To Kill the Potemkin (33 page)

He
spoke into his
headset. "Radio, did
the American transmit?"

"No,
sir, not
yet."

He
took a deep
breath, wiped his eyes.
"Range to target."

"Range
one
thousand meters."

"Start
torpedo
guidance sonar."

"Guidance
on."

And
silently he
screamed across the sea at
the periscopes, at the American captain, at Gorshkov... This is
madness...

In
Barracuda's
sonar room Sorensen and
Fogarty snatched away their earphones just in time. The screech of the
Russian
targeting sonar erupted from the loudspeakers.

"Sonar
to
control, she's activated her
target frequency."

"Down
scopes.
Retract antennae. Right
full rudder. All ahead full. Stern planes down twenty degrees. Take us
down to
four hundred feet, Leo. All hands prepare for evasive maneuvers."

In the
maneuvering room Chief Wong opened the
main steam valve all the way, and
Barracuda
's prop
suddenly turned the
sea to foam. The helmsman pushed his joystick over to the right and
tilted it
forward. The ship banked, tilted forward, and shot down into the depths.

Springfield
watched the depth gauge as
Barracuda
rapidly approached four hundred feet.

"We're
going to
come around and make
sure there's no torpedo on our stern. Left full rudder."

Still
accelerating and descending, the ship
wrenched to the left.

"Control
to
sonar, activate ultrasonic
torpedo detection frequency."

"Sonar
to
control, activating torpedo
detection frequency."

A
burst of
ultrasonic pulses searched the
water for a hard, swiftly moving object. "Sonar to control. No contact.
He
didn't shoot."

"Very well.
Secure echo ranger. Helm,
make our course zero four five. Depth, eight hundred feet. We'll go
under the
thermal and give him a run for his money. We have positive proof of her
existence, Leo. I tell you, she's going to come after us. We won't be
able to
pick up
Dherzinski
until we know the Alpha is on her
way north."

Pisaro was still
holding the Nikon. "We
got the goods. Do you think
Dherzinski
will try to
go back to
Cuba?"

"Maybe. Maybe
not. If she does try,
she'll run into our blockade. Then she'll know for sure that we have
the
ability to track her. Eventually the Russians will discover SOSUS. When
they do
they'll know we can pinpoint
Dherzinski
wherever she
goes, and that
should be the end of her Caribbean patrols. The next time we have a
chance to
send up a buoy we'll get a SOSUS report on
Dherzinski
. Control to sonar, where's the
boomer now?"

"Sonar
to
control. Five thousand, two
hundred yards. Speed fifteen knots and increasing. She's submerging
now, but
I'm about to lose them both above the thermal. The Alpha is still on
the
surface."

Barracuda
descended to eight hundred feet, turned northeast, and began to move
away from
Potemkin
.

Federov
scrambled
off the bridge, down the
ladder and into the control room. One glance at the diving panel told
him all
the hatches were sealed.

"Identification,
Popov."

"It's
Barracuda
, Captain."

As
he had
thought. "What's his
course?"

"Zero
four five.
He's running away. I'm
about to lose him under a thermal."

"We must catch
him." To stop those
pictures of
Potemkin
from being delivered, to insure
Dherzinski
getting
safely back to its lair. Once again a litany, to keep
himself
on course... "Belay torpedo guidance. We're going right down there with
him.
Engineering, this is the captain. Fast dive. Take us down to three
hundred
meters. Flood tanks, now."

Alexis opened all
the saltwater vents and
Potemkin
dropped like an anchor, an extremely dangerous
maneuver. One
hundred fifty meters down and rapidly descending, Federov ordered,
"Blow
tanks. Neutral buoyancy. Alexis, stop us at three hundred meters."

It took all of
Alexis's engineering skill to
slow
Potemkin
's
rate of
descent without suddenly popping back to the surface or completely
losing
control and sliding down to crush depth and imploding. He shouted
through the
intercom.

"Captain,
we must
make way to get some
lift on the planes."

"All
ahead slow."

Potemkin
moved forward
and
gradually stopped sinking. Alexis stopped her at exactly three hundred
meters,
a thousand feet down.

