There was less than two hundred yards now separating the Johnston from the torpedo hunting her. The vectors and speeds involved were complex, but Juan had a handle on it all.
“Wait for it,” he said. If he detonated the rocket too early, there was a chance it wouldn’t cut all the wire.
Too late and the Kilo’s crew of fifty-three were going to die.
“Wait for it,” he repeated, watching the Hoot arrow through the sea and a faint line of disturbed water approaching the supertanker’s exposed flank.
One torpedo was fifty yards from its target, the other, three hundred, but their relative speeds were so vastly different that they would reach their objectives at precisely the same instant.
“Now!”
Mark hit the button that sent an autodestruct signal to the torpedo’s onboard computer. The warhead and remaining solid rocket fuel blew a fraction of a second later, sending an erupting geyser of water into the air and opening a hole in the sea that was fifty feet deep and equally as wide. A stunning concussion wave radiated from explosion. It hit the Oregon bow on, but hammered the side of the Aggie Johnston so that the massive ship heeled slightly to port.
With the explosion’s acoustical onslaught reverberating through the sea, it made passive sonar signals impossible to detect. Cabrillo focused his attention on the topside camera shot of the Petromax supertanker. She rolled ponderously back to an even keel. He continued to watch her for a moment before a smile crossed his lips. There was no explosion from a torpedo slamming into her hull. Max’s plan had worked. The wires coiling out from the Kilo to guide her fish had been cut, and the weapons immediately shut down.
“Linda, tell me the instant you hear anything,” he ordered.
“Computer is compensating now. Give me another few seconds.” Hali turned in his seat. “Chairman, the pilot of one of the S-3B Vikings wants to know what just happened.”
“Stall him,” Juan said, his focus still on Linda, who sat as still as a statue, her right hand clamping the sonar headphones tightly to her head while in front of her tendrils of light floated down the sonar system’s waterfall display.
She finally looked over at him. “No high-speed props sounds, so the three remaining torpedoes are dead and most likely on their way to the bottom. I hear machinery noises from the Kilo and alarms coming from inside the hull. Wait . . . Okay, it’s pumps and . . . they’re blowing ballast.” A bright smile bloomed on her impish face. “We did it! They’re on their way to the surface.” A round of cheers and applause reverberated through the Op Center, and even Max’s bulldog face cracked into a grin.
“Nice job, everybody. Especially you, Mr. Murphy, and you, too, Max. Tell the team who installed the rocket torpedo and modified the tube to expect a little something extra in their next paychecks.” Although each member of the crew shared in the Corporation’s profits on a sliding scale, Cabrillo delighted in handing out bonuses for work above and beyond. It was part of the reason he engendered so much loyalty, though mainly that came because he was the best natural leader any of the people under him had ever worked for.
“Look at that!” Eric Stone gasped.
On the main display, he had shifted the camera view to show the spot of ocean where the Kilo had launched its ambush. The water boiled like a maelstrom, and, in the center of the disturbance, a blunt object rose from the sea. As the bow of the Iranian sub emerged, they could see her hull plates were buckled, as if she had run full speed into a seamount. The normally convex nose was dimpled in the center, the result of the rocket torpedo exploding sixty yards in front of her.
The craft continued to surface, bobbing on waves of her own creation. As it steadied, Stone zoomed the camera in on the damaged hull plates, the Oregon’s computer automatically compensating for the ship’s motion so the image remained rock steady. Air bubbled up from around the torn metal—not much, but enough to indicate the Kilo was taking on water. Hatches on her conning tower and her fore and aft decks were thrown open and a stream of men poured out of the crippled sub.
“You getting anything from them, Hali?” Juan asked.
“General distress calls, sir. Their pumps are barely keeping pace with the flooding. They are requesting assistance from the naval base at Chah Bahar. Her captain hasn’t ordered them to abandon ship, but he wants all unnecessary personnel on deck in case they founder.”
“Are they asking for help from any ships in the area?”
“Negative, and I doubt they will.”
“Agreed. Firing at civilian freighters without warning violates about fifty international treaties.”
“And what do you call what we did back at Bandar Abbas?” Max asked, just to tease.
“Petty larceny,” Cabrillo dismissed, “punishable by a fine and a couple hours of community service.” Just then, the pair of S-3Bs off the American aircraft carrier streaked over the Oregon and flew less than a hundred feet off the surface of the ocean as they roared down the Kilo’s length. Sailors dove flat on the decks as the jet wash ripped across their uniforms.
“Chairman, the pilot of the lead Viking still wants to talk to you,” Hali said. “And I’m getting an official request from the carrier that we remain in position. It’s a Commander Charles Martin, aboard the George Washington.”
“Pipe it over,” Juan said, and settled earphones over his head and adjusted the integrated microphone.
“This is Juan Cabrillo, master of the MV Oregon. What can I do for you, Commander?”
“Captain Cabrillo, we would like to send over a contingent of men to debrief your crew about what just occurred. The captains of the Saga and Aggie Johnston have already agreed. A helicopter can reach you in twenty minutes. The guided missile cruiser Port Royal will be there in two hours if you don’t have facilities for landing a chopper.”
“With all due respect, Commander Martin, none of my crew saw anything. I myself was asleep, and the watch stander on duty is blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other.” Martin’s voice sharpened. “Captain, I needn’t remind you that coalition forces operating in these waters reserve the right to inspect all shipping entering or leaving the Persian Gulf. I call this a request out of courtesy, but it is an order. You will remain where you are and prepare to be boarded.” Juan understood the pressure the Navy was under to interdict potential terrorists from using the Gulf as a highway for weapons and fighters, but there was no way he was going to let them inspect the Oregon.
Corrupt officials in foreign ports could be easily dissuaded from searching the scabrous freighter, but this was not the case with the U.S. military.
“Could you please stand by?” Juan requested. He covered the mike with his hand and called over to Hali Kasim. “Get Overholt on the horn. Tell him what’s going on, and have him get these guys off our back.
Eric, set a course bearing one hundred and five degrees, and make our speed eighteen knots.” He took his hand away from the microphone. “Sorry about that, Commander. We can’t land a chopper on the Oregon, so you’ll have to send a boarding party from the Port Royal.”
“Very well, Captain. Plan on our arrival at about eleven hundred hours.”
“We’ll leave the light on for ya,” Juan drawled, and ended the call. He glanced around the Op Center.
“Anyone want to bet? Twenty bucks to the person who guesses the closest.” The crew knew immediately what he was referring to.