Red Storm Rising

36. Shootout at 31 West!

"Shall we take a drive today, Mikhail Eduardovich? Perhaps we can talk?" Sergetov's blood chilled, though he did not let it show. Was it possible for the Chief of the KGB not to look sinister? he wondered. From Leningrad, like Sergetov, Kosov was a short, rotund man who had taken over the KGB after running the Central Committee's shadowy "General Department." He had a jolly laugh when he wanted to, and in another guise could be the personification of Grandfather Frost, the State's acceptable version of Santa Claus. But he was not in another guise now.

"Certainly, Boris Georgiyevich," Sergetov said, and pointed at his driver. "You may speak freely. Vitaly is a good man."

"I know it," Kosov replied. "He's worked for us the last ten years." Sergetov only had to watch the back of his driver's neck to know that Kosov spoke the truth.

"So what shall we talk about?"

The Director of the KGB reached into his briefcase and came out with a device about the size of a paperback book. He flipped a switch and it gave off an unpleasant buzz."

"A clever new device made in the Netherlands, he explained. "It gives off a noise that renders most microphones useless. Something to do with harmonics, my people tell me." Then his manner changed abruptly.

"Mikhail Eduardovich, do you know the significance of the American attack on our airfields?"

"A troublesome development to be sure, but-"

"I thought not. Several NATO convoys are at sea. A major one left New York several days ago. It carries two million tons of essential war materiel, plus a complete American division, to Europe. In destroying a number of our bombers, NATO has significantly reduced our ability to deal with the convoys. They have also cleared the way for direct attacks against Soviet soil."

"But Iceland-"

"Has been neutralized." Kosov explained what had happened to the Soviet fighters at Keflavik.

"You're telling me the war goes badly? Then why is Germany making overtures for peace?"

"Yes, that is a very good question."

"If you have suspicions, Comrade Director, you should not bring them to me!"

"I will tell you a story. Back in January when I had my bypass surgery, day-today control of KGB passed to the First Deputy Chairman, Josef Larionov. Have you met little Josef?" Kosov asked.

"No, he never took your place at Politburo meetings-what about the Defense Council?" Sergetov's head snapped around. "They did not consult you? You were recovering then."

"An exaggeration. I was quite ill for two weeks, but naturally this information was kept quiet. It took another month before I was back working full time. The members of the Defense Council had no wish to impede my recovery, and so young, ambitious Josef was called in to give KGB's official intelligence assessment. As you might imagine, we have many schools of thought in the intelligence services-it is not like your precious engineering where all things are broken into neat little numbers and graphs. We have to look inside the heads of men who often as not do not themselves know what they think on an issue. Sometimes I wonder why we do not employ gypsy fortune-tellers… but I digress.

"KGB maintains what we call the Strategic Intelligence Estimate. This is a document updated on a daily basis which gives our assessment of the political and military strength of our adversaries. Because of the nature of our work, and because of serious mistakes made in the past, we have three assessment teams who make the estimate: Best Case, Worst Case, and Middle Case. The terms are self-explanatory, are they not? When we make a presentation to the Politburo, we generally use the Middle Case estimate, and for the obvious reasons we annotate our estimates with data from the other two."

"So when he was called in to give his assessment to the Politburo-"

"Yes. Young Josef, the ambitious little bastard who wants my job as a wolf wants a sheep, was clever enough to bring all three with him. When he saw what they wanted, he gave them what they wanted."

"But when you returned, why didn't you correct the mistake?"

Kosov gave his companion an ironic smile. "Misha, Misha, sometimes you can be most engagingly naive. I should have killed the son of a bitch, but this was not possible. Josef suffers from poor health, though he is not aware of it. The time is not yet right," Kosov said, as though discussing a vacation. "KGB is split into several factions at the moment. Josef controls one. I control another. Mine is larger, but not decisively so. He has the ear of the General Secretary and the Defense Minister. I am a sick old man-they have told me this. Except for the war I would have been replaced already."

"But he lied to the Politburo!" Sergetov nearly shouted.

"Not at all. You think Josef is foolish? He handed over an official KGB intelligence estimate drawn up under my chairmanship, by my department heads."

Why is he telling me all this? He fears losing his post, and he wants support with other Politburo members. Is that all?

"You're telling me that this is all a mistake."

"Exactly," Kosov answered. "Bad luck and poor judgment in our oil industry-not your fault, of course. Add some fear in the hearts of our Party hierarchy, some ambition in one of my subordinates, the Defense Minister's sense of importance, and outright stupidity on the part of the West; and here we are today."

"So, what do you think we should do?" Sergetov asked warily.

"Nothing. I ask that you keep in mind, however, that the next week will probably decide the outcome of our war. Ah!" he exclaimed. "Look, my car has been repaired. You may pull over here, Vitaly. Thank you for the ride, Misha. Good day." Kosov retrieved his jamming device and stepped out of the car.

