The ATO wanted to pin him first with a pattern of sonobuoys. They’d make a high-speed pass, drop the sonobuoys, then swing around while the ATO tightened the noose on the sub. Then they’d put the Mark 50 in the water.
The sub was dead meat.
Then he saw something peculiar. It lasted for only a second — while he was looking straight down. It was deep, maybe a hundred feet down, leaving a thin bubbly stream behind it. Shit! Not another fucking torpedo —
His thoughts were cut short by the warning from the O’Hara: “Blister Eleven, SAM in the air! You’re targeted, Blister!”
For an instant the Seahawk pilot was confused. SAM? No way. He had just seen a freaking torpedo in the water. What the hell was this about a SAM?
Because he had already overflown the submarine’s last position, the pilot didn’t see the geyser that erupted from the sea behind him. Nor did he see the trail of fire from the missile as its rocket motor ignited and propelled it toward its target.
“Flares! Flares!” yelled the ATO over the intercom, aware of the danger.
It was the right call — but too late. The decoy illuminators had just begun streaming behind the Seahawk as the heat-seeking Igla missile boresighted the helicopter’s left turbine exhaust pipe.
The sensor operator, seated at his console behind the ATO, was the first to know. He felt the lurch, heard the shriek of tortured machinery. He looked up in time to see the left turbine engine of the Sikorsky explode, taking away the overhead cabin section. To his horror, the whole structure was ripping upward through the big whirling rotor blades.
The mortally wounded helicopter rolled over in a sickening death dive. Tumbling end over end, the Sikorsky plunged 150 feet into the Arabian Sea, barely making a splash before it disappeared beneath the waves.
Alerted by sonar to the torpedoes, both destroyers were spewing out acoustic decoys in a trail behind them. On the bridge of the O’Hara, the captain ordered a violent evasive turn, then swung the narrow bow of the destroyer back toward the oncoming torpedo. He glimpsed the thin white wake as the torpedo sped twenty yards past his port beam.
Farther behind and with more time to evade, the captain of the Royal simply took a thirty-degree offset course, putting several hundred yards between his destroyer and the path of the enemy torpedo.
The Royal churned directly to the spot where the Seahawk had crashed, checking for any sign of survivors. The O’Hara continued at flank speed toward the presumed position of the enemy submarine. Loaded in her tubes and ready to fire were two Mark 50 lightweight anti-submarine torpedoes.
But the O’Hara’s sonar operator no longer had an active contact. Nor did the antisubmarine warfare technicians on the Royal. Or the cruiser Arkansas. Without a positive sonar ID on the Kilo class, it was too dangerous to launch a homing torpedo. The same torpedo could home in on a friendly vessel.
Within minutes three more destroyers had joined the search. Two additional Seahawks arrived with MAD gear and sonobuoy dispensers. A forest of sonobuoys was soon bobbing on the water, providing acoustic cross-bearings for the sub hunters.
But the contact was lost. The submarine had vanished.
The damage reports, relayed from the Reagan’s captain, were coming in faster than Fletcher and his staff could process them. Four enlisted sailors and five officers, including the group operations officer, were busy on the sound-powered telephones.
“Damage control teams are still getting the inner hull plug in place in the aft machinery room bulkhead.”
“Flooding in the turbine rooms is contained. All six compartments are sealed, and the plug should be in place within an hour.”
“Situation now stable amidships fourth deck. Firefighters report the machinery room blaze is under control.”
“Three men overboard still missing, and five picked up by the destroyer Crockett.”
“Reagan’s engineering officer reports number four steam turbine and propeller inoperative.”
“Joplin has finished taking all survivors from Baywater aboard.”
At this, Fletcher turned to Vitale. “How many?”
“Only eighteen, several of them critical. A hundred-ten missing and presumed lost in the explosion, including Commander Borden, the skipper.”
Fletcher felt a pall of gloom descend over him as the enormity of the loss of the ammunition ship and its crew sank in. In a single flash, the lives of over a hundred men and women had been snuffed like a light. Not since World War II had an American vessel suffered such damage from hostile action.
Fletcher didn’t want to think of the outcry in the press and in Washington. The Gulf of Aden had turned into a killing ground.
Still on the prowl was a killer submarine.
“Update on the sub plot?”
“Nothing new,” said Vitale. “No new contacts. Our guy, whoever he is, has either bugged out without being detected, or he’s in deep hiding.”
“Waiting for his next shot,” said Fletcher.
“That’s possible, but it would be suicide. As soon as he makes a sound or takes a peek with the scope, they’re gonna be all over him like a cheap suit. We’ve got more sub-hunting equipment on station than we had in Desert Storm. We even have P-3s on the way down from Masirah in Oman.”
“What about the SSNs?”
“SUBLANT has ordered the Bremerton to rejoin the battle group ASAP. They’re on their way out of the Red Sea, clearing Bab el Mandeb — the strait at the end of the Red Sea — in about an hour. On station by nightfall. Tulsa is on its way from Diego Garcia and won’t get here until late tomorrow.”
Fletcher nodded. Bremerton and Tulsa were Los Angeles— class nuclear attack submarines whose specialty was hunting other subs. For most operations, a carrier battle group had at least one and usually two attack submarines assigned. Because of the Reagan’s unscheduled departure from Dubai, the battle group had assembled without the immediate company of an attack submarine. At the time, Fletcher hadn’t been concerned. He was on his way to engage third-world guerillas in Yemen, not undersea enemies.
Another bitter lesson, he reflected. One of many. When the battle of Yemen was dissected and analyzed by military strategists, it would be declared one of the Navy’s most egregiously arrogant blunders. Unfortunately, the name of Langhorne Fletcher would be forever linked to the blunder.
“COMFIVE wants to know our status and intentions, Admiral.”
“Stand by,” Fletcher said. He picked up the direct line to the captain’s bridge. “Sticks, this is BG.”
“Go, Admiral,” came the voice of Sticks Stickney.
“I know you’re up to your butt in alligators. A quick yes or no. Can Reagan maintain station?”
“If the DC team gets the plug in the inner hull, yes, sir. I should have that nailed down in the next fifteen minutes. We won’t be a hundred percent, but we can operate.”
“How about air ops?”
“With only three turbines and the damaged hull, engineering can’t give me more than about twenty knots. That restricts our aircraft weights for launch and recovery. And there’s another problem. When the turbine was hit, we lost steam to the waist catapults. We’re down to the two bow cats.”
“But we could launch a strike if we had to?”