Tidal Rip

“Captain,” the copilot said.

The urgent call hit Beck like an electrical shock. “What is it?” he snapped in an undertone. “Give me a proper report.”

“New contact on off-board probe.”

“Concur,” Haffner said. “New passive sonar contact by one of our unmanned undersea vehicles.” The vehicles had hydrophones and other mission sensors. “Strong contact. Range is short.”

“Classify it,” Stissinger ordered.

“Nuclear submarine. On the bottom. Same depth as us!”

“Quiet,” Beck snapped. He looked at Stissinger. “A nuclear sub at a thousand-plus meters? Identify it. Seawolf class? Dreadnought? Either way we’ve got big trouble.”

“New contact signal strength increasing,” Haffner said through clenched teeth. “Contact is approaching our location.”

“Copilot,” Stissinger ordered, “pass control of the probe to me.”

“Jawohl.” The copilot was a junior officer. His voice now sounded very tight.

Stissinger gripped the joystick on his console. Through the fiber-optic guidance wire, he directed the probe in a wide arc around to the side of the hostile deep-running nuclear sub. Beck saw Stissinger’s hand was white knuckled on the control stick. He knew his XO was aiming for a better acoustic profile of the hostile contact.

Using folds in the terrain and rubble from ancient undersea earthquakes, Stissinger snuck the probe nearer and nearer the inbound submarine. Then his senior chief reported that the other probe’s cameras had spotted a line of acoustic-and magnetic-anomaly sensors freshly emplaced on the bottom just ahead.

The tension in the control room rose sharply.

Beck told himself there was no reason to think the von Scheer had been spotted, yet. Maybe this was just routine Allied procedure to guard the gap and also keep an eye on Russian submarine movements.

Don’t kid yourself. They know the von Scheer is on the prowl, somewhere.

“Good tonals now,” Haffner said in an almost yell. “Inbound contact is definitely nuclear-powered, definitely American.”

Stissinger turned to Beck. “Probe’s magnetic-anomaly sensors confirm unidentified vessel is steel-hulled, not ceramic, sir.”

“A Seawolf,” von Loringhoven said. “But she’s practically at her crush depth. Or below it. Something doesn’t make sense.”

Beck shot him a disapproving look. “Quiet in the Zentrale.” Baron or not, this guest had to learn to keep his mouth shut.

“Better tonals now,” Haffner hissed.

“It’s NR-One,” Stissinger said disbelievingly. The one-ofa-kind NR- 1 had been a pet project of Admiral Hyman Rickover years ago.

“What’s NR-One doing here?” von Loringhoven said.

“I said be quiet,” Beck snapped. “We’ve got difficulties, Einzvo. That little sub out there may be unarmed, but she’s optimized for deep-sea surveillance and recon.”

“Concur, Captain.” Stissinger sounded extremely worried. The aged NR-1, with her eight-man crew and powerful sensors, could find the von Scheer and unmask her… and then, by acoustic comms or radio buoy, call in overwhelming firepower.

In a pinch, those two Russians will flee for their lives, and we’ll be naked down here, and damned to destruction.

“Do something,” von Loringhoven said. He’d read Beck’s mind, and now was almost pleading. A coward, under the facade?

Beck stared hard at the gravimeter and a nautical chart. This bluff of hiding under Russian subs was about to unravel completely. NR-1 moved closer and closer. The stale air in the Zentrale grew stifling, suffocating. Crewmen squirmed in their seats; sweat-soaked backsides squeaked on vinyl.

“Arm nuclear torpedoes?” Stissinger prompted.

Beck thought fast. This is my first real test as captain. And an awful test indeed. “Negative. Make no mechanical transients…. Pilot, bring the boat up to one hundred meters.” The two Russians were moving slowly, above the layer, at fifty meters. “Rise on autohover, get us up there quickly. Cut the wires, jettison both probes.”

Beck watched as von Scheer’s depth decreased. On the gravimeter display, the local terrain receded beneath the ship.

“What are you doing?” von Loringhoven demanded.

“Upping the ante,” Beck said. “I told you to be quiet.”

The diplomat bit down whatever he was going to say next.

“Einzvo. Sonar. We’re about the same size and shape as a U.S. Navy strategic-missile sub, correct?”

“An American boomer?” Stissinger asked. “Er, yes, Captain.”

“Use our active wide-aperture arrays and the bow sphere. Take the sound profiles we have of Allied submarines. On our way up, as we pass through two hundred fifty meters, start making us sound like a barely audible newer Ohio-class vessel.”

“Understood,” Haffner said. “Working on it, sir.” He and his sonarmen got very busy.

“Captain?” Stissinger said.

“We know they’ll know we’re here. There’s only one way we stand a chance to get through now unmolested…. We aren’t that far from Holy Loch.”

“The reactivated Allied submarine base?”

Beck nodded. “The strategic-missile subs are controlled by different authorities from their tactical antisubmarine forces. That’s what I’m counting on, delay and confusion while they sort things out. If the Royal Navy and NR-1 think we’re a U.S. boomer, turning the tables and trailing a pair of Russian fast-attacks to grab some intell, they’ll leave us alone. They’ll be extra careful to not draw attention to us, especially if they think we’re exploiting Ivan to hide from the Germans.”

Stissinger exhaled unsteadily. “Remind me to never play poker with you, Captain.”

Crewmen were clearly aghast at the sleight of hand Beck was proposing to pull off. If it worked, they’d soon be free in the NorthAtlantic and could insert into the superbly concealing bottom terrain of the vast Mid-Atlantic Ridge. But still, if those jettisoned Axis probes are found here by NR-1 …

“What if your ploy doesn’t work?” von Loringhoven said.

“If the einzvo reports enemy weapons in the water, we return fire and take as many of them with us as we can.”

“You didn’t arm nuclear warheads.”

“That’s correct.” As von Loringhoven turned livid, Beck held up a forceful hand. “There is no way, Baron, that I’m going to use atomic bombs so close to civilian population centers, enemy or not.”

CHAPTER 11

Felix Estabo woke that morning in his coffin-sized sleeping rack aboard the USS Ohio. Felix had an uncannily accurate internal body clock — he didn’t have to glance at his watch to tell that it was 0450 local time. Every night, worldwide, no matter the jet lag and season, he decided exactly when to get up — and next morning he would, within a minute or so.

For a few seconds, without stirring, Felix listened to the sounds of the ship, the gentle ventilation and subdued electrical hum. He knew the Ohio was running deep, heading northwest, away