Los Angeles Class

24

"Captain? Sonar. Navigational request."

"Go ahead, Rodriguez. What do you have in mind?"

"Could you bring us forty degrees to port, please?"

"Very well. Helm! Come to one-eight-five."

"New course, one-eight-five, aye aye, sir."

"Mr. Latham? Take over here. I'm going up to the sonar shack."

"Very well, sir."

He ducked through the doorway into the long, narrow sonar room, where Rodriguez, Kellerman, and another rating were sitting at the consoles, headsets in place. "Well, Rodriguez? Where are you taking my boat?"

Rodriguez pointed to the waterfall on his monitor, green light cascading down the screen. "You see that, sir? That's the Kresta II."

"Okay…. "

"Now … this spike, right here? That is not a Kresta."

"All right, what is it?"

"Low-frequency noise… about fifty hertz. Sounds like a cyclic pump operating at three thousand revs per minute. Divide that by sixty cycles, and you get fifty hertz. The Soviets have pumps like that on some of their newer submarines, in the power-plant cooling assemblies."

"You think that's a Russian sub?"

"Yes, sir. A very close Russian sub, with most of its sound masked by the Kresta. It could be some sort of machinery operating on board the Kresta, of course. But… " He turned a pointer dial, changing the screen display. "Directional analysis puts that pump noise ahead of the Kresta. Not by much, but enough to make me think it's a sub. I figured if you could give me a look from the side arrays, I could sharpen up my DA."

"You got it."

Pittsburgh's main sonar was her big, BQQ-5A spherical array tucked into her bow, but she had lateral arrays as well. The bow sonar actually was omnidirectional, giving coverage across 150 degrees to either side of the bow, leaving only a sixty-degree wedge centered on dead astern to which it was deaf, and its coverage included all of the area to either side covered by the hull array.

However, the hull array could register much lower frequencies than the bow sonar, all the way down to fifty hertz, where the coverage for the bow sonar ranged from 750 hertz on up to two kilohertz.

And what was key to this tactical problem was the fact that the hull array was also stretched out across the length of the Pittsburgh's hull. Just as depth perception improved with eyes set farther apart, a sonar's resolution of the direction a sound was coming from improved with individual microphones strung along the vessel's 360-foot length, rather than from the equipment compacted into the spherical bow assembly. By turning broadside to the unknown source of sound, Rodriguez ought to be able to get a better look at it… and possibly distinguish it entirely from the Kresta II.

"Do you want to stream the towed array?" Gordon asked. Right now, Rodriguez was the most important man on the boat, and he didn't mind deferring to his expertise at all.

"Not necessary, sir. I think this is going to give us what we need."

Los Angeles class boats were also equipped with a BQR-15 towed array sonar, essentially a microphone which could be streamed aft at the end of a long cable… as far aft as five hundred feet. When fully deployed, the BQR-15 was also omnidirectional, providing coverage all the way around except for dead ahead, and to a greater range and a greater sensitivity than the boat's other arrays. It would have been perfect for providing the high-resolution scan Rodriguez needed.

Gordon had not deployed the towed array, however, for several reasons. It made a noise when streaming aft, and all noise was to be avoided right now if possible. More importantly, the Pittsburgh might have to accelerate and maneuver swiftly and without warning. It took time to reel in the TA, and a sudden sharp turn could lose it astern when the cable snapped.

There were other dangers as well. There was at least one case on record, just seven months ago, where a Russian PLARB, possibly a Typhoon, had become fouled on the towed array of a British submarine, the HMS Splendid, when the two got a little too close in the Barents Sea. The Typhoon, reportedly, had limped back to port with the Splendids TA still fouling one of her screws.

So Gordon had not deployed the TA, which might have given them a bit of a tactical edge in this encounter. But if Rodriguez thought he could hear what he needed to hear without it…

"Got it!" Rodriguez said, a grin spreading across his face. "It's our old friend, Sierra One!"

"What, the Sierra class boat we picked up off San Francisco?"

"The one and the same, yes, sir." He pointed to the screen, showing two clear sets of sound traces at slightly different bearings. "The Sierra II is running submerged, speed matched to the Kresta, and about a thousand yards ahead of her. A Sierra's sonar suite is a lot better than a Kresta's, especially her towed array. The sub may be hunting for the cruiser. The seeing-eye dog routine."

