Boomer, page 21
If there had been more time, would the other members of the Defense Council have gone along with his opposition to activating this strategy? Doubtful. The USSR was led by a single individual in a figurehead position—the General Secretary of the Communist Party—but it was governed by that party, and neither he nor any other man was capable of mandating what the senior party members had not agreed upon. And they had decided, without his concurrence, to activate this man who had been so successfully planted within the U.S. military framework so many years before. The plan had been originated when the General Secretary was still outside the KGB, and now he bore the burden of responsibility. Why did their government function this way? Why was the system incapable of halting something like this? A few of those old men who originated that plan were still alive—and, though not a one of them had a word to say, they would be ecstatic with its success if they’d known.
The loneliest man in Russia rose from his desk and strolled slowly to the window. One-way glass prevented anyone from looking up at him, but it also produced an odd glare that altered his perception of the people on the walkways below. He couldn’t see whether any of them were familiar to him—but he was sure none of them wanted to die that day or the next, nor would they appreciate the sacrifice of their famines in a nuclear exchange with the U.S. The people no longer harbored the hatred for Americans that he and his friends remembered and that the old men retained with a vengeance. Most of them—those under forty, anyway—actually believed that the two nations could live with each other; separately, because they were so different, but many no longer saw the necessity for the ascendancy of only one system of government.
Less than an hour before, the KGB head had explained that the President of the United States remained behind closed doors with his closest advisors. There had been no response, no statement. Even his most highly placed intelligence operatives in Washington reported they had no access to any rumor of what might be taking place. Therefore, the assumption among his own advisors was that the White House was plotting revenge on the Soviet Union. Wouldn’t that be Washington’s natural reaction?
Now, before the discussion had even opened, it seemed a majority of the Defense Council was for carrying out the original intent of those past leaders—continue to destroy the SS8N element of the American triad. The USSR could neutralize the balance of U.S- striking power. A successful first strike by the USSR would eventually be a definite possibility. That’s exactly what one of them said, and others had enthusiastically agreed with him.
The General Secretary had questioned how the loss of just two SSBNs could justify that position. After all, there were a number of others, not to mention missiles and bombers. The answer had been that another American SSBN was about to be destroyed in the Pacific. One more after that would definitely alter the strategy in that part of the world. In the Atlantic, sufficient plans had been activated to neutralize enough of the Lafayette and Ben Franklin class of SSBNs to keep U.S. retaliation within acceptable bounds. Acceptable bounds! That’s what he was facing now.
His expressions of repugnance at the entire plan had fallen on too many deaf ears. More members of the small group than he anticipated—too many—now wondered if a first strike might not be their only solution now that they had gotten this far. He found more disagreement with his position than he would ever have imagined, enough so that he had been given time to reconsider that position. That meant that a silent revolt against his leadership was a distinct possibility. And he had few close associates he could depend on.
That’s what happened when a man distanced himself from the loyal party members. It was almost like being a prisoner in his own—no, not almost—he was technically a prisoner within the Kremlin if he did not accede.
Who should he turn to? Was there a single individual whose support would force the others to rethink their positions? He doubted that.
In the end the loneliest man in the Soviet Union called his wife and asked her to join him for dinner at his suite within the Kremlin. She was neither a lover of Americans nor a supporter of the party leadership, but perhaps she might offer a solution. At the least, she wouldn’t complain about the amount of vodka he anticipated drinking.
She’d understand.
If he could convey the gravity of his personal situation, she would understand and perhaps, just perhaps, bridge the widening chasm.…
“Hell nooo …” Jimmy Cross answered. His standard response, the affectation he assumed everyone enjoyed, was for Buck Nelson. They were the only ones in the wardroom. The question Florida’s captain had just asked concerned whether or not the sonar contact had been identified. “If I had to guess, I’d say it was a Russian submarine out to find out a little more about an American boomer.”
