Countdown c-6, page 21
part #6 of Carrier Series
"Torpedo two has acquired."
"Release it."
Now two Mark 48s howled through the water, skimming a few yards beneath the jagged, downward thrust of the ice-roofed surface. The target was less than two miles ahead.
1528 hours
Control room/attack center
Russian PLARB Slavnyy Oktyabrskaya Revolutsita
"Now!" Dobrynin roared. His eyes were squeezed shut as he pictured the shifting relative positions of submarine, torpedoes, and ice. "Full speed ahead! Come right to three-five-zero! Engineering! I want one hundred ten percent on both reactors, now! Kick his ass!"
Slavnyy Oktyabrskaya Revolutsita shuddered, heeling sharply to the right as the helmsman swung the giant sub into a hard starboard turn. Strelbitski grabbed for a brass stanchion and clung to it, his eyes very large as he stared up past the attack center's fluorescent lights.
Ping!
The sound of the torpedoes actively hunting the Revolutsita echoed through the sub's double hull like a hammer blow.
Ping! Just a little farther into the turn…
WHAM!
The Typhoon, already heeling a good twenty degrees to starboard, slewed even farther onto the beam, flinging men, clipboards, loose papers, and unsecured gear into the bulkhead. In the crews' quarters, off-duty personnel were unceremoniously dumped from their bunks; in the torpedo room one of the racked monsters burst its steel bonds and smashed across the compartment, crushing two torpedomen to death and pulping the legs of a shrieking third.
Then the Typhoon rocked back to port, hurling her bruised and battered crew back in the opposite direction, before steadying at last in a precarious balance between the two extremes.
And around the sub thundered the booming roar of echoes gone mad.
1528 hours
Control room/attack center
U.S.S. Galveston
"Hit!" someone yelled, as the boom rumbled through the water, caressing the Galveston.
"Belay that!" Villiers shouted back. "It exploded too soon!"
Then the second torpedo went off, closer to the sub. The second blast's underwater shock wave, riding close on the heels of the first, caught the attack sub and shoved her, hard. Her bow came up… and the sail rocked into a rugged mass of ice protruding down from the ceiling, the deepest thrust of a major pressure ridge. Sparks dazzled from a bank of electronic gear, and smoke began billowing through the compartment.
"Fire!" someone yelled as the lights dimmed. "Fire in the control room!"
1530 hours
Control room/attack center
Russian PLARB Slavnyy Oktyabrskaya Revolutsita
"Captain! This is the sonar officer. I cannot get a clear picture.
Wide-band noise and transients-"
"Never mind that. Is the sonar still operational?"
"Yes, Captain. But it will be several minutes before we have full sensitivity again."
"We don't need it. We have them! Helm! Bring us back around to one-nine-zero!"
The Typhoon had been shaken when the American torpedoes had struck the ice, but was otherwise undamaged. Dobrynin had acted deliberately, turning away from the torpedoes and going to full speed, a maneuver that had attracted the notice of the torpedo's passive sensors and drawn them along. He'd noticed, during his maneuvering here an hour before, the presence of several major pressure ridges, where the ice, piled high by wind and currents, thickened into inverted ranges that posed a serious threat to submarines operating close to the ice.
Or to torpedoes. He'd been taking a gamble; Revolutsita could have smashed one of those ridges with her sail, damaging her periscopes or satellite-communication gear.
The gamble had paid off, however, when the torpedoes had stopped tracking the Typhoon and started homing on one of those ridges.
Probably, the lead torpedo had exploded on the ice, and the shock wave had thrown the second into the ice as well. In any case, Revolutsita was unharmed.
And now, Dobrynin had become the hunter, and the Americans the prey.
