Final Bearing Read online

  The lights blinked off for an instant, then back on. Over the 7MC, Ward heard, "Reactor scram! Loss of both turbine generators! Rig ship for reduced electrical! Answering ‘All Stop!’"

  What the hell is going on? Jon Ward thought. This drill had gotten very damned real.

  This was the worst possible combination of casualties. It had been reported that water was rushing in to fill the torpedo room two decks below them. The reactor had automatically shut down, so they no longer had the power to maintain forward speed through the murky depths while supporting the extra weight of the seventy thousand pounds of seawater they had taken on when they needed to dive fast. With no reactor there was no forward propulsion and the boat would begin to sink quickly.

  The normal peacetime response would be to emergency-blow the water out of the main ballast tanks and shoot the sub to the surface. But there was a “hostile” P3 up there shooting at them. And God knows who else might have joined the party by now.

  "Maneuvering, this is the captain. Answer ‘Ahead two-thirds.’ Report cause of scram."

  He heard Chris Durgan answer, his voice little more than a high-pitched squeak.

  "Captain, reactor scram due to loss of all pumps. Both turbine generator breakers tripped open by the shock…I guess. Restored one slow pump in each loop. Estimate ten minutes to reactor back on line. Reactor temperature too low to answer bells. Shifting propulsion to the emergency propulsion motor."

  Commander Jon Ward clenched his jaw. He could guess how the breakers got tripped. He could not afford to let his anger tint his judgment. Things had just gone from bad to worse. If the nuclear reactor “scrammed,” did an automatic shutdown, they could draw a little steam for propulsion by using some of the stored heat in the plant, cooling it down a little. But they had been driving at the reactor's limits when the torpedo “hit.” They had used up all that stored heat in the first few seconds after the hafnium control rods dropped into the core, absorbing all the neutrons needed to sustain a nuclear reaction. There was nothing to drive the ship except a small electric motor powered by the ship's battery.

  It wasn't enough. Not anywhere nearly enough.

  "Skipper, depth three-five-zero and sinking," Chief Lyman yelled out. A heartbeat later, he reported, "Three-seven-five feet. Captain, I need speed or I can't hold her. We’ll go to the bottom."

  Ray Lawskowski, the Chief of the Boat, leaped from his seat in crews’ mess at the first sound of the Collision Alarm. There was no doubt in his mind where the flooding was. He could hear the roar beneath his feet. Pointing at several members of the assembled Damage Control Party, he yelled, "You, you, you, and you, follow me." They chased after him as he dashed down the ladder to the torpedo room to face what had been reported as in-rushing water.

  Racing into the room, Lawskowski reached over and yanked the red emergency closure handle, shutting all the hull valves in the operations compartment.

  Joe Glass was right on the heels of the COB and his Damage Control team. He reached around and grabbed the red 4MC handset.

  "Flooding has stopped in the torpedo room. Emergency closure has been actuated,” he reported, out of breath.

  The emergency closure system shut all the seawater valves in a compartment from one central location in an emergency. It didn't use electricity, only hydraulic power, and that was supplied from several different sources to make sure it was always available. Shutting all the seawater valves in the operations compartment had stopped the “flooding.” They still couldn’t determine where the simulated damage was. And they couldn't re-open any seawater valves until they found the leak. Otherwise, they would only restart the flooding.

  Looking forward, Glass spotted someone lying prone on the deck, not moving. It was Sam Benitez, the torpedoman who stood watch down here. Someone had placed a small card on his chest that read, "Unconscious, bleeding wound on forehead." The “injured” crewman helplessly gazed up at Glass, a “what-can-I-do?” look on his face.

  Outboard of the stowed torpedoes, up by number four torpedo tube, two Chiefs, wearing bright red hats with “TRE” in large letters on them, were standing there, one holding a heavy air hose, the other controlling the air valve. They had started throttling back on the air when the COB had actuated the emergency closure. It was barely a whisper now. It had been that air that had simulated the flooding of the torpedo room.

  Glass spied a large card taped to a seawater pipe down below the torpedo tube. On it were the words, "Double-ended rupture." Below that was another sign that read "Water in bilge to this level."

