“Five degrees left rudder, aye, sir.”
Once the rudder took effect and the Louisiana’s heading began to swing ever so slightly to the north, the captain called, “Rudder amidships.”
“Rudder amidships, aye, sir.”
The new course the captain had laid in was actually an overcorrection for the north-to-south current. The new course was designed to bring the track of the Louisiana back to an imaginary line running due west from the rig. It was imperative that the Louisiana arrive at the rig not only centered between the north and south legs, but also on a heading of exactly 090 degrees. Once she was back on the proper track, a few subsequent small corrections were all that were needed to maintain the proper approach point and aspect.
“All stop,” ordered the captain.
The bow of the Louisiana was just passing the westernmost edge of the rig. The captain would let the momentum of the Louisiana carry her under the rig and into final position.
Once in position, the captain ordered, “All back slow.”
“All back slow, aye, sir.”
The captain momentarily reversed the direction of the Louisiana’s large screw to stop all forward motion and bring the submarine to rest exactly in position under the rig.
“All stop.”
“All stop, aye, sir.”
The north-to-south current pushed the Louisiana gently against the rubber bumpers mounted on the inside surfaces of the rig’s southern legs.
“Surface the boat.”
“Surface, aye, sir.”
The chief of the boat grabbed the intercom microphone and announced, “Surface! Surface! Surface!” throughout the submarine.
The Louisiana surfaced beneath the platform, with the conning tower coming into position about eight feet below the bottom of the rig’s main deck. The stern of the Louisiana extended only slightly beyond the end of the platform. It was an overcast day, which shielded them from surveillance satellites.
“If the sky starts to clear,” the captain ordered, we’re going to submerge until nightfall.”
Fire-escape type stairs were lowered from the main deck of the rig to the conning tower, making it a short climb to the topside living and working areas. As George emerged from the hatch, he spotted Dwight at the top end of the stairs.
“Hello, Dwight.”
“Nice drivin’, George. I’m glad you didn’t knock down my rig!”
“Not me,” said George with a sly grin. “I’m a safe driver. You know I’m not one to take risks.”
“That’s a good one. Just let me tell you, you guys are extremely hot. Everybody’s lookin’ for MAD Adams, even the Chinese. It’s all in the papers. They’re all lookin’ around Africa, though. They seem to think you’re headed for the Indian Ocean to wipe out the Muslims.”
“And how are you, too, Dwight?”
“I’m sorry. I’m just a little excited, and I was worried they might find you before you had a chance to get the fighters… and our special guest,” Dwight said with a note of exasperation.
“I take it Petty Officer Harris is enjoying her leave?”
“Yep, she got here the day before yesterday and has been drivin’ me crazy ever since! Every ten minutes, “When are they going to get here? How much longer? Are they here yet?” Man! It’s been like driving cross-country with little kids!”
George laughed. “Her reports have been extremely valuable, so you better cut her a little slack!”
“I’m tryin’, but it’s difficult! Anyway, come on up and get some coffee. Let’s talk about the work schedule. And by the way, nice beard!”
Knowing that his picture would be published worldwide, George had grown a fairly decent beard over the two weeks since the disappearance of the Louisiana. Much to his chagrin, it only contained a little bit of red; the rest of it was gray!
“Thanks. I’m not particularly proud of it. I’ll be up in a minute, but the first thing we have to do is start getting these reentry vehicles dismounted from the missile nose cones, and get the warheads out of them. We can’t stay here long, so let’s get that started, and then we can sit down and chat.”
Dwight pointed up to the rafters over the submarine. “See that rectangular section just over your deck? That’s the lift we installed to raise and lower the fighters. We’ll also use it to pull the nose cones and reentry vehicles. We can lower the air tugger basket and use it to bring up people, warheads, whatever you want to offload. If you’ll be so kind as to pop the lid on one of those launch tubes, we’ll get started!”
“That’s great. Is John here?”
“John’s here and raring to go!”
George and Dwight had recruited John Ellis, a civilian nuclear weapons expert, who had previously worked for the Department of Energy (DOE) at national laboratories in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Los Alamos, New Mexico. Most recently he had worked on top-secret weapons programs at Sandia Corporation in Albuquerque. Navy personnel were trained only in the operation of the missiles and in procedures for arming and disarming the nuclear warheads after the warheads were mounted in the missiles. They did not receive training, however, on the details of how the nuclear warheads were actually constructed. John’s specialized knowledge, training, and skills were needed in that regard.
Each of the twenty-four D-5 missiles carried by the Louisiana was designed to be launched from below the surface of the sea, climb to suborbital altitude above the atmosphere, and, at a programmed point in its trajectory, release its five independently targeted reentry vehicles, each of which contained a DOE-supplied package, otherwise known as a nuclear warhead. Each reentry vehicle weighed hundreds of pounds because it included not only the warhead, but also the electronics needed to control the vehicle and direct it to its programmed target, as well as the heat shield, which enabled the warhead to survive the intense heat generated when the vehicle reentered the atmosphere.
John had been recruited to supervise the removal of the reentry vehicles from the missiles and the subsequent removal of the DOE-supplied weapons packages from the reentry vehicles. He would also train the crew, divided into two-man teams, to manually arm and disarm the warheads, which John called “peanuts” because of their peanut-like shape.
“You’ll have to keep someone at the controls of that sub to move it fore and aft,” instructed Dwight. “We don’t have much lateral or longitudinal maneuverability on that lift. It’s basically an up-and-down setup, so when we’re ready to unload the next nose cone, you’ll have to maneuver the sub to put the next launch tube under the lift. Later on, we’ll weld the brackets and access flanges for the fighters onto your deck next to the escape hatches. When we lower each fighter, you’ll have to maneuver the sub so that the brackets line up under it.”
“That’s fine, we can handle that. These fighters are going to be great. By the way, how did the testing go on the locking mechanism?”
“Just fine. We built a mock-up of a section of the Louisiana’s deck with an escape hatch and tested the whole configuration. We welded a flange over the hatch and brackets on each side of it and set the prototype, SF-1, on top. There’s a locking bar inside the fighter that’s used by the sonar operator to clamp the fighter onto the deck. We put it on his side because we figured the pilot would be busy flying the fighter into position.”
“Good thinking.”
“Anyway, the locking bar connects to a cam, which controls a couple of steel hooks. When the sonar operator pushes the locking bar about halfway down, the hooks extend under the fighter and grab the brackets welded to the deck. When he pushes the locking bar the rest of the way down, the cam takes over and pulls up on the hooks. As a result, the fighter is tightly clamped to the deck. I can tell you for sure, when that locking bar is down, that fighter is going nowhere!”