To Kill the Potemkin (3 page)

"Hey,
Willie Joe."

"Where
you been, man?"

"Tokyo."

"Tokyo,
Japan?"

"That's
the one."

"You're
puttin' me on. Lopez was pissed. You ain't
never on time."

"It's
a long ride back from Tokyo. Don't worry about the chief. We kissed and
made up."

Sonarman
Second Class Willie Joe Black lay down his booklet and yellow
felt-tipped pen.
"Tell me something, Ace. I know I shouldn't ask, but why the hell did
you
go to Japan with just three days' liberty?"

"I
got a friend over there."

"That's
a long way to go to get laid."

"Not
that kind of friend," Sorensen laughed. "I know this guy, an old pal
from sub school who lives over there. He's what you might call an
advanced
gadget freak. He likes to make toys a few years before anybody else."

"So
what did he make for you?"

"This,"
Sorensen replied, tossing the tape recorder on Willie Joe's bunk.

"What
is it?"

"What's
it look like?"

"I
dunno. I never seen anything like it."

Sorensen
pushed a button and out came the Beatles "Can't Buy Me Love."
Throughout the compartment, heads swiveled toward the music. A
half-dozen
sailors crowded around Willie Joe's bunk, all talking at once.

"What
is that?"

"Whereja
git that thing?"

"Is
it a radio?"

"I
hate the Beatles, ain't you got the Stones?"

"It's
a tape recorder, the smallest in the world. Rechargeable battery, the
works."

Shaking
his head in amazement, Willie Joe asked, "Transistors?"

"Yeah,
nothin' to it, really, except the heads."

Willie
Joe
picked up his pen and resumed his study of advanced hydraulics.
Sorensen peeked
at the cover of the manual. "You looking for a promotion, Willie
Joe?"

"Yeah.
My old lady wants a new Bonneville. If I make first class, I guess she
can have
it."

"You
spend your liberty with her and your kids?"

"Sure
did. I think I spent all three days buying carloads of crap in the Navy
Exchange."

"You
love it," Sorensen said.

"
You
went to Japan."

"For
six hours."

The
Beatles
went into "Back in the USSR." Sorensen looked around at the faces
shining in the bright fluorescent lights. The music seemed to pop the
bubble of
pressure that surrounded departure. He recognized all but one of the
sailors.

"Willie
Joe," he said, "I hear we got a green pea."

"That's
right."

"Did
you check him out?"

"No,
he just got here. He's a
good-lookin' kid, and he'd better watch his ass." Willie Joe grinned
and
nodded his head in the direction of a young sailor standing in the
passageway,
hands stuffed in the pockets of his jumpsuit, staring at the maze of
piping and
cables that ran through the top of the compartment. He didn't appear
shy but he
hung back from the crowd around
Willie Joe's bunk and the little tape recorder. He had a pretty face
and a look
that wasn't so much cocky as confident.

Fogarty
felt
Sorensen's eyes looking him up
and down. He lit a Lucky Strike and turned to meet Sorensen's stare.

Sorensen
walked
over to him. "Got
another smoke, kid?"

"Sure."
Fogarty
held out his pack and
offered his cigarette as a light. Sorensen noticed that Fogarty had not
torn
the aluminum foil away from the pack but had carefully folded it over
the
tobacco to keep it fresh. Sorensen took a cigarette and replaced the
foil as he
found it.

"Fogarty,
right?"

"Right."
Fogarty
smiled. "You
must be Sorensen."

"That's
me."

"I
heard about
you in sonar
school."

Sorensen
waited.

"They
played us
tapes of all the
different Soviet subs and told us you're the guy who made the tapes.
They said
you've collected more signatures of Soviet subs than anyone else."

"That's
what they
told you? It wasn't
me, kid. It was
Barracuda
.
Whatever we do here, we do together. Willie Joe there, he's done his
share,
too. It's the luck of the draw."

Fogarty
nodded.
"That makes me the luckiest
guy in the navy. I asked for this ship."

"You
must believe
in miracles. I'll tell
you straight, kid.
Barracuda
is going to get a
special assignment in
Naples, and they put you and all these other apprentices on this ship
to foul
us up and get in our way."

