“Hard to say, sir. Got a hell of a mess . . . can’t find any screw beats . . . wait. . . wait one—oh Christ, we got him.”
The sonar officer removed the headphones momentarily and called out to Reed. “Must have tom her up forward. I can hear her engines now, sounds like she’s backing down at full power . . . must be filling up forward.”
“Can you estimate her depth?”
“Negative, sir. We could try to ping her.”
“Go ahead. She’s not going to do anything to us.” Within seconds, the Russian sub was illuminated by sonar. She was losing depth rapidly. Her forward spaces had been opened by the blast. Her engines backing full meant that the engineering spaces were still intact. But she was unable to control flooding.
“I can hear her trying to blow tanks, sir . . . still have her going down!”
“Still using the engines.”
“Christ, she’s tearing herself apart, sir.”
“Poor bastards must be scared to death.”
“Past two thousand and she’s a goner,” Reed said matter-of-factly.
“She must be past test depth,” the captain noted, checking the time since the blast.
“They’re dead,” Reed remarked. “Nothing’s going to back all the way up that hill they just tumbled down.” He held the captain’s eyes with his own, his expression hard as a rock. “Fine job, Ross. They would have loved doing the same thing to us.”
“Should we be looking for a polynya to get off an action report?”
“Don’t give anybody a hint about anything.” Reed was amused now by his own callousness. “I suppose the last submarine left will send out a final report.”
Abe Danilov was sipping a hot cup of tea when Imperator passed at a range of approximately six kilometers. The black tea was strong enough to compensate for the coffee he had acquired a taste for many years before—another pleasure the doctors had taken away from him. It interfered with sleep and they indicated that too much of it would damage his reactions. So he had gone back to tea again, insisting on a strong brew.
Seratov’s wardroom was no bigger than that on the American boats. Danilov relaxed at the table, thumbing through the pages of a magazine. Stevan Lozak watched him with an admiration bordering on irritability. How could the man sit there so calmly when the most magnificent target they would ever encounter was just then slipping by, mere minutes from their torpedoes?
Lozak had calmly argued the point soon after they’d ducked behind the pressure ridge. How could any submarine hear them preparing to fire, even to the point of identifying the sound of their muzzle doors, with so many tons of ice between them? It would be like sniping, Lozak asserted, if we prepare four torpedoes. With four of them in the water, how could any submarine do anything else at that range other than try to evade? The American submarine would run for her life, and that would give them time to fire again if she needed finishing off.
Very calmly, precisely. Captain Sergoff explained everything they knew about Imperator to date, and then filled in the blanks, as Danilov had done the day before with him, to encompass her fantastic capabilities. So much was still unknown. The range of her torpedoes was beyond anything known to any navy. There were laser weapons aboard, and who knew what else that could destroy them. To take on the American submarine by themselves would be the most foolish act possible. There was a plan and Admiral Danilov would attack when the time was right.
As he watched Danilov sip his tea, Lozak remembered his earlier years when his father had taken him hunting with the dogs. He remembered the feel of a leashed dog when they were just about on top of the quarry. Their straining, slobbering, howling need to attack came back to him now—he thought of himself as one of those dogs and sincerely hoped that Danilov did not have the same vision.
Lozak knew that the admiral respected him. Why not just say what was on his mind? “Have you ever been hunting, Admiral?”
“Hmmm?” Danilov looked up from his magazine. “What kind of hunting?”
“In the forest, after deer . . . with the dogs.”
Danilov put his magazine down on the table. “When I was a boy, yes. But that was so long ago I have forgotten just about everything. I can’t even remember how to load a rifle anymore.” He was enjoying Lozak’s anguish.
The captain looked at Danilov and took a deep breath before he made his admission. “I think you understand how anxious I was to go after this Imperator right away . . . just now as she passed us . . . and Captain Sergoff explained to me that you have other plans, as I’m sure you told him to do. Well, I was just thinking now how similar the situation is. And I was thinking how you must see me as one of those dogs straining to race after the buck. If the hunter lets them go at the wrong time, the animal would get away and there would be no hunt.”
Danilov was nodding his head slowly as Lozak blurted out his innermost thoughts, smiling slightly to show the captain that he was interested.
“Hunting is an interesting comparison, but I promise I don’t see you in that light, Captain. If you were out here all alone—or even with another submarine—I would consider you a coward if you hadn’t gone after the American with everything you had. There would have been no other choice. Here, now, we have a choice, and I think I can explain what I intend to do so that someday you might be in the same position.” He leaned forward as if he was involving Lozak in a secret. “That Imperator is so powerful that I’m sure we might be heading for the bottom of the sea now if we went after her by ourselves. Instead, I hope maybe she will be plunging down before the end of the day. You’ve seen the approximate placement of the six submarines that have joined us. There are two out on either flank, two not too far ahead of us, and the other two are well away. Imperator is going to sail into a box, which all of us will tighten from the outside. Soon she will realize that she has some targets. I don’t particularly care who fires first as long as I know what the American does after she is fired upon, and then what happens when she fires at one of our boats.”
