“Thank you, Lieutenant. I will consider your words.”
He looked over at the starshina who was handling the log and saw the sailor writing in it. He knew the navigator’s warning had just become official. Mamadov slapped the starshina upside the head, leaned down, and said something. The sailor turned the pencil around to erase.
“Leave it,” Anton said. Logs should never be erased. Line out errors, but never erase them. The Navy was not about covering up things.
“I’ve lost the intruder.”
“Let me know if you hear him again,” Anton said. Most likely it was some type of transport, even if it was not the Bolshevik. They probably lost it because the intruder was now going into the facility. In his mind, he saw the two fingers of land that jutted out on either side of the channel leading into the facility. If the unidentified contact was following the coast — most likely because of the fog — then its screws would be masked when it turned out to sea the first time as it maneuvered around the northernmost finger. This most recent loss of contact probably meant that the intruder was either maneuvering around the second finger or, as he surmised, was turning into the facility.
“Let’s bring her around, Lieutenant Weaver. Lieutenant Van Ness!” Shipley shouted. “Give me a course to get us out of here!” He looked aft and saw the faint wake starting to stretch to the right as the boat turned. “Bring her up to five knots, check with the CHENG, and tell me what our battery status is.”
“Aye, sir!” Weaver shouted from below.
Chief Topnotch scrambled up the ladder, tugging the Geiger counter with him. Right behind him was Lieutenant Logan.
“It’s getting crowded up here,” Shipley said, looking at Logan. “Just want to see what, if any, readings you get, Captain.”
“Lieutenant Logan, you are supposed to be taking photographs.”
The intelligence officer nodded. “I know, sir, but they are photographs of the same thing.”
Shipley raised his gloved hand. “Both of you pull your watch caps down over your faces before you get frostbitten.”
Logan’s watch cap had holes cut. Topnotch’s did not. The chief stood there with his entire face covered. “Okay, Chief,” Shipley said.
Chief Topnotch rolled the watch cap back up. Shipley looked at the Geiger counter, unlatching the top cover. He flipped the switch to on.
“It’ll take at least a minute for it to have a correct reading, Skipper,” Topnotch said, reaching over and tapping the meter. “How’s that?” Logan asked.
“Geiger counters detect particles of radiation measured over time. The more particles, the more radiation. Counts per minute is the metric. We call it CPMs.”
“Which radiation does it measure?” Logan asked. “Alpha, beta, or gamma rays?”
Topnotch looked at the lieutenant. “All three, I think.”
“Gamma is the worst. Alpha can be stopped by the skin of the Squallfish. Beta has some penetrating power, but gamma can penetrate almost anything, especially the human body.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant Logan,” Shipley said, watching the needle on the meter creep upward. “It’s moving.”
The other two men leaned over and watched the needle. “Definitely got radiation in the area,” Logan said.
“Doesn’t your air sampler tell us the same thing?” Shipley asked.
“No, sir. It only collects samples of the air while simultaneously filtering it through a special Naval Research Lab collector. We won’t know until we return what the radiation readout is.” The needle kept moving, touching the red warning area and continuing onward. The three remained quiet as they watched the needle reach as far as it could go to the right, pegged at the end of the danger zone.
“Jesus Christ!” Shipley said, almost dropping the heavy boxed system. He looked at Logan. “What does this mean?” He held the Geiger counter to the side so both Logan and Topnotch could read it.
“Sir, I think it means we have enough.” Logan shook his head. “If it is reading this high this far out”—everyone looked at the cavernous opening that was now coming up on their port side as the submarine finished its turn—“then the air samplers should have more than enough proof of what we came to find out. We can state emphatically that the Soviets are conducting a nuclear project here.”
Shipley handed the Geiger counter back to Topnotch. “They are developing a nuclear-powered submarine is what they are doing. You two take this to the engine room and see what the reading is on the air sampler.”
As the two men turned to go, he added, “And check my boat.” He said each word clipped. “If we’ve filled the Squallfish with contaminated air, I want to know.”
SIXTEEN
“I have the contact again, sir,” BCh-3 reported. “It has changed course with a right-bearing drift. It is heading in the opposite direction, Captain, and increased speed to eight knots.”
“Bearing?” Anton asked. This intruder was beginning to bother him.
“Bearing two niner zero, sir.”
Lieutenant Nizovtsev straightened again, his hand patting the cigarette pack in his shirt pocket. “The intruder is passing again in front of the facility. I have lost count of the number of times the ‘merchant ship’ has passed back and forth in front of the facility.” Anton bit his lower lip and dropped his hand from the handhold. If they can hear the screws, then the contact has to have its starboard beam to them.
“How far away are we from the facility?” he asked Nizovtsev. “We are sixteen kilometers now, Captain.”
“Give me the bearings to Alpha and Bravo,” Anton asked. “Alpha bears zero one zero, speed twelve knots. Bravo bears one seven zero, speed ten knots.”
“Do we have a course on them?”
“Alpha is on a due west heading, and Bravo continues on a projected course of zero six zero, northeasterly heading.”
Anton sighed. He did not want to surface to report the intruder. Why couldn’t the destroyers pick him up? Maybe because the intruder was no intruder, but an unidentified participant designed to lure the Whale into making the wrong move. Was Katshora bent on showing that regardless of the power plant on a submarine, it was still as vulnerable as a diesel? Why would he do that?
“Repeat our course, speed, and depth,” he ordered.
“Sir, we are heading north on course zero one zero at speed six knots, at sixty meters depth,” Antipov reported.
Anton sighed. He looked forward and saw Nizovtsev bent over the chart with his right hand clasping a pencil, but the man’s head was turned, so the navigator glared directly at him. If he kept command of the Whale when this was over, Nizovtsev could pack his seabag.
“Sonar, could this be another one of our warships?” Anton asked.
The sailor acknowledged the question with a nod, his head bent over in concentration. “It has two screws, sir. It is maneuvering in front of the facility. Maybe it is there in the event we try to hide—”
“It should not be there,” Nizovtsev interrupted. “It is not part of the exercise.” He grabbed his clipboard from a paper-clip hanger above the plotting table. “According to the exercise message, we have our two destroyers and us out here. No one else, Captain.” He hung the clipboard back up. “No one else,” he mumbled.
“Okay, perhaps you are right, Lieutenant. Officer of the deck, take the boat up to fifteen meters.”
“Sir!” Lieutenant Logan shouted from the conning tower up to the bridge.