Seas of Crisis by Joe Buff Read Free Book Online Page B

link to control any probes. If we use a fiber-optic tether instead, and it breaks, we can’t recover the probe and then we’ve left a clue we were here. . . . Plus, to send a probe on ahead of us slowly and quietly, by far enough to make a difference in tactically useful data, would take too long when we want to minimize our dwell time by the strait.”
    “What about antisubmarine mines, if this path you picked isn’t in their safe corridor of the day? The whole channel’s fifteen miles wide. What if we’re too far right or left of where Russian subs know they should go?”
    “No notices to mariners, sir,” Sessions reminded Jeffrey politely. “No minefield.”
    The reminder was unnecessary—Jeffrey had been quizzing him. By international law, all naval minefields had to be publicly announced, with all mines moored or otherwise held stationary. Modern mines could be programmed to ignore surface shipping, and to go off only when a submerged submarine went by. They could also be armed and later switched off via remote control, altering safe pathways through a solid field of mines.
    Jeffrey nodded sourly. “If there’s one good thing we can say about Moscow, they’re sticklers for the outward letter of international law. . . . Axis subs using the strait?”
    “Intel says our forces have them too well bottled up on the other side of the world, sir.”
    These were good answers. “Okay.” Jeffrey eyed the tactical plot vertical display on the forward bulkhead. Something genuinely puzzled him. “Why do you think the U.S. doesn’t have any surface ships or aircraft patrolling the American channel?”
    He felt the sonar supervisor sliding sideways in his seat. Jeffrey glanced at O’Hanlon, a self-assured expert who liked to go clean-shaven, and almost bald with a razor cut, accentuating the way his small ears stuck far out from the side of his head. Senior Chief O’Hanlon, in his mid-thirties, was a battle-hardened sailor, and Jeffrey could see the very top of a chest tattoo above the collar of his undershirt, worn beneath his jumpsuit. He had a pair of sonar headphones draped around his neck, so he could don them in a jiffy if he wanted to. A small lip mike was positioned to one side of his very square jaw.
    Jeffrey stepped back to not block his view of the captain and XO. “If I may?” O’Hanlon asked. Bell nodded.
    “Sir,” the chief told Jeffrey, “we conjecture it’s to minimize signal-to-noise ratio for U.S. bottom sensors and our own subs sneaking through or doing barrier patrols.”
    “Makes sense,” Jeffrey said. By flying around and charging all over, engine and machinery sounds from aircraft and ships created underwater interference. This would make it harder for bottom hydrophones, or the sonar arrays of a lurking American submarine, to pick out a hostile sub’s giveaway broadband and tonals from amid the extra background clutter. But . . .
    “That would be true for Russian bottom sensors, too.”
    “Of course, sir,” O’Hanlon said.
    “Then why are they making things harder for themselves?”
    “We conjecture that with the water so shallow, and no pronounced sonar layer, they use a completely different approach from us, relying mainly on surveillance from above instead.”
    “Which is why you’re keeping the ship as deep as you can,” Jeffrey stated to Bell, who nodded.
    “There’s another factor in these waters, Commodore,” Sessions murmured. “The entire strait’s bottom is just within reach of divers using compressed air rigs. If they work out of a seabed habitat, they can spend long hours inspecting the bottom, day in, day out, and map or even disable a bottom sensor grid.”
    “You mean, SEALs deploying out of a SeaLab type of contraption, saturation divers, sneaking to the Russky side and jiggering with their security measures?”
    “Something like that, sir,” Sessions said.
    “Suppose so. Then what prevents Russian divers from doing the same thing to