"Time to impact, ten seconds! Eight seconds! Five… four… three… two… "
"Explosion in the water!" Caswell called, pulling the headset from his ears. The blast, a loud, solid thump like the slamming of a door, had been loud enough to leave his ears ringing. He looked at the bright white line appearing now on the waterfall. "Bearing two-one-five degrees."
"Sonar, Control! Give me a range estimate!"
"Sir… About ten thousand yards."
"Confirmed, Captain," Dobbs said at his side. "That matches the track for Sierra Two-four-four."
Caswell stared at the waterfall display, as if to see beyond the moving points of light to the drama unfolding somewhere in the depths up ahead. Twenty minutes ago he'd been yawning. After standing the afternoon watch the day before, he'd been scheduled for the midnight watch this morning, and he was running short on sleep. All tiredness had evaporated, however, when out of the hiss of background static he'd heard the quiet hum of an approaching Kilo — Sierra Two-four-four, approaching steadily from the southwest.
He'd reported the contact, and in seconds the skipper had cut Ohio's forward movement to a couple of knots. Now she was creeping along the seabed, hoping to remain invisible against the bottom. Moments later Dobbs had picked up tonals that he'd interpreted as a helicopter passing overhead… and moments after that they'd all heard the sharp if distant ping of the sonobuoy. The Iranians had been scattering the things all along the southeastern coast of Qeshm Island, evidently hoping to spot the Ohio as she crept southwest, ten miles off the shoreline.
The launch of a torpedo, though, had caught them all by surprise. From the sound of things, the Iranian ASW helicopter had picked up one of their own submarines, mistaken it for Ohio, and popped a fish at it.
That sharp thud echoing through the sea told them all that the Iranians had just scored an own goal.
Ears still ringing, Caswell picked up the headset and pulled it back over his ears. Like any good sonar tech, he could pick up more with his ears than the boat's electronics could sort out and put on the waterfall display.
It took no special effort, though, to hear that curiously high-pitched shriek in the distance, the sound of a woman screaming, overlaid with deeper thumps and popping sounds.
"Control Room, Sonar," he said. "I'm getting breakup noises from Sierra Two-four-four."
"Acknowledged."
Caswell and the others in the sonar room were silent for a long time. Submariners everywhere share a special bond with all other submariners, whatever their nationality or politics, a camaraderie born of shared suffering and danger. What was happening to that other submarine out there could easily happen to Ohio and her crew.
He found himself thinking of those other sailors, and hoping that they made it ashore safely.
The torpedo had struck Noor on her starboard side near her stern. The shock had thrown everyone in the control room to the deck and, as electrical circuits and generators failed, plunged the entire vessel into darkness.
Emergency lighting had switched on moments later, just as the vessel broke through the surface. Asefi rose to his feet, grasping a stanchion to stay upright as the deck continued to tilt. He could tell from the feel that Noor was heeling over to starboard and going down by the stern. The engine rooms must be flooded already.
"Abandon ship!" he yelled. He fumbled for the intercom handset, wondering if internal communications were still working. "All hands, all hands! Abandon ship!"
The exodus began in an orderly fashion, but as seamen began jamming up against the narrow hatches, panic set in. Most were choosing to move forward, up the slanting deck, rather than risk going aft to try to make it out the escape hatch on the afterdeck, which was almost certainly submerged.
Men screamed and shouted, punching one another. Within the struggling tangle he heard the voice of Mullah Sharabiani, ragged with fear, invoking the name of
Allah.
Mohammadi and a few others had elected instead to climb the ladder straight up out of the control room and through Noor's sail. Asefi waded into the struggling roadblock, grabbing men, yanking them back. "That way! That way!" he shouted. "Go that way!"
A shrill, weird scream echoed through the stricken vessel — steel bending and tearing under unimaginable stress. The flooding of the aft compartments, he thought, was putting so much weight on Noor's spine that it was breaking.
The block evaporated at last, as men crowded forward or clambered up the sharply canted ladder. Asefi was alone in the control room.
He would go down with the vessel. There would be nothing for him within the navy after this. Acrid smoke was beginning to filter through from the aft compartments — gases venting from the batteries, he thought, as seawater flooded them. Turning, he started up the ladder.
It was still dark outside, the night a hot and muffling cloak. There was just enough light from a waning half-moon and the lights along the southern shore of Qeshm for him to make out several knots of men wrestling with inflatable rubber boats on the forward deck. As he watched, he could see that Noor was settling deeper, the sea washing across half the forward deck between the rounded prow and the foot of the sail. Someone fired a flare, the red beacon streaking high into the sky, arcing over, then igniting with a raw, sullen light.
Overhead, drawn, perhaps, by the flare, a helicopter clattered out of the night, and an instant later the forward deck and sail were enveloped in a harsh, white glare of light. Holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the searchlight, he could make out the Iranian military markings… and the fact that a Mk. 46 ASW torpedo was slung beneath the portside weapon rack, but that the starboard torpedo rack was empty.
It was the helicopter that had fired on them.
Someone on board the helicopter shoved a large package out of the open cargo deck hold. It fell and hit the water nearby, off the port side, and began expanding into another rubber boat.
It occurred to Asefi that the American sub would hear the commotion, and might even be taking advantage of it. The crew of that helo, obviously, weren't listening to their sonobuoy transponders now.
"Captain! Captain! Down here!"
It was Mohammadi, standing on the Noor's forward deck, waving his arms. Asefi waved back.
"Save yourself, Captain! Quickly!"
Asefi considered this, then shook his head. Standing at attention, he saluted his officers and men. In another few moments the last of the men on the forward deck were swept into the sea by an incoming wave. Noor gave a shudder, then heeled even farther to starboard. He could hear the repeated thuds of bulkheads giving way below, and the shrill hiss and gurgle of water flooding every compartment.
Fear gripped him then… and a new thought. If he died… what would be the point? There would be a court of inquiry, certainly. And the testimony of Noor's captain might keep unjust charges or recriminations from landing on the men.
Scrambling onto the lip of the weather bridge, he leaped as far out over the water as he could… falling… falling, then landing in the sea with a splash. The water, after the stifling heat belowdecks, was surprisingly cold.
Then he was swimming, hard, struggling to outrace the suction of the Noor as she went down.
And when at last he reached a rubber boat and willing hands had pulled him on board, he turned to look back at his command.
But the Noor was gone.