Peacemaker

by Gordon Kent

  “You going active?” Rafe sounded like he had to be sure.

  “That’s Mr Craik’s plan.” Was that implied criticism?

  They turned slightly and Alan felt, then heard, the ‘ka-thunk’ as the first sonobuoy launched. Sonobuoys began to come out in regular order, one every few seconds. Active, passive, passive, active. Eight buoys on each heading, five hundred meters apart, making a cross with the Philadelphia at the center.

  Alan continued to play with the radio codes. Finally he gave up and asked Cutter to get him the Philadelphia. Between them they took almost a minute to discover that somebody had hit the reset on the radio, and Cutter reentered the frequency. The time seemed to drip by, punctuated by the relentless ‘ka-thunk’ of sonobuoy after sonobuoy. As Alan finally got a clear signal, Rafe threw the plane into a hard bank, and Alan watched the aircraft’s course onscreen as Rafe stuck to the arc inscribed for him as if the plane had wheels and was on a road.

  “Zulu Bravo, this is Pitcher, over?” Somebody had checked the comm card: Zulu Bravo was the Philly.

  “Pitcher, I read you, where have you been, over?” Woman’s voice from the Philly. Not Rose.

  “Zulu Bravo, we had a little radio problem. We had to re-code. Zulu Bravo, what is the situation of the hostile ship, over?”

  “Pitcher, this is Zulu Bravo, that ship is on fire and listing heavily to starboard, over.”

  “Thanks, Zulu Bravo. What is your situation, over?”

  “Pitcher, this is Zulu Bravo. We have control of our ship but at least one bandit remains unlocated at this time, over.”

  “Roger, Zulu Bravo, I copy in control, at least one hostile unlocated.”

  “Roger that, Pitcher.”

  “Okay, Zulu Bravo, on to part two. We need to get whatever hit you. I think it’s still there, either under you or nearby. Do you concur? Over.”

  “Roger, Pitcher, I copy and concur. One of the marines claims he saw a submarine a few minutes ago. What’s the plan, over?”

  “Zulu Bravo, we asked about explosives, have you got any?”

  “Roger that, Pitcher. This is not my specialty; I’m passing you to uh Lieutenant-Commander—uh, God, I’m sorry, her name—the Navy officer in charge. Wait one.”

  And a new voice came on, a woman’s again, and this time it was Rose, and Alan’s heart lurched and he felt a bubble rise in his throat. “This is Lieutenant-Commander Siciliano. I have six, repeat six Claymore mines.”

  Rafe was straight-faced. “Roger, Zulu Bravo, I’m going to give you our ASW specialist, Lieutenant-Commander Craik. Hold one.”

  He went to intercom. “She’s all yours, Al.” And back, suppressing whatever he might have thought just then about reunions, and Christy Nixon, and women.

  Alan found his voice was husky. “I copy six Claymore mines. Six. Hi, Babe. I’m going to try to force him to run under you with active sonar. You drop the Claymores with different detonation depths; your gunny ought to be able to work out a way. If that doesn’t get him, it might move him to where I can see him. He has to believe that under your vessel is not a safe place to hide, do you understand?”

  A moment’s silence, and he knew she was crying. “Roger, I copy and understand. I’ve missed you so much—!” Getting better control of her voice. “Pitcher, how are you planning to get him if the Claymores don’t?”

  “With a big, messy depth charge, so hold on.”

  “Roger. And I’m restarting the countdown on—you know.”

  “Concur.” He checked his screen, trying to be dispassionate, trying to make it straightforward and flat, but wanting hard to wrap her in utter safety. “Rose, I have bandits closing from the south. Are you ready?”

  “Roger, Pitcher. We’ll have the tools on deck in zero five mikes. I’ll rig the bug zappers.”

  Bug zappers? Alan hoped that Rose meant Claymores.

  “Roger, Zulu Bravo. Stand by.”

  “Copy.”

  He took a deep breath, tried to sound normal. He switched to cockpit. “Cutter, what’s the shallowest setting on a MK 46 torpedo?”

  “Uh—!” Cutter was flustered. They all were. Everybody had been avoiding anything personal, because of Rafe, and now the personal had happened, right there, and they were all shaken. “Uh, that was on my mission-commander test. Sir, uh, Al. Ten meters.”

