To Kill the Potemkin (29 page)

"Forever."

"C'mon."

"Longer
than any
Russkie I ever heard
of. 'Course, I never heard of these guys."

When
Lopez sat
down to take his turn at the
console, he waved away the earphones and turned on the speakers.

"It
sounds weird,
like there's an
echo," he said.

"That's
because
she's pulling
away," Sorensen told him.

"She's
going how
fast?"

"Fifty
point
three knots."

"Holy
Madonna,
it'll outrun a Mark
thirty-seven. You know what, Ace? I think this is a good time to
retire. I've
heard enough."

As
Potemkin
raced dead ahead, steadily
increasing her lead, the solid blip on
Barracuda
's
screens began to deteriorate. The
thunder that came through
the hydrophones started to fade.

After
four hours,
two hundred miles into the
Atlantic,
Potemkin
began to descend. Without
decreasing speed she went
down to fifteen hundred feet, putting a thermal layer between herself
and
Barracuda
.

"Sonar
to
control, contact is growing
indistinct. He's going down, recommend descent to eight hundred feet."

"Very
well,
sonar, if you think it'll
help. Stern planes down four degrees. Take us down to eight hundred
feet."

Barracuda
nosed over and descended another four hundred feet. Sorensen pursed his
lips
and watched his screen. When the ship leveled off, the resolution of
the
contact had not improved. "Damn," he swore. "We're going to lose
her."

Fogarty
asked,
"How can we lose her if
she's making this much noise?"

"She's
twenty-one
miles ahead of us now,
and we're getting echoes, reverberations and a deteriorating signal. We
may
hear machinery noises, but we won't know exactly where the sounds are
coming
from. She can fire a decoy, go silent, go deep. If she continues at
fifty knots
she'll be completely out of range in four or five hours and we won't
hear a
damned thing except ourselves."

"But
what about
the bottom sonars?"

Sorensen
nodded.
"They'll track her all
right, but they can only locate her within fifty miles. They can get an
exact
fix only when she passes over one of the cables."

"She
has to stop
and clear baffles,
doesn't she?"

"Why?"

"For
safety."

"Not
a chance.
She's hell-bent on
running away from us. She isn't going to stop for anything, and I guess
neither
are we until we lose her. Sooner or later that Russian captain's going
to
learn that we are the boat he hit, and that, my friend, is going to put
him
right on the edge, if he isn't there already. Maybe we should let him
take his
Maserati submarine back to Murmansk. Where's Davic? He's supposed to be
in
here. I want to hit the beach."

"You're
not
giving up, are you.
Ace?"

Sorensen
snapped
his sunglasses over his
eyes. "What do
you
think we should do if we catch up
with the son
of a bitch? Make him say he's sorry?"

Potemkin
continued west
for
another seven hours, during which time the distance between the two
subs
stretched to over forty miles. Davic stood his watch, eyes glued to the
screen,
then turned over the console to Willie Joe. During both watches
enlisted men
filed into the sonar room to listen to the Russian sub. The roar
gradually
deteriorated into a faint buzz, then an erratic hum. Finally, eleven
hours and
fifteen minutes after
Potemkin
broke into the
Atlantic, she disappeared
from the screens.

"Sonar
to
control," said Willie
Joe. "She's gone."

"Control
to
sonar. Very well. Prepare
for slow speed. Prepare to clear baffles. Prepare to send up a buoy."

"Aye
aye."

Asleep
in his
bunk, Sorensen was having a
nightmare. In a basin the size of a house, a pinhead of metal glowed
blue in
the dark. The basin was a giant aquarium. People stood outside,
watching the
bright blue speck as it shot off torpedoes and rockets. With a roar the
water
turned to fire, exploded the glass and showered the spectators with
shards of
uranium. In a thousand pieces the sub settled to the bottom and
lobsters began
to eat the debris. Just as one of the spindly monsters stepped on his
face, he
sensed the
Barracuda
's
abrupt
change of speed and woke up.

