Crush Depth (14 page)

“One
always
seeks the element of surprise,” Wilson said pedantically. “But one must never assume that one retains it.”

“Yes, Commodore.” Jeffrey’s mind was racing now, about Wilson’s mood and attitude and intent.

“Have you eaten?”

The sudden change of tack surprised Jeffrey. “No, sir. Not yet.”

“Go grab some fruit or something in the wardroom, and make it snappy. My flag lieutenant and I need several hours of your time. I was about to send Sessions to get you when you came in.”

Jeffrey turned to the door.

“Wait, Captain. This is for you. Give them to your assis
tant navigator.” Wilson handed Jeffrey a piece of paper. They were coordinates in the Caribbean Sea.

Jeffrey glanced at Sessions.

“Southwest of Jamaica, Captain.”

“Another way point, Commodore?”

“No. Another rendezvous.”

The next day, midafternoon, in the Caribbean Sea

C
HALLENGER
HOVERED NEAR
the bottom in four thousand feet of water. The ship was at battle stations, rigged for ultraquiet. Around Jeffrey in the control room, his people talked in hushed tones, conveying information on shipping and aircraft contacts overhead or in the distance. The general feeling was tense, with Commodore Wilson grimly leaning over crewmen’s shoulders, peering at various console screens.

Wilson stood up straight and turned to Jeffrey. “They’re late.”

“I thought
we
were running late,” Jeffrey said.

“We are. Hold your position, and hope they catch up. If they don’t appear we’re in a lot of trouble.”

“Sir, with respect, would you please inform me whom
they
are?”

“I’ll know it when they get here.”

Jeffrey was exasperated. How was his crew supposed to watch for something with which to rendezvous, when none of them knew what that something was?

“Is this secrecy really needed, Commodore?”

“We can’t afford to ruin their cover.”

“But—”

“You’ll understand when we meet them….
Challenger
left dry dock too soon, and too large a part of her crew is inexperienced.”

“I—”

“That wasn’t meant as a criticism of you or your people. We’ve been lucky so far, Captain. The ship could still suffer a bad equipment casualty at any time. At any moment we might need to do an emergency blow. Bobbing like a cork to the surface, in distress, would be bad enough for
us.
We can’t risk them too.”

“Then—”

“We don’t know who might come to our ‘aid’ if we’re stricken. Whatever you and your crew don’t know, you can’t reveal by mistake or under torture. Russian spy trawlers work these waters, and most of Central America is riddled with German espionage operatives.”

“But Commodore…”

Wilson shook his head vehemently. “I simply can’t take the chance. Far too much is at stake here. Too much, in dollars and years, was invested getting ready for an emergency like this.”

Two hours later

“Our friend is here,” Wilson said.

“
Which
friend?”

Wilson tapped Jeffrey’s screen. “This one. Master Seventy-seven. The
Prima Latina,
out of Havana, bound for Lima, Peru.”

“Through the
Panama Canal?
” Jeffrey knew that according to international neutrality law, the canal would be banned to all warships of belligerents—and Panama was neutral.

“Affirmative,” Wilson said sharply. “Through the canal.”

Using it would shorten
Challenger
’s trip by thousands of miles.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff must feel under awful pressure, to have us take this risky, illegal shortcut to save a few days…. But wait a minute.

“Sir, we can’t hide under a merchant ship through the
canal.
It’s much too shallow for that sort of gimmick.”

“Who said we’re going
under
her?”

Jeffrey read the database summary on his screen.
Prima Latina
was just the latest of many names she’d worn over the years. She was almost five hundred feet long, big for a coastal steamer, and had deep draft. But her engine plant was so old, and her hull so worn by metal fatigue, that the company which ran her now dared not send her on the high seas.

“Her speed is nine knots, course due south,” Bell reported. “Advise her closest point of approach will be four miles from our location.”

“Good,” Wilson said. “Meet her.”

“Navigator,” Jeffrey said, “give me an intercept course at eleven knots.”

If Wilson had told Lieutenant Sessions in private what this was about, Sessions showed no sign of it.

Jeffrey studied the gravimeter display and the digital nautical charts. There were shallow areas—banks and shoals—in almost every direction. Jeffrey would have to be careful, conning
Challenger
in such restricted waters. At least—thanks to the rendezvous off Cape Fear with the minisub—Jeffrey’s battle-seasoned helmsman, Lieutenant (j.g.) David Meltzer, was back aboard. Meltzer was a tough kid from the Bronx, and a Naval Academy graduate, and Jeffrey liked him.

