‘Wasn’t dead, was he?’
‘Don’t be daft! I told you, he was snoring his head off. It’s unlike him – he’s usually a light sleeper. On his feet instantly if you call him.’
‘Might’ve taken some sleeping pills. But he should have bloody told me if he was going to do that!’ Pike hissed, resentful at yet another sign of his captain’s disregard for him. ‘Okay, Nick. You have the ship. And not a word about the captain. Understand?’
‘Sebastian knows.’
‘Well, keep it to the two of you then.’
Cavendish crossed to the ship control console to check his orders were being followed. Already the decks were tilting, as the submarine banked and climbed to its new depth and course. The planesman pulled back on the control stick, eyes locked onto the indicators.
Pike grabbed at pipework to steady himself as he headed aft. Beyond the control room the red-light glow of the night encouraged a stillness in the boat, even though half the crew was on watch.
Outside the captain’s cabin he hesitated, listening for any sound of Hitchens stirring. Hearing none, he rapped on the door frame and waited. No response. He pulled back the edge of the curtain and looked inside. It was exactly as the navigator had described.
Hitchens could be dead, for all he knew. The thin face was turned away from him, mouth open, cheeks hollow. Pike shook him by the shoulder. The body stirred at his touch, taking in a startled breath, and then with a grunt sank back into deep sleep.
Best to leave him, Pike thought. He wasn’t needed in the control room, and would be little use if forced out of a drugged sleep.
He stood back from the bunk and looked around for a pill container. He found it inside a small, blue sponge bag on the table. The name on the label was unfamiliar, but the pharmacist’s instructions read ‘one to two at night when needed’. He pulled off the cap – it was one of those child-proof ones. Inside he counted about a dozen capsules. At least Hitchens hadn’t taken the lot.
He looked at the wall-clock: 0200. Let him sleep it off.
Even asleep Hitchens’ face looked stressed and unhappy. Enough stress to have unbalanced him? How could Pike tell? He was no medic, and they didn’t have a doctor on board.
He pulled the curtain shut behind him and returned to the control room. The submarine was levelling off.
* * *
Over the Norwegian Sea.
The crew of RAF Nimrod call-sign Eight-Lima-Golf could hardly believe the drama unfolding below them. The four-engined jet criss-crossed the pitch-black Norwegian Sea at 220 knots, 300 feet up, monitoring and plotting every detail of the duel under the waves.
On routine patrol from its base at Kinloss, the Nimrod had been directed to the area by reports from the Norwegian Air Force, whose P-3 Orion maritime patrol planes had suddenly delected the Soviet sub marine south of Vestfjord. Where it had come from, they didn’t know. Somehow it had escaped detection elsewhere in the Norwegian Sea.
The RAF were pleased to get in on the action; at first they’d suspected the target was one of the new ultra-quiet Sierra class boats. But then they picked up the characteristic noise signature of a Victor, albeit quieter than usual. Must’ve just come out of refit, they’d concluded.
It had taken time to find the Victor; the fix the Norwegians had given, was over an hour old. The first line of sonobuoys they’d dropped into the sea had drawn a blank. Knowing the Victor’s ability to sprint at forty knots, the airborne electronics officer had gambled that the boat had turned north, to keep away from the shallows of the continental shelf.
He’d been right, but for the wrong reason.
Sixty miles north of the Victor’s last known position they’d dropped eight Jezebel sonobuoys two miles apart, in a chevron from east to west. Once in the water the buoys separated into two sections; one part, containing an omni-directional hydrophone, dropped 150 metres while the other section, linked to it by cable, containing a small radio and antenna, floated to the surface to transmit to the aircraft the sounds the hydrophone detected.
The noise of a speeding Victor can travel great distances. All eight Jezebel buoys detected it simultaneously. The two operators on the AQS.901 acoustic processor inside the cramped and tatty fuselage of the Nimrod grinned at each other at the strength of the signals they were hearing through their headphones.
To their left, on a large circular TV screen, the tactical navigator was constructing his plot of the water below. The line of sonobuoys was marked by eight small green squares, each identified with a radio channel.
