work in the torpedo room, to help on damage control and the manual loading…. Messenger!'
'Sir!'
'When he can spare a moment have the acting corpsman issue depth-charge rations for everyone on the raid. I'll take mine in black coffee.' Depth-charge rations were strong spirits.
'I'll have mine in coffee, too,' Ilse said.
Jeffrey looked at Ilse: war paint, Band-Aids, torn-up body suit, hair going five ways at once.
'No, Ilse. Take yours straight. I order you to get some sleep.' Jeffrey looked around the familiar spaces, the fake wood wainscoting and flameproof linoleum floors. He smelled the smell of the ship, ozone and paint and warm electronics, lubricants and nontoxic cleansers. He saw all the faces he knew. Home.
'We're cut off and under attack, outnumbered ten to one, beyond any possible means of support, and I feel safer already.'
They reached the CACC.
Jeffrey stood in the aisle, sizing up the situation. Their course was three one five, northwest, back toward the Sound.
'I have the conn.' 'You have the conn,' Lieutenant Sessions said. He went back to the nav console.
'This is the captain. I have the conn.'
'Aye, aye,' the watchstanders said.
Bell relieved one of his officers at Fire Control. Meltzer took the helm. COB was chief of the watch. 'Helm, slow to ahead two thirds, make turns for twenty-six knots. Right standard rudder, make your course zero nine zero.' Due east.
'Captain?' Bell said. 'That's back into the Baltic.' 'XO, your timing to open fire was impeccable. Now we can't just run, we have to keep the enemy guessing.' 'Sir?'
'I want to launch three brilliant decoys.'
'Aye, aye.'
'Program one to sound and act like Seawolf, and send it east toward St. Petersburg.'
'Seawolf, St. Petersburg, aye.'
'Preset one as the Jimmy Carter and aim it toward ' Gdansk. Let them think we have a major SpecWar op against the occupied Polish coast.' The Carter was a Seawolf class, modified for SEAL mission support.
'Understood.'
'Make the third one sound and act like Connecticut. Loop it northeast toward Stockholm and Finland, in international waters.'
'Connecticut, loop it northeast, aye.' Connecticut was Seawolfs sister ship.
'That should confuse everybody for a while. Program all decoys for twenty-five knots, with ping-enhancers to emulate full-size hulls.'
'Twenty-five knots, ping-enhancers, aye.'
Jeffrey read his weapons status screen again. He needed the offensive power of the ADCAPs in tubes one and three, and the antiaircraft power of the Polyphems in tube seven. The water to the northwest, the only route to possible safety, would just get shallower and shallower, magnetic storm or no.
'Launch all decoys through tube five. We'll let them run on their own, it's okay to cut the wires to reload.' 'Understood.'
'Then I want to fire three ISLMMs.' Improved Submarine Launched Mobile Mines. ' Target the mobile mines toward Rostock. That's the closest German naval base threatening our path to the Sound. Use tube five for the ISLMMs.'
'Understood.'
Jeffrey called up the chart for Rostock harbor, and used his light pen. 'Preset the mobile mine warhead pattern to create a barrier due north and one mile past the breakwater, spaced one five zero yards apart, like this. When tube five's empty, reload one more decoy.'
Bell began to enter commands on his console, and gave orders to the Combat Systems technicians on the starboard side of the CACC. Deploying all these units would take a while — Challenger's rate of fire was low from old battle damage. Well, Jeffrey told himself, at least back on my nuclear-powered ship, I don't have to worry about running out of fuel like in that German minisub.
'Helm,' Jeffrey said, 'when the last ISLMM is launched, my intention is to come left to course three one five.' Northwest again.
Then comes the hard part. The Sound's so shallow we can only get through if we surface first.
NINETY MINUTES LATER, ON DEUTSCHLAND. IN THE NORWEGIAN TROUGH
Ernst Beck knocked on the captain's stateroom door. 'Come!' Beck entered.
'Einzvo,' Kurt Eberhard said. He stubbed out a cigarette in irritation. 'Still no contact on Challenger?'
'Nothing on our deployable hydrophone lines, sir. But we've received a high-priority message by secure undersea acoustic link. From Trondheim. The message is in captain's code.'
'Give it to me.'
Beck handed him the diskette. He watched Eberhard load it into his laptop.
'Look away.' Beck heard Eberhard punch keys, the CO's personal passwords. Jawohl!' Eberhard exclaimed. Yes!
'Sir?'
'We're ordered to the Skagerrak at best possible speed. There's an American sub in the Baltic… that seismic activity we detected. The first shock was a low-yield atom bomb.'
'Where, sir?'
'Greifswald.'
'Greifswald?… We guessed the wrong target.' Eberhard shot him a contemptuous look, then rose from his desk. 'None of that matters now.'
Beck bottled down his anger. He followed as Eberhard took the short corridor to the Zentrale.
'We're ordered to find and destroy the enemy ship. Intel says it launched three decoys, acting like the Seawolf boats.'
'Which is the real SSN, sir?'
They reached Control. Eberhard spoke distractedly as he studied his screens.
'It's believed to be USS Challenger. They somehow captured one of our minisubs. Our forces tracked it, certainly damaged it, but then it completely disappeared. Our listening nets heard no telltale flow noise of a dorsal load, so the mini must be in a conformal hangar now.'
'Challenger's, sir.'
'There's no way they can escape!'
Beck nodded — there was one route out of the Baltic, and Deutschland would have plenty of time to cut them off. Coming so soon after the destruction of the two-part Allied convoy — by Deutschland and other Axis submarines — the loss of the U.S. Navy's Challenger would be an unbearable blow to enemy morale and fighting power.
'I have the conn,' Eberhard said. 'Action stations.' Beck took his position at the IWO console. Maybe this war will end soon after all.
'Copilot,' Eberhard said, 'sever the hydrophone lines. Pilot, steer due south. Flank speed ahead.'
'Jawohl,' Jakob Coomans said. Deutschland banked and picked up speed. Eberhard turned to Beck.
'I just hope we find them before some idiot frigate captain gets Fuller with a lucky shot.'
ONE HALF HOUR LATER
Jeffrey stood on the ladder in the sail trunk. On his orders, Meltzer held Challenger down with bow and stern
