Counter Poised (30 page)
Authors: John Spikenard
“I don’t know, sir. It came from the direction of the
Hawaii
. Same thing we heard with the
Kilo
—a ping, or
pings
in this case, and then a small explosion.” Concentrating again on the headphones, the sonar operator continued, “Sir, the
Hawaii
is blowing ballast. They’re surfacing, too—dead in the water!”
“Dang it! It seems like we’re in the middle of a minefield! Where are these things coming from?”
“It can’t be the
Louisiana
, sir. I’d know an
Ohio
-class boomer anywhere, and there’s not one out there.”
“Oh, he’s out there all right. I don’t know what George Adams is pulling, but he’s definitely out there. My guess would be he’s gone silent, reduced power, and is lying on the bottom somewhere waiting for us to get spooked by these minisubs and hightail it out of here.”
“He obviously knows we’re here, Captain,” said the
Texas
XO. “Why don’t we ping him to make sure he’s not sneaking by?”
“No, if he had power to make headway, we would hear him. His coolant pumps would give him away. He can’t go anywhere without power, and there’s no way he would just drift with the current—not here at the Cape. The currents down here would dash him on the rocks in a matter of minutes. So he’s got to be sitting on the bottom, and in that case, a ping would do no good. We wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between him and the bottom. It would only confirm
our
position. We’ll just wait for him…he’s got to come up eventually. Keep clearing the baffles and listening with everything you’ve got. If there are minisubs out there, they have to make
some
noise.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
While the
Texas
waited for the
Louisiana
at her last suspected position, the
Louisiana
continued to move away at approximately five knots, powered by the SF-2 sub-fighter. When the internal batteries in SF-2 were exhausted, cables were attached from the
Louisiana’s
batteries, and the fighter continued to provide silent propulsion.
“Captain, Engineering,” the intercom reported.
“This is the captain.”
“I have a suggestion, sir. Our batteries are being drained more quickly than expected. I suggest turning off the air scrubbers—they draw a lot of power. Since we only have fourteen people on board, instead of the usual hundred and fifty-five, we ought to be able to go for at least eighteen hours without using the scrubbers.”
“Do it, Engineering. And keep thinking about what else we can shut down. Those batteries are going to have to last, even if we have to shut down everything in here and walk around with flashlights.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Six hours, and some thirty nautical miles later, the
Louisiana
rendezvoused with the XO and MacKenzie in SF-1 at the prearranged location. After mounting the fighter and plugging it into ship’s power, SF-1’s electric drive was started and added to the thrust of SF-2. The
Louisiana
continued to move away, totally silent, at a comfortable eight knots.
Twelve hours and another one hundred nautical miles later, the crew increased reactor power and brought the
Louisiana’s
engines back online.
“All ahead, one-third,” ordered Captain Adams. He turned to the XO and with a wink of the eye said, “Ace, you have the conn. In two hours, go to all ahead full.”
The XO chuckled at the fighter pilot nickname. He also recognized it was an extreme compliment from the captain—recognition of the captain’s full confidence in him, and recognition of a truly meaningful accomplishment—a single sub-fighter disabling numerous top-of-the-line fully armed attack boats in live combat. A revolution in submarine warfare!
“All ahead full, sir? That will be a bit noisy…” “I know,” said the captain, “but we have a long way to go, and we need to make up for lost time.”
Back at SUBLANT headquarters in Norfolk, Commander Lannis Wayne noted that the
Texas
had waited at the last known position of the
Louisiana
for twenty-four hours. He began to suspect the captain of the
Texas
had been buffaloed by his old friend, George Adams. Lannis talked to the admiral and suggested that P-3 antisubmarine warfare patrol planes deployed to southern Chile should search an area west of Cape Horn. The admiral agreed, and the P-3s dropped several hundred floating sonobuoys in an arc approximately 150 miles west of the
Texas’s
current location. The sonobuoys contained passive sonar receivers and radio transmitters for transmitting their readings to the patrolling P-3s. Nothing conclusive was found, although one sonobuoy reported faint intermittent contacts. Lannis ordered further computer analysis of the readings, and the results came back: possible biologics, noise, or possible
Ohio
-class SSBN.
The admiral ordered the
Texas
to investigate.
“All ahead FLANK! Heading two-eight-zero degrees.”
Captain Buffalo Sewell had his orders. He had his navigator plot a track from their position to the position of the sonobuoy that had reported the intermittent contacts. Those contacts, Buffalo now agreed, were not biologics or noise; they were faint echoes of the USS
Louisiana
.
