CHAPTER SIX

 

 

“What do you need, Admiral?” asked Buck Rodgers, Captain of the USS Betsy Ross.

 

“I need you to trust me, Buck, and I need your sub off the coast of Guam in three hours. I know you won’t let me down, Captain,” said the Old Man.

 

“Sir, you realize that tensions are high in that part of the world, I am sure, and that this may seem like a provocative act?” said the Captain.

 

“I do. And I don’t like it any more than you do, Buck, but the orders are from the Commander in Chief himself,” the Old Man replied.

 

“Confidentially, I told him this was a major mistake. He did not take such advice well,” said the Old Man.

 

The Captain laughed and knew that had been a moment to have been a fly on the wall.

 

He could just about imagine the current President blowing a fuse when one of his Admirals had the audacity to challenge his orders.

 

“I admire your bravery, Sir,” he said to the Old Man.

 

“Buck, something about this smells to an old salt like me. Take very good care, my friend,” Admiral Reginald Decker said to his old friend.

 

“You know me, Deck,” the Captain replied.

 

He lifted up his revolver, a Smith and Wesson .357 magnum.

 

It was a personal weapon, one he never left port without.

 

And, as Captain of a nuclear missile submarine, it was his prerogative to carry it as he saw fit.

 

“I’m always careful,” said Buck Rodgers to the man on the monitor screen.

 

—————

 

 

“All hands, this is the Captain,” came the voice from the ship’s speakers.

 

Whatever they were doing, the men of the USS Betsy Ross bent an ear to listen carefully to the Captain.

 

His word was law, and they were the Keepers of the Nuclear Flame.

 

They took their duty and responsibility seriously.

 

They knew the consequences of the decisions of their leaders, and this weighed heavily on them in times of conflict.

 

A call to action only meant one thing to them – the possibility of a war so terrible, it gave nightmares to the world.

 

They were the last bastions of sanity against annihilation and knew it.

 

So, when their Captain spoke, they all paid attention.

 

—————

 

“The orders are to meet what and where Sir?” asked the XO.

 

Captain Robert Chastain had sailed with Buck Rodgers for almost two decades.

 

He was the kind of Executive Officer other captains could only dream about.

 

He knew how Captain Rodgers thought and anticipated much of the man’s decisions.

 

He also would never disobey a direct order, nor undermine his superior officer.

 

His career was perfectly suited to him – he was the sounding board and counter-balance to a man whose main responsibility was to prevent the most devastating warfare in history – or to cause it.

 

He’d made Captain’s rank, and then been recruited by Rodgers as a personal favor.

 

After some consideration, soul-searching and a divorce from his third wife, he’d accepted the offered role.

 

As such, he deferred to the ship’s Captain, and only offered advice as requested, unless something felt ‘off’.

 

Chastain had a sixth sense about orders, and maybe it stemmed from his experience or maybe it was the result of too many wives, but he knew that when Buck Rodgers was uneasy about his orders, there was a good reason for it.

 

“A Russian sub, and a Chinese sub. Off Guam,” said the Captain.

 

“Begging the Captain’s pardon, but it’s only a forty-five-minute jaunt, and perhaps we should get there first?” said Chastain.

 

“Read my mind, Bobbo. Rig for deep and fast,” replied Captain Rodgers.

 

“Aye, aye, Sir!”

 

—————

 

 

Forty-eight minutes later, the USS Betsy Ross floated in the dark waters of the Pacific.

 

Her sonar and other electronic detection devices quietly searched the ocean depths for signs of hostiles.

 

“Contacts?” asked the XO.

 

“Only biologicals, Sir,” came the reply.

 

Chastain’s ears perked up a bit.

 

“’Phones, please, SO,” he requested.

 

The Sonar Operator handed over the headphones to the XO, who pressed one speaker against his left ear.

 

He sipped a coffee, listening patiently for several minutes.

 

“Captain, have a listen to this, please,” he said.

 

Rodgers came to the sonar console and took the headphones.

 

As Chastain sipped and blew on his coffee, Rodgers listened.

