by Larry Bond
Both of them came over to the chart table, Shimko actually looked like he was in a good mood. “Nice job on the rendezvous, Nav. I particularly liked that little Kabuki dance at the end.”
“Thanks, XO. I think.” Jerry smiled; he knew Shimko was jerking his chain over the delay in meeting up with Churchill. “It’s not my fault that no one told me that Churchill went to afterburner and roared right by us,” he complained defensively. Between their escape course and Churchill’s increase in speed, the two ships had failed to link up as expected, and Churchill had to backtrack to rendezvous with Seawolf. Jerry had taken a little good-natured ribbing once they had realized the destroyer had passed CPA and was opening. “Still, it’s nice to finally operate with a ship from our Navy.”
“I think we all like having a friendly face in the neighborhood,” said Rudel.
“Hear, hear!” Shimko exclaimed. “I’d love to see those helos try a repeat of their antics with an Aegis destroyer around.”
“Listen, Jerry. I want to thank you for all you’ve done to help the XO hold this boat together over the last couple days. I guess I let myself get a little too preoccupied with Severodvinsk,” Rudel admitted quietly.
Jerry, surprised by Rudel’s confession, took a moment to react, and then another when he realized he didn’t know how to respond. Shimko covered for him.
“Skipper, wise man says, ‘Strong feelings precede great movements.’ We all want to help the Russian.”
“Perhaps, Marcus. But I think I need to keep better track of my responsibilities. I just didn’t see the forest fire for the flaming trees. And now that the Russian fleet is finally on station, they are better equipped than we are to rescue Petrov and his crew.”
Rudel studied the nav plot for a moment, then said, “It’s too dark to do anything more tonight, but in the morning some experts on Churchill are going to come aboard to inspect our damage. Then when they leave, I’m going with them to a meeting on board the Russian flagship, Peter the Great.”
Jerry absorbed the news. Visitors at sea, the captain leaving the ship . . .
“And it turns out you know one of them,” Shimko added. “There’s a Dr. Patterson aboard. She’s billed as our SAR coordinator. Apparently, the president’s national security adviser appointed her to the position and she’s calling the shots.” He studied Jerry for a moment, gauging his expression. “She says you and her are old shipmates, which means she must have been with you on Memphis.”
Jerry searched for a moment, then replied simply, “That’s right . . .” and after another pause, “She’s a scientist, and she rode with us on our spec op. Since her trip on Memphis she’s become a big fan of submariners. She even married one.”
“She’s Lowell Hardy’s wife?” Rudel asked a little surprised.
“Yes, sir.”
“So ah, do you two keep in touch?” pushed Shimko.
“With her and Captain Hardy? Christmas cards, mostly. I visited them the last time I was in Washington.” Jerry was uncomfortable with Shimko’s interest and tried to move the conversation on. “XO, what time will they be coming aboard?”
“Oh seven hundred, they’ll be guests for breakfast. A woman on a submarine, eh? I’d love to hear some of her sea stories. Yep, I’m definitely looking forward to meeting an old shipmate of yours, Jerry.”
As Rudel and the XO both headed aft, Jerry forced his shoulders to unclench. Joanna Patterson. He would be glad to see her, even after, or maybe because of, everything that had happened aboard Memphis. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t talk to Shimko about Memphis’s last mission, but that wouldn’t stop the XO from trying.
10 October 2008
0630/6:30 AM
Mikhail Rudnitskiy
* * *
Someone was shaking his shoulder. “Admiral, sir, they’ll be ready to launch in half an hour.” Light flooded into his brain, and Vidchenko stirred. He shook his head, and then blinked several times.
A senior-lieutenant, one of Rudnitskiy’s engineers, had stepped back, and was offering him a mug of hot tea. The admiral waved it off, saying, “No, thank you. I’ll be there soon.”
