"Don't know. We've had a major battery casualty, maybe a ruptured cell." Lofton lurched to his feet and flashed the lantern fore and aft. Surveying the wreckage, he shook his head slowly. "This whole damn boat is screwed. To begin with, I have to restart the catalytic beds to generate power so we can pump bilges and scrub the crap out of this atmosphere."
"Are the fuel cells shut down?"
"They tripped out automatically when everything went haywire. We're going to need main battery power to restart them. Trouble is, the batteries could be covered with salt water. We would have to pump bilges to get at them." Lofton's mind twirled. He looked down. "All that takes power. I don't know, Anton."
"Try."
"Yeah." Lofton hacked out a cough. He reached overhead to a cabinet and pulled out two portable air bottles and masks. "Put this on. I'll see if I can sort out this mess." He unclipped another battle lantern and handed it over.
Lofton sloshed forward to his armchair and checked the battery gauges. All were dead except number six, which fluttered between the red and yellow zones.
"Anton." His voice was muffled behind the mask. "The problem is beneath the deck plates. Grab some rubber gloves out of that locker under the bunk. There's a rubber mat there, too. Lay it on the deck. This can get tricky. Those batteries are rated at forty‑two kilovolts when they're fully charged." Lofton flipped switches at the circuit breaker panel. "I'm killing everything, including the auxiliary load, to completely isolate the batteries."
Dobrynyn drew on the thick, black gloves. He laid the mat down and knelt.
Lofton said quietly, "Lift those deck plates just forward of your knees. I want to see the aftermost battery. It still has some juice." He double‑checked circuit breakers while Dobrynyn worked at the deck plate screws.
"OK." Dobrynyn bent low, saying, "Not too much bilge water and I see the batteries. This one's labeled 'six' and it looks like one of the copper rods is burned in half." Dobrynyn dropped his head below deck level and shone the light aft. "Yes--"
"Watch your head!" Lofton shouted.
Dobrynyn jerked up.
"Your hair almost touched the top of number six. It's still hot. Easy, Anton. We're sweaty and wet as hell. The boat's full of crap and our electrical resistance is really low. Touch something like that battery, even with your hair, and gzzzzzsst." He drew a finger across his throat.
Dobrynyn exhaled slowly. He crab‑crawled forward, then bent and shone the light aft. "OK, the rod is severed in two places, near the front of the battery compartment and just aft of number- five battery, which looks like it's cracked."
"Port or starboard rod?"
"Port."
"Hmmm. The plus rod." Lofton sat back, thinking. What the hell? Try it! "There's a tool box aft, starboard side, near the tunnel hatch. Disconnect the rod while I check the rest of the batteries. We might be able to jump the load from four to six. If it works, maybe restart the catalytic beds."
"Maybe?"
"It's our best chance."
Dobrynyn went after the tools.
Lofton took a deep breath and worked furiously at the forward deck plates. He wiped sweat out of his eyes. The air mask pinched his face.
Soon the deck plates were up. They lay everywhere: on the toilet, on the starboard bulkhead. Lofton had to rest a deck plate on top of a gaping, dead Ullanov.
"OK, disconnected here," Dobrynyn gasped. "What have you found?"
"Number five is dead. The others look OK, but I won't know for sure until we hook up and throw the switch." Lofton stood and squirmed out of his garbage-stained Soviet naval teeshirt. Sweat ran down his chest and arms. The carbon dioxide level was rising. He took another whiff of air from his mask. They'd have to do something about the atmosphere soon, no matter who awaited them topside. "Here, catch this." He tossed one end of a copper rod to Dobrynyn. "Connect that to the plus side. I'll do the same down here. And go easy with your wrench, don't let it touch anything."
As their wrenches twirled, a scratching sound, like bouncing pebbles, rattled outside the hull. "Sonar. They may have found us," Dobrynyn muttered. He kept working.
"We'll know soon. All right, that's the plus side. Now let's do minus." They worked in silence as sound waves scratched at Brutus.
"Set here, how about you?"
"Go."
Lofton reset the circuit breaker to number-six battery. "I'm going to try interior lights first." He tapped a switch. The interior lights blinked, some remained on. Junk. Everywhere. Papers, books, cans bobbed in the bilge water.
