War Plan Red (32 page)

“He’s heading for the Baltic Sea,” Abakov said, looking over Scott’s shoulder at the chart.

“Damn right. Starpom, call away battle stations: Pass the word by mouth. I don’t want our friends in the K-363 to hear the gongs.”

“Aye, Kapitan, battle stations away.”

The men in the CCP and in other parts of the submarine had been alert to the subtle changes that a submarine undergoes when tracking a target and had been hovering near their battle stations, anticipating the call. Now they sprang into action.

Scott looked around the CCP and saw the fire control plotters at work; the auxiliarymen at their manifold controls; that the diving station was fully manned and ready. Reports came in from every part of the ship. Engine room, auxiliary machinery spaces, reactor control. In the torpedo room a deck below the CCP, torpedomen had run tests on their fish and double-checked their circuits and links to the fire control station in the CCP.

“All stations manned and ready, Kapitan,” the starpom reported.

As the K-480 closed in and the K-363’s relative bearing changed, the tactical display on the fire control plotter changed with it, constantly updating information the torpedoes needed to find their target.

Scott saw Alex ease into the CCP. She’d been tending Botkin and looked exhausted. Abakov said something to her that Scott couldn’t hear but saw her shake her head no.

“What’s going on?” she asked Scott.

“We have sonar contact with the K-363. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next hour or so, but you’re welcome to stay here.” His eyes roamed her fatigued face. “How’s Botkin?”

“Same.” She looked around as if seeing the CCP for the first time, its lights, its equipment, the men themselves taut with expectation. “Is this the real thing, Jake? Are you trying for a kill?”

The tension had risen until it was palpable. The men, intent on their duties, had reached the point that they were unaware of anything or anyone around them. It was the moment they had trained for, and the payoff would soon be theirs to savor. Even Alex had been affected. Consciously or not, both her hands had a white-knuckle grip on the railing around the periscope stand.

There was no need to explain. She could see for herself that something extraordinary might happen soon. Yet, Scott wondered if it could be this simple, that on his first contact with the K-363 he might nail her with a clean shot. He knew it was never that easy and tempered his anticipation of the kill with a dose of reality. Anything could happen and probably would. Expect it and you won’t be taking a torp up your own ass….

“Kapitan, sonar! Multiple contacts bearing on an arc one-two-zero through two-two-zero…. Norsk-class frigates…and…the Oslo-class frigates we heard before!”

Scott donned headphones and heard the noise from ships’ machinery distorted by heavy seas. “You’re sure?” he asked the sonarman.

“Positive, Kapitan. I have them up and matched. Look.”

One set of sound profiles matched the two Oslos perfectly. The Norsk-class ships were new and Russian boats didn’t yet have their individual profiles recorded but instead had signatures of their distinctive-sounding Laval-Ljungstrom gas turbine power plants. The picture had cleared slightly and Scott didn’t like what he saw: a line of Norwegian ASW frigates driving the K-480 toward the K-363.

Scott said, “They’re going to drive us south whether we like it or not, right into the approaches to The Sound. If the Swedes haven’t already been alerted, they will be now.”

Abakov took a quick look at the chart. The Sound was in Swedish-Danish waters. “What about the Danes?”

“Their ASW capability is nil, so they’ll rely on the Swedes to screen The Sound to prevent a submarine from getting through submerged. They can’t shut it down completely because of all the commercial traffic that passes through.”

Scott saw the look of concern on Abakov’s face and said, “That’s right, we’re about to be painted into a corner.”

“Kapitan, I have contact with numerous targets.”

“Do you have the Akula?” asked Litvanov.

The sonarman slowly nodded. “I think so, a three hundred-hertz tone line, but faint. Masked by the frigates and commercials. Bearing zero-nine-five. Range rate closing, fifty yards a minute.”

“Fire Control. How does that compute?”

“Range under twenty kilometers, sir, perhaps less.”

Litvanov glanced at Zakayev to confirm that his description of how hard it could be to slip through The Sound might yet prove true.

Litvanov had also pointed out the hazards seafarers faced when approaching The Sound. The Russian navigation charts warned of shifting bottom conditions that affected depth, residual danger from old minefields, east-west ferry traffic between Sweden and Denmark, and dangerous setting currents.

