“We wait. She can hear us. We can hear her. The dance begins. Who will shoot first?” He grinned, his eyes cold as the polar cap.
Silence reigned except for the calm tone of the sonar technician regularly reading off the range between the two submarines. It decreased at an alarming rate.
“Range 1-point-5 nautical miles. No change in course or speed.”
Hendricks straightened himself. “All stop.”
“All stop, aye,” replied the XO, ordering the helmsman to stop the Seawolf’s screw.
“Make the tubes ready in all respects,” Henricks ordered, uttering the traditional words used by the Silent Service since before World War II.
The Fire Control technician flooded each of the four tubes. The high pressure water that rushed into each tube created an enormous amount of noise, which quickly made its way to the Pushkin’s passive sonar. “Sir, tubes are flooded.”
“Range 1,000 yards. She’s stopped her screw,” announced the sonar technician.
“Open outer doors 1-2-3-4,” Hendricks ordered. “Has she flooded her tubes?”
“Negative, sir. Range 330 yards.”
“Outer doors 1-2-3-4 open, sir.”
“Firing point procedures,” Hendricks announced, notifying the men in the control room all actions precedent to firing were now complete.
“Range 205 yards...and holding. Sir, she’s flooding her tubes!”
“Ping her!” Hendricks ordered. “Ping the crap out of her!”
The sonar technician activated the Seawolf’s spherical echo-ranging bow sonar. Calling it a “ping” was euphemistically akin to calling a sabertooth tiger “kitty”. With 75,000 watts of radiated power, the wave of sonar energy that rushed through the icy water would fry the ears off of the Pushkin’s sonar technician unless his headphones had an automatic noise-activated shut-off system.
Ping!
The ping’s technical purpose was to measure the distance between two subs. But Hendricks already knew the distance to the Pushkin, and the Pushkin knew that the Seawolf knew. Hendricks was using the echo-ranging sonar to deliver a clear message: I’ve got my tubes flooded and my outer doors open and I haven’t changed course yet. I’m going to shoot, you bastard. That’s what the ‘ping’ really meant.
“Again!”
Ping!
“Again, again, again.”
Ping! Ping! Ping!
Hendricks closed his eyes, inhaled deeply. “Match bearings and shoot number one.”
Fire Control punched a button. The floor rumbled slightly. “Torpedo one away!”
The torpedo sped toward the Russian sub at 50 knots.
“Guide the fish into her screw. Reload tube one.”
The Fire Control technician counteracted the instructions previously fed into the Mark 50’s brain and swam the fish into the Pushkin’s massive screw. At the business end of the ten-mile wire trailed by the torpedo, the guidance control mechanism altered the torpedo’s course to the enormous propeller blades. Seconds later, the Seawolf shuddered as the Mark 50 slammed into the Pushkin’s screw.
“What happened?” Carlton finally asked, gripping a console hard.
“We’ve just immobilized her,” replied Henricks. She blinked first. If she wanted to attack, she would have opened her outer doors and changed course to respond to our attack. ” Following the rules of engagement to which he adhered religiously, Hendricks would not sink a ship at surrender, which was apparently where the Pushkin now lay.
“So what happens now?” Carlton asked, wiping his brow.
“We wait to see what she does. She’s at a total disadvantage. She’s immobilized and hasn’t opened her torpedo doors. If she does, we send her to the bottom with another four torpedoes.” He flashed a wicked grin. “She’s not going anywhere.”
59 CAPTURE
USS Seawolf
Norwegian Sea
3:10 P.M.
Ears listened carefully to the Pushkin on his headphones. The sounds transmitted efficiently through the cold water bore the unmistakable signature of hull expansion and compressed air rushing into ballast tanks. “Conn, sonar. Hull popping,” he announced. “She’s surfacing, sir.”
“Take us to 30 feet, Mr. Wathne,” Hendricks ordered. “Give me depth readings. Tell Pulaski to prep a boarding party.”
“Blow main ballast tank one,” Wathne ordered the diving officer. He lifted the handset and pressed the button connecting him to the Chief of the Boat.
“Pulaski here.”
“Chief, I want all the SEALs ready to board the Pushkin. We have to assume she’ll put up a fight.”
“Aye, sir. I’m on it.”