 

“That’s not ours. And, not a biological, I don’t think,” he said.

 

“SO, please log this and record time and date, duration, and note as possible bogey,” said the XO.

 

“Sir, is this something I should have known about,” asked the Sonar Officer.

 

“No, son, it’s way above your pay grade,” laughed the Captain.

 

“Good work, and make a note of that in your report,” he said.

 

“Yes sir!” exclaimed the young man.

 

He was relieved and excited that he’d recognized the sound signature was unusual but also disappointed he didn’t know exactly what it was.

 

As he wrote his report, the XO and Captain had wandered back to the bridge.

 

He idly was listening to the sonar, when suddenly there was an unmistakable noise.

 

“Fish in the water! Bearing 270 degrees, speed six-oh knots! Five thousand yards and closing!” he shouted.

 

“Battle stations! Red alert!” shouted Chastain.

 

“Make ready to fire torpedoes three, four, five and nine!” came the orders from Captain Rodgers.

 

“Countermeasures!” said Chastain, getting into the rhythm of battle.

 

“Sonar, give me the count! Navigation, all ahead full, twelve degrees positive rudder…” he began, when suddenly the ship went dead.

 

 

—————

 

The Russian Capitan watched as the experimental EMP torpedo detonated, and smiled as the United States Navy vessel slowed, and started to sink to the bottom.

 

The ocean floor here was deep enough to impede a rapid rescue effort, yet shallow enough to allow for their retrieval operation.

 

He ordered full power restored to his own submarine, now that the electromagnetic pulse had lost its strength enough to resume normal running.

 

“Move over to the US Naval vessel, and contact our Chinese friends to arrange for retrieval of the nuclear missiles,” he ordered.

 

The plan was simple.

 

They were to disable the US Navy submarine, and wait for it to stabilize on the ocean floor.

 

Then, they would fire a torpedo that would explode close enough to the enemy sub to render everyone aboard unconscious.

 

Dead was also a possible, acceptable alternative, but that would be more problematic for the diplomats.

 

Once that happened, the Chinese submarine would move over the US sub and extract its complement of nuclear missiles.

 

They had developed a technique that was foolproof.

 

They would simply saw the sub into sections, and remove the part they needed.

 

Special inflatable bulkheads would be used to seal of the ocean, in spite of the vast pressures involved.

 

The Chinese would then arrange for delivery to a customer that was not in the Russian Capitan’s need to know orders.

 

—————

 

 

 

“Acknowledge reception of information,” commanded the Chinese submarine captain.

 

He sipped an Oolong tea, watching as his crew carried out their duties.

 

He narrowed his eyes, crinkling his brow in deep thought as he reviewed the orders for this mission.

 

His orders were very simple.

 

Rendezvous with the Russian submarine.

 

Wait for the EMP detonation to disable the US Navy submarine.

 

Cut up the US Navy submarine and extract the missiles.

 

Destroy the Russian submarine.

 

Destroy the US Navy submarine.

 

Deliver the missiles to an island in the Indian Ocean.

 

Retire.

 

He knew that he could not take his crew with him.

 

It was an unfortunate circumstance, but one that bothered him but little.

 

After all, he was soon to be a very rich man.

 

And, rich man did not worry about the fates of those upon whom they ascended.

 

—————

 

“Damage report, stat!” said Rodgers.

 

“Sir, life support is on emergency backup, the reactor scrammed, and the electricals are out all over the ship!” said Chastain.

 

“Hull breach?” Rodgers asked, moving about quickly to assess the extent of the attack to his ship.

 

“No, Sir! None found! All bulkheads and hatches secure, no water intrusion!” came the reply.

 

“Crew injuries?” said Rodgers.

 

“One broken leg, a midshipman was halfway down a stairwell and became disoriented, and lost his balance when the event occurred, due to switchover to emergency lighting,” replied Chastain.

 

“XO, I had thought we had drilled thoroughly for that exigency?” asked the Captain.

 

“Bad luck, Sir!” said Chastain.

