Deep Sound Channel (35 page)

"I want to put some bearing separation between our attacker and the stirred-up water, throw Master 27 off our trail and let them think we're dead from progressive flooding. Helm, make your course one three seven. That'll also unmask our starboard wideaperture array."

"Make my course one three seven, aye," Meltzer said.

"At this point," Jeffrey said, "the best strategy's to head for deeper water at top quiet speed, dive beneath whatever limit Axis fish can handle. This course'll take us to the thousand-fathom curve a little faster, then we use full nap-of-seafloor cruising mode."

"Our depth is three eight zero zero feet now, sir," COB said.

"Very well, Chief of the Watch," Jeffrey said. "If Intel's right, we're more or less safe now, at least from nonnuclear devices, and A-bombs probably won't catch us so long as we don't give Hans another datum once we're well offshore of the latest one. At twentysix knots and with the stormy seas up there we can outrun any surface ships they have, and conditions aren't good for airborne dipping sonars either."

"Captain," Sessions said, using Jeffrey's formal acting title, "intermittent passive sonar contact bearing two

eight four on Master 27, reflections off her sail and bow sphere using reverb from the last torpedo detonation."

"Range?" Jeffrey said, turning to face Sessions, who was busy eyeing data from his staff. Jeffrey almost started when he saw Ilse sitting there—somehow he'd forgotten all about her.

Jeffrey glanced aft. Captain Wilson and Morse were gone and the senior corpsman was working hard on Monaghan, now wearing a neck brace with his head taped to a backboard. The corpsman paused from giving artificial respiration to put a defibrillator to the navigator's chest.

"Clear!" he said, his forehead damp with sweat. Jeffrey realized he'd already done this several times—he smelled burned skin and hair. Tunnel vision, Jeffrey told himself. I got so fixated on the battle I forgot about my crew. I can't afford to do that.

"Captain," Sessions said, "contact bearing too far sternward to triangulate or range-gate by wide-aperture array, and no surface bounce range possible. Ambient sonar signal strength puts distance to Master 27 at roughly fifteen thousand yards. Cannot classify the contact based on ambient signature alone."

"Very well," Jeffrey said.

"Sir," Sessions said, "recommend another turn to starboard for a better wide-array incidence angle, a tighter estimate of contact range and possible capture of tonals."

"Negative," Jeffrey said. "That would bring the contact's bearing closer to our beam, make us a bigger apparent target and also expose the starboard maximum in our radial self-noise profile."

"Understood, sir," Sessions said.

Jeffrey read his TMA display. The latest datum showed Master 27's course unchanged, still zero nine zero true.

"They haven't turned to follow," Jeffrey said. "I think they've lost us, Sonar, and we're both too close to other

Axis forces for them to go for area effect with an atomic warhead."

"Concur, sir," Sessions said. "Doppler indicates the range is opening. No sign of weapon launch or loading transients on Master 27's bearing."

Commodore Morse came back to the CACC. "It looks like Captain Wilson doesn't have a broken skull, just a bad concussion. They say he's completely out of action for at least two days."

"Understood," Jeffrey said, then he glanced at Monaghan again.

"They put him in your rack," Morse continued. "They're stitching up his scalp now."

"Why not the CO's state-room?" Jeffrey said distractedly.

"You need the data repeaters in his cabin, when you turn in for some rest. . . . You know you're acting captain now."

"I got a heartbeat," the corpsman called.

"Can you keep him going?" Jeffrey said. Then he tried to stand. He could barely put weight on his leg now.

"I don't know," the corpsman said. He inserted a plastic airway down the navigator's throat and started squeezing rhythmically on a breather bag. "It's a nasty translation injury, like you'd expect from a torpedo hit. Neck vertebrae are crushed, his spinal cord's been damaged, maybe severed altogether. He needs to be on a life support respirator and we don't have one aboard."

"Come on, Chief," Jeffrey said. "We've got a boatload of fancy pumps and spark-proof motors, a lifetime supply of pure 02, and some of the best engineers in the world. We'll make a respirator."

"Sir," the corpsman said, pressing down on Monaghan's chest to get him to exhale, "that could take us hours."

"Then we give him artificial respiration for hours. . . . Phone Talker," Jeffrey ordered, " SEAL medic to the

CACC stat. . . . They'll go in the hyperbaric chamber in the ASDS together, on oxygen, and the SEAL'Il breathe for Monaghan, however long it takes. When the respirator's done, we lock it into the chamber with them."

