Torpedo! (The Silent War Book 3) Read online

  Turk Raynor turned as Captain Reinauer walked into the torpedo room.

  “I think we’ll be firing in ten minutes or less,” Reinauer said. “I want to use two SUBROCs, one from each side of the room. What burn separation do you have cranked into the missiles, Turk?”

  “Max range, Captain,” Raynor said. “We’ve got one SUBROC and one Mark Thirty-Seven, Mod Two in the tubes starboard. Same on the port side, sir.”

  “Shift from manual burn time separation to computer separation,” Reinauer ordered.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Raynor said. “Gonna take the target out before Devilfish gets into torpedo range, sir?”

  “That’s what we’re going to try,” Reinauer said. “That is, if the missiles work. Stingray fired two a couple of weeks ago and they came out of the tubes and sank.”

  “That’s Stingray,” Raynor growled. “Every missile, every fish I’m responsible for on Orca will work, Captain.”

  “That’s all anyone can ask for,” Reinauer said, his voice mild. He climbed the stairs to the Attack Center and heard the loudspeaker.

  “Devilfish has fired two torpedoes!”

  “All ahead one-third,” Reinauer snapped. “Sonar, nail down that target for me! Engine Room, stand by to give me every pound of steam that plant will put out. Right ten degrees rudder.” He waited, looking at the computer video screens, watching the white circle on the screen shifting, trying to put himself inside the mind of the Soviet submarine captain, trying to reason out what the other man would do when he heard the torpedoes running toward him.

  “Rudder amidships,” he ordered.

  “Captain Miller fired from too far out,” Eckert, standing at his shoulder, spoke in a whisper. “If the target turns and runs away from the fish he’ll be able to outrun them.” He nudged Reinauer’s shoulder. “That’s what he’s doing now!” Captain Reinauer looked at the changing circles on the video screen, his teeth showing in a smile in his black beard.

  “Precisely!” he whispered to Eckert. He raised his voice. “Damn it, Sonar, lock in on that target!”

  “Target is changing course to starboard. He’s making lots of knots, we’re getting a turn count a lot higher than he ran at before. He’s going fast!”

  “All ahead emergency!” Reinauer ordered. “Come to course one nine eight. Bill, I want a computer solution of the attack problem.” He watched as the computer video screens changed radically and then showed the three ships.

  “Firing range, sir?” Reiss said calmly, his fingers poised above the computer keyboards.

  “Forty thousand yards. Co-ordinate sonar and fire control computers. I want to fire two, shallow parabola. I want one missile on each side of the target.” Reiss’s fingers flew over the computer keyboards.

  “Burn separation of rocket and missile warheads will be at thirty-eight thousand yards, Captain,” Reiss said. “Computer indicates a free fall arc of two thousand yards for the warheads. Burn separation times have been cranked into the missiles, sir.

  “Very well,” Reinauer answered.

  “Target is turning to its port,” the loudspeaker said. “Torpedoes fired by Devilfish ran down just before he made his turn. Bearing on the target is now zero two zero, sir.”

  “Very well,” Reinauer said. “All hands stand by. This will be a firing run.” He studied the main video display screen. Two dotted white lines ran from the Orca’s position to each side of the target on the screen. A figure appeared beside the target’s position: range 39,000 yards.

  “One hundred feet,” Reinauer ordered. “Make turns for one-third speed at one hundred and fifty feet. Open tube doors at one hundred twenty-five feet. Stand by in the torpedo rooms for manual firing if automatic fails.”

  The firing problem was now committed to the computers. The sonar transmitters were sending out a steady barrage of sonar beams. The receivers picked up the return echoes and the computers analyzed the time interval and changed it into yards from the target and then fed the bearings and the distance to the target into the fire control computers which in turn sent commands to the electronics within the SUBROC missiles. The main display screen showed the target beginning to turn to starboard and then coming back to port. The two dotted white lines that straddled the target shifted with the target’s movements.

  “That’s one hell of a sophisticated device out there,” Lieutenant Reiss said. “It’s jinking from one side to the other, just like a submarine would if it were being hit with a ranging sonar beam.”

  “You can’t tell what those electronic people will come up with,” Reinauer said.