  "COB, there's the problem," Glass yelled. "Get that pipe isolated then get some people down there to fix it."

  Isolating that pipe would allow them to reset the emergency closure without re-starting the flooding. It meant locating all the ways that seawater could find into that particular piping and shutting the valves for those paths. Once that was done, the “damage” would be controlled and the boat once again would be secure.

  Turning to two of the crewmen who followed him down the ladder, Glass yelled, "Get Benitez up to the wardroom so Doc can take a look at him."

  The two carefully carried the "unconscious" Benitez up the ladder, the torpedoman doing his part to act like dead, lifeless weight. The Corpsman, "Doc" Marston, was still setting up his emergency operating room in the Officers’ Wardroom when they carried Benitez in and laid him on the table.

  "Skipper, four hundred feet. I need speed!" Chief Lyman pleaded. There was no pretend in his plight. Spadefish was now in trouble for real.

  "Captain, Maneuvering. Answering bells on the EPM. Answering ‘Ahead two-thirds.’"

  Durgan's team was turning the screw with the EPM, the emergency propulsion motor, and had it cranked to its maximum power. That was only producing three knots of forward speed. It wasn’t nearly enough to stem the slide to the ocean floor. And even if it were, the electric motor would quickly drain the power from the battery, power they desperately needed to restart the reactor when it was ready to bring back on-line.

  Ralston turned to Ward.

  "Skipper, the water we took on in the depth control tanks during the emergency deep is what’s pulling us down. If we can reset the emergency closures, I can blow depth control in a heartbeat."

  "Chief, I know that," Ward answered. "We need the flooding isolated first."

  Ward heard a new sound coming over the WQC underwater telephone.

  "Oscar, Oscar, Sierra. Oscar, Oscar, Sierra."

  It was the signal that another submarine had detected them and was simulating shooting torpedoes in their direction.

  Ward stole a glance over at Mike Hunsucker. The son of a bitch was calmly scribbling something in that damned notebook of his.

  “Looks like he’s taking notes in Physics 101 class back at the Academy,” Ward muttered. Hunsucker didn't seem at all concerned with the mayhem he and his eight TRE team members had set loose on board Spadefish.

  Master Chief Mendoza piped up, reporting, "Conn, Sonar. Contact coming out of our baffles. Submerged sub, close aboard. I think she’s below us, Skipper! Definite near-field effect!"

  Lyman turned to Ward, his face ashen.

  "Skipper, depth four-five-zero and sinking. The EPM isn't doing it!"

  Ward again looked over at Hunsucker as he continued to scratch notes in his pad. Hunsucker glanced up and casually said, "Captain, I suggest you don't let her go below four-seven-five feet. Salt Lake City is below you and you’d give them one hell of a headache."

  Ward swore under his breath. That pompous ass had really put him in a no-win situation this time. Sinking like a rock, no propulsion, and another submarine just below him. He didn't dare risk sinking deeper. The possibility of a collision was too great and that could cause the loss of both boats. All so this bastard did was watch him sweat!

  He had no choice. The TRE had to be aborted.

  He grabbed the 1MC microphone and said, "Secure from the flooding drill. Emergency blowing to the surface." Ward turned to Ch
ief Ralston and said, "Emergency blow all main ballast tanks."

  Chief Ralston reached above his head without hesitation and grabbed the two emergency blow-valve actuators. He squeezed the spring catches and threw them both up. The thunder of high-pressure air in the control room was near deafening. Louder than the roar when the TRE team members released a blast of compressed air a few minutes before to simulate a close-by torpedo explosion. The boat shuddered as the bow slowly started to rise.

  Chief Ralston reached over to the diving alarm and pushed the green handle.

  "Aooogha! Aooogha! Aoooogha!"

  The signal for an emergency surface sounded throughout the boat.

  Chief Lyman shouted, trying to make himself heard above the roar of the pressurized air.

  "Depth four-seven-five and holding." The boat’s dive had thankfully leveled off. "Depth four seven zero and coming up."