"Makes sense." He reached for the 1MC switch. "Conn, this is the captain."

"Conn, aye," Latham's voice replied.

"Bring us back to one-four-five degrees, ahead dead slow. I want to let these bad boys get past us before we get too close."

"Change course to one-four-five degrees, ahead dead slow, aye, sir."

Turning so her bow was again pointed at the other vessels would reduce Pittsburgh's aspect, and possibly help hide her. Sound radiated from her hull in all directions, of course, but sound traveling up her length, from her screw and engineering compartment, might be absorbed by her length a bit as it was transmitted forward through the hull, reducing her signature slightly. Dropping her speed to a two- or three-knot crawl would help maintain her audio invisibility as well.

"Sierra Five-zero is slowing, sir. Range ten thousand… and almost directly ahead. Looks like she's just stopping dead in the water. Sierra One is pulling ahead of Sierra Five-zero, maintaining ten knots."

"Okay. I don't like the looks of this. I'm going back to the combat center. You keep an ear on both of them, and tell me the moment there's a change."

"Aye aye, sir."

Back in the control room, at the chart tables, he checked the transparent overlay, where the QM of the Watch had marked the new contacts in red.

"Conn, Sonar," sounded over the 1MC. "Aspect change on Sierra One. Looks like he might be pulling a Crazy Ivan."

Which made no sense if he was deliberately leading a

Kresta ASW cruiser. Crazy Ivan turns were performed to make sure they weren't being followed by Americans, not members of their own Fleet.

"Sonar, Conn. Which way is he turning?"

"Sierra One is turning to port, sir."

Turning toward the silently lurking Pittsburgh, rather than away. The range would be closing. Not good.

He looked up at Latham as the Exec joined him at the table. "Start thinking like a hole in the water, Number One."

"Hell, I'm not even here, Skipper."

"Good man."

"Conn, Sonar. Sierra One has changed course. New heading is two-seven-zero."

Gordon checked it on the chart. The Sierra II was now heading due west, and if he stayed on the new heading, would pass a mile or so south of Pittsburgh's position.

"Maneuvering, ahead slow. Make turns for five knots."

"Ahead slow. Make turns for five knots, aye." He looked at Latham. We'll pass behind the cruiser's stern, quietly. That will put the Kresta between us and the Sierra, and give us a clear shot at slipping away and out through the Kuril passages."

Latham nodded. "Sounds like a plan, sir. We can't stay put, that's for damned sure."

Pittsburgh edged ahead, ever so gently. Gordon had complete confidence in her quieting; Los Angeles Flight II boats were almost embarrassingly silent. The Sierra was quiet as well — not as silent as an LA-class, but at least as good as a Sturgeon. The only reason Pittsburgh was able to track the Sierra at all was the level of her technology and, even more, the quality of her sonar crew. He doubted very much that the Sierra's sonar crew could track the 'Burgh.

But that was no reason to get careless. At five knots, the Pittsburgh was effectively silent.

Minutes passed… and passed. After half an hour, Pittsburgh had closed the range to the Kresta to about five thousand yards. The Sierra II sub, meanwhile, had quietly slipped south of the 'Burgh, as predicted, and was now about two miles to the southwest, astern and behind the American boat. The other sub had also just slowed sharply, to about four knots.

"Conn, Sonar! I've got new sounds from Sierra One. Sounds like wake noises. I think they've raised their periscope."

Odd. They wouldn't be searching for the Pittsburgh on the surface, certainly.

But there might be another reason to raise something… like a radio mast.

"They may be communicating with the Kresta," Gordon said. "They might want to—"

A single sharp ping echoed through the American boat's hull, an initial chirp followed by a wavering, falling tone.

"Conn, Sonar! Sierra Five-zero has gone active! We're lit!"

"Shit!"

There was no way either the Kresta or the Sierra could fail to see the Pittsburgh now. That single sonar pulse had illuminated everything in the water for four nautical miles in every direction.

"It's roach on the plate time," Latham observed. A second ping echoed through the control room.

"Maneuvering! Ahead full!"

"Maneuvering, ahead full, aye, aye!"

"Conn, Sonar! Sierra One is turning to starboard. Looks like she's coming about to put herself on our tail."

"We've got a lead," Gordon said. "Let's use it. Diving Officer! Set depth to two-one-zero feet."

"Set depth to two-one-zero feet, aye, Captain," Carver replied.

