AUGUST 2016
149
THE SUBMARINE REVIEW
corner of the radio room, twenty feet aft of Chapman, watching a graphic display on his computer as it continuously built and shifted while his sensitive equipment searched the airwaves for probing radar signals. “Signal strength two. Probably on that mountain below Najin. Ten percent chance of detection.”
Ten-percent chance of detection? Chapman wondered idly. How did he come up with that number? Why not fifteen percent or twenty? Or better still, why couldn’t he be definite and just say they ain’t gonna see us?
Chapman shook his head. Not a good time for idle wondering. There was a job to do. He continued his sweep of the horizon. Just one more check to make sure that no North Korean gunboat was going to come roaring over the horizon at them. He quietly ordered, “Officer of the Deck, surface the ship. Send the SEALs up into the bridge trunk.”
Lieutenant Marc Lucerno glanced around the Topeka’s control room. The watch standers were sitting on the edge of their seats, nervous but ready. Lucerno rubbed the sweat from his palms onto the legs of his blue poopie suit. Everything looked ready. The SEAL team leader, Brian Walker, stood at the base of the ladder to the bridge, waiting for his order to scurry up. The man, his blackened face hidden in the shadows, was dressed in a black wet suit with a heavy pack on his back and a wicked looking M-4 rifle in one hand. He looked ready to go to war.
The fire control team was hunched over their computer panels, waiting and ready, just in case Kim Jae-uk sent a welcoming party out to spoil their little surprise. Two of Topeka’s four torpedo tubes were loaded with Harpoon missiles, ready to roar out and slam into any ship foolish enough to get in the way. The other two tubes had ADCAP torpedoes to blow their bottom out.
Everyone aboard the submarine hoped it would never come to that. Such an occurrence was, plain and simple, war. They were trained to go to war, to fight an enemy, but not a man onboard the boat had ever done it for real. Now, here in this part of the world and with the mission before them, they would be damned close.
150
AUGUST 2016
THE SUBMARINE REVIEW
“Diving Officer, surface the ship,” Lucerno ordered with a lot more confidence than he felt. “Mr. Walker, stand by the bridge access hatch.”
Lucerno watched the SEAL commander disappear up the ladder as he felt the boat take a slight up angle. The diving officer was using the planes to drive the sub up to the surface before he put air into the ballast tanks to hold her up.
“Thirty-eight feet and holding,” Lucerno called out.
The diving officer ordered, “Chief of the Watch, conduct a ten second normal main ballast tank blow.”
The chief of the watch stood and reached up to grab a pair of switches high up on the vertical panel in front of him. He flipped one marked “Forward Group” and then another one marked “After Group.” The roar from the forty-five-hundred-pound high-pressure air rushing into the ballast tanks almost drowned out his report.
“Blowing the forward group,” he yelled, then followed it with, “Blowing the after group.”
The big sub bobbed up to the surface of the ocean as the air pushed seawater out of the huge tanks forward and aft of the “people tank.” The chief of the watch locked his stare on the clock as it ticked off exactly ten seconds. He flipped both switches up. The roar stopped.
“Completed ten second normal blow. Three-four feet and holding. Half inch pressure in the boat.”
Lucerno nodded and ordered, “Crack the bridge access hatch. Half inch pressure in the boat.”
A green light blinked out on the ballast control panel.
The chief of the watch called out, “Bridge access hatch indicates intermediate.”
Almost immediately, Lucerno felt his ears pop as air whistled out past the bridge access hatch, equalizing the sub’s atmosphere with the air pressure outside the boat.
“Open the upper hatch,” Don Chapman called out. “SEAL team to the bridge. All stop.”
Topeka’s screw slowly stopped turning. The boat slid forward for another thousand yards before it stopped dead in the water. In the meantime, Brian Walker had climbed up into the bridge