“Meanwhile,” Admiral Yates continued, “massive Muslim protests are occurring all over the world. They’re accusing the U.S. and other Western governments of plotting the disappearance of the Louisiana!”
“Yes, sir. I know.”
“There’s not a single Muslim country in the world that believes a renegade crew stole one of our ballistic missile submarines. They believe it’s a plot to distract attention and responsibility from the U.S., while the U.S. carries out this mission of retribution. Those individual Muslims who do believe the Louisiana might have been hijacked think that our ASW forces are intentionally not finding her!”
“But that’s absurd, Admiral! There’s nothing better we would like than to find the Louisiana and get this whole mess behind us!”
“We know that, but they don’t. Radical Muslims everywhere are threatening a worldwide jihad if this U.S.-led submarine attacks Muslim countries. They’re even talking about preemptive strikes against targets here in the U.S. and against U.S. interests around the world. We’ve got to find the Louisiana ASAP! President Thornton is doing his best, but diplomacy is not going to work much longer!”
Chapter 27
Petty Office Leona Harris entered the office of the new SUBLANT ops officer, Commander Edward Nordeen. Her eyes were red, and she looked as though she had not slept in days.
“Commander Nordeen, can I talk to you about something personal?”
Looking up, he noticed her sad state and offered her a chair. “Sure, Petty Officer Harris. Have a seat.”
Leona sat down across from the commander in front of his desk. She dropped her head into her hands and started to cry.
“Whoa! What’s the problem? What can I do?” he stammered.
Looking up, she sobbed, “It’s my father. I just got word from Kansas that he may have had a stroke. He’s in the hospital, and they think he’s going to die!”
“Oh my gosh, that’s awful. You need to get out there. Let’s go down right now to see Petty Office Humphrey and fill out a request chit for emergency leave. We can do without you around here for a few days. At a time like this, you need to be in Kansas with your father.”
That evening, after sending her daily fax of ships’ positions to Dwight, Leona packed up her most precious belongings and headed to the airport. At the ticket counter, she handed her driver’s license and credit card to the agent.
“I’d like a one-way ticket please — on the next available flight.”
The agent looked at her strangely and tentatively asked, “Okay, any place in particular you’d like to go?”
Leona laughed. “Sorry. I guess I didn’t say, did I?”
“No, and I’m not so good at the mind reading this evening.”
“New Orleans, please.”
After transmitting the NO FEAR message off the coast of Angola, rather than continuing south toward the Cape of Good Hope, the Louisiana turned westward for two days and then turned northwest and proceeded to the Gulf of Mexico.
During the previous hurricane season, GenCon Construction Company had evacuated two offshore oil rigs in advance of a powerful Category 5 hurricane. After the storm, GenCon publicized that the two rigs had been severely damaged and would not be reoccupied for at least a year. In reality, one of the rigs was not damaged, and GenCon had been converting the rig to be used as a secret testing and operating base, which had come to be known as Platform Alpha.
Selected individuals at GenCon had designed and built two sub-fighters. The prototype had been ready for testing the day George met the civilian engineer outside the mess hall in Norfolk and picked up the blueprints. The blueprints showed the final changes on the sub-fighter George and the engineer had designed, and Dwight had built. The prototype had been tested at Platform Alpha. After the successful testing, the other fighter was rushed to completion. The two fighters had been secretly stored at Platform Alpha where they awaited the Louisiana’s arrival in the Gulf. The fighters were designed to land on the deck of the Louisiana where an airlock on the underside of each fighter would cover and seal one of the escape hatches on the deck. Locking brackets welded to the Louisiana’s hull would be used to secure the fighters in place.
“Sonar, report.”
“All clear, sir.”
“Very well. Make your depth periscope depth.”
“Periscope depth, aye, sir.”
“Up scope.” As the scope rose from the water, Captain Adams made a rapid 360-degree sweep in all directions — a timetested practice of all submariners to ensure they were not about to be rammed and crushed to the bottom of the Gulf by a monstrous supertanker, which had gone unheard by sonar. Having satisfied himself that they were in no immediate danger, he made a slow sweep of the horizon, ensuring there were no ships anywhere in sight. He then turned his attention to Platform Alpha.
Ordinary offshore oil rigs have legs spaced fairly narrowly under the rig, with a large number of structural members crossconnecting the legs. Not so with a jack-up rig. Platform Alpha’s legs were widely spaced — beyond the edge of the platform, and with no cross-connections between them so that the large platform could be ratcheted up and down on the legs. The widely spaced legs, with the two-story platform mounted between them, gave the rig the look of a large spider floating on top of the water, even though the legs extended to the bottom of the Gulf, some three hundred feet below. Two large cranes extended in opposite directions from the platform at a forty-five-degree angle into the air like two insect antennae, completing the illusion.
Captain Adams surveyed the rig through the scope looking for anything unusual that would indicate their plan had been compromised. After thirty or forty seconds, the XO’s curiosity got the better of him, and he asked, “Everything all right, Captain?”
“Yes, it looks fine. Raise the UHF antenna.”
“Raising the UHF antenna, aye, sir.”
“Comm, signal Platform Alpha on the encrypted channel and let me know when they respond.”
“Aye-aye, sir.” Within thirty seconds, the communications petty officer reported, “Authenticated response received, sir.”
“Very well.” Captain Adams made a last check of the bearing and found they were due west of the platform. “Make your heading zero-niner-zero degrees, all ahead slow.”
“Heading zero-niner-zero degrees, all ahead slow, aye, sir.”
Captain Adams maneuvered the Louisiana to approach the center of the platform from the west.
“The rig has been modified to accommodate the width of the Louisiana between the underwater legs, but only in an east-west direction,” the captain explained.
As the Louisiana approached the rig, a slight current running from north to south caused the submarine to drift almost imperceptibly off course.
“We’re drifting to the south,” observed the captain as he continued to look through the scope. “If we continue on this course, we’ll crash into the southwest leg of the rig.”
The navigator, hunched over his lighted navigation table behind the captain, noted, “The GPS readings don’t show any drift, Captain.”
“The global positioning system is highly accurate, but not as accurate as we need for this evolution… Helm, five degrees left rudder.”