Olonov had seen neither the sun nor the stars in over a year. Seventeen times, by his count, he had piloted his ship into the harbor, stopped under the freighter and watched his crewmen go through the hatch and into the watertight elevator. The lift went up, paused, then returned full of strangers, and Dherzinski went back on patrol.
Olonov was in his cabin reading The Spy Who Came in from the Cold when the nervous voice of the senior radio operator called him to the radio room.
Annoyed, Olonov demanded, "What is it?"
"A very low frequency message is arriving from Leningrad."
"Which code?"
"Priority one-time, book three."
Olonov blinked and tried to swallow. His throat was dry. The code was the one to be used in the event of war. Only he or the first officer could decode the message. Olonov locked himself in his cabin and rendered the transmission into Russian.
OLONOV: DHERZINSKI: RENDEZVOUS ON SURFACE 52
WEST 33 NORTH PLUS 36 HOURS SONIC CODE 2. SUPPLY
LITHIUM HYDROXIDE FILTERS FOR C02 SCRUBBER M7.
TAKE EIGHT CASUALTIES SUPPLY EIGHT REACTOR
TECHNICIANS. GORSHKOV.
Olonov's first reaction was relief. The message was not an order to launch his missiles, but it was almost as bad. He summoned Piznoshov.
"A rendezvous on the surface? With one of our subs?" said the first officer.
"We're not going to rendezvous with Nautilus."
"You can't be serious," Piznoshov said vehemently. "Gorshkov himself has ordered Dherzinski to surface? It's crazy."
"I know," Orlov said. "Obviously the scrubber failed on this ship, and they have a reactor problem. It's happened before."
"Yes, but Gorshkov has never pulled a missile sub off-station. Never. Right now Dherzinski is the most important ship in the Soviet Navy—"
"Perhaps not…"
Olonov was not officially aware of Potemkin's existence, but he was a man of long experience, with many friends, and he had heard rumors of a titanium-hulled attack sub. This was not the kind of information he wished to share with a political officer.
"If the scrubber on this mysterious submarine has failed, why doesn't he simply snorkel back to Murmansk? Why compromise Dherzinski?" Piznoshov made an obscene gesture indicating what he thought Gorshkov should be doing with himself.
"Ours is not to reason why. Comrade First Officer, but I have a rather good idea of what this is all about. And there is no question we have an appointment thirty-five hours and twenty minutes from now. Prepare to make way."
26
Twenty-two hours had passed since contact was lost with Potemkin. Barracuda had continued southwest at full speed, stopping frequently to clear baffles, and now was one hundred miles south of the Azores.
"Prepare for all stop. We're going to transmit a position report."
"Aye aye, sir."
"Control to engineering, all stop."
A moment later the roar of Barracuda's propulsion plant slackened, and the ship rocked in its own turbulence.
"Control to sonar. Clear baffles."
"Sonar to control. Clearing baffles, aye."
Barracuda circled and Sorensen echo-ranged three hundred sixty degrees.
"Sonar to control. All clear."
"Very well, sonar. Radio depth. Take us up, Leo."
Above on the surface it was seven minutes after midnight. May 21. A new year greeted the ancient sky whose stars gleamed like pearls above the clean ocean air. To the west, America tossed and turned in troubled sleep. Much farther west, in southeast Asia, soldiers died in the noonday sun. To the east in the Soviet Union tank battalions prepared for the invasion of Czechoslovakia, scheduled for later in the summer. Much farther east. Red Guards burned books in the Great Square of Peking.
They were far into the Atlantic now, alone in the great ocean. Sorensen heard no ships, no whales, no sign of life. Alone. Fogarty was in the control room, learning from Hoek how to track a target on the weapons console. Sorensen felt weary. He had sat through three consecutive watches and was an hour into a fourth, obstinately refusing to relinquish the console to less experienced hands while there was a possibility of Barracuda chancing on the Alpha. The cards, he thought, were in Barracuda's favor. The North Atlantic was the U.S. Navy's mare nostrum. They could track the Alpha just about all the way to Murmansk if they had to. Of course the closer they came to Mother Russia, the greater the risk. Not that the tracking itself wasn't a risk. But that was the order — track, observe, photograph. Aye aye, sir.
A moment later Barracuda's radio antenna broke the surface and a message flashed the ship's position to Norfolk. A radio operator in Virginia immediately sent a reply. Springfield and Pisaro decoded the message in the captain's cabin.
COMSUBLANT: BARRACUDA SSN 593: SOVIET ALPHA
CLASS SSN DETECTED BY SOSUS GMT 2200 HRS 052068 LAT
LONG 30 W 56 N COURSE TWO THREE ZERO SPEED
UNKNOWN. SPECTROGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF
BARRACUDA HULL FRAGMENTS SHOW TRACES OF
TITANIUM. SOVIET FBM HOTEL CLASS DHERZ.lNSKl
DETECTED BY SOSUS GMT 2330 HOURS 052068 LAT 27 N
LONG 53 W. SPEED THREE ZERO KNOTS. COURSE ZERO
FIVE ZERO. PROCEED ON COURSE TWO THREE ZERO.
INTERCEPT. PHOTOGRAPH. TRACK DHERZINSKI. IF SHE
RETURNS TO CUBAN WATERS, NOTIFY COMSUBLANT
IMMEDIATELY. NETTS
"We hit the bull's-eye! Dherzinski's coming right at us. She must be going for a rendezvous with the Alpha. We're going to catch up with them both."
Pisaro sounded more excited than any time Springfield could remember. He tried to sound especially calm as he said, "Call the officers into the ward room. We need to brief everyone. Meanwhile, set course two three zero. All ahead full. Let's not waste time."
Lt. Hoek went directly from the officers' briefing to the sonar room, where he found Sorensen mesmerized by the blank screen.
"You trying to set a world record for consecutive watches, Ace? You've been in here for thirteen hours."
"What's the word from Norfolk, Lieutenant?"
"They picked up the Alpha three hours ago. She was two hundred twelve miles southwest of our present position."
"That it?"
"No. They found traces of titanium in the hull sections cut out of the bow."
"Titanium? Son of a bitch. That explains how they go so deep and how they survived the collision. Titanium, Jesus, that stuff is unbelievably hard. What else, Lieutenant?"
"They're tracking Dherzinski. She's coming this way."
"Dherzinski? That's the Cuban boat. We put a tail on her for a couple of days last year. Lord, talk about out of the frying pan into the fire. Do you know what this means, Lieutenant?"
"You're goddamn right I know what it means."
"The Russians aren't going to like this."
"Well, tough shit for them. They've been throwing their weight around, it's time we get them to back down… Look, Ace, you're beat. Willie Joe is on his way in. Take a break, get outta here."
"Aye aye, sir."
"By the way, I heard a rumor about a new batch of plutonium wine back in engineering."
"No shit? Is it any good?"
"Is what any good? I didn't say anything."
Sorensen stood up, stretched, went out and shut the door and paused in the control room to watch Fogarty practice on the weapons console. In the center of the CRT a pulsing red blip simulated a target, a Soviet FBM. Red speckles danced in Fogarty's eyes as he jabbed a finger at his keyboard.