But should he ask it of them? For perhaps the millionth time since Cowlings had died, Forsythe wished for someone around to ask what to do.
But there was no one. Even the chief, as much insight as he had into the crew and operations, could not help him on this one.
They’re following me. Not the chief, not Cowlings, not the real captain. I’m the reason they’re awake, at their stations, and ready to fight. A sense of awe, of crushing responsibility filled his heart. To hold their lives in his hands, knowing that his decisions would either get them killed or keep them alive, was a sacred trust past all understanding. They were his crew, his.
And, I am the only one who can stand them down. They won’t take it from anyone else.
The USS Nashville was due in their area in six hours. The reasonable thing to do would be to withdraw, retreat to a safe distance away from this last submarine’s operating area, and wait for Nashville to show up. A fresh submarine, one with a fully manned and rested crew, was the weapon of choice in this instance.
They had come so far, done so much with so little — but there was a time to call it quits. That time was now.
Forsythe took a deep breath, ready to give the order. It would be a disappointment to many, coupled with a relief they dared not expressed. He would let them grumble about the order, insisting that they were ready to go on, as he knew they were.
But before his lips formed the words, a hard, shimmering ping reverberated through every scrap of metal on the ship. Once, faintly, then again, harder and louder. The tone shifted up, the beats coming closer together.
“Captain, Sonar. I classify this contact as a Soviet Yankee-class submarine. Unable at this time to determine whether she is a ballistic missile boat or one of the modified guided missile ones.”
“Make your depth twelve hundred feet,” Forsythe ordered, now moving almost automatically through the process of breaking contract, evading and setting up for the kill. “Chief, how are we doing on decoys and noisemakers?”
“Two decoys and seven noisemakers left.”
“Fine. Have a man standing by with them.” Forsythe summoned up a determined tone from some deep inner resource he didn’t know he had. “Okay, men. We’ve done this before. Let’s do it again.” For a moment, he wished he could think of some more ringing words that would echo in their minds, but what he said was evidently enough. It fired them up, their attention now focused on the task and away from the fear, and commands and reports flowed smoothly around him as though he were a boulder in the middle of a stream, observing it all, taking it in, letting it flow over and around him.
By now, the chief was accustomed to the way he worked. He took the submarine down smartly, executed two sharp turns to generate masses of bubbles, then slowed and dove quickly below the layer. The sonar pings followed them, wavered, and faded out as the warmer water above them deflected the acoustic energy toward the surface.
“Sir, recommend we kick her up to fifteen knots then circle around behind.”
“Very well. Make it so.” And why wasn’t there anyone to give him a pat on the back, to remind him of how much they accomplish, to inspire him to go on? Forsythe rubbed his hand across his eyes, which were dry and scratchy.
“Here.” The doctor appeared at his side and pressed something into his hand. “This will perk you up.”
The mug contained fresh, hot coffee, the steam still rising off its surface, the color dark and oily as only submariners can make it. Forsythe glanced up at the man in surprise, then shook his head. Maybe he had misjudged him. They had had their differences of opinion, but when it came right down to it, the doctor was a submariner, too. He understood what they were up against.
“No drinking during general quarters,” Forsythe said, reluctantly. He could almost taste the dark bite of caffeine, feel the warmth trace its way down his throat and spread through his body. But he couldn’t, not now. Not when the other men were not allowed any. He started to shove the cup away, but the doctor touched his wrist lightly. “I think you can break the rules just this one time, Captain. Consider it medicinal. Besides, I brought enough for everyone.” He held up a carafe, and stack of foam cups.
“Very well.” Forsythe could resist no longer. He lifted the cup, took a second to savor the aroma, his gaze still fixed on the sonar screen as he watched the ship maneuver. He took the first sip, held it in his mouth for a moment, and reveled in the heat. He swallowed, took another gulp, and then another. Finally, when he finished, he passed the cup back to the doctor.
“Steady on zero nine zero, speed fifteen,” the chief said. “There’s no indication that they see us, Captain. Recommend another three miles before we come above the layer.”
