Collapse Depth

The control room watchstanders breathed a collective sigh of relief, and began filling the silence again with their orders, comments and recommendations. Jabo kept his mask pressed to the scope. “Sonar, conn, mark surface contacts on the following bearings…” he pressed the red button the scope handle each time the crosshairs in his scope hit the center of one of the fishing boats. “Mark…mark…mark…mark…” Nine times he marked a contact, and each time Hurd called out the bearing as he pushed the button. After a complete revolution, satisfied he’d marked all the visible contacts, he switched the scope to high power and began a search of a ninety-degree arc of ocean. He let Hurd work on the contacts’ solutions in fire control. While satisfied that they were safe at their current course and speed, he was concerned that they had somehow missed one in sonar, one that was close enough to see.

“Sonar conn — which contact is the one we missed?”

There was a pause, the Leer’s voice on the mike: “Designate Sierra Nine. About zero-four-five relative.”

Jabo swung the scope to the starboard beam and rolled the handles forward to put the magnification in high power. Yes, there it was, another fishing boat. His heart raced for a minute as he discerned a narrow angle on the bow — it was pointing right at them. Then he saw the black ball hanging from the front super structure: the day shape for a boat at anchor. Out of the corner of the control room, by the navigator’s chart, he heard an unusual whooping alarm that took him a second to identify: it was the ESM alarm. ET1 Daniels, the ESM operator, spoke up.

“Sir, we have a Siren Echo surface radar, bearing zero-five-zero.”

“Siren Echo?”

“Soviet-era military shipboard radar.”

“Soviet military?”

“Yes sir.”

Jabo stopped rotating a minute, took another long hard look at Sierra Nine. It sure looked like a fishing boat. But he could now hear the rhythmic whine of the radar on their ESM antenna, in time with the rotation of the radar antenna he could see atop the little boat’s highest mast.

“Sierra Nine is at anchor.”

The captain was in his ear. “See anything to make you think it’s not a fishing boat?”

“No sir. Maybe they bought that radar at a salvage auction or something…”

“Or maybe somebody out here is looking for submarines.”

The other odd thing about Sierra Nine, other than its high-grade military radar, was that it appeared to be at anchor in what was supposed to be very, very deep water. “Quartermaster, mark charted depth.”

Flather took a second to read the chart. “Two thousand fathoms, sir.”

“That’s really deep for a fishing boat to anchor in, isn’t it?”

“Really deep,” said the Flather. “I doubt he has that much chain. Maybe it’s a sea anchor.”

It’s possible, thought Jabo. It was curious, for sure. “Take a sounding,” he said.

Flather turned to the fathometer, calibrated it, and pushed the button. “Two thousand fathoms,” he said. “Just like the chart says. At this depth and speed — that should be a good reading.”

At least where we are, thought, Jabo. But that fishing boat appeared to be holding fast, like a boat would at anchor. He considered giving a slight right rudder, so they could edge closer, take a look. As he stared out at the boat, a dozen other tasks popped into his mind, things he’d pushed out of the way for the harrowing trip to periscope depth. They’d need to transmit another casualty report. That message would go, to among others, Captain Soldato, the commodore, who would probably start to wonder what the hell was going on inside the boat he had just recently left in good working order. But there was something weird about Sierra Nine, anchored there in the middle of a fishing fleet, her high-quality military radar spinning away. And no one topside hauling nets or traps. If he were just a little closer, he could maybe see inside, see what was on the deck…

He heard hard, determined footsteps on the control room ladder, and recognized them as the XO’s. Jabo heard him plug into the EAB manifold at the top of the ladder, and take a deep breath, then another, he was winded, as if he had made the trip from Machinery Two to control without stopping to breathe. Jabo listened to the hiss of twenty pound air being forced into the mask and taken into the XO’s lungs and waited for him to make his report to the captain. Finally he spoke.

. “Howard’s dead.”

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