To Kill the Potemkin

by Mark Joseph

  "That is all."

  Stunned silence greeted the captain's speech. In every compartment each sailor was thinking the same thing, but in the torpedo room, Johnson, the mate, said it aloud. "Holy shit, the ship that hit us is still alive. Alive and kicking and maybe after our ass." A rumble of assent issued from the other torpedomen.

  Lopez looked hard at Johnson. "Cool down, Johnson. We're going to find her, follow her, harass her ass from here to Leningrad, but that's it. Got it?"

  Johnson nodded sullenly, but there was no doubt what he was thinking... get them before they get us...

  In the sonar room Springfield's announcement interrupted the test of the new passive array.

  Davic blanched. "She is not sunk? Sorensen, what does this mean?"

  "It means it was hit and run."

  "But the implosions..."

  "Faked."

  "You knew about this."

  "What if I did? Now you know about it too. And I'll give you all something to think about. This is a new class of ship that can go down to at least four thousand feet, maybe deeper."

  "Four thousand feet!" Davic shook his head. "What is it? A bathyscaph?"

  "No, it's an attack boat, class name Alpha. She's a noisy devil. We have her signature. We got it just before the collision."

  "If it's so noisy," Willie Joe asked, "why can't anybody find it?"

  "That's a good question. My guess is she's been running slow and deep, maybe on electric power, but she has to come up to pass through the Strait. She got in because we weren't looking for her."

  "How many do they have?" Davic asked.

  "So far, we only know about this one."

  "Where is it?" Davic persisted. "Is it coming after us?"

  "Why would the Russians come after us?" Sorensen snapped.

  "Because we have discovered their new ship, of course."

  "I don't think they'll do that, Davic. All we know is that they can go deep. We don't know how. I don't think they'll do anything so stupid. I figure all they want is to get that sub out of the Med and on its way home." At least I hope that's all, he added to himself. And then, as much to reassure himself as the others, he said, "Jesus Christ, we re not at war with these people."

  "We should nuke their shipyards," Davic muttered.

  "The next time I see Admiral Netts I'll tell him you said so, Davic. In the meantime let's get on with this test. This toy just might help us detect a deep-running sub."

  * * *

  Exactly on schedule they heard the thrashing sounds of a submarine.

  "Sonar to control. Contact bearing zero seven two degrees, speed twelve knots, course two eight eight, range eight miles. It's Vallejo, skipper."

  "Very well, sonar. All hands man maneuvering stations."

  Davic and Willie Joe took their asbestos suits and went forward to their damage-control stations.

  "Control to navigation, set course zero seven two degrees."

  "Navigation, aye. Course zero seven two degrees."

  "All ahead half."

  "All ahead half, aye."

  Barracuda accelerated, her course parallel to that of the big missile ship emerging from the bay. The two subs swept past each other a hundred yards apart, frothing the sea like a pod of whales, then turned and steamed past one another again. They crisscrossed back and forth twice more.

  Fogarty was shaking his head. "Why don't we just send the Russians a telegram telling them where we are?"

  "That's the idea."

  "But that's nuts. Can't they tell us apart?"

  "No. Our signatures are almost identical. We have the same reactor, same reduction gears and the same prop as Vallejo. He has to get within a mile to tell the difference. For the moment, we're bait. We want this Russkie to come after us so Vallejo can escape. That's the name of the game, to help Vallejo shake her tail. Hang on. You'll see. HMS Valiant is just inside the Strait, off Gibraltar, and some heavy-duty British ASW forces. No Russian captain has ever tried to run that gauntlet except the damned Alpha. We still don't know exactly how that son of a bitch got in there, but he did, and maybe this one will try it, too, if we can't juke him into coming after us."

  "Maybe the picket is the Alpha."

  Sorensen let his face fold slowly into a smile. "And if it is? Is that what's making you nervous?"

  Fogarty shrugged, trying to maintain a casual air. "He rammed us once. I'd rather not give him a second chance."

  "You know what I think, Fogarty? I think you're pissed off at the Russians for fucking your head around. I think your high-minded ideals are out the window. I think you're ready to make war."