Almost immediately, the Seawolf achieved positive buoyancy and floated toward the surface. The diving officer read off their depth at regular intervals. The silence in the control room was replaced with loud groans as the Seawolf’s hull expanded in the shallow water.
“Thirty feet,” the diving officer announced. “Holding at thirty feet, sir.”
“Up scope one,” Hendricks ordered. He pressed his eyes against the Type 18 search periscope’s eyepiece as its mast unsheathed from the fairwater. He rotated the scope toward the Pushkin. Despite a strong wind, the sea was unnaturally calm. The dark shape of the Pushkin’s fairwater appeared through the optics, followed by the top third of its hull. All the way aft, he could see the mangled remains of the Pushkin’s screw.
He waited until three officers established a bridge watch on the Pushkin’s fairwater, then began to tap instructions in Morse code. The message was transmitted via a flashing white light on top of the Seawolf’s periscope, the only part of the Seawolf above surface.
Rogue submarine Pushkin. This is USS Seawolf. Surrender at once. All personnel exit the submarine and stand on the hull unarmed. Once you comply, you will be boarded. Any person found inside the submarine will be shot. Repeat. Any person found inside will be shot. Acknowledge.
The officers of the Pushkin had no choice but to comply. Their tacit acknowledgment came quickly via flashes from the Russian sub’s navigation light and a makeshift white flag hoisted on a small mast. Her crew disgorged from the fore and aft escape hatches.
“Boarding party ready, sir.” Chief Pulaski announced.
Hendricks waited until the exodus aboard the Pushkin ceased, then turned to his XO.
“Surface, Mr. Wathne,” he ordered, struggling into a thick black parka with the help of a sailor.
Compressed air forced the remaining seawater out of the Seawolf’s ballast tanks. Within thirty seconds, the ominous jet black hull of the Seawolf broke through the surface of the Norwegian Sea, seemingly unaffected by the low frozen swells.
“XO, you have the conn.”
“I have the conn, sir.”
Carlton turned to Hendricks as the captain grabbed a rung on the ladder that led to the fairwater hatch. “Captain?”
Hendricks stopped, turned. “What is it?”
“Sir, Mr. Pink and I respectfully request permission to join the boarding party.”
Hendricks stared at Carlton for several seconds as he gauged the pros and cons of granting them permission, concluding that there were no two persons on his sub more qualified to take part in a search of the Russian sub. After all, it was for their mission that the Seawolf was boarding the sub in the first place. He still did not know Pink’s identity, but he did know he was the only man on board who spoke fluent Russian.
“It’s your funeral,” he said, then turned to Wathne. “XO, have someone take these gentlemen to the boarding party.” He turned back toward Carlton. “Better suit up, gentlemen. It’s colder than a witch’s tit up there.” He squinted. “Kick ass and take names.”
The Seawolf’s boarding party was made up of Chief Pulaski, Carlton, Pink, and six Navy Sea Air Land Special Forces commandos (SEALs). SEALs generally did not travel on U.S. submarines unless they were on special assignment. Fortunately for the Seawolf, a team of eight SEALs had been assigned to the sub as part of an intense five-day ice survival
training course, which the Special Forces commandos would have completed but for the change in the Seawolf’s orders.
The bows of the Seawolf’s two black rubberized Zodiacs created trails of foam as they plowed through the frigid gray water toward the Pushkin. Hendricks watched their progress through binoculars high atop the Seawolf’s fairwater. Two SEAL snipers each on either side of him covered the boarding party. Motionless, they scanned the Pushkin’s personnel carefully through Leupold ULTRA M3 scopes atop Robar SR6OD rifles, ready to take any of the sailors down at the slightest aggressive move. Unlike the days of World War II when submarines were equipped with cannon atop their decks, the Seawolf carried no such armament. Nonetheless, the situation was eminently clear: surrender or die.
