Seas of Crisis

Their engines were very loud on the sonar speakers, adding to the tumult from above, diminishing as they climbed, neck-and-neck, covering the distance to the target.

The Amethyste-II’s captain and control room crew, fixated on their battle with what they thought was a valuable prize — a U.S. Navy boomer — suddenly noticed the Mark 88s coming at them from below. Each bore a warhead that weighed over a ton, three times the size of an ADCAP’s. The Amethyste launched noisemakers, acoustic scramblers, and decoys, and started violent evasive maneuvers. These were standard defensive measures. None confused Torelli’s people, with a perfect, upside-down bird’s-eye view letting them track the target amid all distractions.

But the German captain’s true intent became clear.

“Sir,” Sessions said to Bell, “target is steering for this large polynya.” Sonar had previously mapped the open water in the area, using the noises of rain and sleet. Sessions moved his cursor with his trackmarble; an arrow moved in unison on Jeffrey’s screen. Jeffrey saw the Amethyste-II racing for the polynya, pursued at more than twice her speed by the twin Mark 88s. Though the map was changing fast now with the gale, and becoming garbled, that big polynya stood wide and clear.

Bell read his console data. “It’s touch and go if she’ll reach there before the Mark Eighty-eights reach her.” Both of the units went active, their homing sonars making loud tings at distinct frequencies, to not interfere with each other. The two-toned ringing happened faster and faster as they closed in.

Jeffrey continued to watch the attack unfold on his display screens. Harley was wisely holding Carter back, so as not to block the Mark 88s or cut their guidance wires.

“Sir,” Sessions warned, “target has increased her standoff distance from Challenger and from Carter!”

Crewmen reacted as if they’d been hit by cattle prods.

Bell was stunned. “She’s going nuclear on both of us!”

That clever bastard, Jeffrey told himself. He wanted us to think his goal was to get off a sighting report. He faked us out. His real goal was to safely get off nukes.

A tremendous double blast sounded over the sonar speakers, echoing off bummocks, bouncing back and forth between the ice cap and the bottom — sound traveled through water at almost one mile per second, so the vertical echoes came in rapid succession, and Challenger was right in their path. More than just sound, they were shock waves. The ship was battered again and again.

“Units from tubes one and two have detonated!” Sessions yelled. “Assess both as direct hits on the Amethyste!”

Above the cacophony came another, more horrible sound, a metallic rebounding pshew—the implosion of a sinking submarine’s hull as it fell through its crush depth. The Amethyste shattered into thousands of pieces, in all different sizes and shapes. The remains of vessel and crew fell to the bottom in a cloud of wreckage whose chaotic flow noise was the loudest thing on the sonar speakers now — with spent noisemakers gurgling weakly, and now-irrelevant decoys receding rapidly, in the background above. There were no torpedo engine sounds — the Germans didn’t get off a nuclear shot. Carter had ceased her fake Ohio-class flank speed noise emissions, and was inaudible.

Soon the Amethyste’s pieces began to impact the bottom, with dull thuds, heavy crunches, and a pattering like pebbles tossed against a tin roof. The sounds went on for a very long time. The triumph felt aboard Challenger was tempered by dismay over the death of fellow submariners, even if they were the enemy.

“Contact on acoustic link,” Sessions broke the collective, heavy human silence in Control. He interrupted the last of the noise of this terrible war’s latest sea-floor debris-field forming — including the remnants of a nuclear reactor core, if the foot-thick alloy-steel containment had been breached. “Carter has given valid recognition signal, acknowledges receipt of signal from us. Captain Harley sends, ‘Good shooting and much thanks. Commence rendezvous procedures at your convenience.’ ”

“Commodore?” Bell awaited instructions.

“Oh, er, tell Captain Harley, ‘Excellent defensive subterfuge tactics against the Amethyste-Two. Our minisub will dock with Carter shortly.’ ” Jeffrey had been preoccupied, mulling over everything until Bell grabbed his attention.

Sessions typed on his keyboard and sent the message through the link. In a moment he said, “Carter acknowledges, sir.”

“Wait,” Jeffrey said. “Make signal to Carter, ‘What is local direction of surface wind?’ ”

The response, which took a minute, was read out by Sessions. “ ‘Gale has veered to west-northwest.’ ”

“Very well. Make signal, ‘Docking to be delayed. Maintain battle stations. Strike group steer in company, course west-northwest, speed twenty knots, depth eight hundred feet.’ ”

Sessions reported that Carter acknowledged.

“Sir?” Bell asked. “Your intentions?”

“I’m changing the place for the docking. This brew-up could draw other predators, and I don’t mean polar bears. We steam into the heart of the gale and use its bad under-ice acoustic effects as perfect concealment.”

“Understood.” Bell issued helm orders. Patel acknowledged, impressively calm in the aftermath of the battle. He’d found his combat sea legs, as every crewman had to in their own way.

Jeffrey pondered. What was a German submarine doing at the rendezvous point? The meet had been scheduled for when no Axis or Russian spy satellites passed overhead. Canada’s armed forces kept enemies from planting underwater listening devices anywhere near this part of the cap. Harley and Carter were too good to have been trailed all the way from New London. Was the German assigned on a barrier patrol, to catch U.S. subs moving between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and simply got lucky? … Or had someone told the Germans that Carter, or Challenger—or both — would be at this location at this time? The Arctic Ocean was far too big, and sonar detection ranges too short, for it to have been a coincidence, Carter meeting the Amethyste-II like this.

Chapter 8

Rear Admiral Elmar Meredov, sitting in his squeaky high-backed wooden swivel chair, decided to take a break from the endless paperwork that came with his job in the Russian Federation’s Voyenno Morskoy Flot—the Russian Navy. A dowdy antique clock ticking on one of his bookcases told him it was nearing the end of the regular workday. So did the particular way the rosy, horizon-hugging Arctic sun streamed through the tall windows, with curtains drawn, of his spacious, high-ceilinged corner office. He got up from behind his massive mahogany desk; it was so old he imagined it must date to Stalin’s era, perhaps once used by a succession of gulag commissars in Magadan or Yakutsk — real cities, and former labor camp centers, far to the south.

Meredov stretched, then considered asking his secretary to bring him another hot tea. His secure telephone rang. The caller ID said it was one of his favorite subordinates, a captain, first rank at a base two hours away by helicopter — the only way to get anywhere quickly in this rugged part of Siberia.

He picked up the phone. “And how are you, Aleksei, on this fine afternoon?”

“I’m well, thank you, sir…. I’m afraid I’ll be late with the month-end aircraft maintenance reports.”

“How late?”

“I might need as much as a week, unless you want me to just fake some numbers to get it all in on time.”

“The last thing I desire is to see us slipping back into habits of the bad old days. There’s enough of that going on around us. You know precision and honesty please me most, Aleksei. Always. I’m simply curious, why the delay?”

“Too many engine refits, and not nearly enough qualified mechanics. Delegation wasn’t working, and