Lofton threw power to the fuel cells. The lights dimmed as he punched switches. "If I can get a start sequence going in the reformer unit we'll be OK."
A sustained scratching raked Brutus's hull. Lofton tapped the fuel cell gauges and sat back, waiting.
"Nothing." Lofton rose, sloshed his way aft to the tunnel hatch, and disappeared.
Dobrynyn looked around, then his eye caught the clock: 0427. Sunrise soon. He looked to the blank CRT panels and saw the reflection of Josef Ullanov's eyes. Dobrynyn bent and lifted a deck plate off Ullanov's hip, then arranged the body so it rested in the vee formed by the starboard bulkhead and the pilot berth. He looked at Josef one last time, then brushed a hand over the limp, cold face and closed the eyes. A soggy blanket lay in the corner; he straightened it, covered the body, and pulled the blanket to Ullanov's chin.
He hesitated. Pulling the blanket back, he exposed the sergeant's hand and the signet ring with the gold "U" set in onyx. Dobrynyn twisted it off and put it in his pocket.
Lofton hobbled back and stood for a long moment. With a nod, he bent and dropped the blanket over Ullanov's head. He stood looking at the form under the blanket and bit his thumbnail. "Breakers were all tripped back aft. I reset them. We might be able to light off. Maybe without pumping bilges."
Dobrynyn took a deep breath. "Come on, then."
"Right." Lofton stepped to the control panel and punched the start sequence. He tapped his gauges, checked the battery and auxiliary panels. Exhausted, he flopped back and waited. Soviet sonars scratched outside. Now it sounded like two, different frequencies. Come on! Come--
Fuel cell number two jumped to one hundred degrees. One, three, four, five, and six quickly followed. "All right!" Lofton yelled. "They're cooking."
He fed power to the CRTs. "Anton, grab some of that copper bus rod and reconnect batteries one, two, three, four, and six. Hook them in series. Let me know when you're ready and I'll kill the battery switches. We can be out of here in fifteen minutes. Remember your gloves."
He switched in the hydraulic systems, then checked the rudder and dive plane indicators. The planes were still jammed in the full down position.
He tried the joystick.
Nothing.
Lofton's hand flew to the auxiliary hydraulic panel and he tried again. A groan aft. He tried the joystick again. The indicator followed his movement. "We were lucky, the rudder and dive planes reset themselves. I was afraid I was going to have to rig a chain‑fall and grind 'em to zero manually. How are you doing?"
"Give me time!"
The Soviet sonars clawed at them.
"Do you think we should pump bilges and right ourselves now? We have power."
"Too noisy."
Lofton shook his head in frustration. He tapped at the keyboard, bringing up the battle management system. The CRTs danced with bolts of color, grid and data. Images pulsated and settled on the Master CRT:
INGUL CLASS SUBMARINE SALVAGE VESSEL 05/0.1 nm
STENKA CLASS PSKR PATROL BOAT 019/1.2 nm
GRISHA II CLASS ASW FRIGATE 092/0.8 nm
UDALOY CLASS BBK DESTROYER 167/0.7 nm
GRISHA II CLASS ASW FRIGATE 185/0.6 nm
STENKA CLASS PSKR PATROL BOAT 211/1.0 nm
STENKA CLASS PSKR PATROL BOAT 272/1.2 nm
STENKA CLASS PSKR PATROL BOAT 341/1.6 nm
Lofton whistled. "Eight ships, seven of them with ASW gear. They're circled around us with the corvettes and des
troyer to seaward." He pointed. "Is that Ingul class ship any good?"
"Yes. You can bet that's the Alatau, the one that recovered your CAPTOR mine. They're well‑trained, professional, with the best equipment." His voice drifted for a moment. "And a Udaloy class destroyer. There's only one in the Pacific Fleet, the Admiral Shaposhnikov, almost cruiser size, a monster. She has a variable- depth sonar, that's probably what we're hearing."
"No helos are dipping, though."
"It doesn't look like it, although the Shaposhnikov carries two KA‑27s. They can be launched almost immediately. And they can send others from shore, as we discovered recently."
"We have to break out of here."
"Ummm."
"Anton, are the batteries hooked up?"
"Yes."
"OK. Let's try it. Put the deck plates back on. No use those things flying around if we get hit again.
"I'm going to see if we can creep away. We don't need another pissing contest with a torpedo. Can they go this deep?"
