“The bearing is difficult to calculate at that angle,” Hayat said. “It could be ten degrees either way.”
“Shall I commence a break-trail maneuver?”
Hayat raised his palm.
“Do not be hasty. No need to attract attention.”
Raja stood and approached within whispering range.
“Sir, are you willing to take no action?”
“If it is a submarine or any combatant with hostile intent, it would already have killed us.”
“And if we are being followed, sir? The mission could be at risk.”
“We have nearly two months and ten thousand miles to travel,” Hayat said. “If we are being trailed, I doubt our adversary has the food stores, patrol authority, or patience to follow us to our end.”
Raja straightened.
“You mean to do nothing, sir?”
“We do not have the fuel or time to waste.”
“We could attack, sir. Rid ourselves of the concern.”
His confidence is growing, Hayat thought. I must temper it with wisdom.
“Attack a three-minute old transient with an uncertain bearing? We may as well shoot a torpedo into oblivion.”
“We can turn and optimize our sensors against it.”
“You would create flow noise and rudder swath while in the sites of an alerted adversary,” Hayat said.
Raja leaned back into whispering range.
“I begin to sense fear in the men, sir,” Raja said.
“This is a long and slow journey into the teeth of the enemy,” Hayat said. “It is natural to be scared. We faced our fear once before and overcame our adversary in battle. And so we shall again. Maintain course and speed.”
Over ten seconds, Commander Rodriguez had felt the rise, fall, and resurgence of fear cascade through him. A shriek over the hiss of water had announced a flooding casualty over the ship’s emergency circuit. The inrush from the buoy and countermeasure launch tube had compelled him to spring from his seat and contemplate a critical decision.
He had thought of emergency blowing to the surface — releasing high-pressure air into the Hawaii’s ballast tanks in a contained explosion. It would have revealed his position to the Agosta, condemning him to a potential torpedo attack. Stretching the limits of his patience as the early seconds of the flooding unfolded, he had waited.
The report had finally come.
The flooding is stopped.
One of Rodriguez’ sailors had tripped the flood control valve system for the backup valves that stopped the flooding.
Thankful his patience had precluded him from blowing to the surface, Rodriguez exhaled. But his moment of relief was short.
He had darted to the row of sonar monitors to stare over the shoulders of his acoustic experts. Ten seconds after his panic began, it rose again.
“We just made noise,” he said. “Watch for signs of counter-detection. Listen for signs of weapon launch.”
Rodriguez thought of kicking the Hawaii into high gear and evading. He could break away and come back, but he didn’t want to risk losing the Agosta. Again, he exercised patience and confidence in his ship and crew.
Over tense minutes, the Agosta gave no indication of having heard the Hawaii. Rodriguez stepped to a fire control display.
“Still at seven knots?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Chief Bartlett said. “And still on course zero-eight-three. He didn’t flinch, sir. Wish I could say the same. I think I wet myself.”
Rodriguez returned to his captain’s chair and waited. A minute later, his obese executive officer led a leather-faced chief petty officer into the control room.
“It looks like a gasket blew in the control valve that locks the breach door,” Jones said. “When they opened the muzzle door to launch the communications buoy, the breach popped open. The water knocked Davis half way across the compartment, but Martin was able to get to the flood control valves.”
“Davis is okay?” Rodriguez asked.
“He swallowed half the ocean, but the corpsman thinks he’ll be fine.”
“The buoy?”
“Stuck in the launcher.”
“Then nobody knows we’re trailing this Agosta yet. I wanted to get a message off with a buoy, but it looks like we’re going to have to bite the bullet and go to periscope depth to communicate.”
“We can fix the control valve, sir,” the leather-face chief said. “If the problem is what I think it is, we just need to replace the gasket. I can’t guarantee that it won’t rupture again until we have more time to troubleshoot the whole system, but repairs to get it working again won’t take long. It’s just a matter of making a lot of noise.”
“How long do you need?”
“Six to twelve hours. We need to isolate hydraulics to the valve, and it’s got some small innards. Takes a little skill to take apart and put back together.”
“That’s too long,” Rodriguez said.
“What if you removed the control valve, repaired it offline in the engine room where everything is soundproofed, and then put it back?” Jones asked. “It would take longer overall, but you’d only make noise removing and reinstalling it.”
“We’d have to disengage this Agosta twice, once while removing the valve and once while reinstalling it,” Rodriguez said. “But at the speed he’s moving, we could reacquire him.”
“I’m pretty sure my guys can fix it like the executive officer says, sir,” the chief said.
“Okay,” Rodriguez said. “Map out the isolation boundary and get the system isolated. Try to be ready to work at the beginning of the next watch section.”
The chief stepped away.
“The Agosta didn’t make a peep,” Rodrgiuez said. “Either he didn’t hear us, or he didn’t care.”
“He’s now well beyond the Chinese exclusion zone,” Jones said. “He’s going somewhere. You were right to follow him, sir.”
“I want to think he’s transiting somewhere, but he’s moving so slow. Seven knots doesn’t get you anywhere fast. That ship was designed for ten knots transit.”
“But the slower you go, the less you have to snorkel.”
“Relevant if you’re remaining hidden,” Rodriguez said. “And it extends range, if you’re concerned about fuel.”
Jones slipped into another thought stupor.
“Sir,” he said after emerging from thought. “I’ll double check, but I suspect that an Agosta has food stores for about sixty days. I think that’s the longest recorded Agosta patrol.”
Jones slid back into his stupor.
“Go on,” Rodriguez said.
“Sixty days, seven knots, leaving roughly from the northern tip of Taiwan, and traveling on course zero-eight-five,” Jones said. “That’s a great circle route to…”
His stomach brushing the seated Chief Bartlett aside, Jones stooped over a fire control monitor and fiddled with a trackball and buttons.
“…plus or minus a couple hundred miles either way,” Jones said, “if this Agosta maintains course and speed, he’ll arrive in the Hawaii operation areas with about a week’s left of food and fuel remaining.”
“Then maybe disengaging and going to periscope depth isn’t such a bad idea,” Rodriguez said. “We may need to do some two-way communications to figure out who this guy is, and see if anyone wants to tell us what to do about him.”
CHAPTER 23
Knowing he would face battle today, Jake had slept fitfully during the night. The Hai Lang was submerged, twenty-five miles northeast of Keelung.