‘Fifty and twenty-seven are top buoys!’
The voice on the intercom indicated the Jezebels giving the strongest signals, the ones closest to the target.
Looking over the shoulder of the tactical navigator, the AEO saw that the top buoys were at each end of the chevron.
‘Spot on! He’s coming straight for us,’ he shouted with satisfaction.
Suddenly one processor operator jabbed a finger at the top of his sonar display, the green ‘waterfall’ sound pattern detected by buoy ‘36’ at the apex of the chevron. He was detecting something more than ripples in the pattern created by the distant Victor.
‘Hey, I’ve got something!’ he snapped into his boom-microphone.
He spun a roller-ball to move the cursor to the low-frequency noise that had caught his eye, a frequency too low to be audible to the human ear.
His fingers flicked switches to focus the narrow-band analyser onto it.
‘I’m getting doppler effect on thirty-six,’ he snapped again.
‘Same on forty-two,’ the second operator reported.
A minute reduction in the frequency detected told them something other than the Victor had just passed between two hydrophones and was heading away from the line.
The tactical navigator moved a cursor across his video map, to the position of the new target. He pressed a key to fix the co-ordinates in the navigation computer. The aircraft turned on its new heading.
‘Prepare DIFARS seven-five and zero-nine,’ the TacNav ordered.
In the rear of the plane aircrew selected directional buoys from a storage rack, set the radio channels, and loaded them into the ejection tubes.
A button on his control panel launched the first of the buoys. ‘Seven-five, gone. Turn now,’ sang out the TacNav. The plane banked sharply to reach the launch position for the second.
The AEO clutched the edge of the processor housing to steady himself. The ‘G’ force in the sharp turn threatened to buckle his knees.
‘Zero-nine, away.’
He crouched in front of the processor screens. The DIFAR buoys, directional and highly sensitive, would give the speed and bearing of the target.
Ten buoys in the water was no problem for the AQS.901. Sixteen could be monitored simultaneously on the four displays.
‘DIFAR seven-five gives bearing one-seven-zero, and decreasing.’
‘Zero-nine gives two-five-seven, increasing.’
‘Any classification yet?’ the AEO asked.
The operators studied the pattern emerging on their screens. Listening didn’t help; nothing but squeaks and crackles from shrimps and other marine life. It was down to the computer to analyse the low-frequency vibration of the target.
‘Looks like a bloody Trafalgar! That’s the noise signature!’
The second operator nodded in agreement.
So that was it. That was why the Victor had headed north.
‘Bet he’s never been that lucky before! A Victor tracking a Trafalgar? Impossible, according to the bloody Navy!’
‘They’re both doing nearly 30 knots!’
The bearings from the DIFARs changed rapidly as the target passed between them. The Russian boat was coming up fast through the Jezebel line.
‘They’ll both be deaf, going that fast,’ the AEO remarked.
‘Hang on!’ called the TacNav. ‘Our chap’s slowing down.’
‘She’s sprinting and drifting. This is where he finds o
ut he’s picked up a tail. Could get interesting!’
While they waited to see what the Victor would do, the AEO grabbed the signaller’s clip-board of intelligence signals. Very odd. Not a word about a RN boat being in the area.
The portly, middle-aged AEO chortled inwardly at the chance of embarrassing the Navy. He drafted a brief, sarcastic signal to the joint Maritime headquarters at Northwood, reporting their contact, and asking if they knew where all their own submarines were. The radio operator hunched over his keyboard, encrypting the message from a code card.
* * *
HMS Truculent.
Tim Pike was controlling the boat from the ‘bandstand’, a circular railing in the centre of the control room.
‘Depth fifty metres,’ yelled the helmsman.
‘Control Room, Sound Room!’ the communications box crackled.
Pike clicked the switch and acknowledged.
‘Contact’s gone active, sir! The sod’s pinging us!’
Cordell threw himself at the AIS Console. Sonar data were transferred automatically from the sound room to the AIS.
