Counter Poised (33 page)
Authors: John Spikenard
The
Louisiana
ran north along the eastern side of the Kermandec Islands.
“Captain,” the Navigator reported, “We’re abeam the ninth island.”
“Very well. Helm, come left heading two-seven-zero. All ahead one-third. Make your depth, periscope depth.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
“Rig the ship for silent running.”
“Aye-aye, sir. Level at periscope depth, sir.”
“Very well. Raise scope.”
Once the scope broke the water, Captain Adams made a rapid 360-degree sweep in all directions. Having satisfied himself they were in no immediate danger from undetected surface targets, he focused his search on the northern coast of the island. A solitary cargo ship was anchored there. The
Nuku’alofa
was a typical, small, interisland cargo ship—the type used for transporting mail, spare parts, and machinery from New Zealand up to American Samoa and the other inhabited islands. Proportionally, she had a rather large hull compared to her small superstructure, which made her look more like a barge than an oceangoing cargo ship. Rust stains ran down her sides over the faded green and white paint.
“Raise the UHF antenna.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
“Comm, signal the
Nuku’alofa
on the encrypted channel and let me know when they respond.”
“Aye-aye, sir.” Within thirty seconds, the communications petty officer reported, “Authenticated response received, sir.”
“Very well. Maintain current course and speed. We should rendezvous with the
Nuku
in approximately ten minutes. I want the remaining teams ready to transfer over with their warheads on the double. We’ve got to get them off of here as quickly as possible.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
The warheads were pre-positioned for the offload, so the XO made the announcement throughout the boat for the teams to assemble and prepare to go topside. The captain continued to monitor their approach to the
Nuku
. She was perfect for their needs because she would not raise any suspicions as she cruised back to Auckland—just a typical old South Pacific rust bucket. Once aboard her, the teams would be hidden until ready to disperse to their selected safe locations.
“All ahead slow. Prepare to surface.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
“Surface, surface, surface.”
The
Louisiana
blew main ballast and surfaced approximately one hundred yards from the
Nuku
. A team of deckhands went topside to catch and secure the lines, which would be thrown over from the cargo ship. Captain Adams made his way up the conning tower to the topside bridge. As the
Louisiana
pulled up beside the
Nuku
, the captain reversed the screw momentarily to stop the submarine’s momentum and bring them to rest a few feet away.
From his height at the top of the sail, George looked across at the deck of the
Nuku
. Dwight stood at the rail.
“Welcome to Kermandec Number Nine,” said Dwight. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Cuz.”
“I never thought I’d see the day I said
you
looked good, but it’s good to see you, Dwight. But what are you doing here?”
“I’m joinin’ your team in hiding, George. I can’t go back to GenCon.”
“Why not? What happened?”
“After my men delivered the RV to the Ka‘abah in Mecca, the Saudis tracked their vehicle and blew it up with a missile. Killed three of my men. Then they analyzed the pieces of the van and managed to link it back to GenCon. The FBI was startin’ a full blown investigation, so I got out of Dodge while the gettin’ was good!”
“Wow! It’s good to have you, but sorry to hear about your men. They died in a good cause, though. Hopefully their deaths will help to save millions. I assume they successfully planted the RV before the bastards got them?”
“Yeah, they did—at the Ka‘abah right in the middle of the tight security surrounding the hajj. It scared the pants off the Saudis. In fact, it scared them so much they executed the head of security in Mecca, and his cousin, too!”
“I’m glad it was successful. All of the world’s Muslim nations now know we can hit them whenever and wherever we want. The point has been well made, and we have your men to thank for it.”
A stairway had been lowered along the side of the
Nuku
from the deck to a floating platform at the bottom. While George and Dwight talked, the crew had already started the transfer.
“George! What are you doing up there? Come on!”
George looked down to the
Louisiana
’s deck below where Leona stood looking at him in exasperation. “I’ll be right down.”
George climbed down the ladder from the bridge. Apparently, Leona had forgotten all formalities during this hectic transfer, and she was calling him by his
first name
in front of all the crew! As he arrived on the deck, ready to quietly admonish her, she grabbed him by the arm and said, “Come on, George. We’ve got to go!”
