"There've been incidents, sure," Randall added. "But they've been smoothed over. Both sides know how important it is not to overreact." He shrugged. "Maybe it's even done some good. Now that Gorbachev is in power in Moscow, the Russians have seemed a lot more willing to talk."
"You don't look convinced, Benson," O'Brien said.
"I dunno. I just keep wondering what we'd do if a Russian sub got caught in the Chesapeake Bay."
"Sink her, of course," Chief Allison said. "The idea is to sneak in and not be caught."
"But if it's a game, like Mr. Johnson says…. "
"It's a very serious, very deadly game," Randall said. "And all results are final."
"I find it fascinating," Sergei said, "that your sailors can question orders."
"American sailors are not robots, Sergei," Chief Allison said. "We're allowed to think what we want."
"It seems like anarchy way of doing things…."
"Torpedo Room, Conn," a voice cut in over the intercom. "Chief Allison, you there?"
"Allison here, Mr. Walberg."
"Heads up down there. We're having to maneuver. We have multiple targets, and things could get tight."
"Aye, sir. We're ready, warshots loaded."
When no further communications were forthcoming, Allison looked at the others, shrugged, and hung up the microphone. "On the other hand," he said, "sometimes they don't tell us nothin'!"
A few moments later, they heard a gentle but persistent throbbing sound that seemed to be coming from ahead and above. All eyes went to the overhead as the sound grew louder, stronger, and slowly churned overhead.
"ASW frigate," Doershner said softly.
"Nah," Allison said, listening. "Bigger. Cruiser. Maybe a Kresta____"
A sharp, metallic ping echoed through the torpedo room, a shrill chirp that left behind wavering, fading echoes.
"Whoever he is," Doershner said, "he's hunting active."
"What … what is that?" Smith wanted to know.
"Active sonar, Mr. Smith," Allison said. "He sends out a pulse of sound, and listens to the echoes that come back. One of those echoes is us."
"Then he knows we're here?"
"Maybe. And maybe the skipper's managed to tuck us in close enough to the bottom that we're lost in the ground clutter. Or maybe that ping is from an emitter trailing below a thermal, and the echoes'll be lost and scattered."
"So what do we do?" Johnson asked. He was clearly frightened.
"Is same in all submarine navies," Sergei said with a fatalistic shrug. He locked eyes with Allison, who nodded. "We wait… and pray."
Another ping rang through the compartment like a high-pitched, tolling bell.
17
Gordon stared overhead as a second ping rang through the Pittsburgh's hull. The waiting, as always, was nerve-wracking to the point of insanity. If he's going to nail us, he thought, now's the time.
Lowering his eyes, he caught Latham's steady gaze from forward… no fear, but, possibly, a slender touch of recognition, as though he'd been here before, as though he were somehow measuring Gordon's performance. The measurement was neither intrusive nor challenging, merely… curious.
Gordon winked. Latham's mouth pulled back in the slightest of smiles.
And then the churning throb of the vessel overhead— Sierra One-three, the thirteenth sonar logged thus far on Pittsburgh's voyage — was receding astern, unhurried, unchanging.
Missed us again, you bastards, Gordon thought, a bit fiercely. Long, strained moments followed, as Pittsburgh's control-room watch strained, motionless, listening to silence.
"Conn, Sonar," Kellerman's voice called over the IC. "Contact is fading. No change in aspect." There was a hesitation. "I think he missed us, Captain."
"Sonar, Conn. Keep your ears peeled, Kellerman. He could have a tail-end Charlie keeping him company." Sometimes, a large Soviet ASW vessel would be followed at a distance by a smaller vessel, or an ASW aircraft, listening for possible targets that might have thought themselves safe once the loud and obvious threat had passed. It was an old trick, one used by the Americans and British as well.
Minute followed minute, however, with no further contacts.
"Mr. Carver, bring us to periscope depth."
"Periscope depth, aye, Captain."
Pittsburgh was lurking near the bottom in shoaling water, three hundred feet down, just south of the island of Paramusir, one of the northernmost of the Kuril group. Gliding silently ahead, she rose from the depths toward the dappling, shifting light of day.
In fact, notions of day and night were largely immaterial and unnoticed aboard a submarine, which might go for weeks or months without rising even to periscope depth. Watches aboard submarines were deliberately set to an artificial eighteen hour day as soon as the vessel left port, allowing for a six-hour-on, twelve-hour-off routine for the watches. At any given moment on board, the best way to tell whether it was day or night above the eternal night of the ocean depths was to take a look at the control room. If it was "rigged for red," with red lighting to preserve the night vision of men who might need to peer through the periscope, then it was night.
The information scarcely mattered. Submariners prided themselves in living in their own little world, cut off from the world above.
"Leveling off at periscope depth, Captain."
"Very well." Gordon stepped up onto the periscope dais, taking his place at the port-side scope, the Number 18. "Sonar, Conn. Any contacts?"
"Conn, Sonar. Negative contacts close by, sir. But it's pretty shallow, here. I'm getting lots of scatter. And we're picking up a fair amount of confused noise at extreme range, bearing two-one-zero through three-one-zero. Might be commercial traffic, sir."
"Not out here, it isn't," Gordon replied. "Up scope."
The Number 18 was called that because it had a magnification factor of eighteen times… far better than that of its predecessors. The improvement allowed a submarine to see surface targets in detail at ranges impossible for earlier systems. Leaning on the handles, he rode the scope column as it slid upward from its deck housing, walking the scope in a slow circle as it broke the surface. Midday sunlight glared and scattered off a smooth but rolling sea.
No aircraft… no silently waiting surface predator positioned to pounce on an unwary intruder. To the west, however, right on the horizon, Gordon could make out a clutter of tiny silhouettes. "Mark," he said, centering on the first.
"Bearing two-one-five," Latham said, reading the bearing off the scope compass.
"Krivak class, southerly heading, range ten miles. New target, mark."
"Bearing two-two-one."
"Kresta class, southerly heading, range ten miles. New target,mark… "
They continued the observation, Gordon picking out and identifying targets while Latham noted each contact and checked the bearing. Gordon had the camera running, making a visual record.
"Down scope," he said at last. He looked at Latham. "Southern route," he said.
"Sounds like they're waiting for us."
"It's possible." Stepping down off the dais, Gordon walked to one of the navigational tables aft of the periscope walk. One of Garrison's charts was spread out on the light table, with Pittsburgh's zigzagging course and hourly positions plotted in blue grease pencil, with contacts and bearing lines noted in red. He pointed. "That flotilla up there appears to be coming down along the west side of Paramusir Island… about here. They could be lying in wait, hiding behind the island. Or… "