But there was something more on the mind of Commander Dunning. And it was a feeling of general unease about Kerguelen. He was the only man on board who had been there, and he was the only man on board who had taken a serious interest in the mysterious disappearance of the Cuttyhunk. Boomer was normally rock solid in his judgments, and he never mislaid a truly salient fact. With regard to the disappearance of the Cuttyhunk, Boomer had concluded, there was just such a fact, and he had recorded it — the last satellite message of radio operator Dick Elkins: “MAYDAY…MAYDAY…MAYDAY!!..Cuttyhunk 49 south 69…UNDER ATTACK…Japanese…”
As far as Boomer was concerned this meant Cuttyhunk had most definitely come under attack, otherwise the radio operator would not have dreamed of sending such a highly charged communication. The fact that the signal had ended with such brick-wall finality was compounded by the undisputed fact that the entire ship’s company plus even the ship itself, plus all of the scientists, had vanished.
It was obvious to Boomer that Elkins’s Japanese were plainly Taiwanese, the group for whom he now searched. They had clearly attacked the Cuttyhunk with some fairly heavy-duty hardware. Their motive was equally conspicuous in Boomer’s mind: simple fear of discovery. The Woods Hole research ship had certainly posed no military threat.
If the Taiwanese had not hesitated to open fire on US citizens and either sink or confiscate their ship, they would not hesitate to open fire on Columbia. And he already knew they had submarines in the area; he and Bill Baldridge had seen one with their own eyes.
Boomer did not know what additional shore defenses the Taiwanese might have, but he took the view that his surveillance project had to be conducted with unerring care. He had specific orders to shoot only in accordance with the international rights of self-defense, and to remain undetected. He proposed to carry out these instructions to the letter.
However, the Commanding Officer of Columbia shared none of the general cheerfulness that was apparent in the rest of the crew. When they came within a hundred miles of Kerguelen he proposed to change their mind-set drastically. Until then he was perfectly happy for the videos to run, and for Abe Dickson to overbid his hand with reckless disregard for the conventions of the game…a criticism Admiral Arnold Morgan all too obviously leveled at Boomer himself.
Fort Meade, Maryland. On October 26 Admiral George Morris made his morning report by telephone to the NSA’s office in the White House. His statement was the same as it had been yesterday, and the day before. As it had been every day since October 15, when the satellite’s photograph shot at 1500 local had shown K-10 missing from its berth in Canton.
“Not a sign of the damned thing, sir. If it’s been running at nine knots it could be nearly twenty-five hundred miles from base now. And it could have headed in any direction — back to the north or anywhere else. Beats the hell out of me.”
“And me, George. Of course it might just be circling Taiwan, or even on patrol up around South Korea…that’s the whole trouble with the little bastard…you can’t see it, and you sure as hell can’t hear it at its low speed. Who knows? Let me know if anything shows up. I don’t like that little sonofabitch out there on the loose.”
Columbia cleared the Australian Antarctic Rise at 2100 on the night of November 2 and came steaming in toward Kerguelen, from the east, at 0100 on November 5. Seven hours later, a hundred miles off the Courbet Peninsula, still running at six hundred feet, the Commanding Officer addressed the ship’s company over the public address system.
“This is the Captain speaking, and as you all know we will soon be approaching the island of Kerguelen. I want to alert everyone that I do not regard this search-and-find operation as strictly routine and without danger.
“A couple of years ago a Woods Hole oceanic research ship vanished with all hands around the island of Kerguelen, our present destination.
“Some of you may have read the reports of the tragedy, in which twenty-nine people were lost. In my view the Cuttyhunk was attacked. And it may have been attacked by some foreign Navy patrol craft, which was here to protect the guys we’re trying to locate. In short, it may also try to attack us, and we don’t know if it is carrying any antisubmarine kit, depth charges, or mortars, but if I was in charge of protecting something here in these narrow seaways, I sure as hell would be!”
That received a predictable burst of laughter. But the Captain continued, “Let’s face it, guys, no one is a match for us. We’re the best, and we’re in the best ship. But my orders are specific — we’re here to search and locate and report. We’re not here to attack anything.
“So let’s just get our heads straight. We might be in dangerous waters, so we need to stay in peak form…keep our eyes and ears open at all time. Let’s conduct this search like the professionals I know we all are. We are not here to attack, except in the event of a clear and obviously aggressive action against us — one which we judge to be ‘them or us.’ Because there is always only one answer to that — not us.”
Everyone liked that. “That’s it. Let’s get to it.” The CO concluded, “The search begins at 0800, first light. I intend to take nothing for granted. We don’t know who or where our enemy may be. But we sure as hell want to see him before he sees us. That’s all.”
Columbia slipped through the cold dark waters beneath a howling Antarctic gale and came to periscope depth, nine miles off the high granite headland of Cape George, the southeastern tip of the Island. With the wind out of the northwest, there was some lee farther inshore, but not out here, and the US submarine wallowed in the big swells with thirty feet between trough and crest.
“Can’t see much in this,” growled Boomer. “Who has the conn?…Okay remain at PD…continuous visual IR and ESM lookout. I’m gonna survey the south coastline…we’ll probably have to go in closer to see anything…bottom’s about three hundred feet here…watch the fathometer…don’t go inside two hundred feet and don’t trust the chart — it’s old, and probably suspect.”
They steamed through the grim, gray day and again came to periscope depth. Boomer could see the towering, forbidding southeastern coastline of Kerguelen. The weather had improved and the sea was calmer in the lee, but the light was poor and the sky overcast. The sun had not yet lit up the granite cliffs of the great curved hook of Cape George.
Peering through the periscope, Boomer took a few seconds to acclimatize himself to the sullen, hostile magnificence of this dreadful place. It was a feeling he had not encountered since last he stared at the rock face of Kerguelen seven months ago. And he remembered it well. He shuddered and handed the periscope to the watch officer.
While the weather held, his plan was to move quietly westward along the southern coastline at periscope depth. They would run at five knots, using passive sonar with a constant IR and ESM watch. At this latitude there would be eight hours of daylight between 0800 and 1600. Boomer would search all night, using his infrared, picking up not so much light as heat. And heat was probably his best chance. He decided to spend forty-eight hours on the south coast, which was more than seventy miles long. Then turn north up the forbidding eighty-mile-long windward west coast, beyond Cap Bourbon.