'Helm,' Jeffrey said, 'make your course one zero zero. Ahead two thirds, make turns for twenty-six knots.'
'Make my course one zero zero, aye,' Meltzer said. 'Ahead two thirds, make turns for twenty-six knots, aye…Maneuvering acknowledges turns for twenty-six knots, sir.'
'Time for us to do a disappearing act,' Jeffrey said, 'and sneak out past the Boer SOSUS.' He listened to the ocean's rumbling, burbling whoosh. 'We'll head right through the blast area, cloak ourselves in the aftermath of all the steam and bubbles. Chief of the Watch, keep your eyes glued to our buoyancy and trim, and shut unneeded sea valves.'
'Aye aye,' COB acknowledged.
'Assistant Navigator,' Jeffrey said to the chief now filling in for Monaghan, 'set the secure fathometer to maximum power, and you keep your eyes glued to the reported depth below the keel. This is gonna be one heck of a ride.'
'All units detonated,' Van Gelder said, sticking to procedure. A bit redundant saying it aloud, he thought, his ears still aching.
'Any sign of Challenger?' ter Horst said.
'Negative, sir,' Van Gelder said. 'No hole-in-ocean or ambient sonar contact, and it's impossible to detect any breaking-up noise now.'
'Very well,' ter Horst said. 'Helm, steer one two zero. Make your depth twelve hundred meters smartly, then follow the bottom.'
'Steer one two zero, aye aye, sir,' the helmsman said. 'Make my depth twelve hundred meters smartly, then follow the bottom, aye aye.'
'We'll sweep from south to north,' ter Horst said, 'and do a salvage search. We'll go active with our chin- mounted HF sonar when we reach ground zero of the last torpedo.'
'The bottom's sand or mud,' Van Gelder said.
'Exactly,' ter Horst said. 'Even with bad acoustic conditions we should find some wreckage easily. Their reactor vessel's a third of a meter of manganese-molybdenum carbon steel on every side. Parts of that thing would survive a direct hit from an H-bomb.'
Challenger finally seemed back on an even keel. Ilse was ready for another shower — after that roller-coaster ride through the atomic blast zone her body was damp with sweat. She'd gone beyond exhaustion now, long past feeling tired. Anaerobic respiration, she told herself, my second wind. Toxins are building up throughout my body. I just can't feel them yet.
'Good job, COB and Meltzer,' she heard Jeffrey say.
'I can see the new gray hairs already,' COB said.
Jeffrey chuckled. 'New London ought to add this problem to the simulator training. Assistant Navigator, make a note in the deck log. Egress through the sonar whiteout seems a natural tactic, regardless of a boat's depth capabilities…You do need a strong stomach, though.'
'Aye aye sir,' the assistant navigator said.
Ilse studied the local bottom charts, trying to make herself useful. Through the CACC speakers she could hear the constant gurgling, hissing roar outside the hull, the noise level dropping only slowly with the range because the three ground zeros formed an extended linear source — she'd been doing her homework on sonar. Interlaced with the lingering explosion effects was maddened pinging by surface units in the distance.
'Oceanographer,' Jeffrey said.
Ilse turned to face him.
'What would Jan ter Horst be thinking now?'
Ilse gave Jeffrey a funny look. 'I didn't know him in a professional capacity, Commander.' She immediately regretted the choice of words. She saw Jeffrey blush. 'Extrapolate,' he said. 'Anything's better than nothing. He'll be doing the same with us.'
'He'll try to make sure we're dead.'
'He won't just take it for granted, after that atomic ruckus?'
'No,' Ilse said. 'Jan takes nothing for granted.' She made a face.
'What do you mean, exactly?' Jeffrey said.
'Rumor had it, when he was at sea he had people checking up on me.'
'The jealous sort, you mean?'
'Very.'
'Was he married?'
'Commander,' Ilse said, giving him a dirty look. 'Sorry' Jeffrey said, 'I'm not too good at this.' 'That's all right. No, I used to tease him he was a bigamist, married to his career and to his ego.'
'Very funny,' Jeffrey said, obviously not meaning it. 'He'll want to gloat over the carcass now,' Ilse said,
'Challenger's remains…And he won't want to share credit for locating the kill with another captain.'
'So he'll come looking for the wreckage right away' 'Yes, I think so,' Ilse said. 'And he won't find any, will he?'
Jeffrey frowned. 'XO, take the conn.'
'Aye aye, sir,' Bell said. 'This is the acting XO, I have the Conn.'
'Aye aye,' the watch standers said.
'Ilse, Commodore,' Jeffrey said, 'join me at the navigation plotting table, please.' Jeffrey hobbled over. Ilse rose and followed him.
She and Morse and Jeffrey conferred with the assistant navigator. The local nautical chart was already up on the main horizontal flat screen. The assistant navigator brought a copy onto the smaller working screen.
'Overlay the locations of the nuclear blasts,' Jeffrey said, bending over the table, using it to help support his weight. The assistant navigator worked the keyboard and three red Xs popped onto the working screen.
'Okay Chief,' Jeffrey said, 'now add the torpedo tracks.' Three lines appeared, leading back from the Xs toward an area nearer the shore.
'Hmm,' Jeffrey said. 'If I were ter Horst, I'd search the arc along the Xs, on the inner edge of the sonar whiteout zone. Use my HF gear to look for Challenger's debris.'
'Makes sense,' Morse said.
'Whichever end he starts at,' Jeffrey said, 'north or south, he'll have to go slow. Sonar conditions are still pretty awful. There'll be high attenuation loss from bubbles and stirred-up particles. Right, Ilse?'
'Absolutely.'
'And high-frequency sound sheds its energy the fastest,' Jeffrey said, 'so his search will cover fairly narrow swaths.'
Morse smiled. 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking…Captain?' Ilse looked up. 'You're going to shoot at him.'
'Does that bother you?' Jeffrey said. 'If you're emotionally involved, I need to know it now.'
Damn you, Jeffrey Fuller, Ilse thought. After everything we've been through together on this mission. 'My whole family's dead or disappeared because of him.'
'Sorry,' Jeffrey said. He sounded like he meant it. 'Here's my plan,' he said. 'We have four Mark 88s left. It's time to use one. We'll program it to run along the arc through all the Xs, starting near our end, the south. We preset it to move just over the bottom, using slow speed, twenty knots, until it locks on Voortrekker.'
Morse nodded. 'That'll give it plenty of cruising range to turn back and try again if needed.'
'Affirmative,' Jeffrey said. 'We'll make the unit ping on active at low intensity so it won't be blind, and at the same time Voortrekker won't hear it coming till too late.'
'They may think its pings are their own garbled side-scan echoes,' Morse said, 'or stray signals from a friendly. Doppler will be chaotic out there now.'
'All the better,' Jeffrey said. 'We'll preset the frequency to forty-five kilohertz, since some of their frigates use that for mine avoidance. We'll have the weapon do a wigwag search, to help disguise its base approach course. We'll preset the warhead for maximum yield.'
'Decimal one KT?' Morse said.
'Best we can do,' Jeffrey said. 'Ilse, you know these waters. Am I missing something?'
