To Kill the Potemkin

13

"Sit down, Popov, and get hold of yourself."

Federov's voice was harsh. Every man aboard Potemkin was an officer, but some, he decided, didn't know how to act the part.

"Identify him, if you please, Mr. Popov."

"It's a Skipjack class, Captain. It must be Barracuda."

With seven American subs taking part in the war game, Federov had expected an encounter before this. When the American rose up and began to follow, he deduced that he had come upon the sub that was playing the role of attacker. One of the defenders would either try to contact him or simulate a torpedo attack. It was quite a situation — he was pretending to be an American and he was being followed by an American pretending to be a Soviet, but there was no one in the control room with whom he could share the irony of it.

He had to determine if the American commander was going to continue his attack on the carrier or follow Potemkin. He ordered the helmsman to turn left twelve degrees and the engine room to increase speed to twenty-one knots. The American followed him through the turn and increased his speed to match.

"First Officer Kurnachov, I think we have successfully completed our test of Acoustical Reproduction Device Number Seven. I am not certain the American submarine following us has been fooled by our tricks. We have proved we can penetrate their defenses with the device. Now I think we shall use all our resources to withdraw."

"I disagree. Comrade Captain," Kurnachov said. "I believe we have fooled the American submarine. He follows because he believes we are Swordfish. In any case your course is taking him toward the carrier that is his target."

"Then we shall have to take him somewhere else, Comrade First Officer Captain Second Rank Kurnachov." Federov loved to give him his full ridiculous due. "Right full rudder. Increase speed to thirty knots. Bearing one seven seven. Depth three hundred meters. Ten degrees down."

Kurnachov was shocked. "Captain, Acoustical Reproduction Device Number Seven has never been tested at over twenty-four knots."

"Then consider this a test."

Potemkin abruptly tilted downward and accelerated into the depths. In the engine room the chief engineer watched awestruck as the silicon packing on the turbine slowly turned into a pool of glassy liquid. The quiet hum of the whirring blades transformed into a deep roar.

"Captain," the engineer said into his microphone, "we have to stop the turbine. The packing melted!"

One hundred fifty feet away the noise burst into the quiet of the control room.

The captain glared across the control room at the first officer. "All stop. Quiet in the boat."

The noise ceased. Potemkin continued to plunge on momentum silently downward at a steep angle, banking steeply on her diving planes. Throughout the ship, black-uniformed sailors struggled for equilibrium. Air conditioners were switched to low power and all nonessential systems shut down. In the engine room the turbine came to a halt; reactor operation was reduced to a minimum. Gradually, the ship leveled off.

Kurnachov jumped up from his seat and went across the control room toward the engine room.

"First Officer Kurnachov, return to your diving panel. Where do you think you are? Right full rudder. Zero angle on the diving planes."

With her prop no longer turning, Potemkin's momentum still carried her more than two kilometers. The ship glided to the right on her diving planes and slowly came to a stop.

"Engine room, damage report."

"The packing melted, Captain, but the turbine is all right."

"Popov, do you hear the American sub?"

"No, sir. I hear the aircraft carrier. Range eight thousand two hundred meters and closing."

Federov turned on Kurnachov. "Remove every American tape from Acoustical Reproduction Device Number Seven and put in the Viktor tape, Mr. Kurnachov, and do it now. That's an order. And if you ever move from your station again, I'll have you before a court-martial and you'll spend the rest of your life in an old sailors' home. If you're lucky."

The captain hurried back to the engine room to ascertain for himself the status of the turbine. Unlike American submarines in which every component of the drive train was duplicated, Potemkin had only one turbine. What she sacrificed in safety, she gained in speed by reducing weight.

"Comrade Chief Engineer, how bad is it?"

Federov and the engineer had sailed together for many years. For one to address the other with the formal party salutation was a secret code between them that meant yes, once again, they miraculously had survived an attempt by the masters of Moscow to sink them.

"Comrade Captain First Rank, Acoustical Reproduction Device Number Seven is now a useless piece of shit, but Potemkin is still an Alpha."

