As the initial chaos subsided, her captain gained enough control of himself to give the orders to get underway. To remain where they were was suicide.
It was preferable to face Imperator alone than to face elements that were beyond their understanding. Valves were opened and trim tanks began to fill as Tambov gradually settled away from the surface. It was at this stage that the captain found his diving planes were inoperative. All navigational sonars had been destroyed by the ice. A single hydrophone continued to function.
The only option left to Tambov’s captain was ninety-nine percent suicidal, but he held little doubt that he would soon be dead anyway. As his submarine increased her depth, he ordered two-thirds speed ahead and turned in Imperator’s direction. His tubes were loaded. If any of his electronic gear had been able to absorb the pounding of moments before, there might still be data in his torpedoes. Perhaps his active sonar might work. He wanted just one return ping, just one confirmation of Imperator’s position before he fired everything he could.
Imperator had drifted to a crawl at a range of eighteen thousand yards, a safe distance from the chaos ahead and a perfect position for firing on their target if it survived the sodium torpedoes. At two-thirds speed, the damaged hull of the Soviet submarine began to radiate a steady signature above the chaos around her that pinpointed them as a target for Imperator’s guidance systems.
To Carol Petersen, Tambov’s final charge at them was akin to a railroad train rushing headlong toward a solid rock headwall. Snow was as cool and detached as the captains in the novels she read in her youth. He saw no reason to use more than two fish — after all, their target was beckoning for them.
“Just like a gunfight,” Snow commented. “Only I have all the guns… I shot theirs right out of their hands. All they can do is throw a few stones at me.”
The last words were murmured as sonar reported a total of four torpedoes fired from the doomed Sierra. They meant nothing to Snow. His weapons officer was already energizing the same defensive mechanisms that had been so successful before. Soon, the miniature homing devices that had worked so well against Orel, the deadly ATMs, were exploding against the Russian torpedoes. The range was so close and the solution simple enough that the lasers were never activated.
As the last of Tambov’s torpedoes exploded prematurely, the Soviet submarine was hit by both of Imperator’s. With her pressure hull already damaged, there was little protection for the inner hull or the delicate mechanisms that kept her afloat. She spun out of control, spiraling toward the bottom at two-thirds speed, as the control room opened to the sea. Her captain had been right that his headlong charge toward Imperator would be suicidal. He had been wrong about his one percent chance. There had never been any chance at all.
The destruction of Tambov answered the initial question in both Washington and Moscow: the location of Imperator and, likely, those submarines remaining involved in the under-ice confrontation. Moscow had no immediate answers to the eruptions that damaged the ice pack. Washington understood exactly what had happened and emphasized that Imperator was continuing her mission.
The consortium’s position was elevated in the eyes of the White House power structure and, on their advice, Washington issued an ultimatum to the Kremlin: Remove all equipment and personnel one hundred miles from the Norwegian border over the next seventy two hours, and relinquish all demands that U.S. or NATO vessels remain south of the Norwegian Sea. In exchange, the destruction of Fahrion would be forgotten, an unfortunate international incident. Discussions would be opened that summer to discuss positioning of ballistic-missile submarines in restricted waters.
The demands were too stringent for the Kremlin to accept. It meant admitting defeat in a war that had never taken place — not in the eyes of the public! There was no purpose in accepting such terms—“capitulating” was the word some used, while others in the Kremlin called it “negotiating”—not until Abe Danilov reported back to them. Dawn was breaking in Moscow when the Kremlin refused further discussion.
10
REED LICKED HIS lips. “We’ll take the cripple first, Ross.” Better to get rid of that one before he went after Danilov.
“Roger, Admiral.” Ross’s tone of voice reflected a lack of enthusiasm. ‘
“You don’t want to take that one, do you?” Reed stated flatly. There was a fine line between following orders smartly or quietly accepting something you didn’t want to do. Ross was near that line.
“It’s a feeling,” Houston’s captain stated flatly.
“What do you feel?”
Ross’s eyebrows rose. He shrugged. “Someone’s behind us.”
“Danilov?”
Again Ross shrugged. There was nothing that could justify his feeling. “I guess so. I don’t know how he got there.”
“You’ve got more than a feeling.”
“Nope. Just the trace of our path over the last eight or ten hours.” He led Reed over to the table where their course had been recorded. “Remember, it wasn’t so long ago yesterday that Danilov was in front of us. Now look at this swing of ours, way out to port, sunk one, hung out there for a while, moved back in toward the middle of that box, sunk a second on the way. Now we’re going after a cripple and there’s still no sound out there that would indicate someone’s going to help it.” He was leaning on his elbows, tracing their path with his index finger as he spoke. Now he looked up and held Reed’s eyes. “There’s a lot of space between where we began that big swing and where we are now… and it just seems to me that Danilov ought to be somewhere in there.” He tapped it with his finger. “Look at all that water, Admiral. At one time, there was a bunch of submarines. Now four are gone… just two left and one a cripple… and we haven’t heard from Danilov since he disappeared back there—”
“And Abe Danilov is one foxy character,” Reed interrupted. “Right?”
“Right.” Ross nodded. He looked up again. “Worth thinking about?”
Reed held the other’s eyes for a second, then called over his shoulder, “Range to the cripple?”
“Twenty-two thousand. He’s making about ten knots, Admiral.”
“In a little more than an hour, he’ll be just about on top of us if we wait right here,” Reed noted. “I can’t imagine he’s got much left for listening gear. I’ll go halfway with you, Ross. How about if we just shut up for a while? We’ll sit here, and we won’t make any noise to speak of. Try to rise slowly so we’re in line with that cripple. We’ll listen sharp for anything else. At ten thousand yards, we’ll put two torpedoes into her, then we’ll go looking for Danilov.” He cocked his head to one side, searching for agreement in Ross’s eyes. “We’ll still have a few tubes ready if she should sneak up on us,” he added.
Ross smiled halfheartedly. “I guess if I can convince you to meet me halfway—” He never finished the sentence, his expression changing rapidly as he realized that he’d won a moral victory. “Sounds better to me than before.” As he turned toward his OOD, Ross still had a feeling that something was missing. Houston was his ship. But the Admiral had given as much as he was going to.