Straits of Power

launching of torpedoes or depth charges. “Allied submarines stand clear.” Friendly fire could work in both directions, and Jeffrey didn’t want to sink one of his own kind by mistake. Coastal defense units excludes Ohio. Hodgkiss, knowing what he knows, ought to catch on. “Surface, airborne platforms limit sonar search above layer. Report contacts via signal sonobuoys.” To me for prosecution. “Fuller sends.”

A signal sonobuoy, dropped from an aircraft, emitted a series of loud tones, like Morse code. They could send simple information one way only. But though the U-boats might not be able to read the code, the signal could be heard for miles. It would further telegraph Jeffrey’s position to the enemy, but this fit with his need to divert the 214’s attention away from Ohio.

Bell finished typing Jeffrey’s message to Hodgkiss. He arranged for a tight-beam satellite-communications laser buoy to be programmed with the message in code, then launched through a countermeasures tube.

“Sonar, I intend to head for the edge of the continental shelf for better sound-propagation conditions.”

“Understood,” Milgrom said.

“Helm,” Jeffrey ordered, feeling more like a task-group commander every minute. “Make your course zero- four-five.” Northeast. “Ahead flank.”

Chapter 11

Jeffrey gripped his armrests as Challenger moved through the water above the continental shelf at her flank speed, fifty-three knots. The ship shook roughly, as she always did when moving so fast, from the immense power being put through her propulsion shaft and into the pump-jet rotors in their cowling behind the stern. Mike cords danced as they dangled from the overhead. Light fixtures and consoles made small squeaking sounds as they jiggled and bounced. Now and then more bits of construction dirt, including that colorful electric insulation, worked their way out of nooks and crannies and fell onto people or onto the deck. Pens, pencils, and computer-screen styluses rattled and rolled.

Everyone was silent now, fixated on their readouts and controls. Tension filled the compartment. Jeffrey could feel it, and see it: COB’s and Meltzer’s neck and shoulder muscles were knotted tight. Meltzer’s hands were white knuckled on the wheel as he piloted Challenger at a dangerous speed for such shallow water. COB worked switches and knobs on his panel constantly, juggling the ship’s buoyancy as she hit one halocline after another — places where salinity, and hence water density, varied because of freshwater outflow from all the rivers and bays along the Virginia and Delaware coasts with their endless series of barrier islands. Everyone else showed concern and traces of fear in the way they sat, in the set of their faces.

Jeffrey too wasn’t the least bit pleased. This charge into battle against an unseen enemy, forced because of Parcelli’s behavior and now the presence of a class 214 somewhere near, came as a complete surprise. Challenger’s people had barely had a chance to catch their breath and slow their pulses from their pounding by the near-miss Axis cruise-missile barrage, and now this. Jeffrey, like any CO, hated surprises. And like any proper warrior, he always craved surprise be on his side in combat. Worst of all, at flank speed, even Challenger with her state-of-the-art sensor suite was half blinded by her own flow noise as she tore through the ocean.

Jeffrey studied the nautical chart and the tactical plot on his console. He did some mental arithmetic. If the pair of class 212s moved toward Ohio at high speed, and Ohio kept moving toward them as Parcelli had said he intended, then from the moment of those first missile launches as Challenger sat in the dry dock, to the moment Ohio and the 212s would be in torpedo range of each other, would be about three hours. Half of that interval had already passed. Because of Ohio’s head start, the rest of the time might run out before Jeffrey could get very close to Parcelli.

And right now Jeffrey had no choice but to slow down. He needed to find the 214 before the 214 drew a bead on Parcelli. There was a very real possibility that the captain of the 214 already had good firing solutions locked in against both Challenger and Ohio, and was awaiting his optimum moment to open fire: whenever his torpedoes had short target runs and could come at both ships from angles that gave the German all the advantages.

“Sonar, stand by to check our baffles and do a passive search on the wide-aperture arrays.”

“Baffles check on wide arrays, Sonar, aye,” Milgrom responded. “Baffles” meant the blind spot behind a submarine’s stern.

“Helm,” Jeffrey ordered. “Slow to ahead one third, make turns for four knots.”

Meltzer acknowledged. Challenger gradually slowed.

“Helm, left five degrees rudder.”

“Left five degrees rudder, aye, sir,” Meltzer said.

Challenger gently began to swing in a circle. Meltzer reported every ten degrees of course change. The ship’s wide-aperture arrays, their sweet spots pointing off to either side of the ship, scanned the waters all around as Challenger turned, her low speed giving their hydrophones maximum sensitivity.

Milgrom went to work with the senior chief sonar supervisor and the enlisted sonar men. Jeffrey waited for reports.

Meanwhile, he tried to put himself in the faceless class 214 captain’s shoes.

Where is he? Which way will he have moved since getting whiffs of Parcelli and me racing along at our very noisiest — and probably also hearing me ping? He’ll guess that we’re after the pair of Two-twelves. But he won’t know I know that he’s here.

Where would I lurk if I were him? He has six torpedo tubes. When would he shoot?

Jeffrey stared at the maps and icons displayed on his console. He saw his own ship and the estimated locations and courses and speeds of the class 212s and Parcelli.

Then it all became too obvious.

The 214 would proceed generally north, staying in very shallow water, to support his two friends. He’d try to catch Jeffrey and Parcelli from the inshore flank, from the west, as they were both preoccupied looking down the throat of a dozen other German torpedo tubes aimed at them from the northeast. Inshore, the 214 could hide on the move, where sonar conditions were poorest.

On this part of the Atlantic Coast, the shoreline ran north-northeast, along a line of roughly 030 on the chart. The distance from Jeffrey’s ship to the shore was opening only gradually.

“Sir,” Meltzer reported, “my heading is zero-four-five.”

“Very well, Helm. Rudder amidships.” Challenger had turned in a complete circle, but Milgrom’s people and the ship’s supercomputers found nothing.

Jeffrey ordered Milgrom to ping on active, using very-low-frequency noise this time, ideal for finding diesels when ocean surface and bottom lay so close together. The resulting ping was a deeper tone than any foghorn; the entire control room and all in it shivered in resonance. Jeffrey waited for returns from the newest acoustic blast to be received and interpreted. He waited for Milgrom to tell him something useful, something on which he could act. He began to drum his fingers on his armrest, but stopped when Bell noticed and subtly shook his head.

This made the waiting harder. It felt as if a torturer were turning a giant corkscrew through Jeffrey’s navel and straight into his abdomen. He wasn’t sure which he dreaded more, Milgrom reporting the 214’s torpedoes in the water, or her reporting nothing.

Torpedoes at least would mean the fight was joined, and I could fight back.

Again, no hostile contacts. Ohio was racing northward, at the extreme range of active sonar detection in slightly deeper water, with no sign at all of stopping to check for local threats like Jeffrey was. This meant that for now Parcelli was drawing ahead of Challenger.

For a moment Jeffrey felt reassured that, since the 212s had launched so many cruise missiles in their attack, they couldn’t have very many torpedoes left. But then he remembered that for years before the war, the 212s could