  "I'm not crazy, Sorensen."

  "I hope not."

  "Except this is a war now, Sorensen... an electronic war of nerves..."

  "It's Cowboys and Cossacks, Fogarty. It's just a game. Believe it."

  Did he?

  * * *

  Half an hour into the exercise, at a precisely timed moment, both subs suddenly went quiet and drifted, their momentum carrying them in opposite directions.

  Sorensen's fingers stabbed at his keyboard. In the abrupt silence that followed the shutdown of machinery he heard a faint mechanical rumble. An instant later, it stopped.

  "Got her. That's it. Sonar to control. Contact bearing two three zero degrees. No range, but he's not too close. He's holding still, skipper. No identification yet."

  In the control room the bearing of the Soviet sub appeared on the navigation and weapons screens.

  "Bingo," said Lt. Hoek.

  "Where is Vallejo?" Springfield asked.

  "Right here, skipper," Pisaro answered, pointing to a blip on his chart.

  Vallejo was making a wide turn to the right, away from Barracuda, and descending to one thousand feet.

  Springfield spoke quietly into his microphone. "Attention all hands. Prepare for quiet running. Quiet in the boat."

  In the sonar room the air conditioner stopped whirring. Sorensen switched off the overhead speakers and said quietly to Fogarty. "We're going to try to make this Ivan think we're Vallejo. We're going to go north. If the Russian takes the bait and follows us, then Vallejo is clear."

  "And if she doesn't?"

  "We'll have to wait and see."

  Sorensen played the brief tape of the picket, backed it up and ran it through a series of filters that corrected the distortion and removed extraneous sound. Then he ran it through the signature program.

  "Okay, Fogarty, what is it?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "Is it Soviet?"

  "Yes."

  "How do you know? That might be Her Majesty's Ship Valiant."

  "He moved when we moved, and stopped when we stopped. He's hostile. He's up above four hundred feet trying to listen to us, trying to decide which one to follow, and his prop cavitated just so. November class, even the computer knows that. It's not the Alpha."

  November was flashing on the screen.

  "Very good, Fogarty. See, there's nothing so mysterious about these Russians and their noisy boats. Let's play the tape again. It could be the Alpha simulating a November."

  While the tape was running, Sorensen stood up and looked at the chart of Soviet subs. He tapped the drawing of the November class attack subs. "Wait a minute, wait a minute, I recognize that boat. That's our old friend Arkangel. Jesus, they must've pulled that thing out of mothballs. Wow, we don't need sonars to pick up Arkangel. All we need is a Geiger counter."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, that is a hot boat. She's so radioactive I bet she glows in the dark. I sure wouldn't want to be on it. If you can feel sorry for any Russian sailors, think about that. Those suckers get more radiation in a month than we'll get in five hundred years. Just for them to come this far from Murmansk and then have to go back means every one of those guys has been zapped... Sonar to control, we have a signature. November class, it's Arkangel."

  "Very well, sonar. Control to communications."

  "Communications, aye."

/>   "Prepare to send up a radio buoy on my order. Message as follows: Hostile contact thirty-six degrees thirty-four minutes north, six degrees forty-one minutes west. Priority one."

  "Priority one, aye."

  They waited in silence, drifting slowly in the slight current. Vallejo was three miles south, six hundred feet deeper, and also drifting. The Russian was eight miles west and making no noise.

  Sorensen hunched over his console, quietly humming and beeping along with the faint sounds of marine life that came through his earphones. Every few minutes he looked casually at Fogarty, noting the exhaustion beginning to etch deep lines under the young sailor's eyes.

  * * *

  After two hours Sorensen was ready to have Fogarty relieved. He whispered, "You're through, kid. Hit the sack."

  Fogarty shook his head

  "That's an order. Get outta—"

  "Attention all hands. General quarters, general quarters. Man battle stations. Man battle stations. Prepare for maneuvering."

  On the screen they could see Vallejo already moving.

  "Okay, Fogarty, I guess you're going to stay put. You awake?"

  "Never felt better in my life."

  "Control to navigation. Set course three three one."

