Operation Ivy Bells, page 27
I stepped over to the chart table and examined the coastline due west of our position. The peninsula that defined the Gulf of Shelikhov juts into the Sea of Okhotsk with two prongs at the east and west ends separated by about 120 miles of jagged coastline. The westernmost prong forms the southern border of a 50-mile wide bay bordered to the north by a small peninsula spanned by the port city of Magadan. The main part of Magadan occupies the west side of the peninsula, at the end of a deep natural harbor, but there is a fishing facility and repair shops with several piers on the east side.
If I wanted to be close to the splash zone, but in protected waters, that’s where I would go. I called the Skipper on the sound-powered phone and asked him to come to Control. When he arrived, I explained my thoughts to him, pointing to the harbor and its proximity to the splash zone.
“The Whiskey certainly could tie up to a fishing pier here,” I pointed out. “And the destroyers could anchor safely.” I pointed to the area we called the splash zone. “It’s only about ten hours to here.”
“Makes sense, Mac,” the Skipper said. “That’s assuming they are still looking for us.”
“It’s the only destination they’re certain of, Skipper,” I said.
It turned out that our guess was right, but we didn’t know about the other vessel loading out on the same pier where the Whiskey was moored.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
USS Halibut – Shelikhov Gulf
It took us less time than the weather. I mean, we were on the bottom in the splash zone, quietly waiting for the weather to cooperate. We stood regular watch rotation, and were on a relaxed alert – just in case.
Actually, when I said we were on the bottom in the zone, I really meant we were somewhere in the vicinity. As soon as it calmed down a bit topside, we were prepared to do a grid search with the Fish. Buck – Senior Chief Buck Christman – was in hot standby with his crew. They really had had nothing to do since the original search for the cable.
I was still on watch rotation, but what that really meant was hanging around in Control, just in case. Once things settled down sufficiently for my guys to go out, I would retire to the dive console while my guys did a bottom clean up, collecting anything that even remotely looked like a rocket part. So we waited.
And finally the surface wave monitor indicated decreasing surface activity. Almost as quickly as it came, the storm left, and the chaotic surface settled into a series of long, shallow rollers heading into the Gulf of Shelikhov.
Josh relieved me before we got underway. That was just as well, because I didn’t look forward to the slow back-and-forth search across the featureless bottom, looking for the small humps that indicated the prize pieces we were looking for.
If the Skipper and I were right, in about ten hours we could expect visitors, so the sooner we found the debris field, the better.
There really is nothing to tell about the search: one leg after the other with a couple of hundred yards between runs. Six hours into the run we hit pay dirt on Larry’s watch. Sonar pulled us into the middle of a debris field with literally thousands of hits. It was time.
On the Sea Floor – Shelikhov Gulf
Larry put us on the bottom right at the southern edge of the field. Ten minutes later, Bill, Ski, and Harry were clambering out of the Can. Their umbilicals were twice as long as normal, giving them a much larger range, but also making them more vulnerable to any currents. They met at the Aquarium with Devon and the Basketball looking over their shoulders. Well, looking was a bit of an exaggeration, actually, given the turbidity following the storm. Visibility was a couple of feet at the most, so the Basketball concentrated on Harry.
Harry retrieved three mesh bags from the Aquarium, each with its own lift bag. From my perspective, I watched Harry pass each bag into the swirling turbidity. It was almost ghostly. The only way I knew anyone else was there was the chatter from each diver. Ham allocated the divers into three sections, Harry would search out from the port beam halfway to the bow, while Bill took the starboard beam forward, and Ski operated off the bow. They were to fan out, moving left to right and then back, picking up anything of interest.
Devon followed Ski for a couple of minutes, and then traced his umbilical back and picked up Harry. Devon was moving back along Harry’s umbilical when Sonar called Control and Dive Control simultaneously.
“This is Sonar – stop everything right now!” It was Chief Barkley, and he sounded worried.