"Yes, but they have a difficult time down here." Dobrynyn knelt over the battery compartment.
Lofton swung up into his armchair with a mutter. "Damn, I wish I had thought of a seat belt." He wedged himself with his feet. "Ready? I've got to pump ballast first."
"Go ahead, I'll finish here."
Lofton's hands hit the Ship CRT. A pump came on the line aft whirring loudly. "Damnit! Listen to that. Might as well crank up a siren." Brutus rotated and leveled. "Here we are, you bastards!" he yelled.
Brutus rose. Lofton eased in the throttle. The digital knotmeter clicked to five knots. He carefully nursed the minisub to two thousand feet.
Dobrynyn puttered aft, stowing tools and gear and picking up debris. "Anything yet?"
"No, they might not have heard us. Oh‑oh, maybe they did. The tin can is moving."
"Hardly a tin can. The Shaposhnikov is over eight thousand tons."
"What's her top speed?"
"Around thirty‑four knots, I think."
"We can't do that now, not with a cracked battery. I think we're only good for twenty‑five or so. When we get the batteries charged we might get to thirty, but not much more."
"I have a feeling you'll need every turn you can throw to that propeller."
"Ummm."
Master flashed:
SINGLE SALVO ‑ RBU 6000 (12)
"Go to seven knots, Brad."
Lofton pushed the throttle up. Forty‑five seconds later explosions ripped the sea floor off their port quarter.
"Crappy aim, four hundred yards aft."
"Five knots again, please." Dobrynyn stood behind his brother and looked over his shoulder.
"OK. Five knots."
DOUBLE SALVO ‑ RBU 6000 (24)
"Here they go again," Lofton said.
"Ten knots this time, Brad."
Brutus had just reached nine knots when, behind them, a mightier, closer series of hedgehog‑type detonations struck the ocean floor.
Lofton checked Sensor. "Looks like they've moved to a line of bearing above us, but to the right. We can go all day like this. All they'll get are a bunch of bloated fish."
Dobrynyn nodded. "They'll shoot one more round of RBU 6000s, then try torpedoes again. Go back to five knots."
DOUBLE SALVO ‑ RBU 6000 (24)
"Another full salvo, Brad. Come to bare steerageway this time and start your bilge pump when they explode. This is going to take a while."
Lofton pulled the throttle to "stop." The contact‑fused projectiles detonated well ahead this time. They went to five knots again and waited as the pump hammered away.
It sucked dry in the bilge. Lofton flicked off the switch and pumped the water to sea from the sanitary tank. He adjusted trim, then peered at Master again. Minutes passed. The seven warships stayed above in a line of bearing.
"Anton, no torpedoes, and they're drifting far right. Think they're losing contact?"
"Don't know. Come to dead stop, I want to see something."
They watched the screen for several minutes. Suddenly, seven ships gathered speed, reversed course and headed toward Mys Mayachnyy.
One remained.
Lofton bit his thumbnail. "They're heading home. Figures. I think we're under a double gradient, Anton. Even that destroyer can't probe it with its VDS. I think we can--"
"--Brad." Dobrynyn's voice rose. "How is the battery charge going?"
Lofton's brow furrowed. He looked to the overhead battery gauge cluster. "About 30 percent now. Why?"
"What would be our top speed?"
"Around twenty‑six or twenty‑seven knots, but that's not sustained. We'll have to drop back to--"
"Go, now, before everyone gets clear!" Dobrynyn urged.
"What?"
"Do it! Now!"
Lofton jammed the throttle to the hilt. Brutus dug in, squatting slightly as he accelerated. "What's going on?"
"Keep as deep as you can!" Dobrynyn shouted.
"All right. But tell me."
"The Shaposhnikov is the only one that has lingered, everyone else is clearing the area. I've seen this exercise before, it's fleet standard ASW doctrine. Just one ship. What does that tell you?"
"Yeah." Lofton scratched his chin and coaxed speed. Brutus's knot log nudged 27.2, then fell to 26.8.
"That's all we can do for now."
TORPEDO 533 MM 45 KT 273/4.5 nm
Lofton pointed to Master. "Is that it?"
"Yes."
"And you think it's a nuke?"
"Yes. See, even the Shaposhnikov has turned for shore at," Dobrynyn leaned closer to the CRT, "thirty knots. She's clearing the area with the rest of the group."