Sorensen
was a
good four inches taller than
Fogarty, and his narrowed, unsmiling eyes bore down now on Fogarty.
When he saw
that Fogarty didn't flinch, kept cool, he relaxed.

"Well,
you're
here," he said.
"We'll make the best of it. You stow your gear?"

"I
did."

"Tell
me
something, Fogarty. Why'd you
ask for this ship?"

"Because
of you,
Sorensen. I wanted to
learn from the best."

"You
mean you
don't know everything
yet?"

Fogarty
seemed to
blush and shook his head.
Sorensen punched him in the shoulder and was surprised to find the
muscle hard
as steel. "All right, kid. Welcome aboard."

"Thanks."

"Thanks
for the
smoke. Catch you
later."

Sorensen
retrieved his tape recorder,
switched off the music, and put the machine and tapes in his locker.
"Show's over for today, gents. Tune in tomorrow."

Willie
Joe leaned
over the edge of his bunk.
"We muster in ten minutes, Ace."

"Okay.
Where's
Davic?"

"Where
do you
think?"

"In
the galley
stuffing his face. Who's
the sonar officer this trip?"

"Hoek.
He's been
made weapons officer,
too."

"Oh,
that's
ducky. We'll have a regular
fat guys' convention," Sorensen said. "You know something, Willie
Joe? The navy's got its head up its ass."

He
stripped off
his blues and stashed them in
his locker. In jockey shorts he paraded through the compartment,
flexing his
muscles and displaying his tattoo. Whistling,
We all live in a
yellow
submarine,
he headed for the showers.

A
year out of
Annapolis and fresh from
Nuclear Power School, Lt. Fred Hoek was making his second patrol.
Twenty-three
years old, gung-ho, overweight and plagued by zits, Hoek was the ninth
sonar
officer to serve on
Barracuda
in eight years.

He
was standing
at attention in the executive
officer's tiny cabin, watching Pisaro shuffle papers. Pisaro's thick
lips and
large teeth made Hoek nervous.

"You
squared
away, Lieutenant?"

"Yes,
sir."

"At
ease. Sit
down."

"Thank
you, sir."

Hoek
sat at
attention. Pisaro stacked his
papers in a neat pile. "You're wearing two hats this cruise,
Lieutenant,
weapons and sonar. Did you go down to the torpedo room and have a chat
with the
boys down there?"

"Yes,
sir."

"You
run a check
on the weapons
console?"

"Yes,
sir."

"All
right, have
you looked through the
sonarmen's records?"

"Yes,
sir."

"Well?"

"Davic
and Black
are solid, hard-working
men. Davic is, ah, unusual."

"He
wants to go
to work for the CIA when
his enlistment is up. He knows quite a lot about the Russians. You
might learn
something from him."

"Yes,
sir. Black
is up for first class,
so he's going to be a bookworm this cruise."

"Willie
Joe is a
top-notch technician.
On any other ship he'd be the leading sonarman. I expect him to get his
promotion and move on. We're lucky to have him here."

"Yes,
sir."

Pisaro
lit a
cigarette. "That brings us
to Petty Officer Sorensen."

"Yes,
sir."

"Did
you go
through his records
carefully?"

"Yes,
sir."

"And
what do you
think.
Lieutenant?"

"Well,
Commander,
he's clearly a genius
at sonar, but otherwise he's somewhat unconventional."

"Somewhat?
He's a
fucking maniac."

"I
was trying to
maintain decorum,
Commander."

Pisaro
burst out
laughing. "Okay,
Lieutenant. You're very young, and I'll give you the benefit of the
doubt. A
short lecture: The strength of the navy is our senior petty officers.
You don't
see many of them around the Naval Academy. They're called men."

"Yes,
sir."

"Petty
Officer
Sorensen is the kind of
man who puts to shame computer projections. He knows more about sonar
than you
or I ever will. Sonar is an art. Every sound is a question of
interpretation,
and Sorensen has an uncanny feel for it. Don't ask me how. I doubt if
he can
explain it himself. If he is, as you say, unconventional, we tolerate
that down
here. As long as a man does his job, we leave him alone."

"Yes,
sir."

"All
right, did
you meet the new man?
What's his name?" Pisaro looked at his papers.

