Presently they heard engine noise from another sub nearby. Before Sorensen could ask, Fogarty said, "British. HMS Valiant."
"Very good, very good, indeed. Be glad we're not a Russian or he'd blow our ears out."
"Full speed ahead," said the captain. "We're through."
Two days later Barracuda was 250 miles from Naples. Springfield and Pisaro studied the CRT in the navigation console, which displayed an electronic chart of the Tyrrhenian Sea between Sardinia and the Bay of Naples. A blip in the center of the screen represented the ship. A flickering digital readout reported the changing longitude and latitude. The quartermaster sat quietly at the console, eyes following the blip, the only visible evidence of Barracuda's progress.
Springfield had ordered a burst of flank speed. Driving Barracuda at forty-seven knots was like flying blind underwater. The noise rendered her listening sonars useless, and there was danger of colliding with another submerged vessel. Every fifty miles Springfield slowed the sub to a crawl and quieted all machinery to allow the sonar operators to "clear baffles." While the ship slowly turned 360 degrees, the sonarmen listened through the hydrophones, the passive sonars.
Pisaro blew cigarette smoke away from the console. "We're almost at the edge," he said, waving smoke out of his eyes. "Five minutes."
Springfield nodded and spoke into his microphone. "Control to engineering, prepare for slow speed. We're going to clear baffles."
"Engineering to control. Prepare for slow speed, aye."
Springfield glanced at the blank screen of the sonar repeater. Willie Joe had the repeater disassembled for Fogarty's edification.
"How long, Willie Joe?"
"Ten minutes. Captain."
"All right," Springfield said to Pisaro. "There's supposed to be a storm up above. If we're going to hear anything, we'd better get Sorensen up here."
"Aye aye, skipper." Pisaro spoke into the intercom. "Control to engineering. Listen, Chief. Send somebody aft to drag Sorensen's butt back into the real world. I want him in sonar in five minutes."
"Engineering to control. Aye aye. The ace will be in place."
In the sonar room Sonarman Second Class Emile Davic sat at his operator's console, apparently watching the CRT screen. He was alone.
Davic stared diligently at the screen, but there was little to see except the green fuzz of ambient noise — washed-out signals from the passive array.
Three hours into his watch, Davic sipped a sixth cup of coffee, devoured a second Hershey bar and daydreamed about food in Naples. Spaghetti putanesca, tortellini in broda. Davic hated Naples. It was dirty and reminded him of the worst parts of New York, but he relished the food.
As a boy of twelve Davic had emigrated from Budapest to Brooklyn, where he lived alone with his mother. Confused and frightened by New York, Davic tried to insulate himself from the city. Eventually he became naturalized, but he never became an American. He didn't know how to have fun, to relax, and devoted his life to the study of modern languages and the cultivation of a bitter hatred of the Russians. Anything else seemed frivolous.
He had joined the Submarine Service to get as close to the Soviets as possible. When World War Three started, Davic didn't want to miss it. To him, serving on the sub was a solemn obligation that he approached with deep seriousness. On a ship where most sailors barely spoke one language, Davic spoke five: Magyar, German, English, French and Russian. He considered himself a dedicated cold warrior and regarded anyone less fanatic than himself a fool. Naturally, he despised Sorensen, whose open irreverence Davic found intolerable. Sorensen acted as if Barracuda were his personal property, provided by the navy for his amusement. In spite of himself, Davic envied Sorensen his talent and was jealous of his privileges.
Davic was contemplating now the photo of Admiral Gorshkov, examining the stony face. He was the one who had taped the Russian's portrait to the bulkhead.
Gorshkov, architect of the modern Soviet Navy, was the officer who had dragged the Russian fleet out of the nineteenth century and transformed it into a blue-water force. And that frightened Davic, who as a young boy had witnessed Soviet tanks in Budapest. He kept the photograph of Sergei Gorshkov as a reminder.
Barracuda was following a standard NATO deep-water route off Sardinia, and her routine position reports had been forwarded to all NATO navies. The last time they had cleared baffles, the long-range sonar had shown nothing. Any moment now the captain would slow again. Davic felt that a contact was unlikely.
"Attention all hands. Prepare for slow speed."
He felt the ship begin to slow and listened to the turbulence as it washed over the hull and swirled around the hydrophones. He reached up and turned on a tape recorder.
Barnes banged on the door to Sorensen's Beach.
"Sorensen."
"Yo."
The door opened. Dripping sweat, Sorensen stuck his head out.
"What's up?"
"They want you in sonar."
"Where are we?"
"Hey, man, I'm back here making chips all damn day," Barnes said, flicking a shard of stainless steel off his chest. "I don't know. Switzerland?"
"Listen, Barnes, did you make my little box yet?"
"Your little watertight box? It's next. It's on the sheet."
"I gotta have it tomorrow in Naples. Skipper's orders."
"Like I say, it's on the sheet. Not to worry. What's it for, anyway?"
"You got me, sport." Sorensen took off his glasses and winked.
"Oh, yeah," Barnes said, flapping his arms and returning to his lathe. "Big time secrets. When the captain goes to the crapper, it's a secret. What's for lunch? It's a secret. A sonar beacon in a watertight stainless steel box. Big secret. Shit."
Sorensen shut the door. True enough, nothing stayed secret for long. He began collecting his stuff. A tape was still running. La Verne Baker belted out Jim Dandy on a submarine. Got a message from a mermaid queen. Jim Dandy didn't waste no time. Jim Dandy to the rescue. Go Jim Dandy. Go Jim Dandy.
He turned off the lights on the way out.
The door to the sonar room jerked open and Sorensen suddenly filled the tiny space. He sat down at the supervisor's console, logged in and adjusted a headset over his ears.
"Just carry on," he said to Davic. Sorensen didn't look at the screen. He closed his eyes and listened.
The deep waters of the Mediterranean constituted a notoriously fickle sonar environment. Sound waves were bounced up and down by thermal layers and distorted by seamounts and an uneven bottom. It was impossible to determine the range of a contact heard on a passive array unless it was moving.
"Control to sonar, prepare for three hundred sixty degree revolution."
"Sonar to control. Understand three hundred sixty degree revolution. Aye aye," Davic replied.
As the ship slowed, the machinery quieted and the screens gradually cleared. The ship banked slightly as it turned. Davic heard static. "There's signal interference from the storm," he said.
"The storm is dying," Sorensen told him. "Ignore it."
A third of the way through the turn, they clearly heard a propeller cavitating on the surface. Sorensen estimated the range as five miles.
"Sonar to control. Contact on the surface, bearing one one seven. Speed two knots."
"Control to helm. Make our course bearing one one seven."
"Course one one seven, aye."
The ship turned back to the left and once again the sonar operators heard the propeller.
"All stop," ordered the captain.