"That close to Nikolayevsk," Gordon said, thoughtful. "ASW coverage and coastal patrols are going to be a bitch." He looked at Johnson. "And we have to sit there in shallow water for two days?"
"How deep's the water north of this Bolsoje place?" Carver wanted to know.
"Bolsoje Vlasjevo," Garrison said. "Depending on how close ashore we get… seventy, maybe eighty feet."
"Shit," Carver said. "That's practically periscope depth!"
"We're gonna be a damned cockroach on a dinner plate," Warren added.
"That's going to be another captain's discretion," Gordon said. "I don't see why we can't come in and drop off our packages at midnight, then move back up here to the north, where we have some maneuvering room."
Johnson gave him a hard look at that. "Your orders, Captain, are to wait for us until we're done doing what we have to do ashore."
"My first order is to support you and yours, as well as Lieutenant Randall's SEALs, to the best of my ability without compromising the safety of this vessel."
"If you got into trouble while you were joyriding off somewhere in the Sea of Okhotsk," Johnson said, angry, "you wouldn't be able to come back in and pick us up!"
"If we get spotted by a Russian Krivak," Gordon said evenly, "or if we trip a seabed sensor, we're not going to be able to pick you up either, because we will be dead."
"Damned straight," Latham said.
"We'll be there to pick you up, don't worry," Gordon told the NURO spook. "I can promise you that our moving into deeper water will not increase the chances of our being caught. Quite the opposite, in fact."
"I thought you could just sit on the bottom," Johnson said.
"Not in an LA boat," Carver told him. "We have thrusters and we have delicate sonar equipment on our keel. We can hover pretty close above the mud, but we can't go sit on the bottom like a Sturgeon or an old World War II boat. No way."
"The bad part of it, sir," Warner said, "is that if we're right down near the bottom in seventy foot of water, the top of our conning tower is about twenty feet deep. On a bright, sunny day, an aircraft flying overhead would see us like a big, dark, cigar-shaped shadow under the water."
"Like the man said," Gordon added, "a roach on a dinner plate. Kind of easy to notice, know what I mean?"
"I will protest this violation of your direct orders," Johnson said.
"You go right ahead and protest, Mr. Johnson. We're specifically forbidden from making radio contact with anyone, except for the signals protocols in these orders. Hell, we're not even going to be able to allow the crew Family-grams this time out. So you just write down your protest, put it somewhere safe, and deliver it to the proper authority when you get back to Mare Island!"
"The SEAL operations in the Tatarskiy Strait may require our presence," Latham reminded them. "We'll need to coordinate with the SEALs, to see how far we can withdraw back into open water. But," he added, looking at Johnson, "I agree that we cannot remain in shallow water during daylight hours."
"We're going to be busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest," Gordon observed. "But we can do it. Do the rest of you concur with the plan, as revised?"
The others nodded or voiced their agreement. It wasn't as if the command of Pittsburgh was anything close to a democracy, of course, but Gordon believed in letting his officers participate in the command process as far as was possible.
"Okay," he went on. "What do we know about this Mike?"
The COB leaned forward, eyes eager. He was always at his best when he could show off some portion of his encyclopedic stores of knowledge, everything from specs on other submarines to tall, tall sea stories. "Well," he said with an easy drawl, "that's a bit of a challenge, isn't it, sir? Your Mike is a pretty sharp boat, if half of what we think we know about her is true. She's a direct descendent of the Alfa, and that means trouble right there. Aluminum hull, we think. Liquid-sodium reactor… and that would be second or third generation, not the crap that screwed up their very first Alfa prototype.
"Four hundred feet long, overall. Thirty-nine-foot beam. Seven thousand eight hundred tons' displacement on the surface, and about ninety-seven hundred tons submerged. Big sucker, bigger than us. Biggest SSN in the world except for the Soviet Yankee, and that's because it's a converted SSBN, a boomer. Top speed unknown, but probably in the neighborhood of thirty-six to thirty-eight knots underwater, a bit slower on the surface."
"Bigger than us, and faster," Carver said, thoughtful.
"The bad news," Gordon said, "is that the Mike is significantly quieter than earlier Soviet subs. Sounds like they worked the bugs out of the Alfa's noisy propulsion plant. It's at least as quiet as a Flight I Los Angeles, and that means big trouble."
"I find it fascinating," Latham said, "that the Soviets are experimenting with so many different designs. We're pretty much locked into the Los Angeles class attack boat, which is a direct follow-on from the Sturgeon and Permit classes. We're modernizing the same design, with Flight II boats like the 'Burgh, and we'll have it again when the Flight III boats come on-line, but all of the LAs are basically the same. The Soviets, though, have the Alfas, Sierras, versions I and II, Akulas, and now this new Mike. Must be nice to be able to throw money at any military project that comes down the pike."
"Well, a lot higher of a percentage of their gross domestic product goes to the military, you know," COB said. "I guess we could do the same, if the American people didn't also want paved roads, social security, and free-lunch programs at school."
"Screw that," Ostler said. "Soviet boats are meltdowns waiting to happen. Everyone knows the U.S. has a perfect operating record with sub reactors. The Russkis have lost… how many,now?Two?Three?That we know about? At least ours wort"
"Gentlemen, let's attend to the business at hand," Gordon said, dragging the conversation back on course. "Do you have any comments about… this?" He waved a hand above the charts of Sakhalin Bay, taking in the whole mission, and its dangers.
There was no reply for several heartbeats. "It's a bitch," Warner said at last. "A royal, fucking-A-one bitch."
"Second that," Latham said. "Someone back in the Five-Sided Squirrel Cage is living in a dream world."
"Is it your opinion that the mission is impossible, XO?"
"Not… impossible, sir…. "
"But highly improbable," Garrison put in. "We're going to be in a tight box, in shallow water, and exposed for a lot longer than is healthy."
"Can we do it?" Gordon pressed. "I'm the newcomer here, remember. Captain Chase knew this boat cold. He knew each of you and the people in your departments. I can't imagine him accepting an order that he knew to be flat-out impossible… for their sake. I need your honest assessments."
"You're not thinking of turning back…." Johnson said, his brow creasing. "This mission is important."
"I'm sure it is, Mr. Johnson. So are the lives of my men. So is the safety of this submarine, which, incidentally, is my responsibility. No nuke-driver accepts suicide missions. It's not in the job description."
"We can do it," Garrison said, peering again at the Sakhalin Bay chart. "// we can move in and out of this shallow area, so we're not sitting there in plain sight in the daylight. And if we can avoid their seabed sonar nets and any other surprises they've rigged for us."