“Take over, Ham,” I said, and left for Control. “”Have the divers hold their positions,” I added over my shoulder.
I arrived at Control with the Skipper. Chief Barkley was waiting.
“What is it, Chief?” the Skipper asked.
“There’s something out there, Sir, in front of us. I’m talking about mechanical sounds that don’t belong there.”
“The Whiskey?” I asked.
“No Sir. No submarine sounds…I don’t really know what it is, but it’s nearby.”
“Go to ultra-quiet, Nav,” the Skipper ordered. Then he turned to me.
“Mac, have your divers proceed with caution.”
“Yes Sir,” I said, and returned to Dive Control.
I explained to the guys that something was out there, but we had no idea what it was, except that it was making mechanical noises. I told the guys to continue their survey, and to continue collecting pieces – no reason not to take treasure just because something was out there somewhere.
The survey was a slow process, since visibility was so bad. Every once in a while, however, the water would clear up for a time – a few seconds to a couple of minutes. As the divers progressed, they were reporting an increasing number of the clear moments. I also noticed that general visibility from the Basketball was improving as well.
Suddenly Ski piped up with, “Whoa…we got company, guys!”
“Green Diver,” that was Ski, “say again.”
“We got company. I saw a brief flash of a brightly-lighted diving bell suspended over the bottom. I didn’t see no divers, but what the fuck they doin’ here?”
“Green Diver,” I wanted to be sure I had heard correctly, “say again, say again.”
“Dive Control, Green Diver, I saw a bell, a diving bell maybe ten feet off the bottom; lights all around, clear as anything. Now it’s gone, visibility closed back up.”
“How far away, Green Diver?” I asked.
“Hundred, two-hundred feet – hard to tell. Nothing for reference.”
“Extinguish your light and proceed with caution, Green Diver,” I said. “Red Diver, extinguish your light and swing to your right; Blue Diver, extinguish your light and swing to your left. Both of you join Green Diver. Once you locate him, report to me, and keep together.”
On the sound-powered phone I told Devon to douse the light on the Basketball and get about twenty-five feet off the bottom, and then to proceed away from us on our axis. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and turned to see the Skipper standing behind me. I had no idea how long he’d been there. Normally, Ham, Jack, or Jimmy would have alerted me – and everyone else – of his presence, but we were too intently focused on what was out there. None of us noticed his arrival.
“Your thoughts, Mac,” the Skipper said to me, ignoring the lapse in protocol.
“They don’t have six-hundred-foot lock-out capability on any sub that I know of, Sir. The entire saturation diving concept is pretty new. The French and Swedes are doing it.” I paused in thought. “I suppose it’s reasonable to assume that Ivan has his own research going.” I paused again, scanning the monitor for anything new.
“Red, Blue Divers – anything yet?” I asked generally.
“Red Diver, negative.”
“Blue Diver, negative.”
I turned back to the Skipper. “The Soviets have a fairly advanced submersible program, but that’s one atmosphere, not ambient lock-out. They’ve got a well-known oceanographer and submersible expert, Anatoly Sagalevitch, who’s working on some state-of-the-art one-atmosphere rigs. No mobile lock-out capability that I know of. But if Ski is right, they got a lock-out bell right here.”
The Skipper stood silently, absorbing my information. “They’re not looking for us,” he said, “that would be totally inefficient. They’re cleaning house. They know we were here, and they’re removing everything they can before we return.”
I had to admit, it made a lot of sense.
The sound-powered phone chirped. “I got something, Dive Control,” Devon said. I looked up at the monitor.
At first I didn’t see anything. I asked Jack to dim the lighting, and then it began to come into focus, a glowing smudge at the middle of the monitor, near the bottom.
“Move in slowly,” I told Devon. “Stay just at the edge of visibility, and see if you can find their SPCC, or whatever they use.” The likely answer was that this was a Soviet “Strength-Power-Communications Cable,” a combined cable about the thickness of the human wrist that served as a lifting cable while providing electricity to a Personal Transfer Capsule used by hard-hat divers.
