Seawolf End Game

by Cliff Happy

  Brodie watched her leave, and Fabrini could see the concern in the captain’s eyes. “How long has she been in here?” Brodie asked once she was gone.

  “Other than a couple of short breaks to get rid of coffee, she’s been in here for the better part of thirty-six hours, sir,” he admitted.

  Brodie exhaled in a bit of frustration. “If she comes back in here before she gets at least six hours of sleep, I want to know about it.”

  “Aye, sir,” Fabrini replied feeling guilty he’d let her go for so long.

  Kristen felt like she was in a fog as she made it to the bathroom, her body going almost on autopilot as she headed for the shower. Fatigued physically and mentally more than she could have ever imagined, she sat down on the commode for just a brief moment to rest and was instantly asleep.

  Almost immediately she was dreaming. The vision was far more pleasurable than reality. She was once again in Brodie’s cabin and in his arms. Just like in the previous dream, the two of them surrendered to their secret desires and traded their duty for passion.

  She awoke abruptly as her body sagged, and she nearly fell over. Kristen shook her head and forced herself to stand. She plunged her head into a sink of ice-cold water then stripped out of her soiled uniform before climbing into the shower. After several minutes of letting the icy water refresh her as much as possible, she turned off the water. She then realized that in her mental fog, she’d forgotten a towel.

  Forced to use the only towel available, she picked up Brodie’s that was hanging—as usual—from a metal peg on the bulkhead. She was almost too tired to care, but then, as she towel dried her hair, she caught a hint of his scent on the towel. She buried her face in the soft cotton and inhaled deeply. The aroma was almost hypnotic to her, and for several seconds she held the towel to her face breathing in and out. She finally returned the moist towel to its proper place and dressed before stepping back out into his cabin.

  Tiredly, she leaned against the bulkhead. The same bulkhead in her dream she’d fallen back against, pulling him to her. In her exhaustion, she now all but wilted against it, her head sagging slightly. She was too drained to force the errant thoughts aside. She was almost asleep on her feet. She opened her eyes, wishing for the dream to become reality, but knew she would never tell him how she felt. Despite Patricia’s voice haunting her, despite her burning desire to let him know, she couldn’t do it.

  Kristen pushed herself back to an upright position. But as she did, she noticed something on the bottom of the bulkhead by the floor. Her first thought was that she’d dropped something and she bent down to pick it up. But then froze as she saw, along the bottom of the wall, several scuff marks made by the heel of a boot.

  Brodie’s cabin had never had so much as a hair out of place. Not even once. But the heel marks now stared back at her accusingly. No one wore boots on the Seawolf except her; everyone else wore soft-soled tennis shoes. She’d discarded her gore-stained tennis shoes weeks earlier following Vance’s suicide.

  Her thoughts of the dream came rolling back to her. Kristen stood, the exhaustion momentarily forgotten, her thoughts clear for the first time in hours.

  It had been real!

  She hadn’t dreamed it at all. Nor had she imagined it.

  Just like she hadn’t imagined what she was now certain she’d heard in the sonar shack just before being relieved from duty to get some sleep.

  Kristen rushed from the cabin and back to the sonar shack. She entered the stuffy, stench-filled space and saw Fabrini supervising the others. He immediately turned on her, and she could see he was surprised to see her. “I hadn’t expected you back so soon, Lieutenant,” he offered as he stood in front of her.

  “I wasn’t imagining it,” Kristen told him as she slipped by him to the broadband stack. “Hicks, can I?” she asked, prodding Hicks to surrender his seat.

  Hicks did so grudgingly as Fabrini stepped in behind her. “Ma’am, I thought the captain wanted you to get some sleep?” he asked delicately.

  Kristen had regained—for a brief time she was certain—some semblance of alertness, and she frantically began searching the depths for the sound she now knew she hadn’t imagined.

  “What course are we on?” she asked Fabrini, trying to maintain her recent surge of energy long enough to locate the contact she’d heard.

  “We’re back on the base course, heading north,” Fabrini offered.