The deck tilted sharply forward as Pittsburgh nosed downward.

"Conn, Maneuvering. Making turns for three-five knots."

"Leveling off at two-one-zero feet."

"Very good. Steady as she goes."

"Steady as she goes, aye, sir!"

At thirty-five knots, Pittsburgh closed the range to the Kresta class cruiser in a bit over three minutes. He could only imagine the consternation that must be spreading through her decks as her crews realized they were being charged by an American submarine.

The question was… would they open fire? How determined were they to nail themselves an LA-class sub?

"Conn, Sonar! I'm getting splashes on the surface! Repeat, multiple splashes!"

Gordon locked eyes with Latham, horrified. Splashes meant the Russians were dropping something on them … torpedoes, depth charges, RBU warheads, something.

"Hey! Those guys are shooting at us!" the QM of the Watch said, looking at the control room overhead with something like stunned amazement.

"And you find that surprising… how, Mr. Dandridge?" Latham asked.

"Sonar, Conn. Any follow-up sounds from those splashes?"

"Conn, Sonar. Negative. Whatever they are, they're not torpedoes."

Torpedoes would have fired up their engines as soon as they entered the water, and probably gone active with their search sonar as well. Silence meant that the weapons, whatever they were, must be unguided warheads, and that was about as good a break as the Pittsburgh could have hoped for.

"Helm! Come right five degrees!"

"Right five degrees, aye aye, sir."

Depth charges or RBU rockets would have been fired in a pattern based on Pittsburgh's last-known course and speed. She could complicate things by changing her course slightly after the warheads had hit the water.

Explosions thundered outside, a jarring crash that sent the Pittsburgh lurching to starboard, then back to port. The detonations… at least twelve of them, occurred in a rippling cascade of thunderclaps well astern and to port of the boat. The control-room lights flickered, dimmed briefly, then came back to full brilliance.

"My God!" someone in the compartment cried.

"RBUs," Latham said. Gordon nodded.

"RBU" stood for Raketnaya Bombometmaya Ustanovka, and it was a weapon little changed from the "hedgehog" launchers of World War II. The RBU-6000 was a twelve-barreled launcher arranged in a horseshoe shape on its mounting, firing 250mm projectiles, each with a 46-pound warhead. The RBU-1000 consisted of six tubes paired and stacked three high, firing 300mm projectiles with 198-pound warheads. Either type could be fused for depth, for contact, or for influence… passing through a submarine's magnetic signature, for instance. Since they were essentially free-fall weapons, they couldn't be foxed by countermeasures.

The barrage of twelve suggested that the attack had been carried out by the smaller RBU-6000, with depth-triggered warheads. The explosions had fallen well astern, however.

Moments later, Pittsburgh swept beneath the Kresta, untouched.

A third sonar ping illuminated the fleeing sub, but as soon as the pulse echoed back, Gordon ordered another change of course, coming around to a southerly heading paralleling the Kresta. A second barrage of RBU projectiles was fired, this time off the Kresta's port side… and again none of the warheads came close to her.

But Gordon was painfully aware that he couldn't keep this game up for long….

"Explosions, Comrade Captain!" Starpom Vasily Alesandjan, the Krasnoyarskiy's sonar officer, cried out. "Multiple explosions, bearing one-five-nine, range forty thousand meters!"

"Damn it to hell!" Vetrov said. "Someone else has found them!"

"It does not sound as though the target was damaged," Alesandjan said. "I hear no breakup noises… no damage."

"Helm! Come to one-five-nine! Maneuvering! Give me all possible speed!"

"Sir," his Exec said, concerned. "Wouldn't it be better to move in carefully, to study the situation before charging in blindly?"

"You are a fool, Felix! Or a coward! Only the daring win!"

"I resent that, Captain!" Salekhov flared back. "You have no right—"

Vetrov waved him to silence. He had no time for this now. The American sub was there… and quite possibly on the verge of escaping.

"Maneuvering! I want full speed now!.. "

"Captain! Sonar!"

"Go ahead, Rodriguez."

"Sierra One has the pedal to the metal, sir. They're coming after us hot. Sounds of outer torpedo doors opening."

"Very well."

"Splashes astern and to port, Captain."

"Very well. Helm! Come starboard ten degrees!"

"Helm to starboard, ten degrees, aye aye, sir."

