“Commander Carr!”
“Lieutenant Jabo.” They shook hands enthusiastically. Although they’d met only once, it had been a memorable day.
“You two know each other?” said the admiral.
Carr explained. “I did the preliminary investigation onboard the Alabama. After the collision. Lieutenant Jabo was the first man I spoke to.”
“Of course,” said the admiral, remembering, looking from Michaels to Danny. “You two were both on there. With Captain Sellers. We went to the Academy together.”
They both nodded their heads, silently acknowledging that among the lives that had been sacrificed during that patrol, so had their CO’s career.
“Danny, you lost a finger, didn’t you?” He mildly amused by the idea.
Danny felt the XO, next to him, tense up as the admiral called him by his first name.
“Yes sir, two fingers actually. Lost them and got them back.” He extended his left hand so they could see the scars around the base of his ring finger and middle finger, dark pink lines like rings around the bottom. Everyone except the XO leaned over it so they could get a better look. Danny made a fist as best he could.
“I didn’t get back the complete range of motion,” he said. “But still pretty remarkable considering they spent two days in a zip lock bag of ice.”
“They shut a hatch on it, right?” asked the admiral.
“Yes sir, that’s right.” The surprise was evident in Danny’s voice.
“Don’t be surprised,” said the admiral. “I’ve read that incident report many, many times. Everyone in this building has. That’s the closet we’ve come to losing a boat since the San Francisco ran aground.”
“The corpsman cut them off,” said Michaels. “Lieutenant Jabo went right back to fighting the fire after he bandaged it up. Danny got those cool scars to go with his Navy Cross.”
The admiral shook his head in admiration. “What you did — what you both did — was a credit to the submarine force.”
“Thank you sir,” said the Captain and Danny simultaneously, equally embarrassed by the praise.
There was a pause, and then the admiral sighed heavily. “Well I’ll give you young men credit. You have a knack for landing interesting assignments.” He nodded at Carr, and Carr stood to speak in front of the large chart of the Pacific that hung in front of the room.
“Three days ago, both emergency distress buoys were launched from the USS Boise, SSN 764. They began transmitting here,” said Commander Carr, tapping the chart with a telescoping pointer he’d pulled from his pocket. It was in the middle of the biggest, most remote part of the Pacific, equidistant, it seemed, between Japan and Hawaii.
“You know what that sounds like, right?” said the admiral.
“Yes sir,” said both Danny and the captain, two of very few men alive who’d heard the sound of those beacons launching and lived to tell about it. Danny heard the XO clear his throat, perhaps an unconscious attempt at getting the admiral to direct some of his comments to him, the Louisville’s second-in-command.
“We believe they were launched due to timer reset,” said Carr.
The buoys were designed to announce a dire emergency onboard a nuclear submarine. Three conditions could cause the buoys to fire the explosive bolts that held them to the hull, after which they would float to the surface of the ocean and begin transmitting on a frequency monitored at designated listening posts on three continents. One, a large positive pressure inside the hull, indicating an explosion or fire. Two, excessive depth, well in excess of the ship’s test depth. And finally a timer that had to be reset manually at least once a day in the ship’s control room.
“That means twenty-four hours without action. And ignoring a fairly obnoxious alarm.”
“Accidental?” said Danny. “The ET’s forget to reset them?” It was inconceivable to him, but it had happened.
“We don’t believe so,” said Carr. “The ship had also missed a routine transmission a day earlier. Subpac had just sent a query message across the regular broadcast when the buoys began signaling. We haven’t heard a word from her since.”
The Captain spoke. “What do we think happened? Did she sink? Reactor accident? Are we going on a salvage mission?”
The Admiral and Carr shot a look at each other. “We don’t believe she’s sunk,” said the Admiral.
“We caught a trace of her on this SOSUS array a day later,” said Carr, pointing to a position on the chart. SOSUS arrays were extremely sensitive listening devices fixed to the ocean floor at key points throughout the world. “This was west of the BST buoys. She was still running quiet and deep at that point: they heard good screw turns indicating five knots. But remember — the buoys launched on the timer, not for collapse depth, or high pressure. In addition, if she sunk in ocean that deep, every tank would have imploded and that we should have heard loud and clear on the SOSUS net. We have no reason to think the submarine is not intact.”
“She’s just not responsive,” said Danny.
“And overdue,” said Carr. “As of noon today. So we have a ship that’s not responding, that we believe has not sunk. Based on that, we have three theories. One, some kind of catastrophic accident that has killed the crew, but somehow didn’t damage the equipment.”
“Like what?” said the Captain.
“Maybe some kind of gas leak,” said the admiral. “Johns Hopkins has been working with us on this, and the best they could come up with was a fire in one of the charcoal bed filters: it would burn quickly, and release enough carbon monoxide to kill everyone, but leave the ship more or less intact.”
“And she’s still steaming?”
The admiral spoke. “The geniuses are gaming this out for us as we speak, but we know it’s possible. With the equipment in good working order and the autopilot engaged, she could maintain course and speed for days. Maybe weeks. Especially at slow speed.”
“You’re not buying it?” said the captain.
“Not really. If it is some kind of equipment casualty, obviously it’s something we’ve never thought of. Or we would have fixed it.”
Carr continued. “The second theory is some kind of virus that’s wiped out the crew.”
“Any evidence of that?”
“No evidence,” said Carr. “But there are a couple of precedents. A Trident two years ago was hit so hard by the flu that they had to return to port — half the crew was incapacitated and two men ended up dying.”
“The Nevada,” said Michaels. “I remember that.”
“Thirty years ago, a sturgeon-class boat had meningitis outbreak that killed four men.”
They mulled that over for a moment.
“What’s your third theory?”
“Maybe she’s okay. Maybe she’s just suffered a catastrophic equipment failure, a complete loss of power, and is adrift and on the surface. Crippled but alive.”
“Seems like they would come up with some way to send an SOS,” said the captain. “Christ, they still have a flare gun, right? Battery powered VHS radios?”
“No one has heard anything, no one has reported anything, and we’re combing satellite photos for any sign of her. But it’s a big ocean — maybe she is out there adrift. Let’s hope so. The only thing we know for certain is that she’s in trouble.”
“So what do you want us to do about it, Admiral?” asked the captain.
“Find her and track her. And as far as your crew is concerned — everybody but you three — it’s an exercise. The details are in your orders.”
“And after we find her?”
“Attempt to contact her as described in the special procedure.”