A full minute of silence had passed when the computer monitor unexpectedly flashed to life. All eyes were on the green-tinted screen as it printed out the following:
Sound I.D.: tip-vortex cavitation Source: dual propeller shafts powered by pressurized water reactor (60,000 slip.) Origin: Seventy-six percent probability. Soviet Delta Illclass submarine.
“I knew it!” Cooksey said, and playfully patted the back of the redheaded petty officer seated before him.
“Good job, Callahan. Let me know when we’re within range to hit them with active.”
Turning from the sonar console, the captain addressed his exec.
“Let’s move it. Rich. All ahead flank to intercept point. I’ll take care of getting Mr. Spencer and his gang ready.”
By the time Cooksey had moved to pick up the intercom handset, the Triton was already reawakening.
The distant groan of the sub’s propulsion unit was followed by a noticeable surge of forward movement.
Steadying himself against the bulkhead, Cooksey spoke crisply into the intercom.
“Mr. Spencer, this is the captain. It’s time for your bunch to earn their keep. Ready that ASW/SOW in number one tube. You’d better load two Mark-48 AD CAPS for good measure. Do you still have that MOSS decoy available? … Good, we just might need it. Hold tight and well be getting you a targeting solution. This is finally going to be a real one. Lieutenant. Good shooting!”
The captain disconnected the line and turned to watch the control room’s staff in action. Confident of their abilities, he crossed over to the plotting board.
Now would begin the complex process of stalking their prey. Compass and ruler in hand, Cooksey drew up an intricate topographical cross-section of the southernmost section of the Emperor Seamount Chain.
Cruising in the waters to the immediate north of the USS Triton, the Vulkan plunged ever eastward.
From the sub’s missile compartment, the roar of its twin-shafted engines echoed with a persistent whine.
Oblivious to the racket, Stefan Kuzmin carefully crossed the taiga’s length. He didn’t stop until he reached the room’s rearmost corner.
Here, situated beside launch tube number one, was the steel-plated electrical box that he sought. Six screws held the galvanized cover that protected the firecontrol system’s fragile interior components.
To remove them, the warrant officer needed a screwdriver that he hoped to appropriate from a tool box in an adjoining storage space.
Kuzmin’s head pounded with a continuous, throbbing ache as he peered into the storage space and found no tool box. Cursing the missile crew’s incompetence, he began searching for it elsewhere. Though he never did find the box itself, he eventually located a tool that would do the job.
The task of removing the screws took longer than he would have liked.
Plagued by a shaky, sweat stained hand, the which man did his best to concentrate on the job. He had to kneel down to get to the pair of screws that were placed on the cover’s bottom.
Not only did his bruised body hurt from the aftereffects of his fight with the senior lieutenant, the concussion he had suffered was causing blurred and double-vision. To compensate, he did his best to keep the head of the screwdriver steady with touch alone.
An eternity seemed to pass before the bottom two screws were finally removed. Standing up to reach the other four, he found himself swept by waves of nausea and dizziness. Flushed and lightheaded, Kuzmin struggled to remain standing with a superhuman effort. Slowly, he regathered his composure.
Pushed onward by the overriding importance of his present mission, he did his best to get back to work.
With Petyr Valenko’s apocalyptic warning still ringing in his ears, the which man successfully removed the two screws that bolted down the cover’s sides. Only the top two remained. He was well on his way to pulling one of these out, when the screwdriver popped out of his wet grasp.
“Damn it!” Kuzmin was once more forced to kneel down to find the errant instrument. Again he was possessed by a wave of dizziness as he dropped to his hands and knees. With sweat rolling down his forehead in thick waves, he searched the floor in vain.
“For the sakes of Galina and Nikolai, you’ve got to be down here somewhere!” he pleaded as he groped about like a blind man.
Frustrated, tired, his body racked with discomfort, Kuzmin momentarily halted his frantic pursuit when the sound of footsteps echoed in the distance. Desperately now, he turned to search the floor beside the launch silo — and found his fallen tool. Without hesitation he rose to complete his task. Fortunately the dizziness was gone, and Kuzmin soon found himself with one screw to go. He angled the tip of the screwdriver into the screw’s head and was in the process of twisting it loose, when the bright beam of a flashlight cut through the darkness.
This was followed by the zampolit’s strained voice.
“Comrade Kuzmin, please show yourself! We know that you are here. You must stop this foolishness at once!”
Frantically, Kuzmin hurried to remove the last obstacle, but his shaking hand slowed him considerably.
As he struggled for inner control, the sharp voice of Vasili Leonov rang out behind him.
“There he is — behind number one! He’s at the firecontrol panel!”
Realizing that he wouldn’t have time to finish, the which man ducked for cover behind the missile tube.
Squeezing himself down the narrow metal catwalk between the silos and the hull, he tried to lead his pursuers away. He made it nearly halfway down the compartment’s length before a flashlight beam caught him in the back.
“Comrade, he’s up by number four!” Leonov shouted, and then proceeded to follow the same precarious route that the which man had taken.
Sensing his pursuit, Kuzmin turned for the central catwalk that lay before the fourth and fifth tubes. He reached this walkway just as the beam of a flashlight caught him full in the eyes. Temporarily blinded, he stumbled back toward the rear of the compartment.
“Hold it there, Kuzmin,” called the zampolit.
“My aim is most unerring!”
As if to emphasize the warning, Kuzmin heard the distinctive click of a pistol’s hammer being cocked.
Reluctantly, he halted beside the second tube.
By the time he had regained his breath, both the political officer and the senior lieutenant stood before him, gloating.
“Good try,” Novikov observed wryly.
“But I guess that you just didn’t have it in you. Now, prepare to die, fool.”
Slowly, deliberately, the zampolit raised the short barrel of the compact pistol. Conceding his untimely death, the which man sighed.
He faced his executioner, unflinchingly, when suddenly the compartment was filled with a firm, deep voice.
“What the hell is going on here?” boomed Yuri Chuchkin as he ducked into the compartment from its rear hatchway. He saw the bruised which man and the two officers who faced him, and said incredulously, “Are you mad. Comrade? Put that pistol down at once! An errant bullet down here can sink us in the blink of an eye!”
Cognizant of the truth of the chief’s warning, Novikov lowered the pistol and handed it to Vasili Leonov.
“Now, will someone kindly tell me what the meaning of all this is?” the astounded chief asked.
Novikov attempted an explanation.
“Thank goodness that you got down here to assist us. Comrade Chuchkin.
We were just going to call for help. As we announced earlier, the which man here is the victim of a horrible fever. So crazed is he that, when we found him, he was in the process of sabotaging the firecontrol system.”
A look of doubt crossed the chief’s face as he hastily scanned Kuzmin’s blank expression, then turned to check out the firecontrol panel. It didn’t take him long to spot the loose screws lying on the floor.