Silent Hunter

by Charles D. Taylor

  “Admiral, why don’t you try a couple of hours’ sleep? That cold of yours is a pain in the ass, and we can take care of everything here. I’ll wake you if—”

  Reed interrupted, waving his hand. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Maybe a couple of hours will change everything,” he added, attempting to look cheerful. But he knew how long it took him to shake colds like this one. The next couple of days were going to be unpleasant.

  Abe Danilov understood that he was treating Anna’s letters with a reverance that bordered on teenage puppy love. But perhaps that was as it should be. He’d never forgotten his first feelings of love for his wife. Though that young Anna Chuikov bore little resemblance to the dying Anna Danilov, he saw her in his mind’s eye as the same girl—only the outer wrapping had been altered.

  The admiral’s mind had been occupied that day with assumptions of what might be taking place in the northern Pacific. Any intelligence that could be gained by spy ships or other submarines would certainly be worthwhile, but he saw no reason to sacrifice any other ship. Danilov knew exactly what he wanted to do if Imperator made it through the Bering Strait and how he was going to go about it. Intelligence was nice, but not an absolute. He’d been in the submarine-hunting business for so long that he knew how the Americans operated. He understood Andy Reed’s methods from their past encounters and he had studied the tapes on the man for hours. While a situation could arise that had yet to be inserted in the computer, Danilov was confident of his own ability. Long before there were computers, there were great submariners, men who survived on their own wits, and he was one of them. Danilov had also been familiar with Snow, but he had immediately filed the name when he retired from the U.S. Navy. Now that he was back, and admittedly in a unique position, the Kremlin had begun combing their computer files for details on the man. He was a maverick and Abe Danilov had no doubts that he was as capable as Reed.

  A transit under the ice was a lonely journey for a man like Danilov. Some men enjoyed the quiet, the lack of communication, the tedium of watch standing, and the excitement of knowing that they were racing at high speed under uncountable tons of snow and ice. But Abe Danilov was not that type. The solitude, the not knowing what was happening above, the prospect of a dangerous face-off in the North Pacific—each of these became magnified in his mind. Without the steady flow of messages that he constantly reviewed when ashore, he was like a caged animal.

  His only means of relaxation became Anna’s letters. He could briefly return to times he had forgotten, to memories of Anna’s over periods he’d been away from her. Danilov was reminded that he had not been present for the birth of his first son in 1962. That had been a difficult year for a young wife pregnant for the first time. Danilov had spent much of that year at sea, and when the baby was born in October he was in a submarine near Cuba. Much of his time was spent dodging American destroyers and pondering whether war would become a reality and he would die in foreign waters without ever knowing of his first child.

  Anna explained in her letter twenty-five years later that for a very short time her husband was not the most important person in her life. He hadn’t been around to share the wonder of those nine months, nor the miracle of birth that ended them. During those frightening days when war with the Americans seemed imminent, her only visitor after the birth of her son had been one of the busiest men in the Kremlin. The moment Anna saw Sergei Gorshkov’s face, the youngster had been named after the commander in chief of the Soviet Navy, Sergei Danilov followed in his father’s footsteps and eventually had gone into submarines. Even today, Danilov imagined, he could be on one of those now approaching Imperator. The thought was not a pleasant one.

  Anna also had reminded him of how he’d spoiled his only daughter, Eugenia. Three years after the Americans had made fools of them in Cuba, Danilov was transferred to shore duty in Leningrad—and he hated it, afraid he would be passed by. It had been a transition period for the navy as well as for Danilov. Sergei Gorshkov had the opportunity to rebuild, to turn the outdated fleet humiliated off the shores of Cuba into a blue-water navy with the largest, most powerful submarine force in the world.

