Straits of Power

nukes — hopefully — were precluded.

Challenger moved slowly through the water; the 214’s Seehechts were gaining by more than a thousand yards per minute. It made Jeffrey’s nerve endings feel like they were on fire.

Patience. Don’t rush the ballet or you’ll botch it.

“Contacts on acoustic intercept,” Milgrom called out. “Masters One through Three have gone active!”

“Sonar on speakers,” Jeffrey ordered. The control room was suddenly filled with quadraphonic sound, eerie echoes of enemy pings and the frightening mechanical screams of electric torpedo engine sounds.

“More torpedoes in the water,” a sonar man yelled. “Fan spread, mean bearing zero-four-five, inbound at eighteen thousand yards.”

“They’ve got superior position and better immediate firepower,” Jeffrey said to Bell. “Masters Two and Three can shoot a dozen torpedoes at Ohio compared to her four in any one salvo. After they overwhelm her, they’ll all close in on Challenger.”

“Concur.”

“We fight the fight their way, we’ve had it. We need to change the rules, make this a battle of maneuver.”

“Bearing rate on Ohio,” Milgrom said. “Ohio turning to starboard…. Ohio has fired four torpedoes, sir, two each at Master Two and Master Three.”

Parcelli needs time to reload. At least those shots might force the 212s to run, and break the guidance wires to their weapons in the water, and give us a chance to outsmart the torpedo software with our human brains.

“Fire Control, signal to Ohio on acoustic link: ‘Maintain your turn, steer onto course two-two-five.’ ” Southwest, the opposite of the way they’d just come. “ ‘Put yourself in my baffles, direct all further fire at the class 214 I designate Master One.’ ”

Bell typed madly and had the message sent.

“Ohio acknowledges!”

“Sonar, speakers off. Go active. Melee ping.”

The noise, even with the speakers off, was almost unbearable. Jeffrey told Milgrom to turn the speakers back on — he craved sensory data. Seconds later he could hear each echo come back off the German subs, and the quadraphonic surround sound gave him a three-dimensional feel of the battle.

The tactical plot was refreshed, with new positions and courses and speeds — including icons for over a dozen torpedoes dashing this way and that.

“Fire Control, snap shots, tubes one and two, on bearing to Master One, shoot.”

Bell acknowledged and relayed commands. Torelli’s team quickly programmed the torpedoes, flooded and equalized the pressure in the tubes, and opened the outer doors. The force of water pent up behind big, stiff elastomer membranes quietly shoved the fish out of the tubes. As they came free of the ship, their closed-cycle liquid-fueled engines started.

Snap shots lacked a proper fire-control solution to lead a moving target; they were done to save time in a combat emergency. But the homing sonars and software on the fiber-optic wire-guided Mark 48 Improved ADCAPs were very good.

“Tubes one and two fired electrically,” Torelli reported, his voice dead flat, as always in combat. By making himself sound almost bored, he kept his people calm and focused.

“Both units operating normally,” Milgrom confirmed by using passive sonar.

Jeffrey’s opening shots in this battle were well on their way. But to win would demand subtle strategy, not just brute strength.

“Decoy in tube seven, set speed to fifty-three knots, snap shot on bearing to Master One, shoot.… Helm, ahead two thirds, make turns for twenty-six knots.” Twenty-six knots was Challenger’s top quiet speed, one knot faster than Ohio at her fastest and loudest. The decoy was meant to follow Jeffrey’s torpedoes, which moved at almost seventy knots, to make the 214’s captain think that Challenger was charging at him right behind Jeffrey’s own fish.

I’ve got to shake him up, and force him to make a hard turn, and make him break the wires controlling his weapons.

Jeffrey watched on the tactical plot and listened on the speakers as Challenger and Ohio passed each other in opposite directions; Ohio was rushing down Challenger’s starboard side.

“Fire Control, signal Ohio. Reverse your course, assume station five hundred yards off my stern. Increase to flank speed, steer your weapons well clear of my decoy at rough bearing two-nine-zero. Support appearance that decoy is Challenger, shielding you from the class Two-fourteen. Do not use your active sonar. Rely only on active search by your fish.”

The Ohio’s active sonar system — as a former boomer whose job was perpetual stealth — was less capable than Challenger’s. If Ohio pinged, she’d give Challenger away via echoes the Germans would hear off of Jeffrey’s hull, or she’d reveal a big, quiet hole in the water—Challenger, backlit by Ohio. Either way would ruin Jeffrey’s intended deception.

And if I ping now, I betray that my decoy’s a decoy. It’s all up to the ADCAPs and my passive sonars now.

Jeffrey was taking a gamble, but out-positioned and outgunned, he had no choice. There was an awkward moment while he wondered what Parcelli would say in response to his latest orders. Jeffrey was trying to make it look like Ohio’s captain was confused about what to do, turning and then running and then turning and then seeming to stop.

“Ohio acknowledges!.. Ohio turning into our baffles.”

This way Challenger, silent, might shield Ohio from the 212s, who’d be tracking Jeffrey’s decoy, which was chasing the 214. Both American ships had the same outside diameter — forty-two feet. And the close spacing brought Ohio and Challenger under the protective umbrella of each other’s antitorpedo underwater rockets, which had an effective range of only a thousand yards before their solid-fuel motors burned out.

Five hundred yards of separation was less than three ship lengths, from Ohio’s perspective. The two vessels were tucked in tight. Jeffrey now planned to pretend to the Germans that Challenger was Ohio.

It’s time to go on the all-out offensive.

“Fire Control, snap shots, tubes three and four, last known bearing to Master Two. Have both units begin active search after running for two thousand yards. Shoot!”

Bell relayed the commands; Torelli and his weapons-systems technicians were kept very busy.

“Fire Control, snap shots, tubes five and six, last known bearing to Master Three. Have both units begin active search after running for two thousand yards. Shoot!”

The noise of torpedo engines was very loud now. The weapons, both friendly and enemy, began to ping more and more in search of targets. Silvery tings filled the air in the control room, musical and sweet, disguising the relentless menace each note stood for.

Jeffrey glanced again at the tactical plot. The 214 was moving northeast from her ambush location at twenty knots, fleeing a clutch of inbound fish. She fired a series of noisemakers, which gave off bubbles and made loud gurgling sounds — but the ADCAPs weren’t fooled. One of Torelli’s weapons techs controlled the fifty-knot decoy to keep following in their wake. Jeffrey prayed the other U-boats still bought his trick, that the decoy was Challenger going after the milch cow.

They did. Grouped together as if to present a united front, the pair of 212s moved boldly toward Ohio’s last-known position — toward Challenger—at their own flank speed, twenty knots.