Flight of the Condor

by Richard P. Henrick

  That left the wardroom empty except for the Captain and his XO. It was the XO who tested the waters.

  “Well, Captain, what do you think about all that?”

  Exeter released a sigh of his own.

  “That was sure one for the books. Electromagnetic railguns still sound like science-fiction, yet if he’s working for Roselle, he’s got to be a smart one. My first impression said he could have a screw lose, yet my gut tells me that Dr. Richard Fuller just might have stumbled onto something hot.”

  “I agree,” returned the XO.

  “The sooner we get out there, the quicker we’ll all know for certain.”

  “Then let’s do it, Pat. Get that deck crew down here, and notify Willingham. I want us making steam just as originally planned, so get these kids moving!”

  As the Razorback inched its way into the Pacific, Grigori Yagoda and Dmitri Andreyev sat nestled in a circle of rocks, a quarter of a kilometer away from Slik 6’s northern security perimeter. Appearing to blend in with the surrounding terrain, the camouflaged commandos studied that portion of the launch complex visible before them.

  Beyond the dual set of barbed-wired-topped fences was a large bunker filled with snaking pipes and various-sized tanks. Both operatives assumed this to be the gas-storage area. Separating this facility from the launch pad itself was a wide, barren plain, empty except for a series of access towers. This afforded them an excellent view of the shuttle vehicle as it sat perched beside the trio of boosters that were designed to guide it into the heavens.

  The fog had long since lifted, and the sky was crystal blue, without a cloud visible. Already the warmth of the sun was noticeable. After wiping dry his soaked forehead, Dmitri Andreyev rechecked the magazine of his M16 rifle.

  “I tell you, Grigori, this all looks too simple. You would have thought that the Americans would show a little more concern for the safety of their precious shuttle. This will be like shooting a fat chicken that’s locked in its pen.”

  His blond-haired teammate looked up from the sixty-inch-long tubular weapon that he had been working on.

  “Don’t underestimate the crafty Americans so readily, comrade. Though we’ve seen only a minimal show of security so far, they’re out here all right. I’ll guarantee you that they have video cameras and other electronic monitors covering every square centimeter of that perimeter. Just you try penetrating it.

  “Who needs to penetrate it bodily?” returned Dmitri with a wink, as he gently patted the shiny black, bazooka-like instrument that Grigori had been assembling.

  “With this baby, that fence will be completely useless.”

  “Let’s just hope that there are no major delays with the launch,” reflected Grigori.

  “We’ve only got provisions for two more days at the most.”

  “If that occurs, we’ve only got to go into the nearest town for supplies. We’ve got plenty of U.S. dollars, and I understand that their supermarkets are most adequately stocked with any food that you might desire.”

  Grigori shook his head and fought to hold back his laughter.

  “I could just see us merely walking into one of their stores dressed like this, comrade. We don’t exactly look inconspicuous.”

  “I don’t know about that, Grigori. After all, this is a military town. Most probably, they’d never even take notice of us.”

  A familiar, muted chopping sound was heard in the distance, and both men instantly scanned the skies for its source. It was Dmitri who pointed out the dark green helicopter that was sweeping in over the rugged hills that lay to the east.

  “It’s a UH-1 Huey,” he observed breathlessly.

  “And it seems to be headed straight for us!”

  Without hesitation, Grigori carefully lowered the Stinger.

  “Help me with the camouflage netting, comrade!”

  Both men reached out for the piece of brown and green netting that lay spread out behind them. It took them only seconds to grab each of its sides and pull it over their heads. Appearing almost indistinguishable from the surrounding terrain, the disguise was soon put to the test when the helicopter seemed to hover directly above them.

  The sound of the chopper’s engines roared with a vengeance, and Dmitri had to speak right into his teammate’s ear to be heard.

  “Perhaps their video cameras have spotted us, Grigori. Do you think that you should blast them from the skies with the Stinger, and then turn it on the shuttle before we’re discovered?”

  “That would be much too risky,” returned Grigori calmly.