CHAPTER 19
Sunday, 15 March
1540 hours (Zulu +2)
Control room/attack center
U.S.S. Galveston
Galveston's well-trained crew reacted with drilled efficiency and a complete lack of wasted motion. Rubber masks on hoses dropped from the overhead like the emergency apparatus aboard a 747 losing cabin pressure. The control room crew calmly strapped on the dangling masks and kept to their posts as men with fire extinguishers doused the small electrical fire. The compartment's blowers were still operational, and the air cleared rapidly.
"Mr. Paulson!" Montgomery yelled, his voice muffled somewhat by his mask.
"What's our damage?"
"Nothing too bad, Skipper! Dinged the sail, port side. Fire in the aux comm circuitry, under control. Minor casualties, bumps and bruises…"
"Okay! Sonar! This is the Captain. Can you hear anything yet?"
"Still awfully fuzzy, Captain," Ekhart's voice came back. "We've got echoes off the ice and bottom. Might be fifteen minutes before we get a clear sweep. And, sir…"
"Yes?"
"Captain, I think we've lost one flank array. We're deaf to port."
"Okay. Stay on it. If anyone can hear that bastard through the crap, it's you!"
"Aye, sir."
Think like the enemy! Montgomery told himself. And who was the enemy? A sub driver, like him. A captain first rank, most likely, for one of their biggest and finest vessels, or even an admiral.
No, not an admiral. That clever bastard had dived, turned away from the Mark 48s, then suckered them into the ice, as slippery-slick as sex. The guy had balls… and the maneuver suggested he did this for a living, not as a reward for years of faithful service to the Motherland.
Okay, so he was a working captain, and he knew how to use the ice as cover against torpedo attack. He also knew he would have to find and kill the American attack sub before the attack sub was able to take another shot. The Russian's sonars would be deafened for the moment; he wouldn't know how badly Galveston's ears had been singed, so he'd assume Galveston still had fully operational sonar.
He would turn onto a reciprocal course to the torpedoes, running straight down the track toward Galveston's position. He'd be coming fast, to cover the distance before Gal could recover her hearing, and he would be skimming as close to the ice as he dared just in case she could hear him, making use of the confused echoes still bouncing back and forth between ice and bottom to mask the noise of her engines. He might dump noisemakers too, just to keep things lively.
"Diving Officer!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Make our depth two hundred feet. Helm, come to zero-zero-five. Make our speed dead slow. Just enough to maintain way."
"Two hundred feet, aye, aye, Captain."
"Coming now to zero-zero-five, speed three knots."
Montgomery took his place at the search periscope. "Up scope!"
1610 hours
Control room/attack center
Slavnyy Oktyabrskaya Revolutsita
Where is he?
That question had been weighing on Dobrynin's mind for nearly half an hour now. If the American had continued his approach at five or ten knots, the Typhoon should have met it by now. The echoes in the water were dying away at last, and the sonar officer reported clear water.
But no American sub. The bastard couldn't simply make himself invisible!
"Slow to one third," he said. "Sonar! Anything?"
"No, Comrade Captain. It is possible the American turned away after his torpedoes went active, and left the area."
"Hmm. Possible. But not likely. This American submarine captain, he is very good. He crept up on us like a wolf on a reindeer. I somehow doubt he went to so much trouble simply to loose two torpedoes, then run away again."
But Dobrynin was faced with another decision, and as he made it, he was well aware of Strelbitski's eyes boring into the back of his head from across the attack center. The man had been silent since the attack, and sullen. His arm, dislocated during the momentary turbulence after the explosions, was now resting in a sling, and his face had the pasty look of a corpse.
By now, Moscow knew that the missile had not been launched on time, that Chelyabinsk had not been incinerated. No doubt, the air above the ice was thick with coded radio messages just now, demanding that he acknowledge and explain himself.
Should he assume the American sub had left, surface, and carry out his orders? Or continue the hunt?
"Slow to five knots!" he ordered. "Ahead slow!"
Damn it, the American had to be here somewhere!
