Seawolf End Game (23 page)

The gamble the Iranians were taking was enormous, but so would be the payoff if they succeeded. They could blackmail the free world.

“We don’t know what else the Russians may have sold them, or if the Russians will try to play both sides of the fence and use their own subs to help the Iranians protect the Strait from our intervention. The
USS Virginia
is the closest boat and is somewhere in the vicinity of the Strait as we speak. Her current mission is to keep an eye on the Iranians and protect any American-flagged vessels in the event of any aggressive move by our Iranian friends.”

Brodie looked at Graves. “Jason, you know the skipper of the
Virginia,
don’t you?”

“Jim Berryman,” Graves answered with a confident nod of his head. “We were stationed together for two years. Good skipper,” he added. “No nonsense. He’s the guy we want in there scouting for us if we have to go in, Captain.”

Brodie nodded approvingly. “I never worked with Berryman, but I’ve heard he’s top shelf all around.” Any praise from Brodie meant something, and it was comforting to all in the wardroom to know the
USS Virginia
was already on station.

“Jim and I were on the
USS Ohio
together,” Ski interjected. “He’s as solid as they come.”

Brodie seemed satisfied. “Not far behind the
Virginia
is the
HMS Audacious,
and we all remember Commander Gardener. I can assure all of you, no one will handle a boat better than Alec Gardener.” He then concluded, “So, perhaps by the time we get there all that will be left for us to do is maybe take a few photographs, shake a few hands, and pick up the smoking remains of the Iranian Navy.”

“Have we received any change to our rules of engagement, Captain?” Ryan Walcott asked. “I mean if we run into an Iranian sub…”

“We’re currently not at war, but that could change at any moment. Also, the waterways where we will be operating are considered territorial waters by the Iranians whereas we maintain those waters are open to international traffic. Meaning, the Iranians may feel justified firing at us when and if we enter the Strait. Plus, we really don’t know what the Russians have sold the Iranians. It’s possible we may run into a couple of
Akulas
in the Strait, and it shouldn’t surprise us if we learn they’re now flying Iranian flags,” Brodie told them with eyes now cold as ice. “Therefore, if anyone makes an aggressive move toward us, I’m gonna blow their ass out of the water.”

“How long before we’re in a position to support the
Virginia
, Ryan?” Graves asked.

Walcott looked back down the table and thought for a moment. “It’s at least two thousand miles, XO,” he said. “At twenty knots, we’ll be there in about four days, less if we step on the gas.”

Graves turned to Brodie, offering his opinion. “I recommend we go in quietly, Captain. There’s no point in letting everyone know we’re coming. Besides the
Borei
and those
Akulas,
the
Gagarin
might be lurking about, and we sure don’t want to announce our arrival.”

“I understand your concern,” Brodie replied thoughtfully. “But if something goes wrong and the
Virginia
and the
Audacious
need to start shooting, I’d hate to arrive too late to help cover their backs.” He looked down the table at Ryan. “Calculate a speed run at thirty knots. That should put us in position in less than three days.”

“What about our heavy surface forces, Captain?” Martin asked nervously, clearly understanding the gravity of the situation and not liking the odds.

“The
George Washington
and her escorts are in the Singapore Straits and are three weeks away at their current speed. The
Nimitz
is slipping her moorings in Sasebo as we speak and is a month away at least.”

“So, we’re on our own, sir,” Martin concluded nervously.

Kristen looked up the table at Brodie, who was again seated in his usual chair. She saw a slight, almost cocky smile cross his face, and his eyes sparkled with excitement. There was nothing anyone on board could do to get the carrier battle groups with their massive air wings in position any faster. They would have to do what they could on their own until help arrived.

“Not to worry, Mister Martin,” Brodie offered as he stood, concluding the brief. “Just think how much easier it’ll be to discriminate between friend or foe when you’re the only good guy in the gunfight.”

USS Virginia, Gulf of Oman

C
ommander Jim Berryman sat at his small desk on the periscope platform, his eyes never far away from the tactical display. The Iranian
Kilo
class submarine they’d been following for the better part of six hours had slowly moved closer to the Persian Gulf. Berryman was well aware that the Iranians had seeded thousands of new sea mines across the Strait of Hormuz, but was also aware that there had to be a path through the minefield allowing surface ships to transit the Strait safely.

The possibility the
Kilo
would lead them through this safe passage was very real and one his orders wanted him to pursue. Of course, he wasn’t to hazard his boat to do so. The State Department was working around the clock to resolve the current conflict between Iran and Oman peacefully, and Berryman had no desire to start a shooting war. However, his natural aggressiveness pushed him to press the advantage he had as commander of the most advanced submarine in the world.

The
Virginia
was the lead boat of the newest fast-attack submarines in the American arsenal and he was quite proud of her. They were currently in just three hundred feet of water, but the
Virginia
had been designed specifically for this environment. Much smaller than the
Seawolf
class and just slightly larger than the aging
Los Angeles
boats that had helped win the Cold War, the
Virginia
represented the future in submarine design. Unlike the aging
Kilo
they were shadowing. No match for the
Virginia,
the
Kilo
was slow and noisy. Berryman had run a few practice attacks on the unsuspecting Iranian submarine as he’d slowly shadowed it back toward Iranian waters. The fact the
Kilo
was even out of the Persian Gulf was unusual since they were clearly outclassed by anything they might run into beyond the Gulf, but one of Berryman’s missions was to gather intelligence on Iranian naval operations and following the
Kilo
fit the bill.