His
sweat felt
like burning seawater. He
pushed open the curtain and leaned into the passageway. On the opposite
tier
Fogarty was reading
The Art of War
,
by Sun Tzu.

"She's
gone?"
Sorensen said.

Fogarty
looked up
for a moment, nodded, then
read aloud, "All warfare is based on deception. When near, make it
appear
that you are far away; when far away, that you are near. Pretend
inferiority
and encourage your enemy's arrogance."

"Well,
where'd
you get that?"

"It
was in the
library. It's been around
for a couple of thousand years."

"That's
a lot of
blood in the sea. Seems
like we haven't learned too much. All you have to do is get mad, and be
willing. Even you, Fogarty. The Russians got under your skin, didn't
they?"

"It
wasn't them,
it was you."

"Me?"

"Yeah,
you and
your little tape
machine."

Barracuda
slowly circled, cleared baffles and sent up a radio buoy. Springfield
transmitted a position report and the last known location of
Potemkin
. A moment
later Norfolk flashed a
reply that Springfield and Pisaro took into the captain's cabin to
decode.

The
bottom sonars
had successfully tracked
both subs into the Atlantic. The Alpha was still heading due west at
great
speed, generating enough noise to make her easy to track as she passed
over the
sonar-seeded cables that radiated out from the Azores?

Springfield
spread out a chart of the North
Atlantic. A chain of marine mountains, the mid-Atlantic ridge, ran
north and
south, splitting the ocean in half. A deep-running submarine could hide
indefinitely among the mountain peaks, and travel north and south
through the
deep valleys.

"This
Russian
skipper is heading
straight for the ridge," Pisaro said. "He'll go north, try to break
through the Iceland gap and go under the ice."

"I'm
not so sure,
Leo. If he were
heading for the ice pack he'd already be making a northerly course.
There's no
way he could have escaped the collision with no damage at all. He's got
to be
hurt. He can't go under the ice. Plus he's been at sea a long time. A
normal
cruise for them is twenty-one days tops. Their sailors get too much
radiation
if they stay out any longer. The Soviets have never built a boat that's
properly shielded. My guess is that he has a radiation problem. Maybe
he's got
sailors with radiation sickness. They're probably tired, anemic, less
than
alert. He needs a new crew."

Springfield
tapped, the chart in the region
of the Caribbean. "He isn't going north, Leo. He's going south. He's
trying to make it to Cuba."

Pisaro
shook his
head. "Into their FBM
base? They think we don't know about that. They have no idea that
Havana harbor,
the Caribbean and half the Atlantic Ocean are seeded with bottom
sonars. He
wouldn't lead us into it."

"I
agree. But he
might try to rendezvous
at sea with their missile boat coming out of the Puerto Rican trench. A
year ago, when we discovered what
they
were doing down there, we were looking at another Cuban missile crisis.
That
FBM base is a clear violation of the agreement. It could have meant
war. Netts
claimed it was best to let them be, track their FBM every minute and
keep them
under the gun. If worst came to worst, we
could
blow
it out of the
water. Point is, if we throw it up in their
faces, we've got another Cuban
missile crisis on our hands."

"Christ,"
Pisaro said. "Do you
really think they would pull a missile sub off-station for a
rendezvous?"

"This
Alpha
apparently means a great deal to them, and she's in trouble. They think
they
can bring the FBM out quietly, rendezvous with the Alpha and slip right
back
into the Puerto Rican trench. If we catch them red-handed, photograph
the FBM
on the surface and then follow it, it will never be able to return to
the Caribbean. This way, we'll get them out of
the Caribbean for good without provoking a crisis. The price will be
that we'll
have to reveal to them the new system in the Atlantic. Still, once they
realize
we can track them anywhere, maybe they'll pull back into their home
waters.
Whatever, I believe this Alpha is going to lead us right to the big
boy. That's
some bonus."

