Operation Ice Breaker, page 22
“During deep lockout training, we connect a trainee to his experienced partner with a buddy line. If we can put you in the water after the Mystic ops, we’ll use buddy lines. Rely on your buddy! One more thing. Comms when you’re on an umbilical go through our descrambler. It makes it much easier to understand one another. With the rebreather, you are communicating through the water—no descrambling. Talk slowly and clearly. You will get used to it, but it will take a while. Any questions?”
“Who has been inside the Alfa?” Cook asked.
“Nobody yet,” I answered. “Before we picked up you guys, I was going to pressurize the interior and enter, but our high command nixed that idea in favor of you guys and the Mystic.”
Gilbert Edwards, the DIA Soviet reactor specialist, raised his hand. I nodded at him.
“The guys have pretty much explained the saturation diving concept to us, but I’m still unsure about the ceiling. Can you talk to that for a couple of minutes?”
“Sure. If you are saturated to thirty-three feet, you can come right to the surface without suffering any consequences. But if you saturate at forty feet, you cannot come shallower than about seven feet without suffering the bends, when the dissolved nitrogen or helium (if you are breathing mixed gas) in your body comes out of solution to form bubbles. The bends are very painful and can be fatal. A body can tolerate a one-atmosphere difference between its saturation level and the ambient pressure. That’s the background information. In practice, we have discovered that there is increasing leeway as your saturation depth is deeper.
“What this means for you outside Teuthis is that you will be saturated to four hundred sixty-five feet. The Teuthis is at four hundred seventy feet, but the Egress hatch is five feet shallower. We have learned experimentally that you can actually ascend to three hundred sixty-nine feet without any consequences when saturated to our depth. There’s a little bit of wiggle room in these numbers, but I don’t want you to take any chances. DO NOT ascend above three hundred sixty-nine feet! That is your ceiling.
“Does this answer your question?” I asked.
I got a thumbs-up from all four DIA guys.
“Any more?”
Matthias Hart lifted a finger. “How does the rebreather differ from the umbilical?”
“At our depth, the oxygen percentage in your breathing gas is one-point-four. That’s the same number of oxygen molecules that you breathe on the surface, but, obviously, the percentage is a lot smaller. On the umbilical, the gas console operator in Dive Control controls your oxygen percentage. On the rebreather, the electronics in your rig control your oxygen percentage. Should your oxygen cylinder begin to run low, your oxygen gauge will start to creep down. If your buddy can’t fix it, you must return to Teuthis right away. If it begins to creep up, you’re getting too much oxygen. Your dive partner should be able to fix that on the spot.
“But all this is hypothetical. For now, anyway, the DIA guys will stay dry. We’re going to put Harry and Ski in the water to get as many external photos as possible. After that, we’ll put you DIA guys inside the Alfa. I’ll be joining you.”
Ham pressed down the entire dive team. He designated Harry and Ski to get the photos, Whitey and Jer to tend them, and Jimmy and Jake in reserve in the Main Lock.
The skipper joined us in Dive Control. “Listen up,” he said as he took the mike so the divers in the DDC could hear as well. “I don’t want any of you to think that I don’t trust you with the photos you will be taking and with the documents that Commander McDowell will bring back from the Alfa. Each of you has my utmost respect and full confidence. Nevertheless, we can’t make the photos nor any of the documents available for your personal perusal. We are dealing here with a strict need-to-know. All of you understand that. Our technological and military superiority depends on everyone in the chain of command right down to the Deck Gang fully complying with the spirit of what need-to-know means. Without the efforts of each of you, we could not be pulling off this remarkable intelligence coup. Thank you for that.”
The skipper handed the mike back to Ham and leaned back against the bulkhead to watch the proceedings.
Harry dropped to the seafloor first, and then Ski followed. Between them, they carried four waterproof cameras. Wally illuminated the bottom ahead of them with the Basketball as they moved toward the Alfa.
When they arrived, Gil Edwards, the reactor specialist, said, “Check out the scoops. See if anything clogged them.”