  “Without the hot plumes of the booster engines pointing the way, there’s too great a chance that our missile would miss its mark. And besides, I doubt if we’ve been caught yet. Most likely, it’s only a patrol.”

  This observation was confirmed when the sound of the helicopter’s engines suddenly began to fade. A minute later, the distinctive clatter was completely absent. They poked their heads from under the net, and a quick scan of the skies verified this fact.

  “You are right once again,” commented Dmitri.

  “I guess I’m getting a little too overanxious.”

  Grigori slyly grinned.

  “That’s only natural, comrade.

  Like any good hunter, you smell the kill before your nose and instinctively crave for satisfaction. Yet, with this quarry, it’s going to be patience that makes the hunt succeed. Calm down, my friend. Our time will soon be here.”

  Pulling the net completely off them, Grigori sat up and lifted the now-fully-assembled Stinger to his shoulder. Peering through its telescopic lens, he centered the cross-hairs on the target that had sent them to this desolate plain in the first place.

  Beginning with the stubby nose of the gleaming white orbiter, Grigori slowly scanned its box-car-like fuselage, finally coming to a halt on the insignia painted on its delta-shaped wing. Without the need of additional magnification, he was able to easily make out the five-pointed-star emblem of the United States Air Force. Beneath this etching was printed the word “Condor”. Well aware now of the precise identity of his prey, Grigori sat back to await the moment when the hunt would begin.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Five and a half miles from Point Arguello, the U.S.S. Razorback sailed on a westward course. In the process of detaching the DSRV Marlin from its back, the sub bit into the cool waters fifty feet beneath the Pacific’s surface. Below in the vessel’s sonar room, the two seamen currently responsible for monitoring the series of sensitive microphones mounted on its hull listened to the noise caused by the DSRV’s parting.

  “Brother, is that sucker ever creating a racket,” commented Lefty Jackman disgustedly.

  “Every submarine in the Eastern Pacific is bound to hear us now.”

  “The Marlin will be on her own soon enough, pawdner,” answered Seaman Second Class Seth Burke, who pulled off the headphones he had been wearing.

  “Then we’ll be able to go about business as usual.”

  Following his coworker’s lead. Lefty also removed his headphones. While massaging his sore earlobes, he reflected on their state.

  “That will sure be a welcomed relief, Tex. Maybe this time we’ll be able to tag that Soviet sub once and for all. It’s still eating on me that they were able to shake us like they did.”

  “If they’re still around and we hear ‘em, we’ll get ‘em all right,” returned the gangly Texan.

  “At least this time, we don’t have to go runnin’ around with our active sonar pingin’ up a storm.”

  Lefty reached for his coffee cup.

  “Amen, brother. I still can’t believe the Skipper hasn’t ordered us to activate it as yet. Maybe we’re finally done with that boring salvage duty.”

  “I wonder if it could have something to do with that upcoming space shuttle shot,” offered Burke, who went for his own coffee cup.

  “I heard some Air Force honchos back at Arguello savin’ that it could go up anytime now. It sure has been a while since the last shuttle,
Challenger, went down.”

  “I’ll say,” answered Lefty solemnly.

  “That’s one morning I’ll never forget. Even now, I can see it as clear as day. I was sitting in my high school science class watching the launch preparations live on TV. All morning we were hearing about how great it was to finally have a real, live teacher in space. When the orbiter exploded right before our very eyes, my first reaction was that this couldn’t be really happening.

  When the reality finally sunk in, I walked around in shock for an entire week afterwards.”

  After taking a long sip of coffee, the Texan voiced his own experience.

  “Well, join the crowd, pawdner. I was helpin’ my dad string fencin’ down in the south forty, when one of the hands arrived and told us that the shuttle had exploded. It’s funny, but even out on the west plains of Texas, I was able to visualize just what that explodin’ space ship must have looked like.

  Even my dad was choked up by the news, and that’s one old coot who don’t get riled by nothin’.”