The glow moved slowly to the exact center of the monitor, and then moved back and forth, up and down just a bit.
“I got it,” Devon said in my ear. “How about if I go up a hundred feet, turn on my light so we can examine it?”
I turned to the Skipper. He nodded, looking intently at the monitor.
“Make it so, Devon, but don’t point the light down under any circumstances – got that?”
“Aye, Sir.”
The smudge disappeared on the monitor, and we saw nothing at all for a couple of minutes.
“Dive Control, Red Diver, the other guys are with me, and we can just make out a glow ahead of us.”
“Roger that, I said. Move back until it just disappears. Then hold your positions.”
Suddenly, the Basketball monitor lit up. Right in the center was a shiny cable – probably stainless steel.
“How thick is it?” I asked Devon.
“’Bout as thick as my thumb,” he answered.
“That’s no SPCC,” I said to the Skipper.
The Skipper nodded. “I got it,” he said.
“There’s another cable-hose bundle out there somewhere,” I said to Devon. “But leave it for now. Drop back down to just visible, and hang out with your light off.” As an afterthought I added, “Careful that you don’t get wrapped around the cable.”
“Never happen, Sir.” Even over the sound-powered phone, Devon sounded insulted.
“Dive Control, Red Diver, visibility is beginning to clear…whoa – they got divers in the water!”
“Back off, Red Diver. Don’t let them see you.”
The Skipper picked up another sound-powered phone handset. “Sonar,” he said, “any other activity?”
“There’s a tender on the surface, Sir. He’s stationkeeping with thrusters. Too damn much noise to hear anything else, Sir.”
“Red Diver,” I said, “ascend to twenty feet over bottom.” They were at exactly 600 feet. “Watch your ceiling,” I added, “don’t get shallower than five-hundred seventy-five. Keep that five-foot margin.”
“In this visibility they’re not going to look up,” I said to the Skipper. “I’m going to move the Basketball in closer, so we can watch from above. If they actually glance up, their minds won’t interpret what they see as something manmade.”
“Okay,” the Skipper said, “but be careful.”
I gave the appropriate instructions to Devon, and a minute later we had a bird’s eye view of two divers about ten feet below the Basketball, trudging along the bottom, dragging mesh bags, partially filled with missile debris. The visibility moved in and out, but once your mind got the idea, the picture became fairly clear as the brain integrated the flashes of clear with the grainy turbidity.
I instructed our three divers to move over and above the Basketball, and to hang off to one side for the time being. The Soviet divers were emitting bubbles, which meant they were not using closed-cycle rigs. They were burning a lot of helium this way, and the bell displayed no exterior gas bottles, so their breathing supply was being piped down through the cable bundle. I tried to determine if they were using hot water rigs, but couldn’t really tell. Their umbilicals were thinner than ours, and dragged on the bottom.
“Red Diver, I said, “are they using hot water?”
“Doesn’t look like it, Sir. Umbilicals are too thin, and the suits are too tight. Looks like heavy-weight neoprene.”
That was interesting. That meant their bottom time was drastically limited by the cold. Unless they had a way of heating up the bell interior, they would develop hypothermia rather quickly. I looked at their movements. They appeared to move their arms as little as possible, a clear indication that their suits constricted their movement – as heavy-duty wetsuits would do.
The Soviet divers appeared to be using weighted shoes, but they each also had a pair of fins tied to their waists, and seemed to sport a come-home bottle as well. The bell had several large mesh bags attached to the outside that were partially filled with missile parts, large and small. One of the divers dragged his full bag to the bell and began to unload it into the bell’s mesh bag.
“What’s your bag load right now?” I asked the guys. I had instructed them to retain their bags while investigating the Soviet divers. Visibility was too bad to park the bags on the bottom. They would never have found them again. And the lift bags were to unpredictable to tie them off from the umbilical behind them. So they toted the bags with them. Let’s face it. No missile parts, wasted trip.