  Abe Danilov had been so distraught at first at being put ashore, when he had hoped to command his own submarine, that he’d turned his complete attention to his infant daughter. Eugenia was the balm to his hurt ego and Danilov attempted to become both mother and father to her. Little Sergei, in the meantime, was just old enough to be jealous, and when Anna mentioned she was afraid he might hurt his sister, Danilov was so fierce with the boy that Sergei cried in fear for hours. Anna reminded him in her neat handwriting that her husband had always seen other males as a constant challenge—even years later when he treated Eugenia’s husband with disdain. Abe Danilov created a shell around himself as he grew older, and he had never realized until then how correct Anna had been. She’d chided him:

  You see, my real interest is in trying to remind you that the young heart of the old man still resides in the same place. I want to make sure that you understand that as you go off on this new mission. Search for the real Abe Danilov each night, and remember him the following day when you are approaching danger. Remember the man who loved that little girl so deeply, whenever the man in that shell who is so tough comes to the surface. Perhaps that will even save your life for me.

  Abe Danilov reread her letter, then carefully folded it along the creases, replaced it in the envelope, and put the packet back in the drawer under his shirts.

  The other letters had left him in tears, if not close to them, but this was completely different. Anna was searching for that part of himself that still lived in the recesses of his mind. He had stubbornly refused his blessing when his daughter married that engineer and moved to Irkutsk—Eugenia could have done better! And as he thought of that, he remembered what, so many years in the past, General Chuikov had thought of Abe Danilov.

  How quickly our ideas change—how easily we forget those concepts that don’t appeal to us, he realized now. In a concise way, Anna reminded him that Snow and his Imperator were not another challenge to his maleness. It was vital that he take the time to understand what he was facing, to take the rational approach that Anna counseled in her letter—so that he might return to her, she said. Before he slept, Abe Danilov marveled at the immense luck he had experienced in finding his Anna. Here, in his old age, or at least near the end of his career, his wife was reawakening so much that he had forgotten about himself. Somehow, she had sensed that she must do this if her husband was to return to her.

  Never before had the eyes of the world been riveted so intently to the north. Quite suddenly the strategic value of the arctic regions captured the imagination. Troop and equipment movements about the Kola Peninsula, hitherto an unknown segment of the Arctic only days before, became a matter of vital importance. Newscasters found themselves routinely rolling such names across their tongues as Pechenga, Polyarnyy, and Severodvinsk. Once international attention centered on the Kola Peninsula, the Russian’s circuitous routing of their prepositioned equipment was revealed overnight. While the area between Murmansk and Norway contained the greatest concentration of military might in the world, the sheer realities of numbers shocked the West. Preparation for major military movement cannot go unseen for long. There is simply too much involved in troops, tanks, artillery, and the supplies for the thousands of men and tons of equipment involved. All the disclaimers in the world would not convince observers that the Soviets were willing to negate their plans if U.S. ships would remain south of the Arctic Circle.

  The Russians were just as vehement in their denunciation of American submarines ordered into arctic waters. The Kremiin knew they were approaching but it was another thing to prove. Satellite photos could not be made of their movements. For the time being, there was an advantage on the Americans’ side.

  Meanwhile, negotiations continued under a cloud of despair. The reality of an invasion on the Northern Flank would force a NATO effort to relieve a be
leaguered Norway, and the conflict would expand. Others would gradually be drawn into the vortex.

  The unknown factor remained Imperator. The Russians were as yet unable to explain exactly what her overall impact might be in the end. The massive submarine had been quickly shielded against satellites once she departed the fishbowl, but now they knew she must either be exposed or sunk. Her very presence posed a threat to any SSBNs that lay beneath the Arctic icepack, and quite possibly to Soviet offensive plans in Norway. For them it was frustrating enough simply being unable to articulate the magnitude and meaning of this superweapon to themselves and to the rest of the world.

  5

  FOR A FLEETING moment, the skipper of Olympia was amused. Quite by accident, he realized his feet weren’t cold—not that they necessarily should have been. But if he’d been wandering around his house in his stocking feet, they would have eventually become cold. Aboard Olympia there were no cold decks, no drafts leaking through cracks around windows and doors. A perfect climate. Any change in that specific temperature and humidity would indicate a malfunction. So there was no reason for his feet to be cold—none except the knowledge that he was both the hunter and the hunted.

