Andy Reed’s eyes once again fell on the lieutenant near the end of the table. The young man was a foil for his purposes. He would explain that to the boy later, but it was necessary that someone respond. Both Ross and the executive officer had been asked earlier by Reed to remain quiet. Now the young man’s initial reply was a feeble, “I see what you mean, sir.” Then he grew braver. “You are sure that it’s just a question of odds—who fires at whom first?” It was obvious the simplicity of odds troubled him. “I would think a lot would depend on what we do . . . wouldn’t it?”
This brought a smile to Reed’s face. “It relies completely not only on what we do but how we do it. None of what will be happening has ever been done before. There are no tech manuals, no NWPs, nothing available to explain how you fight other submarines beneath the ice. A great deal has been written about it, but it’s all based on assumptions. No one has ever escorted Imperator beneath the ice before, and no one has ever actually faced a hunter/killer group from that vantage point.”
Admiral Reed went on talking about what lay ahead, and as he did, the members of the wardroom gradually began to eat again. His encouragement was similar to Danilov’s during the Soviet transit from Polyarnyy. There had never been any doubt in Reed’s group that they faced an immense task, one unlike anything ever attempted before. But it had never before been put in the words that Reed used that evening.
By the time coffee was served, there was a new level of awareness aboard Houston. Her station was on Imperator’s port bow to the northwest. Houston would be the bodyguard. Before the group had broken away north of the Bering Strait, Reed had given his final orders. Helena would move farther ahead, remaining well north of Imperator until contact was established with the Soviets. Olympia, once again capable of full speed, had effected final repairs as she moved well to the east before commencing her end run to the pole. Reed hoped she might detect any of Danilov’s reserve forces if they were lurking to the east.
Reed’s strategy was much as Abe Danilov anticipated.
The messages that were directed that day by both Washington and Moscow to Reed and Danilov were increasingly anxious. If the Americans were so willing to sacrifice the little frigate days before just to test a Soviet threat, there appeared no doubt that this mysterious submarine of theirs was no simple show of force. It also seemed increasingly obvious that the U.S. meant to forcibly support the Norwegians with amphibious forces and the unknown power of Imperator. Though Danilov’s original orders were to stop the American submarine, he was now directed to expend all his forces if necessary—no sacrifice was too great at this stage. The communications from Washington did not directly state that sacrifice was necessary, but the idea was implied to Reed. While the verbal posturing on both sides was, in effect, bringing their satellite nations to advanced states of readiness, there was no knowledge of the real threat that actually was about to explode under the arctic ice.
The sound of the phone on the bulkhead above his pillow briefly registered with Helena’s captain. Though not fully awake, he was aware there had been but a single buzz. Two meant an emergency. He took advantage of a brief moment for his senses to react to his surroundings, the dim red light above, the whisper of the ventilation duct to his left, the soft touch of the sheets on his back. The captain was the type who would strip and climb between the sheets if he thought there was more than an hour of sleep possible. His clothes lay in order on the chair three feet away. He could pull on skivvies and pants in an instant and hop into his slippers as he went out of the stateroom lifting his shirt off the hook.
He removed the phone from the cradle before it could buzz a second time. “Captain here.”
His engineer was on the other end. “I’ve got a noise problem, Captain. If I had to guess right now’. I’d say it was a slight variation on the propeller—just enough to change our sound signature.”
“Are we louder?”
“It’s possible, sir. It’s hard to tell from inside, but I think we may be a bit like an organ grinder out there.”
“Are you sure it’s the prop, Ed?”
“I’m not sure what it is, sir, only that we’re making more noise than we’d like to and I don’t know what the hell to do.”
“How about changing speeds?”
“There’s a direct correlation. When the revolutions increase. the sound does too. And then it seems to level off above thirty knots.”
“Once we’re over thirty it doesn’t matter?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that. I don’t think it gets any worse. Captain.”
“We’ll have to live with it then.” Helena’s captain replaced the phone, but he did not go back to sleep. In a world where silence was everything, where it could mean the difference between life and death, he was slowly creeping into his enemy’s lair. His enemy was awake and waiting for him, and Helena was shaking cow bells as she approached.
Aboard Seratov, it was Stevan Lozak who eventually understood the unusual noise emanating from an object well ahead of Imperator. When the sonarmen had been unable to determine its source, and the computer could not match the sound against its memory, Danilov called for Seratov’s captain.
Lozak listened to the recordings, compared them to others in the memory bank, studied the movement of the sound that Sergoff had carefully plotted, then placed a plastic overlay of Sergoff’s over his chart.
“You seem to know what you’re looking for,” Danilov murmured curiously.
Lozak shook his head unconsciously, then looked up with surprise to see that it was the admiral who had addressed him. “I have an idea but I’m not sure.”
Sergoff saw what the captain was doing. “Perhaps it’s not another of those noisemakers the Americans have been using.”
Lozak looked up at Sergoff. “What’s the range now?”
“It’s much too distant to tell. We haven’t got a perfect position on it.”
