Red Phoenix

Bernadino hadn’t been carrying any troops. But that was small consolation.

ABOARD KONSTANTIN DRIBINOV

Markov was not happy. “One explosion, that’s all?”

“Yes, Comrade Captain. But sonar reports hearing the target breaking up.”

Markov wasn’t consoled by the report. One hit out of six torpedoes. A miserable performance. Dribinov would have to do better than that in this next attack. He tapped the two closest dots on the plot reflectively. The submarine’s next targets would be the two American escorts charging toward it. Missing either of them could prove fatal, not just embarrassing.

He looked up from the chart at his first lieutenant. “Dimitri, how are they coming?”

The man put down his phone. “Three tubes reloaded, the fourth in half a minute. And we have good firing solutions on both contacts.”

“Three will have to do. We don’t have half a minute. Shoot!”

The Dribinov shuddered again as three more torpedoes were flung out into the water. Markov moved to the helmsman. “Left ten degrees rudder. Steady on three one zero. Slow to five knots.”

His battery was now down to twenty-eight percent charge. He would have to conserve what was left and try to sneak out.

ABOARD USS O’BRIEN

“Torpedo inbound! Bearing zero four three.”

The sonar operator’s report galvanized the Bridge and Combat Information Center into immediate action. Levi’s first order called for flank speed, and the gas-turbine-powered warship responded like a sports car, slicing through the sea as its speed climbed over thirty knots.

O’Brien’s CIC crew cursed silently as they tried to keep track of their own ship’s evasive maneuvers while still keeping tabs on the Soviet sub’s last reported position.

Levi stood braced against the tilting deck as his ship turned, hoping he’d made the right decision. Instead of turning away from the oncoming torpedo, he’d ordered a turn toward the enemy. The idea was not to be where the launching unit had predicted and to get away from the torpedo’s seeker.

“Bridge, this is Sonar. No change in torpedo bearing. The signal may be splitting into two or more weapons.”

Well, that didn’t work, Levi thought. He ordered another rapid course change. Screw closing on the sub. Coming right, he steadied perpendicular to the torpedoes’ approach. Maybe giving them a rapidly changing angle would throw them off.

The sonar room reported again. “We now have three weapons in the water. Bearing rate on one is changing. It may be going for Duncan. Rate is still steady on the other two.”

Levi clenched his fists. There was nothing more he could do. “Pass the word, all hands brace for impact.” He looked out to starboard and saw another ship heeling sharply. The Duncan was also maneuvering.

IN THE YELLOW SEA

Soviet SET-65 torpedoes use passive sonar to home in on the sounds made by a ship’s engines and propellers. As the two torpedoes fired by Dribinov at O’Brien closed on their target, their robot brains brought them in behind the American destroyer — with one a hundred yards back.

Both tiny onboard computers evaluated the closest noise source as the rapidly turning screws of an American Spruance-class destroyer. Both were wrong.

They were homing on a Nixie, a torpedo decoy towed behind most U.S. Navy warships. No bigger than a garbage can, the Nixie was designed to make noise on the same frequencies as the ship towing it, but so loud that any attacking torpedoes would be spoofed into attacking the decoy instead.

It worked.

The Dribinov’s first torpedo closed on the Nixie and detonated when its proximity fuze sensed the target’s position changing rapidly.

The explosion of its six-hundred-pound warhead threw a hundred-foot-tall geyser of icy water into the air, drenching sailors watching from the O’Brien’s fantail. At the same moment the shock wave rippling out from the explosion lifted the destroyer’s fantail almost clear of the water, and for a moment the O’Brien’s propellers raced as they neared the air.

The second torpedo, intent on the same target, raced through the roiled water left by the explosion and suddenly found itself without a noise source to home in on. The SET-65’s forward-looking seeker didn’t have the intelligence to realize that its original target was now to its left and behind. And the control logic preprogrammed into the torpedo’s tiny brain was simple, direct, and mistaken: If a target is lost, circle right and look for another.

Meanwhile, O’Brien’s captain had not been idle. As soon as the first weapon exploded, destroying his Nixie, he’d ordered a hard left turn. Not only was he now closing on the Soviet sub’s estimated position, but he and the second torpedo were heading in opposite directions with a combined speed of eighty knots — over ninety miles per hour.

It took roughly thirty seconds for the Russian torpedo to circle completely around to face O’Brien’s stern. By that time the destroyer had covered thirteen hundred yards, over half a nautical mile. The torpedo’s small size meant a small, short-range seeker, with a maximum range of a thousand yards. So it never heard the O’Brien again and simply continued its turn. Left behind by its prey, the torpedo circled mindlessly for about five more minutes, then ran out of gas and sank quietly to the bottom.

ABOARD USS O’BRIEN

Levi’s heartbeat was starting to slow toward normal when he heard a tremendous, rolling explosion from the right and felt the O’Brien rock for an instant. His head snapped right in time to see another towering column of water like the one that had appeared behind his ship. This one, though, wasn’t made up of only white, foaming water. It was stained a dirty black and gray and located directly under the Duncan’s stern.

The column sagged and then collapsed back into the sea, leaving the frigate hidden for half a minute under a dense cloud of mist and smoke. When it emerged, the Duncan was visibly listing to port and down by the stern.

Levi stood rigid with anger. The Russians had struck again. He wheeled to his bridge crew and snapped out a new string of orders. “Indicate turns for twenty knots. Right full rudder. Boatswain, call away the repair and assistance party.”

ABOARD KONSTANTIN DRIBINOV

The first explosion’s rumbling Crrrummmpp came through the hull exactly when the tracking party predicted Dribinov’s first torpedo would reach its target. There were excited, quickly muffled exclamations from the Control Room crew, followed shortly by disappointed mutters when the time for their second torpedo to attack came and went. But the second explosion was right on schedule, and again the control room crew had to stifle its cheers.

Markov hid his excitement well. Three American ships sunk or damaged in a single quick series of attacks. It was easy to be calm when things were going as he had planned. Now to exploit the situation by escaping through the gap he’d just blown clear through the American ASW screen. “We will steer toward the two targets. Steady on course two six five.”

The sub changed course slowly at low speed. Normally he would have increased speed to hasten its turn, but the Dribinov’s battery was now too low to risk the unnecessary drain.

Markov smiled. He’d only sunk one of his priority targets — probably an amphibious ship — but once past the screen, he could clear the area and snorkel, recharging his batteries. He still had plenty of weapons, and with a full charge he could make another attack.

He moved back to the plot table and started to estimate the maneuvers he would need to make. Assuming about six hours to motor clear at three knots, while the task force continued to the north…

ABOARD BRAVO SIX