Bodzin’s current watch team had an average age of twenty-three, but what they lacked in experience, they more than made up for in enthusiasm. A spirited twosome, who volunteered for submarine duty for the express purpose of learning sonar, this duo was content to let Bodzin rule their cramped, dimly lit workspace.
Bodzin, a grizzled veteran by comparison at the age of twenty-seven, was known for his hands-on management style. He liked to work standing up, as he was presently doing, positioned directly behind his seated associates.
To his immediate left was the rather antiquated, bulky console belonging to their BQS-4 active-sonar system. Also known as the “space heater” for the warmth it produced, the BQS-4 was not much different from the sonars of the pre nuclear navy, and was still powered by old fashioned tube amplifiers. Since the Polk depended on stealth to survive, active sonar was infrequently used. The powerful pulse of sound it projected was mainly utilized for collision avoidance and to determine a target’s precise range by calculating the time it took for the deflected sonar signal to return.
To the right of the BQS-4 were the two consoles reserved for passive detection. Far from being the most sophisticated passive sonars in the U. S. Navy, the Folk’s BQ-21 was a medium-range broadband unit, while the BQ 7 was a conformal, long-range array that was mounted into the sub’s spherical bow. It was the sensitive hydrophones of the BQ-7 that first picked up the change in pitch of the QE2’s engines as they were slowed.
Sic. James Echoles was seated at the far-right console. He was the one who originally detected the ocean liner’s speed change. An easy-going, solidly built African American from Cahokia, Illinois, Echoles’s nickname was Jaffers, and his alert discovery had earned him a Snickers candy bar and a box of Cracker Jack from Bodzin’s cherished overhead stash.
“Hey, Sup,” mumbled Jaffers while chewing on his candy bar. “That weird flutter is back on narrowband. What do you make of it?”
Bodzin scanned Jaffers’s waterfall display, and isolated the suspect frequency on his headphones. “It still doesn’t sound much to me, Bubba.
I’d say it’s an anomalous bathymetric.”
“I’ll bet you a cool can of Dr. Pepper, otherwise,” Jaffers challenged.
“You’re on,” returned Bodzin, who listened as the young sailor seated to Jaffers’s left spoke up.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I think something strange is taking place on that ocean liner,” offered S2c. Scott Wilford, a blond-haired, St. Petersburg, Florida, native. “Why else would they go and change their course like that? They’re headed toward Iceland, not England.”
“Maybe they decided to move the summit up to Reykjavik,” Jaffers suggested.
Bodzin’s tendency was to agree with Wilford’s assessment, and he spoke carefully. “Let’s not forget about that approaching hurricane topside.
There’s still a good chance that weather is the cause of that unplanned course change. And if they keep going at their current rate of speed, we’ll all know the real cause soon enough.”
“How’s that, Sup?” asked Wilford.
Bodzin innocently massaged the muscles at the back of the young sailor’s neck while answering. “Now that the Folk’s able to stand down from flank speed, the skipper’s going to have a chance to bring us up to PD and establish a highfrequency SATCOM uplink. Then Command will be able to tell us everything we want to know.”
“I want to know why the Brits went and dropped out of the formation like they did,” remarked Jaffers as he addressed his console’s frequency-select dial. “Do you think that the Talent just couldn’t keep up with us?”
“Unless they had some sort of engineering casualty that I haven’t heard about, scuttlebutt says that it was a tactical decision between the skipper and the Brit CO,” revealed Bodzin. “It seems the two had a powwow over the underwater telephone, and the Talent fell back shortly afterwards.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” he added while lowering the volume of his headphones. “You can rest assured that this is one party that the Royal Navy doesn’t want to miss. After all, the QE2 is flying their flag, and from what little I’ve seen of their operational abilities, you definitely want the Brits on your side.”
“Back in sub school, we saw a film on the way they train their submarine officers for command,” said Wilford. “Did you know that their COs don’t even have to be nuke-qualified to get command?”
“It’s called the Perisher course,” Bodzin explained.
“And you’re right, they don’t have to pass engineering qualifications to get then-dolphins. It seems the Brits are content to allow their engineers to run the reactor spaces, leaving their skippers free to fight the boat.”
“Sup,” interrupted Jaffers, pointing to a thick white line that was beginning to form on the upper-left-hand portion of his waterfall display. “It looks like you’re going to owe me that Dr. Pepper, because that contact at zero two-eight is back, and it sure doesn’t look like any bathymetric anomaly to me.”
Bodzin was quick to check the monitor himself, and he spotted the ever-widening white band. In an effort to hear the sound that the display was visually sketching, he addressed the auxiliary console and isolated the hydrophones responsible for picking up this contact. After determining the frequency, he turned up the volume gain of his headphones to its maximum level. Closing his eyes to better focus his concentration, he listened to a barely audible, whining sound, that was repeated with a pulsating, mechanical regularity.
“It’s man-made all right,” he whispered. “Could it be the Russians?”
“Only if the Baikal went and moved out of its patrol sector,” Jaffers returned, his own headphones tuned to the same muted signature.
“Because this bogey’s positioned almost due north of the QE2, well within the no-patrol zone.”
Bodzin reached up for the overhead intercom handset, and spoke into the transmitter. “Conn, sonar. We have an unidentified submerged contact, bearing zero-two-eight. Maximum range. Designate Sierra Seven, possible hostile.”
This chilling report resulted in an almost instantaneous visit to sonar by the Folk’s captain. Benjamin Kram had been in the nearby radio room when Bodzin’s voice broke from the intercom, and he wasted no time rushing across the passageway to check out this report firsthand.
“What do you have, Mr. Bodzin?” asked Kram breathlessly.
Bodzin answered while plugging in an auxiliary set of headphones and handing them to the captain. “Sir, I realize that it’s not much, but there’s a barely audible, low frequency contact, almost due north of the QE2. It could be the reactor-coolant pump of another submarine.”
Kram put on the headphones and did his best to pick out the noise. For the first couple of seconds, he could hear nothing but a distant crackling sound. Increasing the volume to full amplification, the crackling further intensified, only to be undercut by a faint mechanical whine that faded in and out with a disturbing regularity.
“Is it the Baikal?” he queried.
“Not unless they really strayed out of their patrol sector, sir,” Bodzin replied.
Kram had heard enough. He removed the headphones, and signaled his senior sonarman to do the same. Only then did he beckon to Bodzin to join him at the after end of the compartment beside the room’s tape recorder.
“Mr. Bodzin,” Kram said in a bare whisper. “The Polk was just the recipient of a Priority One TACAMO transmission. Though I’ll be briefing the entire crew shortly on its contents, I’d like you to be one of the first to know that there’s trouble aboard the QE2. I know that it’s going to sound farfetched, but it looks like she’s been the victim of a hijacking.”