Tolbert listened as Lieutenant Livingston replied, “Sonar, Conn. Aye. Do you have a classification?”
“Conn, Sonar. No. It doesn’t sound like a ship.”
“What does it sound like?” Tolbert asked.
Chief Bush directed the Broadband operator, “Put Sierra one on audio.”
Petty Officer Reggie Thurlow put the contact on the speakers, and Tolbert listened to the unusual cacophony of metallic tings. After a moment, the sound died down.
“Transmit MFA OMNI,” Tolbert ordered. “Maximum range scale.”
Bush complied, and a few seconds later, another powerful sonar ping was transmitted.
The metallic tings commenced again.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Tolbert asked.
“Yes, sir,” Bush said. “It’s Dolgoruky.”
A moment later, the metallic tings died down again, and Tolbert ordered, “Send three consecutive pings, one second apart.”
The three pings were sent, met again by the unusual noise.
“Line up the WQC for underwater comms,” Tolbert ordered.
A moment later, Tolbert placed the WQC microphone to his mouth. “Dolgoruky. This is United States submarine. If you can hear me, bang on your hull.”
There was no response, so Tolbert tried again. Still no response.
As he slid the microphone into the holder, he said, “They either don’t have access to their underwater comm system or don’t have power. Either way, we need to establish communications with them somehow.”
“How about Morse code?” Thurlow asked. “We can send long and short pulses.”
“Don’t tell me you know Morse code,” Tolbert said.
“Nah,” Thurlow said with a grin. “Only the CO of Dallas in The Hunt for Red October does. I guess he got trained up when they installed the flashing light on his periscope.”
The sonar technician was referring to the movie version of The Hunt for Red October. Submarine periscopes didn’t have flashing lights, and no one besides a radioman on a ballistic missile submarine would know Morse code.
Thurlow added, “But I’m sure it’s in Radio’s publications somewhere.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Tolbert said. He turned to Lieutenant Livingston. “Get a few sonar techs schooled up on Morse code and devise a plan to communicate with Dolgoruky. In the meantime, continue pinging at one-minute intervals.”
Livingston acknowledged, and as he conferred with Chief Bush, Tolbert’s thoughts went to Dolgoruky’s crew, wondering how much time they had left. The Russian crew had heard North Dakota’s pings. The critical question was — had anyone else?
38
Inside the command hut, Alyssa Martin energized the above-ice sonar display after completing its latest move sixteen miles to the north. Shortly after the monitor flickered to life, a small white blip appeared on the screen. She studied the unusual artifact, wondering if a glitch in the system had been created during the array’s move. The white blip faded from the screen, then reappeared again.
Alyssa turned to Scott Walworth, operating the RATS. “You hear anything unusual? I’m picking up something to the north.”
Walworth pressed the earphones against his ears.
A third blip appeared on Alyssa’s screen. “Now,” she said.
Walworth squinted, as if that would help him hear, then shook his head. “Nothing.”
Alyssa picked up the handheld radio and summoned Verbeck and Leone, who arrived a moment later. As the two men studied the display, the white blip appeared again.
“There,” Alyssa said.
Verbeck turned to Leone, who was a former submarine commanding officer. “What do you think?”
“What’s the frequency?” Leone asked.
Alyssa pulled up another display and analyzed the blip, reporting the frequency.
“That’s her,” Leone replied. “That’s a Mid-Frequency Active transmission.”
“Locate the source,” Verbeck directed.
Alyssa selected the farthest row of hydrophones to the north, aligned on an east-west axis, then used the bearings from each hydrophone to determine the blip’s location.
“Fifty-seven miles away on a bearing of three-five-seven.”
“Convert that to a LAT and LONG,” Verbeck said, “then get packing.”
Verbeck checked his watch. It was 8 a.m. It would be tight, but they should be able to break down the camp and get the essential sections up and running at the new location by nightfall. He glanced at Alyssa and Walworth, who were wrapping things up with no sense of urgency.
“Hop to, fellas. Daylight’s burning.”
39
It was mid-morning in the Russian Navy’s headquarters when Fleet Admiral Ivanov’s phone rang. As he answered, a glance at the number told him it was the Operations Center.
The Watch Officer introduced himself, then made his report. “The Americans have reported on ISMERLO that they found their submarine. They detected an active sonar transmission this morning.”
“Where is it located?”
As Ivanov wrote down the latitude and longitude, the Watch Officer asked, “Do you want to vector one of our submarines to the area?”
“Have the Americans sent other submarines under the ice?”
“Yes, Admiral. One of their guided missile submarines is on its way from the Pacific. If their rescue efforts from the ice camp fail, they will assist using their SEALs and Navy divers.”
Ivanov replied, “Pull all submarines from under the ice.”
The Watch Officer repeated back Ivanov’s directive. “Do you have any other orders, sir?”
“Inform Admiral Lipovsky at Northern Fleet to move our rescue equipment onto the ice. Set up camp as close to the Americans as possible.”
Ivanov hung up the phone, then studied the coordinates. The Americans had found their submarine. It was time to put Chernov’s plan in motion.
40
Julius Raila stared through the window of the second-floor office at Murmansk Airport. Near the runway were a dozen Antonov AN-74s, loaded with equipment for Ice Camp Barneo. In addition to the AN-74s, three AN-124s were parked nearby, their ramps lowered to the concrete, waiting to be loaded with equipment stripped from Raila’s deep-sea rescue ship Mikhail Rudnitsky. The heavy AS-34 Priz submersible and its handling gear required the larger AN-124s.
Once a landing strip was prepared, the AN-74s would land on the polar ice cap and off-load the men, equipment, and supplies for Camp Barneo. Since the AN-124s were too heavy to land on the ice, Raila’s equipment would be flown to the nearest airport, then ferried to the camp using Russia’s MI-26 heavy-lift helicopters, which could lift twenty metric tons at a time.
The Priz class submersible was still loaded on a flatbed truck, undergoing last-minute maintenance. Personnel were checking the status of the submersible’s new batteries, developed after the disastrous Kursk sinking. The two Priz submersibles employed in the Kursk rescue attempts had barely enough power to complete a round trip to the disabled submarine, leaving insufficient time to overcome the challenges of docking with a submarine resting on the ocean bottom with a heavy list and down angle. If they’d had more time that first day, before the heavy storm moved in, they might have successfully mated with the stricken submarine and saved the twenty-three men in Compartment Nine.