Free Black Sea Affair by Don Brown

their mouths."
    "Gentlemen!" the president snapped. "I appreciate your passion, but this isn't the back bench of the British parliament." Mack turned to the secretary of defense. "Mr. Secretary, does the Navy have a plan to sneak this sub through the Bosphorus undetected?"
    Lopez looked around the room, exchanging sly grins and nods with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "We do have a plan, Mr. President. We call it Operation Undercover ."
    "Interesting code name, " the president mused. "So how does it work?"
    "Let me put it this way, Mr. President. The terrorists aren't the only ones who can play games with seagoing freighters."
    "Explain, Mr. Secretary."
    "With pleasure, sir." The secretary stood and motioned for two naval officers, both lieutenant commanders, to approach with an over sized attache case.
    "Mr. President, my friend the secretary of state is right about one thing. Getting a submarine through the Bosphorus is a challenge. Part of the problem is the shallow depth. With an average depth of a hundred-sixty feet, if our sub goes in too deep, she risks grounding or colliding with rocks along the bottom. If she comes up to periscope depth, she risks being spotted from the air.
    "Mr. President, here's a photo of one of our Los Angeles - class boats, the USS Chicago at periscope depth just off the coast of Malaysia. In this photo Chicago is under sixty feet of water, yet in the daytime, she's clearly visible from any aircraft passing over, and there are hundreds of aircraft over Istanbul.
    "Our challenge, clearly, is finding a way to block the sub from view from the air. We took the problem to Newport News Shipbuilding. They mulled it over, and the solution they came up with is this. Commander?"
    The lieutenant commander assisting the secretary of defense removed the photo of the Chicago and replaced it with a schematic diagram that looked like a blueprint.
    "This, " Secretary Lopez said, "is the blueprint for Operation Undercover , which is the code name for the portion of the mission to get our sub in the Black Sea.
    "As you know, Mr. President, " Secretary Lopez began, "six months ago you authorized the Defense Department to come up with a plan for submarine infiltration of the Bosphorus and other strategic waterways to deal with rogue freighters like the Alexander Popovich and for other strategic reasons."
    The president nodded his head.
    "We've carried out your orders, sir. And the concept here, " the secretary said, pointing at the diagram, "is brilliant. Under this plan, which we have been working on for months, naval engineers cut a watertight compartment in the bottom of an existing freighter.
    "Ladies and gentlemen, this has already been accomplished. Naval engineers at Newport News cut a compartment into the lower hull of the Russian freighter Volga River , which has been in port at Norfolk."
    "What happened to her crew?" the vice president asked.
    "Let's just say that her crew is enjoying an unexpected but extended visit to the United States."
    "I don't even want to hear it, " the president said.

    That comment brought chuckles from the group.
    "Anyway, " the secretary of defense continued, "the ship is being manned by a U.S. Navy crew, posing as civilians. They all speak Russian. The Volga River is now in the Mediterranean, awaiting orders to rendezvous with the U.S. submarine.
    "A Los Angeles - class submarine, the USS Honolulu , manned by a volunteer crew of submarine veterans, is on standby in La Maddalena, Italy, awaiting your orders, Mr. President. That crew understands that if they are called upon to carry out this mission, they may never return."
    Silence again, except for the grandfather clock ticking and tocking. The secretaries of state and defense seemed to have run out of gas. All eyes returned to the president.
    "Okay, here's what I'm ordering, " the president declared. "Deploy the Honolulu out of La Maddalena. Send her out to the rendezvous point to link up with the Volga River. I've