1617 hours
Control room/attack center
U.S.S. Galveston
Montgomery's face was pressed against the periscope's eyepiece. Scanning forward and up, he could see the light filtering down from the surface through the ice, a white-hazy ripple of light and shadow, growing brighter as Galveston slipped beneath thin-ice leads, darker beneath the pressure ridges and thicker blocks.
There still was no sign of the enemy.
"Captain! Sonar!"
"Captain. Go ahead."
"Sir, I'm getting very faint noises to starboard, on a heading of one-zero-two. Range… hard to make out, but I think it's pretty close. A mile. Maybe a bit more."
"What kind of noises?"
"Hard to pick it out of the background, sir. We're still getting some low-frequency stuff, and the ice has been cracking apart ever since the explosion. But my guess would be something damned big on two screws."
Bearing 102… that was almost abeam of the Galveston. Montgomery walked the periscope around to the right…
And there she was, no more than a blunt-nosed shadow against the brighter ice overhead, but unmistakable. He estimated the range off the reticle markings on the periscope image, using the Typhoon's length of 558 feet as a trigonometric key. The Typhoon was now about eighteen hundred yards to starboard, just over a mile. He'd never have seen her if he hadn't gone deeper to silhouette her against the light.
"Gently now," Montgomery said, keeping the target in his sights. "Helm, come right to a heading of one-seven-five. Dead slow."
"Heading one-seven-five, dead slow, aye, sir."
The minutes dragged as Galveston slowly turned, reversing her northbound course toward one heading almost due south… and sliding gently once again into the Typhoon's baffles. As with combat between fighter planes, the combatant who first spotted the other usually had the advantage. Montgomery was not about to lose it again.
"Mr. Villiers?"
"Tubes one through four are loaded, sir. Mark 48 ADCAP. Outer tube doors are open."
"Are you tracking Mr. Ekhart's target?"
"We're tracking."
"Fire one."
"One away. Running hot and clean, positive guidance."
"Fire two."
"Two away. Positive guidance."
"Fire three."
"Three away." Montgomery saved the fourth torpedo against the unexpected. Running time for the Mark 48s at a range of one mile was just under one minute.
1619 hours
Control room/attack center
Russian PLARB Slavnyy Oktyabrskaya Revolutsita
"Torpedoes in the water! Very close! Bearing zero-zero-three, coming in directly astern!"
"Release countermeasure decoys!"
"Decoys away!"
"Come hard left! Full speed now!"
"Coming left."
"Engineering! I want one hundred ten percent! Now!"
"Yes, Captain!"
"Captain! Torpedoes closing! Estimated range four hundred meters…"
"Move, damn you!" he screamed at the helmsman. "Put the helm hard over!
Stand the bastard on his side!"
"I knew you should have fired the missile when you had the chance," Strelbitski said. "I will see to it that-"
"You are at liberty to report me to Moscow," Dobrynin said. The deck was tilting now at an angle of nearly thirty degrees, forcing him to grab a stanchion to support himself. "Assuming we survive the next few minutes."
"Two hundred meters…"
"Release more countermeasures!"
1620 hours
Sonar room
U.S.S. Galveston
Ekhart heard the increase in the pitch of the fast-pinging active sonar as the lead torp sprinted the last few yards to its target. He whipped off his headset. "Thar she blows!" he called as the rest of the sonar operators pulled off their earphones as well.
The first explosion rumbled through the water, louder than the blast that had rocked them earlier, but not nearly so damaging this far beneath the ice.
Galveston rocked to starboard, shuddered, then tilted back to port.
An instant later, the second torpedo struck home, the detonation thundering through the water close on the heels of the first.
The third torpedo did not detonate. Either it had been seduced by the Typhoon's noisemaker decoys, or the first two explosions had damaged it. No matter. As soon as Ekhart slipped his headset back on, he could hear the unmistakable sounds of water flooding a large, empty space, a rushing, thundering sound, punctuated by startling popping noises.