The captain looked around at the crewmembers on the deck, expecting to see astonishment on their faces at this revelation, but only seeing knowing smiles. Apparently everyone knew his well-kept secret all along! Seeing Sergeant Ramirez, the captain motioned for him to stay close and stand by.
George pulled Leona aside. “You have to go aboard the
Nuku
, Leona. I’m not leaving yet, but I’ll join you later.”
“Later? What do you mean later?”
“A few of us have to take the
Louisiana
back out for one quick trip. Then we’ll be back.”
“A quick trip? What do you need to go back out for? We’ve got everything we need off the boat. Just leave it. What are you going to do?”
“Leona, there’s at least one fast attack boat that’s been chasing us from Cape Horn. If they’ve alerted the Pacific Fleet of our whereabouts, there may be a half dozen more attack boats closing in. We don’t want the trail of the
Louisiana
to lead them right to the
Nuku
. So I have to create a diversion, that’s all. As soon as that’s done, I’ll join you.”
The captain indicated to Sergeant Ramirez to come over. “Sergeant, please take care of Petty Officer Harris and see that she gets safely onto the
Nuku
.”
“Yes, sir!”
Leona was in tears. “George, you can’t do this. You can’t leave me here and go back out again. I believe in this mission, but I also joined because it meant we were going to be together.”
“Leona, nothing has changed. We
will
be together. Trust me. I’ll be back before you know it.”
USS
Louisiana
The last team and warhead had been offloaded. The captain, the XO, Petty Officer MacKenzie, and the bull nuke (the senior enlisted nuclear-trained crewmember) remained onboard the
Louisiana
. The two sub-fighters were docked topside.
“XO, get SF-2 ready—you and the bull nuke are leaving.”
The captain turned to the bull nuke. “Get back to engineering and set turns for all ahead full. That should be sufficiently noisy for the
Texas
to hear us. Then get back up here on the double. You and the XO have to launch before our speed gets over ten knots.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
“But Captain,” responded the XO, “this is a critical operation. I think I should stay here with you.”
“No, you’re needed ashore, XO. Petty Officer MacKenzie, you’re with me.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” they both answered.
The XO hurried down the passageway to the escape hatch. He climbed into SF-2 and started the launch procedure. As soon as the bull nuke returned from the engine room, they closed the hatch and lifted off the deck of the
Louisiana
. The captain and Petty Officer MacKenzie were the only two souls left onboard.
The captain set the sonar so that the audio was broadcast over the loudspeaker in the control room. “Take the rudder and stern planes, Mac. I’ve got the dive planes.”
“Aye-aye, sir!”
“Twenty minutes or so at heading zero-niner-zero should get us back over the center of the trench.”
USS
Texas
“Captain Sewell!” shouted the sonar operator. “I’ve got him! He’s north of track, but by the angle off and distance, I estimate he must have turned north within the last two hours or so.”
“Captain, aye!” The
Texas
had finally caught up with the
Louisiana
and Buffalo’s old friend, George Adams.
“What’s he doing, Navigator?” Buffalo asked as he turned around from the conning station to look at the navigator’s plot.
“Sir, his track would indicate he’s running north-northeast, right along the Kermandec Trench.”
“Interesting.” Buffalo noted. “Right along the line in the sand. I think that pretty much confirms his target. Operations, I want a firing solution as soon as you have it.”
“Captain, he’s well beyond wire-guided range,” the ops officer responded. “On a rendezvous course at flank speed, it will probably be another twenty minutes before we’re in range. We have six Mark 48 advanced capability, ADCAP torpedoes aboard, and we could fire one now in autonomous mode. We can set it to use its own active or passive sensors to execute a programmed target search, acquisition, and attack procedure. If we set it to run at top speed, it may not quite have the range, but we can program it at a slower speed, and it will probably get there.”
“Go ahead and program it for high speed.”
“Sir?”
“Program it for high speed, autonomous search and destroy.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Two minutes later, the ops officer responded, “Torpedo programmed and loaded in torpedo bay number one, Captain.”
Captain Buffalo Sewell checked his watch. “Very well. Stand by.”
The ops officer and XO exchanged puzzled glances. A minute later, Buffalo checked his watch again. “Open outer door, torpedo bay number one.”
“Outer door opened, sir.”
“Fire one!”
“Torpedo one away!”
