Peter Simonds’s ample belly covered part of the vast ocean as he bent over the chart table. His elbows were planted in the South Pacific when Steel entered the control room. “Nothing but water out here,” he muttered as Manchester’s captain peered over his shoulder.
“Imagine how our SEAL friend felt when he looked out of that plane for the first time, XO. What if you’d been up there with him? Water, water everywhere.…” Steel’s voice drifted off as he winked at the chief quartermaster on the other side of the table.
The XO glanced from face to face. Simonds hated flying of any kind. Everyone on Pasadena knew it. “There’s nothing quite like the comfort of a crash dive when I think about being up there.” The idea of parachuting left a decidedly hollow ache in his belly. He placed a large index finger on the chart. “That’s the middle of Florida’s sector, according to the message. I didn’t realize they covered so much territory.”
Steel smiled to himself, remembering how surprised he was the first time he went out on Stonewall Jackson. It wasn’t so much the size of the sector as much as the fact that he’d assumed without thinking that a boomer simply arrived on station and then maintained trim for weeks, close to the same position. But that wouldn’t have made sense. That would provide an easier target if someone was gunning for them. A boomer remained within an assigned sector for very logical reasons, but it maneuvered around that sector much of the time like a mouse in a maze, never standing still, never satisfied … always nervous. Each watch was a series of course and speed changes and variations in depth, but nothing so radical that it might interfere with the antenna they were towing to receive messages. “She won’t be under your finger,” he said to Simonds.
Simonds looked over the rims of his glasses and grinned. “It would take the fun out of it if she was.”
The chief quartermaster was holding a small sheet of paper which he kept smoothing on the side of the table. “I’ve got a new fix here, Captain, fresh out of the computer, no more than thirty seconds old.”
“How close to the last one?” Simonds asked, glancing down at the neat X that had been marked on the chart to indicate Manchester’s last position.
“About yea.” The chief was holding up his free hand to show a minute space between his thumb and index finger. His grin seemed to stretch from ear to ear. The duty quartermaster snickered.
“He was waiting for you to ask,” Steel said, winking at the chief, “and you stepped right into the middle of it.”
“Is today the XO’s day in the barrel?” Simonds asked good-naturedly.
“About thirty nautical miles, Commander,” the chief responded, a large smile still on his face. The navigation system on a boomer was so precise, and the chief so meticulous in his care of it, that his original answer was one of his few attempts at humor. The effort was made with each individual who asked the question. He was especially appreciative whenever the captain acknowledged his little joke.
Simonds shook his head, looking sadly over the tops of his glasses. “I promise never to lead with my chin again, Chief, if you promise not to tell anyone ashore.”
“Done, sir.” The quartermaster was pleased with himself. “Where do we go from here?” They were approaching Florida’s sector from the south, and Steel had set his course toward the southwest quadrant.
“For one thing,” Steel answered, “we don’t go charging into the middle of that sector sounding like the local garbage truck. What I want, Chief, is to hang right on the perimeter for a starter. We’re going to spend all our time listening.” He pointed a finger at Simonds. “I’m going to concentrate most of my time in sonar, or at least I’m going to be listening to what they have to tell me. Until we have a solid contact of some kind, you can wander, but let control know where you are. I’m going to turn east on the bottom leg of Florida’s sector and start my coverage counterclockwise. Then we’re going to be more silent than we ever thought of being before. You get someone with a stethoscope to cover every inch of this ship. We’re not going to make a sound.”
It would have been nice to contact Florida to let them know the “good guys” had arrived. But submarines didn’t communicate with each other. They also would most likely have blown their secrecy if an enemy were lurking. Steel was sure Florida had not received a detailed warning, because any interception of such information would hurt them. More than likely, there had been a general message increasing the alert status for all SSBN’s.
Within two hours Manchester had settled on a leisurely course to the east on the lower leg of Florida’s sector. Her maximum speed never passed ten knots and she varied her depth according to instructions from Peter Simonds until the process became second nature to the watch section. And once they were lulled by this constancy, Steel’s orders were to change their habits. If an enemy submarine were monitoring the surrounding ocean as closely as they were — and that was entirely possible, as far as he was concerned — that submarine’s computers might eventually isolate this distant sound that exhibited manmade habits. And that would change Manchester from the hunter to the hunted. Common sense demanded an uncommon strategy to confuse those computers.
In Manchester’s sonar, each individual sound in that vast ocean became a possible target. The passage of a noise through the water to a submarine’s listening devices can be affected by any number of peculiarities: the salinity of the water, temperature variations, depth of the source/position of the listening device, physical interference between the two, the chatter of a hull responding to a change in water pressure, marine life forms called biologicals, along with any number of unexplained influences that man had yet to understand. The ability of acoustic engineers to screen out unwanted noise meant that a given sound could be detected at an even greater range. These sounds reached the submarine across a wide frequency band over untold distances, sometimes from ranges so far that changing water conditions might attenuate them before the computers ever had the opportunity to identify the source.
To complicate the situation further, Manchester did not know what their prospective target might eventually be. It could turn up before they located Florida. Ben Steel was searching for an unknown quantity based on information from a SEAL who had parachuted into the Pacific Ocean after a briefing by four senior admirals who knew no more than Steel did.
There was no specific reason for a captain to spend so much time in sonar. Ben Steel just felt comfortable there. His sonar officer, David Hall, was a gem, the chief and his technicians outstanding, and they all understood why he enjoyed kibitzing in the background in that small space chock-full of the most sophisticated electronic gear available. One of the first tales told to new students in sonar school was the value of acoustic intelligence, followed by the “sixty hours of Stonewall Jackson” and her sonar officer, Ben Steel.
As he watched his men at work, occasionally easing a proffered headphone set over his head when a new sound was located, Steel’s thoughts returned to old Stonewall. That had been a wonderful tour of duty, better than anything he might have expected aboard a boomer, and the other officers had been terrific to work with. Her captain, Mark Bennett, had been a mentor, the individual singularly responsible for bringing out the best in him.