“That’s pretty definitive, I’d say.” Nelson was carefully polishing his rimless glasses with a wrinkled handkerchief, “What makes you so sure?”
“Well, all things considered, I can’t come up with anything else. Although we’ve been maneuvering to get a track on it, it still seems to be on the same general bearing, so that means it’s probably coming toward us if its sound remains as solid. It also means it probably could pick us up by pure dumb-ass luck. There’s no possible way it could know about our sector.” The executive officer was explaining his reasoning in his normal, slow drawl. Nothing was ever hurried with Jimmy Cross, and Nelson had yet to see anything that would ever excite his XO. Corn-patch hair fell over his forehead like a Grand Ole Opry star’s, and he looked as if he’d be just as comfortable in overalls and bare feet. Yet the man was more effective in an emergency than anyone Nelson had ever worked with. He fooled most people.
“Why couldn’t it be one of our own?”
“It could be, Captain. But they shouldn’t be in our sector without some warning to make sure we didn’t blow their ass out of the water. Perhaps if sonar conditions were better, we’d have an ID by now. When in doubt.…” He shrugged without finishing the sentence when the phone buzzed.
“Captain here.” Nelson listened patiently. “Thank you. I’ll stop up if you need me. Otherwise.…” He hung up the phone, then replaced his glasses very carefully, balancing them precisely on his nose with the thumbs and index fingers of both hands. “There. Perhaps you have a point, Jimmy. That was Dan Mundy and he says there’s a definite change in the sound clarity of that contact. Maybe he slowed down.”
“Which means that he figured if he hears us, then we may be able to hear him. And if he’s as smart as we are, he’s going to reduce his noise signature as much as possible to see how close he can get.” Cross rubbed his chin with the back of his hand to see if he needed a shave. He always claimed it was tough to see the blond stubble, which was preferable to admitting he could forget simple, personal hygiene during those periods when he never slept. His inability to note the passing of days was a direct result of catnapping at sea instead of sleeping for any regular period of time. “You know those Russians like to sneak in from behind and just listen.”
“Dan said the chief just couldn’t classify a type or anything like that, so we have to assume he’s probably still at a distance.” Buck Nelson was peering over his glasses now in a manner that said he was looking for a suggestion.
“Don’t let him sniff our butt, Captain. That’s what I say.”
“Me, too.” Nelson picked up the phone and pressed the button for the control room. “Jeffrey, we’re going to let you take the ride of your life—so strap yourself down. Wind her all the way up to fifteen knots and change course to the southeast corner of the sector. And continue the roller-coaster ride, too.” He listened to the response from his OOD, winked at Cross and said, “That’s right, you could be the next galloping ghost.”
“He needs an attack boat his next tour,” the XO said, “something he can use to go charging after the bad guys.”
“Sometimes I think he should have gone to Pensacola and got himself some wings. He’s good enough to do anything he wants. So tell me, Jimmy,” he continued in the next breath, “what would you do if you were a Russian sub who just happened on to an unfriendly boomer and then found you were losing contact?”
“Speed up.”
“Make more noise?”
“It’s all relative if I thought my contact had turned away. Hell, if you’re aggressive, you go after the other guy. You’d be chickenshit if you didn’t.”
“That ought to give us a better idea of what we’ve got. We’ll just have that towed array hanging out back and listen until he speeds up enough to tell us who he is and what he wants.” Nelson smiled. “I’m like Jeffrey. I was getting kind of bored myself. Why don’t you go on back up there and explain to everyone what we want, and maybe I’ll get myself a nap until something happens.”
Back in his stateroom Buck Nelson removed only his shoes, placing them neatly on the deck where his feet would land if he were called in an emergency. Then he stretched out on his bunk. Better to grab an hour or so now. If they were really being followed by a Soviet attack boat, he knew he probably wouldn’t get any sleep for who knew how long.
He closed his eyes. They snapped open by themselves. What was it that Mark Bennett taught him once when sleep wouldn’t come? There really was a method of relaxing. If you were willing to work at sleep … work at sleep? When you’re this tired?
