In ninety seconds the operation room’s population doubled. Jake took his stance over the Subtics monitors and placed the earpiece over his ear. The Hai Lang was at battle stations.
Renard stood behind the periscope. Jake walked to him.
“Antoine heard diesel engines,” he said. “I guessed a speed of seven knots and came out with a range of nineteen miles. That’s a swag, though.”
“I know,” Renard said, “but it’s all we have. We’ll assume it’s the Hamza and drive a better solution on it.”
“We’re low on fuel,” Jake said. “We barely have enough to get to our rendezvous ship.”
“Very well,” Renard said. “We’ll slow to five knots and head due north. If the contact is indeed the Hamza, it will head east, and we will drive appreciable bearing rate to refine the solution. Let fate then decide if we have enough fuel for an approach and engagement.”
An hour later, Jake stared over Remy’s shoulders. His excitement piqued as Remy announced his findings.
“I hear their screw,” he said. “It sounds just like ours! It’s the Hamza!”
Before anyone answered, Remy blurted another report.
“Diesel engine noises have secured,” he said. “I hear hull popping. I’ve lost the screw, too. They’ve dived below the surface layer.”
Jake stood and locked eyes with Renard.
“They’re gone, Pierre,” he said. “We can probably regain them if we chase them. We have the advantage.”
“But no fuel, mon ami,” Renard said. “You said it yourself. Our reach is limited.”
“One shot,” Jake said. “We’ve got plenty of torpedoes. Let’s send a slow, low-probability shot at them and see if we get lucky.”
Renard blew smoke, and it wafted into the overhead.
“We might alert them to our presence.”
“So what?” Jake asked. “They don’t have the fuel to chase us either. By the time we reach our refueling rendezvous, we’ll be long gone from wherever they hear our weapon, and I bet they won’t even hear it.”
“You have a good point. Do you also have a targeting solution?” Renard asked.
“Set in tube two.”
“Tube two?” Renard asked.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “A tube on the disengaged side. If by chance someone’s listening for a torpedo, it’s better to shoot from the opposite side of the submarine. That hides some of the noise.”
“A tactic I had forgotten,” Renard said. “Why did you not mention that when I shot the Kilos?”
“Because you had it right then. I guess that was by random luck.”
Renard exhaled another lungful of smoke.
“Random luck plays a part, mon ami. Shoot tube two.”
Minutes passed, and Jake watched the Hai Lang’s silent torpedo vector in the Hamza’s direction.
“Does the torpedo hear the Hamza?” Renard asked.
Jake shook his head.
More time passed, and the torpedo’s fuel waned.
“The Hamza is too quiet,” Jake said. “We can barely hear it, but the torpedo can’t hear it at all. Do you want to go active?”
“Do you?” Renard asked.
I was afraid he’d ask, he thought.
“In a tail chase, weapon-on-stern, with uncertain range to the Hamza, it would announce our presence with little hope of the torpedo acquiring. They’re too far away, and the torpedo’s almost out of fuel.”
“Too far for command detonation?”
“Damage to them would be minimal at best,” Jake said. “Probably just a tap on the shoulder saying we’re here.”
“I agree, mon ami,” Renard said. “Shut down the weapon, and let us make for our rendezvous.”
Commander Rodriguez trotted to the Hawaii’s control room. Jones stooped over a monitor with a fire control technician.
“Transients bearing one-zero-eight,” Jones said.
“What sort of transients? Launch transients?”
“Could be, sir, but we can’t tell. There’s nothing else on that bearing. I’d say it was a merchant, except that I would have expected more noise.”
Rodriguez reviewed his tactical scenario. For nearly four weeks, the Hamza had bee-lined towards Hawaii, and refinement of the solution set its destination near the channel entrance to Pearl Harbor.
“We can break trail from the Hamza for a while, executive officer,” he said. “It looks like he’s got no surprises up his sleeve and we can catch up with him later. Let’s see who made that noise.”
Twelve hours later, the Hawaii’s deck angled below Rodriguez. He watched a monitor as if watching television. The photo-optics mast portrayed a scene far more entertaining than anything he’d seen on cable.
“Are we sure that’s not the Hamza?” he asked.
Watching the monitor, Jones stood beside him.
“Positive, sir. I think we found its alter ego.”
“Can you make out the name of that tanker?”
“No, sir. But I bet if we can upload this back home, someone will be able to clean it up and match it with some port authority manifest somewhere.”
Rodriguez glanced again at the monitor. A surfaced diesel submarine was mated to a tanker that dwarfed it in the moonlight. Cables ran what looked like fuel lines into the submarine’s hull. A second monitor showed the scene in night vision, outlining chains that lowered boxes to the submarine’s open forward hatch.
“Looks like they’re loading some food, too.”
“So this has got to be the Hai Lang, sir,” Jones said. “It’s chasing down the Hamza.”
“Or racing it somewhere,” Rodriguez said.
“Should we risk a secure uplink, sir?”
“Not yet,” Rodriguez said. “We’ll wait until they submerge before we broadcast. But until someone tells us otherwise, our focus remains the Hamza.”
CHAPTER 31
The vomiting sessions grew more frequent, and Hayat could no longer conceal his weight loss with baggy coveralls. He had asked the corpsman to explain his emaciation as an exercise program with the side effect of exhaustion. The crew either believed the lie or feigned accepting it.
Courageous, competent, and strong, he thought. A mighty crew as a mighty gift.
He ingested another round of codeine and bismuth fluid and headed toward the operations room. The walk seemed longer each time.
He braced himself against the hatch frame for support as he passed through. Feeling weak in the knees, he reached for Raja.
Raja had learned to accept his handshake while stabilizing him and guiding him into the captain’s chair behind the periscope. He had become so good at the supporting gesture that Hayat no longer felt the men’s eyes scrutinizing him as he wobbled into the seat.
He sat and recovered his strength. Raja had also learned to distract the operations room by having them refine the ship’s trim or navigation until Hayat was ready to speak. Hayat watched Raja and noted that he glanced back frequently, looking for a cue.
Hayat opened his mouth, and Raja was there.
“Yes, sir,” Raja said.
“At four knots, how far are we from the loiter point?”
“Fifteen days, sir.”
“The battery?”
“Sixty-eight percent, sir.”
“The Stennis? Arrival date?”
“Unchanged, sir,” Raja said. “We are picking up more and more radio traffic as we approach. Many merchants are talking about the carrier’s visit.”