Abruptly the angle came off the ship, throwing Pacino into the back of the Diving Officer’s seat. Although he and his crew had won, he couldn’t shake a sobering thought: Would the tactic have worked against a real Russian torpedo? He relinquished the periscope to Officer of the Deck Lieutenant Brayton and spoke to the crew.
“We seem to have been successful in evading the torpedo. We’ll have to wait and see if the Diamond confirms a kill for us on Target One. Carry on. Helm to Maneuvering, switch main reactor coolant pumps to slow speed. All ahead one third, right fifteen degrees rudder, steady course two seven zero. XO, secure from battle stations.”
Near Pacino on the periscope stand a speaker came to life, static sputtering out of it. Pacino stooped down and turned up the volume. It was a human voice booming through the depths.
“Deep… deep… deep… coming up… echo…” It was the underwater telephone, the UWT, an active sonar system that transmitted voices instead of pings or pulses. The coming-up call indicated another submarine was coming up to periscope depth or to surface.
“Put the scope on it,” Pacino said. The Officer of the Deck turned the periscope over to Pacino and waited for the USS Allentown — their opponent this afternoon — to surface.
Pacino’s mission had been to sneak up on the attack submarine and fire a Hullbuster shot without being detected. But even being tipped off beforehand hadn’t helped the Allentown, Pacino thought. She didn’t even know the Devilfish was there until the Hullbusters went active.
Commander Henry Duckett of the Allentown had been Michael Pacino’s old squad leader when he was a plebe at the Naval Academy. Duckett had, in fact, made life miserable for Pacino, to the point of nearly hazing him out of Annapolis. But today Duckett commanded the Allentown, a new Los-Angeles-class attack submarine. And today, the Devilfish, the older Piranha-class attack boat, had snuck up on her, scored two hits and evaded a 50-knot attacking torpedo. Not too shabby, Pacino thought.
The UWT sputtered to life again: “Devilfish, this is ALLENTOWN. Over…” Pacino recognized the voice. Duckett. He turned the periscope back over to Brayton and picked up the microphone, hit a toggle switch and spoke, his voice that echoed back at him sounding like the voice of a giant bouncing off the ocean floor.
“Allentown, this is Devilfish. One in, over.”
“Allentown’s surfacing. Captain,” Brayton reported from the periscope.
“Devilfish, this is Allentown… report Uniform Whiskey Mike… I say again… report Uniform Whiskey Mike… over.”
“her!” Pacino snapped to Rapier.
“Uniform Whiskey Mike” was NATO code for “you missed me.”
“It’s bullshit, Cap’n. We kicked his ass,” Rapier said.
“Allentown, this is Devilfish,” Pacino said into the microphone, “negative Uniform Whiskey Mike, repeat, negative Uniform Whiskey Mike. Duckett, I hit you fair and square. Twice.”
“Captain, look at this,” the Officer of the Deck said from the periscope. Pacino took the scope as the OOD mumbled! “Low power on the horizon, bearing two three zero.” On the television periscope-repeater Pacino’s crosshairs were centered on the sail, the conning tower, of the USS Allentown. And sticking in one side of Allentown’s sail and out the other was one of Pacino’s torpedoes that had impaled the rear part of the sail.
“Off sa’deck, line up the periscope still camera. We need a few pictures of this for posterity,” Pacino said.
“Lined up, sir,” the OOD replied.
Pacino moved up to the UWT transmitter: “Allentown, this is Devilfish. I say again, negative Uniform Whiskey Mike… advise you to check your sail… it’s got a Hullbuster sticking clean through it…”
Duckett’s aggrieved voice was recognizable in spite of the UWT distortion: “Devilfish this is Allentown. Cheaters never prosper. Out.”
Pacino keyed his mike.
“Allentown, this is Devilfish. Old budd, don’t you know? YOU AIN’T CHEATIN’, YOU AIN’T TRYIN’. Devilfish out.”
The Allentown rolled in the gentle swells on the surface. Her Officer of the Deck stood in the cramped bridge cockpit at the top of the sail and scanned the horizon with his binoculars. The ship was stopped, waiting for its opponent the Devilfish to head toward the traffic-separation scheme outside of Thimble Shoals Channel. The sun was low on the horizon, the Atlantic air cool and fresh after two weeks submerged. Lieutenant Ron Graves, the OOD, picked up a microphone at the forward lip of the cockpit. “Control, Bridge, raise the radar mast and bump up the Bigmouth antenna.”
The communication box crackled with static and a loud distorted voice said, “BRIDGE, CONTROL, RAISING RADAR AND BIGMOUTH.”
The OOD replaced the microphone and again trained his binoculars on the shrinking form of the Devilfish as she sailed to Norfolk. He waited for the thunks of hydraulics raising the masts from the sail, but all he heard was a brief grinding noise from aft. He dropped his binoculars and turned to look behind him. Neither mast had risen. He was about to call the control room again when the bridge communication box sputtered to life.
“BRIDGE, CONTROL, CAPTAIN TO THE BRIDGE.”
“Captain’s coming up. Bridge aye.”
The OOD wondered how the skipper could know so soon that something was wrong. He stepped to the far starboard side of the cockpit and hinged up the deck grating to the access tunnel, which plunged down thirty feet to the deck. Captain Henry Duckett hauled his bulky frame up the tunnel with surprising speed. Large and solid, Duckett was large enough to force his men to duck into side rooms whenever he walked down the ship’s narrow passageways. Solid enough to make the offensive line of the Allentown’s inter-squadron football team the terror of the fleet piers. He was also not known for his sweet temperament. Now he pushed the OOD out of the way, leaned far out over the starboard lip of the bridge and peered aft.
“I’ll be god damned.” He shouldered past Graves and climbed back down the access tunnel. “Damned fiberglass sails.” His voice floated upward. “Goddamned Pacino.”
“Good afternoon to you too, sir,” OOD Graves said, looking down at the retreating form of his captain, then leaned over the starboard side of the cockpit to see the current source of Duckett’s foul mood. Not ten feet behind him, protruding horizontally from the fiberglass flanks of the black sail, was the stern of a Mark 49 Hullbuster torpedo, its propulsor blades still spinning. There would be hell to pay.
CHAPTER 2
The Severomorsk Naval Complex near Murmansk on the Russian northern coast was the size of a city. Within its barbed wire fence and concrete barriers were two sprawling shipyards, repair yards, submarine and surface-ship operating bases, a weapons depot and the many buildings of Northern Reel headquarters. It was drab and massive. Shipyard workers crowded the walkways. Sailors and naval officers were almost as numerous. In the submarine building yards a half-dozen gigantic buildingways and drydocks were centers of frantic activity, three shifts a day, seven days a week. The largest construction drydock, Building Dock 4, was over 500 meters long and 20 meters deep. A six-story building could have been built in Dock 4 without rising above the rim. The dock was pumped dry of the brackish channel water. Nestled in the dock was a submarine, the first ship of the Project 985 class of attack vessels. Outside the security building for the dock two men met and shook hands. The first was a barrel-chested man in a long greatcoat, the red epaulettes on his shoulders showing four gold stars. His head was covered by a fur cap also displaying four stars. The second was bundled in a long overcoat with a suit and tie showing at the collar of the coat. The shipyard workers avoided him.