He began with the same old method out of habit— inhaling deeply, exhaling slowly, tightening and loosening the muscles in his arms and legs one at a time. But when he closed his eyes, his brain immediately took over and started to design something—what the hell will it be this time? Why couldn’t he just turn it off? Why did he have to design things when he wanted to sleep?
Their house in Bangor had been completely laid out in his mind before the land had ever been bought. Once the property was theirs, he sat down at a table with Cindy one day and put it down on paper, the location on the lot, the outside from foundation to peak, each room, even the amenities that made it more livable than any of the places they’d ever rented. It was a compilation of everything he and Cindy ever talked about, and it flowed from his mind like water from a pitcher.
He’d done the same thing with submarines. If he’d been a naval designer, the submarines would have been a hell of a lot different. More livable certainly, especially the attack boats. But they also would have cost more, and that’s why Buck Nelson drove them and others designed them.
This time his mind was playing games. Damn if he wasn’t designing a miniature submarine just for Jeff Sones. The kid wanted to drive boats like he was a fighter pilot. Okay, Nelson’s mind was in synch and putting together one that would blow Sones’s mind. What a power plant. And steering surfaces that would put Sones and his crew in harnesses like those pilots. Before his brain let him go, Buck had created the most beautifully maneuverable submarine in the world. No torpedoes—but one hell of a ride!
Then he fell asleep.
Neil Arrow, arms swinging with his step, was in the lead, walking at a steady pace down the wide dirt road in the Waianae foothills. It was his turf, his idea, and he’d guaranteed they could do it without being seen. So all four of them, still in civilian clothes, had piled into the rented car and Arrow had driven them to the hills west of Pearl Harbor, where they could stretch their legs and get a little exercise.
“Why not?” Larsen had agreed when Neil suggested they get away from the base. “Spruance and Nimitz used to do it all the time. Spruance was a health nut. He’d get out beyond Makalapa with his commander-in-chief and walk Nimitz’s ass off. Let’s see if you gents can keep up with me.”
They’d gone at least a mile at full tilt with Ray Larsen in the lead before he abruptly slowed down and said, “Okay, now that you’ve all met your maker, Neil can take the lead. The horse knows the way.” The CNO was sweating profusely and droplets rolled from under his red crew cut down his neck to stain his shirt.
“Ray Spruance was a generation too early. He would have loved to know you,” Robbie Newman muttered. He was the least athletic of the group and was puffing visibly. “I was damned if you were going to get the best of me, but you came close to having another casualty on your hands if you kept up that pace.”
Larsen held up two fingers and grinned. “Two casualties, Robbie. Look at OP-02 over there,” he said, pointing at Mark Bennett, “He can hardly catch his breath. What do you say there, Admiral? Going to issue a directive on physical fitness to the sub force?”
“I’m going to call your wife when I get back and tell her she was almost a widow.” Mark Bennett glanced over to Arrow. “You were thinking about it, too, weren’t you?”
They were strolling easily now up a gentle path with heavy undergrowth on either side. The air was thick. It seemed to Bennett that the birds chattering in the canopy of trees over the path were making an effort to compete with the conversation.
Neil Arrow let out a sigh of relief. “You’re lucky you gave in, Ray. None of us would have ever blown the whistle on the other guy.”
“You were right, you know, Neil,” Larsen answered. “This really is relaxing. I needed it as much as anyone. I think we were definitely getting too close to the problem.”
Arrow could sense the undercurrent of frustration and resentment that persisted among the four of them. It scared him. Decisions made in the heat of anger could come back to haunt you. In this case, there was no margin for error. They weren’t in the driver’s seat on this one, never had been. Every bit of information that came to them, as meager as it was, was new. Someone else was calling the shots this time. Their initial goal was to confirm just who the enemy was in this case. It had to be the Soviet Union.
