“Conn, Sonar — Master One has opened his outer doors!”
Scott rounded from the watch station to the diving control station. “Right full rudder, all ahead flank; come to course zero-seven-zero; close outer doors,” Scott said calmly, his anxiety bottled up and out of sight. “We may have to kick some sand in his face. Stand by to launch decoys.”
The Reno leaped ahead and heeled into a tight right-hand turn, her screw biting hard, throwing up a knuckle of turbulence between herself and the Kilo.
“Conn, Sonar, torpedo in the water! I say again, torpedo in the water! Test-71 ME!”
“Sonar — torpedo speed?”
“Sir, I…”
Scott saw the shocked looks on men’s faces in the control room and knew that if he didn’t act decisively, some of the younger ones might panic, or worse, freeze at controls vital to the Reno’s survival. There was no time for hesitation, only action that would save them. Instinct propelled him to issue commands in a calm, steady voice.
“Chief, just give me its speed.”
“Thirty-eight knots, sir.”
“Thank you, Chief. Helm, come to course one-seven-zero.” The Reno turned hard right, putting her stern to the Kilo. “Make your depth one hundred eighty feet. Weps, match target bearing on a single Thirty decoy starboard side and shoot.”
Kramer, pale, dry-lipped, gave Scott a repeat-back, then hammered the launch key with a fist. A hiss of compressed air, a slight lurch, and Kramer, his voice surprisingly steady, reported, “Single Thirty away.”
The Reno completed her swing into a high-speed sprint that would hopefully outrun the Kilo’s inbound fish.
There was nothing more Scott could do now but wait with his crew for the decoy to screw up the torpedo’s acoustics and cause it to detonate, or for the Reno to outrun it and in the process make the weapon spend its battery and sink.
Time seemed to have expanded to infinity. A smear of impressions — the crowded control room, its smells, its utter silence — were made altogether surreal by the fearful up-Doppler whine of the racing torpedo’s contra-rotating props.
“Rus,” said Scott, standing in the center of the control room, where the men could see him with his arms folded in a posture of relaxed confidence he hoped would buoy their spirits, “what’s the range on one of those Test-71 MEs?”
“Well, sir, I’m not exactly sure—”
“Twenty klicks,” said OOD Dozier. His khaki shirt was black under both arms. So was everyone else’s. “I just happened to remember it, sir, uh, sorry, Mr. Kramer.”
“Somebody do the math for me,” Scott said. “If we’re running at forty knots, how much distance can we put between us and that fish—”
A shattering explosion caught up to the Reno from astern at the speed of sound underwater. Bolts of pure energy crashed into her hull, shot through her decks and rattled equipment, tossed unstowed gear across compartments, and dumped loose china on the deck in the crews’ mess.
Scott, ears ringing from the heavy blast of the decoyed warhead, waved the cheering men to silence.
“Damage control report, on the double,” Scott commanded as he heaved across the control room. “Helm, left full rudder, let’s see if we can get around behind this guy and shake him off.”
46
Zemin had recovered from the shock of the deafening torpedo explosion, but not from the shock of a Test-71 ME torpedo decoyed to self-destruction by the 688I.
“Captain, the target has turned northeast at high speed,” announced the sonarman.
An angry Zemin pushed into the control room. He had to concoct a new plan, fast. At the chart table he sketched the situation as he understood it: The 688I was churning away from the point of attack and trying to get behind them. If Zemin turned the Kilo on her heel right now and pursued, he might just catch the 688I, even with its ten-knot speed advantage, by cutting inside her wide turning circle.
“Captain,” said a still shaken first officer. “Sir, if we press another attack, we may succeed this time.”
Zemin’s gaze lifted from the chart to the first officer; Zemin sensed he was inwardly seething at their failure to kill the American sub.
“We must act now, Captain,” said the first officer, his fist banging the chart. Then perhaps realizing he had been too forward, even disrespectful, he said, with a head bob, “What I mean, sir, is that I will see to it that your orders are carried out promptly and with precision so that an attack you order will succeed.”
“See that you do, Comrade First Officer. Now, here are my orders.”
Captain Park’s face hardened and his eyes narrowed. At first he didn’t want to believe what the Red Shark’s battle sensors and his own ears had heard: a torpedo explosion. The Chinese skipper had fired on the American submarine. The underwater detonation had rocked the Red Shark in her tracks and, in the bargain, had created a giant gas bubble that had helped screen her escape. Now, slowing but still tracking south southeast, Park heard tonals emanating from the 688I and the Kilo.
“Both targets bear zero-four-zero, Captain,” said the sonarman. “Range, eight thousand yards, opening out.”
Four miles away. Park listened, hoping to hear another torpedo in the water, but he heard only chugging screws.
“Maintain present course and speed,” Park ordered the first officer. “We’ll seek deeper water south, in the East China Sea.”
“Fire-control, are we still pending on tubes one and two?”
“Aye, Captain, still pending.”
“Very well.” Scott glanced at the compass repeater and ordered, “Left full rudder; come to new course two-five-zero.”
The helmsman brought the Reno around, then checked her swing, compensating for momentum that would have taken her on past but instead eased her onto the ordered course as neat as could be.
“Helm, All Stop.”
“Aye, sir, answering bells on All Stop.”
The Reno, her prop secured, slowed her headlong rush through the murky Yellow Sea. Scott estimated they could maintain steerage and depth for maybe only twenty minutes to a half hour, but enough time to reacquire both the Kilo and the Red Shark.
“On your toes, Sonar,” Scott said. “Report all contacts.”
Scott glanced at Kramer in Fire-control Alley, then started the wait.
Sonar interference created by water flowing along the Reno’s sides, over her planes and around her stilled prop blades, slowly ebbed.
“Conn, Sonar. Report one contact. Master One, the Kilo, bearing zero-eight-zero.”
“Conn, aye,” Scott said, “nothing on Master Two?”
“No, sir. Nothin’. Just the Kilo comin’ back at us.”
“Determined bastard,” Kramer said as he monitored the BSY-2’s dot-stacking fire-control procedure, which had been developed earlier from bearing data as the Kilo approached from the east southeast.
“Captain, he’s turned around, trying to cut in behind us,” Kramer said. “If he doesn’t change course, he’ll merge with our track roughly three thousand yards behind us, in… make it another five minutes.”
“Very well. Ahead one-third. Come to new course three-three-zero. Rus, let’s see if he sticks with us or what. If he does, we may have no choice but to put one up his nose. We can’t screw around here much longer. If we do, we’ll lose the Red Shark. Every minute we spend playing tag with this Kilo-driver gives the NKs a chance to hightail it into the East China Sea.”