Seawolf Mask of Command (53 page)

Kristen smelled Miller’s cigarette breath and the three days of unwashed body as he stepped up behind her. “What is it, Lieutenant?” he asked, grabbing the extra headphones.

Just a few hours earlier, she’d been covered in gore and shaking like a leaf from stress. Now she feared everyone thought she was losing her mind or—what for her was far worse—seeking attention. But she was certain about what she’d heard. “I heard reactor coolant pumps,” she told him. “The sound of the rushing water was distinct, Senior Chief.”

“Then why didn’t the computer pick it up, let alone anyone else?” Miller asked bluntly.

He listened to the headphones for a good solid minute as Kristen made more adjustments on the massive bow array, but the sound had disappeared. The Chief took off the headphones and hung them back up. “Our baffles are clear, Skipper,” he concluded, a bit annoyed at having been dragged off the couch in the goat locker because of a Nub.

“Thanks, Senior Chief,” Brodie replied with a yawn.

Kristen turned in her chair to face Brodie. She was absolutely certain about what she’d heard. She needed him to believe that this wasn’t some stupid, drama-queen attempt to get attention. “Sir, I wasn’t imagining it,” she told him with certainty. “It was hard to isolate, and it was faint, but I know what I heard. It is there.”

Brodie nodded thoughtfully as a skeptical Chief Miller glanced back at her. “It’s all right, Lieutenant. When I’ve been tired enough, I’ve heard all kinds of stuff. Hell, I even heard a Siren’s song begging me to come for a swim once,” Miller said dismissively.

Kristen turned back to her screen as the Chief made his way out of the sonar shack. They didn’t believe her. But more importantly, Brodie didn’t. He ordered a course correction back to their base course. Tired and now angry, she turned back toward him. “Captain, I wasn’t imagining it. There was someone following us.”

“Then where did he go, Lieutenant?” Miller asked pointedly as he stood in the open hatchway.

Kristen looked down at the deck, seeing crushed cigarette butts littering it and then looked up. “He heard us turning to clear our baffles, and he jumped up above the thermocline,” she offered.

Fabrini’s face showed the clear disbelief he was feeling. Miller just shook his head with a hint of exasperation. “Good night, Skipper,” Miller said and turned to leave.

Kristen was looking at Brodie, his face concealed in partial shadow, but she could feel the grey eyes piercing into her soul. For what seemed like several minutes—but was only a brief second—they stared at one another. Then Brodie keyed the microphone to the control room. “Belay my last, con,” he ordered. “All stop. Bring her up above the thermal, nice and quiet.”

Kristen turned back to her display. She’d been afraid he wouldn’t believe her. She needed him to trust her. The rest could ignore her. The rest could laugh and snicker behind her back, but not him. She could not bear his ridicule. Not anymore.

The
Seawolf
rose gently, slipping above the thermocline. Chief Miller, out of curiosity, stuck around, his body half in and out of the sonar shack. “Hey, Fabrini, fifty bucks it’s nothing,” he whispered to the Petty Officer.

Fabrini rubbed the growing beard on his face and glanced at Kristen. She gave him a look of certainty. “You’re on,” Fabrini whispered, taking the bet.

As the
Seawolf
rose above the thermocline, her massive bow array was the first part to peek above the cold layer of water acting like a large soundproof blanket above them. All of the sonar techs were watching their green waterfall displays when, suddenly, all three stacks began chirping simultaneously as the waterfall displays came alive with a thick green line indicating something directly ahead of the
Seawolf.

“Sonar contact! Bearing dead ahead,” the three sonar operators called out simultaneously.

Brodie reacted instantly and keyed the microphone linking the sonar shack to the control room. “Con, thirty degrees to starboard. Thirty degree down angle on the bow planes, get us back below the thermocline!” He tossed Fabrini the microphone and bulled his way past Chief Miller as he exited the sonar shack and headed for the control room.

“I’ll be goddamned,” Miller swore in disbelief.