  "Course three three one, aye."

  "All ahead slow."

  "All ahead slow, aye."

  The ship shuddered once and began to move. Vallejo was heading south and Barracuda north. The Russian hesitated, then moved toward Vallejo.

  "Son of a bitch," Sorensen said. "She didn't take the bait. This stupid fucker is in for it now."

  In the control room Springfield called communications. "Send up the buoy."

  "Communications to control. Buoy away."

  From the top of the sail a small float detached itself from the ship and rose to the surface. A small, powerful radio beamed an encoded, enciphered, compressed and scrambled message to Rota. Thirty seconds later an alarm sounded on the Spanish aircraft carrier Dédalo, and helicopter rotors started churning up the night.

  "Control to weapons."

  "Weapons, aye."

  "Lieutenant, load tubes three and six. Conventional warheads, wire-guided."

  Hoek could sense his blood pressure rising. He began to sweat. "Conventional warheads, wire-guided, aye. Weapons to torpedo room."

  "Torpedo room, aye."

  "Chief, load tubes three and six with Mark thirty-sevens, Mod three. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill."

  Lopez pushed a button on his console and a red light began to blink in the torpedo room. The torpedo-men jumped to attention.

  "Johnson," Lopez yelled across the room, "load three and six. This... is... not... a... drill."

  The torpedomen unbolted two torpedoes from their bays and slipped them into tubes. When the inner doors were locked, the targeting computer began feeding data to the on-board computers behind the warheads.

  "Control to weapons, lock on sonar."

  "Lock on sonar, aye."

  Hoek punched buttons on his console, and the signature of the November was fed into the torpedoes.

  "Flood tubes."

  "Flood tubes, aye."

  Fogarty listened to the sound of seawater rushing into the torpedo tubes, thinking the war of nerves was about to become something else... "We can't sink her," he muttered, "she's in international waters—"

  "There is no way in hell the skipper is going to let Arkangel or any other Russian sub put a tail on a boomer," Sorensen cut him off. "Not allowed. No way. We know it, and the captain of Arkangel knows it. An attack submarine like that one, or this one, is considered the most destabilizing military unit you can get. Suppose the Russians had a tail on every one of our boomers. They could sink all of them all at once. Result—no second strike, no deterrence. So we don't even give them a chance. Just like they wouldn't give us a chance—"

  "Control to sonar. Echo range, maximum power, target-seeking frequency. Let him have it, Ace."

  Sorensen nodded, and Fogarty took a deep breath. The Russian on his screen had become much more than a blip. In a fraction of a second Fogarty remembered his first sonar lashing, the collision and Sorensen's tape. He was ready. His onetime concern for the Russians was gone. They hadn't sunk anyway, just faked it... Deliberately he locked the echo ranger on the Russian sub, turned it up to maximum power, and pushed the button. The echo came back with a resounding ping.

  In the control room every screen came alive with incoming data from the target. Each man was holding his breath. They were alone, no longer a so-called "instrument of national policy" but a state unto themselves in the open sea. In a matter of moments they might be infamous, or dead, or worse.

  This time the Russians did not hesitate. The single ping from the target-seeking sonar meant the next thing they would hear would be a torpedo. Arkangel made an abrupt ninety-degree turn and suddenly the sea erupted with the roar of her machinery. She cut loose all her raw power, and in a matter of seconds she was heading due west at thirty knots, leaving Vallejo free to begin her patrol unmolested.

  It happened so fast... no one had time to feel relief.

  Fogarty's heart was banging his ribs hard enough to make his chest hurt. He could almost taste the adrenaline.

  Sorensen was standing up, his face an inch from the screen. "That was close," he mumbled. "That was awfully goddamn close."

  He sat down, with unsteady fingers lit a cigarette, took a long deep drag.

  "Is it over?" Fogarty said.

  "Yeah, it's over."

  "She sure hauled ass, didn't she?"

  "It was, you might say, the prudent thing to do, under the circumstances. She was outnumbered, after all." He grinned. "You sure put the fear of God into them, Fogarty. Shit, you put the fear of God into me."