The officer left, and Vidchenko rolled out of the bunk and stood carefully. He stretched briefly to work out some of the stiffness in his joints, then dressed and washed. Someone had left him a pair of submarine coveralls, more appropriate for AS-34 than the working uniform he’d worn over. They’d even put his name on them, along with the proper rank insignia.
He’d used the captain’s cabin, and its unfamiliar layout slowed him a little. Gradev had a large family. The photo over his desk showed a gray-haired woman surrounded by seven children, probably taken by Gradev himself. Other shots scattered around the cabin showed the captain with the children at sporting events. The largest photo was of Gradev in some sort of tropical setting, standing next to an incredibly large fish. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt.
A petty officer was waiting outside the cabin, and he snapped to attention as the door opened. “Would you like to have some breakfast, sir? There’s still time. They’ve just started . . .”
“No. I’ll go to the sub.”
“Yessir. Please follow me.”
The petty officer led him down a brightly lit passageway, then down two ladders to the main deck level, and out through a watertight door to the dark weather decks. The cold wind pulled at his coat, but the admiral hardly felt it. He was already absorbed in the dive.
A separate set of ladders took them down to the deck of the hold, now open to the air as they rigged lifting lines to the minisub.
Gradev came running over. “Good morning, sir!”
“How long until we launch, Captain?”
“We will disconnect the charging cables in another five minutes. The instant they are gone, you and the crew will board and we will put AS-34 over the side.”
“Disconnect the cables now. Petrov and his men are on borrowed time. Those final five minutes won’t make any difference.”
“Immediately, Admiral.” Gradev ran to give the orders, and Vidchenko studied the toylike submersible. It would have fit on the deck of his first command, a nuclear sub, and that boat was half the tonnage of Severodvinsk.
Two middle-aged officers in coveralls came up and saluted. “Captain Third Rank Bakhorin, Admiral. I am the officer in charge and pilot. This is Captain Third Rank Umansky, my systems engineer and navigator.”
Bakhorin hadn’t referred to himself as “Captain” because AS-34 was not a commissioned naval vessel. He wore a submariner’s insignia, as did Umansky, and Vidchenko wondered whether it was by choice or circumstance that two middle-grade officers had decided to crew this clumsy craft.
“There’s a jump seat just aft of the conning station, sir. There’s very little room to shift positions with three of us in there, so you’ll have to board first.”
“Will I be able to see out any of the ports?” That was the whole reason Vidchenko was going. The photos taken on the first dive had been so poor that it was hard to visualize Severodvinsk’s situation. He had to see for himself if that was the best they could do, and at the same time find out what he could of Severodvinsk’s plight.
“Yes, comrade Admiral,” Bakhorin replied. “Although the viewports are not very big. Your field of view will be limited. Come, let’s get on board.”
Bakhorin motioned to Vidchenko, pointing to a ladder. “This way, sir.” The three walked over to the ladder that provided access to the submersible’s deck, with crewmen along the way wishing them luck. Some saluted, others clapped them on the back, some even gave obscene encouragements. AS-34 Priz was the reason Rudnitskiy was there—the reason for the entire task force. There was a lot of hope riding on something that looked like a bath toy.
Vidchenko turned to start climbing the boarding ladder, but Bakhorin stopped him. “Your coat, sir. I’m afraid there’s no room for it inside.” The admiral handed it to a petty officer, and then started up the ladder. Vidchenko struggled to keep his feet in the rungs
as the ladder flexed and the ship rolled, but found himself quickly and was soon on top. “Just go straight in!” Bakhorin instructed, as he held the ladder extension so the admiral could step straight down into the interior of the minisub.
Stepping onto the hatch rim, Vidchenko grabbed the extension and slowly descended into the opening. It was lit, thank goodness, and he gingerly picked his way into the cluttered interior.
The access trunk was only a meter long, and led into a cylindrical compartment about two meters in length. It was an irregular cylinder, with equipment and consoles invading the space without regard for movement or human convenience. It was impossible to stand fully upright. Behind him, through a hatchway, was another larger cylinder with seating for twenty passengers.