Mikhail Eduardovich Sergetov watched the KGB limousine pull away and disappear around the comer. He had played many power games in his life. Sergetov's climb up the Party ladder had been more than an exercise in efficiency. Men had stood in his way, and needed brushing aside. Promising careers had been broken so that he could sit in this Zil automobile and aspire to real power in his country. But never had the game been this dangerous. He didn't know the rules, was not sure what Kosov was really up to. Was his story even true? Might he be trying to cover his own flanks for errors he had made and blame it all on Josef Larionov? Sergetov could not recall ever meeting the First Deputy Chairman.

"Straight to the office, Vitaly," Sergetov ordered. He was too deep in thought to worry about his driver's other activities.

Toland scanned the satellite photographs with great interest. The KH-11 satellite had passed over Kirovsk four hours after the missile attack and the signals sent by real-time link to the NATO command center. There were three frames for each of the Backfire bases. The intelligence officer took out a pad and started his tally, commanding himself to be conservative. The only aircraft he counted as destroyed were those with large pieces broken or burned off.

"We figured a total force of about eighty-five aircraft. Looks to me like twenty-one totally destroyed, and another thirty or so damaged. The base facilities took a real beating. The only other thing I'd like to know is how hard their personnel were hit. If we killed a lot of crews, too-the Backfires are out of business for at least a week. They still have the Badgers, but those birds have shorter legs, they're a lot easier to kill. Admiral, it's a new ball game."

Admiral Sir Charles Beattie smiled. His intelligence chief had said almost exactly the same thing.

The F-15 interceptor streaked over the runway at a height of one hundred feet. As she passed the tower, Major Nakamura threw her fighter into a slow roll, then turned around for a more sedate landing. She was an Ace! Three Badger bombers and two satellites! The first female Ace in the history of the U.S. Air Force. The first Space Ace.

She rolled to a stop at the ready shelter, jumped off the ladder, and ran to the reception committee. The deputy commander of Tactical Air Command was red-faced with anger.

"Major, if you ever pull something like that again I'll bust your ass back to doolie!"

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir." She grinned. Nothing was going to spoil today. "Won't ever happen again, sir. You only make Ace once, sir."

"Intelligence says Ivan has one more RORSAT ready to use. Probably they'll think it over some before launching," the General said, calming down somewhat.

"Have they put any more birds together?" Buns asked.

"They're working on two, and we might have them by the end of the week. If we get them, your next target will be their real-time photo reconnaissance satellite. Until then the RORSATs have highest priority." The General smiled briefly. "Don't forget to paint that fifth star on the bird, Major."

They would have sailed anyway. The destruction of the Soviet RORSAT merely made it safer. First came the destroyers and frigates, fanning out, looking for submarines under an umbrella of patrol aircraft. Then the cruisers and carriers. Last of all came the ships from Little Creek, Tarawa, Guam, Nassau, Inchon, and twenty more. Over sixty ships in all, they formed into three groups and steamed northeast at twenty knots. It would be a six-day trip.

Even at three knots she didn't ride well. The ship was just over two hundred feet long, and she responded to every wave like a horse to a fence. She had a mixed crew, not really Navy, not really civilian. The civilians ran the ship. The naval personnel ran the electronics gear. The really amazing thing, everyone agreed, was that they were still alive.

Prevail was an adaptation of a blue-water fishing boat. Instead of a trawl, she pulled a sonar array at the end of a six-thousand-foot cable filled with sonar sensors. The signals received were pre-processed by onboard computers, then sent via satellite to Norfolk at a rate of thirty-two thousand bits of data per second. The ship was driven by quiet electric motors, and her hull had been installed with the Prairie/Masker system to eliminate even her tiny amount of machinery noise. Her topsides were made of fiberglass to reduce her radar signature. In a very real sense she was one of the first Stealth ships, and despite the fact that she carried no weapon other than a rifle for dealing with sharks, she was also the most dangerous antisubmarine platform ever made. Prevail and three sister ships were cruising the North Atlantic on the great circle route between Newfoundland and Ireland, listening for the telltale noise of a submarine in transit. Two already had kills painted up on their bridges since each had an Orion patrol aircraft in constant attendance, and Soviet submarines had twice had the misfortune to approach one of them. But their job was not to kill submarines. It was to warn others of them, far away.

In the midships operations center of Prevail, a team of oceanographic technicians watched a bank of TV-type display tubes, while others worked up tracks of anything that might be close enough to be a direct threat.

A petty officer ran his finger down a fuzzy line on the display. "That must be the convoy from New York."

"Yeah," said the technician next to him. "And there're the folks who want to meet them."

"At least we're not going to be lonely," O'Malley observed.

"You always have such a positive attitude?" Frank Ernst inquired.

"Our Russian friends must have excellent intelligence. I mean, your Air Force chaps did kill their satellite." Captain Perrin set his coffee down on the table. The five officers conferred in Morris's stateroom. Perrin had flown over by helicopter from Battleaxe.

"Yeah, so they know our composition," Morris said. "And they'll want to cut this bunch down to size."

