“Commodore?”
“I don’t think you’ll be needing it anytime soon. I’d like to take it over, while I’m in Control, as a place to sit and command my strike group.”
The console was on the aft bulkhead of Control, its screens dark now, the seat unoccupied. The console was also near the doors to the radio room and the electronic support measures room. The radio room contained the ship’s top-secret encryption equipment. The electronic support measures room contained the equally classified signals-intercept eavesdropping gear. Both doors had security warnings posted on the outside, and were protected by combination locks.
Jeffrey pointed toward the doors. “They’ll be handy in case I need either one, and I can reconfigure the console to show me the data I’ll want, and I’ll also be out of your way but still in easy speaking distance.”
“Certainly, Commodore.”
That console also happened to be the one closest to Jeffrey’s stateroom that he shared with Sessions and used as an office. He could move back and forth quickly and unobtrusively. On a submarine there’s no formality like someone shouting Commodore in Control or Captain off the Bridge or crap like that.
“New passive sonar contact on the starboard wide-aperture array,” the sonar supervisor of the watch, a senior chief, called out. “Bearing zero-six-five, range twenty thousand yards.” East-northeast, ten nautical miles. The northern Bering Sea’s bottom was shallow and silty. Sound emanations bounced repeatedly between the surface and the sea floor, and signal strength was lost with every bounce, so detection ranges were short. “Surface contact, designate Sierra Eight-Four.”
“Contact identification?” the officer of the deck asked.
“Three-bladed shaft, dead-slow blade rate. Auxiliary machinery broadband, with intermittent transients…. Assess as American fishing trawler.” A factory ship. Salmon, pollack, and herring were plentiful here, unblemished by radioactivity because the war to date had spared the Pacific.
“Very well, Sonar.” The OOD for this six-hour watch, a junior officer from Engineering, also had the conn, in charge of the course, speed, and depth of the ship.
“Conn,” the leader of the contact tracking party called out, “Sierra Eight-Four appears to be making bare steerageway, conjecture to hold position against the half-knot current. Our projected closest point of approach crosses within five miles of possible deployed trawling net.” Too close for comfort.
Bell glanced forward in concern.
New lines and icon symbols appeared on the tactical plot.
“Very well,” the officer of the deck responded. “Helm, left five degrees rudder, make your course zero-four-zero.”
“Left five degrees rudder, aye,” the helmsman acknowledged. “Make my course zero-four-zero, aye.” He worked his joystick, then made more reports to the OOD at the conn.
On the tactical plot, Challenger’s projected track shifted to the left, further away from the trawler. Bell appeared satisfied.
These interactions had been going on nonstop for hours. Jeffrey leaned his elbows on the edge of the horizontal navigation plotting table, and tried to tune them out. He followed along as Meltzer summarized Challenger’s progress since crossing the Aleutian Islands volcanic chain, entering the southern Bering Sea through one of the deep-water inter-island gaps. The ship’s previous track was shown on the navigation display. This verbal summary was needed for clarity, to best establish a context for the next decisions they faced. It was a long-standing Silent Service tradition that every briefing was also, in part, an oral exam. Errors could be avoided, weaknesses identified and fixed, and continuing education maximized if seniors tested juniors — and themselves strove, before a keen audience, to meet the highest standards.
Meltzer continued his first major briefing review. “After the change of command, we altered base course to zero-one-zero and came up to five hundred feet as we reached the Siberio-Alaskan rise. That let us avoid St. Matthew Island and then St. Lawrence Island, U.S.-owned in mid-Bering Sea, and we also bypassed the very shallow water stretching east of them to the Alaska mainland.” Meltzer gestured at the chart with his hands. “It did, however, bring us near to the treaty convention line defining American versus Russian waters.” That abstract line on nautical charts, during the Cold War, helped prevent U.S. and Soviet warships from coming too close together unintentionally, thus avoiding an accident or misunderstanding that could escalate. “We’ve gone progressively shallower, and reduced speed, as water depth decreased to its present one-hundred-eighty feet. We altered base course to zero-four-five when we rounded the western tip of St. Lawrence Island.” Northeast. “This put us moving parallel to the treaty line, fifteen, that is one-five, nautical miles on the U.S. side…. Excuse me, please, sirs.”
Meltzer conferred with the Assistant Navigator, a senior chief, and pointed out that their most recent course diversion was slowly bringing them closer to the treaty line. The assistant navigator calculated when, and by how much, to turn back east, safely past Sierra Eight-Four, and before intersecting that line. The senior chief relayed this data to the officer of the deck, who acknowledged.
“Well, then,” Meltzer resumed. “Since, as you can see, the treaty line splits the Bering Strait down the middle, the zero-four-five heading also put us on course for the strait. At our present speed of eight knots, and from our present position, here, we’ll need to commit to one side of the strait or the other within two hours. That’s the next major choice. Do we take the channel on the U.S. side of Little Diomede Island, or the other channel on the Russian side of Big Diomede?” The two islands sat right next to each other in the middle of the strait. “If we take as our minimum acceptable water depth one-five-zero feet, for a covert passage at reasonable speed, then the navigable part of either channel is one-five nautical miles wide.”
“The American side seems the much safer bet,” Bell stated.
“I concur, sir,” Sessions said.
“Okay,” Jeffrey responded. “It seems the safer, so it’s what the Russians would expect.”
“You mean,” Bell asked, “go through on their side because they’ll think that channel’s more secure? I don’t know, Commodore. Is that even allowed by our rules of engagement?”
“My ROEs give me extensive discretion,” Jeffrey said. “And the Russians are neutral, supposedly.”
“We’re not neutral, sir. We’re a belligerent. And their neutrality is, as you say, only supposed. Plus, they’re totally paranoid. They could easily open fire on an unidentified submerged contact, us, without any warning.”
Jeffrey gave Bell a wry smile. “I’m paranoid, too. I’m paranoid of American traitors and moles. I have good reason to think there’s one on the loose in Washington, with high access. If we pass through east of Little Diomede, our own assets might more likely pick us up. We get injected into the U.S. command-and-control net. If that net is compromised, our position and course get reported right to the Axis.”
“Like another Walker spy ring or something?” Meltzer asked.
“Exactly. And our detection systems are more advanced than the Russians’, so if we get picked up at all it’d more likely happen on the U.S. side.”
Bell shook his head. “We don’t know what gadgets Russia has that we don’t even know about, Commodore. We do know their anti-stealth radar is better than ours. We do know the Germans are giving them various things, fancy things.”
“Antisubmarine warfare is about much more than gadgetry, Captain. By ‘systems’ I include the people. It’s a team sport, as you’re aware, and I believe our side’s team does it better.”