The Circle (40 page)

Evlin looked at his hands. They were steady on the paper.

He said, “I can't participate, sir.”

“Then you're relieved,” said Packer curtly, looking away. “Get those phones off. Get out of here! Somebody get Reed out here—”

“He's on the firing panel, sir,” said Dan.

Packer spun. He was headed for the curtain to Sonar when Dan said, “Captain!”

Packer hesitated, just for a moment, with his hand on the curtain. He didn't turn his body, but he glanced back over his shoulder.

“You, too, Lenson?” James Packer said softly.

Dan felt frightened, facing those eyes, as he hadn't been facing the sea. “No, sir. I just wanted to tell you—you have another choice, Captain. If you want it. Remember, we have two practice shots in the port tubes. They'll run hot but there's no explosive—”

Packer looked into the space between them for a second. His mouth came open a little. Then it snapped shut, and set in a downturned line. He jerked the curtain open and thrust his head inside.

“Fire the two practice rounds on line of sound, initial depth fifty feet, floor four hundred.”

Dan heard Reed acknowledge. He saw Bryce stiffen, and caught from the corner of his eye Evlin, at the door, looking back at him. Dan tried to smile at him. But the operations officer just looked back, his expression not changing. He looked sad yet understanding. Dan thought with a shiver that it was as if he was judging them.

Then Evlin wasn't with them anymore.

He was reminded what was going on by a shout from Sonar. Orris again: “High-speed screws to port!”

Reed, in his earphones: “Two shots in the water, running hot.”

“Torpedoes in the water, sir!”

“Theirs or ours?”

“Ours, sir. Sorry, sir.” His teeth were chattering; he was shivering. Packer said, “Soon as this is over, Dan, get Cummings up here to relieve you. You need to get some dry clothes on. And get somebody to look at those hands. Chief, can we get you some coffee? I could do with some, too.”

“I'll call the mess decks, get some sent up, sir.”

Dan felt his eyes attracted again to the clock. Not long to wait this time. They'd been close when they fired, almost inside minimum range. The book said the Mark 43 went in at a steep down angle, reached its initial search depth, then turned on its sonar and began circling. It spiraled downward, searching a great cylinder of sea as it slowly dropped to its floor depth. Then, if it still had juice in its batteries, it rose again. As soon as it detected a target, it broke off the search and homed in. The offset from the surface meant that the firing ship was safe.

“Orris, what have you got?”

“Still circling, sir—wait—there's a hit, I think. There's another one! Like a clang—no explosion—”

“Stand by on the starboard mount,” said Packer. Like the others, he had his head cocked, listening.

Nothing happened for the next few minutes. Dan's excitement ebbed, leaving him suddenly so weak that he could barely stand. Packer coughed and rubbed his throat. Finally Orris reported a grinding noise. A new noise, at the same repetition rate as 41's screw.

“Could be we hit his prop,” said Bryce, emerging from the shadows again. Packer nodded shortly.

“Captain, Bridge,” Norden cut in on the intercom. The CO reached up wearily. “I'm here, go ahead.”

“Sir, we have what looks like running lights off to port. Can't get an aspect yet, but appears to be a small surface vessel.”

“Be right out.”

“Want me to take over here?”

“Thanks, Ben, but I think Lenson's got the bubble.” Packer didn't look at either of them. He groped around for his pipe, then seemed to give up. He stumbled as he moved toward the door. Dan looked after him. Sudden pride fought with guilt. He should have reported that radar contact, momentary and doubtful as it had been. Next time, he would.

“So, somebody's got to keep ship's routine going,” Bryce announced. “I'll be in my office, anyone needs me.”

“Aye aye, sir,” said Dan. His voice came out bland, just like he wanted it, though he really wanted to laugh in the exec's beefy face.

When both the XO and CO were gone, Pedersen held out the evaluator's headset. Dan slipped one earpiece of the WLO's set off and put one of the evaluator's on. That way he could monitor both circuits. Some part of him that was getting tired of being ignored said plaintively that his ears were getting sore. He ignored it again. “Chief, hadn't we better start plotting that surface contact?”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

It had to be the intelligence ship the British had warned them about. Nobody else had any reason to be out here—not this time of year.

