"Mr. Latham," Gordon said, "let's say good-bye to our friends."
"Can't say I'll miss them, Captain."
"We'll cut our speed and drift deep. After their tail-end Charlie passes, we'll turn south."
"You're going into Japanese territorial waters?"
"That's the idea. We won't exactly be welcome, but we can put in at Otaru. They have decent facilities there. We can complete our repairs and report our situation."
Japan had a love-hate relationship with nuclear energy. While avid in their quest to become self-sufficient in energy production with nuclear reactors, they refused to allow vessels suspected of carrying nuclear weapons into their waters. Pittsburgh possessed no nuclear weapons — the Tomahawk cruise missiles in their VLS tubes forward all possessed conventional warheads on this voyage — but the fact that she could carry them made her suspect.
Still, the 'Burgh had been damaged, and no nation could refuse her the right of a safe harbor while she completed her repairs.
"Maneuvering, Conn. Slow ahead. Make turns for three knots." That would keep her barely under way. "Mr. Carver, down planes fifteen degrees. Take us down to two-eight-zero feet." The water here in the strait ran around 360 feet.
"Conn, Maneuvering. Making turns for three knots."
"Down planes fifteen degrees. Make depth two-eight-zero feet, aye, sir."
Minutes passed, as the Los Angeles boat drifted deeper and still deeper into the eternally night-shrouded depths. Above, the last of the Russian convoy escorting the Kresta to a safe haven at Vladivostok chugged overhead, oblivious to the Pittsburgh's presence. Except for infrequent spot checks, they'd given up on the active pinging two days before, when it was obvious that the American was either long gone… or sunk.
After fifteen minutes, drifting silently at 280 feet, Gordon gave his next orders. "Maneuvering, ahead one-half. Make turns for fifteen knots. Helm, bring us left to new course one-nine-five."
"Conn, Maneuvering. Increasing speed to one-five knots, aye."
"Coming left to new course one-nine-five, aye aye, sir."
For the first time in three days, the 'Burgh was free of her blanket. She began gliding into a broad left turn, heading south once more. At fifteen knots, she began closing with the Japanese coast.
"Conn, Sonar! Torpedo in the water! Correction, two torpedoes in the water! Coming in hot from astern."
"Sonar, Conn! Confirm that!"
"Confirmed! Two torpedoes. Range five miles, speed fifty-five knots!"
"Maneuvering! Give me full power! All ahead! Give me all you've got!"
"Maneuvering, aye! All ahead!"
"Where the hell did they come from?" Latham asked.
"Sonar, Conn! Where did those torps come from?"
"Not sure, Captain. The torpedoes… wait a sec. Wait a sec…. " The silence dragged on for several moments. "Got him! Captain, it's Mike Two! He must have been trailing the convoy, just in case! He's popped two torpedoes into the water at long range, and he's starting to speed up. Bearing… zero-eight-five, range five miles. I can only hear him because he's cranked up to full speed. He's coming after us at forty knots!"
Gordon felt the tremble of speed and power through Pitts-burghs control-room deck. "Quartermaster! How far to Japanese waters?"
Dandridge moved calipers across a chart. "Eight miles, sir."
At full speed… about thirteen minutes. The torpedoes would reach them first.
Besides, torpedoes were notorious in their inability to distinguish man-made niceties like national boundaries.
He wondered what the Russian captain was thinking, however. There could be no doubt that the Pittsburgh was in international waters. His firing those torpedoes constituted an act of war.
Well, these were the people who'd fired upon a civilian airliner, Flight 007, after she'd twice flown through Soviet airspace, but then emerged over international waters.
These same international waters, now that he thought about it.
The minutes dragged past.
"Mr. Carver! Depth under keel?"
"Depth below keel… eight-zero feet, sir."
"Mr. Latham, range and time to impact."
"Near torpedo now at two thousand yards, and closing. Time to impact… "
The oncoming torpedoes, chasing the Pittsburgh,which was moving at better than thirty-five knots, had a closure rate of about twenty knots. Two thousand yards… about one nautical mile… make it about…
"Three minutes, Captain."
"Thank you."
"Mr. Carver. Who do you have on the planes?"
"Archie Douglas, sir."
"Okay. Douglas, in a couple of minutes, I'm going to have you angle down on the bow planes ten degrees. You will hold them there until I tell you to bring them back up, and when I do, you'll have to move very sharply. If you're slow, we slam into the bottom. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, sir!" Douglas said.
"Okay. Stay alert."
The problem with what Gordon was about to try was that a 360-foot submarine with a 7,700-ton submerged displacement did not maneuver on the proverbial dime. A minute passed, then two.
"Nearest torpedo now three hundred yards, Captain," Latham reported. His voice was as cold as ice. "Impact in thirty seconds!"
"How far to the second torpedo?"
"Range four hundred yards."
"Okay, we'll hope for the best. Stand by, everybody. Mr. Latham, give me a countdown."
"Aye, sir! Impact in twenty seconds! Nineteen… "
"Mr. Douglas! Down planes ten degrees!"
"Down planes, ten degrees!" The deck tipped precipitously. "COB! Stand by the CM!"
"Ready, sir!"
"Impact in thirteen… twelve …"
"Release countermeasures!"
"Countermeasures away!"
"Up planes, Mr. Douglas! Take us up! Hard as you can!"
"COB! Blow stern tanks!"
"Blowing stern tanks, aye, sir!"
"Five… four… "
Pittsburgh's bow swung up, ponderously … but faster, then faster still. The deck sloped so steeply that Gordon and others grabbed for handholds, as BM1 Douglas hauled back on the wheel controlling the dive planes like a pilot pulling out of a dive… which was, in fact, precisely what he was doing.
There was a sudden, scraping shock aft as her tail brushed the seabed. "Three… two… "
The explosion came a second early, and propelled the Pittsburgh forward and up like a vast, surging kick in her stern. Lights dimmed, then came back on. The deck rolled ominously, but then the helmsman corrected and the Pittsburgh continued her rise.
A second explosion detonated astern, but more distant this time. The rising submarine shuddered.
"My God!" Latham said. "You suckered those torps into the seabed!"
He nodded, too strained to trust himself to speak. The torpedoes fired from the Mike, close to the surface, had raced toward the Pittsburgh at a depth of around a hundred feet, guided by the Weapons Officer aboard the Russian vessel. When the torpedoes got close, the Soviet WO had nosed them over, homing on her propeller noise at the last moment.