To Kill the Potemkin (14 page)

Potemkin
had sailed submerged through the Norwegian Sea, the Iceland
Gap and the Strait of Gibraltar without being detected. Federov had run
the
Strait by going deeper than the NATO sonar operators expected,
positioning
himself under a giant tanker and drifting through with the current and
short
bursts of electric power. Once in the Med, Federov concealed
Potemkin
's identity
even from other Soviet ships. The officers of the surveillance ships
with whom
he communicated, and who reported to him the movements of the American
fleet,
thought
Potemkin
was a Viktor.

During
the
cruise, the longest submerged patrol in Soviet history,
Potemkin
had exceeded
her design specifications. Federov had tested her depth and speed, her
weapons,
sonars, and electronics, all with glorious results. As he approached
the
American fleet, at a depth of
only four hundred feet, his orders were to test the ultimate
effectiveness of
one more system: Acoustical Reproduction Device Number Seven.

A
Sony
tape recorder was mounted above the sonar console. Transfixed, the men
in the
control room listened as the reels spun out the song of the
Swordfish
. The
taped signature of the American sub was the heart of a complex
apparatus
designed to make American sonar operators think
Potemkin
was one of
their own. An earlier test had demonstrated that the device could make
the
Americans believe
Potemkin
was a Viktor.

Seven
American submarines and fourteen surface
ships were involved in the exercise. In a locked vault in the captain's
cabin
Potemkin
carried tapes of every American nuclear sub. Of the
seven subs in
the war game,
Fcderov had elected to simulate
Swordfish
because
she was
the oldest and noisiest.

Federov
was not
fond of Acoustical
Reproduction Device Number Seven. For ten weeks he had eluded detection
without
it. With the aid of the thermal beneath him, he believed he could
station
Potemkin
directly under
Kitty Hawk
without the Americans suspecting
he was there.

But
orders were
orders, the tape was rolling,
the special sound-absorbent silicon packing that quieted
Potemkin's
turbine was in place, and she was running shallow and slow, just as
Swordfish
would do as part of the American defense.

Since
testing the
Viktor tape on
Barracuda, Potemkin
had encountered no American sub. Should
the genuine
Swordfish
happen to be in radio contact with the surface
fleet at that
moment,
Potemkin
was going to attract a lot more
attention than the
designers of Acoustical Reproduction Device Number Seven had planned
for.

On
the sonar
screen the nearest blip, a
destroyer, turned toward
Potemkin
. A moment later
everyone on board
heard the ping of the American's echo ranger.

Federov
looked
around the control room at the
tense bearded and sweating faces. He switched on the intercom. "Engine
room, how's the packing on the turbine?"

"Running
hot,
sir, but holding."

"Destroyer
range?"

"Five
thousand
meters," said Popov.
"He's... he's turning back. Captain."

On
the screen the
blip revolved back to its
original course. A muffled cheer chorused through the control room.

"Silence!"
ordered the captain.

"It's
working,"
gloated First
Officer Kurnachov, who was officially responsible for Acoustical
Reproduction
Device Number Seven. Kurnachov was also the Political Officer, the
representative of the Party, and he had great faith in the prowess of
Soviet
technology.

"Don't
be so
sure, Comrade First
Officer. All this means is that, for the moment, the Americans are more
screwed
up than we are."

Kurnachov
turned
back to his diving panel,
making a mental note to write a memo about the captain's tasteless
remark.
"The only thing I regret, Captain First Rank Federov, is that we cannot
surface and reveal the Alpha to the Americans, to throw it in their
faces.
Their metallurgists can't build a submarine of titanium. They would
give
anything to photograph our pretty ship."

Federov,
tuning
him out, had the uneasy
feeling that he was being sucked into a trap. In ten minutes he would
be inside
the American perimeter, steaming directly at
Kitty Hawk
.
He wanted a drink. In his hip
pocket was a silver flask filled with vodka, the cheap, flavorless
table vodka
the Ministry of Trade sold to the Americans under the label
Stolichnaya. He was
tempted to pull it out and down a stiff belt, but resisted. Later,
after the
test was completed, he would lock himself in his cabin with Alexis, the
chief
engineer, and empty the flask.

