The line of bearing to the sound sliced the ellipse of uncertainty of the Crocodile’s location. Jake stepped down to the central chart, snapped a stylus from its mount, and then tapped a location on the sound’s line.
“Correlate the fifty-hertz tone with the Crocodile. I’ve set the Crocodile’s location in the system. I’m setting its speed to eight knots, heading directly for the Goliath.”
Jake glared at a young technician.
“Anything on drone one?” he asked.
The young operator shook his head.
“That’s fine,” Jake said. “Let’s risk an active transmission. Aim drone one at my estimated position of the Crocodile and prepare for a half-power, one-hundred-millisecond burst.”
The technician tapped keys and expressed his readiness.
“Transmit,” Jake said.
A wall of sound crept up a display over the technician’s head, and a small blip appeared within half a mile of Jake’s guess of the Israeli submarine’s position.
Extending his head over his protégé’s shoulder, the sonar ace studied the display to confirm his understanding.
“Active return,” Remy said. “It’s a submerged contact. It’s got to be the Crocodile.”
“That’s it, then,” Jake said. “Can anyone think of a reason I should wait?”
He scanned the room and saw shaking heads, including a nonchalant shrug from his Aman officer.
“Very well,” Jake said. “Shoot tube one.”
CHAPTER 8
Commander Levy sprang from his seat as the Crocodile’s tactical system klaxon blasted its alarm.
“Active torpedo seeker,” his sonar supervisor said. “Bearing two-six-one.”
What had seemed impossible prior to the Goliath exposing itself was happening. He’d set a trap, and the mercenary submarine was taking the bait.
“Signal the task force at maximum sonar transmit power, and assign tube one to a reactionary shot down the bearing of the incoming torpedo.”
The supervisor stood, crouched, and hovered over two technicians as they tapped keys. Levy heard the bow-mounted sonar system belching its repeated low-frequency tones as a warning to the ships above him.
“The signal is being sent, sir,” the supervisor said. “And tube one is ready.”
“Shoot tube one.”
Levy heard the pneumatic whine as the pressure change popped his ears.
“Executive officer, send the incoming torpedo’s bearing to the task force on the underwater phone until you get an acknowledgement.”
The portly man waddled across the compartment, twisted dials, and spoke into a microphone.
“Bearing to hostile torpedo is two-six-one,” he said. “Bearing to hostile torpedo is two-six-one. Bearing to—”
A watery-electronic response interrupted the repeated report.
“Acknowledge bearing two-six-one for incoming torpedo. Counterstrike is now underway.”
Levy looked at his senior veteran mechanical technician.
“All stop. Use our momentum to surface the ship smartly.”
The veteran acknowledged the order, and the deck lifted Levy’s stomach into his chest. He grabbed a railing for balance.
“Get the radio lined up on the task force channel,” he said. “Maximum power.”
As the submarine surfaced and levelled, the room rocked.
“Raise the radio mast,” Levy said. “Give me voice and a high-bandwidth data link with the task force.”
“You’re linked, sir,” the veteran said.
Levy grabbed a handset.
“Task force commander, this is Crocodile, over.”
“Crocodile, this is task force commander, over.”
Since he’d planned on spending most of his time submerged, Levy had allowed for a surface warfare officer to command the naval group. But the concept was his, the trap was his, and the true command was his. He gave the orders.
“Give me a status report,” he said.
“The Arrow and Lance are doubling back to locate themselves four hundred and two hundred yards ahead of you respectively in sacrificial positions. Also, the full counterstrike has begun on a base bearing of two-six-one.”
Levy glanced at the room’s central chart to verify updates to his countrymen’s tactical data. The icons and information he desired appeared. Four anti-submarine warfare helicopters fanned out to bar the mercenary submarine’s escape while the two corvettes and two Seagull pairs navigated towards the spaces between the aircraft.
The formation reminded him of an animal trap with interlacing razor teeth. A gap allowed for his Crocodile to seek the enemy vessel from the center of the group.
“Very well,” he said. “Update the task force’s tactical data for the exclusion zone around my hunting waters.”
“We’re updating it now around the bearing you recorded for the hostile torpedo. One moment.”
“I don’t have all day,” Levy said.
“It’s coming now.”
Lines on the tactical chart showed the Crocodile’s water.
“It appears acceptable,” Levy said. “Make sure none of the task force’s assets wander into my water, or I’ll punish them with a torpedo. I won’t tolerate the remotest chance that you confuse me with the mercenary.”
“There will be no such mistake, I assure you. We are professionals — not idiots.”
“I’ll be the judge of that when this is over,” Levy said. “But since I have no choice but to trust you, make sure you attack any submerged target you find outside my exclusion zone. That order applies to the Seagulls, too. Today is not a day for hesitation.”
He returned the handset to its cradle and pointed at his executive officer.
“Raise the periscope and watch the missile boats to make sure they maneuver in front of us,” he said.
As his hefty second-in-command struggled to balance his mass over the rocking deck, Levy stepped to the central table to review his brainchild, the counterstrike against the mercenary submarine’s ambush.
The ships and aircraft followed his designs, and he considered the mercenary doomed.
Lusting to begin his hunt, he looked to his sonar supervisor, the man he’d lacked time to break into an obedient minion.
“Supervisor, where’s the hostile torpedo?”
Levy judged the man’s self-esteem as remaining strong, and after stomaching this lingering threat to his dominion, he appreciated the expert’s confidence in waters that held the most complex undersea battle of his career.
“It was practically a shot in our face, sir. There’s no bearing rate to track it. The only good news is that the Lance is now between us and the torpedo. The Arrow is still maneuvering.”
“The Arrow is maneuvering at what speed?”
“Thirty-two knots, sir. It’s making the effort.”
“Good. I won’t tolerate the cowardice.”
“The Arrow’s now slowing into position.”
Levy walked to the stocky officer seated at the periscope control console.
“Step aside.”
The executive officer leaned from his chair and then stumbled to the adjacent seat, giving Levy a field of view through the periscope’s optics.
“Good,” Levy said. “Both ships are doing their duty.”
“The hostile torpedo has shortened its ping cycle to terminal homing,” the supervisor said.
Levy thought about asking which surface combatant would be his sacrificial anode, but he didn’t care. Skeletal propulsion and conning crews staffed each ship, and they all expected the laughable limpet warhead that characterized the Frenchman’s fleet’s self-imposed limits.