“She’s northwest of her emergency antenna buoy,” Dokey said. “Range three hundred yards.”
“I’m releasing weights,” Brande said, raising the protective plastic flap over the two toggles, then snapping them down. Two green LEDs told him the weights had dropped.
The submersible slowed her descent, then began to rise.
“I’m taking on ballast,” Dokey said.
The DepthFinder stabilized at 1,460 feet of depth. Brande eased the power stick forward and watched as the rate of speed came up to ten knots. He held it there.
“Two-five-five yards,” Dokey said. He placed his forefinger on the screen in front of him, as if making personal contact with the blip on the screen.
“The other sub has stalled at one-four-hundred feet, two hundred yards west.”
“Let’s see if either of them are listening,” Brande said. “Let me have the phone, Valeri.”
Dankelov passed the handset on its coiled cord over Brande’s shoulder.
He pressed the transmit stud. “Los Angeles, this is the DepthFinder.”
Somebody had been hanging around the acoustic radio set aboard the submarine. The response was immediate. “DepthFinder, this is Commander Alfred Taylor, commanding. Where are you?”
“Al? Dane Brande here. We’re a couple hundred yards out and closing. Your electronics down?”
“Just about everything is down. We lost sonar a couple hours ago.”
“How’s the environment?”
“Holding out, but getting a little stale. My people tell me we’ve got ten hours of air left.”
“That’ll be a hell of a lot more time than we need.”
“We’ve been sinking steadily,” Taylor said. There was a lot of understandable tension in his voice. “The rate of descent is picking up.”
“We calculated that. We’re still okay.”
Brande eased off on the power, and pulled the right stick back a trifle. The bow rose.
A minute later, Dokey said, “Heads up. We should get her in a second.”
The sub appeared in the lights abruptly.
Brande reversed the motors for a second, to cancel the forward momentum.
The submarine appeared to be hanging in space. The stern was down by ten degrees, and she was canted to the starboard a few degrees. The bow was to Brande’s left. It was a dully reflective gray under the harsh lights.
“I see you, Al.”
Taylor’s sigh came over the receiver, echoing. “Wish to hell I could see you. Dane, is it?”
“Right.”
“Look, from what I’ve read about the DepthFinder, we’re not going to find a mating surface.”
“No, that’d take too long, anyway. We’re going to tow you out.”
“What?”
“I see that your diving planes are in the full-up position. Are they operational?”
“No”
“No sweat. Full-up is what we want, anyway.”
After a pause, Taylor said, Tve got you. But not with the submersible?”
“She’s a tough little gal, Al, but not seven thousand tons displacement tough. No, we’re negotiating with the Bronstein, which is just above us.”
“She is? Why didn’t she contact us?”
“You’re Navy, Al. I’m not, so I can’t answer those kinds of questions.”
“Okay, Dane. What’s the procedure?”
“We’ve got an ROV with us, and hanging below us is a two-hundred-foot steel cable and a two-thousand-foot coil of light line. I want to attach the light line to your towing bitt, then we’ll take the other end to the surface and snag a cable from the frigate. Then we can pull the cable down and hook you up.”
“Sounds damned good to me,” Taylor said.
“Go, Okey,” Brande said.
Dokey leaned forward over his control board, gripped the control handles, and eased forward speed in. Beneath the forward porthole, they saw Atlas nudge his way forward, out of the sheath. The fiber-optic cable trailed behind, pulling away from its spring-loaded reel.
Dokey cut in the ROV’s video camera, and the image filled the starboard screen.
Brande activated the submersible’s own video camera, channeling the picture to the center screen. Atlas swam into view.
Working the controls was much like flying a radio-controlled airplane, and controllers frequently referred to the operation of ROVs as ʻflyingʼ.
Dokey could be expected to fly barrel rolls and loops with his ROVs, but now, as Brande glanced at him, he was deadly serious. The giveaway was his tongue stuck into the side of his cheek.
“Clear,” Dankelov said, monitoring the sensors beneath the submersible. “Cable is unreeling freely.”
A female voice broke in on the acoustic receiver. “DepthFinder?”
Brande picked up the handset from his lap and thumbed the button. “Go ahead, Rae.”
“The goddamned Navy has to check with Washington!”
She was definitely perturbed.
“Easy, Rae. Well just go ahead and get started, so we’re ready when they are.” He dropped the phone.
Another voice came out of nowhere.
“DepthFinder. This is Captain Mikhail Gurevenich of the Commonwealth submarine Winter Storm.” The English was a little hesitant, and with the echo of the acoustic transmission, difficult to understand.
Before Brande could find his handset again, Taylor spoke. “Captain Gurevenich? This is Al Taylor.”
“I am aware of your plight, Captain Taylor. We wish to assist you.”
“That’s our other sub,” Dokey said.
“May I speak to him?” Dankelov asked.
“Sure thing, Valeri.” Brande passed the telephone back over his shoulder.
Rapid-fire Russian filled the speaker for several minutes, then Dankelov said, “Because of his propeller configuration, Gurevenich says he must tow in reverse. We are to attach the towing line to his bow bitt.”
Brande repeated the instructions to Taylor.
“Sounds good to me, Dane. Captain Gurevenich, the men of the Los Angeles wish to express their gratitude.”
“It is not necessary, Captain Taylor. We owe you a cup of coffee.”
“What the hell’s that about?” Dokey asked.
“Damned if I know,” Brande said. “Let’s go.”
He eased in forward propulsion and advanced toward the stricken submarine, following behind the ROV. The whole scenario felt as if it were taking place in slow motion.
Twenty feet from the bow of the sub, Brande slowed, then stopped. In the center screen, the ROV also stopped, spun slowly around on its vertical axis, then moved down below the submersible.
Brande switched his attention to the starboard screen. Atlasʼs video eye had picked out the loops of the one-inch steel cable hanging from the wire cage of the sheath.
“Don’t drop it, Okey. We don’t have time to go looking for it.”
“Up yours, Chief. You ever see me drop anything before?”
“No, because it was usually gold.”
“This cable is as good as gold to the guys inside that can,” Dokey said.
On the screen, the manipulator arm reached out to almost its full length. Dokey’s left hand went to the slide switches on the panel, and the thumb and two fingers of the claw flexed. Gently, it found one of the plastic ties holding a single loop to the sheath, gripped it, and tugged.
The plastic broke and the loop fell away.
Dokey snapped the ties on three more loops which dropped out of sight of the camera and the halogen lights, to give himself slack in the cable, then came back and lifted the hook on one end of the cable from its latch on the wire cage.