Brodie leaned back thoughtfully, then picked up his ship’s phone and called Charles Horner’s cabin. Meanwhile, Kristen continued talking to Graves. “I had this crazy idea of actually slipping a hydrogen fuel cell module into a regular nuke boat. The benefits being multiple as the sub could operate on the nearly inexhaustible plutonium pile for thirty years if necessary, running at high speed or whatever until they needed to disappear. Then they could switch over to the hydrogen cells.”
Brodie summoned the communications officer, and she felt the — now familiar — warmth associated with knowing he believed her and was supporting her. “When the submarine is on the fuel cell, everything else can shut down, and the reactor pile can go dormant. Once this happens, the submarine becomes less than a shadow in the water.”
“But you can only run on it for a few weeks, and then you have to make port to refuel before you can use the fuel cell again,” Graves reminded her about the biggest drawbacks to any non-nuclear submarine: their lack of endurance.
She shook her head anxiously at the beauty of the engineering. “No, not at all. Don’t you see?” she asked excitedly. “Once you run out of hydrogen and oxygen for the fuel cell, you just power up the reactor for a day or two and use its electricity to take ordinary seawater and crack it into hydrogen and oxygen atoms you can then use to refuel yourself while at sea.” The simple chemical and mechanical beauty of the idea seemed obvious to her. “A submarine like this could transcend anything we even have on the drawing boards.”
Brodie was now facing her, clearly believing her, but he tapped the photographs. “Okay, genius,” he said with no hint of ridicule or malice, “prove it.”
Graves dragged his chair next to the table, and Kristen laid out two photographs and began. “Here is a wide-angle shot of Polyarny taken twelve months ago before the Borei was completed and,” she said as she tapped the other photograph, “this is Polyarny two months ago.” She handed Brodie the magnifying glass and directed his attention to what appeared to be large, dome-like tanks. Each tank was separated from the other by over a mile.
Brodie nodded. “Okay, those might be liquid hydrogen and oxygen tanks,” he admitted, but she knew this in and of itself wasn’t enough to convince Washington.
“Look at the photo from a year earlier, sir,” she said to him. “There are no tanks.”
Brodie studied the pictures and then handed them to Graves so he could see what Kristen was talking about. She then laid out the next two. “Now, this is the Severodvinsk yard where the Gagarin was built.” She pointed to a spot on the photograph.
Brodie looked at it with the magnifying glass and then leaned back. “Two more storage tanks, each separated far enough apart to prevent a cataclysm should one of the tanks rupture,” Brodie said, clearly believing her now.
Kristen nodded. “Exactly.” She handed the photos to Graves, who was beginning to come around.
Brodie then tapped the last photo. “All right, Kris, impress me. Prove to me those boats are nuke/fuel-cell drives, and that those storage tanks you’ve noticed aren’t just for powering some new torpedo or whatever else the Russians might be playing with.”
Kristen had never liked being put on the spot intellectually by anyone. Normally such an occurrence was followed by people thinking of her as a freak of some kind. So, she’d always tried to avoid the kind of attention he was now showing her. But in this case she reveled in it. There was no chance of him looking down on her or ridiculing her when her back was turned. She’d no idea if he cared about her. She liked to fantasize he might, but she couldn’t prove it. But she could prove to him that what she was proposing was indeed a fact.
She showed him the close up of the Gagarin class submarine tied up along a wharf. “Sir, look at the trucks on the pier,” she said to him. “And the heavy duty hoses and pumping equipment needed to pump super-cooled liquid oxygen or hydrogen.” Brodie studied the images through the magnifying glass.
“The technicians are wearing protective gear,” Brodie offered.
Kristen nodded. “Yes, sir. They need the gear to protect them from an accidental liquid hydrogen spill. The liquid form of hydrogen is over four hundred twenty three degrees below zero.”
“Damn,” Graves said finally believing her.
Brodie however didn’t make it easy. “Those tankers could simply be performing some test.”
She could tell he didn’t believe this, but instead he was playing devil’s advocate. “Yes, sir. Someone might say that who didn’t want to believe the truth.” She then motioned to the Gagarin. “But, I would point out to you the new Gagarin is approximately thirty-five feet longer than the Flight II Akulas which in and of itself is evidence they’re using a dual-drive system.”
“Why?” Brodie asked.
She adjusted her position slightly in excitement. “For the last three decades the Soviet and then Russian design teams have all showed a constant and singular trend in submarine design: build smaller boats, with smaller crews, and with a high degree of automation. The Flight II Akulas only have a fifty man crew,” she pointed out and then tapped the photograph on the table. “But this Gagarin is approximately thirty-five feet longer than a Flight II Akula. They’re breaking thirty years of design engineering and planning. This means they either needed the space for something new, or we have to believe they just wanted a bigger boat when all evidence says they consider smaller to be better.”
Kristen was trying her best not to grin at him as a slightly pleased smile appeared on his face. Charles Horner came in with a pad of paper ready to take down a message. Brodie gave her a slight wink of assurance and pride. “All right, put the icing on the cake.”
Kristen looked at the three of them. “Okay, if you study the photograph you can see about fifteen feet of the extension to the Gagarin is taken up by a vertical launch system near the bow, similar to our Improved Los Angeles boats, leaving twenty extra feet behind the sail.” She showed both officers this observation in the photographs. “During my research, I determined you would need to cram in two separate storage tanks, plus the fuel cells, and then add an electric motor to take the place of reduction gears and steam turbines. I estimated this would require a “hull section” to be inserted aft or forward of the nuclear reactor, and this hull section would have to be between fifteen and twenty-one feet long.”
Graves studied the photograph with the magnifying glass, and then looked up, his expression showing a combination of annoyance and disbelief. “How is it the four hundred PhDs and analysts at Langley, Fort Meade, and wherever else didn’t see this, yet somewhere in between standing watch and running five battle drills a day you just happened to come up with this?”
It was a rhetorical question, but Brodie answered for her, “Because all of those analysts aren’t looking at the problem with fresh eyes. They’ve been prejudiced by seeing the same thing year after year and don’t expect to see anything new.” Brodie gave her a pleased nod, which meant more to her than any medal the US Navy might ever pin on her chest. Brodie stood up and took the message pad from Horner.
Kristen sat reveling in the joy of having finally rid herself of the puzzle she’d been carrying around with her for the last two weeks. Brodie sat back down across from her and began drafting the message. He asked her a few technical question, and, once complete, he handed the draft to the XO who looked it over.
“It’s good, Skipper,” Graves replied after reading the message.