The intercept sensor projecting like a stubby finger from the upper casing of Truculent had detected the faint ‘ping’ from below the thermocline. The computer gave them a bearing and range.
Cordell saw from the amber lines snaking across the screen that the ‘ping’ had been too weak to detect them. The sound-absorbing tiles coating their hull would have prevented an echo.
‘Out of range,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Contact bearing two-six-zero. Range five-thousand-three-hundred yards. Depth three-hundred metres.’
‘Closer than we thought,’ Pike breathed, leaning over the TAS officer’s shoulder. ‘Odd! The Soviets don’t usually go active – don’t want to give away their frequencies.’
The use of active sonar was a last resort for submariners; the signal inevitably revealed the position of the transmitting boat.
‘He’s just pinged again. Different angle. He’s searching for us.’
‘Time to show him our tail,’ warned Pike. ‘Steer zero-eight-zero. Revolutions for thirty knots. Clear the datum.’
‘He’s dead keen to keep tabs on us,’ Cordell mused. ‘Perhaps there’s a promotion in it for him!’
The submarine banked to starboard; the men in the control room gripped fittings and grab-rails.
Truculent would make more noise going fast, and her sonar would be deaf, but they needed the distance. Just a few minutes’ sprint, then they’d slow down to listen.
‘Give us room! Give us room!’ Pike muttered to himself, his body spring-tight with tension. ‘When he realizes we’re not deep any more, he’ll come up here looking for us.’
Silence fell in the control room, anxious eyes fixed on dials and screens.
‘Still pinging?’ Pike checked.
‘No, he’s stopped,’ replied Cordell.
‘Are we out of range if he pings again directly at us?’
‘Probably not. Stern on, we’re a small target, but he might get an echo off the propulsor.’
Truculent’s propulsion system was like an aircraft’s turbojet, a double row of compressor fans encased in a tube. Only from directly astern could the blades be detected on sonar.
‘Another course change,’ Pike ordered, swinging round to the planesman. ‘Port five. Steer zero-six-zero, and be ready to go deep again.’
‘How long now at this speed?’ Pike asked.
‘Six minutes, sir!’ answered the navigator.
Three miles they’d covered; three miles further from the Victor, he hoped. Time to listen again.
‘Reduce speed. Revs for fifteen knots,’ he called.
The instruction was relayed aft to the manoeuvring room. The response from the propulsion plant was almost immediate.
‘Aircraft overhead!’ barked the tannoy.
Coming alive again, the sonar had picked up the roar of jet engines.
‘Jesus! What is this? A plane too?’
‘Because of the exercise?’ Cordell guessed. ‘The Sovs keeping tabs on Ocean Guardian?’
‘Or something else. Something to do with what the captain was talking about. The East-West crisis!’
Pike hurled a silent curse at the sleeping Hitchens. Why hadn’t the bastard told him what was going on?
Cordell’s head turned, snake-like on his long, thin neck. There was a flicker of fear in his eyes.
‘You mean the Victor was trying for a firing solution?’ he asked aghast. ‘Wants to torpedo us?’
‘That’s the usual reason for going active, isn’t it?’
‘You’re joking!’
‘Well, I hope I am!’
‘Shit! The tubes are empty! We’re defenceless!’
Pike thought hard. The intelligence reports had let them down. They were on their own. Better play it safe. He grabbed the microphone for the tannoy.
‘Watch stand to!’ he spoke, steadying his voice. ‘We’re being shadowed by a Soviet SSN, and will adopt defence watch conditions.’
‘Taking it a bit personally, aren’t you?’ the weapon engineer chided as he entered the control room at a run.
‘Taking no chances. Anyway, you were the one worrying about World War Three starting. Better bring the bloody tubes to the action state!’
Spriggs raised one eyebrow, but disappeared fast down the ladder to the torpedo stowage compartment below, where the ratings were already wrenching open the tube rear doors and loading the 1½ tonne Tigerfish torpedoes. Attached behind each propeller was the drum of guidance wire that would spool out after launch, keeping the weapons under the control of the submarine.
‘Where’s the target, TAS?’ asked Pike.