Greenberg was on the classification stack and reported the contact, “A nuclear-powered submarine. I’ve got plant noises and …” he hesitated, not certain he was hearing it right.

Kristen finished the report, “It’s a British
Astute
class SSN.” She then looked toward Greenberg and explained, “You were hearing the pump-jet propulsor.”

“The Limey prick was following us,” Miller mumbled as he fished a cigarette out of his pocket. “I must be getting too old for this shit.”

Kristen continued to listen, while the
Seawolf
dove back below the thermocline. She could barely hear the British submarine as it passed above the
Seawolf,
but then she heard something else. It was something unexpected. Something ominous.

“New submerged contact, bearing three-two-five! I’m picking up transients close aboard.”

“What the fuck?!” Miller asked before he could light his cigarette. He grabbed the extra headphones to listen as Fabrini reported the contact.

Kristen glanced at Chief Miller as the
Seawolf
dove back into the black depths. The turn was so tight and the dive so steep that Kristen had to grab onto a pair of handholds to stay in her seat as the deck pitched beneath her. “It sounded like metal scraping,” she said to Miller.

Miller listened for another moment then stood back up and grabbed the ship’s phone, “Con, sonar. We’ve got a diesel-electric submarine bearing three-two-five, and we’ve got metallic transients indicating torpedoes entering tubes.”

Kristen froze momentarily, not understanding what was happening. But a moment later, she heard the general alarm sound. Almost immediately, she felt the
Seawolf
turn back the other way and accelerated.

Following the blaring of the alarm claxon, she heard the Chief of the Watch’s voice calling all hands to their battle stations. Adrenaline shot through her veins and Kristen immediately began to get out of the seat, assuming Miller would want Greenberg or Fabrini on the spectrum analyzer. But the Chief put a restraining hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down into the seat.

“Don’t you want someone else here?” she asked.

“Shit no,” he told her. “Strap in and hold on,” Miller replied as he reached up and grabbed a pipe to steady himself while lighting the cigarette with the other hand. Kristen buckled her seatbelt and tightened it down as the
Seawolf
turned hard to port. They were leaning sideways in their chairs even with the seatbelts on as they continued to accelerate. The cold, visceral, gut-wrenching fear that a torpedo might already been in the water and heading for them gripped her abdomen, and, by the looks on the faces of everyone else in the shack, she was not alone in her fear.

“Sonar, con,”
she heard Brodie’s voice over the speaker, and, as suddenly as the fear had struck her, it faded. His voice was calm and methodical, without any hint of panic or concern. The type of calmness expected of a leader during a crisis. She briefly wondered if she could ever manage to feign such courage. She doubted it.

“Bring in the towed array,”
Brodie ordered.
“I don’t want to lose it.”

The
Seawolf’s
long towed-array cable was not intended to be part of submerged acrobatics, nor would it be useful if they passed twenty knots which they seemed to be heading to fast. She felt the sub vibrate slightly as they passed through sixteen knots.

“Do you have anything more on the second contact?”
Brodie asked.

Kristen gripped the side of the panel to stop from falling sideways as they continued the sharp turn to port. She listened intently, trying to hear the diesel-electric boat again. They’d come full circle and returned to their original course. But they were now deep below the thermocline. Kristen could do the geometry in her head without even thinking about it, and she knew Brodie was bringing them up behind the diesel-electric boat—unless of course the submarine had heard them and had changed course, too.

In the control room, Graves listened closely, waiting for a report.

“What do you think it is, Skipper?” he asked Brodie who, despite his lack of sleep, was alert once again.

“I think the
Astute
might have been the reason we were able to get back out of North Korean waters so easily. That
Tral
corvette left us to go chase someone else,” he explained.

“You think the Brit heard all the commotion we made and realized we were in trouble, so they decided to draw some of the heat off of us?” Graves asked.

“They certainly have the stones for it,” he replied bluntly. “I never met a British sub captain who wouldn’t run a hundred miles for a good fight.”

“And the diesel?” Graves asked, knowing if the sonar reports were correct there was a diesel-electric submarine in the British boat’s baffles.

