The Trident Deception (23 page)

A year earlier, he was finishing up his three-year tour as commanding officer of the USS
Chicago
and had received orders to the Pentagon. But then the incoming CO of the
North Carolina
pulled up lame, disqualified from submarine service due to a second episode of kidney stones. After a quick reshuffling, Gallagher ended up with orders to the
Virginia
-class submarine, happy to have postponed what would surely be a tortuous tour of duty with the Washington brass. On a submarine base, commander was a prestigious rank. But Gallagher had heard the horror stories about the Pentagon, where senior Navy captains made coffee for the admirals, and commanders ran out for the sugar and stir sticks.

Thankfully, all that would wait, and in the meantime he had put his considerable experience to work. He had done two WESTPAC deployments while in command, and combined with his western runs as a JO and department head on Pearl Harbor–based 688s, he had more deployments under his belt than any other submarine commanding officer.

As his crew prepared to search the surrounding water, Gallagher looked up at the digital display of the submarine’s course, speed, and depth on the Ship Control Panel. The
North Carolina
had finished coasting down to ten knots, slowing now for the fourth time, having just passed the center of the target’s AOU. As a faint white trace began to materialize on the towed array display, the Officer of the Deck picked up the 27-MC microphone.

“Sonar, Conn. Report all contacts.”

36

USS
KENTUCKY
USS
NORTH CAROLINA

USS
KENTUCKY

On his way forward, Malone dropped down into Engine Room Lower Level. On watch in the bowels of the Engine Room was Petty Officer 3rd Class Bob Murphy. Halfway aft along the center passageway, Murphy examined a test tube held up to the light. Having just added two drops of silver nitrate to the water, Murphy gently swirled the test tube, checking for the milky-white evidence of a leak from the Main Seawater System, which cooled the steam back to water after it passed through the large turbines. After a negative result, Murphy emptied the clear fluid into the hazardous waste bucket, looking up in surprise at the submarine’s Commanding Officer, who had snuck up on him as he concentrated on his analysis, the whirr of the condensate pumps masking the sound of his arrival.

“Hi, Captain.”

Malone saw himself in the tall and lanky nineteen-year-old, who was from Dawson, Iowa, one hundred miles south of Malone’s hometown of Fenton. There wasn’t much difference between the Captain and the enlisted man standing before him, Malone figured. If not for a single conversation, he would have enlisted in the Navy right out of high school like Murphy, rather than receiving his commission as an officer. During his junior year in high school, he had considered enlisting, but his guidance counselor urged him to apply for a Navy ROTC scholarship instead. A year later, at age eighteen, he donned a Navy uniform for the first time as he entered Purdue University as a midshipman.

That was a long time ago, and his life had almost come full circle. Following this patrol, he would remove his uniform for the last time, returning to the home he’d left behind twenty-four years ago. The two men, one’s career beginning while the other’s ended, talked for a few minutes about Murphy’s family back in Iowa. After a while, Malone checked his watch; it was almost 0100. The two offgoing watch officers would soon be knocking on his stateroom door. He bid farewell to Petty Officer Murphy and headed forward.

USS
NORTH CAROLINA

Standing behind his OOD at his Tactical Workstation, Gallagher studied the faint white trace on the towed array display, waiting for the results of Sonar’s analysis. The faint trace meant the contact was either quiet or distant, and he wouldn’t know which until after the
North Carolina
’s first maneuver, watching what happened to the target’s bearing rate. But before he turned the ship, he would verify the contact was submerged. They couldn’t afford to waste time maneuvering for every trace picked up by Sonar.

The report from Sonar answered Gallagher’s question. “Conn, Sonar. Sierra five-seven is classified submerged.”

Gallagher turned to his Officer of the Deck. “Man Battle Stations silently.”

Standard protocols for manning Battle Stations—a shipwide 1-MC announcement followed by the loud
bong, bong, bong
of the General Alarm—would reverberate into the water through the submarine’s steel hull, potentially alerting the target if it was close and its sonar capable. So Gallagher had ordered Battle Stations manned silently. The Messenger and Auxiliary Electrician Forward hurried down to berthing, one swinging through the officer staterooms and Chief’s Quarters before joining the other in enlisted berthing, quickly rousing the crew. Four minutes later, the last watch station reported in.