Vidchenko was still surveying the interior when there was a clatter on the hatch rim over his head and a pair of feet appeared in the opening. They were moving quickly, and the admiral shifted aft to give them space.
Bakhorin came down next and took the chair in the bow. After closing and dogging the hatch, Umansky took his seat, just a little forward of the entrance. A loud clang signaled the closing of the hatch.
An air horn sounded and the lines to AS-34 went taut. It sounded again and she came off the cradle, while crewmen with lines steadied her. Vidchenko felt a sudden jerk and then could see that they were being lifted clear of Rudnitskiy’s hull.
Lights followed the white-and-orange-striped vehicle as the crane swung it out of the hold and lowered it into the water. Vidchenko was too busy holding on to notice that they were in the water. AS-34 was now afloat on Rudnitskiy’s lee side, with only a bow and stern line connecting it to the mother ship.
Three measured raps echoed inside the sub. “They’ve released the mooring lines,” Bakhorin announced. “Flooding all tanks.”
“Best course is two four seven, distance twelve hundred meters,” recommended Umansky.
Bakhorin was his own helmsman as well as diving officer. “Course is two four seven.” He turned back to Vidchenko. “We won’t use the motors right now, to save battery charge—we’ll use a ‘gliding’ descent to cover a lot of that distance.”
“Why do you not power your way down?” asked Vidchenko impatiently.
“We do not have sufficient battery power, comrade Admiral,” responded Bakhorin frankly. “The batteries on this submersible are all beyond their service lives and we have only two hours or so of power. We can save energy by just sinking down naturally.”
“How long will this take?” Vidchenko grumbled. It was all about time.
“To one hundred ninety-seven meters? It took us thirty minutes yesterday, but we were proceeding cautiously. Now we are sure there are no obstructions, and know the exact location of the sub. We should be alongside Severodvinsk in twenty minutes.”
“We going to survey the starboard side this time, yes?”
Watching the gauges, Bakhorin sighed. “Correct, sir. We did one complete pass around Severodvinsk, but we only had sufficient time to do a thorough examination of the port side on the last dive.”
“And you’ll have just enough time to examine the other side on this one,” Vidchenko concluded. “Plus any time you save on the dive.”
“Yes sir.”
“We have to make enough time to go back to the port side.” He tapped a sheaf of papers he’d brought. “These photos are fuzzy, at best. They hardly show the shape of the bottom, much less its composition. If we are going to plant charges to right Severodvinsk, it will have to be on the next dive.”
“I wish we had more time, sir. I’d skip surveying this side, but if . . .”
Vidchenko waved him off impatiently. The steps they had to take were obvious and mandatory. Even when you cut corners, there were things that couldn’t be skipped.
“Sonar contact.” Umansky’s report came only twelve minutes into the dive. “Four hundred meters, ten degrees to port.”
Vidchenko automatically bent over to look out through one of the ports, it was pitch black; he could see nothing. Umansky saw him look and said, “Our lights aren’t on yet, sir, to conserve power. But even with them on, we will only have a visual range of five to ten meters, and that’s only when the water is clear. The longer we stay in one place, the more silt we will stir up.”
He pointed to the photos Vidchenko held. “These are all the first shots, the best images, of each feature. The second ones were worse, and we didn’t bother with a third.”
Vidchenko asked, “Where are the cameras mounted?”
Umansky smiled sheepishly and held up an old Canon digital camera. “This is it, sir. We take pictures through the front port, which is optically flat, but we have to maneuver the sub to properly face the subject.”
Vidchenko was beginning to write off the chance of getting any decent images. The only worthwhile examination would be his personal observations. He wished he’d brought a demolitions expert on this dive, and chided himself for not being more aware of AS-34’s capabilities and limitations.
“Don’t bother with the photographs,” ordered Vidchenko. “Make one pro forma pass down the port side. Then proceed over to the starboard side.”
“Understood, sir. We’ll be approaching from the bow.”
