Scorpion in the Sea (55 page)

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Authors: P.T. Deutermann

BOOK: Scorpion in the Sea
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Diane had heard a few clicks on the line while waiting for the tape recorder to be set up. St. Claire putting someone else on the line so that there would be a witness. Fair enough. Diane knew she was lighting a fuse; the more sticks it lead to, the better Mike’s chances were.
She then went through the entire story, from the first incidents, to the slow accretion of evidence, sparse as it
was, to the Group’s skepticism of the whole theory, to the first and second explorations by Goldsborough, the sound recordings of the Deyo, the Admiral’s emphatic denunciation of the idea that there might be a submarine out there hunting the Coral Sea, and then the Commodore’s secret decision to send Goldy out covertly to rendezvous with Coral Sea. It took a half an hour, and Diane found herself perspiring when she was finished. She waited for a reaction.
“Uh, stand by, Mrs. Martinson, this is, uh—we’ll be right back to you, Ma’am,” said St. Clair.
Probably calling the little men in the white coats, she thought. She took another deep breath to steady her nerves. If that’s the way they were going to react, then that was all she could do. They’d been warned. She drank some cold coffee, unaware that it was cold.
“Mrs. Martinson?” inquired a new, older voice.
“Yes?”
“This is Vice Admiral Bennett. I’m Admiral Denniston’s Chief of Staff. I’ve been listening to what you had to say on a speakerphone in my office. I apologize for eavesdropping, but my EA said this was—important.”
I’ll bet he didn’t say important, thought Diane. Bizarre, maybe, but not important.
“Mrs. Martinson, your—story, uh, this report, is extremely disturbing. You are exactly correct that we have no knowledge of anything like this going on in Mayport, or of any Libyan submarine operating out of area. In fact, if I recall my morning briefing, our intelligence—Mike, is thing secure? It is? OK, thanks. Mrs. Martinson, our intelligence has all the Libyan submarines in their base or otherwise accounted for. I—”
“Call Washington,” interrupted Diane. “Talk to the people who do the photo analysis of the North African coast. The satellite reveals that one of the submarines at the base is a decoy. That is, Mike—we, uh, they think it’s a decoy. That the real sub left port over a month ago.”
There was another stunned silence at the Norfolk end. Then the Admiral came back on the line.
“Uh, Mrs. Martinson, national satellite photography is
extremely sensitive material,” he began, sternly. “I have to ask you: how in the hell do you know what you’re telling us? Is this something that Captain Martinson—”
“No!” She almost shouted.
“No,” she continued in a softer voice. “Captain Martinson thinks the whole thing is untrue.” So much for your MFR, dear. “He is as convinced as Admiral Walker is that there is no submarine. They both feel that the whole idea is preposterous, and that it wasn’t worth reporting up the line. Admiral Bennett, they may even be right. But if they are wrong and the Commodore and Mike are correct, the Navy is about to experience a very bad afternoon.”
“I have to ask, Mrs. Martinson—who is your source for this? The Commodore? And if not, is it this—Mike?”
Diane took a deep breath.
“No,” she said. “It’s not the Commodore. My source is the Captain of the Goldsborough, Commander Mike Montgomery.”
There was a strained silence, as the unspoken but obvious next question vibrated down the phone lines.
“Look,” she said quickly, to fill the silence, suddenly beginning to run out of courage. “I’m not going to explain the circumstances. They’re not relevant right now, anyway. Call Commodore Aronson’s office. Warn the Coral Sea. Get some ships out there to help Goldsborough. You’re almost out of time. You’ve been warned. Do something. Don’t sit there on your high ranking tailfeathers and be part of another Pearl Harbor, OK?”
Then she hung up the phone, and sat back in her chair, J.W.’s chair, she thought irrelevantly, her heart pounding. The secure telephone rang back immediately, but she did not answer it, staring at it instead, willing it to stop ringing. Finally it did. You’ve had your warning, big shot. And now, more than one cat is out of the bag, besides.