The message from Norfolk stated in clipped navalese that at least six Soviet submarines were believed to be heading for the convoy. Four would be on the north. That was their area of responsibility.

"We should be getting some data off the tail any time now," Morris said. "Jerry, you up to three days of continuous ops?"

O'Malley laughed. "If I say no, will it matter?"

"I think we should remain close together," Perrin said. "Five miles' separation at most. The real trick will be timing our sprints. The convoy wants to make as straight a run as possible, right?"

"Yeah." Morris nodded. "Hard to blame the Commodore for that. Zigzagging all those ships could create almost as much confusion as a real attack."

"Hey, the good news is no more Backfires for a while," O'Malley pointed out. "We're back to a one-dimension threat."

The ship's motion changed as power was reduced. The frigate was ending a twenty-eight-knot sprint and would now drift for several minutes at five knots to allow her passive sonar to function.

"Sonar contact, bearing three-four-six."

Seven hundred miles to the icepack, McCafferty thought as he went forward. At five knots.

They were in deep water. It was a gamble, but a good one, to run away from the coast at fifteen knots despite the noise Providence made. It had taken four hours to reach the hundred-fathom curve, a period of constant tension as he had worried about the Russian reaction to their missile attack. The Russians had sent antisubmarine patrol aircraft first of all, the ubiquitous Bears dropping sonobuoys, but they'd been able to avoid them. Providence still had most of her sonar systems in operation, and though she could not defend herself, she could at least hear the danger coming.

Throughout the four-hour run the wounded submarine had sounded like a wagonload of pipes, and McCafferty didn't want to think about how she had handled, with her fairwater planes hanging like laundry in a breeze. But that was behind them. Now they were in seven hundred feet of water. With their towed-array sonars deployed, they'd have an extra measure of warning for approaching danger. Boston and USS Chicago cruised three miles on either side of their wounded sister. Seven hundred miles at five knots, McCafferty thought. Almost six days…

"Okay, what do we have here, Chief?"

"Came in slowly, sir, so it's probably direct path. We have a slow bearing change rate. My first guess would be a diesel boat on batteries, and close." The sonar chief showed no emotion.

The captain leaned back into the attack center. "Come right to zero-two-five."

The helmsman applied five degrees of right rudder, gently bringing the submarine to a northeasterly course. At five knots USS Chicago was "a hole in the ocean" that made almost no noise at all, but her contact was almost as quiet. McCafferty watched the line on the screen change shape ever so slightly over a period of several minutes.

"Okay, we have a bearing change to the contact. Bearing is now three-four-one."

"Joe?" McCafferty asked his executive officer.

"I make the range eight thousand yards, plus or minus. He's on a reciprocal heading, speed about four knots."

Too close, the captain thought. He probably doesn't hear us yet, though.

"Let's get him."

The Mark-48 torpedo fired at its slowest speed setting, turned forty degrees to the left on leaving the tube, then settled down to head for the contact, its guidance wires trailing back to the submarine. The sonarmen directed the fish toward its target while USS Chicago moved slowly away from the launch point. Suddenly the sonar chief's head jerked up.

"He's heard it! He just kicked his engines. I got a blade count-it's a Foxtrot-class, doing turns for fifteen. Transient, transient, he just flooded tubes."

The torpedo accelerated and switched on its homing sonar. The Foxtrot knew it had been found, and her captain reacted automatically, increasing speed and ordering a radical turn to starboard, then firing a homing torpedo back down the line of bearing at its attacker. Finally he dove deep, hoping to shake off the closing fish.

The hard turn left a knuckle in the water, an area of turbulence which confused the Mark-48 briefly, but then the torpedo charged right through it, and on coming back to undisturbed water, found its target again. The green-painted weapon dove after the Foxtrot and caught it at a depth of four hundred feet.

"Bearing is changing rapidly on the inbound," the sonar chief said. "It's going to pass well aft of us―hit, we got a hit on the target." The sound echoed through the steel hull like distant thunder. McCafferty plugged in a set of phones in time to hear the Foxtrot's frantic attempt to blow to the surface, and the screech of metal as the internal bulkheads gave way. He did not hear the captain's last act. It was to deploy the rescue buoy located on the aft comer of the sail. The buoy floated to the surface and began transmitting a continuous message. All the men aboard the Foxtrot were already dead, but the rescue buoy told their fleet headquarters where they had died-and several submarines and surface ships immediately set off to that point.

O'Malley pulled up on the collective control and climbed to five hundred feet. From this height he could see the northern edge of the convoy off to the southwest. Several helicopters were in the air-a good idea of someone's. Many of the merchant ships were carrying Army helicopters as deck cargo, and most of them were flyable. Their crews were taking them up to patrol the convoy perimeter, looking for periscopes. The one thing any submariner would admit to being afraid of was a helicopter. This procedure was called "black-sky" ASW. Throughout the convoy, soldiers were being told to watch the ocean and report anything they saw, which made for many false sighting reports, but it gave the men something to do, and sooner or later they might just spot a real periscope. The Seahawk moved twenty miles east before circling. They were looking for a possible submarine detected on the frigate's passive sonar array during the last drift.