“Very well. Make it so.”
This doesn’t sound like me. My tone — and where did I learn those words? But, it sounds right. At least, they act like I’m saying the right words. Good thing they don’t know….
He knew a moment of panic as he remembered how quickly Cowlings had died. One second alive, studying a problem just as he was at this moment. A second later, falling against the bulkhead and passing out.
What? He reached out to steady himself against the same bulkhead, then felt a flash of surreal fear. What the hell was happening?
“Sir, are you all right?” The chief was at his side, anchoring him to navigation plot. “Captain, what’s wrong?”
“I–I don’t know. All at once my balance is off.” Cold horror ran through Forsythe as an ugly possibility came to mind. He shook the chief’s arm off, and turned to stare in disbelief at the doctor. The man was watching him, his face expressionless.
“He did this,” Forsythe said, aware now how seriously his words were slurred. “What did you put in the coffee?”
“Nothing, Captain.” The doctor studied him for a moment, then nodded. “It’s just coffee. Perhaps you’re more tired than you realize.”
Rage swept through Forsythe, sweeping away the drowsiness creeping upon him. “You fool! Don’t you realize what’s happening? Get me something to counteract this — and get it now.”
“Counteract what?” the doctor asked quietly. “All I see is an overstressed junior officer finally succumbing to the pressure.”
“Oh, yeah?” the chief asked. He picked up the coffee cup, examined it, and turned to the quartermaster serving as navigator. “Bubble wrap. Completely. I don’t want anything to evaporate.” He turned to glare at the doctor. “I think the Navy lawyers might want to take a look at this.
“You’re just as bad as he is,” the doctor said, a note of triumph in his voice. “We’ve got no business being out here, not like this.” He gestured toward the rest of the group. “How could you do this to them? They can’t fight, not with him in charge.”
From his belt, the chief produced a set of handcuffs. He moved swiftly, like a cat, and before the doctor could voice a protest, he snapped one cuff around the doctor’s wrist, lifted it to a chill water pipe, and snapped the other cuff on. He stepped back and looked at his work with satisfaction. “That will hold you. He took the coffee pot that the doctor had brought in and set it safely aside. “Nobody touches that,” he ordered, then he turned back to Forsythe. “Sir — how are you?”
Forsythe smiled wanly. “I’ve been better.”
Black waves swarmed over him, threatening to swallow his consciousness. He fought them off, tried to stay focused on his anger, but the darkness crept ever closer, settling down on him in layers, blanking off the edges of his mind. He couldn’t succumb, not now. Not with the Yankees on their tail.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” the chief said softly, glaring at the doctor. “You may have killed us all.”
Think, think. He had to pay attention — he couldn’t afford to lose focus. Not now. Something warm pressed itself against his hand and he opened his eyes, surprised to find that they’d been closed. Another cup of coffee. He pulled back immediately.
“I made this one myself, sir,” the chief said. “Go o
n — this one’s okay.”
The same dark, earthy smell, the same sense of anticipation, but this time tinged with wariness. He glanced over the chief, then realized he had to trust someone. The chief had done nothing so far to warrant suspicion, nothing at all.
Forsythe took a large gulp, and another. It seared the delicate lining of his mouth, his throat, and the caffeine immediately seemed to insinuate itself into his body. He almost choked on the bitterness — it was at least twice as strong as any coffee he’d ever had on board the submarine, and that was saying a lot.
Nevertheless, the effects were almost immediate. He felt the sudden rush of energy, felt the pressure in his head and chest increase as the caffeine constricted his blood vessels and raised his blood pressure. No, the effects of the drug weren’t gone, but he felt capable of fighting them off now. He pushed himself away from the navigator’s table, figuring that having to stand up would help keep him alert. “Situation?”
“You were only out a couple of minutes, sir. We’re continuing north, still below the layer. We should turn again in about five minutes, according to the original plan.”
