Raise the Red Dawn

Chapter Four

MacKenzie’s cabin was a six-by-eight cubicle with more apparatus built into its walls than the old Volkswagen camper he had driven across-country when he was in college. It was also the only one that had its own head. When Mac woke from his short nap, he slid his trim frame off the bunk and splashed some cold water from the sink into his face.

The forty-three-year-old man who stared back from the mirror looked older to him than he had just a few short years ago. He ran a hand through his thick black hair, surprised that he didn’t see more gray. In many ways he was a different man from the one who had commanded the Aspen. He was wiser, more mature, more… married. He grinned ruefully. When you were married to a woman who could toss several heavily armed men out a second-story window should she choose to, marriage was never dull. He just wished they could have more time together. Time was their great enemy. Justine’s work and his long cruises often put their marriage on a catch-as-catch-can basis. And when they were together, there seemed to be more than enough chores to keep them too busy to relax. Funny, he thought, he’d come all this way thinking he’d made it to a different kind of life only to discover he had the same kind of problems as any yuppie accountant. Fate, he decided, liked irony.

He and Justine had talked about his taking a desk assignment someday, but not now. Now there was Seawolf. The most powerful sub in the fleet was under his command. This was where he was born to be.

MacKenzie ran a towel over his hard, athletic body, savoring how good he felt. It went deeper than just the physical. He had a feeling of personal power that had grown with his age and accomplishments. He felt fuller, more of a man in the best sense of what it meant to be one, and he had to admit that his relationship to Justine let him discover new lands within himself, a new domain of loving and being loved in return.

He finished dressing and sat at his desk to get some paperwork out of the way. He’d been at it for less than ten minutes when the intercom buzzed. It was Tom Lasovic. “Contact, Skipper. Our boy could be back.”

The timing took MacKenzie by surprise. He pushed the papers aside and leaned back in his chair. “What’s he doing here so soon, Tom? Still got a few hours by my watch.”

“Don’t rightly know, sir. But Sonar says it’s got something.”

“Hold on. I’ll be right there.”

MacKenzie closed up his desk and trotted down to Sonar. If the Russian had returned to the area, either he had turned back the same time as Seawolf did or his return speed was far greater. The latter possibility was ominous. If they hadn’t heard the Russian till now, he was too damn quiet for anybody’s good.

“What’s up, Jim?” Mac demanded as soon as he entered Sonar.

“I’d like to know myself, sir,” the tall lieutenant said sincerely. “I’ve never — repeat, never — heard anything like this. Mr. Lasovic thinks it could be our earlier contact returning, but I don’t think so. For one thing, she’s a lot noisier. Listen for yourself, Skipper.”

MacKenzie pulled on a set of earphones. Like most captains, he was familiar enough with sonar to identify basic patterns, but this was out of his league and he said so. “Bear, I’ll take your best guess. Don’t be shy, now.”

Bear Bendel’s eyes were hazy, his senses extended far out into the freezing waters. “It’s not the same contact, Skipper. I’m gonna go pretty far out on a limb, sir, but I don’t think it’s even a nuclear boat. You don’t hear many diesels nowadays, but that’s what I think we’ve got.”

Lasovic wasn’t the only one who looked surprised. “What’s a diesel boat doing way out here?”

“Do the signatures correlate?” MacKenzie asked.

“Computers are working on it, sir. Should be just a few seconds more… there.” Bear pointed to the screen with some pride.

“Well done, Bear,” MacKenzie acknowledged. “A Soviet Tango class diesel sub. Definitely a new player, not our Boomer from before. Do you think he knows we’re here?”

“It’s unlikely a Tango’s old sonars could have picked us up the way we snuck back here, Skipper.”

“I wonder if this sub is why our other friend didn’t want us around,” MacKenzie mused.

“What’s he protecting?” asked Lasovic. “Tangos are over twenty years old. Nothing to interest us.”

“That’s not all, sir,” Bendel continued. “For a while I got a pretty good fix on him — that’s why I was sort of sure — but all of a sudden I lost contact completely, like the engines were shut down. Now she’s drifting and I’m getting pump noises like I never heard before, and, well, I’ll put it on the speaker.”

