Kirov Saga: Armageddon (Kirov Series) (26 page)

Only four men knew what was really happening that moment, the
Admiral, Fedorov, Gromyko and his
Starpom
Belanov. There had been no
time to brief the remainder of the crew.

“It appears Chief Dobrynin has pulled us out of the frying pan
here,” said Admiral Volsky.

“Not yet,” Fedorov said with an ominous tone. “That last torpedo—how
close was it?” He looked to Chernov now.

“1500 meters, but it has lost its lock on us and will execute a
search pattern to see if it can re-acquire.”

Fedorov looked at Admiral Volsky, fear in his eyes now. “It could
shift with us, Admiral! It was too damn close.”

The Mark 48 would not find
Kazan
in the autumn of 2021,
where the world still bled at the hard razor’s edge of war…but it might find it
elsewhere, wherever they were going now as the Russian submarine seemed to sail
through a dark hole in the ocean itself, and simply disappear.

*
* *

“Detonation, sir!” Campanella shouted out the news when he heard
the explosion, and saw the vibrant disturbance in the waterfall of his sonar
data.

“Did we get the bastard?”

“Listening now, sir… Listening…” Campy looked up, his eyes
betraying surprise. “I’ve lost them, Captain. All I can hear now are those two
Type 65s heading our way like a freight train. There’s no sign of the Russian
sub at all now…no secondary explosions, nothing sir. I can’t even hear our own
torpedoes. They put a
Squall
in the water just before that detonation. I
heard the rocket ignite plain as day. Maybe they took our boys down.”

“But you can hear those big red pain sticks out there?”

“Aye sir, they’re running hard and bearing about 275. Range 4250
meters approximate and closing. Pinging like banshees, Captain.”

“Then there’s nothing wrong with your sonar, or your ears, Campy.
Keep listening, that sub is still out there somewhere playing possum. Helm,
slow to one third. Left standard rudder and come to 250.”

Now it was time for
Mississippi
to dance. The enemy lances
were getting too close, and Donahue decided to make his quiet boat even
stealthier by reducing speed and executing a soft ten degree turn away from the
torpedoes.

“Let me know if those bad boys change bearing,” he said to Campanella.

“They’re steady on 275, sir. I don’t think they have us.”

They waited in the taut silence of the operations center until
Campanella confirmed that the Russian torpedoes had continued off on the wrong
attack vector.

“They’ve been in the water a good long time, Captain. They might
be able to circle back, but at the moment I think they missed us.”

“And what about our Russian friends out there?”

“Gone, sir. Not a whisper or a wobble. My sound field is
completely empty on their last heading. It’s as if they just vanished. Never
heard a sub pull a trick like that before.”

“Could they be hovering, Campy?”

“Possibly, sir. But we should still have a Mark 48 out there
screaming like a wildcat unless they took them both out with just one shot. I
was almost certain I heard one of our torpedoes still running after that
explosion. Hell, maybe its motor failed and the damn thing is sinking into the
deep, but it’s gone too…”

Part VIII

Edge
of Perdition

“The man
who promises everything is sure to fulfill nothing, and everyone who promises
too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises,
and is already on the road to perdition.”

―
Carl Jung

Chapter 22

They
came through the hole in time Rod-25 had opened, but they were
far from where they had hoped to go. And something came through with them.

Chernov sat with a look of intense concentration on his face,
trying to determine what he had been listening to during the shift. The sounds
were amazing, and he could hardly believe his ears. It was as if a chorus of
angels were singing to him beneath those headphones, and his face registered a
mix of surprise and awe as he listened. Then the static came, more from internal
systems reacting badly to the displacement, stunned by the strange effects of
the shift, even as those on
Kirov
had been so many times.

“What’s wrong, Chernov,” said Gromyko. “Your cheeks are on fire.
Are you well?”

“It was awesome, Captain. But now I’m having difficulty… No… wait…
Torpedo
in the water!”

“Load large mobile decoy on the number eight tube!” Gromyko did
not waste a second, reacting in sheer defensive reflex.

“Tube loading, sir, aye! Ready!”

“Fire decoy!”

“Firing now, sir.”

“Hard right rudder. Ten degree down bubble!”

The Matador swirled and danced, flourishing his cape to distract
the foe and then spinning about and swooping down onto his haunches as the
bull’s deadly horn drew near. The large mobile decoy ejected and then went
noisily off on its own power as
Kazan
turned and dove away from the
scene.

“Any idea how close that thing is, Chernov?”

“Sir, I have bearing only on passive. We would have to ping to get
range quickly, but I had a good track on it before and it was inside 5000
meters when that strange interference occurred. Then I lost it temporarily, and
there’s something else in the water now. Surface contact, bearing one five
zero, heavy screw noise. Not sure why I didn’t hear it before.”

Fedorov was close by the Captain’s side now, and he leaned in,
speaking in a low, urgent voice. “That was no ordinary interference, Gromyko.
We’ve shifted. The sonar may have been affected and will recover by degrees. That
was the work of Rod-25. The torpedo must have been very close if it shifted
here with us.”

“All stop—rig for absolute quiet running.”

“All stop, sir, and silent now.”

Kazan’s
propulsion system stopped, and the boat glided in the water,
slowing by degrees, and sinking on the new downward heading. In a few minutes
it was drifting, while the large noisemaker was waddling away at twenty five
knots, and slowly climbing towards the surface.

Chernov had his eyes closed now, his brow dotted with perspiration
in spite of the air conditioned control room. He could hear the spinning whirr
of the torpedo, close at first, and then diminishing in sound. The longer he
listened, the more he realized what had happened.