Veroshilov had also reminded Litvanov of the shallow water in the Kattegat: on average only thirty fathoms, less in the approaches to The Sound.

“We’ll let that nosy bastard come to us and then spring a surprise on him,” Litvanov said.

“You mean torpedo him?” Zakayev said.

“Not unless I have to,” Litvanov said.

“What, then?”

But Litvanov was conferring with his sonarmen.

“Where are those frigates?”

“North, bearing now zero-nine-five.”

“What kind of commercial traffic do you have?”

“Mostly single-screw diesel, Kapitan.” He pointed to the waterfalls of sound crawling down the sonar screens. “Four big ones, probably container ships and ro-ros.” The latter were roll-on/roll-off freighters designed to carry mixed cargoes of cars, trucks, and containers. “Targets are inbound to The Sound and in-line on a track parallel to our own. They all bear due east of Anholt.”

“The weather’s not slowing them down a bit,” Litvanov observed. “A regular freight train. They’re either heading for Hälsingborg or Copenhagen.” Litvanov turned to Zakayev and the girl and grinned.

“Too bad we don’t have time for a visit. Copenhagen is a beautiful city.”

He mounted the periscope stand.

“Periscope depth. Let’s see what we have.”

He was right: A freight train of ships partially obscured by rain and mist steamed past the raised periscope like ducks in a shooting gallery. Their green running lights and tiers of white lights strung along their weather decks and top hampers lit them up like a carnival midway. In high magnification and with waves breaking over the scope, Litvanov moved down the train left to right, ticking them off.

“Container ship. Next, a gas hauler.” He saw the letters LNG for liquid natural gas painted on the ship’s side in white letters twenty feet high, and, rising above her main deck, four huge domed containers filled with liquid gas. “Third, a ro-ro. Last, a container ship, big bastard, over a hundred and fifty thousand tons. Down periscope.”

“So, what do we do?” Zakayev said.

“I like that container ship. Maybe we’ll hitch a ride on her into The Sound.”

Captain Bayer was pleased but also a little disappointed with his own performance. The new frigate Kalix, with her green crew, had made contact at long range with one of the two Akulas now due south of their current position near Anholt. He regretted his earlier decision to deploy Trondheim’s VDS

sonar because it would restrict maneuver in confined waters. Narvik and Norsk had also started hauling in. He wanted the Russians for himself but now he would have to share them.

“We’re in a hurry, Mr. Garborg,” he had said, “but I don’t want any casualties.” Garborg appreciated Bayer’s concern for the sailors who had to manhandle the gear on the ship’s fantail but felt the pressure all the same. He knew Bayer was pacing the bridge, waiting for confirmation that the tow had been winched aboard.

“Anything new from Kalix?” Bayer asked of Executive Officer Dass.

“She still has a passive contact, sir.”

“Do we have an open channel to Stavanger?”

“Yes, sir. Signals is monitoring it. They’re standing by.”

Bayer had already given the order to change course toward the sonar contact. There was nothing more he could do now but fret. “Sound conditions are very poor,” Bayer said to Dass. “I’m surprised Kalix made contact at all. Surprised even more that she can hold it.”

Bayer looked aft at the floodlit fantail and saw sailors in blue hard hats swarming around the winch. He watched the dripping VDS cable wrap slowly around the take-up spool. It seemed that the retrieval operation would take forever.

“What’s our radar picture, Mr. Dass?” said Bayer, gaze planted aft.

“Four heavies still running south in train, Captain.”

Bayer started pacing again. “Keep an eye on them. We may have to warn them off the area where that damned Akula is operating. They won’t like it, but they’ll have no choice.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Bayer paced another ten minutes, until he heard Garborg’s report that the sonar body was out of the water. Bayer spun on his heel in mid-stride across the bridge and boomed at Dass. “Both engines ahead full. Set watch condition two.”

“Aye, sir. Ahead full. Call away general quarters.”

Annunciators clinked and answered. The deck shuddered underfoot. The frigate’s bow rose as her screws bit in hard.

“Signals!”

“Aye, sir.”