"Popov, is
Barracuda
back on your
screen?"

"Yes, sir, we're
under the thermal
now—there he is, bearing zero four five. Speed estimated fifteen knots
and
increasing. And there's
Dherzinski
."
On Popov's screen
Dherzinski
was steaming due north,
by now almost out
of sonar range.

Alexis appeared
in the control room.
"Captain," he said quietly so as not to be overheard by the others,
"are we
going to try to rendezvous with
Dherzinski
again?
We have to get these sick men off the ship. They're too sick to work,
and I
need engineers. I can barely spare the men I need to crank the stern
planes by
hand."

Federov
spoke
without looking at him.
"We must eliminate the American sub first. There is no other way."

"Did
he transmit?"

"No, and we will
not give him a chance.
You know our orders as well as I do. Don't think about it, Alexis.
Don't.
He would do the same thing if the situation were reversed." He needed
to
believe that.

"This
American is
no fool, Nikolai, and
his boat is very quiet..."

"All
ahead two
thirds," was
Federov's reply. "Course zero four five. We're right on his stern
now."

In the control
room of
Barracuda
each
man felt both tension and exultation. The film was a success:
seventy-two sharp
photos of the Soviet subs. Luther had blown up one of the photos, and
Springfield had a grainy eight-by-ten print of the Russian captain's
face. High
cheekbones, dark eyes and a peaked cap.

"He
must be the
CO," said Pisaro,
although there was no insignia of rank on the cap. Pisaro nervously lit
a
cigarette and rubbed his hands over his scalp. "We're outnumbered here,
Skipper."

"Leo, all we can
do about that is what
we're doing, drawing the Alpha off and separating them. Control to
sonar, where
is
Dherzinski?
"

"Sonar to control.
Dherzinski
's speed
is holding at eighteen
knots. Course holding steady at zero zero zero, but I'm not gettin'
much of a
signal, Skipper. She'll be out of range in a few seconds."

"Very
well.
Control to engineering. Make
revolutions for thirty knots. Go right ten degrees, course zero five
five."

As the ship
banked to the right, the
side-sweeping sonars picked up the sound of
Potemkin
's flooding vents. "Sonar to
control. The Alpha is descending rapidly. Captain, she flooded her
tanks and
dropped straight down. She's going to be on our stern, right in our
baffles."

Sorensen
switched
off the intercom and swore
at the screen. The Alpha was going down swiftly, using her titanium
hull to
best advantage. Thirty seconds later, she disappeared. "Sonar to
control,
the Alpha is gone. Her last recorded depth on the down-searching
scanner
estimated one thousand feet. She's in our baffles."

Springfield
looked at Pisaro, then at the
photograph of Federov. "Leo, they're trying to intimidate us with the
Alpha. He wants to scare us with his titanium boat. And if he does,
he'll get
bolder, figure he owns the damn ocean..."

Sorensen
stared
at his screen. "The last
time this bastard disappeared from the screen he hit us," he said to
Fogarty. "I've got a feeling... Sonar to control."

"Go
ahead, sonar."

"Recommend
we
clear baffles, sir. I
don't know where she is."

"Very
well,
sonar. Control to
engineering, prepare for slow speed. All ahead slow. Go right twenty
degrees."

Ninety
seconds
into the turn, the Alpha
reappeared on the screen.

"I
knew it," said
Sorensen.
"Sonar to control. Contact bearing one four eight. Range three two five
zero yards and closing. Speed twenty-four knots, depth one thousand
feet."

"Very
well,
sonar. We have her on the
repeater."

Springfield
crossed the control room to the
weapons console and stood behind Hoek. "We've got to threaten him, give
him second thoughts. Make him back off... otherwise the bastard will
try to
finish us... Control to sonar. Prepare to activate target-seeking
sonar."

As
Sorensen
punched at his keyboard, Fogarty
felt as if he were in suspended animation. The impossible was about to
happen?
No one was going to back down?

The
Alpha
abruptly slowed and turned sharply
to the right.

Sorensen
reacted
instantly, understanding
that the Alpha's action meant he was about to shoot. "Sonar to control,
recommend evasive action."