She went limp in the big leather chair. Oh, Mike. I told you I’d handle our situation my way, and now God knows what they’re going to do. I just hope and pray they don’t play politics with this. It would be just like them to focus on the indiscretions of a Navy wife and not on the submarine.
She leaned forward, grasping her knees, and huddled in the chair. Outside, the normalcy of the beach, the base, the rolling surf sounds flowing through the beach side windows above the sounds of the air conditioning, concentrated her fears in the empty house.
The secure telephone began ringing
again,
but
she ignored
it.
Atlantic Fleet Headquarters, Norfolk, Virginia, Friday, 9 May; 1320
Admiral Bennett and Captain St. Claire looked at each other blankly after Diane hung up.
“Get her back on the line,” ordered the Admiral, running his hands through his thinning hair.
The Admiral stood by the yeoman’s desk while St. Claire pushed the retrieve circuit button, but the STU-III in Mayport was not responding.
“No joy, Admiral.”
“But she was definitely calling from a STU-III?”
“Yes, Sir, and the ID was correct: quarters unit for the Chief of Staff at Group Twelve. Sir, I’ve met Mrs. Martinson. At a reception down there. It did sound like her.”
“She must be something to look at if you remember her, Mike,” said the Admiral dryly.
“Uh, yes, Sir, as a matter of fact she’s a memorable lady. But this bullshit about a submarine—”
“Yeah, I know. Run that tape back for me. I want to hear this all again. And then I want to talk to Eli Aronson. If it were any other name but that one, I’d go on to lunch. He and I were golfing buddies when he was on the SurfLant staff here a year ago. Super officer, but he’s also fully capable of getting mixed up in some squirrely thing like this. Must be something in the water at Mayport,” he said, shaking his head.
St. Clair rewound the tape quickly, and then they put it back on a speaker in Admiral Bennett’s office and listened to the whole conversation again. The two yeomen in the
outer office tried to look like they were not paying any attention. St. Claire switched it off when they got to the point where Diane had hung up.
“Do we need to tell the Admiral?”
St. Claire did not have to distinguish between Admiral Bennett, who was a Vice Admiral, and Admiral Denniston, a four star who was the Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet. The CinC. Admiral Denniston was the Admiral. Bennett shook his head.
“Not yet. But get the N2 up here—I want him to pull the string in the intel system on the possibility that the Libyans have planted a decoy. And get me Aronson on the phone—I’ll take it in here. Why does shit like this always have to break loose on a Friday,” he asked no one in particular.
Bennett walked back into his office, while St. Claire instructed the yeoman to get Commodore Aronson in Mayport on the horn for Admiral Bennett. He went over to his own desk, ready to pick up the silenced handset on which all EA’s listened in to their bosses’ conversations in order to keep records called memcons, a memo of conversation. He arranged a pad and pen as he waited. He heard the yeoman say yes, Sir, a few times, and then the yeoman punched a button transferring the call into Bennett’s office and gave St. Claire a signal to pick up. The yeoman scribbled down something on a yellow gummy, and passed it to St. Claire. Commodore not there; this is CSO. St. Claire nodded and listened.
“Commander Barstowe speaking, Sir,” came a nervous voice over the line.
“Commander, this is Vice Admiral Bennett; where’s your boss?”
“Uh, Admiral, he’s over on the Deyo right now, Sir. Can I help you with something?” There was a distinct note of anxiety in Barstowe’s voice now.
“Yes, Commander,” replied the Admiral in a patient but increasingly threatening tone. “You can get your boss on the phone. Secure. I want to ask him a question.”
“Uh, yes, Sir, right away. I’ll have him call you right away, Sir. Secure, Sir.”
St. Claire, realizing that there would be no conversation to record, hung up his phone. Prematurely, he found out, as he could still hear the Admiral in the other room.
“The subject?” said the Admiral in a voice that was getting louder. “Yes, I can tell you the subject. It’s a one word subject. It’s submarine. Make it two words, as in
Libyan
submarine.”
A pause. Then St. Claire heard the Admiral get up out of his chair.
