smash through sonar-identified thinner ice, they might stand some chance. But unless the sub could rise, the hope of getting the men out, airlifted off the ice to Spitzberg or south to Iceland or even west to Greenland, was just a dream. Realistically, however, Robert Brentwood knew their only prospects now were that the sub would in fact go deeper if any more leaks occurred, and each inch she fell increased the “taffy”—the effect of increased water pressure over her entire hull.
After reaching the reactor room and satisfying himself that the steam leak was in fact minor, he passed on to the engine room, noting along the way that some of the green rubberized tile on the walkway had curled at the edges. It was down here that some of the worst leaks had occurred before the pumps had got them under control. “You boys enjoy the dip?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” answered a ginger-headed young auxiliary room mechanic who looked to Robert Brentwood as if he must be no more than nineteen or twenty — about the same age as Rosemary’s younger brother, whose bones now lay scattered somewhere on the bottom of the Atlantic. Brentwood saw the man’s dosimeter had exceeded the two-hundred-rad mark, and the young man saw him notice but smiled good-naturedly before turning away, busying himself with the oil pressure gauges.
Robert Brentwood was so moved by the young mechanic’s quiet bravery that as he headed back through Sherwood Forest, he took out a Kleenex, pretending to blow his nose, using the tissue as a cover for the overwhelming tears of pride and the sense of honor it gave him to command such men. Seeing another pair of missile technicians working the port-side monitors, he quipped lightheartedly, “Hope you boys aren’t getting bored down here.”
“No sir, Captain,” answered one. “These D-5s are more temperamental. Humidity’s—”
It came to him in a flash. He could have hugged the technician — name patch Sayers — except they would have labeled him as a Section-Eight. As it was, the two technicians saw Brentwood do something that no one had ever seen “Bing” do. He began running through the sub, the alternate numbers of the missiles on the port side — two, four, six, — flashing by him. Halfway along, he heard the soft gong: “Captain to Control. Captain to Control.”
“How’d he know they were gonna call him?” asked Sayers.
“Don’t ask me, man,” replied his checker. “Sixth sense. Sub captain’s got to have it, I hear.”
“Bullshit! No way he could’ve—”
“Hey, man — watch it. You missed a step. Back up in the sequence.”
As Brentwood entered Control, he was told by Zeldman they had a contact.
“Hostile?” asked Brentwood, catching his breath.
“Too far away as yet,” answered Zeldman. “The estimate is fifty-five thousand yards. About thirty miles.”
Brentwood had always made it a habit to be overly conservative when it came to estimates of contact distances, and decided to act as if the approaching submarine — as it certainly couldn’t be a surface vessel — was closer to them.
“What’s your guesstimate, Link?” Brentwood asked the other sonarman.
“Well, sir, it’s a bit fuzzy, but that may be because some of our sensors were ruptured during the Alfa attack. But it’s definitely coming towards—”
“He’s gone,” said Emerson. “Shut down his active.”
All eyes in Control were on the monitor panels. Brentwood seemed as alarmed now as he had been excited when he entered Control.
“Very well,” he said, the phrase, and his tone, gathering them all together. He gave orders for the emergency props to be extended from the belly of the sub. If they couldn’t rise, they could at least turn
“Either way, torpedo room,” Brentwood advised, “I want you to load one SA tube, one PA tube, with short- range contact fuse fish.”
“One tube starboard abaft with contact fish, one port abaft with contact fish,” came the confirmation. “Short-range fuse.”
“Man battle stations missile,” ordered Brentwood, standing by the raised podium of the control room’s attack center, his arms folded, the small of his back touching the brass rail that girded the search and the attack periscopes’ housing. “Set condition one SQ.” They were now on highest alert.
“Set condition one SQ. Aye aye, sir,” repeated Zeldman, and upon seeing the various departments punching in “ready,” he confirmed, “condition one SQ all set.”
“Very well,” answered Brentwood. “Neutral trim.”
“In neutral trim now, sir.”
“Very well. Prepare to spin.” Several men in Control looked across at each other in alarm. “Stand by to flood tubes two, three, and four,” ordered Brentwood, and they could hear the faint rushing of water filling the torpedo tubes. Tube one already contained the Mark-48 with contact fuse, the remaining three torpedoes now sliding forward from their rail-tracked dollies into the tubes, assuring that
Inside Missile Control, the weapons officer was waiting anxiously for the order to complete “spin-up,” entering the local orientating corrections into the missiles’ computers so as to assure the best possible trajectories for the MARVed— maneuvering reentry vehicle — warheads. But as yet no targets had been given. Given their present location, there were any number Brentwood could choose under the U.S. policy of “counter force,” that is, against military targets only, and not cities. It wasn’t as if Brentwood didn’t have enough to choose from; in fact, the nearest and most worthwhile targets would be the forty high-priority military bases clustered along the Kola Peninsula, but still the designation of targets had not come, and instead Brentwood requested “missile status report.”
“Sir, the spin-up’s not complete.”
“Do as I say!” snapped Brentwood. “Prepare missiles for launch.”
“Yes, sir. Preparing missiles for launch.”
“Very well. Prepare for ripple fire.”
“Yes, sir. Prepare for ripple fire.”
All over the ship, men were moving to their firing positions within two seconds of the operator squeezing the yellow handle and the soft but persistent musical gong sounding, the ripple firing sequence they were readying for one that would eject missile six first, then missile one. This staggered sequence would offset starboard and port yawing when water would rush into the four-storied missile tubes after each 114,000-pound missile had passed through its blue asbestos phenolic dome. The dome would shatter first, its symmetrical destruction being achieved by small explosive charges under each dome a split second before the steam pressure expelled whichever missiles Brentwood would select.
“Sir,” said Peter Zeldman, “we have no radio message to launch. Have you reason for ‘independent authority to launch’?” It was the first and, as it would turn out, the last time Peter Zeldman would ever question an order by Robert Brentwood.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Zeldman,” Brentwood said, so all of Control could hear. “The missiles I select will not have their warheads armed.”
Zeldman exchanged a quick glance with the chief. Was Brentwood cracking up?
Like Zeldman and others, the weapons officer looked worried, too, and it wasn’t missed by his assistant, who, with wire trailing from his headphones, was moving back and forth, head bent like a priest at prayer, along the narrow “Blood Alley,” the redded-out corridor of high computer banks, where he checked out each missile’s status, verifying for the weapons officer that each of the six Trident D-5 missiles was ready to pass through its four prelaunch modes.
“Missiles ready,” the weapons officer confirmed to Control.
“Very well,” said Brentwood. “Prepare for ripple fire.”