  “No,” she said out loud, shaking her head to keep herself awake. “No, that’s wrong,” she insisted. “He’s behind us. We need to turn around.”

  Normally the control room listened to course suggestions from the sonar room when they were working a target, but Fabrini hesitated. “Lieutenant, maybe you should get some sleep.”

  Kristen shook her head forcefully. “Mister Fabrini, the Borei is dead astern of us right now. If we don’t turn around, we may never find her again.”

  “How can you be so certain?” he asked. “The waters there were filled with noises, and you’re—”

  “Trust me,” Kristen insisted trying to ward off the onset of physical collapse from exhaustion just a few minutes longer. “It was them.”

  Fabrini hesitated, but then reached up and pulled down the microphone. “Con, sonar.”

  “Whatcha got, Mister Fabrini?” Kristen heard Brodie’s voice.

  “Sir, Lieutenant Whitaker requests we execute a one-eighty and double back on our course,” Fabrini explained. Kristen could hear the combination of skepticism and concern in his voice.

  “I’m on my way.”

  She knew Fabrini and the others thought she was losing it. This recognition caused her to get angry, which helped keep her alert as she waited for Brodie who appeared a few moments later.

  He came in, looking as haggard as before. For a brief moment she feared he would join the others in their skepticism. Instead, he simply asked, “What is it, Lieutenant?”

  “Sir, I know what I was hearing,” she explained. “I wasn’t imagining it. It was plant noise.”

  Brodie didn’t argue with her. “Yes, but we couldn’t reacquire them.”

  “True, but there was something else; something within the other noise; something I missed.” Kristen’s encyclopedic memory was pulling the sounds she’d heard and replaying them over and over again in her head. “Please, Captain, you have to trust me,” she nearly pleaded. “Just once more.”

  He paused for a moment and glanced at Fabrini, who clearly thought she could no longer be counted on because of her fatigue. Despite this, he nodded his head. “Okay, Lieutenant,” Brodie replied and leaned against the stack, gripping a handhold to steady himself. Brodie pulled down the microphone and ordered the one-hundred-eighty degree turn about as Kristen had requested.

  The Seawolf came around slowly, turning her powerful bow mounted sonar array on the waters behind them. As they turned, Kristen worked her controls, closing her eyes and searching for the noise she was certain was there. She’d heard it. She hadn’t been mistaken; just like she wasn’t mistaken about their encounter in his cabin. A momentary encounter interrupted by a call from the communications shack about an incoming message for him. Her fatigue had caused it all to blend together, but she’d managed to push the weariness away once more.

  Behind her, she could feel him watching. The fact he believed her, the fact he’d changed course meant more to her than any words he could ever say. But now she had to justify his confidence. She had to once more prove to everyone she was right.

  Her hand trembled slightly as she adjusted the fine tuning on the broadband system. She focused the incredible sound vacuuming power of the thousands of hydrophones in the bow sonar array to bring in the one noise she was looking for. She listened intently, certain she would hear it if she were patient enough.

  It seemed to take forever for the Seawolf to turn. Her fingers constantly adjusted her controls. Then she heard it, and with a hint of triumph she flipped a switch on the panel, and the sound was now audible over her speak
ers. “Bearing zero-two-three,” she reported, leaning back tiredly but with eminent satisfaction.

  “What’s that?” Brodie asked anyone who cared to answer.

  Fabrini response was simply, “Jesus.” The other sonar operators heard it too and looked at her incredulously, not believing it. “Crab, sir,” Fabrini explained. “Snow Crab.” He then spoke to her, “How did you know? How did you pick it up?”

  Kristen told them how she’d heard regular plant noises originally, but the noises had faded. In her exhaustion, she’d failed to consider what might occur if the Borei shut down its reactor and turned over to its fuel cell. “If they did it, then the plant noises would be replaced by something similar to what we heard earlier when we encountered the Gagarin,” she explained.

  “Snow Crab,” Brodie concluded as the Seawolf once more had a target.

