Terminal Run - Страница 5

Доступ к книге ограничен фрагменом по требованию правообладателя.

“Sorry for the interruption. Admiral,” Catardi said. He poured the submarine force admiral and himself coffee from a carafe into two coffee mugs with the Piranha emblem on them, then settled in his chair to listen to his boss.

“Commander, a few months ago you participated in a submarine-versus-submarine exercise against the USS Snare, SSNR-1, the first of the SNARC-class,” McKee began.

The Snare was a robotic combat sub. the acronym standing for Submarine Naval Automated Robotic Combat system. The ship was small, only 180 feet long with a beam of twenty-six feet and displacing a mere three thousand tons, yet was able to carry a whopping eighty large-bore weapons, almost double the payload of the fleet’s manned submarines. She’d been operational for two months, after her sea trials exercise against the USS Piranha.

“It was a damned tough exercise, sir. We took her in three engagements, but she ambushed us in two. She’s ghostly quiet, and her sound signature shifts all over the place. And whoever programmed her was a sick bastard. She’s tricky and aggressive and fights dirty. She had to have violated the op order to snap us up those two times. Goddamned bitch of a machine cheats. Admiral.”

“Well, we have you matched against her again.”

Catardi thought back to the facts he’d memorized about the computer-controlled ship. The aft half of the ship was devoted to the reactor, pressurizer, steam generator, a single ship’s service turbine, a single propulsion turbine, and the main motor, all in one small compartment. There was no emergency diesel, no catwalks, no nuclear-control space, no shielded tunnel through the reactor space. Forward of the frame 47 division between the engineering spaces and the forward combat space there was a two-level deck devoted to electronics. The ending of the pressure hull forward marked the beginning of the free flood torpedo compartment. Past that, the forward ballast tank held the twelve vertical launch tubes and a small sonar hydrophone spherical array. There was no sail or fin or conning tower. There was also no protruding rudder above the hull, but rather eight small control surfaces resembling the fins of a rocket, with a shroud around them. The hull shape resembled a stubby torpedo rather than a submarine. The propulsion plant put out thirty thousand shaft horsepower while the reactor made eighty megawatts thermal. It had a thermal efficiency even higher than Piranha’s S20G. The tissue used in the control system was cultured from human brain tissue, the first use of human cells in an electronic battle system.

“Good.” Catardi said. “I’d like a rematch with that computerized witch. This time we’ll cheat and put her down.”

“Rob,” McKee said, his eyes narrowed, “this isn’t an exercise.”

Catardi sat back in his seat, stunned.

“I was briefed on this by Patton himself. And he heard it from NSA, the National Security Agency. You’ve worked for them before, Rob, so I don’t need to mention that in addition to their missions to spy on enemy radio signals, phone communications, and E-mails, they have an information warfare tasking, to break into foreign military command-and-control systems. While entering one foreign battle command network, they found out that the U.S. Navy computer networks and command-and-control systems have been penetrated. Correction — not just penetrated, taken over. Our command networks and top-secret communications systems no longer belong to us.” McKee paused. “Every radio transmission you make is monitored, intercepted, decoded, translated, and disseminated to the enemy’s highest levels. Same goes for every E-mail and every phone call — cell, landline, or Web — and for the data passed over the Navy Tactical Data System. So commanders can no longer talk to each other. And the penetrators can give electronic orders, disabling our combat systems when we want them to shoot, or turning our own guns against us.”

“Jesus, that means we’re paralyzed. We can’t do shit without NTDS and our communications network. Who penetrated our command networks? The Red Chinese or the Indians’?”

“It’s complicated,” McKee said. “The electronic attackers are an independent mercenary group of military consultants, the same company that pulled the trigger on last summer’s terrorist assault on the Princess Dragon. It’s possible they did this on behalf of India, but they may be selling information to both sides. That’s where our need-to-know ends. More important to us is that we agree on how we’re going to talk to each other with our comms compromised.” McKee reached into his briefcase and produced two pad computers, handing both to Catardi.

“These NSA computers, used with the paper sealed authentication system, are the only secure means of communication left to us other than mouth-to-ear.”

