“That’ll help the mission, Captain, not detract from it. Who else is on the Panther crew?” Pacino asked.
“Lieutenant Varney will come along as your operations officer and third-in-command. He’s an electrical expert and knows reactor controls. You’ll be accompanied by Chief Goreliki on radio, Chief Albanese on sonar and Chief Kim on artificial intelligence battlecontrol systems. And the cryptotech translator. And, of course, the SEALs.”
“But as to who is OIC, that’s still under discussion,” Seagraves said. “Mr. Pacino, send up the navigator, will you?”
“Aye, sir. By your leave, sir.”
“Granted, Mr. Pacino.”
When the door shut behind him, Quinnivan looked at Seagraves. “Interesting. We’d zeroed in on Lomax as OIC, but Pacino went immediately to Dankleff.”
“Let’s see what Romanov thinks about that combination. But at least we have Pacino’s role figured out.”
A knock came at the door. Rachel Romanov came in and sat down at the captain’s table.
Fifteen minutes later, aft in the wardroom, Pacino was reading news files on his pad computer when U-Boat Dankleff walked into the room — or more precisely, danced into the room. He grinned, offered his fist to Pacino and said, “Guess who just got named officer in charge of the Panther?”
Pacino grinned back and bumped U-Boat’s fist. “Captain U-Boat,” Pacino said.
“And I hear you’re my XO.”
“Yes, sir, Captain, sir,” Pacino said, mockingly stiffening at attention in his chair.
He could already tell it would be a good mission.
The crew’s mess was cordoned off at the forward and aft ends. With the galley shut down and dark, the only food was served out of a refrigerated cart placed outside the room. A petty officer was stationed at the forward door to make sure anyone wanting to enter was cleared for the goings-on inside. The aft hatch to the engineering spaces was shut and dogged, a second petty officer seated near the door to escort personnel through if they entered from aft.
Lieutenant Commander Ebenezer Fishman and Lieutenant Commander Rachel Romanov stood at the forward bulkhead at a large dual-purpose whiteboard, which could be paired to a tablet computer or used the old-fashioned way, with dry-erase markers.
“Okay, people, listen up,” Romanov said sternly. “Glitch matrix review. The following glitch possibilities have been identified for this mission. Commander Fishman will present the glitch and I’ll call one person to state the contingency plan corresponding to defeat the glitch. If that person blows it, I will call on someone else until we arrive at a satisfactory answer. You people got that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” several of them said in unison.
“Fine. Commander, if you’ll start with the easy ones?”
“My pleasure, Navigator, but shouldn’t we reveal the perfect scenario first?”
“Good point. Mr. OIC, Mr. Dankleff, recite for us, please, the textbook mission plan.”
U-Boat Dankleff stood. “Yes, ma’am. Okay, pay attention, pirates. Here’s the nominal mission profile. The Panther—which, until we take her over, is “Master One”—out-chops the Strait of Hormuz right into our barrier search trap. We follow it in complete stealth southeast out of the Gulf of Oman and continue in trail until Master One slows and rises to periscope depth for whatever reason, the most likely reason to snorkel and charge her batteries. It’s possible she sends a situation report back to her base saying all is well. The SEAL force is ready in the lockout chamber. Own ship is positioned to match the speed of Master One, but slightly forward on her port bow, at her ten o’clock, and we’re deeper so we can use the scopes to see what’s going on, without our scopes penetrating the surface and alerting Master One.
“SEALs lock out and foul the screw of Master One. Master One surfaces and a hatch comes open and a crewman or several pop out to say ‘what the fucking fuck happened to our screw?’ and they are overcome by the SEALs, preferably by non-lethal means but lethal if need be. SEALs invade the ship and take out the crew, again, Plan A being the use of non-lethal shock, but Plan B being lethal means. In a perfect world, no bullets will hit equipment. The Panther crew is locked out and placed on or near a provisioned raft with an emergency locator beacon that will fail to work for 48 hours, and only then go off automatically to call for rescue. By that time, we’ll be long gone.
“At this point, the boarding party locks out of Vermont and locks in to the Panther and the submarine is ours. The base plan is to drive off the track of a great circle route around Africa to the southeast, parallel to the west coast of India, then due south to the a point midway between South Africa and Antarctica, then westward into the Atlantic — the idea being that this course keeps us off shipping lanes and isn’t a predictable route from the point of the successful hijacking. We continue westward, again, off the great circle route to the Bahamas, only turning when we can go north-northwest, finally turning due west slightly north of the Tropic of Cancer to head in to the Bahamas and AUTEC.
“All this time, we are submerged deep on batteries by day, at a moderate speed that allows battery endurance until dark, which we’ll need to figure out once we’re aboard. Our intelligence on the watt-hours of the Kilo’s battery is all over the map. During the night, a few hours before dawn, we go to periscope depth, make sure we’re alone in the sea, and snorkel to charge the batteries. By the time the sun rises, we’re deep again, running silent until the next excursion to PD.
“How was that, Nav?” Dankleff sat back down.
“You forgot that Vermont will be in trail of you to make sure no one sneaks up you to try to take you out, whether Iranian or Russian, and to keep track of you,” Romanov said, frowning, her eyes briefly locking on Pacino’s, her frown growing more angry. “It would be nice to be able to know what’s going on with you guys, in case anyone in authority asks.”
“Right, Nav,” Dankleff said, unruffled by the navigator’s frostiness.
“So, can we go to glitch number one, Commander?” Romanov said, addressing Fishman.
“Glitch numero uno, people. Master One comes barreling out of the Gulf of Oman submerged, deep, at high speed, on her batteries,” Fishman said.
“Mr. Dankleff?” Romanov pointed at U-Boat.
“Vermont chases Master One, keeping in trail, SEAL force ready to suit up so that when Master One does eventually go to PD, we can take her. Easy day.”
“Okay, next, Commander Fishman.”
“Glitch two starts out as glitch one. Master One blasts out of the Gulf of Oman deep and fast. We chase her and remain in trail. But somewhere during Master One’s underway, she starts her reactor and is independent of the surface. Master One continues hauling ass to wherever she’s going, without going up to periscope depth.”
“Let’s hear from the AOIC, Mr. Pacino, for this one,” Romanov said, looking at Pacino.
Pacino stood up and addressed the room. “Same as glitch number one, Nav. Vermont chases Master One. He may be independent of the surface, but he can’t stay submerged forever. His navigation will eventually go to shit and he’ll need a navigation fix. The Kilo’s atmospheric control equipment is okay, but any malfunction means he’d need to ventilate. At some point, his mission ends and he has to bring the boat back to base. He’ll want to come to periscope depth to refine his navigation fix before entering restricted waters, like the Gulf of Oman. Chances are high we could get him before he in-chops the gulf.”