“What is it?” Pleasant asked.
“We need a backup plan. Even if we find North Dakota, there’s no guarantee the submarine rescue equipment will work in sub-zero temperatures or we’ll be able to cut through the ice fast enough.”
“Your backup plan is …?”
“What if we try to rescue North Dakota from below the ice?”
“Below the ice? How would we do that?”
Leone took a moment to outline his plan.
19
It was almost 6 p.m. and Christine O’Connor was about to call it a day. Sitting at her desk, she flipped the next page of the document in front of her. She had spent the last few hours reviewing the New START Treaty, which incorporated many improvements over START I. In addition to reducing the number of deployed nuclear warheads by two-thirds, it also required counting the warheads on each deployed ICBM and SLBM, rather than relying on an assumed number of warheads per launcher. What the Russians proposed in Moscow was a return to START I methodology.
New START gave the United States the authority to conduct a Type One inspection on all deployed and nondeployed strategic offensive arms sites, giving the United States the ability to verify the number of warheads. There was one fly in the ointment, however. Russia’s new Bulava missile and Borei class submarines were not yet listed in the latest biannual exchange of data. Russia had deliberately kept them off the list. If they were not on the list, they could not be inspected. However, by not including them on the list of strategic arms, Russia was in direct violation of New START.
As she leaned back in her chair, evaluating how to address the flagrant violation, there was a knock on her door. Christine acknowledged and Captain Brackman entered.
“The president wants us in the Situation Room.”
“What’s up?” Christine asked.
“Richardson and N97 are on the way over from the Pentagon to brief the president.”
Christine wondered what could be so important as to warrant a visit by the secretary of defense and the Director of Undersea Warfare at 6 p.m. Before she could ask, Brackman added, “Admiral McFarland and Dawn Cabral are on the way too.”
Something was brewing. The CNO was joining them, and the secretary of state’s presence meant the issue had international implications.
“Do you know what the topic is?”
“Yes,” Brackman replied, and Christine could sense the concern in his voice. “They think USS North Dakota has sunk beneath the polar ice cap.”
Christine and Brackman were the first to arrive in the Situation Room, joined shortly by Secretary of State Dawn Cabral, Press Secretary Lars Sikes, and Chief of Staff Kevin Hardison. The president arrived moments later, followed by SecDef Don Richardson and two Admirals: Michael McFarland, the Chief of Naval Operations, and Rear Admiral Gary Riley, the Director of Undersea Warfare. The president took his seat at the head of the table, joined by the eight other men and women in the Situation Room.
“For those who haven’t been prebriefed,” Richardson began, “we believe one of our fast attack submarines, USS North Dakota, has sunk beneath the polar ice cap. Admiral Riley is here to brief us.”
Admiral Riley passed around a stack of PowerPoint briefs. As the president received his copy, he asked, “What was the submarine doing up there?”
Riley replied, “North Dakota is on a northern run in the Barents Sea, tasked with tracking Russian submarines.” He flipped to the first page of the brief, which showed a map of the Arctic Ocean and the northern shore of Russia. “Russia’s first Borei class submarine, Yury Dolgoruky, departed Gadzhiyevo Naval Base five days ago for her first strategic patrol, and North Dakota was assigned to collect intel. We know very little about Borei class submarines — their sound characteristics and operating patterns. North Dakota began tracking Dolgoruky once she entered the Barents Sea, and her last transmission placed both submarines in the Marginal Ice Zone, headed north. We believe North Dakota followed Dolgoruky under the ice, where something happened to North Dakota.”
“Are we certain North Dakota sank?” the president asked.
“No, sir,” Riley replied. “That’s why we’ve issued a SUBMISS instead of a SUBSUNK. There are three submarine rescue alert levels,” he explained. “A SUBLOOK message gets issued when a submarine fails to report in on time. Once there’s reason to believe a submarine has sunk or is in distress, a SUBMISS goes out and we begin mobilizing rescue resources. Once we’ve confirmed a submarine has sunk, we issue a SUBSUNK.”
Riley continued, “It’s possible North Dakota’s crew is okay and unable to report in for some reason, but the likelihood they have suffered a serious casualty increases with each hour.”
Captain Brackman asked, “Have we detected any explosions or other acoustic events that might provide a clue as to what happened?”
“We’ve heard nothing so far,” Riley replied. “Which at least means no torpedoes have exploded, either deliberately or by accident.”
“How long can the crew survive?” the president asked.
“They have enough emergency supplies to keep the air viable for seven days. In the worst case, if North Dakota went down shortly after her last transmission, the crew has three days left. In the best case, if something happened just before she was due to report in, they have six days left. However, if they have electrical power and can run their atmosphere control equipment, they’d be okay for several months, until they run out of food. For now, we’re assuming they have no power and time is critical.”
Riley flipped to the next page of his brief, which showed a map of the Barents Sea and the pie-shaped area drawn by Paul Leone, the ice pilot from the Arctic Submarine Lab.
“This is where we think North Dakota sank. We’ll focus our search over the Barents Shelf, where the water is shallow. If North Dakota went down in the north, in the Nansen Basin, the crew is lost. Water depth in the basin is over twelve thousand feet, and the pressure hull would have imploded. We haven’t detected any implosions, so that means if she’s on the bottom, she’s on the Barents Shelf.
“Which gets me to the next issue. Our rescue plans.” Riley flipped the page.
He began with the resources most people were familiar with. “We used to have two Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicles, or DSRVs—Avalon and Mystic, which attached to a mother submarine for transit to the rescue location. However, Avalon was decommissioned in 2001 and Mystic was retired in 2008. Their replacement is the Submarine Rescue Diving and Recompression System, located at the Undersea Rescue Command in San Diego.
“Our Arctic Submarine Lab will establish a base camp on the ice cap, where we’ll begin our search efforts. Once we locate North Dakota, we’ll transport the rescue equipment onto the ice.” Riley continued, “There are a lot of details still to be worked out, but we have a plan.
“Additionally, we have a Plan B,” he added. “Our rescue equipment wasn’t designed to operate in the Arctic environment and was also built to deploy from the deck of a support ship, not atop the ice. Even if we find North Dakota and the rescue equipment arrives in time, there’s the possibility it won’t function properly or be too heavy for the ice. Our backup plan is to send one of our guided missile submarines under the polar ice cap. Deployed SSGNs carry two platoons of SEALs and an equal number of Navy divers. If necessary, they may be able to ferry emergency supplies to North Dakota and escort personnel off in small groups. The nearest SSGN will be receiving orders on her next trip to periscope depth.”