The
North Carolina
was ready for combat.

Gallagher decided to wait before turning the ship, giving Sonar time to analyze the frequencies being emitted by the contact. Once the ship began its turn, the towed array would become unstable, snaking back and forth for several minutes. Only after it had straightened back out would its frequencies and bearings be reliable.

Finally, the report came across the 27-MC. “Conn, Sonar. The contact has standard Trident tonals.”

They had found their target.

“Pilot, left twenty degrees rudder, steady course one-eight-zero.”

Gallagher began the process of nailing down the target’s course, speed, and range, then turned his attention to his weapons. The torpedo tubes were flooded down and pressurized, but he had kept the outer doors shut during their sprint and drifts, as the flow noise across the open torpedo tubes would have been noticeable at ahead full. But that was okay, he had concluded. The
North Carolina
had improved outer door mechanisms, which opened much more quietly than those on other submarine classes. Now that they had found their adversary, it was time to make final preparations.

He turned to his Weapons Officer. “Open outer doors, tubes One and Two.”

USS
KENTUCKY

Sonar Supervisor Tony DelGreco, underway on his eighteenth patrol, adjusted his headphones for the umpteenth time this watch. The headphones, with their uncomfortable earmuffs, were connected to the submarine’s spherical array sonar, providing an audible companion to the visual display in front of him. The Navy had succeeded in designing headphones that were universally unpleasant to wear, so the three sonar techs took turns wearing them in shifts on their six-hour watch, giving their ears a break in between their two hours of penance each watch.

First Class Petty Officer DelGreco was on his third sea tour aboard a ballistic missile submarine, or boomer. He had logged hundreds of watches in Trident Sonar Rooms during his eighteen patrols, and thousands of hours wearing the despised headphones. As DelGreco adjusted the headphones yet again, he cocked his head to one side, startled by an unusual sound. It was faint but unmistakable—metal grinding on metal. As he pondered the source of the sound and what type of machinery might produce it, he heard it again; the same slow, metallic grind. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn it was a torpedo tube outer door opening. But it was lower pitched and smoother. Plus, they hadn’t received any water space advisories announcing the nearby passage of a submarine. One thing he was sure of, however, was that it wasn’t biologics. The sound came from something man-made.

Looking up at the sound velocity profile, DelGreco checked the temperature of the ocean from the surface down to the
Kentucky
’s depth. Since they held no contact, the noise must have traveled along a sound channel, trapped between a positive and negative temperature gradient, channeling the sound much farther than normal ocean conditions allowed. But there was a negative slope the whole way down, the water consistently cooling from the surface to the
Kentucky
’s depth. There was no sound channel.

Petty Officer Bob Cibelli caught the perplexed look on DelGreco’s face. “What’s up?”

“Mechanical transients. Sounded like a torpedo tube shutter door opening, but not quite. Take a listen.”

DelGreco rewound the digital recording, rubbing his ears as he handed the headphones to Cibelli. He hit Play, letting the junior technician listen.

“It’s different from the recordings in the trainers,” Cibelli agreed as he handed the headphones back to DelGreco. “Think we should inform the OOD?”

DelGreco mulled over whether they should bother the Officer of the Deck with what they had heard. The ocean was filled with hundreds of sounds they could never quite place.

“Naw,” DelGreco finally decided as he replaced the headphones around his ears. “Must be a trawler having a bad day somewhere.”

USS
NORTH CAROLINA

“Steady course north.”

“Very well, Pilot,” Gallagher replied.

The
North Carolina
had completed its latest maneuver, reversing course from the southern trajectory it had remained on for ten minutes, long enough to calculate a bearing rate to the contact and determine it was close. Much closer than Gallagher had expected. Their target was a quiet one indeed, truly on par with U.S. Trident submarines.

Gallagher had assumed the Conn when the
North Carolina
manned Battle Stations. Under routine operations, the submarine’s Officer of the Deck held both the Deck and the Conn; responsibility for the Deck meant overseeing the basic operation of the submarine, while the Conning Officer controlled the ship’s course, speed, and depth, and issued all tactical commands. These two functions were split during Battle Stations, the Deck Officer managing the ship’s routine evolutions while the Conning Officer led the submarine into battle.

