Where the hell had K449 got to?
They were now some 600 miles away from the African continent and the Cape of Good Hope. To enter the Atlantic would be placing himself and his crew in a highly dangerous situation, especially now he had been signalled that American and British warships were heavily patrolling all entrances into that ocean. Where there were surface ships, there would certainly be submarines; the next seventy-two hours would be crucial and no doubt fraught with danger. Captain Denko would be exposing the sub to sonar detection and God knows what else if he remained out in the open much longer on the current course. If he was to successfully enter the Atlantic he would need to lose himself in coastal noise. He turned to the helmsman.
“Course three-one-five. Speed twenty knots. Make your depth three hundred.”
* * *
The sleek, black submarine sliced silently through the dark depths of the Indian Ocean, 400 feet below the surface. It ran at twenty knots, some 1500 miles south of the Cape of Good Hope. Captain Michael Curtis sat thoughtfully in the commander’s seat listening to the voices that were quietly issuing instructions around him. Glancing now and then at the rows of display screens lining the bulkheads, he was able to monitor everything taking place through the computer screens and large colour display consoles integrating all of the boat’s sensors, countermeasures, navigation and weapon systems. Dominating were the big screens for the optronic high-resolution digital colour cameras, allowing him and others on the command deck to see what was happening above and below the surface in clear and precise terms. The change from the traditional periscopes to non-hull penetrating masts installed in the sail structure took some getting used to, but now he would not be without. At thirty-nine years of age, he was the youngest captain to command a submarine of this class, the HMS Ambush – the British Navy’s state-of-the-art, nuclear-powered, Astute-class attack submarine – and commanded a crew of 110 officers and enlisted men.
Designed for stealth in deep ocean anti-submarine warfare, as well as shallow water operations, Ambush propelled by two 50,000-horsepower steam turbine engines, could obtain speeds submerged in excess of twenty-five knots. With a displacement of 7,800 tons submerged, the boat could dive to beyond 1,000 feet. At speeds up to twenty knots, the only sound heard is sea water parted by her 318-foot long titanium hull, sheathed in a sound-absorbent coating.
Captain Curtis had been ordered to break away from sea trials in the central Atlantic and patrol the waters between the African continent and Antarctica to search for a Russian Delta III-class submarine, the K449, along with an Akula-class – K267. Once spotted, he was to set them in his sights and disable. Any other Russian sub he encountered was to be reported to COMOPS for further orders. He felt good knowing he was now on full operational duty. This unexpected special deployment would be his first real independent command of this lethal war machine, which encapsulated him hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean. He surmised that if the Russian K449 had left Rybachiy and the British Isles was the destination, the shorter route would be across the Indian Ocean, not the Pacific, thus avoiding the danger of Drake Passage. Whatever the reason for COMOPS wanting to destroy any Russian sub entering the Atlantic, he hoped Ambush would make the kill – the first for him and the first for any Royal Navy submarine since HMS Conqueror torpedoed and sunk the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano during the Falklands war. The anticipation of possibly deploying Spearfish torpedoes against any Russian submarine attempting to enter the Atlantic filled him with a mixture of dread and excitement; dread that he might fail and excitement that at last he would be able to put all the theory into practice. This deployment, however, had the real possibility of his boat ending up at the bottom of the ocean.
Captain Curtis had been patrolling the seas above the Antarctic Circle for more than a week in a triangular search pattern where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans met. Ambush’s search speed had ranged between fifteen and twenty-five knots and had covered the triangle twice so far without so much as a whiff of any Russian. He had to use good judgement in his selection of speed – too slow and the search could seem endless or, worse still, he could miss any contact that might be on the 1,000-mile sonar periphery. Too fast would introduce more noise, which in turn would reduce the listening range. He hoped he would be close enough to hear the quarry, but be far enough away to avoid counter detection. No surface or submerged vessel could activate its sonar or radar, communicate or move without Ambush hearing. The acoustic countermeasures system guarding against torpedo attack would provide him and his crew with early warning of incoming torpedoes. It would compute a quick range and bearing response, enabling deployment of decoy devices to seduce the torpedo away from the hull. Her thirty-eight Tomahawk cruise missiles together with twenty-four Spearfish wire-guided torpedoes made his submarine attack capabilities second to none.
“Captain – sonar. Contact. Designate Sierra One. Faint signature. Submersible. Relative one-three-zero.”
“Captain, aye. Come right on bearing. Resolve ambiguity.” Captain Curtis suddenly felt a surge of anticipation at a positive hostile contact and possible chase.
HMS Ambush turned to allow sonar to confirm the bearing.
Minutes passed and there was fleeting contact once again. The computers whirred to determine the type, range and speed for the second time.
Seconds later, “Captain – sonar. Contact too weak to fully translate. Possibly Russian.”
“Captain, aye.” Curtis turned to the helmsman. “Maintain course. Make your speed twenty.”
“Helmsman, aye. Maintain course. Speed twenty knots.”
“I’ll lay money that was a Russian sub,” said the captain to his XO, Robert Talbot. Then to communications, he ordered, “Captain – comms. Relay what we have of that last sonar transmission to group, just in case no one else picked it up.”
“So let’s go get it,” the XO replied with a grin. “You may well be right; Russian subs rarely come this far south. The contact must’ve been right on the edge of the range. If it’s one we’re looking for, the bearing suggests she may be heading for the Cape and noisier coastal waters.”
“We could lose her if she goes hugging the coastline at five to ten knots. I want us closer to that last bearing. Maybe we’ll get lucky and pick it up again, this time with a positive fix.”
“And if she’s not K449 or K267, but still Russian?”
“Await orders from COMOPS,” the captain replied, fixing Talbot with steely ice-blue eyes.
“Captain – comms. Signal from COMOPS.”
“Captain – comms. Roger that. Immediate translation required.”
Talbot raised his eyebrows and side-glanced the captain. “Direct from commander of Maritime Operations. This must be important.”
Seconds later the deciphered signal came up on the captain’s personal monitor, which he quickly read before turning to the XO.
“Change of orders. We are to proceed immediately to patrol between the Strait of Magellan and the Falklands, then at our discretion patrol the South American eastern seaboard up to the equator. They want us to cover the possibility of a sub attempting passage through the Strait.” He paused, then exclaimed, “Damn! Just when we might’ve been on to something.”
“That’s the way it goes, Captain. Ours is not to wonder why,” Talbot offered, a broad smile creasing his round, open features under cropped dark hair. Slightly taller than the captain, five years his senior and equally muscular and fit, Talbot, like Curtis, had no other wish than to be in submarines. One more year as XO and he would be recommended for a command of his own. In the meantime, Curtis was glad to have him as second in command.