  Kristen stayed on the broadband stack as Brodie ordered three course changes over a twenty minute period. This was sufficient to provide a trio of new bearings for the tracking party to begin estimating a firing solution. Meanwhile, the Seawolf slipped silently through the water.

  “Keep your ears open in other directions,” Brodie ordered the sonar operators. “Standard Russian submarine doctrine,” he explained. “No Boomer travels alone, so I doubt the Borei is flying solo.”

  Kristen stuck to the Borei as the others continued searching in the event a fast-attack boat was close at hand.

  “He’s loitering, Captain,” she whispered. “There’s hardly any propeller noise.”

  The squawk box overhead came to life with Andrew Stahl’s voice, “Skipper, we’ve got a pretty good firing solution, on Sierra Twelve.”

  “Roger,” Brodie replied. “Program the information into tubes five and eight. Be ready for a snapshot on tubes three and seven. We’ve got a fast-attack boat out there somewhere.”

  Kristen didn’t doubt him, but had no idea how he could be so sure. The Gagarin might have been the Borei’s escort.

  “Look sharp, people,” Brodie whispered.

  “Sir,” she again heard Stahl, “ADCAPs in five and eight have firing date entered. Should we flood tubes and open outer doors?” This evolution would put sound energy into the water and possibly alert any nearby fast-attack boat.

  “Roger,” Brodie ordered, “flood tubes three and seven as well. Once we launch on the Borei, our hidden friend will show himself.”

  He turned his attention back to Kristen. “Anything?”

  She shook her head. Brodie responded by having Fabrini stand by to use the sonar from the torpedoes he was preparing to fire. Each torpedo’s sonar—once active—could be used by the sonar shack to help locate any other submarines in the area without necessarily revealing the Seawolf’s position.

  Kristen glanced up at Brodie as he issued the commands to fire the first two torpedoes. There was no sense of relief or joy in his expression, just a determination to finish the task assigned.

  Kristen heard the torpedoes swim out of the tubes. Once clear, the torpedoes were programmed to move away from the Seawolf in opposite directions. Once they’d moved off far enough, they would turn and approach the Borei from two different directions, making any chance of escape nearly impossible.

  “Come on, you sneaky bugger,” Brodie whispered behind her.

  She felt herself searching even harder for the fast-attack boat he seemed certain was close at hand. She trusted him. He’d never been wrong before, and she was certain if she looked hard enough there would be a second submarine guarding the Borei as he predicted.

  The two MK-48s moved slowly away from the Seawolf. Their pump-jet motors were on a low power setting making little noise. Plus, what little sound they did make was lost in the clutter from two nearby drilling rigs filling the water with transients. Kristen felt the waves of exhaustion hitting her like the sea striking a beach. The brief energy boost had faded, and her eyes were burning once more.

  For three minutes the two torpedoes swam away from the Seawolf before turning toward the unsuspecting Borei. As they turned on their target, the torpedoes activated their onboard sonar systems and began pounding the water ahead of them, searching.

  Immediately, the active sonar from the torpedoes illuminated the Borei’s hull with high-energy pulses. In the sonar shack these sounds were translated into thick lines on everyone’s waterfall displays.

  “She’s increasing speed and launching countermeasures,” Hicks reported as the Borei, caught unaware, reacted to the sudden barrage of sonar pulses from the two torpedoes. “Weapons are active and have acquired target, speed is increasing to fifty-five knots,” Hicks reported.

  “Transients!” Greenberg shouted, nearly coming out of his chair. “Bearing two-eight-five, torpedo hatches opening.”

  Brodie’s response was incredibly calm considering the situation. “Yankee search, now!” he ordered and keyed the microphone to the control room. “Snapshot, bearing two-eight-five, fire three and seven.”

  The months of incessant drills now bore fruit as the Seawolf’s tracking parties were able to fire both torpedoes within seconds, whereas the two enemy submarines had yet to get a single torpedo in the water. At the same moment, the powerful bow sonar went active, sending out a cone-shaped, highly-focused beam of sound energy on the bearing where Greenberg heard the tubes opening. The information gleaned from the bow mounted sonar was fed directly into the two torpedoes just launched, and each adjusted its course to bore in on its target.