Aboard
Potemkin
Federov stood
before the
reactor displays in the engineering room, his face impassive, his ears
plugged
with cotton balls. The sailors wore no radiation badges, but Federov
had
managed to acquire a U.S. Navy dosimeter that he kept secret even from
his
friend Alexis. It verified what he knew already: he was expendable. He
was
condemned as surely as Kumachov. He found the thought strangely
comforting.
Knowing was better than not knowing. The radiation would kill him
slowly. It
could take years, but eventually he would develop leukemia. A genuine
patriot,
Federov considered the loss of his life a proper sacrifice, but
meaningful only
if he returned his ship safely home.
Potemkin
was everything—the future of the Soviet
Navy.

He
moved
to the atmosphere displays. The carbon dioxide concentration was an
uncomfortable
three-and-a-half percent. Half the crew had headaches miserably
aggravated by
the rattle and vibration of the racing turbines. Comfort was sacrificed
to
demonstrate
Potemkin
's durability
to the Americans.

Federov
supposed eventually the U.S. Navy would
discover
Potemkin
's titanium
hull. Presumably
Potemkin
's performance
would force them to renew their efforts to build a titanium sub, a
project they
seemed to
have postponed. But at least in this one his country had the lead.
Potemkin
mustn't be further exposed to them.

In
the previous
few years the Americans had
focused on shielding their sailors from radiation, and making their
boats
quiet. It was a question of priorities, and who knew which was right.
He did
know that without Acoustical Reproduction Device Number Seven
Potemkin
was too noisy. All her essential machinery—turbine, electric motor,
steam
condenser, saltwater pump and coolant pumps for her lead-bimuth
reactor—was
hard-bolted to the decks, and the decks themselves hard-bolted to the
pressure
hull without benefit of shock absorbers or acoustic insulation.
Everything
vibrated, turning the hull of
Potemkin
into a
massive sonic beacon.

Federov
was
reasonably certain the American
picket sub had followed him into the Atlantic, but for how long and how
far he
didn't know. After eight hours he decided it was safe to change course.
Potemkin
made a wide turn to the left and continued southeast
another three
hours. Finally he ordered, "All stop."

In
the abrupt
silence the men heard their own
labored breathing.

"Clear
baffles.
We're going to
snorkel."

Potemkin
made a full
circle. "No contact, Captain," said Popov. "We're clear."

"Take
us up,
Alexis. Snorkel
depth."

For
thirty
minutes the snorkel projected
above the surface. The carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere inside the ship
was
pumped out and replaced with fresh ocean air. While the ventilation was
taking
place, Federov remained in his cabin with Alexis and studied charts of
the
Atlantic.

"We
must have
carbon dioxide filters if
we are to make it to Murmansk," he said. "Once under the icepack we
can't snorkel.
Potemkin
is many things, but an
icebreaker she is not.
The sail is not sufficiently hardened to crack through."

"Who
can help us?
Deflektor?
" Alexis
named the surveillance
ship stationed in the Bay of Cádiz.

"No.
They don't
carry stores for us. and
even if they did, the Americans would follow her if she pulled
off-station."

"But
we have no
tenders in the
Atlantic."

"I
know. We have
better than a tender.
As first officer you are entitled to learn a few secrets, my friend."

Federov
unlocked
his safe and removed a
sealed set of documents that contained the disposition of all Soviet
Navy
vessels throughout the world. He broke the seal, unfolded a chart of
the
Caribbean and put his thumb on Cuba.

"We
can't go
there
—"

"You're
right, but
Dherzinski
is
operating from there, and he can meet us here, where the Americans
least expect
it."

Federov
moved his
thumb to a spot five
hundred miles southwest of the Azores.

Two
thousand
miles west,
Dherzinski,
a
Soviet fleet ballistic missile submarine of the Hotel class, hunkered
under a
half mile of water in the Puerto Rican trench, the deepest part of the
Caribbean. Inside her enlongated sail three huge Serb missiles, armed
with
hydrogen warheads, were aimed at Washington, D.C., Norfolk. Virginia,
and
Charleston. South Carolina.

Hovering
in
silence in the Puerto Rican
trench was not exciting. The sub drifted slightly in the current,
requiring the
constant attention of the junior officers to keep her on-station and
thereby
target her missiles accurately.