“Comrade Captain, I have new active sonar transmissions, to the west.” The sonar operator smiled. “They are weak, at least five or six kilometers distant.”
“Excellent.” Markov turned back to his first officer. “You see, Dimitri, the Americans are not unbeatable. Now we’ll simply move south until we can hear their task force, find a hole in their sonar screen, and then — ”
PIINGG! Almost too high to be heard, the pulse was so strong that Markov didn’t need the sonar operator to tell him that they had been detected.
“What direction?” he called.
“Bearing two one seven.” Shit.
PIINGG!
“Full speed, hard left rudder.” Markov was running out of tricks. Now all he could do was try to get away from this latest active sonar, and do it as quickly as possible.
PIINGG! This was getting annoying. How many sonobuoys did the Americans have anyway? “Classify that damned noise,” Markov demanded. The operator studied his scope, analyzing the frequency and type of the sonar signal bouncing off the Dribinov’s hull. “It’s not a buoy, Comrade Captain. It’s a dipping sonar, of the kind mounted on American helicopters.”
“Hotel Two is still holding, Admiral. Three is almost in position.” The controller controlled his excitement, trying to concentrate on the complicated hunt.
“Great. If Three gets a solid contact, have Two leapfrog and drop a depth charge at two fifty.” The symbols on the screen showed one helicopter moving into position, slowing until it was in a hover. It was lowering a cable mounting a powerful, high-frequency sonar into the water, right in front of the submarine’s predicted position. Unlike the low-frequency sets the ships carried, the helicopter’s sonar wasn’t degraded by shallow water.
As soon as the SH-3H Sea King known as Hotel Three turned on its sonar, it detected the sub, moving at high speed away from Two’s position. Bracketed between the two pingers, it altered course to the right, racing ahead at twenty knots.
Brown was impressed. This guy was still trying to move south. “Okay, have Two drop and move Whiskey Four and Six in to backstop the helos to the south.” The symbol for Hotel Two changed shape as it reeled in its cable, then took off at eighty knots under the direction of Three’s sonar operator. Twenty knots was fast for a diesel submarine, but no sub could outrun a helicopter, and getting away from two was at least twice as hard.
Brown and the ASW controller listened in on the radio circuit. “Hotel Three, steer zero seven three magnetic. On top in thirty seconds.” The helicopter’s rotors and engine could be heard in the background.
“Roger.”
“Hotel Three, correct to zero six nine. You are on top now, now, NOW.”
“Weapon away!”
This explosion was closer, and so loud that for a moment Markov thought they had dropped right on top of his submarine. When he recovered his composure, he ordered all compartments to check for damage, more for drill than because he expected any.
While he waited for reports from his officers, Markov stared at the plot. What had once seemed possible was now clearly beyond the capabilities of his submarine. Now that the Americans had his position fixed so precisely, they’d never let him break clear — not with both fixed-wing aircraft and now helicopters hovering right over him. And even if he could, it wouldn’t do much good. Dribinov’s battery charge was down below sixty-five percent. Another hour or so of hard maneuvering would leave his submarine powerless unless he came to periscope depth, switched to diesel engines, and started snorkeling. And the moment he did that, anybody with a decent sonar within range would know exactly where he was. Snorkeling was noisy.
“All compartments report no damage, Comrade Captain.”
Markov thanked his first officer absentmindedly and came to a decision. Political second-guessers in Moscow might interpret it as simple cowardice, but it was only military common sense. The American “warnings” were getting stronger, and he couldn’t know if the next one would be aimed to kill or just “very close.” Technically the Americans would be within their rights if they sank him without further notice. Dribinov was inside a declared exclusion zone, and as “an unidentified submarine” it could be sent to the bottom at will.
His orders were to deliver a message, but the orders hadn’t included losing the messenger in the process. It was time Dribinov became an “identified submarine.”
PIINNG.
Markov took a deep breath, held it for a second, and then shrugged. “Surface. Take us up, Dimitri, and rig for diesel power. We’ve lost this game.”
The admiral sighed with relief as he listened in to the excited chatter of the ASW copter crews. Their intruder was a Russian, all right — Tango-class. Brown hadn’t expected to find any North Koreans out this far, but it was nice to know he wouldn’t have to kill anybody this time.
After the last attack Hotel Two had reported the sub’s surfacing. Now as Brown watched, the display changed, showing the Soviet submarine moving east at fifteen knots, away from the task force’s track.
He allowed himself a small pat on the back. His people had done well. The Soviet sub had been forced to surface more than thirty miles ahead of the task force. Nobody hurt. And at its present speed, his formation would put the Tango well behind it in about four or five hours. Until then an armed ASW aircraft would escort the Russian boat, ensuring that it stayed on the surface and headed in the right direction.
He shook his head wearily. The Soviets seemed determined to press their luck against his ships. First on the surface, with the Kavkaz, and now with that plucky diesel-electric boat. What would they try next? He doubted they’d give up so easily.
He was right, and the Soviet countermove materialized even as he walked away from the ASW plot board.
“Sir, we have nine aircraft at thirty-seven thousand feet, three hundred thirty miles. Speed is four hundred and sixty knots. They’re headed directly for us. Negative IFF.”
Well, Brown could probably have guessed the last. Best not to take chances. “Sound general quarters. Launch another four Hornets to back up the CAP and then get some tankers up. Our birds are gonna need some juice pretty soon.” If they were hostile, he’d have a hot reception waiting for them. If they were just testing his reflexes, he’d show them that they were still lightning-quick. His eyes swept over the air display. The Constellation’s air warfare coordinator had already vectored the two Combat Air Patrol fighters on the threat axis to intercept.
“Admiral, we’ve detected Down Beat radar emissions. The bogies are probably Backfire bombers.” The carrier’s electronic warfare officer looked a little pale, but his training was still holding.
Brown was concerned but not alarmed. The Soviets often used American battle groups as live targets for training exercises. He’d seen it in both the Mediterranean and the Pacific. They did it to make a point, or to harass a formation. Both of these in our case, he thought. Well, let ’em come in and play. If the Soviets wanted to make a serious attack, they’d have sent at least three times the number of supersonic bombers now closing on his formation. No, this was just another game.