The Sealed Authentication System, known as SAS, was a supply of sealed foil packets enclosing paper slips with concealed codes, the packets distributed to each afloat commander. The codes printed on the interior paper slips were used to verify the authenticity of an incoming emergency action message. The system was the only part of the war-fighting network to remain stubbornly nonelectronic. Years before Patton had argued to eliminate the system and go completely digital. Thank God he’d been overruled, Catardi thought.

“There will be two National Security Agency employees assigned to your ship, to operate the electronics of the command network as a disinformation program, to keep the enemy confused. The system will belong to NSA. Your actual comms will use Internet E-mail, encrypted and decrypted by the NSA’s handheld computers and authenticated by using the SAS sealed authenticators.

“Since our command network is penetrated and compromised, we’rein deep trouble with the Snare. Since the battle network is penetrated, we must presume Snare to be compromised. We can’t afford for her to fall into enemy hands. With her deployed in the Atlantic, if she has been taken over, she could target our East Coast subs as they scramble to the Indian Ocean.”

“Indian Ocean, sir?”

“I’m jumping ahead. For now, I want Piranha on a search-and-destroy mission. You know the sound signature and inherent operating behavior of Snare, and you’ll find her first. Put the Snare down and hurry. Then get Piranha to the Indian Ocean. I’ll tell you why once you’re on your way.”

“Aye aye, sir.

* * *

Ten minutes later the civilian-clothed admiral stood and shook Catardi’s hand. Catardi escorted him topside, and stared after the man as he walked briskly down the pier. Catardi’s mind was still whirling after the admiral’s briefing. Piranha was at war, and he couldn’t tell his crew until the ship was submerged in the Atlantic. The thought occurred to him that the Snare could be lurking out there waiting for him, and that the computerized sub might kill him before he could kill her. “Screw her,” he muttered to himself.

He looked over at the Piranha, at Pacino up in the bridge cockpit. The kid was studying the chart computer and the tides, checking the channel with his binoculars, and looking down at the tugs, occasionally speaking into the bridge communication box microphone or his radio. It was eerie — even though his resemblance to his father was slight, he moved just like the old man, his hand motions and facial expressions identical.

Catardi turned and walked the gangway to the ship. The IMC PA system clicked, the voice broadcasting over the circuit, “Piranha, arriving!” to announce Catardi’s return to the vessel. He climbed the ladder to the bridge cockpit and from there to the flying bridge on the top surface of the sail.

“Mr. Pacino,” Catardi said, “get underway.”

Midshipman Patch Pacino’s stomach rolled in nausea when he was ordered to take the ship to sea. He swallowed hard, squinted at Commander Catardi with his best war face and said, “Get underway, Junior Officer of the Deck, aye, sir.”

Pacino put the megaphone to his mouth and called, “Take off the brow!” The diesel engine of the pier crane rumbled as the gangway was hoisted away from the deck and placed on the pier concrete. He made the next order on the VHP radio to the tugs, his uncertain voice echoing out over the other radios on the bridge. “Tugs one and two, shove off and stand by at two hundred yards.” The tugs’ engines roared as they throttled into reverse and faded backward into the river. Pacino lifted the bridge box mike to his lips. “Navigator, we are shoving off the tugs.”

The navigator, Lieutenant Commander Wes Crossfield, was obviously not pleased. He’d spent an hour with Pacino going over tug commands, the current and chart of the Thames River. Pacino had liked him considerably more than Alameda. The thirty-year-old department head was a six-foot-four African American, a varsity basketball player at Navy who had forsaken an NBA career to drive submarines. He had a calm authority, and the crew seemed to respect him, but there was something hidden, an indefinable sadness adding to the officer’s seriousness. His scratchy voice called over the 1ME circuit, “Bridge, Navigator, aye. Navigator recommends keeping tugs.”

“Navigator. Bridge, aye.”

“Shift your pumps, Mr. Pacino, like we discussed,” Alameda said to him. He nodded, raising the microphone to his lips.

“Maneuvering, Bridge, shift reactor recirc pumps to fast speed.”

“Shift main coolant pumps to fast speed. Bridge, Maneuvering, aye.” The speaker box squawked the engineering officer of the watch’s reply. “Bridge, Maneuvering, main coolant pumps are running in fast speed.”