"Okay, Willy, drop a LOFAR-now-now-now!"

The petty officer punched a button to eject a sonobuoy out the side panel. The helicopter continued forward, dropping four additional buoys at intervals of two miles to create a ten-mile barrier, then O'Malley held his aircraft in a wide circle, watching the sea himself as the petty officer examined the sonar display on his screen.

"Commander, what's this I hear about the skipper? You know, the night before we sailed."

"I felt like getting drunk, and he was kind enough not to make me drink alone. Didn't you ever get drunk before?"

"No, sir. I don't drink."

"What's this Navy coming to! You take her for a minute." O'Malley took his hand off the stick and adjusted his helmet. It was a new one and he hadn't quite gotten used to it yet. "You got anything, Willy?"

"Not sure yet, sir. Give me another minute or two."

"Fair enough." The pilot contemplated his instruments briefly, then resumed his outside scanning. "I ever tell you about this thirty-five-footer in the Bermuda-to-Newport race? Storm beat hell out of it. Anyway, it had an all-girl crew and when the boat swamped they lost all their-"

"Skipper, I got a weak signal on number four."

"Grateful as hell for being rescued, too." O'Malley took the stick and brought the helicopter around to the northwest. "You don't do any of that either, Mr. Ralston?"

"Strong drink giveth the desire, sir, but taketh away the ability," the copilot said. "Two more miles, sir."

"He even knows Shakespeare. There may be hope for you yet. Talk to me, Willy."

"Still a 'weak' on number four. Nothing else."

"One mile," Ralston said, watching the tactical display.

O'Malley's eyes scanned the surface, looking for a straight vertical line or a wisp of foam.

'Number four's signal strength is now medium, sir. Getting a twitch on five."

"Romeo, Hammer, I think we may have something here. I'm going to drop another LOFAR between four and five. Designate this one number six. Dropping-now!" Another sonobuoy was ejected clear of the aircraft.

"Hammer, this is Romeo," called the controller. "Looks to us like the contact is north of the line, say again north."

"Roger, concur on that. We ought to know something in a minute."

"Skipper," Willy called. "I have a 'medium' on six."

"Romeo, Hammer, we're going to dip on this character right now."

Aboard Reuben James they marked the helicopter's position, along with the line of sonobuoys.

O'Malley eased back on the stick to kill forward velocity, while his other hand eased the collective control down very gently until the helicopter was in hover fifty feet over the water. Willy unlocked the dipping sonar and lowered it to a depth of two hundred feet.

"Sonar contact, sir. Classify as possible submarine, bearing three-five-six."

"Up dome!" O'Malley commanded.

The Seahawk lifted high and raced north for one mile. Hovering once more, O'Malley dipped his sonar a second time.

"Contact! Bearing one-seven-five. Sounds like a twin screw doing turns for maybe ten knots."

"We've bracketed him," the pilot said. "Let's set this one up." Ralston entered the numbers into the tactical computer.

"Bearing change, looks like he's turning to port-yeah," Willy confirmed. "Turning to port."

"He hear us?" Ralston asked.

"He might hear the convoy and be turning to get a fix on them. Willy, up dome," O'Malley ordered. "Romeo, Hammer, we have a maneuvering target, classify as probable submarine. Request weapons free."

"Roger, Hammer, weapons free, repeat weapons are free."

The pilot flew one thousand yards southeast. The sonar dome went down again and the helicopter hovered head into the wind.

"Got him again, sir," Willy said excitedly. "Bearing three-five-five. Bearing is changing right to left, sir."

"Going right past us," Ralston said, looking at the TACNAV.

"Romeo, this is Hammer. We're calling this a positive submarine and we are making a deliberate attack on this contact." O'Malley held the aircraft in hover as his petty officer called off the bearing change. "Attack sequence."

"Master Arm." Ralston ran his hands across the buttons. "Torpedo Select, position one."

"Set initial search depth two-fifty; course-select, Snake." Ralston made the proper settings.

"Set."

"Okay, Willy, get ready for Yankee-search," O'Malley ordered, meaning a search using active sonar.

"Ready, sir. Bearing to contact now two-zero-zero, changing right-to-left rapidly."

"Hammer his ass!" O'Malley switched the sonar signals into his headset.

Willy thumbed the button and the sonar transducer fired off a series of pings. The wave fronts of sound energy reflected off the submarine's hull and came back to the transducer. The contact suddenly increased engine power.

"Positive contact, bearing one-eight-eight, range eight hundred yards."

Ralston fed the last numbers into the fire-control system: "Set!"

The pilot brought his thumb across the stick to a button on the right side and pressed it home. The Mark-46 torpedo dropped free of its shackles and plunged into the sea. "Torp away."

"Willy, secure pinging." O'Malley keyed his radio. "Romeo, we just dropped on a diving two-screw submarine, approximately eight hundred yards from us on a bearing of one-eight-eight. Torpedo is in the water now. Stand by."