A cacophony of noise filled the room. There were the usual shrieks and groans of the ice pack, but under that they heard bass thuds that sounded like hammer blows, and the steady whooshing of pumps running at top speed. Abruptly, new sounds emerged.

“That’s his propellers turning, Skipper,” Bendel said excitedly, “He’s back on batteries. Speed five knots… surging… Wait, his turn count’s decreasing. Course one nine five. Sir, I think he’s in some kind of trouble.”

“Don’t lose him, Bear. I’ll be in the conn. Tom, let’s get in closer.”

Galinin roared up the main corridor like a storm. A steady vibration had returned, which meant the engines were back on. Damn that Ligichev, endangering his submarine. He reached the engine room bulkhead and pounded on the door angrily.

“Ligichev, open up at once. The ship is in danger. I have to restore control—” He was gratified to see the wheel turn and the door begin to swing open, but instead of men, hot fetid air burst out and sent him staggering backwards. “For Christ’s sake, what is going on in there?” Galinin demanded.

Ligichev stumbled out of the engine room looking as if he’d been in a steam bath. He leaned against the bulkhead for support, drawing in cooler air in great heaving gulps. “Please, help Ivanna… still inside.”

Galinin shouldered his way into the engine room. He could barely breathe, the air was so foul and musty. He saw a shadowy form in the mists — a technician still gamely working at his console. “Out, now,” Galinin yelled. The man wasted no time in complying.

“Comrade Captain…” It was the chief technician, almost overcome by the heat.

“Can you get the motors running?” Galinin demanded. “We are drifting.”

“I can try… if the exhaust fans clear the room.”

Galinin spotted Ivanna lying on the floor. He bent down and carried the limp form out of the impossible room and laid her down next to her father.

The hot, wet air was spreading quickly through the ship, giving it a stale, swampy feel. “Comrade Ligichev,” Galinin demanded, “you must tell me what has happened.”

Ligichev nodded weakly. “Help me up. We have to get to the control room. Dump as much ballast as you can. Heat transfer…”

Galinin got Ligichev to a standing position and supported him as they ran for the control room, Ligichev explaining as best he could. “So you see, we have to dump the hot water, bleed off as much heat as we can. Do you have secondary circuit protection? The electrical pulse is only minutes away.”

“It will blow every circuit. Can’t you stop it?”

“You caused the feedback when you cut the power. The only way to stop it is to dump the irinium overboard, and to do that you would have to lose the entire engine room. The plates are built right into the drive, and that’s welded to the ship.”

They entered the control room. Galinin was still a competent sub commander and his ship was in danger. His commands were quick and precise. “Blow main ballast. I want those pumps working at top speed. Michman, keep the ship in trim. Add ballast to secondary tanks. Maintain our depth. All engines slow ahead.”

Hot water was blown from the main ballast tanks with a loud whoosh.

“Keep it going,” urged Ligichev. “We need a constant flow.”

Galinin barked the orders. “Flood main ballast tanks. Get those pumps going. Balance her by putting water in the secondaries. Damn it, watch our depth. Keep us in trim!”

The temperature in the control room was nearing the hundred-degree mark. Uniforms were plastered to sweating backs. Gauges had to be wiped clear of condensation every few seconds. Galinin was deeply worried about his electronics. They were easily fouled by this much moisture.

“Radio Officer, send a distress signal.”

“I am trying to send it, Comrade Captain.”

“Main ballast filled, Comrade Captain.”

“Blow main ballast.” Galinin looked at the temperature gauge again. One hundred ten. “Goddamn oven,” he swore, tearing open his shirt.

Again the loud whooshing. “Main ballast blown, Comrade Captain.”

“Shut down your electronics,” advised Ligichev. “Quickly.”

“As soon as I can. Communications, radio Akula that—”

It happened all at once. The Michman reached for the ballast lever but pulled back in pain when a hot spark burned his hand. Suddenly electrical discharges were leaping from console to console. Sailors fell back, shouting in fear. The smell of burning flesh was added to the noxious atmosphere. Saint Elmo’s fiery balls of electrical energy danced in the air and over instruments that were suddenly too hot to handle.

“What is going on?” roared Galinin.

“It’s the discharge! I told you. Shut down at once,” Ligichev yelled.

