Nimitz Class (48 page)

At this point, Admiral Morgan explained in full his conversation with General Gavron. “It is possible, sir, the letter was dispatched, directly or indirectly, from a doomed Mossad man in Cairo. And I think we should act on it right away.”

“I agree. I’ll order four SSNs into the South Atlantic immediately.”

Admiral Morgan paced the office restlessly while the CNO alerted his senior Atlantic Flag Officers. He spoke to the Commander of the Second Fleet, Vice Admiral Ray Mapleton. And he spoke with even more urgency to the Commander of the Atlantic Submarine Force, Vice Admiral Joseph Mulligan.

Arnold Morgan heard him order all four of the submarines he had placed in readiness for a possible mission to clear Norfolk as soon as possible. It was going to take them two weeks to get down to the Falkland Islands, almost eight and a half thousand miles away. The big nuclear boats would run underwater at twenty-five-plus knots, night and day, covering six hundred miles every twenty-four
hours. That would put three of them off the southern coast of Argentina early on September 24. The Kilo was due to show the following day, probably at the earliest.

It was, Admiral Morgan knew, critical they arrive on station well
before
Commander Adnam’s Kilo. That way they would have time to settle into the area, and become used to the normal sounds of the underwater jungle.

The Intelligence officer was enjoying the experience of listening to the CNO in action. He was crisp, economical, and decisive, recommending Admiral Mulligan consider a three-boat submarine trap, north to south, barring the way to the eastern entrance to the Magellan Strait, and the southern route to Cape Horn.

It was made clear to Joe Mulligan that the boss thought only one U.S. nuclear boat, the fourth, should be deployed in the Falkland Islands area.

Admiral Morgan also heard Admiral Dunsmore end the conversation with the diplomacy and tact for which he was renowned. “Very well, Joe. Just a few thoughts. Take them for what they are worth, and I’ll leave the rest to you. Keep in touch, g’bye.”

The CNO turned back. “Oh yes, Arnold, I forgot to mention. We’re taking Bill Baldridge and Admiral MacLean off
Unseen
by helicopter in the next couple of hours. We’ve got a Spruance Class destroyer,
Fletcher
, in the area. She’ll run them into Athens. They’ll both fly direct to London from there.”

“Any thoughts about getting Baldridge down to the South Atlantic as our official observer?”

“I hadn’t quite got to that yet, Arnold, but plainly he ought to be there. What do you think?”

“Oh, very definitely. First because of the official report. Second, he may be pretty damned useful. He knows more about Adnam than anyone else. And he’s just spent a lot of time with his Teacher.”

“Agreed. Let’s get him down to Roosevelt Roads. He can pick up
Columbia
right there. It’s hardly out of the submarine’s way. Bill needs the London-Miami flight, then American Airlines to Puerto Rico. I’ll have Jay fix it.”

“Perfect. Before I leave, sir, there are just two other things I wanted to mention. Admiral MacLean was the sonar officer in the Royal Navy submarine which sank the
Belgrano
in the Falklands War. It took place right down there somewhere south of the islands, exactly where we’re going. I think someone should get his input. The man’s a submarine scholar.”

“Agreed. Lieutenant Commander Baldridge can do that immediately. We’ll get a detoailed report of our action plan to the
Fletcher
, and Bill can debrief Sir Iain on the way to Athens. We’ll detail
Columbia
to make the Falkland Islands patrol, and Bill can give the captain the benefit of the admiral’s knowledge on the way down.”

“The last thing, sir. Should we put the CIA onto the Iraqi money situation in Chile? If that Kilo is really on the course the note is telling us, there’s gotta be a big bank somewhere near Punta Arenas with a lot of Iraqi cash in it. Unless the entire submarine is stuffed with hundred-dollar bills.”

“For the moment I’m going to say not. Let’s just concentrate, very quietly, on slamming the boat which destroyed our aircraft carrier. Meanwhile I had better give the President the news.”

At 1400 on Tuesday afternoon, September 10, three American nuclear submarines, each of them 362 feet long, weighing seven thousand tons dived, with a crew of 133 men, 13 of them officers, began to head out of the Norfolk Navy shipyard into the Hampton Roads. In the space of two hours they had all made the familiar warship exit, out through the wide ocean gap, beneath which the road bridge becomes a tunnel, then on through a near identical gap in the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.