“Load a second Mark 48 ADCAP in torpedo bay number two,” the captain ordered. “Program it for
low-speed
autonomous search and destroy. And stand by.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
About twenty minutes later, Buffalo asked sonar for an update.
“Torpedo one running smoothly, sir. Estimate fifty thousand yards to target. Our range—approximately ninety thousand yards to target.”
“Very well. Open outer door, torpedo bay number two.”
“Outer door opened, sir.”
“Fire two!”
“Torpedo two away!”
USS
Louisiana
After ten minutes on an easterly heading of 090 degrees, Captain Adams and MacKenzie both heard the faint telltale signature of a torpedo in the water. Ominous…its high-pitched whine indicating it was traveling at high speed.
“You hear that, Captain?”
“I do. We’ll maintain course for another ten minutes.”
“But Captain, with a heading of zero-niner-zero we’re headed right back into it.”
“Roger that, Mac. We’ve got a little over nine and a half minutes until we turn north.”
Those nine and a half minutes seemed like an eternity. The torpedo noise grew louder and louder, and each minute on the clock seemed to take an hour.
“Captain, I hear a second torpedo in the water—fainter, so farther away.”
“Roger that. Maintain your heading.”
Finally, when MacKenzie could barely stand it any longer, Captain Adams ordered, “Come left to zero-one-zero. I’m making our depth fifteen hundred feet.”
“Fifteen hundred, sir? That’s below max operating depth!”
“I know that, Mac.”
“Sir, that isn’t going to help much if those are Mark 48 ADCAPs! They can easily get us at fifteen hundred feet!”
“You’re right, but they’re still a long way away. I don’t plan to be here when they arrive.”
“Well, how do you plan to get out of here, sir? We’re at twenty-five knots, and not getting any slower. If we keep going down, we’re going to hit forty or forty-five knots by the time we get to fifteen hundred feet. Max speed for fighter launch is only ten knots!”
“We’re going to take care of that right now, Mac. I want you to make your way to SF-1 and get her fired up. Since we don’t have engine control, we’re going to pull about twenty degrees up-bubble and bleed off this excess speed. When we hit about three knots, which by my calculations should be at about five hundred feet, I’m going to nose her over into a dive. Keep the hatch open and ready to go, because I’m going to be flying your way!”
“Aye-aye, sir!”
MacKenzie dashed to SF-1 and started the pre-launch checklist. He would have her ready to go by the time the captain pulled off his crazy maneuver and made it to the fighter. He felt the nose of the fighter go up as the captain maneuvered the
Louisiana
to twenty degrees up-bubble, and the fighter rode along with her. That should certainly be sufficient to bleed off that excess speed. He knew, too, that once the captain nosed her over into a steep dive, there was no way to pull out before hitting crush depth.
MacKenzie felt the
Louisiana
level off, and he knew the captain would be there any second. Everything was ready to go. Suddenly, the captain was scrambling through the lower hatch.
“All right, Mac, let’s go!” The captain ordered as he squeezed into the fighter and closed the hatch.
“Aye-aye, sir. She’s all fired up and ready to go!”
“I’ve got the controls. Release the latch.”
“Aye-aye, sir!”
MacKenzie struggled with the large release bar attached to the latching mechanism holding the fighter securely to the deck of the
Louisiana
. But while it usually swung up freely, this time it didn’t budge.
“Sir, I’m trying, but it seems to be stuck!”
“
Stuck
?! We’ve
got
to release that latch, Mac. This boat’s going down, and there’s no stopping her!”
“I know, but I’m pulling as hard as I can. It’s stuck, Captain…
IT’S STUCK!
”
USS
Texas
About ten minutes after firing their second torpedo, the silence of the
Texas
control room was broken by the sonar operator. “Captain, Sonar.”
“Go ahead, Sonar,” responded Captain Sewell.
“Strange sounds, sir, coming from the target—lots of creaking and buckling noises. Sounds like she may be trying to run deep,
too
deep!”
“Where are our torpedoes?”
“The closest is still at least twenty thousand yards out.”
“So what’s going on here? Is this another one of Adams’s tricks?”
“No sir,” responded the sonar operator excitedly pulling his earphones off his head and then replacing them. “Sir! Total hull failure! She’s gone below crush depth, and the pressure hull has failed! You can’t fake this noise, Captain, this is total destruction!”