“I don’t understand.”
“Good.”
Xavier watched as Niles stood up and, without a look back, left the empty cafeteria. He took up the new laptop and then smiled.
“I love a mystery.” Xavier left the room and decided that he would know what needed to be known by the end of the day. “Come on, Europa. We have some digging to do.”
The crewmen inside the large control center felt the heavy roll as Houston came shallow. She was in a trough, and the view through the periscope was swamped momentarily. Captain Thorne rubbed his eyes as he switched the scope to night vision, an ambient-light-viewing system that utilized existing light from stars, the moon, and sometimes just stored heat energy to illuminate the darkness of the world without sun. There it was — Thorne just caught a brief glimpse of the raised portion of the target’s large upper pagoda-style superstructure.
“Damn, she’s a big bitch.” He slammed the scope’s handles to the up position. “Gary, take a look at this,” he said as the Houston rolled slightly to port. The storm was increasing in size and volume.
The first officer stepped up and brought the stainless-steel handles down and then gazed into the scope. He waited as the high seas broke over the sub’s sail tower and then peered into the scope again.
“Jesus.” He turned and looked at Thorne. “Captain, she has two massive barreled gun turrets, one forward and one aft.”
Thorne slapped a sailor on the back. “Get into the computer library and match that silhouette against existing warships. Gary, send his station a picture, will you?”
At the scope, the first officer clicked a button with his thumb and snapped several pictures as the sea rode low enough to get good shots. He then relinquished the periscope back to the captain.
A specialist at his station started typing into the computer keyboard while the pictures were fed into the system for identification comparison. It was a program that not only matched existing silhouettes of warships all over the world but also had their power-plant noise recordings and screw-propeller signatures for the newer ships.
“Okay, that thing’s moving too damn much. Take us down to one hundred and hold station as best you can. We don’t need her rolling over on top of us.”
“Aye, Captain. Okay, gentlemen, let’s get out of this surface clutter. Give me thirty degrees down bubble. Take her to six knots and come parallel to target and hold station.”
“Communications, anything on VHF?”
“Conn, radio, there’s nothing, Captain. Target is cold black on electronic or voice communications.”
“Sonar, conn, anything else out there besides our phantom?”
“Conn, sonar, negative. We’re clear at this time.”
“Damn, this is strange.” Thorne saw the technician running the silhouette program stop typing and then turn white-faced to his captain. “What is it?” he asked.
“Sir, we have a hit on the silhouette index. But it was identified through historical records, not from active naval rolls.”
“Well?” he asked impatiently. He was disappointed that his crew may have been affected by this unknown. Their reactions in the past were fast and to the point.
“She’s Russian, Captain.”
“Gary, bring Houston to general quarters, please,” he said with an angry look at the technician. “Battle stations — submerged.”
“Aye, Captain.”
As the warning tone and announcement by the chief of the boat sounded throughout the cavernous interior, men ran to their battle stations.
Thorne stepped up to the technician but stopped by his first officer. “Gary, let’s get two fish into tubes one and two. I don’t want to take any chances with this lone wolf.”
“Aye.”
“Now, what else have you got from the historical records?” he asked as he leaned over and examined the technician’s computer screen.
“The nomenclature is coming up now, Captain.”
The screen started flashing with the silhouettes of hundreds of surface combatants around the world. Every ship was identifiable through this trusted system detailing any vessel that sailed the world’s oceans.
“Oh, man!” the young blond-haired tech said, exhaling. “Sorry, Captain,” he said after his nonprofessional exclamation.
The captain read and the words scrolled across Thorne’s glasses, and then the captain straightened. He had to read it again and leaned over the station once more. He was feeling a fluttering in his stomach over the strangest situation he had ever encountered at sea. The captain picked up the 1 MC mic and addressed his crew.
“Crewmen of the Houston, here is what we’re tracking. We have a Russian warship seven hundred yards to our starboard beam. She is an original Soviet Kirov-class battle cruiser. Not the modern Kirov class. I repeat, she is not part of their modern Kirov class.”
The men in the control room exchanged uneasy looks. The captain saw this and decided to let them in on the whole story. The technician already knew, so there would be scuttlebutt ringing throughout the boat if he didn’t address the situation now.
“She’s a fat one,” he said, trying to ease their minds with humor. “Forty-three thousand displaced tons. This monster is also packing six sixteen-inch rifled guns situated inside two turrets you could fit the Lincoln Memorial into.”
Again, the men and women inside the control center looked uneasy. Sixteen-inch guns was what caught their attention. What ship in the world carried that size armament anymore?
“Okay, I want scuttlebutt kept to a minimum, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll have a great ghost story to tell your grandkids someday.” He was smiling but saw that his crew was not. He again spoke into the 1 MC mic. “She’s the Simbirsk, a battle cruiser. Launched, 24 November”—he paused as his eyes met those of his first officer and then roamed to the men and women under his command—“1939.”
The crew in other spaces of the giant sub stopped what they were doing. Even the forward torpedo room came to a momentary halt before being harangued back to work by their weapons supervisor in loading the expensive and delicate Mark 48 torpedoes.
“She was reported sunk in 1944 by German U-boat U-521. Now, until we know what’s happening here, we will remain at battle stations — submerged. More information as we get it. That is all.” The captain clicked off and then looked pointedly at his first officer. “Gary, bring us shallow. We need to get off a coded ELF message to Nimitz. We’ll let them pass this one up the line.” Thorne placed the mic back into its holder and then faced Devers once more. “I don’t care to be explaining to the chief of naval operations just how and why we are tracking a ghost ship reportedly sunk over seventy-five years ago.”
“I guess you’re right about one thing, Skipper: this will be something to tell the grandkids.”
“Let’s hope. Weapons, I want a rolling fire solution. Be ready for any target aspect change. Set safeties on both fish to seven hundred yards. I want to be able to respond quickly enough if that phantom is more alive than what she’s showing.”
“Aye, safeties set at seven hundred yards,” came the response.
As if to say that’s not all you have to worry about, the seas started to scream, and the wind picked up by forty-five miles per hour in just the past three minutes. What they thought was a tropical depression became officially known as Hurricane Tildy, at 0435 hours.