THE BRUTUS LIE

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

  A dry tightness clawed in his stomach.

  Do it! Skip Petropavlovsk!

  There was still time to change course to Chetvertyy Kuril'ski Proliv, disarm Renkin's mines, then get the hell out. It would be easy, just flip in some left rudder and head southeast. He punched the coordinates on the NAV screen:

  CAPTOR SITE:

  49˚ 39'.2 N

  156˚ 02'.7 E

  A simple doglegged track flashed on the screen: only 264 miles from Mys Mayachnyy. An amber light flashed the interro­ga­tive. All he had to do was punch "Auto" and Brutus would swing left to safety. He could run down there in ten and a half hours. And then: home.

  Do it, Brad.

  Lofton tapped a thumbnail on his teeth. Petropavlovsk, was it worth it? He thought of Felix Renkin, of Les Thatcher, of the screwdriver...

  He slapped the armrest. Petropavlovsk was infinitely more dangerous, but yes, worth it. And it would have to be tonight. There wasn't much time to save the Kunashiri Maru. He would scout Petropavlovsk Harbor, find her, then lie in a remote spot and rest until this evening.

  0539. OK. He checked NAV:

  MYS MAYACHNYY 269/3 nm

  Three miles off the beach, no time for an Alka-Seltzer. Lofton sighed and reached for the joy stick. He flipped off "Auto", then pulled back gently. Brutus swam to periscope depth, seven­teen feet, at near‑neutral buoyancy. He punched another button and checked his displays. Still green, all clear. He slowed again and waited until the speedo settled on three knots. Finally, a deep breath and up periscope.

  There it was, directly ahead; stark, desolate, damn near a sheer cliff. He checked NAV. Yes, Mys Mayachnyy. The headland stood almost five hundred feet above the Pacific Ocean, guarding the eastern entrance to Avachinskaya Guba. It was dark, glistening, with steep, precipitous sides, the point descended to rolling breakers and a treacherous reef on the channel entrance side. He quickly slewed the scope left. There. Mys Bezymyannya, well over six hundred feet high, rose with whetted, reddish sides. He flip­ped to high power momentarily; a sharp‑peaked rock pillar was perched atop Bezymyannya, almost like a cartoon. It seemed to jeer at the gray dawn.

  The channel began to unmask from the other side of Mayachnyy; he would be turning right soon. Brutus lurched a bit as a wave lapped over the scope. The swell seemed more pronounced as he neared the coast. Current. He'd have to be careful.

  No contacts forward. He flipped to low power and trained aft. Nothing, a clear ocean. He did a sky sweep: OK. Sonar: clear.

  Still time to turn around.

  No, he was committed. He'd go, he had to try.

  Train forward again. Those cliffs. Look at the guano on those dead reefs over there. But where were the birds? What was that? He flipped to high power; three basalt pillar rocks, each one over a hundred feet high, stood on the right side of the channel. He scrolled NAV for an ID:

  KAMNI TIR BRATA

  The scrolling disappeared and NAV advised him Brutus would be at midchannel in thirty seconds.

  He took a final sweep. Where the hell were all the Russians? He felt like yelling. His stomach knotted.

  Bleep! NAV flashed course 346. He moved the joystick and came right to the recommended course.

  Lofton could see well into the bay now; a few dull, non­de­script structures, some bright lights at the far end. Fog obscured low peaks surrounding Avachinskaya Guba.

  Another full sweep, all clear. He was almost abeam of Kamni Tir Brata. He concentrated forward again. At the end of the fun­nel, Poluostrov Izmennyy, a low peninsula with a sheer base, jutted out four miles away on the eastern side. That was where the shallows were, that was where he'd have to be very careful. After that, he'd be clear. Plenty of room to hide.

  A formation came into view on the left side of the channel. NAV told him it was Babushkin Kamen, a rocklike islet over two hundred feet high that looked like a tall, black cap. And just to the left of Babushkin Kamen, boats! Fishing boats. People! Lofton smiled and waved into the periscope. Four anchored dories bobbed in the swell between the islet and two whitish guano-covered rocks closer to shore. He flipped to high power. A man smoked a pipe. He was bundled in a parka and sat aft on a thwart with--

  Ping! His scope suddenly blinked with digital displays, red warnings flipped through the lens. He checked NAV. it was OK. More red lights blinked on the Master display. That couldn't be a mechanical or electronic sound from Brutus. It must be from out­side the boat.

