Straits of Power (16 page)

Chapter 12

T
wenty minutes and almost twenty miles later, Jeffrey ordered Meltzer to slow the ship and turn in a circle again. Jeffrey dared not go farther without another check for targets and threats. The icons on his computerized tactical plot were mere abstractions, but he knew that what they stood for was totally real. The positions of the pair of 212s was an estimate, but that was far better than nothing. What scared him most was the phantom that didn’t even have an estimate icon: the milch-cow 214, whereabouts completely unknown.

Jeffrey dearly wished he could trail his ship’s special fiber-optic towed array. This new array, installed before his previous mission, had three parallel lines of sensors instead of just one. The array was ideal in hunting for diesel subs in shallow waters.

But Jeffrey was handcuffed. The array took many minutes to reel out on the special winch and then reel it all back in again. The array didn’t work at flank speed, and might even be damaged by flow drag through the ocean at such high velocity. In water so constricted, with many uncharted wrecks on this part of the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, the danger of snagging the array and losing it altogether was serious.

But unless I detect the Two-fourteen soon . . . Whoever gets in the first accurate salvo in a sub-on-sub engagement usually wins.

Somewhere out there is a strong steel tube, half as long as
Challenger
and only one quarter the weight. But she has two dozen officers and men inside, each of them hell-bent on destroying my ship. And they’re doing what they’re best at—staying invisible, toying with me.

The pair of smaller 212s and their crews in front of Parcelli’s mad dash were bad enough.

Challenger
continued making another gradual turn. Once more Jeffrey, torn by frustration, waited for word from Milgrom on any contacts.

“Sir,” Meltzer reported, “my course is zero-four-five.”

The ship had completed another circle.

“Sonar, anything?”

“Nothing on our passive hull arrays, Captain.”

“Very well, Sonar. . . . Helm, my intention is to resume flank speed on course zero-four-five after doing another active search.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Sonar, ping on—”

“Torpedoes in the water!” a sonar man screamed. “Multiple Seehecht torpedoes inbound, bearing two-nine-zero, range twelve thousand yards!” West-northwest, six nautical miles. All sonar contacts were listed with true bearings, as if from a compass centered on Jeffrey’s own ship;
Challenger
’s course wasn’t relevant.

The Two-fourteen has sprung its trap.

Jeffrey needed good information now more than ever.

“Sonar, go active, melee search mode.”

Challenger
’s bow sphere emitted another powerful crescendo chorus of sound.

Data started pouring in.

Milgrom called out each contact.

Bell updated the tactical plot.

Jeffrey hated what he saw.
Ohio
was directly ahead of
Challenger,
by four miles. She’d slowed to do her own target search. The 214, contact designated Master 1, was off to the left, in between them—past
Challenger
’s port bow, and in the broad blind spot of
Ohio
’s baffles. Both class 212s, contacts designated Master 2 and Master 3, were ahead of
Ohio,
as Jeffrey expected, by about another ten thousand yards—one beyond
Ohio
’s port bow and one beyond her starboard bow.

The German subs used updated Seehecht torpedoes, wire-guided from the parent sub. The Seehechts’ top speed was almost forty knots; Jeffrey could outrun them easily. But the Seehechts were much faster than
Ohio,
so the last thing Jeffrey could do now was run.
Ohio
badly needed Jeffrey’s help, even though all vessels were still well inside the two-hundred-mile limit, so German nukes—hopefully—were precluded.

Challenger
moved slowly through the water; the 214’s Seehechts were gaining by more than a thousand yards per minute. It made Jeffrey’s nerve endings feel like they were on fire.

Patience. Don’t rush the ballet or you’ll botch it.

“Contacts on acoustic intercept,” Milgrom called out. “Masters One through Three have gone active!”

“Sonar on speakers,” Jeffrey ordered. The control room was suddenly filled with quadraphonic sound, eerie echoes of enemy pings and the frightening mechanical screams of electric torpedo engine sounds.

“More
torpedoes in the water,” a sonar man yelled. “Fan spread, mean bearing zero-four-five, inbound at eighteen thousand yards.”

