A satisfied gleam sparkled in the captain’s dark eyes as he turned to face Mac.
“I wonder what that racket sounds like from their vantage point? It’s got to be pretty hairy, never knowing if the next blast they’ll be hearing will be coming from a Mark 16. It wouldn’t take much to blow that sucker to hell and back.”
Mac looked on impassively as the quartermaster called out.
“Contact remains dead in the water. Range now down to 4,800 yards.”
“All ahead one third,” ordered the captain.
“Mr. Jacquemin, I hope that net your boys put together does a better job than those firecrackers of yours.”
The weapon’s officer wasted no time with his answer.
“Just put us over the target, sir. I’ll have ‘em snagged and pulled in like a tuna in no time flat.”
“We have a priority flash coming in from the Kinkaid, Captain!” cried the quartermaster.
“They’re currently dead in the water. They report hitting what appears to be a mine. The damage is limited to the bow sonar compartment, and damage control teams are currently down there making an assessment. Before losing sonar, they reported that their target was on the run at flank speed, headed on bearing one-two-zero.”
“Damn it!” cursed the captain.
“I’ll bet my pension that they’re hauling ass down the western face of the island to pick up their buddies in the mini-sub and hightail it back to borscht town. And what the hell is a mine doing in our own waters?”
As the answer to his own question suddenly registered in his mind, the captain barked out loudly.
“All stop!
Get a detail topside and have them keep their eyes peeled for anything suspicious that they see floating in the water.”
“But the fog,” countered the weapon’s officer.
“You can hardly see your own hand in front of your face out there,” “Damn the frigging fog!” shouted the captain.
“And damn those Red bastards for having the nerve to lay a mine right in our own backyard.”
Mac listened to this spirited exchange and felt a tenseness begin to form in the pit of his gut.
“Sonar reports that our contact is on the move.
They’re picking up mechanical sounds on the seabed headed on bearing three-zero-zero.”
The Captain looked on impassively, and Mac dared to vent his frustrations.
“Are we going to just sit here and let them get away like this, captain? At the very least we can utilize that net to snag the mini sub
Mac’s plea was met by a frantic shout of warning from the quartermaster.
“Bow lookout reports suspected mine, twenty yards off our port beam!”
“Helmsman, reverse thrusters!” ordered the Captain firmly.
“Mr. Jacquemin, get another detail topside on the double. We’re sitting out here in a possible mine field and we need every spare hand available to eyeball us out of this damn dilemma.”
“But the mini-sub,” pleaded Mac.
“We’re so damn close.”
With problems of a much more immediate nature to be concerned with, the captain addressed Mac directly.
“Commander, the Fanning is going nowhere until I know for certain what’s ahead of us. Now if you’d like me to take ‘em out with a Mark 16, that’s another story.”
Mac was tempted to give the Captain the go-ahead, but reluctantly shook his head that such a drastic course of action wouldn’t be necessary. For the tracked submersible meant nothing to him blown to bits on the seafloor. His mission was to capture one as intact as possible. Only then would his doubters in the Pentagon believe that the threat was a real one and move to counteract it.
With his disappointed gaze centered on the swirling fog that continued to shroud the frigate’s bow, Mac fought to center his thoughts. Time after time, Admiral Long had preached to him the value of patience, and now was the time to apply this wise advice. Though the Soviets might have won yet another round, Mac’s luck was bound to change eventually.
And when it did, one of the tracked submersibles would be his to triumphantly show to a world full of skeptics. Somewhere on the planet, the mysterious vessel would once again be sent on a mission. And next time, if the fates so willed it, Mac would be there waiting for it.
Chapter Four
Nowhere on the planet were winters harsher nor spring more welcome than in the Soviet Union. This was especially the case in the Rodina’s Baltic region, where the arrival of the spring sun was met with all the joy and festivities of a new birth.
Admiral Igor Starobin felt like a young man once again as he walked along the rocky shoreline that bordered this portion of Korporski Bay. It was a glorious May morning. The sky was a powdery shade of blue, with a few fluffy white clouds gently blowing in from the south. The usually rough waters of the Gulf of Finland looked almost inviting as they stretched out to the western horizon in a glimmering expanse of deep green.
Though it wasn’t even noon yet, the sun generated an alien warmth that had been absent for seven long, frigid months. This sunshine had already brought a little color to Igor’s previously pale face. Its soothing radiance could also be felt deep in his arthritic joints, where the pain that had been a constant companion these last few weeks seemed to gradually lessen.
At sixty-four years of age, Igor Starobin had seen his better days long since pass. Not that he had much of a youth to speak of. What little he remembered of his earliest years took place alongside the waters of this same gulf, in nearby Estonia. Here on the banks of the Valge river, Igor was born and raised, the only son of a village blacksmith. He never remembered much about his parents.
His mother died of tuberculosis when he was only seven, and what few memories that still remained were of a hardworking, hard-drinking father who was content to let his son run wild as the wind.
Igor abhorred his father’s dank, sooty shop. He much preferred to spend his time outdoors, as near to the waters of the gulf as possible. As he grew into adolescence, he became an adept beachcomber, whose keen eye could pick out the smallest of treasures hidden amongst the flotsam that inevitably ended up on the shore. His finds included a chestful of raw silk, a pair of battered binoculars, and a blood-soaked life jacket that the authorities in town were particularly interested in.
It was while roaming the shoreline that he met a man who was to be instrumental in changing his life. Father Dmitri was an Orthodox priest who took an immediate liking to Igor. Though he certainly had never been a churchgoer, Igor was fascinated by the elder’s tales of the world beyond Estonia, and he agreed to visit the priest at his monastery. Much to his father’s surprise, Igor became a regular visitor to the monastery and eventually enrolled there as a fulltime student. By fourteen he could read and write. Yet whatever ambitions he may have had to continue on in the world of academics were forever put to rest by the invasion of the Nazis.
Forty-nine years ago, at the tender age of fifteen, Igor enlisted in the navy. Basic training took him to the fabled city of Leningrad. There he not only became strong in body, but strong in mind as well.
Igor grinned as he mentally recreated those exciting, innocent days that seemed to have occurred in another lifetime. How invigorating it had been to meet his first real comrades from such far off cities as Moscow, Kiev, Sverdlovsk, and Odessa! And how could he ever forget his first visits to the museums, libraries, and symphonic halls that made Leningrad the jewel of Russian culture?
As it turned out, he had all too little time to absorb these many wonders, as the first falling shells signaled that the German threat was a very real one.
It had been much too long since the veteran naval officer had pondered such memories. Affairs of state had kept his thoughts far removed from such fond imaginings, and he was grateful for this brief respite to the shoreline of his childhood.