As Chief of the Boat, Tadeusz “Tad” Pulaski was the senior enlisted man aboard. A bear of a man, the direct descendant of Polish general Casimir Pulaski who fought alongside George Washington in the Revolutionary War, he had seen more than his fair share of combat. He sat at the bow of the lead Zodiac, his gaze moving among Carlton and Pink, who carried customized 45ACP Colt revolvers, and the three remaining SEALs, each armed with 5.56mm Steyr AUG semiautomatic machine guns and MK2 combat knives. Bulletproof vests protected them from enemy fire. Seatec horse collar vests and DUI dry suits protected against immersion in the freezing water. Satisfied, Pulaski turned forward to the nearly black hull of the Pushkin, now only twenty yards away, turned back to the other SEAL driver and signaled for the three other SEALs to split off.
The two Zodiacs immediately changed course. Pulaski and the first team with Carlton and Pink headed to the forward part of the sub. The second team headed aft. The Zodiacs reached the Pushkin simultaneously. Though the Russian crew did not put up a fight, neither did it lift a finger to help the boarding party climb aboard. Still under the protective gaze of their sniper brethren, the six SEALs clambered up the hull of the Pushkin with practiced ease as though it was a department store escalator, then helped Carlton and Pink up.
Pulaski watched as the SEALs frisked the Pushkin’s crew for weapons. What he saw bothered him. First, only thirty men stood on the deck of the Pushkin, a third of its regular crew. Second, although the men donned the uniforms of the Russian Navy, not a single one was under thirty. Most of the crew should have been in their late teens and early twenties. Third, the eyes of the men who stood silently on the hull revealed none of the surprise, fear, or hatred he would expect of military men in their predicament, but rather a smoldering acceptance of failure. Pulaski sensed the threat was far more dangerous than he’d anticipated. He braced himself for some form of resistance. A faked nuclear reactor emergency. An attempt to scuttle the ship. For now, there was only cold silence.
“Okay, sir. They’re all clean,” a SEAL reported.
Pulaski silently motioned for the men to hold their positions and stand guard.
Careful not to interfere with the man’s duties, Carlton waited for Pulaski to finish before he approached. “How does it look?” He finally asked.
“I don’t like it, sir.” Pulaski answered. “Not one bit. There’s something screwy going on here.” He spat, then listed his misgivings as he scratched his chin with the snout of his Colt. “No sir. I don’t like it one bit.” He motioned to two of the SEALs. “Let’s go!”
While four SEALs covered the thirty Pushkin crew members, two other SEALs, Pulaski, Carlton, and Pink climbed the sunken handholds to the top of the fairwater. Although it was customary protocol for surrendering officers to salute their victors, the two senior officers atop the fairwater failed to move a muscle or utter a sound. They merely stood and stared at Pulaski, Carlton, Pink, and the two SEALs who held them at gunpoint from both sides of the fairwater.
“Chief Pulaski, United States Navy. We are taking possession of your vessel for acts of international terrorism against an unarmed American cargo ship, an unarmed Russian icebreaker, and two Russian Navy patrol boats,” he announced, with Pink providing translation to the senior officer, a man in his late thirties with a chiseled face and deep blue eyes who wore a fur hat with a red hammer and sickle.
Carlton immediately recognized him as the man who had torpedoed the Claire Sailing and left them to die in the Barents Sea. He waited for Pink to finish his translation.
“The United States Navy destroyer Martin Luther King, Jr. will remove you and your crew inside three hours and hold you until the Russian Navy arrives,” Pulaski continued. There was no chance of the crew escaping. The Pushkin was immobilized and Pulaski would put its communications out of commission. “Are there any more of your crew below deck, Captain?”
“Nyet.”
“You are certain, Captain? Any person found below deck will be summarily shot. I will give you one more chance to evacuate your crew.”
The Russian’s stoic face finally creased into a condescending smirk. Carlton eyed the man carefully. It was the first time that he had taken a long, hard look at him. Not only was he clearly the man who had captured them on the Rossiya, but there was something else about the man that made Carlton think hard. He knew that smile. But from where?
Pulaski motioned for the Russian captain to proceed down the hatch, accompanied by the two SEALs. Carlton and Pink waited for Pulaski’s signal, then followed him down.
The Russian captain had apparently complied with Hendricks’s orders. The control room was empty. Bathed in red light from the emergency illumination system, the only sound in the cramped room was the heavy breathing of the five Americans, weapons at the ready. Pulaski switched the lights from red to white. He informed the two SEALs of the large cargo of diamonds believed to be on board and ordered them to search the ship. They separated, began a complete search of the boat. Pulaski scanned the control boards with an expert eye. Torpedo tubes are empty. VLS is empty.”
