Two hundred feet beneath the surface, between the farthest sonobuoy field to the east and the central field, the Destiny-class submarine Hegira picked up speed, her ship-control console’s display of gyrocompass bearing showing a course of 278, west northwest.
Commodore Sharef frowned, the unexpected tasting sour in his mouth. The close pass of the antisubmarine warfare turboprop plane to the west ahead of them glowed angrily red on the display screens of the second sensor console, the other screen showing the approach of a helicopter’s rotors.
The sensors were filling up with the sounds of the aircraft, then with the wailing pings of the sonobuoys. Anger filled him, anger directed at himself. Somehow the American 688 submarine had managed to call in this airborne circus above them. Worse, there had been no explosion from the Nagasaki unit, and time was dragging on. If the torpedo did not explode soon it would run out of fuel. He’d lost the American unit on the sensors, the ship now outside their detection range and quieter than the sea, which was now a damned poor sonar environment with all the aircraft engines. Sharef looked at Tawkidi, who seemed even more upset, since it was the younger man’s recommendation to shoot closer in.
Sharef decided he had no choice. He could not launch another Nagasaki without knowing the location of the American unit. The Nagasakis had such large fuel tanks that the weapon would wait and circle if it had no target, preventing Sharef himself from getting through Gibraltar since the torpedo would then find the Hegira and sink her. He could not stay here, not with the angry aircraft buzzing above. The longer he stayed, the greater the chances of being detected, and then destroyed. He could not turn back into the Mediterranean. To do that would leave his mission incomplete, nor could he put in a delouse reactor shutdown and wait. Waiting would only give the Coalition naval forces time to reinforce the curtain of ASW planes — and soon, ships — at Gibraltar. He had to bet that the Nagasaki he’d already launched was still in hot pursuit and not waiting for another target; he had to run the gauntlet through the strait, and he had to do it now.
“Commander Tawkidi, announce full-combat stations. Ship control, ahead thirty clicks, depth 100 meters. Weapons control, open doors seven and eight to sea and warm up the weapons. Sensor control, watch carefully for signs of the American 688 submarine and the previously launched Nagasaki unit — I don’t want to be chased by our own torpedo if it lost the American. Reactor control, be ready to go to emergency ahead if any of the aircraft launch homing torpedoes.”
Sharef stood at the computerized plotting table to see if he could make it to the Atlantic. He tried to strangle the thought that the mission might soon be over.
Lieutenant Victor Houser arrived from maneuvering, his normal battle station duty aft as engineering officer of the watch. Houser was unofficially the leader of the stable of junior officers aboard, the senior lieutenant. As most late first-tour officers were, he was cocky and young and full of himself, tough and aggressive. The boat’s folklore still repeated stories of his pugnaciousness even when he was a nub, a neophyte officer. He was a Southerner hailing from Atlanta or western panhandle Florida depending on the day he was asked, his accent thick, slow, drawling. Crew members and officers in the same compartment with him would unconsciously imitate his speech just as fighter pilots once imitated the slur of test pilot Chuck Yeager’s West Virginia twang. This echoing of Houser’s accent, if in Kane’s earshot, even had Kane speaking in an Atlanta cadence.
Houser was only slightly shorter than Kane, his height all in his legs. His hair was a light brown or dirty blond, long on top, sticking straight into the overhead, and at his neck stretching almost to the bottom of the collar. He had a double chin, odd since there was not another ounce of fat on the young man. He compensated by being the first man to quit shaving at sea and grow his U-boat beard, sometimes cheating and refusing to shave the two days before the ship would get underway. The beard now was fully grown in, his fleshy chin safely hidden. He was wearing, as usual, his own uniform at sea, eschewing khakis and submarine poopysuits for well-worn jeans, high-top Nikes and one of his dozen Hawaiian shirts, the pattern guaranteed to be the brightest thing in the compartment, and a multicolored belt holding his radiation dosimeter, the gaudy belt looking to Kane like Houser had stolen it from a Barnum and Bailey clown. Kane put up with the unreg outfit out of respect for Houser’s abilities and the sense that Houser, with his perhaps overdose of “personality,” was something of a ship’s mascot, a good luck charm, not to be trifled with.
Houser worked for Tom Schramford as main propulsion assistant and assistant engineer, the traditional job of the senior lieutenant, responsible for most of the mechanical components of the propulsion plant and thirty-five nuclear enlisted men. In his own way he was one of the most tactically inspired junior officers Kane had ever known. As MPA he was brilliant, thick with the mechanics who worked for him, talking street engines and hot rods when not troubleshooting some problem with Phoenix’s machinery. As one of Kane’s officers of the deck, Houser was good if rough around the edges, driving the ship like a sports car. Kane could always tell when the aggressive Houser was driving— dishes broke from his angles and snap rolls, cooks cursing from spilled soup pots and table settings dashed to the deck.
Kane would chew him out for his maneuvers, knowing inside that Houser could fight the ship better than many of the department heads.
Houser’s relationship with Senior Chief Sanderson was not smooth. Their mutual disrespect was the stuff of shipboard legends, the two men not so much oil and vinegar as dynamite and matches. Houser had been sonar officer when Sanderson had arrived aboard, the sonar chief expecting a red carpet and immediate obedience to his royal proclamations as captain by proxy, including all officers of the deck and his entire chain of command from the sonar officer to the weapons boss to the XO and even the captain. That attitude went nowhere with Houser, the lieutenant quickly in forming the senior chief that in his opinion, according to Navy Regulations, and by God the last time he checked, officers outranked all enlisted men, no matter how many rib bons and hash marks and stars they wore on their service dress sleeves. After a week butting heads Kane had a choice between transferring off the most able, though admittedly prima donna, sonar chief in the known universe or giving Houser, his best junior officer, a new job. On the afternoon of Sanderson’s eighth day aboard Houser took over as main propulsion assistant and the ship had sailed smoothly ever since.
Except when Houser was officer of the deck, as he was now. Another reason he was aft as engineering officer of the watch during battle stations and Schramford, the engineer, who normally should have been the EOOW, was instead officer of the deck. Now with Schramford aft cranking up the reactor, Houser mounted the conn and looked down at the displays and the status board and the plots, pulling on a headset as he did.