  Shaking his head in response. Lefty momentarily placed one of his cramped feet on the lip of the console. Just as he was in the middle of a wide yawn, Chief Petty Officer Lawrence Desiante barged into the narrow compartment. Catching the Senior Seaman as he pulled his foot quickly downward, the chief didn’t waste any time in expressing his wrath.

  “Oh, and what do we have here, a coffee party? I hate to be a nuisance, but would you mind telling me who’s running the store while you jokers are sitting here with your feet up jawing?”

  Guilt filled their faces as the two seamen set their coffee cups down. While the moustached chief squeezed his bulky figure forward. Lefty looked up sheepishly.

  “I’m sorry. Chief, but we were only waiting for the Marlin to complete its detachment. There was so much racket going on out there that there wasn’t much else that we could hear anyway.”

  “Oh, so you two decided to have a little coffee klatch,” spat the still-fuming chief.

  “And here I was only minutes ago having the riot act read to me by the XO, that we should be especially on the ball these next couple of hours. You should have heard me bragging how you two were the best in the Navy, and that you’d never let us down. If the XO had walked in with me, I could have never shown my face in front of him again.”

  Sliding on his headphones, Lefty reached out to get back to work.

  “Don’t worry, Chief. If those Russkies are still out there, you got the right guys to find them.”

  Softening a bit, Desiante responded, “That had better be the case, Jackman. I don’t go about boasting about every wet-eared seaman who answers to me. Now, let’s see what we’ve got out there!”

  Reaching out for an auxiliary set of phones, the chief snapped on a headset himself. His breath was heavy as he sat down on the stool immediately behind the two sonar technicians. Rubbing his creased forehead, he struggled to clear his mind of everything but the series of sounds that was now being funnelled into his ears.

  Responsible for the source and volume of this noise was Lefty Jackman. By turning a thick plastic dial, the senior seaman was able to determine which of the Razorback’s hull-mounted hydrophones were to be isolated. A sweep of the waters to the west, the direction in which they were currently heading, picked up nothing but the loud, distinctive chattering of millions of shrimp. As he turned the dial to penetrate the waters to the south, they heard the playful, squealing voices of a pod of dolphins. Oblivious to the almost human-like moans and clicks that filled the seas there. Lefty rotated the scan to check their baffles. There, they had to be extra careful to listen over the steady drone of the Razorback’s own engines.

  It was while inching the dial forward with the most delicate of touches that Lefty isolated one of the stern hydrophones and picked up a faraway muted vibration.

  To the average listener, this sound would have been practically indistinguishable from the myriad of other noises audible. But to Lefty Jackman’s sensitive ear, this resonance was as noticeable as an improperly tuned musical instrument. Turning the dial quickly backward to isolate the exact location of this sound, Lefty felt his pulse quicken. Only when he turned the volume gain to its maximum level did he turn to address his coworkers.

  “Do you hear it? It’s some sort of manmade pump!”

  The chief’s brow narrowed as he vainly attempted to verify the seaman’s observation.

  “I’m not so sure that I agree with you, Jackman. From this distance, it could be almost anything.”

  “Maybe it’s the Marlin,” offered Seth Burke.

  “No way,” countered Lefty.

  “She’s smack in our baffles, and nearly half the distance closer. Besides, the Marlin’s signature is nothing like this one. My first hunch is that it’s coming from that Russkie nuke that thinks it can fool us by playing possum.”

  Though he still didn’t agree, the chief looked up to determine the sound’s heading and relative rough range. With the XO’s spirited briefing still fresh in his mind, he knew this was an instance when it was much better to be safe than sorry. Since there was obviously no propeller whine audible, if it were another sub, it would have to be indeed hovering. Even this fairly silent process produced some sort of noise. This was particularly true of the nuclear-powered boats, with reactors that never stopped running. Deciding that there was the slightest of chances that this could indeed be the case, the Chief cautiously reached out to pick up the comm line. Watching the chief speak into the receiver, the two seamen looked on anxiously.

