“Don’t worry, XO,” Pacino said quietly so that only he could hear. “I have every intention of living through this. Call maneuvering and tell them to load and launch the slot buoy labeled number two.”
Vaughn relayed the order, giving a sidelong glance at Pacino as he did.
Pacino wondered what he’d do with the next order.
USS PHOENIX
“Conn, sonar,” Sanderson said. “I have four torpedo tracks on the spherical array bearing north to north-northeast. At least those four have gone by us.”
“Any change in their speed. Senior Chief?” Kane wondered if the weapons would slow down and circle back if they saw no target.
“No, sir. They’re sill at max speed heading north. I’ve got another one going by, make that two.”
Mcdonne’s big face filled up with a toothy grin. “You did it, sir. Well done.”
“Thank Houser,” Kane said. “I think I will. Thanks, Vie.”
“Conn, sonar, three more past and heading north.”
Kane almost smiled. They’d finally gotten a break. He actually began studying the chart, planning the track back south. To Norfolk. Home.
CNFS HEGIRA
“Insert another one-point-five g-turn, ship control,” Tawkidi ordered.
The deck again tilted and trembled as the ship did a rapid high-speed circle. When the ship steadied on its previous northern course the officers studied the Second Captain screens.
“Commodore, the weapons are shutting down,” Tawkidi announced. “Five of them so far! We only have seven left incoming, and by the analysis they are fading astern. It’s working, sir. We may be restarting the missile countdown in another ten or twenty minutes.”
Sharef did not smile. He kept looking at the panel where Sublieutenant Rouni worked, analyzing the data that had come in. Rouni’s face clouded but he said nothing.
“What is it. Sublieutenant?”
“There was something to the southwest as we went through the turn. I’m not certain, but the analysis is very strange.”
“Go on.”
“Sir, I’d swear this noise interception is from machinery, specifically steam-propulsion machinery, but it changed as we picked it up. We should have held it through a third of the maneuver, but right here, the noise level dropped to nothing, down to ambient levels, it went invisible. I don’t understand it.”
Tawkidi frowned as he looked at the data.
“Commodore, it’s not the proper bearing of the launch platform for the twelve torpedoes.”
“Maybe it is a second sub,” Quzwini, the mechanical officer, said from the reactor-control console, his face still white from his efforts in the ballast tank installing the Scorpion warhead. “Perhaps an observation sub that tracked us and gave our position away to the firing ship. At that bearing it would have been in the path of the torpedoes just as we were. And maybe it did what you recommended, Commander Tawkidi, and shut down to hide under the ice.”
“It makes no sense,” Sharef said. “A second sub would have fired on us himself. It is not like the Americans to get caught in the line of their own fire, not when they can avoid it. Nor would an American risk a torpedo volley knowing another of his subs was in the way.”
“Maybe it’s a British sub, or a Canadian diesel boat. By reputation they are very quiet,” Quzwini said. “And they have been known to go deep into the marginal ice zone. He might have been securing snorting operations with his diesel and gone on battery power.”
Tawkidi appeared to reach a decision. “Sir, we need to put a Nagasaki down his bearing, just in case. We can have no further threats to our missile launch. We can set the presets for a slow-speed approach down the bearing line, tuned to hear the slightest manmade noise. If it is another sub, the Nagasaki will neutralize it. If it’s a phantom reflection or an ice noise, we have lost nothing.”
Sharef knew Tawkidi was making sense. “Very good, Commander. Launch the Nagasaki at the phantom noise. We’ll see what comes of it.”
Four minutes later the Nagasaki torpedo left the tube, driving at a slow twenty-five clicks, its sonar straining for noises of machinery or metal against metal. By the time the torpedo had completed its turn to the southwest, another four of the incoming American torpedoes had run out of fuel and shut down, hitting nothing.
Chapter 33
Saturday, 4 January
LABRADOR SEA, NORTHWEST OF GODTHAAB, GREENLAND
CNFS HEGIRA
The last 1.5-g turn revealed that the final incoming American torpedoes had shut down, all of them out of fuel, impotent.
“The American torpedoes have all shut down, sir.”