  Now the bow passed through level and the sub was climbing upward. The depth gauge stopped counting down and started to slowly count up. It whirled faster and still faster until it was only a blur. Cortez and MacNaughton watched the bow come up to a thirty-degree up-angle then they fought to keep it from going any higher.

  Spadefish rocketed toward the light, everyone on board bracing himself.

  Three hundred feet.

  Two hundred.

  One hundred.

  She leapt out of the water like a gigantic trick porpoise, almost two-thirds of her bulk out of the water once she broke the surface. Then she splashed back down with a stomach-lurching jolt.

  The proud sub bobbed helplessly on the frothy surface like a massive, black cork.

  Lieutenant Jim Pruitt watched out the cockpit window of his P3, his mouth agape, as the submarine seemed to stand on its tail coming out of the water. He couldn’t believe what he was watching down there.

  "Wow! Randy, did you see that?" he exclaimed as Spadefish leaped out of the water and splashed back down. He keyed his microphone. "Mission Control, Victor-Four-Tango. Sub on the surface, dead in the water. Looked like an emergency surface."

  "Victor-Four-Tango, this is Mission Control. Remain on station. Try to make contact and see if they need any assistance."

  Pruitt put the big bird in a lazy orbit a thousand feet above the motionless sub and waited to see if he could now help the sub he had, only a few minutes before, tried to “destroy.”

  “Man!” Pruitt said. “That had to be one wild ride!”

  Commander Jonathan Ward was mad enough to bite a bolt in half.

  "Captain Hunsucker, I need to see you in my stateroom right now."

  There was no mistaking the barely controlled anger in the captain’s voice, even though he tried to hide it from the crew who worked nearby. He turned and stalked aft to his tiny stateroom. Hunsucker watched him depart, closed his steno pad, and followed slowly behind him.

  The senior captain stepped into the stateroom and shut the door behind him. Ward was standing against the after bulkhead watching him, his face crimson.

  "Just what the hell were you trying to do out there! You damn near got us all killed. You didn't say anything about a scram or your guys tripping off the turbines when you briefed that drill. How dare you do something like that on my ship!"

  Hunsucker backed up against the closed door. He really wasn't sure if Ward was going to come after him or not. The Commander was plenty mad enough to do just that.

  "Just a minute, Commander. I'm senior officer here and I…"

  "Yes, and I'm in command,” Ward shot back hotly. “I won't put up with any more of this bullshit. You know damned well that I'm responsible for the safety of my ship. That means I know beforehand and approve any drills aboard the boat. You and I are having a discussion with COMSUBPAC when we get back to port. As far as I'm concerned, this inspection is over."

  The air hung heavy, neither man breathing at all, neither one speaking for a half minute.

  There was a discrete knock at the door. When there was no answer, Lieutenant Commander Dave Kuhn, the engineer, stuck his head in anyway.

  "Excuse me, Skipper. The reactor is critical, answering bells on the main engines. Request permission to line up for a battery charge. We really sucked it dry. Cells sixty-four and seventy-two were very near cell-reversal."

  Ward calmed visibly, now back on duty despite his anger.

  "Eng, line up for a normal battery charge."

  Kuhn nodded and went on with his report.

  "We started a two-compressor air charge to bring the air banks back up. Number one compressor crapped out again. We're out of parts until we get back to port. With one high-pressure air compressor, it'll be eight hours before we can dive again."

  The high-pressure air compressor was just another of the many pieces of aged equipment that made the engineer's job a continual challenge. He had long since grown tired of spit-and-bailing-wire jokes.

  "Dave, we'll have you the parts you need a lot sooner than you expected.” The engineer gave him a quizzical look. They weren’t scheduled to return to port for weeks. Commander Jonathan Ward looked Captain Michael Hunsucker directly in the eyes when he explained to the engineer. “We're taking this boat home right now!”

  5

  Tom Kincaid eased the black Suburban into the parking space and shoved the gearshift up into “Park.” The day had turned beautiful. Puffy clouds skidded across a blue sky. The brisk sea breeze blew out the last remnants of early morning rain. The red alder and big-leaf maples someone had planted clung to the last of this year's foliage. Piles of the gold and red leaves, so brilliant in death, littered the corners of the shiny, wet parking lot.