Lozak understood only too well. He was young enough to overlook the possibility of death. “You don’t expect all of the submarines to return after today,” he stated woodenly.
“No.” In a way, it made Danilov’s job more interesting, for it would be a test of his captains. Though he knew intuitively who was more capable and who might be sent ashore during peaceful times, it was more likely that none of them would return. “In order to understand our quarry, there may be certain sacrifices necessary. No man will knowingly sacrifice himself or his ship, but it will take place,” he concluded grimly. “As far as Seratov’s concerned, I don’t think the American can fire at all of us at once.”
“I was too anxious.”
“I would have been more sorry if you weren’t,” Danilov answered, remembering his own eagerness as a young skipper. He had been lucky then, Those were always exercises when he was younger. Today, Stevan Lozak could have died from his impetuousness.
Danilov took another tentative sip of tea. It was getting cool, and strong tea turning cold lost its attractive bite so quickly. He glanced up as Sergoff knocked on the entrance to the wardroom.
“Admiral, there has been an explosion astern on our flank. A submarine appears to have been sunk. There were no other blasts—”
“And do you have any clue as to who is the winner?” Danilov was irritated because Sergoff hadn’t begun the conversation by answering that first.
“There is no confirmation. According to your orders, there was to be an identifying code from any of our submarines that scored a success. There has been nothing of the sort over sonar.” He paused. “The other submarine is active and appears to be moving in this direction, though sonar has nothing absolute for identification . . . I think it is an American Los Angeles-class.”
“Why didn’t you just explain that as soon as you came in here?” He had been counting on surrounding Imperator without any outside threat. “I can do without the suspense.”
Sergoff had experie
nced Danilov’s outbursts for so many years that he knew there would be more. “Admiral, there is no confirmation. We are still waiting for something firmer, since it is a long way off. But I think you should join us in the control room . . . both of you,” he added, nodding to Stevan Lozak.
The sun never set at the North Pole that time of year. There were twenty four hours of daylight, and when the sun was at its apex the temperature might soar above freezing. It marked a changing of the season. At midday, puddles formed where everything had been frozen solid for more than half a year. Such weather also affected the ice formations. Open stretches of water showed more movement. Pressure ridges formed and disappeared more easily. There were few weather fronts in the spring, and day after day there would be nothing but brilliant sun and cloudless skies. The endless intensity of cold was being transformed into constant change. This was the time of year the polar bears moved off the ice to summer on land.
It was superb weather for flying and just as perfect for satellites to sense anything out of the ordinary near the earth’s surface. Neither the Russians nor the Americans expected to insert special operating forces without the other’s knowledge. It was simply a matter of who would be the first to launch their aircraft and how much time it would take to counter the other’s move.
The consortium decided it really had little to fear from that sighting of Imperator. The press was wholly involved in the posturing between Washington and Moscow. Only days before, there were few people on the street of any major city in the world who could have answered any questions about the Norwegian border with Russia, more or less know that it existed. Now, any human being with access to television or radio understood not only its location, but the details of what was taking place there and the impact it had on the entire world. The Northern Flank became as familiar as Korea or Vietnam or Lebanon. Once again the superpowers were involved in a situation that might drag the rest of the world into their private disagreement.
Word was received in Washington that the Russians had dispatched their aircraft carrying special arctic troops—even before the satellite reported it! That meant that the Thule-based American forces were off the ground shortly afterward. Then the president of the U.S. contacted the Kremlin offering to turn his planes around if the Soviets would do the same. When neither side could agree, the press soon unearthed the details. Imperator was all but forgotten, much to the relief of the consortium, because the actions of submarines beneath the ice were limited to speculation.
Both the Americans and the Russians made an effort to relay details of these events to their submarines. But this time, the only submarine that was able to find a polynya and surface for regular message traffic was Olympia. She was approaching a point between the pole and the Lincoln Sea, off northernmost Greenland, at maximum speed. Once her captain understood the implications of the message he had just received, he turned on a more direct course for his rendezvous point just beyond the North Pole.
Score one for Caesar, Hal Snow muttered under his breath. Sonar had obtained two contacts well ahead of Imperator, beyond where Snow had anticipated them. While the sonarmen strained to identify them, Caesar’s printout appeared satisfactory. Both the Akula- and Sierra-class submarines were newer to the Russian fleet than the Alfas, and what they may have sacrificed in speed and depth, they made up for in quieter running and improved listening devices. And they were no less dangerous. Their mission was to seek out and destroy enemy submarines and their designers had learned much from the Americans.
“There’s no way that Alfa could still be ahead of us.” Snow was calling from sonar to Carol Petersen. He wanted everyone to understand exactly what it was he feared. “We must have passed him. Are you sure there’s no casualty in the towed array?” He was concerned about the hydrophones they were towing at the end of a long cable.
“It’s operating normally.” Carol interrupted before anyone in sonar could answer. “Caesar has double-checked it. It’s electronically perfect. As a matter of fact, it’s doing quite well on our own noisemakers. Captain. Caesar has identified them right down to the company who made them. I also removed all traces of them from his memory and had him start over. Same printout. There’s no casualty. We passed the Alfa. He was dead quiet.”