“What did you say?!” the Admiral shouted. “Just what the hell do you mean by ‘Oh, shit,’ Commander?!”
Out in the front office, St. Claire hurriedly grabbed his phone and punched in the number for the duty officer at the Atlantic Fleet Operations Center.
USS Goldsborough, Jacksonville Operating Areas, Friday, 9 May; 1145
Despite the air conditioning, it was becoming hot in the Combat Information Center. Mike sat in his Captain’s chair near the central plotting table, surrounded by almost two dozen men at their various general quarters stations. Everyone was wearing battle dress, which included fully buttoned, long sleeved shirts, trousers tucked into their socks, gas masks in their hip pouches on one hip and a CO2 inflatable lifejacket on the other, protective flashburn hoods and gloves, and steel helmets. The extra gear made it awkward to move around the crowded CIC, especially with all hands present. The men were quiet but alert, doing their surveillance jobs with an intensity Mike had not seen before in Goldsborough.
The operations officer perched on his stool at the head of the plotting table, while the trackers plotted a radar contact closing them from the southeast.
“What do you think, Ops,” asked Mike from his chair. There was no room for him at the plotting table.
“It could be him, Cap’n,” replied the operations officer.
“The radar contact on the Raytheon display is big enough, and he’s coming in at about twenty knots. But ESM isn’t holding anything out there but a commercial surface search radar. No TACAN, no GCA radars, no nothing that indicates an aircraft carrier. Passive sonar says it’s big and moving down the highway, but can’t give any other clues. Right now he’s out there at twenty two miles, so we’ll get a look at him pretty soon. The lookouts have been alerted, as has the bridge watch.”
“OK. If it is the Coral Sea, we’ll come up to fifteen knots, turn around and parallel his course, and open up the active sonar. We’re far enough out now that I think the best ambush area is west of us, towards Mayport.”
“Yes, Sir, we’re ready with search plans. The PC indicates that that submerged ridge line is about ten miles back to the west, so we’re in good position.”
Mike nodded, and reached down for the intercom unit to the bridge, customarily called the bitch-box.
“XO, Captain.”
“Yes, Sir, Cap’n,” replied Farmer.
His GQ station was on the bridge when the Captain came into CIC. His primary duty was to take over command if CIC were knocked out, and to act as general maneuvering safety officer if things got hot and heavy during an action. He was supported on the bridge by a full GQ watch team, which included an Officer of the Deck, Junior Officer of the Deck, a tactical communicator, three quartermasters, a bosun, a messenger, three additional phone talkers and three lookouts.
“XO, this big radar contact continues to close from the southeast. Keep a sharp eye for a visual ID; we need to know if it’s Coral Sea.”
“Aye, aye, Sir. Bit early, though, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is, and no corroborating ESM, either. May be a big merchie. He’s going twenty knots.”
“Sounds more like a Toyota carrier than a Navy carrier,” said Farmer. “Those guys haul ass.”
“Yeah, well, anyway, keep your eyes peeled. What’s the weather?”
Mike had been in CIC all morning. He could walk twenty feet out through the front door of CIC and see for himself, but did not want to lose his red lighting adaptation.
“Bright sunlight, light high clouds, sea state zero, wind calm, temp is hot, sweat is everywhere,” said Farmer.
“People pay money for cruise conditions like that, XO; enjoy.”
“XO, aye.”
Mike punched out the intercom buttons. They waited.
Fifteen minutes later, the lookouts on the signal bridge, one level above the pilothouse, spied the oncoming ship low on the horizon. He called the description down to the CIC via the sound powered phone circuit.
“Looks big and looks like a box,” relayed the operations officer.
“OK, that’s probably a merch; XO was right, I’ll bet it’s a Toyota boat.”