Forsythe paced back and forth, aware that the jitters were sweeping over him. It wasn’t comfortable, but he welcomed it. Better nerves than sleeping. “Run me through the contacts again,” he ordered.
Jacob’s screen showed five contacts of interest. “Here’s the battle group,” he said, pointing to the west. “I imagine they’re going to stay a safe distance out from shore, especially after that last torpedo attack. In here,” he continued, tapping an area just off the coast of Bermuda, “I think is a couple of large Russian ships. They’re at anchorage, not moving, so I’m not holding a lot off them, but they’re still there.”
“How far off the coast?”
“About a mile. Well within their landing capabilities for small craft, or for an easy dash in to the beach if they want to offload heavy equipment. And, finally, our playmate,” he said, indicating the last position that they held on the Yankee. “Of course, all of this is ten minutes out of date,” he said in an apologetic way. “As long as we’re below the layer, I’m not holding them.”
“Okay, I got it.” Forsythe turned to the chief. “Continue on our original plan. Then surface at the indicated time — real quietly, if you catch her napping. Keep in mind that this is a whole new game. The Yankee may be old, but she’s probably been backfitted with a lot of acoustics gear. And some of those crews have spent a lot of time in this part of the ocean. But, if we can get to her before she knows we’re here, we can take her.”
The chief nodded. “Time now, sir.”
“Very well. Take us up, Chief.”
Forsythe kept his gaze locked on the sonar screen as the ship crept slowly up. Every sonarman was in the compartment, listening, waiting, trying to catch the first sniff of the Yankee. They came up slowly, bare steerageway, so that the noise of their propeller did not give them away.
“Eleven hundred,” Jacobs murmured. “Any second now, sir.”
A hard blast of noise echoed through the submarine.
“Shit!” Jacob said. He ripped off the headphones, an expression of pain on his face. “She’s got us!”
“Snapshot,” Forsythe ordered. “Two torpedoes, bearing-only launch.”
Jacob’s fingers were flying over the fire control panel, dialing in the bearings and launching the torpedoes even while another hard blast of acoustic energy buffeted them.
The Yankee’s sonar drowned out the noise of the torpedoes’ launching, but the acoustic gear quickly picked it up. They saw their torpedo start up, head down the bearing, and turn toward the Yankee.
“How did they get us?” Forsythe demanded.
“Probably dragging her tail, sir,” Jacobs said. “Stayed above the layer herself so we couldn’t hear her, but going slow enough to drop her towed array down below the layer. It takes some fancy footwork, but we could do it. I guess they can, too, because there’s no way she was below the layer. No way at all, sir.”
“Torpedo inbound!” Renny shouted. “Recommend evasive maneuvers, Captain!”
“Chief, take us down to two thousand feet,” Forsythe ordered. Then a hard turn, wait one minute, then an emergency blow to get us back up above the layer. With any luck, she’ll try to follow us down.”
“Two — no, four torpedoes inbound, sir. Same bearing.” Renny said.
“Captain, the water here is only three thousand feet deep,” the chief said.
“Plenty of room,” Forsythe assured him.
But it wasn’t, not really. Not for what he wanted to accomplish.
Forsythe grabbed onto the chill water line as the submarine tipped nose down and headed for the depths. They could hear the noise of the torpedo on the speaker faintly now, growing louder. The beat of its propeller mixed with the two the Seawolf launched, until they could no longer tell which one was from them and which one was after them.
Just as the submarine passed 2,000 feet, the chief jerked the sub into a hard left turn. Just as she steadied up, Forsythe ordered, “Emergency blow!” The chief turned to stare at him, incredulous. Forsythe just nodded.
“Emergency blow, aye, sir.” The chief turned a valve.
Compressed air flooded the ballast tanks, first reversing the submarine’s speed and momentum, then thrusting her toward the surface. The effect was almost immediate.
There was a distant sound of an explosion, and Forsythe shot a questioning look at Jacob.
“Theirs,” the sonarman assured him. “One down, three to go.” Forsythe wasn’t so sure he would ever be able to tell the difference between torpedoes by audio alone, but he took Jacob’s word for it.
