Voyage of the Devilfish

CHAPTER 18

“Captain, the fire-control system is overheating, we’ll have to shut it down.” Weapons Officer Lieutenant Commander Steve Bahnhoff looked very unhappy. Pacino gestured for Bahnhoff to wait. He had a last chore in mind for the Mark I fire-control system.

“Two minutes since the Magnum launch, Captain,” Rapier said, urging Pacino to return fire.

“Very well, XO.”

What had his father thought over two decades before when an older Russian torpedo was on its way, just as a bright shiny Russian Magnum was now on the way to the Devilfish? Had Patch even had time to think? An image of his father coughing up blood and seawater, drowning in both, came to him, etched in his mind. It was almost time. Time for payback. Pacino literally felt the eyes of his crew on him, waiting for his lead. The quiet was palpable. No bass rumble of ventilation. No whine of the SINS navigation system. Only half the lights, the sonar and fire-control systems were functional. Without air-conditioning the residual heat from the steam and reactor plants made the ship stuffy and hot.

Bahnhoffs voice broke the silence. “Captain, fire-control casualty… it’s a disk crash. fire-control is in tape mode.” Which, of course, meant the system would be twenty times slower and all positions would show the same clunky tape-mode display, the line-of-sight view. Pacino had no time to answer.

CHICK! CHICK! PWEEP! CHICK! CHICK! PWEEP! …

“Conn, Sonar, Magnum torpedo is doing a range check.” Pacino didn’t answer. Bahnhoff looked up at him. “fire-control temperature is almost a hundred and fifty, sir. We’re about to lose it…” But Pacino had to wait. The Magnum was still on its way in. Would the fire-control system hold out till the torpedo passed? More to the point, would the Devilfish herself survive?

The Magnum torpedo, serial number 0011779, propelled itself through the cold arctic sea with an external combustion engine, combining fuel with liquid oxidizer in a combustion chamber and sending the expanding gases to twin Bend hydraulic motors, spinning the concentric propulsor shafts. The engine design was old but ingenious. The torpedo cruised through the water, its counter-rotating screws just on the verge of cavitation, its slippery surface enabling it to get up to its final intercept velocity of 110 kilometers per hour. One hundred ten clicks. Fastest torpedo on earth. At the moment, however, the weapon meandered beneath the ice at a leisurely 70 clicks, making sonar reception better. There would be time to speed up to intercept speed once the weapon identified where the enemy ship was.

At first the Magnum “listened” passively as it cruised out toward the target position that the Kaliningrad’s computers had described to it before launch. It had a great deal of memory devoted to the sounds of the American nuclear submarines. Tapes of every submarine class had first been analyzed and coded into the digital memory. Later, tapes of every hull of the American fleet had been inserted. This target’s hull-number, SSN-666, had been fed in only minutes before, but the data from its August sound surveillance, stolen by an industrial espionage agent from the Dynacorp International Sound Analysis Division, indicated that the 666 had a slight amidships rattle when it ran slow-speed reactor recirculation pumps. Its fast speed pumps were so noisy that no comparison data was needed. After a few moments the weapon had “heard” nothing and switched to active sonar. The torpedo cruised on! “knowing” that the 666 was immediately ahead, and waiting for its noise to manifest itself in the listening-sonar gear.

“XO, set the Hullcrusher in tube one to passive-sonar mode with a circling pattern, orbit point 10,000 yards away down the bearing line to the OMEGA. Tubes two, three and four, the same. Tube-two unit at 15,000 yards, tube three at 20,000 and four at 25,000. All will need to transit at high speed to the orbit points.” Pacino’s voice was level but his thoughts of his father moments before had brought a sickening taste to his mouth.

“Sir,” Rapier asked, “you sure you don’t want active sonar mode with the snake pattern? The active mode will still screen out the ice noise. It’s a doppler sonar. And the snake pattern will cover a hell of a lot more territory—”

“No.” Pacino cut him off, wondering how Rapier could argue, with the pinging of the Magnum coming in louder every second. Pacino looked down at the fire-control display. The snake search pattern was a superb open-ocean torpedo program that made the torpedo wiggle side-to-side and up-and-down as it searched, covering huge ocean sectors with the sonar gear either passive or active. But for an underice shot Pacino had decided on a passive circler, a Mark 50 torpedo shot out to a preset range, then instructed to swim in circles until a target came into its passive-search sector. Without some kind of solution, active or passive snake shots would just dud. They examined too thin a slice of the ocean. At least a circler would look around all 360 degrees. And active sonar was out — it would alert the OMEGA that something was there. There was even the possibility a torpedo would home in on another friendly torpedo. It might work, but the odds were still against the OMEGA blindly driving into one of the torpedo’s search cones. Still, it was all Pacino had.