It was too late. Circuits shorted and burned. Acrid clouds of smoke rose from melting insulation. System after system failed. Burned men fell back from their fiery consoles.

“Damage reports. Answer me, damn it! Damage reports!”

Men tried to come to order, coughing, having to force noxious air into seared lungs. They held on to their burned limbs and pressed sodden cloths to bleeding foreheads. “Comrade Captain, communications are out.”

“Helm refuses to answer.”

“Planes are locked, Comrade Captain.”

The litany continued. “Comrade Captain, speed is down to one knot.”

“Sonar is out.”

The lights dimmed. There was barely enough power in the batteries to keep the fans running. Galinin pounded a railing in frustration. “We’re drifting. The ship is almost dead. I must have power to steer us. Your system…?”

Ligichev shook his head tightly. “Ruined.”

Whatever Galinin’s next comment was going to be, it was cut off by the frightened voice of the helmsman whose eyes were glued to the closed circuit television giving the forward view of the icy sea in front of them. “Comrade Captain, look! The ice!”

Galinin rushed forward. Heavy interference almost obscured the screen, but there was no mistaking the huge undersea ice keel that lay right across Red Dawn’s path.

“Mother of God,” Galinin swore, “it must go down five hundred feet. Helm, steer to course!”

“I cannot steer the ship,” said the sailor, eyes wide.

“We’re going to die!” yelled another crewman, panicking like a trapped animal. Galinin grabbed him. “Steady! We are going to live. Hold on. Do you hear me? Hold on!” The crewman’s panic subsided. Others helped him wrap his shirt around a metal railing and lock his arms around it. Galinin gave them a firm nod of approval.

The ice keel in the TV picture was larger now, shining blue-green in the water. All eyes were glued to it. Galinin grabbed the microphone and spoke over the all-ship channel.

“This is the captain. We are going to hit an ice keel. I repeat, an impact is unavoidable. Red Dawn will survive the crash. Believe me, we will survive the crash. Then we will effect repairs. Akula will return soon and they will help us. Hold on, everyone. Wherever you are, hold on!”

There was a terrible screech and then a crash that tossed the ship about as if a giant hand had seized it and smashed it into a wall. Galinin was thrown to the deck and scalded by steam that burst from a ruptured fitting. Pipes burst, spraying water all over the control room. Men were thrown into the sharp edges of steel consoles. Bodies were crushed by instrument tables torn from their moorings and sent careening across the room. Ligichev went down under a crush of falling bodies, his face pressed into the rising pool of water beneath him. He grabbed a railing to get out from under the bodies and out of the water that threatened to drown him. He felt hands reach for him and pull him out, and he sprawled painfully on the periscope deck, gasping for air.

The deck was listing at a difficult angle, aft high in the air and rolled partly to the port side, but the worst of the shocks was over. Red Dawn’s hull held. Galinin plunged his burned hand into the water for the smallest relief and yelled into the spray. “Close off those valves. Rostov! Don’t just stand there. Get to it. You want to drown?” Even Ligichev lent his hands to the task. Slowly they secured the burned and flooded control room.

“Pumps,” directed Galinin. “Start pumping the water out manually.”

“Father!” It was Ivanna. She made her way into the control room. Ligichev almost cried with joy as she came into his sodden arms. “You’re all right?” he asked, checking her wet face.

“Just bruised. You?”

Ligichev started to speak but instead shook his head and hugged her. He had been about to say “I’ll live.” But that was still far from certain.

“Father, what are they doing?”

Ligichev turned. It was a strange scene in the twilight. Dripping wet, hair and clothing plastered to their bodies, the bedraggled crewmen had picked themselves up and were staring at the television screen powered by the emergency batteries, the only oracle left to them. What they saw had stopped them dead in their tracks, a single question on every face. Galinin was the first to give it voice: “Comrade Ligichev, look at the screen. Am I seeing…?”

Ligichev saw and was transfixed, too. He made his way through the men gathered in front of the screen, staring in awe. “Yes,” he answered. “Yes, but how…?”

The picture on the screen was a shifting blue-green translucent haze. The television cameras were looking through a crystalline curtain of ice that surrounded the entire ship. With all the momentum of a ten-thousand-ton projectile, Red Dawn had not only hit the ice keel—but had buried itself deep within it.

