Seas of Crisis

sometimes coming very close to Challenger.

The Grisha-V announced its arrival on scene with a louder blast from its Bull Horn system. The tactical plot showed her slowing, reducing her self-noise to get clearer sonar returns.

“Sit tight, people,” Bell said. “We can’t sneak further into the strait or they’ll track us for sure, by a Doppler shift in whatever fragmented echoes they’re hearing. Just sit tight.” An object in motion toward or away from an active sonar caused the returning ping to be higher or lower in frequency, enough to register on the active sonar’s signal processors — a dead giveaway of a genuine target.

Everyone waited for the Russians to make their next move.

People were jolted by three loud bangs in quick succession.

“Signal grenades,” Bell said before Sonar could.

Three grenades dropped one after another was the international signal meaning, “Unidentified submarine in my territorial waters, surface and indicate your intentions.”

“Sit tight,” Bell repeated. Three more grenades went off, much closer. “Commodore, any directives?”

Jeffrey stood and eased gingerly past the sonar officer, Finch, over to Bell. “Whatever we do, don’t surface,” he whispered. A junior enlisted man let out a yelp as three more grenades went off, closer still. “We don’t know for sure that they know that we’re here.”

“You do like to gamble, Commodore.”

“Get inside their minds. They don’t have a solid sonar return off our hull, with our out-of-phase suppression. They might think what they’re getting are garbled bounces off the backs of the spires. Whatever sensor data zeroed them in on this location could just be dismissed as a false alarm, or a whale.”

“Maybe.” Bell was starting to sound sarcastic.

Jeffrey brought his face a few inches from Bell’s. “They can’t be positive of an MAD contact because of these spires.”

“Only if they do have steel in them.”

“Yes, there is that.”

“The bomber might have gotten a lock on us, twice, by LASH.”

“I think the water’s too opaque.”

“And I think we should sneak away on auxiliary maneuvering thrusters. The longer we stay here, the better their chance to be certain they have a non-Russian sub in their sights.”

“We can’t move away from the spires. You said so yourself.”

“Not away, Commodore. Along.”

“You mean follow the fence east or west?”

“Yes.”

“No. If we move at all, their readings at this spot on sonar and MAD and even LASH will alter. They’ll grow more suspicious, instead of doubting they’ve got a real contact.”

Three more grenades went off: The Udaloy had arrived. In a few seconds, everyone in Control heard three more loud bangs.

“Commodore, how long before those become depth charges?”

“I don’t think they’d actually depth-charge us or launch a torpedo. They certainly might, but I don’t think they will.”

“Getting inside their heads is a much too iffy thing for me. Commodore, I cannot unduly endanger my ship. The people up there could be tired, or drunk, or just plain trigger-happy. Who knows what foul-ups are possible in Russian command and control?”

“That’s what I’m counting on them thinking, too. That a submarine actually here would surface, and blame everything on navigation error, then just sail away. Submerge again once back in U.S. waters…. The fact that nothing surfaces helps them convince themselves that nothing’s here.”

“What if they think we’re here, and won’t surface because we have a covert mission?”

“There’s covert and then there’s suicidal, Captain. They won’t expect even a ballsy U.S. spy sub skipper, on neutral Russian turf in time of war, to be genuinely suicidal.”

“Concur, Commodore, except… except I’m not sure which action would seem to them more suicidal in a major covert op. Us surfacing and for certain ruining our stealth, or not surfacing to maybe bluff them into going away? They’d figure that if our secrecy were paramount we’d go for the bluff. And they’d be right. So maybe they’ll think we are here.”

“If we do surface,” Jeffrey said, “we compromise our mission and by doing so we compromise Carter. So we know we need to stay down. But the Russians presumably can’t know that our mission is in fact directed against them somehow, not the Germans.”

“We’re between a rock and a hard place, cornered against these spires. For all we know they’ll send divers down to take a look-see in person.” Crewmen cringed as they listened to this mounting debate between captain and commodore.

“We just have to chance it. I’ve never heard of that being in their standard antisubmarine doctrine, using divers in shallow water. And Russians aren’t noted for personal initiative.”

“Sirs,” Sessions said, “we have our own safety divers, and some of the Seabees might be dive-qualified. We could send men out to kill any Russian divers who do show up.”

“The Russians would be missed,” Jeffrey said tersely.

“They could chalk it up to a diving accident, sir.”

“They’d send more divers to investigate…. No, we buy this diver-to-diver combat, it just prolongs the inevitable. We do nothing, stay quiet, wait for them to get bored and go away.”

Challenger was pounded by an eruption with such bruising punch it was felt more than heard, the sharp vibrations painfully shaking Jeffrey’s bones inside his body.

“Depth charge!” a sonarman shouted. “Within five hundred yards!” Men who’d been knocked off their feet recovered, checked themselves for injuries, then held onto something solid. They glanced apprehensively upward, thinking of what could come next.

“They’ll work the area systematically now,” Bell warned, “until we’re all dead.”

“Do nothing. That’s a direct order.”

“Sir, based on what reasoning? Intuition? A hunch?”

Jeffrey held his tongue. The silence that lingered was heavy with feelings of rage and betrayal from Bell, who’d wanted all along to run the strait on the U.S. side. The men, sensing this conflict, by now were confused and scared. The implied accusation from Bell was unmistakable: their new commodore was too clever for everyone’s good.

There was another dreadful eruption. The control room darkened as red fluorescent bulbs shook loose in their sockets; consoles jiggled against their shock-absorbing mounts. Jeffrey’s teeth were jarred so badly they hurt; his feet ached.

“Depth charge! Within three hundred yards!”

Bell glared at Jeffrey. “It isn’t too late to surface!”

“It’s too early! You don’t have a single flooding report!”

“I—”

“Aspect change on the Grisha-V,” came from Chief O’Hanlon. “Grisha-V is… turning away!… Udaloy turning away!”

“Sir,” Sessions said, “helicopters have ceased orbiting, are on intercept course with the Udaloy.”

“See, Captain,” Jeffrey chided gently. “They decided there was nothing here. They left.” Happy crewmen traded high fives, or shot thumbs-up to their buddies. COB reached and gave Patel an approving jab in the shoulder.

“Why the depth charges, then?” Bell demanded. “It could still be a trick.”

“One depth charge from each ship, it wasn’t a trick. It was two bored Russian surface-ship skippers, using a good excuse to liven up their day with some fireworks on the Kremlin’s dime.”

Chapter 6