Sharef could no longer avoid it. “Bring the ship around to the south and slow to missile-launch speed Commander, and come shallow.”
“Yes, Commodore. Ship control, set your course south, speed four clicks, depth 100 meters.” Tawkidi climbed onto the control seat at the periscope station and raised the scope.
The optic module came out of its well. Tawkidi put his eyes to the instrument. He looked out for a moment, saw nothing, reached up to the control section and energized the searchlights mounted on the top of the fin. The view immediately lit up with a vista of the underside of a large ice floe.
Tawkidi keyed the right grip, causing his seat to rotate slowly in a circle, occasionally hitting a function key that sent a beam of blue laser light upward to the ice, measuring its thickness and density, the information superimposing itself on his periscope vision.
“Sir, we have ice overhead. We won’t be able to launch here, but I think we should be close to the edge of this iceberg. A kilometer south.”
“Drive the ship south with the periscope up. Commander. You’ll find open water quicker that way. Suggest fifteen clicks to hurry the trip.”
“Yes sir,” Tawkidi’s voice was muffled by the periscope module as he made the orders.
Sharef waited, occasionally glancing at the Second Captain’s sensor displays, prodding Rouni to report the status of the Nagasakis. All three weapons were still in transit.
“Sir, we have open water,” Tawkidi announced. “Ship control, dead slow ahead, four clicks. Weapon control, flood tube one and power up the Hiroshima missile. Do the Scorpion self-check and report.”
“Very good, Commander,” General Sihoud said from the forward door of the room. “I am well pleased with the mission, Commodore Sharef. You and your crew have done great things. Allah is with you.”
Sharef nodded, wanting to tell him to keep his speeches to himself. He just wanted to be done with this thing.
“Commander,” Tawkidi reported, “we are getting a speed increase from the third-launched Nagasaki. I think it has heard a target.”
Sihoud was clearly pleased. Even Colonel Ahmed nodded in satisfaction. Sharef’s expression did not change. More death ahead, but at least perhaps a threat would soon be neutralized.
USS PHOENIX
Ten minutes earlier the word had come from maneuvering that the battery was low, very low, due to keeping sonar at full capability. Sonar, with its auxiliary seawater pumps to cool its massive computers, was a power hog. They were reaching a point of no return. Starting the reactor would take 100 amp-hours, and there were only 105 left. Kane had given the order with deep reluctance restart the reactor.
The restart was now into its tenth minute, with power on the grid from the ship’s turbine generators promised in another ten minutes. Kane paced control, his thoughts escaping to a trip home, a hot meal, a hot shower and a full night’s sleep.
“Conn, sonar, all the Mark 50s have shut down. The Destiny must have outrun them.”
“Any sign of the firing submarine?” Kane asked. There was no answer. Kane repeated the call. Still no answer. Kane had taken two step off the conn in the direction of the door to sonar when Sanderson’s voice came over the circuit.
“Conn, sonar, torpedo in the water bearing zero four five. It looks like a Nagasaki and it’s increasing speed even as I’m making this report.”
Kane ran back to the conn and grabbed the Circuit Seven microphone hanging from the overhead.
“Engineer, Captain, get the reactor and main engines up fast. We have a torpedo in the water.”
“GOING TO EMERGENCY HEATUP RATES NOW, CAPTAIN. BUT I CAN’T DELIVER IN LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES EVEN WITH EVERYTHING SHE’S GOT,” Schramford reported.
If there were a medal for most time spent on the wrong end of warshot torpedoes, Kane thought, Phoenix would win it hands down. He looked at Mcdonne. For the first time in the entire run Mcdonne’s face was a study in unconcealed fear. Kane wondered how his own warface was holding up.
In the end, he thought, it wouldn’t matter. The Nagasaki torpedo would get them, there was no evading it. Trying to get the reactor restarted to evade was almost just something to do to occupy the crew’s time while they waited for the end. Well, it had been a good run, they had almost made it.
“Conn, sonar, the incoming torpedo is close, damned close. If we don’t put on some turns we’re not going to make it.”
“Eng, what’s the status?”
