 
A no brainer, just give it to him straight up. 
“Dave, have I got a deal for you.”

“Shoot.  I got my hand over my butt.”

“How would you like to be activated for temporary assignment?”

“A stupid-ass old diesel guy like me?  What could I do for the war effort?  Do I get paid?  Better not let the newsies get hold of this.  I can just see the headlines now. 
Navy retiree, already getting paid too much for doing nothing, gets paid more for doing less.”

Eric laughed.  “This thing hasn’t hurt your sense of humor one bit.  Seriously, Dave, I need you to set up an emergency submarine base.”

Not quite believing what he heard, Dave asked, “Set up a what?”

Although a patient man, Eric could get his back up on occasion.  “Damn it!  Hear me out.”

Sensing his friend’s stress, Dave said, “Okay.”

Eric went on, “We’ve got boats at sea with no place to bring them home.  All of our deep-water ports are unusable.  We need something workable.  Flimsy is good as long as it works.  You’re the best person up there to do this.”

“Why do you say that, Eric?”

“Two reasons.  You know the Washington coast like the back of your hand and what’s needed to pull off a refit.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Eric.  Got any specifics?”

“There are none.  Find us a spot and then look around to see what you can lay your hands on to make it suitable for submarine refits.”

“That’s one hell of a job, buddy.  It took eight years and three billion dollars for the base at Bangor.”

“That’s because you weren’t running the job, Dave.”

“I’d have cut it to four billion and twelve years.”  Dave paused then asked, “You’re serious?  You want to fire up an old fogy like me?”

“Look at it this way, Dave.  We didn’t pay you any attention when we owned your soul; so now we figure you owe us.  That’s one of the beauties of this country.  We’re the land of the second chance.”

“Do I get a raise?”

“You’ll be damn lucky to see another retirement check in the next ten years.”

“In that case, I’ll take the job.”

Dave Zane realized the powerful vote of confidence he had just gotten from a man he held in great esteem.  Old salts avoid maudlin so he said nothing.  Dave gleaned as many details as he could from his old friend and after an exchange of pleasantries they hung up.

Eric drew a pair of black and bitters from the coffeepot behind his desk and summoned Dutch Meyer.

Dutch came into the office, took the coffee and seated himself in response to Danis’s hand gesture.  “Afternoon, Commodore.”

Eric said, “Afternoon, Dutch.  Thanks for coming by.  Got a couple of things on my mind and need your help.”

The stoic Dutch replied, “That’s why they keep me on the payroll, Commodore.”

“I’m worried about our aviators.  We gotta find them something to get their teeth into.  They’ve had their asses kicked and want to get even.  Failure of the carrier battle group strategy does not reflect on these kids.  From what I see, they’re damn good.  I get the feeling we give them nothing but make-work and I think they deserve better.  I want you to dissolve the hard-ass attitude by some of our submarine staffers.  You know who they are.”

“No problem, sir.  You’re right.  It’s been bugging me too.  I can fix that.”

“Work fast.  You only
got a day to do it.  There’s something else I need you to do.”

Dutch squirmed uneasily.  “Something else, Commodore?”

“Yeah, Dutch.  How’s the old Chevy running?”

The old Chevy … what the hell?  Danis wants to buy my car? 
Dutch answered,
 
“Not all that bad, I guess.”

“Good.  I want you to start driving north and gather up everything you can find to help set up a temporary submarine base.”

Sitting back in his chair, Dutch thought,
Whew! 
Then he said,
“A temporary submarine base, Commodore?  Where?  When?”

“On the Washington coast as soon as Dave Zane gets off his sorry ass and finds us one.”

“When did he get the assignment, sir?”

“About fifteen minutes ago.”

“I see what you mean, Commodore.  Those retired guys do take their own sweet time.  When do you want me to start?”

Looking at his watch Danis replied, “Right now, Dutch.  We gotta get a base for our boats because they can’t stay out there forever.”  He passed the mustang a letter with a stack of duplicates.  “This authorizes you to requisition anything we need, including the means to get it up there.”