Ten minutes later, the lookouts and the Exec confirmed that the contact was one of the big automobile carriers. Shaped like a shoebox with a narrow bow, a squat, overhanging stern, 100 foot high slab sides, swing ramps at the stern, two small stacks at the very back, and a pilothouse built into the front of the box over the bow, the 850 foot long car carriers transported over 2000 new automobiles on seven drive-through decks. They were modern, fin-stabilized, and fast ships especially designed and built to feed America’s unrelenting appetite for high quality Japanese cars and trucks.
“Contact is tracking 285 at twenty-two knots,” reported the surface supervisor.
“Pretty good for a single screw ship,” remarked the operations officer.
“Especially one that displaces around fifty, sixty thousand tons,” said Mike. “Leave it to the Japanese to make a ship as modern as their cars. Tell sonar what the classification is, and tell the bridge to keep us in this general area, five knots, random course changes every ten to fifteen minutes.”
As the operations officer passed the word down to Linc
in Sonar Control, Mike decided it was time for a tour of the ship. His large body was never meant to sit for hours on end even in the comfort of the Captain’s upholstered chair. He left CIC, and headed down the interior ladder to the 01 level, one deck below the bridge. He walked aft past radio central and his own cabin, and out through the watertight hatch onto the midships deck area. Bright sunlight reflecting off an aquamarine sea dazzled his eyes, and it took him a few minutes to get his full vision back.
He walked aft past the after deckhouse with its gun director perched on top, and came around the corner by the boat decks to Mount Fifty Two. The mount’s two steel doors were open, and the amplidyne motors shut down to prevent overheating. A gunner’s mate was sitting in each door. They got up as the Captain approached, and Mike motioned for them to sit down again.
“How’s GQ treating you guys,” he asked as he walked up to the big gun mount.
“OK, Cap’n,” replied the senior gunner. “We’re just waiting around to shoot somebody.”
Mike could see the brass fuse tips on the five inch shells gleaming in the transfer trays. The big gun’s automatic machinery could load and shoot forty two rounds of five inch diameter shells in one minute, and Goldsborough sported three of these mounts.
“Well, hopefully, you’ll get your chance, if this bad guy comes up on the surface.”
“You really think there’s a A-rab submarine out there, Cap’n?” asked the gunner’s mate.
“We think there’s a chance, gunner, just a chance. All of this may be for absolutely nothing, but as long as there’s a chance, it’s our job to try to get in his face and prevent an attack on Coral Sea.”
The gunners nodded.
“When’s the carrier coming?” asked the younger one.
“We expect the carrier to pass through this area on the way into Norfolk around 1600. But the submarine might be here right now, for all we know. We have to sit here quietly so’s we don’t spook him out to someplace where we can’t
get at him; when we see the bird farm come over the horizon, we’ll come up active and go looking.”
“So he could be drawin’ a bead on us right now, for all we’d know it,” observed the senior gunner, looking anxiously at the horizon.
“Well, he could,” replied Mike, “but if he took a shot at us before the carrier got here, it would reveal that he was here, and that would warn off the carrier. He’s only going to get one opportunity, and he’s not here to get a tin can. Way we see it, he has to wait, just like us.”
Both gunners looked around nervously at the calm, pristine sea.
“Sure hope you’re right about that, Cap’n,” said the senior gunner.
“Well, once the carrier comes over the horizon, we’ll probably find out. That’s when I’ll need all the eyeballs that are topside looking for periscopes, feathers, or torpedo tracks. If it stays flat calm like this, you guys will be as valuable as radar.”
Mike left them thinking about that, and headed aft down the ladder to the main deck. He continued aft along the main deck, glancing himself at the horizon, walking past Mount Fifty Three, greeting its gunner’s mates, and stopping at the depth charge racks. The racks were cleared for action, with each of the 500 pound depth bombs fuzed with bright brass fuse rings, and the stainless steel caps of the power supplies and depth sensors inserted. The two sonarmen who operated the rack stood to attention as Mike walked up. They were both dressed out in full battle gear, with one man wearing an oversized helmet to accommodate his sound powered phone circuit.
“At ease, Guys,” said Mike, taking in the dark patches of perspiration in their battle gear. It was hot back here on the fantail in the bright sunlight. “Got these hummers ready to go?”
