Things were out of Jeffrey’s hands. K-335 knew they were there, or she didn’t. If she didn’t, she’d detect them on this pass, or not. If she opened fire she opened fire. If K- 335 did shoot, Jeffrey knew what to do: draw the weapons away from Carter, and stop K-335 from launching more or reporting Carter’s presence. But in sub-on-sub combat, the first well-aimed shots were usually fatal; at this short range the duel would be savage, over quickly — and Challenger might easily lose.
If that did happen, Harley would escape on his own, then somehow regain stealth, and carry on as best he could. The struggling Allied cause just didn’t have the months it would take to abort the mission and start it again from scratch when the diplomatic, military, and intelligence flurry over an undersea firefight in Russian home waters subsided. Harley would have to hope that Jeffrey’s sudden death at the hands of K-335’s captain didn’t too badly handicap the President negotiating with Moscow over the Hot Line. All involved could only pray that Challenger, if sunk so close to Genrietty Island, didn’t shatter Kurzin’s pseudo- German frame-up subterfuge.
Fat chance. The risks might have looked acceptable at the Pentagon or the White House, as paper studies in conference rooms with tired people sitting amid big piles of empty coffee cups. Standing in the control room, with an Akula-II so close that Jeffrey could practically reach out and touch it, tore away the academic tone of the simulations. What was going on right now, right here, was much too real.
He seriously considered opening fire first. This would utterly violate his rules of engagement, and with Russian hydrophone nets in range the action could surely be reconstructed accurately. Ambushing K- 335 to save his mission, in the short term, would start the very Russian-versus-American war he was supposed to help permanently avoid in the long term. Jeffrey was handcuffed from every direction. He hated not holding the initiative. He had to regain it, period, if necessary by sheer force of will. He ran through all that had happened so far. He saw that he needed to pick between being an optimist and a pessimist…
K-335 won’t shoot. He hasn’t seen us yet, and he won’t.
“New plan,” Jeffrey announced theatrically to dispel the tension and gloom. “This guy’s just what the doctor ordered.”
“Commodore?” Bell was mystified.
“These waters are awfully polluted. I doubt he pays his chemo-sniffer readings any mind. So we continue drifting, and do nothing until after he comes back once again from the east. Russian command and control are rigid. I expect his oval patrol track and his speed are fixed, dictated by superiors. I want to know this guy’s schedule. When we’re ready, he’ll be the perfect key to unlock the outermost shell of the matryoshka doll.”
Challenger and Carter waited for K- 335 to return. In the meantime, Jeffrey ordered the strike group to secure — stand down — from battle stations, so people could eat, rest, and use the heads. He took a much-needed nap himself, then a refreshing hot shower, grabbed a bite in the wardroom, and dosed himself with every submariner’s drug of choice: caffeine. He filled a travel mug with more strong coffee and went to Control.
Apprehension there mounted. There was no guarantee that K-335 would come back. Another ELF message came through from Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, reconfirming that the mission was still on. This time, Jeffrey was secretly glad. He was too far in, too mentally engaged and emotionally committed, to welcome any idea of withdrawing.
His adrenaline surged when contact on K-335 was regained, ten hours after she’d disappeared east.
Satisfied that he understood her schedule, Jeffrey issued orders for Challenger and Carter to release their off-board probes. They’d use them to scout several miles ahead before following at the same speed the probes were making, seven knots.
The tension thickened as the vessels moved onto the continental shelf. Jeffrey told Bell to turn on the sonar speakers. With the strike group sandwiched so narrowly between the ice cap and the bottom, groans and creeks and crackling from the pack ice were louder than ever. Jeffrey also heard constant splish- splashes, and barks and yips and different kinds of cries.
“Biologics are raising the acoustic sea state,” O’Hanlon reported. Closer to land and the edge of the summertime ice cap, seals and sea birds swarmed. Crewmen jumped when an agonized animal scream filled the air. It died off abruptly.
“A polar bear just caught lunch,” O’Hanlon said. The sonarman sitting next to him seemed squeamish. “Enjoy the extreme ecotourism, me boy.”
Bell’s two probes, shaped like torpedoes, battery-powered, loaded with sophisticated sensors, searched a narrow path on the shelf for anything emplaced by the Russians that might give Challenger’s or Carter’s presence away. Data and imagery from the probes filled several screens in the control room, coming through their fiber-optic tethers as Torelli’s men directed them with joysticks. Captain Harley had deployed three Seahorse III unmanned undersea vehicles. Much wider and heavier then Challenger’s probes, and thus better equipped as robotic investigators, they helped check the seafloor and the underside of the ice.
The Seahorses gave much earlier warning of polynyas than the strike group’s passive sonars could. Jeffrey wanted to stay clear of such open water almost as badly as he craved avoiding a crash into an ice keel. He thought of each hole in the ice as a window through which his ships might be seen and attacked.
One value of the probes was that their small size and silent propulsion made them essentially invisible. Near Genrietty they located man-made objects in a line along the bottom, and in a more uneven line above, attached to the underside of the ice.
Carter signaled again: “Unknown if objects are mines or ASW sensors or both. Classification requires high-frequency Seahorse sonars go active.”
“Captain?” Bell asked.
“Doesn’t matter what they are. Regardless, we need to find a way past…. Fire Control, signal Carter, ‘Active sonars to remain secured, repeat, secured. Commence passive search for access route trending south.’ ”
Technicians on Challenger and Carter sent their probes swerving in a coordinated pattern, to find a gap broad enough for Challenger, and then Carter following behind, to squeeze through at three knots. One of Torelli’s probes won this friendly competition. Jeffrey ordered Sessions to relay the information to Carter.
When safely beyond the Russian picket line of sensors or mines or whatever they were, both ships went back to seven knots.
“Commodore,” Sessions soon called, “Carter signals, ‘Permission to commence active search for cable?’ ”
Tapping this buried undersea fiber-optic communications cable was the next vital part of the mission plan. One of the Seahorses had a narrow-beam, low-frequency, look-down active sonar. Its purpose was to penetrate the ocean floor and find buried objects. By moving slowly just above the bottom, the bulk of the Seahorse was supposed to mask the returning echoes from prying enemy ears. At such close vertical range, if an object wasn’t too deep into the silt or sand or gravel covering different parts of the shelf, a long-wavelength search beam could seek incongruous materials and shapes a few yards down.
Blood pressures started rising in Challenger’s control room. Going active was an iffy tactic in such confined and hostile waters. As the navigation plot and the gravimeter proved, the strike group was pinched between Genrietty and Zannetty Islands. Satellite surveillance had shown that both were occupied by garrisons of naval infantry troops. Facilities for living year-round had been dug deep into the rock of the islands. Radar domes, and radio antennas, were conspicuous in the picture files provided in Jeffrey’s orders pouch. Both
