The President moved forward. “First of all, Mister Harmon. You were a cabinet member and report to me. We, you and I, report to the Congress. You do so as directed by me, not by them. But that makes no difference. You are now fired. Try and see if the Congress can get you out of that one,” he said. He turned to the agents. “Hold him outside until I do a few things. I’m going to call the FBI and turn this over to them. Now get him out of my sight,” he said calming down.
The President turned to the DDI, “Josh, can you do what I asked him to do?”
The Deputy Director, Josh Mayfield, looked squarely at the President. “Not only can I, but I can make sure things happen that will make you very happy. First, let’s get the Joint Chiefs over to Langley to see this thing, then let’s get it linked to the Armed Forces data system. We can’t let it out to the lower levels, it’s just not that versatile yet, but we can make sure the theater commanders have it. The rest can see the data on their screens and act accordingly. As far as the Russian assets, I think we can sit down and work a lot out to get what you need done and still keep our people safe.” He looked hard at the President. “I’m not Mr. Harmon, sir. I know who I work for. We can get it done,” he said with a smile.
The President shook his hand. “Then you have the job. I take it the two of you clashed before.”
“I’m not a guy who goes behind my boss’ back, but yes, we had our differences.”
“Fair enough. This was my mistake, and I’m sorry. In this case, I let politics overrule my good judgment. We’ve worked together before. Let’s build a team again,” the President said.
“My pleasure. Now let me get back and get a few things going. By tomorrow, we should be able to sit down and discuss what you want done in Russia,” Mayfield said.
After Mayfield left the room, the President picked up his phone and hit one of the speed dial numbers. A minute later he was talking to the Director of the FBI. “Harry, I want you to get someone over there and search the logs and everything in the man’s desk. I need to know who he called. Since it wasn’t me, who else was a part of this mess? I’m not sure what we should do as yet, but at least let me know what could be done,” he said.
After the conversation ended, the president sat back in his chair. The bickering between the parties had been getting worse for the last twenty five years. Whoever was in power never got support from the other side. It seemed as if nothing could ever get done unless there was overwhelming public support. Even then, the behind the scenes bickering meant the wording took ages to complete. Now, someone in Congress was manipulating his cabinet in a way that could irreparably harm the government as a whole. Somehow, he now had to conduct a war and try and fix this problem at the same time. The hardest part was doing it in a way to bring people together instead of driving them apart. He glanced at his watch. It was only 8:30 in the morning. He closed his eyes and sighed.
The Texas had spent much of the morning positioning herself to take on the four other submarines stalking the carrier. Slowly, she had made her way to within eight thousand yards of the first target. There was no longer any doubt they were Russian. The sounds coming in had been digested by the sonar computer which identified each one as a known submarine which had been tracked in the past. Captain Flank had positioned his ship so that any sound he might make would be masked by another enemy submarine forming the barrier line. That meant going between all of them and being at relatively close range. He wasn’t too worried about it. The Virginia Class were even quieter than the older Los Angeles class attack submarines. His tubes had been opened long before and each had a Mark 48 ADCAP waiting in the tube.
Flank was going to try something different. The Mk-48 could be set to travel at very low speed for a period before speeding up and attacking its target. Even better, each torpedo could be controlled via a small fiber optic cable nearly the entire way to the target.
“Range to nearest target?” Flank asked.
“Sixty one fifty yards, Captain.”
“Range to furthest?”
“Ten thousand four hundred yards, Captain.”
“Is there a solution for all four?”
“Almost, Captain. One more minute on this course should do it.” It was the voice of Chief Cooper.
“Very well.” Flank turned to his XO. “If this doesn’t work, we’ll be up to our ass in alligators,” he said.
“No guts, no glory. I figure the confusion alone will guarantee our safety. They’ll probably think one of their own shot at them. But if we set them right, all we’ll have to do is get out of the way,” the XO said.
Flank nodded. He turned to the watch officer. “On my order, take the ship as deep as she’ll go. Do not go to flank speed. I want no cavitation at all. Let them just run into each other,” he said.
“Aye, Captain, we’re ready,” said the Lieutenant.
Although the air conditioning system worked well, the men in the small compartments were sweating from the tense strain of the past few hours. They hadn’t known it, but Texas had fired the first shot of the war. Now it was getting ready to do it again.
“All targets within range, Captain,” said Cooper over the box.
“Okay, gentlemen, we do this as planned. On my countdown, three, two, one, fire as planned.”
The first torpedo swam out of the tube slowly, then turned to the right and moved away. Ten seconds later another torpedo left the tubes. This one turned left. Ten seconds later another left, turning right, then the final one turning left. Fanning out toward their targets, the torpedoes moved away at an oblique angle until each torpedo was nearly at a ninety degree angle from its target. Then, on orders from the fire controlmen in the Texas, all the fish turned directly toward their target and increased speed to maximum.
Suddenly all four of the Russian submarines increased speed, putting extreme levels of noise in the water. As expected, the noise masked Texas as she sped up and dove away. One by one, the torpedoes acquired the targets on their own. Once done, the fire controlmen cut the cable and let the torpedoes run.
Aboard the Russian submarines panic set in. Suddenly their own sonar operators reported torpedoes inbound. Following their tactics, the submarine commanders quickly turned away from the fish and rang up flank speed. They began turning back and forth to try and confuse the torpedoes, but the Mk-48 could care less. With their over 20 knot speed advantage, they simply followed the noise until they hit.
Four explosions were heard within a minute of each other through the hull of the Texas. By then, the ship was well away, listening for additional noises. Chief Cooper had a set of headphones on listening to make sure they were kills. One of the operators turned and looked at him with a funny face. “What’s that sound, Chief? Never heard that one before,” he said.
Chief Cooper could hear the sounds of bubbles and the tearing of metal. There was a moaning sound and after a minute another explosion. The same sounds came from three other bearings. “Those are the sounds of a ship dying, son,” the Chief said. “You hear what sounded like sharp bangs? That was the crew trying to stop the water. The final explosion and all the bubbles was the ship reaching crush depth. At least it didn’t last long,” he said. There was a sadness in the Chief’s voice. Then he snapped back to the task at hand. “Now make your scans and make sure there aren’t any more around here. I don’t want to have to go through what they just did,” he growled.