The
North Carolina
’s towed array steadied, and reliable bearings began streaming into the Combat Control System. Slowly, the two fire control technicians and one junior officer began generating target solutions, adjusting parameters for course, speed, and range, constantly improving their solution. The XO, in charge of the Fire Control Tracking Party and responsible for determining the target’s solution within acceptable tolerances, hovered behind the three men as they refined their solutions.

They had held the target on three legs now—their original westward path, and on southern and northerly courses. Against a steady, unsuspecting contact, that would normally provide enough data for the operators and the Combat Control System algorithms to develop an adequate solution. The XO monitored all three combat control consoles, comparing the three solutions against each other as well as the automated result from the Combat Control System. For a given bearing rate or even several legs of data, there were multiple possible solutions for the target. How well the solutions tracked with each other as well as the raw sonar data on the screen was an indication of how solid their estimates were.

All three operators and the Combat Control System’s automated algorithm converged on a single solution for their contact, varying by only one hundred yards in range, a few degrees in course, and a fraction of a knot in speed.

The XO tapped one of the fire control techs on his shoulder. “Promote to Master.” The Fire Control technician complied, and the submarine’s geographic display updated with the Master solution to their target. Turning to the Captain behind him, the XO reported, “I have a firing solution.”

Gallagher announced loudly, “Firing Point Procedures, Sierra five-seven, tube One.”

USS
KENTUCKY

A few minutes earlier, Commander Malone had returned to his stateroom, expecting to find the two offgoing watch officers waiting to report their relief. Every six hours, from the moment the submarine cast off the last mooring line until the ship returned to port, the offgoing Officer of the Deck and Engineering Officer of the Watch reported to the Commanding Officer what had transpired during their watch and the current conditions throughout the ship. Even if the Captain was asleep, the two officers would wake him to report their relief.

Rather than be awakened each night, Malone toured the ship, arriving back at his stateroom in time for the officers’ report. But tonight no one was waiting. The two officers must have had a second helping of midrats, or perhaps they were discussing some issue with one of the watchstanders on duty. Rather than wait, Malone decided to swing back through Control. The offgoing OOD was the Sonar Officer; perhaps he was tied up with an issue in the sonar shack.

A moment later, Malone was back in the Control Room, opening the door to Sonar. Three petty officers were in the darkened sonar shack—the lights were extinguished to aid in detecting the faint traces on their displays. Malone closed the door behind him to keep out the light.

Petty Officer DelGreco looked up from his display. “Evening, sir. What brings you back to Sonar tonight?”

“Have you seen Lieutenant Costa?”

“He came through a few minutes ago on his after-watch tour. It seemed like he was running a bit late.”

“Yes, it does seem that way,” Malone agreed. He glanced at the sonar displays; there were no automated trackers assigned. “Looks pretty dead out there.”

“Yes, sir,” DelGreco replied. “Not a single contact this watch.”

Malone was about to leave Sonar—the two watch officers would arrive at his stateroom momentarily—when DelGreco added, “We did hear an unusual mechanical transient awhile ago, sir. Cibelli and I both listened to it, but couldn’t place it. Do you want to take a listen?”

“Sure,” Malone replied.

DelGreco handed Commander Malone the headphones and pulled up the recording.

USS
NORTH CAROLINA

Commander Gallagher stood patiently between the sonar and combat control consoles, waiting for the three reports required before the
North Carolina
could launch its torpedo. It would take less than a minute, but after commencing Firing Point Procedures, the submarine’s Commanding Officer would wait for the XO to inform him the firing solution had been fed to the Weapon Control Console, the Weps to report the appropriate weapon presets had been selected and sent to the torpedo, and the Navigator to reply that the submarine was prepared for potential counterfire. At that point, Gallagher would give the order to launch one of the
North Carolina
’s two MK 48 Mod 7 torpedoes, which at this range would be a sure hit. Even if the target alerted the instant the
North Carolina
fired, it was too close to successfully evade, and no decoy they could eject into the water would fool their new Mod 7 torpedo.