“Send to Narvik and Norsk: ‘Follow on ASAP, et cetera.’ Send to Kalix: ‘Hold position until we go active on sonar, then break off VDS.’ Mr. Dass.”

“Sir?”

“We’re at the fringe of sonar range, but you may go active in five minutes. And stand by on weapons.”

“I have three pingers, Kapitan.”

“The Norwegians,” Scott said. “They’re drawing a bead on the K-363.”

“What’s to prevent them from drawing it on us?” Abakov said.

“Unless we can stay out of their way, nothing.”

Scott studied the tactical picture. Three Norwegian frigates pinging with active sonar; the K-363

somewhere south of the Norwegians, likely near the approach to The Sound; four merchantmen north of the K-480’s current position, headed for The Sound.

“If we stick our nose in there now, we’re going to get depth-charged by the Norwegians. If we don’t, there’s a good chance Litvanov will get into The Sound before the Norwegians can head him off.”

“Look here, The Sound is only three and a half miles wide,” Abakov said, his face practically on the chart. “Can’t the Swedes be a stopper in the bottle?”

The Sound had two narrow and shallow ship channels. In some places the water was less than ten fathoms deep. On the Danish side of The Sound at Kronborg Pynt, the southbound channel made a sharp dogleg to the left before opening up for the approach to Copenhagen. It reminded Scott of a pair of cattle chutes.

“They probably don’t want to risk a submarine sinking in the channel,” Scott said. “It would be better to nail the K-363 before she gets through or before she reaches Copenhagen.”

“Kapitan!” The sonarman handed Scott earphones. “Something…!”

Scott heard the familiar shrill pinging of the Norwegians’ sonars. Between pings he heard the steady thump, thump, thump of the approaching merchant men.

Scott said. “Yuri, give a listen. They’ve gone active. Won’t do them much good because Akulas have an anechoic coating on their hulls that defeats active sonar. But you never know. The Norwegians might get lucky.”

Abakov heard thrashing screws and the eerie, crystal clear pings of hull-mounted sonars.

“Right full rudder, come to new course one-five-zero,” Scott commanded.

“Right full rudder, aye.”

The K-480 turned to avoid the approaching frigates and merchantmen. Scott had his fingers crossed they wouldn’t end up in the sonar cones beating a tattoo on the K-363.

“Starpom, bring her up to periscope depth. Time we take a look around.”

“They found us!” Litvanov shouted.

Zakayev went white. He heard the pings thudding off the coated hull, felt the sonic pulses rattling his brain. The girl registered his shock: A hand flew to her mouth. She knew there was no place to hide.

Litvanov glanced up as if trying to see the sonar beams that had them fingered. So much for the K-363’s anechoic coating. Parts of it were probably missing. He issued a tangle of orders to helm and engine room. The K-363 sped up, turned right, and left a knuckle in the water to confuse the frigates’

sonar. He counted to ten, then commanded, “Fire one LA decoy!”

It took a moment to flood the ejection tube in the bow and equalize the pressure. Then the air ram in the tube cycled and spit a noisemaker meant to sound like an American Los Angeles–class submarine into the K-363’s flow stream.

The K-363 continued swinging round, away from the whining decoy. Litvanov watched the compass wind clockwise then ordered, “Meet her! Steady on course two-seven-zero! Sonar…?”

“No change, Kapitan.”

The pinging frigates seemed as determined as ever.

“They didn’t go for it,” Litvanov said. “Maybe they’ll go for this. Fire Control!”

“Fire Control, aye,” the michman at the fire control console responded, while Veroshilov supervised the input of data.

“Stand by for target acquisition.”

Litvanov’s gaze drifted to Zakayev. The general’s face was a mask; he knew there was no alternative.

Litvanov said, “Target acquisition…target two.”

“Target two?” from the michman.

“Are you deaf?” Veroshilov bellowed. “The kapitan said target two!”

Zakayev stirred. He’d learned how to read the sonar contacts, but before he could protest, Litvanov cut him off. “It’s the only way.”

“Target two acquired, Kapitan,” said the rebuked michman.

Overhead, the pinging grew more intense, more shrill. Zakayev heard the frigates’ thrashing, angry