"Fogarty,
sir.
Yes, sir, briefly. He did
very well in sub school."

"School's
over,
Lieutenant. Sorensen
will look after him. Here's one more short lecture: This is an
experienced
crew. They've been through a lot together, the Cuban missile crisis and
more
than one dangerous patrol in unfriendly waters. When we close the hatch
and
dive, we're all alone. We're at war with the sea every second, and not
far from
same with the Russians. Under those conditions there is no such thing
as a
routine patrol. That's all. Dismissed."

Hoek
found the
sonarmen waiting in the
control room.

"Good
morning,
sir," Sorensen said.

"Good
morning."
Hoek cleared his
throat, realizing that nothing he had learned at the academy had
prepared him
adequately for this moment. He felt the steel deck vibrating slightly
under his
feet. He heard the white noise of air conditioners and the background
chatter
of the command intercom. He saw Sorensen's eyes, still bloodshot but
testing
him. Next to Sorensen, Willie Joe looked like a puppy dog, anxious to
please.
Then came Davic, a scowl firmly etched across his plump face. At the
end of the
line was Fogarty, looking straight ahead.

Hoek
cleared his
throat again. "Our
transit time to Naples will be ten days. We don't expect to encounter
any
problems, but let's keep our ears alert and our eyes on the screen."

Sorensen
rolled
his eyes. It was a tradition
in the Submarine Service for the most junior officer on a ship to be
assigned
the duties of sonar officer. Over the years Sorensen had learned that
the only
things these young lieutenants had in common were a bad complexion and
a drive
to become admirals.

Hoek
continued,
"There is one thing to
note. Crossing the Atlantic, we will be participating in a test of a
new SOSUS
deep water submarine detection system. As you know, the bottom of our
coastal
waters has been seeded with passive sonars for ten years. This new
extension of
the system will enable us to track any sub in the North Atlantic. The
hydrophones are laid out in a grid centered in the Azores. It's similar
to the
system we've been operating in the Caribbean for the last year. As far
as we
know, the Russians don't know anything about it. Any questions?"

Sorensen
asked,
"Do we have to give
position reports to Norfolk?"

"Not
until we get
to Gibraltar. We
pretend it's not there. Anything else?"

Sorensen
shook
his head.

"Okay,
Chief
Lopez has assigned the
watches. Sorensen, you take the first watch, Willie Joe the second,
Davic the
third. The watches will be four hours, so you'll all be four on, eight
off.
Sorensen, you will be responsible for training the new man, Third Class
Fogarty."

"Yes,
sir."

Throughout
the
ship, division heads were
making similar speeches. Pisaro, who also served as navigation officer,
stood
before the assembled helmsmen, planesmen and quartermaster, and spoke
out for
the benefit of the entire control room. "Set the maneuvering watch and
let's haul ass."

"You
heard the
man," Hoek said.
"Sorensen, you and Fogarty take us out. Dismissed."

The
sonar room
was amidships, next to the
control room and flush against the pressure hull. A tiny chamber, it
contained
a cabinet for tools and parts and three operators' consoles, each with
a
keyboard and CRT screen.

Fogarty
followed
Sorensen into the small
chamber and looked closely at the banks of loudspeakers and tape
recorders
mounted on the bulkheads. Layers of acoustic tile and cork insulated
the
compartment from noise in the control room and the machinery aft.

"Welcome
to
Sorensen's Sound Effects.
Sit down."

The
colors were
drab military. The overworked
air conditioner never completely cleaned out the smell of cigarette
smoke and
sweat. In 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis Sorensen had taped up a
newspaper photo of his hero, John Kennedy. It was still there, yellow
and
ragged, partially obscured by fleshy pinups and a photograph of Sergei
Gorshkov, Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union. A large chart
displayed
line drawings of the several classes of
Soviet submarines:
Whiskey, Hotel, Echo, Golf, November and the new Viktor.

Sorensen
put on his earphones, and the last effects of his hangover disappeared.
His
fingers danced over the keyboard and activated the array of sixteen
hydrophones, each a foot in diameter, mounted on the hull around the
bow and
down the sides of the ship. The hydrophones—the passive "listening"
sonars—were sensitive microphones that collected sounds that traveled
through
the water, sometimes across great distances.