“They’ve got superior position and better immediate firepower,” Jeffrey said to Bell. “Masters Two and Three can shoot a dozen torpedoes at
Ohio
compared to her four in any one salvo. After they overwhelm her, they’ll all close in on
Challenger.”

“Concur.”

“We fight the fight their way, we’ve had it. We need to change the rules, make this a battle of maneuver.”

“Bearing rate on
Ohio,”
Milgrom said.
“Ohio
turning to starboard. . . . 
Ohio
has fired four torpedoes, sir, two each at Master Two and Master Three.”

Parcelli needs time to reload. At least those shots might force the 212s to run, and break the guidance wires to their weapons in the water, and give us a chance to outsmart the torpedo software with our human brains.

“Fire Control, signal to
Ohio
on acoustic link: ‘Maintain your turn, steer onto course two-two-five.’ ” Southwest, the opposite of the way they’d just come. “ ‘Put yourself in my baffles, direct all further fire at the class 214 I designate Master One.’ ”

Bell typed madly and had the message sent.

“Ohio
acknowledges!”

“Sonar, speakers off. Go active. Melee ping.”

The noise, even with the speakers off, was almost unbearable. Jeffrey told Milgrom to turn the speakers back on—he craved sensory data. Seconds later he could hear each echo come back off the German subs, and the quadraphonic surround sound gave him a three-dimensional feel of the battle.

The tactical plot was refreshed, with new positions and courses and speeds—including icons for over a dozen torpedoes dashing this way and that.

“Fire Control, snap shots, tubes one and two, on bearing to Master One,
shoot.”

Bell acknowledged and relayed commands. Torelli’s team quickly programmed the torpedoes, flooded and equalized the pressure in the tubes, and opened the outer doors. The force of water pent up behind big, stiff elastomer membranes quietly shoved the fish out of the tubes. As they came free of the ship, their closed-cycle liquid-fueled engines started.

Snap shots lacked a proper fire-control solution to lead a moving target; they were done to save time in a combat emergency. But the homing sonars and software on the fiber-optic wire-guided Mark 48 Improved ADCAPs were very good.

“Tubes one and two fired electrically,” Torelli reported, his voice dead flat, as always in combat. By making himself sound almost bored, he kept his people calm and focused.

“Both units operating normally,” Milgrom confirmed by using passive sonar.

Jeffrey’s opening shots in this battle were well on their way. But to win would demand subtle strategy, not just brute strength.

“Decoy in tube seven, set speed to fifty-three knots, snap shot on bearing to Master One,
shoot.
 . . . Helm, ahead two thirds, make turns for twenty-six knots.” Twenty-six knots was
Challenger
’s top quiet speed, one knot faster than
Ohio
at her fastest and loudest. The decoy was meant to follow Jeffrey’s torpedoes, which moved at almost seventy knots, to make the 214’s captain think that
Challenger
was charging at him right behind Jeffrey’s own fish.

I’ve got to shake him up, and force him to make a hard turn, and make him break the wires controlling his weapons.

Jeffrey watched on the tactical plot and listened on the speakers as
Challenger
and
Ohio
passed each other in opposite directions;
Ohio
was rushing down
Challenger
’s starboard side.

“Fire Control, signal
Ohio.
Reverse your course, assume station five hundred yards off my stern. Increase to flank speed, steer your weapons well clear of my decoy at rough bearing two-nine-zero. Support appearance that decoy is
Challenger,
shielding you from the class Two-fourteen. Do not use your active sonar. Rely only on active search by your fish.”

The
Ohio
’s active sonar system—as a former boomer whose job was perpetual stealth—was less capable than
Challenger
’s. If
Ohio
pinged, she’d give
Challenger
away via echoes the Germans would hear off of Jeffrey’s hull, or she’d reveal a big, quiet hole in the water—
Challenger,
backlit by
Ohio.
Either way would ruin Jeffrey’s intended deception.

And if I ping now, I betray that my decoy’s a decoy. It’s all up to the ADCAPs and my passive sonars now.