The divers first went to the scoop on the starboard side halfway between the sail and the screw, snapping photos along the way.
“The scoop looks normal,” Harry said. He shined his light into the scoop, snapping more photos. “Looks clear.”
They went around the bow to the port side, where Ski inspected that scoop. “It’s clear,” he announced. More photos.
“Hey, Ken,” Harry said, “the hull is covered with some kind of acoustic tile. You should be able to see it on the monitor. Here and there, tiles are missing.”
“Check the after hatch,” Bob Taggert, the Mystic pilot, said.
The divers went to the after hatch where the Mystic would hook up. “There’s a tile-free ring around the hatch,” Harry commented. “Looks like it will accommodate the Mystic.”
I turned to Taggert and said, “You guys need to get ready for your excursion. How long will it take to be ready to decouple from Teuthis?”
“A half-hour.”
“Okay, I’ll send the DIA guys back shortly, and I’ll join you right before you decouple.”
The divers swam forward, lingering at the bow for several minutes while they inspected the damage carefully and poked around inside the sonar dome. Matt followed their progress on the monitor.
As luck would have it, a local narwhal pod that kept the ice cover broken somewhere nearby decided to investigate the divers’ activities. The first I knew about it was when Hart yelled, pointing at the monitor, “Holy shit! What the fuck is that?”
“It’s a curious narwhal, Matt,” I told him. “It won’t hurt the divers.”
Another appeared in the circle of light. And another, without a tusk.
“You sure?” Hart asked. “They won’t stab the guys?”
“Those aren’t weapons, Matt, they’re sensing probes.”
“Really…?”
“Yeah… They’ll stay with the divers till they need air. They must have a polynya nearby.”
Hart directed the divers’ attention to several items in the dome that particularly interested him. Harry and Ski used up the rest of their film on Hart’s requests.
“Okay,” I told them, “return to Teuthis. Stay wet in case we need you for the Mystic launch.”
I turned to the DIA team. “Showtime,” I said. “I’ll meet you in the Mystic in ten minutes.”
I looked at Ham. “You got it, Ham. If you really need me, you can reach me by communicating with Lieutenant Taggert.” I sighed. “I want this over and done. With the Carp out there somewhere—I really have no idea how much time we still have.”
ON THE SEAFLOOR—MYSTIC OPS
I decided to put all the DIA guys inside the Alfa at one time so they could interact, and so we could save time. I would accompany them because I knew submarines and I knew diving, and—frankly—because I could.
Mystic was clamped into a cradle that was lashed to the deck with multiple tie-downs. “The Mystic can unclamp itself from the cradle and clamp itself back into the cradle from within the minisub,” Bob Taggert told me. “It has multiple ways of attaching itself to the Alfa, but the primary way is the external fifteen atmospheres of pressure holding it in place. Once we get the hatch open, we will figure out exactly how to clamp Mystic down as a backup safety measure.”
I called the skipper. “We’re ready to commence Mystic ops. I’ll be transferring to the Alfa with the DIA team.”
“Thank you, Mac. Keep the Carp in mind. We’re just outside our territorial waters, but it isn’t as if there were a major military installation nearby to back us up.”
“Aye, Sir.”
I had ridden aboard Mystic years earlier—before Operation Ivy Bells—while serving aboard the DSRV mothership USS Pigeon (ASR-21). Even though the entire DSRV-based submarine rescue system was a cover for Ivy Bells and subsequent operations, it still had to function. On the Pigeon, we were working out some of the bugs in the system. Now, here we were actually using a DSRV in a manner never anticipated by the developers, most of whom had no clue about Ivy Bells or what we were undertaking.