Jeffrey eyed his weapons screen. Tubes one and three were loaded now with ADCAPs. Turn and rise and fire on Master 27? Get set to use one of the precious Mark 88s, a deepcapable nuclear torpedo, since Challenger's ADCAPs were conventional?

Jeffrey turned to Sessions. "Sonar, can you tell me Master 27's depth?"

"Sir, passive contact lost as reverb dwindled. Doppler showed her moving but less fast than us." Sessions worked his keyboard and conferred with Ilse. She worked her keyboard too. Sessions looked up. "Sir, last elevation angle datum applied to local ray trace path shows Master 27 passing through three thousand feet."

"Are you sure?"

"Sir, the calculations check."

"Any sounds of hull distress? A bad equipment casualty, maybe, or hit by friendly CAPTOR fire?"

Jeffrey waited as Sessions scanned his tapes.

"No inrushing water or hatches popping, sir, no escaping bubbles or collapsing frames. .

. . No high-speed dive flow noise or groaning steel . . . and no impact with the bottom." Jeffrey made eye contact with Ilse.

"It's Jan's boat," Ilse said. "This far down it has to be." "Yeah," Jeffrey said. "The Axis doesn't use titanium hulls."

"Deutschland's in the North Atlantic," Morse said, "busy devastating the convoys from America."

Jeffrey looked around the crowded CACC, silently cursing the typically overoptimistic battle damage assessment. "Voortrekker survived, people, and now she's after us. Our battle isn't over, it's just begun."

"Number One," ter Horst said, "launch another message buoy, Flash Double Zed priority again. Message reads: Am in contact with USS Challenger. Am best platform to prosecute, all units stand clear my chase, ter Horst sends. . . . Add our position, depth and course and speed, and get it off immediately."

"Aye aye, sir," Van Gelder said.

"Load tube six with a nuclear 65. Prepare to fire a salvo of three."

"Sir, this close to shore?"

"I'm not going to detonate them here, Gunther. I'll run them twenty thousand meters further out, use a nice wide spread, since we don't have the target localized. That'll put the bursts a comfy forty klicks from land."

"Sonar," Van Gelder said, "what's the wind?"

"Still backing, sir," the sonar chief said, "from west around to south. Wind's coming out of roughly two four zero now. I'd say speed's down to maybe twenty knots."

"The dangerous semicircle must have passed," ter Horst said, "and the storm's recurving northward, but the wind's still blowing nicely out to sea."

"Yield setting on the warheads, Captain?" Van Gelder said.

"Maximum yield. Twenty thousand meters is a touch

more distance than Wilson could have covered running at top quiet speed. So wherever he actually is, Challenger should be inside lethal range of one of the blasts." Van Gelder read his tactical display. "Sir, there are friendly units on the arc you plan to sanitize."

"We just warned them," ter Horst said, "with that message buoy. . . . Don't use active search—our fish might just pick up a wreck."

"Captain," Van Gelder said, "with respect, messages take time to relay, ships need time to clear the area, and these two Navors-class coastal minesweepers are much too small to stand the shock and tsunami."

Ter Horst eyed the screen. "Gunther, Gunther, Gunther. You know as well as I do all target-motion analysis is notional. This just shows who we think perhaps might be at these positions, approximately speaking, based on estimates and projections, subject to judgmental guesses and any sensor error. This data isn't real. Those minesweepers might well be somewhere else, or they might not be there at all."

"Captain . . ."

"For all we know," ter Horst said, "there could be other hostile units we might eliminate, support for Challenger we haven't yet detected. So it's a wash, as far as I'm concerned."

"Very well, sir," Van Gelder said reluctantly. He worked his weapons menu screen. " Tubes six, seven, and eight now loaded, all nuclear torpedo gyros spooling up to speed." Ter Horst eyed him piercingly. "Your compassion is misplaced. This is war."

"Helm," Jeffrey said, "all stop."

"All stop, aye," Meltzer said. "Maneuvering acknowledges all stop."

"Ilse," Jeffrey said. "You know Jan ter Horst. What's he gonna do next?"

"Kill us all," Ilse said. "Any way he can, the sooner the better."

"You think he'll launch nuclear torpedoes this close to shore?"

"Yes."

"This close to friendly units?"

"He'll convince himself it's his duty. They'd be martyrs. Friendly losses definitely won't stop him."