“With four active snake torpedoes out there,” Pacino said to Rapier, “the whole icepack would be filled with pinging. Our solution is getting stale without maneuvers and ownship speed. The OMEGA could be anywhere on this bearing line. Passive circlers are our only chance. All right, XO, program the weapons.”

Rapier nodded. “Programming now.”

The Magnum’s sonar pinging still sliced through the hull, getting clearer and louder. How long would it continue inbound, Pacino wondered.

“We can’t launch until this torpedo goes by, if it goes by, but if we fool it I intend to shoot everything in the torpedo room at Target One.” Rapier took it in.

“Conn, Sonar,” Pacino’s earpiece rattled, “loss of Target One. Signal-to-noise ratio went below threshold.” Pacino and Rapier looked at each other for a long moment. The Russian had disappeared. The torpedoes would be duds for sure now. Pacino pressed on, seeming to ignore the bad news. “And XO,” he said, having to speak over the noise of the incoming Magnum torpedo’s screw, “all units will have ASH disabled.”

“Sir, with Anti-Self-Homing disabled, the units could swim back and acquire on us.”

“I know, but you heard sonar. We don’t even know a bearing to Target One now. He could be anywhere. Time for an educated guess.” Both men paused to listen to the whine of the incoming nuclear-tipped torpedo.

The plot and fire-control officers were staring at the two men. Then, as the torpedo’s sonar sounded through the hull, all eyes looked sideways to port, as if they could see through the steel to the approaching torpedo outside. The ping-pitch had dropped from a shrill squeak to medium tone, the screw noise had gotten deeper, the noise no longer coming from the port side but fading away to starboard.

Pacino looked at Rapier. “We fooled it.”

“Kicked its ass,” Rapier said, the stress leaving his face for a moment.

“Conn, Sonar,” Pacino’s earpiece announced, “we’re getting down doppler on the torpedo. It’s past CPA and opening.”

“Sonar, Captain,” Pacino said into his microphone, “any reacquisition on Target One?”

“Conn, Sonar, no…”

Pacino’s relief quickly faded. “Attention in the fire-control team,” he called out to the room. “We’ve gained a little time but the Magnum may come back around when it realizes it’s been had. I’m going to try to get some weapons out before the Mark I system shuts down on high temperature. And since we no longer have sonar contact on Target One we will be firing on our best guess. Carry on.” Pacino paused, eyeballing his officers, adrenaline pumping, sweat pouring… an intense mix of feelings almost sexual.

“Firing-point procedures,” he said, voice low and tight.

“Tube one. Target One, passive circler, ten thousand yards…”

The Kaliningrad had had no accurate range at the time of launch so the Magnum swam out the bearing line toward the aimpoint — the point that the target, hull number 666, was expected to be at expected detonation time, ten minutes after launch. The Magnum was using its active sonar to ping and “listen,” attempting to pick up the enemy. Its program codes had been modified by the underice subroutine. Normally the sonar would ping and pay attention to any solid return ping, but since this action was happening under the icecap, the ice rafts and pressure ridges and stalactites would return a ping as well as an enemy submarine. The subroutine instructed the Magnum to use the doppler filter, the device that rejected stationary objects and only examined moving ones. When a ping went out from the torpedo, return pings at the same frequency were disregarded. Only pings with an upshift or downshift in frequency passed through the filter since a moving object physically changed sound waves. If it moved toward the listening ear, the object’s speed compressed the sound waves — and the frequency went up. Motion away rarefacted the waves, shifting their frequency down. Like a moving train’s whistle would be shrill and high-pitched when the train approached, low-pitched and fading when the train went away. So the torpedo “listened” not for return sonar pings, which would be ice dumbly reflecting the sound, but for pings higher or lower pitched than emitted by the nosecone transceiver. But oddly, none of the return pings passed the doppler filter. None were upshifted or downshifted. Nothing but false returns from the ice.

The torpedo was stumped. It was now 17 kilometers from the Kaliningrad, and the range to the enemy, the 666, had probably been much less at time of launch. The next line of coded instructions told the Magnum to continue to a range of 20 kilometers from its launch point, and if there were no hints of the target, to execute the default-turn-back and run until it either found the target on the return vector or reached a point 10 kilometers from the launch point.

