Voyage of the Devilfish

“That is the detect on the VICTOR III we were just talking about. He could be anywhere in an area one hundred miles square. Plus he’s under ice, and you’d never get him. The only thing that can nail that guy is another submarine, like the Stingray, the one who’s trailing him now. The SOSUS detection system is picking up the sounds of the Russian VICTOR III but not our own sub — the Stingray is just too quiet for us to pick up.”

A lieutenant rushed up to Donchez with a notepad.

“Commander Donchez… there’s trouble. SOSUS detected two explosions on the bearing line to the two submarines at the north pole. They reported faint sounds of a hull breaking up and several minutes of bubbles.” Donchez turned to the general, his smile gone.

“General Tyler, I need to ask you to depart Flag Plot. Now. We’ve got a situation here.”

The general was taken off by a waiting petty officer and as he was being pulled to the blast door he heard Donchez talking to the lieutenant.

“Does SOSUS still have a detect on any of the subs up there? He’s still got the Russian unit? Goddamn… get the admiral on NESTOR secure voice and tell him I’m sending a chopper for him, then get back on NESTOR and notify CINCLANTFLEET, NMCC, the White House—” The blast door slammed. As Brigadier General Tyler was escorted down the hall, he lingered for a moment at the picture of the attack submarine the commander had been so proud of. So much for the assumed overwhelming superiority of American machines over Soviet ones, he thought.

SIX DAYS LATER, 19 DECEMBER 1973

PIER?

NORFOLK NAVAL BASE, NORFOLK, VIRGINIA

A light rain had started about four hours after Stingray’s scheduled dock time. The soaked banners read “WELCOME HOME STINGRAY’:’ The brass band had long since gone. Families huddled in groups, their conversations hushed, apprehensive.

The Squadron Seven Public Affairs Officer was nearly mobbed when he walked onto the pier.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement concerning the Stingray” Family and friends of the Stingray’s crew crowded around the podium. “I’m reading now from a statement from the Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, CINCLANTFLEET: Unconfirmed reports indicate the USS Stingray may have been lost at sea in mid-Atlantic while returning from a classified deployment. Search vessels have been in the vicinity for the last several days. The announcement of the Stingray’s possible loss was delayed in the hope that she might have suffered a mere loss of communications and surfaced today as scheduled. Now that she is overdue by almost six hours we must begin to believe the worst. Search efforts will continue until further notice.” At first, they stayed on the pier, as if thinking the Stingray might still round the turn any minute and put her lines over the pier. But soon the drizzle turned into a driving rain, and when the pier floodlights came on hours later, the crowd had finally dispersed. Only the dark submarines of Squadron Seven remained, tied up on each side of the pier, with a conspicuous gap left for the mooring of the Stingray.

U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

Commander Donchez entered the office and put his cap on the single desk. He rubbed his hand over his balding head, a habit when he was uncertain, and looked around at the office. The room was normally occupied by the officer of the watch at the Academy’s Bancroft Hall, the enormous, forbidding granite dormitory for the midshipmen. The room hadn’t changed since he’d been a midshipman himself, the wall still done in dull brown ceramic tile, like a large bathroom. Donchez looked out the window onto the flood-lit bricks of Tecumseh Court below, remembering the view from his and Anthony “Patch” Pacino’s room some twenty years before. As the late Anthony Pacino’s best friend and former Annapolis roommate, it had fallen to him to tell Pacino’s son about the loss of the Stingray. The sinking had not yet leaked to the press; they had not even told the families on the pier. The door to the room opened and latched with a crash. The officer of the watch delivered a tall, thin, closecropped midshipman in a black shirt and trousers. The midshipman took three large steps into the room, pivoted in front of the desk and came to stiff attention, eyes frozen at infinity as required of plebes at the Academy.

“Midshipman Fourth Class Pacino, sir!” he sounded off. Donchez sighed. “It’s me, Mikey, Uncle Dick. Carry on.” Donchez nodded to the lieutenant, who left and shut the door behind him. Pacino looked confused for a moment, then a dark cloud came over his face.