  The CedarTech campus seemed to have been designed to resemble a modern college. Its site spread over several acres of unspoiled forest and well-kept grounds. He fully expected to see students wandering about in their letter sweaters, fraternity houses, a football stadium. But there was something else that bothered him about the well-ordered low, gray, modern buildings, with their cold walls of reflective glass, and the too-perfect rows of trees and shrubbery.

  At first he couldn't place the feeling. Then it hit him. This place reminded him more of some modern prisons he had seen, institutions designed to look like anything else but what they actually were. No one could peek inside. The occupants of these buildings, like prisoners, were surely being protected from the disturbing view of the parking lots and passing traffic. The high, grass-covered berms and liberal plantings of evergreen shrubs were like unassailable walls. Only the razor wire was missing. Kincaid suspected someone wanted to make sure there were no distractions for the drones who worked away in the hives of cubicles he would find behind those unblinking windows.

  He climbed out of the SUV and breathed deeply. The earthy smell wafting from the Sitka spruce forests surrounding the campus mingled with the acrid exhaust the breeze was bringing over from the adjacent freeway. Each aroma seemed to affirm something good for Tom Kincaid. Sometimes it was just good to be alive.

  He hopped over a sodden mat of leaves deposited there by the wind the night before, then stepped up to the sidewalk. He followed with his eyes the winding path through the berms toward the largest of the glass and steel buildings. Discrete wood posts along the way held small, engraved metal signs that pointed toward various CedarTech facilities, but in a language that was foreign to him.

  What was an "ASP Lab" or what did they do at "eCRM Development?" He was trying to figure it out when he heard a car wheel to a stop behind him, its driver tapping the horn a couple of times. It was Ken Temple in what looked like a new dark-blue Impala.

  "Nice ride," Kincaid said jokingly as the big man spilled out of the car. "Might as well paint it black and white and put a bubble-gum machine on the top."

  Temple wryly shook his head.

  "Yeah, I know. Those bureaucrats over in Purchasing. The thought process was, the more you buy of one model, the cheaper they can get ‘em. Everybody from patrol cops to us have these. At least they let us have different colors. I asked
for a red one. This is what I got."

  Kincaid pointed to one of the signs.

  "You have any idea where to go?"

  "Try ‘Admin.’” Temple pointed to the tallest building. “We're supposed to meet Mike Grey, head of security. He's expecting us." Temple looked around warily. There were security cameras on the corners of every building they could see. “Something tells me, we go to the wrong place, they zap us with a death ray.”

  Mike Grey proved to be one of them, a retired Chicago cop. A bear of a man with frosty hair and a developing paunch, he seemed easy-going enough when he greeted the two. Temple and Kincaid were both relieved.

  "Not often I get to talk with my own anymore. Just these nerds around here. Come on in and have a cup of coffee."

  He led them down a series of pastel-walled hallways and deeper into the interior of the building. The neutral walls were broken up every few feet with a large canvas liberally splattered with paint in random, bright colors. Each piece of artwork proudly bore the signature of the artist responsible for the mess. Each one looked like the result of some horrible accident at a paint factory. He kept his critique to himself.

  Grey's office was a small interior room, hardly big enough for the three of them. It was littered with files, mementos of past triumphs back in Chicago, and the remnants of a McDonald’s fast-food breakfast. The walls were unadorned. Two orange plastic-and-metal chairs were arranged in front of the desk. Off to the side, a coffee maker sat on top of a miniature refrigerator. Grey poured three Styrofoam cups full of the brackish liquid and offered two of them to Kincaid and Temple. Waving to the chairs, he eased down into a plush, oversized leather one behind the desk.

  "Hemorrhoids. Ended more beat cops' careers than any other single cause," he said, explaining the one extravagance in his drab office. He turned toward Kincaid and Temple. "Now I know you two aren’t here for my fine coffee or an update on my anus."