“Do you have an accurate solution?” Danilov asked. “Almost perfect, Admiral,” Lozak answered.
Danilov looked toward Sergoff. “We don’t want to lose him, do we?” He grinned.
Sergoff smiled first at Danilov, then at Lozak. “You may shoot, Captain.”
“Shoot.” Seratov’s deck trembled as the missile burst from the tube, then all was quiet.
A voice from the sonarman broke the stillness. “I have something on Smolensk’s bearing… identified as…” There was a pause. “…missile fired… I’m sure they also fired, sir.”
“So,” Danilov replied to the silence in the control room, “we have two birds in the air. That makes it even more unlikely our quarry will get away from us.”
“Admiral, I would suggest we take evasive action.” Sergoff could be the master of understatement. “I doubt their Los Angeles-class boats can touch us right now, but Imperator’s seems to have advanced capabilities. There’s no harm now in being safe.”
Danilov nodded and turned to Lozak. “Captain, select a course to the north and increase your depth, but do it as quietly as possible — no more than four knots. I don’t think they will be able to track us at that speed. We have given away one position, but I don’t intend to inform them of the next.”
Snow was still eavesdropping in sonar when the missiles were fired to the north. To the untrained ear, the sound of a missile ejected from a torpedo tube was indistinguishable from the other noises in the ocean.
“Did you hear that, Captain?”
Snow looked curiously at the sonarman and shook his head.
“Let me replay it. I’d swear someone was firing.” He reversed the tape recorder until he was ahead of the sound he’d identified. “Now listen to this, Captain. There’ll be sort of a thumping sound, like slapping your hands underwater, then a rushing noise. That’s the bubbles created by the missile bursting out toward the surface.” He punched the replay button.
Snow vaguely heard what the man was talking about, but only because he had been instructed to listen for something specific. They came one on top of the other, at such a close interval that they could barely be distinguished even then. “Both from the same boat?”
“I don’t think so, Captain, One was a hell of a lot softer than the other.”
“Can you get a range?”
The sonarman shook his head. “I don’t think so. Let me run that through the computer.” He was interrupted by a new sound in his earphones. “Don’t go away, Captain. This is a hell of a lot more interesting. I think I got an Alfa here, same bearing, moving out like hell — sounds like a bucket of bolts.”
“Range?”
“Could be as much as fifty miles… let me have another minute to play with it.”
“Feed it into the fire control system.” Snow was already through the sliding door into the control room. “Mr.
Lyford, set up for an attack… couple of birds in the air.” He reached for the Gertrude mike. “Helena… Helena… go deep and secure prop… go deep and secure prop… you are under attack… you are under attack.” He handed the speaker to a sailor. “Keep repeating just what I said, son. There’s a chance they’ll hear you… a slight chance,” he added wistfully.
Snow wasn’t sure that Houston could have picked up the missile firing with her gear, but he knew Andy Reed would say there was no point in letting them get away. Snow wasn’t giving up his location. There would no telling the type of submarine firing back — if the Russians could hear a missile pop at that range.
In the background, Snow identified the process as the torpedo doors were opened… pressure equalized… the ordered litany of reports to the fire control coordinator until he heard, “Captain, we’re capable of firing, but our solution is still kind of hazy.”
“Put in six hundred feet. It drops off fast just ahead. I don’t think they can pump out one of these missiles from much deeper than that,” Snow answered. “How much longer?”
“We’ve got a deviation here. Fire control has a range variation of about six thousand yards from Caesar’s. Which one do I take, Captain?”
Snow reached for the phone to the computer center and pressed the buzzer.
“Petersen here,” came the response.
“Carol, we’ve got a range differential on the target. We—”
“I see it on the board, Captain. Wait one…” He could overhear her breathing in the background. “Okay, Caesar’s adjusted for a speed of close to twenty knots until the torpedo hits the water. Take his—”
Snow never heard her finish. He was already ordering. “Add six thousand yards to your solution… manual input… firing point procedures…”
“Solution!”
“Shoot.” There was no sensation in the control room as the missiles erupted from Imperator. The tubes were situated so far forward that there was nothing to indicate they were off. Snow’s gamble — that there would be open water for weapon entry — would be considered later.
“Missiles away, Captain… flight time should be about four and a half minutes.”
Snow called down to Carol Petersen again. “Can Caesar figure flight time of those Russian missiles to Helena!”
“That an Alfa that fired on her?”
“Sounds like it to us.”
“Caesar said they should be firing sixteens… just a second.”
Snow drummed his fingers against the bulkhead. In the background, he could hear the sailor still broadcasting his warning to Helena. That was a slim chance, a very slim one, but anything was worth a try.
“Sir,” the sonarman called in to him, “Helena is making a hell of a lot of noise. Sure could be a terrific target…” Snow lost the last of his words as Carol Petersen came back. “Seems like about another two minutes in the air, Captain. No more than that.”
We used to be able to hear a torpedo from the beginning of its run until the end, Snow thought. At least you knew when someone was after you. Now, Helena had no idea of what was headed her way — not until she heard the splash of a torpedo hitting the surface followed by the sound of its screws.
Imperator would have heard the warning if she had been the target. But voice transmissions attenuate rapidly under water and Helena did not. The lone submarine was racing off in the opposite direction in an effort to leave Imperator’s whereabouts a secret. There was no doubt in the minds of any man aboard that they were playing the rabbit, drawing attention to themselves. They also understood that the Russian’s singular response to their presence had to be a torpedo.
Heading back toward the Bering Strait in an arc away from Imperator was her only choice. To continue north would compromise the mission, and the waters to the east and west offered no safety. Yet the water would become shallower as she headed for the strait. Instead of going deeper, the most natural protection for a submarine, she would be gradually decreasing her depth. Her captain kept her keel as close to the sea floor as possible. It was a long shot, but bottom return might just confuse a homing torpedo; yet Helena’s unique noise signature, now made even that suspect.
There was no hesitation in the sonarman’s voice when he called out to Helena’s control room, “I have an object that just hit the water abeam to port, sir.” There was a pause, an interminable one for each one in earshot. The man’s voice became higher as he continued, “Can’t figure out what that is… something breaking away maybe… wait… torpedo in the water… bearing two eight zero relative.”