“Course one-three-two at our present speed, sir.”
Levy gave the order to adjust the Crocodile’s direction, sat in his chair, and waited.
The mounting stench of tension in the control room validated his hopes that his intentions disturbed his crew. Their uneasiness — their fidgeting hands, their tight postures, their curt interchanges — verified the brutality of his pending attack.
He shot periodic glances at a display beside his seat, and the stationary icon of his target presented a trivial prey. The hunt lacked challenge and seemed unsporting, but he rationalized that the impertinent fishing fleet needed a clear message.
Getting his veteran mechanic’s attention, he ordered the ship shallow for the final minutes.
“Bring us to periscope depth.”
The deck angled upward and then levelled and rocked.
With three minutes to impact, Levy needed visual guidance.
“Raising the periscope,” he said.
He tapped an icon, and hydraulic valves clicked above him. A dark monitor awoke with a clear view of sky. After tapping his screen to aim the optics on the bearing of the fishing vessel, he saw his target’s profile.
The ship spanned less than fifty feet.
“Are you tracking this?” Levy asked.
“Yes, sir,” the supervisor said. “The propeller is stopped, but I have the fifty-hertz electrical generator and frequent transient noises from the crew’s deck operations.”
“What’s your best bearing?”
“One-three-two, sir. You’re pointing our bow right at it.”
“Good,” Levy said. “Good.”
In the screen, the ship grew, and Levy saw a wisp of smoke rising from a crewman’s cigarette.
“Thirty seconds to intercept,” the supervisor said.
“Very well,” Levy said. “Count out every ten seconds.”
“Twenty seconds to intercept.”
Levy saw a shocked fisherman’s face.
“Excellent,” he said. “One of them sees my periscope. Let’s see if the idiot has enough sense to jump overboard.”
“Ten seconds, sir,” the supervisor said.
“Very well. Lowering the periscope.”
Levy tapped his screen to retract the optics within the safety of his submarine’s conning tower.
The crunching impressed him with its puniness as the Crocodile’s conning tower shattered the vessel’s hull. Though violent, the splintering passed in seconds.
The silence seemed stark after the collision.
“Raising the periscope,” Levy said.
He swiveled his view backwards to see the carnage, but he saw empty water.
“Do you hear anything?” he asked.
“I do, sir,” the supervisor said. “Just enough noise to know that it’s sinking.”
“Good,” Levy said. “Executive officer, draft a message to squadron informing the commodore how I’m enforcing the blockade and why I expect the fishing fleet to reconsider respecting our enforced borders. Send it as soon as possible.”
“I’ll draft and send the message, sir. Do you want to schedule a trip to the surface after sunset to inspect our ship for damage?”
Levy smirked.
“No. Just keep a watch on the other fishing vessels to make sure they’re behaving per my will. If any of them are still lingering beyond the boundary in half an hour, plot an intercept course to the closest one and have me summoned to lead the next ramming operation. I’ll be in the wardroom. You have the bridge.”
CHAPTER 5
Volkov admired his adversary.
“He’s like a mother bear protecting his wounded cub.”
“Who is?” Anatoly asked.
“The commander of the Splendor.”
Aman’s estimates of Israeli submarine patrol responsibilities and scraps of sound captured during hours of Volkov’s cat-and-mouse maneuvering had identified the healthy submarine that stood against him as the Israeli Navy Ship Splendor.
Similar intelligence coupled with American satellite photography identified the wounded animal that had suffered ten holes by Volkov’s dolphins and his slow-kill weapon as the INS Leviathan.
As the Leviathan limped at eight surfaced knots towards the naval base at Haifa, the Splendor guarded its retreat. That had suited Volkov for the first six hours, but his patience waned.
“What can you do about it?” Anatoly asked. “He sprints ahead, turns, and faces us with all his sensors and, best we can tell, at least one drone. It’s a perfect protection of his comrade’s retreat.”
“These Israeli submarine commanders are cool bastards. I’m not going to rattle this one into making a mistake.”
“Well, at least we injured one and kept another busy for most of the day. That’s two submarines that weren’t causing anyone else trouble today, and one of them will spend a good deal of time in port getting repairs.”
Considering himself in an extended job interview to retain command of the Wraith, Volkov scoffed.
“I don’t know that Pierre will be so kind in his assessment.”
“Regardless,” Anatoly said, “you can’t push a bad situation.”
“You’re right. I have to back out of this.”
Convinced the Israelis had grown wary of his ship’s recorded dolphin calls, Volkov had restricted the distance he’d send his mammalian assets, limiting their value. He looked to the trainer seated beside his sonar expert.
“Vasily, call your dolphins back. It’s time to withdraw.”
“With pleasure,” the trainer said. “They’re due for rest and feeding anyway.”
The trainer called up a screen of stored sounds and invoked the chirps and whistles the cetacean duo would recognize as a command to return to the Wraith. The watery garbled rendition of the submarine’s emissions played through a loudspeaker in the compartment, and moments later, Andrei’s response arrived.
“They acknowledge,” the trainer said.
Volkov glanced at an overhead view of icons to verify the geometry allowed the animals to return to his vessel. He then caught his gray-bearded veteran’s attention.
“Slow us to four knots to retrieve the dolphins.”
Before the gray beard responded, the sounds of a responding dolphin resonated throughout the room.
“Was that a repeat of the last message?” Volkov asked.
“Yes,” the trainer said. “A repeat of the acknowledgement of our return-to-ships order.”
“That’s odd, isn’t it? I’ve never heard them do that.”
“Odd, yes. No cause for alarm, though.”
The trainer’s tightening face contradicted his words.
“What might make them do that?” Volkov asked.
“Technically, it’s just Andrei who’s responding. Maybe he thought we transmitted the order twice. Mikhail wouldn’t talk unless Andrei was in trouble.”
“And vice versa, I assume? Andrei has a call he’d give in case Mikhail was in trouble.”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“Good,” Volkov said. “Then since we’ve heard neither of them send a distress call, there’s no cause for alarm.”
Andrei retransmitted the acknowledgment, and a shadow formed over the trainer’s face.
“I don’t like this, Dmitry. I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Be calm,” Volkov said.
While retreating to his foldout chair, Volkov realized he considered his dolphins more rational than most humans. Stimulus in — predictable result out. No adlibbing, no deviations. Andrei’s repeated acknowledgments implied his hearing of repeated orders.
“Anatoly, please verify that our return-to-ship order was sent only once.”
“I’ll have a man listen to our system’s recording of the last ten minutes to be certain. I know it went out only once at the proper power level, but it’s possible that a glitch in the system sent out echoes by accident at lower power levels.”