  Ch-ping! Another one, definitely outside Brutus. He punched Master to overlay sensors in his periscope, then peered ahead.

  The power of that thing. Was it shore-based? Did they have him? If so, the helos or frigates could be on him in minutes. He checked aft, all clear.

  An ELINT classification program scrolled in the scope as he scanned from side to side. The fishing dories were still anchored off Babushkin Kamen. The lone man was there, smoking his pipe, he didn't seem concerned. Lofton trained forward.

  Ah, whitish foam dead ahead. He flipped to high power: a bow wave. Yet not a vee‑shaped bow wave, but a plowing sort of one, like a barge--no--a submarine! Outbound.

  Ping!

  Identification:

  TAMIR 22L SONAR, 3 KILOHERTZ

  The powerful Soviet sonar hit Brutus's hull like a hammer. Yet, the period wasn't regular, Lofton remembered. It wasn't keying at a particular rate, not as if it were on automatic. Maybe the Russian sonarman was testing as part of his underway proce­dure. Surely the water was so shallow that all he'd get for such a tremendous burst of energy would be a cluttered return, like shining klieg lights into a dense fog.

  The computer stopped scrolling and blinked its solution:

  TYPHOON CLASS SUBMARINE

  "My God!" Lofton whispered as the stats popped in his peri­scope lens. One of the world's largest and most deadly submarines was headed directly toward him, probably en route to a Pacific patrol station. At this range rate they'd meet near the Izmenny narrows.

  A Typhoon. She was the size of a heavy cruiser, twenty‑five thousand tons submerged, 557 feet long, the length of the Washing­ton Monument. Beam: eighty‑two feet. Draft: forty‑two feet. Two pressurized nuclear water reactors delivered one hundred thousand shaft horsepower each to twin, seven‑bladed propellers.

  Lofton risked a pulse with his fathometer: fifty‑five feet. The Soviets must have dredged the channel for this giant from the thirty‑nine feet shown on the charts.

  More of the Soviet boomer hove into view. Bulbous, oval lines grew above the foamy bow wave. The Typhoon had bow planes, her curved sail was arranged on a streamlined yet awkward-looking, fairing. It made her look squat, like a giant pinheaded football player. Missiles, twenty vertical launched SS‑N‑20s, rested in watertight silos forward of the sail instead of aft as on U.S. missile submarines. Each missile was forty‑nine feet long with a range of four thousand five hundred nautical miles; each carried six MIRV thermonuclear warheads.

  Ping! He hoped the Soviet sonar couldn't see through Brutus's anechoic coating, but Lofton nevertheless decided to sit this one out. There should be enough room at this point, the channel was about a thousand yards wide. He eased the joystick to the right and vented his tanks for negative buoyancy, hoping he could find a sandy bottom while twenty‑five thousand tons gushed past.

  Ping! The Typhoon's machinery noise penetrated Brutus's hull. Master flashed the range: 250 yards. He flipped on the audio, set the volume, and cocked an ear. No propeller irregularities. He heard a high-pitched growling interspersed with an occasional bubbling sound.

  Brutus settled with a petit crunch, then listed to one side. Lofton took more ballast quietly. He didn't want that monster's wake tearing the minisub off the bottom and spinning him around.

  One hundred yards, almost abeam. The Typhoon was quiet for such a large power plant; still no whumps or propeller noises. He visualized the machinery above: giant reactors, distilling plants, condensers, feed pumps, lube oil pumps, turbines--enormous ones, turbogenerators, primary steam
loops, secondary steam loops, two hundred thousand horsepower.

  The Typhoon was abeam, he could hear better and tweaked the volume. There was something like the low growl of a diesel loco­motive without the pumping reciprocation sound. Then a high whine, loud. Lofton smiled; this Typhoon, one of the USSR's fin­est, was noisy abeam. He wished he had the equipment to record her acoustic signature.

  The Typhoon's wave nudged Brutus but he stayed put. Even without the sound, Lofton felt the presence of the ship's churning and her 150 souls.

  It drew behind him, quieter from astern, he could tell. Then the Typhoon was gone. Silence. Lofton exhaled, flipped off the audio, and waited for twenty minutes.