"And if we fire a weapon now ourselves, it'll let him and half the Axis navy get us localized," Jeffrey said. A nearby searching surface unit pinged again as if for emphasis.

"What's the bottom here?" Jeffrey said.

"Hard sand," Ilse said.

"Very well, Oceanographer," Jeffrey said. "Chief of the Watch, bottom the boat."

"Put her on the bottom, aye." COB did the evolution so smoothly Jeffrey hardly felt or heard a thing. The only indication was a minor down-angle, three degrees.

"At least this way we won't be smashed against the seafloor," Jeffrey said, "we'll be sitting there already, and the sand just might help cushion the concussion." Jeffrey turned to Commodore Morse. "He'll probably fire onto zero nine zero true. That's presumably his last known course for us, and it's also the mean bearing away from land."

"Makes sense," Morse said. "Let me give you some advice, though, while we're waiting to find out."

"Sure," Jeffrey said, now bracing himself for a criticism.

"You're trying to do too much. Get Lieutenant Bell up here as acting executive officer." Jeffrey grabbed his phone-set mike. "Weps, come up to the CACC, assume the right seat at the command

console. Have the senior weapons chief relieve you at the special weapons console." Bell acknowledged.

"And take off that sound-powered phone," Morse said. "That's what the phone talker's for. Your job's to delegate."

"Direct hit, Commodore," Jeffrey said. He removed the bulky unit. He took a deep breath. "Phone Talker, repeat to all hands. Rig for depth charge, prepare for a close-in nuclear detonation."

"Set all three units for straight runs," ter Horst said. "Gyro angles thirty right, zero, and thirty left."

"Straight runs, thirty-degree triple fan spread, aye," Van Gelder said. "Torpedo room acknowledges gyro angles set."

"Set detonation depth one thousand meters."

"One thousand meters, aye. Torpedo room acknowledges one thousand meters set."

"Detonation yield one kiloton."

"One kiloton, aye. Torpedo room acknowledges one kiloton."

"Program all fish for maximum attack speed after a quiet runout of four kilometers on nonconflicting random starting doglegs," ter Horst said, "to disguise our own location."

"Twenty knots four thousand meters random doglegs, aye," Van Gelder said, "then seventy-five knots thereafter, aye."

"That just might make Wilson panic," ter Horst said, "when he hears one of those 65s come at him like a freight train. If he gives us a datum, we'll control the units through the fiber-optic wires, send all three in his direction."

"Understood," Van Gelder said. "Sir, for that matter why not shoot the weapons one by one? When they hear the first go off atomic, if they're still alive, waiting for the second and the third would be slow torture."

"I like your thinking, Gunther, but two problems. Wilson's not the type to buckle from slow torture."

"You know him, sir?"

"Not well, but we've met, at a Naval Submarine League banquet in Washington once. Didn't hit it off. Lack of chemistry, as the Americans would put it. From what I saw I wouldn't want to face him in a waiting game. Sudden shock, that's the thing, though slim chance enough that that would work. But more importantly, the first warhead would ruin sonar in this sector for a while, and would help Challenger guess what range from launch we're detonating at, so it's best to flush them everywhere at once."

"Understood, sir," Van Gelder said. He glanced ruefully at the TMA plot.

"Turn your key now, Number One."

Van Gelder took out his enabler, pushed it into the slot, and twisted. This is murder, he told himself. Those minesweepers have wooden hulls, each crew has forty men.

"Captain is enabling," ter Horst said. He turned his key.

"Torpedo room is ready," Van Gelder said. "Tubes six, seven, and eight prepared to shoot."

"Fire six," ter Horst said.

"Tube six fired," Van Gelder said.

"Fire seven."

"Tube seven fired."

"Fire eight."

"Tube eight fired."

"All units operating properly," the sonar chief said. "Time to detonations?" ter Horst said.

"Nine minutes, Captain," Van Gelder said, "unless the weapons find the target sooner."

"Torpedo in the water," Sessions said. "Another 65, Captain, bearing three four five, range about twelve thousand yards."

"Torpedo course?" Jeffrey said.

"Zero six zero," Sessions said.

"Well away from us," Jeffrey said.

"Second torpedo in the water! Also a series-65. . . . Torpedo course is zero nine zero, sir."

"A spread?" Jeffrey said. "He's using conventional warheads then, fanning them out with a passive sonar search."