Dutch asked,  “Where’s
up there,
Commodore?”

“I don’t know, Dutch.  Here’s Zane’s phone number.  Call him once a day and keep the pressure on.  Dump whatever you find at the Coast Guard Station in Astoria, Oregon till Zane finds us a better place.”

“This okay with the Coasties?”

“It will be by the time you get going.”

“With all due respect, Commodore, how am I supposed to do this?  Gather all the stuff, I mean.”

“If I knew, I’d do it myself and wouldn’t need you.”

He glared at his boss for a second then Dutch said, “Aye, aye, sir,” and turned to walk off, shaking his head in disbelief.

As Dutch left, the commodore said, “And, Dutch, don’t forget to straighten out the staff problem before you go.”

The two looked at each other and exchanged a grin.

“I won’t forget, sir.”

Vasiliy Baknov sat in the huge auditorium at the Vladivostok Naval Base among several hundred Soviet Pacific Submarine Flotilla officers. On a stage in the front, the briefer awed his audience with descriptions of overwhelming combat successes against the American Navy.

A large, backlighted world chart reached to both ends of the stage.  Small red circles indicated locations of nuclear weapons strikes by both warring nations.  The United States directed her nuclear strikes mainly against Soviet military air facilities.

The briefer stressed, “It is clear the main concern of the Americans is the defense of NATO; therefore, they
hit our air bases harder than expected.  This diminishes the speed of our thrust into Western Europe but will not stop it.”

The speaker paused to let this settle in and then swept a light beam shaped like an arrow along and over the leading edge of the Soviet advance.  “This line shows our current positions.  The right flank is anchored in Belgium.  To the south, our forces have entered France and Italy where widespread collapse of Allied forces is reported.  Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Finland and the two Germanys belong to us now.  Only
neutral Sweden impedes our drive through to the Atlantic.”

Again, he paused then said while smiling, “Negotiations with the reluctant warrior proceed quickly
and our tanks will soon roll over Swedish soil and into Norway.”

Laughter erupted from the audience.  Next, the pointer moved along the west coast of the United States.  Red circles covered all the major ports.  “Our strategy is to contain the enemy in his North American continent.”

The white arrow pointed from south to north over the American east coast where red circles covered all the seaports.  “We must prevent American supplies from reaching their NATO allies.  Destruction of these ports has reduced the flow of war materials to a trickle and our Northern fleet submarines in the Atlantic are fast shutting that off.”

The briefer turned to face his audience.  “And now, for the vaunted American Maritime Strategy.”

Again laughter, then an abrupt standing ovation as a periscope photo of the attack on
Savo Island
flashed on the screen, superimposed over the world charts.

“Sherensky … Sherensky … Sherensky.”  The chant grew louder and several fellow officers hustled the reluctant commanding officer up and onto the stage. 
Zhukov’s
Captain acknowledged his ovation in the traditional manner of applauding back to his audience.  The din settled and the briefer continued.

“It appears our worthy enemy has prepared himself well but for the wrong war.  He has bet all on the survival of fifteen attack carriers and has lost.  Ten have fallen victim to our submarines and rest forever on the ocean floor.”

Red triangles marked scenes of the related engagements.

“We
destroyed two in Navy yards during the initial strike and three are bottled up in NATO ports.”  The pointer moved to Nova Scotia.  “Two are here and one in the Mediterranean at Naples, Italy.  The Americans expected us to fall back into a defensive line, but we came out on the attack.  Our enemy believed we would strike with missiles, but we did our work with torpedoes.  The balance of his six hundred ship navy, no longer with carriers to protect, is being destroyed as they flee to shelter.”

Again, applause interrupted.

“Our work continues, comrades of the Pacific Flotilla.  We learned from the Japanese Great Patriotic War experience.  Do not permit an apparently
beaten American foe to rise again and steal the victory.  Show no compassion.  We will shut off our enemy’s supplies and render him
impotent.  We will destroy his morale by hitting him at every opportunity.  We will not stop until the last capitalistic banner in the world has been hauled down and trampled into the dust.”