  He checked the sensors: clear. NAV: ready. Ship: two thousand pounds negative buoyancy. He squeezed the joystick trigger and blew to slightly positive buoyancy, then kicked Brutus off the bottom with ahead one-third. With speed on, he flooded back to neutral buoyancy and swam the minisub to periscope depth. Clear ahead. He checked aft. No sign of the Typhoon. Off to his left the four dories still bobbed off Babushkin Kamen. Another man had joined the pipe smoker. This one carved wood as they talked.

  Back to three knots, Brutus drew close, then abeam of the large peninsula on his right, Poluostrov Izmenny. Ahead, Petropav­lovsk hove into view, three miles away and slightly off his star­board bow. Tall gangly cranes, water towers, brownish steaming smokestacks, and warehouses blended into a grayish‑blue hue on Avachinskaya Guba.

  A downtown section with block‑shaped buildings rose behind the waterfront, then merged with square and rectangular apartment buildings in the hills. He studied an onion‑domed church close to downtown. Nearby, a slag heap rose three stories high and a two-story hospital‑like structure crouched next to it.

  Lofton punched temperature on his control panel:

  SEAWATER: 46˚ F

  EXT ATMOSPHERE: 54˚ F

  INT ATMOSPHERE: 71˚ F

  Fog still camouflaged the peaks surrounding the large bay. He checked the far side of Avachinskaya Guba: A navigation beacon winked at him from Mys Kazak.

  Merchant ships rode at anchor ahead of him. He flipped to high power, finding a dark blue Polish freighter that sulked behind her anchor chain, brown stack gas rising above her funnel, stra­ight up. No wind. An Italian freighter sat two hundred yards away. Two Soviet merchantmen bobbed closer to shore. One looked like an icebreaker and the other, military, a high, slab‑sided repair ship of some kind. Lofton checked her fantail; the Soviet Red Banner naval ensign drooped from its staff. A small work boat trudged around the point to his right and picked its way through the nearby Rakovaya Shallows.

  Down scope. Lofton checked the clock: 0655. He'd give himself until 0800 to find the Kunashiri Maru. By then Petropavlovsk would be fully awake and he'd have to pull away and sit on the bottom until twilight. He increased speed to eight knots. The anchored merchant fleet gave enough machinery noise so he could navigate among them on passive sonar.

  Lofton rubbed his chin and checked to the north. A forest of masts and radar antennas, the Soviet fleet, sprouted like weed tufts. Massive cranes towered over the Frenza ship repair yard. Adjacent was the V. I. Lenin submarine base and repair facility. The most likely place for the Kunashiri Maru would be at the commercial docks in Petropavlovsk's inner harbor. He'd try there first, then across the bay on the western side.

  He raised the scope. A lumber barge lay anchored close to a quay wall. Two tugs maneuvered around it, their screws churning. He was close to Mys Sigal'nyy and Petropavlovsk's inner harbor; it looked small. Fortunately he could--

  Oh oh! Down scope.

  Two patrol boats blasted from under the stern of the Italian freighter and overtook him. Soon, their screws ground past at two hundred yards slant range. As they raced by, Lofton punched Ident:

  STENKA CLASS PSKR PATROL BOAT

  LENGTH: 129 FEET

  SPEED: 34 KNOTS

  Petropavlovsk. Kamchatka Peninsula. Soviet Siberia. USSR. Forty-two hundred miles from home and he'd almost been caught by the two Stenkas because he'd forgotten to check aft; a miracle they hadn't spotted him. He wiped his brow and waited.

  A minute passed; he raised the scope and made a careful, full sweep: All clear. He slewed and tracked the two Stenkas. They were about five hundred yards away, had slowed and approached the docks, toward a medium-size freighter. She was moored in front of an enormous wooden structure, which nearly obscured the ship. He flipped to high power and checked her flag: Cuba. The wooden building looked like a cannery.

  He slewed forward and studied the two Stenkas. With low freeboard, they looked swift as they idled past the docks. Twin thirty-millimeter machine gun turrets, one forward, the other aft, comprised their main armament. Without the humpbacked deckhouse amidship, the Stenkas appeared as large versions of the old Ameri­can PT boats. But harsh superstructure lines robbed them of grace and lent them a sinister cast.

  Lofton turned cold as he checked their colors. These patrol boats flew the green ensign of the KGB Border Maritime Troops.