Bakhorin started the motors, both to slow their downward descent and start them toward the bottomed sub. Umansky reported, “Course is good, two hundred meters. Bottom is in sight, thirty meters.”
“We’ll go down to seven meters off the bottom,” Bakhorin explained. “Any closer and we stir up too much silt, any farther away and the lights won’t illuminate properly.”
“One hundred fifty meters. Recommend we slow.”
“Slowing to two knots, Mother,” Bakhorin teased.
Umansky coached them into position, and they made room for Vidchenko to crouch near one of the forward-facing viewports. They’d closed inside fifty meters, and Bakhorin had slowed to a bare crawl, with nothing but inky blackness in front of them. Vidchenko fought the urge to check his watch. Time could be measured in air or battery charge, and there was precious little of either.
Suddenly, a dull greenish black wall rushed at them, but Bakhorin was ready and backed sharply. He cut the motors after one short astern burst, and AS-34 drifted to a stop surrounded by a cloud of yellow and gray silt.
There was almost no curvature to the hull, and Vidchenko realized they could see only a few square meters of it through the port. It would take at least a dozen dives to thoroughly inspect the submarine and the surrounding area.
Bakhorin was already turning AS-34 to pass close alongside the sub’s hull. Even at a fast walk, it took a while to cover the one hundred and twenty meters. Severodvinsk listed in their direction, so the massive hull crowded over them. All three officers studied the bottom, looking for anything that would interfere with the boat righting itself if the obstructions were removed. Luckily, there was little to see, just an uneven layer of mud with the underlying rock sometimes showing through.
“We’re coming up on the stern, Admiral,” announced Umansky.
Vidchenko continued to watch, although Bakhorin had pulled the minisub up and away from the bottom. He hadn’t stopped moving aft, and one of the stern planes appeared and then passed aft, only a meter from the viewports. As large as the side of a house, Vidchenko remembered seeing them not that long ago, standing on the floor of a drydock before she was launched. Now she’d never leave this place.
“I’ll turn to port, sir.” Bakhorin turned AS-34 tightly. Vidchenko knew what to expect, but was still shocked when he saw the stern. There at the end of the shaft, distorted and bent upward, was the plus-sign-shaped end cap, but not a single propeller blade was on the hub. Only torn, jagged ridges where the scimitar-shaped blades once were. Vidchenko tried to imagine the shaft bending, flexing with the impact of each blade as it struck the American’s hull, the turbines instantly freed from their massive load, water pouring in from the shaft seals . . .
“Have you found the collision
debris field?”
Umansky answered. “It wasn’t on any of our sonar sweeps. Severodvinsk had some way on at the time of the collision. She would have gone some distance, especially since she appeared to be descending when she struck this hillside. There’s a scar in the bottom on the other side. With a little time . . .”
“Which we don’t have,” Vidchenko interrupted. “We’ll leave the investigation of the bottom to a proper survey vessel, and hopefully Petrov and his men will be able to personally assist in reconstructing the collision.”
“This is where we’d have to plant the first charge, Admiral.”
Bokharin had move the mini-sub around to the starboard side and maneuvered it to an irregular rocky mound next to Severodvinsk’s hull. It had to be removed so that the sub could roll to starboard and right itself. The lights from AS-34 actually cast shadows, showing an empty space on at least one side of the obstruction.
Mud covered most of the underlying rock. But what kind of rock were they dealing with? Solid bedrock or just a small outcropping? How big a charge would they need to break it up?
“Can you use the motors to clear some of the silt? We need to get a sample of that rock.”
Umansky answered again. “We can do better than that, sir, we’ve got a water jet forward, like a fire hose. If Captain Bakhorin can position us . . .”
“Already in progress,” Bakhorin answered. The pilot gently maneuvered them closer, and Umansky busied himself with the controls. Vidchenko couldn’t see the results, and impatiently asked, “How’s the battery charge?”
“Over fifty percent, sir, although with all this work you can almost see the indicator needle move.”