To Kill the Potemkin

15

The collision had sent men and machinery flying about like poltergeists inside Potemkin. Kurnachov had cracked his head against a periscope housing and fallen unconscious to the deck.

Potemkin had revolved 360 degrees around her keel, turning completely upside down. The reactor had scrammed, plunging the ship into total darkness for several seconds before the emergency electrical power kicked in. The prop no longer was turning, but the stern planes were angled down and the ship was in a state of negative buoyancy. Potemkin was sinking. Dazed men struggled for footing. Much of the instrumentation had gone blank, and acrid smoke from an electrical fire billowed through the after-hatch into the control room.

Federov had groped his way out of his cabin through the darkened passageway and into the control room. There, after stumbling over the prostrate Kurnachov, he discovered the lights on the diving panel were still green — the pressure hull was intact.

"Stern planes up to zero degrees," Federov ordered. "Seal the hatches. Get those fires out. I want damage reports."

Federov's return to the control room inspired the crew to shake off their daze and follow orders.

The intercom still operated. "This is the steering machinery room. Portside stern plane fails to respond. Attempting to operate manually."

"This is electrical engineering. All systems functioning on emergency power."

"This is reactor control. We have steam. Injection pressure normal, but we have a scram."

"Blow after ballast tank. Not too fast. Don't make any noise. We've got time."

The instruments popped back to life. With a glance, Federov realized that the most serious danger came from the atmosphere machinery. The carbon dioxide scrubber and carbon monoxide burners were not functioning.

"All hands put on gas masks and oxygen tanks."

Slowly air was bled into the ballast tank, and the bubble in the buoyancy gauge rose to the center. The rate of descent slackened.

At three thousand feet the engineers were able to crank the stern plane up to zero degrees. The fires were out and the carbon monoxide burners were reignited. Only the carbon dioxide scrubber remained out of action.

"Torpedo room, load decoy number five. Flood tanks. Sonar, where is the American sub?"

"Rising, Captain, almost on the surface."

"Fire decoy, maximum speed, down angle twenty degrees. All hands prepare for decoy concussion."

When Kurnachov woke up in his cabin, his head was bandaged and his left arm encased in plaster. He gazed without comprehension at the displays in the console next to his bunk. Ordinarily the readouts gave him the ship's position — speed, depth, reactor status and atmosphere condition. Now even the chronometers were blank. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious.

At first Kurnachov thought the display system had been damaged in the collision. The ship was moving ahead slowly, but at what depth and direction he had no way of knowing. He picked up the intercom telephone. It was dead.

When he tried to sit up he discovered the manacle on his ankle. The chain that secured him to his bunk was wrapped in rags to keep it quiet.

His cabin was stripped of papers, books and charts. All insignia of rank had been removed from his uniform. Even his gold Komsomol pin was gone. Kurnachov sank back onto his bunk to consider his fate…

Several hours later Federov brought him a tray of sausage and kasha.

"Release me," Kurnachov demanded. "I am still master of this ship."

Federov set down the tray and stood in silence over the former first officer.

"Where is my Komsomol pin? I demand that it be returned to me."

Federov began to speak, but loathing choked his voice. Finally he got out, "The crew voted. You've been expelled from Komsomol."

"They can't do that, they have no right—"

"Former Captain Second Rank Kurnachov" — he spit the words—"you have demonstrated an incredible lack of seamanship, killed one of my men, provoked the Americans, compromised the secrecy of Potemkin and abused your authority. All these will be included in the charges against you. But what galls me, you son of a bitch, is that all you can think of is your fucking status in the Party. Enjoy your breakfast. Choke on it."

Federov emerged from Kurnachov's cabin to find the surgeon waiting in the corridor.

"Captain," he said, his voice urgent, "it's Polokov. He's bleeding internally. He needs blood."

"Give it to him. Ask for volunteers."

"Yes, sir."

"And Bolinki?"

"Still in a coma."

"How much IV solution do you have left?"

"Enough for five days."

"Do what you can. Send the chief engineer to my cabin."

"Yes, sir."

Chief Engineer Alexis Rolonov, son of a Leningrad shipyard worker, had spent a large part of his life covered with grease. As he sat in Federov's cabin, a swatch of black streaked across his forehead, his hands were coated with a fine film of oil.

"How goes the portside stern plane?" the captain asked.

"The hydraulic system is ruined but it can be operated manually."

"The reactor?"

"We can start it any time."

