The temperature in Main Engine Control was climbing fast and the atmosphere stank of ozone and burning insulation.
The air conditioners had been powered down to divert every last critical amp into the drive train. A growing constellation of red and yellow indicator lights glowed on the consoles as system after system climbed into overload.
The watchstanders yanked off their headsets and scrambled for the hatchway and the ladder beyond it that led upward to sunlight and safety. The last Motor Mac out paused for a second and looked back. The Chief hadn’t moved; he was still leaning in over the master panels.
“Hey, Chief?”
“Get going, son. I’ll be along in a second.”
He wouldn’t be. They both knew it.
The hatch thumped shut on its gaskets and Thomson slid back into the center seat. An arc warning alarm sounded in the starboard propulsor pod, and he hit the key sequence that killed it with a jet of nitrogen gas.
You don’t walk out on your watch when things are looking a little rough. Not if you read out of Carl Thomson’s book.
The digital iron log was flickering at fifty-one knots. Thomson grinned down at it as his fingers closed around the master power levers.
“Okay, old girl, now let’s see what you’ve really got.”
The USS Cunningham and Retainer Zero One thundered along side by side. The big destroyer was ripping the sea open in her desperate race for survival. Her bow wave, shaved from the ocean’s surface by her razor-sharp prow, sheeted up and back cleanly, nearly to the level of her foredeck.
Back aft the snowy arc of her rooster tail rose to deck level and above. Every seventh wave she encountered exploded at the touch of her stem, wreathing her in its spray.
This was a moment frozen in the minds of Vince Arkady and Gus Grestovitch. Never would the Duke appear any more beautiful than she would in these last few seconds before her imminent destruction.
“Tracks are merging!” Charles Foster’s voice cracked despite the fight he was making for control. On the Large Screen Display, the torpedo graphic was overlying that of the Cunningham.
“Sound collision alarm!
The two-toned electronic yelp filled the CIC. All hands grabbed for a solid hold and braced themselves. All except Christine Rendino. The Intel continued to stare forward into the Alpha screen, her arms crossed defiantly.
“Tracks still merging … “
Amanda caught sight of a familiar shape out of the corner of her eye. One of the exterior monitors had locked onto Retainer Zero One. Almost of its own volition, her hand went to the camera controls, zooming in on the helicopter’s cockpits seeking for the face of the man in the pilot’s seat.
“Frequency shift! We have a frequency shift!”
When the executioner’s ax is falling, dare you believe in life?
“We have track separation! Torpedo is slowing! Torpedo is slowing … Torpedo has run out of fuel, Captain. Torpedo is no longer a factor.”
“All engines ahead standard.” Amanda had to force the words out of her throat. The scream of the Cunningham’s turbines trailed down into a protracted sigh.
She counted slowly to ten before opening the 1-MC circuit. “All hands. This is the Captain. We had a little trouble there, but we’re out of it now. Resume stations. We’ve got a sub to go after.”
All around the Combat Information Center, aching lungs accepted oxygen and the copper taste of fear was swallowed away. A plume of coolness roared out of the air-conditioning ducts, heralding the return of normalcy. Christine Rendino folded over on the console divider between the command and tactical stations, her breath emptying out of her.
Dix Beltrain gestured toward her with his thumb. “One of these days. Captain, this gal has got to be wrong about something.”
“Fa” sure,” the Intel’s muffled voice replied. “But ain’t you guys glad today wasn’t it!”
33
The Red Chinese submarine captain leaned against the railing of the periscope pedestal. Around him in the red-lit dimness of the control room, the duty watch sat or stood at their stations, their eyes fixed forward by the iron discipline of the People’s military.
He knew where he had made his error. Engaging and killing the Nationalist frigate had been right. That had been part of the mission. Likewise, so had lingering in the target area to await the arrival of the first rescue ship. It was required that they do as much damage to the People’s enemies as they could before the end.
But then it had been an American man-of-war that had responded to the sinking. And not just any American man of-war, but one of the new ghost ships about which so many wild rumors gathered.
He should have taken his shots and then immediately disengaged.
He hadn’t, however. He had chosen to linger in the shelter of the Nationalist survivors, trusting in the Westerner’s perplexing, yet convenient, military compassion to shield him from the lashback of their sophisticated weaponry.
He would run after his torpedoes had struck.
Only, his torpedoes had not struck. And now there was no place to run. There were helicopters out there, systematically boxing him up within a growing network of active and passive sonobuoys.
There was something else out there as well. Shortly after outrunning the torpedoes, the propeller beats of the American destroyer had faded into an ominous silence. Now there were only faint traces of sound filtering in from the limits of their hydrophone range. Spectral transitones as soft as a wolf’s footsteps in the snow. The American was wanly circling back, turning the hunter into the hunted.
“That cowardly son of a bitch,” Dix Beltrain pronounced each syllable of the epithet with careful venom, “is just hanging out there under those life rafts.”
“Not cowardly as much as extremely pragmatic, Dix. He knows we can’t get at him without killing some of those men.”
Amanda raked back her sweat-damp hair and smiled grimly. “I wonder if he’s ever read Monsarrat.”
“Who, ma’am?”
“Nicholas Monsarrat. He was an English author who served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. In one of his books, The Cruel Sea, a British corvette captain is confronted with a dilemma similar to this one.
“His ship has detected a German U-boat directly beneath a group of sinking survivors, and he is left with a choice. He can drop his depth charges, destroying the U-boat, but also killing the survivors. Or he can hold his fire, allowing the survivors to live, but also allowing the U-boat to escape and sink other Allied vessels and take other Allied lives.”
The tactical officer glanced back at the Large Screen Display. Inhaling deeply, he let his breath escape in a short “whoo.”
“So what did he decide?” he inquired. “He chose to drop, Dix. Fortunately for us, military tech has changed some since then. We may have some other options.”
“Surface transitory. Bearing two four zero.” The Red attack boat captain looked up at the call from his sonar operator.
“Surface impact. Possible torpedo drop.”
Had the Americans decided to sacrifice the Nationalists?
“Torpedo going active on the bearing.”
They had. It was the only militarily sound choice that could be made.
“Torpedo is acquiring. Bearing is constant.”
“Engines ahead full. Come right to three one zero. Five degrees down bubble. Set depth to two hundred meters!”
Futile act. Futile! The American antisubmarine rocket had delivered a Mark 50 Barracuda torpedo as its payload. The deadliest of the deadly. There would be no contest in this duel, but the game must be played out until the end.