But this was something deeper, thought Karpov, something unseen. In his mind, the only thing that emerged was the hidden threat posed by a submarine, and he immediately looked to Velichko, who had the night watch there.
“Sonar, anything unusual?”
“All quiet sir. No readings to report.”
Karpov nodded, then walked slowly to the view pane, seeing the sleek grey shape of Kursk off the starboard side, about five miles out. The ship looked trim and ready, and nothing seemed amiss. Then why did it feel like something was wrong, something was out there, something was coming for them? He looked to Chekov at communications.
“Any overnight messages, Comrade Chekov?”
“Sir, a routine missile inventory and fuel status report from Kursk, routed to the ready room terminal two hours ago. That is all.”
“Anything on general airwaves of any note?”
“I’ve been listening, sir, to the news, but it seems a quiet day. The major news wires are reporting the Chinese have sent troops across the border into southern Iraq. That seems to be the big story this morning.”
It was, but it certainly wasn’t big enough to get Karpov bothered like this. He looked around, noting the ship’s position on the vertical plexiglass digital screen, then looked out to sea again, as if searching for some great white whale, a looming behemoth that he could feel and sense, but not yet see.
One by one, the senior officers of the bridge crew began to arrive, saluting the Admiral as they came in through the hatch, Tasarov, Rodenko, Samsonov. As the shift turned over, Karpov was just looking out to the grey horizon, as if waiting for something to appear. In time he turned, and the first man he went to was Tasarov.
“Lieutenant, give me a good listen, will you? And let’s get a helicopter up. We’ve been lax on ASW patrols of late.”
“Yes sir,” said Tasarov, toggling his message interface to order the helo to make ready for liftoff. Then he settled in beneath his headset, to listen to the sea, closing his eyes. He had been feeling something was wrong that morning, and now, beneath that headset, he could hear some distant moaning under the sea, like the song of a great wounded sea beast. It rose and fell, rose and fell, and he was immediately making adjustments to localize the sound.
Karpov was watching him very closely now, for he knew most every movement an officer might make at his station, and the things Tasarov was doing carried some presentiment of warning. He was listening, then looking up at his waterfall, the visual display of the sonic information the sonar system was picking up. Then he made an adjustment, listening… listening… and Karpov’s worrisome eyes were on him the whole time.
Kirov had a variable-depth low-frequency sonar aft, and a low-frequency bow sonar, known in the West at one time as the “Horse Tail” towed array and the hull mounted “Horse Jaw” in the bow. The towed array could be lowered down and away from the churning wake of the ship, into the quiet zone above the thermocline where submarines often loved to prowl.
“Trouble, Tasarov?” asked Karpov. “Do you hear something?”
“I’m not sure, sir… Yes, I have a sonic aberration, but I’m having difficulty localizing it. Give me a little time, sir.”
“I knew it,” said Karpov, vindicated to think his unease was now associated with his old fear—an enemy submarine. Yet this was an odd place to find one, if that was the threat. They had replenished on the 22nd and 23rd, and then made the passage out of the Java Sea into the Indian Ocean that Fedorov had recommended. They were south of Java, heading out towards the Australian outpost at Christmas Island, and over very deep water.
For Tasarov, something seemed to be resonating in those dark depths, and it was becoming one of those challenges he set his mind to. What was it? At the moment, the itch was there, but he could not scratch it. When the helicopter was up, he would have another data stream from its sonar, more distant from the ship, and he began toggling in the data from Kursk off their starboard side to utilize that ship’s sensors as well. Somewhere up ahead, he knew that Kazan was cruising silently below them, because he could hear it. So he made a mental note to see if they could get a message to Gromyko to coordinate their sonar search.
Fedorov came in through the hatch, breathless, and saw Karpov out on the weather deck with his field glasses. Rodenko announced him, and the crew saluted as he made his way out to see the Admiral.
“What is happening?” he asked immediately.
“Probable submarine,” said Karpov. “The helo is launching now, and Tasarov is working the contact. Don’t worry, we’ll find that snake.”
“A submarine… You’re sure? I woke this morning feeling that something terrible had just happened.”
“I can say the same,” said Karpov, “but it seems I have a sixth sense when it comes to submarines. I put Tasarov on it right away, and he heard something that Velichko missed.”
Karpov had settled on that tangible and familiar threat, and now he seemed to be searching for it through those field glasses, as if he was trying to spot a periscope. But for Fedorov, the sense of dread was deeper, something more fundamental, and not local to the ship—something global….
“I’ll check with Nikolin,” he said. “Can’t shake the feeling that there’s big news today.”
He went back in through the hatch and found Nikolin fiddling with his radio set, and the look on his face was one of annoyance.
“Anything important on broadband?” asked Fedorov, and Nikolin removed his headset.
“Bands are all faded out,” he said, very attenuated—even shortwave. The signals have been getting weaker and weaker. I can’t make out much of anything, sir.”
“What? We’re just 150 miles south of Java. You should have great reception from all their commercial stations.”
“You would think so, sir, and I did hear them when I first sat down—but no longer. Things are fading away. I’ve checked all the big stations locally, Jakarta, Singapore, Darwin. They’re all getting some strange interference, a kind of static that comes in waves, and they’re fading. I can’t even make out voice or music now. It’s just become mush, a wash of noise.”
Of course that did very little to ease Fedorov’s mind, and just reinforced his worry. What would put out general static all across the band like that? Could it have been an EMP burst? Had something started here as it had in 2021? Were the nukes about to fly?
“Rodenko,” he said rushing over to the radar station. “Have you seen anything unusual—anything like an EMP burst?”
“No sir, nothing like that, but I just noticed we lost the carrier signals from Iswahjudi airfield. It’s due north of us now on Java, about 175 miles off, but they just went dark.”
“What about Soekarno Airport to the northwest near Jakharta and the Sunda Strait?”
“Nothing radiating from there either, sir. They’re dark. They may have gone EMCON deliberately.”
“Well, do we still have the Enterprise group on the network?”
Rodenko toggles a few switches, changing his screen display, and raised an eyebrow. Sorry sir, the network feed appears to be down. It does this from time to time, but I can’t read Enterprise just now, or any of the other TF’s that were on our local network feed.”
“Well, they would have a Hawkeye up and that should be out there like a lighthouse beacon.”
“You would think so, sir, but I don’t see it.”
“Did Kalinichev say anything when you relieved him?”
“No sir, just that all was normal. Whatever’s going on it must have just happened.”
Fedorov nodded, clearly distressed. He tapped Rodenko on the shoulder. “Keep watching,” he said. “I need to sit with Tovarich at Navigation.”