  “Can it get a lock on a small submersible like a swimmer-delivery vehicle or a mini-sub?”

  Cutter’s voice was faint. “No idea, sir.”

  Alan tried to push Rose out of his head. He had to rethink the problem. Rose was in the problem but thinking about her would just get in the way. The torpedo was probably useless if the target was really a mini-sub; worse, it might lock on the much larger Philadelphia. The depth charge was also likely to damage the Philadelphia if it was close, so the drop needed to be accurate, and it had to be well away from the ship. He would have to know exactly where the target was to have a chance.

  He needed the target where he could see it. In the clear Mediterranean, even a small submersible would show in five meters of water. Maybe more, if it was a pale color.

  He was counting on its fleeing from the active sonar by trying to hide right under the Philadelphia. A daring captain might try to hide under the burning Nanuchka, but the S-3 would probably see a mini-sub move if it did. To keep it moving, they had to make it feel helpless. If he was right, and there was a mini-sub at all. Well, something had set the mine.

  He wished he had a couple of ASW frigates and another S-3 and the warrant officers who ran the ASW plot on the old Jefferson. This was like being the only cop in a big city.

  McAllen was bringing the passive buoys on line one at a time, reading their information with slitted eyes. Rafe swung the plane around in another tight curve, and Alan saw the now smooth, gray swells just below his small window. Rafe was well down there, all right.

  “That burning Libyan boat’s making a lot of noise, sir,” McAllen said. “Philadelphia ain’t exactly quiet, either.”

  Alan wondered about the Russian sub that had been playing hide-and-seek. It didn’t make sense to him that an Akula-class had sent out divers to plant a limpet on the Philadelphia. Would the Russians work closely enough with the Libyans nowadays to do such a thing, then hang around while a Libyan boat came in to board? Or could there be somebody else down there? He didn’t want to find a Victor III or some third-generation attack boat in the area, too. A Libyan diesel boat? They had a few, but most were welded to the piers in their dockyards. What would be the consequence of dropping the depth charge and whacking a Russian? Or a Libyan, for that matter? Christ, he needed a lawyer. Or was that what had prompted the White House interest?

  McAllen raised his head from his console. “This might be something, here at the 40 dB line. An auxiliary, maybe? A pump? It could be on Philadelphia. I’ve got it here on buoy six, and here on buoy twelve. It’s not all that close and it’s really, really quiet.”

  McAllen went back to his first buoy, a specialized type that gathered hydro-acoustic data for comparison. He was trying to filter out background noise and see where the thermal layer might be and how much salinity there was. Alan understood these things in a general way, but he didn’t know the details, and McAllen seemed to have them by rote.

  Alan hit the switch to communicate to the front seats.

  “Rafe, we don’t have time to piss around. We have to go active.”

  Rafe was silent for a moment. Today he had ordered the sinking of a Libyan patrol craft. He’d also flown three armed aircraft through neutral air space. Breaking the active sonar rule was scarcely going to get him in worse trouble, but staying off active was an ingrained habit. Alan was on top of the ASW situation, but Rafe was in command. It had to be his decision; that was the way things worked.

  “Do it.”

  Shark was lying with her stern pitched down at a thirty-degree angle in fifty meters of water, a bow-up profile that allowed Suvarov to have his bow sonar above the thermal layer while the r
est of the ship lay below it. The bow sonar was not as accurate as his towed array, but deploying the array meant movement and possible detection. The thermal layer would bounce acoustic signals like a mirror because of the steep change in temperature: he could listen, but he was invisible.

  Because of the need for stealth and the difficulty of passing signals through water, however, Suvarov was blind except for his sonar. Because of a lack of satellite connection, he couldn’t datalink his knowledge, however sketchy, to the Poltava, far to the north. He had no real idea of the location of the Fort Klock and her escort, although instinct suggested she was also to the north, probably closer than his own ships.

  Lebedev was sitting in the sonarman’s seat. His display was usually split to show data from both arrays, but with the towed array onboard, only the left side of the screen was illuminated. They had deduced from their acoustic data that the Philadelphia was crippled. The computer had said that a second set of engines near it had been a Nanuchka-class guided-missile patrol boat. Lebedev put that down to the Libyan Navy.