Twenty kilometers from the launch point the Magnum torpedo gave up. It had been unable to find the target and it was time to turn back and execute its nuisance-explosion. In response to its program, the Magnum ordered its rudder over five degrees, made the 180-degree turn in less than a minute and headed back and east toward the launch point. After 14.5 kilometers of backtracking without a sniff of the target, the Magnum initiated the arming of the nuclear warhead. It was, so to speak, resigned if disappointed. It would have been much more fulfilling to have detonated mere meters away from the 666. But at least its detonation 10 kilometers from its launch point would do some harm to the target. With the arming sequence begun, the Magnum had no thoughts about what would happen to it in the moments following the nuclear detonation. Like a human driving toward orgasm, the torpedo was a highly goal-oriented being. The only thing in its “mind” was getting to its detonation position and exploding. Never mind the aftermath.

The Mark 50 Hullcrusher torpedo in Devilfish”s tube had been waiting a long time. For over two hours its gyroscope had been spinning, its central processor had been awake and the fuel lines had been pressurized. It had been programmed with the solution to Target One ever since the target was acquired fifteen minutes earlier. Every few minutes the solution to Target One had been updated, making the Hullcrusher hypersensitive to Target One’s every move. The outer door of the tube was open. The small clearance between the tube and the torpedo was filled with water at outside pressure. The water had heated up, from the the nosecone, home to the flat sonar transducer, was cold, feeling the water temperature outside the ship. When a slight electrical signal came down the guidance wire at the torpedo’s stem section, the weapon “tensed.” The signal was the final target solution update, now locked in, as the control room fire-control console’s SET key was pressed. A locked-in solution meant that launch was less than a minute away. The torpedo was ready.

“Ship ready!” Stokes called out.

“Solution ready,” from Scott Brayton.

“Weapon ready,” from Bahnhoff. Pacino paused. This was unprecedented, firing on a target without having sonar contact on it. Yes, this was a recipe for a miss, particularly under ice. But better to try and miss than sink with a full load of torpedoes. Pacino made up an order.

“Shoot on last sonar bearing.”

“Set!” from Brayton on Pos Two.

“Stand by!” from Bahnhoff on the firing panel, taking the trigger to STANDBY.

“Shoot.” Pacino felt a shot of adrenaline.

“Fire.” Bahnhoff pulled the trigger to FIRE position. Without the usual underway noises of ventilation and SINS navigation system, the torpedolaunch sounded more violent than usual. The pressure-pulse hurt twice as much. Pacino forced a yawn to clear his abused eardrums from the pressure. Something about a warshot that made the launch sound different — this time the noise meant business.

“Tube one fired electrically. Captain,” Rapier reported.

“Conn, Sonar,” the sonar chief reported on the headphone circuit, “ownship unit, normal launch.”

On the Hullcrusher’s port flank a relay opened as tube external power turned off. The torpedo was now on internal power, no longer dependent on the tube or the mother ship.

As the connector separated, the prongs of the “in-water” sensor shorted out, and the sensor completed the first of several arming safety interlocks. The torpedo “heard” the sound of water flowing, just for a moment… it was the pressurized water from the torpedo-tube tank pouring into vents at the aft end of the tube to push it out of the ship. The torpedo underwent a powerful acceleration, like falling through a dark tunnel at supersonic velocity. The noise of the sudden flow was deafening.

Would the torpedo “hear” its target? Behind the torpedo the guidance wire streamed out of one of the fixed vanes of its propulsor, and also out of the ship’s torpedo tube. The wire would remain stationary… the ship had a length of wire that allowed it to maneuver… and the torpedo let out its own wire to allow it to move. The wire allowed the weapon to be steered if the mother ship had a better fire-control solution. It also carried transmissions from the weapon to the firing ship when the torpedo had a valid detect on the target. The firing ship could tell when the wire became disconnected from the torpedo — which was usually an indication that the weapon had hit the target and exploded. As the torpedo tube and the Devilfish faded away astern of the weapon, a second safety-interlock contact shut the three-g accelerometer, confirming the launch. The three-g contacts completed a circuit to a grain-fuel canister next to the combustion chamber. The grain fuel then ignited, pressurized the chamber and brought it up to the fuel’s ignition temperature. As the temperature rose, the self-oxidizing fuel was injected and ignited, the turbine of the engine began to spin, already windmilling at 20 RPM — and the engine-rotor accelerated to transit velocity…

“Firing-point procedures,” Pacino said, “tube two. Target One. Set for passive circler, range 15,000 yards. ASH disabled.”

