“Yes, I sure do. Another short one, and he’ll send it at the best radio propagation time. That’s why I’m sleeping aboard tonight. Another message would add a lot to what we know, and he knows that, too. But he’d like to avoid as much as possible of the preliminary procedure signals.” Richardson abruptly changed the subject. “Did you find out how this message was routed?”
“Radio Asmara. Relayed on landline to Washington. We got our copy from the Pentagon and had it decoded even before ComSubLant, down in Norfolk. What difference does it make how it got here?”
“None. But remember, with a message this important, Keith was probably in his radio room when it was sent. Radio Asmara, eh?” The cadence of Richardson’s sentence slowed perceptibly.
“It’s one of our main communications stations serving the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean,” ventured Buck, aware that Richardson knew this as well as he.
“It’s a quarter of the way around the world from here. Keith must have had the devil of a time getting through,” said Richardson musingly, as he closed the empty suitcase, shoved it into a corner.
“Is that why you think he made the message so short? But he couldn’t have known it would have to go through Asmara before he opened up!”
“Maybe he did at that, Buck.” The younger officer felt his senior’s measured gaze. “He knew he’d have to raise some very distant station and start with a lot of procedure signals. So there would be a lot of lost time before he could even get to the main part of the message.”
“So?”
“So maybe someone might try to jam his transmission! That would be another reason to make it short!”
Comprehension on Williams’ face, but still a question. “Why didn’t he say so, then? He’d want us to know that, if he expected it, wouldn’t he?”
Richardson’s voice dropped a half-octave, as he answered. “Security, Buck. They didn’t get that submarine up there overnight! This wasn’t all just an unhappy accident. I’m guessing it wasn’t, and I think Keith is guessing the same thing. At least, it might not be. If it isn’t, they’ve been reading our mail for a long time. And it stands to reason, if the collision was deliberate, that was no ordinary submarine!”
“Good Lord.” Buck expelled the words not as an exclamation but almost as a sigh. “So you figure maybe they sent whatever is up there because they knew Keith was coming into the Arctic Ocean?”
“Only a guess, I said.”
“You’re reading an awful lot into this little message, Rich.”
“The next installment from Keith will tell a lot more. That’s why I figured I’d better spend the night aboard. He’s going to send another message, and he’ll time it for when we’re in darkness. If we can intercept his transmission direct, instead of depending on some shore station to relay it, we might learn quite a bit just from the way he sends it.”
Buck was silent for a short moment, then said musingly, “He’ll know we’ll be anxious for his follow-up message, all right, but why should he wait with sending it? We’d get it sooner with another relay through Asmara or Guam, or somewhere, than if he waits till we’re in darkness and there’s a chance of giving it to us direct.”
“Sure. But it’s Keith up there, and he knows we’re down here. What would you be thinking, right now, if you were in his shoes?”
“Well, I guess it’s obvious I’d be hoping my friends in New London would rally around.”
“You know damn well they would, Buck. And you’d also know that Keith and I would be having this very talk, right about now, and would be sitting in our radio room when your message comes over the air. And you’d also know that we’d figure you’d be in yours.”
“I see what you mean,” said Buck, slowly. “That’s just what he’ll do.” Then a thought struck him. “Do you think we could talk to him by voice?”
Richardson hesitated before answering. “No. At least, not for anything really important. Maybe our single side-band set can reach him, and hear his, but what could we say that’s worthwhile? Any real information he wants to send will come coded, in the right code this time, and by CW.”
“Coded dots and dashes are fine, Rich, but just think what it will do for Keith and his whole crew if we can talk to him by voice!” Buck was speaking rapidly now, throwing all he had into it. “We don’t know anything at all about what kind of shape he’s in. He’ll tell us in his next message. He’s probably already got it drafted. What he and his whole outfit want to hear is that we’re right in there with them, and using every resource the Navy’s got. There’s no rule against voice, is there?”
“No — voice doesn’t have the range CW has. But you can’t encipher voice. No voice code is secure. If our guess is right there’s bound to be an army of unfriendly communication types monitoring everything that goes on the air in that area.”
Buck could sense his superior’s desire to be convinced, could hardly wait to press the argument. “I’m talking about morale, boss, not security. We don’t need to say anything at all that refers even to where they are, or what they’re doing. Don’t you think Keith knows us well enough to read between the lines of whatever we say to him?”
Weakening, Rich nodded at the justice of this point. However, he persisted. “The problem is that we’ll be making him transmit a second time. If they’re monitoring the Arctic, maybe with direction finders, we’re making it that much easier for them to locate him. We’ve no idea what they’re up to. I agree it will be good for his morale — and ours, too — if we can come up on voice with him. And he is in international waters, and has every right to send anything he wants. But if there’s something funny going on it would be wrong to make him send a lot of procedural transmissions to establish the voice contact.”
Satisfied that he had won, Buck nodded in his turn. “That’s no problem, boss. The call-up procedure and all that, I mean. We can get around that easy. We’ll use our old wolfpack code. He’ll be sitting there in his own radio room and hear it himself, and it’ll work like a charm!”
Richardson felt his own enthusiasm beginning to match that of his junior. “You did say that you and Keith had resurrected that old wolfpack code of ours. How would you use it?”
“We wait for him to send the next message, right? We hear it come in, right in our radio shack. The minute he gets the receipt from the shore station working him, we break in with the wolfpack code and tell him what we’re up to. He won’t have to come back at us on CW, and there’ll be no prelims on voice either. Then we shift right over to the single side-band set and talk to him. He won’t transmit one single syllable until he opens up to answer, and he’ll not have to do that if he doesn’t want to.”
“Looks like you’re planning for us to break a couple of our communication rules, Buck, but it sounds good. The most important thing of all, though, will be that message he’ll be sending. No interference with that, and no making him repeat on voice what he’s already put in the message!” He stopped, then continued, “I want to get on top of that right away, as soon as it comes in. Do you want to help me be the decoding board?”
“You know you couldn’t keep me away, Skipper,” said Buck with a warm smile. “But do you think a broken-down old submarine skipper and squadron commander will be able to run one of those new coding machines?” The smile of anticipation on his face belied the words.
“Then you’d better take over one of the division commanders’ staterooms and get what sleep you can. When the message comes in we’ll be up for quite a while, working on it. Maybe you should tell Cindy you’ll not be home tonight.”
Buck grinned. “I did already,” he confessed.