“Give me your thoughts, gentlemen,” he said in his heavy voice.
“Comrade Admiral,” a heavy set naval captain sitting down near the end of the table said. “The evidence is clear from this photograph. The Americans have found their submarine and any naval officer of experience can tell what happened to it.
“What we must do now is reason how they found their ship. I would say they used a bottom-charting sonar ship. They are very good at charting the ocean bottoms with sonar. We are sent their bottom charts from the United Nations and I have found them to be most accurate.
“If they used a sonar search to find the submarine then they would mark the submarine on the bottom with sonar buoys. We use sonar buoys in the same way, when we have lost a practice torpedo, for example. Sonar buoy batteries operate for a month before they run down.”
“So?” Admiral Zurahv rumbled.
“When I was reading the daily ship movement report this morning I noticed that we have a freighter loading citrus fruits and tobacco in the port of Bengasi. We used that same freighter last year in submarine maneuvers off the Aleutians. She has simple but effective sonar equipment on board. I suggest we send that ship along the course of the American submarine to listen for sonar buoys.”
“A good idea,” Zurahv said. “What’s her next port of call, do you remember?”
“Odessa, sir.”
“Change it,” Zurahv ordered. “Get those assholes in the commercial departments moving to sell her cargo in France or the Netherlands so we’ll have a reason for changing her next port of call. Notify Lloyds of the change of ports, we want this to look normal.” He looked down the table.
“How many of the new torpedoes do we have on hand?”
“Eleven, sir,” a Commander answered.
“Send them to attack submarines. Order a crash production schedule at once. As soon as the new torpedoes come out of the factory I want them tested and sent to operating submarines. Dismissed.”
CHAPTER 7
The U.S.S. Orca, sister ship of the U.S.S. Devilfish, raced southward at 500 feet, her nuclear reactor plant turning out 75 percent of its rated capacity. There was an air of quiet satisfaction, of competence proved, aboard the Orca. The chase of a Soviet missile submarine that had been detected by the sensor network as it left the Atlantic and headed northeast between the British Isles and Greenland had been successful.
The Orca had taken up the chase, traveling at high speed until the computer charting of the Soviet submarine’s course and position indicated that Orca was within extreme sonar range. The Orca’s crew went to Battle Stations and Captain Dick Reinauer began the delicate process of closing on the Soviet submarine without being detected. Periodically, the Orca turned to port or starboard to allow the lateral sensors along its hull to focus on the noise made by the other submarine as it moved through the sea. Gradually, steadily, the Orca closed the range.
The Soviet submarine, apparently unaware it was being followed, continued steadily on course. The Orca crept closer, running silent with all unnecessary machinery shut down to avoid detection. The crew talked in whispers. Captain Reinauer spoke softly into a telephone to the Battle Stations sonar operator.
“How do you read him?”
“He’s noisy as hell,” the sonar operator answered in a whisper. “He’s got a cooling water pump that must have worn out its bearings. He’s got a chip on one blade of his screw or else the screw is warped a little, he’s making a hell of a lot of screw noise.”
“Start computer constant ranging,” Reinauer ordered. He watched the video screen in front of him in the Attack Center as white figures began to appear on the screen.
“Twenty-one hundred yards,” Reinauer whispered to Arnold Eckert, his Executive Officer. “I think this is close enough. We’ll take him now.” He picked up the telephone.
“Sonar, stand by for a transmission.” He turned to Eckert. “Come left to course three three five. Sonar, send the following message. ‘Tag, you’re it. Sorry we can’t invite you aboard for a cup of coffee.’ End of message. I want you to hit him with every decibel we’ve got in the transmitters. XO, come to all ahead full as soon as the transmission starts. Sonar, transmit!”
The sonar operator on the Soviet submarine screamed in agony and tore his earphones off as the Orca’s powerful sonar transmitters blasted their sound into the Russian submarine’s sonar ears. There was silence for a few moments and then the Soviet submarine’s answer came back.
“We would prefer tea, thank you. You are very good at this game, my friend. I may send my sonar crew for a long walk on the ice the next time we go to the Pole. End transmission.”
The Orca swung away in a long curving arc, slowing to her usual twenty-knot cruising speed. “We can chalk up a solid hit on that one,” Reinauer said with a grin, his white teeth gleaming in his curly black beard. “We nailed that rascal fair and square. He never heard us at all. That’s the third one of those bastards we’ve sneaked up on without them knowing it. Let’s go home, Arnie. Set a course for Holy Loch.” He turned to the Officer of the Deck.
“Take her up to periscope depth and send an exercise concluded message. Tell them the score is three to nothing, our favor. We’ll advise ETA at Holy Loch later.”
The Orca’s radioman sent the transmission and then punched a button on a tape cassette as a light showed on his console. He picked up the telephone and dialed the Attack Center.
“Incoming radio traffic, sir. Routine message indicated.”
Sitting in his small cabin Captain Reinauer read through the message. Lieutenant Eckert, who functioned as the ship’s Navigator as well as Executive Officer, came into the cabin.
“You wanted me, sir?”
“We aren’t going home,” Reinauer said. “We’re ordered to rendezvous with the Devilfish down off the Strait of Gibraltar. ComSubLant’s orders. He’ll advise us further.”
“I wondered where the Devilfish was going when she left Holy Loch in such a hurry,” Eckert said. “Gibraltar? I’d guess some of the Sixth Fleet is going home and we’re going to make dummy attacks. When it’s over maybe we’ll get liberty in some good port in Portugal or Spain.”
“Lay down a course and advise me of our ETA on station,” Reinauer said. “We’re supposed to make all possible speed. Put that in the log book.”
“Will do,” Eckert said. “Bet you a beer that Iron Mike has got something planned to shake up the surface ship boys. And we can do that, provided the Devilfish doesn’t foul things up.
“Bob Miller doesn’t make mistakes,” Reinauer said. “He’s a damned good submariner and the Devilfish is a good ship.”
“Nobody’s as good as we are, Skipper. Oh, almost forgot, sir. Turk Raynor wants to see you on personal business. You want me to notify him he can see you now?”
Reinauer nodded. “Better notify the crew we’re not going back to Holy Loch, that we’re on a special training exercise with Devilfish. I want everyone on their toes. I don’t want Devilfish to outdo us, no matter what the exercise is.”
Wilbur “Turk” Raynor, TM 1/c, rapped softly on the bulkhead of the Captain’s cabin and entered when he heard the command to do so. He stood at attention in the center of the small cabin.
“At ease, Turk,” Captain Reinauer said. “Sit down in that chair. What’s on your mind?”