Red Hammer 1994

“We’re scheduled to rendezvous with a supply ship farther north for stores,” he said, pointing to a location off the mainland, “and we’ll pick up linguists. This looks like a straightforward operation, but we’re going to have to be on our toes. The patrol area is very close to Russian territorial waters. We can expect them to tell us to clear the area, but we’ll hang tough and exercise our rights of navigation in international waters and the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea. That means precise navigation at all times, got that, Navigator? We’ve got to know exactly where we are.”

“Yes, sir,” came a voice from the end of the table. The navigator was sharp and confident, and his voice showed it.

The Captain walked to his chair and sat down. He thought for a moment then turned to an officer next to Chelson.

“We’ll make a high-speed run the entire transit. That means no engineering casualty drills, Chief Engineer; we can’t take the risk of losing one of the plants.” Then he looked at them all. “Once on station, we’ll shift to port and starboard watches throughout the ship, including one fully manned repair party.” The last comment brought a pained look to the faces surrounding the table. Port and starboard watch standing cursed the life of sailors at sea.

“I’m not sure how long we’ll be tasked, but the plan is to have an AFS out of Yokosuka meet us in a few weeks for additional supplies and, hopefully, mail. We’ll get more specific guidance later. Any questions?”

Chelson was the first. “Captain, are we the only ship to get tagged?”

“It appears that way,” answered the Captain. “There’s always the possibility that a sub will join us, but we’ll never know, you know how the bubble heads are.”

“What’s the threat?” inquired the XO. The Captain’s brow knitted.

“Two frigates besides the destroyer and two auxiliaries. The destroyer is the only cruise-missile shooter, but they’ll have search aircraft combing the area, and we’ll be in range of every Backfire in the entire Russian Pacific Fleet. As for subs, that’s anybody’s guess. I’d expect at least one older Victor III or possibly an Akula. We’re going to get a workout, gentleman, make no mistake about it. We’re going to be in Ivan’s backyard. I want all Bridge personnel to brush up on the rules of the road and on the Russian/US Incident at Sea Agreement. Any other questions?” There was nothing from the group.

Great, thought Chelson, just what I need. Instead of drilling holes in the Arabian Sea, we’re going to be up to our ass in Russians. And that meant the usually overworked ops officer would be humping twenty-four hours a day just to keep his head above water.

CHAPTER 9

It was the end of August, and USS San Francisco glided effortlessly at four hundred feet, tunneling a stealthy track through the ink-black seawater. At twelve knots, she was impossible to detect. An LA-class fast-attack submarine, San Francisco had recently completed a grueling patrol in the North Pacific and the frozen, far reaches of the Bering Sea. The San Diego-based boat had broken new ground utilizing nonacoustical tracking data to bird-dog a couple of Russian attack boats out of Petro. Ivan had never gotten their scent while the San Francisco tiptoed in their trails, garnering rich intelligence for fingerprinting the two new-model nuke boats.

Taking a breather in Hawaii for a few days of well-earned relaxation before steaming on to San Diego, San Francisco had received a pleasant surprise—an unexpected port call to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. They were ordered to rendezvous with USS Cape Cod, a submarine tender steaming south from San Diego, and tie up outboard of the tender while she anchored in the peaceful, Mexican resort town.

The crew was bouncing off the bulkheads. This would be real liberty for a change. True, they had visited Guam and Sasebo, Japan, but those naval ports hardly ranked as liberty hot spots on the Westpac hit parade. Now they could finally get wild and crazy before returning home to families and loved ones.

Three days out of Pearl and into the homestretch for Mexican waters, the crew really began to loosen up. Mariachi music blared over the boat’s entertainment system, and enterprising cooks had thrown together a sampling of Mexi-can cuisine—the messdeck senior chief’s enchiladas had proved to be the favorite. Even the boat’s skipper was brushing up his long-dormant Spanish.