by Tom Clancy
“Sonar, secure pinging,” Wood said.
“Aye aye. Pinging secured, sir.” Palmer killed power to the active systems. “Target elevation-depression angle is near zero, sir. He’s about at our depth.”
“Very well, sonar. Keep on him.” Wood now had his target’s position. Further pinging would only give it a better idea of his own.
The Dallas
“Pogy was pinging something. They got a return, bearing one-nine-one, about,” Chief Laval said. “There’s another sub out there. I don’t know what. I can read some plant and steam noises, but not enough for a signature.”
The Pogy
“The boomer’s still movin’, sir,” Chief Palmer reported.
“Skipper,” Reynolds looked up from the paper tracks, “her course takes her between us and the target.”
“Terrific. All ahead one-third, left twenty degrees rudder.” Wood moved to the sonar room while his orders were carried out. “Chief, power up and stand by to ping the boomer hard.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Palmer worked his controls. “Ready, sir.”
“Hit him straight on. I don’t want him to miss this time.”
Wood watched the heading indicator on the sonar plot swing. The Pogy was turning rapidly, but not rapidly enough to suit him. The Red October—only he and Reynolds knew that she was Russian, though the crew was speculating like mad—was coming in too fast.
“Ready, sir.”
“Hit it.”
Palmer punched the impulse control.
Ping ping ping ping ping!
The Red October
“Skipper,” Jones yelled. “Danger signal!”
Mancuso jumped to the annunciator without waiting for Ramius to react. He twisted the dial to All Stop. When this was done he looked at Ramius. “Sorry, sir.”
“All right.” Ramius scowled at the chart. The phone buzzed a moment later. He took it and spoke in Russian for several seconds before hanging up. “I told them that we have a problem but we do not know what it is.”
“True enough.” Mancuso joined Ramius at the chart. Engine noises were diminishing, though not quickly enough to suit the American. The October was quiet for a Russian sub, but this was still too noisy for him.
“See if your sonarman can locate anything,” Ramius suggested.
“Right.” Mancuso took a few steps aft. “Jonesy, find what’s out there.”
“Aye, Skipper, but it won’t be easy on this gear.” He already had the sensor arrays working in the direction of the two escorting attack subs. Jones adjusted the fit of his headphones and started working on the amplifier controls. No signal processors, no SAPS, and the transducers weren’t worth a damn! But this wasn’t the time to get excited. The Soviet systems had to be manipulated electromechanically, unlike the computer-controlled ones he was used to. Slowly and carefully, he altered the directional receptor gangs in the sonar dome forward, his right hand twirling a cigarette pack, his eyes shut tight. He didn’t notice Bugayev sitting next to him, listening to the same input.
The Dallas
“What do we know, Chief?” Chambers asked.
“I got a bearing and nothing else. Pogy’s got him all dialed in, but our friend powered back his engine right after he got lashed, and he faded out on me. Pogy got a big return off him. He’s probably pretty close, sir.”
Chambers had only moved up to his executive officer’s posting four months earlier. He was a bright, experienced officer and a likely candidate for his own command, but he was only thirty-three years old and had only been back in submarines for those four months. The year and a half prior to that he’d been a reactor instructor in Idaho. The gruffness that was part of his job as Mancuso’s principal on-board disciplinarian also shielded more insecurity than he would have cared to admit. Now his career was on the line. He knew exactly how important this mission was. His future would ride on the decisions he was about to make.
“Can you localize with one ping?”
The sonar chief considered this for a second. “Not enough for a shooting solution, but it’ll give us something.”
“One ping, do it.”
“Aye.” Laval worked on his board briefly, triggering the active elements.
The V. K. Konovalov
Tupolev winced. He had acted too soon. He should have waited until they were past—but then if he had waited that long, he would have had to move, and now he had all three of them hovering nearby, almost still.
The four submarines were moving only fast enough for depth control. The Russian Alfa was pointed southeast, and all four were arrayed in a roughly trapezoidal fashion, open end seaward. The Pogy and the Dallas were to the north of the Konovalov, the Red October was southeast of her.
The Red October
“Somebody just pinged her,” Jones said quietly. “Bearing is roughly northwest, but she isn’t making enough noise for us to read her. Sir, if I had to make a bet, I’d say she was pretty close.”
“How do you know that?” Mancuso asked.
“I heard the pulse direct—just one ping to get a range, I think. It was from a BQQ-5. Then we heard the echo off the target. The math works out a couple of different ways, but smart money is he’s between us and our guys, and a little west. I know it’s shaky, sir, but it’s the best we got.”
“Range ten kilometers, perhaps less,” Bugayev commented.
“That’s kinda shaky, too, but it’s as good a starting place as any. Not a whole lot of data. Sorry, Skipper. Best we can do,” Jones said.
Mancuso nodded and returned to control.
“What gives?” Ryan asked. The plane controls were pushed all the way forward to maintain depth. He had not grasped the significance of what was going on.
“There’s a hostile submarine out there.”
“What information do we have?” Ramius asked.
“Not much. There’s a contact northwest, range unknown, but probably not very far. I know for sure it’s not one of ours. Norfolk said this area was cleared. That leaves one possibility. We drift?”
