“No contacts, OOD,” Mercer reported. “Towed array is sagging with us hovering, though. As soon as we can get some speed on, I can be more confident.”
Romanov checked her watch. The last of the Russians were off the Panther. Panther steamed slowly away and turned to the south.
“Pilot, status of the lockout trunk?”
“Wait one, OOD,” Chief Dysart said, calling aft to the lockout trunk. “Trunk upper hatch is open, last group is coming aboard now.”
The Vermont personnel they’d lent to the Panther were coming back aboard, now that there was no need for the enhanced security aboard the stolen submarine.
“Report when the upper hatch shuts.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
Romanov looked at Seagraves and Quinnivan. “Maybe the rest of this trip will be routine,” she said.
“Control, Radio,” the overhead speaker rasped.
“Go ahead Radio,” Romanov said.
“We have immediate traffic, marked personal for CO.”
“Very well, Radio, route it to control. Captain is standing by.”
The radioman brought a pad computer to Seagraves, who read it, then passed it to Quinnivan, who handed it to Romanov. She scanned the message, then read it more carefully.
“That’s not good,” she said. There was another Yasen-M attack submarine out there, either coming into the Indian Ocean to meet them, or lying in wait at the Cape of Good Hope. “We have to tell Panther,” she said, turning back to the periscope view, but there was no sign of the Iranian submarine. “Dammit, they pulled the plug already.”
“It doesn’t change anything,” Seagraves said. “We suspected there would be more opposition forces out there. This is just confirming what we expected.”
“We’ve been lucky so far they haven’t thrown an ASW aircraft at the area,” Romanov said. “Or a dozen. But I hope to hell Panther takes the Cape of Good Hope wide.”
“The plan won’t change,” Seagraves said. “I’ll be in my stateroom. XO, maybe you’d better get a nap in before mid-rats.”
Quinnivan nodded and waved at Romanov and went aft, trailing the captain. Romanov tried to take a deep cleansing breath. This damned op seemed endless.
“OOD, lockout trunk upper hatch is shut,” Dysart reported from the ship control panel. “Lockout trunk rigged for dive by Chief Quartane and checked by Lieutenant Ganghadharan.”
“Very well, Pilot, all ahead two thirds, make your depth five-four-six feet, steer course two-zero-zero.”
While Dysart acknowledged, the view out the scope sank closer to the waves, then burst into foam and bubbles.
“Scope’s under,” Romanov called. “Lowering number two scope.” When the scope indicated retracted all the way, Romanov called to Dysart again. “Pilot, turns for ten knots. Sonar, let’s get in a leg on this course, then turn to reciprocal to make sure the sea’s empty.”
The deck tilted far down and the hull groaned from above as Vermont plunged into the colder deep depths of the Arabian Sea.
The Indian Air Force Mi-26 heavy lift helicopter touched down on the after helicopter deck of HMS Explorer II and bounced, settling in place and throttling down its engines, the huge rotors slowing to idle.
The survivors of the Novosibirsk, the ones that weren’t on the first medical evacuation helicopter, ran across the helo-pad and climbed into the airframe, Yuri Orlov first, then Ivan Vlasenko, Misha Dobryvnik, Irina Trusov and Vasiliy Naumov. After a moment, TK Sukolov, Arish Vasilev and twenty-four enlisted crewmen climbed aboard, and the engines roared and the helicopter shook hard, its deck tilting far forward as it climbed away from the rescue ship. The ship’s lights faded below, leaving the helicopter in complete darkness.
Orlov put on the headset, the large earpieces offering some protection from the thunderous noise of the helicopter’s engines and rotors. It was plugged into the bulkhead behind him, doubling as an intercom. He shut his eyes, mentally writing his after-action report to the Northern Fleet, wondering how bad his and his crew’s punishment would be for losing the battle. Something crackled in his ear. It was a voice. Orlov looked up. Irina Trusov was trying to get his attention. He lowered his boom microphone to his lips.
“Yes, Irina. What is it?”
“Sir, in your report, will you please say that the Americans treated us humanely? Kindly?”
“You want me to say that? Captain Lieutenant Trusov, since I’ve known you, you’ve harbored a singular hatred in your heart for America and the Americans.”
“They were, well, human, to us, Captain. Even though they knew we had been out to kill them. It is possible my previous thinking, well, perhaps it was misguided.”
Orlov smiled. People were full of surprises, he thought. “You seemed to get along quite well with the American lieutenant,” he observed.
Trusov smiled back. “The Handsome One, I call him in my mind.”
“Yes, Irina. The Handsome One.”
The helicopter flew on toward Mumbai, where a Russian civilian airliner plane waited on the tarmac to take them to St. Petersburg. There would be a debriefing at Admiralty Headquarters as soon as they could all wash up and get into fresh uniforms. And afterward, he thought, where would the next destination be? He thought of the damage to the reputation of Russia that had been caused by his submarine. Humiliated by a pre-emptive nuclear strike by the Americans. There was no doubt — how Trusov used to feel about the Americans was how he felt about them now.
Still, there had been great heroism trying to save Novosibirsk, he thought. Perhaps the admirals would take that into consideration. He could only hope.
“You got it, Chief?” AOIC Anthony Pacino asked Chief Sonarman Tom Albanese, who would be taking the deck and the conn while Pacino joined the rest of the crew for OIC Dankleff’s first 0800 daily meeting.
“I’ve got the bubble, Mr. Patch. I relieve you, sir.”
“I stand relieved. In central command, Chief Albanese has the deck and the conn,” Pacino announced loudly.
“Very funny,” Albanese said from the ship control station. “I’m the only one here.”
“Not sure how long this will last, but with luck, less than an hour.”
“You go enjoy coffee with your pinky-in-the-air officers. I’ll be right here, operating this combat submarine. By myself. All alone.”
“It’s a meeting with all the chiefs, too, Whale. And with you standing officer of the deck, you know, you’re kind of an officer yourself, now.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Albanese said in mock anger. “I take offense to that. My parents were married, after all.”
“That joke got old in the War of 1812, Chief.”
“And yet, it works every time.”
“Have a safe watch, Chief. Yell for me if something looks funky.”
“Jaysus, L-T, everything in this bucket of bolts looks funky.”
Pacino nodded. “That it does.” He stepped into the navigation room and grabbed the four charts that he’d carefully rolled up and rubber banded, with a notebook showing his calculations. He took the ladder down to the middle level and walked down the passageway to the wardroom door. The room was crowded, the entire Panther boarding party crew there, seated at the table or on the chairs at the aft end of the room, including the Iranian captain and the Russian reactor technician. Pacino hurried to his AOIC seat to the right of OIC Dankleff before the chronometer struck eight. Dankleff was a stickler for promptness, which Pacino would expect from a Naval Academy grad but not from an engineer who’d attended freewheeling RPI.