Ultra Deep

by William H. Lovejoy

  “Control Center, Sonar.”

  “Proceed, Sonar,” Gurevenich said as he depressed the intercom key.

  “The Tashkent is making its turn, Captain.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mostovets leaned over the charting table and drew an X at the end of Tashkentʼs line, to the south of them, and 1,000 meters to the east. The two submarines were alternating on the lines of the search, with Winter Storm moving in the opposite direction. She was nearing the end of the current search line, still headed directly north.

  “Let us come to a heading of zero-nine-zero,” Gurevenich ordered.

  The order was passed to the helmsman by the navigation officer, Lieutenant Smertevo, who currently was in command of the submarine. Gurevenich had not relieved him, nor would he alter the standard rotation of watches, since he thought that this search would require many hours.

  The submarine began a slow turn to the right. All maneuvers were made with deliberate slowness because of the thousand meters of cable trailing behind and below them. At the end of the slanted line, the deep-tow sonar was at 1,600 meters of depth. It was designated multiarray, but was primarily a side-looking sonar, with some capability for down-looking. Because of its downward limitations, the 1,000 meter limit had been set for the search lines. That provided a downward facing cone for the sonar which overlapped at the sides as the two submarines passed each other, but which reached down almost 3,000 meters.

  Not far enough down. They were charting a few seamounts and occasional slopes, but the very bottom was as elusive as poltergeists.

  In over twenty-four hours, they had yet to see bottom with the sonar. To the southwest, the sea floor rose to a small seamount, which had registered on the sonar scan, but which was outside of the search area.

  They had yet to see anything man-made at those depths either, except for the Tashkent.

  They heard things. They heard the creaking of the Winter Storm’s hull plates as they tried to deal with the tremendous pressures of the ocean at that depth. One seawater pipe had burst, but it had been quickly shut down, isolated, and the damage contained. A party from engineering was working on a replacement.

  Gurevenich waited until they were headed south again, from a position to the northeast of the rocket’s impact point, then called the galley on the intercom and ordered sandwiches and iced tea.

  The minutes dragged by.

  He munched a salmon sandwich and waited.

  They turned again on the south end, sailed 2,000 meters, then again turned to the north.

  The sonar room was quiet.

  Mostovets said, “Captain, if we could but dive another five hundred meters, we might pick up the bottom.”

  “Would you like to make that decision, Ivan Yosipovich?” Gurevenich was afraid that he sounded a little testy.

  Mostovets thought about it, then shook his head. “No, Captain, I would not.ˮ

  Quiet.

  Tension.

  “Control Center, Sonar”

  Mostovets responded, “Proceed.”

  “We have an American submarine.”

  “You’re certain?” Mostovets asked.

  “Yes, Senior Lieutenant. By propeller signature, it is the Houston. Twelve thousand meters, bearing one-six-nine, depth two hundred meters and diving, speed two-two knots.”

  Mostovets looked at him, and Gurevenich said, “Lock it into the firing computer, but take no further action. We want to track it, but that is all.”

  Mostovets passed the information to the fire-control officer. Creaks. The titanium hull protested mutely from time to time.

  More quiet.

  Mostovets crossed the deck to stand beside Gurevenich at the plotting table. “I think we should wait for the submersible to arrive.”

  Gurevenich smiled at him. “We serve our purpose, Ivan. We will prove that the rocket is not located between the surface and forty-five hundred meters.”

  His senior officer grinned back at him. “You are laughing at the land-based commanders, Captain.”

  “Not aloud, Ivan Yosipovich.”

  “Our orders from the Olʼyantsev were to strain our limits.”

  “So they were,” Gurevenich agreed. “My interpretation is that we are to go to the design depth. That is what we are doing.”

  More watch and wait.

  At close to midnight, Sonarman Paramanov reported, “Tashkent on approach course. Oh, Captain! It is at seven-three-two meters depth!”

  “Foolish,” Gurevenich said to Mostovets.