Jeffrey was taking a gamble, but out-positioned and outgunned, he had no choice. There was an awkward moment while he wondered what Parcelli would say in response to his latest orders. Jeffrey was trying to make it look like
Ohio
’s captain was confused about what to do, turning and then running and then turning and then seeming to stop.

“Ohio
acknowledges! . . . 
Ohio
turning into our baffles.”

This way
Challenger,
silent, might shield
Ohio
from the 212s, who’d be tracking Jeffrey’s decoy, which was chasing the 214. Both American ships had the same outside diameter—forty-two feet. And the close spacing brought
Ohio
and
Challenger
under the protective umbrella of each other’s antitorpedo underwater rockets, which had an effective range of only a thousand yards before their solid-fuel motors burned out.

Five hundred yards of separation was less than three ship lengths, from
Ohio
’s perspective. The two vessels were tucked in tight. Jeffrey now planned to pretend to the Germans that
Challenger
was
Ohio.

It’s time to go on the all-out offensive.

“Fire Control, snap shots, tubes three and four, last known bearing to Master Two. Have both units begin active search after running for two thousand yards. Shoot!”

Bell relayed the commands; Torelli and his weapons-systems technicians were kept very busy.

“Fire Control, snap shots, tubes five and six, last known bearing to Master Three. Have both units begin active search after running for two thousand yards. Shoot!”

The noise of torpedo engines was very loud now. The weapons, both friendly and enemy, began to ping more and more in search of targets. Silvery
tings
filled the air in the control room, musical and sweet, disguising the relentless menace each note stood for.

Jeffrey glanced again at the tactical plot. The 214 was moving northeast from her ambush location at twenty knots, fleeing a clutch of inbound fish. She fired a series of noisemakers, which gave off bubbles and made loud gurgling sounds—but the ADCAPs weren’t fooled. One of Torelli’s weapons techs controlled the fifty-knot decoy to keep following in their wake. Jeffrey prayed the other U-boats still bought his trick, that the decoy was
Challenger
going after the milch cow.

They did. Grouped together as if to present a united front, the pair of 212s moved boldly toward
Ohio
’s last-known position—toward
Challenger
—at their own flank speed, twenty knots.

There was just one catch. The 214’s first set of weapons closed constantly from the side, even as
Challenger
led
Ohio
northeast. The Seehechts might be slow compared to ADCAPs, but their high-explosive warheads were nearly as large.

I can’t ignore them forever.

A new sound came over the speakers. Dull rumbles rose to heavy roars.

“Assess Masters Two and Three have fired antitorpedo rockets!” Bell said.

“Let’s see how effective they are.”

Jeffrey and Bell waited.
Ohio
’s four weapons ran on, their wires undoubtedly broken now. Torelli had his technicians make
Challenger
’s torpedoes from tubes three through six jink to try to evade the rockets. But the antitorpedo rockets were more nimble.

There were dull
thud
s and tremendous
crack
s as each rocket fired its warhead, a high-explosive shaped charge full of depleted uranium pellets, like a shotgun blast; Parcelli’s and Jeffrey’s ADCAPs were smashed, and two of their warheads were set off by the effects of the U-boats’ defensive rockets. Echoes finally died away, and the torpedo engine noises were lessened compared to before.

This won’t do. . . . We need to use more fish, in quicker succession, from much shorter range.

“Fire Control, reload tubes one through six, high-explosive ADCAPs.”

Jeffrey hadn’t reloaded before, because doing so would cut the wires to the weapons already in the water. Jeffrey’s first two fish, aimed at the 214, were on their own now. Sinking Master One was Parcelli’s job, and a salvo of four of his ADCAPs was already on the way.

Both class 212s pinged. Milgrom used active out-of-phase emissions to suppress the echoes off
Challenger
’s bow and the front of her sail. “Assess echoes successfully suppressed.”

“Very well, Sonar.” The Germans had to be wondering where
Ohio
had gone.
Good. Perfect. Let them wonder.

The reloading of all empty tubes was done very quickly, thanks to
Challenger
’s torpedo-room hydraulic autoloader gear. Six tubes were soon ready to fire.