"You mean. Chief Engineer, we should get up a full head of steam and show the Americans a thing or two, such as how fast our marvelous Potemkin can go?"

"Nikolai Petrovich, you read my mind. I am astounded at your insight."

"Alexis, my old shipmate, we may try to do just that."

In the control room the first officer sullenly removed the Swordfish tape from the Sony. When Federov returned, he ordered the first officer to accompany him to his cabin.

Federov locked the door. Kurnachov smiled, malevolence in his heart. "Comrade Captain First Rank, I believe you deliberately increased the speed of this ship to sabotage Acoustical Reproduction Device Number Seven."

"You can believe whatever you want to believe, or whatever the Party wants for that matter. That's your privilege."

"Your orders were to test the device."

"My orders were to test this ship. The device be damned. I am growing impatient with you, Kurnachov. You seem to forget that we are at sea. My responsibility is to carry out my mission and return my ship and crew safely home. This is a new class of ship, and all these wonderful technological devices are equally new. One of them has been put to the test, and it has failed. So be it. My duty is very clear. The Americans know nothing about the Alpha. At worst they think we are a Viktor. They have never experienced a submarine with a titanium hull. We must disappear before they collect too much information."

"This does not alter the fact that we have been detected."

"The Americans have detected something but they don't know what. Have you forgotten that our orders were to allow ourselves to be detected? That was the whole point of the damned device. Be detected and deceive. Well, we didn't fool them. But they still don't know what we are. If you want to accuse me of sabotage, do it now. If you do, you shall have to relieve me and take command of Potemkin. You have the entire American Sixth Fleet above you and an American submarine on your tail. You have a jittery crew that has been at sea far too long, and half of them know more about the Party line than about operating this ship. First Officer Kurnachov, this would be an excellent moment to demonstrate your seamanship."

The captain unlocked the door and returned to the control room. Kurnachov began formulating his report on the captain's remarks about the Party and Soviet technology. Then he reconsidered. He would act.

On the sonar screen the American fleet could be seen converging on their position. Popov could hear the screws of Kitty Hawk only three miles away. The short burst of speed by both subs had produced a great deal of noise.

The captain plugged in a headphone and listened.

"Where is the American submarine?" he asked Popov.

The terrified operator just shook his head. Barracuda was not on the screen.

Sorensen was astounded at the Russian sub's rate of acceleration. Barracuda was the fastest submarine in the U.S. Navy, but the Russian ship took off like a corvette.

"Contact increasing speed and descending," he said over the intercom. "Range increasing to four zero zero yards, four five zero yards."

The Russian plunged into the depths. "We got us a real Cossack sub driver," Sorensen muttered, then spoke into his mike. "Captain, she's running much faster than anything we've ever seen before. Speed, estimated thirty-five knots."

"Stay on him, sonar. We're going right down with him."

Springfield ordered a steep dive and increased speed. Barracuda angled over and rocketed down.

Thirty seconds into the dive the Russian sub erupted with a sudden burst of noise that caused Sorensen to jump out of his seat. It was, at last, the sub of his dreams — the mystery sub.

Then, abruptly, there was no noise at all. The Russian's prop stopped turning and all machinery noises ceased. Soviet subs were notoriously unreliable. With no duplication of vital machinery, a breakdown of any component of the drive train frequently incapacitated the ship. If that were the case, the Russian captain would have to surface, a development most embarrassing for him.

Sorensen sat back down, ignoring Fogarty's questioning look, and took a deep breath.

Springfield ordered, "All stop." Drifting on momentum, Barracuda descended through a thermal layer and unwittingly passed under Potemkin. At thirteen hundred feet, very close to her test depth, she came to a halt.

The Russian was not on the screens. She was in a blind spot, above Barracuda, obscured by the thermal. Fear of collision swept through the control room.

Since Springfield did not know the Russian's location, he intended to let her know where Barracuda was.

"All ahead, dead slow," Springfield ordered.

"All ahead dead slow, aye."

"Control to sonar. Echo-range."

The broad beam swept all around, but there was no contact.

Sorensen hammered on his console. "C'mon, you son of a bitch, make some noise."