“We drift,” Ramius echoed, lifting the phone. He spoke a few orders.
The October’s engines were providing the power to move the submarine at a fraction over two knots, barely enough to maintain steerage way and not enough to maintain depth. With her slight positive buoyancy, the October was drifting upward a few feet per minute despite the plane setting.
The Dallas
“Let’s move back south. I don’t like the idea of having that Alfa closer to our friend than we are. Come right to one-eight-five, two-thirds,” Chambers said finally.
“Aye aye,” Goodman said. “Helm, right fifteen degrees rudder, come to new course one-eight-five. All ahead two thirds.”
“Right fifteen degrees rudder, aye.” The helmsman turned the wheel. “Sir, my rudder is right fifteen degrees, coming to new course one-eight-five.”
The Dallas’ four torpedo tubes were loaded with three Mark 48s and a decoy, an expensive MOSS (mobile submarine simulator). One of her torpedoes was targeted on the Alfa, but the firing solution was vague. The “fish” would have to do some of the tracking by itself. The Pogy’s two torpedoes were almost perfectly dialed in.
The problem was that neither boat had authority to shoot. Both attack submarines were operating under the normal rules of engagement. They could fire in self-defense only and defend the Red October only by bluff and guile. The question was whether the Alfa knew what the Red October was.
The V. K. Konovalov
“Steer for the Ohio,” Tupolev ordered. “Bring speed to three knots. We must be patient, comrades. Now that the Americans know where we are they will not ping us again. We will move from our place quietly.”
The Konovalov’s bronze propeller turned more quickly. By shutting down some nonessential electrical systems, the engineers were able to increase speed without increasing reactor output.
The Pogy
On the Pogy, the nearest attack boat, the contact faded, degrading the di
rectional bearing somewhat. Commander Wood debated whether or not to get another bearing with active sonar but decided against it. If he used active sonar his position would be like that of a policeman looking for a burglar in a dark building with a flashlight. Sonar pings could well tell his target more than they told him. Using passive sonar was the normal routine in such a case.
Chief Palmer reported the passage of the Dallas down their port side. Both Wood and Chambers decided not to use their underwater telephones to communicate. They could not afford to make any noise now.
The Red October
They had been creeping along for a half hour now. Ryan was chain-smoking at his station, and his palms were sweating as he struggled to maintain his composure. This was not the sort of combat he had been trained for, being trapped inside a steel pipe, unable to see or hear anything. He knew that there was a Soviet submarine out there, and he knew what her orders were. If her captain realized who they were—then what? The two captains, he thought, were amazingly cool.
“Can your submarines protect us?” Ramius asked.
“Shoot at a Russian sub?” Mancuso shook his head. “Only if he shoots first—at them. Under the normal rules, we don’t count.”
“What?” Ryan was stunned.
“You want to start a war?” Mancuso smiled, as though he found this situation amusing. “That’s what happens when warships from two countries start exchanging shots. We have to smart our way out of this.”
“Be calm, Ryan,” Ramius said. “This is our usual game. The hunter submarine tries to find us, and we try not to be found. Tell me, Captain Mancuso, at what range did you hear us off Iceland?”
“I haven’t examined your chart closely, Captain,” Mancuso mused. “Maybe twenty miles, thirty or so kilometers.”
“And then we were traveling at thirteen knots—noise increases faster than speed. I think we can move east, slowly, without being detected. We use the caterpillar, move at six knots. As you know, Soviet sonar is not so efficient as American. Do you agree, Captain?”
Mancuso nodded. “She’s your boat, sir. May I suggest northeast? That ought to put us behind our attack boats inside an hour, maybe less.”
“Yes.” Ramius hobbled over to the control board to open the tunnel hatches, then went back to the phone. He gave the necessary orders. In a minute the caterpillar motors were engaged and speed was increasing slowly.
“Rudder right ten, Ryan,” Ramius said. “And ease the plane controls.”
“Rudder right ten, sir, easing the planes, sir.” Ryan carried the orders out, glad that they were doing something.
“Your course is zero-four-zero, Ryan,” Mancuso said from the chart table.
“Zero-four-zero, coming right through three-five-zero.” From the helmsman’s seat he could hear the water swishing down the portside tunnel. Every minute or so there was an odd rumble that lasted three or four seconds. The speed gauge in front of him passed through four knots.
“You are frightened, Ryan?” Ramius chuckled.
Jack swore to himself. His voice had wavered. “I’m a little tired, too.”
“I know it is difficult for you. You do well for a new man with no training. We will be late to Norfolk, but we shall get there, you will see. Have you been on a missile boat, Mancuso?”
“Oh, sure. Relax, Ryan. This is what boomers do. Somebody comes lookin’ for us, we just disappear.” The American commander looked up from the chart. He had set coins at the estimated positions of the three other subs. He considered marking it up more but decided not to. There were some very interesting notations on this coastal chart—like programmed missile-firing positions. Fleet intelligence would go ape over this sort of information.
The Red October was moving northeast at six knots now. The Konovalov was coming southeast at three. The Pogy was heading south at two, and the Dallas south at fifteen. All four submarines were now within a six-mile-diameter circle, all converging on about the same point.
