The trainer smiled but then furrowed his brow.
“Why?”
“There’s an Iranian Kilo-class submarine within one hundred miles of us.”
“What do you want them to do?”
“Just monitor its position for now and keep an eye out for other contacts.”
“But combat is possible for them?”
“Yes, Vasily, I’m putting your babies at risk again. That’s what you trained them for.”
The trainer stiffened his back.
“Mikhail and Andrei are prepared to return to the battlefield.”
“Good. Get them suited up and into tube three as soon as possible. I’ll send torpedo technicians to handle the procedure.”
The Wraith’s commanding officer returned to the control room and stooped beside his sonar operator.
“Less than a minute to detonation,” Anatoly said.
“Are you recording the video feed?” Volkov asked.
The sonar operator nodded towards the man seated beside him, where a feed ran on the upper of two Subtics displays showing the ship carrying Iranian liquefied natural gas bound for Greece.
“He’s verified it,” Anatoly said.
“Good,” Volkov said. “Though I’m not sure how many times I’ll want to analyze a video recording of me attacking an unsuspecting merchant ship.”
Volkov walked towards the elevated conning platform, sat in his foldout chair, and watched the targeted vessel on his monitor.
“Our torpedo is range-gating,” Anatoly said.
“Very well,” Volkov said.
“Ten seconds,” Anatoly said. “Five seconds. Detonation.”
The overhead view showed the ocean erupting through the tanker, splitting it in half. The bulk of the heavyweight Black Shark torpedo’s warhead vaporized water under the keel, cracking it with its own weight, but enough of the energy rose upward into two of the super-cooled tanks to burn a bright ball of gas into the sky.
Volkov knew that the unburned gas would either be contained or float into the atmosphere, avoiding the environmental blemish and backlash that could roust negative public sentiment. And though few would protest unwarranted aggression against an Iranian ship, he hoped that most crewmen survived his attack. The huge ship’s superstructure appeared intact, giving the sailors a chance at survival.
“Should we go deep, Dmitry?”
Volkov glanced at the gray-bearded mechanical technician seated at the panel that controlled his ship’s propulsion, depth, and steering systems.
“Not yet,” he said. “I want to hear Renard’s final words.”
Seconds later, the Frenchman’s lips moved in the screen, and the translator spoke in Russian.
“So far, no reaction… Now there are distress calls… And now a response. The tanker’s captain is unsure if he was torpedoed or hit a mine, but he has declared his ship lost and is requesting rescue assistance from the Yemeni authorities. You have time, but not much.”
Volkov looked at his executive officer, a man in his late twenties who had been a junior officer on a Russian Kilo-class submarine.
“Sergei.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be in the torpedo room. Listen to Renard and contact me immediately if he mentions any threat that approaches within counter-detection range of our periscope.”
When he reached the weapons racks, he saw four sailors lifting a dolphin from the tank with a tarp. The animal exposed its long rows of small teeth, and Volkov saw the back of its tongue flutter while it released a staccato cackling whine.
“Be calm, Mikhail,” the trainer said. “Don’t resist them.”
The dolphin obeyed, remaining stationary as the men cradled it between them. As they aimed the animal towards the opened breach door, Volkov saw the blue harness wrapped forward of the dorsal fin. He recognized a camera, a sonic communications transceiver, and a small explosive device.
“Slide him in gently behind Andrei,” the trainer said.
Two sailors pushed the dolphin’s fluke as two others slipped the tarp from under the animal.
“Close the breach,” the trainer said. “Good. Now equalize air pressure in the tube with sea pressure. Slowly… take your time. Yes. That’s it. Now flood the tube and start the clock. I don’t want them in there for more than four minutes.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll release them as soon as you’re ready,” Volkov said.
“As soon as the tube is flooded.”
Volkov got his indication of the tube’s preparedness from a torpedo technician and then ordered the muzzle door opened.
“Fly, my babies,” the trainer said.
“I trust they will,” Volkov said.
“They’ll swim out immediately and sprint straight ahead for thirty seconds.”
“God willing, if they remember their training. I’d hate to deafen or even cook them if they remain too close to our bow sonar.”
“You’ll be using minimum transmission power, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Volkov said. “But I hope to never find out what happens if they remain too close to the ship.”
He returned to the control room and stood over his sonar leader’s shoulder.
“Send them a transmission. Minimum transmit power. Hail them for a response.”
“You’re sure they’re far enough away?”
“No. I can only trust their training, as I always have.”
Anatoly called up the screen of recorded dolphin sounds and pressed the icon that invoked the chirps and whistles the cetacean duo would recognize as a request for an immediate response. Volkov heard nothing but saw his sonar guru nod.
“They responded immediately. Range, two hundred yards, based upon the roundtrip speed of sound.”
“Good. Now send them out at ten o’clock relative to our position.”
“Towards the Iranian submarine?”
“Indeed. If we need to fight our way out of here, I’d prefer to avoid tangling with a Kilo-class submarine.”
“I’ve just sent them a command to swim at ten o’clock relative to our position of twelve o’clock, and they’ve acknowledged.”
The translator called Volkov to the conning platform where Renard’s face appeared silent and stern on the monitor.
“I think you need to hear this,” the translator said.
“What did he say?”
“Let me replay it and translate it word-for-word while you watch for effect. Much can be said with facial features and intonations that I cannot replicate with mere words.”
“Go ahead.”
Volkov watched the Frenchman speak as the Russian meanings droned in his ear.
“I hope you’re listening,” Renard said. “The Iranians are vectoring their submarine towards you, and at least three nations are committing to a coordinated search with their patrol craft and helicopters for the submarine they suspect is behind the attack against the tanker.”
“Shit,” Volkov said.
As if listening, Renard replied.
“I can’t give you a detailed analysis yet of the threat, but I recommend that you evade on course one-two-zero.”
Volkov checked his chart and agreed.
“Make haste, my friend,” Renard said. “A larger response than I had expected is brewing, and they’re coming for vengeance.”
CHAPTER 2
The Wraith rolled into the turn.
“Any sign of that helicopter?” Volkov asked.
“We’ve lost the one to the south, for the moment,” Anatoly said. “But the one to the west is still pinging with active dipping sonar. There’s been no sign of the others for at least ten minutes.”
“A helicopter can disappear for ten minutes and drop a torpedo in the eleventh. We’re far from safety.”
“You need to take matters into your own hands. You need to fight back.”