"Helm, come to new course three-five-zero. Let's get her under the ice. They probably know we're here-well, they know something's here. 'Gator, how's the chart look?"
"We'll have to turn soon," the navigator warned. "Shoal water in eight thousand yards. Recommend come to new course two-nine-one." Mancuso ordered the change at once.
"Depth now eight-five feet, leveling out," the diving officer said. "Speed eighteen knots." A small bark of sound announced the destruction of the raft and its motor.
"Okay, people, now all we have to do is leave," Mancuso told his Attack Center crew. A high-pitched snap of sound told them that this would not be easy.
"Conn, sonar, we're being pinged. That's a Grisha death-ray," Jones said, using the slang term for the Russian set. "Might have us."
"Under the ice now," the navigator said.
"Range to target?"
"Just under four thousand yards," the weapons officer replied. "Set for tubes two and four."
The problem was, they couldn't shoot. Dallas was inside Russian territorial waters, and even if the Grisha shot at them, shooting back wasn't self-defense, but an act of war. Mancuso looked at the chart. He had thirty feet of water under his keel, and a bare twenty over his sail-minus the thickness of the ice
"Marko?" the Captain asked.
"They will request instructions first," Ramius judged. "The more time they have, the better chance they will shoot."
"Okay. All ahead full," Mancuso ordered. At thirty knots he'd be in international waters in ten minutes.
"Grisha is passing abeam on the portside," Jones said. Mancuso went forward to the sonar room.
"What's happening?" the Captain asked.
"The high-frequency stuff works pretty good in the ice. He's searchlighting back and forth. He knows something's here, but not exactly where yet."
Mancuso lifted a phone. "Five-inch room, launch two noisemakers."
A pair of bubble-making decoys was ejected from the portside of the submarine.
"Good, Mancuso," Ramius observed. "His sonar will fix on those. He cannot maneuver well with the ice."
"We'll know for sure in the next minute." Just as he said it, the submarine was rocked by explosions aft. A very feminine scream echoed through the forward portion of the submarine.
"All ahead flank!" the Captain called aft.
"The decoys," Ramius said. "Surprising that he fired so quickly "
"Loosing sonar performance, skipper," Jones said as the screen went blank with flow noise. Mancuso and Ramius went aft. The navigator had their course track marked on the chart.
"Uh-oh, we have to transit this place right here where the ice stops. How much you want to bet he knows it?" Mancuso looked up. They were still being pinged, and he still couldn't shoot back. And that Grisha might get lucky.
"Radio-Mancuso, let me speak on radio!" Ramius said.
"We don't do things that way-" Mancuso said. American doctrine was to evade, never to let them be sure there was a submarine there at all.
"I know that. But we are not American submarine, Captain Mancuso, we are Soviet submarine," Ramius suggested. Bart Mancuso nodded. He'd never played this card before.
"Take her to antenna depth!"
A radio technician dialed in the Soviet guard frequency, and the slender VHP antenna was raised as soon as the submarine cleared the ice. The periscope went up, too. "There he is. Angle on the bow, zero. Down 'scope!"
"Radar contact bearing two-eight-one," the speaker proclaimed.
The Captain of the Grisha was coming off a week's patrolling on the Baltic Sea, six hours late, and had been looking forward to four days off. Then first came a radio transmission from the Talinn harbor police about a strange craft seen leaving the docks, followed by something from the KGB, then a small explosion near the harbor police boat, next several sonar contacts. The twenty-nine-year-old senior lieutenant with all of three months in command had made his estimate of the situation and fired at what his sonar operator called a positive submarine contact. Now he was wondering if he'd made a mistake, and how ghastly it might be. All he knew was that he had not the smallest idea what was happening, but if he were chasing a submarine, it would be heading west.
And now he had a radar contact forward. The speaker for the guard radio frequency started chattering.
"Cease fire, you idiot!" a metallic voice screamed at him three times.
"Identify!" the Grisna's commander replied.
"This is Novosibirsk Komsomolets! What the hell do you think you're doing firing live ammunition in a practice exercise! You identify!"
The young officer stared at his microphone and swore. Novosibirsk Komsomolets was a special-ops boat based at Kronshtadt, always playing Spetznaz games
"This is Krepkiy."
"Thank you. We will discuss this episode the day after tomorrow. Out!"
The Captain looked around at the bridge crew. "What exercise ?"
"Too bad," Marko said as he replaced the microphone. "He reacted well. Now he will take several minutes to call his base, and "
"And that's all we need. And they still don't know what happened." Mancuso turned. " 'Gator, shortest way out?"
"Recommend two-seven-five, distance is eleven thousand yards."
At thirty-four knots, the remaining distance was covered quickly. Ten minutes later the submarine was back in international waters. The anticlimax was remarkable for all those in the control room. Mancuso changed course for deeper water and ordered speed reduced to one-third, then went back to sonar.
"That should be that," he announced.
"Sir, what was this all about?" Jones asked.
"Well, I don't know that I can tell you."
"What's her name?" From his seat Jones could see into the passageway.
"I don't even know that myself. But I'll find out. "Mancuso went across the passageway and knocked on the door of Clark's stateroom.
"Who is it?"
"Guess," Mancuso said. Clark opened the door. The Captain saw a young woman in presentable clothes, but wet feet. Then an older woman appeared from the head. She was dressed in the khaki shirt and pants of Dallas' chief engineer, though she carried her own things, which were wet. These she handed to Mancuso with a phrase of Russian.
"She wants you to have them cleaned, skipper," Clark translated, and started laughing. "These are our new guests. Mrs. Gerasimov, and her daughter, Katryn."
"What's so special about them?" Mancuso asked.
"My father is head of KGB!" Katryn said.
The Captain managed not to drop the clothes.
"We got company," the copilot said. They were coming in from the right side, the strobe lights of what had to be a pair of fighter planes. "Closing fast."
"Twenty minutes to the coast," the navigator reported. The pilot had long since spotted it.
"Shit!" the pilot snapped. The fighters missed his aircraft by less than two hundred yards of vertical separation, little more in horizontal. A moment later, the VC-137 bounced through their wake turbulence.
"Engure Control, this is U.S. Air Force flight niner-seven-one. We just had a near miss. What the hell is going on down there?"
"Let me speak to the Soviet officer!" the voice answered. It didn't sound like a controller.
"I speak for this aircraft," Colonel von Eich replied. "We are cruising on a heading of two-eight-six, flight level eleven thousand six hundred meters. We are on a correctly filed flight plan, in a designated air corridor, and we have electrical problems. We don't need to have some hardrock fighter jocks playing tag with us-this is an American aircraft with a diplomatic mission aboard. You want to start World War Three or something? Over!"
"Nine-seven-one, you are ordered to turn back!"
"Negative! We have electrical problems and cannot repeat cannot comply. This airplane is flying without lights, and those crazy MiG drivers damned near rammed us! Are you trying to kill us, over!"