“And ours?”
“Still heading for her,” Jacobs assured him. “Another ninety seconds.”
“Passing five hundred feet and ascending,” the planesman sang out. “Passing four hundred.
“Hold on, everybody. This is going to be rough,” the chief warned.
All at once, the water around the submarine seemed to disappear, her momentum changed, and Forsythe knew what was happening. She was hanging bow up in the air, trying to fly, but not built for it. The odd sensation lasted just a moment, and then she slammed back down in the water, entering the water with a force that she hadn’t experienced since her original sea trials.
The shock from the impact ran through Forsythe like an electrical charge. “No,” Forsythe moaned, as a new wave of blackness threatened to overwhelm him. “Not now.”
“We can’t keep this up forever, Ensign” the chief warned.
From captain, to sir, to ensign again. “I know, I know,” Forsythe said, his mind working frantically. Expect the unexpected, expect the unexpected—“Chief! Give me a course to the nearest Russian landing ship.”
“Zero eight four, ten thousand yards,” the chief said without even having to look at the plot. “But, sir…”
“Come left, steer course zero eight four — flank speed, Chief.” Forsythe could feel the certainty coursing through him.
To his credit, although his face was doubtful, the chief did not even hesitate. Seconds later, the submarine was headed into the heart of the Russian task force at flank speed.
There was no need for conversation now, no need for orders or advice or reports. This was simply a flat-out race for their lives—8,000 tons of submarine shoving her way through the sea at her absolute top speed, the fires of her nuclear reactor burning at 120 percent of capacity, the propeller biting hard into the water, getting a grip, the speed of the propeller at the propeller tips so great that the temporary vacuum sucked dissolved gases out of the water, creating cavitation.
Although the crew was silent, moving about the ship like ghosts, Seawolf was as noisy as he’d ever heard her. The reverberating rattles, creaks, and assorted complaints from joints and seams were frightening at the most visceral of levels. Seawolf was running for her life, her speed almost two knots above what she done during sea trials, every system redl
ined at max capacity and beyond.
There was no second chance. The three remaining torpedoes were gaining on them, following them with hard, icy pings, the scent of their prey hot in their electronic nostrils.
The graphic display spelled it all out. Ahead, shallow water, the massive bulk of the Russian transports. Behind, the Yankee submarine and three remaining small torpedoes that had barreled out from her.
“Two thousand,” the chief said, his voice cold and professional. “Planesman, take us up ten feet.”
“Ten feet, aye.” The change in depth was not even perceptible.
Depth was crucial this close to the island. The continental slope crept up toward the coast, the shallow water a more dangerous environment. There were wrecks here, some of them still uncharted, and Forsythe and chief were doing their best to avoid them by maintaining some distance from the bottom while still trying to stay as deep as possible. The shallower they went, the less dense the water, and the more turns per knots of speed required.
Something slammed into the side of the submarine and traced its way down the hull, fingernails on a chalkboard. One sailor yelped, then fell quiet, his lips tightly compressed as though to hold in his fear. The rest of them were shaking.
“One thousand yards,” the chief said.
Are we going to make it? Is it even going to work? The charts — how accurate are the water depths? I must be insane to try this — I must be insane. But if there’s any other way, then I don’t know about it. This is all we’ve got left.
The pings from the sonar were harder now, faster, excited. The torpedoes were actively homing, as well as following the wake and the acoustic signature of the submarine. There was no way they could miss the Seawolf now, no way at all. And their speed, while not as fast as the latest generation torpedoes, was more than sufficient to enable them to catch up.
“Five hundred yards.”
“Make your depth one hundred and ten feet,” Forsythe ordered. Assuming the Russian ships had a draft of thirty-two feet and the submarine eighty-five, that would give them just enough clearance to sneak by under the ships. Maybe. There was still too much he didn’t know: exactly how much water the transport drew depended on how heavily laden she was, how much fuel she had on board, and whether or not there have been any design changes since the reference books were written.
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