“Like a fly trapped in amber,” Galinin said softly.

“The hot ballast!” Ligichev seized on the thought. “Of course. When we hit the ice keel we were enclosed in an envelope of scalding water from the ballast we were dumping. It melted the ice around us. I think it probably made the impact bearable, Captain. Without it, we might have been crushed.”

“But the ice, it will refreeze, yes?”

Ligichev nodded. “It is doing so now. Look. See the shifting? It is also saving our lives. Feel it?”

Galinin could. “Cooler. The temperature is falling. But…”

“But we are trapped,” Ligichev said in a measured tone, “trapped in solid ice without the power to break free.”

Galinin waved his red and blistered hand. “We must have electricity. The emergency batteries won’t last long. And without heat, trapped in this ice…”

Ligichev understood. “And air.”

“Yes, air.”

They stood amid the wreckage of what had once been a functioning submarine control room. Their eyes met in unspoken agreement. Cooperation was essential. Hostilities had to be put aside. It didn’t matter now who was responsible for the predicament or why. All that mattered was using their knowledge and skill to survive.

But they knew. They saw it in each other’s faces: their chances weren’t good, not good at all.

The scene on Seawolf almost duplicated the one in Red Dawn’s control room. MacKenzie, Lasovic, and every other officer and crewman who could look up from his work had his eyes glued to the closed circuit TV screen. The Soviet submarine was embedded in the ice keel as if driven in like a dagger.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” MacKenzie said, staring raptly. The water was crystal clear under the ice. Nothing obstructed the view Seawolf’ s lights gave them. “They’re in solid ice. Just stuck there. How could that have happened?”

Randall described it best. “It looks like they just… melted right in.”

“Conn, Sonar. We did pick up a brief distress signal before their radio cut out and the crash broke their masts.

Very low power. The ice overhead is twenty feet thick there, Skipper. Add that to the thickness of the keel. We don’t think anyone else could have heard them.”

“Do we answer them, Mac?” Lasovic asked.

“I don’t know yet. Sonar, what about the other contact?”

“Nothing on the scope, Skipper.”

MacKenzie shook his head mutely, still staring at the screen. “Could anyone be alive in there?”

“We are getting sound. Repair work, maybe. No pumps or motors.”

“Engine room failure,” Lasovic guessed. “They’re going to freeze pretty damn soon unless they get some power. And how the hell do you raise a snorkel for air through thirty feet of ice?”

“I want to talk this over before we go any further,” said MacKenzie. “Mr. Randall, you have the conn. Hold her steady. Mr. Lasovic, Mr. Santiago, Mr. Kurstan, conference in the wardroom, five minutes.”

The uniformed steward poured hot coffee for the men who sat around the Formica table in the wardroom. MacKenzie wrapped his hands around the steaming mug and sat back against the cushioned bench seat.

“One of my old teachers used to call this a ‘situation.’ Well, we’ve got us a situation, gentlemen. Let’s start with what we know. There’s a crippled Russian sub stuck up to her props in an ice keel the size of Rhode Island. It appears to be unable to extricate itself. Now, I expect the contact we made earlier to return to the area in the mistaken belief that it has decoyed us away, but unless it gets awfully lucky or that sub repairs its communications gear soon, it doesn’t stand a chance of finding it. I will also go so far as to tell you it’s my hunch that the Boomer’s attempt to pull us out of the area is in some way connected to the sub now trapped in the ice. Beyond that, I’m open to all comments and observations.”

“First, Skipper, this sub’s got a name. It’s the Red Dawn,” Kurstan said. “The distress signal carried it. Visual observation confirms it is a Tango class diesel. Book says she’s ninety-two meters long, has a submerged displacement of thirty-nine hundred metric tons, carries torpedoes and maybe antisub missiles. The initial operational capability for the class was 1973. They built them for about five years.”

“What I’d like to know is what a Boomer is doing escorting an old diesel boat around here,” interjected Lasovic. “If anything, the diesel should have tried to decoy us away from the Boomer, right?”

“Which leads me to believe that Red Dawn is the more important ship,” said MacKenzie. “Mr. Kurstan, you have Red Dawn’s last half an hour or so on tape?”

