Gilbert nodded affirmatively. “My laddies are jocked up and ready to party, Captain.”
Kram looked at the Englishman and noted that he had yet to change into his assault gear. “Don’t tell me that you’re planning to take that SDV ride without a wet suit?”
“I should say not, Captain,” replied Laycob between sips of tea. “My gear’s waiting for me in the missile compartment.”
“I understand that you made good use of that virtual reality program,” Kram continued. “My crew was quite impressed.”
Laycob grinned. “There are a few high-tech gadgets that SBS has found to be extremely useful, and virtual reality certainly appears to show great promise. Once we complete our operation and retake the Queen, you must give it a look, Captain. I’ve got it set up to display an aft assault that will take you right up the caving ladders by way of her Three-Deck fantail. From there, you have a variety of interactive paths to choose from, including one that shows the most direct route to the ship’s Bridge.”
Any response on Kram’s part was cut short by the arrival of the SEAL team’s meteorologist. Petty Officer Murray held a clipboard, and directed his comments to Doug Gilbert.
“Commander, I’ve got the results of the latest weather satellite update.”
“No sunspot interference this time?” quizzed Gilbert.
“Sir, right now sunspots are the least of our worries,” returned Murray.
“Hurricane Marti continues bearing down on us. The outer fringe of the storm is already making itself felt topside, with wind gusts up to forty miles per hour, and twenty-foot seas.”
“I thought that tropical storms usually weakened once they reached the cold waters of these northern climes?” offered Laycob.
The curly-haired meteorologist was quick with a reply. “I don’t anticipate any further strengthening of Marti, sir. Yet the low-pressure system at her heart is tightly organized, and could take several days to dissipate.”
“And meanwhile, we have to cope with the winds and heavy seas,” said Kram, who looked at SEAL Team Two’s commanding officer and added, “Forty-mile-per hour wind gusts and twenty-foot seas don’t bode well for a safe SDV launch, Doug. Those environmentals are way beyond all official safety margins.”
“To hell with official safety margins,” retorted Gilbert. “All you need to do is get us in a position to reach the QE2, and my laddies will do the rest. Shit, this team’s ready to drive that SDV right through the gates of Hell, if that’s where our op orders are sending us, and no little storm is going to get in our way. That’s for damn sure.”
Laycob winced. “Sounds like I’d better track down some seasick pills.
I don’t suppose that the Folk’s heard from Command, regarding the manner in which they plan to slow the Queen so we can reach her?”
“I’m afraid not,” answered Kram. “We’ll just have to take it on faith that they’ve done it for us. Though right now that’s not my main concern, nor is it the weather topside. Because if we don’t tag that Han within the next sixty minutes, and eliminate it as a threat, there’s going to be no midnight SDV launch. I’m not about to go opening up my submarine for attack, knowing there’s a hostile warship out there, just waiting for a chance to give us the deep six.”
“What are you doing about tracking them down?” asked Gilbert with a hint of impatience.
Kram suddenly found himself in the awkward position of having to defend his command decision, and he answered with direct firmness. “You can rest assured, Commander, that the Polk is using every means available to locate that Han. My top sonar team’s got the watch, and they’re doing everything short of going active, to scour these seas. As the untimely loss of the Baikal and the Casablanca so tragically demonstrates, our crafty opponent is an extremely dangerous one. I’m not about to take them for granted, and I won’t rest until that Han has paid the ultimate price for its criminal actions.”
“I do hope Commander Eastbrook and the crew of the Talent can be helpful in giving you a hand ridding the seas of this Han,” said Laycob after finishing his tea. “If it’s indeed a rogue sub that we’re after, then there’s no better pirate to have on your side than Mark Eastbrook. He can be the one to flush out the vermin, leaving the Polk free to exterminate them.”
41
Comdr. Mark Eastbrook paced the crowded confines of the Talent’s control room like a man possessed. He had personally made the choice to take up a tactical position far in the Queen’s baffles. The Polk was well ahead of them, and Eastbrook didn’t want to join them until he was absolutely certain of what they were up against.
One reality that he couldn’t question was that the brave crews of the Baikal and the Casablanca were no more, Eastbrook was positive it had been an intentional act of subterfuge that was responsible for their demise. Any sonic evidence of the mysterious submarine that had carried out this clever ploy had long since dropped off their sonar screens.
For the past half hour, Eastbrook had confined himself to the sonar room, where he played the tape of this engagement over an dover. In each instance, the suspected Man class vessel made its abrupt presence known with an outburst of noise, as it sprinted forward at flank speed.
It continued generating this unmistakable sonic signature for as long as it took to gain the attention of the formation’s two point-submarines.
No sooner did the Baikal and the Casablanca turn inward to engage this phantom contact than it went inexplicably silent, seemingly swallowed by a black hole of noise-absorbent seawater.
What had happened to it? Try as he could, Eastbrook could find no trace of it, no matter how many times he listened to the cursed recording.
The only sound that remained constant throughout the tape was the incessant, pounding roar of the QE2’s nine diesel engines. It was from this deafening racket that the bogey had emerged. Present throughout the torpedo engagement, the Queen’s sonorous signature prevailed to the tape’s very end, clearly emanating long after the last crackling report of the two imploding submarines faded to eternity.
Eastbrook stopped at the navigation plot. He picked up a red grease pencil to initiate a cursory sketch on the chart’s clear-plastic overlay. He plotted the position and course of the QE2 during the time of the bogey’s initial appearance, and the positions of her two submarine escorts off her port and starboard bows. The unwary ocean liner had continued right over that portion of the Atlantic where the two doomed submarines’ tragic destinies had already been written.
And the phantom warship that had instigated this havoc? In which direction could it have fled, and why was there no audio evidence of this escape effort?
It was as he circled the large X he had drawn to represent the QE2 that a sudden thought dawned in his consciousness. It was fragmented at first, but the more he thought about it, the more it began to make sense.
“That bloody Red bastard!” he reflected, oblivious to the curious stares of his shipmates. “I’ll bet anything, that’s how he did it.”
“Sir?” queried the nearby navigator, who didn’t know if this spontaneous comment had been meant for him.
Mark Eastbrook met his navigator’s confused stare with a smile, followed up with a spirited explanation. “The Han, lad! Don’t you see, my good man? It was hiding beneath the Queen all that time, using the sound of her engines to mask its presence from our sonar. When it finally made its move, it did so with firm intention, sprinting forward into the formation’s slot, then scramming its reactor once the deed had been done. After that, all they had to do was wait for the Queen to steam overhead before restarting their engines and following her out of the engagement zone, with all of us none the wiser!”