Before them were the broad reaches of the Atlantic, and one by one they turned southeast…USS
Asheville
, USS
Springfield
, USS
Charlotte
. They were all Los Angeles Class, all armed with torpedoes, Tomahawk and Harpoon guided missiles. All were capable of speeds over thirty knots. They were approximately twice as fast and twice the size of the Russian-built Kilo they sought.

USS
Columbia
was the newest of the four SSNs allocated to the
task and was scheduled to leave five hours later at 1900, bound for Puerto Rico, then to the Falklands. Built by General Dynamics in Groton, Connecticut, she was launched in 1994. The big single-shafter operated on two nuclear-powered turbines which generated thirty-five thousand hp. The submarine was capable of operating a thousand feet below the surface.

The U.S. Navy owns sixty of these ultramodern attack nuclear boats. They are the workhorses of America’s underwater strike force, range unlimited. Nine of them were on active duty in the Gulf War.

Columbia
’s commanding officer was Commander Cale “Boomer” Dunning, a forty-year-old career officer from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. As his nickname suggested, “Boomer” had spent a working lifetime devoted to nuclear submarines. He had completed a two-year spell in Holy Loch, Scotland, in the Poseidon program back in the late eighties, and had been promoted to commander in 1997.

CommanderDunning was a fair-skinned, burly-looking man who might have appeared more at home grinding in the mainsheet on an America’s Cup yacht. He had big shoulders and forearms, and tree-trunk legs. He was an excellent, lifelong racing sailor, when he had the chance, and still kept a beautiful wooden skiff at his parents’ home on the Cape, to which he and his wife would most certainly retire one day.

Boomer was married to a perfectly lovely, failed television actress, named Jo, whose father ran a boatyard in New Hampshire. They were, in the most generous sense of the phrase, a family of sea dogs. Boomer was a wizard at the helm of any boat, from a little skiff to a big racing yacht. His reputation in a nuclear submarine was, if anything, higher.

Serving under Boomer Dunning, tactical expert, sonar expert, weapons expert, navigation and nuclear engineering expert, was to serve under the command of the best of the breed. The 132 men who worked for him in
Columbia
had grown in confidence with every passing month. Generally speaking, they reckoned they were the best nuclear boat in the Navy. When they learned they had been
selected for a secret mission in the South Atlantic, on direct orders of the Navy High Command, they assumed that High Command knew precisely what it was doing.

As ever, Commander Dunning had his ship in top order. All of the electronic combat systems had been checked and rechecked. She carried fourteen Gould Mk 48 wire-guided torpedoes of the old, but reliable, ADCAP type (Advanced Capability), tube-launched. Internally she carried eight Tomahawk missiles, with a 1,400-mile range, plus four Harpoon missiles with active radar-homing warheads.

If the Kilo should get off an underwater shot at them,
Columbia
had an arsenal of decoys, Emerson Electric Mk 2’s, plus a MOSS-based Mk 48 with a noisemaker, designed to seduce any incoming weapon away from the submarine. Her IBM sonars were the BQQ 5D/E type, passive/active search and attack. On station,
Columbia
would use a low-frequency, passive, towed-array, designed to pick up the heartbeat of any prowler, which Commander Boomer Dunning, and his sonar team, would then designate either harmless or hostile.

Columbia
’s Combat Systems Officer was Lieutenant Commander Jerry Curran, a tall, bespectacled, slightly stooped figure from Connecticut, who had a master’s degree in electronics and computer systems from Fordham University. According to Commander Dunning, “Jerry’s the best bridge player in the Navy.”

With only four hours to go before
Columbia
sailed, Lieutenant Commander Curran was below talking to the sonar chief. The navigator, twenty-nine-year-old Lieutenant David Wingate, was poring over his deep-water charts of the South Atlantic near the Falkland Islands.

It was back in the nuclear area where the activity was still intense. The Marine Engineering Officer, Lieutenant Commander Lee O’Brien, and his team had taken the nuclear reactor critical some hours previously, or “pulled the rods” in the vernacular. This a slow and methodical process, getting the power plant up to temperature and pressure, ready to provide
all
of the power requirements
of the submarine—roughly the amount required for a small town in winter.