"What's the effective range of the blast?"
"Umm, three to four kilometers at a depth of five hundred meters. Below that, it's less because of the pressure, but I don't know how much."
Seconds ticked. "Why can't we hear it, Anton? We heard the other one."
"It's still too far away, and be thankful. You don't want to hear this one." Dobrynyn stood back and rubbed a hand over his face. "I don't think it's set up for a homing routine. It looks like they shot at our last datum..." His voice dropped to a mutter.
"What?"
"...I said, it would take too long for the torpedo's sonar to acquire us through this double gradient."
Dobrynyn snapped his fingers. "Yes! We might outrun it. Come left fifteen degrees."
Lofton eased Brutus through a gentle left turn.
TORPEDO 533 MM 45 KT 172/3.7 nm
"That's it, Brad, it's on a fixed heading. Come all the way left, course zero-zero-zero. Let it clear us astern."
Lofton whipped Brutus to true north. "What sets off the bomb?"
"It's--"
They heard a tremendous whang, like a gigantic underwater tuning fork. A freight train rumbled toward them.
"It's detonated! Hold on!" Dobrynyn yelled.
Roaring, the shock wave lifted Brutus's stern and enveloped them, swinging them violently back and forth as a shark worries its prey. Five seconds, ten. Cabinets burst open, lockers spilled, the divers' trunk hatch clanged forward as Lofton fought the controls. Brutus's aft section rose twenty degrees as Lofton pulled on the joystick. Rushing, gurgling, the submarine shook. Dobrynyn twisted on his knees and wrapped his arms around the ladder. Brutus's nose leveled as Lofton's hand flashed over the keyboard.
The roaring subsided. Then, silence.
Lofton checked his gauge: keel depth 3322.
"Whoa!" he pulled the stick back. "Anton. You OK?" he called over his shoulder.
"OK, Brad." Dobrynyn stood, then sat on the edge of the pilot berth and faced his brother with a shaky smile. "OK."
Lofton sat back. "We're there." He nudged the throttle to stop, set depth to hover at fifty feet, then heaved himself from the armchair with a glance at NAV:
WAY POINT CS DIST TIME ETA‑Z
d hr m m d hr
l. Mys Mayachnyy ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ -
2. 5
0 00'.O N ‑ 180 00'.O E ‑ - ‑ ‑ ‑ 09 28 1551
3. 33 40'.O N ‑ 121 00'.O W 089i 3145 6 13 15 10 05 0506
4. San Pedro Ch. Dogleg 092 137 ‑ 6 51 10 05 1157
5. Avalon Harbor 181 15 ‑ ‑ 45 10 05 1249
3297 6 20 51
SPD = 0.0
DEPTH = 50
Master Sergeant Josef Ullanov, born July 16, 1955, in Vinnitsa in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, now lay in a weighted canvas sack with his arms crossed over his chest on board the USS X‑3. Lofton had cleaned Ullanov's ill‑fitting, garbage-soaked naval uniform as best he could and put it back on, while Dobrynyn sewed a shroud.
They carried Ullanov forward and gently lay the body in the divers' trunk. Dobrynyn climbed in with him. He wore a mask, scuba tank, and immersion suit. Lofton shut the hatch. After a moment's pause, he yanked the brass handle and listened to roaring water fill the trunk. The ballast tanks automatically compensated for trim as Brutus dutifully hovered.
The escape hatch clunked open. A minute later it was shut and dogged tight. Dobrynyn rapped twice on the bulkhead. Lofton threw the lever the other way. Compressed air pushed water from the trunk.
He caught his brother's eyes, his own eyes, through the thick glass peephole. They nodded as water receded below Dobrynyn's shoulders. Ullanov was gone, headed for the bottom of the cold North Pacific Ocean where he would rest on the International Date Line, the imaginary border that separated the twin's nationalities. One Soviet, the other American.
Lofton dropped his head as the trunk voided. Words came to him, not the Russian he'd spoken the past several days, but this time his own language.
Eternal Father, strong to save
whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep
its own appointed limits keep:
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.
PART THREE
He has placed before you fire and water: stretch out your hand for whichever you wish. Before a man are life and death, and whichever he chooses will be given to him...
THE BRUTUS LIE Page 34