‘Moving away, sir. Bearing one-nine-three. Range ten-thousand yards. Heading one-seven-zero. Still pinging.’
‘Good. Let’s show him some more leg. Set course ten degrees. Revolutions for thirty knots.’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’
* * *
In the sky above, the Nimrod banked and weaved. When the British boat slowed down she became desperately difficult to track.
They’d detected the start of her turn to port, but by the time they’d dropped a pair of buoys on what they thought was the new track, there was no sign of her.
Locating the Russian boat was easy. Its sonar ‘pings’ set the ink-pens quivering on the hard-copy printers of the acoustic processor.
‘Noisy bastard!’ growled the AEO. ‘Doesn’t want to lose our boy, does he?’
The pens quivered again and then a third time.
The AEO began to frown. It was doubly odd; a Soviet sub using active sonar, and a British boat being somewhere it wasn’t meant to be.
‘I don’t know what’s going on down there, but I’m not taking any chances,’ he told the TacNav. ‘Arm up a couple of Stingrays just in case that Victor decides to do something nasty.’
The navigator punched buttons to switch on the giros in two of the torpedoes in the bomb bay.
‘Getting a reply to that signal, by the look of it,’ remarked the radio operator, as the teleprinter began to buzz. He read the cipher as it was being printed and began to decrypt it from his code cards.
The AEO took the handwritten note when it was completed.
‘Well, bugger me!’ he exclaimed. ‘They didn’t know they had a boat here! They’re ordering us to track her, and they’re sending a tanker to refuel us so we can stay on task longer.’
‘You mean we’re not getting home today?’ the TacNav groaned.
‘’Sright, sunshine.’
‘My wife’ll kill me. It’s our anniversary! We’d got a dinner booked!’
* * *
0500 hrs. Soviet time. [0200 GMT]
Severomorsk.
The flight bringing Vice-Admiral Feliks Astashenkov back from Moscow was delayed again; then the taxi bringing him from Murmansk to the naval town of Severomorsk suffered a puncture, so it was four in the morning before he arrived at the comfortable villa that w
ent with the job of Deputy Commander of the Northern Fleet.
He didn’t go to bed. Apart from not wanting to wake his wife, he’d come straight from the arms of another woman, and his conscience pricked him.
It had been a painful farewell with Tatiana. They’d both known they wouldn’t meet again, but neither had said it.
He made himself some tea and slumped back in the red-velvet, wing-backed armchair that had belonged to his grandmother.
He felt afraid. Savkin had tricked him into making a personal commitment that could put him at odds with his own Commander-in-Chief, even the entire Stavka, the high command.
He knew what pressure the General Secretary was under from the Politburo. Savkin’s survival was by no means certain, and if he lost his gamble to preserve perestroika Astashenkov could see himself being pulled down with him.
Why had he committed himself? Because he still believed in the complete restructuring of Soviet society that Gorbachev had begun, and Savkin was struggling to continue. But what if he could see that Savkin was going to fail, and still the call came to honour that commitment? Was he ready to destroy his own career for a lost cause? Better surely to hold his hand, to fight another day. All he could hope was that the call would never come.
His eyes focused on the canvas over the fireplace, an heroic oil painting of the destroyer Sevastopol, which his father had commanded in 1943 and in which he’d died. From childhood Feliks’ ambition had been to honour his father by reaching the highest levels in the Soviet Navy, and having a warship named after him. At the age of fifty he was on track to achieve that goal – or would be if Nikolai Savkin didn’t ask him to throw it all away.
In the dim light from the desk lamp, Astashenkov’s eyelids began to droop. He dozed for about an hour.
He came to when the carriage clock on the mantelpiece chimed six. He stroked his chin and decided to begin the new day. Quietly he made his way upstairs to the bathroom.
After a shower and a shave he felt refreshed. His dressing room was separate from the bedroom, so he need not disturb his wife as he hung up his brown civilian suit and donned the dark-blue uniform of a Vice-Admiral with its two stars on the heavy gold shoulderboards, one broad band and two narrow ones on the sleeves.
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