  “One hundred feet, steady platform,” the helmsman said.

  The figure beside the target on the display screen began to change to reflect the Orca’s decreased speed. Lieutenant Reiss punched two keys on the firing console.

  “Weapons are on automatic firing mode, sir,” he said.

  “Very well,” Reinauer answered. As the figure on the screen changed to 40,000 yards Reinauer felt the slight jar under his feet as the air and water rams hurled the SUBROC missiles out of the torpedo tubes. He waited, feeling strangely at peace. The worry he had felt during the chase had fallen away. The doubts that had crowded his mind were gone.

  “Missiles away, sir.” Reiss said.

  The two SUBROC missiles surged upward through the water and shot through the surface of the sea into the air. The rocket motors ignited with loud bangs and the missiles began racing above the surface of the sea in a shallow arc at just under the speed of sound. Nineteen miles from the Orca the rocket motor mounts that fastened the rockets to the nuclear warheads separated in a series of small explosions and dropped toward the sea. The warheads continued on in the shallow arc for another mile and then splashed into the sea and began to spiral downward.

  The sonar operators aboard the Soviet submarine heard the two missiles hit the water on either side of their ship, heard the turbulence as the missiles corkscrewed down through the water. In the ship’s Command Center the slamming sound of the missiles hitting the water echoed throughout the compartment and the display screen suddenly showed two white blips, one on each side of the submarine.

  “Deep! Take me deep!” Captain Kovitz screamed. “Forty-five degree down angle! Full power!” The Soviet submarine tilted sharply downward and in the few seconds of life that he knew he had left Captain Kovitz stared at his Navigator.

  The mass of hydrogen atoms in each of the SUBROC missile warheads fused and the warheads exploded with a burst of energy equal to the energy of the atomic bomb that had exploded in the air above Hiroshima. The Soviet submarine, caught between the two bursting warheads, disintegrated. A cloud of fragments of what had once been an attack submarine and the 110 men who had manned it, drifted slowly downward. The metal and plastic fragments in the cloud were indistinguishable from the tiny fragments of unincinerated bone that sank into the dark depths of the sea. Caught by a slow and vagrant current a part of the cloud of particles moved in the direction of the dead hull of the U.S.S. Sharkfin.

  “Sonar reports it cannot find the target,” the loudspeaker said.

  “Very well,” Reinauer said. “Continue to search.” He gripped the edge of the table he stood against, wondering if the Russian captain had known that the missiles had been fired at him, whether he had realized that his life was over. He shook his head, suddenly conscious of fatigue.

  “Sonar reports no target. Devilfish wants to talk, sir.”

  “Tell him to go ahead,” Reinauer said.

  “Devilfish says tallyho and well done and expects credit for assistance,” the sonar operator reported.

  “Tell him he deserves all the credit we can give him,” Reinauer said. He turned to Eckert.

  “Secure from General Quarters. Put me back on our regular station. Depth four hundred feet. I want to see you in my cabin as soon as you get things squared away.”

  Eckert walked into the Captain’s cabin and dropped into a chair. “God, I feel tired,” he said. “Like I’d b
een put through a wringer. After we fired I felt like I wanted to throw up.”

  “Don’t think about it,” Reinauer said harshly. “Think about the fact that the target we hit sank the Sharkfin with all hands and from what the message said the Sharkfin never had a chance. Think about that!”

  “Sorry,” Eckert said. “Should have kept my big mouth shut.”

  “Forget it,” Reinauer said. “I’ll draft a message to ComSubLant. The SOSUS array must have picked up those explosions and he’ll be sweating his balls off until he finds out it was our missiles.”

  “He’d better sweat about something else, Skipper,” Eckert said. “The people in the sonar gang aren’t buying that crap about the target being an electronic gadget. They know it was another submarine.”

  Vice Admiral Mike Brannon’s face showed the exhaustion he felt as he paced the length of his office. John Olsen dozed quietly on a sofa, his short collar open. The telephone rang loudly in the stillness and Olsen came bolt upright on the couch as Brannon leaped for the phone. Olsen saw the relief flood over his face as Brannon carefully put the telephone back in its cradle.

