America jg-9

by Stephen Coonts

  With both torpedoes gone, Colorado Springs laid over in a hard turn designed to put the incoming torpedo forward of the beam, forcing it into a maximum rate turn, which might make it miss. And she launched a half dozen decoys.

  Ruben Garcia's screaming voice in his earphones startled P-3 pilot Duke Dolan. "Torpedoes in the water, noisemakers. They're shooting at each other."

  The P-3 Orion was orbiting at 25,000 feet, fifty miles from the center of the sonobuoy set. Gauzy cirrus aloft softened the afternoon sunlight, diffused it. Four miles below, the surface of the sea appeared a deep blue. The haze and the sea merged twelve or fifteen miles away, so there was no horizon. The surface of the placid ocean was flawless, unbroken by a single ship or wake. And yet, it wasn't empty.

  "Tell SUBLANT," Duke told the TACCO. "Get permission for us to go back in. There may be survivors or something."

  "Roger."

  "Tell me if you hear any explosions."

  "Got it," Garcia snapped and flipped switches so he could talk to SUBLANT on the radio.

  Aboard America, Eck and Kolnikov heard the high-pitched pinging of the incoming torpedoes as they locked onto their target. La Jolla's decoys were pouring noise into the water, but Eck's sonar was so advanced that the decoy noise was easy to filter out. The Mk-48 Kolnikov had fired, however, lacked Revelation's sophistication.

  Although he had ordered America to increase her speed drastically, Kolnikov had not ordered a turn for fear of breaking the fiber-optic wire unreeling behind the war shot aimed at La Jolla.

  Eck studied the torpedo sonar data displayed on a separate screen.

  He had too many targets. He couldn't tell which was the real one, so he made the assumption that all the targets were false and the submarine was behind them. Eck turned the torpedo to go around the targets he could see and come in behind, where he hoped the forty-knot fish would find La Jolla. He was so intent on his task that he didn't hear the antitorpedo weapons being fired from the sail and accelerating away, though the sonar faithfully captured the event.

  Kolnikov glanced up at the bulkhead-mounted sonar panels and stood frozen, mesmerized. He could see the decoys, like newborn stars, and the river of disturbed water that was La Jolla's wake, which appeared as a luminescent flow of gases in a darker universe. The sight that captured his attention, though, was the streaks left by the wakes of the speeding torpedoes — both his going away and La Jolla's incoming.

  He couldn't take his eyes off the two incoming fish, racing toward him like tracer bullets.

  Out of the corner of his eye he caught the streaks that were the antitorpedo weapons. The one on the right went straight as a flashlight beam for the incoming warhead — and hit it. The detonation of shaped charge rocked the submarine slightly and appeared on the screen as a brilliant flash of white light.

  The second antitorpedo weapon missed.

  Involuntarily he grabbed for the table, braced himself, unable to tear his eyes from the screen.

  Now a series of strobing lights flashed across the screen as more than 150 transducers buried in America's anechoic skin began emitting sound in a pattern that was designed to confuse the acoustic receivers in the nose of the torpedo and cause it to turn.

  Racing in at forty knots, the incoming death ray seemed to turn away from the center of the screen at the very last second and disappear out the side.

  The torpedo had missed!

  Vladimir Kolnikov exhaled convulsively.

  Over the noise of the incoming torpedo, Buck Brown heard the explosion caused by the premature detonation of La Jolla's first torpedo and assumed it had struck America. He also heard the active sonar countermeasures of America, but the reality of what he was hearing didn't register. He was too busy tracking the incoming torpedo and ensuring that the tactical plot was correct.

  Junior Ryder also heard the first explosion and thought for a fleeting instant that he had torpedoed America. That thought died when he heard the active countermeasures. Although he had never heard it before, he had been briefed about it and recognized the sound for what it was. Still, these thoughts occupied only a corner of his consciousness — his attention was devoted to the tactical plot, a two-dimensional computer presentation of the tactical situation. His submarine was in the center of the plot. America and the Springs were depicted in their relative positions… as was the track of the incoming torpedo.

