Kathy looked chipper, but thinner, maybe from overwork.
'Sir,' Bell said, 'all stations ready for action.'
'Very well, Fire Control. Helm, make your course zero four five.' Northeast. 'Ahead one third, make turns for four knots.'
'Make my course zero four five, aye, sir,' Meltzer said. 'Ahead one third, turns for four knots, aye.'
Jeffrey worked best under pressure. Aiming right at the Germans, something would come to him.
'Captain,' Kathy said, 'new passive contact on the port wide-aperture array.'
'Classification?'
'Appears to be a convoy of merchant ships. Estimate seven in number. Escorts too, sound like Goteborg-class Swedish guided-missile patrol craft. Two of them, sir.'
'They're small,' Bell said, 'three hundred eighty tons, but well armed, including four deck-mounted ASW torpedo tubes.'
'More military screw-counts,' Kathy called out, 'same bearing and range…. A pair of Landsort-class mine hunters, sweeping in front of the convoy.'
'Not a direct threat,' Bell said, 'but they can plant mines as well as sweep them.'
'Faint contacts on acoustic intercept,' Kathy said. 'Picking up scattered mine-hunting sonar now, five hundred twenty-five kilohertz, consistent with Landsort-class Thomson-CSF hull-mounted systems.'
'Very well, Sonar and Fire Control,' Jeffrey said. 'The Swedish Navy must have met their merchies in the Norwegian Sea, in international waters. Now they're making sure they get through unmolested. The Skagerrak's the only access Sweden has in and out of the Baltic.' The minesweeping escort was needed. A German mine might break loose, or the Brits may have secretly planted their own.
'Sir,' Bell said, 'recommend we try to follow the convoy through the Axis defenses.'
'I was thinking that,' Jeffrey said.
Over the CACC speakers, Jeffrey listened to the sonar broadband in quadraphonic: throbbing, churning, pinging, plus creaking and clanking from sunken hulks. There was also a clattering, beating roar: helicopters.
'Captain,' COB said as he eyed the feeds from the LMRS. 'Those helos are using dipping LIDAR to delouse the convoy.'
'That's what I was afraid of,' Jeffrey responded. The mercury-bromide lasers, dunked to avoid the problem of sea-surface interference, were looking for a reflection off something big underwater, or a lack of ambient backscatter due to something big and painted black.
'So much for the age-old trick,' Bell said, 'sneaking in under a merchant ship, sir.' Jeffrey was too disappointed to speak. He grunted. 'They must be on heightened alert,' Bell said, 'because of this magnetic storm.'
Or worse, Jeffrey wondered — because of ARBOR and Greifswald?
'Sir,' Bell said, 'from the pattern on the tactical plot, I'm starting to think the Lynx aren't checking under the Swedish warships, just the merchies.'
'Interesting,' Jeffrey said. 'We know the Swedes are aggressively neutral, even though they sell the Axis iron ore and arms. Could be they don't want the Germans getting too close, snooping on their naval assets…. So, let's put ourselves under the trailing Goteborg-class instead.'
'We're twice as long as she is, Captain.'
'Oceanographer, what's water turbidity now?'
Ilse typed on her keyboard. She cleared her throat. 'On-hull sensors indicate a one-foot white Secchi reference disk will disappear at sixteen feet depth, Captain.'
'The murky water will hide us from prying eyes, XO. At slow speed our wake effects should blend in nicely.' Jeffrey spoke to Sessions, then gave the helm orders to close in behind the patrol craft.
'Blade-rate change,' Kathy said, 'on the Goteborgs and the Landsorts! Flank-speed blade rates! Rapid, repeated aspect changes!'
'Crap,' Jeffrey said.
'They're one step ahead of us,' Bell said. 'They're much more nimble than we are, too.' Jeffrey nodded. 'Dancing a high-speed jig, to prevent a sub from using them to infiltrate. They mean it, preserving neutrality.'
Jeffrey helplessly watched the tactical plot and LMRS data. The sanitized merchant ships filed into the entrance lane, then the Swedish minesweepers and patrol craft all zipped through. The antisubmarine boom slid closed.
'All right,' Jeffrey said, 'we'll have to go in the hard way, through the Norwegian Trough and the deep-water mines.'
'Captain,' Bell said, 'that'll take us fifty nautical miles out of our way, north and then back south again. It'll put us hours more behind.'
'I know,' Jeffrey said.
'New passive broadband contact on the bow sphere,' Kathy reported. 'Submerged contact! Designate Sierra thirty-four, bearing three five five, range eight thousand yards.'
Jeffrey's heart raced. What he'd dreaded most was happening: a sudden, close encounter with an Axis sub, in Axis waters not as deep as Challenger was long.
'Mid-spectrum narrowband, harmonics of reduction gears and cooling pumps. Contact is nuclear powered!'
'What class?' Jeffrey said.
'Impossible to tell! It must be bows-on to us! Adverse range and aspect angle to pick up definitive tonals!'
'Helm,' Jeffrey snapped, 'make your course two six five, then all stop.' Meltzer acknowledged. The ship turned left, and slowed.
'Anything on the starboard wide array now?'
'Affirmative, redesignate contact Master thirty-four. Contact is closing, a noisy one, sir, conjecture it's a Rubis class. Still no good tonals below one hundred hertz.'
'We'll sit still to keep down our self-noise for you.'
'Captain,' Bell said, 'Master thirty-four's course appears to be one three zero. She's practically on a collision course with us.'
'Mechanical transient,' Kathy said.
'What was it?'
'Possible weapon launch preparations.'
'Fire Control,' Jeffrey barked, 'make tube five ready in all respects.' Tube five held a conventional Mark 48 ADCAP. 'Firing point procedures, tube five, on Master thirtyfour. Open the outer—'
'Captain, do not fire,' Kathy shouted. 'Master thirty-four is a Russian Delta-four!'
'Are you sure?'
'Confirmed! Contact aspect change. Clear near-infrasonic tonals now.' Christ, Jeffrey told himself, I almost started World War III.
'What's a Russian boomer doing here?' Bell wondered.
'Increased flow noise and cavitation,' Kathy said. 'The Delta-four has gone to periscope depth.'
'Whatever it is,' Jeffrey said, 'it can't be good.'
'Sir,' Kathy continued, 'Master thirty-four is doing a main ballast blow…. Master thirty-four is surfacing..
Winch sounds. Master thirty-four retracting towed array.' 'Curiouser and curiouser,' Jeffrey said.
'She's going into the Baltic,' Bell said. 'It makes sense. Submarines are supposed to surface for the Skaggerak. She needs to, sir, she's huge, five hundred feet from stem to stern. On the surface she can safely make fifteen knots.'
'XO,' Jeffrey said, 'I just had a wild idea.'
'Uh, I think I know what you're going to say.'
'Chief of the Watch, extend the foreplanes.' COB acknowledged.
'People,' Jeffrey said, 'we've found our free ride in. With that Delta's heavy self-noise and her less- thanwonderful passive sonars, they'll never know we're there.' Jeffrey smiled, Now this is using the element of surprise.
