"Aye aye, sir." Shea cocked his head to the side. "One thing to consider, sir."
"Yes?"
"We've spotted two bogies. There might be more, especially now that we're entering the straits."
"I'm well aware of that."
"If we go active, we'll spot them all. It's not like our presence is secret any longer."
Stewart considered this. So far, all of Ohio's sonar contacts were passive, meaning she'd picked up the noises they were making on her hydrophones. Her powerful BQS-15 passive/active sonar had the capability, however, of sending out a powerful pulse of sound, one that would bounce back from every target in the Ohio's vicinity. During the Cold War, Soviet SSNs had used that technique a lot, knowing their boats were noisier than American subs, and therefore easier to detect anyway. American skippers tended not to use the active sonar, since it both pinpointed the U.S. sub's position and let the enemy sub know that his presence — and location — were known.
On the other hand, Ohio was entering a tangle of shallow water, islands, and shoals. Passive tracking was going to become more difficult within the Straits of Hormuz. There might be alternatives….
"Later, maybe," he said. "For now, we pretend we don't know they're there. But we watch 'em."
"Yes, sir."
"Skipper?" Master Chief O'Day said, approaching the plot table.
"What is it, COB? We're kind of busy."
"Beg your pardon, sir. It's one of the sonar techs."
"What about him? Who is it?"
"ST2 Caswell, sir. The kid whose girlfriend dumped him?"
"I remember."
"He's just asked me to be relieved."
"Eh? Why?"
"He told me he'd screwed up, that he hadn't been paying attention and he missed the Iranian bogie when it dropped into our wake."
Stewart looked up from the plot, meeting O'Day's eyes. "COB, this is not the time. Tell him to… no." He moved back from the plot table. "Have him report to me. Now."
"Aye aye, sir."
A few minutes later O'Day reappeared, a skinny young kid with glasses in tow. Stewart remembered him. "Caswell? What's this I hear about you wanting to quit?"
"Sir, uh… it's not that I want to quit. I just… I mean… "
"Spit it out, son."
"Sir, I really screwed up a few minutes ago! I've been… well, things've been a little crazy, and—"
"Caswell, we'll discuss your personal problems later… or you can take them up with Mr. Shea or Master Chief O'Day. Right now I'm not interested in them. I need you at your station."
"But, sir… "
"I said I need you, Caswell. You've got two of the best ears on this boat, and I need both of them listening for the bad guys!"
Caswell looked startled. "But I… Sir, I wasn't paying attention…. "
"You made a mistake? I'll spot you one. One. But you think I'll just let you off the hook when things get tough? Like hell I will!" Stewart raised his forefinger and thumped it, hard, against Caswell's chest. "You, son, are one of my most important assets on this boat, and I will not lose you! You've been trained to do a job and do it well, and by God you will do what you've been trained to do, no matter what you happen to be feeling like! Do I make myself clear?"
"Y-Yessir!"
"I want you to be especially sharp. You hear anything like a torpedo door opening, and you sing out. Understand?"
"Yes, sir!"
"If one of those characters astern decides he wants to wind up and take a shot at us, I want you to hear that Iranian captain thinking about it before he makes the first move!"
The kid swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing against his skinny throat. "Yes, sir."
"Now get back to your station and tell me where the bad guys are. I'm counting on you. The whole damned boat's counting on you!"
"Aye aye, sir!" It was almost a squeak. Turning, Caswell hurried back toward the sonar room.
"I think you just put the fear of God into him, Skipper," Shea said. "You just ordered him to use psychic powers? Jeeze. That was pretty harsh."
"You can apologize on my behalf later, Mr. Shea," Stewart replied. "The men are your responsibility. The mission and the boat are mine. We can't mollycoddle them."
"No, sir. We can't. It's just… "
"What?"
"The stress levels are pretty high already, sir. Most of these kids… hell, they are just kids. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one years old. Two-thirds of 'em, this is their first sea duty." The clear implication was that if he pushed them too hard, they would break.
"No, Mr. Shea. They're not kids. They're submariners. There's a difference."
"Yes, sir."
"And as for stress… believe me, Mr. Shea, they've not seen anything yet."
Captain Majid Damavandi didn't like this sort of situation. Most of his training, both in Iran and at the special sub school for officers presented in Russia five years ago, had emphasized detecting an enemy, closing on it, and destroying it with torpedoes. Simply trailing the enemy vessel had been discussed, but there'd been precious little practical experience to go with the lectures.
The problem was that he couldn't see. Somewhere up ahead, perhaps less than a thousand meters, was the giant American submarine, but the only way to track the behemoth was by the sound the vessel made as it slid through the water. Lieutenant Fardin Shirazi, Ghadir's sonar officer, was good, very good… but the task assigned him was extraordinarily difficult. The American submarine, according to Savama, was carrying an ungainly structure mounted on its deck just aft of the sail, and it disturbed the water in a peculiar way as the vessel moved. The sound was faint, however, and extraordinarily subtle. And the surrounding waters were filled with the noise of commercial shipping.
The real problem, though, was not knowing the precise range to the target. For all Damavandi knew, the American was not a thousand meters ahead… but less than a hundred. If it suddenly slowed, or went into a turn, the Ghadir could easily smash straight into the enemy vessel's stern.
And that, Damavandi thought, might well solve everybody's problem. The American submarine crippled, and its mission, whatever it was, ended.
Unfortunately, a collision would also effectively end his career as well, assuming the Ghadir even survived the encounter.
He longed to order the sonar officer to send out an active pulse. His Russian teachers had stressed the importance of knowing the precise range to the target, had stressed that American sonar technology was the best in the world, and that in most cases the captain hoping to track an American submarine would be better off revealing his own position in order to have a definite fix on his target.
Unfortunately, this was a tactical situation that clearly precluded revealing his own position — or his presence. As far as could be determined from the American's movements, he didn't yet know that he had a growing flotilla of hunters stalking him. Twice, now, in the past several hours, the American vessel had abruptly turned, completing a full 360-degree swing in order to check to see if he was being followed. Each time, Ghadir had gone completely quiet — even switching off her already quiet electric motor — and drifted in complete silence, waiting until the American resumed his original course.