Sorensen quietly listened to the sounds of machinery, then spoke up. "You know, Fogarty, as of now we're tailing a part of the strategic deterrence of the Soviet Union. She's got the capacity to hit our coast cities, and she's in our sights. If she so much as floods a missile tube… well, we can't give her a chance to launch a missile. Shit like this gives me the jitters."
Fogarty stared at the blip on his screen.
Fifty miles away Potemkin hovered six hundred feet down, waiting for Dherzinski. Potemkin had not moved from the rendezvous point in eighteen hours, and the atmosphere inside the sub was fetid, the crew anemic, weak and irritable. The seven reactor engineers with virulent colds grew steadily worse. The constant bombardment by neutron radiation was killing the marrow in their bones. They were going to be transferred to Dherzinski and replaced with engineers from the FBM, and it had better happen fast.
In the cramped crew quarters in the stern. Engineering Officer Lieutenant Third Rank Polokov lay dying of infection. He pleaded with Federov to make the sign of the cross over him.
Federov complied, dragging from his memory a child's prayer. Polokov stopped breathing. The surgeon pulled a sheet over his face. "Shall we prepare for burial at sea, Captain?"
"Later."
Popov's voice came through the intercom speakers. "This is sonar calling the captain. We have made contact with Dherzinski."
Federov rushed to the control room and stood over Popov at the sonar console. Dherzinski was beaming a sonic signal over the prearranged frequency that Potemkin was to use as a homing device.
"Prepare to surface. All ahead slow," ordered Federov. "Alexis, put life jackets on Bolinki and the others to be transferred. I'm sending along a sealed copy of the log with an account of Kurnachov's actions for Gorshkov's eyes only. I want your signature."
"Yes, Captain."
On Barracuda Sorensen and Fogarty heard Dherzinski's signal.
"Sonar to control. Dherzinski is echo-ranging."
"Very well, sonar. Slow speed. We must be near the Alpha. If Dherzinski starts to circle, we'll go around with her."
Sorensen stood up. "Any second now Dherzinski's echo ranger will pick up the Alpha. When the echo bounces back, we should hear it. That's when one of them might pick us up. Cross your fingers. If they hear us they'll never surface. And we won't be able to see them. And that means we can't get the pretty pictures the admiral wants."
Tension crept through the ship. In the control room Springfield studied the repeater.
"She's turning. Go left three degrees." A second blip appeared on the screens. "There it is. All stop."
The two Russian subs were a mile apart, six miles from Barracuda. Slowly the two blips moved together.
"General quarters, general quarters. All hands prepare for maneuvering. Control to weapons. Load tubes two and four with Mark thirty-sevens, acoustic homing."
"Weapons to control, understand load two and four with Mark thirty-sevens, acoustic homing."
"If they discover us right now," said Pisaro, "I think they'll shoot…"
Springfield silently agreed. "Leo, if we hear a target-seeking sonar, we got to turn tail. Tell the quartermaster to load the camera. When we raise the scopes, you blow off your film in a hurry. As soon as you're done we back off and do our best to pick up Dherzinski later. We're not going to invite this Alpha driver to be a hero of the Soviet Union at our expense. All ahead slow."
Barracuda inched toward the hovering subs. When the distance was reduced to a mile Sorensen heard strange garbled noises. The Russians were communicating on an underwater telephone.
"Sonar to control, they're talking on a gertrude."
"Very well, sonar. We're sending Davic in."
A moment later Davic pushed through the door into the sonar room. Sorensen greated him with a big smile. "You're on, Davic. Listen up."
Davic squeezed into the third console, put on a headset and shook his head. "It's breaking up. They're too far away. Wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm getting something — something about carbon dioxide… lithium… now I've lost it again."
Fogarty said, "One of them is blowing her tanks. It's Dherzinski, she's rising. Now the Alpha. They're both surfacing."
Sorensen watched the screen. "Okay, it seems they still don't know we're here. Sonar to control. They're surfacing. Holding steady at six thousand yards."
"All ahead slow. Helm, take us in to one thousand yards. Periscope depth, gear for red," ordered Springfield.
The lights in the control room switched from green fluorescence to cherry red.
"Take her up. Quartermaster, rig the camera to number one scope."
"Aye aye, sir. It's going to be dark up there."
"Switch on light intensifies."
"Light intensifiers on."
"Mr. Pisaro, try standard film first. If we have time, we'll activate the infrared system."
"Aye aye, skipper."
"Control to engineering. Chief, increase steam to ninety percent. We may have to get out of here in a hurrv."
"Engineering to control. What's he going to do? Fire a broadside across our bow?"
"Not funny. Up scopes."
Barracuda angled up, and at sixty feet the periscopes broke the surface. Springfield bent over the binocular eyepiece of the number two scope.
Olonov stood on the bridge on Dherzinski's squat ugly sail, looking at the short, sleek sub rocking twenty meters away in the gentle sea. He shouted through a bullhorn, "Who are you?"
"This is Potemkin," came Federov's reply. "Do you have the lithium hydroxide?"
Olonov's mood was dark. "So you're Federov, Gorshkov's fair-haired boy. Prince of the Northern Fleet. Pleased to make your acquaintance."
Federov did not appreciate the sarcasm. "Send across the lifeline."
It had been thirty years since Olonov last worked as a deckhand. Alone on the bridge of Dherzinski, he managed to fire the small rocket that catapulted the rope across the void. Federov secured the line to a cleat and spoke into his headset.
"Send Bolinki up. Get the others ready."
Olonov secured the bag of crystals to the line and Federov slowly pulled it across. When the precious chemical was safely aboard Potemkin, Federov tied the unconscious Bolinki into a litter, stuffed the copy of his log into the sailor's jacket, and Olonov began to pull the crewman toward Dherzinski.
Bolinki was suspended over the sea when Federov heard Popov's voice on the intercom. Radar had picked up periscopes at a distance of one kilometer.
Federov was furious at Olonov for letting himself be picked up and trailed, compromising Potemkin. He spoke to Popov again. "Identification?"
"None, Captain. We never heard him… but now we have periscopes on radar—"
"Alexis, prepare to dive. Load torpedoes and flood tubes, now." He shouted into the bullhorn, "Olonov, get that man aboard. You dive first and proceed due north exactly five hundred kilometers. We'll rendezvous again in twenty-four hours to finish the transfers."
Olonov was equally dismayed. He too was risking exposure, and possibly being cut off from retreating back to the Cuban lair. Through infrared binoculars he now could see the periscopes. Dherzinski was compromised.