The Mark-46 torpedo was set on a "snake" pursuit pattern, a series of undulating curves that carried it in a southerly direction. Alerted by the helicopter's sonar, the Soviet submarine was running at flank speed and diving to evade the torpedo.

"Hammer, Romeo, be advised that Hatchet is en route to you in case your torp misses, over."

"Roger that," O'Malley acknowledged.

"It's got him!" Willy said excitedly. The torpedo was on automatic pinging as it closed with the submarine. The captain made a hard right turn, but the fish was too close to be fooled.

"Hit! That's a hit!" Willy said almost as loudly as the noise of the explosion. Directly ahead of them the surface seemed to jump, but no gout of foam leaped up. The torpedo had gone off too deep for that.

"Well," O'Malley said. In all his years of practice he'd never fired a live fish at a live sub. The sounds of the dying sub seemed the saddest thing he'd ever heard. Some oil bubbled to the surface. "Romeo, we're calling that one a kill. Tell the bosun to get out his paintbrush. We are now orbiting to look for wreckage and possible survivors." Another frigate had rescued the entire crew from a downed Russian Bear the previous day. They were already on the mainland for interrogation. But there would be none from this incident. O'Malley circled for ten minutes, then turned for home.

"Beagle, you all fed and rested?" Doghouse asked.

"I guess you could say that." Edwards had been waiting for this, but now that it had come it sounded ominous enough.

"We want you to patrol the southern shore of the Hvammsfj" rdur and let us know of any Russian activity you see. We are particularly interested in the town of Stykkisholmur. That's a small port about forty miles west of you. As before, your orders are to evade, observe, and report. You got that?"

"Roger. How long we got?"

"I can't say that, Beagle. I don't know. You want to move right along, though."

"Okay, we'll be moving in ten minutes. Out." Edwards dismantled the antenna, then stowed the complete radio assembly in the backpack. "People, it's time to leave this mountain retreat. Sergeant Nichols?"

"Yes, sir?" Nichols and Smith came over together.

"Were you briefed on what we're supposed to be up to?"

"No, sir. Our orders were to relieve your party and await further instructions." Edwards had already seen the sergeant's map case. He had cards for the whole western Icelandic coast, all but their drop zone in a pristine condition. Of course, the purpose of their coastal reconnaissance was clear enough, wasn't it? The lieutenant took out a tactical map and plotted their course west.

"Okay, we'll pair off. Sergeant Smith, you take the point along with one of our new friends. Nichols, you take Rodgers with you and cover the back door. You both have a radio, and I'll take the third and keep the rest of the party with me. The groups stay within sight of each other. We keep to the high ground as much as possible. The first hard-surface road we hit is ten miles west of here. If you see anything, you drop and report in to me. We are supposed to avoid contact. No hero crap, okay? Good, we'll move out in ten minutes." Edwards assembled his gear.

"Where we go, Michael?" Vigdis asked.

"Stykkisholmur," he answered. "You feel okay?"

"I can walk with you, yes." She sat down beside him. "And when we get to Stykkisholmur?"

Mike smiled. "They didn't tell me that."

"Why they never tell you anything?"

"It's called security. That means the less we know, the better it is for us."

"Stupid," she replied. Edwards didn't know how to explain that she was both right and wrong.

"I think when we get there, we can start thinking about a normal life again."

Her face changed. "What is normal life, Michael?"

Another good question, Edwards thought. But I have too much on my mind to chew that one over. "We'll see."

The battle for Hameln and the battle for Hannover were now essentially the same action. Two hours before, the NATO forces had withdrawn to the west, south of the industrial city, allowing them to shorten lines and consolidate. Soviet units were probing forward cautiously, suspicious of another German trap. Alekseyev and Commander-in-Chief West pored over their maps in an attempt to analyze the consequences of the NATO withdrawal.

"It allows them to put at least one, probably two brigades in reserve," Alekseyev thought. "They can use this Highway 217 to move troops rapidly from one sector to another."

"How often have the Germans given ground voluntarily?" his superior asked. "They didn't do this because they wanted to. Their lines were overextended. Their units are depleted."

"So are ours. The Category-B units we're committing to battle are taking losses almost a third greater than the 'A' units they replace. We are paying dearly for our advances now."

"We have paid dearly already! If we fail now it will all have been for nothing. Pasha, we must attack in force. This entire sector is ready to collapse."

"Comrade General, that is not my impression. Resistance is spirited. German morale remains high despite their losses. They have hurt us badly and they know it." Alekseyev had returned from the forward command post at Folziehausen only three hours before.

"Viewing the action from the front lines is very useful, Pasha, but it hinders your ability to perceive the larger picture."

Alekseyev frowned at that. "The larger picture" was frequently an illusion. His commander had told him that very thing many times.

"I want you to organize an attack along this entire front. NATO formations are gravely depleted. Their supplies are low, they have taken massive casualties. A vigorous attack now will sunder their lines on a fifty-kilometer front."

