The Chase: One Courageous Skipper Battling The Perilous Evil Out To Destroy Him. (Sea Action & Adventure) (3 page)

The rubber dinghy returned to the submarine after making sure that no evidence was left to tell of this violent encounter.

By 1800 local time, the technicians finished all they could do for the antenna tower.

The tower carried three independent systems. Up front, facing the plumb bow was a radar search antenna, which resembled a sail and was designed to search and lock on to aircrafts. It was used to track NATO flights and was dubbed
boat sail
by Western intelligence. On the Starboard side of the tower there was a rectangular box with three round ports protruding from each side. It was a multiband static direction finder known by NATO as
stoplight
, and was part of the sub’s ELINT system.

The technicians replaced two damaged subassemblies in the
stoplight
unit. The
boat-sail
antenna had a broken connector. They replaced the R.F. rotary joint too, just to make sure. The barren mounting plate, which, just twenty-four hours ago supported the millimeter-wave unit, was disassembled completely and carried down for inspection.

By midnight the Slavianka dived again, just deep enough to submerge her tower and return her to the safety of obscurity. The watch crew was still ashore, securing the hills above the cove.

The engineering officer examined the mounting plate in the machine shop, which was located just abaft the battery compartment.

“Well, we must have hit a fiberglass yacht”. A large section of white, thick fiberglass was snagged on the mounting plate. It was about a square foot in size.

By six o’clock that morning, he had finished his examination and reported to the Captain. There were six more officers in the room.

“The yacht that hit us is basically white, though her bottom is coated with red antifouling over a brown epoxy base. From these pieces I’ll say the hull is about one centimeter thick at the waterline. This would put her at around 12 meters long. She was hit just above the waterline because this is where our antenna is, or was”. He paused hesitantly, “so, while she may have taken on some water, the chances are she is still afloat. She is quite modern; there are traces of unidirectional glass lay-up used in her construction. That technique is not older than five or six years. This also means that she may have sufficient floatation built into her to keep her afloat even if full of water. You see,” he answered their looks of utter puzzlement, “empty internal volumes would be filled with plastic foam just for this purpose. It is sometimes used on modern yachts”.

“Her builder used a black back-up layer to improve inspection of the fiberglass lay-up, essentially a British technique, and definitely a privately owned boat. This construction is too expensive for the charter fleets”.

He straightened his weary back, glanced over the faces around the cabin and added, “Oh yes, and she is a sailing yacht”.

Captain Poliakov raised an eyebrow and the chief added quickly, “Otherwise we would have picked her up in our sonar, wouldn’t we?”

“So, unfortunately the antenna is lost”, the Captain interjected, before details of the Western yacht’s construction was discussed once more.

“Not so sure”, the chief said hesitantly. “You see, comrade Captain, our tower is designed to extend some ten inches above the water – the bare minimum required for the antenna to work. There are two water-level sensors and a servo control system that lowers and raises the tower, maintaining the right level”.

The Captain was growing impatient with the technical details. Belatedly, the chief noticed and changed tack, “This means the tower hit the yacht about a foot above the waterline. The fiberglass there is as thick as the hull”

"Comrade PLEASE…” The Captain interrupted loudly.

“There is a strong chance that the antenna is still lodged in her bow”.

Avri Keren rose slowly from the cold floor of the cockpit. There was no blanket over his head, just pitch-black skies with stars twinkling coldly down at him. There was nothing wet covering him either, only the chilly night air. His limbs moved slowly, each seeming to weigh a ton. Lurching slowly, like a monster from the golden era of cinema, he shuffled towards Galatea's dark cabin. He sat down at the dining couch, very slowly. The pounding in his head was heavy, resonating throughout his body.

This headache is at least half a bottle of Vodka's worth of hangover
, he thought to himself sourly, though pleased he hadn't lost his sense of humor.

He flicked on a small fluorescent light and the cabin flooded with white glow. He reached slowly for the galley on his right, and found the small coffee pot, holding it by the black handle. One of the advantages of the tight confines of a boat is that nothing is too far away. He only had to raise himself a couple of inches off the seat to put the coffee pot on the stove and turn on the gas, the amber flame warming the cold fluorescent light.

As he waited for the coffee to boil, the gears in his brain started turning, gathering momentum, spinning faster and faster. Like a precision Swiss set they hummed in an ever-increasing pitch up to a whine that would fade into total silence once the wheels reached their normal operating speed.

First of all, the boat had not sunk yet
, he thought, relieved.

He could not hear any water gushing through holes in the hull, nor sloshing about in the bilge.

This means she is also not about to sink. So, the things to do now are to wait for the coffee to brew and take care of this damn pain in my head
.