I went aft to the Engine Room and clambered up through the escape hatch into Mystic. The interior of the vehicle comprised three metallic spheres linked by access hatches: the forward sphere for the DSRV operators, and the rear two for passengers and equipment. The DIA team had brought with them cameras and film, and several tool kits, trying to anticipate whatever fittings, bolts, and screws they might find on the Alfa. The pilots, Bob and Jim, were in the forward sphere, the piloting module. They settled into their chairs in front of a complex instrument panel that incorporated monitors, gauges, dials, and read-outs. The DIA guys entered the after sphere and took seats on the spare benches, while Senior Chief Abelé and Petty Officer Flanger joined me in the mid-sphere.
“Everybody ready?” Bob asked.
He received a chorus of Ayes, Let’s do its, and Okays. One of the Teuthis engineers sealed both trunk hatches, and Flanger sealed the Mystic hatch. Shortly thereafter, several quiet clanks indicated that Mystic was free of her constraints. I placed myself in the open hatch between the pilot-sphere and the mid-sphere. I followed our progress on the video displays from the fore and aft cameras. We lifted off the cradle, rotated to point toward the Alfa, and then applied a burst of speed. Since we had only 200 feet to cover, Bob commenced reverse thrusting the moment the shadow of the Alfa appeared on the forward monitor. Shortly thereafter, we could see part of it through the other monitors.
Bob eased over the hatch, examining carefully his display that showed an actual image of the hatch with a superimposed outline of the skirt. “It’s tight,” he said, “but it will fit.”
He slowly lowered Mystic over the hatch until we heard a solid clunk. Petty Officer Flanger opened a valve that allowed the water captured in the skirt at fifteen atmospheres to flow into a drain tank on Mystic. Once the pressure equalized, he pumped the remaining water into the same tank.
“Looks like we got a good seal,” Flanger said. “Skirt pressure equalized, skirt dry. Request permission to open hatch.”
“Open the hatch,” Bob answered.
I stepped back into the mid-sphere to watch the hatch opening. It opened inward, dripping with water. Below was the hatch of the Soviet Alfa submarine. Despite myself, I felt a thrill. We were about to conduct a game-changing first.
What we didn’t know was whether the Alfa was at one atmosphere or not. She could have been flooded. Flanger attached a pressure gauge to a recessed nipple on the hatch apparently put there for just this purpose.
“One atmosphere inside the Alfa,” Flanger reported.
The Alfa hatch had a recessed fitting that looked like it could be turned with a ratchet handle with the proper attachment.
“That’s a standard Soviet fitting,” Cook said. “I’m certain we have one in our tool kits.”
“I got one,” Long said, “and the matching ratchet handle.” He handed them to Senior Chief Abelé.
Abelé started to place the wrench on the hatch fitting.
“Hold it,” I said. “We don’t know anything about the air inside the Alfa. I want everyone out of the mid-sphere except myself and the senior chief. We’ll wear breathing masks. You guys seal the spheres.”
It made a lot of sense, and nobody argued. It might have helped that I was the senior officer present, but submariners never were compliant sheep, and I’m sure the DIA guys could think for themselves.
The others quickly sealed the hatches between the spheres. “Here,” Abelé said, handing me a full-face breathing mask attached to a manifold.
We both donned our masks.
“Let’s do it,” I said.
Abelé lay flat on his stomach. He was just able to reach the hatch fitting. He grunted a couple of times, and then the fitting began to turn clockwise. He worked the ratchet for what amounted to several turns of the fitting. He placed his left hand flat on the hatch and pushed downward while he twisted the ratchet a final bit. As he eased the pressure with his left hand, the hatch swung up on its springs, emitting a slight hiss.
Abelé dropped a probe attached to a wire into the open trunk. He checked the readout on an instrument attached to the sphere bulkhead.
“No radioactivity, oxygen normal, no unusual organics,” Abelé said. “It looks like normal air.” He reported the finding to the pilot. “Okay, now for the big one.”
Abelé climbed down the rungs in the trunk and placed himself so he could spin the wheel to open the bottom hatch while remaining out of its way when it opened.
It opened easily on its springs. The compartment below was dark. Abelé lowered his probe into the darkness. “Again, no radioactivity, oxygen normal, no unusual organics,” he said. “We’re good to go, Lieutenant,” he told the pilot.
