“Between eight to twelve knots, Captain,” Danilov said, his expression changing to one of amusement. “And I believe we agreed to use the higher speed since we want to be waiting for her if she survives that long—rather than trying to catch up,” he added nastily.
There was no point in discussing details with the admiral in that mood, Sergoff concluded, and returned to his careful plotting. There was no damned submarine with a draft of almost a hundred feet that was going to go charging through ice-clogged waters in depths that were sometimes only twenty feet below her keel!
Danilov moved about the room, a caged animal antagonizing each of his staff until he, himself, understood what he was doing: subconsciously blaming them for Anna’s illness. Then, gruffly, with just a tinge of apology in his voice, he remarked for all their benefit, “Enough. There is no point in all this. It is my fault that we are waiting here.” So he folded his huge arms across his chest. “Sergoff, we will have a staff meeting with the commanding officers, executive officers, and political officers of each submarine in twenty minutes at the officers’ mess alongside Seratov. All officers to be ready for sea.” They’d packed their duffels days before in anticipation of the great hunt. “And, Sergoff, have each commander prepared to get underway within twenty-four hours. I expect to arrive at our Chukchi Sea station at least a day before they get to the strait.”
Sergoff knew there was no real reason for one more briefing, but he also understood that Admiral Danilov grabbed at every opportunity to enhance morale in each operation he commanded. And this was to be the most vital of all. Seratov and the two other submarines would be instantly ready. None of their crews had been ashore for the past seventy-two hours. Their reactors had been on thirty-minute standby. Supplies had been replenished each day they remained at the pier waiting for the admiral’s orders. After so many hours of inaction, he decided Danilov was correct. Even if they’d allow the men off the submarines, there was little to do around the naval base at Polyarnyy except to get drunk. A pep talk would rekindle spirits that might have dwindled with the long wait.
When the ever alert Sergoff called for a sailor to take the admiral’s duffel to Seratov, Danilov refused. There was one key element to the start of every great adventure, and that was when Abe Danilov hoisted his seabag over his shoulder and carried it himself down the pier to the boat that would be his home during the cruise. There would be sailors who might disagree with him, but Danilov had prized that little bit of tradition since he boarded his first sub more than thirty years before.
When the admiral once again emerged from his tiny quarters behind the operations room, looking even more the bear in his greatcoat, he was smiling. The gruff voice was replaced by happy laughter as he led them into the freezing, snow-filled arctic night of Polyarnyy base, his seabag balanced on his shoulder with one hand. His voice howled beyond the ice crystals that snapped at their faces as they grudgingly followed their leader down the main street of the base and out to the pier.
Seratov’s outline hardened into evil, low sleekness as they waded through the soft, sculptured drifts. She would be Danilov’s flagship. Her sisters, partially hidden alongside, were Smolensk and Novgorod. Each of these submarines was known to run faster and dive deeper than any undersea craft yet designed. The term “hunter/killer” applied well to Danilov’s tiny armada.
A long, single story building along the pier served as both quarters and messing area for submarine officers in port. It was here that the admiral chose to give his inspirational talk to the officers who would sail with him. There was no doubt in any man’s mind about their mission. But the admiral had his own way of transmitting enthusiasm to his subordinates so they might react in a manner entirely satisfactory to him. It was much more than morale building. It was molding men to sacrifice more than they ever imagined in order to carry our their orders—in this case, Abe Danilov’s orders.
When the speeches were over and toasts had been drunk to their mission, Abe Danilov was the first one out the door, his duffel slung over his shoulder. He stepped out into the snowy night, feeling the wind drive the snow into his face, and led his men to their vessels. To each of them, this great bear of a man was the ideal leader for this mission.
Once Abe Danilov had unpacked his seabag and neatly stowed his gear as only he could do it, he lay back on his bunk and read Anna’s first letter carefully. It brought him back to his early days as a junior lieutenant in Sebastopol.
It was 1960. Anna Chuikov had run away to marry him, though her family, especially her father, did everything possible to stop her. The general even threatened to shoot anyone who helped them. They’d expected her to marry the son of someone important—a government official, or perhaps the son of a war hero—anyone but this man. General Chuikov was sure that Abe Danilov was a Jew’.
He took advantage of old contacts to send the KGB after the young naval officer.
Danilov’s submarine was tied up at the pier and he was on watch when they came. They appeared in civilian clothes but he knew who they were as they came down the dock because a friend at the gates had called to warn him. Even though he was watch officer on the quarterdeck, they simply stalked aboard, established his identity, then handcuffed him. One of the sailors ran for the captain, who was furious but could do nothing about it. Everyone feared the KGB for none had forgotten the violent purges of their NKVD forebears.
When Anna came down to the submarine at the end of the day, the captain explained that Danilov had been taken away. He was afraid to contact anyone, claiming he didn’t know anyone to call. Anna quietly asked him to take her to the building where the phones were because she wouldn’t have to wait in line if the captain of a submarine was there.
Her father raged. Her mother said later that she never remembered him that angry, even during the war. But Anna Chuikov had inherited her temper from her father. It was the first time she had ever talked to him like that, and she claimed later that if the general could have seen her face, he would have given in more quickly.