"And the carbon dioxide scrubber?"

"That's going to get serious. It wasn't designed to be turned upside down. The lithium hydroxide filters were spilled and scattered. We have only partial function."

"No spares?"

"Nikolai, how can I say this? Some son of a bitch in Murmansk stored a spare packet of what he thought was lithium hydroxide, and Kurnachov checked it off. This is it." Alexis tossed a plastic bag full of white crystals onto the desk. It looked like rock salt. "It isn't lithium hydroxide. It's lithium chloride. We use it to make—"

"Mineral water," Federov said, closing his eyes. He took a series of deep breaths, shrugged. "Lithium chloride… Are you thirsty, Comrade Chief Engineer?" Federov's eyes were open now and full of anger. "How much time do we have?"

"Normal carbon dioxide concentration is two percent. We're now up to three percent. Without filters, four days, five at the most, then it's going to be carbon dioxide narcosis. They say it's rather pleasant."

Federov tried to vent his fury with a joke. "Perhaps we should stop at Gibraltar and borrow some lithium hydroxide. We can give the English Kumachov in exchange. They can try him in their Admiralty Court for dereliction of duty and banging into one of their subs."

The notion of Kurnachov standing in front of a wigged British judge made Alexis smile. "Your honor… your honor…," he stammered, "I plead guilty as charged. I plead guilty to any charge. Convict me, hang me, just don't hand me over to the KGB."

Alexis stopped joking and cleared his throat. Federov reached for a tin of cigars, then changed his mind. "The air is thick enough." He pulled out his flask of vodka, swallowed two mouthfuls and passed it to Alexis.

"How are Bolinki and Polokov?" the engineer asked.

"They're going to die if we don't get them off this ship, which we can't do in the immediate future. Gorshov wanted a one-hundred-day cruise and he's going to get it, but we may all be dead."

"Well, we are making history—"

"Fuck history. Potemkin was rushed through production too quickly. Inadequate sea trials, insufficient training for the crew, too many gadgets, and no backup systems. In another three years these titanium subs will own the seas, but now, thanks to our comrade political officer, we've tipped our hand. I want to strangle him with my bare hands."

"Relax, Captain. At least because of our difficulties the next series of ships will be better. After all, we have a titanium submarine, which the Americans have been unable to manufacture."

"In spite of what you think, Alexis, the Americans are not stupid. They don't have political officers."

"Perhaps because of Kurnachov, once and for all we will be rid of these fools."

Federov shook his head. "We stand a better chance of getting rid of the Americans than our own idiots."

Alexis smiled. "My friend, in time this too shall pass. The Americans tend to be arrogant. They've become diverted. They are preoccupied with Viet Nam, which drains their treasure, their blood and their will. With thirty Potemkin-class submarines we will put an end to their primacy on the seas. Their missile submarines are no match for this," the engineer said, softly rapping the hull. "But we need to buy time…"

"We should live so long, Comrade Chief Engineer."

Alexis tried to phrase his next question delicately, "What are we going to do about the carbon dioxide?"

"What are you going to suggest, Alexis? That I surface, pass through the Bosporus into the Black Sea and make for Odessa?"

"I feel the words must be said. It's my duty—"

Federov smiled. "You have done your duty. Good. You will continue to do your duty but the answer is no. We are not going to surface and steam through Istanbul. Our orders are to avoid detection at all costs, even if we have to scuttle Potemkin ourselves. We are going through Gibraltar."

"But the scrubber, Captain. We need the filters."

"We can snorkel. We can escape detection by running very slow, very quiet and very deep."

"And if we're detected?"

Federov ignored the question and turned his attention to a chart.

Running Potemkin on minimal reactor power and maintaining a depth below three thousand feet, Federov had maneuvered his ship toward Gibraltar. He hugged the North African Coast, taking care to avoid major shipping lanes and NATO operations areas. No one was looking for him at that depth, and even if they were, he believed, their sonars would not find him…. He'd heard only vague rumors of an advanced American sonar system being deployed and tended to discount them. He was always hearing how the Americans were getting ahead, followed by a spurt in his own country's military expenditures. He exercised extreme caution, though. Without the silicon packing on the turbine, Potemkin generated a great deal of noise at any velocity above eight knots, so Federov maintained a slow speed and a steady westerly course.

After five days the carbon dioxide concentration was four percent. The crew was breathing at an increased rate, pumping more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The men were weakening and their resistance to infection was crumbling. An outbreak of colds ravaged the engineers.