“We logged the entire contact, Skipper.”

“Good. Encode it in a high-speed pulse for transmission to Norfolk. Let’s see what they make of it.”

“Aye, sir,” said Kurstan, “but I’d like to echo the point Mr. Lasovic made earlier. Unless the Boomer was real close, I don’t think it or anyone else could have heard the distress signal. Seawolf couldn’t transmit through twenty feet of ice at full power. They were fading fast and barely had time for a single transmission.”

“They’re in trouble. I agree. Do we have any way of estimating their air supply?” MacKenzie asked.

Lasovic shrugged. “No way to be certain, Skipper. I’d have made sure I was full up before I went under the ice cap in a diesel. They could have at least two or three days, but like I say, no way to know for sure. One thing’s certain, though. Heat’s potentially a bigger problem for them. They can’t run the diesels to recharge the batteries without the snorkel for air. It’s a catch-22. If there’s any juice in the batteries they’ll have to bleed it off. It’s gonna get cold mighty fast in that ice.”

“Is there any way to ascertain the scope of any injuries to her crew?” MacKenzie asked.

“None, Mac,” said Lasovic. “The distress signal didn’t elaborate.”

“Then for the moment,” MacKenzie summed up, “we assume roughly forty-eight hours before their situation is critical.”

Santiago frowned. “Lot of assumptions, Skipper.”

“I know, but informing Norfolk has top priority right now. Till that’s been done I don’t want either our presence or our position revealed.”

The others nodded. MacKenzie drained the last of his coffee. “Tom, prepare to launch the new underwater locators. Use the transmit-only-when-activated type. The Boomer’s not going to be able to find Red Dawn unless it transmits. I want the locators to sound loud and clear when we want to find this keel again.”

“Right away, Skipper.”

“All right. Thank you all. Back to your stations.”

Most of the faces in the conn were still turned up to the screen. MacKenzie found the sight equally compelling. This was something no one had ever seen before, something no one had ever even predicted could happen to a submarine. The image was startling. Red Dawn was embedded in ice so thick and massive she looked like a toy sub in a cube of Lucite. As a professional sailor and as a man, MacKenzie felt a deep concern for and kinship with the crew on board the crippled sub. The awful cold would be creeping in by now, and their helplessness at being unable to free themselves from their icy prison was surely growing. But in this situation there were other considerations. What had Red Dawn been up to? What had caused her predicament? And what made her so valuable that a ballistic missile sub, itself an immensely valuable asset, risked showing itself to protect her? Something still bothered him about that, a gnawing doubt that refused to go away. He put it aside for now.

“I have the conn, Mr. Randall. Return to your station.”

“Aye, sir.” He hesitated for a moment. “Skipper, can they see us?”

MacKenzie looked at the image on the screen. “I wouldn’t think so. Too much ice around their scopes. And without power, they have no sonar.”

“It’s eerie, you know? I wonder what it feels like in there.”

“Let’s hope we get to ask them.” MacKenzie hit the intercom. “Torpedo Room, Conn. Is Mr. Lasovic there?”

The intercom crackled. “Here, Skipper. Locators ready for launch.”

“Fire Control, lock in coordinates on that ice keel.”

“Conn, Fire Control. Coordinates locked in and transferred to launchers.”

“Launch locators.”

Rapid deployment sound system sonobuoys could be put into place temporarily by airdrop, usually from P-3C Orion antisubmarine aircraft or, as now, by a submarine launch. RDSS buoys had an operational life of at least ninety days and could broadcast data in short, high-speed bursts on predetermined frequencies to avoid revealing their positions. The underwater locators worked in a similiar manner for use under the ice.

“Locators launched,” Lasovic’s voice confirmed.

Released from Seawolf, the locators sped for the surface and embedded themselves in the base of the ice keel. There they would wait until Mac triggered them. Without them, finding this same spot would be tricky and perhaps impossible because of the ever-changing nature of the ice floe.

“Take her down, Mr. Randall. Eight zero zero feet. Nice and quiet.”

MacKenzie caught a last glimpse of Red Dawn encased in her icy prison before the ice keel fell away like a high-speed elevator and Seawolf dropped into the icy depths.