But his lead sonar expert redirected his attention.
“Terry,” the supervisor said.
“What?”
“The helicopter is making noises I haven’t heard one make in a long time. I think it’s lifting its sonar system with a winch.”
Cahill assessed the anomaly.
“That’s a patient pilot,” he said. “Patient and wise. I also wonder if he knows how much danger he’s in.”
“What danger?” Walker asked. “He’s minimizing his risk to our radar and cannons by staying at low altitude instead of lifting his sonar quickly by climbing. To me, that’s cautious."
“The tactic is cautious, which is exactly why I have to kill him. If he thinks he’s discovered a way to hunt us safely, his colleagues will draw the same conclusion, and then those helicopters hiding near the surface combatants will become our new worst enemy.”
“Shit, mate. Good point. You mean to surface and attack?”
“I do. We’ve got one working cannon, and that helicopter’s a sitting duck while its pilot thinks he’s safe. And our position is still far enough away from the westerly frigate that our intent to attack it next won’t be obvious when we surface. Now’s the time, and I mean right now. I’m surfacing the ship.”
Cahill tapped keys to slow and surface the Goliath. His stomach dropped to his knees with the rapid rise, and the deck rocked in the waves.
“Raising the port cannon,” he said. “Bringing the phased array radar online.”
“I’ve got it on radar already,” Walker said. “Seven miles away. Altitude one hundred feet. A sitting duck like you said.”
“Prepare to fire twenty splintering rounds from the port cannon at the helicopter.”
“The port cannon is locked on the helicopter, ready to fire twenty splintering rounds.”
“Fire.”
After the first sonic crack, Cahill ordered a satellite connection to his boss. He turned to the row of Subtics system monitors behind him and saw an unfamiliar face materialize.
“Can you hear me?” he asked.
“Yes,” the man said.
The accent was thick and French.
“Get me Renard. Now!”
“Right away.”
The man disappeared, and five sonic cracks later, Cahill’s boss appeared.
“Another smoke break?”
“Would you believe I was actually resting?” Renard asked.
“Did I wake you?”
“No,” Renard said. “I was taking a two-hour nap while you and Jake appeared safe from harm, but the watch captain here had already summoned me when the helicopter from the Hydra braved a hunt for you. Your beckoning merely hastened my arrival.”
“You look like shit, mate.”
As another sonic boom shot from the port railgun, the Frenchman rubbed sleep from his eyes and turned his head to study monitors.
“I feel better than I look, I trust. I’ve got satellite coverage of you on the surface shooting at the helicopter. I see you’re using just one cannon.”
“The starboard barrel needed replacing. I’m taking care of it before I go after the frigates.”
“Understood. I see your plan, and I admire your assertiveness.”
After the next sonic crack, Walker confirmed the loss of radar return, and then the supervisor reported the splash.
“Cease fire.” Cahill said. “I’ve removed that helicopter from me ass, and I’ve got to run, Pierre.”
“Before you do, take note that there was a second helicopter assisting the first, but it’s now retreating to the south.”
“Good to know.”
“Also, for your planning, you need to know that Jake is working from the east while you appear to be moving west.”
“Bloody hell. Damn it then, I’ll change my tactics. I’ll head east. A little misdirection might help anyway.”
“Good idea. I’ll keep the low-bandwidth updates coming.”
“They always help, Pierre.”
He tapped keys to secure the radar, shut off his connection to Renard, lower the railgun, and inhale water into the Goliath’s tanks.
The burden of having dealt death weighed on him, but he stuffed the load deep within him. He convinced himself he had no choice in killing the aircrew and topped off his therapy with a victorious declaration.
“I don’t think any other pilots will be trying that again soon,” he said. “We just got the message across.”
“Agreed,” Walker said. “But we also revealed our position. Even if nobody got active radar return off us, which I believe they did, they’ve got us triangulated off our emissions. We’re now a known quantity.”
“That’s fine. Our next move is to get within radar range of our next target anyway. The worst those mongrels can do is make it easier for us by coming at us.”
“They could all still swarm us, if they move together, coordinated. They could overwhelm us with all their firepower.”
“Only if we sit still and let them,” Cahill said. “Which we won’t. We’re holding nine knots submerged.”
“But what if there’s a submarine near us and we just gave it all the information it needs to target us?”
Submerged threats haunted Cahill’s subconscious mind, and Walker’s question raised his fears to the forefront of his focus.
“Since we have no idea how fast we can run, and since there’s no safe direction to do so, then we’re dead if a submarine was near us when we surfaced. So let’s pray there wasn’t.”
CHAPTER 18
Jake watched the toad-head turn.
“The dolphins announced a range shift,” Remy said. “A target has moved from far range to in between near and far.”
“Which target?”
“They can’t say. You have to guess.”
“Correction,” Jake said. “You have to guess. I’m delegating to you since you know them better.”
“I’ll guess it’s the one they’re swimming towards,” Remy said. “Submerged target eleven. But it could be any of five targets based upon the geometry.”
“Assume it’s target eleven since that aligns with our plans. Update target eleven’s range to ten miles from the dolphins, and get a range check on them to be sure where they are.”
As the Specter and the Russian mammals exchanged chirps and whistles, Jake envisioned the pending attack before issuing the order.
“It should work,” Henri said.
The Frenchman stood below Jake, resting his forearms on the polished rail.
“Do you have any doubts in your ability to read my mind?”
“None whatsoever,” Henri said. “In fact, I can read your body language and predict most of your thoughts before you have them. I am your unofficial therapist, after all.”
“I don’t have time now to consider how scary that is.”
“Then do what you always do and focus on tactics.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “This plan’s got a lot of moving parts, and I wanted to think it through one more time. But you’re right, it’s going to work. Dolphins, camera shots, torpedoes. It’ll be fine.”
Jake stepped down and walked with Henri to the central table. The dolphin-submarine tandem icons moved towards the nearest submerged target.
“Camera range to take a picture that requires flash illumination is about what?” Jake asked. “Fifty feet?”
“Yes,” Henri said. “They’ll need to be on top of their mark.”
“And they’re limited to eleven knots sustained speed. So that means they’ll reach target eleven in fifty-four minutes.”
“Approximately.”
Jake grabbed a stylus and drew a line from an icon of the Specter to the submerged contact.
“And a torpedo would reach it in about thirteen minutes.”
“You’ll need to allow at least two minutes to get some sort of readable image from the dolphins’ cameras, as well.”