“Captain,” Wilson said, “before you move, secure all active sonars. Listen on passive systems only.”

“Commodore, we
need
the mine-avoidance sonars.” There was always the chance another U-boat had snuck into the Caribbean and planted more naval mines.

“Overruled. Mines are a lesser risk for now than breaking stealth with sonar noise.”

Jeffrey opened his mouth to object, but Wilson gave him a dirty look. Jeffrey closed his mouth so fast his teeth clicked.

Sessions relayed the rendezvous information to Jeffrey’s console. Jeffrey issued helm orders. Meltzer acknowledged; Meltzer’s enjoyment of having something unusual to do vanished at the thought of hitting a mine. Ensign Harrison, sitting near Meltzer, leaned closer, watching carefully—Bell had chosen Harrison as the battle-stations relief pilot. Harrison was more nervous, too, since Wilson mentioned mines.

COB kept a keen eye on the buoyancy and trim. Sometimes he made adjustments, using the pumps and valves he controlled. One hand stayed near the emergency blow handles, just in case.

Meltzer sang out when
Challenger
was directly under the proper spot, which was a moving target since the
Prima Latina
was moving too. Jeffrey ordered Meltzer to reduce speed from eleven knots to nine, to keep station with the merchant ship.

“Captain,” Wilson said, “bring the ship to periscope depth. Be careful. The waters are crystal clear here, and it’s almost always sunny this time of year.”

What next?

“Helm, five degrees up bubble. Make your depth one five zero feet.” Jeffrey would do this in stages, for caution. Meltzer pulled his control wheel back, and
Challenger
’s nose came up. Her depth decreased gradually, as she and the
Prima Latina
steamed south. The merchant ship’s noises could be heard right through the hull: throbbing and humming and swishing, plus the odd clank or rattle.

“Chief of the Watch,” Jeffrey said, “raise the search periscope mast.” COB flipped a switch.

A picture appeared on several screens—the digital feed from the periscope. Jeffrey looked around outside the ship with a small joystick, which controlled the sensor head on the periscope mast. With
Challenger
’s depth at 150 feet, the periscope head was still tens of feet underwater.

“Master Seventy-seven in sight,” Jeffrey announced, even though the others, including Wilson, could easily see it on the screens. Wilson was right—it was very sunny topside.

The merchant steamer’s hull was a long dark shape above
Challenger.
It plowed through the water steadily. Jeffrey, looking up from below, could see
Prima Latina
’s creaming white bow wave, and her wake. Her twin propeller shafts, and big screws and rudder, were hard to make out. Though Jeffrey could
hear
the screws well enough, he wanted to avoid them at all costs.

The surface of the sea was a rippling, sparkling, endless translucent curtain. The sun cast green-blue streaks down through the water. Sometimes Jeffrey saw schools of fish, clouds of them swimming and darting. Jeffrey looked for bobbing mines, but so far there were none.

“Come to periscope depth,” Wilson repeated. “I need to take a good look at her. There will be subtle signs, like ropes on lifeboats coiled a particular way, to indicate if she’s still in friendly hands.”

“Sir, if you’re so concerned over stealth, we can’t afford to make a periscope feather on the surface.”

“Do it for a split second, to snap a picture. I
must
know if she’s still in friendly hands.”

On his screen, as the periscope head broke the surface, Jeffrey caught a glimpse of a scruffy bearded seaman leaning on one of
Prima Latina
’s railings, smoking a fat cigar. The seaman noticed the periscope at once, tossed his cigar in the water, and started for a ladder to the
Prima Latina
’s bridge. The freighter was flying a Cuban flag. Jeffrey cursed and ordered Meltzer deep.

Simultaneously, aboard
Voortrekker,
southwest of Perth, Australia

The sheer audacity of what they were doing was what impressed Van Gelder the most. Far above them on the surface bobbed an old Sri Lankan freighter, the
Trincomalee Tiger.

Everything that could go wrong for the freighter
had
gone wrong. First her rudder jammed, then her engines
failed. At fifty degrees south latitude, the furious fifties, she rose and plunged sickeningly. The
Trincomalee Tiger
was already well inside the extreme limit of Antarctic icebergs for this time of year: February, high summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

The wind, from the north at twenty-five knots, was forcing the now-crippled freighter ever further into the iceberg zone, and the southeast-running surface current wasn’t helping either. To make things even worse, a severe tropical storm was brewing off the west coast of Australia—in the hours to come the winds and seas around the freighter would strengthen. With no engines or steering control, the worn, tired
Trincomalee Tiger
might hit an iceberg and sink. Or she could simply crack her seams and founder, overstressed by gale-force winds and massive, breaking waves.