He
was weary of
playing war with the
Americans. He either wanted to make war or make peace, put an end to
the
purgatory of waiting. If this were war,
Kitty Hawk
would be sunk by now,
and perhaps
Potemkin
as well, but at least that
would be a clean and
honorable finish to this dirty business of game-playing and its
gamesmanship.

Federov
had spent
fifteen years in subs,
fifteen years in—what did the Americans call it in their
journals?—inner
space: the lightless, heartless, impersonal ocean that had swallowed
him, his ship and his
crew. Inner space—the hostile, menacing sea, relentlessly seeking every
microscopic flaw in every tiny weld; ruthlessly testing every square
millimeter
of the pressure hull, looking for the weak spot, the casual error of
every
drunken shipyard worker, every lazy quality control inspector—
nyet,
his
mind was wandering...

"Range
to
Kitty Hawk?
"

"Twenty
thousand meters."

Suddenly
Popov was out of his seat, his eyes fixed on the screen. "
Captain,
there's
another
sub... he's right
under
us."

"General
quarters. General Quarters. All hands man battle stations, nuclear."

The
announcement came over
Barracuda
's loudspeakers in a
whisper. Quietly,
feet encased in rubber shoes, the crew rushed through the ship. They
were about
to "nuke" the
Hawk
—their main target.

Willie
Joe was positive the sub was
Swordfish.
Even though
the thermal layer
distorted the sounds made by the other sub, the computer had verified
his
judgement.

Sorensen
and Fogarty relieved Willie Joe, who hurried forward in his asbestos
suit to
his damage-control station.

Springfield's
tactic was quite simple and dated back to the Second World War. As
Swordfish
passed overhead, he would rise into the blind spot of her sonar, her
"baffles," and follow directly behind her prop. Sonars of surface
ships would read the two submarines as one. When he reached optimum
range he
would launch a pair of fish at
Kitty Hawk
, then
attempt to
"sink"
Swordfish
.

Optimum
range for Mark Forty-five
nuclear torpedoes was sixteen thousand yards, about nine miles. At that
range
the sonars could track a target and program the fire-control computers,
which
in turn set the guidance systems aboard the weapons. Nine miles was
sufficiently
distant from the target to avoid
Barracuda
s
destruction by shock waves
from nuclear blasts.

"Range
to
Kitty Hawk
."

"Eighteen
thousand yards," replied Hoek, reading from the screen in his attack
console.

"Range
to
Swordfish
."

"Two
hundred
yards."

"Fire
control,
set for sixteen thousand yards."

"Fire
control,
set and locked for sixteen thousand yards."

"Set
for
impact detonation."

"Set
and
locked for impact detonation."

"Torpedo
room,
load torpedoes in tubes one and four."

In
the torpedo
room
Lopez and his crew carefully slid Mark Forty-fives into the two
uppermost
torpedo tubes.

Lopez
spoke into
his microphone, "Torpedo room to control. Torpedoes loaded in tubes one
and four."

"Flood
tubes
one and four."

"Flood
tubes,
aye."

The
nose of the
sub
dipped slightly as the torpedo tubes were opened to the sea.

From
the moment
Sorensen sat down to listen to the approaching sub, he sensed that
something
was peculiar. He checked Willie Joe's log and punched up the signature
program
for
Swordfish
.

Apparently
oblivious to
Barracuda
's presence, the sub was
almost on top of them. He
discerned the sounds of coolant pumps, reduction gears, secondary pumps
and the
odd cadence of a faulty bearing on one saltwater pump that had been a
chronic
problem on
Swordfish
for years.

He
bumped Fogarty
with his elbow to get his
attention. On a notepad he scribbled SWORDFISH. Fogarty nodded.
Sorensen smiled
his most wicked smile, drew a line through the word SWORDFISH and
sketched a
hammer and sickle.

Fogarty
paled.
"You sure?"

