Danilov nodded and murmured, “You’re right… yes, that seems logical. I’d probably do the same.”
It would be likely that one of the submarines would stay to the east, lying in wait for an enemy hovering close to land. Any competent submariner would assume two screening submarines would flush out anything to the north. That third American submarine could easily be near Novgorod.
“Exactly,” Lozak said. “And look how close one of those heading toward us comes to our current position. We couldn’t exactly throw stones at each other. But, nevertheless,” he said, chuckling, “I bet one will be in range of our torpedoes within that six hours I mentioned. A rocket could drop one right on top of the American.”
“You think I should stay in position.” Danilov’s response was a statement to himself rather than a question to Lozak.
“Let the rabbit come to you,” Lozak concluded.
Danilov picked up the sound-powered phone and called the control room. “Sergoff, when you are finished, commence a passive search fifteen degrees either side of Imperator’s projected course. Tell the men to be patient. They’ll locate a target in due time.”
Andy Reed was taking advantage of Houston’s wardroom with her captain’s permission. None of the officers had ever been involved in actual combat, never known of a shot fired in anger other than the wistful tale of a navy fighter pilot reminiscing about Vietnam days. So, he’d asked the cooks to bake a few pies to enhance this meeting.
This was Reed’s opportunity, in this case perhaps the final one, to impress upon his people the critical phase they were approaching. “How many of you have been playing with the odds for tomorrow?” He paused between bites to blow his nose. His cold was persistent and irritating.
There was a pause at the wardroom table. A few forks remained poised in midair as they considered Reed’s strange question. No one wanted to be the first to answer — if they understood what he was looking for, Finally, his eyes locked on a lieutenant (j.g.) near the end of the table and he held the young man’s stare until there was no choice but to respond.
“I’m not sure how to answer that, sir,” the lieutenant offered as his fork slowly lowered to his plate.
“By this time tomorrow. Imperator should be well under the ice.” Very calmly he covered another bite of pie with ice cream, balanced it on his fork, then added, “To get to that position, there will be some submarines on the bottom, either ours or theirs.” Not a soul around the table had touched his plate from the moment he asked his question. Reed savored the next bite with a pleasant smile as he finally added, “At this stage, the game becomes deadly. Those first two subs were more on an intelligence mission than anything else… at least initially they were. Now Danilov has one objective in mind. He’s going to try to sink Imperator, but to get to her, he’s got to get through us first. The odds tend to be in his ballpark to start with. He’s the hunter: we’re the hunted. He’s waiting for us; we’re coming toward him. What are the odds? Who gets the first shot or, rather, who takes the first hit?”
Andy Reed’s eyes once again fell on the lieutenant near the end of the table. The young man was a foil for his purposes. He would explain that to the boy later, but it was necessary that someone respond. Both Ross and the executive officer had been asked earlier by Reed to remain quiet. Now the young man’s initial reply was a feeble, “I see what you mean, sir.” Then he grew braver. “You are sure that it’s just a question of odds — who fires at whom first?” It was obvious the simplicity of odds troubled him. “I would think a lot would depend on what we do… wouldn’t it?”
This brought a smile to Reed’s face. “It relies completely not only on what we do but how we do it. None of what will be happening has ever been done before. There are no tech manuals, no NWPs, nothing available to explain how you fight other submarines beneath the ice. A great deal has been written about it, but it’s all based on assumptions. No one has ever escorted Imperator beneath the ice before, and no one has ever actually faced a hunter/killer group from that vantage point.”
Admiral Reed went on talking about what lay ahead, and as he did, the members of the wardroom gradually began to eat again. His encouragement was similar to Danilov’s during the Soviet transit from Polyarnyy. There had never been any doubt in Reed’s group that they faced an immense task, one unlike anything ever attempted before. But it had never before been put in the words that Reed used that evening.
By the time coffee was served, there was a new level of awareness aboard Houston. Her station was on Imperator’s port bow to the northwest. Houston would be the bodyguard. Before the group had broken away north of the Bering Strait, Reed had given his final orders. Helena would move farther ahead, remaining well north of Imperator until contact was established with the Soviets. Olympia, once again capable of full speed, had effected final repairs as she moved well to the east before commencing her end run to the pole. Reed hoped she might detect any of Danilov’s reserve forces if they were lurking to the east.
Reed’s strategy was much as Abe Danilov anticipated.
The messages that were directed that day by both Washington and Moscow to Reed and Danilov were increasingly anxious. If the Americans were so willing to sacrifice the little frigate days before just to test a Soviet threat, there appeared no doubt that this mysterious submarine of theirs was no simple show of force. It also seemed increasingly obvious that the U.S. meant to forcibly support the Norwegians with amphibious forces and the unknown power of Imperator. Though Danilov’s original orders were to stop the American submarine, he was now directed to expend all his forces if necessary — no sacrifice was too great at this stage. The communications from Washington did not directly state that sacrifice was necessary, but the idea was implied to Reed. While the verbal posturing on both sides was, in effect, bringing their satellite nations to advanced states of readiness, there was no knowledge of the real threat that actually was about to explode under the arctic ice.
The sound of the phone on the bulkhead above his pillow briefly registered with Helena’s captain. Though not fully awake, he was aware there had been but a single buzz. Two meant an emergency. He took advantage of a brief moment for his senses to react to his surroundings, the dim red light above, the whisper of the ventilation duct to his left, the soft touch of the sheets on his back. The captain was the type who would strip and climb between the sheets if he thought there was more than an hour of sleep possible. His clothes lay in order on the chair three feet away. He could pull on skivvies and pants in an instant and hop into his slippers as he went out of the stateroom lifting his shirt off the hook.
He removed the phone from the cradle before it could buzz a second time. “Captain here.”
His engineer was on the other end. “I’ve got a noise problem, Captain. If I had to guess right now’. I’d say it was a slight variation on the propeller — just enough to change our sound signature.”
“Are we louder?”
“It’s possible, sir. It’s hard to tell from inside, but I think we may be a bit like an organ grinder out there.”
“Are you sure it’s the prop, Ed?”