  “The captain may want to be a Hero of the Commonwealth, which is certain to be awarded to the one who locates the debris,” Mostovets said.

  “It could be awarded posthumously,” the captain told him.

  He closed his eyes and pictured the two submarines coming together, the Tashkent thirty-two meters lower and a thousand meters to the east. A submarine captain had to have the mind for imagining ship positions and anticipating their movements.

  They slipped by each other without acknowledgment.

  One minute later, Paramanov yelled, “Implosion!”

  The Winter Storm rocked violently when the concussion waves struck it.

  September 4

  Chapter Ten

  0522 HOURS LOCAL, WASHINGTON, DC

  “Goddamn!” one of the technicians yelled.

  Unruh jerked his head up. He was refilling his mug at the coffeepot for the second time since coming back to the Situation Room at five o’clock. He had slept on a folding cot with no pillow in an office down the hall. He felt over beveraged and under nourished.

  Most of the agencies and the pertinent congressional committees had a representative in attendance, ready to alert their bosses if something terrible happened, or when something terrible happened.

  “What’s up?” Unruh asked.

  An Air Force captain had gone over to lean across the technician’s shoulder. “Two of the sonobuoys picked up an explosion, sir. They’re interpreting now.”

  Navy Lockheed P-3s had deployed sonobuoys over a fifty-square-mile area and had been orbiting, tracking the sounds picked up by the sensors. There had been complaints. A couple of the civilian boats had recovered two of the buoys and run off with them. The number of screws operating in the region had interfered with data collection for a while, until the computers identified and straightened out all of the noise.

  Primarily, the P-3s had been tracking two CIS submarines on a search pattern. The subs were identified as the Winter Storm and the Tashkent.

  Unruh looked up at the display board. The Houston had identified herself to the plotters, and probably the sonobuoys, and was now shown in the area of operations.

  The Air Force officer held a headset to one ear and listened. His face paled suddenly.

  “What?” Unruh asked.

  “A submarine imploded, Mr. Unruh.”

  “Jesus! What sub? Not the Houston?”

  Others in the room began to crowd the console. The National Security Advisor, Warren Amply, said, “Oh, my God!” The captain listened a moment longer. “No, sir. The Tashkent. They think she went too deep.”

  Unruh had a flashback that included all those submarine movies he had watched as a kid. He could not remember their tides, but he recalled the images of steel plates buckling, water pouring in. Screams.

  “Poor bastards,” someone said.

  “What the hell, they were Russians,” a staffer from Senator Keedan’s office said.

  Enraged, Unruh whipped around to face him. “Shut the fuck up!”

  The man started a retort, then fortunately thought better of it.

  Unruh said to Amply, “You’d better call the President, Warren. I’m going to check with the CNO.”

  He went back to the table and grabbed a phone. It took several minutes before Delecourt was located, in his car en route to the Pentagon.

  “You’ve gotten the word, Ben?”

  “Yes. Sorry situation, Carl.”

  “Do we have a tragedy comp
ounded?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the Tashkent was a nuclear sub.”

  “Oh. No. She was a Sierra-class boat. Two nuclear reactors, but they’re well-protected and designed to shut down in the event of a catastrophe. There is no immediate threat here, Carl.”

  “Why wasn’t the Topaz designed to shut down?”

  “We don’t know that it wasn’t, Carl, but hell, it was devised for space travel, not subsurface travel. I wouldn’t count on the same safeguards.”

  “So you’re not worried about the sub?” Unruh asked.

  “Not unduly. I’ll have my people double-check what we know when I reach the office, but we’ve got plenty of time, maybe years, in which to recover the remains of the sub. What you might do, Carl, is ask someone from State to convey our condolences to the CIS Foreign Ministry and, by the by, ask about the sub’s reactors.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Unruh said, turning to wave at Amply before the advisor hung up on the President.

  *

  2025 HOURS LOCAL, 39° 15' NORTH, 148° 55' EAST

  Gen. Dmitri Ivanovich Oberstev sat deflated in the captain’s chair on the bridge of the Timofey Olʼyantsev. He asked no one in particular, “How many men were on board that submarine?”