  The situation developed soon after Olympia approached the surface for her normal midnight messages. The strategy was as clear to her captain as it was to Hal Snow or Andy Reed. Olympia was alone, guarding Imperator’s approach to the Aleutian Island passage near Dutch Harbor. One of the Soviet submarines was closing her station. The coded, one-time message for the skipper’s eyes only: “DESTROY SOVIET VESSEL.”

  Olympia’s skipper imagined how simple it must all have seemed for those men in Washington to come to such a decision—sink a submarine and kill all the men aboard. The only alternative was for himself, and all of his men, to be killed by the Soviet. There was little doubt in his own mind and, he now realized, none in the minds of the men in Washington, that those were the very same orders the Russian was sailing under—destroy the opposition.

  So, considering what would occur shortly, the realization about his feet provided a brief moment of amusement. Not a soul aboard Olympia was wearing shoes. It wasn’t really that he was exercising an old trick passed down through generations of submariners. Rather, the captain had decided it was a way of uniting the crew in immediate understanding of how serious the mission actually had become. This was not a war game. None of them had ever fired a weapon in anger before. There had been many exercises, hours and days of hunting and being hunted, but the end result was always a critique back ashore. The simple act of each man removing his shoes, of seeing his counterparts, his officers, traipsing about Olympia in stocking feet, was a way of saying that the exercises are over. Though there was no declared war, there was only one option—the alternative was unacceptable.

  Olympia hadn’t moved since her captain settled in his preferred location, and in a case like this, the best offense was a good defense. Let the other guy come looking for you. It wasn’t a matter of hiding. Olympia simply maintained her position, using minimal headway or as little as a nuclear submarine needed to hold her depth.

  The Russian was still far enough away that there was no imminent danger. It was the Soviet’s responsibility in this game to make the approach, otherwise he would not be in position to intercept Imperator. For the time being, this gave Olympia the advantage. To wait and listen, quietly, was much to be desired.

  There was no pinging, no active sonar involved. A smart submarine, no matter on what side, either waited or crept toward its objective . . . and listened. That was the only way to find your target—wait until it made some noise. So Olympia’s skipper joined his sonarmen in listening. There were other sounds—shrimp clicking away nearby, the mournful sound of not-too-distant whales, the churning propellers of faraway surface ships. The passive ability of a submarine, the ability to listen to and identify ocean noises, was all part of this very serious encounter.

  The first sound to come through Olympia’s listening device that might be identified as another submarine was instantly isolated by the computer. More time than any of them really wanted passed before the sonarmen concurred that the new sound was a Soviet attack submarine. Finally they had a firm series of bearings. Now target motion analysis had to be conducted before any weapons could be fired. And that meant reversing Olympia’s course to obtain a second series of bearings to plot the Russian’s course and speed.

  Olympia’s skipper considered all his advantages—his boat was quieter, his torpedoes had a greater range, and he maintained a special confidence in his shoeless crew. The Russian had the advantage of greater depth and perhaps higher speed. With the anechoic coating on the Soviet’s double hull, it would be harder for a torpedo to home and the hit would have to be in a critical area. There was no room for near misses.

  Though his torpedoes had a greater range, the American captain knew that firing too soon would be a mistake. Once the Russian knew his location, they might have an equal chance of sinking each other. Though he’d allow the other to come within range, Olympia’s CO felt comfortable. The first shot would be his.

  But he had to avoid overconfidence. Quietly, he called the officers in charge of each space. He wanted to be able to make that initial shot the only one necessary. He wanted noisemakers ready to divert anything that might be fired at him, even in desperation. And he wanted to be able to take off like a scared jackrabbit. None of that was too much to ask of a well-trained crew, but there was no harm in a reminder as their quarry drew closer.