  The Stenkas hove to and swung lazily; he could see their white hull numbers just below their bridges: 831, 726. Their turrets were trained inshore. Where was their target? Lofton squinted; a shape was silhouetted against the shed. Twin masts, but it was still too dark to pick out details.

  Lofton dropped the scope and ran at ten knots for two min­utes, then slowed for a closer look.

  He could see better now; the Stenkas rode easily one hundred yards offshore and the build­ing indeed was a cannery. Conveyors, crates, and pallets ranged below blackened windows.

  Something stirred on the docks. Lofton recognized four BTR‑60 armored personnel carriers swooping down the quay wall. They bounced over a shallow trench, then disappeared behind a dark shape, a ship. One BTR‑60 was still visible and disgorged a dozen naval infantry. They quickly, professionally fanned out from the stern of the low‑slung fishing trawler.

  Dawn was breaking, the light improved, he could make out the ship. Two masts, forward well-deck, black hull. She had a white deckhouse aft with a rusty, stubby-looking stack. She flew the Japanese merchant ensign. As more Soviet troops arrived and stalked about, he picked out the name on her fantail: Kunashiri Maru.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Libya, 1986

  The Libyan patrol boat Waheed burbled her way toward the minefield at five knots. Nine hundred meters inshore, water beamed like a black mirror. Range lights winked at them from stumpy silhouetted hills above the Sidi Bilal training compound. The sky was dust-laden, a quarter moon filtering through to cast a soft sheen on the graceful, low gray hull. Waheed's forty-nine meters alternately squatted and rose with the gentle quarter­ing ground­swell.

  A high pilothouse stood across the Waheed's seven point one meter beam, giving her bridge crew a broad view forward over the domed seventy-six millimeter Melara single automatic gun mount. A look amidships revealed four fixed Otomat surface-to-surface missile canisters. Another enclosed mount near the Waheed's fan­tail contained dual forty-millimeter Breda/Bofors automatic guns on a raised barbette. With four MTU 20V538 diesels, her four propellers could drive the French La Combattante-II class patrol boat to a roaring thirty-nine knots.

  Anton Dobrynyn leaned on the bridge bulwark. The range lights had been turned on for their entrance. He examined them, then shifted his glance to Gholam Aziz, the Waheed's skipper. Aziz seemed to be doing well. Their course looked good for the mine­field channel. But Zuleyev. Damn! Holding Aziz's hand was Zule­yev's job. Not his.

  Dobrynyn double-checked his landmarks. The Bilal tomb stood darkly on a low rise just to the right of the range. It was a sprawling, Moorish structure with a commanding dome. He promised himself he would walk up there soon and look it over. Closer, he picked out the single wharf with its corrugated Marine Guards shack. The fairway buoy was a joke. The Waheed should have been passing it now, as it was intended to help mariners navigate the channel. Instead, it had been moved inside the minefield where it swayed piti
fully thirty meters off the pier.

  The downtown lights of Tripoli winked at him off the port side. Clearly visible, even at this hour, were the sawtooth bat­tlements of the Tripoli castle with its large dome. The belfry of the Santa Maria delgi Angeli church punctuated the skyline and glowed softly above a street light. Strange, a church here. He wondered if they were allowed to hold services. Then the city slid behind a dark headland.

  Dobrynyn checked his digital watch: 0147. He ran a hand over his forehead and wiped away perspiration. The water had felt invigorating during their demolition exercise, and the ride back was cool before they slowed for the minefield. But now, with no wind, stagnant air hung oppressively on the bridge. Aziz had predicted the Ghibli, which brought dust out of the desert, would soon be offset by northwesterlies. The skies would be clean again. But not tonight. Dobrynyn's shirt clung to him; he unbut­toned it further but it didn't help.

  Ullanov clumped up to the bridge and stepped next to Dob­rynyn. "Sir?"

  "Both starboard engines are out, Josef. They need you down there again."

  Ullanov cursed softly and said, " What is it this time?"

  "Sludge, I think. Both engines. Simple. Go down and give it one of your five-minute jobs. We need to get through the mine­field."

  Ullanov swore again.

  They watched Aziz hover behind his helmsman and check compass headings. The helmsman muttered as he worked his wheel against the offsetting thrust of the port engines while another sailor alter­nately goosed and retarded his throttles. For the third time in as many minutes Aziz looked to Dobrynyn with a plaintive smile before he went back to his conning.