Manilov felt a surge of pride. It was just as he had always imagined actual undersea warfare. They were creeping into the heart of the enemy’s fleet. The danger was more real and immediate than any submariner had faced since World War II.
The doubts of yesterday had evaporated, as if the dead Ilychin had taken the crew’s fears with him. The men were ready for whatever happened. True Russians. They had assigned their lives and fortunes to fate.
The minutes ticked by. Everything depended on the Reagan’s adhering to the original point of intended movement, which they had received, via Al-Fasr, over twelve hours ago. Since then the Mourmetz had been unable to extend its antenna to receive or transmit any new information.
Manilov was concerned. What if the weather had caused a change? What if a new operating plan had been ordered? What if —
Remain focused, he ordered himself. No more what-ifs.
He could see by the MVU-110 display that the largest acoustic mass — it had to be the Reagan — was still coming toward them. It meant that the ship’s point of intended movement had not changed, at least not yet.
Ten minutes.
He had delayed the last and most critical decision of the mission. He could fire torpedoes from this depth, ninety meters down, aiming on the Reagan’s passive sonar return and using the MVU-110 to calculate the firing solution. At a close enough range, the kill probability was acceptable.
Or he could be more certain. He could ascend to periscope depth, obtain a positive visual bearing and range on his target — and raise the kill probability by several percent.
He would also raise to a hundred percent the chances that they would be located.
Manilov turned away from the console for a moment and massaged his temples with his fingertips. He didn’t need to calculate the odds again. During the first few minutes after the sub hunters obtained a track on his periscope, their initial search area would be tiny. But if they were denied a precise starting point, the area to be searched swelled exponentially. With each passing minute, the submarine’s radius of movement expanded.
Safety or certainty? It was the submariner’s dilemma.
Manilov’s dream of destiny was thundering in his Russian soul like an ancient refrain. How long had he waited for this moment? Had he come this close so that he could take the safe course? Miss the target, then run like a fox fleeing from hounds?
Five minutes. the Reagan’s course was unchanged. The acoustic mass was still coming toward them.
“Ascend to thirty meters,” he ordered in a quiet voice.
Every pair of eyes in the control room swung toward him.
“Ascend?” asked Popov.
“You heard correctly,” said Manilov. “Thirty meters. When we’re stabilized in firing range, we rise to periscope depth.”
Popov was staring at him. So were Borodin and Keretzky. They understood the decision he had just made. Manilov looked at each of them, a gentle smile on his face. They could refuse to follow his orders and there was nothing he could do about it. After this moment, nothing else mattered.
Seconds ticked past. A silence as heavy as the grave hung over the control room.
“Aye, Captain,” answered Popov, breaking the spell. “Ascend to thirty meters.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TARGET REAGAN
“Range?”
“Six thousand meters, Captain. No change.”
Manilov peered at the console and nodded. The waiting was over. It was as close as the Reagan would come on its present course, passing them broadside, then opening the distance again as it cruised to the southwest.
“Ready tubes one, two, three, four.”
“Tubes one, two, three, four loaded and ready.”
Theoretically, two torpedoes were enough. If he could get two into the hull of the Reagan, he had a chance to sink her. He would fire a salvo of four, fanning them to account for any evasive maneuvering the giant ship might attempt. The remaining two tubes — the Mourmetz had six available — he would save for defense while the fast-loader replenished the first four tubes.
The Mourmetz’s survival depended on the magnitude of surprise. If they detected his periscope on their radar — and he was certain they would — he might fend off incoming destroyers with his remaining torpedoes. Antiship missiles would be better, but those were left behind in Vladivostok.
Without doubt, aircraft would come after them too. For that he had a solution. “Igla batteries on standby,” he ordered.
“Aye, sir. Already done.”
The Igla SA-N-10 was a short-range, heat-seeking anti-aircraft missile that could be launched from beneath the surface. With only three of the missiles on the Mourmetz, Manilov knew he couldn’t wage a sea-air battle with the sub-hunting aircraft. But the enemy wouldn’t know how few he had. When they saw one of the vicious little killer missiles bursting from the sea, it might hold the helicopters and S-3 Vikings at bay long enough for the Mourmetz to break out of the search envelope.
Manilov felt the eyes of his crewmen on him. He saw no rancor, no hostility, just determination and faith. For this tiny speck in time, the lives of Yevgeny Manilov and his fellow submariners were intertwined.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I’d like you to know it has been a privilege to serve with you. Remember that we are Russians. We will fight with honor.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” said the executive officer. Each man in the control room nodded in agreement.
“Ascend to periscope depth.”
Petty Officer Third Class Wanda Rainey, the nineteen-year-old radar operator in the Arkansas’s Combat Information Center, was the first to see it. Fresh from the Navy’s “A” school, she had arrived on the Aegis cruiser two months ago.
“Contact, bearing 290, range seven thousand yards,” Rainey called out.
The watch supervisor, Lt. Cmdr. Walt Finney, walked over and stood behind her. “Track?”
“Track 2672,” she said, reading the number that appeared on her screen.
“Link it to flag ops on the Reagan,” said Finney.
“I was just about to — Whoops.” She peered intently at the console. “It’s gone.”
Finney leaned closer, also peering into the display. “Damn!”
“Just like the one the other day. Four sweeps, then nothing. No course, no speed.”
Finney shook his head. “Here we go again. We spend the rest of the day chasing another damn ghost — a whale or some piece of floating junk.”
“Do you still want me to link it over to flag ops?”
“Wait a sec.” He continued to watch the screen, just in case the contact reappeared. Like most antisubmarine warfare officers, he knew you could get yourself branded as a hipshot if you were too quick to jump on spurious targets, sending ships and airplanes running off after shadows. With experience and a cool head, you evaluated these things. You made a judgment call before you called in the hounds.
Half a minute later, he was still evaluating when the sonar operator called out, “Sonar contact, screws in the water, bearing 310, range—” The operator’s voice went up an octave. “Oh, man! It’s a… it’s a torpedo! Range five thousand yards. No… make that two torpedoes!”
As he called out the contacts, his voice rising in pitch, he punched a mushroom-shaped button that sent an alert to the combat information rooms of every vessel in the battle group.