Suddenly he couldn't stand being inside, unable to see. He said, “Chief, I'll be right back.” Hanging up the headset, he took ten steps forward and stuck his head into the pilothouse.

They were standing out on the wing. Packer, a shorter shadow that had to be Norden, and the third either Yardner or Lieutenant (jg) Johnson, the other Condition IIIA JOOD. They all had their binoculars up. He leaned out, opening his eyes wide to the night. Beyond them were two distinct specks of light, aureoled with mist or fog but burning steady, and another that winked slowly.

He heard one phrase, torn from Packer's lips by the blast of wind: “Where in the hell did he come from?”

Dan stared out, holding the door grimly against its attempts to compact him. Across the heaving darkness, the distant light tapped out, slow and distinct, so deliberately that he was able to make out the Morse:
USSR SUBMARINES ARRIVE HERE SOON. YIELD AREA TO US TO MAKE CONTACT CAPTAIN OLFERIEV. FAILURE TO DO WILL LEAD TO USSR SUBMARINES TO ATTACK YOU
.

“Mr. Lenson! Sonar, for you!”

He started and slammed the door. The other ship must be small, to paint so poorly on the radar. He hated to think how they were riding. But then, coming from the east, they'd missed the worst of the storm.

Two of the messmen had brought up coffee in a thermal jug and bread in a bucket. Some of the men were eating, gnawing it from their hands like squirrels. He grabbed a heel as the messman went by.

Only then did the meaning of the signal penetrate. The new arrival was ordering them to leave. Saying the Soviets would deal with this Captain—Olferiev. At last they could put a name to the man across the chessboard.

But as he put the headset back on, he realized with hollow apprehension that Packer wouldn't. He'd refused to before, when
Ryan
was close to sinking. Now, with part of the experimental IVDS wrapped around the sub below, after being fired at, he'd never leave, threats or no.

He listened to Orris's exhausted voice dragging out ranges and bearings. His heart felt sluggish and underpowered, like a four-cylinder Fury. His hands shook. Looking across the plot, he saw how ashen Pedersen's face was, how exhausted Lipson and Matt looked. Packer was older than any of them. How much more could he take? They'd been lucky so far. Torpedoes that hadn't exploded. A ship that hadn't capsized. How long could that kind of luck hold?

He suddenly noticed that there was bread in his hand and that he was hungry. He was tearing at it with his teeth, surprised his stomach accepted it, when Pedersen said, “Check this out on the surface scope, sir. A small contact. Intermittent. Dead ahead.”

“Dead ahead? That's where B forty-one is.”

“Right, sir. I think he's surfacing.”

Only after he'd swallowed it did he notice that his torn fingers had left blood prints on the bread.

18

THE working lights were on and Bloch and Isaacs were busy when Dan got back to the boat deck. The starter was grinding gravel. More First Division men were coming out of the hangar. They were olive-drab snowmen in a bulky assortment of rain gear, foul-weather jackets, hoods, caps, masks, and gloves. He noted Rocky, Speedy, Brute Boy, Ali X., Shorty. And Lassard, standing in the hangar lee with his hands in his pockets, smiling dreamily past it all at the sea. “Where's Popeye?” Dan shouted over the baying of the wind. Nobody answered. Then he made out Rambaugh in the boat, bent over at the coxswain's station.

“How many you want in her, sir?”

“I'm not sure, Chief. How many we usually take?”

“Is it a boarding party, a rescue party, what?”

“I don't know. The skipper just told me—he just said to get our guys back here and get ready to put the boat in the water.”

“Well, we might not be able to. Not in seas like this. Hell, it's hard to board a sub in
good
weather. And plus, this fucking diesel's frozen or something. You people been starting it regular?”

“Every day, Chief man, you know we treat it right.”

“Ikey. Where's Ikey? He's good with—here, get up there, see what you can do with it.”

Dan looked at the sea. If he had to do this, he would. But he didn't want to think about putting out into that madness in a twenty-six-foot Mark Two motor whaleboat. The waves looked higher than the boat was long. Dark as hell's basement, too. Christ, he thought, what if we get lost? What if we get swamped, or capsize?

