Dirk Pitt18-Black Wind

by Cussler, Clive

  Schauer stood stunned for a moment, his mind unable to comprehend what

  his eyes and ears had just absorbed. It took the sight of a second

  orange flash to jolt him into action.

  "Get down!" he shouted at the two men in the cabin as he spun the

  ship's wheel hard to port. The laden trawler was slow to respond, but

  it was enough to avoid the second shell from the I-403's 5.5-inch deck

  gun, which screamed into the water just astern of the boat. This time,

  the force of the explosion lifted the entire trawler out of the water

  and slammed it back down again hard, shearing the rudder off in the

  upheaval.

  Wiping blood out of his eyes from a gash to the temple, Schauer groped

  for the radio microphone.

  "Doug, there's a Jap sub. It's blasting the hell out of us. No joke.

  Keep to the north, and get help."

  He was still talking when the third shell found its mark, piercing the

  forward hold of the fishing boat before detonating. A furious

  explosion of splinters, glass, and mangled halibut blasted into the

  cabin, throwing the three men viciously to the back wall. Struggling

  to his feet, Schauer peered out a gaping hole in the front of the cabin

  and saw the entire bow of the trawler disintegrate into the sea before

  him. Instinctively grabbing the wheel for support, he looked on in

  disbelief as the remains of the boat began to sink rapidly beneath his

  feet.

  Peering through binoculars, Ogawa watched with grim satisfaction as the

  trawler slipped beneath the waves amid a scattering of flotsam.

  Rescuing survivors was out of the question, so he wasted no time in

  looking for bodies in the water.

  "Motoshita, have there been any additional sound recordings?" he asked

  his exec.

  "Negative, sir. The sound operator reported a possible secondary

  target before we initiated firing but the reading faded. It was either

  background noise, or a small vessel at best."

  "Have him keep sweeping. With this visibility, we will hear a vessel

  well before seeing her. And have the chief aircraft mechanic report to

  me. We've got to get those planes launched."

  As Motoshita scurried off, Ogawa stared toward the hidden coastline of

  Washington. Perhaps we'll get lucky, he thought. The trawler was

  likely a lone fishing boat and wouldn't have a radio. The guns could

  have been heard ashore, but, at this distance, would sound like an

  innocuous muffle. The charts showed few inhabitants residing along

  that stretch of coast as well. Perhaps-just perhaps-they could still

  pull off the mission undetected.

  The hairs on the back of Radioman First Class Gene Hampton's neck stood

  up like a grove of ponderosa pine. The voice ringing through his

  earphones had an air of urgency and authenticity that could not help

  but be believed. After confirming the message twice, Hampton popped

  out of his chair like a jack-in-the-box and bounded to the center of

  the bridge.

  "Captain, I just picked up a civilian Mayday message," he blurted

  excitedly. "A fisherman says there's a Jap sub offshore shelling his

  brother's boat."

  "Did he sound coherent?" replied the ship's bearded, heavyset

  commander in a skeptical tone.

  "Yes, sir. Said he didn't see the sub because of the fog but got a

  radio call from his brother on another fishing boat. He heard a couple

  of shots fired from a big gun, then lost contact with his brother. I

  received a call from another boat confirming the sound of gunfire."

  "Did they provide a fix on the location?"

  "Yes, sir. Nine miles southwest of Cape Flattery."

  "Very well. Contact the Madison and tell her we are headed out of the

  strait to investigate a reported enemy contact, then provide a location

  fix to Navigation. Mr. Baker," he continued, turning to a tall

  lieutenant standing at his side, "let's go to General Quarters."

  As an alarm bell rang throughout the ship, the crew of the USS Theodore

  Knight scrambled to their battle stations, adorning helmets and kapoks

  as they ran. It wasn't the first time the Farragut-class destroyer had

  seen action. Launched in 1931 at the Bath Iron Works shipyard in

  Maine, the Theodore Knight had an active service duty garnering North

  Atlantic convoy duty in the early stages of the war. After dodging

  several U-boat attacks while escorting the merchant fleets, the

  341-foot-long destroyer was sent back for patrol and escort duty off

  the West Coast, sailing the waters from San Diego to Alaska.

  Trailing three miles behind, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, was the

  Liberty Ship Madison, bound for San Francisco with a cargo of lumber

  and tinned salmon. Leaving the assigned cargo ship in its wake, the

  Theodore Knight broached the mouth of the Pacific as its captain,

  Lieutenant Commander Roy Baxter, ordered flank speed. The ship's twin

  diesel turbines churned the sleek gray ship through the water like a

  hound chasing a rabbit. The crew, accustomed to quiet, routine

  patrols, was at an unusually heightened sense of readiness at the

  prospect of facing the enemy.

