At the large three-paneled control console of the MGK- 400EM digital sonar, Warrant Officer Borodin tracked the enemy’s ships. The MGK-400 was one of the retrofits the Mourmetz had received in the Vladivostok yard. The new sonar was working in passive mode now, emitting no acoustical signals while it absorbed and plotted the signatures of every moving vessel in a thirty-kilometer radius.
Peering over Borodin’s shoulder, Manilov estimated that it would take two, perhaps three hours to reach the firing position he wanted. Each of the Mourmetz’s six torpedo tubes was loaded with a SET-16 torpedo containing a two-hundred-kilogram warhead. He had four more torpedoes in racks with the new fast-loader at the ready. More than he would ever need.
Manilov wished again he had the firepower of a Russian Navy submarine on routine patrol. He would have television-guided electronic homing torpedoes that he could manually switch to alternative targets if necessary. He’d be equipped with Novator antiship missiles in the event he was thwarted from firing his torpedoes. The Novators would deter the destroyers that would come racing like greyhounds to kill him.
Deterring aircraft was another matter. Before the voyage to Iran, he had insisted that the Mourmetz be armed with Igla SA-N-10 infrared-guided anti-aircraft missiles. Only after a bitter argument did the flotilla commander let him requisition three of the sophisticated missiles. Three! Nothing more than a flea bite against the overwhelming airpower of the Americans. Still, the presence of the missiles gave him a small comfort.
For two hours the Mourmetz crept southward, deeper into the Gulf of Aden. Manilov repeatedly checked the MVU- 110 combat information computer for updates on the target.
At least the enemy was predictable. The great acoustic mass of the target ship — it had to be the Reagan — continued to move in a large northeast-southwest oval pattern. It was probably in accordance with the wind direction, launching and recovering aircraft, then returning to the original position to repeat the operation. Smaller warships — the destroyer screen — seemed to be following random patterns, crisscrossing the path of the carrier.
Judging by the benign activities of the destroyers and the absence of sonar-dipping helicopters, Manilov was sure that they had not been detected. He uttered a silent thanks to the Mourmetz’s designers — the Rubin Central Maritime Bureau in St. Petersburg.
Russians had proven themselves to be inept at so many things. But they knew how to build submarines.
“I’m Commander Morse,” said Spook, forcing a smile on his face as he rose to shake hands with the members of the counterespionage team. “Welcome aboard the Ronald Reagan.”
The counterespionage team had landed aboard the Reagan on the 0700 COD — a C-2 Greyhound cargo hauler — from Dubai. Carrying their equipment in padded bags, the four men were taken directly to the flag conference compartment and introduced to Admiral Fletcher and Spook Morse.
Two were from the FBI — the bureau’s counterintelligence division — and two from the Central Intelligence Agency. Each was a civilian, wearing khakis with no insignia. Each had a guarded, suspicious manner about him.
As if they were investigating him.
Morse kept the smile frozen on his face. In truth, he despised these agents. As civilians, they operated outside the military chain of command. They were invariably abrasive, disrespectful of rank and authority.
These were no exception.
One of the FBI agents, an encryption specialist named Korchek, dropped his bag and looked at Morse. “What’s your job here, pal?”
“Flag intelligence officer. You can call me Commander.”
Korchek seemed to find this funny. “Yeah, sure thing.”
Admiral Fletcher appeared not to notice the agent’s manners. “Make yourselves at home, gentlemen. You can set up your equipment here, if you like. Commander Morse will see to it you have whatever you need.”
More than ever, Morse was concerned about security. He had insisted that the briefing be restricted to those with an immediate need to know — himself, Vitale, and Morse. None of the air wing officers, especially the contentious Boyce, had been informed. Nor had Whitney Babcock, for reasons that Morse did not want to explain to Fletcher. Not yet.
“It will take us a while to get set up,” said Korchek. He had a pockmarked face and oily, slicked-back hair. “In the meantime, this room is off-limits to everyone except me and my agents, unless we specifically invite you to come in.”
“Now wait a minute,” said Morse. “This happens to be the—”
“Never mind,” said Fletcher. “We’re going to cooperate with these gentlemen. Tell us what you want us to do.”
The agents exchanged private nods. Korchek said, “First thing, I want the files on each of your suspects, plus the locations of their work and sleeping quarters.”
Fletcher nodded, and Morse handed a stack of files to Korchek.
“Here’s the way I see your situation,” said Korchek. “You’ve got encrypted data leaving this ship in one of two ways, maybe both. Somebody is transmitting with a satellite comm device. That’s an easy one to home in on, if we know when the guy is using it. Another way is over the intranet, which is a hell of a lot more complicated because there are so many goddamn computers on this boat.”
“How can someone be sending classified data via the ship’s intranet without our comm monitors reading it?” said Morse. “Everything that goes out is monitored.”
“That’s what you think. They could be using some kind of plain-language encryption. Like a how-are-you-I’m-fine note to their mom, but embedded in the language is another message.”
“You mean, something that can be decoded with a key?”
“You got it. Old-fashioned shit, but very sophisticated in the short term, especially if they change the key every time they transmit. The problem is identifying whose computer it comes from.”
Morse said, “Sorry, but that theory won’t wash. I happen to know that we can trace any e-mail on this ship to the sender.”
Korchek gave him a withering look. “What you happen to know happens to be flat-ass wrong, pal. There are tools out there — really magic shit — that can totally erase the origin of any Internet message. And there’s even newer stuff available that can undo the erasure. And so on. It all depends on who owns the latest stuff.”
“Do you people have the latest stuff?”
“Do you think we’d travel all the way out to this barge if we didn’t?”
“There it is,” said Korchek. Two hours had passed before he summoned Morse and Fletcher back to the flag conference room. “Anything in any bandwidth or medium that goes out from the Reagan — satellite phone, Internet connection, you name it — we should be able to identify and locate it.”
He pointed to a device that looked like a laptop computer. Depicted on its color screen was a schematic view of the O-3 level of the carrier. He tabbed a key, and the screen flipped through a series of displays showing each separate deck and level on the ship.
“This is a CRC-91 integrated location processor. We feed it data from whichever homing monitor first picks up the transmission. In less than a minute after we’ve intercepted the transmission, we get a plot here on the screen. We can tell within twenty yards where on the ship the signal is coming from.”