 

He knew the crew was top-flight.

 

The crewman in question had simply lost a handhold and slipped.

 

It happened.

 

“Status?” asked the Captain.

 

“We have enough air to survive down here for three or four days, depending on usual factors. Food and water, not an issue. Communication, sonar and targeting off,” concluded Chastain.

 

“Did the countermeasures deploy?” asked the Captain.

 

“Unknown, Sir,” said the Weapons Officer.

 

“Weps, I thought those had manual indicators?” said Chastain.

 

“Sirs, we are sitting on the bottom, and they may have fired just as we hit,” replied Weps.

 

“They’d be ineffectual in that case, even if they deployed correctly. Good work, Weps,” said Captain Rodgers.

 

“Thank you, Sir,” Weps replied.

 

“Options, XO? Anything?” asked the Captain.

 

“Deploy emergency beacon? Send out divers? Fire a torpedo and pray it detonates and someone notices?” replied Chastain.

 

“Emergency beacon,” said Rodgers.

 

“Beacon away,” said the Radio Operator.

 

Another sound suddenly was heard.

 

“I think we just lost the beacon, Sirs,” said the SO.

 

He turned to the Navigator sitting next to him.

 

“I didn’t even need my headphones to know that one,” he said.

 

—————

 

“US Naval vessel emergency beacon destroyed with torpedo, Sir!” said the Weapons Officer on the Russian Sub.

 

“Excellent. Let the Chinese know they can begin salvage operations,” said the Russian Captain.

 

—————

 

Admiral Reginald Decker fumed and swore and pounded his fist on the oak table in the Chief of Staff office.

 

“Let me see the President! Now, you dumb fucker!” he shouted.

 

“Now, now Admiral, let’s not go off half-cocked, okay?” said the CoS.

 

“You know the President is a very busy man! This should be the problem for SecNav, or maybe the Joint Chiefs, am I correct?” he said.

 

“Listen, you little prick! I know you think you’re king turd of shit mountain, but there were only four people who even knew about this, and that man in there was one of them,” the Old Man stormed.

 

“The other two are the Prime Minister of China, and the Russian President, maybe…” he paused.

 

“But, that asshole in there was certainly one of them! Now, get me an audience, pronto!” he yelled at the cowering man.

 

“That’s not going to go well, Admiral! The prior administrations may have put up with your antics because of tradition, but this is a new regime! You need to go through proper channels!” said the CoS.

 

“Okay, fuckface!” shouted the Admiral.

 

He began to walk around the man, and over to the door to the Oval Office.

 

Two Secret Service agents stepped in front of him.

 

“Sir, state your business!” the closer of the agents said to the Old Man.

 

“I need to see Mr. President, and I mean now!” he said.

 

The Old Man was not used to being told no, especially as regarded his conferences with the Commander in Chief.

 

Most of the time, he played their stupid game, but the real players knew that when he came calling, it was time to step aside and let him go see the Man.

 

One of the agents tilted his head, as he listened to his earpiece.

 

He motioned to the other agent, and they took up defensive positions away from the door to the Oval Office.

 

Admiral Reginald Decker didn’t like the look of that.

 

“Sir, we have direct orders from the President that you are not allowed to go into the Oval Office today. Furthermore, we have been instructed that, should you not immediately leave, we are to place you under arrest. If you resist, we have orders that lethal force is authorized. You are now being asked to remove yourself from these premises, pursuant to USC Code 18, Section Four,” said the first agent.

 

The two men unholstered their PS-90 PDWs and aimed at the Admiral.

 

Drawing himself to his full height, he saluted the men, then turned around and walked away, as carefully as he could manage.

 

He only drew breath when he had reached the outdoors.

 

The Old Man returned to his office, locking the doors and activating the secure telephone lines.

 

When he got a signal, he typed a five-digit code into a keypad.

 

“This is Decker. We have a real problem. Get me Derek White, and Brett Ghent,” he spoke into the phone set.

 

He paused a moment.

 

“And, get me Doctor Hartmann,” he added.