The freighter, a neutral, wallowed several hundred miles southwest of Perth, Australia. She’d already radioed a mayday on the international distress frequency. A Royal Australian Navy destroyer was kindly rushing to her aid, but with the distances involved it would be hours before the Aussies could reach the scene. An Australian long-range maritime patrol aircraft was orbiting overhead, but that was mostly for moral support; the plane was designed for antisubmarine work, not search and rescue.

It was dark, and the sun wouldn’t rise for some time, but floodlights on the freighter’s decks shone brightly. Crewmen from the freighter kept waving and gesturing for the plane to somehow land and help them, or lower a rope and lift them off, before it was too late—this was a sure sign of panic. On top of everything else, the freighter’s radar failed. In the night they wouldn’t even see an iceberg bearing down upon them in time to man the lifeboats, and the crew knew that in this rising weather the ancient lifeboats were a death trap.

It was one more part of Jan ter Horst’s master plan.

W
ILSON
,
SATISFIED BY
the periscope photo, ordered Jeffrey to continue with the rendezvous. As shown by live periscope imagery,
Challenger
was directly under the
Prima Latina
now.

Jeffrey watched in amazement and then horror as the merchant ship split apart at the keel.
A mine?
Kathy reported new sonar transients—machinery noise, not breaking-up sounds. Jeffrey saw that this was supposed to happen: the ship’s bottom was a giant double door.

“Here’s your ride through the canal, Captain,” Wilson said. “This wasn’t
my
idea. It goes way above a mere commodore’s pay grade, I assure you. I’m just following orders, as well as giving them.”

“Understood.”

“Surface your ship into the covert hold.”

I was afraid he was going to say that.

“Can’t we have her go any slower?”

“No. If she slows or stops it’ll look suspicious. She’s being painted by dozens of radars we know about, and watched by God knows how many spy satellites we don’t know about.”

Jeffrey thought hard how to do this.
Challenger
would lose speed as she surfaced, because of the power wasted when her hull began to make waves and the pump-jet propulsor’s loss of suction at very shallow depth. Meltzer would have to speed up to compensate, but by how much? An impact by the bow or stern, between
Challenger
and the
Prima Latina,
seemed unavoidable. Jeffrey felt his blood pressure shoot up fast. His first priority as captain was the welfare of his ship.

“Commodore, we need to make some practice approaches first.”

“Don’t worry overly much. There are large rubber bumpers up there in case the two ships touch.”

“We’ve never performed an evolution like this.”

“The computer simulations said it could be done.”

“Simulations aren’t real life, Commodore. A bad collision could sink
both
ships.”

“Get yourself up in there quickly. We’re passing the shoals already. Once through we’ll be in open water again, and the seas will be much higher. This will get even more dangerous than it already is.”

Jeffrey and Meltzer talked it over, discussing tactics. Jeffrey called Lieutenant Willey on the intercom, and they talked it over too. Then COB and Bell offered their advice.

Finally, as Jeffrey snapped out orders, Meltzer brought
Challenger
shallower. The first try was to get the hang of matching speeds as the two vessels closed, to get the feel of the buffeting and suction effects of trapped water coursing between the two hulls. The first try didn’t go well.

On
Voortrekker

“Very well, Number One,” ter Horst said. “You have the conn. I’ll backstop you. Bring us up, and prepare to put us into the
Trincomalee Tiger
’s belly.”

The freighter in distress, ter Horst had told Van Gelder, was a clandestine submarine tender. Her engines and rudder were perfectly fine. She was faking the equipment casualties as an excuse to stop on the high seas, to make
Voortrekker
’s docking easier without arousing suspicion. The orbiting maritime patrol aircraft and the approaching Australian destroyer were all part of the double bluff.

Van Gelder had to admire ter Horst’s cunning and his guts. Not every submarine captain would willfully call down upon himself front-line enemy forces while he rendezvoused with a covert milch cow hiding in plain sight.

