“Just one. Wait. Now two more.”
“That should be enough to force a surfacing.”
“Launch transients!” Remy said. “Multiple launches. Master Two just shot from both its tubes.”
“And no signs of surfacing?”
“No.”
“That captain has balls.”
“Yes, and he also had the sense to wait until he heard our torpedo before shooting back at us.”
Jake stood.
“Torpedo evasion!”
“I don’t have a solution to the weapons yet,” Remy said.
“I’m not waiting. And this is a slow evasion. We have plenty of distance between us and the torpedoes, and I don’t want to make unnecessary noise or lose my drones. Henri, make turns for ten knots. Come right to course zero-six-one.”
Henri acknowledged the order, and the deck tilted. Jake placed his hands on the shoulders of Remy and his apprentice for balance and to get their attention.
“Guys, accelerate the drones to ten knots and send them on course zero-six-one.”
As men carried out his orders, Jake reminded himself to breathe and think. He remembered the Goliath.
“Antoine, do you have solutions on those incoming torpedoes yet?”
“Preliminary. I’m entering them into the system now.”
Jake disliked what he saw. One weapon would threaten his ship if he stayed in his position. Though he expected to drive out of the incoming seeker’s acquisition cone, he noticed the Goliath awaiting the torpedo near the end of its fuel range.
“Shit,” he said. “Time to risk underwater comms. Henri, line me up in the direction of the Goliath. One-quarter power.”
Jake trotted to the conning platform and reached for a microphone.
“You’re lined up at one-quarter power in the direction of the Goliath,” Henri said.
“Torpedo evasion,” Jake said. “Course zero-six-one. Ten knots. Torpedo evasion. Course zero-six-one. Ten knots. Torpedo evasion. Course zero-six-one. Ten knots.”
He lowered the microphone.
“Are you hearing this Antoine?”
“Yes, it’s going out clearly.”
“Double the power, Henri.”
“Power is doubled.”
“Torpedo evasion,” Jake said. “Course zero-six-one. Ten knots. Torpedo evasion. Course zero-six-one. Ten knots. Torpedo evasion. Course zero-six-one. Ten knots.”
Cahill’s garbled, echoing response shot from the control room’s loudspeaker.
“Evading on zero-six-one. Ten knots.”
Jake sighed and reached for his foldout captain’s chair. As he sat, he pondered his victims’ fates.
“Antoine, what’s going on with Master Two?”
“All the submunitions have detonated.”
“And?”
“Fighting for its life,” Remy said. “I hear high-pressure air as part of an emergency surfacing. I hear an attempt at maximum propulsion to drive upwards, and I hear the drain pump pushing as much water overboard as possible. It’s on the way up.”
“Holy shit,” Jake said. “Are you telling me I hit a North Korean submarine with a slow-kill, the entire payload has detonated, and the captain still has control of his ship?”
“I think our weapon detonated too far forward. Most of the submunitions missed, and a few probably attached and detonated in the free flood area of the bow. I’m thinking only three or four of the detonations broke through the pressure hull.”
“That should still be enough damage to doom a ship of that size.”
“Give it time, Jake. Its torpedo tubes are empty, and it’s taking on too much water for even the largest ship in the North Korean arsenal.”
Jake found himself hoping that his enemy reached the surface and escaped before his ship flooded.
“I hear hull popping,” Remy said.
“On the way up?”
“At the moment. But I hear no more propulsion noise.”
“If our weapon hit forward, driving to the surface is impossible. The flooding is forcing a down angle. Shit. This could be a death blow with no survivors.”
“And it is,” Remy said. “I hear hull popping. I think it’s on the way down now.”
Jake pictured his enemy’s horror while sinking in a cold, confining, crushing coffin.
Their captain had responded to the mercy of his slow-kill weapon by retaliating with a counter strike that had placed both the Specter and the Goliath at risk. One man’s stubborn refusal of clemency had led to fifteen men suffering mortal terror prior to their ship collapsing around them and the pressures of the deep vaporizing them like the stroke of a diesel engine.
Rapid thoughts of religion shot through his mind, finding hard earth in their attempt to take root. He reckoned that no god could have designed a world this cruel. With his conscious intent, he would have to prevent the recurrence of such a catastrophe.
“Henri,” he said, “reload tubes one and two with heavyweight torpedoes.”
“Heavyweights? Are you sure? You just allowed one crew to live.”
“No, I’m not sure. But do it anyway. If I change my mind later, so be it. But I’m not going through this shit again.”
CHAPTER 17
The Specter and Goliath had evaded the North Korean retaliatory salvo and slowed to motionlessness. Jake stooped over the navigation table and dragged a cursor to a location a thousand yards behind the Specter’s flank. He scribbled the coordinates onto a scratchpad and then stepped to the conning platform.
“Am I still lined up?” he asked.
“Yes, half power,” Henri said.
Jake grabbed the underwater communications microphone.
“Prepare for new trailing coordinates. Over.”
Seawater transformed Cahill’s voice into a garbled echo.
“Ready for coordinates. Over.”
Jake read from his scratchpad, and then Cahill read the numbers back.
“Make ten knots. Over,” Jake said.
“Roger, ten knots. Over.”
“I will contact you with new orders soon. Out,” Jake said.
He stepped back and sat in his chair.
“Antoine, listen for the Goliath. Get me as much understanding of its noise signature as you can. I need to figure out how bad the risk is of being heard as we go faster.”
“I’ve got the sound cuts from our measurement of Goliath’s noise at varied speeds,” Remy said. “I’ve also got the calculations of how far Goliath’s noise travels in these waters, given our latest temperature profile.”
“Good, listen anyway. Verify what you think you know.”
Jake leaned forward and dropped his head to his knees. The stretch in his back sent a tingle up his spine as blood coursed through tight muscles.
He sighed and leaned back into his chair.
“Julien,” he said.
“I just let him take a break,” Remy said. “He’s using the head and grabbing a bite to eat.”
Jake looked at a clock. Above him the sun was rising, and his crew hungered for breakfast.
“I’ve arranged for silent breakfast,” Henri said. “Paper plates, plastic utensils. The usual.”
“Great,” Jake said. “Good thinking. Is there a plan for everyone to get what they need?”
“Food and use of the facilities, yes,” Henri said. “Rest is another issue. I recommend using the next six hours to give each man three hours of sleep. Few men slept last night.”
“Agreed. Let’s make use of the quiet time. This is a good time to get some depth separation with Terry, just in case our paths accidentally cross in two-dimensional space.”
“Terry’s limited to one hundred meters,” Henri said. “I recommend we go deep.”