Undetected (8 page)

The
Nevada
blue crew commander, Nathan Irish, took an envelope from his pocket, slit the seal, and removed a sheet of paper that Bishop had signed three months before departure.

“The authentication keys not used during the patrol,” Bishop said. He read off numbers on the packets as Nathan checked the list. “The four keys that were used during the patrol,” Bishop added, taking out the opened foil packets, showing them to Nathan, and reading off the numbers.

“Verified, Commander,” Nathan confirmed.

Rear Admiral Bowen signed the sheet confirming the numbers and placed the gray case into his briefcase. “
Nevada
gold, your commander's key.” Bishop handed over the key. “Now the missile keys.”

Bishop removed the ring of 24 missile keys from the safe. Rear Admiral Bowen took the keys, inserted them one at a time into a series of locks along the edge of a long narrow white case, turning each one. “Keys are verified.”

“Blue concurs,” Nathan said.

Rear Admiral Bowen placed the missile keys in the briefcase. The day before blue crew left on patrol, the missile keys, new authentication cards, a new commander's key for a re-keyed gray box, and new safe combinations would all be given to Nathan Irish.

The foil-wrapped card used to authenticate a genuine
presidential message and the 24 missile keys were two parts of the arming mechanism aboard the
Nevada
. In the missile control room safe—the combination known only to the chief weapons officer on board—was an enabling key that turned on the system. The final piece of the puzzle—the master firing trigger—was locked in another safe, and the only two people who knew that safe combination were the head of Strategic Command and the President of the United States.

Rear Admiral Bowen locked the briefcase and cuffed it to his wrist. “Thank you, gentlemen. USS
Nevada
is now off duty. May all her patrols be so quiet.” He left the stateroom, his job finished.

Bishop took a deep breath, let it out, and accepted that the job was done. He looked at Nathan. “I stand ready to be relieved of command,” Bishop said simply.

“I relieve you of command,” Nathan replied in kind.

They shook hands. “The boat is yours. Take good care of her, Nathan,” Bishop said.

“I'll do my best, Mark.”

Irish picked up the phone's receiver on the wall. “This is the captain. Sound Blue.”

The topside speaker gave the four whistles of blue crew assuming command.

Bishop shouldered his duffel bag and headed back through narrow corridors and up the ladders until he stepped out on the slopping deck of the USS
Nevada
just aft of the sail. More than 50 men could comfortably walk on the deck surface. Bishop glanced up at the sail rising a story above him, felt again how small he was compared to this submarine on which he served. Topside security had already changed over
to blue crew personnel. Bishop walked across the ramp and off the boat that was no longer his to command.

“Lieutenant Junior Grade Greg Olson,” the master of ceremonies announced.

Bishop pinned the dolphins on Olson's aquaflage uniform. “Congratulations, Lieutenant. You've earned the right to be called a submariner.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Ensign Richard Quail,” the master of ceremonies next announced.

Bishop accepted another set of dolphins from the Chief of the Boat and pinned them on Quail. “Congratulations, Ensign. You've earned the right to be called a submariner.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Bishop didn't immediately move away. “Good job stumping your captain with the last question of the patrol,” he said in a low voice. “You had that one saved up for the final day?”

Ensign Quail smiled slightly. “Yes, sir.”

Bishop smiled back. “You do the
Nevada
proud.”

He walked the stage pinning 14 of his men with dolphins as their families and crewmates looked on.

Rear Admiral Hardman took the podium to congratulate the men and welcome the crew home.

Before the rear admiral could return to his seat, the chief engineer for
Nevada
gold came forward. He presented Hardman with the Seaweed Trophy—in commemoration of all the clinging tangles work related to the sea always caused—the award received in good humor by the rear admiral and the crew.

Bishop let his Chief of the Boat conduct the final business of the day. “Crew of the
Nevada
, you are dismissed,” the man announced.

Cheers erupted across the ballroom.

Bishop moved through the crowd, speaking with gold crew family members, stood for pictures with crewmen, made a point to greet the four mothers of infants born while the fathers were at sea.

The ombudsman for the gold crew joined him. Amy Delheart, his chief engineer's wife, was a volunteer and the only civilian on his small staff. He depended on her for an in-depth knowledge of the crew's families and what happened onshore while they were out on patrol. “A very nice ceremony, Mrs. Delheart. Thanks for your help getting it organized.”

“My pleasure, Commander.”

The 104 wives of gold crew personnel looked to her as their lifeline while their husbands were away. Mark had read her shore summary as soon as they docked. Four births, three car accidents, one burglary. The events weren't as serious as they sometimes were. He would talk more with her about the marriages that were shaky, the ones having financial difficulties, and similar topics, when she sat down with him later for a full debrief.

“Have a date for me?” she asked.

“Announce the commander's backyard barbecue for Saturday, April 29th,” he confirmed. “Gold crew and families, significant others are all welcome. We'll go nine a.m. to nine p.m. again this year.”

“It's a wonderful tradition. Families are looking forward to it.”

“So am I.” Bishop signaled his chief engineering officer.
“Your husband is now on R and R. Take him home,” he ordered with a laugh. “I'm going to go find civilian clothes and somewhere with a pizza. I'll call you in a couple of days to set up a time for a full debrief.”

