The process was no different from that on an attack submarine. The target was reidentified for weapons control. Approximate range was fed into the attack computer. The Tomahawk missile was selected, the tube flooded and pressure equalized with the outside, the door opened, presets entered in the missile. Standard reports were made verbally to Snow. His excitement heightened as he heard “weapon is ready” and then “solution is ready.” Quite suddenly, Snow was aware that the control room was as silent as it had ever been. Each person was responding exactly as trained.
“Shoot on generated bearings,” Snow ordered evenly, masking his excitement.
The weapons control coordinator’s finger squeezed the firing key. A red light blinked, signifying weapons release. There was no sound, no sensation at all in the control room as a Tomahawk cruise missile leaped out from the forest of vertical tubes in Imperator’s hull almost a thousand feet ahead of them. Snow’s brow knit — there should be something, some physical response, but, nothing… His brows knit in disappointment.
“Weapon’s broken the surface,” came from sonar.
Snow’s expression relaxed. The Tomahawk was airborne. “Time of flight?” he queried.
“Eight minutes, four two seconds.” There was a pause. “Caesar claims five two seconds.”
Snow considered what could happen in the next eight or nine minutes on the targeted ship. They had to be totally involved in the details of their mission, locating then acquiring every sound emanating from Imperator. Did they consider that they could have been detected by that plane? Would they know the sound of a missile fired from below the surface? Most of the crew on those intelligence collectors were civilian. It was more than likely none of them had ever been aboard a submarine. What did they have on board to pick up electronic radiation? Would they be listening for a missile’s radar homing? It seemed unlikely. Intelligence collectors weren’t normally on the firing line. Why would they worry about being a target so far from any land? Or did they even realize the significance of what they were tracking? Negative on all counts, Snow was sure.
The minutes passed slowly, each one taking longer to tick away. The weapons officer reported with a cool detachment the various programmed evolutions the missile was passing through until it achieved active radar homing. That would be the crucial stage. A warship would have a good chance of detecting the electronic emissions and have time to prepare evasion tactics — fire chaff, emit false signals, activate antimissile weapon systems. But this small Moma-class ship was more than likely wallowing in the North Pacific wholly consumed in its tracking mission. They could have heard the missile emerge from the submarine, but it was probable they would have no one on board to identify the sound, or verify that they were being fired on.
Time magnified doubt in Snow’s mind. Should he have fired another? There was so much that could go wrong — a malfunction, the missile detected and decoyed, or it could even hit and cause only minor damage to the target. He’d considered the latter and dropped the idea. Now, it again became important. A thousand pounds of high explosive should do the trick… but if it didn’t, the Russian ship could get off a warning message. Christ, he’d be everybody’s target once they knew he was allowed to fire at anything at any range.
Imperator continued on her course at a steady speed. She had a mission. There was no time for deviation as they waited for eight-plus minutes to elapse. The tension remained constant until a report came from sonar, “We have sounds on that bearing, Captain.”
While the computer automatically initiated an analysis of these new sounds, it was the chief once again who reported solemnly, “That’s the sound of a ship breaking up, Captain. I’ll bet on it — even at that range. I’ll put all my paychecks on a direct hit.”
Another of the sonarmen listened intently as the chief identified the sounds of a ship in distress. When it was over, and there was only silence on that bearing, the younger man removed his headphones and murmured, “There’s nothing out there now, Chief.” He turned to look up at the man. “You get kind of used to something when you listen for hours. It almost takes on a special personality. Now it’s gone.”
Snow had sent a message to the Soviets with that missile, even more symbolic than the slaughter of Fahrion. The Americans had unleashed a lethal weapon that sailed with orders to remove anything in its path — and that would change the Soviets’ approach to Imperator. They could no longer try to satisfy their curiosity. Now there was no choice but to destroy her. But unlike Fahrion, she was not a sacrificial lamb… she was a lion…
Andy Reed was the kind of admiral sailors liked to have aboard, not so much because he was affable and pleasant to work for, but because he was the type who would always get them through. There were armchair admirals who plotted strategy and there were seagoing admirals who carried those plans through. Reed was the latter type. In an underwater world, each man on a submarine depended on the next. At the upper end of the chain, the only person left was the captain or, in this case, Andy Reed. The men in the three submarines of Andy Reed’s hunter/killer group were content. Their admiral was a survivor.
Both Soviet and American strategists acknowledged that it was difficult to fool the other concerning ship movements. With spies roaming in port, spy ships offshore, and spy satellites, there were few surprises. Admiral Reed went to sea with specific orders to shield Imperator those first few days, especially while Hal Snow and his crew learned about their vessel.
The three submarines in Reed’s group departed Pearl Harbor days before at different times, allowing themselves to be tracked in separate directions. Rabbits were then detailed to shake their tails. Houston’s rendezvous with Olympia and Helena was a sector one thousand miles due south of Kodiak Island. Andy Reed’s group would provide the buffer line for Imperator to pass through the lower Aleutians into the Bering Sea. Then, like a pulling guard, they would join her as she headed north through the Bering Strait.
In reasonable perspective, Reed could study the progress of his own three submarines, of Imperator as she hastened on the course that would take her through the Aleutians near Dutch Harbor, and of the two converging Soviet submarines. Reed doubted their intent was more than tracking for intelligence, perhaps even minimal harassment to determine operational characteristics. Moreover, it would be absolutely useless for propaganda purposes, since there were as yet no news items concerning Imperator or her mission.
Reed’s objective was to place his small force between Imperator and the snoopers. The Soviets had yet to invent a computer that could separate and analyze sound through the barrier he planned to create. Limiting their intelligence-gathering activities was almost as important as guaranteeing Imperator’s progress.
Reed’s tactical display was simulated by computerized projections on a darkened board that created three-dimensional depth with a little imagination. Houston and her sisters, Olympia and Helena, formed a wedge in the Pacific aimed between the two Russians and Imperator. There were no communications between the American vessels yet. Nor would Reed break the silence until it was absolutely necessary, He knew Hal Snow would be contemplating the identical picture in his control room, but he would be using a three-dimensional holographic imager. Reed had no doubt that his Soviet counterparts would create much the same picture in theirs.