To Kill the Potemkin (31 page)

He
grabbed a
magazine.
National Geographic
.
Clean, slick. He flipped through
it, knowing he would never find the article he wanted to read...
"Inside the Newest Soviet Submarine—the Alpha, a Marvel of the Deep."
He wondered what its name was. The Russians named their subs for cities
or
heroes of the People. They didn't have one named
Joseph Stalin
,
so maybe
that was it. After all, it had sounded like a tank division. Whatever
had made
it quiet at first had stopped working for good—he caught himself. He
had hoped
he could forget about the Russians for an hour but apparently he
couldn't.
Whenever he pushed them out of his mind for five minutes, one popped up
again
where he wasn't expected—sort of like old Zapata there.

It
was, it
seemed, finally getting to him. He
had left his mind behind a long time ago, and it occurred to him that
if he
stayed underwater much longer he would damn well lose it forever. As a
young
man, hardly more than a boy, he had found a perfect niche for his
talent. His
temperament was suited to life underwater. He enjoyed it so much he
never
pulled back and questioned it. Now, for the first time in his life he
was
confused by doubts. By tears. Yes, the Ace was afraid. He began to
speak again
to Zapata.

"Listen
up, bug.
They want to make me
chief of the boat. What do you make of that? If I was chief, for once
things
would get done right. No Muzak on my boat, no way. And no bullshit,
definitely
no bullshit. Better movies too. And
Star Trek
every
day if I want it.
Man, being chief is better than being captain. I would
own
the
pharmacist's mate. The supply officer would be
mine
.

"Would
you like
to hear a secret? I'll
tell you why I really joined the navy. When I was a kid in Oakland my
dad used
to take me to watch the Giants play in old Seals Stadium in San
Francisco. We'd
go to watch Willie Mays. Willie was different. He was the best. He
never let up
and never gave less than one hundred percent. When he stepped between
the white
lines he was
all
there, and I wanted to be like him.
One day we drove
across the bridge to watch the Giants and the Cardinals. Bob Gibson
hung a
curve ball and Willie sent it into the parking lot. After the game we
found the
ball lying on the front seat of our car. Willie had smashed the
windshield five
hundred feet from home plate. That busted windshield was like a
monument to
true
greatness, and we drove downtown with the wind of Willie's bat in our
faces.

"After
the game
we went downtown to eat.
Market Street was always jammed with sailors from Hunter's Point. I
thought
they were pretty sharp in their uniforms and cocky hats. They all had
Lucky
Strikes stuffed into their jumper pockets, and they strutted up and
down the
sidewalk like recruiting posters. On the day that Willie hit that home
run I
knew I'd never be a ballplayer, so in the back of my mind I figured the
next
best thing was to be a sailor. So, here I am, and you want to know
something?
I'm the best at what I do. Like Willie. I ain't braggin', it's the
truth.
Anyway, there's no one here but you and me, right?... Except just
what do I
have to show for it? Ten years underwater, an ex-wife, string of
dockside
whores, binges, brawls and a bunch of stripes down my arm. Nothing
fixed, no
lady. In this life nothing matters except the ship, a set of earphones
and the
screen. Well, they're taking the ship away and want to give me a new
one. I've
done my bit, just like
Barracuda.
Me and the ship,
we're finishing
together... That Netts, he's trying to jack me off with his line of
baloney.
He knows I can make thirty, forty grand a year in any sound studio in
the
world, so he wants to make me chief of the boat. Wang it, Netts. Chief
of the
boat and then what? Another five years of Cowboys and Cossacks? Making
the
world safe for World War Three?... Well, old buddy, I ain't gonna be
no
chief of no boat. Fuck no. I'll get my own studio somewhere. Sorensen
Sound,
three hundred dollars an hour. Not bad. Right on Market Street. No more
chasing
around. Besides, nobody in his right mind wants to live underwater. So
why am I
doing this?" He grinned. "I know why, because I'm alive down here. I
also love it. Well, I'd better learn to live topside, love something
else."