“Ship ready,” from Stokes.

“Solution ready,” from Brayton.

“Weapon ready,” from Bahnhoff.

“Shoot on last sonar bearing!” Pacino ordered.

“Set!” Stokes said.

“Stand by” — Bahnhoff.

“Shoot” — Pacino.

“Shit” — Bahnhoff.

The Weapons Officer looked up from the fire-control console. “Loss of fire-control, sir.” Bahnhoff’s voice sounded dead. The three video screens of the Mark I fire-control system had winked out, their blind eyes staring back at Pacino. Suddenly the crowded room and the residual heat from back aft seemed to overcome the arctic cold on the outside of the hull. The room seemed to be baking at 200 degrees.

Pacino wiped sweat off his forehead. Rapier pulled off his headset. No sense worrying about the plots and sonar now. “Well, that’s it. Captain. Unless you want to restart the reactor.”

“Check the battery,” Pacino told him. Rapier picked up a phone. “Eng, how long on the battery?” Rapier listened, hung up, face grim. “Ten minutes, Captain. Not enough if we started her up right now.” Pacino stared into the distance.

“Well?” Rapier asked.

“Well what?” Pacino said quietly.

“Are you going to order a reactor-restart or not?”

Pacino shook his head. “Not yet, XO. Sit tight.”

Rapier started to say something, decided against it and shut his mouth.

The SSN-X-27 nuclear-tipped cruise missile flew on at a speed just under 800 clicks. The surface raced toward the missile, giving it the impression of even greater velocity due to the low altitude. The missile calculated. In a few minutes the sand of Virginia Beach would be slipping under the fuselage. Ahead, the horizon was lit with lights from the beach, hotels, restaurants, boardwalk illumination, even just after four in the morning, even on this off-season December Sunday.

The missile computed a navigation fix from the stars overhead and judged itself just a hair off course to the south. It rotated the engine nozzle to the right, then back amidships as the course was corrected. Now the flight path was perfect. Seven kilometers from the beach now. Time to begin the arming sequence. After a self-check of the detonator, the missile rotated a thick metal plate so that two holes lined up. Which put the central detonator in line with the main explosion train for the six specially shaped trinitrotoluene charges. The arming sequence complete, the missile settled into its ride. At ten meters altitude the missile screamed in over the sand of Virginia Beach, 35 kilometers from Norfolk Naval Station, 37 from COMSUBLANT and CINCLANTFLEET headquarters. The hotels and T-shirt shops zipped by beneath the missile’s fuselage. Minutes till detonation. Now the missile flew over the outer boundary of the Navy’s military complex, starting with the administrative buildings and supply depot area and flying on over the headquarters buildings of COMSUBLANT and CINCLANTFLEET. At the same time electromagnetic pulses were washing over its fuselage from the Navy EA-6B electronic warfare jet, now fifteen miles astern of it.

Admiral Richard Donchez rubbed his bald head as he tried to focus on the surface of the desk. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Admiral? Sir, it’s an emergency, wake up, sir.” Donchez checked his watch. Just after four o’clock in the morning, Sunday. He had dozed off in Flag Plot after putting his head on the desk at two in the morning. Pain filled him, he hadn’t felt this way since commanding the Piranha years before. In spite of his own promise to himself he had not been able to stay away from Flag Plot. In fact, for the entire weekend he had decided to camp out in his headquarters, Christmas holiday notwithstanding. And as the sole flag officer in a duty station at this time on a Sunday morning he was also SOPA — Senior Officer Present Ashore. Which meant that, nominally, he spoke for COMAIRLANT, COMSURFLANT and CINCLANTFLEET. He was it. All of it.

He looked up and found himself surrounded. The watch officer. Lieutenant Commander Kodiak, the young Cherokee Indian, was in front. On his left, Lieutenant Vinny Bentson, an intelligence officer. On Kodiak’s right. Senior Chief Ron Carter, a communications specialist and the leading technician on the watchsection.

“What is it?” he asked Kodiak.

