They watched it depart, the stuttering rotor sound diminishing on the breeze.
"What was that all about?" Edwards asked his sergeant.
"Beats the hell out of me, skipper. I think we better boogie on outa here. They were sure as hell looking for something, and I'll betcha it's us. Let's keep to places with some kind of cover."
"You got it, Jim. Lead off." Edwards walked back to Vigdis.
Is safe now?"
They've gone. Why don't you keep that jacket on. It makes you harder to spot."
It was two sizes too large for Edwards, and looked like a tent on Vigdis's diminutive frame. She held her arms out straight in an effort to get her hands out of the sleeves, and for the first time since he met her, Vigdis Agustdottir smiled.
USS PHARRIS
"All ahead one-third," the executive officer ordered.
"All ahead one-third, aye," the quartermaster of the watch responded, moving the annunciator handle up from the Ahead Full setting. A moment later the inside pointer changed also. "Engine room answers all ahead one-third."
"Very well."
Pharris slowed, coming off a twenty-five-knot sprint to commence another drift maneuver, and allowing her towed-array sonar to listen for hostile submarines. Morris was in his bridge chair, going over messages from shore. He rubbed his eyes and lit up another Pall Mall.
"Bridge," called the urgent voice of a lookout. "Periscope feather on the port bow! Halfway to the horizon, port bow!" Morris snatched his binoculars from the holder and had them to his eyes in an instant. He didn't see anything.
"Battle stations!" ordered the XO. The alarm gong went off a second later and weary men ran again to their posts. Morris looped his binoculars around his neck and ran down the ladder to his battle station in CIC.
The sonar loosed a dozen ranging pings to port as Morris took his position in CIC. Nothing. The helo lifted off as the frigate maneuvered north, allowing her towed-array sonar to track on the possible contact.
"Passive sonar contact, evaluate as possible submarine bearing zero-one-three," announced the towed-array operator. "Steam noises, sounds like a possible nuke."
"I got nothing there," said the active-sonar operator.
Morris and his ASW officer examined the water-conditions board. There was a layer at two hundred feet. The passive sonar was below it, and could well be hearing a submarine that the active pings could not reach. The lookout might have seen anything from a spouting whale this was the mating season for humpbacks-to a streak of foam... or the feathery wake left by a periscope. If it was a submarine, he had plenty of time to duck under the layer. The target was too close to be bottom bounced and too far for the sonar to blast directly through the layer.
"Less than five miles," ASW said. "More than two. If this is a sub, we're up against a good one."
"Great. Get the helo on him right now!" Morris examined the plot. The submarine could have heard his frigate as it sprinted at twenty-five knots. Now, at reduced speed, and with Prairie/Masker operating, Pharris would be very hard to detect... so the sub's fire-control solution had probably just gone out the window. But Morris didn't have one either, and the submarine was perilously close. An urgent contact report was radioed to the screen commander twenty miles away.
The Sea Sprite dropped a pattern of sonobuoys. Minutes passed.
"I got a weak signal on number six and a medium on number four," the sonobuoy petty officer said. Morris watched the plot. That made the contact less than three miles off.
"Drop some pingers," he ordered. Behind him the ship's weapons officer ordered the arming of the ASROC and torpedo launchers. Three miles off, the helicopter turned and swept across the target area, dropping three CASS buoys this time, which sent out active, nondirectional pings.
"Contact, a strong contact on buoy nine. Classify as possible submarine"
"I got him, bearing zero-one-five-this one's a sub, classify as positive submarine contact," said the towed-array man. "He just increased power. Some cavitation sounds. Single-screw submarine, maybe a Victor-class, bearing changing rapidly left-to-right."
The active sonar still didn't have him despite continuous maximum power pings down the correct line of bearing. The submarine was definitely under the layer.
Morris wanted to maneuver but decided against it. A radical turn would cause his towed-array sonar to curve, rendering it useless for several minutes. Then he would have to depend on sonobuoys alone, and Morris trusted his towed sonar more than the buoys.
"Bearing to contact is now zero-one-five and steady... noise level is down somewhat." The operator pointed at his screen. Morris was surprised. The contact bearing had been changing rapidly and was now steadied down?
The helicopter made yet another pass. A new sonobuoy registered the contact, but the MAD gear didn't confirm the presence of a submarine and the contact was fading. The noise level continued to drop. Morris watched the relative position of the contact pass aft. What the hell was this character doing?
"Periscope, starboard bow!" the talker reported.
"Wrong place, sir...unless we're looking at a noisemaker," the operator said.
The ASW officer had the active sonar change bearing and the results were immediate.
"Contact bearing three-four-five, range fifteen hundred yards!" A bright pip glowed on the sonar scope.
"All ahead flank!" Morris yelled. Somehow the submarine had evaded the towed sonar, then popped up atop the layer and run up his periscope That could only mean one thing. "Right full rudder."
"Hydrophone effects-torpedoes inbound, bearing three-five-one!"
Instantly the weapons officer ordered the launch of an antisubmarine torpedo down the same bearing in the hope that it would disturb the attacking submarine. If the Russian's torpedoes were wire-guided, he'd have to cut the wires free to maneuver the sub clear of the American return shot.
Morris raced up the ladder to the bridge. Somehow the submarine had broken contact and maneuvered into firing position. The frigate changed course and speed in an attempt to ruin the submarine's fire-control solution.
"I see one!" the XO said, pointing over the bow. The Soviet torpedo left a visible white trail on the surface. Morris noted it, something he had not expected. The frigate turned rapidly.
"Bridge, I show two torpedoes, bearing constant three-five-zero and decreasing range," the tactical action officer said rapidly. "Both are pinging at us. The Nixie is operating."
Morris lifted a phone. "Report the situation to the escort commander."
"Done, skipper. Two more helos are heading this way."
Pharris was now doing twenty knots and accelerating, turning her stem to the torpedoes. Her helicopter was now aft of the beam, frantically making runs with its magnetic anomaly detector, trying to locate the Soviet sub.
The torpedo's wake crossed past the frigate's bow as Morris's ship kept her helm over. There was an explosion aft. White water leaped a hundred feet into the air as the first Russian "fish" collided with the nixie torpedo decoy. But they had only one nixie deployed. There was another torpedo out there.
"Left full rudder!'' Morris told the quartermaster. "Combat, what about the contact?" The frigate was now doing twenty-five knots.
"Not sure, sir. The sonobuoys have our torp but nothing else."