The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

all four of their tubes loaded with Mark 48 torpedoes with solutions set on the
now-blinded Soviet sub as they watched it wander away in vulnerable
befuddlement.
The simple fact was that American missile submarines were invulnerable in their
patrol areas. When fast-attack boats were sent in to hunt them, care had to be
given to operating depths – much like traffic control for commercial aircraft –
lest an inadvertent ramming occur. American fast-attack boats, even the most
advanced 688-class, had rarely tracked missile submarines, and the cases where
Ohios had been tracked could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Nearly all
involved a grievous mistake made by the missile-boat skippers, the ultimate
'black mark in the copybook,' and even then only a very good and very lucky
fast-attack skipper had managed to pull it off – and never ever without being
counter-detected. Omaha had one of the best drivers in the Pacific Fleet, and he
had failed to find Maine despite having some good intelligence data provided –
better than anything a Soviet commander would ever get.
'Good morning, sir,' Dutch Claggett said on his way through the door. 'I was
right down the hall at personnel.'
'Commander, this is Dr Ron Jones.'
'This the Jonesy you like to brag on, sir?' Claggett took the civilian's hand.
'None of those stories are true,' Jones said.
Claggett stopped cold when he saw the looks. 'Somebody die or something?'
'Grab a seat,' Mancuso said. 'Ron thinks you might have been tracked on your
last patrol.'
'Bullshit,' Claggett observed. 'Excuse me, sir.'
'You're pretty confident,' Jones said.
'Maine is the best submarine we own, Dr Jones. We are a black hole. We don't
radiate sound, we suck it in from around us.'
'You know the party line, Commander. Now, can we talk business?' Ron unlocked
his briefcase and pulled out a heavy sheaf of computer printouts. 'Right around
the half-way point in your patrol.'
'Okay, yeah, that's when we snuck up behind Omaha.'
'I'm not talking about that. Omaha was in front of you,' Jones said, flipping to
the right page.
'I still don't believe it, but I'll look at what you got.'
The computer pages were essentially a graphic printout of two 'waterfall' sonar
displays. They bore time and true-bearing references. A separate set showed
environmental data, mainly water temperature.
'You had a lot of clutter to worry about,' Jones said, pointing to notations on
the pages. 'Fourteen fishing boats, half a dozen deep-draft merchant ships, and
I see the humpbacks were up to thin out the krill. So, your sonar crew was busy,
maybe a little overloaded. You also had a pretty hard layer.'
'All that's right,' Claggett allowed.
'What's this?' Jones pointed to a blossom of noise on the display.
'Well, we were tracking Omaha, and the captain decided to rattle their cage with
a water slug.'
'No shit?' Jones asked. 'Well, that explains his reaction. I guess they changed
their underwear and headed north. You never would have pulled that off on me, by