Lieutenant Commander O’Brien, an Annapolis graduate with a degree in nuclear sciences from MIT, was the busiest man in the ship. Commander Dunning had been down to see him a couple of times since lunch, but generally speaking he left the thoughtful Boston Irishman to his work. “He doesn’t need me looking over his shoulder,” he said to Lieutenant Wingate, “he needs peace. The guy’s got six children at home, five of ’em boys. He’s good under pressure.”

By 1830 the telegraph systems from the bridge to the control room had been tested for the final time. At 1850, Commander Dunning signaled to the engineers.

Out on the casing, the deck crew prepared to cast her off. The Officer of the Deck ordered,
“Let go all the lines…pull off!”
Commander Dunning, standing next to his navigator high on his bridge, said crisply, “The ship is underway…
shift the colors.”
Back astern, the Stars and Stripes was hauled down. Up for’ard, the Jack, the flag with just the field of blue and fifty stars, was also lowered.

As the tugs began to haul
Columbia
off the dock, the flag of the United States of America was raised high above the bridge. Forty feet out into the harbor, Commander Dunning ordered the tugs to let go, and put his telegraph to “Engines backing…one-third…okay…ahead two-thirds.”

The great jet-black hull began to move slowly through the harbor waters, now under her own power, a deeply sinister, menacing sight, no matter how bright the day.

This evening, the light was beginning to fade as
Columbia
cleared the Hampton Roads and headed out into the Atlantic. Commander Dunning remained on the bridge with Lieutenant Wingate. They made twelve knots through the outer reaches of the Norfolk approach, and down in the communications room they relayed back to shore the final adjustments to the next-of-kin list.

They set a course of one-three-zero, heading southeasterly out toward the Bermuda Rise, 500 miles out. But Boomer Dunning
would dive the submarine, and swing onto a more southerly course long before that, as soon as the water was deep enough, due east of Cape Hatteras. Right now, running fair down the channel, Boomer ordered, “All ahead standard [fifteen knots].”

Orders for Bill Baldridge had been received in the ship’s radio room—Athens-London-Miami–Puerto Rico, to meet
Columbia
en route to the South Atlantic.

He explained the situation to Admiral MacLean, who was wryly amused by the U.S. Navy’s total disregard for distance—planes, ships, no problem. They could get anyone anywhere, anytime.

When Bill informed him of the possible position of the Kilo on September 25, the retired submariner looked pensive. “Yes, she’s heading to South America, isn’t she?” he said. “I expect you chaps will try and get her south of the Falklands, hmm? May as well stick to the one piece of hard information you have. But it’s not that easy right there.”

“Can you give me the main problems?”

“Yes. Have you ever heard of a place called the Burdwood Bank?”

“No.”

“The Burdwood Bank is a pretty large area of fairly shallow water on the edge of the South American continental shelf. It runs two hundred miles from east to west, passing a hundred miles south of East Falkland. Right there it’s about sixty miles across, north to south.

“Now, further south, the Atlantic is two miles deep. But on the bank, the bottom rises to only a hundred and fifty feet below the surface. The shoals are quite well charted. But it’s a lethal place for a big nuclear submarine, which wants to be at two hundred feet to avoid leaving a wake on the surface.

“But that’s not really your problem with it. Because you do not have a surface ship enemy. Your problem is noise. And that bloody
bank is one of the noisiest spots in the entire ocean. It’s full of fish, shrimp, whales, and God knows what else. It’s impossible to listen for an oncoming boat because of the general racket. Never mind one as quiet as that Kilo is going to be.”

“From what you say, sir, the Kilo is probably not going to cross the bank. He’s obviously coming from the coast of South Africa, with a course set nearly due west, to get around Cape Horn.”

“I agree, Bill. It’s worth remembering that the southernmost point of Africa is around seventeen degrees further north than Cape Horn. So he’s running west-southwest. I think he will deliberately avoid the Burdwood Bank, not only because it’s so shallow, but because it’s quite widely patrolled by British military aircraft. My guess is that your enemy will come at you from out of the east. And, Bill, you must get into position before he gets there.

“My advice is to get in fairly close to the bank, so your sonars are pointed in an arc, east and south out toward the much deeper water. That’s where he’s coming from. And out there it’s quiet. Actually, you’ll find it relatively silent in those waters—until Ben Adnam shows up. You’ll probably want to stay on passive sonar until the very last moment. So it is important to be aiming the beams across a wide zone which is as quiet as possible.”