  The musky smell of tension permeated the air. It was obvious to Olympia’s crew that the Russian might not know their exact location, but his guess wouldn’t be too far off. It became clearer when the other gradually began to increase her depth. That would make the torpedo’s search that much harder.

  As the seconds ticked cautiously by, another element, one that promised that time was indeed short, became obvious. Imperator was closing from the south. She was traveling near maximum speed, making no effort to mask her position!

  Olympia’s captain ordered warm-up for the torpedo. They now had a firing solution. The range was almost perfect, depth less certain. Tubes one and two had been flooded earlier to avoid detection.

  “Make the weapon in tube one ready in all respects.” The pressure in the tube equalized with the outside. It caused noise, but there was no alteration in the Russian’s track.

  “Open muzzle door.” More noise . . . too much after so much silence . . . too obvious.

  “Muzzle door open.” The torpedo was peering into the murk.

  The weapons control coordinator reported the presets—speed, gyro angle, enabling run. An optimum depth was inserted. The torpedo had been programmed.

  “Recommend course two eight one,” came from the weapons control coordinator. “Speed eight.” That would be their optimum speed and course to fire at the target.

  The OOD brought them to the ordered direction. “The ship is ready, sir.”

  “The weapon is ready, sir.”

  “Very well.”

  They were just about there . . . a matter of seconds.

  “The solution is ready, sir.” They could fire.

  Olympia’s skipper was close to giving his firing orders—he was opening his mouth—when a terrifying shout rang out: “I have high-speed screws on the Soviet bearing. . . torpedo in the water bearing two seven six!”

  The captain felt the chill surge down his spine and for just an instant he was sure that chill had reached his feet.

  Then he reeled off his emergency orders automatically, firing the torpedo, commencing evasive action . . . releasing noisemakers, all of it instantaneous, instinctive.

  Andy Reed contemplated the drama unfolding to the north. Sleep had been difficult. Aspirins dulled his headache, but nothing would soothe the rasp in his throat. It was the rapidly developing confrontation that left his symptoms in the background.

  The approach was classically Russian. He knew the Soviet would increase his dept
h long before any weapons were actually employed. It was a standard doctrinal approach that other submarines of that class would follow. Reed also knew that Olympia’s skipper would wait until his shot was almost assured. There was no point in giving away position to a faster, deeper-diving target. The objective was to make your first shot your best shot. There was another matter for consideration that Reed hoped wouldn’t take place. The Russians were improving their technical capabilities every year and their listening gear had advanced tremendously.

  Olympia was waiting too long!

  Timing. Just a few extra seconds, but now there were two opposing torpedoes in the water—no longer just a game between hunter and hunted. Each had become a target. There was no room for follow up, no chance to wait breathlessly for a torpedo to strike home. Both submarines were frantically attempting to elude the warheads searching for them in the depths.

  Reed closed his eyes. It was easier for him to imagine the next step when he could create the picture in his brain. There was the Soviet submarine, deeper than its counterpart, its torpedo searching upward for the target, seeking an identifiable sound that would draw it toward its destiny. The American torpedo might still be attached to Olympia by a long, metal thread, her computer directing it to the last known location of the target. Then it, too, would home on the sounds it had been programmed to search out.

  More likely, the wire would break as they took evasive action.

  The inner space of the Pacific was no longer quiet. Both submarines were accelerating as close to full speed as possible, racing from a closing torpedo. The Russian would likely be heading deeper at the same time. Both submarines employed noisemakers in their wake to deter the torpedo homing devices.

  As the situation evolved, the Soviet torpedo was not immediately attracted by Olympia’s early noisemakers. The torpedo, still well below its target, sped in the proper direction before rising to search. It was only as the last of the decoys were ejected from the American vessel that Reed’s assumption was confirmed. The torpedo was diverted as it rose, exploding thirty yards from the actual target, and Olympia reared upward like a bronco, the shock wave snapping through her entire length. The hydrophone array on her tail was ripped off; a high-pitch whine shrieked from her jarred shaft. But her basic systems survived the near-hit.