  “Sierra Twelve has increased speed to ten knots and is running,” Hicks reported.

  “Classify Sierra Thirteen as Akula II fast-attack submarine!” Fabrini added, as the computer recognized the second submarine as it increased speed.

  Both sets of torpedoes—each with a different target—now had not only a general direction to their targets, but depth and range because of the active sonar search. Kristen could almost see the deadly dance now occurring a few thousand yards away from the Seawolf as she heard the two submarines fleeing and launching more countermeasures.

  She’d already heard the sounds of men trapped inside a sinking submarine; the memory would haunt her the rest of her life. So, as the four torpedoes raced in on their targets, she removed her headphones and leaned back in her seat, staring numbly ahead as Greenberg counted down the ranges until impact.

  The MK48s advanced sonar systems ignored the countermeasures and raced, as she knew they would, unerringly to their targets. The Borei was struck first. Greenberg reported both the first and second torpedo blasts. The Akula II was hit a minute later. There were no celebrations or high fives from anyone this time. Exhaustion and simple battle fatigue had turned the fight into purely a matter of survival; the simple grim math of war had replaced any excitement.

  Kristen listened vaguely to the reports from Greenberg as he described both submarines trying to reach the surface, and then their final descent before she relinquished her seat and walked zombie like to her quarters.

  It was over.

  Chapter Thirty One

  The Kremlin

  The lofty spires of the Kremlin were covered in snow and ice, and more snow was falling. Winters in Russia were long and hard. The president knew this only too well, although this winter had turned particularly bitter and cruel. He watched from his window as the massive crowd continued to grow in Red Square despite the cold. Among the protesters were soldiers and military vehicles, except those troops no longer obeyed his will.

  He’d known his great gamble would remake the world, and it had.

  Following the Borei’s unexpected destruction, the American led air offensive had swept across Iran like a tempest. Key command and control stations were among the first targets as B-2 stealth bombers dropped bunker-busting bombs on underground nuclear facilities, destroying Iran’s ability to defend itself. This initial wave of attacks was followed by a concentrated attack on the Iranian Navy. Within twenty-four hours it was over. Surprisingly, the Americans ignored the Iranian forces on the Musandam Penin
sula. But with the destruction of the Iranian Navy came the inability to resupply the thousands of Iranians garrisoning the Peninsula. The Islamic Republic had tried an aerial resupply, but those few aircraft that managed to get into the air were shot down within minutes, leaving the troops on the Peninsula completely cut off.

  The end had been inevitable. Within a week, the Iranian garrison was forced to surrender or starve to death. The Americans had been surprisingly gracious by allowing the captured soldiers to return—minus their equipment—to the Islamic Republic. Of course, they returned to a very different country than the one they had left. Political turmoil had seized the country and the president had resigned. But the mob hadn’t been satisfied with this, and the horrific images of the Iranian president being dragged through the streets of Tehran before finally being hanged from a crane were still fresh in Vladimir’s mind.

  Now it was Russia’s turn.

  Information about Russian involvement had been leaked to the press. By whom? He hadn’t been certain. Surely it had been one of his Security Council members, his close friends. He’d tried to control the media to prevent the catastrophe now before him, but the world press had seized upon the sensational story about an undeclared war having been fought under the waves, all at his behest. His country was now in turmoil as protests spread nationwide despite his attempts to suppress it and now the military had turned against his government.

  He considered his trusted ministers, and had wondered from where the axe would fall.

  Now he knew.

  Vitaliy Shuvalov cleared his throat.

  The president turned and looked at the youthful head of the FSB. It made sense. Vitaliy was a survivor. All along, he’d prepared quietly for the possibility of defeat and had planned well. It was Vitaliy who leaked the information to the press. It was Vitaliy who’d failed to suppress the dissent created by the shocking news. The president had considered him a friend, but there was no room in Vitaliy’s heart for anyone else but Vitaliy.