“VLS?” Carlton inquired.
“Vertical Launch System,” Pulaski explained. “Delta-class subs have aft external tubes that contain vertical launch missiles.”
“I thought this was an attack sub.”
“Attack subs also carry missiles, just fewer than boomers,” explained Pulaski, referring to missile submarines. He pointed to the control board. “This boat is empty. Which makes sense. This sub is used to transport a diamond cargo. It doesn’t need missiles, and less weight means greater speed.”
Carlton nodded. Pink sat at the communications station, read the Cyrillic stamped below knobs and switches. Within two minutes, Pulaski managed to establish contact with the Seawolf on the Russian radio.
“All secure, sir,” Pulaski announced. “No, sir, We haven’t discovered anything yet. We’re conducting a search right now. We’ll contact you as soon as we find anything.”
As Pulaski replaced the handset, a rush of air swept by him, accompanied by a yell of raw anger as Carlton plowed his head into the Russian captain’s stomach, slamming him against the aluminum periscope. The Russian’s fur cap fell to the ground, revealing closely cropped blond hair. Staring straight into the man’s blue eyes, Carlton shoved the muzzle of his Colt against the man’s temple.
Pulaski instinctively drew his weapon, pointed them at the two men. “For God’s sake, Carlton. What the hell are you—”
“It’s him.” Carlton ground out behind clenched teeth. “The guy who gave me the package in D.C.” He grabbed Ulianov’s hair and jerked his head backward into the metal pillar with such force that it made a dent. “The bastard who threatened Erika.”
“Calm yourself, Lieutenant,” Pulaski ordered.
“Amerikanskii,” Ulianov sneered, his face creased with the same condescending smirk he had flashed minutes before atop the fairwater. “Why can’t you mind your own—”
“Why?” Carlton shouted. “Why can’t we mind our own business? Because every time the world becomes a better place, anachronisms like you fuck it up!”
Carlton kept tempo with his words by slamming the man’s head repeatedly into the metal pillar. He raged with an anger he had never felt before. All
of his pains and fears and frustrations and shames melted into a burning hatred concentrated on the Russian he pinned to the metal cylinder. He felt his finger cock the handgun and push its barrel harder against the man’s temple. So hard that the skin near the muzzle became white, then began to bleed. Pink and Pulaski stood frozen, afraid that any attempt to separate Carlton from Molotok’s henchman would push him over the edge.
“I can kill you right here,” Carlton whispered.
“Da.”
“I can blow your fucking head off.”
“Then do it,” Ulianov mocked.
“You would pull the trigger?”
Ulianov squinted at Carlton, grinned condescendingly. “I would kill you. Just like I would kill that cheap niekulturny slut of yours.”
Carlton felt his body convulse with anger. His right hand tightened around the Colt’s grip and jammed the muzzle harder against the man’s bleeding temple. The Russian licked his own blood, smiled perversely.
“Well I’m not like you,” Carlton whispered. “We live according to the rule of democratic law. That’s why your pitiful communist masters failed.” A loud click resounded in the deathly still control room as Carlton’s finger uncocked the Colt. “You’ll be tried in a court of law. By your own people.”
“Yob tvoyu mat.” Fuck your mother. Ulianov shoved him backward. His eyes filled with surprise and agony as Carlton launched his booted right foot between the man’s legs. Ulianov pitched forward, bent in half. Carlton followed through with a nasty uppercut that sent the Russian to the ground, flat on his back.
“Don’t press your luck,” Carlton advised as he replaced the Colt in his side holster. He looked at the SEAL ensign who had just returned from his search of the forward end of the sub and jabbed his thumb upward. “Take out the trash.”
“Sir! Yes, sir!”
“What do you mean, ’nothing’?” Carlton asked the SEAL team leader upon his return.
“There’s nothing, sir. We checked everywhere. Storage lockers. Torpedo tubes. VLS tubes. Escape trunks. Crew quarters. Kitchen. Rec room. We even checked the trash room and bilge. Just a few diamonds on the floor.” He handed them to Carlton. “Nothing else. We stripped this tub. There’s no diamond stockpile on this vessel, sir.”
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