Above his head, he heard the voice of his sonar chief come from the speaker mounted on the overhead,
“Con, sonar. Kilo Three aspect change. New course zero-four-five, speed eight knots, range one thousand yards.”

Berryman acknowledged the message and then ordered a slight course change to stay in the
Kilo’s
baffles. Once they completed the turn, he resumed watching the tactical display indicating the position, course, and speed of every surface and sub-surface contact the
Virgini
a was monitoring. There were currently multiple contacts. Most of the sub surface contacts were biologicals with the exception of the
Kilo
.  However, he was wise enough not to assume the only potential threat to his boat was the
Kilo
. Plus, besides possible threats, somewhere nearby, the
HMS Audacious
was prowling these same seas. Standard NATO submarine tactics precluded hunter-killer submarines operating as a team, so he didn’t know where the Brit might be. To the north, he was acutely aware that the Islamic Republic was still dropping mines. Intelligence placed the southern boundary of the field about five miles away, and he wasn’t interested in getting any closer considering that such reports were not always accurate. Plus there was the very real possibility that the Iranians had expanded the field.

“
Con, sonar,”
came the sonar chief’s voice a few moments later,
“Sierra three is turning sharply back to the south and coming shallow.”

Berryman ordered the
Virginia
to reduce speed as he let the
Kilo
complete her turn. He then considered the tactical display. The waters around them were shallow and growing more so. Following a slight adjustment in depth to keep them well clear of the sea floor, he resumed his previous position in front of the tactical display. Once the
Kilo
settled on her new course, Berryman prepared to order his own course change to fall back in behind the
Kilo
.

“
Con, sonar,”
he heard his sonar chief’s alarmed voice.
“We just picked up a series of objects entering the water to port.”

Berryman responded immediately, “Any chance the splashes were aerial torpedoes entering the water?” Any possibility the Iranians knew he was here was remote. The
Virginia
was moving so slowly that it was unlikely even another in her class would have heard her.

“Negative, and they aren’t sonar buoys, either. I’m not sure what it was, but we counted at least five splashes.”

Berryman considered the possibilities. The ocean was normally filled with sound. Just the natural sounds surrounding them accounted for 99% of what his sonar system picked up, the rest was manmade. But, considering where they were at the moment, there were a lot of manmade noises to consider. “Helm, thirty degree turn to starboard,” he ordered, making a course change away from the unidentified sound. The turn would eventually bringing him back southward and behind the
Kilo
that made a similar turn a few minutes earlier. He then spoke to his navigation officer, “Paul, how accurate is our position fix?”

“Within ten meters, Captain,” the officer responded almost immediately.

“Con, sonar,”
the chief’s voice again sounded from the speaker.
“More splashes, dead ahead and close.”

Berryman still wasn’t certain what they were picking up. If any of the splashes were torpedoes, his sonar systems would have alerted him. They were already turning away from the initial series of unidentified splashing sounds, and he briefly wondered if a surface vessel they’d somehow failed to detect was dropping trash overboard.

He was about to order yet another course change when he heard the whine of the Mine Detection and Avoidance System alarm sounding. MIDAS for short, was just one of many sonar systems the
Virginia
employed to keep her safe in the deep and was designed to detect mines and other dangerous objects in the submarines path.

“MIDAS alert. Multiple bearings, all dead ahead!”
his sonar chief called out in alarm.

“Hard to starboard,” Berryman ordered, now understanding what the noises they’d heard were. Intelligence reports indicated the Iranians were dropping a steady supply of mines into the Strait of Hormuz, improving their already significant minefield. Most of these mines were deployed by ships, but there were also reports of mines being deployed from aircraft. The minefield was miles away, and the
Virginia
should be safe, but something had gone wrong. Had the Iranians decided to expand their field intentionally? Had the
Virginia
stumbled into a new field previously unidentified, or had a flight of Iranian aircraft simply gone off course and deployed their mines in the wrong place?

He couldn’t know the answer, and at the moment, he had no time to speculate.

“Sound general quarters,” he ordered calmly, hiding his own fear from his crew who’d gone from near boredom after hours of following the
Kilo
to sheer terror at the possibility they’d strayed into a minefield. Regardless, he needed to get the
Virginia’s
watertight integrity increased in case they struck a mine, and sending the crew to GQ was the quickest way to accomplish this.

“New course one-eight-zero,” he ordered as he considered the various potential hazards to his submarine. He didn’t know how close he was to the objects the MIDAS alarm had warned him about, and he couldn’t be certain they even were mines. He stood and stepped in behind his helmsman, keeping his eyes on the tactical display.

“Con, sonar,”
he heard the chief’s frantic voice.
“New contact, Sierra four. Bearing two-eight-five. Classify contact as probable nuclear powered submarine.”

A million possibilities went through Berryman’s mind at the same instant. He was quite certain they were nowhere near the Iranian minefield. They’d been following the slow moving
Kilo
for hours. The unexpected splashes could very well be aerial mines being deployed around him. He doubted the Iranians had any clue he was here, and the mines—if they were mines—were being dropped by probable accident. The new contact, possibly the
Astute
or maybe a Russian, was in the area and heard the splashing sounds, too. Whoever they were had been moving quietly or perhaps holding their position, waiting in ambush and just listening. When they heard the splashes, they’d voted with their feet and accelerated to clear the area just as he was trying to do.

Berryman still hadn’t panicked. Instead, he factored in this latest piece of information into his calculations. But, just as he was processing, the sonar chief’s voice again sounded overhead,
“Con, sonar. More splashes to starboard and a second series to port.”