Straits of Power

Where the hell is Lieutenant Torelli? I need his first-squad tracking team. Two fire-control men who should have been to Jeffrey’s right at battle stations instead lay badly hurt down by the forward bulkhead. Jeffrey saw the jagged white bones of compound fractures to arms and legs. He saw the bright red blood as shipmates tried to use tourniquets on the wounded.

“Decoys,” Bell said. “I think they’re both decoys. Ohio’s trying to throw the Germans off.”

Jeffrey nodded. “He’s probably gone as deep as he can and stopped to drift so he can play possum.”

The control-room deck began to warp from the outside pressure as Challenger dove deeper and deeper at her top quiet speed. Near nine thousand feet, Milgrom called out, “Hull popping.” Challenger’s ceramic-composite hull was protesting the punishment. There was no way to avoid this. Jeffrey worried that the crunching sounds would give his ship away — he hoped they’d be drowned out by the wild action raging almost two miles above. He feared a sudden cannonlike influx of the sea. This was the deepest Challenger had gone since departing Norfolk; a flaw undiscovered till now in the latest repairs would have horrible consequences. Unforgiving blasts shattered the ocean again.

“Torpedoes have detonated,” Milgrom yelled, projecting her voice above the ever- rising noise.

Jeffrey waited to hear the thing he dreaded most aside from a flooding alarm — the sounds of a sinking submarine.

“Assess both decoys destroyed!” Bell called out.

Ohio had only two decoys. The Germans would know they hadn’t hit her yet — decoys gave off no floating wreckage, no bodies, no telltale oil slick. Because she’d been quiet, she couldn’t have moved fast, couldn’t have gotten far. More sonobuoys pinged high above. Challenger kept racing east. The melee behind them was at such shallower depth that the angles involved let the wide-aperture arrays pick up what was happening.

Sonobuoys continued pinging. Jeffrey eyed the gravimeter. He was heading into the Ionian Basin, south of Italy and Greece. Ohio was cornered against the steep rise leading up to the Malta Channel. Parcelli had contingency orders from Jeffrey that if the two ships needed to separate under attack, Challenger would head east and Ohio should avoid heading east. If Parcelli went west, back toward Malta, he was dead. His choices were to stay still or make a move either north or south. Jeffrey thought that south would be better: The water was much more open there.

Parker slammed hard against the back of Jeffrey’s seat, then leaned on it for support.

Jeffrey was livid. “Get back to your position.”

“I need to know what’s happening.”

“The task group is coming unglued, is what’s happening.”

Meltzer pulled back on his wheel. Challenger began to level off at almost twelve thousand feet.

More depth charges detonated. Milgrom reported more torpedo-engine sounds. Then she reported more pings, coming from the type of sonar on ASDS minisubs. Ohio had released them, so they could lure the inbound torpedoes away from their parent. Parcelli was using his minisubs as last-ditch improvised decoys; Jeffrey pitied the crewmen aboard them. But jettisoning the minis let Ohio go faster — less flow resistance and noise.

“You can’t just leave two hundred people to die,” Parker yelled in Jeffrey’s ear.

“My orders are explicit! If detected and attacked in the Med, Ohio is expendable and Challenger must get away.”

“You can’t play God like this! We still need all those SEALs and probes and weapons on Ohio.”

“For now they’re on their own. We need Challenger in one piece so we have the German mini with the range to get Peapod.”

“You’d sacrifice Ohio for a minisub?”

“You’re out of line, Mr. Parker! Get back to your post!” Jeffrey pointed at the photonics-mast console. The constant pings and blast reverb and screaming of torpedo engines made their conversation surreal.

“You’re the famous Captain Jeffrey Fuller! You’re supposed to be the man who never gives up, who does the impossible! Pull another trick out of your ass before it’s too late!”

“Get back to your post.” Jeffrey resisted shoving Parker.

The ocean was rent by a giant thunderclap, then another.

“Assess both ASDSs destroyed,” Bell shouted, horrified.

“More torpedoes in the water,” Milgrom said. “Mark Forty-sixes.”

“Sir,” Bell pleaded, “we all have friends on that ship. You can’t just let them die. You saved Ohio twice before, near Norfolk and then with a Dreadnought decoy.”

“I have my orders,” Jeffrey said coldly, torn up inside.

“I’ve seen you disobey orders, Captain.” Tears were coming to Bell’s eyes. “Please.”

There was a new screeching roar on the sonar speakers. It was overlaid by other, similar ones. They would stop, and then more would occur, repeatedly.

“Ohio is launching Polyphems,” Milgrom said.

Many crewmen turned to Jeffrey, their faces asking him to achieve a miracle. They knew those Polyphems would point right back at Ohio. The German aircraft that weren’t shot down would known exactly where to aim. Parcelli was making his last stand.

Deeper, ripping roars drowned out the higher-pitched screeching ones.

“Tomahawk launches, Captain,” Bell whispered, all choked up.

“Loud surface impacts,” Milgrom reported. “Chaotic flow noise, increasing in depth. Assess as aircraft shot down.”

There were more blasts from depth charges. Noisemakers gurgled in vast profusion, some old and some fresh, trying to confuse torpedoes. More Polyphems screeched, more Tomahawks roared. Parcelli might still fight his way out to safety.

“New surface contact! Brandenburg tonals identified!” A frigate had joined the battle. Much louder pings sounded now above everything else. “Brandenburg has gone active!” The frigate had a sonar mounted under her bow. It was much more capable than any battery-operated sonobuoys. “More torpedoes in the water! ADCAP Mark Forty-eights!” Ohio was engaging the Brandenburg.

“More torpedoes in the water! Mark Forty-sixes!” The Brandenburg was shooting back. Both vessels had four torpedo tubes. Ohio’s weapons were faster and smarter.

There were different roars that ended in sharp detonations—Ohio’s antitorpedo rockets.

Parcelli still has a chance.

Jeffrey heard an extremely powerful ping, on the opposite side of Ohio from the Brandenburg frigate’s bearing.

“New surface contact! Contact is ex-Italian de la Penne—class destroyer!” Taken over by the Imperial German Navy.

“Six tubes on a de la Penne, Captain,” Bell said flatly.

“Help them!” Parker shouted from the rear of the control room. “For the love of heaven, use your Mark Eighty-eights!”

“They’d be a dead giveaway, you fool!” Jeffrey looked at the best-guess plot. The frigate and destroyer had Ohio in a pincers, one from the north and one from the south, each making over thirty knots. Parcelli was badly outgunned, ten tubes to four, and must be running out of ADCAPs. If he went west to shallow water now, he was surely doomed. His only escape was east.

Jeffrey had ordered him not to flee east. Would Parcelli obey, to protect Challenger from detection and possible crippling or destruction? Would Parcelli and his crew maintain their discipline to the