“WE’VE BARELY GOT STEAM COMING DOWN THE HEADER NOW. IT’LL BE AT LEAST TWO MINUTES BEFORE I CAN GET EMERGENCY WARMUPS DONE ON THE TURBINE GENERATORS, ANOTHER TWO BE FORE I CAN GIVE YOU THE MAIN ENGINES.”
“Keep going, Eng.”
The overhead speaker clicked twice. At least, Kane thought, the engineer and the crew aft could stay busy, their minds occupied. All the control-room crew could do was wait.
Kane listened as the room grew suddenly quiet. Outside the hull he could hear the sound of the incoming Nagasaki’s propulsor, the high-pitched noise turning from a whine to a scream. He could hear the clicking of its under-ice sonar.
The noises now seemed loudest through the deck, as if the weapon were coming in from below.
The wait seemed interminable. Kane was almost relieved when the torpedo detonated.
CNFS HEGIRA
A distant rumble sounded through the hull, its direction indiscernible.
“What was that?” Sharef asked, standing behind the Second Captain consoles, leaning heavily on his makeshift cane, fatigue hanging on him like a hundred-pound weight.
“Nagasaki torpedo detonation at the bearing to the suspected second intruder. Commodore. And, wait a minute … I’m getting the sounds of flooding and something else. Maybe compartment bulkheads collapsing. A very loud rushing noise.”
Rouni turned to Commander Tawkidi. “Commander, you should hear this.”
Tawkidi listened, shook his head. He handed the headphones to Sharef. The noise was terrifying, a high-pitched shrieking and a deep shaking growling noise, the two sounds weaving in pitch and rising and falling, the sound of a monstrous beast dying. As Sharef listened he wanted nothing more than to take off the headset and never hear the awful sounds again, knowing now that the screaming would haunt him to his last day. Finally the noise seemed to weaken, to give way to the frigid waters and die. Sharef handed back the headset.
“I’m not certain, perhaps it was a thermal shock, a rupture of their high-temperature reactor equipment leaking to the cold of the sea.” What could he say about the sounds of a ship dying? The anger he had previously felt at the Americans for sinking his Sahand and for the weapons they had shot at the Hegira had been dissipated. He realized now that their attempts to sink the ship had been blind and frantic, that now Hegira would prevail and rain down death on their capital city. But it was a victory distinctly empty to him. He had no desire to do this, to have this mass murder be connected to his name. Perhaps, in his way, the general had the right idea, that launching the Scorpion would hold back the West and allow his people to live in a united Muslim world, gaining a new recognition from the rest of the world, a new respect. Though hard to believe that killing on the scale they aspired to would earn them that, it happened at the end of the second world war when the Americans themselves had leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Perhaps it was oddly appropriate that they would now be on the receiving end of the destruction from a missile called the Hiroshima.
Sharef became aware that his thoughts were rambling and tried to plug back into the tactical situation developing around him.
“What is the status of the first-launched Nagasakis?” he asked.
“Still on their run to the target, sir.”
“Same course? Is he evading to the south?”
Tawkidi frowned. “Strangely, no, sir. The torpedoes are now bearing southwest.”
“The American has perhaps lost his navigational ability.
Or his mind,” Rouni said, smiling. “They would be heading for the shallows at Ungava Ridge if they’re going west. If the torpedoes don’t kill them, running aground will. Wait …”
Rouni pressed the headset closer to his ears. “I think the weapons are speeding up to attack velocity, sir. Detonation should be in the next five minutes.”
Sharef nodded. The two threats were neutralized. It was time to launch. “Status of the Scorpion?” He looked at the weapons-control area with Sub.-Lt. Omar al-Maari at the console. Al-Maari had once reported to the weapons officer, Aboud Mamun, who had been killed in the initial torpedo detonation.
“Self-check is satisfactory. Warhead computer is functional at one hundred percent, target coordinates and waypoints confirmed. Hiroshima airframe navigational computer is functional at full capacity. Fuel cells are pressurized, turbine bearings are lubed and warm, winglet hinges articulation checks are nominal, circuit continuity to the solid rocket fuel is verified. Tube one is pressurized and open to sea, bow cap open, gas generator ready. Recommend recommencing countdown, sir.”