Van Gelder issued orders to the helmsman and chief of the watch.
Voortrekker
rose from the depths, and Van Gelder raised the digital periscope mast. The picture appeared on screens in the control room, looking straight up. The underwater keel doors of the freighter were already open, and the well-lit secret hold beckoned invitingly. Blue-green lights flashed steadily, outlining the hold. These let Van Gelder judge the surface ship’s roll and drift, giving him his aiming point. Van Gelder could make out the bulk of the vessel’s massive buoyancy tanks, lining the inside of the hull, surrounding the secret hold. The
Trincomalee Tiger
was, in effect, a camouflaged floating dry dock.

“Surface impacts, sir,”
the sonar chief warned.

“Sonobuoys?” Van Gelder demanded.
Are the Allies on to us so soon?

“Uh…no, sir. Sounded like an air-dropped life raft package and survival gear.”

Good, the enemy plane’s still falling for the playacted desperation on the freighter.
Van Gelder relaxed, but only slightly.
Voortrekker
was nearing the freighter’s bottom.

A rogue wave’s surge and suction threw
Voortrekker
bodily toward the freighter’s hull. Van Gelder snapped out helm orders, fearful of a collision. The rogue wave passed. Van Gelder hesitated to close the distance further lest another rogue wave hit.

“Surface impacts!
Air-dropped torpedoes!
”

Van Gelder jolted. Jan ter Horst cursed.

“Torpedoes are inert!…Confirmed, torpedoes are sinking!”

“Ha!” ter Horst exclaimed. “You see, Gunther? They dumped their weapons to give themselves longer on-station time over the freighter. That aircraft’s no danger to us at all now.”

“Sir,” the sonar chief said uncomfortably, “I only counted two torpedoes dropped. That type of aircraft holds four.”

On
Challenger

Jeffrey had Meltzer return to a depth of 150 feet, and then try again. This time as
Challenger
rose she lined up better with the hole in the
Prima Latina
. But when the ships drew closer,
Challenger
kept yawing from side to side, way too much.

“Captain,” Meltzer said, “we need to use the auxiliary propulsors for better lateral control.”

“Concur,” COB said, “but I have my hands full. When we do a blow and surface for real, if you can call this business surfacing, I’ll be even busier.”

“All right. Relief Pilot, I want you to handle the auxiliary thrusters.”

“Yes, Captain,” Harrison said. He did it the only way he could—he knelt on the deck next to Meltzer’s seat, and reached in past Meltzer for the joysticks that worked the thrusters. Meltzer was totally occupied using the main control surfaces—bowplanes and sternplanes and rudder—to manage
Challenger
’s basic depth and course. The use of junior enlisted men to separately work sternplanes and rudder went out with the
Virginia
class, the first of which had entered service in 2004.

“Let’s try this again,” Jeffrey said. “The key seems to be to anticipate the jostling as we get closer, but not overcompensate.”

Jeffrey told COB to activate
Challenger
’s hull-mounted photonics sensors, so the ship-control team and Jeffrey could get better close-range visual cues than with just the periscope. COB punched buttons. More pictures were windowed onto the console screens, viewpoints from the bow and stern and looking downward too.

Jeffrey grabbed the mike for the maneuvering room. “En
gineer, do whatever you have to do to keep us moving at exactly nine knots as COB does a main ballast blow.”

“Understood, Skipper,” Willey said. “But what happens when we’re partway into the hold and the freighter pulls the surrounding water right along with her? Our speed logs will give false readings, saying we’ve slowed down. Then if we speed up, we’ll crash.”

“I know, that’s the hard part.”

“Sir,” Harrison said, “we can judge real speed over the bottom based on our inertial navigation system.”

Jeffrey nodded. “Hey, that’s using your head, shipmate!” Meltzer, impressed, slapped the ensign on the back, rather roughly, congratulating him but working in a little hazing too.

Jeffrey repeated the ensign’s idea over the intercom to Willey.

“Sounds great,” Willey said. “Only problem is, if you’ll recall, Captain, we don’t have navigation readouts back here.”

A disappointed Jeffrey repeated what Willey said to the control room at large.

“Sir,” Harrison said, “feed him data through the ship’s local area network, and Lieutenant Willey can read it off his laptop. They can manage ship’s speed under local control that way, reacting instantly, from back in the maneuvering room.”

Geez,
Jeffrey thought,
this kid’s smarter than I thought.

The arrangements were quickly made. This was an all-or-nothing effort now.

On
Voortrekker

Van Gelder went back to the docking attempt.

“We must do this quickly,” ter Horst urged. “The enemy destroyer that’s coming may get nosy when the
Tiger
’s engines and rudder miraculously repair themselves…. They
may board the freighter for a close inspection, as is their right by international law.”