"We don't have enough A units to attack on this scale," Alekseyev objected.

"Keep them in reserve to exploit the breakthrough. We'll launch the attack with our best reserve divisions from Hannover in the north to Bodenwerder in the south."

"We don't have the strength for that, and it will use up too much fuel," Alekseyev warned. "If we have to attack, I suggest an assault on a two-division front here, south of Hameln. The units are in place. What you propose is too ambitious."

"This is not a time for half measures, Pasha!" CINC-West shouted. He'd never raised his voice to Alekseyev before. The younger man found himself wondering what pressure was being applied to his commander, who calmed down now. "An attack along a single axis allows a counterattack along a single axis," he continued. "This way we can greatly complicate the enemy's task. He can't be strong everywhere. We will find a weakness, break out, and drive our remaining A units through to the Rhein."

"Drop now-now-now!" O'Malley yelled. The eighth sonobuoy ejected from the side of the Seahawk, and the pilot brought the helicopter around and headed back east.

O'Malley had already been up for three long, grueling hours this time, with precious little to show for it. Stop, dip, listen; stop, dip, listen. He knew there was a sub down there, but every time he thought he was beginning to get a line on it, the damn thing slipped away! What was it doing different?

Hatchet was having the same problem, except its sub had turned around on it and nearly scored a hit on Battleaxe. The frigate's violent wake turbulence had detonated the Russian torpedo astern, but it had been close, too close by half. He brought the helicopter into hover.

"Down dome!" They hovered for a minute. Nothing. It began again. "Romeo, this is Hammer. You got anything, over?"

"Hammer, he just faded out a moment ago. Our last bearing was three-four-one."

"Cure. This character's listening for you to stop your sprint, and he cuts his power back."

"That's a fair guess, Hammer," Morris said.

"Okay, I got a barrier to the west if he heads that way. I think he's going due south, and we're dipping for him now. Out." O'Malley switched to intercom. "You got anything, Willy?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Prepare to raise dome." A minute later the helicopter was moving again. They dipped their sonar six more times in the next twenty minutes and came up blank.

"Again, Willy. Prepare to lower. Set it down to, uh, eight hundred feet this time."

"Ready, sir."

"Down dome." O'Malley squirmed in his seat. The outside temperature was moderate, but the sun made a greenhouse of the cockpit. He'd need a shower when he got back to the frigate.

"Searching at eight hundred feet, sir," the petty officer said. He was hot, too, though he'd brought a pair of cold drinks along for the flight. "Sir, I have something… possible contact bearing one-eight-five."

"Up dome! Romeo, Hammer, we got a possible contact south of us. Going after it now."

"Hammer, we have nothing anywhere near you. Be advised Bravo and Hatchet are working a contact. Two torps have been launched with no hits."

Nobody ever said it was easy, the pilot thought. He moved three thousand yards and dipped the sonar again.

"Contact, this one's for real. Type-two engine plant bearing one-eight-three."

O'Malley checked his fuel. Forty minutes. He had to get this one in a hurry. He ordered the dome up again and went another three thousand yards south. His shoulders flexed against the seat straps. It seemed to take forever for the sonar dome to get down to search depth.

"There it is again, sir, north of us, bearing zero-one-three. Bearing is changing. Zero-one-five now."

"Set it up!" Thirty minutes' fuel. Time was their enemy now. Ralston punched up the Master Arm and Select buttons.

"Willy: hammer!" The sonar sent out five ranging pings.

"Zero-one-nine, range nine hundred!"

Ralston set search depth and pattern. O'Malley brought his thumb across the stick and dropped the torpedo.

The submarine went to full power and turned left away from the helicopter while the torpedo plunged to eight hundred feet before beginning its search. O'Malley growled to himself that he'd launched from a bad angle, but it would have taken too long to reel in and reacquire. He held the aircraft in hover and listened over his headset as the whine of the torpedo screws chased after the deeper thrum of the Charlie's powerful twin screws. The nuclear sub maneuvered frantically, trying to turn inside the pursuing torpedo.

"They're on the same bearing now," Willy reported. "I think the fish has him-hit!"

But the Charlie didn't die. They heard the sound of blowing air, then it stopped. A wild cacophony of mechanical noise followed as the contact moved off to the north, then faded as the submarine slowed. O'Malley didn't have enough fuel to pursue. He came around west and headed for Reuben James.

"Hammer, Romeo, what happened?"

"We hit him, but he's still alive. Stand by, Romeo, we're coming in skosh fuel. Five minutes out."

"Roger that, we'll be ready for you. We're vectoring another helo onto the Charlie. I want you to join Hatchet."

"How come we didn't kill him?" Ralston asked.

"Almost all Russian subs have double hulls, and that dinky hundred pound warhead on the Mark-46 isn't gutsy enough to give you a kill every time. You try to attack from the stem if you can, but this time we couldn't. If you get a stem hit, you pop the shaft seals and flood his engine room. That'll kill anybody. They didn't tell you to go for a stem shot in school, did they?"