“Its movement seems to be north, a little northeast maybe?”
“It would appear to be north . . . right at us.”
Lozak smiled. “It’s not moving with the current and it’s well ahead of Imperator.” He looked at Danilov, tilting his head to one side in speculation. “It seems to be following much the same pattern I laid out earlier. But Admiral Reed wouldn’t be calling attention to his plans, would he?” he mused softly to himself. “I’ll wager, Admiral, that we have propeller cavitation sounds now from a submarine that either has a defect or has been damaged somehow. I have to assume Admiral Reed has sent this submarine out toward what he may project as our location. See!” He pointed excitedly and retraced the projected route of an American submarine along the line he’d pointed out to Danilov earlier.
“Our first target,” Sergoff murmured.
“Do we want to give away our position by attempting to sink her?” Lozak asked. Their target was near the edge of the solid ice with open spaces in the floe ice overhead.
Danilov’s smile faded to be replaced by a thin-lipped grimace. “One of the reasons that Admiral Reed would send one of his submarines along this route is because he anticipates where we are. If we let it pass by, then we will have to begin a stem chase. Whether we give ourselves away by sinking this one, or with the racket we’ll make chasing them, they’ll be able to find us. Better to try a standoff weapon while we have the opportunity. They can’t be absolutely sure of the distance it will travel, and we have an extensive lead above us that could close if the wind picks up on the surface. My suggestion is to eliminate this one while we have the opportunity—before it’s beneath the pack for good.”
The ice could easily close in above them at any time. The major problem they now discussed was the range to the American boat. Depending on her speed, she might take a few hours before she came within range of their rocket-launched torpedoes. Timing was so vital—it would be very close. The American could very easily be saved by the ice.
Abe Danilov decided to return to his stateroom to rest. It was near midnight and the fifth
day was drawing to a close. His tiny stateroom allowed space only for a bunk, a tin commode and sink that both folded into the bulkhead on one side, and a desk that folded out on the opposite side. The latter lay open and was covered with papers, but he was too tired to leaf through them. He sat down heavily on the bunk with a great sigh. Bending over slowly to remove his shoes, he experienced a brief dizzy spell—though it passed within seconds. The damn doctors were right, he thought. Everything should be done more slowly as you get older. But that didn’t mean he had to like it!
Tomorrow could be the beginning of the longest day of his life. He paused to remember the disciplined existence at his first naval school, the pressure that was constantly exerted on each cadet to account for every movement every minute of the day. There was a purpose . . .
After carefully rolling his dirty clothes into a ball and placing them in a bag, he removed a fresh uniform from the tiny closet and lay it carefully on the single chair beside his bunk. He could be called at any time.
Then he removed the next of Anna’s letters from the packet in the back of the desk drawer. It was a letter that made him laugh to himself. Severodvinsk! The ends of the earth had nothing on that place. But it was also the shipyard where his first command had been built. Admiral Gorshkov had been kind enough to let Anna and the children journey to that miserable spot with him.
His Anna was a city girl, so she’d looked forward to a new adventure: “. . . let the snow and cold come as long as we’re all together . . .” was about what she had said. And winter took hold of Severodvinsk with a vengeance. That winter of 1969-70 had become the longest winter of her life. They were even cut off at times from Arkhangelsk, the closest imitation of a city in that region. He was sometimes trapped by a blizzard at the shipyard for two or three days at a time, and Anna was left with the children in that little apartment where the steam pipes never stopped clanking and the smelly old lady they shared the kitchen with never stopped talking. Anna reminded him how Boris was still at the diaper stage, how Eugenia whined for six months, and Sergei teased them both unmercifully until his father threatened to deposit him in a snow drift.
Much of the unpleasantness was overlooked as Danilov prepared his ship, the largest missile submarine ever built.
It was an honor to receive that command, and he even had been allowed to bring his family there, regardless of the conditions. What great times those were, he thought, as he turned to Anna’s letter.
I remember the nights you came through the door in your greatcoat, covered with snow, and I always waited my turn while you made a fuss over the children. You’d shake the snow from your hat and place it on Eugenia’s head. Sergei would rush for the broom and brush the snow off your coat before you hung it in a corner. Then Boris, who would be jumping up and down and screaming for attention when he wasn’t hanging on your pant leg, would be the first one to be picked up. One by one, you’d lift them up over your head and they’d scream in mock terror. I sometimes used to imagine that you would forget yourself when it came my turn and lift me over your head and bump me against the ceiling. You never did. You were a gentle bear . . .
Severodvinsk was the end of the world, he realized now, but what a wonderful place it was then. When spring came and muddy water ran down muddy streets, he had taken his submarine out for sea trials. Those were days he could never forget—his first command—when it was the pride of the fleet. That’s when Anna had told him one night that she had finally realized that there was no doubt in her mind that the parental obligations were now firmly established—she would take care of the children and her husband would take care of the submarines. It had taken Sergei Gorshkov, when he came to Severodvinsk for the submarine’s commissioning, to explain to her that this was as it should be, that a man like her husband owed as much to the Motherland. It was refreshing so many years later to consider Anna’s remembrances and gain an entirely different perspective on their life together.
