“He’s getting them loaded,” the gray beard said.
Volkov glanced at a display showing his tubes. Since the dolphins preferred number three, he’d loaded drones in five and six.
“Anatoly, are my drones ready for launch?”
“Yes. One man each will control them, and Vasily can speak to his dolphins through either one, though we’ve set him up for tube five. Shall I launch the drones?”
“Not yet,” Volkov said. “Let me see how Vasily’s doing.”
In the torpedo room, technicians guided a dolphin on a tarp towards a tube. By the animal’s complacent nature, he assumed it was Andrei.
His hand on a dolphin, the trainer looked up from the tank.
“I don’t think Mikhail will be so calm,” he said.
“Maybe if you were calmer, Mikhail would be okay.”
“Perhaps, Dmitry. You make it sound so easy, but I worry.”
As the technicians wrestled the lead cetacean into the empty cylindrical space, a sound-powered phone chirped by the tube. One of them extended a free hand and answered.
“It’s for you, Dmitry. It’s Anatoly.”
Volkov stepped and reached for the phone.
“This is Dmitry.”
“I hear the Leviathan,” Anatoly said.
Volkov sensed his breathing accelerate, and he forced himself to use his commanding voice.
“Already? You jest.”
“I heard a fifty-hertz electric plant, and I wasn’t sure, but then I heard a trim pump cycle.”
“You mean we got lucky.”
“Yes, Dmitry. I can’t think of a better way to describe it.”
“If we can hear our adversary, our adversary may hear us. Have the word passed silently to rig the ship for ultra-quiet operations. I’m heading to the control room.”
Volkov looked at his trainer and his torpedo technicians.
“That means Andrei stays in his tube and Mikhail stays in his tank. We can’t risk the noise of transferring either of them back and forth.”
“Mikhail will worry if he’s alone!” the trainer said.
“He’ll be okay if you stay with him.”
“Maybe, but this is unusual.”
“So is finding an Israeli submarine with such little effort,” Volkov said. “Gentlemen, be ready to launch weapons.”
In the control room, Volkov darted to his sonar guru’s shoulder. The raw sounds aligned with his expectations.
“Fifty-hertz electric bus,” he said. “You weren’t kidding. You’ve got it on the towed array but know it’s from the south?”
“I heard the trim pump cycling on the hull and bow arrays. So that took care of any ambiguity of direction. And here’s a fix on the Leviathan where the sounds crossed.”
Anatoly slid his finger across an icon to shift the system’s view of the engagement backwards in time. The distance between the towed hydrophones and those in the Wraith’s bow allowed the crossing of the lines representing the incoming sounds, refining of a point in space.
“There’s the Leviathan as of three minutes ago. Twelve miles away, at least as well as you can trust a fifty-hertz bearing. I assigned a speed of six knots, and the system is tracking.”
“So it is,” Volkov said. “Could this be a fake target?”
“It’s possible, but I have no reason to suspect it. The sounds are clean to my ears.”
“Then I need to pursue this.”
“Orders to the helm, sir?” the gray beard asked.
“Come right to course one-seven-zero.”
The deck tilted through the turn, and the Wraith aimed towards the southern end of its patrol boundary.
After forty minutes of pursuit, Volkov saw the frequency shift upwards as his sonar ace announced it.
“Target aspect change. Doppler shift upward. The Leviathan has turned towards us.”
The frequency hit a maximum and then fell again.
“The Leviathan just gave us a bow aspect,” Anatoly said. “Then it continued through the line of sight.”
“This should tighten our solution.”
“Give me a moment to analyze its new course.”
“You have thirty seconds.”
“The clock starts when you stop talking.”
Volkov scoffed.
“I’m shooting in forty seconds whether you’re comfortable or not. Open the outer door to tube two.”
“The outer door is open.”
“Well?” Volkov said.
“The solution is tracking. I recommend shooting.”
Volkov suspected a trap, but he had to dismiss his doubts as paranoia. Luck played a role in submarine combat, and he had to capitalize on the opportunity.
“Very well,” he said. “Shoot tube two.”
CHAPTER 18
Stooping over the central table, Jake watched the toad-head turn.
“I hear diesels on too many vessels to count them all,” Remy said. “I hear dirty screws, I hear chains on decks, I hear fake dolphin calls from three sonobuoys, but I don’t hear any Seagulls.”
“They’re only fourteen miles away, according to Pierre.”
“There are enough ships between us and them to mask the sounds of a symphony orchestra.”
“I’m in Hell,” Jake said. “We’re in Hell.”
“The Israelis have covered the water with floating distractions,” Remy said. “Every ship in their merchant marine fleet is chasing around every ship in their fishing fleet to distract us.”
“We shouldn’t be here.”
Jake pursed his lips, wishing to rescind his pessimism.
“At least it’s equally hard for the Crocodile and Leviathan to hear us with all this noise,” Remy said.
“Good point,” he said. “So we’ll stay focused on the Seagulls. We’ll wait for our next update on them from Pierre and then listen down that bearing.”
“Of course,” Remy said.
As Renard’s data trickled across the chart, Jake read a summary of Volkov’s success.
“Incredible,” he said. “Dmitry already took one out. Pierre says he has a satellite photo of the Leviathan on the surface.”
“I’m reading it, too,” Henri said. “It’s good news, but there’s a qualification. Keep reading.”
Jake scrunched his eyebrows.
“Pierre says a skeleton Israeli crew abandoned ship to a nearby support vessel and then boarded their submarine again after Dmitry’s weapon hit. There was also a tug boat nearby to tow the Leviathan back to port.”
“Like it was a trap,” Henri said. “A bizarre one indeed, but the behavior indicates premeditation.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “What sort of trap involves letting the other guy torpedo your submarine?”
“A distraction.”
Glaring at the geometry, Jake unraveled the Israeli tactics.
“Shit,” he said. “The Leviathan wasn’t battle ready. It was barely seaworthy and suckered Dmitry away from the real action. Now he’s out of the fight, and we’re by ourselves against the rest of the Israeli fleet.”
“I think you’ve described the ruse accurately,” Henri said. “And now we’ll have to succeed alone against the world once again.”
Having Volkov fooled away from his flank left Jake feeling vulnerable. Flustered, he valued his veteran Frenchman’s faith.
“You sound like you enjoy having the odds against us.”
“I believe I do,” Henri said. “I may need psychological counseling, but this sort of challenge invigorates me.”
“We all need psychological help for being out here.”
“Not me,” Remy said. “I trust my ears. And right now, they’re telling me there’s too much noise, too much activity.”
“Nothing on the Seagulls yet?” Jake asked.