Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

SEA OF SHADOWS 309
“Towers, this is COM Fifth Fleet. I am transmitting boundaries of the
minefield to you now. There are currently no known safe transit lanes, and
I do not have time to get a mine sweeper up there before you encounter the
field, over.”
The XO snorted. “This just keeps getting better.”
The TAO said, “Captain, the parameters of the minefield just showed
up in the link.”
An irregular geometric shape appeared on the Aegis display screens, a
series of thin red lines connected at each end to form a lopsided trapezoid
off the coast of the port city of Zubayr. The NTDS symbol for Towers
showed the destroyer a little less than a mile and a half south of the edge of
the minefield.
“Nothing like cutting it close,” the XO said. “They could have waited
another six minutes or so, and we’d have found out by ourselves.”
The captain keyed up Navy Red. “COM Fifth Fleet, this is Towers. I
am in receipt of your minefield coordinates. I would have liked to have
known about this sooner. I almost steamed into this thing blind, over.”
“Towers, this is COM Fifth Fleet. Sorry about that. We just confirmed
this info about two minutes ago. You were the first to know, over.”
“COM Fifth Fleet, this is Towers. Roger, out.” The captain punched
out of Navy Red and walked over to Chief McPherson at the CDRT.
“How are we looking, Chief?”
The chief tapped the screen with her fingertip. “Farthest-on circles put
Gremlin Zero Four somewhere south of this line, Captain.” She indicated
a dotted arc on the display, just south of the minefield. “Assuming he’s
been traveling at maximum submerged speed since he torpedoed the
Benfold, he could be inside our own Torpedo Danger Zone in the next ten
minutes or so.”
“Are you expecting to gain contact immediately?”
“Not really, sir,” the chief said. “So far, he’s depended a lot on
deceptive maneuvering; I’d be surprised if he makes a straight run for
home. But he might just want to surprise us, so we’re prepared for it.”
She pointed to a series of small green circles, each with a lightning
bolt–shaped line coming out of its top at a forty-five–degree angle.
“Firewalker Two-Six is laying a passive sonobuoy field to the south.
When Gremlin Zero Four breaks the barrier, he’ll be inside torpedo
range.”
“I hate to wait until he’s that close,” Captain Bowie said. “Are you
sure we can’t get ASROC to work here? I thought the new shallow-water
configuration was supposed to be pretty effective.”