In the sonar room Fogarty tracked the carrier while Sorensen monitored the sub, which suddenly began to turn.
"Sonar to control," Sorensen said. "Contact is turning left twelve degrees."
"Helm, left twelve degrees. Keep right on her."
The helmsman pushed his joystick over to the left and Barracuda banked like an airplane.
As far as Springfield was concerned the war game was suspended. They would stay on the tail of the Russian sub until they either obtained a positive identification or lost it.
Billings, the war game observer aboard Barracuda, was not convinced of anything. In his opinion a Russian sub that intruded on the war game would run under the fleet at high speed, then disappear. It wouldn't linger. The repair on the faulty pump on Swordfish was probably shoddy, and the pump had reverted to its noisy state. The sub was indeed Swordfish. The war game was not over, it was reaching its climax. Seething, feeling the full weight of his vested interest in a successful conclusion of the exercise, he interrupted, "Captain, we're only seventeen thousand yards from Kitty Hawk. You can fire your torpedoes now and then chase the sub."
"Commander Billings, I'm following that sub now."
"What if she's not a Russian? What if your man is wrong?"
"If Sorensen is wrong, I'll keelhaul him. Will that make you happy, Mr. Billings? I'll serve him to Netts for breakfast."
"You can still fire your torpedoes."
"I don't think I want to do that this close to a Soviet submarine. She might get the wrong idea. She will also get a dandy tape recording of our system. I'm sorry. Commander, but you know my standing orders as well as I do. Your boss. Admiral Netts, wrote them."
"Speed of target increasing to twenty-one knots."
"Make our speed twenty-one knots, Mr. Pisaro. Stay with her. Torpedo room, unload torpedoes."
"Torpedo room, say again."
"Unload torpedoes, Chief. Get those fish out of the tubes."
"Aye aye, sir. Understand unload tubes one and four."
"Mr. Billings, you had better find something to hold on to. We're not playing games any more. Engineering, prepare for high power. Give me seventy percent."
"Engineering, understand seventy percent steam."
"Keep right after her, Mr. Pisaro, keep right on her butt."
13
"Sit down, Popov, and get hold of yourself."
Federov's voice was harsh. Every man aboard Potemkin was an officer, but some, he decided, didn't know how to act the part.
"Identify him, if you please, Mr. Popov."
"It's a Skipjack class, Captain. It must be Barracuda."
With seven American subs taking part in the war game, Federov had expected an encounter before this. When the American rose up and began to follow, he deduced that he had come upon the sub that was playing the role of attacker. One of the defenders would either try to contact him or simulate a torpedo attack. It was quite a situation — he was pretending to be an American and he was being followed by an American pretending to be a Soviet, but there was no one in the control room with whom he could share the irony of it.
He had to determine if the American commander was going to continue his attack on the carrier or follow Potemkin. He ordered the helmsman to turn left twelve degrees and the engine room to increase speed to twenty-one knots. The American followed him through the turn and increased his speed to match.
"First Officer Kurnachov, I think we have successfully completed our test of Acoustical Reproduction Device Number Seven. I am not certain the American submarine following us has been fooled by our tricks. We have proved we can penetrate their defenses with the device. Now I think we shall use all our resources to withdraw."
"I disagree. Comrade Captain," Kurnachov said. "I believe we have fooled the American submarine. He follows because he believes we are Swordfish. In any case your course is taking him toward the carrier that is his target."
"Then we shall have to take him somewhere else, Comrade First Officer Captain Second Rank Kurnachov." Federov loved to give him his full ridiculous due. "Right full rudder. Increase speed to thirty knots. Bearing one seven seven. Depth three hundred meters. Ten degrees down."
Kurnachov was shocked. "Captain, Acoustical Reproduction Device Number Seven has never been tested at over twenty-four knots."
"Then consider this a test."
Potemkin abruptly tilted downward and accelerated into the depths. In the engine room the chief engineer watched awestruck as the silicon packing on the turbine slowly turned into a pool of glassy liquid. The quiet hum of the whirring blades transformed into a deep roar.
"Captain," the engineer said into his microphone, "we have to stop the turbine. The packing melted!"
One hundred fifty feet away the noise burst into the quiet of the control room.
The captain glared across the control room at the first officer. "All stop. Quiet in the boat."
The noise ceased. Potemkin continued to plunge on momentum silently downward at a steep angle, banking steeply on her diving planes. Throughout the ship, black-uniformed sailors struggled for equilibrium. Air conditioners were switched to low power and all nonessential systems shut down. In the engine room the turbine came to a halt; reactor operation was reduced to a minimum. Gradually, the ship leveled off.
Kurnachov jumped up from his seat and went across the control room toward the engine room.
"First Officer Kurnachov, return to your diving panel. Where do you think you are? Right full rudder. Zero angle on the diving planes."
With her prop no longer turning, Potemkin's momentum still carried her more than two kilometers. The ship glided to the right on her diving planes and slowly came to a stop.
"Engine room, damage report."
"The packing melted, Captain, but the turbine is all right."
"Popov, do you hear the American sub?"
"No, sir. I hear the aircraft carrier. Range eight thousand two hundred meters and closing."
Federov turned on Kurnachov. "Remove every American tape from Acoustical Reproduction Device Number Seven and put in the Viktor tape, Mr. Kurnachov, and do it now. That's an order. And if you ever move from your station again, I'll have you before a court-martial and you'll spend the rest of your life in an old sailors' home. If you're lucky."
The captain hurried back to the engine room to ascertain for himself the status of the turbine. Unlike American submarines in which every component of the drive train was duplicated, Potemkin had only one turbine. What she sacrificed in safety, she gained in speed by reducing weight.
"Comrade Chief Engineer, how bad is it?"
Federov and the engineer had sailed together for many years. For one to address the other with the formal party salutation was a secret code between them that meant yes, once again, they miraculously had survived an attempt by the masters of Moscow to sink them.
"Comrade Captain First Rank, Acoustical Reproduction Device Number Seven is now a useless piece of shit, but Potemkin is still an Alpha."
"You mean. Chief Engineer, we should get up a full head of steam and show the Americans a thing or two, such as how fast our marvelous Potemkin can go?"
"Nikolai Petrovich, you read my mind. I am astounded at your insight."
"Alexis, my old shipmate, we may try to do just that."
In the control room the first officer sullenly removed the Swordfish tape from the Sony. When Federov returned, he ordered the first officer to accompany him to his cabin.