  Even Baxter felt his heart beat a little faster. A twenty-year Navy

  man, he had seen action in the Atlantic but had grown bored with his

  recent assignment on the home shores. He relished the thought of

  tasting battle again, though remained skeptical about the radio report.

  Japanese subs had not been seen off the coast for over a year, he knew,

  and the Imperial Navy was now clearly on the defensive. "Radar?" he

  demanded loudly.

  "Sir, I have three small vessels approaching the channel, two from the

  north and one from the west," replied the radarman without taking his

  eyes off his monitor. "I have another indefinite target that appears

  to be stationary lying to the southwest."

  "Take us to the southern mark," Baxter barked. "And have the forward

  batteries stand by for action." The commander had to suppress a grin

  of excitement as he issued the orders. Maybe we'll earn our pay today,

  he thought while strapping on his helmet.

  Unlike their American counterparts, most Japanese submarines in World

  War II were not equipped with radar. The early-warning technology was

  only first deployed on Imperial submarines in mid-1944, and then

  installed only on selected vessels. Most Japanese submarines instead

  relied upon sound-detection equipment to reveal a distant enemy.

  Although more limited in range than radar, sound detection could be

  utilized underwater, and aided many a sub in avoiding a fatal

  rendezvous with depth charges.

  Absent a radar unit, it was the I-403^ sound operator who first became

  aware of the destroyer bearing down on them.

  "Vessel approaching ahead ... sound intensity one," he reported at the

  first registering on his equipment.

  On deck, both of the aircraft had been moved out of their hangars,

  where the wings and pontoons were affixed, while repairs continued. It

  was the situation Ogawa feared most. With both planes assembled but

  neither ready for flight, they would have to be sacrificed should the

  submarine have to
make an emergency dive.

  "Deck gun at the ready," he ordered, hoping the unwelcome intruder was

  yet another fishing boat.

  "Sound intensity two and increasing," the sound operator relayed

  calmly. "It's a ship," he added, to no one's surprise.

  "Secure all aircraft and clear the aviation deck," Ogawa ordered an

  ensign, who sprinted down the large deck shouting at the mechanics and

  pilots as he ran. Tying down the two airplanes, the aviation crew

  quickly grabbed their work tools and scurried to the hangar. The

  watertight doors of the hangar were closed and sealed; then the men

  dropped down another hatch into the secure body of the submarine.

  "Sound intensity three, off our bow. May be a destroyer," the operator

  reported, correctly identifying the churning sound of the tin can's

  twin propellers.

  As if on cue, the gray ship materialized out of the fog a half mile

  away, the apparition of a steel wraith charging across the moor. White

  foam burst off the bow in angry torrents while wisps of dark smoke

  billowed from the funnel. The lean ship drove straight at the sub, an

  attacking lancer not to be denied.

  In an instant, the I-403's deck gun boomed as the submarine's

  experienced gun crew attempted to halt the oncoming dervish. The slim,

  head-on profile of the destroyer made for a difficult target, however,

  and the shell passed harmlessly to one side. Hurriedly, the gun crew

  took aim and fired again.

  Once identifying the ship as a destroyer, Ogawa recognized the futility

  of a surface duel with a superior vessel and immediately ordered a

  crash dive. The mission would have to be sacrificed for the safety of

  the ship and crew, he reasoned, if it wasn't already too late.

  As the dive alarm sounded, the gun crew fired off a last desperate shot

  before scrambling belowdecks to safety. The gunner's accuracy was

  nearly dead-on, but he overcompensated the approaching speed of the

  destroyer. The shell splashed into the water fifty feet directly ahead

  of the American ship's bow, blasting a spray of water onto its deck but

  causing no damage.

  The two forward batteries of the Theodore Knight ax last came to life,

  lobbing five-inch shells in succession toward the Japanese sub. The

  inexperienced and adrenaline-fortified gun crew fired high, however,

  placing the destroyer's shells harmlessly beyond the now-accelerating

  submarine.

  On the exterior bridge of the I-403, Ogawa hesitated momentarily before

  dropping down the hatch, taking a final glance at his approaching

  stalker. Movement caught his eye on the forward deck, where he was

  surprised to see a crewman striding toward one of the

  airplanes. It was a pilot, ignoring the dive command and climbing into

  his plane. In the spirit of the kamikaze, the pilot could not bear the

  thought of losing his aircraft and was willing to die with it instead.

  Ogawa cursed his foolish bravery, then ducked down into the bridge

  below.

  The ballast tanks were opened and a rush of seawater began flooding in

  to weigh the submarine down. The huge hull of the I-403 was a

  liability in this situation, requiring a notoriously long time to

  submerge. As Ogawa waited for the sub to make its agonizingly slow

  descent, he played one more card.

  "Prepare to fire torpedoes!" he commanded.

  It was a gamble, but a calculated one at that. With the destroyer

  directly ahead, Ogawa could let go a shot in the face of the ship and

  make the hunter fall prey to the victim.