“Sir, we’ve got a flash OPREP-3 PINNACLE from the Billfish, 155 nautical miles due east. She sank an AKULA-class sub, after it fired a cruise missile. The AKULA is on the bottom but the missile is still incoming. Probable target is Norfolk, targeted for us, sir. And it’s an SSN-X-27. The warhead’s a one-megaton hydrogen bomb.”

Donchez struggled for control. The missile coming in was obviously a warshot, the Russians would never take risks like this to launch dummies. This was his fault. If he had been more persuasive, more forceful with Admiral McGee… His eyes refocused on Kodiak as thirty years of training began to take over. His actions became almost automatic.

“Kodiak,” he said quickly, “how many missiles did you say were coming in?”

“One, sir. Aim point, Norfork.”

“Does the White House have the word? And the Pentagon?”

“Yes and yes. Admiral. We’re confirming their receipt now.”

Donchez’s thoughts were racing. This was probably the leading edge of a time-on-target attack, or a miscoordinated attack. Or perhaps even a deliberately uncoordinated attack. Fire when ready. Donchez glanced quickly up at the plot-room wall, at the Atlantic chart with the flashing red X’s.

“Kodiak, get in touch with COMAIRLANT’s shack and scramble an EA-6 electronic warfare jet and a Hawkeye radar aircraft if they’ve got one. I don’t care if it’s land based or in the near Atlantic, we need radar surveillance for any more cruise missiles. Scramble as many attack aircraft as they can fuel and load out. The immediate threat is the missile coming in now. Get that one shot down, then let’s worry about any more. Go!”

Kodiak ran to the NESTOR secure voice phone.

“Bentson,” Donchez barked, “open the SAS safe. Get the operational authenticator for today. I want the military put on alert. DEFCON ONE”

Bentson ran off, grabbing an officer with the combination to the inner safe.

“Senior Chief,” Donchez said to Carter, “send a flash message to the submarine fleet offshore: Anyone in trail watch for any sign of launch transients. Any false moves, the trailing unit is to sink their contact. If a submarine is not in trail then by God get in trail. Get a flash message to the Allentown off Severomorsk. Tell them to stay at periscope depth and be in UHF satellite reception at all times. Second, prepare to fire a twelve-missile salvo of Javelin cruise missiles at targets on my order.”

Carter read back his notes, got a nod from Donchez and disappeared. Donchez reached for a secure phone, and ordered the operator to patch him into the White House Situation Room. He reeled off the OPREP-3 details, had them read it back to make sure the President got the straight story, hung up and dialed Admiral McGee. Thirty seconds later Donchez had a helicopter on the way to McGee’s house.

“How we doing on time, Kodiak?” Donchez asked.

“Four minutes since the launch, sir.”

“We got planes up yet?” Kodiak had a radiotelephone handset screwed into one ear.

“The Enterprise had an EA-6B on standby just in case. Admiral McGee’s orders, sir. The EA-6 is airborne, about two-hundred miles northeast, and should be reporting in on possible radar contact on the missile.”

“Well, that’s all just fine but it’s useless unless we can get an attack plane to shoot the bitch down.”

“Yes sir, we’ve got an F-14 that was doing night-landing quals at Oceana Naval Air Station just a few minutes ago.”

“Good.”

“But, sir, he needs a missile loadout. The F-14 is taxiing in now at the Oceana squadron hangar. The duty weapons crew is outfitting him with some Mongoose heatseeking missiles. He should be ready any minute.”

“Dammit, Kodiak, tell them to move. That missile is coming in at 650 miles an hour. We got nine, ten more minutes tops.”

“Yes sir, I’m in contact with Oceana’s tower now.” Chief Carter called to Donchez from across the room.

“Sir. Admiral. The President’s on Secure One.” As Donchez reached for the secure phone he gave Kodiak another order.

“Lieutenant, get that F-14 airborne. It’s the only game in town.” He put the phone to his ear. “Donchez here. Mister President…”

Colonel Dretzski had had a contingency plan in case Novskoyy’s plan failed. Now that the Novskoyy plan had stumbled, with one missile in the sky and the rest of the deployed ships apparently having decided not to fire, Dretzski decided to reveal his hand to the President. Now the emphasis should be on keeping Russia from getting hit with a retaliatory strike.

Dretzski wondered what had happened, why Novskoyy had decided to launch instead of strong-arming both superpowers as he had promised. Further, once he did elect to shoot, why had the fleet refused to fire, why did only one boat decide to launch? Was it a problem with the radios? Ironic if Novskoyy’s grand, ego-driven plan had ended up being undone by a faulty circuit chip.