Homing on her screws, striking the Typhoon in the stern, the first ADCAP must have ruptured the seal around one of her drive shafts, sending water pouring into her engine spaces. As he continued to listen, Ekhart heard a low, eerie groan building to an almost human wail of agony as steel warped under incredible stress, not from depth ― the Typhoon was not nearly deep enough for that ― but from unbalanced loads surpassing engineering tolerances.
He was hearing the sound of the huge sub's back breaking as her after spaces flooded and started dragging her down.
"Captain, this is Sonar," he said. "Two hits. I'm picking up breakup noises."
"Pipe it over the ICS."
He flipped a switch, transmitting the death cries of the giant Russian sub throughout the boat. Ekhart had half expected the crew to break into cheering, but the Galveston remained death-silent. Now he could hear the rustle of air bubbles streaming into the void. The target was changing aspect too as it dropped away into blackness.
"Now hear this" rasped over the ICS speaker. "This is the captain speaking. All I can say, men, is congratulations to each and every one of you on a job very well done. The details of this mission may have to remain secret, but I can tell you that Washin ton had information that our target was a Russian Typhoon that had surfaced in order to launch her nuclear missiles.
Your action prevented that launch, and the country and the world owes you a very large debt.
"Sonarman First Class Ekhart, I want to extend to you a very special job well done. That was good work, picking out the Typhoon's screws from the background garbage. You may have saved the boat, and you certainly contributed to the success of our mission. I'll be writing you up in my after action report, recommending you for special commendation…"
Ekhart did not feel like he deserved commendation. His… talent, his ability to feel out an opponent in the darkness of the ocean, had just been put to the ultimate test, and 150 people had died. True, they'd been trying to kill him and his shipmates at the same time, but it was still not something he could feel proud about.
The sonarman sitting beside him clapped him on the shoulder. "Real number-one job, Rudi."
"Yeah," another said, grinning from ear to ear. "The Old Man usually ain't none too free with his 'well dones." Good work!"
Somehow, though, Ekhart had never felt more distant from his shipmates than he did at that moment. He felt both proud of his skill and ashamed of the fact that he'd just helped kill 150 men, submariners like himself.
He wished that he'd never joined the Navy.
1430 hours EST (Zulu -5)
Situation Room Support Facility
Washington, D.C.
The news that Galveston had torpedoed a Russian PLARB had everyone in the Crisis Management Group keyed to fever pitch. All expected some form of Russian retaliation, either against American submarines in the Barents Sea, or more likely, against the carrier battle force at Bear Station. Oddly, while the Kola bases remained on full alert, no new air strikes, no cruise missile attacks had been launched.
"Since that time," a military aide, a Navy captain, was saying, "there have been five additional incidents in the area. We're still checking on some of them, but it appears that at least four more Russian submarines have been sunk during the last three hours."
"What kind of subs were they?" someone in the audience asked.
"Two were PLARBs. Not Typhoons, but older models. A Yankee II and, we think, a Delta IV. We don't know that they were part of the Krasilnikov ultimatum, but they were heard to be flooding their missile tubes in preparation for launch. The other two were attack subs trying to work their way toward our task force at Bear Station."
The doors at the end of the room opened, and a close-knit cluster of men in suits and in uniforms walked in. "Ladies and gentlemen," Gordon West announced from the head of the pack. "The President of the United States!"
The people at the table stood with a rumble of pushed-back chairs.
"Be seated, please," the President said as he strode to the chair reserved for him. He took his seat as his aides and several military officers, including an Air Force colonel with an ominous briefcase chained to his wrist, took their places along the windows at his back.
My God, he looks old, Magruder thought, shocked. The President appeared to have aged years in just the few days since Magruder had seen him last. His was one job that Magruder would never want. The people on the crisis team, at least, had been managing a few hours of sleep at odd moments throughout the past three days. It didn't look like the President had been sleeping at all.
"Okay," the President said, looking at the faces around him. "I'll make this fast and to the point.