“Sir,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “I think the torpedo
lost its hold on us. It is circling at low speed now in a programmed
re-acquisition search, Captain.”

Gromyko nodded, saying nothing; waiting in the silence.

“Torpedo has changed heading. I think it’s going after the surface
contact!”

“Steady…” Gromyko held up a hand, his eyes on the ceiling of the operations
room.

Chernov spun a finger, swirling it about to indicate higher
rotations on the torpedo engine. Then they heard a distant boom reverberate
through the sea, and seconds later a palpable shock wave shook the boat.

“Steady…” The Captain was standing absolutely still, like a frozen
statue, his eyes on Chernov now.

“That was the surface contact, sir. I’m getting secondary explosions.
Someone was very unlucky up there today.”

*
* *

The
unlucky ship that day was the Japanese cargo ship
Konzan Maru
,
bound for Toyama Wan Bay on the west coast of Honshu, and she was fated that
day. Her appointment with death was already logged, for on the 18th of June in
1945 she would run afoul of the USS
Bonefish
, one of three American subs
mounting a raid in the Sea of Japan.

The US had been kept out of “the Emperor’s bathtub” for most of the
war by minefields, but now, in mid 1945, a few subs were fitted with new
equipment, high-frequency, short-range sonar that could use frequency
modulation to sweep the immediate area around the boat out to about 730 meters
and detect mines. A wolfpack was formed at Guam in late May, and “Hydeman’s
Hellcats,” consisting of nine boats, moved north and penetrated the Tsushima
Straits undetected to enter the Sea of Japan. Three of the boats split off in a
separate pack led by Commander Pierce aboard
Tunney
. “Pierce’s Polecats”
then consisted of that boat, the
Skate
under Commander Lynch, and the
Bonefish
under Commander Edge.

The three US subs formed a loose patrol that saw
Tunney
come up empty, though
Skate
was able to put a torpedo into the Japanese
submarine I-22.
Bonefish
notched her belt by putting down the
Oshikayama
Maru
and added almost 7,000 tons to her tally just two days ago. Now she
was making a night surface rendezvous with
Tunney
to get further orders.
Eager for more, Commander Edge sought permission to head for Toyama Wan Bay
before the entire force would withdraw as planned on 24 June.

“Edge is asking if he can ease in towards the coast and scout
Toyama Wan Bay,” said the lamp signalman as Pierce finished a cigarette on the
sail bridge.

“Hell, they’ve already got one ship on this patrol. If anyone
should be eager for more it should be us.” Commander Pierce wasn’t happy. He
wanted to pull his three boats into a tight fist and head for the wolfpack
rendezvous point.

“Well, what should I tell them, sir?”

The polecat thought it over, and flicked away his cigarette butt.
“Cut ‘em loose. But tell them to head for point Zulu no later than zero eight
hundred hours tomorrow. Kapish?”

“Right, sir, zero eight hundred.”

Pierce went below, not knowing it was the last that he or anyone
else would ever see of the USS
Bonefish
. The Boneheads, as they were
called, were sailing off to their own little rendezvous with fate that night.
Pierce and Tunney would wait for three days at the rendezvous point, but the
Boneheads would never come home.

A day later
Bonefish
was sniffing out the wake of that
unlucky Japanese cargo ship, and creeping up on
Konzan Maru
as she
sought to enter the bay, but the sub would not get anywhere close. Something
else had already found the
Konzan Maru
, awakening from a stupor as it
circled like a dazed shark in the dim waters of the sea.

The American ADCAP Mark 48 lost its leash on
Kazan
,
circled, then heard the noisome thrash of the cargo vessel up on the surface,
leaving a nice foamy wake. Low on fuel, it elected to climb to that nearby
target instead of trying to locate the elusive submarine it had been tasked to
seek out and destroy. That was in the year 2021, some 76 years in the future,
but the torpedo would make its kill in 1945.

Bonefish
would be denied that day, as would the pack of hyena torpedo
patrol boats led by escort ship
Okinawa
that were coming out from the
bay to welcome
Konzan Maru
home. It was
Okinawa
and her confederates
that swarmed over the American sub to seal her fate, but that history had just
changed. Now Commander Edge stared through his periscope in amazement when he
saw the Japanese cargo ship blow up, her spine cracked and split in two as she
quickly settled into the sea.

“Damn, there goes my ship,” he swore. “Who the hell is out here
with us? Did Pierce tag along?”

“We don’t have anything on sonar, sir,” said the XO, Lieutenant
Commander Knight.”

“Well there’s one mean fish in the sea with us somewhere, and it
just took one hell of a bite out of that Jap cargo ship. Down periscope! Ten
degrees down bubble and make your depth 90 feet. I don’t want to be anywhere
near the surface until I know what’s out there.” He shrugged looking around.

“What the hell are you doing there, Vincent?” One of his new
recruits was writing with intense concentration on a notepad he always seemed
to have at hand. “You making an entry in your personal log?”

“No, sir.” Seaman First Class Thomas Vincent Jr. was a fresh faced
young man from New York that Commander Edge had picked up to replace a crewman
down with an attack of appendicitis before the patrol. That was luck too, for
that attack saved the man’s life, while taking that of this new recruit in his
place.

“I was just figuring out what subs might look like in the future
sir. What do you think?” he passed his notepad over so the Commander could take
a look.

Edge took the pad, frowning at the sleek lines of the boat, with a
bulbous round nose that looked very much like modern submarines. “How they
supposed to make way on the surface with a round bow like that, Seaman?”