Dretzski had been encamped at Yasenevo, headquarters of the photographic intelligence raw-data section, monitoring the photo-reconnaissance satellites. He had been there all weekend, napping a few hours between satellite passes, awake for the coverage of the U.S. east coast. He was exhausted. The conference room he was in now bore little resemblance to the Spartan qualities of the FED. The room was fit for an old-fashioned American Robber Baron: the huge hearth big enough to roast a pig in, logs crackling and warming the room, a table stretching on and on in mahogany splendor with deep leather chairs set about it, the high ceiling inlaid with gold, the walls panelled with hand carved wood, the furniture seemingly from the days of Catherine the Great.

Dretzski sat near the end of the table near the President.

On the other side were General Pallin, FED chief, who looked ready to kill Dretzski, and Maksoy, head of the KGB, who looked abstracted. Admiral Barisov was, strangely, on Dretzski’s side of the table, as well as Defense Minister Fasimov. Foreign Minister Kirova was absent. What a meeting to miss, Dretzski thought.

Dretzski began. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, turning to the President, “this is an emergency. Just moments ago, in our monitoring Admiral Novskoyy’s deployment exercise we detected on a satellite infrared scanner an actual cruise missile launch off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, USA …” Dretzski paused. He had the room’s full attention.

“Dretzski,” the President said, his face suddenly tense, “are you saying there was an accident? That someone accidentally launched a missile?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Must be an exercise weapon,” Maksoy said, coming awake. “We destroyed our warshots, the U.N. monitored it.”

“That thought occurred to us also,” Dretzski said, and considered that they would know soon enough what Novskoyy had been up to, that his plan was falling apart… better for Ivan Ivanovich Dretzski if they heard it from him, as if he himself had been the hero who uncovered the conspiracy. He would not be popular but at least he should escape being imprisoned. “Just after our last meeting,” he continued, “I ordered an FED team to check the disposal sites of the SSN-X-27 missiles that had supposedly been dismantled by the U.N.—”

“And?” the President demanded.

“We found, sir, that the warheads destroyed, the presumably plutonium nuclear warheads, were not plutonium. They were clay, doped with alpha and gamma and neutron radiation sources. The solid rocket fuel turned out to be clay also, with special granules and coloring so it looked to be the real thing. The team leader personally put a match to some of the rocket fuel. It should have exploded and killed him. Instead… The word from the inspection team, unfortunately, just reached us moments ago, as the missile was launched.”

“So where did the warshots go?” Admiral Barisov put in.

“Aboard the Northern Fleet’s attack submarines. And they are, as we speak, cruising at hold positions less than two-hundred kilometers off the American Atlantic coast.”

“Does this mean what I think it does?” the President said, face not only tense but growing red.

“It means, sir, that Admiral Alexi Novskoyy’s fleet is armed with warshot SSN-X-27 nuclear land-attack cruise missiles, armed for an attack on the eastern United States…”

The President’s mouth opened and shut several times, and for a moment Dretzski wondered if he was having a heart attack. After a moment, he seemed to get hold of himself, at least to demand recommendations. Dretzski was ready. “Sir, I suggest getting on the hotline to the American President. Tell him you were deceived, which is the truth. Tell him what Novskoyy has. Suggest his navy blow the Northern Fleet to the bottom of the sea for all our sakes. I recommend you do not send our aircraft or ships in that direction — it would just seem an added threat. I would also, sir, recommend a radio message to the fleet telling them that Novskoyy has made himself an international criminal and that they are to reject any plan for hostilities, surface and head home.”

The President, without a word, motioned to Fasimov and Admiral Barisov to follow him and hurried out of the room, apparently headed for the Communication Center. They don’t always shoot the messenger, Dretzski thought.

Commander Henry Duckett looked at the OPREP-3 message from COMSUBLANT ordering Allentown to prepare to fire, then handed it to the OOD, who read it and looked up in astonishment.

“Man silent battle stations,” Duckett said, wondering if this were for real and trying to suppress the thought.

OOD Lieutenant William Mills stepped to the firing panel and called up the firing-and-targeting-mode menu for launch-tube number one, paged down to tube two and on down the list to the last three tubes — ten, eleven and twelve. Ten miles off a major Russian naval base was the firing position. After the first missile a radar was bound to find them, a destroyer or cruiser bound to come and depth charge them into scrap metal. Mills thought. It seemed Allentown had just become a new word for expendable.