  He could see that the torpedo was being steered around the acoustic decoy cloud. He ordered more decoys deployed and called for a hard turn into the oncoming torpedo to try and force an overshoot.

  If his boat had been going faster, the maneuver would have worked.

  Ryder's eyes widened and he involuntarily grabbed the table as the torpedo track merged with the center of the plot.

  The explosion rocked the boat.

  Aft! It hit aft!

  Then the lights went out and the computer screens went blank.

  The explosion of the shaped charge in the warhead of the Mk-48 ruptured the hull of USS La Jolla. The enormous pressure of the ocean did the rest. The engineering spaces were crushed. The watertight hatch leading forward held for a long moment… as the steel carcass that had been a sub settled deeper into the sea. Down she went, slowly, the pressure building inexorably.

  "Emergency surface. Blow the tanks!"

  Junior Ryder shouted the order over the groans of steel being twisted and deformed under the enormous pressure. They heard the compressed air being released, heard the rumbling of water being forced from the ballast tanks.

  The generators had failed. In the glow of the battery-operated emergency lantern, Junior watched the depth gauge. If he could get the sub to the surface he could save some of his men — the ones still alive. If not…

  Behind him the talkers on the sound-powered circuit were trying to raise the men in the engineering spaces. One of them was sobbing.

  The needle on the depth gauge quivered as the boat tilted, the aft end sinking and the bow rising. There was too much water aft.

  "Shit!" shouted the chief of the boat over the voices and the noise of tortured steel. "It ain't gonna work."

  He was right. The needle on the depth gauge began moving clockwise. The boat was going deeper.

  "Oh, Jesus," someone exclaimed. Then the sea crushed the bulkheads aft and the air pressure increased astronomically, rupturing every eardrum, collapsing lungs and eyeballs in the microsecond before the wall of water hit them like a flying anvil.

  And then they were dead.

  Kolnikov recognized the ripping, tearing, crushing noise after the torpedo detonation for what it was. He immediately turned his attention to the Springs. He had one torpedo on the way, which the attack sub might well avoid.

  He checked the combat computer to ensure that the remaining torpedoes in the tubes were getting presets. One was receiving range and bearings to Colorado Springs, the other to what was now the wreck of La Jolla. He flooded the tube, opened the outer door, and launched the torpedo that was tracking the Springs. Then he set up the remaining fish to track her too.

  He turned away from the combat computer and stood in the center of the room looking at the Revelation panels. Noises were still coming from La Jolla as metal tore and she was crushed, compartment by compartment. Revelation displayed her agony as random flashes and smears of light that were brighter than the general glow of the acoustic decoy area, which was beginning to cool off.

  The torpedoes fired at the Springs were two streaks that led away into the darkness.

  Twenty-six thousand yards, about thirteen miles, the torpedoes would need a little over nineteen minutes to traverse that distance. And no doubt that sub had fired torpedoes in this direction that would require about the same amount of time to arrive.

  America was still accelerating. Kolnikov directed Turchak to turn to ninety degrees off the bearing to the Springs. With a lot of luck he might run out of the detection cone of the incoming torpedoes, for undoubtedly there was more than one. He didn't expect to
succeed in this maneuver, but he thought it worth a try. In any event, he would have the torpedoes in his stern quarter. When they were close enough, he would begin turning into therrt, tighter and tighter, trying to bring them forward of the beam and force an overshoot.

  At the same time, he would trigger the active acoustic defense. He had only two more antitorpedo weapons, and he didn't want to use them here unless forced into it. On the other hand, as Turchak pointed out, it is silly to die holding a loaded gun you refused to shoot.

  "Let's pray there are no more than two torpedoes inbound," he said aloud.

  "I didn't know you prayed," Turchak muttered, and wiped his hands on his trousers.

  "SUBLANT says to go in," the TACCO told Duke Dolan. "And we have explosions. Breakup noises."