“I don’t know how he did it, but he got through our defensive line!”
“Why the hurry, Captain?” asked the
Texas’s
XO. “At this speed we’ll be cavitating like crazy! If the
Louisiana
is out there, she’ll hear us long before we hear her.”
“I know, but I’m afraid she’s got such a head start, that we’ll need to be at flank for at least a day to have any hope of getting within torpedo range before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“The
Louisiana
is obviously headed for the southwestern Pacific. There are two possible reasons. First, George Adams might intend to go island hopping, using the islands as cover to avoid detection, while intending to move on into the Indian Ocean and toward the Middle East. That wouldn’t surprise me. George would surely know the short route from the Atlantic to the Middle East, around Africa, would be heavily guarded. So he’s taking the long way, across the Pacific, to get to the Indian Ocean. From there, with his Trident D-5 missiles, he can reach any Muslim target in the Middle East.”
“That should take a long time. So why flank speed?”
“Well, the second reason he might be headed for the southwestern Pacific, and the biggest concern right now, is that he may be headed toward Southeast Asia. If so, we need to catch up as quickly as possible.”
“And what’s the concern there, Captain?”
“Indonesia—by population, the largest Muslim country in the world. That may be his first target. If so, we’ve got to stop him before he gets within four thousand miles—the range of his D-5 missiles. That doesn’t leave us much time.”
The
Texas’s
navigator was carefully studying an undersea chart of the Pacific Ocean. “Captain, a four-thousand mile arc from Indonesia would put them right along a line running north-northeast from New Zealand to American Samoa. That’s pretty much directly along the Tonga and Kermandec Trenches.”
“Very well,” replied Captain Sewell. “That’s our line in the sand. If the
Louisiana
crosses that line or makes any strange moves in that area, we’re putting her down.”
USS
Louisiana
“So we’re slightly behind schedule. Shall I order the helm to increase speed?” asked Pappy.
“No need,” George responded. “By my calculations, we’ll make up the deficit within a day at our current speed.”
The
Louisiana
had run for a day and a half in the Pacific, and the captain and XO had just finished a review of their current state. Leona was carefully taking notes of the conversation for the ship’s log. In the more relaxed and casual atmosphere of the captain’s cabin, Pappy ventured, “You know, it’s a real shame world affairs have led to this.”
“Would you like me to leave now, Captain?” asked Leona.
“No, no. Stick around for a few minutes.” Then, addressing Pappy, George continued, “It certainly is. It’s the old ‘man’s inhumanity to man.’ You would think that as the stakes got higher, we would have learned we had to change our ways.”
“I guess it isn’t going to happen—not voluntarily at any rate.”
“Well hopefully,” said the captain, “we’ll provide the incentive people need.”
“I hope you’re right, because if you’re not, mankind is going to be starting all over again.”
“Have either of you ever seen pictures of the Earth taken from deep space?” asked the captain.
“Of course.”
“There’s one picture taken from so far away that the Earth just looks like a little dot in the midst of all the vast blackness of space. A tiny little jewel of life in an ocean of nothingness. When you look at that little speck of dust, it’s even harder to believe we have killed and maimed and tortured each other for thousands of years—probably hundreds of thousands of years—so that we could control some little part of that speck for a few fleeting moments.”
“It’s pretty ridiculous, isn’t it?” responded Pappy.
“I’ll say,” said Leona.
Pappy paused for a few moments and then ventured, “You would think we could stop that if the goal was just to control a fraction of the speck. But how do you stop it when you have fanatical Muslims who believe they should conquer the world in the name of Allah? In their minds they’re not doing it for themselves, they’re doing it for
Allah
.”
George sat back down and took a deep breath. “That’s an excellent question, Pappy. I’ve thought a lot about myself, because it’s kind of the essence of the problem we have to overcome—if mankind is ever going to break out of this routine of killing each other in the name of religion.”
“So have you come up with anything?” asked Leona.
“Well, I think I’ve come up with a better explanation of the problem.”
“At least that’s a start, Captain,” said Pappy. “We have to understand the problem before we can find a solution.”
“That’s true,” said George, “and to get at the root of the problem, you have to understand what motivates the other side. We may have different value systems, but we’re all human, and we have the same basic fears.”
“
Fears
?” asked Pappy.
“Yes, fears, because every negative emotion we experience is actually based on fear. In every example of emotions like hatred, greed, and envy, the real basis of those emotions is fear. Look at your typical radical Islamic terrorist for example. Why do you suppose he hates the West so much?”