The engine puked blue smoke and began clattering. The black first-class, padded like a pugil-stick fighter with foul-weather gear, life jacket, watch cap, straightened proudly, wiping his hands on a rag. Lassard howled, dancing like an Indian, fingers extended in peace signs. “Cut it off, goddamn it!” Bloch shouted. “We'll start it again when she lowers. Ikey, help Baw inventory her outfit.”

“Anchor.”

“Check.”

“Batteries, dry.”

“Check.”

“Bell ‘n' bracket.”

“Gotcha, Ikey.”

“Thass Petty Officer Isaacs to you. Chain assembly.”

Dan studied the davits, the hoisting gear that would sway the boat up out of her chocks, swing her outboard, and lower her. Cranks and screws and lines and turnbuckles and gripes. He had no idea how they operated. He stood back, letting Bloch and Isaacs chivvy and push the hands into position on steadying lines and twofold tackles.

Finally, the chief called, “Okay, crew.” Connolly, Coffey, and Vogelpohl pushed up to the metal ladder that led up to the still-chocked boat. Dan looked at the round-faced department yeoman. “Pohl, what're you doing out here?”

“I'm boat crew, Ensign.”

“I didn't know that.”

“Grapnel line … bailin' pail … fenders … stern lines. Got it all, Chief.”

“Mr. Lenson, you boat officer?”

“Guess so, Chief.”

“Better board, sir. Bridge is sayin' we're starting our approach.”

“Have you got Mr. Norden on there?”

The phone talker nodded. Dan bawled, “Ask him how many men we want in the boat, and what we're supposed to do.”

Out of nowhere, it began to rain. An icy, diagonal, freezing mix of rain and soft sleet that pelted down out of invisible clouds and soaked his foul-weather jacket in seconds. The men cursed and shoved around him, climbing up into the boat and settling on thwarts slick and sweet-smelling with glycol antifreeze. Loose ice slid around under the floorboards. The sleet stung his eyes and trickled down his back. He wondered what they were supposed to be doing. If this was a boarding party, it seemed like they ought to be armed.

As if thought called them into being, there were two gunner's mates by the rail, handing over short shapes wrapped in tarp. The men started to unwrap them. “Put them under the thwarts,” he shouted, standing up. “Listen up! You, Heering—are these loaded?”

“Full magazines, empty chambers. Just work the operating rod to load the first round. This forty-five's yours, sir. Got fire axes here for you, too. Watch 'em, they're sharp.”

The pistol felt heavy and familiar. Plebe Summer, hot, dusty hours on the range at Greenbury Point. He checked it and stuffed it into his belt, under all the other gear.

“Mr. Lenson! Wanted on the circuit.”

He fought his way out of the boat and onto the ship again, stepping carefully across space to the boat deck. The headset was wet and cold on his ears. “Lenson. That you, Rich?”

“This is the captain. You ready to lower away back there?”

He thought of the storm, the dark. The pistol was blue ice, sucking the warmth of his privates. He took a deep breath. “Yes, sir.”

“Radar holds what we think's forty-one about a thousand yards ahead, on the surface. No lights, so she's running darkened. If she's running at all.”

“Yes, sir. What do you want us to—”

“I don't know what you'll hit over there. You're going to have to use your judgment. If there's nobody topside, or only a couple guys, board her and check out the sail and planes. Do it fast. Make sure there's nothing of ours fouled on her. If you see the cable, chop it free and either tow it back or let it sink. Got that?”

“Uh, yes, sir, but what about the sub itself? Do you want me to, uh—to capture it?”

A grim chuckle came over the circuit. “With this guy to starboard looking on? That's how wars start, Dan. No dramatics. Just get aboard, check it out, and get back here. Fast.

“From what Sonar's telling me, they're in trouble. They're fighting major flooding. They're probably not going to have a hell of a lot of attention to spare for you. If it goes down while you're alongside, make sure all our guys get back aboard.”

“What about them, sir? What if they want off?”

“Good question, but you'll have to play that by ear. If he's sinking, and there's room in the boat, you can pick some of them up. I don't think I want them on the ship, though. Shuttle them over to the AGI. I'll be covering you with the guns in case anything goes wrong. Got it?”

He repeated it back. The captain snapped, “Okay, go to it,” and left the line.

“What's the word, sir?”

“It's a boarding party, Chief.”