  “Good news?” Olsen said quietly.

  “That was John Fencer in Operations,” Brannon said. “He just ran a message from Orca through the decoders. Orca and Devilfish trapped that murdering bastard. Orca fired two, one on each beam of the target. The target disappeared. Orca will send more information later.” He stretched his arms over his head, his big shoulder muscles creaking.

  “So what comes next?” John Olsen said. He turned as a soft knock sounded at the door and the Chief Yeoman came in with a tray holding a carafe of coffee and some sandwiches. Commander John Fencer followed the Chief into Brannon’s office.

  “Figured you’d be hungry about now,” the Chief said. “The Commander here sure as hell is. He told me so. I drew night rations.” He put the tray down on a coffee table.

  “You been here all night?” Olsen asked as he reached for the coffee carafe.

  “Here and in Operations,” the Chief Yeoman said. “When the Boss works, I work, sir.” He looked at Admiral Brannon. “Hell of an operation, sir. Like the old days.”

  “Yes,” Mike Brannon said. “Keep it under your hat, Chief. As long as you’re here, stand by in your office.” He turned to Commander Fencer as the Chief closed the door behind him.

  “I appreciate your taking care of the decoding. When you called me a couple of hours or so ago and said you had evidence on the SOSUS of a tremendous explosion, well, time passed damned slowly after that. Help yourself to chow and coffee.”

  “Thank you, Admiral,” Fencer said. He picked up a bologna sandwich and nodded his thanks as John Olsen filled a coffee cup for him.

  “I don’t know how far away the combat scene was, Admiral,” Fencer said, “but the SOSUS array picked up the explosions. They’re pretty damned sensitive.”

  Brannon nodded and reached for his telephone. He buzzed the Chief’s office outside of his door. “Please call Admiral Benson at once. He’ll be asleep but get him up if you have to send a courier over to his house. I want to talk to him. Right now.”

  Admiral Benson called within ten minutes. Mike Brannon filled him in on the information that had come from Reinauer in the Orca and hung up the phone.

  “Benson will call Bob Wilson and get him on the horn right away to his contact in Israel. In a few hours they should know about this in Moscow.”

  “And then the shit will hit the fan,” Olsen said.

  Igor Shevenko put down his telephone and stared at the wall on the far side of his office where a long shred of paint had peeled away and was swaying in the hot air rising from the radiator beneath it. Wilson had not been bluffing, he thought. The American admirals had retaliated. He put his powerful hands on the sides of his head and squeezed. Admiral Zurahv would be in his office. He reached for the telephone and started to dial the number and then stopped.

  “No,” he whispered to himself. “No. The wolves will be among the sheep soon enough when Kovitz fails to report on the sonar buoys. I’ve got a day, maybe a day and a half before the word will be out.” He reached for the phone again and dialed the private number of Leonid Plotovsky. Maybe Plotovsky could get through the privacy the doctors had thrown up around Brezhnev’s hospital room. The man was reportedly on the mend. He waited as the telephone began to ring on the other end.

  “Tit for tat,” he murmured, “and where do we go from here?”

  CHAPTER 10

  Captain Herman Steel arrived at Admiral Brannon’s office five minutes early for the meeting Brannon had called. He looked at the ancient Timex wrist watch he wore, an irritable expression on his face as he watched Brannon’s Chief Yeoman making a pot of coffee.

  “How many man-hours a year do you waste preparing that poison, Chief?” he asked in his rasping voice.

  “I don’t rightly know, sir,” the Chief said. “I’d assign the job to a lower rating but the Admiral is particular about his coffee so I do it myself.” He smiled and raised a hand in greeting and Steel turned and saw Admiral Benson and Bob Wilson approaching. He turned his back on the CIA Director and his aide.

  When the three men walked into Admiral Brannon’s office they found Admiral John Olsen there, sitting on one of the sofas with his long legs stretched out in front of him. Admiral Benson and Wilson took seats on the other sofa and Captain Steel chose a comfortable upholstered chair next to a coffee table.