Bishop made a decision as he drove away from the Pizza Hut. He turned not toward his home but toward Jeff's condo. Gina Gray was now a concern on both a professional and personal level. Jeff wasn't here yet to watch out for her. Bishop nodded to security as he made his way up the walk, carrying the remainder of an order in a pizza box. Jeff's car was in the driveway. Mark assumed she was driving it while Jeff was at sea. He rang the doorbell.

It was three minutes before the door opened and Gina appeared. “I woke you up,” Mark said, apologizing. It was just after three. He'd figured she would have slept and been up by now. She was in jeans, T-shirt, bare feet, her eyes still looking sleepy as she brushed her hair back with her hands.

“One of the hazards of working nights. It's no problem. I would have been up soon anyway.” She lifted a hand to cover a yawn, contradicting her words.

“I stopped by to offer a quarter of a leftover pizza, ask if you needed anything, and to pass on some news.”

“The pizza's welcome.” She lifted the lid, nodded her thanks. “I'll have a good meal to take along tonight. I'm good, Mark. It's comfortable here.”

“I've confirmed Jeff will tentatively be home on April 25th.”

“Thanks for that good news.”

“I also spoke with Rear Admiral Hardman. We'd like you
to keep news of what you're working on to the small group who already knows, plus Jeff. There will be a sea trial as soon as you're ready for one. I can plan it for you or you can have Jeff plan it after he gets back—whatever you're comfortable with. Just let us know what data you need collected, and we'll map out the maneuvers.”

“Seriously?” Her surprise sounded genuine.

“Whatever you need, Gina, the admiral wants you to have. I'll make sure you get it.”

“He doesn't want to see data, probabilities, and risk assessments first?”

Bishop smiled. “He wants to know if it works. It will be my job to design a sea trial that minimizes the risks.”

The phone rang behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. “Come in a minute, Mark. I've been taking messages since Jeff's machine long ago filled up.”

She disappeared into the kitchen with the pizza box. Mark stepped into the entryway, closed the door behind him, and stayed put rather than trail after her.

Gina rejoined him a few moments later. “Sorry.”

“You need to shut off the ringer if you hope to get some decent sleep.”

“True.” She pushed a hand through her hair again. “You went out on a limb with Rear Admiral Hardman for an idea that might not work.”

“Not much of a limb. If it does work, the cost of putting the boats to sea and the time spent for the sea trial will look in hindsight like the obvious decision. If it fails, you'll be able to tell us why, and we'll know what to watch for if someone else tries to develop the technique. But the more I think about it, I believe it's going to work, Gina.”

She looked at him, uncertain. “Why would you think that?”

“Cross-sonar is a brilliant combination of simple ideas elegantly put together. You've got the ability to make the leaps of imagination necessary to create ways of doing something out of whole new cloth. If I had to guess, I'd say what you're working on right now is probably deceptively simple.”

She didn't answer him for a long moment. She sat down on the carpeted steps to the second floor and wrapped her arms around her knees. She finally nodded, more to herself than him, and glanced up. “Define a ping for me.”

He tilted his head, realized he was about to get schooled, and leaned back against the doorjamb with a smile. “A ping is a sound generated by a submarine, which will echo off of other objects. By listening to those echoes, software can identify where another sub is located.”

She nodded. “The concept was developed decades ago and has been done essentially the same way ever since.”

“It works well at finding objects in the water, in particular other submarines,” Bishop agreed. “But it gets the guy who pinged killed. It's a basic tenant of submarine warfare that to ping is to get yourself a torpedo in reply since the sound gives away your own position.”

He pushed his hands into his pockets. She looked so young sitting there, and yet this was the lady who had come up with cross-sonar. “What's your idea, Gina?” he asked softly.

“Acoustical hardware today can hear very faint echoes. I don't need to use a loud sound for the ping. I can use something just above a whisper and still hear the echoes. My idea is so simple, Mark, I've hesitated to say it.” She bit her lip. “I simply removed generating a man-made sound for the ping. I'm recording ocean noise and replaying a brief clip
of it, whatever was the loudest moment in the last couple of minutes.”

He blinked at her comment, felt himself miss a breath.

She went on, “I record ocean noise, replay a fraction of it as my active ping, create an echo template based on the precise sound I'm sending out, listen for that echo, and declare if another submarine is out there. It's the traditional active ping that's always been done, just a different sound source.

“The algorithm requires a very precise echo template, six digits less than a minute of a degree, and that template has to be generated in real time for the sound being sent out. It requires cross-sonar running and four hydrophone sets in sync. It takes massive computing power and exquisite acoustical hardware—both of which the U.S. submarine fleet now has deployed on its fast-attacks and boomers.”

She spread her hands. “To someone listening, the ping sounds like ocean noise because that's what it is. Oh, and the idea has built-in security. That realization was an added surprise—a pleasant one—for me. Every ping I generate is different. Even if you suspect one faint sound might have been something odd, you never hear it again. I don't know how you'd tell you're being actively pinged by this algorithm. I have a difficult time picking out an audio file with pings from one without pings, even when I know what I should be trying to find.”