“Understood, sir.” Van Gelder tried not to be distracted as he studied his screens and issued more helm orders.

“The Aussies may dig their way through her dummy cargo, discover her false bottom, and find the hidden catwalk down to the submarine hold.”

“I understand, Captain. I understand.”

“We need to have been and gone by the time the destroyer gets here, and we have a lot of work to do before then.”

On
Challenger

Once more
Challenger
approached the
Prima Latina
from below. Jeffrey had Meltzer use the control surfaces and propulsion power to hold the ship as shallow as was safe until he felt satisfied the two vessels were lined up properly.

It was time to commit. On the live periscope image, Jeffrey saw Wilson was right—the surface swells outside were already stronger, as the nearby shallow banks and shoals fell astern.
Prima Latina
was rolling side to side noticeably now, making the docking maneuver even harder.

“Blow all main ballast!” Jeffrey shouted. COB’s fingers danced on his panels. There was a roaring sound, as compressed air forced water out through the bottom of the ballast tanks. Meltzer and Harrison handled their controls in grim concentration.

But as
Challenger
rose into the
Prima Latina
’s hold,
Challenger
’s bulk interfered with the freighter’s propellers biting the water. The freighter began to slow. Relative to the surface ship,
Challenger
seemed to speed up. Willey’s laptop was useless now—Jeffrey would have to do it by eye. Meltzer reported that
Challenger
was surfaced.

“Helm back one-third!”

Meltzer acknowledged at once, but
Challenger
still surged forward in the hold. They were going to hit, and
smash the bow dome and the sonar sphere, and maybe rupture the ballast tanks and detonate the missiles in the forward vertical launch array.

This was getting too tough. Jeffrey seriously considered diving and giving it up, in spite of Wilson’s order.

“Contact on acoustic intercept!” Kathy shouted. This broke Jeffrey’s focus badly—
Challenger
and the
Prima Latina
were being pinged by another sub. “Contact has an active towed array! Contact is a surface ship. Contact’s sonar is Russian!” Not a submarine, a spy trawler, just as Wilson had warned.

Challenger
was trapped: If Jeffrey dived, the trawler would surely catch her as a separate sonar contact. He simply had to make this docking work.

“Helm back
two
-thirds!”

Meltzer and Harrison walked a tightrope now—reversing on the pump-jet made
Challenger
’s stern slew sideways unpredictably. A bow collision was barely avoided, but then
Challenger
started drifting backward in the pool of water in the hold. They were going to hit at the stern, and smash their delicate pump-jet—and Russians were snooping somewhere near.

“Helm, ahead two-thirds!” Jeffrey could see the water around him churning and swirling wildly as he checked the sternway. He ordered, “Helm, ahead one-third,” so as not to gain too much headway.

Kathy announced more Russian pinging, getting closer.

Jeffrey saw the bottom doors start to swing closed underneath him;
Challenger
shivered from violent new buffeting and turbulence, which also affected the
Prima Latina
’s speed. Jeffrey kept having to throw the pump-jet into forward and then reverse. He and Meltzer and Harrison juggled like madmen.

The Russians pinged again.
Do they know we’re here? Are they getting suspicious? Will they try to ram the
Prima Latina,
the way the Soviets played chicken with our navy in the old days?

The hold doors closed securely. “Helm, all stop.
We’re in.
”

Jeffrey had to sit down, then was surprised he’d been standing—he must have jumped up without realizing it as he issued his engine commands.

“Chief of the Watch, rig for reduced electrical.” COB acknowledged, and everyone switched things off. Jeffrey called Lieutenant Willey, and told him to shut down the reactor.

Jeffrey used the periscope to explore their cramped and secret hiding place, which looked more high tech on the inside than the tramp steamer did from the outside.

But Jeffrey dreaded what he might see at any moment. If the freighter hit a mine, her hull would burst inward with sudden flame and blasting water. Her flotation tanks would be ruptured and she’d take
Challenger
with her to the grave. If the Russian trawler rammed them, the freighter’s hull would burst inward with slicing steel and gushing water.
Challenger
would die. The Russians could always claim it was an accident, just another maritime collision.

Strange, urgent vibrations began, though
Challenger
’s pump-jet wasn’t moving. The periscope image showed the water in the hold was slapping around.

“
Prima Latina
engine noise increasing, Captain,” Kathy said.

Jeffrey turned to Wilson. “Is this supposed to happen?”