  Duke Dolan turned his attention to the autopilot. He studied it carefully, gingerly turned the heading control to bring the big plane out of its turn and steady on the proper heading. Then he retarded the throttles and lowered the nose several degrees.

  He did everything slowly, trying to concentrate, trying to block out the thought of dying men.

  To die on such a day.

  God forgive us.

  "I can hear torpedoes running," Eck said as he worked feverishly to get accurate bearings. Kolnikov could hear them too through the sonar headset he was wearing, but mainly he was listening to the sounds of La Jolla being crushed. The noises had about stopped. There was nothing left to crush as the wreckage sank slowly toward the ocean's floor, here about sixteen thousand feet below the surface.

  More torpedoes were running. Life or death?

  The deciding factor, Kolnikov hoped, would be the antitorpedo countermeasures. Americas were two technological generations beyond the countermeasures in the Los Angeles—class boats. Seawolf was the generation between them. If he encountered Seawolf he would shoot fast and first.

  Perhaps he should not have fired at the Springs. The other boat might have been unable to resolve a firing solution.

  Well, it was done. Perhaps the Springs would successfully evade and he could slip away.

  Or perhaps he and Turchak and Eck and all the others would die right here in just a few minutes when the torpedoes arrived.

  Kolnikov didn't really believe in God, not as He was depicted by organized religions. He believed that there was something bigger than man, bigger than life, but he didn't know what. He hadn't thought about it much, either. He would learn all the answers soon enough.

  He could hear the incoming torpedoes now, pick them out of the background noise… part of which was the Springs's noisemakers and bubble generators. The devil of it was that he couldn't tell how far away they were. He glanced at the clock.

  Eleven minutes had passed. Running time should be a bit over nineteen if the Springs had fired at a target with a known range. Probably she hadn't. The Mk-48 torpedo was probably cruising at forty knots, searching as it came. That would make the running time. . what? He tried to do the mental arithmetic and couldn't. He did it on a piece of paper lying nearby.

  Nineteen minutes, forty seconds.

  Twelve minutes gone. .

  Heydrich was sitting negligently in one of the chairs at an unused sonar console. He was watching Eck, the Revelation displays, Boldt, and Kolnikov. Just taking it all in, like a man whiling away the remainder of a lunch hour.

  Kolnikov felt a rush of anger. He turned his back on Heydrich so he wouldn't have to look at him.

  Thirteen minutes…

  Boldt was chewing his fingernails, tearing at them. Sweat ran in rivulets down the cheeks of Georgi Turchak; the few remaining strands of hair on top of his head were sodden. He had the boat under perfect control, right at twenty knots, which was about as fast as the boat would go and still remain reasonably quiet. Eck was working like a madman at the sonar control panel, resolving the bearing, tweaking it, ensuring that the information was being fed to the computer-driven tactical plot. And Leon Rothberg, the American? He was staring listlessly at the bulkhead, his eyes apparently unfocused. Perhaps he was the only sane one among them.

  Kolnikov studied the tactical plot. The torpedoes were curving in behind in a tail chase, one trailing the other. Alas, he had not managed to get outside their acquisition zone.

  "Ten degrees left rudder, Turchak… Little more rudder… A little nose down, a few more turns. . Boldt, fire off the hull transducers, let's see if we can make the torpedoes pass behind."

  He looked up from the tactical plot to the Revelation screen on the port side. There was the first torpedo, a luminous streak curving in, growing larger, closing.. And the second, well behind, following the first. The distinctive high-pitched noise of their seekers squealed in his earphones; on the Revelation screen it looked as if the incoming torpedoes were sporting a single headlight each.

  Should he launch an antitorpedo torpedo? Both of them?

  "Full left rudder, Turchak. Wrap it up tight."

  At these grazing angles, the hull-mounted active acoustic coun-termeasure should be effective — the antitorpedo weapon probably would be the best choice for a torpedo coming in on the beam. Might get one of those tomorrow, he thought. Or in an hour.

  Closer and closer came the rushing torpedo… and at the last instant turned to go behind the ship. He turned and saw it going away on the after starboard screen.

