Straits of Power

Lieutenant Torelli’s weapons-system specialists went to work. He downloaded the full acoustic profile of Dreadnought from Milgrom’s people, from their huge database of different vessels’ signatures. The brilliant decoy was programmed.

“Fire Control, Weps,” Torelli reported. “Decoy ready.”

“Decoy ready, aye,” Bell said. “Captain, decoy ready.”

“Decoy ready, aye. Firing-point procedures, decoy in tube seven.”

Bell and Torelli began reciting orders and acknowledgments and status reports.

“New contacts on acoustic intercept,” Milgrom said. Her voice was an octave lower than the first time they’d been pinged, but now she was gritting her teeth. “Air-dropped active sonobuoys, much nearer to Challenger task group.”

This is going to be tight.

“Fire Control, make tube seven ready in all respects, including opening outer door.”

Bell acknowledged and passed orders down the line. Torelli announced when tube seven was flooded and equalized and the outer door was open.

“Tube seven, shoot.”

“Tube seven fired electrically,” Torelli said.

“Unit is running normally,” Milgrom said

“Five minutes till that decoy starts making a racket,” Jeffrey thought out loud. Five minutes in which either helo’s sonobuoys, or their dipping sonars, might find us.

“Signal from Ohio,” Bell said. “ ‘Decoy will reveal task group’s presence.’ ”

“Signal Ohio, ‘Message received. Steady as you go.’ ”

“But—”

“Send it, XO.”

Bell did as he was told.

Jeffrey glanced at a chronometer. Still four minutes before the decoy starts to get rambunctious, as its built-in active sound emitters give off conspicuous noise.

Enemy sonobuoy pings began to be audible over the sonar speakers.

“Attempting to suppress hull echoes,” Milgrom stated. Using active out-of-phase emissions.

“Don’t attempt,” Jeffrey told her. “Do it.”

“Sonar, aye.”

Now Jeffrey could hear, fading in and out, the roar of helo engine turbines and the clatter of their rotor blades.

We’re dead ducks if they find us.

He looked again at the tactical plot and the chronometer. It was a race against time, and a test of each side’s technology and tactics, whether the sonobuoys would see through Challenger’s and Ohio’s acoustic masking before the brilliant decoy kicked in.

Jeffrey’s people were all on the edge of their seats. The control-room air was stifling from so many overstressed bodies packed so close. For now, there was nothing they could do but wait. A few of them were so sweat soaked that Jeffrey was concerned they’d become dehydrated. There were nervous coughs from dry throats, stifled desperately to maintain ultraquiet.

Suddenly, pings came very close — some of the crew were jolted in their seats. There were also distant explosions, as other German forces battled with Dreadnought. Milgrom made her usual announcements, and gave assessments. Underneath her impressive self-control, Jeffrey knew she had to be very worried for the safety of her Royal Navy friends.

Inside his own control room, Jeffrey saw that a few men’s hands were trembling. The phone talker and some others with not enough to keep themselves busy stared at the overhead in abject fear, as if waiting for a depth charge or a torpedo from a helo to be dropped right down their throat — inside the arming radius of Challenger’s antitorpedo rockets, and coming at a very unfavorable angle for using noisemakers. Jeffrey sympathized with how they felt. He had to force himself to not rock back and forth in his seat with his fists clenched, as if to physically urge his decoy to do its thing soon and do it well. The Brandenburg was still charging in their direction.

And I’m sure she has torpedoes in each of her tubes, to add to the punch of her helos.

There was a series of booms due north, close in. People who didn’t realize what they were looked terrified. A roaring, throbbing, whining noise rose in strength very quickly. The roaring got deeper, the throbbing got faster, and the whining rose in pitch.

“That’s our decoy,” Jeffrey announced before Milgrom could report it. “Faked reactor-coolant check valves slamming open, boom boom boom. Then phantom Dreadnought going to flank speed.”

The sound of the decoy competed with ever-closer and louder enemy sonobuoys.

Then the helo engines and rotor blades also changed in strength and pitch.

“They’re going after the decoy,” Jeffrey said, with self-satisfaction that he hammed up intentionally for his crew. “They know it’s not Dreadnought herself. They think it’s a decoy she launched a while ago to create a diversion at extreme range.”

Bell finally understood. He grinned. “Since she wouldn’t create a diversion right next to other Allied submarines, they think there aren’t any Allied subs in this local area.”

There were splashes over the sonar speakers, then shattering concussions came through the water. This time, as the reverb and vibrations diminished, Jeffrey could only hear the enemy helos, receding.

“Assess our decoy destroyed by depth charges,” Bell announced.

“Aspect change on Master Four-two,” Milgrom called out. Now it sounded like she was trying to suppress a smile. “Bearing drift is left. Assess Master Four-two in tight turn, maintaining flank speed.”

“She doesn’t want to miss the tail end of the fun with Dreadnought and Texas,” Jeffrey said. Soon Bell confirmed that Master Four-two had steadied on a course for Cape Trafalgar.

Jeffrey listened to the echoes and rumbles outside. Some were from the nearby depth charges the helos had dropped out of spite, to kill the decoy. Some came from the much more serious battle in which Texas was supposed to die, but from which the real Dreadnought was meant to escape, back into the Atlantic — repulsed from trying to enter the Strait of Gibraltar.

“Signal from Ohio, sir: ‘That was hairy, but I’m impressed.’ ”

“Fire Control, make signal to Ohio: ‘Maintain formation, increase speed to thirteen knots.’ ”

Chapter 26

With the fans switched off, the air shipwide was getting very dank. In Challenger’s hushed control room, Jeffrey and Bell gripped their armrests. Their knuckles were clenched almost bloodless, not so much from fear — though there were plenty of reasons for fear — as from the need to brace themselves in their seats. Challenger shimmied, plunged and rose and fishtailed. The ride was never this rough at such a modest speed when the ship was out in the open ocean and nicely submerged. But Challenger wasn’t in the open ocean. Jeffrey’s displays told him so, and his crew’s intensely careful work reemphasized the point. They were inside the Strait of Gibraltar.

At the digital-navigation plotting table, Lieutenant Sessions and his team were standing, bent over their main horizontal display. They swayed clumsily as the deck pitched and rolled, with no predictable rhythm they could use to anticipate which way the ship would act next.

As Challenger made an especially violent sudden drop, and then rose like an elevator, Jeffrey gave thanks for this turbulence. His task group was following their entry plan for the Med; its