  Leonid Talebov, who stood by the communications panel, was in contact with Admiral Orlov in Vladivostok, and he repeated the question on his microphone.

  After three interminable minutes, Talebov said, “One hundred and twenty-three men, General Oberstev.”

  Oberstev searched the silent bridge until he found Sodur. He glared at the officer, wishing to transfer the weight of those deaths to the slimy man. If it had not been for Sodur, he might not have…

  No. It was his responsibility. He would accept it, just as he must eventually accept responsibility for forcing the launch of the A2e. His life was changing, prodded by one decision too quickly made. And now men had died.

  It would never be the same, his ambition to reach the stars, to complete Red Star.

  Sodur, for once, was noncommittal. His face was stoic, revealing little.

  Col. Alexi Cherbykov, his aide, said, “General, not to change the subject, but there is the matter of making an announcement to the crew of the ship.”

  “Announcement?” Sodur asked. “What announcement?”

  “Captain Talebov’s crew does not live in a vacuum, Colonel Sodur” Gurevenich said. “They have heard reports from radio stations throughout the world. We must tell them the true nature of our mission.”

  Talebov nodded his agreement.

  Sodur yelped, “Chairman Yevgeni forbids it!”

  Chairman Yevgeni lived in his own portable vacuum, Oberstev thought.

  He said, “The rumors are rife throughout the ship. Morale suffers, and performance may be affected just when it is needed most. Am I correct, Captain Talebov?”

  “Absolutely, General.”

  “Then, with my recommendation, request permission from Admiral Orlov to disseminate to the crew the fact that our mission may involve hazardous operations.”

  Leonid Talebov picked up his microphone.

  Janos Sodur spun around and headed for the communications compartment.

  Oberstev thought that it might take hours for Orlov and Yevgeni to debate the issue in Vladivostok. Perhaps wiser heads in Moscow would prevail. Yevgeni must eventually recognize that it was no longer possible to hide their defeats under the bed.

  In the compromise Oberstev expected would be reached, he supposed that he would be allowed to inform the crew of the nuclear reactor, but not of the timelines involved.

  A short time later, Captain Gurevenich of the Winter Storm reported finding some debris on the surface, but no survivors.

  “A message for the Winter Storm,” Oberstev said. “Resume search pattern, including the Tashkentʼs responsibilities.”

  “Do you wish to limit their depth, General?” Alexi Cherbykov asked.

  Oberstev thought about it, then said, “No. We must find the rocket.”

  *

  0830 HOURS LOCAL, 31° 55' NORTH, 149° 26' WEST

  Valeri Dankelov felt as if he were in a state of mourning. Not only were the victims of the Tashkent disaster his countrymen, but they were also members of the elite undersea fraternity to which he himself belonged.

  And they had died while attempting to correct an abominable situation, the same mission upon which Dankelov found himself engaged.

  Dankelov had gone down to the wardroom for breakfast earlier, heard the news, and returned to Cabin C, which he shared with Lawrence Emry. He sat on his bunk and stared out the single small porthole and allowed his mind to roam. The emotional upheaval he underwent shook his shoulders.

  When the taps on his door came, it took a moment for him to compose himself.

  “Yes?”

  “Valeri? May I come in?”

  “Yes, Dane.”

  The door opened wide against the locker at the foot of the bunk and Brande slipped inside. He offered a weak grin to Dankelov, then sat on the opposite bunk.

  “Did you know someone on the Tashkent?” Brande asked him. “No, I do not think so. Nevertheless, the accident is senseless and tragic. A microcosmic example of my country’s history and philosophy, I am afraid.”

  “Don’t be so pessimistic, Valeri. There’s a damn good-size bonfire at the end of the tunnel. The changes taking place are all promising.”

  “Perhaps. It is difficult to see at the moment.”

  Brande sat leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, and his face appeared earnest. “Don’t forget the broader perspective, Valeri. What we’ve been doing this past seven years is going to reap benefits someday. For the world.”