  Back to port. One to go.

  Racing in, tighter than the last one.

  "Give me all the turn that's in her," he roared at Turchak, who tilted the boat with the planes. Kolnikov had to grab something to keep from sliding on the deck.

  As the second torpedo streaked past, he heard Rothberg sobbing again.

  "Right full rudder," Kolnikov commanded. "Take her down to sixteen hundred feet, put the Springs dead astern, and run like hell."

  After the boat rolled out of the turn with her bow down, Heydrich rose from his chair and stretched. "That was certainly an education. You are very good at this, Kolnikov. Very good." Then he walked out of the compartment and went down the ladder to the galley.

  Aboard Colorado Springs, the crew deployed decoys to build an acoustic wall between the incoming torpedo and the sub. Without a human brain to help it find a way through or around the decoy, the first torpedo picked out the strongest signal and went for it. Unfortunately that signal was well above and left of the submarine, and once it had missed, the torpedo ran on, vainly searching for a target.

  It was only when the noise from the decoys began subsiding that the crew heard the second incoming torpedo, which had been fired several minutes after the first.

  They put noisemakers in the water, but a bit too late. The torpedo struck the upper starboard tail plane a glancing blow and detonated. The force of the blast did not hole the pressure hull, but it blew the seals in the main propeller shaft and actually bent one of the blades. It also made a mess of the upper starboard tail plane.

  When it became obvious that there were no more torpedoes inbound, the leaking, vibrating shaft convinced the captain the time had come to get to the surface. As quickly as he could. He gave the order to blow the tanks, emergency surface, and the submarine began to rise from the depths. Under control, still intact, but in no shape to hunt further for a stolen America.

  SUBLANT called Vice-Admiral Navarre in the Pentagon war room. He was standing there with the CNO, Stuffy Stalnaker, going over the tactical situation, figuring out what ships were where, what could be done with them.

  "Torpedoes were fired, at least four. One submarine was hit and sunk. Another was hit and damaged and began an emergency surface maneuver. That is the evaluation of the P-3 TACCO from the sounds on his sonobuoy. We don't know which subs were hit."

  "Can SOSUS confirm?"

  "We are working on that now, sir. I'll have more in a few minutes."

  "Keep us advised," Navarre said and hung up the phone. He turned away from the CNO for a moment to try to get his face under control, then faced the man and relayed the news.

  "I hope to C
hrist one of those torpedoes hit America," Stalnaker said hopefully. From the look on Navarre's face, he could see the submariner didn't think that likely.

  A half hour later they heard that Duke Dolan's P-3 was overhead the sub that managed to surface. Dolan said she was a Los Angeles— class boat. The sub was wallowing on the surface, down at the stern, unable to make way.

  Two minutes later the admirals in the Pentagon learned that she was Colorado Springs. She was soon on the air, radioing a report of the action.

  As the messages came in, it became obvious that the boat that had gone down was La Jolla. America had escaped.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Jake Grafton and Janos Ilin waited impatiently for darkness to fall. They walked around inside the house they had entered as refuge from the gunmen who pursued them, glanced out of windows, paused to scan with the binoculars Ilin had found in the den, looked at the family albums and knickknacks, talked of inconsequential things.

  Several times Jake flipped on the television to learn of the extent of the damage in New York City. The talking heads quickly informed him that billions of dollars in damage had occurred, an unknown number of lives had been lost, and private citizens and the authorities were trying to determine the extent of the catastrophe. Of course the politicians were making promises: aid, investigations, prosecutions, and punishment. General Alt also appeared for a sound bite, promising to find the stolen submarine in short order. How that was going to happen, he didn't say. He also didn't mention the fact that the commandant of the Marine Corps, General Flap Le Beau, had been given orders to find that sub by the president himself, who was more than a little put out with the navy.

  Depressed, Jake could listen for no more than a few minutes before he turned off the idiot box.

  They are out there," Ilin said gloomily, peering between drapes at the great outdoors, lawn and trees and sky. "They'll set up a roadblock."