To vent the sub's noxious atmosphere Federov had to snorkel, had to rise near the surface, push a tube into the ocean air, pump out the carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere and suck in fresh air, just like an old-fashioned diesel-electric sub. However, by doing so Federov knew he also ran the risk of exposing the snorkel to hostile radar. He had to be certain that he was beyond detection before he raised the metal tube above the surface. Federov cursed his bad luck. The failure of one simple subsystem had reduced Potemkin to a primitive submersible craft. He needed air!

As the fifth day drew to a close, Potemkin was fifty miles off the Libyan coast. The submarine had to snorkel, though Federov was still leery of approaching the surface and exposing Potemkin. In no more than another four hours the CO₂ concentration would reach a point of extremely dangerous toxicity and the crew of Potemkin would be subjected to carbon dioxide narcosis. Federov studied his charts. It seemed as safe a place as he would find.

"Prepare to surface," he ordered. "Ready the snorkel. Alexis, take us up to one hundred fifty meters."

Potemkin rose slowly from the depths, circling at five hundred feet to clear baffles.

Only halfway through the circle, Popov intoned, "Contact, subsurface. Two screws, diesel-electric. Range five thousand meters, bearing one five two, course three three one, speed eight knots." He hoped his tone masked his fear.

On the sonar screen the sub was a two-dimensional streak on one quadrant of the screen, above and ahead of Potemkin, going slowly.

Keep going, Federov silently urged the intruder… not even wanting to think on what it would mean if the other sub stopped.

"Identify, please, Popov."

"French, Daphné class. Probably Sirène."

"All ahead, dead slow. Down planes fifteen degrees. Make our depth eight hundred meters."

In the engineering room, four coughing, sneezing men cranked down the stern planes, and Potemkin descended.

Federov spoke quietly into the command intercom. "Torpedo room, load tubes one and two—"

"Nikolai, you can't shoot him, you can't know if—"

"If he's looking for us, Alexis, if the Americans have announced that reports of our death were premature, what choice do I have? If this French captain reports our position, more will come looking, the British will blockade the Strait of Gibraltar. We will have no escape. And we will all die here if we do not snorkel…"

"Range to target, five thousand seven hundred meters."

"Flood tubes."

For a moment aboard Sirène, just a fleeting moment, the sonarman thought he saw a blip on his screen, but it was too slight, too faint, and he well remembered how once before he had been severely reprimanded for sounding a false alarm… and now whatever it was, if it was ever anything, had disappeared. In his experience only whales dove so deep, and in his log he recorded baleine.

Now at eight hundred meters, having gone quickly down from five hundred feet, Potemkin was too deep for discovery by the Frenchman's sonars. But it was not safe, not unless the French ship cleared the area.

"Popov," Federov asked, "what is the depth under our keel?"

"Four thousand six hundred meters. We're over the Tunisian Trench."

"Range to contact."

"Range five thousand nine hundred meters, captain. I've lost an active sonar. I don't think he's stopping… no, he seems to be moving…"

Keep moving, please, Federov silently intoned to himself.

And as he did, a tired and disgruntled Frenchman some eight hundred meters above him and five thousand nine hundred meters distant leaned back from his console, sighing mightily, and made the easy decision not to report what he probably had not seen, thereby allowing the Sirène to proceed. "Captain, still no active sonar. Range now six thousand meters. I'm losing him." And he allowed a bright smile as he said it.

Federov smiled back at him. "All ahead slow, right full rudder," and then to Alexis, "he seems to have missed us, but we can't snorkel with him in the area. Attention all hands, put on oxygen masks" — he knew this was mostly an empty gesture, the masks having long since become all but useless—"there will be a delay before resurfacing." Greeted by mumbling and curses. "Torpedo room, unload torpedoes." Greeted by relief.

Federov and Alexis exchanged glances, each knowing that this was a reprieve only. They could take in some good air now, vent the carbon dioxide, but it would build up, and they could not snorkel all the way back to Murmansk. They were not a ship on display…

An hour later Potemkin rose to a depth of sixty feet. The snorkel and a radar antenna broke the surface for half an hour and then disappeared. A lonely old Tunisian fisherman saw what he thought was a strange blue light in the sea and called his mate, who was asleep. By the time he woke up and arrived on deck, the strange light was gone, and the fisherman, who of late had been accused of seeing things because of failing eyesight, never mentioned it to anyone.