She often reminded her husband in the ensuing years that she never minded that the general didn’t want her to marry Danilov. That was Chuikov’s right. But the idea that he would send those horrible people to haul her fiancée away like a common thug was too much. She never knew what convinced the old man—maybe that she would never speak to him again, maybe that she threatened to kill herself The story mellowed so much over the years that eventually she wasn’t sure she ever said that. But the general finally gave in and Danilov was freed in a couple of hours.
Admiral Gorshkov, Abe Danilov’s mentor since his early days in higher naval school, came down from Moscow to the wedding. There was no one else Anna knew except for some of his navy friends. But the admiral treated her as if she was the finest woman in Russia—she would never forget that. Gorshkov, a naval hero in the Great Patriotic War, had just been awarded the Order of Lenin by Khruschev, and he wore it proudly during the ceremony when he brought Anna down the aisle. When the KGB saw that, the Danilovs were never troubled again.
As Danilov now lay in his bunk, savoring that first letter she had given him, he knew more than ever how much he owed to that woman. And now she was dying . . .
The stars were as crisp and cold as night itself. Hal Snow cherished being alone with the sea at these rare moments. Such isolation enhanced the affinity between a man and his vessel, and there were so few opportunities. Now, solitary and at peace with himself, he intended to savor each moment. In a way, as he luxuriated in this rare moment of serenity, he also felt a sense of wonder at being the commander of a vessel designed to be one of man’s most feared weapons.
But the latter feeling passed quickly. Most of his mature life had been spent aboard other such weapons. Although Snow had commanded attack submarines, he’d also done his time on the guided-missile boats, where there had never been any opportunity to experience this feeling. They dived immediately on leaving port, transited to an assigned position, and surfaced only at the en
d of a patrol. There had been a kind of rapport between him and his boats then, but it had been more a relationship with a single objective—his missiles.
The link between Snow and the stars, as close to spiritual as he would ever come, was broken by a blinking light on the nearby console. The elevator was about to arrive on the bridge. It would be Carol Petersen. When he mentioned fifteen minutes before how good coffee would taste in the crisp sea air, she insisted on bringing back some mugs since it was time anyway for one of her instrument checks.
She stepped out of the red dimness of the elevator, extending an oversized mug as she moved next to him. “Be careful. Still hot as hell . . . insulated mugs. I already burned my tongue.”
“Thanks,” he replied, his voice muted. It seemed a sin of some kind to talk too loudly when only the soft splashing of the whitecaps broke the still air. There was no sound from Imperator. She was as silent as the heavens. “See those stars up there.” He pointed a finger to the northwest.
“Not quite. My night vision’s still weak.” She strained to look beyond his finger.
“You should have been wearing your night goggles.”
“I was. But I had to take them off to read the instruments.”
“Can we still be seen from up there?” His head arched back to look straight up above them.
“Just a little. We copied everything transmitted by their satellite from the time we got underway. The shield’s almost a hundred percent effective. We picked up the men on the bow until everything was stowed. Now, other than you, everything seems to be secure. You stand out like a beacon.”
“Me?”
“That’s correct, Captain.” She laughed lightly. “One thing no one seemed to think about was shielded clothing on the bridge. No satellite’s sophisticated enough to pick up a nose peeking out from under the visor of a cap . . . or your icy breath,” she added, noticing the frosty vapor as they talked.
“We could run on the surface at night with no one on the bridge, and no satellite could—”
“But if something was looking for temperature changes on the ocean surface, we’d sure as hell be making it.”
For Snow, the allure of man and nature at sea was fast disappearing. Man and his technology would deny one of the last of his pleasures. Hal Snow had agreed to come back to command Imperator because he was searching for nights like this one. His final command in the regular navy had been a Trident submarine, and he retired when new orders would send him ashore. There was no way he’d ever have become an admiral. Both he and the senior officers in Washington knew he wasn’t cut out to plan strategy while other men took the ships to sea.
Snow was a maverick, and made everything much simpler for many of his friends when he put in his retirement papers. None of them would have to feel guilty about his being passed over for promotion.
Snow gulped down the last of his coffee, then checked his watch. “I hate to say it,” he sighed, “but it’s about time to take her down.” It was necessary to exercise the ship as she had been designed. Imperator would be in her natural element—submerged.
Peering toward Carol in the darkness, he remembered rather than perceived her features. She was attractive, not the most beautiful woman he’d ever known, but appealing enough when he considered she was a hell of a lot smarter than he was. That was the guideline he’d always utilized to consider women, and the fact that she was still interesting, regardless of her brains, had bothered him. When he realized she was’ a highly competent scientist, it was even more difficult to acknowledge a feminine charm that hadn’t been overwhelmed by her intelligence. With two divorces behind him, and a mostly jaded outlook toward women in general, Snow found it doubly hard to acknowledge Carol Petersen.
“If you don’t mind,” she answered, “I’d prefer to stay on the bridge for the time being. Couple more readings I need to check, and besides, Imperator can’t submerge with me still up here.”
“Is that what you want to check?”
