While Abe Danilov was occupied with Anna’s letter, Sergoff observed the approach of the American submarine with a detachment that belied his excitement. He and Captain Lozak could not explain why their target slowed for a period of time, yet it made very little difference. It would just allow Admiral Danilov a longer rest. The rockets nestled in Seratov’s torpedo tubes had a maximum range of fifty miles. Danilov’s theory had always been to cut in half any ranges that the technicians claimed.
The noise from the approaching submarine overshadowed the continued use of noisemakers and made tracking much easier. As long as Seratov remained in position, it was unlikely the American would ever know she was there. Of course, the rocket bursting from the torpedo tube would give them away, but the solid fuel missile would be over the target in no time.
The torpedo was fast, capable of more than forty knots. Would this damaged submarine be able to reach maximum speed to evade the weapon’s programmed search? Would they have the opportunity to retaliate, or would the necessity of evasion require all of their time? Would it be a race, the torpedo faster but limited by its fuel capacity, the submarine able to run forever but limited by whatever engineering casualty it had suffered?
Sergoff said nothing to Lozak, though the mental picture of the attack repeated itself again and again. He saw the rocket nestled in the tube, the charge driving it out and away from the sub, then to the surface where the solid fuel booster ignited in a burst of steam and smoke. It would leap straight up before wheeling over in the direction of the target. In his mind’s eyes, he was momentarily looking skyward from beneath the ocean surface as the rocket motor detached, the small parachute billowed, and the torpedo plunged down directly at him. The protective nosecap separated perfectly as it hit the water. As the torpedo dived down toward its target, Sergoff would lose sight of the final search.
Lozak was lost in his own thoughts. They had nothing to do with the flight of the rocket or the life-and-death chase between submarine and torpedo. He was an analytical man. Captain Lozak was more concerned that this would be the last easy shot… or as easy as they would ever experience on this mission. There was still a distinct possibility of failure. They were firing through a lead in the ice at a target passing beneath increasingly heavy floe ice. From that point on, it was likely that there would no longer be the luxury of such long-range shots. But this was not a normal situation. Even with all the ice, it was worth the chance.
The rest of the battle would be fought beneath the icepack. The only weapons available would be torpedoes fired from their tubes at a closing enemy. That was the true test of a submariner’s skill — there was only one winner.
Both men continued to work quietly as their admiral slept, neither one caring to exchange his thoughts with the other.
Sleep would not come to Carol Petersen. At first, she was sure it was too hot, but removing a blanket accomplished nothing. She turned up the air nozzle on the bulkhead, directing it on her face and chest. Within five minutes she was cold, and the blanket was tucked around her chin. After an hour, she turned on the lights to read for a few minutes. She was a little beyond the page she had turned down the night before when she realized she had no recollection of what she’d been reading. She turned the lamp back out and found herself staring at the dim red light filtering around the edges of the curtain hanging over the doorway.
Carol had always been sure of what kept her awake during those rare nights of sleeplessness. Yet right now she was in a quandary. There was no doubt what the next few days held in store for Imperator. She had accepted the danger when she applied to the consortium.
But the other concern weighing on her mind was Hal Snow. There seemed no way she could get him out of her thoughts. It was obvious that Hal Snow’s personality altered abruptly as Imperator departed the fishbowl that dark night five days before. As the submarine emerged from her pen, Hal Snow had cut himself off from the real world. Imperator was the only world he really understood — a man’s world. But was he really as superstitious as so many of the others about a woman on a submarine? she asked herself as she lay in that netherworld between sleep and consciousness.
Hal Snow had been jarred by his phone buzzer shortly after he’d drifted into a restless sleep. Caesar had just alerted the senior watch officer to an alien sound ahead of them. The various sonar units throughout the submarine were tied into one of Caesar’s subsystems, which controlled the myriad listening devices. Each new sound was automatically isolated, analyzed, then cataloged within a complex reference system. At the operator’s request, a sound detected by sonar could instantly be compared to an encyclopedic collection and a printout delivered with every available detail. In this particular case, the sound could not be immediately identified with anything in the reference file, an automatic operation taking place over a period of no more than thirty seconds.
The process of notifying Snow, however, was immediate. Anything unidentified was considered by Caesar to be a threat, so by the time Snow clamped the headphones over his ears, the watch officer had already initiated secondary analysis. The computer acknowledged the sound was undoubtedly from a man-made system. The only known object in the response arc around the sound was Helena.
Snow ordered a tape of Helena fed into the system for comparison, the signals processed through the computer until background noises on that same bearing were identified as the submarine’s actual sound signature. There seemed little doubt that somehow Helena had experienced an external defect. The variation could be minor but it would stand out like a red light to any experienced sonarmen.
“Are we still tied to any surface communicators?” Snow inquired.
“Almost ready to secure it, sir.”
“How about Houston? Can we still raise Admiral Reed?”
The watch officer flipped the switch for radio central. “Chief, would you please patch that communicator into sonar for the captain.” Then he turned to Snow. “It’ll be touch and go, but let’s give it a try.”
Snow keyed the radiophone as soon as the red patch light lit up. The range for voice communications was short. It would be by chance alone that he could contact Reed. Once they were below solid ice, the only communications would be at specified hours — and that was only if a polynya was located at the appointed hour. Otherwise, they’d be out of touch until the next scheduled time. If he couldn’t raise Houston now, whatever might happen to Helena would come as a complete shock to Andy Reed.
Snow repeated Houston’s call sign until he was rewarded with a faint response. “It is urgent… repeat urgent… I speak to Admiral Reed.”
The wait seemed interminable until a weak voice came back, “This is Admiral Reed.”
There was little time to think. Their signal was increasingly faint. “Andy, we’ve got a problem on Helena… our sonar located a high-frequency emission on her bearing… probably something external on the prop… it’s broken through your noisemakers… if there’s anyone out there near her, they’re going to pick it up… over.” Reed’s response was broken. “Understand Helena will attract attention… is that…” His voice faded.