The first words out of his mouth: "Sheeit! Did that sonofabitch try to lift off yet?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ski was safe in the Can, the umbilical was coiled in the Outer Lock, and Bobby was back at full extension with the Basketball. Since Ski cut his umbilical, Sonar had been tracking some unusual activity from the Whiskey. Sonar reported the unmistakable sounds of electric motors starting up and hydraulic pumps engaging.
Suddenly a godawful screeching enveloped the Halibut. It seemed to be coming from everywhere, but Sonar said it was from the Whiskey. The monitor showed a thickening cloud around the Soviet sub's stern. The screeching stopped, and the current swept away the cloud. Through the murk I saw the flash of the missile skin. It was partially torn loose, and in flashes I could see that it was tightly jammed in the starboard propeller shaft. I couldn't see the port shaft, but it was pretty obvious that the starboard shaft wasn't going anywhere soon.
I excused myself, leaving Ham in charge of the dive system, and went to Control. The Skipper and Dirk were already there discussing the situation with Senior Chief Barkley.
"They're revving their hydraulic pumps right now," Travis was saying. He pointed at the monitor. "As you can see, the stern planes aren't moving." He grinned at me. "Nice work, El-Tee."
"Thanks, Senior Chief, but it was Ski. You know that."
"Somebody made it happen, Sir," Travis answered. "We know who we got onboard, Sir," he said as he went back to Sonar.
"No forward motion," Dirk said, "no stern planes and probably no bow planes either. This guy's going no place but up."
"Nav," the Skipper said to Larry, who had the Deck, "cut the two anchor cables immediately!" He turned to Dirk and said, "See to it, Eng. And bring up the plant… right now! When he blows, I want flank speed out of here!"
Five minutes later Dirk reported that both anchors were released, just as Sonar reported that the Whiskey had commenced blowing main ballast. Seconds before, Maneuvering had reported ready to answer all bells.
"Ahead flank, make your depth two-hundred feet, left full rudder, make your course one-eight-zero," Larry ordered.
Five seconds later we were whipping through the water leaving nothing but cavitation bubbles in our wake.
"Keep it up for ninety seconds," the Skipper told Larry. "Then come to all stop, and coast while Sonar gets their bearings."
A minute and a half later, Larry shut it down, and placed Halibut in a shallow dive to let gravity help pull us even further away from a very angry Soviet submarine skipper.
Sonar reported that the Whiskey was still on its way to the surface, so Larry kicked it in the ass again for another thirty seconds. When he shut down this time, Sonar reported that the Whiskey had surfaced. That meant we had another minute or so to pour on the power, so Larry hit it one more time, holding it for a full sixty seconds. When he shut down this time, Sonar reported that the Whiskey was shutting down on the surface.
I wished I could have seen it — no bow planes, no stern planes, no screws — 250 feet of submarine floundering in the waves. With no way to gain forward momentum, the Whiskey couldn't even use his rudder for stability. I could picture the Russian Skipper pissed to the eyeballs, urging his men to solve his triple problems. The bow planes would not have been much of a problem to correct, but the stern planes and screws involved divers in the water, which — on the surface — offered no small danger in a heaving sea. But it had to be done.
Furthermore, the Whiskey Skipper was now fairly certain of the presence of another submarine — one with special capabilities. After all, no known fish species can tie knots in lifeline cable. The Whiskey commander also knew the probable direction of his quarry, and while he would not be getting underway for some time, he did have sonar. Granted, it was no match with ours, but it still was capable of finding us if the Whiskey got close enough.
That's why Larry used every trick in the book to put distance between us and the Soviets. By the time the Whiskey was ready to look for us, we were miles away to the south, hundreds of feet below the diesel-powered Whiskey's maximum depth. Unless that Skipper was dumber than I thought, he wasn't going to give chase. There were simply too many variables. Besides, he had a more realistic option. Sooner or later his quarry — us — had to leave the Sea of Okhotsk. That meant transiting through one of the several relatively narrow passages between the Kuril Islands.
Ivan wasn't looking for us when we entered Okhotsk at what seemed like ages ago. He sure as hell would be looking for us on our way out. We had a 2,800-nautical-mile trip ahead of us: 700 miles to the middle of the Kurils, and another 2,100 or so to Guam. That is if we decided to sneak out, which looked like a very good idea right then.
The arithmetic worked out like this: We could do six knots all day with the Can on our stern and the sling holding the missile parts under our belly. That worked out to about five days to reach the sixty-mile wide gap between Shiashkotan and Matua Islands in the middle of the Kuril Chain, and about fifteen days in open ocean from there to Guam.
The Whiskey Skipper was in all likelihood all over the radio by now, explaining to his superiors what had happened — or at least what he thought might have happened. I would have loved to be privy to that conversation. But he was still on the surface, probably unable to get underway yet.
If I were the Whiskey Skipper, I mused, I would order a load of fuel on an underway replenishment, and hightail it on the surface through the gap the Halibut had entered, then down the outside of the Kurils, and station myself just below the layer about a hundred miles to the east. He had to know Guam was our goal. It was the closest U.S. submarine facility.
In any event, by the time we would be ready to lose ourselves in the North Pacific, the whole damn Soviet navy would be out there looking for us.
The Skipper called a Wardroom meeting for all officers and department chiefs. I left Ham at the Dive Console and arrived as the meeting was settling down. Lonie and Spook moved apart to make room for the chair I dragged up. All the officers were present except for the XO and Neil in the Control Room, and all the chiefs were present except Pots on the BCP.
The rest of us were listening to the Skipper talk.
"We need to get to Guam ASAP," he was saying, "but we need to do it without getting caught."
Nods around the table.
"We're limited to six knots. That's slow, but the silver lining is that at that speed we have very long ears. We may not be the quietest fish in the ocean, but we're a lot quieter than Ivan — especially at six knots." He paused and rolled a chart out on the table. I held down one corner, and three of the guys did the same.
"We're here," the skipper pointed to the lower end of Shelikhov Bay, and we're going here." He poked his finger at the southernmost of the Mariana Islands not far from the equator. "Guam." He sat back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. "The question is," he continued, "where do we cross these?" He leaned forward and swept his hand along the Kurils.
That's when I piped up with my theory of what I would do if I were the Whiskey skipper. I pointed at a spot to the east of the center of the island chain.