“Partially. A few other things, too. They worked in the fishbowl. I just want to see if a few hours of open ocean steaming has any effect on them.”
“All right. I’ll follow through with the normal dive procedures.” Without another word, Snow was gone.
Carol Petersen had the unique position as the navy’s only seagoing computer controls officer without ever having spent a day in the U.S. Navy. There had been arguments—strong, intemperate ones—that a woman never had, and never would, belong on a submarine. The consortium decided otherwise.
Her final check on the command control console tying the bridge to the main computer would confirm Caesar’s ability to report readiness for diving of the entire vessel to the captain. Turning up the soft background light on the console, she pressed a variety of buttons. The results were instant responses to her queries. Then she turned to the blank screen at one side. Taking a pencillike instrument from her pocket, she printed a single word on the screen—sonar. Her word glowed briefly before fading from the screen. It was replaced by a series of printed reports on the status of each of the many sonars installed on Imperator. Satisfied, she printed another word—dive. Again the screen glowed with a status report of current conditions throughout Imperator. Then Snow ordered preparations for diving. She watched as the reports began to change. The computer was now informing her as conditions altered around the ship. The navy had reluctantly sent her to sea on an attack sub to better understand the normal daily routine—she’d adapted as well as any man!
Every condition imaginable had been simulated in the fishbowl to ensure that Imperator avoided probable detection by going out on sea trials. The sub had functioned superbly then and there was no difference now.
A metallic voice rang across the bridge. “Imperator is about to submerge. It is impossible to complete all preparations as long as the bridge is occupied. Would you be so kind as to go below to the control room.”
Carol smiled. That was the final test. Caesar was designed to sense human beings in any section of the ship, and a fail-safe mechanism halted diving preparations as long as anyone remained on the bridge. Snow’s voice came through another speaker: “Carol, we’ve stopped the countdown for diving . . . or rather your friendly computer has. Would you care to join us?”
She depressed a button on the console. “I’m on the way.“ Another button dropped a waterproof shield over the console. She turned just as the elevator door slid open. Caesar had ordered the elevator to the bridge.
Stepping out into the control room two decks below, Carol was immediately fascinated by the passivity that existed before Imperator’s first dive. Though the submarine had been tested interminably through every possible simulation, never before had she actually dipped her wide nose below the waves. While the computer was programmed to coordinate the entire evolution, Snow’s early decision was to take her down himself for the first time—to satisfy his own ego if nothing else.
Snow grinned at her from the diving officer’s position. “Now that your monster has concluded that everything is safe, can we override it and begin the dive?” More times than she cared to remember, he reminded her how difficult it was for him to have an inanimate object considered more capable.
“Go ahead. You do it. Maybe Caesar ought to get used to you punching in the override. I can’t imagine that I’ll be in control that often.”
Tentatively, Snow punched in his code name, then the override code, and took command of the dive. “Hatch secured?” he inquired of her caustically.
“Sorry.” She should have known he’d be following the old system. “Last man down, sir. The hatch is secured.”
“Very well.” He was waiting.
“Captain . . .” She hesitated, then continued, remembering the status on the bridge console. “The ship is ready to submerge—sounding is four hundred thirty fathoms.”
“Very well. Submerge the ship,” he called out. Tradition had been upheld. His orders were really no different than they would have been in an attack subm
arine.
Situated more than two thirds of the way back from the bow, the angle of incline in the control room was unnoticeable. High speed pumps whirred away with hardly a murmur inside the ship as the ballast tanks flooded. Nothing would be heard outside. There was a slight vibration from the increasing weight. Though many of the joints had been muffled in the fishbowl during sea trials, the computer was now busy locating and recording the noisiest for additional silencing once they reached depth.
Carol closed her eyes. To imagine Imperator’s first dive, she pictured an aircraft carrier steaming with its flight deck right at the water’s edge. Only the island superstructure rose above the surface. Then, the image to the observer would be of the flight deck slowly sinking below the surface, the water washing rapidly from bow to stem as the ballast tanks filled, until the stern disappeared. Then, quite rapidly, the island structure, leaving an eddy of white water behind, would quickly submerge until only the antennae remained in view. Finally, with a rush of foam, the entire ship would be gone.
With the keel at 120 feet, the final trace of Imperator became invisible to the naked eye. The only evidence that she continued to exist would be an evaporating trail of white water and foam. Then, for as long as her forward motion affected the surface, a satellite recording sea surface temperature alterations might detect her location. Soon, even that would be lost.
Snow was visibly excited now. His enthusiasm radiated throughout the control rooms as he leveled off at 250 feet and called for a systems check. Nothing was out of sync.
Increasing speed at five knot increments, Snow and his crew developed a feeling for their vessel. More than twice as large as any submarine any of them had ever sailed, Imperator responded in much the same manner as one of her smaller sisters, and her reactions were equally fast. Nothing so large should expect to dive, surface, accelerate, or reverse like an attack submarine, but Imperator adapted to her element like an immense fish. Snow took her down to a thousand feet, not as deep as she’d tested in the fishbowl, but enough to make her creak as she sped on her northwesterly course.
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