Sorensen
noticed
that Zapata was ignoring
him. "Listen up, bug. I'm
talking
to you. I've done
my job, this
kid Fogarty has talent, let him be the new Sorensen, ace of the fleet.
The next
ten years can be his. I don't need any more Cowboys and Cossacks. You
and me,
Zapata, we're going to
fade into the goddamn sunset..."

Sorensen
closed his eyes and for the first time in years slept without
nightmares. Zapata basked silently in the light, observing him.

Eight
hours later Sorensen and Fogarty mustered in the sonar room for their
next
watch. Sorensen had slept too long under the sunlamps and had a sunburn.

As
Willie
Joe was logging out, Sorensen asked, "You ready for your qualifying
exam,
Willie Joe?"

"The
Lieutenant says I've got Fire Control down pat."

"You're
gonna make it, no sweat."

"Thanks,
Ace."

"You
got plans for the thirty day leave, Willie Joe?"

"Sure
do. Me and the old lady are takin' the kids to Baton Rouge. That's
where her
folks are. They got a nice place, a big back porch all screened in.
Keeps the
bugs out."

"You
going to buy that new Bonneville?"

"You
said it. Gonna get me some high-class Detroit steel and cruise on down
to
Louisiana. You never went for cars, did you, Ace?"

"Never
had much time to drive 'em."

"You
ain't got an old lady. Them bitches, all they wanna do is show off in
the
parking lot at the supermarket. I don't give a shit. If that's what she
wants,
well, it beats her banging the whole fleet while I'm on patrol."

Sorensen
nodded, keeping a straight face, and Willie
Joe opened the door. "I'm outta here. Maybe you'll get lucky and catch
a
Russian."

Barracuda
was running slow and quiet. Two more messages had been
received from Norfolk.
Dherzinski
continued on the
same course, but
between the first and second messages the Alpha had disappeared five
hundred
miles southwest of the Azores.

Figuring
the Alpha was waiting at the rendezvous point for
Dherzinski
,
Springfield maintained a course
five miles south and parallel to the projected track of
Dherzinski
.
He knew it wouldn't be long before
they intercepted the huge missile sub which he calculated was less than
fifty
miles away.

Between
watches, Fogarty had spent four hours listening to tapes of Soviet
FBMs. The
tape of
Dherzinski
, collected
as she entered Havana harbor, was clear and distinct, and he had
listened to it
several times.

"Say,
Ace, how long has this boat
been
making patrols out of Cuba?"

"A
year."

"How
did she get in there in the first place?"

"She
must have crossed the Pacific from Vladivostok, passed around Cape Horn
and
come up through the South Atlantic. A British sub,
Conqueror,
picked her
up off the Faulklands and followed her all the way to Havana. The
Russians
never knew
Conqueror
was there, and they still think
we don't know
anything about
Dherzinski
."

"I'm
surprised the Brits or somebody didn't get crazy and blow her away."

"Maybe
they should have, but of course we've
been trying to find a way to get her out of the Caribbean for good
without
firing a shot. Sinking a boomer under any circumstances is bad news.
I'll tell
you one thing, I bet her
skipper
is unhappy right now. I bet he'd like to put a fish into the
Alpha himself for making him risk exposure."

For
three hours
they listened and drank
coffee. They heard a lone whale sing a mournful song, but no surface
ships and
no submarines. Fogarty listened to the tape of
Dherzinski
several more
times.

Sorensen
yawned
and stretched.

"You
sound tired.
Ace."

"Shit,
Fogarty.
They want to promote me
to chief and put me on a new boat in the Pacific."

"Congratulations.
A lifer like you, what
more could you ask for?"

"I'm
going to
turn it down."

Fogarty
was
stunned. "I don't believe
it. Not you, not the great Sorensen."

"Yeah,
well. I'm
going to be the former
great." He pointed to the speakers, which were churning out the
signature
of
Dherzinski
.
"I
don't want to hear one of those things ever again."

"What
do you
mean? This is what it's all
about, isn't it?"

"It
sure is, but
this is it for me. I'm
not going aboard
Guitarro
,
you are. I talked to Pisaro about it. He's going to be the CO. Willie
Joe is
going too. You can look after the Russians, you're going to be the
hotshot."

