“Conn, sonar, the incoming torpedo is close, damned close. If we don’t put on some turns we’re not going to make it.”
“Eng, what’s the status?”
“WE’VE BARELY GOT STEAM COMING DOWN THE HEADER NOW. IT’LL BE AT LEAST TWO MINUTES BEFORE I CAN GET EMERGENCY WARMUPS DONE ON THE TURBINE GENERATORS, ANOTHER TWO BE FORE I CAN GIVE YOU THE MAIN ENGINES.”
“Keep going, Eng.”
The overhead speaker clicked twice. At least, Kane thought, the engineer and the crew aft could stay busy, their minds occupied. All the control-room crew could do was wait.
Kane listened as the room grew suddenly quiet. Outside the hull he could hear the sound of the incoming Nagasaki’s propulsor, the high-pitched noise turning from a whine to a scream. He could hear the clicking of its under-ice sonar.
The noises now seemed loudest through the deck, as if the weapon were coming in from below.
The wait seemed interminable. Kane was almost relieved when the torpedo detonated.
A distant rumble sounded through the hull, its direction indiscernible.
“What was that?” Sharef asked, standing behind the Second Captain consoles, leaning heavily on his makeshift cane, fatigue hanging on him like a hundred-pound weight.
“Nagasaki torpedo detonation at the bearing to the suspected second intruder. Commodore. And, wait a minute … I’m getting the sounds of flooding and something else. Maybe compartment bulkheads collapsing. A very loud rushing noise.”
Rouni turned to Commander Tawkidi. “Commander, you should hear this.”
Tawkidi listened, shook his head. He handed the headphones to Sharef. The noise was terrifying, a high-pitched shrieking and a deep shaking growling noise, the two sounds weaving in pitch and rising and falling, the sound of a monstrous beast dying. As Sharef listened he wanted nothing more than to take off the headset and never hear the awful sounds again, knowing now that the screaming would haunt him to his last day. Finally the noise seemed to weaken, to give way to the frigid waters and die. Sharef handed back the headset.
“I’m not certain, perhaps it was a thermal shock, a rupture of their high-temperature reactor equipment leaking to the cold of the sea.” What could he say about the sounds of a ship dying? The anger he had previously felt at the Americans for sinking his Sahand and for the weapons they had shot at the Hegira had been dissipated. He realized now that their attempts to sink the ship had been blind and frantic, that now Hegira would prevail and rain down death on their capital city. But it was a victory distinctly empty to him. He had no desire to do this, to have this mass murder be connected to his name. Perhaps, in his way, the general had the right idea, that launching the Scorpion would hold back the West and allow his people to live in a united Muslim world, gaining a new recognition from the rest of the world, a new respect. Though hard to believe that killing on the scale they aspired to would earn them that, it happened at the end of the second world war when the Americans themselves had leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Perhaps it was oddly appropriate that they would now be on the receiving end of the destruction from a missile called the Hiroshima.
Sharef became aware that his thoughts were rambling and tried to plug back into the tactical situation developing around him.
“What is the status of the first-launched Nagasakis?” he asked.
“Still on their run to the target, sir.”
“Same course? Is he evading to the south?”
Tawkidi frowned. “Strangely, no, sir. The torpedoes are now bearing southwest.”
“The American has perhaps lost his navigational ability.
Or his mind,” Rouni said, smiling. “They would be heading for the shallows at Ungava Ridge if they’re going west. If the torpedoes don’t kill them, running aground will. Wait …”
Rouni pressed the headset closer to his ears. “I think the weapons are speeding up to attack velocity, sir. Detonation should be in the next five minutes.”
Sharef nodded. The two threats were neutralized. It was time to launch. “Status of the Scorpion?” He looked at the weapons-control area with Sub.-Lt. Omar al-Maari at the console. Al-Maari had once reported to the weapons officer, Aboud Mamun, who had been killed in the initial torpedo detonation.
“Self-check is satisfactory. Warhead computer is functional at one hundred percent, target coordinates and waypoints confirmed. Hiroshima airframe navigational computer is functional at full capacity. Fuel cells are pressurized, turbine bearings are lubed and warm, winglet hinges articulation checks are nominal, circuit continuity to the solid rocket fuel is verified. Tube one is pressurized and open to sea, bow cap open, gas generator ready. Recommend recommencing countdown, sir.”
“Commence sixty-second automatic-countdown sequence.”
“Commencing now at launch minus fifty-nine seconds.”
“Conn, sonar, the last own-ship units have shut down. The explosion from bearing zero one eight was accompanied by hull-breakup noises. We’ve probably lost the Phoenix. And the incoming torpedoes are increasing speed, Captain,” Holt reported on the headphones. All the bad news, condensed into a nutshell. There was no time to elaborate, not with the Nagasakis on their way and in close.
The attack so far had been a complete failure, Pacino realized.
The fathometer read 280 fathoms beneath the keel as the water grew shallower at the rise of the ridge. Not shallow enough, not yet, he thought, but it would have to do.
Perhaps by the time he’d completed the work for his last-resort plan the ridge beneath them would be shallower than test depth. He could only hope.
“XO, I’ve got one last idea,” Pacino said, knowing now that Vaughn would have to go along. With the two Nagasakis coming in on final approach, what else could they do?
“Love to hear it. Skipper,” Vaughn drawled. Hope flashed momentarily across the hollow-cheeked faces in the control room, then slowly faded.
“We’ll launch the Vortex bank. We may only get one of them off, and they may breach the hull and make the tubes explode, but if the hull’s going to be breached in the next five minutes anyway … at least we can kiss Sihoud and the Destiny goodbye even if we can’t confirm a kill before the Nagasakis get to us.”
Vaughn understood immediately, but Pacino sensed he had known that his captain had foreseen this eventuality all along.
“We’ll do it, sir. I’ll evacuate the watchstanders outside the control room to the engineroom.”
“Weps, select the Vortex battery on the WCP, line up and pressurize all Vortex tubes, spin up all Vortex missiles and make preparations for launch of the battery.”
Court flipped through the weapon-control panel displays, selected the Vortex bank, flooded the tubes and opened the outer doors. The tubes were engineered so that all three could be opened at once, with large-bore piping for rapid flooding. While Court lined up the tubes he selected the Vortex warhead computers, fixing the presets for departure depth. He came to target bearing and stopped, jerking his head around.
“We have a bearing to the target?” “Select Target One from the firecontrol generated bearing,” Pacino said, knowing it wouldn’t matter if the bearing was off by several degrees.
“Aye, sir. Vortex missiles one, two and three are spun up and ready for launch. Launch interval, sir?”
Pacino had considered the answer. They couldn’t be launched simultaneously, or they would interfere with each other, the solid rockets blowing apart neighboring missiles.