“Right full rudder.”
“Right full rudder, aye.”
“Conn, sonar, we are cavitating,” Jones spoke over the intercom.
“Very well, sonar!” Mancuso answered sharply. He did not understand his new orders, and things he didn’t understand made him angry.
“Speed down to four knots,” Lieutenant Goodman reported.
“Rudder amidships, all stop.”
“Rudder amidships aye, all stop aye,” the helmsman responded at once. He didn’t want the captain barking at him. “Sir, my rudder is amidships.”
“Jesus!” Jones said in the sonar room. “What’s the skipper doin’?”
Mancuso was in sonar a second later.
“Still doing the turn to port, Cap’n. He’s astern of us ’cause of the turn we made,” Jones observed as neutrally as he could. It was close to an accusation, Mancuso noticed.
“Flushing the game, Jonesy,” Mancuso said coolly.
You’re the boss, Jones thought, smart enough not to say anything else. The captain looked as though he was going to snap somebody’s head off, and Jones had just used up a month’s worth of tolerance. He switched his phones to the towed array plug.
“Engine noises diminishing, sir. He’s slowing down.” Jones paused. He had to report the next part. “Sir, it’s a fair guess he heard us.”
“He was supposed to,” Mancuso said.
“Captain, an enemy submarine,” the michman said urgently.
“Enemy?” Ramius asked.
“American. He must have been trailing us, and he had to back down to avoid a collision when we turned. Definitely an American, broad on the port bow, range under a kilometer, I think.” He handed Ramius his phones.
“688,” Ramius said to Borodin. “Damn! He must have stumbled across us in the past two hours. Bad luck.”
“Okay, Jonesy, yankee-search him.” Mancuso gave the order for an active sonar search personally. The Dallas had slewed farther around before coming to a near halt.
Jones hesitated for a moment, still reading the reactor plant noise on his passive systems. Reaching, he powered up the active transducers in the BQQ-5’s main sphere at the bow.
Ping! A wave front of sound energy was directed at the target.
Pong! The wave was reflected back off the hard steel hull and returned to the Dallas.
“Range to target 1,050 yards,” Jones said. The returning pulse was processed through the BC-10 computer and showed some rough details. “Target configuration is consistent with a Typhoon-class boomer. Angle on the bow seventy or so. No doppler. He’s stopped.” Six more pings confirmed this.
“Secure pinging,” Mancuso said. There was some small satisfaction in learning that he had elevated the contact correctly. But not much.
Jones killed power to the system. What the hell did I have to do that for? he wondered. He’d already done everything but read the number off her stern.
Every man on the October knew now that they had been found. The lash of the sonar waves had resounded through the hull. It was not a sound a submariner liked to hear. Certainly not on top of a troublesome reactor, Ramius thought. Perhaps he could make use of this…
“Somebody on the surface,” Jones said suddenly. “Where the hell did they come from? Skipper, there was nothing, nothing, a minute ago, and now I’m getting engine sounds. Two, maybe more — make that two ’cans…and something bigger. Like they were sitting up there waiting for us. A minute ago they were sitting still. Damn! I didn’t hear a thing.”
“We timed that rather nicely,” Admiral White said.
“Lucky,” Ryan observed.
“Luck is part of the game, Jack.”
HMS Bristol was the first to pick up the sound of the two submarines and of the turn the Red October had made. Even at five miles the subs were barely readable. The Crazy Ivan maneuver had terminated three miles away, and the surface ships had been able to get good position fixes by reading off the Dallas’ active sonar emissions.
“Two helicopters en route, sir,” Captain Hunter reported. “They’ll be on station in another minute.”
“Signal Bristol and Fife to stay to windward of us. I want Invincible between them and the contact.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Hunter relayed the order to the communications room. The destroyermen on the escorts would find that order peculiar, using a carrier to screen destroyers.
A few seconds later a pair of Sea King helicopters stopped and hovered fifty feet over the surface, letting down dipping sonars at the end of a cable as they struggled to hold position. These sonars were far less powerful than ship-carried sonars and had distinctive characteristics. The data they developed was transmitted by digital link to the Invincible’s command center.
“Limeys,” Jones said at once. “That’s a helicopter set, the 195, I think. That means the big ship off to the south is one of their baby carriers, sir, with a two-can escort.”
Mancuso nodded. “HMS Invincible. She was over our side of the lake for NIFTY DOLPHIN. That means the Brit varsity, their best ASW operators.”
“The big one’s moving this way, sir. Turns indicate ten knots. The choppers — two of them — have both of us. No other subs around that I hear.”
“Positive sonar contact,” said the metal speaker. “Two submarines, range two miles from Invincible, bearing zero-two-zero.”
“Now for the hard part,” Admiral White said.
Ryan and the four Royal Navy officers who were privy to the mission were on the flag bridge, with the fleet ASW officer in the command center below, as the Invincible steamed slowly north, slightly to the left of the direct course to the contacts. All five swept the contact area with powerful binoculars.
“Come on, Captain Ramius,” Ryan said quietly. “You’re supposed to be a hotshot. Prove it.”
Ramius was back in his control room scowling at his chart. A stray American Los Angeles stumbling onto him was one thing, but he had run into a small task force. English ships, at that. Why? Probably an exercise. The Americans and the English often work together, and pure accident had walked October right into them. Well. He’d have to evade before he could get on with what he wanted to do. It was that simple. Or was it? A hunter submarine, a carrier, and two destroyers after him. What else? He would have to find out if he were going to lose them all. This would take the best part of a day. But now he’d have to see what he was up against. Besides, it would show them that he was confident, that he could hunt them if he wished.
“Borodin, bring the ship to periscope depth. Battle stations.”
“Come up, Marko,” Barclay urged. “We have a message for you, old boy.”
“Helicopter three reports contact is coming up,” the speaker said.
“All right!” Ryan pounded his hand on the rail.
White lifted a phone. “Recall one of the helicopters.”