A P-3B was cruising at nine hundred feet about fifty miles southeast of Norfolk. The FLIR showed nothing, no heat signature on the surface, and the MAD gear detected no measurable disturbance in the earth’s magnetic field, though one aircraft’s flight path took her within a hundred yards of the Alfa’s position. The Konovalov’s hull was made of non-magnetic titanium. A sonobuoy dropped seven miles to the south of her position also failed to pick up the sound of her reactor plant. Data was being transmitted continuously to Norfolk, where Quentin’s operations staff entered it into his computer. The problem was, not all of the Soviet subs had been accounted for.
Well, the commander thought, that figures. Some of the boats had taken the opportunity to creep away from their charted loci. There was the odd chance, he had reported, that one or two strays were still out there, but there was no evidence of this. He wondered what CINCLANT had working. Certainly he had seemed awfully pleased with something, almost euphoric. The operation against the Soviet fleet had been handled pretty well, what he’d seen of it, and there was that dead Alfa out there. How long until the Glomar Explorer came out of mothballs to go and get that? He wondered if he’d get a chance to look the wreck over. What an opportunity!
Nobody was taking the current operation all that seriously. It made sense. If the Georgia were indeed coming in with a sick engine she’d be coming slow, and a slow Ohio made about as much noise as a virgin whale determined to retain her status. And if CINCLANTFLT were all that concerned about it, he would not have detailed the delousing operation to a pair of P-3s piloted by reservists. Quentin lifted the phone and dialed CINCLANTFLT Operations to tell them again that there was no indication of hostile activity.
Ryan checked his watch. It had been five hours already. A long time to sit in one chair, and from a quick glance at the chart it appeared that the eight-hour estimate had been optimistic — or he’d misunderstood them. The Red October was tracing up the shelf line and would soon begin to angle west for the Virginia Capes. Maybe it would take another four hours. It couldn’t be too soon. Ramius and Mancuso looked pretty tired. Everybody was tired. Probably the engine room people most of all — no, the cook. He was ferrying coffee and sandwiches to everyone. The Russians seemed especially hungry.
The Dallas passed the Pogy at thirty-two knots, leapfrogging again, with the October a few miles aft. Lieutenant Commander Wally Chambers, who had the conn, did not like being blind on the speed run of thirty-five minutes despite word from the Pogy that everything was clear.
The Pogy noted her passage and turned to allow her lateral array to track on the Red October.
“Noisy enough at twenty knots,” the Pogy’s sonar chief said to his companions. “Dallas doesn’t make that much at thirty.”
“Some noise to the south,” the michman said.
“What, exactly?” Tupolev had been hovering at the door for hours, making life unpleasant for the sonarmen.
“Too soon to say, Comrade Captain. Bearing is not changing, however. It is heading this way.”
Tupolev went back to the control room. He ordered power reduced further in the reactor systems. He considered killing the plant entirely, but reactors took time to start up and there was no telling yet how distant the contact might be. The captain smoked three cigarettes before going back to sonar. It would not do at all to make the michman nervous. The man was his best operator.
“One propeller, Comrade Captain, an American, probably a Los Angeles, doing thirty-five knots. Bearing has changed only two degrees in fifteen minutes. He will pass close aboard, and — wait…His engines have stopped.” The forty-year-old warrant officer pressed the headphones against his ears. He could hear the cavitation sounds diminish, then stop entirely as the contact faded away to nothing. “He has stopped to listen, Comrade Captain.”
Tupolev smiled. “He will not hear us, Comrade. Racing and stopping. Can you hear anything else? Might he be escorting something?”
The michman listened to the headphones again and made some adjustments on his panel. “Perhaps…there is a good deal of surface noise, Comrade, and I — wait. There seems to be some noise. Our last target bearing was one-seven-one, and this new noise is…one-seven-five. Very faint, Comrade Captain — a ping, a single ping on active sonar.”
“So.” Tupolev leaned against the bulkhead. “Good work, Comrade. Now we must be patient.”
Chief Laval pronounced the area clear. The BQQ-5’s sensitive receptors revealed nothing, even after the SAPS system had been used. Chambers maneuvered the bow around so that the single ping would go out to the Pogy, which in turn fired off her own ping to the Red October to make sure the signal was received. It was clear for another ten miles. The Pogy moved out at thirty knots, followed by the U.S. Navy’s newest boomer.
“Two more submarines. One single screw, the other twin screw, I think. Still faint. The single-screw submarine is turning much more rapidly. Do the Americans have twin-screw submarines, Comrade Captain?”
“Yes, I believe so.” Tupolev wondered about this. The difference in signature characteristics was not all that pronounced. They’d see in any case. The Konovalov was creeping along at two knots, one hundred fifty meters beneath the surface. Whatever was coming seemed to be coming right for them. Well, he’d teach the imperialists something after all.
“Can anybody spell me at the wheel?” Ryan asked.
“Need a stretch?” Mancuso asked, coming over.
“Yeah. I could stand a trip to the head, too. The coffee’s about to bust my kidneys.”
“I relieve you, sir.” The American captain moved into Ryan’s seat. Jack headed aft to the nearest head. Two minutes later he was feeling much better. Back in the control room, he did some knee bends to get circulation back in his legs, then looked briefly at the chart. It seemed strange, almost sinister, to see the U.S. coast marked in Russian.
“Thank you, Commander.”
“Sure.” Mancuso stood.
“It is certain that you are no sailor, Ryan.” Ramius had been watching him without a word.
“I have never claimed to be one, Captain,” Ryan said agreeably. “How long to Norfolk?”
“Oh, another four hours, tops,” Mancuso said. “The idea’s to arrive after dark. They have something to get us in unseen, but I don’t know what.”
“We left the sound in daylight. What if somebody saw us then?” Ryan asked.
“I didn’t see anything, but if anybody was there, all he’d have seen was three sub conning towers with no numbers on them.” They had left in daylight to take advantage of a “window” in Soviet satellite coverage.
Ryan lit another cigarette. His wife would give him hell for this, but he was tense from being on the submarine. Sitting at the helmsman’s station left him with nothing to do but stare at the handful of instruments. The sub was easier to hold level than he had expected, and the only radical turn he had attempted showed how eager the sub was to change course in any direction. Thirty-some-thousand tons of steel, he thought — no wonder.