He punched in the keystrokes to tell the system what he wanted, and when he was ready, the dipping sonar pinged hard. A high-power burst of sound reverberated through the sea, spreading out at sonic speed, trying to find anything to bounce off. The ocean bottom gave one return at the same frequency, the same note, as the transmission, but the dipper was listening for a higher or lower note, as would be returned by a moving object, for instance, a hostile sub.
There was nothing. Robinson shrugged, knowing it was rare to catch a fish on the first cast. He pinged a few more times. Then he pulled in the dipper and flew ahead, another two miles, sank the ball, and hovered again.
Robinson thought about the pilots he’d known on the ships of the convoy and about his friends on the John Glenn, and he wondered how many of them were now dead. He forced the thought from his mind, concentrating on the display, but the thoughts persisted. Would he and the Glenn survive to escape this mess? And if they did, what next?
It didn’t matter, he harshly told himself. Find the sub in the water ahead, or better yet, find no sub, and let the Glenn escape. Please let the Glenn escape, his thought becoming a prayer.
Commander Ko Tsu watched his sonar panel with one eye and his navigator’s face on the display next to it with the other.
“Looks like we have one that escaped, sir,” his navigator, Jin Lu, reported from the sensor console.
“What have you got?”
“Dual six-bladed screws, high-frequency tonals from one or more gas turbines, coming in from the west, bearing two seven two. This ship is a destroyer. Captain, John Paul Jones-class.”
“Ship Control, take her up to twenty-five meters.”
The deck tilted at a steep twenty-degree angle, forcing Ko back against his seat harness. “Mr. First, would you like to make a periscope approach?”
Ko’s first officer. Lieutenant Commander Jinan Hsu, smiled, revealing buck teeth. “Yes, Captain, very much.”
“Take the scope, then. I’ll watch from here.”
The Earthquake had expended twenty-four torpedoes from the aft sector of the westward-bound convoy. Unlike the Arctic Storm, the Lightning Bolt, and the Thundercloud, which could all see their targets, his own position was to the east, and though he had had visual contact when the shooting began, by the time his first eight weapons were away he had been shooting blind, just putting torpedoes out the bearing line and hoping they connected to ship hulls. At first he directed the crew to count explosions, but his count, his navigator’s count, and the Second Captain’s count had come out different, all between one hundred and one hundred twenty explosions, but not enough to determine if they’d killed all the ships of the convoy.
“Nav, any other ships?” he called. He had to watch his weapon load, perhaps even be ready to withdraw to the south and let Volcano and Tsunami take on the other escapers.
“No, sir, just this one — wait, sir, higher-priority target, active-dipping sonar, correlates to a Seahawk antisub helicopter, bearing 280. I’ve got one, now two pings. Also very faint rotor noises. Sir, looks like he may be leapfrogging ahead of the destroyer contact.”
“Designate the surface ship target WT-25, the chopper target number AT-1.”
“Yessir.”
“Captain, passing through one hundred meters, ship’s angle going to up ten.”
“Very good. Mr. First, get ready on the scope. Ship Control, throttle to stop, come to ten clicks. Attention in control, men. I’ll be launching the Nagasaki in tube 25 down the bearing line, keeping the weapon in tube 26 warm and ready to go in case weapon 25 has a problem. Then we’ll shoot the chopper.”
“Ten clicks, sir, ship’s depth fifty meters, angle up ten going up to five.”
“Very good.” Ko looked at his panel, noting the ship was slowing to fifteen clicks. That was slow enough that his first officer could raise the periscope without fear of shearing it off. “Mr. First, raise your scope.”
“Aye, sir,” he said, then told the Second Captain to raise the mast. With a stroke on the panel Ko brought up the view out the periscope, on the main display on the right column.
“Twenty-five meters. Captain, ship’s angle flat.”
“Very good, Ship Control. Weapons,” Ko called! “Apply power to tubes 25 and 26, and open bowcap doors.”
“Aye, sir, 25 and 26 warming-up now.”
“Open bowcaps 25 and 26.”
“Opening now.”
“Enable number one and two Darkwing missile tubes for low-altitude, low-speed target.”
“Aye, sir,” from the weapons officer. Ko would target the chopper as soon as the number 25 torpedo was away, but he wanted the Darkwings ready in case the chopper detected him.
“Weapons Officer, program 25 for ultraquiet swimout mode, low-speed transit.”
“Aye, sir, programming now, bowcaps now open, 25 and 26.”
“Very good.”
The navigator spoke again, one hand on his headset.
“Sir, new ping, bearing 287, target AT-1.”
“Darkwings enabled, sir, missiles one and two,” the weapons officer called.
“First, do you have an air search going? Train to 287.”
“Yessir, on 287—”
“Anything in high power?”
“Not yet.”
“Try high and ultrahigh power. Find that chopper. Weps, status of 25?”
“Torpedo 25 is ready in all respects, sir, target bearing loaded in.”
“Shoot 25.”
“Second,” the weapons officer said, “shoot 25. Sir, tube 25 indicates weapon has cleared the tube in swimout mode.”
“Captain, bow camera indicates weapon 25 away,” the navigator said.
“Very good. First, the chopper?”
“I’ve got something. Captain. Very distant, just a jumping speck in ultrahigh power.”
“Keep on him. I want to try a laser-missile guide-in. Weps, program the Darkwing missile for a laser visual guide-in to the chopper.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Nav, torpedo 25 status?”
“Captain, 25 is running normal at bearing 274, on bearing to target WT-25.”
“Keep on it,” Ko said. Calmly he reached down to the side of his seat and withdrew a thermos of tea. Pouring it into an insulated cup, he replaced the thermos and took a sip of the steaming brew.
“Chopper’s coming, sir,” Jinan Hsu reported from the periscope. The periscope display on Ko’s command console showed an image of a helicopter, the aircraft so distant that the power magnification caused it to jump around. Hadn’t these Japanese engineers figured out a way to stabilize that? Ko thought, annoyed.
“Very good. First. Keep on him until we launch the Darkwing. We’ll monitor the surface target WT-25 on sonar.”
“Sir, the chopper is in range,” Jinan said. “I recommend we shoot it now, then confirm the hit on the Jones-class destroyer.”
“No, wait. If we shoot the Darkwing now, we can’t laser-guide it in. Just keep cool. First, he’s not going to hear us.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Torpedo running time, Weps?”
“Eight minutes, sir.”
“Nav, still have both the weapon and WT-25?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Nothing to do now but wait, gentlemen.”
Ko sipped his tea, watching his displays.
Robinson picked up the dipper and flew on another mile and a half. So far he’d detected nothing.
He was unaware that as the dipper sphere came out of the water, a Nagasaki torpedo had sailed into detection range. He flew within a half mile of it as he progressed farther east, sanitizing the area for the USS John Glenn.