  The Razorback’s maneuvering room was located on the vessel’s second deck, in the stern half of the boat, between the crew’s mess hall and the engines themselves.

  Fondly known as Razorback Power and Light, the room controlled and monitored all aspects of the sub’s power capabilities. Usually staffed by a complement of a half-dozen men, the compartment was home to dozens of voltage meters, pressure indicators, levers, switches, and valves. These instruments measured not only the state of the boat’s three 1,500-horsepower diesel engines, but the condition of its pair of huge propulsion batteries and its trio of 940-kilowatt DC electric generators as well.

  Because the Razorback was currently completely submerged, it was being propelled by battery power only. In this state, the vessel’s diesel engines had to remain idle, because of the lack of an adequate supply of fresh air. Presently standing before the bank of meters that indicated the amount of charge left in these batteries was Exeter, Benton, and the boat’s Engineering Officer, Lieutenant Ted Smith.

  Over the nearby drone of the propulsion unit itself, the three officers were locked in conversation. They were only a few feet from the engine room but even so, the compartment was uncharacteristically hot. This temperature was high enough to cause wet rings of sweat to stain their uniforms. It was this abnormal environmental factor that was the subject of their present conversation.

  “I still don’t want you taking any chances. Lieutenant Smith,” cautioned the Captain.

  “If that main condenser goes, this entire boat will be like a hot house in a matter of minutes.”

  “She’ll hold, Captain,” returned the Engineering Officer firmly.

  “There’s no way that I’d needlessly jeopardize the safety of the Razorback if I knew differently.”

  “I realize that,” said Exeter.

  “But meanwhile, you guys back here are taking the brunt of the discomfort.”

  “At least make certain that the men drink plenty of fluids, and some salt tablets wouldn’t hurt either,” interjected Benton.

  Watching Exeter reach down and carefully rub his right knee. Lieutenant Smith replied, “Will do, Mr. Benton. It’s going to take more than a little heat to melt this tough bunch. By the way, Captain, how’s that injury of yours holding out?”

  Shifting his weight onto his left leg, Exeter answered with a wink, “Don’t forget that I’m an ex engineering man myself. Lieutenant. No little bash on the knee is going to keep me down.
I’ll manage all right.”

  Punctuating these words was the harsh buzz of the comm line. An alert seaman answered the phone and called out, “Lieutenant Benton, it’s Chief Desiante, sir.”

  Without wasting a second, the XO walked over and picked up the receiver. His eyes lit up with interest as he took in the report that the chief hastily conveyed.

  Closely watching his expression change was Exeter.

  The Captain found his hopes rising when the XO flashed him a victorious thumbs-up. Seconds later, Benton was off the phone and back at his side.

  “Sonar’s got a contact, Captain. The bearing is one-two-five, at a rough range of thirty thousand yards. The chief still can’t say for sure, but he feels we could have caught a nuke hovering there.”

  “Good work, Pat,” shot back Exeter.

  “My instincts told me that something was out there. Now, if it’s just that Victor.”

  Checking his watch, the Captain added, “Get into sonar and take a listen. Pat. I’m going to stop up in my stateroom for some aspirin, and then get over to the control room, where you can reach me. Let me know the second that you can get a positive on them.

  “And, Lieutenant Smith, the next couple of hours could be critical. I’m counting on you to hold us together at least until noon.”

  “No sweat, sir,” returned the confident Engineering Officer.

  Following the lead of his XO, Exeter began his way toward the sealed, watertight doorway that led toward the boat’s bow. Doing his best not to hobble, the Captain ducked through the hatch that Patrick Benton efficiently opened for him. Halting before the ladder that would take him up to his stateroom, Exeter took a brief moment to address his XO.

  “If it’s indeed the Soviets, Pat, you know what this might mean. Dr. Fuller’s prophecy could unfold right before our very eyes.”

  “For some reason, I kind of hope that it does,” countered the XO, who reached into his breast pocket to exhume his pipe.

  “It’s our turn to show those guys that Uncle Sam doesn’t take trespassers lightly.”