  “You’ll excuse the appearance of John and myself,” Brannon said. He rubbed a big hand over his unshaven chin. “We’ve been keeping an all-night watch here in the office. I asked you to come by because we have some information to report.” He settled back in his swivel chair. “Mr. Benson and Mr. Wilson know about some of the information but we have since learned more.” He paused.

  “The Soviet submarine that attacked and sank the Sharkfin has been destroyed.” Brannon’s voice was flat, without intonation or inflection.

  “The operation was carried out early this morning, local time. As soon as we received that information I called Admiral Benson and requested that he get Mr. Wilson to call his contact in Israel and have that contact inform the KGB of the action we took.” He looked at Admiral Benson, who cleared his throat.

  “Mr. Wilson made contact,” Benson said. “By now the KGB knows that the Soviet submarine has been destroyed.”

  “The Plain of Megiddo!” Captain Steel said in a low voice. “Armageddon!” He lunged up out of his chair, his eyes blazing.

  “Knock the chip off my shoulder and I’ll smash your face in turn!” Captain Steel’s thin nostrils flared. “Do you think the Soviets will take this lying down? My God, you even used nuclear missiles! Do you think those missiles are toys to play with?”

  “No.” Admiral Brannon said.

  “What do we do now?” Steel said. “Do we sit here until the Soviets decide to launch a nuclear strike at us?” He raised his arms and then lowered them and turned to stare at Admiral Benson and Bob Wilson.

  “And you two, what are you, puppets? You play at charades in the international theatre of nations. You cause the murder of heads of state in the name of our national security, you suborn foreign governments. My God, you’re so incompetent that you couldn’t even invade Cuba successfully!”

  “That’s enough! Sit down!” Admiral Brannon’s voice, honed by years of command, cracked like a whip in the office. Captain Steel half turned, stared at Brannon and then sat down, his back rigid, his face white. Mike Brannon studied the lean, quivering figure in the chair.

  “Your concern interests me,” Brannon said in a soft voice. “We are all concerned about the Soviet reaction but your concern seems to me to be something more than ours, sir.” He leaned back in his chair, his blue eyes fixed on Steel.

  “We all know that if the Soviets launch a first strike nuclear attack against the United States most of our land-based nuclear missile sites will be wiped out in the first phase of the attack.

  “The Navy�
��s ballistic missile submarines then become our major counterstrike force. We can destroy the entire Soviet Union from the sea. That’s what we have always said, what we have led our people, our allies, and the Soviet Union to believe.” Brannon came up out of his chair, his big hands resting on his desk top, his head thrust forward belligerently.

  “But we know differently, don’t we, Captain Steel? We know that when I came aboard in this job three years ago morale in the nuclear submarine Navy was at point zero! We know, don’t we, you and I, that maintenance of ships and equipment was shameful, so shameful, sir, that I’d bet that half of the nuclear missiles on our submarines would not have launched! Torpedoes, Captain, torpedoes were so poorly maintained that many of them were literally frozen in their tubes, frozen there with dirt and crud!

  “Your damned coddling of your nuclear school graduates split nuclear submarine crews into two camps, the nukes and the operating sailors. Morale went down to point zero. Your orders accomplished that and did even more, your orders destroyed the fundamental concepts of military discipline.” Brannon shook a thick finger at Captain Steel as Steel started to rise from his chair.

  “You will hear me out, Captain. It’s taken me three years to right a good many of the wrongs you have done, wittingly or unwittingly. You fought me every step of the way, went behind my back. I have never made an issue of your opposition but I am sick of that opposition and I will have no more of it.

  “There’s still a hell of a lot more work to be done before this nuclear submarine Navy of ours — ours, Captain, not yours — before it is the force it must be to be an effective deterrent.” He pushed back from his desk and sat down in his chair.

  “If you want to know, Captain, one of the major factors in my decision to destroy the Soviet submarine that killed Sharkfin was the knowledge that we are not fully able to conduct an all-out nuclear war on the Soviet Union. I reasoned that by taking strong action we would convince the Soviets that we are ready. I don’t think they know the miserable condition of many of our nuclear ballistic missile submarines. I don’t think very many people know those conditions, other than the officers who command and serve on them and I issue you fair warning right now that what is said in this office in this meeting will not be told outside of this office. If it is I will destroy you without a second thought!”