But this was so unlike the General Secretary’s recent efforts. Why was he pushing a nuclear confrontation? That was the only purpose they could envision. What mistakes had been made on the U.S. side so far? They had to neutralize the situation and then come back swinging. It was necessary to be rational, consistent, cautious, regardless of what was happening. Anger had no place in their decisions.
Each of them had been mulling over their own thoughts for a few moments when Arrow turned toward Ray Larsen. He opened his mouth to speak, then realized his thoughts hadn’t fully jelled.
“Go,” said Larsen, jabbing a finger in his direction, then dropping it to his side with a sheepish smile.
“You don’t have to give up your bad habits completely, Ray. We wouldn’t know how to react.” Arrow tried to glare at the CNO but his expression became a satisfied smile. The man was set in his ways but he was trying. “I’ve got an idea we ought to be thinking more about Pasadena, other than her being lost.”
“Why?”
“That’s a point,” Newman muttered to himself. “She was in absolutely superb shape.” He saw submarines as machines that either functioned perfectly or sank. It was black and white. As far as he was concerned, there wasn’t the least hint that Pasadena could perform any other way but perfectly. The so-called “deadwood” that Newell, her captain, transferred off his own boat were considered excellent performers on others. Therefore, why not consider other aspects? If human error was a possibility, why not human fallibility?
“What’d you say, Robbie?” Bennett asked.
“Pasadena. She was in terrific shape. That’s Wayne Newell’s boat. All of his have always been 4.0, engineering-wise, I mean,”
“Whatever way you want to look at them,” Bennett commented “He’s so goddamned squeaky, I’d hate to work for him.”
Larsen looked in Bennett’s direction briefly. “How well do you know him?”
“He was one of my officers when I had Stonewall Jackson. “
“Was he like that then?”
“I don’t know when he wasn’t like that.”
“You don’t like him, Mark?”
“I wouldn’t pick him out to go drinking with … even if he did drink,” he added as an afterthought.
“How about fighting a war?”
Bennett glanced at the CNO, who was staring straight ahead. “He’s driven to perfection. He would either sink everything that came anywhere near him or go down trying. And before you start telling me that’s the only way to do it, Ray, you were the one who told me there’s no point in sacrificing a submarine for a single target unless you were sure it was the ultimate target.”
“Did I say that?”
“You’re damn right you did. Newport. Naval War College. Visiting lecturer. I was a student, and I’ll regurgitate everything you said that day, even most of the percentages you quoted.”
Newman moved up beside Larsen. “Sounds like he’s got you.” He could sense the tension had disappeared somewhere during the first mile. “Why are you so interested in Wayne Newell?”
“I don’t know,” Larsen answered uneasily. “I hadn’t even thought about him until you brought up his name. I guess I get scared by perfect people. Maybe it’s a sixth sense. I didn’t even think of who Pasadena’s CO, was until you mentioned it, Robbie.”
“He’s good, isn’t he, Mark? I mean beyond your distaste for his drinking habits,” Newman asked.
“Yeah, I recommended him for an XO’s billet when he was ready to leave old Stonewall. He wouldn’t make mistakes. Like we’ve all said, it would have had to be human error for her to disappear.”
“Come on.” Larsen turned abruptly to the rear. “I feel better now, Neil. Maybe Spruance had the idea first, but you hit it right on the head this time. We all needed this. Let’s take another look at Pasadena’s position.”
“What are you thinking?” Bennett asked.
“I’m not, not really. I’m just taking shots in the dark,” He looked over his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s pick up the pace again. I feel like a new man,” Robbie Newman hadn’t really said what he was thinking, but Ray Larsen was sure at that moment that he’d read Robbie’s mind.
Manchester had been running east on the bottom leg of Florida’s sector at about ten knots, varying her depth to counter the temperature gradients that affected sonar conditions. She had yet to detect a sound that could be considered manmade. Frustration, compounded by hours of anticipation, had become an enemy.