He was half through his second cup of very black and sweet coffee when the thought occurred to him -
the boat is sailing all by herself. She might go aground, and I don't even know where I am
. He bolted up into the cockpit like a lightning in a storm. He didn't have to see what he was doing; he knew it all by heart. He disengaged the wind pilot, pushed the tiller hard to Port and tightened the jib sheet. The Galatea turned gracefully into the wind and beyond. The jib sail caught the wind on its backside. Avri didn't let the sheet go; instead he secured it to the cleat and watched the boom swing around. Pushed by the easterly wind, it came to rest on the Starboard side. He pulled the tiller all the way and tied it there. This position, known as heave-to, is the closest thing a sailboat has to a parking brake. Apart from a very slow drift, she would hold her position in the water.

Back in the cabin he took the logbook from a small bookshelf above the navigation table. The cover was a light green soft leather -like plastic. Kostas’ twelve-year old daughter had painted a large grinning fish on the front cover. He opened the logbook at the marker and started retracing his voyage.

Names and places, dates and comments brought the journey back in living color:

- June 26, 0915, sailing out of Kos, home to that first doctor of them all, Hippocrates. Nothing new, prices going up, skip on further cruises.

--

--

- June 24, 1720, Kalimnos. Papantonio's wife died. He runs the taverna with his daughter-in-law now. The food is still good. Skip the fish - they smell oily now.

--

--

- June 17, past midnight, Datcha. Too drunk to write. Adam likes my pepper-flavored Vodka too.

His boat ledger was a crossbreed of a standard nautical logbook and a travel diary. He thought it more useful this way for future cruises. "It may be nice to read when I'm too old to sail,” he thought to himself.

The last entry in the book was purely naval -

- June 16, 1605, DR position 37º43'N, 27º31'E.

BARO - 1016 steady

Main + 110% Genoa

Course 345º MAG W.V. Automatic

"That's it,” the memory finally clicking into place. "I hit something. I got hit myself!” He touched the top of his head. There was a nasty lump covered with matted hair. A thick crust of dried blood covered the left side of his head. He traced it down, behind the ear over his neck down the shoulder to his chest. "Hey, I better stop before I discover I have actually bled to death," he muttered, disturbed by the seemingly huge quantity of blood that had gushed from the wound.

He got up slowly and, carrying the torch in his left hand, pulled himself to the shower. The mirror on the bulkhead above the sink did not reveal anything new. There were no injuries except for that nasty bump on the head, the one he had already gotten used to.

His watch pointed to twenty minutes after four in the morning. It will be light in less than an hour. He took a brief shower, being careful not to disturb the wound. He changed into fresh clothes, not unlike the ones he wore before, and put on a new pot of coffee.

At this latitude, daylight precedes the sunrise by almost an hour. The sun was still low behind the Turkish mountains when Avri stepped out onto the bow, looking for traces of last night’s incident. He passed the forward hatch, holding onto the portside stainless steel standing rig. The wind on the Starboard was steady and moderate, blowing onto the inverted jib as the Galatea rode the gentle swell heaving-to.

This was when he first saw the antenna - half buried in the forecastle bay, wedged into the smashed Port side of the hull. It was a most unusual piece of hardware, but even a brief glimpse was enough to recognize it as a radar antenna feed hardware.

He used a piece of cord, which he took from a storage bin under the left cockpit seat to secure this new addition onto a deck cleat.

He wished he had never hit the thing but now, once the damage had been done, there was no sense in losing it.

Sunrise was imminent. He went back to the cabin, took the sextant out of a polished wooden box and stepped back out to the cockpit. When the sun peered over the hazy horizon, Avri was ready for it. He took a compass bearing to the rising sun and noted the reading. He then waited for a while until the sun was well into the sky.

Looking through the eyepiece of the sextant, Avri picked up the glowing orb in the sky and slid the instrument's arm until the sun's image touched the surface of the Aegean Sea. Then, slowly rocking the sextant left and right and gently adjusting the micrometer screw, he made sure the red ball just skimmed the top of the water. This was the right sighting of the sun. At this moment he noted the exact time. Now he had all the data he needed to determine his new position.

He went down to the navigation table and calculated his location - 37º10'N 27º8’E. This, he noted, would put him 5 miles west of the coast of Turkey, about 15 miles south of the Greek island of Samos. He plotted the course to the lower part of the island and set the cursor on the cockpit compass to this heading - 320º. He untied the tiller, eased the jib sheet and pulled in the other one on the lee side. The Galatea, released from the heave-to constraints picked up speed sailing south, her sails full again with the easterly wind. As soon as she passed the two knot mark, Avri turned her again. He pushed the tiller gradually all the way into the wind, turning the boat 180º through the eye of the wind. He then adjusted the helm gently until the compass pointed 320º and locked it on to the wind vane. The jib fluttered rapidly at the leech and the main developed a slight bulge at the center. A couple of smart adjustments took care of both sails and the Galatea sailed once more on her course, in perfect harmony with the wind and sea.

They were heading toward Samos, sailing at 6 knots, heeling steadily 15º to Starboard and laying a gentle wake behind them.

Now Avri walked to the bow, to that ugly piece of hardware sticking out of her side like a harpoon.

It took him the better part of an hour to dislodge the antenna from the hull, being careful to minimize any further damage to the fiberglass. Once the antenna was out, he used one of the empty sail bags to cover the hole, tying it to the bow rails.

