“That would be much too risky,” returned Grigori calmly.
“Without the hot plumes of the booster engines pointing the way, there’s too great a chance that our missile would miss its mark. And besides, I doubt if we’ve been caught yet. Most likely, it’s only a patrol.”
This observation was confirmed when the sound of the helicopter’s engines suddenly began to fade. A minute later, the distinctive clatter was completely absent. They poked their heads from under the net, and a quick scan of the skies verified this fact.
“You are right once again,” commented Dmitri.
“I guess I’m getting a little too overanxious.”
Grigori slyly grinned.
“That’s only natural, comrade.
Like any good hunter, you smell the kill before your nose and instinctively crave for satisfaction. Yet, with this quarry, it’s going to be patience that makes the hunt succeed. Calm down, my friend. Our time will soon be here.”
Pulling the net completely off them, Grigori sat up and lifted the now-fully-assembled Stinger to his shoulder. Peering through its telescopic lens, he centered the cross-hairs on the target that had sent them to this desolate plain in the first place.
Beginning with the stubby nose of the gleaming white orbiter, Grigori slowly scanned its box-car-like fuselage, finally coming to a halt on the insignia painted on its delta-shaped wing. Without the need of additional magnification, he was able to easily make out the five-pointed-star emblem of the United States Air Force. Beneath this etching was printed the word “Condor”. Well aware now of the precise identity of his prey, Grigori sat back to await the moment when the hunt would begin.
Chapter Fourteen
Five and a half miles from Point Arguello, the U.S.S. Razorback sailed on a westward course. In the process of detaching the DSRV Marlin from its back, the sub bit into the cool waters fifty feet beneath the Pacific’s surface. Below in the vessel’s sonar room, the two seamen currently responsible for monitoring the series of sensitive microphones mounted on its hull listened to the noise caused by the DSRV’s parting.
“Brother, is that sucker ever creating a racket,” commented Lefty Jackman disgustedly.
“Every submarine in the Eastern Pacific is bound to hear us now.”
“The Marlin will be on her own soon enough, pawdner,” answered Seaman Second Class Seth Burke, who pulled off the headphones he had been wearing.
“Then we’ll be able to go about business as usual.”
Following his coworker’s lead. Lefty also removed his headphones. While massaging his sore earlobes, he reflected on their state.
“That will sure be a welcomed relief, Tex. Maybe this time we’ll be able to tag that Soviet sub once and for all. It’s still eating on me that they were able to shake us like they did.”
“If they’re still around and we hear ‘em, we’ll get ‘em all right,” returned the gangly Texan.
“At least this time, we don’t have to go runnin’ around with our active sonar pingin’ up a storm.”
Lefty reached for his coffee cup.
“Amen, brother. I still can’t believe the Skipper hasn’t ordered us to activate it as yet. Maybe we’re finally done with that boring salvage duty.”
“I wonder if it could have something to do with that upcoming space shuttle shot,” offered Burke, who went for his own coffee cup.
“I heard some Air Force honchos back at Arguello savin’ that it could go up anytime now. It sure has been a while since the last shuttle, Challenger, went down.”
“I’ll say,” answered Lefty solemnly.
“That’s one morning I’ll never forget. Even now, I can see it as clear as day. I was sitting in my high school science class watching the launch preparations live on TV. All morning we were hearing about how great it was to finally have a real, live teacher in space. When the orbiter exploded right before our very eyes, my first reaction was that this couldn’t be really happening.
When the reality finally sunk in, I walked around in shock for an entire week afterwards.”
After taking a long sip of coffee, the Texan voiced his own experience.
“Well, join the crowd, pawdner. I was helpin’ my dad string fencin’ down in the south forty, when one of the hands arrived and told us that the shuttle had exploded. It’s funny, but even out on the west plains of Texas, I was able to visualize just what that explodin’ space ship must have looked like.
Even my dad was choked up by the news, and that’s one old coot who don’t get riled by nothin’.”
Shaking his head in response. Lefty momentarily placed one of his cramped feet on the lip of the console. Just as he was in the middle of a wide yawn, Chief Petty Officer Lawrence Desiante barged into the narrow compartment. Catching the Senior Seaman as he pulled his foot quickly downward, the chief didn’t waste any time in expressing his wrath.
“Oh, and what do we have here, a coffee party? I hate to be a nuisance, but would you mind telling me who’s running the store while you jokers are sitting here with your feet up jawing?”
Guilt filled their faces as the two seamen set their coffee cups down. While the moustached chief squeezed his bulky figure forward. Lefty looked up sheepishly.
“I’m sorry. Chief, but we were only waiting for the Marlin to complete its detachment. There was so much racket going on out there that there wasn’t much else that we could hear anyway.”
“Oh, so you two decided to have a little coffee klatch,” spat the still-fuming chief.
“And here I was only minutes ago having the riot act read to me by the XO, that we should be especially on the ball these next couple of hours. You should have heard me bragging how you two were the best in the Navy, and that you’d never let us down. If the XO had walked in with me, I could have never shown my face in front of him again.”
Sliding on his headphones, Lefty reached out to get back to work.
“Don’t worry, Chief. If those Russkies are still out there, you got the right guys to find them.”
Softening a bit, Desiante responded, “That had better be the case, Jackman. I don’t go about boasting about every wet-eared seaman who answers to me. Now, let’s see what we’ve got out there!”
Reaching out for an auxiliary set of phones, the chief snapped on a headset himself. His breath was heavy as he sat down on the stool immediately behind the two sonar technicians. Rubbing his creased forehead, he struggled to clear his mind of everything but the series of sounds that was now being funnelled into his ears.
Responsible for the source and volume of this noise was Lefty Jackman. By turning a thick plastic dial, the senior seaman was able to determine which of the Razorback’s hull-mounted hydrophones were to be isolated. A sweep of the waters to the west, the direction in which they were currently heading, picked up nothing but the loud, distinctive chattering of millions of shrimp. As he turned the dial to penetrate the waters to the south, they heard the playful, squealing voices of a pod of dolphins. Oblivious to the almost human-like moans and clicks that filled the seas there. Lefty rotated the scan to check their baffles. There, they had to be extra careful to listen over the steady drone of the Razorback’s own engines.
It was while inching the dial forward with the most delicate of touches that Lefty isolated one of the stern hydrophones and picked up a faraway muted vibration.
To the average listener, this sound would have been practically indistinguishable from the myriad of other noises audible. But to Lefty Jackman’s sensitive ear, this resonance was as noticeable as an improperly tuned musical instrument. Turning the dial quickly backward to isolate the exact location of this sound, Lefty felt his pulse quicken. Only when he turned the volume gain to its maximum level did he turn to address his coworkers.