For most of the men, Gordon thought, this was their first time under fire. They appeared to be taking it well, calmly, deliberately, professionally. It spoke well of Mike Chase… and of the training these men had received at New London.

Explosions rocked the boat, tipping her nose down and rolling her to starboard.

"COB! Adjust trim!"

"On it, Skipper!"

"Release countermeasures!"

"Countermeasures away, aye, sir!"

CM bubbles wouldn't fool an incoming RBU projectile, but they just might mask the Pittsburgh from the next active sonar pulse which was due any—

Ping!

… moment now. "Helm, come left one-five degrees! What's our speed?"

"Helm coming left one-five degrees, aye."

"Conn, Maneuvering. Turns for three-eight knots."

The RBU-6000 had a range of six thousand meters … over three and a half miles. Somehow, the Pittsburgh had to get outside of that radius.

Unfortunately, a Kresta II was almost as fast as a Los Angeles boat, and with twin screws she could make tighter turns, was more maneuverable.

"Conn, Sonar. Sierra Five-zero is coming to new heading, two-zero-zero. Looks like he's firing up the boilers, too. Speed now fifteen knots."

"Sonar, Conn. Acknowledged."

He looked at the plot board, where the TMA watch was updating positions and headings. Gordon smiled. There was an opportunity here….

"Helm! Hard left rudder! Come to new course zero-eight-zero! Make depth six-zero feet!"

"Come to new course zero-eight-zero, aye!"

"Make depth six-zero feet, aye!"

"Conn, Sonar! Splashes ahead and to port!"

Shit! "Helm! Belay left rudder! Right full rudder!"

He'd just unwittingly turned into the next barrage….

O'Brien stood with one hand on one of the bunk supports, with Chief Allison and Benson and the rest of his torpedo-room watch, all of them silently waiting for orders, all waiting for the next barrage. The three SEALs sat on two of the lower racks, staying out of the way.

Every eye was turned upward, toward the overhead, waiting….

"Don't like this waiting, man," Fitch said.

"A little easier to dish it out than take it, huh?" McCluskey asked.

"They're shooting at us," O'Brien said. "They're actually shooting at us!"

"Yeah, well, shit happens, son," Randall said.

The deck tilted alarmingly toward the left, as it tipped high forward. "Skipper's bringing us hard to port," Chief Allison said. "And running us shallow. I wonder—"

And then the deck tilted back the other way, sharply enough that O'Brien had to cling hard to keep his feet under him.

"Uh-oh," Allison said. "Everybody grab hold!.. "

"Why?" Benson asked. "What's—"

Three detonations boomed out close by, just beyond the Pittsburgh's hull. The fourth explosion shattered fluorescent tubes in their overhead mountings, showering the deck with hot glass and plastic fragments. The hull shuddered, then groaned, as the shock wave slammed through the vessel from port to starboard.

O'Brien's grip was torn from the rack. He was knocked off his feet, slamming to the linoleum-tiled deck with a body-check thud and grunt. Benson landed on top of him, and the two men struggled in a tangle of thrashing arms and legs.

At the same instant, the torpedo room was plunged into absolute darkness, and with a shriek of ripping metal and hissing water, a thin, hard, cold spray blasted across the deck, drenching both men as they tried to rise.

O'Brien managed to get his feet under him. The deck was slippery, the air filled with spray and the shrill hiss and thunder of inflooding water. He was in complete darkness; damn it, the emergency lights should have kicked on!

He heard someone groaning, though it was hard to hear anything over the roar of the water. He heard Chief Allison screaming above the roar, "Conn! Torpedo room! Flooding in the torpedo room! Flooding in the torpedo room! … "

All O'Brien could think of were the training simulations at New London. Time after time he'd been through one variation or another of this exact scenario, locked in a cramped and tightly sealed compartment, plunged into darkness, drenched with icy water. Panic gibbered and bubbled just beneath the surface of his thoughts… but those thoughts were hard and determined. If that water was pouring in through a hole in the hull, he and the other men in the compartment were probably doomed. The watertight door out of the torpedo room was closed and dogged, the compartment flooding fast. They would drown, though the rest of the boat would probably stay dry.

Unless the flooding was so bad it dragged the Pittsburgh, crippled and helpless, to the bottom.