“Yes, Suh,” replied the petty officer in charge, in a deep drawl. “You git us on top of that gomer, and we’ll open his ass up to underwater southern living.”
Mike smiled, These guys were ready to believe there was a submarine out here.
“That might be hard to do, guys,” he said. “The submarine isn’t going to just sit there while we drive over top of him.”
“We kin allays roll one or two if he’s nearby; guys at school say that sceers the shit out of ’em, and sometimes screws up their machinery to boot.”
“You ready to set fuzes quick-like?” asked Mike.
“Yes, Sir,” said the other petty officer, brandishing the Y-shaped fuse wrench.
Each depth charge had to be set by hand for the detonation depth, which ranged from 50 to 500 feet. The fifty foot setting had to be set twice, because a detonation at that depth would likely damage the ship dropping the depth charge. As a matter of course, the charges were all pre-set for 200 feet; that way, if the men on the fantail were incapacitated, the bridge could operate the release machinery remotely, drop them and get some effect. The rest of the Navy had long since given up depth charges, because they required the destroyer to maneuver right on top of the submarine. With the advent of high speed nuclear submarines, it was now the submarine that could out-maneuver the surface ship, thus making the depth charge attack almost impossible. Most ASW experts, however, still yearned for the depth charge capability, if only for the psychological effects of a five hundred pound bomb going off at depth, down there where the submarine lived. Very few submariners alive had ever been subjected to the sheer terror of depth bombs.
“We may have to do some fancy setting this afternoon,” said Mike. “The water depth here is around 300 to 350 feet, and this is a diesel boat we’re after. He can ride down to the bottom if he wants to, or be operating at sixty foot keel depth. But remember the basic rule, if I say roll one now, I mean now, and don’t take time to change the standard setting—just roll that bastard and assume the position.”
They grinned at him. The “position” was a deep knee bend held in the flexed position—a depth charge at 200
feet could still hammer the stern hard enough to break legs if the ship had not moved far enough away.
“Won’t be using any torpedoes at all, Cap’n?” asked one of the petty officers. He was a sonarman, and thus was privy to the weapons briefing conducted the night before.
“We might,” replied Mike. “Chances are the fish would acquire the bottom and attack that before it acquired the pigboat. But if we set it too shallow, it might acquire us instead of the pigboat—we’re the bigger target in the eyes of its sonar. I know they’ve got the fifty foot lockout but I wouldn’t want to bet my ass on that feature, not after that one jumped out of the water at a helo about ten years back. But I still might use one, especially if he shoots a fish at us —I’d fire back down the bearing of the incoming fish and let him take his chances while I try to get out of the way of his screamer. Either way, you can count on our using these beauties back here to get his attention away from the bird farm, if he shows up. So you guys be ready; from now until about 1800 is the attack window.”
They assured him that they and their deadly charges would be ready. Mike walked forward up the port side to the forward breaks, the weather shield structure underneath the pilothouse that protected the main decks from waves coming over the forecastle. He climbed a short, vertical ladder to the port torpedo platform, finding it harder to keep his balance with the steel helmet on. On the platform he found two torpedomen waiting for him at attention. He smiled mentally. The word was getting around the sound-powered phone circuits that the Old Man was making a tour; the torpedo decks had obviously been alerted.
The two torpedomen saluted Mike as he climbed through the chains at the top of the ladder. Mike returned their salutes and talked to them for a few minutes, answering questions and exhorting them to be on their toes for this afternoon’s possible engagement. Mike found out that one of the air flasks had a slow leak, and that the torpedo decks were having a problem getting 3000 pound air from the forward engineroom. Nothing beats personal reconnaissance, he thought, making a note of the problem.
One of the men pointed over towards the starboard side. The Toyota car carrier was steaming by, carving a creamy wake some 6000 yards away. Mike decided to get back up to the bridge and CIC. He’d yell at the snipes about the HP air. It was getting on to noon. He wondered briefly what Diane was doing.

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