  "Tubes loaded," the torpedo officer reported.

  "Stand by tubes number one and number two," Ogawa ordered.

  The destroyer was barely two hundred yards away and still belching fire

  from its five-inch guns. Amazingly, the destroyer's guns continued to

  miss their mark. The point-blank target of the sub slowly began to

  diminish as the nose of the undersea craft dipped beneath the waves and

  a wash of seawater gradually flooded over the forward deck.

  "Fire one!" Ogawa shouted. Counting off three seconds silently, he

  paused, then ordered, "Fire two!"

  With a blast of compressed air, the two torpedoes burst out of the

  forward tubes on a deadly streak toward the advancing destroyer. Each

  packing an 890-pound lethal warhead, the twenty-three-foot-long,

  oxygen-powered torpedoes accelerated quickly, racing toward the

  Theodore Knight at better than 45 knots.

  An ensign standing on the bridge wing of the destroyer noticed a seam

  of white trails under the water's surface burrowing toward the ship.

  "Torpedoes off the port and starboard bow!" he shouted, though his

  body remained frozen in rapt fascination as he watched the speeding

  explosives approach.

  In an instant, the torpedoes were on them. But either by

  miscalculation, divine intervention, or just plain luck, the two deadly

  fish somehow missed their target. The immobile ensign watched in

  amazement as the two torpedoes skimmed past both sides of the

  destroyer's bow, then raced down the length of the ship no more than

  ten feet from either side of the hull before disappearing beyond the

  stern.

  "She's diving, sir," noted the destroyer's helmsman as he watched the

  waves slosh over the bow of the sub.

  "Steer for the conning tower," Baxter commanded. "Let's go right down

  her throat."

  Firing from the forward batteries had ceased, as the guns could no

  longer be trained on a target so low to the ship's bow. The bat de

  became a race, the destroyer boring in like a charging ram in an

  attempt to batter the I-403. But the submarine was gaining depth and,

  for a moment, appeared like it would successfully slip beneath the

  stalking ship. The Theodore Knight had crossed over the bowline of the

  sub, its keel missing the top deck of the descending sub by a matter of

  feet. But the destroyer drove forward, intent on crushing the

  submersing vessel.

  The aircraft were the first to feel the sharp wedge of the destroyer's

  prow. Partially submerged on the receding deck, the randomly aligned

  airplanes just caught the surging bow of the ship at mid height and

  were instantly dissected into large sections of mangled metal, fabric,

  and debris. The defiant pilot, who had climbed into the cockpit of the

  first airplane, received little time for impudence before realizing his

  wish to die with his plane in a crushing blow.

  The I-403 itself was now half submerged and had so far avoided damage

  from the assault. But the sub's conning tower was too great a

  protrusion and could not escape the charging wrath of the ship. With a

  crunching shear, the bow of the destroyer tore into the vessel's

  console, slicing through it like a scythe. Ogawa and his operations

  officers

  were killed instantly as the ship crushed into and through the control

  center of the sub. The entire structure was ripped away from the body

  of the submarine as the destroyer continued its onslaught, carving a

  mutilating gash along the rear spine of the I-403. Inside, the doomed

  crew heard the screeching grind of metal on metal be
fore the torrents

  of seawater burst in and flooded the compartments. Death came quickly

  but painfully to the drowning men as the sub lurched, then dropped

  rapidly to the seafloor. A smattering of air bubbles and oil boiled to

  the surface to mark the gravesite, then all was silent.

  Aboard the Theodore Knight, the crew and officers cheered their

  destruction of the Japanese submarine as they watched the telltale

  slick of black oil and fuel pool on the surface like a death cloud

  above the sunken boat. How lucky they were to have found and destroyed

  an enemy vessel right on their own home shores, with not so much as a

  casualty on their own ship. Though the enemy had fought with valor,

  the victory had come easily. The crew would return to port as heroes,

  with a great tale to tell their grandchildren. What none of the men on

  the destroyer could have suspected or imagined, however, was the

  unspeakable horror that would have befallen their countrymen had the

  I-403 succeeded in its mission. Nor could they know that the horror

  still awaited, silently beckoning from the depths of the shattered

  wreckage.

  Mystery trawler and NUMA

  May 22, 2007 The Aleutian Islands, Alaska

  The winds swirled LIGHTLY about the faded yellow tin hut perched on a

  small bluff overlooking the sea. A few light snowflakes danced about

  the eaves of the structure before falling to the ground and melting

  amid the grass and tundra. Despite the nearby hum of a diesel

  generator, a wooly Siberian husky lay on a sun-exposed patch of loose

  gravel enjoying a deep sleep. A white-feathered arctic tern swooped by

  for a look, then stopped momentarily on the small building's roof.