Springfield sent for Davic, the only one aboard who could speak Russian. He was going to try to talk to the Soviet ship on the gertrude.

"Captain First Rank Nikolai Petrovitch Federov, by the authority invested in me, I relieve you of command of Potemkin. Return to your cabin at once."

Face flushed, sweating, black eyes too bright in the control room, Kurnachov held a pistol. Still standing over the sonar console, Federov's first impulse was to laugh. The laughter died in his larynx when Kurnachov cocked the hammer.

"Put the gun away, Kurnachov, before you blow a hole in the ship and kill us all."

"Return to your cabin, at once."

Popov started to stand up. "Captain, no."

Federov pushed him back into his seat. Everyone else in the control room remained at his station. With dignity Federov assumed his military bearing and left the control room without another word.

Still brandishing the pistol, Kurnachov paced around the control room, unsure what to do. After a minute of waffling, he called out, "Stern planes, down twenty degrees. Reverse engines. Slow revolutions."

No one moved. Alexis, the chief engineer, appeared in the control room hatch. "What the hell is going on here?"

Kurnachov moved across the compartment and put the barrel of the pistol in his face. "Chief Engineer, get back to the engineering room."

The engineer stood his ground. "Where is the captain?"

"I am now the captain. Do as you've been ordered."

"Good God. An apparatchik in command of Potemkin."

Shaking his head, the engineer left the control room. Still, nobody moved.

"Planesman, stern planes down twenty degrees or I will charge you with mutiny. I'll also shoot you, you son of a bitch."

The planesman turned his wheel.

"Reverse engines. Slow revolutions."

The hull shuddered once as the turbine started to revolve. The ship began to angle down at the stern and descend backward into the unknown. Kurnachov's heart was beating so fast he thought he might have a seizure. He felt giddy with power. He was in command for the first time in his life. He had, he believed, saved Potemkin.

On Barracuda Davic stood in the control room, holding his asbestos helmet under his arm as he listened to the captain's instructions.

"Tell him to surface. Tell him we will make no attempt to interfere with him or to board his ship."

"Aye aye, sir."

Davic switched on the gertrude. "Pogdorny Sovetski…" he began.

Before he could continue, Sorensen's voice interrupted over the intercom. "Sonar to control, sonar to control. I hear him. Captain, he's right on top of us. He's backing down out of the thermal. Left full rudder."

The helmsman was cranking his joystick before Springfield could give the order. Barely making way. Barracuda slowly turned to the left.

For one terrible moment everyone froze as Potemkin's portside stern plane brushed Barracuda's bow. The impact reverberated through Barracuda's hull like a giant gong.

Collision alarms began screaming, circuits popped, sirens went off. Every soul aboard expected the sea to pour into the ship.

In the torpedo room the solid steel bulkhead bulged into the compartment and snapped back into place with a thundering bang. The young torpedomen were terrified. One dropped to his knees and began to pray, holding a crucifix.

"Get on your feet, Baker," Chief Lopez ordered. "Seal the hatch." He yanked the young sailor to his feet and pushed him toward the rear of the compartment. Johnson, the mate, already was spinning the wheel. If the torpedo room flooded, the ship theoretically would remain buoyant if water could be kept out of the other compartments.

Lopez braced himself for a sudden pitch forward, praying to the Virgin of his childhood for the pressure hull to hold. Making a grinding noise, the keel of the Russian sub slid down the starboard side of the hull, rolling Barracuda over to the right and sending men sprawling. There was a lurch, another metallic crunch… and the ships separated. Baker lay screaming on the deck, his leg fractured.

Barracuda swung back to the left and righted herself. On top of the fire-control panel Zapata's glass cage slid to the steel floor and shattered. Miraculously uninjured, the scorpion skittered away and hid in the shadows of the torpedo racks.

Lopez rushed to the fire-control panel and saw that one of the outer-tube-door indicators had changed from green to red. Tube number four was ruptured, having been the exact point of impact by the tip of the Russian sub's stern plane. Lopez was certain the inner door would burst open.

"Torpedo room to control. Tube number four open to sea."

In the control room an indicator light on Pisaro's diving panel changed from green to red. He blanched.