“Commence sixty-second automatic-countdown sequence.”
“Commencing now at launch minus fifty-nine seconds.”
USS SEAWOLF
“Conn, sonar, the last own-ship units have shut down. The explosion from bearing zero one eight was accompanied by hull-breakup noises. We’ve probably lost the Phoenix. And the incoming torpedoes are increasing speed, Captain,” Holt reported on the headphones. All the bad news, condensed into a nutshell. There was no time to elaborate, not with the Nagasakis on their way and in close.
The attack so far had been a complete failure, Pacino realized.
The fathometer read 280 fathoms beneath the keel as the water grew shallower at the rise of the ridge. Not shallow enough, not yet, he thought, but it would have to do.
Perhaps by the time he’d completed the work for his last-resort plan the ridge beneath them would be shallower than test depth. He could only hope.
“XO, I’ve got one last idea,” Pacino said, knowing now that Vaughn would have to go along. With the two Nagasakis coming in on final approach, what else could they do?
“Love to hear it. Skipper,” Vaughn drawled. Hope flashed momentarily across the hollow-cheeked faces in the control room, then slowly faded.
“We’ll launch the Vortex bank. We may only get one of them off, and they may breach the hull and make the tubes explode, but if the hull’s going to be breached in the next five minutes anyway … at least we can kiss Sihoud and the Destiny goodbye even if we can’t confirm a kill before the Nagasakis get to us.”
Vaughn understood immediately, but Pacino sensed he had known that his captain had foreseen this eventuality all along.
“We’ll do it, sir. I’ll evacuate the watchstanders outside the control room to the engineroom.”
“Weps, select the Vortex battery on the WCP, line up and pressurize all Vortex tubes, spin up all Vortex missiles and make preparations for launch of the battery.”
Court flipped through the weapon-control panel displays, selected the Vortex bank, flooded the tubes and opened the outer doors. The tubes were engineered so that all three could be opened at once, with large-bore piping for rapid flooding. While Court lined up the tubes he selected the Vortex warhead computers, fixing the presets for departure depth. He came to target bearing and stopped, jerking his head around.
“We have a bearing
to the target?” “Select Target One from the firecontrol generated bearing,” Pacino said, knowing it wouldn’t matter if the bearing was off by several degrees.
“Aye, sir. Vortex missiles one, two and three are spun up and ready for launch. Launch interval, sir?”
Pacino had considered the answer. They couldn’t be launched simultaneously, or they would interfere with each other, the solid rockets blowing apart neighboring missiles.
Too far apart, the launching system would be gone, probably blown apart by the explosion of the first tube.
“Set the interval at 500 milliseconds,” Pacino ordered.
That, he figured, would give the system time to launch the second missile but would also allow the first-launched weapon to clear the tube and the ship. The third unit would probably never make it out of the ship.
“Vortex units are ready, sir.”
“XO, evacuate all watchstanders to the aft compartment. Keep both hatches open. I’ll be right back.”
“Aye, sir,” Vaughn said, not looking at Pacino. “You heard it, men. Everybody aft, now.”
The watchstanders dropped headsets, clipboards, pens, the lot of them stampeding aft to the passageway leading down the ship’s centerline. Holt and his sonarmen joining them from the forward door to the sonar room, Vaughn was last to go. By the time the men were gone the noise of the Nagasaki torpedoes could be heard through the hull, their whining propulsors sounding ghostly.
“Sir?” Vaughn had paused at the aft door to the passageway. “Don’t be too long or I’ll have to shut the hatches.”
“I’ll be right there,” Pacino said, a phone in his ear.
“Engineer,” Hobart’s curt voice said.
“Eng, Captain. Load and launch slot buoy number three.”
“Aye, sir, loading now.”
Pacino hung up and looked at the control room one last time. The ship’s angle was inclining downward, no longer a watchstander to guard the ship-control panel. Pacino pulled up the control yoke and glanced at ship’s speed. Forty-five knots, ship’s depth, 800 feet. He lifted a glance to the ballast-control panel and looked at the emergency-blow levers, stepped back and hoisted the phone again.
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