"Me?
Come on,
Ace."

"Look,
Fogarty,
number one, you're good
enough. You've got it. Number two, you're hooked. You
want
to
do it,
whether you know it or not. Number three, you don't want a war but
number four,
you've come a long way, now you'll fight if you have to. You're gonna
be bad,
dude."

Fogarty
was
embarrassed, partly for being
pleased at Sorensen's words.

"Am
I
right or am I right?"

"We'll
see... but what about you, Sorensen? If you're not going onto
Guitarro
what are you going to do?"

"Sorensen
Sound Effects, three hundred an hour... But first we're going
fishing for a
big fish, and hope we don't get hooked."

They
were
almost at the end of their watch when Fogarty saw the streak flash
across his
screen. He recognized it the instant he heard it.

"Contact,
bearing two eight eight, range fourteen thousand yards, course zero
seven six,
speed eighteen knots, identification, Soviet Hotel class FBM,
Dherzinski
."

Sorensen
barely glanced at the screen. "Okay, champ, feed it to the skipper."

"Don't
you want to check it?"

"Nope."

"Sonar
to control," said Fogarty, and repeated the data over the intercom.

"All
stop. Quiet in the boat," ordered Springfield.

The
sonar
screens immediately cleared as
Barracuda
glided to
a stop. Fogarty
closed his eyes and listened to the rumble of machinery gliding through
the
ocean.
Dherzinski
's missiles, like
Vallejo
's,
represented Fogarty's worst
nightmare. And it popped into
his head that one way to get rid of them would be to sink
Dherzinski
right now—and that thought made him sweat. What was happening to him?...

Sorensen
lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the air conditioner.

"Does
she know we're here?" Fogarty asked him.

"I
don't think so. We're too quiet. If she hears us, her commander will
take
evasive action, or threaten us."

"What
are we
going to do?"

"Follow
her.
She'll lead us to the
Alpha. In a few hours we're going to be on top of the two most secret
ships in
the Soviet Navy.
Dherzinski
must need something from
the Alpha. Or
vice-versa. Otherwise they'd never pull her off-station. I figure the
last thing
the Russians expect is for us to show up. If we're lucky we'll catch
them
together on the surface."

"What
will they
do?"

"I
don't read
minds, kid. But I do know
Springfield will do his job, which won't win us the Order of Lenin—"

"Control
to
sonar."

"Sonar,
aye."

"We're
going to
play tag. Let's keep our
range between ten thousand and twelve thousand yards."

"Sonar
to
control, aye aye."

Barracuda
fell in behind
Dherzinski
and began to follow the
huge missile sub at a
distance of six miles. Steaming on an easterly course,
Dherzinski
rolled
through the sea like Leviathan, her computers continuously tracking
targets on
the east coast of the United States fourteen hundred miles away. The
noise from
the boomer's engines was so loud that her sonar operators never heard
the
American sub.

Sorensen
quietly
listened to the sounds of
machinery, then spoke up. "You know, Fogarty, as of now we're tailing a
part of the strategic deterrence of the Soviet Union. She's got the
capacity to
hit our coast cities, and she's in our sights. If she so much as floods
a
missile tube... well, we can't give her a chance to launch a
missile. Shit
like this gives me the jitters."

Fogarty
stared at
the blip on his screen.

Fifty
miles away
Potemkin
hovered six
hundred feet down, waiting for
Dherzinski
.
Potemkin
had not
moved from the rendezvous point in
eighteen hours, and the atmosphere inside the sub was fetid, the crew
anemic,
weak and irritable. The seven reactor engineers with virulent colds
grew
steadily worse. The constant bombardment by neutron radiation was
killing the
marrow in their bones. They were going to be transferred to
Dherzinski
and replaced with engineers from the FBM, and it had better happen fast.

In
the cramped
crew quarters in the stern.
Engineering Officer Lieutenant Third Rank Polokov lay dying of
infection. He
pleaded with Federov to make the sign of the cross over him.