“Red Diver – half full.”
“Green Diver – three-quarters.”
“Blue Diver – ‘bout two-thirds.”
Blue Diver, Dive Control, take control of all three bags and bring them back to Mama,” I ordered.
As I gave the order, the Soviet diver at the bell finished emptying his bag and turned to head back to his companion. His mesh bag caught on something on the bell, and as his momentum pulled his feet forward, his torso remained where it was. In two seconds flat, he was on his back looking straight at my divers. At just that moment, the visibility cleared dramatically, and the diver had a full view in the reflected light of three divers hanging a few feet above him, a round tethered ball off to one side, and mesh bags just visible towering above them.
We were unable to see his facial expression, but we did get a glimpse of his eyes. They were wide open with shock. Then, apparently his training took over. He kicked off his weighted boots, stripped his fins from his waist and donned them in one practiced maneuver, and then – to our collective total surprise – grabbed what turned out to be a gas-powered spear gun from a rack on the outside of the bell. In one smooth motion he brought the gun up and fired.
“God damn! The sonovabitch shot me!” Ski yelped. “Right through my fucking arm!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
On the Sea Floor – Shelikhov Gulf
“Skipper?” This was a decision I couldn’t make.
“Take them out, Mac!”
“Ski – are you mobile?” I asked.
“I’m fine, I just got a fucking spear in my arm.” Ski didn’t sound too happy.
“Listen all of you,” I said. “First, kill the coms! Cut their main cable bundle. Watch out for spear guns. Move it, Guys!”
We had perhaps a minute or so before someone down there thought to call topside. Perhaps they already had, but we needed to move.
“Dive Control, it’s Bill. I’m at the bundle. It’s three pieces – gas, comms, and strength member. I’m sawing the comms.”
Suddenly the Basketball monitor cleared up and I could see Bill cutting away at the comm cable.
“I’m watching, Bill,” I told him.
“I’m through the skin, Dive Control…” Grunting and panting. “Okay – it’s cut.”
Just then the Basketball monitor went crazy.
“Something jerked the Basketball,” Devon said urgently. “I zoomed away, but I think they grabbed the Basketball cable.”
“Harry, take care of it!” I ordered. “Devon, try to give me a view.”
The monitor swirled, and then a beam of light cut a swath across the monitor. The image swung wildly, and then we were looking into the mask of a stranger. He had a knife in his hand, and was trying to strike the Basketball. Then a hand reached across his mask from behind and ripped it off. The image jerked and went wild again. Then it stabilized.
“I’ve got control again, Mac,” Devon said over the sound-powered phone.
I watched, fascinated. The Soviets were using some pretty basic stuff – plain facemask and a regulator in the mouth. The diver had the presence of mind to keep his eyes open, but he didn’t do the next most important thing. He forgot to protect his regulator, and in a heartbeat Harry had ripped it out of his mouth. Instantly, it was a life and death struggle.
The Russian’s right hand flashed across the monitor holding a ten-inch serrated blade. But where Harry’s hand had been was just empty water, and a moment later Harry’s blade sliced across the Russian’s neck, and the water turned black.
I turned to the Skipper. “Skipper, we need an explosive cutter fast. With comms gone, they’re going to pull the bell up in a bit. They’ll get the divers back in the bell somehow, and then bring her up.” I gestured to Ham who turned to talk to the guys in the Can.
The Skipper grabbed the 1MC. “Engineer to Control.” And he left for Control himself.
Ham had Jer ready to go by the time the explosive cutter arrived at the Dive Console. Ham passed it through the medical lock, and six minutes after I asked the Skipper for the cutter, it was in Jer’s leg pocket on its way to the bell.
“Ski, what’s your condition?” I asked.
“Hurtin’, but I’ll live, El-Tee,” he answered.
“Then follow your umbilical back. Jer’s bringing an explosive cutter to cut the bell cable.”
“Right on – I’m on my way,” Ski answered.