"Helm,
left full
rudder! All ahead full.
Thirty degrees up angle! Sonar, activate torpedo detection frequency!"

Potemkin
's torpedo room was
portside amidships. Federov
wheeled to the right, reversed his prop and stopped dead in the water.
"Fire acoustic-homing torpedo."

Alexis hesitated,
then stuck his thumb into
the red button on his console. A gas turbine-propelled torpedo shot out
of a
tube. The projectile took off after
Barracuda
at
forty knots, the
on-board ultrasonic echo-ranging sonar probing the sea for its target.
The
instant the torpedo was away Federov ordered, "Stern planes, maximum
down
angle, all ahead one third. Take us down to one thousand three hundred
meters." He must not give the
Barracuda
a chance to
find him and
shoot back. He must not think of the torpedo he had loosed. He must not
think.

"Incoming!
Torpedo, bearing one eight
zero!"

Barracuda
was racing upward at thirty degrees, trying to rise into a cooler layer
of
water. Springfield was counting on the torpedo's searching in a normal
down-spiraling pattern. He calculated he had ten minutes before the
torpedo
either ran out of fuel or outpaced
Barracuda
and
ran up her stern.

"Control
to
weapons, load chaff
decoy."

"Weapons
to
control, understand load
chaff decoy. Weapons to torpedo room, get the decoy in the tube."

"Torpedo
room,
aye aye."

When
Barracuda
was at four hundred
feet, Springfield ordered, "Zero angle on the planes. Fire decoy."

"Decoy
away."

A jet of
compressed air pushed the chaff
decoy out of the tube, and it promptly began to emit electronic pulses
that
imitated
Barracuda
's
target-frequency sonar. The decoy began to spiral down as
Barracuda
continued
up.

The
Russian
torpedo had remained at eight
hundred feet, its sonar confused by the reflecting nature of the
ceiling of the
thermal layer. When it heard the decoy it zeroed in.

Two
minutes after
the decoy was fired,
Sorensen and Fogarty heard the explosion.

"Goddamn,"
Sorensen exclaimed.
"It worked. Keep your eyes on the screen, kid. There may be another
one."

In
the control
room there was momentary
relief. When the decoy destroyed the torpedo, even Springfield allowed
himself
a minor celebration. A moment later, however, it was replaced with a
quiet
fury. "Go right thirty degrees, stern planes down ten degrees. Leo,
take
us down to fifteen hundred feet. We've got to get this son of a bitch
before he
gets us. He fired first."

"One
thousand
three hundred meters and
holding."

Potemkin
was steaming at
twelve knots, 4,264 feet beneath the surface of the sea. At that
tremendous
depth she was in the deep sound channel, and Popov's sonars were
subjected to a
barrage of strange noises. Ordinarily sounds in the channel were
trapped by a
warm thermal layer above and a very cold thermal below. The only
exception was
a thundering source of noise such as
Potemkin
herself.
Potemkin
with her hard-bolted machinery produced sonic signals of many different
frequencies, some of which were refracted into the layer above,
revealing her
presence, while at the same time rendering her own sonars ineffective.
Popov
could hear neither
Barracuda
,
nor the torpedo, but he did hear the unmistakable sound of an explosion.

"Captain,
we got
him—"

Federov
looked at
the screen and at Alexis,
who was shaking his head. "Don't be too sure, Popov. We don't know what
we
hit. Go right six degrees. We'll make a wide circle."

Sorensen
was
standing before his console,
working the down-searching sonars. "C'mon, Ivan, you shot your wad,
come
back and see what damage you did. C'mon..." And then to Springfield:
"Sonar to control. Recommend all stop and quiet in the boat."

"Attention
all
hands. All stop. Quiet in
the boat."

Barracuda
hovered at fifteen hundred feet. Fogarty expected another torpedo,
Sorensen did
not. The down-searching sonars were acutely sensitive to frequencies
that
refracted through the various thermal layers.

A
fuzzy splash of
illumination appeared on
one side of the screen. "There she is. Sonar to control. Contact, range
six thousand yards, depth four thousand two hundred feet, bearing one
one three,
speed twelve knots. She's coming right at us, Captain, but she's deep."