“The only people with diesel boats around here are North Koreans and maybe a Russian looking to get into trouble,” Brodie reasoned. “I bet the diesel was lying quietly somewhere, the
Astute
just happened to pass by, and the diesel got lucky and picked up her plant noises. Just like Kris did.”

“Do you think the diesel is looking for some payback after losing that
Whiskey
boat?”

“Maybe,” Brodie considered thoughtfully. “It doesn’t look like the Brit knows he has a tail.”

“What’re you gonna do?” Jason asked pointedly. “We can’t shoot at the diesel unless they fire first.”

“Con, sonar. Classify
Sierra Seven
as
Lada
class Russian diesel-electric submarine, bearing zero-zero-four, speed nine knots, range eight hundred yards, course two-seven-five, over.”
Senior Chief Miller reported.
“Sonar contact
Astute-One
, bearing zero-zero-three, speed nine knots, range fifteen hundred yards, course two-seven-five, over.”

“What’s a Russian doing chasing a Brit?” Graves asked.

“It’s not a Russian boat,” Brodie replied. “He’s North Korean. The Russians have been selling all their old stuff.”

“The diesel’s right on the
Astute’s
ass,” Graves warned, knowing the Korean was in a perfect firing position.

“And we’re on his,” Brodie said with an amused smile.

“What’s so funny?”

Brodie didn’t reply. Instead, he made certain the tracking parties had a firing solution on the Korean submarine before returning to the periscope platform. He pulled down the microphone for the sonar shack. “Sonar, con. Initiate Yankee Search.”

Graves looked at Brodie curiously. A Yankee Search was a sonar search using the
Seawolf’s
powerful active sonar. The active sonar would send out massive sonar pulses into the water and was perfect for finding hidden submarines. But the effect would also alert the entire Sea of Japan as to the
Seawolf
’s location, so most submariners never used the active system.

“Captain?” Graves asked, a bit surprised at the order.

“Say again?”
Chief Miller echoed the XO’s thoughts via the speaker, apparently equally stunned by the unexpected order.

“Keep us tight in her baffles,” Brodie ordered Graves and then headed forward to sonar.

It soon became evident what Brodie wanted. A moment after he disappeared into the sonar shack, the
Seawolf’s
active sonar began pounding the North Korean submarine, letting them know they weren’t the only hunters in the area.

Immediately, the North Korean submarine started evasive maneuvers trying to escape the
Seawolf.
Over the next ten minutes, the North Korean executed a series of ever more complex escape maneuvers. But the ancient diesel-electric boat was neither fast enough nor nimble enough to escape the
Seawolf
as Graves kept them locked in tight behind the dancing Korean submarine. Every time the Korean ceased its maneuvering, Brodie initiated another Yankee Search and hammered the Korean mercilessly until finally the North Korean, realizing it was way out of its league, surfaced, engaged its diesel engines, and raced back to the relative safety of home waters.

Kristen was still seated in front of the spectrum analyzer. She could feel herself grinning from ear to ear. The tension they’d all been feeling had faded as they watched their captain toy with the North Korean until the other sub captain finally gave up and headed for home. Chief Miller, still smoking a cigarette, had nearly split a seam laughing as every time the Korean thought they’d lost the
Seawolf,
Brodie calmly reached over and powered up the active sonar, and sent the North Korean into a series of new evasive maneuvers.

“Sneaky son of a bitch,” Miller chuckled in admiration as Brodie secured the active search once the Korean surfaced and fled.

Brodie, looking a little pleased with himself, addressed Miller. “There’s no smoking in here, Chief,” he said with a crooked grin. He then pointed a finger toward Fabrini. “And I think you owe Mister Fabrini fifty bucks.”

Miller dropped the cigarette to the deck and crushed it with the toe of his tennis shoe. “Aye, Skipper. Whatever you say.”

Then, as Brodie was about to leave, he paused and glanced back in. “Oh, and the next time the Lieutenant says she hears something, I suggest we listen.” He shot her a brief, rather proud grin and then returned to the control room.