"Not especially."

"Figures," O'Malley growled.

It was good to see the Reuben James after four hours. It would have been even better to visit the officers' head, O'Malley thought bleakly. He brought the Seahawk over the port comer of the frigate's stern and paced the ship. Aft, Willy opened the sliding door and tossed down a messenger line. The frigate's deck crew attached a refueling hose to the line and Willy hauled it in, plugging the hose into the fuel tank. The procedure was called HIFR, for helicopter in-flight refueling. While O'Malley fought his helo through the roiled air behind the ship, fuel was pumped into his tanks, giving him another four hours' endurance. Ralston kept his eyes on the fuel indicators while O'Malley flew the aircraft.

"We're full up, Willy. Secure."

The petty officer lowered the fuel hose and retrieved his line. He was glad to close the door and strap himself back into his chair. Officers, he told himself, were too smart to do what he just did.

"Bravo, this is Hammer, where do you want us, over?"

"Hammer, Bravo, come right to one-three-zero and rendezvous with Hatchet eight miles from Bravo."

"On the way." O'Malley curved around Reuben James and headed southeast.

"Hammer, Romeo, be advised Sea Sprite from Sims just finished off that Charlie for you. We got a 'well done' from the screen commander for that prosecution, over."

"Tell the Commodore 'you're welcome.' Bravo, Hammer, what is it we're after, over?"

"We thought it was a twin-screw submarine. We're not quite so sure now, Hammer," Perrin replied. "We've fired three torpedoes at this target now for zero hits. He got one off at us, but it prematured in our wake."

"How close was it?"

"Fifty yards."

Ouch! the pilot thought.

"Okay, I have Hatchet in sight. Bravo, it's your ball game. Where do you want me now?"

Morris had allowed himself to fall far behind in the hunt for the now dead Charlie. On his command the frigate went to full speed, closing on Battleaxe at twenty-five knots. In response to the multiple submarine contacts, the convoy was turning slightly south.

O'Malley's Seahawk hovered seven miles from Battleaxe while Hatchet ran back home for fuel and sonobuoys. Again the process of dipping and moving began.

"Nothing," Willy reported.

"Bravo, Hammer, can you give me a rundown of what this target's been doing?"

"We've nearly gotten him twice atop the layer. His course is generally south."

"Sounds like a missile boat."

"Agreed," Perrin answered. "Our last datum point was within one thousand yards of your position. We have nothing at this time."

O'Malley examined the data transmitted from Battleaxe's plot. As was usually true of submarine course tracks, it was a collection of vague opinions, shaky judgments, and not a few wild guesses.

"Bravo, you're a sub-driver. Talk to me, over." This was lousy radio procedure, but what the hell?

"Hammer, the only thing that makes the least bit of sense is that he's extremely fast." O'Malley examined the tactical display more closely.

"You're right, Bravo." O'Malley pondered this. A Papa, maybe? he wondered. Twin screws, cruise missiles, fast as a thief.

"Hammer, Bravo, if we proceed on the assumption that he's very fast, I recommend you go east until Romeo comes off sprint and can give us a bearing."

"Concur, Bravo. Give me a vector." On command from Battleaxe, the Seahawk ran twenty miles east and began dipping his sonar. It took fifteen minutes to load another pair of Stingray torpedoes on Hatchet, along with fuel and sonobuoys.

"What do you think we're after, skipper?" Ralston asked.

"How's a Papa grab you?" O'Malley asked.

"But the Russians only have one of those," the copilot objected.

"Doesn't mean they're saving it for a museum, mister."

"Nothing, sir," Willy reported.

Reuben James came off sprint, turning to a southerly heading to bring her sonar to bear on the remaining contact. If only Battleaxe still had her tail, Morris thought, we could triangulate on every contact, and with two helos…

"Contact, evaluate as possible submarine, bearing zero-eight-one, bearing-changing slowly, looks like. Yeah, bearing changing north to south." The data went at once to Battleaxe and the screen commander. Another helicopter joined the hunt.

"Down dome!" This was the thirty-seventh time today, O'Malley thought. "My ass is asleep."

"Wish mine was." Ralston laughed without much humor. Again they detected nothing.

"How can something be exciting and boring at the same time?" the ensign asked, unconsciously echoing the Tomcat pilot days ago.

"Up dome! You know, I've wondered that a few times myself." O'Malley keyed his radio. "Bravo, Hammer, I got an idea for you."

"We're listening, Hammer."

"You have Hatchet dropping a line of buoys south of us. Deploy another line west. Then I start pinging. Maybe we can flush the guy into doing something. You ever get herded by a dipping helo when you were driving subs?"

"Not herded, Hammer, but I have gone far out of my way to avoid one. Stand by while I get things organized."

"You know, this one's a nervy bastard. He's gotta know we're onto him, but he isn't breaking off. He really thinks he can beat us."

"He has for the last four hours, boss," Willy observed.

