CARRIER 3: ARMAGEDDON MODE

Worse from a tactical point of view, active sonar would alert the submarine to the fact that it had been spotted.

Parrel would feel a lot better knowing just where that sub was and where it was going. Peacetime or not, international waters or not, tensions were running hot in the Arabian Sea just now. Since early that morning, war had engulfed the India-Pakistan border, and these waters could become a shit-hot war zone any time now. Every man in the CBG knew how easy it would be for an attack to be launched by accident—the missile strike against another Perry-class frigate, the U.S.S. Stark in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War, was a case in point— and one hell of an expensive target was trailing Biddle a hundred miles astern.

Foxtrot was the NATO code name for a class of diesel-powered attack subs first produced by the Soviets in the 1960s. Three hundred feet long, with a complement of seventy-eight

men, it was designed to hunt and intercept hostile task forces. The Russians had built sixty of them between 1958 and 1962, and most were still active, though some had been reported lost at sea. During the ’70s, the Soviets had manufactured nineteen for export: three for Cuba, eight for Libya … and eight for India.

In these waters, the contact could be either Soviet or Indian. Either way, the battle group’s new admiral was not going to care for potentially hostile subs getting too close to his command.

Minutes dragged by. Parrel was beginning to wonder what Mason was playing at when the CIC Officer called again.

“No joy on the pinging. Captain,” Mason said. “He may be out of range.”

Parrel scowled. “Understood. Alert the Air Officer. I want a LAMPS up ASAP. Maybe we can peg the contact with sonobuoys. And have the comm shack raise Jefferson, Admiral Vaughn’s going to want to know about this.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Parrel replaced the telephone handset, then walked to the starboard wing. He raised his binoculars and scanned the horizon toward the northeast. There was nothing there, no periscope wake, no oil slick, only endless blue water under a cloudless sky.

Submarines these days could launch homing torpedos from ten miles away … or pop a sea-skimming cruise missile from three hundred miles out. A Foxtrot would not be carrying SSMs, thank God, but the threat was serious nonetheless.

“Now hear this, now hear this,” the shipboard loudspeaker brayed from the afterdeck. “Stand by to launch helo. Stand by to launch helo.”

Farrel heard the mutter of the LAMPS III helicopter as its engines revved to takeoff rpms. Then the SH-60 Seahawk lifted from Biddle^ fantail with a roar, its shadow momentarily flicking across the bridge. He turned his binoculars on the gray insect shape as it angled off toward the northwest, low above the water.

Biddle”s two Sikorsky SH-60B Seahawks were LAMPS III helos designed for ASW. The LAMPS designation stood for Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System, a computer and sensor array that integrated surface ships and helicopters to extend the

18

Keith Dougtess

reach and effectiveness of antisubmarine warfare. Each Sea-hawk was equipped with dipping sonar and air-dropped sonobuoys. Foxtrots were antiquated diesel-electric submarines, neither quiet nor nuclear-powered. Whoever this one belonged to, it should be easy enough to pinpoint by checking along the general direction of the contact.

Who did the Foxtrot belong to, India or Russia? With the outbreak of war between India and Pakistan, it was important that they know. The threat of war with the Soviet Union had receded for the past several years, as Russia’s internal economic and political problems grew worse. But if that was an Indian sub out there . . .

Just how close was the battle group to becoming caught in the crossfire between two waning powers … the way Stark had been caught in 1986?

Parrel continued to study the ocean surface with a growing sense of unease.

CHAPTER 2

1318 hours, 23 March

Bridge, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

Captain James Fitzgerald shifted in the high-backed, leather-covered seat on the bridge. Golden light spilled through the broad, slanting windscreens, highlighting wiring conduits in the overhead and the gleaming brass handles of the engine-room telegraph. The enlisted men in whites, the chiefs and officers in khakis, went about their duties with the calm efficiency Fitzgerald had come to expect of them during these past, grueling eight months.

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