"Torpedo tube number four open to sea," he said, making the greatest effort to sound calm.

"Blow all ballast tanks, surface," ordered the captain.

As water was expelled from the ballast tanks, the sub slowly began to rise.

"Fire yellow distress rocket."

"Rocket away."

"Control to torpedo room, damage report."

"Torpedo room to control. Tube number four open to sea. Inner door is holding. We've got a small electrical fire here."

"Casualty report."

"We got a man with a busted leg."

"Attention all hands. Damage control team to torpedo room, on the double. Corpsman to torpedo room."

"Sonar, where's the Russian?"

Sorensen switched on the active sonar, afraid of what he might hear. Instantly an erratically pulsating sphere of sound expanded around Barracuda.

He stared at his screen. It took him a moment to realize that the sonars on the starboard side of the hull were damaged. He played with his console to compensate.

"Fogarty, switch to bottom scanners. Sonar to control. I hear no reactor noises. He's lost power."

Fogarty activated the down-searching bottom scanners and made contact. "Oh no," he said, and closed his eyes.

Sorensen looked at Fogarty's screen and slowly removed his headphones. He switched on the overhead speakers. Shaking his head he said, very quietly, "Sonar to control, he's sinking. He's already down to two thousand feet. He's going down without power. He can't blow his tanks."

Sorensen began to fidget. The sub was going to sink until the pressure of the sea became too great. Then she would implode. What they had feared would happen to them a moment before was about to happen to the Russians. The Soviet sub was too heavy. Somehow the collision had left her without power, and she had no pumps and negative buoyancy. In a few seconds her hull would rupture, the sea would come crashing in and instantly raise the atmospheric pressure in the boat to the point of incandescence. In a blinding flash the Russians would fry before they were crushed. None would live long enough to drown.

Springfield entered the sonar room and stopped in midstep. Sorensen was pale. Fogarty looked like he was watching an execution.

Sorensen said, "Three thousand feet."

The captain stared at the screen in disbelief. "Three thousand feet." The sub already was far deeper than any other submarine had ever dived.

Springfield didn't need this, the Navy didn't need this, the Russians certainly didn't need this. There would be a Court of Inquiry. The Russians would make their own investigation and it was going to be one hell of a mess.

"Thirty-one hundred feet," said Sorensen. He imagined the scene aboard the Russian sub… the men in there knowing they had only moments to live, some praying, others weeping or gone mad with panic and fear. But most, he was sure, were trying their best to make their machinery do the impossible. They were trying to get power to the pumps to blow her tanks and make her rise—

"Good God," said Sorensen, "they fired a torpedo."

He stood up and backed away from the console. On the screen the slowly sinking blip divided in two. They heard the whine of an electric motor. A guide wire between the blips was clearly visible. Someone aboard the doomed sub was attempting to steer the torpedo.

With her tanks blown Barracuda was rising swiftly. They were going to die on the surface.

Springfield shouted, "Evasive maneuvers. All ahead full. Right full rudder." But before the helm could respond, the torpedo went awry and plunged straight down to four thousand feet.

While all eyes were on the torpedo, the Russian sub imploded — painfully loud cracks separated by a fraction of a second as each of the ship's compartments ruptured in close sequence. At tremendous velocity the sea poured through the fractured pressure hull pushing the air inside into a smaller and smaller bubble until the air itself exploded, blowing out the bulkheads between the individually pressurized compartments. The explosions and fires lasted only the briefest instant until the full weight of the sea smashed the hull and everything in it into tiny, scarcely recognizable fragments.

Debris filled Barracuda's sonar screens. A cloud of tiny blips drifted to the bottom and scattered over a vast area.

"My God, my God…" Springfield said over and over. "Did you get it all on tape, Sorensen?"

"Yes, sir…"

"Seal that tape and bring it to my cabin."

"Aye aye, sir."

"You people in here are not to say a word about this to anyone. Understand?"

"Aye aye, sir."

Springfield returned to the control room. "Take her up to the surface, Leo. We'll have to send off a message to ComSubLant. You have the conn. I'm going to inspect the torpedo room."