  Fogarty stood up and took off his earphones. He was flexing his hand muscles, snapping his fingers over and over from a fist into a straight edge. Sorensen saw the glint still flickering in his eyes. Maybe he had pushed the kid too hard. Fogarty's lifetime of self-control could blow up. He was like a volcano waiting to erupt...

  Fogarty said, "I scared the shit out of myself."

  "Take it easy, it's over."

  Fogarty shook his head. "They'll come back, they'll always come back, and we'll chase 'em and—"

  "And as long as we win the battles, we won't have to win the war."

  "You've got a smart answer for everything, Sorensen. Well why don't we follow her, chase her all the way to the ice—?"

  "Jesus, next you'll ask me why we didn't blow her to hell. What did you do, take an upside-down pill?"

  "Listen, Sorensen, you told me to shape up and do my job. So I'm doing it. Okay?"

  "Sure, okay, killer." He smiled when he said it. "But don't turn into another Davic. Stay cool."

  "There's nothing cool about a target-seeking sonar. It's about as hot as you can get."

  "It's sure as hot as I ever want to see it... Listen, Fogarty, you scared yourself, you scared me. It's okay, sooner or later we all scare ourselves down here. We all feel like killers sometimes. You just got to put the beast back in his cage and keep him there... You're tired, you've had a busy day. Go get yourself some sleep."

  Fogarty reached for the door, smiled. "Okay, cowboy, I'll try to belay the beast. Whatever you say."

  The quartermaster's voice came through the speakers just then. "Secure from general quarters. Secure from general quarters. Midrats are now being served in the mess. That is all."

  Fogarty opened the door to find Pisaro about to move in from the control room.

  "Pardon me, sir," Fogarty said as he stepped past.

  Pisaro shut the door and sat down next to Sorensen.

  "Pretty hairy, wouldn't you say, Ace?"

  "I'd say, Commander."

  "Did the kid do okay?"

  "He's not ready to stand watch by himself. He got pretty excited, but he'll get used to it, as much as anybody ever does. This kind of thing can make you grow old quick.
"

  "Look, Ace, are you positive that was Arkangel?"

  "Yes, sir. That was old dirty Ivan, in person, polluting the Atlantic. Must be a new crew. They're probably using the old one to light up Leningrad."

  "No more dirty tricks?"

  "I don't think so, sir. Not this time."

  "All right. We're going to run a rear guard for Vallejo until she clears the Strait. You're relieved. Davic is on his way in here. Go get yourself some grub."

  22

  Gibraltar

  The longitude and latitude readouts on the navigation console stopped flickering and came to a rest. Barracuda hovered six hundred feet deep at the edge of the Atlantic. Above her, dozens of ships passed through one of the busiest waterways of the world, oblivious to her presence.

  "Attention all hands, this is the captain. We are now on-station four miles west of the Strait of Gibraltar. Our orders are to monitor all westbound submarine traffic passing from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic. We might be here quite some time waiting for the Alpha. When she emerges, our orders are to track her into the Atlantic. Be advised that three more Soviet subs have been detected in the eastern North Atlantic. One of them is certainly Arkangel. Twelve hours ago they were reported approximately three hundred miles northeast of Rota. Prepare for combat drills. That is all."

  Some two hundred surface ships and several submarines passed through the Strait of Gibraltar every day, giving the crew plenty of targets for combat drills. At the moment twelve ships were on the sonar screens, eleven surface ships and a Turkish Navy relic from World War Two making a submerged passage east-bound through the Strait.

  Willie Joe was practicing for his qualifying exam for first class. While Davic and Fogarty watched, Willie Joe sat with Sorensen, tracking the old sub. They listened to the fixed arrays on the bottom ping off the Turkish hull. The sub was so old the computer had no record of her signature. Always thorough, Sorensen recorded her machinery and logged it into the signature program.

  Willie Joe tracked the sub through the Strait, a difficult task because of the heavy surface traffic. At the extreme edge of his range, when he was about to lose it, the new sonars picked up another submerged contact. A sub was hovering near the eastern entrance to the Strait.