"Lights, please," Travers said, rising.
The room lights dimmed. A projector switched on behind the big screen, illuminating it. Visible now was a photograph shot through a periscope camera, obviously shot through a light-intensifier lens, with brights painted in yellows and whites, and darks in greens and blacks. Date and time stamps in the lower right-hand corner marked the photo as having been taken at 0447 hours local time, on the twenty-fifth of June.
Gordon's eyes narrowed as he peered at the image. That he was looking at a Soviet submarine was obvious. There was something about the look of a Soviet boat's hull that was unmistakable. The sail on this one, though, was longer and squatter than other Russian boats Gordon had seen.
"We are looking here at a Soviet attack submarine," Travers said. "We first ran into this boat when she was on sea trials two years ago. Following the NATO tradition of naming Soviet boats after the maritime alphabet, she was designated as 'Mike.' "
Of course. A Mike. Gordon had seen some blurry intelligence photos a year and a half ago, shortly after he'd come on board at the Office of Naval Special Operations Command. There'd only been one boat, though… at least until now.
"That first Mike was obviously a research prototype," Travers went on, as though reading Gordon's thoughts. "She sported some extremely sophisticated features… as fast, we think, as an Alfa, and possibly as deep a diver. What makes her a considerable advance over the older Alfa, however, is her extreme silence. Our people believe she may be at least as silent as a Flight I Los Angeles."
Gordon heard the collective intake of breath — from Mike, from Admiral Hartwell, from LCDR Latham. He felt the shock, too. The first twenty-four Los Angeles boats off the ways had been extremely silent by American standards. With the Atlanta, SSN-712, first of the uprated Los Angeles Flight II boats, the class had gotten even quieter. The Russians had had nothing to match American quieting technology. Their boats were noisy; the ugly little Alfas, especially, banged through the deeps like railway cars, the pumps on their liquid-sodium nuclear reactors pounding away like sound simply didn't matter.
Along with so much else, the Walker family betrayal had warned the Soviets as to just how much noise their boats were making, and given them hints in how to quiet future generations of submersibles. The result had been the quiet Typhoons and Sierras, and the ultra silent Akula, which Pittsburgh and the old Bluefin had stalked in the White Sea two years before.
And now there was the Mike….
"We thought she might be one-of-a-kind," Travers continued. "This Mike, however, showed up in an unexpected place. Her sound signature is different from Mike One, and we have named this one Mike Two. As you can see, she was photographed two weeks ago. The location, incidentally, is not in the Baltic or White Sea, where Mike One was launched. This is off the Siberian port of Magadan, in the Sea of Okhotsk."
He went on to discuss Operation Silent Dolphins, explaining how four Sturgeon class intel boats had parked off Magadan and Sakhalinskiy Zaliv, off of Petropavlovsk, and in the Zaliv Petra Velikogo close to Vladivostok, Nakhodka, and Vostochnyy. The Pittsburgh had entered the Sea of Okhotsk and deliberately exposed herself, in intelligence terms, allowing the encircling Soviet forces to spot her and give chase.
"We've run this kind of scam before," Travers said. "It's an excellent way to pick up electronic intelligence. At the same time our Sturgeons were watching and listening, putting up radio antennae to snag any excited, unguarded transmissions among the various Russian ports. We also had a couple of SIGINT aircraft circling in international waters east of Kamchatka, and NSA assets listening from Hokkaido, in Japan. By any definition, Silent Dolphins was an astonishing success. The Soviets, it seems, are not that good at following radio protocol for encoding sensitive transmissions. We had a lucky break along those lines four years ago, when KAL 007 accidentally strayed into Soviet airspace. We actually taped the voices of Russian MiG pilots scrambling to intercept."
And over two hundred civilians died, you son of a bitch, Gordon thought. Some lucky break! Damn it, he made it sound as though that tragedy had been a convenience.
"This time, though, we made our own luck by provoking a Soviet response in waters they consider to be their own. And, we got a bonus. We spotted this Mike. We had no idea she was there, or that she'd been launched."
"Thank you, Commander," Cabot said. "And now, gentlemen, it's time to follow upon our intelligence coup in the Sea of Okhotsk. With information provided from Operation Silent Dolphins, we are preparing to launch a new covert op in this same area — Operation Swift Deliverer. Next slide, please."
The image of the Mike was replaced on the screen by a full-color, topo-relief map of the circular embrace of the Sea of Okhotsk. Cabot rose and approached the screen, unfolding a whip-thin aluminum pointer with which he tapped the screen lightly. "In ten days, Pittsburgh will return to the Sea of Okhotsk, gentlemen. She will enter the region as before, by slipping through the Kurils, avoiding Soviet seabed sonar sensors and surface patrols. She shall proceed to this point, on the Siberian coast north of Sakhalin Island, where she will deliver a special package, a small team of agents in our employ… here, in the Sakhalinskiy Zaliv. This package will be brought aboard your vessel just before you sail. A small team of Navy SEALs will be taken aboard at Adak, Alaska, along your course due east, to facilitate the actual transfer of personnel.
"These agents are tasked with learning whether the Mike we have seen in these waters was manufactured at the submarine yards at Novolayevsk. The Pittsburgh will wait submerged offshore and monitor local communications traffic. The SEAL divers will take this opportunity to put seabed sensors in place in the narrow channel between Sakhalin and the mainland, and also to establish taps in seabed telephone cables. Since the phenomenal success of Operation Ivy Bells a decade ago, we've learned a few new wrinkles to this game.
"Finally, after our agents ashore have completed their mission, some will return to the Pittsburgh, while others remain to proceed with other intelligence operations within the Soviet Union. Pittsburgh will egress the Sea of Okhotsk at her commander's discretion, either through the Kurils or south into the Sea of Japan, and, from there, proceed home.
"Full details will be included in your written orders, which will be hand-delivered aboard the Pittsburgh by early next week. We have included you, Commander Chase, in this briefing so that you can personally brief Pittsburgh's new commanding officer on conditions and likely Soviet responses in the Okhotsk Operations Area.
"Is this clear?" It took Gordon a moment or two to realize that the silence was in the expectation that he might have something to say. His very first deployment in his long-dreamed-of command… and he was going to be taking her into a lion's den, and one that only last week had been set on its ear by American intruders.
It was not exactly the sort of mission that encouraged thoughts of promotion or an advancing career. For something like this, it would be an achievement simply to survive.
"I appreciate your confidence in me and my new command."
There was not a lot else he could honestly — or diplomatically — say.
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