  Something else was up there, too. It scarcely moved, scarcely registered, but at two kilometers, with the perfect aspect, Shark could hear it. Lebedev thought that the third craft was electric. Perhaps a very small submarine. North Korea and Germany both made them. It was not Russian, they knew that.

  Suvarov continued to stare at his plotting board.

  “So,” he said, “here is Philadelphia. This unknown vessel hits her a few hours ago. She stops. Then the Nanuchka arrives when we do. They send a boat, right, Lebedev?”

  “Two, sir. Two small inflatable rafts, each with one engine. Then the gunfire.”

  “So the Libyans have boarded the Philadelphia. Da. So then, a few minutes ago, the Nanuchka takes a missile hit.”

  “Yes, sir. Hit hard. The hull is coming apart. Wait, sir, I’m hearing splashes.” He looked at Suvarov, his brows contracted. “Aircraft.” A touch of worry in his voice.

  Suvarov looked calm. Airborne ASW had been a joke to the old Soviet Navy. But if the Americans were sufficiently worried—Lebedev nodded: sonobuoys.

  “Time to go. Engine room, give me revolutions for two knots. Stay quiet. Con, slip the bow back below the layer very, very gently and turn north at two knots.”

  If he had been there to fight, he would have taken the risk and stayed. The layer was good protection, even from active sonar. He’d have waited and taken his shot. But this was a different kind of mission, with different rules. If the Americans saw him at all, they were likely to misunderstand. His greatest fear was that they might see him and not see the tiny electric boat. Americans were very good at leaping to conclusions. Suvarov felt comfortable, but he was troubled by one question above all others. If the Americans fired at him, should he return fire? His sense of professional honor suggested that he should. On the other hand, it went directly against the spirit of his orders. Suvarov did not have a weapon capable of engaging the American plane, and torpedoing the Philadelphia would only serve to confuse matters further. He chewed his lip and waited for the Americans to go active.

  Before Alan could give the order for active, McAllen tensed.

  “Something’s moving. Quiet and deep. Quiet and deep—” His voice was singsong, tracing continuing movement for them. “Gone. Still got it on 12. That same line. Not much, but something—” His fingers flew as he entered the possible contact datum. “Maybe-e-e—”

  McAllen projected the contact moving northwest at two knots.

  Alan looked at it. If this was a Russian sub, it was one of the third-generation types, Akula- or Sierra-class. Could it be French? A diesel boat? Long way from home. Alan didn’t think there had been an Akula in the Mediterranean before.

  “Go active.”

  “Sir, I just want to put a few buoys in front of him.”

  “Screw that, McAllen. I have to see what’s under Philadelphia.”

  The AW looked across at Alan. He wasn’t angry, only curious. Here McAllen had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to register acoustic tracking time on a really quiet submarine, and he was being asked by an intelligence officer with no acoustic training to drop that for a hypothetical submersible under the Philadelphia! In his heart, McAllen believed that one quiet Russian was all there was. After all, the Russians were his hereditary enemies. He had grown up with that; why look further? But Mr Craik seemed so sure.

  That sureness commanded response.

  McAllen popped the switch that cycled the active buoys. Then he called the P-3 to his most recent contact with the unknown submarine. He hoped that Mr Craik appreciated what he was giving up.

  The screech of the active sonar was audible everywhere on the big submarine. It sounded close, within a kilometer. Whether they were hunting him or the little bastard that had hit the Philadelphia was immaterial.

  “Run,” said Suvarov. The Shark leaped forward. Protest, not fight. Suvarov prayed the Americans had a man of talent at the sonar.

  “Pos contact one is running at sixteen knots!” McAllen was excited. “I got him across the board, sir. Let me put more buoys down!”

  “What else do you see?”

  McAllen held his breath, having to take time to examine his sonograms. He was losing the equivalent of a unicorn—a mythical beast, a rarity of a rarity. He thought the sub running off might be a Sierra. He hadn’t ever heard of anyone with acoustic data on a Sierra, and Sierras were rare and beautiful to AW2 McAllen.