ON THE SEAFLOOR—INSIDE THE ALFA
Abelé opened the hatch to the aft-sphere. The DIA team crowded into the mid-sphere, eager to get into the Alfa.
“Each of you has your headlamp and voice-activated recorder?” I asked.
Nods from everybody.
“Camera and spare rolls of film?”
Nods again.
“Guys, this may be our only chance to gather the intel down there.” I pointed down the hatch. “Keep your wits about you. Talk into your recorder, and key your audio notes to the photos you take. If Bob gives us an emergency evac order, get the hell out of Dodge…right now… immediately. All our lives may depend on this.” I turned my headlamp on and stepped onto the rungs in the trunk. “I’m headed inside. Wyatt has assigned tasks to each of you. Let’s turn-to!”
I started talking into my miniature voice-activated cassette recorder as I dropped into what turned out to be the front of the Alfa’s Engine Room. As I hit the deck, the lights came on—apparently sensing my motion.
“I see a closed watertight door just ahead of me,” I dictated. “I am opening it. I have stepped into a space…the lights came on…it is an auxiliary machinery space. I’m walking down the port side of a large generator. There is a passage on the starboard side as well. I’m at the forward bulkhead. A WT door has a radiation sign on it.” I cracked the door and stuck a radiation probe through the opening. It indicated no radiation.
“I am entering the Reactor Compartment. The lights came on. There is no radiation. I am passing through a lock near the center on the port side. I am stepping into a space filled with electronic cabinets, and looking forward, I can see a series of consoles in a U-shape with the open end toward me. We’ll designate this space the Control Compartment.
I continued to state my observations into my recorder. “I will call the U-shaped console area the Control Center. The ‘U’ consists of eleven instrument/control panels with built-in desks. Each panel has a seat attached to the deck that swivels and moves in-and-out and up-and-down.” I examined each panel. “It appears that all ship operations are controlled from these panels. The forwardmost panel and the one to its left, manned by two operators, control the sub’s speed, direction, depth, and attitude, including ballast control. Between them is the chart table connected to their version of the SINS. Going around to the left are electrical control, then power plant and reactor control, and then radio comms. On the right side are sonar and radar acquisition and tracking, torpedo loading and launching, navigation control, and consolidated ship’s information console. In the middle of the ‘U’ is the periscope tower. Aft of the ‘U’ is an open equipment space filled with the navigation center, including their SINS, electronic cabinets, and document storage.
“Although there are eleven control panels, I think the sub can run normally with only four or five actually manned, except for battle stations. Add a couple of cooks and some techs to back up the sonar and comms panels, and that makes a crew of less than thirty.
I stepped a few paces past the Control Center.
“Forward of the ‘U’ is a watertight door that appears to access more equipment and torpedo stuff.
“I am descending a stairwell into a galley and messing space, and forward of that, berthing. So far as I can tell, access to every other part of the submarine is sealed or labeled as non-entry except for an emergency.” I paused and looked around.
“As I stand in the galley, I am beginning to believe that I am inside a fully automated underwater fighting machine that bends to the will of her captain and small crew. Obviously, something went terribly wrong, but it appears to have been caused by external circumstances, not the automated systems that run the sub.”
I saw no documents of interest in berthing or messing spaces, so I returned to the Control Center, where I continued to record. “A safe in the equipment space is not something I can deal with. Several cabinets, however, contain documents organized by purpose.”
I spread them out on the deck and separated them into docs relating to the Alfa and its engineering, Soviet intel about the U.S. and allied navies, and other stuff. I crammed as many of the Alfa and intel docs into my waterproof duffel bag as possible.
I snapped thirty-six photos, mostly in the Control Center. Then I opened the watertight door forward of the space.
“I have entered the forward compartment. It is filled with electronic cabinets that probably are part of the sonar and radar suite.” I opened a door at the end of the compartment.
“I have stepped through a non-watertight door into a complex automated torpedo loading and launching system. I will leave its description to an expert.”