Sorensen
nodded.
Soviet submarines frequently
appeared during NATO exercises, making deep fast runs under NATO
formations.
This was a new twist, trying to sneak in with an acoustic cover.

"This
is a real
cute one," said
Sorensen, shaking his head.

Fogarty
felt a
deep twinge. "What's
happening?"

"Listen
up," said
Sorensen.
"This is a Russian submarine."

Fogarty
listened.
It sounded like
Swordfish
to him. Sorensen played the
Swordfish
signature program,
and then Fogarty heard the difference too.

With
every
revolution of the Russian prop,
Kitty Hawk
and the war game faded into insignificance.

"Oh,
boy."
Sorensen spoke into the
intercom. "Lieutenant Hoek."

"Yes,
sonar."

"Can
you step in
here a moment,
sir?"

Hoek
entered the
sonar room.

"Sir,"
said
Sorensen, his face
innocent of any expression.

"Yes,
Sorensen."

"I
know the
Swordfish
, sir. I
know every sound she makes.
She's a noisy boat, if you don't mind my saying so, Lieutenant, but not
as
noisy as she was before her last refit. They fixed the bearings in her
saltwater pumps. What we are listening to here is the way
Swordfish
used
to sound, not the way she sounds now."

"What
are you
trying to say, Sorensen?
What does all that mean?"

"I
don't know, sir, except I think the submarine we are listening to is not
Swordfish
."

Hoek
chewed his lip. "Well, who is it, then?"

Sorensen
lifted his eyebrows. "The Israelis?"

"Don't
be smart, Sorensen. The Israelis don't have nuke boats."

"Are
you sure, Lieutenant? They have everything else."

Fogarty
fought to keep a straight face.

"Maybe
it's the French, sir?" Sorensen suggested.

"Why
would the French want to make us think they were one of our subs?"

"I
haven't the foggiest, sir. but somebody
is
trying to
pull a fast one.
Somebody wants us to think that is one of our subs out there, but it
isn't.
It's a dirty trick."

Hoek's
eyes lit up as the dawn broke. In the core of his finely honed,
Annapolis-trained mind he at last came to the correct conclusion. "It's
the goddamned Russians."

"You
really think so, sir?"

Hoek
could
hardly contain himself. He rushed back to the control room to inform
the
captain of his discovery. Seconds later the captain made a rare
appearance in
the sonar room. "What do you think, Sorensen?"

"It's
gotta be a Russkie, sir, probably that same Viktor we ran into on the
way out
here. It sure as hell isn't the old
Swordfish
. They
fixed that pump for sure. I
spotted it right off the bat
and we checked it against the tape. That boat has some kind of gadget
rigged to
make it sound like
Swordfish
.
She fooled those destroyers."

"Play
the tape."

Springfield
listened. The distinction was obvious.

"All
right, carry on. Good work, Sorensen."

As
the Russian sub passed directly overhead, the sound
was an exact imitation of
Swordfish
before her pumps
were repaired.
Everyone aboard
Barracuda
heard the Doppler effect.

"Attention,
all
hands. This is the
captain. Prepare for sleep angles. Take us up, Leo. We have to assume
she knows
we're here, and that she's testing her cover on us. For the moment we
will let
her think it works. Put us in her blind spot. In any case, she may hear
us blow
our tanks."

Pisaro
pushed a
sequence of buttons on his
diving panel. Compressed air expelled the seawater from two trim tanks,
and
Barracuda
rose six hundred feet directly behind
Potemkin
. She
matched the Russian's speed and
began to follow a scant two hundred yards behind.

In
the sonar room
Fogarty tracked the carrier
while Sorensen monitored the sub, which suddenly began to turn.

"Sonar
to
control," Sorensen said.
"Contact is turning left twelve degrees."

"Helm,
left
twelve degrees. Keep right
on her."

The
helmsman
pushed his joystick over to the
left and
Barracuda
banked like an airplane.

As
far as
Springfield was concerned the war
game was suspended. They would stay on the tail of the Russian sub
until they
either obtained a positive identification or lost it.