  It was a tribute to McAllen’s sense of duty that he did a professional job of looking after the other grams. The ones that were empty of his precious contact. He looked at all four quadrants of the acoustic trap he had built with his cross of buoys. And in the last place he looked, there it was—something small, only a little echo. Bigger than a torpedo, but not much. He’d seen those in training.

  “By God, got it, sir. Right here!”

  Alan leaned over, releasing his parachute harness in his eagerness to see the pinpoint on the screen. He slapped McAllen on the back. McAllen looked up.

  “Let’s put a couple of passive buoys on top of him, sir.”

  “Great,” said Alan. “And an active to spook him. Close as you can.”

  Again the AW laid out a course for Rafe. The plane turned hard and came dead level within ten meters of McAllen’s ideal position, and he dropped three buoys. Cutter was on the radio with the Fort Klock. As Rafe tilted the plane up on one wing to turn, Alan was able to look out over the burning wreck of the Libyan Nanuchka to the Philadelphia. There was smoke aft, but she seemed to be on an even keel. The wind held her naval ensign taut as a board above her bridge.

  “Catcher, this is Pitcher, over.”

  “Pitcher, this is Catcher. I read you loud and clear, go ahead.”

  “Catcher, we have upgraded pos-contact one to probable contact, I repeat probable contact. Contact identified as Sly Fox, over.”

  Long pause as someone on the Klock groped for the comm card of the day and read through the codenames of possible hostile vessels.

  “Pitcher, did I copy Sly Fox? Please say again.”

  “Roger, Catcher, that’s Sly Fox. Last contact 0831 Zulu. Last location—Catcher, do you have this on datalink?”

  “Roger, Pitcher, we have your last.”

  Another voice took over the radio. “Pitcher, this is the captain. Are you saying you have a probable contact with a Sierra-class Russian submarine at your datum?”

  Cutter looked for the red light to make sure they were encrypted, but captains were always breaking rules that would get jgs arrested.

  McAllen spoke from the back seat.

  “Yes, sir. It’s either an Akula or a Sierra.” McAllen didn’t bother to say, And he’s headed right toward you at sixteen knots. They could see that on the datalink.

  Alan spoke up. “There’s another target—I think it’s a mini-sub—about three hundred meters from the Philadelphia, sir. I don’t think the Russian sub is a player.”

  “Pitcher, what are your intentions?
”

  “Catcher, this is Commander Rafehausen. I intend to sink or destroy the mini-sub and let the pos-con run.”

  “Pitcher, are you certain of this mini-sub? I recommend active pursuit of pos-contact one.”

  Alan hoped he was misreading the conversation. Catcher, on Fort Klock, seemed to think the Russian sub was responsible for the attack. Anyway, down here it was his call.

  “Negative. Sir.”

  On the Fort Klock, they saw the Russian submarine as simply another ugly blip on a very dirty screen. Captain Cobb’s computer terminal showed three Russian warships just over the horizon to the north, two Libyan patrol boats approaching his southern horizon, and the possible third-generation Russian submarine twenty miles to the south. It also showed a swarm of air activity over Libya as the weather over the Gulf of Sidra cleared enough to make his radar reliable. And Fort Klock, despite her position, had the equipment to locate aircraft much more accurately than the S-3 or even the F-14s that were flying CAP down there.

  He had the sonar tail in the water and would get some data from it soon—maybe. His missiles were warm and his crew seemed hot to go. He was not. He was deeply worried that some old Fleetex exercise with Russians and Libyans combining to attack a US battle group near the Line of Death was in the process of coming true.

  “Combat, this is the bridge. Launch the helo with decoys. Lay an ASW screen as indicated. Target is a possible third-generation Russian nuclear attack boat that has already fired on a US naval vessel.”

  “Captain, this is Combat. I have four probable Su-22 fighters outbound from Benghazi on course for the Philadelphia. Sir, the Su-22 does not carry an anti-ship missile. Uh, sir, do we know that this submarine fired on Philadelphia?”

  “Thanks, Combat. No, we don’t know. But treat as hostile.” No anti-ship missile on the Su-22? Best news of the morning. “Give me his course. Order the Isaac Hull to point in a Fallow Drop formation. We’re going to sprint and show our broadside to the fighters and the Russians. Get me those F-14s on line. Make twenty-four knots this course, 125 true.”