“Well, sooner or later he’s got to come out if he’s trying to box us in. Once he does we’ll hear him.” Snow really hadn’t intended to repeat what was running through his mind. There were tinges of uncertainty in his voice. “And with all the noisemakers we keep throwing out, I think we’re going to confuse them all on which is the correct target.” That was his purpose—but you couldn’t fool a good sonarman for long.
“One thing to keep in mind, Captain: the Akulas and Sierras have a lot better ears than that Alfa. They’re going to be able to pick us out better than he will.”
“At least we know where they are.”
He was interrupted by one of the sonarmen. “Wait one . . . something new to starboard.” His hands fiddled delicately with the dials in front of him. “Submarine contact.” The hands finally stopped, suspended in midair, as he leaned back slightly to listen, eyes closed. “Yeah, it’s a submarine all right . . . still a long way off . . . no range for a while, Captain . . . but I’ll bet it’s another Alfa.”
“You got that one, Carol?”
“Got it, Captain. He’s right . . . almost beat Caesar on that one. He estimates it at close to ninety miles just aft of the starboard beam. Only an Alfa would sound like that at that range.”
“We have one more advantage,” Snow concluded resolutely. “Imperator can still travel at slow speed less than five miles from them without being detected by listening gear. They’d have to ping on us right in their backyard to be sure where we are. So we’re going to light off everything. We’ll put on a show they can’t overlook. Then go silent.”
Snow moved back into the control room, a renewed look of determination on his face. In retrospect, he wondered why he sometimes began thinking as he had in the past. He was slipping—automatically assuming the limited capabilities of the older submarines. Was he wearing himself out? What he had under his feet now was beyond the imagination of any Soviet captain out there. If he recognized the reasons for his own letdown, then it was time to change the attitude of the others. Their reactions would be a mirror of his own.
He called down to Carol to join him with the other department heads in the wardroom. When they were assembled, they found yet another version of their captain. This time, the nervousness and eruptions of anger of a short time before had been dispelled.
He radiated confidence as he explained that they were going to go active with every piece of equipment that might appeal to the Russians for the next hour. Although he assumed they might be boxed in, it was a large box. They would examine this box at top speed, in an expanding circle until they knew every inch of ice above them. At the same time, their effort to attract attention should draw the Russian submarines closer. They should be able to develop a consistent track and identification on each one as a result. The computer would store a record of every polynya, lead, pressure ridge, and any thin ice that could be used for surfacing.
“Then, we’re going to let Caesar take over for us. There’s no one on board who can outthink five attack subs tightening the noose at the same time. And I apologize to each of you for trying to be the genius I thought I was.” He looked around the table, waiting for a response.
I don t know why it won’t work, Captain,” the weapons officer responded. “That’s what we’re designed for.”
“We’ve been training around Caesar for over a year now.” The operations officer looked at Carol with a grin. “Let’s draw them into the trap.”
Snow smiled. They were reacting to a feeling of uncertainty, partially because they had fallen into the same trap he had—remembering the old submarine, when they faced adversity. “What the hell,” Snow continued. “After Caesar finishes his analysis, we’ll know exactly where we are and the Russians wil
l be coming into an area without the advantage of knowing the ice. They won’t be able to stay close to the surface either . . . be better targets, too, if they have to come down to our level.”
Within minutes, Imperator had given up any pretense of silence. She moved at full speed in expanding circles, charting the ice above. There was no letup in dropping noisemakers with built-in time delays. They would switch on at various times over the next twelve hours, if they were needed that long.
When he was satisfied. Snow would order absolutely silent running with Imperator changing course and depth under Caesar’s control on a totally erratic basis. The only method the Soviet submarines could then use to locate her would be active sonar. And unless they were on top of Imperator, they would open themselves instantly to Caesar’s attack.
“What the hell . . .?” Houston’s captain asked as they listened to Imperator’s wild gyrations. “That’s crazy . . .”
“Every once in a while. Snow comes out of a funk and does something unpredictable,” Andy Reed answered facetiously. “He can be moody as hell, drive everybody crazy, then comes up with some genius idea. But he has to be driven into it sometimes.” He shook his head. “I’d imagine he finally figured out that Danilov was a little bit slyer than he anticipated.”
“But he’ll draw them all in on top of him.”
“I suppose that’s what he’s intending, Ross.” Reed was doodling with a pencil. “Look at this.” He indicated the possible submarines around Imperator. “I’m not saying that’s exactly what he sees . . . but the way we tracked him in circles meant he was giving everyone a chance to locate him. So perhaps he sees himself surrounded. If you don’t know where everyone is, you’d be crazy to go after them one at a time, because the guy behind would try to get you. So, he’s going to try to draw them all in . . . which gives us a chance to go after another.”
Ross nodded his understanding. “You figure the one that has to be closest to us is going to get sucked into that mess, too.” It wasn’t really a question. He saw exactly what Reed had meant. It made excellent sense. “But the one near us has got to be on his toes. He knows we’re behind him. He can’t just turn tail—”
Silent Hunter Page 26