That should keep some of the water out,
he thought as he took the antenna down to the cabin. He placed it on the table, poured another cup of coffee and stared at the damned thing.

* * * * *

Examining the antenna, he now noticed that it was a dual frequency unit, designed to operate at a very high range defined as millimeter wavelength. The assembly was an ingenious arrangement of two types of antennae resulting in a compact and precise unit.

The antenna system intrigued Avri. He turned it in his hands, inspecting it from all sides, analyzing its components, admiring the design. A rather conventional parabolic reflector housed the higher range inverse-cassagrain type in its center.

At times he admired its unknown designer, not without a bit of professional envy. He measured the opening of the waveguide sections at the horn with a micrometer he took out of the engine's toolbox. They measured 9.14X by 5.59 millimeters at the reflector feed and 4.57 by 3.30 millimeter at the inverse-cassagrain feed. He calculated from this that the antennas operated at 34 and 94 gigahertz. From the reflectors’ measurements he deduced the beam-width of each antenna: three degrees for the lower frequency beam and one degree for the 94 gigahertz one. The hardware behind the antennas was strictly low power type. No high power components - strictly receiving type equipment with no transmission capability.

Turning it around in his hands, he examined the exterior of the intricate structure. It was a tad slimy and well tight.

This would mean that it is a naval unit,
he thought
or that it has been in the water for a while
.

He scratched the surface with a knife; it was made of brass.
Not likely an airborne piece of hardware. Too heavy for that
.

Since there is no civilian use for such high frequency systems it must be military in origin
.

The mystery of its source intrigued him.
Where on earth could it have come from?
The ruptured sections at the base of the antenna
looked fresh and clean. No corrosion.
That means the damn thing was still attached to something when I hit it
.

Some of the parts had markings on them in Cyrillic letters. It must be Russian. He recalled seeing similar markings back in Israel in 1967, and again after the 1973 war. It was on some Russian military equipment that was captured in the Sinai desert.

The obvious conclusion hit him like a tempest:
I must have hit a submarine. A Russian submarine
.

His pulse quickened with a mixture of exhilaration and fear, his mind spinning wildly. He had to think about it. This, he felt, would have some consequences. His head was still heavy from the blow and his reasoning sluggish. He stepped out of the cabin and sat on top of the cabin roof. Here, in the open air and the shade of the full mainsail he let the breeze, cool and clean breeze clear his mind. Here he tried to think again.

What on earth would a Russian sub be doing with a millimeter-wave antenna?

Well, she must have been snooping, eavesdropping on something. Since neither Turkey nor Greece is much of an electronic whiz country, and since there is no NATO activity in this region either, then what the hell were they listening to
?

Avri could not find an answer to that. He only knew that the antennas were designed for the only two frequencies in the millimeter wavelength that, for some mysterious physical phenomena, were useable within the earth's atmosphere.

The Russian sub,
he thought,
they must have realized the antenna is gone. They know they didn't collide with a ship, or a big power boat - those vessels make a lot of noise. So they probably figured they hit a small boat
.

"Holy shit!" - And this time he was shouting, up on his feet and extremely troubled.
These Goddamn Russians must be looking for me by now
. He slammed the mast with a flat hand, cussing again.
I must get rid of the antenna and I must fix that hole in the bow
.

And then he realized the urgency of it all. He must get out of here, and in a hurry. The Galatea was a fast sailing boat, but not nearly fast enough to race a submarine. He started moving fast. A clock started ticking in his mind, counting time with sharp thumps that mirrored his headache. Boom - got to find a hiding place. Bang – got to fix the hole. Boom - get rid of that darn antenna. Bang - and think, what else. Boom Bang… Boom – God!

Oh, what a way to ruin a vacation
, he thought almost aloud as he raced down to his navigation table. Working out the charts, he plotted a new course to a tiny island named Agathonissi, the closest Greek island to his present position. He chose a Greek island because he didn't think it wise to land, with this kind of a problem on Turkish soil. Not that the Greeks may necessarily prove more helpful than the Turks, but it would be simpler to keep things quiet in a small Greek fishing village than under the watchful, omnipresent, eyes of the Turkish authorities.

Avri stepped out into the sun-filled cockpit and set a new course 255º - directly to Agathonissi - sailing almost dead-on West with the wind on his Port quarter. With the elegance that comes with experience, he trimmed the sails to the new course. He first let the mainsail all the way to Starboard. Then, with the help of a spinnaker pole, he set the Genoa far out to port. The Galatea was now running at six knots before the wind, rolling slowly from side to side as she must when spreading her sails in this wing-and-wing fashion. He then brought up one more sail from the forepeak. This one, the spinnaker, was very colorful and larger yet. He bent the sail to the halyard, hooked-up a second spinnaker pole with its topping lift, down haul and running guy, and sent it up into the wind. A Spinnaker plus a Genoa was a very unusual combination, not usually hoisted. Risking a deadly broach, Avri decided on using it on the spur of the moment, speed now preceding safety as he raced away from the area.