  “It moves very slowly, Dane. Our agricultural research is in its infancy, and the hungry of Ethiopia are still hungry. The oil we find does not trickle to Pakistan or Bangladesh.”

  “Scientific research has not changed much,” Brande agreed. “But eventually, it has an effect. We will see the results of our work in our lifetimes.”

  “I hope so. If nations do not intervene.”

  “There are a few greedy and proud countries around.”

  “As well as greedy and proud men,” Dankelov added.

  “Yes. It is a problem here, I think.”

  Dankelov understood the problem. “There is still no information from Moscow?”

  “Not yet. I believe your president, or his advisors, could be categorized among those proud men, Valeri. They think they can do this on their own.”

  “And you do not?”

  Brande shrugged. “Anything is possible, I suppose. In the same situation, however, I wouldn’t turn down any offers of help.”

  Dankelov nodded. “Nor would I. We will need the assistance of everyone with capability. Where is the United States Navy robot, now?”

  “According to Avery Hampstead, it has arrived in San Diego and is being mated with new cable. They’ll fly it out to the Kane tomorrow or the next day.”

  “And the Sea Lion?”

  “Aboard the Timofey Ol’yantsev. They’ll beat us to the site,” Brande said. “Do you know the man in charge of the Sea Lion?”

  “Gennadi Drozdov was the leader of the Barents Sea expedition. And Pyotr Rastonov was the primary operator of the submersible. They may still be with it.”

  “I know the names, though I’ve not met them. Are they capable?”

  “Quite capable. I think Gennadi Drozdov is a master oceanographer.”

  “Why don’t we call him?” Brande suggested.

  “Call him?”

  “While your and my governments are banging on each other’s front doors, you and I could see if someone left the kitchen door open.”

  Dankelov nodded his head in agreement. “We will try.”

  They got up and went forward to the bridge, then crammed themselves into the crowded communications compartment. Bucky Sanders spent a great deal of time, utilizing a satellite relay, befo
re he found a frequency that the Ol’yantsev would answer.

  There was a long pause while the radio operator went looking for someone of importance.

  Taking the microphone, Dankelov spoke in Russian. “Timofey Ol’yantsev, this is Orion.”

  “Yes. Proceed, Orion.”

  The man’s speech carried a Ukrainian overtone.

  “I am Valeri Yurievich Dankelov. I am a Russian citizen performing scientific duties aboard this research vessel. I wish to speak to Gennadi Drozdov.”

  “This is Captain Leonid Talebov. I have heard kind words about your work, Comrade Dankelov.”

  The ʻcomradeʼ form of address was rapidly disappearing, passé, out of date. Dankelov was surprised to hear it from the captain.

  “Thank you, Captain. Gennadi Drozdov?”

  There was another long pause.

  “Comrade Dankelov, if you will monitor this frequency, I will talk to you later in the day.”

  The carrier wave indicated the transmission had been broken off.

  Brande, leaning against the door frame, looked at Dankelov, his eyebrow raised in question.

  “Drozdov is aboard the ship, I believe,” Dankelov told him. “But our radio call has raised questions of policy.”

  *

  1320 HOURS LOCAL, 31° 32' NORTH, 152° 9' WEST

  Kaylene Thomas left the wardroom, climbed the companionway to the bridge, said hello to Kenji Nagasaka who was tending the helm, and went back to the communications compartment on the starboard side.

  It had started out as a fairly good-size space, but it was now cramped. Over time, it had been outfitted with electronic components that could be, and were, mind-boggling. The radios spanned the spectrum from low frequency to high frequency to very high frequency. There were satellite communications transmitters and receivers, ship-to-shore sets and acoustic transceivers. Recording decks and a computer. Compact disk players for spreading Brande’s version of muzak throughout the ship. Telex. Facsimile machines. And some of the navigation system black boxes which would take up too much room in the chart/sonar/radar compartment, opposite the radio shack, had been stacked against the back bulkhead.