But… it was possible, even likely, that the flood was coming from one of the tangle of pipes forward or on the overhead. The torpedo tubes were wonderfully complex devices, each with a labyrinth of piping to fill, pressurize, and empty it, either with seawater or from onboard tanks. If one of those pipes had given way with the shock of the explosion, then they might be able to shut it off.

If they could find it.

He turned until he felt the spray blasting at his face, leaned into it, and started groping forward through the icy wet black….

"Captain! Sonar! The American may be hit!"

"What do you have, Krychkov?"

"Sounds of flooding, sir. There was another barrage of explosions, but I'm picking up sounds of flooding!"

Dubrynin glanced at the plot board, then looked at his Exec. "We may have him. We need to get past the Marshal Voroshilov, however."

"We're close now."

The Ivan Rogov had completed his turn and been racing to close in tight with the suspected American sub just as the Voroshilov opened fire. The American had apparently slipped directly beneath the ASW cruiser, then turned south, weaving this way and that in an attempt to avoid the Kresta's RBU bombardment.

The American captain's last maneuver, however, had been a clever one, placing the Kresta directly between the American sub and the Ivan Rogov. At that angle, Dubrynin couldn't fire his torpedoes. They were wire-guided, and the Voroshilov's wake might well break the controlling wires. If that happened, there was a chance that they would acquire a new target when they began circling and searching… the Voroshilov.

Dubrynin did not intend to fire, of course. The orders were to force the American to the surface and capture him. But the American couldn't know that.

Still, by putting the cruiser between the Rogov and himself, the American captain had confused the chase, and stopped the two hunters from triangulating his position. With all of the thunder in the water, it was difficult to hear anything, and the American was clever enough to use the noise and the confusion in order to slip away unharmed.

If he was damaged, though, that was the break the Russians were waiting for. If he was flooding, he might be forced to the surface in order to save his vessel. If the flooding were severe enough, the American submarine would sink.

But the Los Angeles class vessel would be raised. The water here was less than three hundred feet deep. Salvage would be difficult, but far from impossible.

There were rumors throughout the Soviet Navy that the American CIA had attempted some sort of recovery operation on a sunken Russian missile sub in the late 1960s. The stories were scarcely credible, almost certainly fictions, because they emphasized that the Russian submarine had gone down — victim of an explosion when she was recharging her batteries — in seventeen thousand feet of water.

Recovery from such depths was flatly impossible. The technology simply didn't exist.

But there would be no such problems lifting a Los Angeles class sub from a mere three hundred feet. The political coup would be impressive; the intelligence coup would be absolutely incalculable….

"Captain! Sonar! Impacts on the water, directly ahead!"

"Eh?"

" Our own ship is firing on us.!"

"Hard right! Hard right rudder!"

Damn the idiots! Either their own weapons-control people had become confused with two targets in the water, or they'd assumed that the Rogov was a second American submarine.

Explosions thundered directly ahead, rocking the Rogov back and forth violently. Several sailors on the bridge were hurled to the deck.

The Rogov had been heading almost directly toward the Voroshilov, intending to pass beneath her keel at a depth of 130 feet. By ordering a hard right rudder, Rogov was turning right, toward the south and parallel to the Voroshilov … but sluggishly, so sluggishly!..

"Surface!" Dubrynin shouted. "Blow all ballast! Surface!'

"Sir, we are close aboard the Voroshilov!"

"And unless those idiots see us, they will continue to assume that we are American! Get this vessel on the surface!"

"Yes, Comrade Captain! Blow all ballast!" With a bellowing, gurgling roar, pressurized air blasted the water out of the Rogov's ballast tanks, and the Russian submarine began to rise….

O'Brien leaned into the icy spray, struggling against the blast. It became more than mere spray. The water pounding against his chest and belly and legs felt like it was hurtling from a fire hose. His legs went out from under him, and he hit the deck, but was able to struggle back to his hands and knees and drag himself forward, using pipes and conduits on the bulkhead at his left side as handholds.

The water, he was pretty sure now, was coming in from the Number One Flood Feed Line, one of the heavier pipes used to fill Torpedo Tube One with seawater before firing. A joint must have split.

But he remembered the location of a valve cutoff, a large red wheel high up on the pipe, just beneath where it vanished into the overhead just to the left of Tubes One and Three, where they angled into the port bulkhead.

He pulled himself forward, then lost his grip and was washed back. There was almost a foot of water on the deck already. He had to reach that valve….