The V. K. Konovalov
Tupolev was enjoying himself. For whatever reason, the Americans had chosen to play a conservative game that he had not expected. The smart thing, he thought, would have been for one of the attack boats to close in and harrass him, allowing the missile sub to pass clear with the other escort. Well, at sea nothing was ever quite the same twice. He sipped at a cup of tea as he selected a sandwich.
His sonar michman noted an odd sound in his sonar set. It only lasted a few seconds, then was gone. Some far-off seismic rumble, he thought at first.
The Red October
They had risen because of the Red October’s positive trim, and now Ryan had five degrees of down-angle on the diving planes to get back down to a hundred meters. He heard the captains discussing the absence of a thermocline. Mancuso explained that it was not unusual for the area, particularly after violent storms. They agreed that it was unfortunate. A thermal layer would have helped their evasion.
Jones was at the aft entrance of the control room, rubbing his ears. The Russian phones were not very comfortable. “Skipper, I’m getting something to the north, comes and goes. I haven’t gotten a bearing lock on it.”
“Whose?” Mancuso asked.
“Can’t say, sir. The active sonar isn’t too bad, but the passive stuft just isn’t up to the drill, Skipper. We’re not blind, but close to it.”
“Okay, if you hear something, sing out.”
“Aye aye, Captain. You got some coffee out here? Mr. Bugayev sent me for some.”
“I’ll have a pot sent in.”
“Right.” Jones went back to work.
The V. K. Konovalov
“Comrade Captain, I have a contact, but I do not know what it is,” the michman said over the phone.
Tupolev came back, munching on his sandwich. Ohios had been acquired so rarely by the Russians—three times to be exact, and in each case the quarry had been lost within minutes—that no one had a feel for the characteristics of the class.
The michman handed the captain a spare set of phones. “It may take a few minutes, Comrade. It comes and goes.”
The water off the American coast, though nearly isothermal, was not entirely perfect for sonar systems. Minor currents and eddies set up moving walls that reflected and channeled sound energy on a nearly random basis. Tupolev sat down and listened patiently. It took five minutes for the signal to come back.
The michman’s hand waved. “Now, Comrade Captain.”
His commanding officer looked pale.
“Bearing?”
“Too faint, and too short to lock in—but three degrees on either bow, one-three-six to one-four-two.”
Tupolev tossed the headphones on the table and went forward. He grabbed the political officer by the arm and led him quickly to the wardroom.
“It’s Red October!”
“Impossible. Fleet Command said that his destruction was confirmed by visual inspection of the wreckage.” The zampolit shook his head emphatically.
“We have been tricked. The caterpillar acoustical signature is unique, Comrade. The Americans have him, and he is out there. We must destroy him!”
“No. We must contact Moscow and ask for instructions.”
The zampolit was a good Communist, but he was a surface ship officer who didn’t belong on submarines, Tupolev thought.
“Comrade Zampolit, it will take several minutes to approach the surface, perhaps ten or fifteen to get a message to Moscow, thirty more for Moscow to respond at all—and then they will request confirmation! An hour in all, two, three? By that time Red October will be gone. Our original orders are operative, and there is no time to contact Moscow.”
“But what if you are wrong?”
“I am not wrong, Comrade!” the captain hissed. “I will enter my contact report in the log, and my recommendations. If you forbid this, I will log that also! I am right, Comrade. It will be your head, not mine. Decide!”
“You are certain?”
“Certain!”
“Very
well.” The zampolit seemed to deflate. “How will you do this?”
“As quickly as possible, before the Americans have a chance to destroy us. Go to your station, Comrade.” The two men went back to the control room. The Konovalov’s six bow torpedo tubes were loaded with Mark C 533-millimeter wire-guided torpedoes. All they needed was to be told where to go.
“Sonar, search forward on all active systems!” the captain ordered.
The michman pushed the button.
The Red October
“Ouch.” Jones’ head jerked around. “Skipper, we’re being pinged. Port side, midships, maybe a little forward. Not one of ours, sir.”
The Pogy
“Conn, sonar, the Alfa’s got the boomer! The Alfa bearing is one-nine-two.”
“All ahead two-thirds,” Wood ordered immediately.
“All ahead two-thirds, aye.”
The Pogy’s engines exploded into life, and soon her propeller was thrashing the black water.
The V. K. Konovalov
“Range seven thousand, six hundred meters. Elevation angle zero,” the michman reported. So, this was the submarine they had been sent to hunt, he thought. He had just donned a headset that allowed him to report directly to the captain and fire control officer.
The starpom was the chief fire control supervisor. He quickly entered the data into the computer. It was a simple problem of target geometry. “We have a solution for torpedoes one and two.”
“Prepare to fire.”
“Flooding tubes.” The starpom flipped the switches himself, reaching past the petty officer. “Outer torpedo tube doors are open.”
“Recheck firing solution!” Tupolev said.
The Pogy
The Pogy’s sonar chief was the only man to hear the transient noise.
“Conn, sonar, Alfa contact—she just flooded tubes, sir! Target bearing is one-seven-nine.”