"You know what the most important part of gambling is? You have to know when it's time to quit." O'Malley circled up high and turned his search radar on for the first time that day. It was not very useful for detecting a periscope, but it might just scare a sub running near the surface into heading back under the layer. The sun was sinking, and O'Malley could pick out the two other helicopters working this contact from their flying lights. They dropped two lines of passive sonobuoys, each eight miles long, at right angles to each other.

"The picket lines are in place, Hammer," Captain Perrin called. "Begin."

"Willy: hammer!" Six hundred feet below the helicopter, the sonar transducer pounded the water with high-frequency sonar pulses. He did this for one minute, then reeled in and flew southeast. The process lasted half an hour. By this time his legs were knotting up, making his control movements awkward.

"Take over for a few minutes." O'Malley took his feet off the pedals and worked his legs around to restore circulation.

"Hammer, Bravo, we have a contact. Buoy six, line Echo." This was the east-west line. Buoy number six was third from the west end, where the north-south "November" line began. "Weak signal at this time."

O'Malley took the controls back and headed west while the other two helicopters circled behind their respective lines.

"Gently, gently," he murmured over the intercom. "Let's not spook him too much." He picked his course carefully, never heading directly for the contact, never heading far away from it. Another half hour passed, one miserable second at a time. Finally they had the contact running east at about ten knots, far below the layer.

"We now have him on three buoys," Perrin reported. "Hatchet is moving into position."

O'Malley watched the blinking red lights about three miles away. Hatchet dropped a pair of directional DIFAR buoys and waited. The display came up on O'Malley's scope. The contact passed right between the DIFARS.

"Torpedo away!" Hatchet called. The black-painted Stingray dropped invisibly into the water, half a mile in front of the oncoming submarine. O'Malley closed and dropped his own buoy to listen as he brought the Seahawk into hover.

Like, the American Mark-48 torpedo, the Stingray didn't use conventional propellers, which made it hard to locate on sonar both for O'Malley and the submarine. Suddenly they heard the sound of propeller cavitation as the submarine went to full power and turned. Then came hullpopping noises as she changed depth abruptly to throw the fish off. It didn't work. Next came the metallic crash of the exploding warhead.

"Hit!" Hatchet called.

"Down dome!"

Willy lowered the sonar transducer one last time. The submarine was coming up.

"Again!" Ralston wondered. "That's two in a row."

"Set it up! Willy, hammer him."

"Range four hundred, bearing one-six-three, I have an up-doppler."

"Circular search, initial search depth one hundred."

"Set," Ralston replied.

O'Malley dropped his torpedo at once. "Up dome! Bravo, the hit did not kill the target, we just dropped another one on him."

"He might be trying to surface to get his crew off," Ralston said.

"He might want to fire his missiles, too. He should have run when he had the chance. I would have."

The second hit finished the submarine. O'Malley flew straight back to Reuben James. He let Ralston land the Seahawk. As soon as its wheels were chocked and chained down, he got out and walked forward. Morris met him in the passageway between the helo hangars.

"Great job, Jerry."

"Thanks, skipper." O'Malley had left his helmet in the aircraft. His hair was matted to his head with perspiration and his eyes stung from hours of it.

"I want to talk over a few things."

"Can we do it while I shower and change, Cap'n?" O'Malley went through the wardroom and into his stateroom. He stripped out of his clothing in under a minute and headed for the officers' shower.

"How many pounds you sweat off on a day like this?" Morris said.

"A lot." The pilot pushed the shower button, closing his eyes as the cold water sprayed over him. "You know, I've been saying for ten years that the -46 needed a bigger warhead. I hope to hell those bastards in ordnance will listen to me now!"

"The second one. What was it?"

"If I had to bet, I'd say it was Papa. Great job from the sonar guys. Those steers you gave us were beautiful." He pushed the button again for more cold water. O'Malley emerged a minute later, looking and feeling human again.

"The Commodore is writing you up for something. Your third DFC, I guess."

O'Malley thought about that briefly. His first two were for rescues, not for killing other men.

"How soon will you be ready to go up again?"

"How does next week grab you?"

"Get dressed. We'll talk in the wardroom."

The pilot raked his hair into place and changed into fresh clothing. He remembered the last time his wife had told him to use baby powder to protect his skin from the abuse of sweaty, tight clothes, and how stupid he'd been to reject the suggestion as not in keeping with aviator machismo. Despite the shower, there were a few patches of skin that would continue to itch and chafe. When he went to the wardroom, he found Morris waiting for him with a pitcher of iced bug juice.

"You got a diesel boat and two missile boats. How were they operating? Anything unusual?"

"Awfully aggressive. That Papa should have backed off. The Charlie took a smart route, but he was boring in pretty hard, too." O'Malley thought it over as he drained his first glass. "You're right. They are pushing awful hard."

"Harder than I expected. They're taking chances they ordinarily wouldn't take. What's that tell us?"

"It tells us we got two more busy days ahead, I guess. Sorry, Captain, I'm a little too wasted for deep thinking at the moment."

"Get some rest."