While Abe Danilov was occupied with Anna’s letter, Sergoff observed the approach of the American submarine with a detachment that belied his excitement. He and Captain Lozak could not explain why their target slowed for a period of time, yet it made very little difference. It would just allow Admiral Danilov a longer rest. The rockets nestled in Seratov’s torpedo tubes had a maximum range of fifty miles. Danilov’s theory had always been to cut in half any ranges that the technicians claimed.
The noise from the approaching submarine overshadowed the continued use of noisemakers and made tracking much easier. As long as Seratov remained in position, it was unlikely the American would ever know she was there. Of course, the rocket bursting from the torpedo tube would give them away, but the solid fuel missile would be over the target in no time.
The torpedo was fast, capable of more than forty knots. Would this damaged submarine be able to reach maximum speed to evade the weapon’s programmed search? Would they have the opportunity to retaliate, or would the necessity of evasion require all of their time? Would it be a race, the torpedo faster but limited by its fuel capacity, the submarine able to run forever but limited by whatever engineering casualty it had suffered?
Sergoff said nothing to Lozak, though the mental picture of the attack repeated itself again and again. He saw the rocket nestled in the tube, the charge driving it out and away from the sub, then to the surface where the solid fuel booster ignited in a burst of steam and smoke. It would leap straight up before wheeling over in the direction of the target. In his mind’s eyes, he was momentarily looking skyward from beneath the ocean surface as the rocket motor detached, the small parachute billowed, and the torpedo plunged down directly at him. The protective nosecap separated perfectly as it hit the water. As the torpedo dived down toward its target, Sergoff would lose sight of the final search.
Lozak was lost in his own thoughts. They had nothing to do with the flight of the rocket or the life-and-death chase between submarine and torpedo. He was an analytical man. Captain Lozak was more concerned that this would be the last easy shot . . . or as easy as they would ever experience on this mission. There was still a distinct possibility of failure. They were firing through a lead in the ice at a target passing beneath increasingly heavy floe ice. From that point on, it was likely that there would no longer be the luxury of such long-range shots. But this was not a normal situation. Even with all the ice, it was worth the chance.
The rest of the battle would be fought beneath the icepack. The only weapons available would be torpedoes fired from their tubes at a closing enemy. That was the true test of a submariner’s skill—there was only one winner.
Both men continued to work quietly as their admiral slept, neither one caring to exchange his thoughts with the other.
Sleep would not come to Carol Petersen. At first, she was sure it was too hot, but removing a blanket accomplished nothing. She turned up the air nozzle on the bulkhead, directing it on her face and chest. Within five minutes she was cold, and the blanket was tucked around her chin. After an hour, she turned on the lights to read for a few minutes. She was a little beyond the page she had turned down the night before when she realized she had no recollection of what she’d been reading. She turned the lamp back out and found herself staring at the dim red light filtering around the edges of the curtain hanging over the doorway.
Carol had always been sure of what kept her awake during those rare nights of sleeplessness. Yet right now she was in a quandary. There was no doubt what the next few days held in store for Imperator. She had accepted the danger when she applied to the consortium.
But the other concern weighing on her mind was Hal Snow. There seemed no way she could get him out of her thoughts. It was obvious that Hal Snow’s personality altered abruptly as Imperator departed the fishbowl that dark night five days before. As the submarine emerged from her pen, Hal Snow had cut himself off from the real world. Imperator was the only world he really understood—a man’s world. But was he really as superstitious as so many of the others about a w
oman on a submarine? she asked herself as she lay in that netherworld between sleep and consciousness.
Hal Snow had been jarred by his phone buzzer shortly after he’d drifted into a restless sleep. Caesar had just alerted the senior watch officer to an alien sound ahead of them. The various sonar units throughout the submarine were tied into one of Caesar’s subsystems, which controlled the myriad listening devices. Each new sound was automatically isolated, analyzed, then cataloged within a complex reference system. At the operator’s request, a sound detected by sonar could instantly be compared to an encyclopedic collection and a printout delivered with every available detail. In this particular case, the sound could not be immediately identified with anything in the reference file, an automatic operation taking place over a period of no more than thirty seconds.
The process of notifying Snow, however, was immediate. Anything unidentified was considered by Caesar to be a threat, so by the time Snow clamped the headphones over his ears, the watch officer had already initiated secondary analysis. The computer acknowledged the sound was undoubtedly from a man-made system. The only known object in the response arc around the sound was Helena.
Snow ordered a tape of Helena fed into the system for comparison, the signals processed through the computer until background noises on that same bearing were identified as the submarine’s actual sound signature. There seemed little doubt that somehow Helena had experienced an external defect. The variation could be minor but it would stand out like a red light to any experienced sonarmen.
“Are we still tied to any surface communicators?” Snow inquired.
“Almost ready to secure it, sir.”
“How about Houston? Can we still raise Admiral Reed?”
Silent Hunter Page 17