“I don’t know…because we hinder the spread of Islam, or because modern communications have brought the influence of the West into Islamic countries? Or maybe because we seem to be there just for their oil?”
“It could be any of those, and the basis for the hatred would still be fear. Deep down, the terrorist fears change. He fears Western influence will change his way of life. It’s exactly the same kind of fear that drives the West to resist him. The West fears being overtaken by Islam. It’s a never-ending cycle, and it’s one we are always caught up in.”
Pappy and Leona both nodded.
“Just look in the newspaper any given day and you can see it over and over. When Muslims are demonstrating in the streets, for example, and calling for attacks on European countries because someone published a
cartoon
in a newspaper depicting Mohammed, you know these people have been totally overcome by the realm of fear.”
“So going back to my original question, how does this relate to radical Muslims believing they should take over the world in the name of Allah?” asked Pappy.
“Well first of all, I don’t think God has instructed anyone to conquer the world. All of those beliefs reflect man’s attempt to create God in man’s image, not the other way around. Radical Muslims—and let me emphasize I’m talking about
radical
Muslims, not your ordinary everyday Muslims—is that they have taken all of the
wrong
verses of the
Qur’an
and made them central to their religion. They have accepted all of the verses of the
Qur’an
that relate to fear—in other words, the verses that were corrupted by Mohammed’s worldly interpretations—and have rejected God’s verses—the verses relating to love and compassion.”
“So why do so many people follow these militant radical leaders?” asked Pappy.
“Because it’s easy,” responded George. “What the radical leaders are preaching makes sense to their followers in the context of the lives they’re living. It’s easy for people to believe in a God who is just like us—one with the same sense of justice. One who rewards the ‘righteous’ and punishes the ‘bad.’ But what these people ignore is that by accepting a God who is just like us, you have to accept a God who is flawed. One who is judgmental, quick to anger, vengeful, and full of hatred of anyone who is not just like him.”
“Not the kind of God I want to believe in,” said Leona.
“Me neither,” said George. “But because these radicals believe that God has laid down these laws and instructions, and because they believe in a judgmental and vengeful God, they live in
fear
that God will punish them if they fail to carry out his instructions.”
“So they have a fear-based religion instead of a love-based religion, is that it?” asked Pappy.
“Yes. If you remember, the
Qur’an
was written during a thirty-year war against an alliance of Arab tribes, so it’s full of stories designed to encourage the people to fight. The basic message is, ‘Do it my way or you will go to hell.’”
“You know, George, I think you’re right in your conclusion that the key to stopping radical Islam is to get the rest of the world’s Muslims involved in stopping them,” said Pappy. “But it just doesn’t seem to be happening. Look at Palestine. For years, Hamas sponsored the bombings of Jewish buses, restaurants, and nightclubs because of their fanatical belief that Israel must be destroyed. In response, the Jews counterattacked and imposed stricter and stricter limitations on the Palestinians. It was clear to any objective viewer that Hamas was driving the Palestinian people into total ruin. So what happened? Hamas won the elections in Palestine and became the majority party!”
“That’s true, Pappy. It’s a sad day when people let hate overcome love of their fellow man. Like Sagan said, we’re all on this little insignificant speck of dust together, and all we can think about is killing each other.”
“Anyway, after the Palestinian elections, Hamas leaders made a tour of Muslim countries, and they were welcomed everywhere as if they were respectable national leaders. All I could think was that if the leaders of any of those Muslim countries had had any guts at all, they would have arrested them on the spot as terrorists and made a statement to the world that radical Islam must stop.”
“Without some prodding, though, that isn’t likely to happen,” said George. “That’s why we’re establishing a deterrent to future terrorism that also provides a real incentive for mainstream Muslims to get involved.”
“Well, it’s absolutely needed,” said Leona. “But either way, you know both sides will do their utmost to stop us. If they don’t sink us, they’ll have spies and intelligence agents searching for us everywhere.”
George shook his head in agreement. “I know. They’re afraid of change even though the path they are on is the path of suicide. But in all fairness, they don’t know our intentions yet. They’ve probably seen too many James Bond movies, and they think we’re about to hold the world at ransom.”
“Hey, now there’s an idea. A little extra cash wouldn’t hurt!” joked Pappy.
“Very funny, Pappy.”
“Well if we told them our intentions, do you think it would take some of the heat off?” asked Leona.
“I doubt it,” George responded. “I think it’s going to take them years to get used to the idea. But we’ll let them know soon enough—at the time and in the manner of
our
choosing.”